INTELLECTUAL FREAKS
In the most tragic and most trying moments of life it is well to turn
aside from one’s sorrows and refresh one’s mind and strengthen one’s
soul by gazing upon the follies of others. Those others gaze on ours.
In my spiritual adventures I have met many amazingly freakish people.
Ten years ago the Theosophical Society overflowed with them. They were
cultured without being educated, credulous but without faith, bookish
but without learning, argumentative but without logic. The women,
serene and grave, swam about in drawing-rooms, or they would stand
in long, attitudinising ecstasies, their skimpy necks emerging from
strange gowns, their bodies as shoulderless as hock bottles. The men
paddled about in the same rooms, but I found them less amusing than the
women.
“You were a horse in your last incarnation,” said a fuzzy-haired
giantess to me one evening, two minutes after we had been introduced.
“Oh, how disappointing!” I exclaimed. “I had always imagined myself
an owl. I often dream I was an owl. I fly about, you know, or sit on
branches with my eyes shut.”
“No; a horse!” shouted the giantess, with much asperity. “I’m not
arguing with you. I’m merely telling you. And I don’t think you were a
very nice horse either.”
“No? Did I bite people?”
“Yes; you bit and kicked. And you did other disagreeable things
besides. Now, _I_ was a swan.”
I evinced a polite but not enthusiastic interest.
“You would make an imposing swan,” I observed.
“Yes. I used to glide about on ponds, like this.”
She proceeded to “glide” round and round the corner of the room in
which we were sitting. She arched her neck, raised her ponderous legs
laboriously and moved about like a pantechnicon. Her face assumed a
disagreeable expression and I thought of a rather good line in one of
my own poems:
And swans sulked largely on the yellow mere.
“And how much of your previous incarnation do you remember?” I asked,
when she had finished sulking largely in the yellow drawing-room.
“Oh, quite a lot. It comes back to me in flashes. I was very lonely—oh,
_so_ lonely.”
She gave me a quick look, and I began to talk of William J. Locke, who,
a few days previously, had published a new book. Resenting my change
of subject, she left me and, a few minutes later, as I was eating a
watercress sandwich, I heard her saying to a yellow-haired male:
“You were a horse in your last incarnation.”
I met this lady on other occasions, and always she was occupied in
telling men that they had been horses and she a swan—an oh-so-lonely
swan.
“Why,” said I to my hostess one day, “don’t Madame X.’s friends look
after her? See—she is arching her neck over there in the corner, and I
am perfectly certain she has told the man with her that he has been,
is, or is going to be a horse.”
For a moment my hostess looked concerned.
“Look after her? What do you mean?”
“Well, she is obviously insane.”
“On the contrary, she is the most subtle exponent we have of Madame
Blavatsky’s _Secret Doctrine_. Eccentric, perhaps, but as lucid a
brain as Mr G. R. S. Mead’s or as Colonel Olcott’s. You should get her
to describe your aura. She is excellent, too, in Plato. She doesn’t
understand a word of Greek, but she gets at his meaning intuitively.
There is something cosmic about her. _You_ know what I mean.”
“Oh, quite, quite.” (But what _did_ she mean?)
“Cosmic consciousness is a most enthralling subject,” continued my
hostess, digging the hockey-stick she always carried with her well into
the hearthrug. “Walt Whitman had it, you know.”
“Badly?” I inquired.
She appeared puzzled.
“I don’t quite know what you mean by ‘badly.’ He could identify himself
with anything—the wind, a stone, a jelly-fish, an arm-chair, a ...
a ... oh, everything! They were he and he was they. He _thought_
cosmically. Fourth dimension, you know. Edward Carpenter and all that.”
I rather admired this way she had of talking—a little like the Duke in
G. K. Chesterton’s _Magic_.
“Oh, do go on!” I urged her.
“What I always say is,” she continued, “why stop at a fourth dimension?
Someone has written a book on the fourth dimension, and some day
perhaps I shall write one on the fifth.”
“A book? A real book? Do you mean to say you could write a book? How
clever! How romantic!”
“Well, I have thought about it. One is influenced. One has influences.
The consciousness of the ultimate truth of things, the truth that
suffuses all things, the cosmic nature of—well, the cosmos. Do you see?
Tennyson’s _In Memoriam_.”
“Yes; Tennyson’s _In Memoriam_ does help, doesn’t it?”
“Did I say Tennyson’s _In Memoriam_? I really meant Shelley’s _Revolt
of Islam_. The fourth dimension is played out. It’s done with. It was
true so far as it went, but how far did it go?”
“Only a very little way,” I answered.
“Yes, but Nietzsche goes much farther. Have you read Nietzsche? No?
I haven’t, either. But I have heard Orage talk about him. Nietzsche
says we can all do what we want. We must dare things. We must be blond
beasts. Mary Wollstonecraft and her set, you know. Godwin and those
people.”
She waved her hockey-stick recklessly in the air and marched
inconsequently away. Nearly all the Theosophists I met were like
that—inconsequent, bent on writing books they never did write, talkers
of divine flapdoodle, inanely clever, cleverly inane. Dear freaks I
used to meet in days gone by!—where are you now?—where are you now?
* * * * *
A freak who ultimately lost all reason and was confined in a private
asylum used to sit at the same desk that I did when, many years ago,
I was a shipping clerk in Manchester. This man, whose name was not,
but should have been, Bundle, had considerable private means, but
some obscure need of his nature drove him to discipline himself by
working eight hours a day for three pounds a week. The three pounds
was nothing to him, but the eight hours a day meant everything. He was
a conscientious worker, but I think I have already indicated that his
intelligence was not robust. He had no delusion; he merely possessed a
misdirected sense of duty.
One day he left us, and a few months later I met him in Market Street.
He looked prosperous, smart and intensely happy.
“Are you busy?” he asked. “No? Well, come with me.”
He slipped his arm in mine, led me into Mosley Street, and stopped in
front of the large, dismal office of the Calico Printers’ Association.
“That,” said he, “is mine. Now, come into Albert Square.”
When we had arrived there he pointed to the Town Hall.
“That also is mine. The Lord Mayor gave it to me with a golden key.
Here is the golden key.”
Producing an ordinary latchkey from his pocket, he carefully held it in
the palm of his hand for my inspection.
“It is,” he announced, “studded with diamonds. But you can’t see the
diamonds. Crafty Lord Mayor! You don’t catch him napping. He’s hidden
them deep in the gold....”
I enjoyed this poor fellow’s company more than I did that of a very old
woman to whom I was introduced in a pauper asylum. She was sitting on a
low stool and, pointing at her head with her skinny forefinger, “It’s
pot! It’s pot!” she said.
But even she provided me with more exhilaration than do the tens (or
perhaps hundreds) of thousands of real freaks who, I imagine, inhabit
every part of the globe. I allude to the vast throng of people who
arise at eight or thereabouts, go to the City every morning, work all
day and return home at dusk; who perform this routine every day, and
every day of every year; who do it all their lives; who do it without
resentment, without anger, without even a momentary impulse to break
away from their surroundings. Such people amaze and stagger one. To
them life is not an adventure; indeed, I don’t know what they consider
it. They marry and, in their tepid, uxorious way, love. But love to
them is not a mystery, or an adventure, and its consummation is not a
sacrament. They do not travel; they do not want to travel. They do not
even hate anybody.
All these people are freaks of the wildest description; yet they
imagine themselves to be the backbone of the Empire. Perhaps they
are. Perhaps every nation requires a torpid mass of people to act as a
steadying influence.
In the suburbs of Manchester these people abound. I know a man still
in his twenties who keeps hens for what he calls “a hobby.” Among his
hens he finds all the excitement his soul needs. The sheds in which
they live form the boundaries of his imagination. I should esteem this
man if he kicked against his destiny; but he loved it, until the Army
conscripted him. God save the world from those who keep hens!
I know a man who has been to Douglas eighteen times in succession
for his fortnight’s holiday in the summer. Douglas is his heaven;
Manchester and Douglas are his universe. No place so beautiful as
Douglas; no place so familiar; no place so satisfying. After all,
Douglas is always Douglas. Moreover, Douglas is always miraculously
“there.” God save the world from men who go to Douglas eighteen times!
I know a man who hates his wife and still lives with her. He is
respectable, soulless, saving, a punctual and regular churchgoer, a
hard bargain-driver. He walks with his eyes on the ground. He has
always lived in the same suburb. He will always live in the same
suburb. God save the world from men who always live in the same suburb!
I know a man ...
But this is getting very monotonous. Besides, why should I
particularise any more freaks when all of them, perhaps, are as
familiar to you as they are to me?
* * * * *
Then there is the literary freak; not the _poseur_, not the man who
wishes to be thought “cultured” and intellectual, but the scholarly man
who, during an industrious life, has amassed a vast amount of literary
knowledge, but whose appreciation of literature is lukewarm and without
zest. Very, very rarely is the great writer a scholar. Dr Johnson was
a scholar, but, divine and adorable creature though he was, he was not
a great writer. None of the great Victorians had true scholarship, and
very few even of the Elizabethans. And to-day? Well, one may consider
Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, Bernard Shaw, Arnold Bennett
and G. K. Chesterton as great writers; if you do not concede me all
these names, you must either deny that we have any great writers at all
(which is absurd) or produce me the names of six who are greater than
those I have named (and the latter you cannot do). Have any of these
anything approaching scholarship?
And yet in our universities are scores of men who are regarded as
possessing greater literary gifts than those who actually produce
literature. These learned, owlish creatures pose pontifically. Whenever
a new book comes out they read an old one! The present generation, they
say, is without genius. But they have always said it. They said it
when Dickens, Thackeray and Charlotte Brontë were writing. I have no
doubt they said it in Shakespeare’s time. The present generation teems
with genius, but our “scholarly” mandarins know it not. How barren is
that knowledge which lies heavy in a man’s mind and does not fertilise
there. When one considers the matter, how essentially dull and stupid
and brainless is the man devoid of ideas!
One of these bald-pated freaks is well known to me. He moves heavily
about in a quadrangle. He delivers lectures. He has written books. He
passes judgment. He annotates. He writes an occasional review. Funny
little freak! Great little freak, who knows so much and understands
so little.... When England wakes (and I do not believe that even yet,
after nearly four years of war, England is really awake) such men will
pass through life unregarded and neglected; they will sit at home in a
back room, and their relatives and friends will love and pity them,
as one loves and pities a poor fellow whose temperament has made him a
wastrel, or as one pities a man who has to be nursed.
* * * * *
=People of the Play:= _A handful of literary freaks_.
=Scene:= _A drawing-room in Tooting, or Acton, or Highgate, or
Ealing, or any funny old place where the middle classes live_.
=Time:= 8 P.M. _on (generally) Thursday_.
Mrs ARNOLD. Now that Miss Vera Potting, M.A., has finished
reading her most interesting paper on Mr John Masefield, the
subject is open for discussion. Perhaps you, Mr Mather-Johnstone,
will give us a few thoughts—yes, a few thoughts. (_She smiles
wanly and gazes round the room._) A _most_ interesting paper _I_
call it.
Rev. MATHER-JOHNSTONE, M.A. Miss Potting’s most interesting paper
is—well, most interesting. I must confess I have read nothing
of—er—Mr Masefield’s. I prefer the older poets—Cowper, Bowles’
Sonnets, and the beautifully named Felicia Hemans. Fe-lic-i-a!
To what sweet thoughts does not that name give rise! But it has
been a revelation to me to learn that a popular poet (and Miss
Potting has assured us that Mr Masefield _is_ popular) should so
freely indulge in language that, to say the least, is violent,
and I am glad to say that such language is not to be found in the
improving stanzas of Eliza Cook.
Mr S. WANLEY. I have read some verses of Mr Masefield’s in a
very—well—advanced paper called, if my memory does not deceive
me, _The English Review_. I did not like those verses. I did
not approve of them. They were bathed in an atmosphere of
discontent—modern discontent. Now, what have people to be
discontented about? Nothing; nothing at all, if they live
rightly. (_He stops, having nothing further to say. For the same
reason, he proceeds._) Nevertheless, I thank Miss Potting, M.A.,
very much for her most interesting paper. There is one question
I should like to ask her: is this Mr Masefield read by the right
people?
Miss VERA POTTING, M.A. Oh no! Oh dear, no! Most certainly not!
Still, it is incontestable that he _is_ read.
Mr S. WANLEY. Thank you so much. I felt that he could not be read
by the right people.
Miss GRACELEY (_rather nervously_). I feel that I can say I know
my Lord Lytton, my Edna Lyall, my Charlotte M. Yonge and my
Tennyson. I have always remained content with them, and after
what Miss Vera Potting, M.A., has said about Mr Masefield in her
most interesting paper, I shall _remain_ content with them.
Mr S. WANLEY. Hear, hear. I always seem to agree with you, Miss
Graceley.
Mrs ARNOLD (_archly_). What is the saying?—great minds always
jump alike?
Rev. MATHER-JOHNSTONE (_sotto voce_). _Jump?_
Mr PORTEOUS (_with most distinguished amiability_). I really
think that this most interesting paper that Miss Vera
Potting, M.A., has read to us should be published. It is
so—well, so improving, so elevating, so——
Miss VERA POTTING, M.A. (_who has already fruitlessly sent the
essay to every magazine in the country_). Oh, Mr Porteous! How
can you? Really, I couldn’t think of such a thing.
Rev. MATHER-JOHNSTONE, M.A. (_who, being not altogether free
from jealousy, thinks this is really going a bit too far_).
But perhaps we do not all quite approve of women writers—I mean
ladies who write for the wide, rough public.
Mrs ARNOLD. True! True!... But then, what about Felicia Hemans?
Rev. MATHER-JOHNSTONE, M.A. Mrs Hemans was Mrs Hemans. Miss Vera
Potting, M.A., is, and I hope will always remain, Miss Vera
Potting, M.A.
Mr PORTEOUS. Oh, don’t say that! What I mean is——
(_This sort of thing goes on for an hour when, very secretly
and as though she were on some nefarious errand, Mrs ARNOLD
disappears from the room. She presently reappears with a maid,
who carries a tray of coffee and sandwiches. The dreadful
Mr Masefield is then forgotten._]
You think the above sketch is exaggerated? Ah! well, perhaps you have
never lived in Highgate, or in the suburbs of Manchester, Birmingham,
Sheffield or Leeds. I could set down some appalling conversations that
I have heard in suburban “literary” circles. There is a place called
Eccles, where, one evening——
* * * * *
In London Bohemia there are many freakish people, but, for the most
part, they are altogether charming and refreshing. Quite a number of
them have what I am told is, in the Police Courts, termed “no visible
means of subsistence,” but they appear to “carry on” with imperturbable
good humour and borrow money cheerfully and as frequently as their
circle of acquaintances (which is usually very large) will permit.
Frequenters of the Café Royal in pre-war days will recognise the
following types:—
Picture to yourself a Polish Jew, young, yellow-skinned, black-haired;
he has luminous eyes, sensuous lips and damp hands, and he dresses
well, but in an extravagant style. He is a megalomaniac, and he has
all the megalomaniac’s consuming anxiety to discover precisely in what
way other people react to his personality. One night my bitterest enemy
brought him to the table at which I was sitting, introduced us to each
other, and walked away.
“I am told you are a journalist,” my new acquaintance began. “I myself
write poems. I have a theory about poetry, and my theory is this: All
poetry should be subjective.”
“Why?”
“Never mind why. I am telling you about my theory. All poetry should be
subjective; as a matter of fact, all the best poetry is. To myself I am
the most interesting phenomenon in the world. To yourself, you are. Is
it not so?”
“Yes; you have guessed right first time.”
“Well, I have in this dispatch case eight hundred and seventy-three
poems about myself, telling the world almost all there is to know about
the most interesting phenomenon it contains.”
He took from his case a great pile of MS. and turned the leaves over in
his hands.
“Here,” said he, “is a blank-verse poem entitled _How I felt at
8.45 A.M. on June 8, 1909, having partaken of Breakfast_. Would you
like to read it?”
I assured him I should, though I fully expected it would contain
unmistakable signs of mental disturbance. But it did not. It was
quite respectably written verse, much better than at least half
of Wordsworth’s; it was logical, it had ideas, it showed some
introspective power, and it revealed a mind above the ordinary.
I told him all this.
“Then you don’t think I’m a genius? Some people do.”
“You see, I’m not a very good judge of men—particularly men of genius.
You may be a genius; on the other hand, you may not.”
“But what exactly do you think of me?”
“I have already told you.”
“Yes, but not with sufficient particularity. Now, put away from you all
feeling of nervousness and try to imagine that I have just left you and
that a friend of yours has come in and taken my place. You are alone
together. You would, of course, immediately tell him that you had met
me. You would say: ‘He is a very strange man, eccentric....’ and so on.
You would describe my appearance, my personality, my verses. You, being
a writer, would analyse me to shreds. Now, that is what I want you to
do now. I want you to say all the bad things with the good. And I shall
listen, greedily.”
“But, really!” I protested. “Really, I can’t do what you ask.”
Disappointed and vexed, he sat biting his underlip.
“All right,” he said at length, “we’ll strike a bargain. After you have
analysed me I, in return, will analyse you.”
“You have quite the most unhealthy mind with which I have ever come in
contact.”
“You really believe that?” he asked, delighted. “Do go on.”
“Oh, but I’m sorry I began. This kind of thing is dangerous.”
“Yes, I know. But I like danger—mental danger especially.”
“But drink would be better for you. Even drugs. You are asking me to
help to throw you off your mental balance.”
“I know. I know. But you won’t refuse?”
“To show you that I will I am leaving you now in this café. I am going.
Good-night.”
But he met me many times after that, and always pursued me with
ardour. In the end he gained his desire and, having done so, had no
further use for me.
I call him The Man Who Collects Opinions of Himself. He is still in
London. And he is not yet insane.
Then there was the lady—since, alas! dead—who used always to appear
in public in a kind of purple shroud, her face and fingers chalked.
She rather stupidly called herself Cheerio Death, and was one of the
jolliest girls I have ever met. She longed and ached for notoriety and
for new sensations: she feasted on them and they nourished and fattened
her. Only very brave or reckless men dared be seen with her in public,
for, though her behaviour was scrupulously correct, her appearance
created either veiled ridicule or consternation wherever she went. Yet
she never lacked companions.
“Hullo, Gerald!” she used to say to me; “sit down near me. You are so
nice and chubby. I like to have you near me. How am I looking?”
“More beautiful than ever.”
“Oh, you _are_ sweet. Isn’t he sweet, Frank?” she would say to one of
her companions. “Order him some champagne. I’m thirsty.”
And, really, Cheerio Death was very beautiful in a ghastly and terrible
way. By degrees, all the reputable restaurants were closed to her,
and in the late autumn of 1913 she disappeared, to die of consumption
in Soho. Poor girl! Perhaps in Paris, where they love the _outré_ and
the shocking, she would have secured the full, hectic success that in
London was denied her.
* * * * *
Are freaks always conscious of their freakishness? I do not think
they are. Not even the man who wilfully cultivates his oddities until
they have become swollen excrescences hanging bulbous-like on his
personality is aware how vastly different, how unreasonably different
he is from his fellows. He is more than reconciled to himself; he
loves himself; he is what other people would be if only they could.
Vanity continually lulls and soothes and rots him. The nature that
craves to be noticed will go to almost any lengths to secure that
notice.
It has always appeared curious to me that the ambition to become
famous should very generally be regarded as a worthy passion in a
man of genius. It is but natural that a man of genius should desire
his work to reach as many people as possible, but whether or not he
should be known as the author of that work seems to me a matter of no
importance whatever. But to the man himself it is all-important. He has
an instinctive feeling that if, in the public eye, he is separated from
his work, savour will go from what he has created. He and his work must
be closely identified.
This desire to be widely known, to be talked about everywhere, is in
the man of genius accepted as natural, but it is this very desire that,
in many cases, makes a freak of the ordinary man. Obscurity to him is
death.