CS.fccit
CRarles
Stokes
X -
WCSB US ROT
THE AFTERMATH.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
" The student could desire nothing better than this
wonderfully compact little guide, which seems to us to
say the last word upon the matter of modern journalism.
It is written, moreover, in a weighty redundant style,
which is in itself a most valuable object-lesson to the
beginner and a model of all that contemporary letters
should be." The Journalist.
(The organ of the Trade).
"... very repetitive and tiresome stuff . . ."
Mr. AMADEUS (a notorious liar), writing in The World
of the Pen.
" . . . Admirable . . . most admirable . . .
one of the most charming works which have appeared
in the English language . . . quite admirable . . .
so admirable that we remember nothing like it since
Powell's criticism on Charles Lamb, or rather Lamb's
Immortal reply to that criticism . . . quite admi-
rable." The Chesterfield Mercury.
"... This is a book which those who take it up
will not willingly lay down, and those who lay it down
will not willingly take up. . . ." The Rev. CHARLES
BROYLE, writing in Culture.
"... How is it that England, even in her decline,
can turn out such stuff as this ? What other nation
could have produced it in the moment of her agony ?
The Common Tongue still holds by its very rough-
ness. . . ." The Notion.
(The principal organ of well-bred men in New York, U.S.A.).
I|ILAIRE_B_ELLOC
THE AFTERMATH
GLEANINGS FROM
A BUSY LIFE
CALLED UPON THE OUTER COVER
FOR PURPOSES OF SALE
CALIBAN'S GUIDE TO LETTERS
By H. B.
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.,
3 HENRIETTA STREET, VV.C.
Published 1903
Reissue 1910
TO
CATHERINE, MRS. CALIBAN,
BUT FOR WHOSE FRUITFUL SUGGESTION, EVER-READY SYMPATHY,
POWERS OF OBSERVATION, KINDLY CRITICISM, UNFLINCHING
COURAGE, CATHOLIC LEARNING, AND NONE THE LESS
CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLE,
THIS BOOK MIGHT AS WELL NOT HAVE BEEN
WRITTEN;
IT IS DEDICATED
BY
HER OBEDIENT AND GRATEFUL SERVANT AND FRIEND
IN AFFLICTION,
THE AUTHOR.
"O, Man; with what tremors as of earth-legettings hast thou not -wrought,
O, Man ! Yet is it utterly indeed of thee ? Did there not toil in it also
that WORLD-MAN, or haply was there not Some Other ? , . . . O, Man !
knowest ikon that word Some Other ?" CARLYLE'S " Frederick the Great."
Most of these sketches are reprinted from "The
Speaker," and appear in this form by the kind per-
mission of its Editor.
ERRATA AND ADDENDA.
P. 19, line 14 (from the top), for " enteric" read "esoteric."
P. 73, second footnote, for " Sophia, Lady Gowl," read " Lady
Sophia Gowl."
P. 277 (line 5 from bottom), for " the charming prospect of such
a bribe? read " Bride."
P. 456, delete all references to Black-mail, passim.
P. 510 (line 6 from top), for " Ckou-Jleur," read " Chauffeur."
DIRECTION TO PRINTER. Please print hard, strong, clear,
straight, neat, clean, and well. Try and avoid those little black
smudges !
PREFACE.
THIS work needs no apology.
Its value to the English-speaking world is two-
fold. It preserves for all time, in the form of a
printed book, what might have been scattered in the
sheets of ephemeral publications. It is so designed
that these isolated monuments of prose and verse
can be studied, absorbed, and, if necessary, copied
by the young aspirant to literary honours.
Nothing is Good save the Useful, and it would
have been sheer vanity to have published so small
a selection, whatever its merit, unless it could be
made to do Something, to achieve a Result in this
strenuous modern world. It will not be the fault of
the book, but of the reader, if no creative impulse
follows its perusal, and the student will have but
himself to blame if, with such standards before him,
and so lucid and thorough an analysis of modern
Vlll. PREFACE
Literature and of its well-springs, he does not attain
the goal to which the author would lead him.
The book will be found conveniently divided into
sections representing the principal divisions of modern
literary activity ; each section will contain an intro-
ductory essay, which will form a practical guide to
the subject with which it deals, and each will be
adorned with one or more examples of the finished
article, which, if the instructions be carefully followed,
should soon be turned out without difficulty by any
earnest and industrious scholar of average ability.
If the Work can raise the income of but one poor
journalist, or produce earnings, no matter how insig-
nificant, for but one of that great army which is now
compelled to pay for the insertion of its compositions
in the newspapers and magazines, the labour and
organizing ability devoted to it will not have been
in vain.
INTRODUCTION.
A Grateful Sketch of the Author's Friend (in part the
producer of this booty,
JAMES CALIBAN.
INTRODUCTION.
FEW men have pursued more honourably, more use-
fully, or more successfully the career of letters than
Thomas Caliban, D.D., of Winchelthorpe-on-Sea,
near Portsmouth. Inheriting, as his name would
imply, the grand old Huguenot strain, his father was
a Merchant Taylor of the City of London, and prin-
cipal manager of the Anglo- Chilian Bank ; his mother
the fifth daughter of K. Muller, Esq., of Brighton,
a furniture dealer and reformer of note in the early
forties.
The connection established between my own family
and that of Dr. Caliban I purposely pass over as not
germane to the ensuing pages, remarking only that
the friendship, guidance, and intimacy of such a man
will ever count among my chiefest treasures. Of
him it may truly be written : "He maketh them to
shine like Sharon; the waters are his in Ram-Skaid, and
Gilgath praiseth him"
I could fill a volume of far greater contents than
has this with the mere record of his every-day acts
during the course of his long and active career. I
must content myself, in this sketch, with a bare
summary of his habitual deportment. He would rise
B 2
4 THE AFTERMATH
in the morning, and after a simple but orderly toilet
would proceed to family prayers, terminating the
same with a hymn, of which he would himself read
each verse in turn, to be subsequently chanted by the
assembled household. To this succeeded breakfast,
which commonly consisted of ham, eggs, coffee, tea,
toast, jam, and what-not in a word, the appurte-
nances of a decent table.
Breakfast over, he would light a pipe (for he did
not regard indulgence in the weed as immoral, still
less as un-Christian : the subtle word eTrteUeia,
which he translated " sweet reasonableness," was
painted above his study door it might have served
for the motto of his whole life), he would light a pipe,
I say, and walk round his garden, or, if it rained,
visit the plants in his conservatory.
Before ten he would be in his study, seated at a
large mahogany bureau, formerly the property of Sir
Charles Henby, of North-chapel, and noon would still
find him there, writing in his regular and legible hand
the notes and manuscripts which have made him
famous, or poring over an encyclopaedia, the more
conscientiously to review some book with which he
had been entrusted.
After the hours so spent, it was his habit to take a
turn in the fresh air, sometimes speaking to the gar-
dener, and making the round of the beds ; at others
passing by the stables to visit his pony Bluebell, or
to pat upon the head his faithful dog Ponto, now
advanced in years and suffering somewhat from the
mange.
INTRODUCTION 5
To this light exercise succeeded luncheon, for him
the most cheerful meal of the day. It was then that
his liveliest conversation was heard, his closest friends
entertained : the government, the misfortunes of
foreign nations, the success of our fiscal policy, our
maritime supremacy, the definition of the word " gen-
tleman," occasionally even a little bout of theology
a thousand subjects fell into the province of his genial
criticism and extensive information ; to each his
sound judgment and ready apprehension added some
new light ; nor were the ladies of the family incom-
petent to follow the gifted table talk of their father,
husband, brother, master,* and host.f
Until the last few years the hour after lunch was
occupied with a stroll upon the terrace, but latterly
he would consume it before the fire in sleep, from
which the servants had orders to wake him by three
o'clock. At this hour he would take his hat and stick
and proceed into the town, where his sunny smile and
friendly salute were familiar to high and low. A
visit to the L.N.C. School, a few purchases, perhaps
even a call upon the vicar (for Dr. Caliban was with-
out prejudice the broadest of men), would be the
occupation of the afternoon, from which he returned
to tea in the charming drawing-room of 48, Hender-
son Avenue.
It was now high time to revisit his study. He was
* The governess invariably took her meals with the family.
+ Miss Bowley, though practically permanently resident in the
family, was still but a guest a position which she never forgot,
though Dr. Caliban forbad a direct allusion to the fact,
6 THE AFTERMATH
at work by six, and would write steadily till seven.
Dinner, the pleasant conversation that succeeds it in
our English homes, perhaps an innocent round game,
occupied the evening till a gong for prayers announced
the termination of the day. Dr. Caliban made it a
point to remain the last up, to bolt the front door,
to pour out his own whiskey, and to light his own
candle before retiring. It was consonant with his
exact and thoughtful nature, by the way, to have this
candle of a patent sort, pierced down the middle to
minimise the danger from falling grease ; it was more-
over surrounded by a detachable cylinder of glass.*
Such was the round of method which, day by day
and week by week, built up the years of Dr. Caliban's
life ; but life is made up of little things, and, to quote
a fine phrase of his own : " It is the hourly habits of
a man that build up his character." He also said (in
his address to the I. C. B. Y.) : " Show me a man
hour by hour in his own home, from the rising of the
sun to his going down, and I will tell you what man-
ner of man he is." I have always remembered the
epigram, and have acted upon it in the endeavour to
portray the inner nature of its gifted author.
I should, however, be giving but an insufficient
picture of Dr. Caliban were I to leave the reader with
no further impression of his life work, or indeed of
the causes which have produced this book.
His father had left him a decent competence. He
* Such as are sold and patented by my friend Mr. Gapethorn, of
362, Fetter Lane.
INTRODUCTION 7
lay, therefore, under no necessity to toil for his living.
Nevertheless, that sense of duty, " through which
the eternal heavens are fresh and strong " (Words-
worth), moved him to something more than " the
consumption of the fruits of the earth " (Horace).
He preached voluntarily and without remuneration
for some years to the churches in Cheltenham, and
having married Miss Bignor, of Winchelthorpe-
on-Sea, purchased a villa in that rising southern
watering-place, and received a call to the congre-
gation, which he accepted. He laboured there till
his recent calamity.
I hardly know where to begin the recital of his
numerous activities in the period of thirty-five years
succeeding his marriage. With the pen he was inde-
fatigable. A man more TTOIKI\O<J or, as he put it,
many-sided perhaps never existed. There was little
he would not touch, little upon which he was not
consulted, and much in which, though anonymous,
he was yet a leader.
He wrote regularly, in his earlier years, for The
Seventh Monarchy, The Banner, The Christian, The Free
Trader, Household Words, Good Words, The Quiver,
Chatterbox, The Home Circle, and The Sunday Monitor.
During the last twenty years his work has continually
appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Sihle,
and the Tribuna. In the last two his work was trans-
lated.
His political effect was immense, and that though
he never acceded to the repeated request that he
would stand upon one side or the other as a candidate
8 THE AFTERMATH
for Parliament. He remained, on the contrary, to
the end of his career, no more than president of a
local association. It was as a speaker, writer, and
preacher, that his ideas spread outwards ; thousands
certainly now use political phrases which they may
imagine their own, but which undoubtedly sprang
from his creative brain. He was perhaps not the
first, but one of the first, to apply the term " Anglo-
Saxon" to the English-speaking race with which
indeed he was personally connected through his rela-
tives in New Mexico. The word " Empire " occurs
in a sermon of his as early as 1869. He was contem-
porary with Mr. Lucas, if not before him, in the
phrase, " Command of the sea " : and I find, in a
letter to Mrs. Gorch, written long ago in 1873, the
judgment that Protection was " no longer," and the
nationalization of land " not yet," within " the sphere
of practical politics."
If his influence upon domestic politics was in part
due to his agreement with the bulk of his fellow-
citizens, his attitude in foreign affairs at least was all
his own. Events have proved it wonderfully sound.
A strenuous opponent of American slavery as a very
young man in 1860 he might be called, even at
that age, the most prominent Abolitionist in Wor-
cestershire, and worked indefatigably for the cause in
so far as it concerned this country. A just and chari-
table man, he proved, after the victory of the North,
one of the firmest supporters in the press of what he
first termed " an Anglo-American entente." Yet he
was not for pressing matters. He would leave the
INTRODUCTION 9
" gigantic daughter of the West " to choose her hour
and time, confident in the wisdom of his daughter's
judgment, and he lived to see, before his calamity fell
upon him, Mr. Hanna, Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Elihu
Root, and Mr. Smoot occupying the positions they
still adorn.
He comprehended Europe. It was he who pro-
phesied of the Dual Monarchy (I believe in the Con-
temporary Review), that " the death of Francis Joseph
would be the signal for a great upheaval"; he that
applied to Italy the words "clericalism is the enemy" ;
and he that publicly advised the withdrawal of our
national investments from the debt of Spain " a
nation in active decay." He cared not a jot when
his critics pointed out that Spanish fours had risen
since his advice no less than 20 per cent., while
our own consols had fallen by an equal amount.
" The kingdom I serve," he finely answered, " knows
nothing of the price of stock." And indeed the greater
part of his fortune was in suburban rents, saving a
small sum unfortunately adventured in Shanghai
Telephones.
Russia he hated as the oppressor of Finland and
Poland, for oppression he loathed and combatted
wherever it appeared ; nor had Mr. Arthur Balfour a
stronger supporter than he when that statesman,
armed only in the simple manliness of an English
Christian and Freeman, combatted and destroyed the
terrorism that stalked through Ireland.
Of Scandinavia he knew singularly little, but that
little was in its favour; and as for the German
IO THE AFTERMATH
Empire, his stanzas to Prince Bismarck, and his
sermon on the Emperor's recent visit, are too well
known to need any comment here. To Holland he
was, until recently, attracted. Greece he despised.
Nowhere was this fine temper of unflinching courage
and sterling common sense more apparent than in the
great crisis of the Dreyfus case. No man stood up
more boldly, or with less thought of consequence, for
Truth and Justice in this country. He was not
indeed the chairman of the great meeting in St.
James' Hall, but his peroration was the soul of that
vast assemblage. " England will yet weather the
storm. . . ." It was a true prophecy, and in a
sense a confession of Faith.
There ran through his character a vein of something
steady and profound, which inspired all who came
near him with a sense of quiet persistent strength.
This, with an equable, unfailing pressure, restrained
or controlled whatever company surrounded him. It
was like the regular current of a full but silent tide,
or like the consistent power of a good helmsman. It
may be called his personal force. To most men and
women of our circle, that force was a sustenance
and a blessing ; to ill-regulated or worldly men with
whom he might come in contact, it acted as a salu-
tary irritant, though rarely to so intense a degree
as to give rise to scenes. I must unfortunately
except the case of the Rural Dean of Bosham, whose
notorious excess was the more lamentable from the
fact that the Council of the S.P.C.A. is strictly
non-sectarian, and whose excuse that the ink-pot was
INTRODUCTION 1 1
not thrown but brushed aside is, to speak plainly, a
tergiversation.
The recent unhappy war in South Africa afforded an
excellent opportunity for the exercise of the qualities
I mean. He was still active and alert ; still guiding
men and maidens during its worse days. His tact
was admirable. He suffered from the acute divisions
of his congregation, but he suffered in powerful
silence ; and throughout those dark-days his sober
necquid nimis* was like a keel and ballast for us all.
A young radical of sorts was declaiming at his
table one evening against the Concentration Camp.
Dr. Caliban listened patiently, and at the end of the
harangue said gently, "Shall we join the ladies?"
The rebuke was not lost.f
On another occasion, when some foreigner was re-
ported in the papers as having doubted Mr. Brodrick's
figures relative to the numbers of the enemy remaining
in the field, Dr. Caliban said with quiet dignity, " It
is the first time I have heard the word of an English
gentleman doubted."
It must not be imagined from these lines that he
defended the gross excesses of the London mob
especially in the matter of strong waters or that he
wholly approved of our policy. " Peace in our time,
Oh, Lord!" was his constant cry, and against mili-
tarism he thundered fearlessly. I have heard him
* Petronius.
t The Ladies were Mrs. Caliban, Miss Rachel and Miss Aletheia
Caliban, Miss Bowley, Miss Goucher, and Lady Robinson.
12 THE AFTERMATH
apply to it a word that never passed his lips in any
other connection the word DAMNABLE.
On the details of the war, the policy of annexa-
tion, the advisability of frequent surrenders, the high
salaries of irregulars, and the employment of national
scouts, he was silent. In fine, one might have applied
to him the strong and simple words of Lord Jacobs,
in his Guildhall speech.* One main fact stood out
he hated warfare. He was a man of peace.
The tall, broad figure, inclining slightly to obesity,
the clear blue northern eyes, ever roaming from point
to point as though seeking for grace, the familiar soft
wideawake, the long full white beard, the veined
complexion and dark-gloved hands, are now, alas, re-
moved from the sphere they so long adorned.
Dr. Caliban's affliction was first noticed by his
family at dinner on the first of last September a
date which fell by a strange and unhappy coincidence
on a Sunday. For some days past Miss Goucher
had remarked his increasing volubility ; but on this
fatal evening, in spite of all the efforts of his wife and
daughters, he continued to speak, without interrup-
tion, from half-past seven to a quarter-past nine ; and
again, after a short interval, till midnight, when he
fell into an uneasy sleep, itself full of mutterings.
His talk had seemed now a sermon, now the remi-
niscence of some leading article, now a monologue,
but the whole quite incoherent, though delivered
with passionate energy ; nor was it the least dis-
* "It is enough for me that I am an Englishman."
INTRODUCTION I 3
tressing feature of his malady that he would tolerate
no reply, nay, even the gentlest assent drove him into
paroxysms of fury.
Next day he began again in the manner of a debate
at the local Liberal Club, soon lapsing again into a
sermon, and anon admitting snatches of strange songs
into the flow of his words. Towards eleven he was
apparently arguing with imaginary foreigners, and
shortly afterwards the terrible scene was ended by
the arrival of a medical man of his own persuasion.
It is doubtful whether Dr. Caliban will ever be
able to leave Dr. Charlbury's establishment, but all
that can be done for him in his present condition is
lovingly and ungrudgingly afforded. There has even
been provided for him at considerable expense, and
after an exhaustive search, a companion whose per-
sistent hallucination it is that he is acting as private
secretary to some leader of the Opposition, and the
poor wild soul is at rest.
Such was the man who continually urged upon
me the necessity of compiling some such work as
that which now lies before the reader. He had him-
self intended to produce a similar volume, and had he
done so I should never have dared to enter the same
field ; but I feel that in his present incapacity I am, as
it were, fulfilling a duty when I trace in these few
pages the plan which he so constantly counselled,
and with such a man counsels were commands. If I
may be permitted to dwell upon the feature more
especially his own in this Guide, I will point to the
section " On Vivid Historical Literature in its Appli-
14 THE AFTERMATH
cation to Modern Problems," and furthermore, to the
section " On the Criticism and Distinction of Works
Attributed to Classical Authors." In the latter case
the examples chosen were taken from his own large
collection ; for it was a hobby of his to purchase
as bargains manuscripts and anonymous pamphlets
which seemed to him to betray the hand of some
master. Though I have been compelled to differ from
my friend, and cannot conscientiously attribute the
specimens I have chosen to William Shakespeare or
to Dean Swift, yet I am sure the reader will agree
with me that the error into which Dr. Caliban fell
was that of no ordinary mind.
Finally, let me offer to his family, and to his nume-
rous circle, such apologies as may be necessary for
the differences in style, and, alas, I fear, sometimes
in mode of thought, between the examples which I
have chosen as models for the student and those
which perhaps would have more powerfully attracted
the sympathies of my preceptor himself. I am well
aware that such a difference is occasionally to be dis-
covered. I can only plead in excuse that men are
made in very different ways, and that the disciple
cannot, even if he would, forbid himself a certain
measure of self-development. Dr. Caliban's own
sound and broad ethics would surely have demanded
it of no one, and I trust that this solemn reference to
his charity and genial toleration will put an end to
the covert attacks which some of those who should
have been the strongest links between us have seen
fit to make in the provincial and religious press.
DIVISION I.
REVIEWING.
REVIEWING.
THE ancient and honourable art of Reviewing is,
without question, the most important branch of that
great calling which we term the " Career of Letters."
As it is the most important, so also it is the first
which a man of letters should learn. It is at once
his shield and his weapon. A thorough knowledge of
Reviewing, both theoretical and applied, will give a
man more popularity or power than he could have
attained by the expenditure of a corresponding energy
in any one of the liberal professions, with the possible
exception of Municipal politics.
It forms, moreover, the foundation upon which all
other literary work may be said to repose. Involving,
as it does, the reading of a vast number of volumes,
and the thorough mastery of a hundred wholly different
subjects ; training one to rapid, conclusive judgment,
and to the exercise of a kind of immediate power of
survey, it vies with cricket in forming the character
of an Englishman. It is interesting to know that
Charles Hawbuck was for some years principally
occupied in Reviewing ; a,nd to this day some of
our most important men will write, nay, and sign,
reviews, as the press of the country testifies upon
every side.
It is true that the sums paid for this species of
c
1 8 THE AFTERMATH
literary activity are not large, and it is this fact which
has dissuaded some of our most famous novelists and
poets of recent years from undertaking Reviewing of
any kind. But the beginner will not be deterred by
such a consideration, and he may look forward, by
way of compensation, to the ultimate possession of a
large and extremely varied library, the accumulation
of the books which have been given him to review.
I have myself been presented with books of which
individual volumes were sometimes worth as much
as forty-two shillings to buy.
Having said so much of the advantages of this
initial and fundamental kind of writing, I will pro-
ceed to a more exact account of its dangers and
difficulties, and of the processes inherent to its manu-
facture.
It is clear, in the first place, that the Reviewer must
regard herself as the servant of the public, and of her
employer ; and service, as I need hardly remind her
(or him), has nothing in it dishonourable. We were
all made to work, and often the highest in the land
are the hardest workers of all. This character of
service, of which Mr. Ruskin has written such noble
things, will often lay the Reviewer under the necessity
of a sharp change of opinion, and nowhere is the art
a better training in morals and application than in
the habit it inculcates of rapid and exact obedience,
coupled with the power of seeing every aspect of a
thing, and of insisting upon that particular aspect
which will give most satisfaction to the common-
wealth.
REVIEWING 19
It may not be uninstructive if I quote here the
adventures of one of the truest of the many stout-
hearted men I have known, one indeed who recently
died in harness reviewing Mr. Garcke's article on
Electrical Traction in the supplementary volumes of
the Encyclopedia Britannica. This gentleman was once
sent a book to review ; the subject, as he had re-
ceived no special training in it, might have deterred
one less bound by the sense of duty. This book was
called The Snail: Its Habitat, Food, Customs, Virtues,
Vices, and Future. It was, as its title would imply, a
monograph upon snails, and there were many fine
coloured prints, showing various snails occupied in
feeding on the leaves proper to each species. It also
contained a large number of process blocks, showing
sections, plans, elevations, and portraits of snails, as
well as detailed descriptions (with diagrams) of the
ears, tongues, eyes, hair, and nerves of snails. It
was a comprehensive and remarkable work.
My friend (whose name I suppress for family
reasons) would not naturally have cared to review
this book. He saw that it involved the assumption
of a knowledge which he did not possess, and that
some parts of the book might require very close
reading. It numbered in all 1532 pages, but this was
including the index and the preface.
He put his inclinations to one side, and took the
book with him to the office of the newspaper from
which he had received it, where he was relieved to
hear the Editor inform him that it was not necessary
to review the work in any great detail. " Moreover,"
c -2
2O THE AFTERMATH
he added, " I don't think you need praise it too
much."
On hearing this, the Reviewer, having noted down
the price of the book and the name of the publisher,
wrote the following words which, by the way, the
student will do well to cut out and pin upon his wall,
as an excellent example of what a " short notice "
should be :
" The Snail : Its HaUtat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer.
21s. 6d.
" This is a book that will hardly add to the reputation
of its author. There is evidence of detailed work, and
even of conscientious research in several places, but the
author has ignored or misunderstood the whole teaching
of and the special discoveries of
and what is even more remarkable in a man of Mr.
Charles' standing, he advances views which were already
exploded in the days of ."
He then took an Encyclopaedia and filled up the
blanks with the names of three great men who ap-
peared, according to that work, to be the leaders in
this branch of natural history. His duty thus tho-
roughly accomplished and his mind.at rest, he posted
his review, and applied himself to lighter occupations.
Next day, however, the Editor telephoned to him,
to the effect that the notice upon which he had spent
so much labour could not be used.
" We have just received," said the Editor, " a page
advertisement from Pschuffer. I would like a really
good article, and you might use the book as a kind
of peg on which to hang it. You might begin on the
subject of snails, and make it something more like your
' Oh ! my lost friend,' which has had such a success."
REVIEWING 2 1
On occasions such as these the beginner must
remember to keep full possession of himself.
Nothing in this mortal life is permanent, and the
changes that are native to the journalistic career are
perhaps the most startling and frequent of all those
which threaten humanity.
The Reviewer of whom I speak was as wise as
he was honourable. He saw at once what was
needed. He wrote another and much longer article,
beginning
" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adain Charles.
Pschuffer. 21s. 6d.
" There are tender days just before the Spring dares
the adventure of the Channel, when our Kentish
woods are prescient, as it were, of the South. It is
calm . . ."
and so forth, leading gradually up to snails, and
bringing in the book here and there about every
twentieth line.
When this long article was done, he took it back
to the office, and there found the Editor in yet a third
mood. He was talking into the telephone, and begged
his visitor to wait until he had done. My friend,
therefore, took up a copy of the Spectator, and attempted
to distract his attention with the masterful irony and
hard crystalline prose of that paper.
Soon the Editor turned to him and said that
Pschuffer's had just let him know by the telephone
that they would not advertise after all.
It was now necessary to delete all that there might
be upon snails in his article, to head the remainder
" My Kentish Home," and to send it immediately to
22 THE AFTERMATH
" Life in the Open" This done, he sat down and
wrote upon a scrap of paper in the office the following
revised notice, which the Editor glanced at and
approved :
" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer.
213. 6d.
"This work will, perhaps, appeal to specialists. This
journal does not profess any capacity of dealing with it,
but a glance at its pages is sufficient to show that it
would be very ill- suited to ordinary readers. The illus-
trations are not without merit."
Next morning he was somewhat perturbed to be
called up again upon the telephone by the Editor,
who spoke to him as follows :
"I am very sorry, but I have just learnt a most
important fact. Adam Charles is standing in our
interests at Biggleton. Lord Bailey will be on the
platform. You must write a long and favourable
review of the book before twelve to-day, and do try
and say a little about the author."
He somewhat wearily took up a sheet of paper and
wrote what follows : a passage which I must again
recommend to the student as a very admirable speci-
men of work upon these lines.
" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer.
21s. 6d.
" This book comes at a most opportune moment. It is
not generally known that Professor Charles was the first
to point out the very great importance of the training of
the mind in the education of children. It was in May,
1875, that he made this point in the presence of Mr.
Gladstone, who was so impressed by the mingled enlighten-
ment and novelty of the view, that he wrote a long and
interesting postcard upon the author to a friend of the
present writer. Professor Charles may be styled nay, he
REVIEWING 23
styles himself a 'self-made man.' Born in Hudders-
field of parents who were weavers in that charming
northern city, he was early fascinated by the study of
natural science, and was admitted to the Alexandrovna
University. . . ."
(And so on, and so on, out of " Who's Who.")
" But this would not suffice for his growing genius."
(And so on, and so on, out of the Series of Contemporary
Agnostics.}
" ... It is sometimes remarkable to men of less
wide experience how such spirits find the mere time to
achieve their prodigious results. Take, for example, this
book on the Snail. . . ."
And he continued in a fine spirit of praise, such as
should be given to books of this weight and impor-
tance, and to men such as he who had written it.
He sent it by boy-messenger to the office.
The messenger had but just left the house when
the telephone rang again, and once more it was the
Editor, who asked whether the review had been
sent off. Knowing how dilatory are the run of
journalists, my friend felt some natural pride in re-
plying that he had indeed just despatched the article.
The Editor, as luck would have it, was somewhat
annoyed by this, and the reason soon appeared when
he proceeded to say that the author was another
Charles after all, and not the Mr. Charles who was
standing for Parliament. He asked whether the
original review could still be retained, in which the
book, it will be remembered, had been treated with
some severity.
My friend permitted himself to give a deep sigh,
but was courteous enough to answer as follows :
24 THE AFTERMATH
" I am afraid it has been destroyed, but I shall be
very happy to write another, and I will make it really
scathing. You shall have it by twelve."
It was under these circumstances that the review
(which many of you must have read) took this final
form, which I recommend even more heartily than
any of the others to those who may peruse these
pages for their profit, as well as for their instruction.
" The Snail : Its Habitat, &c. Adam Charles. Pschuffer.
21s. 6d.
"We desire to have as little to do with this book as
possible, and we should recommend some similar attitude
to our readers. It professes to be scientific, but the harm
books of this kind do is incalculable. It is certainly unfit
for ordinary reading, and for our part we will confess that
we have not read more than the first few words. They
were quite sufficient to confirm the judgment which we
have put before our readers, and they would have formed
sufficient material for a lengthier treatment had we
thought it our duty as Englishmen to dwell further upon
the subject."
Let me now turn from the light parenthesis of
illuminating anecdote to the sterner part of my task.
We will begin at the beginning, taking the simplest
form of review, and tracing the process of production
through its various stages.
It is necessary first to procure a few forms, such as
are sold by Messrs. Chatsworthy in Chancery Lane,
and Messrs. Goldman, of the Haymarket, in which
all the skeleton of a review is provided, with blanks
left for those portions which must, with the best will
in the world, vary according to the book and the
author under consideration. There are a large num-
ber of these forms, and I would recommend the
REVIEWING
student who is as yet quite a novice in the trade to
select some forty of the most conventional, such as
these on page 7 of the catalogue :
" Mr. has hardly seized the pure beauty of "
" We cannot agree with Mr. in his estimate of "
" Again, how admirable is the following : "
At the same establishments can be procured very
complete lists of startling words, which lend individu-
ality and force to the judgment of the Reviewer.
Indeed I believe that Mr. Goldman was himself the
original patentee of these useful little aids, and among
many before me at this moment I would recommend
the following to the student :
/Absolute
Immediate
Creative
Bestial
Intense
Authoritative
" There is some-
what of the \
in Mr. 's style."
Mrs. 's
Miss 's
Ampitheatrical
Lapsed
Miggerlish
Japhetic
Accidental
Alkaline
Zenotic
/
Messrs. Mailing, of Duke Street, Soho, sell a par-
ticular kind of cartridge paper and some special pins,
gum, and a knife, called " The Reviewer's Outfit."
I do not know that these are necessary, but they
cost only a few pence, and are certainly of advantage
in the final process : To wit : Seizing firmly the book
26 THE AFTERMATH
to be reviewed, write down the title, price, publisher,
and (in books other than anonymous) the author's
name, at the top of the sheet of paper you have
chosen. The book should then be taken in both
hands and opened sharply, with a gesture not easily
described, but acquired with very little practice. The
test of success is that the book should give a loud
crack and lie open of itself upon the table before one.
This initial process is technically called " breaking the
back " of a book, but we need not trouble ourselves
yet with technical terms. One of the pages so dis-
closed should next be torn out and the word " extract "
written in the corner, though not before such sen-
tences have been deleted as will leave the remainder
a coherent paragraph. In the case of historical and
scientific work, the preface must be torn out bodily,
the name of the Reviewer substituted for the word
" I," and the whole used as a description of the work
in question. What remains is very simple. The
forms, extracts, &c., are trimmed, pinned, and gummed
in order upon the cartridge paper (in some offices
brown paper), and the whole is sent to press.
I need hardly say that only the most elementary
form of review can be constructed upon this model,
but the simplest notice contains all the factors which
enter into the most complicated and most serious of
literary criticism and pronouncements.
In this, as in every other practical trade, an ounce
of example is worth a ton of precept, and I have
much pleasure in laying before the student one of the
best examples that has ever appeared in the weekly
REVIEWING 27
press of how a careful, subtle, just, and yet tender
review, may be written. The complexity of the
situation which called it forth, and the lightness of
touch required for its successful completion, may be
gauged by the fact that Mr. Mayhem was the nephew
of my employer, had quarrelled with him at the
moment when the notice was written, but will almost
certainly be on good terms with him again ; he was
also, as I privately knew, engaged to the daughter of
a publisher who had shares in the works where the
review was printed.
A YOUNG POET IN DANGER.
MR. MAYHEM'S "PEREANT QUI NOSTRA."
WE fear that in " Pereant qni Nostra," Mr. Mayhem
has hardly added to his reputation, and we might even
doubt whether he was well advised to publish it at all.
" Tufts in an Orchard " gave such promise, that the
author of the exquisite lyrics it contained might easily
have rested on the immediate fame that first effort
procured him :
"Lord, look to England; England looks to you,"
and
" Great unaffected vampires and the moon,"
are lines the Anglo-Saxon race will not readily let die.
In "Pereant qui Nostra," Mr. Mayhem preserves
and even increases his old facility of expression, but
there is a terrible falling-off in verbal aptitude.
What are we to think of " The greatest general the
world has seen " applied as a poetic description to
Lord Kitchener? Mr. Mayhem will excuse us if we
say that the whole expression is commonplace.
Commonplace thought is bad enough, though it is
difficult to avoid when one tackles a great national
28 THE AFTERMATH
subject, and thinks what all good patriots and men
of sense think also. " Pour etre poete," as M. Yves
Guyot proudly said in his receptional address to the
Trench Academy, "Pour etre poete on n'est pas force-
ment aliene." But commonplace language should
always be avoidable, and it is a fault which we cannot
but admit we have found throughout Mr. Mayhem's
new volume. Thus in " Laura " he compares a young
goat to a " tender flower," and in " Billings " he calls
some little children "the younglings of the flock."
Again, he says of the waves at Dover in a gale that
they are " horses all in rank, with manes of snow,"
and tells us in " Eton College " that the Thames
" runs like a silver thread amid the green."
All these similes verge upon the commonplace, even
when they do not touch it. However, there is very
genuine feeling in the description of his old school,
and we have no doubt that the bulk of Etonians will
see more in the poem than outsiders can possibly do.
It cannot be denied that Mr. Mayhem has a powerful
source of inspiration in his strong patriotism, and the
sonnets addressed to Mr. Kruger, Mr. O'Brien, Dr.
Clark, and General Mercier are full of vigorous denun-
ciation. It is the more regrettable that he has missed
true poetic diction and lost his subtlety in a misappre-
hension of planes and values.
" Vile, vile old man, and yet more vile again,"
is a line that we are sure Mr. Mayhem would recon-
sider in his better moments : " more vile " than what ?
Than himself ? The expression is far too vague.
"Proud Prelate," addressed to General Mercier, must
be a misprint, and it is a pity it should have slipped
in. What Mr. Mayhem probably meant was " Proud
Caesar " or " soldier," or some other dissyllabic title.
The word prelate can properly only be applied to a
bishop, a mitred abbot, or a vicar apostolic.
"Babbler of Hell, importunate mad fiend, dead
canker, crested worm," are vigorous and original, but
do not save the sonnet. And as to the last two lines,
" Nor seek to pierce the viewless shield of years,
For that you certainly could never do,"
REVIEWING 29
Mr. Mayhem must excuse us if we say that the order
of the lines make a sheer bathos.
Perhaps the faults and the excellences of Mr. May-
hem, his fruitful limitations, and his energetic inspira-
tions, can be best appreciated if we quote the following
sonnet ; the exercise will also afford us the opportunity
(which we are sure Mr. Mayhem will not resent in
such an old friend) of pointing out the dangers into
which his new tendencies may lead him.
" England, if ever it should be thy fate
By fortune's turn or accident of chance
To fall from craven fears of being great,
And in the tourney with dishevelled lance
To topple headlong, and incur the Hate
Of Spain, America, Germany, and France,
What will you find upon that dreadful date
To check the backward move of your advance ?
A little Glory ; purchased not with gold
Nor yet with Frankincense (the island blood
Is incommensurate, neither bought nor sold),
But on the poops where Drake and Nelson stood
An iron hand, a stern unflinching eye
To meet the large assaults of Destiny."
Now, here is a composition that not everyone could
have written. It is inspired by a vigorous patriotism,
it strikes the right note (Mr. Mayhem is a Past Senes-
chal of the Navy League), and it breathes throughout
the motive spirit of our greatest lyrics.
It is the execution that is defective, and it is to
execution that Mr. Mayhem must direct himself if he
would rise to the level of his own great conceptions.
We will take the sonnet line by line, and make our
meaning clear, and we do this earnestly for the sake
of a young poet to whom the Anglo-Saxon race owes
much, and whom it would be deplorable to see failing,
as Kipling appears to be failing, and as Ganzer has
failed.
Line 1 is not yery striking, but might pass as an
introduction ; line 2 is sheer pleonasm after using the
word "fate," you cannot use "fortune," "accident,"
" chance," as though they were amplifications of your
first thought. Moreover, the phrase "by fortune's
3O THE AFTERMATH
turn " has a familiar sound. It is rather an echo than
a creation.
In line 3, "craven fears of being great" is taken
from Tennyson. The action is legitimate enough.
Thus, in Wordsworth's "Excursion" are three lines
taken bodily from " Paradise Lost," in Kipling's " Stow
it" are whole phrases taken from the Police Gazette,
and in Mr. Austin's verses you may frequently find
portions of a Standard leader. Nevertheless, it is a
license which a young poet should be chary of. All
these others were men of an established reputation
before they permitted themselves this liberty.
In line 4, "dishevelled" is a false epithet for
" lance " ; a lance has no hair ; the adjective can only
properly be used of a woman, a wild beast, or domestic
animal.
In line 5, " incur the hate " is a thoroughly unpoetic
phrase we say so unreservedly. In lin 6, we have
one of those daring experiments in metre common to
our younger poets ; therefore we hesitate to pronounce
upon it, but (if we may presume to advise) we should
give Mr. Mayhem the suggestion made by the Times
to Tennyson that he should stick to an exact metre
until he felt sure of his style ; and in line 8, " the
backward move of your advance" seems a little
strained.
It is, however, in the sextet that the chief slips of
the sonnet appear, and they are so characteristic of the
author's later errors, that we cannot but note them ;
thus, " purchased not with gold or Frankincense " is a
grievous error. It is indeed a good habit to quote
Biblical phrases (a habit which has been the making
of half our poets), but not to confuse them : frankin-
cense was never used as coin even by the Hittites.
" Incommensurate " is simply meaningless. How can
blood be " incommensurate " P We fear Mr. Mayhem
has fallen into the error of polysyllabic effect, a modern
pitfall. "Island blood" will, however, stir many a
responsive thrill.
The close of the sonnet is a terrible falling off.
When you say a thing is purchased, "not with this
but " the reader naturally expects an alternative,
REVIEWING 3 1
instead of which Mr. Mayhem goes right off to another
subject! Also (though the allusion to Nelson and
Drake is magnificent) the mention of an iron hand
and an eye by themselves on a poop seems to us a
very violent metaphor.
The last line is bad.
We do not write in this vein to gain any reputation
for preciosity, and still less to offend. Mr. Mayhem
has many qualities. He has a rare handling of penul-
timates, much potentiality, large framing; he has a
very definite chiaroscuro, and the tones are full and
objective ; so are the values. We would not restrain
a production in which (as a partner in a publishing
firm) the present writer is directly interested. But
we wish to recall Mr. Mayhem to his earlier and
simpler style to the " Cassowary," and the superb
interrupted seventh of " The Altar Ghoul."
England cannot afford to lose that talent.
ON POLITICAL APPEALS.
POLITICAL APPEALS.
IT was one of Dr. Caliban's chief characteristics
and perhaps the main source of his power over
others that he could crystallize, or to use the
modern term " wankle," the thought of his genera-
tion into sharp unexpected phrases. Among others,
this was constantly upon his lips :
" We live in stirring times"
If I may presume to add a word to the pronounce-
ments of my revered master, I would re-write the
sentence thus :
" We live in stirring AND CHANGEFUL times."
It is not only an element of adventure, it is also an
element of rapid and unexpected development which
marks our period, and which incidentally lends so
considerable an influence to genius.
In the older and more settled order, political forces
were so well known that no description or analysis
of them was necessary : to this day members of our
more ancient political families do not read the news-
papers. Soon, perhaps, the national life will have
entered a new groove, and once more literary gentle-
men will but indirectly control the life of the nation.
For the moment, however, their effect is direct and
immediate. A vivid prophecy, a strong attack upon
D 2
36 THE AFTERMATH
this statesman or that foreign Government may deter-
mine public opinion for a space of over ten days, ?nd
matter of this sort is remunerated at the rate of from
15*. to 185. 6d. per thousand words. When we con-
trast this with the gs. paid for the translation of
foreign classics, the 5*. of occasional verse, or even
the i os. of police-court reporting, it is sufficiently
evident that this kind of composition is the Premier
Prose of our time.
There must, indeed, be in London and Manchester,
alive at the present moment, at least fifty men who
.can command the prices I have mentioned, and who,
with reasonable industry, can earn as much as ^500
a year by their decisions upon political matters. But
I should be giving the student very indifferent counsel
were I to recommend him for the delivery of his
judgment to the beaten track of Leading Articles or to
that of specially written and signed communications :
the sums paid for such writing never rise beyond a
modest level ; the position itself is precarious. In
London alone, and within a radius of 87 yards from
the " Green Dragon," no less than 53 Authors lost
their livelihood upon the more respectable papers from
an inability to prophecy with any kind of accuracy
upon the late war, and this at a time when the
majority of regular politicians were able to retain
their seats in Parliament and many ministers their
rank in the Cabinet.
By far the most durable, the most exalted, and the
most effective kind of appeal, is that which is made
in a poetic form, especially if that form be vague and
POLITICAL APPEALS 37
symbolic in its character. Nothing is risked and
everything is gained by this method, upon which have
been founded so many reputations and so many
considerable fortunes. The student cannot be too
strongly urged to abandon the regular and daily task
of set columns signed or unsigned for the occa-
sional Flash of Verse if he desire to provoke great
wars and to increase his income. It may not always
succeed, but the proportion of failures is very small,
and at the worst it is but a moment's energy wasted.
" We an sick " says one of the most famous among
those who have adopted this method, " We are sick"'
he is speaking not only of himself but of others
We are sick for a stave of the song that our fathers
sang." Turn, therefore, to the dead who are no
longer alive, and with whom no quarrel is to be.
feared. Make them reappear and lend weight to
your contention. Their fame is achieved, and may
very possibly support your own. This kind of writing
introduces all the elements that most profoundly affect
the public : it is mysterious, it is vague, it is authori-
tative ; it is also eminently literary, and I can recall
no first-class political appeal of the last fifteen years
which has not been cast more or less upon these lines.
The subjects you may choose from are numerous
and are daily increasing, but for the amateur the best,
without any question, is that of Imperialism. It is
a common ground upon which all meet, and upon
which every race resident in the wealthier part of
London is agreed. Bring forward the great ghosts of
the past, let them swell what is now an all but
38 THE AFTERMATH
universal chorus. Avoid the more complicated
metres, hendecasyllables, and the rest ; choose those
which neither scan nor rhyme ; or, if their subtlety
baffles you, fall back upon blank verse, and you should,
with the most moderate talent, lay the foundation of
a permanent success.
I will append, as is my custom, a model upon
which the student may shape his first efforts, though I
would not have him copy too faithfully, lest certain
idiosyncrasies of manner should betray the plagiarism.
THE IMPERIALIST FEAST.
[A Hall at tJie Grand Oriental. At a long table art
seated innumerable Shades. The walls are decorated with
flags of all nations, and a band of musicians in sham
uniform are playing very loudly on a dais.']
CATULLUS rises and makes a short speech, pointing
out the advantages of Strong Men, and making
several delicate allusions to Caesar, who is too much
of a gentleman to applaud. He then gives them the
toast of " Imperialism," to which there is a hearty
response. Lucan replies in a few well-chosen words,
and they fall to conversation.
PETRONIUS I would be crowned with paper flowers
to-night
And scented with the rare opopanax,
Whose savour leads the Orient in, suggesting
The seas beyond Modore.
TALLEYRAND Shove up, Petronius,
And let me sit as near as possible
POLITICAL APPEALS 39
To Mr. Bingoe's Grand Imperial Band
With Thirty-seven Brazen Instruments
And Kettle-Drums complete : I hear the players
Discourse the music called " What Ho ! She
Bumps ! "
LORD CHESTERFIELD What Ho! She Bumps! Like-
wise ! C'est 9a ! There's 'Air !
LORD GLENALTAMONT OF EPHESUS (seventy) Lord
Chesterfield ! Be worthy of your name.
LORD CHESTERFIELD (angrily) Lord Squab, be worthy
of your son-in-law's.
HENRY V. My Lords! my Lords! What do you
with your swords ?
I mean, what mean you by this strange demeanour
Which (had you swords and knew you how to
use them)
Might .... I forget what I was going to
say
Oh! Yes Is this the time for peers to quarrel,
When all the air is thick with Agincourt
And every other night is Crispin's day ?
The very supers bellow up and down,
Armed of rude cardboard and wide blades of tin
For England and St. George !
RICHARD YEA AND NAY You talk too much.
Think more. Revise. Avoid the commonplace ;
And when you lack a startling word, invent it.
[Their quarrel is stopped by THOMAS JEFFERSON rising
to propose the toast of " The Anglo-Saxon Race."]
JEFFERSON If I were asked what was the noblest
message
4O THE AFTERMATH
Delivered to the twentieth century,
I should reply
(Etc., etc. While he maunders on
ANTONY, CLEOPATRA, and, C^SAR begin talking
rather loud)
CLEOPATRA Waiter! I want a little creme de menthe.
(The waiter pays no attention.")
ANTONY Waiter ! A glass of curaao and brandy.
( Waiter still looks at Jefferson.)
C^SAR That is the worst of these contracted
dinners.
They give you quite a feed for 35. 6d.
And have a splendid Band. I like the Band,
It stuns the soul But when you call
the waiter
He only sneers and looks the other way.
CLEOPATRA (makes a moue). ....
CJESAR (archly) Was that the face that launched a
thousand ships
And sacked ....
ANTONY (angrily) Oh ! Egypt ! Egypt ! Egypt !
THOMAS JEFFERSON (ending, interrupts the quarrel).
. . . . blessings
Of order, cleanliness, and business methods.
The base of Empire is a living wage.
One King .... (applause) .... (applause)
.... (applause) shall always wave
.... (applause)
.... (loud applause) .... (applause)
THE REIGN OF LAW!
(Thunders of applause)
POLITICAL APPEALS 4!
NAPOLEON (rising to reply) I am myself a strong
Imperialist.
A brochure, very recently compiled
(Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read),
Neglects the point, I think ; the Anglo-Saxon
.... (&c. &c.)
GEORGE III. (to Burke) Who's that ? Eh, what ?
Who's that ? Who ever 's that ?
BURKE Dread sire ! It is the Corsican Vampire.
GEORGE III. Napoleon? What? I thought that
he was leaner.
I thought that he was leaner. What ? What ?
What?
NAPOLEON (sitting down) .... such dispositions !
Order! Teted'Armee!
(Slight applause)
HEROD (rises suddenly without being asked, crosses his
arms, glares, and shouts very loudly).
Ha ! Would you have Imperial hearing ? Hounds !
I am that Herod which is he that am
The lonely Lebanonian (interruption) who des-
paired
In Deep Marsupial Dens .... (cries of " Sit
down/ 11 )
. . . . In dreadful hollows
To (" Sit down ! ") tear great trees with the
teeth, and hurricanes (" Sit down /")
That shook the hills of Moab !
CHORUS OF DEAD MEN Oh ! Sit down.
(Ht is swamped by the clamour, in the midst of which
Lucullus murmurs to himself)
42 THE AFTERMATH
LUCULLUS (musing) The banquet's done. There was
a tribute drawn
Of anchovies and olives and of soup
In tins of conquered nations ; subject whiting :
Saddle of mutton from the antipodes
Close on the walls of ice ; Laponian pheasants ;
Eggs of Canadian rebels, humbled now
To such obeisance scrambled eggs and butter
From Brittany enslaved, and the white bread
Hardened for heroes in the test of time,
Was California's offering. But the cheese,
The cheese was ours. .... Oh! but the
glory faded
Of feasting at repletion mocks our arms
And threatens even Empire.
(Great noise of Vulgarians, a mob of people, heralds,
trumpets, flags. Enter VITELLIUS.)
VITELLIUS I have dined !
But not with you. The master of the world
Has dined alone and at his own expense.
And oh ! I am almost too full for words
But oh ! My lieges, I have used you well !
I have commanded fifteen hundred seats
And standing room for something like a thousand
To view my triumph over Nobody
Upon the limelit stage.
HEROD Oh ! rare Vitellius,
Oh! Prominent great Imperial ears! Oh! Mouth
To bellow largesse ! Oh ! And rolling Thunder,
And trains of smoke. And oh ! . .
VITELLIUS Let in the vulgar
POLITICAL APPEALS 43
To see the master sight of their dull lives :
Great Caesar putting on his overcoat.
And then, my loved companions, we'll away
To see the real Herod in the Play.
(The Shades pass out in a crowd. In the street THEOCRITUS
is heard singing in a voice that gets fainter and fainter
with distance )
" Put me somewhere ea-heast of Su-hez,
Were the best is loi-hoike the worst
Were there hain' no " (and so forth).
FINIS.
It is not enough to compose such appeals as may
quicken the nation to a perception of her peculiar
mission ; it is necessary to paint for her guidance the
abominations and weakness of foreign countries. The
young writer may be trusted to know his duty in-
stinctively in this matter, but should his moral per-
ception be blunted, a sharper argument will soon
remind him of what he owes to the Common Con-
science of Christians. He that cannot write, and write
with zeal, upon the Balkans, or upon Finland, or upon
the Clerical trouble, or upon whatever lies before
us to do for righteousness, is not worthy of a place
in English letters : the public and his editor will very
soon convince him of what he has lost by an unmanly
reticence.
His comrades, who are content to deal with such
matters as they arise, will not be paid at a higher rate:
but they will be paid more often. They will not infre-
quently be paid from several sources ; they will have
44 THE AFTERMATH
many opportunities for judging those financial ques-
tions which are invariably mixed up with the great
battle against the Ultramontane, the Cossack and the
Turk. In Cairo, Frankfort, Pretoria, Mayfair, Shang-
hai, their latter days confirm Dr. Caliban's profound
conclusion: "Whosoever works for Humanity works,
whether he know it or not, for himself as well."*
I earnestly beseech the reader of this text-book,
especially if he be young, to allow no false shame to
modify his zeal in judging the vileness of the Continent.
We know whatever can be known ; all criticism or
qualification is hypocrisy ; all silence is cowardice.
There is work to be done. Let the writer take up his
pen and write.
I had some little hesitation what model to put before
the student. This book does not profess to be more
than an introduction to the elements of our science ;
I therefore omitted what had first seemed to me of
some value, the letters written on a special commis-
sion to Pondicherry during the plague and famine in
that unhappy and ill-governed remnant of a falling
empire. The articles on the tortures in the Phillipines
were never printed, and might mislead. I have pre-
ferred to show Priestcraft and Liberty in their eternal
struggle as they appeared to me in the character of
Special Commissioner for Out and About during the
troubles of 1901. It is clear, and I think unbiassed ;
it opens indeed in that light fashion which is a con-
cession to contemporary journalism : but the half-
* This Phrase closes the XXXIVth of Dr. Caliban's " Subjects
for Sinners." .
POLITICAL APPEALS 45
frivolous exterior conceals a permanent missionary
purpose. Its carefully collected array of facts give,
I suggest, a vivid picture of one particular battlefield ;
that whereon there rage to-day the opposed forces
which will destroy or save the French people. The
beginner could not have a better introduction to his
struggle against the infamies of Clericalism. Let him
ask himself (as Mr. Gardy, M.P., asked in a letter to
Out and About) the indignant question, "Could such
things happen here in England ? "
THE SHRINE OF ST. LOUP.
MY excellent good Dreyfusards, anti-Dreyfusards,
Baptists, Anabaptists, pre-Monstratentians, anti-
quaries, sterling fellows, foreign correspondents,
home-readers, historians, Nestorians, philosophers,
Deductionists,. Inductionists, Praetorians (I forgot
those), Caesarists, Lazarists, Catholics, Protestants,
Agnostics and militant atheists, as also all you
Churchmen, Nonconformists, Particularists, very
strong secularists, and even you, my well-beloved
little brethren called The Peculiar People, give ear
attentively and listen to what is to follow, and you
shall learn more of a matter that has wofully dis-
turbed you than ever you would get from the Daily
Mail or from Mynheer van Damm, or even from
Dr. Biggies' Walks and Talks in France.
In an upper valley of the Dauphind there is a
village called Lagarde. From this village, at about
half-past four o'clock of a pleasant June morning,
there walked out with his herd one Jean Rigors, a
46 THE AFTERMATH
herdsman and half-wit. He had not proceeded very
far towards the pastures above the village, and the
sun was barely showing above the peak profanely
called The Three Bishops, when he had the fortune
to meet the Blessed St. Loup, or Lupus, formerly a
hermit in that valley, who had died some fourteen
hundred years ago, but whose name, astonishing as
it may seem to the author of The Justification of
Famt, is still remembered among the populace. The
Blessed Lupus admonished the peasant, recalling the
neglect into which public worship had fallen, reluc-
tantly promised a sign whereby it might be re-created
among the faithful, and pointed out a nasty stream
of muddy water, one out of fifty that trickled from
the moss of the Alps. He then struck M. Rigors a
slight, or, as some accounts have it, a heavy, blow
with his staff, and disappeared in glory.
Jean Rigors, who could not read or write, being a
man over thirty, and having therefore forgotten the
excellent free lessons provided by the Republic in
primary schools, was not a little astonished at the
apparition. Having a care to tether a certain calf
whom he knew to be light-headed, he left the rest of
the herd to its own unerring instincts, and ran back
to the village to inform the parish priest of the very
remarkable occurrence of which he had been the
witness or victim. He found upon his return that
the morning Mass, from which he had been absent
off and on for some seven years, was already at the
Gospel, and attended to it with quite singular devo-
tion, until in the space of some seventeen minutes he
POLITICAL APPEALS 47
was able to meet the priest in the sacristy and inform
him of what had happened.
The priest, who had heard of such miraculous
appearances in other villages, but (being a humble
man, unfitted for worldly success and idiotic in busi-
ness matters) had never dared to hope that one would
be vouchsafed to his own cure, proceeded at once to
the source of the muddy streamlet, and (unhistorical
as the detail may seem to the author of Our Old
Europe, Whence and Whither ?) neglected to reward the
hind, who, indeed, did not expect pecuniary remunera-
tion, for these two excellent reasons : First, that he
knew the priest to be by far the poorest man in the
parish ; secondly, that he thought a revelation from
the other world incommensurate with money pay-
ments even to the extent of a five-franc piece. The
next Sunday (that is, three days afterwards) the priest,
who had previously informed his brethren throughout
the Canton, preached a sermon upon the decay of
religion and the growing agnosticism of the modern
world a theme which, as they had heard it publicly
since the Christian religion had been established by
Constantine in those parts and privately for one hun-
dred and twenty-five years before, his congregation re-
ceived with some legitimate languor. When, however,
he came to what was the very gist of his remarks,
the benighted foreigners pricked up their ears (a
physical atavism impossible to our own more en-
lightened community), and Le Sieur Rigors, who could
still remember the greater part of the services of
the Church, was filled with a mixture of nervous-
48 THE AFTERMATH
ness and pride, while the good priest informed his
hearers, in language that would have been eloquent
had he not been trained in the little seminary, that
the great St. Lupus himself had appeared to a devout
member of his parish and had pointed out to him a
miraculous spring, for the proper enshrinement of
which he requested nay, he demanded the con-
tributions of the faithful.
At that one sitting the excellent hierarch received
no less a sum than 1053 francs and 67 centimes ;
the odd two-centimes (a coin that has disappeared
from the greater part of France) being contributed
by a road-mender, who was well paid by the State,
but who was in the custom of receiving charity from
tourists ; the said tourists being under the erroneous
impression that he was a beggar. He also, by the
way, would entertain the more Anglo-Saxon of these
with the folk-lore of the district, in which his fertile
imagination was never at fault.
It will seem astonishing to the author of Village
Communities in Western Europe to hear of so large a
sum as ^40 being subscribed by the congregation of
this remote village, and it would seem still more
astonishing to him could he see the very large chapel
erected over the spring of St. Loup. I do not say
that he would understand the phenomenon, but I do
say that he would become a more perturbed and there-
fore a wiser man did he know the following four
facts : (i) That the freehold value of the village and
its communal land, amounting to the sum of a poor
/20,ooo, was not in the possession of a landlord, but
POLITICAL APPEALS 49
in that of these wretched peasants. (2) That the
one rich man of the neighbourhood, a retired glove-
maker, being also a fanatic, presented his subscrip-
tions in such a manner that they were never heard of.
He had, moreover, an abhorrence for the regulation of
charity. (3) That the master mason in the neigh-
bouring town had in his youth been guilty of several
mortal sins, and was so weak as to imagine that a
special tender would in such a case make a kind of
reparation ; and (4) that the labourers employed were
too ignorant to cheat and too illiterate to combine.
The new shrine waxed and prospered exceedingly,
and on the Thursday following its dedication an
epileptic, having made use of the water, was restored
to a normal, and even commonplace, state of mind.
On the Friday a girl, who said that she had been
haunted by devils (though until then no one had
heard of the matter), declared, upon drinking a cup
from the spring of St. Loup, that she was now
haunted by angels a very much pleasanter condition
of affairs. The Sunday following, the village usurer,
who called himself Bertollin, but who was known to
be a wicked foreigner from beyond the Alps, of the
true name of Bertolino, ran into the inn like one
demented, and threw down the total of his ill-gotten
gains for the benefit of the shrine. They amounted,
indeed, to but a hundred francs, but then his clientele
were close and skin-flint, as peasant proprietors and
free men generally are the world over ; and it was
well known that the cobbler, who had himself bor-
rowed a small sum for a month, and quadrupled it in
5O THE AFTERMATH
setting up lodgings for artists, had been unable to
recover from the usurer the mending of his boots.
By this time the Bishop had got wind of the new
shrine, and wrote to the Cure of Lagarde a very
strong letter, in which, after reciting the terms of the
Concordat, Clause 714 of the Constitution and the
decree of May 2gth, 1854, he pointed out that by all
these and other fundamental or organic laws of the
Republic, he was master in his own diocese. He
rebuked the cure for the superstitious practice which
had crept into his cure, ordered the chapel to be used
for none but ordinary purposes, and issued a pastoral
letter upon the evils of local superstitions. This
pastoral letter was read with unction and holy mirth
in the neighbouring monastery of Bernion (founded
in defiance of the law by the widow of a President of
the Republic), but with sorrow and without comment
in the little church of Lagarde.
The Minister of the Interior and the Minister of
Public Worship, each in his separate way, proceeded
to stamp out this survival of the barbaric period of
Europe. The first by telling the Prefect to tell the
sub- Prefect to tell the Mayor that any attempt to
levy taxes in favour of the shrine would be adminis-
tratively punished : the second by writing a sharp
official note to the Bishop for not having acted on the
very day that St. Loup appeared to the benighted
herdsman. The sub-Prefect came from the horrible
town of La Rochegayere and lunched with the Mayor,
who was the donor of the new stained-glass window
in the church, and they talked about the advantages
POLITICAL APPEALS 5!
of forcing the Government to construct a road through
the valley to accommodate the now numerous pil-
grims ; a subject which the sub-Prefect, who was
about to be promoted, approached with official non-
chalance, but the Mayor (who owned the principal
inn) with pertinacity and fervour. They then went
out, the Mayor in his tricolour scarf to lock up the
gate in front of the holy well, the sub- Prefect to
escort his young wife to the presbytery, where she
left a gift of 500 francs : the sub-Prefect thought it
improper for a lady to walk alone.
Upon the closure of the shrine a local paper (joint
property of the Bishop and a railway contractor)
attacked the atheism of the Government. A local
duchess, who was ignorant of the very terminology of
religion, sent a donation of five thousand francs to the
cure ; with this the excellent man built a fine approach
to the new chapel, " which," as he sorrowfully and
justly observed, " the faithful may approach, though
an atheistic Government forbids the use of the shrine.'*
That same week, by an astonishing accident, the
Ministry was overturned ; the Minister of the Interior
was compelled to retire into private life, and lived
dependent upon his uncle (a Canon of Rheims). The
Minister of Public Worship (who had become in
creasingly unpopular through the growth of anti
Semitic feeling) took up his father's money-lending
business at Antwerp.
Next week the lock and seals were discovered to
have been in some inexplicable way removed from
the gate of the well and (by Article 893 of the Ad-
E 2
52 THE AFTERMATH
ministrative Code) before they could be replaced an
action was necessary at the assize-town of Grenoble.
This action (by the Order of 1875 on Law Terms)
could not take place for six months ; and in that
interval an astonishing number of things happened
at Lagarde.
An old Sapper General, who had devised the special
obturator for light quick-firing guns, and who was
attached to the most backward superstitions, came in
full uniform to the Chapel and gave the shrine 10,000
francs : a mysteriously large endowment, as this sum
was nearly half his income, and he had suffered im-
prisonment in youth for his Republican opinions. He
said it was for the good of his soul, but the editor of
the Horrcur knew better, and denounced him'. He
was promptly retired upon a pension about a third
greater than that to which he was legally entitled,
and received by special secret messenger from the
Minister of War an earnest request to furnish a
memorandum on the fortifications of the Isere and
to consider himself inspector, upon mobilisation, of
that important line of defence.
Two monks, who had walked all the way from
Spain, settled in a house near the well. A pilgrim,
who had also evidently come from a prodigious dis-
tance on foot, but gave false information as to his
movements, was arrested by the police and subse-
quently released. The arrest was telegraphed to the
Times and much commented upon, but the suicide of
a prominent London solicitor and other important
news prevented any mention of his release.
POLITICAL APPEALS 53
A writer of great eminence, who had been a leading
sceptic all his life, stayed at Lagarde for a month and
became a raving devotee. His publishers (MM. Her-
mann Khan) punished him by refusing to receive his
book upon the subject ; but by some occult influence,
probably that of the Jesuits, he was paid several
hundreds for it by the firm of Zadoc et Cie; ten
years afterwards he died of a congested liver, a catas-
trophe which some ascribed to a Jewish plot, and
others treated as a proof that his intellect had long
been failing.
A common peasant fellow, that had been paralysed
for ten years, bathed in the water and walked away
in a sprightly fashion afterwards. This was very
likely due to his ignorance, for a doctor who narrowly
. watched the whole business has proved that he did
not know the simplest rudiments of arithmetic or
history, and how should such a fellow understand so
difficult a disease as paralysis of the Taric nerve
.especially if it were (as the doctor thought quite
evident) complicated by a stricture of the Upper
Dalmoid ?
Two deaf women were, as is very commonly the
case with enthusiasts of this kind, restored to their
hearing; for how long we do not know, as their
subsequent history was not traced for more than five
years.
A dumb boy talked, but in a very broken fashion,
and as he had a brother a priest and another brother
in the army, trickery was suspected.
An English merchant, who had some trouble with
54 THE AFTERMATH
his eyes, bathed in the water at the instance of a
sister who desired to convert him. He could soon
see so well that he was able to write to the Freethinker
an account of his healing, called "The Medicinal
Springs of Lagarde," but, as he has subsequently
gone totally blind, the momentary repute against
ophthalmia which the water might have obtained was
nipped in the bud.
What was most extraordinary of all, a very respect-
able director of a railway came to the village quietly,
under an assumed name, and, after drinking the
water, made a public confession of the most incredible
kind and has since become a monk. His son, to
whom he made over his whole fortune, had previously
instituted a demand at law to be made guardian of
his estates ; but, on hearing of his father's determi-
nation to embrace religion, he was too tolerant to
pursue the matter further.
To cut a long story short, as Homer said when he
abruptly closed the Odyssey, some 740 cases of mira-
culous cures occurred between the mysterious opening
of the gates and the date for the trial at Grenoble.
In that period a second and much larger series of
buildings had begun to arise ; the total property in-
volved in the case amounted to 750,000 francs, and
(by clause 61 of the Regulation on Civil Tribunals)
the local court of assize was no longer competent.
Before, however, the case could be removed to Paris,
the assent of the Grenoble bench had to be formally
obtained, and this, by the singularly Republican rule
of "Non-avant" (instituted by Louis XI.), took just
POLITICAL APPEALS 55
two years. By that time the new buildings were
finished, eight priests were attached to the Church, a
monastery of seventy-two monks, five hotels, a golf
links, and a club were in existence. The total taxes
paid by Lagarde to the Treasury amounted to half-
a-million francs a year.
The Government had become willing (under the
" Compromise of '49," which concerns Departments
v . the State in the matter of internal communications)
to build a fine, great road up to Lagarde. There was
also a railway, a Custom House, and a project of
sub-prefecture. Moreover, in some underhand way
or other, several hundred people a month were cured
of various ailments, from the purely subjective (such
as buzzing in the ears) to those verging upon the
truly objective (such as fracture of the knee-pan or
the loss of an eye).
The Government is that of a practical and common-
sense people. It will guide or protect, but it cannot
pretend to coerce. Lagarde therefore flourishes, the
Bishop is venerated, the monastery grumbles in
silence, and there is some talk of an Hungarian
journalist, born in Constantinople, whose father did
time for cheating in the Russian Army, writing one
of his fascinating anti-religious romances in nine
hundred pages upon the subject. You will learn far
more from such a book than you can possibly learn
from the narrow limits of the above.
THE SHORT STORY.
THE SHORT STORY.
THE short story is the simplest of all forms of literary
composition. It is at the same time by far the most
lucrative. It has become (to use one of Dr. Caliban's
most striking phrases) "part of the atmosphere of our
lives." In a modified form, it permeates our private
correspondence, our late Baron Renter's telegraphic
messages, the replies of our cabinet ministers, the
rulings of our judges ; and it has become inseparable
from affirmations upon oath before Magistrates,
Registrars, Coroners, Courts of Common Jurisdiction,
Official Receivers, and all others qualified under 17
Vic. 21, Caps. 2 and 14; sub-section III.
To return to the short story. Its very reason
for being (raison d'etre) is simplicity. It suits our
strenuous, active race; nor would I waste the
student's time by recalling the fact that, in the
stagnant civilization of China, a novel or play
deals with the whole of the hero's life, in its
minutest details, through seventy years. The con-
trast conveys an awful lesson !
Let us confine ourselves, however, to the purpose
of these lines, and consider the short story ; for it is
the business of every true man to do what lies straight
before him as honestly and directly as he can.
6O THE AFTERMATH
The Short Story, on account of its simplicity,
coupled with the high rates of pay attached to it,
attracts at the outset the great mass of writers.
Several are successful, and in their eager rapture (I
have but to mention John and Mary Hitherspoon)
produce such numerous examples of this form of art,
that the student may ask what more I have
to teach him? In presenting a model for his
guidance, and reproducing the great skeleton lines
upon which the Short Story is built up, I would
remind my reader that it is my function to instruct
and his to learn ; and I would warn him that even
in so elementary a branch of letters as is this, " pride
will have a fall."
It is not necessary to dwell further upon this
unpleasant aspect of my duty.
Let us first consider where the writer of the Short
Story stands before the Law. What is her Legal
Position as to (a) the length, (b) the plot of a short
story which she may have contracted to deliver on a
certain date to a particular publisher, editor, agent,
or creditor ? The following two decisions apply :
Mabworthy Mabworthy v. Crawley. Mrs. Mabworthy
Y. Crawley. brought an action against Crawley & Co.
to recover payment due for a short story
ordered of her by defendant. Defendant
pleaded lack of specific performance, as
story dealt with gradual change of spiritual
outlook, during forty years, of maiden lady
.:: inhabiting Ealing. It was held by Mr. Jus-
THE SHORT STORY 6l
tice Pake that the subject so treated was
not of " ordinary length." Judgment for the
defendant. Mrs. Mabworthy, prompted by
her sex, fortune, and solicitor to appeal,
the matter was brought before the Court
of Appeal, which decided that the word
"ordinary" was equivalent to the word
"reasonable." Judgment for the defendant,
with costs. Mrs. Mabworthy, at the insti-
gation of the Devil, sold a reversion and
carried the matter to the House of Lords,
where it was laid down that " a Short Story
should be of such length as would be
found tolerable by any man of ordinary
firmness and courage." Judgment for the
defendant.
The next case is the case of
Gibson y. Gibson v. Acle, In this case, Mr. Phillip
Acle. Gibson, the well-known publisher, brought
an action for the recovery of a sum of
^3. ios., advanced to Miss Acle, of " The
Wolfcote," Croydon, in consideration of
her contracting to supply a short story,
with regard to the manuscript of which he
maintained, upon receiving it, that (i) it
was not a story, and (2) it was not techni-
cally " short," as it filled but eighteen lines
in the very large type known as grand
pica. Three very important points were
decided in this case ; for the Judge (Mr^
62 THE AFTERMATH
Justice Veale, brother of Lord Burpham)
maintained, with sturdy common sense,
that if a publisher bought a manuscript,
no matter what, so long as it did not offend
common morals or the public security of
the realm, he was bound to " print, com-
fort, cherish, defend, enforce, push, main-
tain, advertize, circulate, and make public
the same"; and he was supported in the
Court of Crown Cases Reserved in his
decision that :
First : the word ' short " was plainly the
more applicable the less lengthy were the
matter delivered : and
Secondly: the word "story" would hold
as a definition for any concoction of words
whatsoever, of which it could be proved
that it was built up of separate sentences,
such sentences each to consist of at least
one predicate and one verb, real or ima-
ginary.
Both these decisions are quite recent, and may be
regarded as the present state of the law on the matter.
Once the legal position of the author is grasped, it
is necessary to acquire the five simple rules which
govern the Short Story.
i st. It should, as a practical matter apart from
the law, contain some incident.
2nd. That incident should take place on the sea,
or in brackish, or at least tidal, waters.
THE SHORT STORY 63
3rd. The hero should be English-speaking, white
or black.
4th. His adventures should be horrible ; but no
kind of moral should be drawn from them, unless it be
desired to exalt the patriotism of the reader.
5th. Every short story should be divided by a
"Caesura": that is, it should break off sharp in the
middle, and you have then the choice of three distinct
courses :
(a.) To stop altogether as is often done by people
who die, and whose remains are published.
(b). To go on with a totally different subject.
This method is not to be commended to the beginner.
It is common to rich or popular writers ; and even
they have commonly the decency to put in asterisks.
(c). To go on with your story where it left off, as
I have done in the model which follows.
That model was constructed especially with the view
to guide the beginner. Its hero is a fellow subject,
white indeed, an Englishman. The scene is laid in
water, not perhaps salt, but at least brackish. The
adventure preys upon the mind. The moral is doubt-
ful : the Caesura marked and obvious. Moreover, it
begins in the middle, which (as I omitted to state
above) is the very hall-mark of the Vivid Manner.
THE ACCIDENT TO MR. THORPE.
WHEN Mr. Thorpe, drysalter, of St. Mary Axe, E.G.,
fell into the water, it was the opinion of those who
knew him best that he would be drowned. I say
44 those who knew him best " because, in the crowd
64 THE AFTERMATH
that immediately gathered upon the embankment,
there were present not a few of his friends. They
had been walking home together on this fine evening
along the river side, and now that Mr. Thorpe was in
such peril, not one could be got to do more than lean
upon the parapet shouting for the police, though they
should have known how useless was that body of men
in any other than its native element. Alas ! how
frail a thing is human friendship, and how terribly
does misfortune bring it to the test.
How had Mr. Thorpe fallen into the water ? I am
not surprised at your asking that question. It argues
a very observant, critical, and accurate mind ; a love
of truth ; a habit of weighing evidence ; and altogether
a robust, sturdy, practical, Anglo-Saxon kind of an
attitude, that does you credit. You will not take
things on hearsay, and there is no monkish credulity
about you. I congratulate you. You say (and rightly)
that Honest Merchants do not fall into the Thames
for nothing, the thing is unusual; you want (very
properly) to know how it happened, or, as you call it,
" occurred." I cannot tell you. I was not there at
the time. All I know is, that he did fall in, and that,
as matter of plain fact (and you are there to judge
fact, remember, not law), Mr. Thorpe was at 6.15 in
the evening of June yth, 1892, floundering about in
the water a little above Cleopatra's Needle; and
there are a cloud of witnesses.
It now behoves me to detail with great accuracy
the circumstances surrounding his immersion, the
degree of danger that he ran, and how he was saved.
THE SHORT STORY 65
In the first place, Mr. Thorpe fell in at the last of the
ebb, so that there was no tide to sweep him out to
sea ; in the second place, the depth of water at that
spot was exactly five feet two inches, so that he
could had he but known it have walked ashore
(for he was, of course, over six feet in height) ; in the
third place, the river has here a good gravelly bed, as
you ought to know, for the clay doesn't begin till you
get beyond Battersea Bridge and, by the way, this
gravel accounts for the otherwise inexplicable pheno-
menon of the little boys that will dive for pennies at
low tide opposite the shot tower ; in the fourth place,
the water, as one might have imagined at that season of
the year, was warm and comfortable ; in the fifth place,
there lay but a few yards from him a Police Pier,
crowded with lines, lifebuoys, boats, cork-jackets,
and what not, and decorated, as to its Main Room,
with a large placard entitled " First help to the
drowning," the same being illustrated with cuts,
showing a man of commonplace features fallen into
the hands of his religious opponents and undergoing
the torture. Therefore it is easy to see that he could
have either saved himself or have been saved by
others without difficulty. Indeed, for Mr. Thorpe to
have drowned, it would have been necessary for him
to have exercised the most determined self-control,
and to have thought out the most elaborate of suicidal
plans ; and, as a fact, he was within forty-three seconds
of his falling in pulled out again by a boat-hook, which
was passed through the back of his frock coat : and
that is a lesson in favour of keeping one's coat but-
F
66 THE AFTERMATH
toned up like a gentleman, and not letting it flap
open like an artist or an anarchist, or a fellow that
writes for the papers. But I digress. The point is,
that Mr. Thorpe was immediately saved, and there
(you might think) was an end of the matter. Indeed,
the thing seems to come to a conclusion of its own,
and to be a kind of epic, for it has a beginning where
Mr. Thorpe falls into the water (and, note you, the
beginning of all epics is, or should be, out of the
text) ; it has a middle or " action," where Mr. Thorpe
is floundering about like a sea monster, and an end,
where he is pulled out again. They are of larger
scope than this little story, and written in a pompous
manner, yet the Iliad, the ^Eneid, Abbo's Siege of
Paris, the Chanson de Roland, Orlando Furioso, Thalaba-
the Destroyer, and Mr. Davidson's shorter lyrics have
no better claim to be epics in their essentials than has
this relation of The Accident to Mr. Thorpe. So, then
(you say), that is the end ; thank you for the story ;
we are much obliged. If ever you have another
simple little story to tell, pray publish it at large,
and do not keep if for the exquisite delight of your
private circle. We thank you again a thousand
times. Good morrow.
Softly, softly. I beg that there may be no undue
haste or sharp conclusions ; there is something more
to come. Sit you down and listen patiently. Was
there ever an epic that was not continued ? Did not
the Rhapsodists of Cos piece together the Odyssey
after their successful Iliad ? Did not Dionysius Para-
celsus write a tail to the JEneid ? Was not the Chanson
THE SHORT STORY 67
de Roland followed by the Four Sons of Aymon ? Could
Southey have been content with Thalaba had he not
proceeded to write the adventures in America of
William ap Williams, or some other Welshman
whose name I forget ? Eh ? Well, in precisely the
same manner, I propose to add a second and com-
pleting narrative to this of Mr. Thorpe's accident ; so
let us have no grumbling.
And to understand what kind of thing followed his
fall into the water, I must explain to you that nothing
had ever happened to Mr. Thorpe before ; he had
never sailed a boat, never ridden a horse, never had a
fight, never written a book, never climbed a moun-
tain indeed, I might have set out in a long litany,
covering several pages, the startling, adventurous,
and dare-devil things that Mr. Thorpe had never
done ; and were I to space out my work so, I should
be well in the fashion, for does not the immortal
Kipling (who is paid by the line) repeat his own lines
half-a-dozen times over, and use in profusion the lines
of well-known ballads ? He does ; and so have I
therefore the right to space and stretch my work in
whatever fashion will spin out the space most fully;
and if I do not do so, it is because I am as eager as you
can possibly be to get to the end of this chronicle.
Well then, nothing had ever happened to Mr.
Thorpe before, and what was the result ? Why that
this aqueous adventure of his began to grow and
possess him as you and I are possessed by our more
important feats, by our different distant journeys, our
bold speculations, our meeting with grand acquain-
F 2
68 THE AFTERMATH
tances, our outwitting of the law ; and I am sorry to
say that Mr. Thorpe in a very short time began to lie
prodigiously. The symptoms of this perversion first
appeared a few days after the accident, at a lunch
which he attended (with the other directors of the
Marine Glue Company) in the City. The company
was in process of negotiating a very difficult piece
of business, that required all the attention of the
directors, and, as is usual under such circumstances,
they fell to telling amusing tales to one another.
One of them had just finished his story of how a
nephew of his narrowly escaped lynching at Lead-
ville, Colorado, when Mr. Thorpe, who had been
making ponderous jokes all the morning, was suddenly
observed to grow thoughtful, and (after first ascer-
taining with some care that there was no one present
who had seen him fall in) he astonished the company
by saying : "I cannot hear of such escapes from
death without awe. It was but the other day that I
was saved as by a miracle from drowning." Then
he added, after a little pause, " My whole life seemed
to pass before me in a moment."
Now this was not true. Mr. Thorpe's mind at the
moment he referred to had been wholly engrossed
by the peculiar sensation that follows the drinking of
a gallon of water suddenly when one is not in the least
thirsty; but he had already told the tale so often,
that he was fully persuaded of it, and, by this time,
believed that his excellent and uneventful life had
been presented to him as it is to the drowning people
in books.
THE SHORT STORY 69
His fall was rapid. He grew in some vague way
to associate his adventure with the perils of the sea.
Whenever he crossed the Channel he would draw
some fellow passenger into a conversation, and, having
cunningly led it on to the subject of shipwreck, would
describe the awful agony of battling with the waves,
and the outburst of relief on being saved. At first he
did not actually say that he had himself struggled in
the vast and shoreless seas of the world, but bit by bit
the last shreds of accuracy left him, and he took to
painting with minute detail in his conversations the
various scenes of his danger and salvation. Some-
times it was in the " steep water off the Banks;"
sometimes in " the glassy steaming seas and on the
feverish coast of the Bight ; " sometimes it was " a
point or two norr'ard of the Owers light " but it
was always terrible, graphic, and a lie.
This habit, as it became his" unique preoccupation,
cost him not a little. He lost his old friends who had
seen his slight adventure, and he wasted much time
in spinning these yarns, and much money in buying
books of derring-do and wild 'scapes at sea. He loved
those who believed his stories to be true, and shocked
the rare minds that seemed to catch in them a sus-
picion of exaggeration. He could not long frequent
the same society, and he strained his mind a little out
of shape by the perpetual necessity of creative effort.
None the less, I think that, on the whole, he gained.
It made him an artist : he saw great visions of
heaving waters at night ; he really had, in fancy,
faced death in a terrible form, and this gave him a
/O THE AFTERMATH
singular courage in his last moments. He said to
the doctor, with a slight calm smile, " Tell me the
worst ; I have been through things far more terri-
fying than this ; " and when he was offered consola-
tion by his weeping friends, he told them that " no
petty phrases of ritual devotion were needed to soothe
a man who had been face to face with Nature in her
wildest moods." So he died, comforted by his illu-
sion, and for some days after the funeral his sister
would hold him up to his only and favourite nephew
as an example of a high and strenuous life lived with
courage, and ended in heroic quiet. Then they all
went to hear the will read.
But the will was the greatest surprise of all. For
it opened with these words :
" Having some experience of the perils they suffer
that go down to the sea in ships, and of the blessed-
ness of unexpected relief and rescue, I, John Curtail
Thorpe, humbly and gratefully reminiscent of my
own wonderful and miraculous snatching from the
jaws of death . . ."
And it went on to leave the whole property (inclu-
ding the little place in Surrey), in all (after Sir
William Vernon Harcourt's death duties had been
paid) some ^69,337. 65. $d. to the Lifeboat Fund,
which badly needed it. Nor was there any modifying
codicil but one, whereby the sum of ^1000, free of
duty, was left to Sylvester Sarassin, a poetic and
long-haired young man, who had for years attended
to his tales with reverent attention, and who had,
indeed, drawn up, or " Englished " (as he called it),
the remarkable will of the testator.
THE SHORT STORY 7 1
Many other things that followed this, the law-suit,
the quarrel of the nephew with Sarassin, and so forth,
I would relate had I the space or you the patience.
But it grows late; the oil in the bulb is exhausted.
The stars, which (in the beautiful words of Theocritus)
"tremble and always follow the quiet wheels of the
night," warn me that it is morning. Farewell,
THE SHORT LYRIC.
THE SHORT LYRIC.
MANY Guides to Literature give no rules for the
manufacture of short lyrics, and nearly all of them
omit to furnish the student with an example of this
kind of composition.
The cause of this unfortunate neglect (as I deem
it) is not far to seek. Indeed in one Text Book
(Mrs. Railston's Book for Beginners. Patteson. 125. 6d.)
it is set down in so many words. " The Short Lyric,"
says Mrs. Railston in her preface, " is practically in-
nocent of pecuniary value. Its construction should
be regarded as a pastime rather than as serious exer-
cise ; and even for the purposes of recreation, its
fabrication is more suited to the leisure of a monied
old age than to the struggle of eager youth, or the
full energies of a strenuous manhood " (p. xxxiv.).
The judgment here pronounced is surely erroneous.
The short Lyric is indeed not very saleable (though
there are exceptions even to that rule the first Lord
Tennyson is said to have received 200 for The
Throstle) ; it is (I say) not very saleable, but it is of
great indirect value to the writer, especially in early
youth. A reputation can be based upon a book
of short lyrics which will in time procure for its
author Reviewing work upon several newspapers,
76 THE AFTERMATH
and sometimes, towards his fortieth year, the editor-
ship of a magazine ; later in life it will often lead to
a pension, to the command of an army corps, or even
to the governorship of a colony.
I feel, therefore, no hesitation in describing at some
length the full process of its production, or in pre-
senting to the student a careful plan of the difficulties
which will meet him at the outset.
To form a proper appreciation of these last, it is
necessary to grasp the fundamental fact that they all
proceed from the inability of busy editors and readers
to judge the quality of verse ; hence the rebuffs and
delays that so often overcast the glorious morning of
the Poetic Soul.
At the risk of some tedium for the full story is of
considerable length I will show what is their nature
and effect, in the shape of a relation of what happened
to Mr. Peter Gurney some years ago, before he
became famous.
Mr. Peter Gurney (I may say it without boasting)
is one of my most intimate friends. He is, perhaps,
the most brilliant of that brilliant group of young
poets which includes Mr. John Stewart, Mr. Henry
Hawk, &c., and which is known as the " Cobbley
school," from the fact that their historic meeting-
ground was the house of Mr. Thomas Cobbley, him-
self no mean poet, but especially a creative, seminal
critic, and uncle of Mr. Gurney. But to my example
and lesson :
Mr. Gurney was living in those days in Blooms-
bury, and was occupied in reading for the bar.
THE SHORT LYRIC 77
He was by nature slothful and unready, as is in-
deed the sad habit of literary genius ; he rose late,
slept long, eat heartily, drank deeply, read news-
papers, began things he never finished, and wrote the
ending of things whose beginnings he never accom-
plished ; in a word, he was in every respect the man
of letters. He looked back continually at the stuff he
had written quite a short time before, and it always
made him hesitate in his opinion of what he was
actually engaged in. It was but six months before
the events herein set down that he had written
" The keep of the unconquerable mind"
only to discover that it was clap-trap and stolen from
Wordsworth at that. How, then, could he dare send
off the sonnet
" If all intent of unsubstantial art "
and perhaps get it printed in the Nineteenth Century
or the North American Review, when (for all he knew)
it might really be very poor verse indeed ?
These two things, then, his sloth and his hesitation
in criticism, prevented Peter from sending out as
much as he should have done. But one fine day of
last summer, a kind of music passed into him from
universal nature, and he sat down and wrote these
remarkable lines :
" He 5s not dead ; the leaders do not die,
But rather, lapt in immemorial ease
Of merit consummate, they passing, stand ;
And rapt from rude reality, remain ;
And in the flux and eddy of time, are still.
Therefore I call it consecrated sand
Wherein they left their prints, nor overgrieve ;
An heir of English earth let English earth receive."
78 THE AFTERMATH
He had heard that Culture of Boston, Mass., U.S.A.,
paid more for verse than any other review, so he sent
it off to that address, accompanied by a very earnest
little letter, calling the gem " Immortality," and
waiting for the answer.
The editor of Culture is a businesslike man, who
reads his English mail on the quay at New York, and
takes stamped envelopes and rejection forms down
with him to the steamers.
He looked up Peter's name in the Red Book, Who's
Who, Burke, the Court Guide, and what not, and finding
it absent from all these, he took it for granted that
there was no necessity for any special courtesies ;
Peter therefore, fifteen days after sending off his
poem, received an envelope whose stamp illustrated
the conquest of the Philippines by an Armed Liberty,
while in the top left-hand corner were printed these
simple words : " If not delivered within three days,
please return to Box 257, Boston, Mass., U.S.A."
He was very pleased to get this letter. It was the
first reply he had ever got from an editor, and he
took it up unopened to the Holborn, to read it during
lunch. But there was very little to read. The original
verse had folded round it a nice half-sheet of cream-
laid notepaper, with a gold fleur de Us in the corner,
and underneath the motto, "Devoir Fera"; then, in
the middle of the sheet, three or four lines of fine
copperplate engraving, printed also in gold, and run-
ning as follows :
" The editor of Culture regrets that he is unable
to accept the enclosed contribution; it must not be
THE SHORT LYRIC 79
imagined that any adverse criticism or suggestion is
thereby passed upon the work ; pressure of space, the
previous acceptation of similar matter, and other causes
having necessarily to be considered."
Peter was so much encouraged by this, that he
sent his verses at once to Mr. McGregor, changing,
however, the word "rude" in the fourth line to
" rough," and adding a comma after " rapt," points
insignificant in themselves perhaps, but indicative of
a critic's ear, and certain (as he thought) to catch the
approval of the distinguished scholar. In twenty-four
hours he got his reply in the shape of an affectionate
letter, enclosing his MSS. :
" My dear Peter,
" No ; I should be doing an injustice to my readers
if I were to print your verse in the Doctrinaire ; but
you must not be discouraged by this action on my
part. You are still very young, and no one who has
followed (as you may be sure I have) your brilliant
career at the University can doubt your ultimate
success in whatever profession you undertake. But
the path of letters is a stony one, and the level of
general utility in such work is only reached by the
most arduous efforts. 1 saw your Aunt Phoebe the
other day, and she was warm in your praises. She told
me you were thinking of becoming an architect; I
sincerely hope you will, for I believe you have every
aptitude for that profession. Plod on steadily and I
will go warrant for your writing verse with the best
of them. It is inevitable, my dear Peter, that one's
early verse should be imitative and weak; but you
have the 'inner voice,' do but follow the gleam and
never allow your first enthusiasms to grow dim.
" Always your Father's Old Friend,
"ARCHIBALD WELLINGTON MCGREGOR."
Peter was a little pained by this ; but he answered
it very politely, inviting himself to lunch on the
8o THE AFTERMATH
following Thursday, and then, turning to his verses,
he gave the title "Dead," and sent them to the
Patriot, from whom he got no reply for a month.
He then wrote to the editor of the Patriot on a
postcard, and said that, in view of the present de-
plorable reaction in politics, he feared the verses, if
they were held over much longer, would lose their
point. Would the Patriot be so kind, then, as to let
him know what they proposed to do with the Poem ?
He got a reply the same evening :
" Telephone 239. " 36A, Clare Market,
" Telegraph, ' Tinder.' " W.C.
"Dr. Sir,
"Tour estd. favor to hand. No stamp being en-
closed with verses, we have retained same, but will
forward on receipt of two stamps, including cost of
this.
" Faithfully yrs.,
"ALPHONSE RlFHKAIM.
" Please note change of address."
By this Peter Gurney was so angered, that he
walked straight over to his club, rang up No. 239,
and told the editor of the Patriot, personally, by word
of mouth, and with emphasis, that he was a Pro-Boer ;
then he rang off before that astonished foreigner had
time to reply.
But men of Mr. Peter Gurney's stamp are not
cast down by these reverses. He remembered one
rather low and insignificant sheet called the Empire,
in which a vast number of unknown names had been
appearing at the bottom of ballads, sonnets, and so
forth, dealing mainly with the foreign policy of Great
THE SHORT LYRIC 8 1
Britain, to which country (as being their native land)
the writers were apparently warmly attached.
Peter Gurney flattered himself that he understood
why the Empire made a speciality of beginners. It
was a new paper with little capital, and thought
(wisely enough) that if it printed many such juvenilia
it would, among the lot, strike some vein of good
verse. He had heard of such ventures in journalism,
and remembered being told that certain sonnets of
Mr. Lewis Morris, and even the earlier poems of
Tennyson, were thus buried away in old magazines.
He copied out his verses once more, gave them the
new title " Aspiro," and sent them to the Empire.
He got a very polite letter in reply :
" Dear Mr. I have read your verses with much
pleasure, and see by them that the praise I have heard
on all sides of your unpublished work was not un-
merited. Unfortunately, the Empire cannot afford to
pay anything for its verse ; and so large has been the
demand upon our space, that we have been compelled
to make it a rule that all contributions of this nature
should pay a slight premium to obtain a space in
our columns. But for this it would be impossible to
distinguish between competitors without the risk of
heartburnings and petty jealousies. We enclose our
scale of charges, which ai-e (as you see) purely nominal,
and remain, awaiting your order to print,
" Yours truly,
" WILLIAM POWEE."
I need hardly tell you that Peter, on receiving this
letter, put two farthings into an envelope addressed
to William Power, and was careful not to register or
stamp it.
As for his Poem, he changed the title to " They
G
82 THE AFTERMATH
Live ! " and sent it to the editor of Criticism. Next
day he was not a little astonished to get his verses
back, folded up in the following waggish letter :
" The Laurels,
"20, Poplar Grove,
" S.W.
" Monday, the 21st of April.
" Sir,
" I am directed by the editor
To say that lack of space and press of matter
Forbid his using your delightful verses,
Which, therefore, he returns. Believe me still
Very sincerely yours, Nathaniel Pickersgill."
Now not a little disconsolate, young Mr. Gurney
went out into the street, and thought of Shavings as a
last chance. Shavings gave a guinea to the best poem
on a given subject, and printed some of the others sent
in. This week he remembered the subject was a eulogy
of General Whitelock. He did not hesitate, therefore,
to recast his poem, and to call it a "Threnody" on
that commander, neglecting, by a poetic fiction, the
fact that he was alive, and even looking well after his
eight months of hard work against the Warra-Muggas.
He went into the great buildings where Shavings is
edited, and saw a young man opening with immense ra-
pidity a hand-barrowful of letters, while a second sorted
them with the speed of lightning, and a third tied them
into neat bundles of five hundred each, and placed them
in pigeon-holes under their respective initial letters.
" Pray, sir," said Peter to the first of these three
men, " what are you doing ? " "I am," replied the
functionary, " just finishing my week's work " (for it
was a Saturday morning), " and in the course of these
THE SHORT LYRIC 83
four hours alone I am proud to say that I have opened
no less than seven thousand three hundred and two
poems on our great Leader, some of which, indeed,
have been drawn from the principal English poets,
but the greater part of which are, I am glad to say,
original."
Embittered by such an experience, my friend
Gurney returned to his home, and wrote that same
afternoon the Satire on Modern Literature, in which
he introduces his own verses as an example and
warning, and on which, as all the world knows, his
present fame reposes.
To-day everyone who reads these lines is envious
of Mr. Peter Gurney's fame. He is the leader of the
whole Cobbley school, the master of his own cousin,
Mr. Peter Davey, and without question the model
upon which Mr. Henry Hawk, Mr. Daniel Witton,
and Mr. John Stuart have framed their poetic manner.
He suffered and was strong. He condescended to
prose, and kept his verse in reserve. The result no
poet can ignore.
I should but mislead the student were I to pretend
that Mr. Peter Gurney achieved his present reputa-
tion a reputation perhaps somewhat exaggerated,
but based upon real merit and industry by any
spontaneous effort. Hard, regular, unflinching labour
in this, as in every other profession, is the condition
of success. But the beginner may say (and with
justice), " It is not enough to tell me to work ; how
should I set about it ? What rules should I follow ? "
Let me pursue my invariable custom, and set down
G 2
84 THE AFTERMATH
in the simplest and most methodical form the elements
of the Short Lyric.
The student will, at some time or another, have
suffered strong emotions. He will have desired to
give them metrical form. He will have done so and
commonly he will have gone no further. I have
before as I write a verse, the opening of one of the
most unsuccessful poems ever written. It runs :
" I am not as my fathers were,
I cannot pass from sleep to sleep,
Or live content to drink the deep
Contentment of the common air."
This is very bad. It is bad because it proceeded
from a deep emotion only, and shot out untrammelled.
It has no connection with verse as an art, and yet
that art lies open for any young man who will be
patient and humble, and who will learn.
His first business is to decide at once between the
only two styles possible in manufactured verse, the
Obscure and the Prattling. I say " the only two
styles" because I don't think you can tackle the
Grandiose, and I am quite certain you couldn't man-
age the Satiric. I know a young man in Red Lion
Square who can do the Grandiose very well, and I
am going to boom him when I think the time has
come ; but the Student-in-Ordinary cannot do it, so
he may put it out of his head.
I will take the Simple or Prattling style first.
Choose a subject from out of doors, first because it is
the fashion, and secondly because you can go and
observe it closely. For you must know that manu-
factured verse is very like drawing, and in both arts
THE SHORT LYRIC 85
you have to take a model and be careful of details.
Let us take (e.g.) a Pimpernel.
A Pimpernel is quite easy to write about ; it has
remarkable habits, it is not gross or common. It
would be much harder to write about grass, for
instance, or parsley.
First you write down anything that occurs to you,
like this :
"Pretty little Pimpernel,
May I learn to love you well ? "
You continue on the style of " Twinkle, twinkle."
" Hiding in the mossy shade,
Like a lamp of \J made,
Or a gem by fairies dropt
In their . . "
and there you stick, just as you had got into the style
of the " L' Allegro." I have no space or leisure to
give the student the full treatment of so great a sub-
ject, how he would drag in the closing and opening
of the flower, and how (skilfully avoiding the word
" dell ") he would end his ten or fifteen lines by a
repetition of the first (an essential feature of the
Prattling style). I will confine myself to showing
him what may be made of these ridiculous six lines.
The first has an obvious fault. It runs too quickly,
and one falls all over it. We will keep " Little " and
put it first, so one might write " Little Purple Pim-
pernel." But even that won't do, though the allite-
ration is well enough. What change can we make ?
It is at this point that I must introduce you to a
most perfect principle. It is called the Mutation of
Adjectives it is almost the whole art of Occ. verse.
86 THE AFTERMATH
This principle consists in pulling out one's first obvious
adjective, and replacing it by another of similar length,
chosen because it is peculiar. You must not put in an
adjective that could not possibly apply ; for instance,
you must not speak of the " Ponderous Rabbit " or
the " Murky Beasts;" your adjective must be appli-
cable, but it must be startling, as " The Tolerant
Cow," " The Stammering Minister," or " The Greasy
Hill " all quite true and most unexpected.
Now, here it is evident that Purple is common-
place. What else can we find about the Pimpernel
that is quite true and yet really startling ? Let us
(for instance) call it "tasteless." There you have
it, " Little tasteless Pimpernel " no one could read
that too quickly, and it shows at the same time great
knowledge of nature.
I will not weary you with every detail of the pro-
cess, but I will write down my result after all the
rules have been properly attended to. Read this, and
see whether the lines do not fit with my canons of
art, especially in what is called the "choice of
words : "
" Little tasteless Pimpernel,
Shepherd's Holt and warning spell
Crouching in the cushat shade
Like a mond of mowry made. . . ."
and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem.
Nearly all the words are curious and well chosen, and
yet the metre trips along like a railway carriage. The
simplicity lies in the method ; the quaint diction is
quarried from Mr. Skeats' excellent book on etymo-
logy; but I need not point out any particular work, as
THE SHORT LYRIC 87
your "Thesaurus" in this matter is for your own
choosing.
So much for the Prattling style.
As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is
getting overdone, and I would not depend too much
upon it.
In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gen-
tlemen and ladies who suffered from an imperfect
education, and wrote as they felt, without stopping
to think.
But that first holy rapture cannot be recovered.
We must work by rule. The rules attaching to this
kind of work are six :
(1) Put the verb in the wrong place (some leave it
out altogether) ;
(2) Use words that may be either verbs or nouns
plurals are very useful ;
(3) Punctuate insufficiently ;
(4) Make a special use of phrases that have two or
three meanings ;
(5) Leave out relatives ;
(6) Have whole sentences in apposition.
Some of our young poets have imagined that the
mere use of strange words made up the Obscure style.
I need not say that they were wrong. Thus, the
lines
11 And shall I never tread them more,
My murrant balks of wealden lathes ? "
are singularly bad. Anyone could be obscure in so
simple a fashion. It behoves the student rather to
read carefully such lines as the following, in which I
88 THE AFTERMATH
have again tackled the Pimpernel, this time in the
Obscure manner.
I begin with " What Pimpernels," which might
mean "What! Pimpernels?" or, " What Pimper-
nels?" or again, "What Pimpernels/"] expressing
surprise, or a question, or astonished admiration : but
do you think I am going to give the show away by
telling the reader what I mean ? Not a bit of it.
There is something in our island temper which loves
mystery : something of the North. I flatter myself I
can do it thoroughly :
" What Pimpernels ; a rare indulgence blesses
The winter wasting in imperfect suns
And Pimpernels are in the waning, runs
A hand unknown the careless winter dresses,
Not for your largess to the ruined fells,
Her floors in waste, I call you, Pimpernels."
There ! I think that will do very fairly well. One
can make sense out of it, and it is broad and full, like
a modern religion ; it has many aspects, and it makes
men think. There is not one unusual word, and the
second line is a clear and perfect bit of English. Yet
how deep and solemn and thorough is the whole !
And yet, for all my ability in these matters, I may
not offer an example for the reader to follow. I am
conscious of something more powerful (within this
strict channel), and I am haunted reproachfully by a
great soul. May I quote what none but She could
have written ? It is the most perfect thing that
modern England knows. Every lesson I might pain-
fully convey there stands manifest, of itself, part of
the Created Thing.
THE YELLOW MUSTARD.
OH ! ye that prink it to and fro,
In pointed flounce and furbelow,
What have ye known, what can ye know
That have not seen the mustard grow ?
The yellow mustard is no less
Than God's good gift to loneliness ;
And he was sent in gorgeous press,
To jangle keys at my distress.
I heard the throstle call again
Come hither, Pain ! come hither, Pain !
Till all my shameless feet were fain
To wander through the summer rain.
And far apart from human place,
And flaming like a vast disgrace,
There struck me blinding in the face
The livery of the mustard race.
To see the yellow mustard grow
Beyond the town, above, below ;
Beyond the purple houses, oh !
To see the yellow mustard grow !
THE INTERVIEW.
THE INTERVIEW.
IT is now some years ago since I was sitting in
Mr. Caliban's study, writing in his name upon the
Balance of Power in Europe. I had just completed
my article, and passed it to him to sign, when I
noticed that he was too much absorbed in a book
which he was reading to pay attention to my gesture.
Men of his stamp enforce courtesy in others by
their mere presence. It would have been impossible
to have disturbed him. I turned to a somewhat more
lengthy composition, which was also to appear above
his signature, entitled, "The Effect of Greek Philo-
sophy upon European Thought." When I had com-
pleted my analysis of this profound historical influence,
I thought that my master and guide would have freed
himself from the net of the author who thus entranced
him. I was mistaken. I had, however, but just begun
a third article, of which the subject escapes me, when
he turned to me and said, closing the book between
his hands :
" Will you go and interview someone for me ? "
I fear my sudden change of expression betrayed
the fact that the idea was repugnant to one familiar
rather with foreign politics and with the Classics than
with the reporters' side of the paper.
94 THE AFTERMATH
Mr. Caliban looked at my collar with his kindly
eyes, and kept them fixed upon it for some seconds.
He then smiled (if such a man could be said to smile)
and continued :
" I want to tell you something . . ."
There was profound silence for a little while, during
which a number of thoughts passed through my mind.
I remembered that Dr. Caliban was Editor at that
moment of the Sunday Herald. I remembered that I
was his right hand, and that without me the enor-
mous labour he weekly undertook could never have
been accomplished without trespassing upon the
sanctity of the Sabbath. After a little hesitation, he
pulled down his waistcoat, hitched his trousers at the
knees, crossed his legs, made a half-turn towards me
(for his study-chair was mounted upon a swivel), and
said:
" It's like this : . . ."
I assured him that I would do what he wished, for
I knew, whenever he spoke in this tone, that there
was something to be done for England.
" It's like this," he went on, " I have found a man
here who should count, who should tell. It is a fearful
thought that such a mind can have remained so long
hidden. Here is a man with something in him
quite peculiar and apart and he is unknown ! It
is England through and through, and the best of
England ; it is more than that. Even where I dis-
agree with him, I find something like a living voice.
He gets right at one, as it were . . . yet I never
heard his'name ! "
THE INTERVIEW 95
Here Mr. Caliban, having stopped for a moment,
as though seeking something in his memory, declaimed
in a rich monotone :
" Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear :
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
There was a little silence. Then he said abruptly :
" Do you know Wordsworth's definition of a poet ?
Take it down. I should like you to use it."
I pulled out my note-book and wrote in shorthand
from his dictation a sublime phrase, which was new
to me : "A Poet is a MAN speaking to MEN."
" This man," said Dr. Caliban simply, " is a man
speaking to men."
He put the book into my hands ; two or three of
the leaves were turned down, and on each page so
marked was a passage scored in pencil. The lines
would have arrested my eye even, had a greater mind
than my own not selected them.
"A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."
" Tied wrist to bar for their red iniquitee."
"To do butcher work " (he is speaking of war) "yer
don't want genlemen, 'cept to lead"
tl I got the gun-barrels red-Jwt and fetched the whipcord
out of the cupboard, while the other man held the screaming,
writhing thing down upon the floor"
" Under whose (speaking of God) awful hand we hold
dominion over palm and pine."
I have no space to quote a longer passage of verse,
evidently intended to be sung to a banjo, and de-
96 THE AFTERMATH
scribing the emotions of the author in a fit of delirium
tremens when he suffered from the hallucination that
a red-hot brass monkey was himself attempting song.
The poet showed no jealousy of the animal. There
was the full, hearty Anglo-Saxon friendship for a
comrade and even for a rival, and I met the same
tone again on a further page in the line :
" You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din."
I looked up at Mr. Caliban and said :
"Well?": for these short phrases are often the
most emphatic.
" Well," said Dr. Caliban, " that man must not be
allowed to go under. He must be made, and we
must make him."
I said that such a man could not fail to pierce
through and conquer. He seemed the very salt and
marrow of all that has made us great.
Dr. Caliban laid his hand in a fatherly way upon
my shoulder and said :
" You are still young ; you do not know how long
fame may take to find a man, if the way is not
pointed out to her ; and if she takes too long, some-
times he dies of a broken heart."
It was a noble thought in one who had known
Fame almost from the very day when, as a lad of
22 years old, he had stood up in the chapel at Barking
Level and answered the preacher with the words,
" Lord, here am I."
Dr. Caliban continued in a few simple words to
convince me that my foolish pride alone stood between
this young genius and the fame he deserved. He
THE INTERVIEW 97
pointed out what a weight would lie upon my mind
were that poet some day to become famous, and to be
able to say when I presented myself at his receptions :
" Get ye hence : I know ye not ! "
He added the awful words that death might find us
at any moment, and that then we should have to
answer, not for our reasons or our motives, but for
the things we have done, and for the things we have
left undone. He added that he would regard a visit
to this new writer as overtime work, and that he was
ready to pay my expenses, including cab fares to and
from the station. He ended with an appeal which
would have convinced one less ready to yield : a
magnificent picture of the Empire and of the Voice
for which it had waited so long.
It seems unworthy, after the relation of this inti-
mate domestic scene, to add any words of exhortation
to the reader and student.
I will not pretend that the interview is a form of
true literature. If I have been guilty of too great a
confidence, my excess has proceeded from an earnest
desire to watch over others of my kind, and to warn
them lest by one chance refusal they should destroy
the opportunities of a lifetime.
To interview another, even a rival, is sometimes
necessary at the outset of a career. It is an expe-
rience that need not be repeated. It is one that no
earnest student of human nature will regret.
The powerful emotions aroused by the reminiscence
of Dr. Caliban's eloquence, and of the meeting to
H
which it led, must not be desecrated by too lengthy
an insistance upon the mere technique of a subsidiary
branch of modern letters. I will state very briefly
my conclusions as to what is indispensable in the
regulation of this kind of literature.
It is, in the first place, of some moment that the
young interviewer should take his hat and gloves with
him in his left hand into the room. If he carries an
umbrella or cane, this also should be carried in the same
hand, leaving the right hand completely free. Its
readiness for every purpose is the mark of a gentle-
man, and the maintenance of that rank is absolutely
necessary to the sans gene which should accompany a
true interview.
In the second place, let him, the moment he
appears, explain briefly the object of his visit. With-
out any such introduction as " The fact is . . ."
" It is very odd, but . . .", let him say plainly
and simply, like an Englishman, " I have been sent
to interview you on the part of such and such a
paper."
He will then be handed (in the majority of cases) a
short type-written statement, which he will take into
his right hand, pass into his left, in among the gloves,
stick, hat, &c., and will bow, not from the shoulders,
nor from the hips, but subtly from the central ver-
tebrae.
In the third place he will go out of the room.
There are two exceptions to this general procedure.
The first is with men quite unknown ; the second
with men of high birth or great wealth.
THE INTERVIEW 99
In the first case, the hat and gloves should be laid
upon a table and the stick leaning against it in such
a way as not to fall down awkwardly in the middle of
a conversation. The student will then begin to talk
in a genial manner loudly, and will continue for about
half-an-hour ; he will end by looking at his watch,
and will go away and write down what he feels
inclined.
In the second case, he will do exactly the same,
but with a different result, for in the first case he will
very probably become the friend of the person inter-
viewed, which would have happened anyhow, and in
the second case he will be forbidden the house, a
result equally inevitable.
I cannot conclude these remarks without exhorting
the young writer most earnestly, when he is entering
upon the first of these distressing experiences, to place
a firm trust in Divine Providence, and to remember
that, come what may, he has done his duty.
If he should have any further hesitation as to the
general manner in which an interview should be
written, he has but to read what follows. It consti-
tutes the interview which I held with that young
genius whom Mr. Caliban persuaded me to visit, and
of whose fame I shall therefore always feel myself a
part.
M 2
IOO THE AFTERMATH
INTERVIEW
WITH HIM.
(Written specially for the Sunday Englishman, by the Rev. JAMES
CALIBAN, D.D.) *
"By the peace among the peoples, men shall know ye serve the
Lord." DEUTERONOMY xvi. 7.
. . . Leaping into a well-appointed cab, I was
soon whirled to a terminus which shall be nameless,
not a hundred miles from Brandon Street, and had
the good luck to swing myself into the guard's van
just as the train was steaming out from the platform.
I plunged at once in medias res, and some two hours
later alit in the sunny and growing residential town
of Worthing. I hailed a vehicle which plied for hire,
and begged the driver to conduct me to 29, Darbhai
Road, "if indeed," to quote my own words to the
Jehu, " if indeed it be worth a drive. I understand it
is close upon a mile."
" Yes, sir," replied the honest fellow, " You will
find, sir, that it is quite a mile, sir. Indeed, sir, we
call it a little over a mile, sir."
I was soon whirled, as fast as the type of carriage
permitted, to Laburnum Lodge, Darbhai Road,
where a neat-handed Phyllis smilingly opened the
door for me, and took my card up to her master,
bidding me be seated awhile in the hall. I had the
leisure to notice that it was lit by two stained glass
* I reproduce the title in its original form. I was only too
pleased to know that my work would appear above his signature ;
nor do I see anything reprehensible in what is now a recognized
custom among journalists.
THE INTERVIEW IOI
panels above the entrance, representing Alfred the
Great and Queen Victoria. In a few minutes the
servant returned with the message that her master
would be down in a moment, and begged me to enter
his parlour until he could attend me, as he was just
then in his study, looking out of window at a cricket
match in an adjoining field.
I found myself in a richly-furnished room, sur-
rounded by curious relics of travel, and I was delighted
to notice the little characteristic touches that marked
the personal tastes of my host. Several skulls adorned
the walls, and I observed that any natural emotion
they might cause was heightened by a few tasteful
lines such as actors paint upon their faces. Thus
one appeared to grin beyond the ordinary, another
was fitted with false eyes, and all had that peculiar
subtle expression upon which genius loves to repose
in its moments of leisure. I had barely time to mark
a few more notable matters in my surroundings,
when I was aware that I was in the presence of my
host.
" No," or " Yes," said the great man, smiling
through his spectacles and puffing a cloud of smoke
towards me in a genial fashion, " I do not in the
least mind telling you how it is done. I do not
think," he added drily, " that any other fellows will
pull quite the same chock-a-block haul, even if I do
give them the fall of the halyard. You must excuse
these technical terms ; I make it a point to speak as
I write I think it is more natural."
I said I should be delighted to excuse him,
IO2 THE AFTERMATH
" I hope you will also excuse," he continued, " my
throwing myself into my favourite attitude."
I said that, on the contrary, I had long wished to
see it.
With a sigh of relief he thrust those creative hands
of his into his trouser pockets, slightly stooped his
shoulders, and appeared to my delight exactly as he
does in the photograph he handed me for publication.
" To show you how it is done, I cannot begin
better than by a little example," he said.
He went to a neighbouring table, rummaged about
in a pile of the Outlook and Vanity Fair, and produced
a scrap of paper upon which there was a type-written
poem. His hands trembled with pleasure, but he
controlled himself well (for he is a strong, silent kind
of man), and continued :
" I will not weary you with the whole of this
Work. I am sure you must already be familiar with
it. In the Volunteer camp where I was recently
staying, and where I slept under canvas like anybody
else, the officers knew it by heart, and used to sing it
to a tune of my own composition (for you must know
that I write these little things to airs of my own).
I will only read you the last verse, which, as is usual
in my lyrics, contains the pith of the whole matter."
Then in a deep voice he intoned the following,
with a slightly nasal accent which lent it a peculiarly
individual flavour :
" I'm sorry for Mister Naboth ;
I'm sorry to make him squeak ;
But the Lawd above me made me strawng
In order to pummel the weak."
THE INTERVIEW 1 03
" That chorus, which applies to one of the most
important problems of the Empire, contains nearly
all the points that illustrate ' How it is Done. 1 In
the first place, note the conception of the Law. It
has been my effort to imprint this idea of the Law
upon the mind of the English-speaking world a
phrase, by the way, far preferable to that of Anglo-
Saxon, which I take this opportunity of publicly
repudiating. You may, perhaps, have noticed that
my idea of the Law is the strongest thing in modern
England. ' Do this because I tell you, or it will be
the worse for you,' is all we know, and all we need
to know. For so, it seems to me, Heaven " (here he
reverently raised the plain billy-cock hat which he is
in the habit of wearing in his drawing-room) " governs
the world, and we who are Heaven's lieutenants can
only follow upon the same lines. I will not insist
upon the extent to which the religious training I
enjoyed in early youth helped to cast me in that
great mould. You have probably noticed its effect in
all my work."
I said I had.
"Weil, then, first and foremost, I have in this
typical instance brought out my philosophy of the
Law. In my private conversation I call this ' following
the gleam.' "
" Now for the adventitious methods by which I
enhance the value of my work. Consider the lilt.
Lilt ' is the ' Turn ti ti turn ti turn ' effect which you
may have felt in my best verse."
I assured him I had indeed felt it.
IO4 THE AFTERMATH
11 Lilt," he continued, " is the hardest thing of all
to acquire. Thousands attempt it, and hundreds
fail. I have it (though I say it who should not) to
perfection. It is the quality you will discover in
the old ballads, but there it is often marred by curious
accidents which I can never properly explain. Their
metre is often very irregular, and I fancy that their
style (which my Work closely resembles) has suffered
by continual copying. No : where you get the true
' Lilt ' is in the music halls I am sorry it is so often
wasted upon impertinent themes. Do you know ' It
is all very fine and large,' or ' At my time of life,' or
again, ' Now we shan't be long '? "
I answered I had them all three by heart.
" I shouldn't say they were worth that" he answered,
as a shade of disappointment appeared upon his
delicate, mobile features, " but there is a place where
you get it to perfection, and that is Macaulay's Lays of
Ancient Rome. They are my favourite reading. But
that is another story."
" To turn to quite a different point, the Vernacular.
It isn't everything that will go down in ordinary
English. Of course I do use ordinary English at
least, Bible English, in my best work. For instance,
there is a little thing called " In the Confessional,"
which I propose to read to you later, and which has
no slang nor swear-words from beginning to end."
" But, of course, that is quite an exception. Most
things won't stand anything but dialect, and I just
give you this tip gratis. You can make anything
individual and strong by odd spelling. It arrests the
THE INTERVIEW 1 05
attention, and you haven't got to pick your words.
Did you ever read a beautiful work called Colorado
Bill ; or, From Cowboy to President ? Well, I can
assure you that when it was in English, before being
turned into dialect, it was quite ordinary-like."
" But that ain't all. One has now and then to
strike a deeper note, and striking a deeper note is so
simple, that I wonder it has not occurred to others of
our poets. You have got to imagine yourself in a
church, and you must read over your manuscript to
yourself in that kind of hollow voice you know what
I mean."
I swore that I did.
" Now, you see why one puts 'ye' for 'you,' and
' ye be ' for ' you are,' and mentions the Law in so
many words. It is not very difficult to do, and when
one does succeed, one gets what I call Ai copper-
bottomed poetry."
He went to a corner of the room, opened a large,
scented, velvet-bound book upon a brass reading-
desk, looked at me severely, coughed, twice, and
began as follows :
" I am about to read you ' In the Confessional.'
The greatest critic of the century has called this the
greatest poem of the century. I begin at the third
verse, and the seventeenth line:
" Lest he forget the great ally
In heaven yclept hypocrisy,
So help me Bawb ! I'll mark him yet-
Lest he forget ! Lest he forget ! "
IO6 THE AFTERMATH
He closed the book with becoming reverence.
And there was a silence, during which the grand
words went on running in my head as their author
had meant them to do. " Lest he forget ! Lest he
forget ! " Ah, may heaven preserve its darling poet,
and never let him fall from the height of that great
message.
" Well," said he, genially, anticipating my applause,
" Good-bye. But before you go please let me beg
you to tell the public that I lately wrote something
for the Times a great deal better than anything else I
have ever written. Nobody seems to read the Times,"
he continued, in a tone of slight petulance, " and I
have not seen it quoted anywhere. I wonder if it is
properly known ? Please tell people that that little
note about ' copyright ' is only for fun. A nyone may
use it who likes I had a paragraph put in the papers
to say so. It's like this " He then added a few
conventional words of God-speed, and I left him. I
have never seen him since.
And yet . . . and yet . . .
The student will now pardon me, I trust, if I go
somewhat more deeply into things than is customary
in text books of this class. That little conquest over
pride, that little task honestly performed, earned me
something I shall value for ever, something that will
be handed down in our family " even unto the third
and the fourth generation" (Habb. vii. 13). It is
something that means far, far more to me than a
mere acquaintance with an author could possibly
have done. For who can gauge so volatile a thing
THE INTERVIEW IO7
as friendship ? Who could with certitude have
pointed me out and said, " There goes His friend" ?
The Written Thing remained.
In my room, nay, just above me as I write, hangs
framed the following note in pencil.
"Awfully glad to see the stuff in the 'Herald,*
but say are you old Caliban ? That was rather stiff
on a jack high ? Wasn't it ? Never mind. You
didn't ask me for my auto, but I send it herewith
right along, for I like you."
There is the Man Alone as He IS . . . It
seems of small moment, but there is something
more. Framed in dark oak and gold very sump-
tuously, and hanging quite apart, is the little shred
of paper which He enclosed. Shall I whisper what
is written upon it ? . . . ? ... The first few
jotted notes of the glorious song which rang through
the Empire like a bugle-call, and hurled it at Nica-
ragua.
Hark and attend my Chosen : Te have heard me *femc*n a
* j prevention beat*
ye People ^ith a capital t
Out of the East,
with an introduction ?
I came and the nations trembled : I bore the Mark nt %*"' .T^/^
glory about me ?
of the Beast,
And I made ye a hundred books yea ! even an Oodt
hundred and one
Of all the labours of men that labour tinder the
sun.
IO8 THE AFTERMATH
Second " yea"{ j^ft j ^a me a b O ut with Terrors : Tea! T
Unit iay* " d. ,-, .,-. , , *
ittt.'- covered my paths with dread,
And the women-folk were astonied at the horrible
things I said;
And the men of the Island Race were some of
them wotmdily bored,
But the greater part of them paid me well : and
I praised the Lord.
And when as the spirit was full I sniggered
and lapped and swore
Diet tayi " Dayt As ever did men bef oi - e me, men of the days of
of Yore " ii com-
monptace. Tore?
Gore ? Lore J (f)
f r?^oci,/o-:wT 1 en-a8 the spirit was full But when it was
I: tee Emily alto , , r
about it. rare and low
I copied the Psalms at random ; and lo ! it was
even so ! _
(Fill in here : asJe BIHBB)
Publisher
Then up and arose the Daughter-Nations : Up and
arose
r* 7 '*oi 1 '* tt 1 ^ ear l ess men reciting me fearlessly through the
?i."jfew. nose,
piagiatumt Some of them Presbyterian, and some of them
Jews, and some
frivolout. Of the Latter-Day Church, King Solomon's sect
Cha *9 e - which is awfully rum.
(Stuck.)
. . . the lot of it . . . Anglo-Saxons . . . shout it
aloud
... at it again ? . . . back the crowd ?
(Fill in. Mem. must be consecutive)
Things are not aa they were (common-place)
...... (delete)
Things are not as they . . . Things and the
Change . . .
Things and . . . things . . .
(Leave this to Jill in)
f f * * f f
THE INTERVIEW IO9
And some of ye stand at a wicket, and they are
the luckier men,
But others field afar on a field, and ever and then,
When-as the over is over, they cross to the other W*<*-
j- JSem. uie
side, aor( .j."
A weary thing to the flesh and a wounding thing
to the pride.
And Cabinet Ministers play at a game ye should f< "'" *<"" *
all avoid,
It is played with youngling bats and a pellet of
celluloid,
And a little net on a table, and is known as the
named (better)
PING and the PONG.
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do this
wrong?
And some, like witherless Frenchmen, circle
around in rings,
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do these
things ?
Why do you . . .
(Mem. after Uncle to-morrow. Billy's : refuse
terms.)
These are the chance lines as they came the dis-
jointed words everything just as He wrote them
down.
Reader or whatever you be was that a small re-
ward ? Are you willing now to say that Interviewing
has no wages of its own ? Will you sneer at it as unfit
to take its place in your art? Truly, " Better is he
that humbleth himself than a pillar of brass, and a
meek heart than many fastenings."
PERSONAL PARS.
THE PERSONAL PAR.
CLOSELY connected with the Interview, and forming
a natural sequel to any treatise upon that Exercise,
is the Personal Par. It contains, as it were, all the
qualities of the Interview condensed into the smallest
possible space ; it advertises the subject, instructs
the reader, and is a yet sharper trial of the young
writer's character.
The homely advice given in the preceding section,
where mention was made of " pride " and of " pockets,"
applies with far more force to the Personal Par. With
the Interview, it is well to mask one's name ; with the
Personal Par, it is absolutely necessary to conceal it.
The danger the author runs is an attraction to Mrs.
Railston, who in her book strongly advises this form
of sport she herself does Bess in All About Them.
On the other hand, Lieut. -Col. Lory says, in his
Journalist's Vade-mecum (p. 63) : " A Personal Par
should never be penned by the Aspirant to Literary
honours. Undetected, it renders life a burden of
suspense; detected, it spells ruin."* He quotes
twenty-five well-known peers and financiers who rose
by steadily refusing to do this kind of work during
their period of probation on the press.
* Let the student note, by way of warning, and avoid this officer's
use of ready-made phrases.
I
114 THE AFTERMATH
The present guide, which is final, will run to no
such extremes. Secrecy is indeed essential ; yet there
are three excellent reasons for writing Personal Pars,
at least in early youth.
(i.) The Personal Par is the easiest to produce of
all forms of literature. Any man or woman, famous
or infamous for any reason, is a subject ready to hand,
and to these may be added all persons whatsoever
living, dead, or imaginary; and anything whatever
may be said about them. Editors, in their honest
dislike of giving pain, encourage the inane, and hence
more facile, form of praise. Moreover, it takes but a
moment to write, and demands no recourse to books
of reference.
(2.) The Personal Par can always be placed if
not in England, then in America. Though written in
any odd moments of one's leisure time, it will always
represent money ; and the whole of the period from
July to October, when ordinary work is very slack,
can be kept going from the stock one has by one.
(3.) It has a high economic value, not only in the
price paid for it, but indirectly, as an advertisement.
This is a point which Lieut. -Col. Lory and Mrs.
Railston both overlook.
A short specimen, written in August, 1885, at the
very beginning of the movement, by my friend, Mrs.
Cowley (the Folk-Lorist, not the Poetess), for the
Gazette, will make these three points clear :
" The capture of that rare bird, the Cross-tailed
Eagle, which is cabled from St. Fandango's, recalls
the fact that the famous Picture " Tiny Tots " was
THE PERSONAL PAR 1 1 5
formerly in the possession of the present Governor of
that island. The picture is put up to auction by
Messrs. Philpots next Saturday, and, judging by the
public attendance at their galleries during the last
fortnight, the bidding should be brisk."
There is no such bird as the Cross-tailed Eagle,
nor any such person as the Governor of St. Fandango's,
nor indeed is there even any such island. Yet Mrs.
Cowley was paid 55. by the Gazette for her little bit of
research; it was copied into most of the 'papers,
with acknowledgment, and she got a commission from
Messrs. Philpots. The former owner of " Tiny Tots"
(Mr. Gale of Kew, a wealthy man) wrote a long and
interesting letter explaining that some error had been
made, and that not he, but his wife's father, had
been an Inspector* (not Governor) in St. Vincent's. He
begged the writer to call on him her call was the
origin of a life-long friendship, and Mrs. Cowley was
mentioned in his will.
I must detain the student no longer with what is,
after all, a very small corner of our art, but conclude
with a few carefully chosen examples before proceeding
to the next section on Topographical Essays.
EXAMPLES.
Wit and Wisdom of the Upper Classes.
Her Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duchess
of Solothurn was driving one day down Pall Mall
when she observed a poor pickpocket plying his pre-
carious trade. Stopping the carriage immediately,
* Of what?
12
Il6 THE AFTERMATH
she asked him gently what she could do for him. He
was dumbfounded for a reply, and, withdrawing his
hand from the coat-tail of an elderly major, managed
to mumble out that he was a widower with a wife
and six children who were out of work and refused to
support him, though earning excellent wages. This
reasoning so touched the Princess, that she imme-
diately gave him a place as boot-black in the Royal
Palace of Kensington. Discharged from this position
for having prosecuted H.R.H. for six months' arrears
of wages, he set up as a publican at the " Sieve and
Pannier " at Wimbledon, a licence of some ten thou-
sand pounds in value, and a standing example of the
good fortune that attends thrift and industry.
* *
*
It is not generally known that the late Lord Grum-
bletooth rose from the ranks. His lordship was a
singularly reticent man, and the matter is still
shrouded in obscurity. He was, however, a poli-
tician in the best sense of the word, and owed his
advancement to the virtues that have made England
famous. The collection of domestic china at Grum-
bletooth House will vie with any other collection at
any similar house in the kingdom.
* *
*
Dr. Kedge, whose death was recently announced in
the papers, was the son of no less a personage than
Mr. Kedge, of the Old Hall, Eybridge. It is hardly
fair to call him a self-made man, for his father paid a
considerable sum both for his education and for the
settlement of his debts on leaving the University.
tfcE PERSONAL PAR 11 7
But he was a bright-eyed, pleasant host, and will long
be regretted in the journalistic world.
* *
*
Lady Gumm's kindness of heart is well known.
She lately presented a beggar with a shilling, and
then discovered that she had not the wherewithal to
pay her fare home from Queen's Gate to 376, Park
Lane (her ladyship's town house). Without a mo-
ment's hesitation she borrowed eighteen pence of the
grateful mendicant, a circumstance that easily ex-
plains the persecution of which she has lately been
the victim.
* *
*
Lord Harmbury was lately discovered on the top
of a 'bus by an acquaintance who taxed him with the
misadventure. " I would rather be caught on a 'bus
than in a trap," said the witty peer. The mot has had
some success in London Society.
* *
Mr. Mulhausen, the M.F.H. of the North Down-
shire Hunt, has recently written an article on
" Falconry " for the Angler's World. The style of the
" brochure " shows a great advance in " technique,"
and cannot fail to give a permanent value to his
opinion on Athletics, Gentleman-farming, and all
other manly sports and pastimes. Mr. Mulhausen
is, by the way, a recently-elected member of the
Rock-climbers' Club, and is devoted to Baccarat.
* *
*
There is no truth in the rumour that Miss Finn-
Coul, daughter of Colonel Wantage-Brown, was about
I.I 8 THE AFTERMATH
to marry her father's second wife's son by an earlier
marriage, Mr. James Grindle-Torby. The Colonel is
a strong Churchman, and disapproves of such unions
between close relatives ; moreover, as C.O., he has
forbidden the young lieutenant (for such is his rank)
to leave the barracks for a fortnight, a very unusual
proceeding in the Hussars.
# *
*
Lady Sophia Van Huren is famous for her repartee.
In passing through Grosvenor Gate an Irish beggar
was heard to hope that she would die the black death
of Machushla Shawn. A sharp reply passed her lips,
and it is a thousand pities that no one exactly caught
its tenor ; it was certainly a gem.
* *
*
It is well known that the Bishop of Pontygarry has
no sympathy with the extreme party in the Church.
Only the other day he was so incensed at a service
held in Ribble-cum-Taut, that he fought the officiating
clergyman for half an hour in his own garden, and
extorted a complete apology. He also forbad anyone
in the village ever to go to Church again, and himself
attended the Methodist Chapel on the ensuing Sun-
day. Had we a few more prelates of the same mettle
things would be in a very different condition.
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.
THE Topographical Article is so familiar as to need
but little introduction. . . . Personally, I do not
recommend it ; it involves a considerable labour ;
alone, of all forms of historical writing, it demands
accuracy ; alone, it is invariably un-paid.
Nevertheless, there are special occasions when it
will be advisable to attempt it ; as in order to please
an aged and wealthy relative ; in order to strike up a
chance acquaintance with a great Family ; in order to
advertise land that is for sale ; in order to prevent the
sale, or to lower the price (in these two last cases it
is usual to demand a small fee from the parties in-
terested) ; in order to vent a just anger ; in order to
repay a debt; in order to introduce a "special"
advertisement for some manure or other; and so
forth. Most men can recall some individual accident
when a training in Topographical Writing would have
been of value to them.
There even arise, though very rarely, conditions
under which this kind of writing is positively ordered.
Thus, when the Editor of the Evening Mercury changed
his politics for money on the i7th of September, 1899,
all that part of his staff who were unable to drop
their outworn shibboleths were put on to writing up
various parts of London in the legal interval pre-
122 THE AFTERMATH
ceding their dismissal, and a very good job they made
of it.
Never, perhaps, were the five rules governing the
art more thoroughly adhered to. A land-owning
family was introduced into each ; living persons were
treated with courtesy and affection ; a tone of regret
was used at the opening of each ; each closed with a
phrase of passionate patriotism ; and each was care-
fully run parallel to the course of English History in
general ; and the proper praise and blame allotted to
this name and that, according to its present standing
with the more ignorant of the general public.*
It was in this series (afterwards issued in Book
form under the title, London! My London) that the
following article which I can put forward as an ex-
cellent model was the contribution of my friend,
Mr. James Bayley. It may interest the young reader
(if he be as yet unfamiliar with our great London
names) to know that under the pseudonym of
" Cringle " is concealed the family of Holt, whose
present head is, of course, the Duke of Sheffield.
DISAPPEARING LONDON: MANNING
GREEN.
Ax a moment when a whole district of the metropolis
is compulsorily passing into the hands of a soulless
corporation, it is intolerable that the proprietors of
land in that district should receive no compensation
* The student will find a list of Historical Personages to praise
and blame carefully printed in two colours at the end of Williams'
Journalists History of England.
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE 123
for the historical importance of their estates. Man-
ning Green, which will soon be replaced by the roar
and bustle or bustle and confusion, whichever you
like of a great railway station, is one of those centres
whence the great empire-builders of our race pro-
ceeded in past times.
For many centuries it was a bare, bleak spot, such
as our England could boast by the thousand in the
rude but heroic days when the marvellous fortunes of
the Anglo-Saxon race were preparing in the slow
designs of Providence. For perhaps a generation it
was one of those suburban villages that are said by a
contemporary poet to " nestle in their trees." Doubt-
less it sent forth in the sixties many brave lads to
fight for the liberties of Europe in Italy or Denmark,
but their humble record has perished. Such a thought
recalls the fine lines of Gray :
" Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest ;
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood."
Twenty to twenty-five years ago the advancing tide
of the capital of the world swept round this little out-
lying place ; it was submerged, and soon made part
of greater London.
Relics are still to be discovered of the period when
Manning Green had something rural about it, as
Highgate and South Croydon have now. Thus " The
Jolly Drover " (whose license was recently refused
because it was not a tied house) recalls the great
sheep-droves that once passed through the village
from the north. It is now rare indeed to meet with a
countryman driving his flock to market through the
124 ^ HE AFfERMAftt
streets of London, though the sight is not absolutely
unknown. The present writer was once stopped in
the early morning by a herd of oxen south of West-
minster Bridge, and what may seem more remarkable
he has frequently seen wild animals in the charge of
negroes pass through Soho on their way to the Hippo-
drome. It is as Tennyson says :
" The old order changes, giving place to the new,"
until at last
" Beyond these voices there is peace."
Another relic of the old village of Manning Green
is the Court Baron, which is still held (how few Lon-
doners know this !) once a year, for the purpose of
providing a small but regular income to a relative of
the Lord Chancellor. This Court was probably not
held before the year 1895, but it is none the less of
extreme interest to antiquarians.
The first mention of Manning Green in history is in
a letter to Edward Lord Cringle, the pioneer and ally
of the beneficent reforms that remain inseparably
associated with the name of the eighth Henry. This
letter is written from prison by one Henry Turnbull,
a yeoman, and contains these phrases :
" For that very certainly, my good Lord, I never did
this thing, no, nor met the Friar nor had any dealing
with him. And whatever I did that they say is treason
I did it being a simple man, as following the Mass,
which I know is welcome to the King's Majesty, and
not knowing who it was that sang it, no, nor speaking
to him after, as God knows. And, my dear Lord, I
have had conveyed to you, as yon know, my land of
Horton with the Grey farm and the mere called Foul
Marsh or Manning, having neither son nor any other
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE 125
but my own life only, and for that willingly would I
give you this land, and so I have done ; and, my good
Lord, speak for me at Court in this matter, remem-
bering my gift of the land. . . ."
This Turnbull was afterwards executed for treason
at Tyburn. There is still a Turnbull in the parish,
but as his father's name was Weissenstein he is very
unlikely to have any connection with the original
family of yeomen.
The land (if land it could then be called) did not,
oddly enough, remain long in the Cringle family. It
was sold by Lord Edward to the Carmelites, and on
the dissolution of that order was returned by the
grateful monarch to its original owner. We next find
" Manning " or " Foul Marsh " drained during that
period of active beneficence on the part of the great
landlords which marked the seventeenth century.
We are acquainted of this fact in our agricultural
history by an action recorded in 1631, where it ap-
pears that one Nicholas Hedon had gone to shoot
snipe, as had been once of common right in the
manor, and had so trespassed upon land " now
drained at his lordship's charges, and by him en-
closed." Hedon lost both ears, and was pilloried.
Manning is probably alluded to also in a strong
protest of the old Liberal blood* against ship-money,
to which exaction it contributed is. ^d. The sum
need not excite ridicule, as it represents quite 45. of
our present currency. The vigorous protest of the
family against this extortion is one of the finest
* The Holts are still Liberal- Unionists.
126 THE AFTERMATH
examples of our sterling English spirit on the eve of
the Civil War. The money was, however, paid.
In the troubles of the Civil Wars Manning (now no
no longer a marsh, but a green) was sold to John
Grayling, but the deed of conveyance being protested
at the Restoration, it was restored to its original
owners at the intruder's charge by an action of Novel
Disseizin. After Monmouth's rebellion, Manning was
in danger of suffering confiscation, and was hurriedly
sold to a chance agent (William Greaves) at so low a
price as to refute for ever all insinuations of rapacity
upon the part of its now ducal owners. It was happily
restored by a grateful nation as a free gift after the
glorious Revolution of 1688, and the agent, who had
only acquired it by taking advantage of the recent
troubles, was very properly punished. King William
congratulated the family in a famous epigram, which a
natural ignorance of the Taal forbids us to transcribe.
In 1718, Manning being still pasture of a somewhat
spongy nature (Guy, in his report, calls it u soggy
and poor land, reedy, and fit for little "), there was a
rumour that the New River canal would pass through
it, and it was sold to Jonathan Hemp. The New
River was proved, however, in the pleadings before
both Houses of Parliament, to have no necessity
for this canal, and Hemp was compelled (as it
was a mere speculation on his part) to sell it back
again to its distinguished owner at a merely nominal
price.
Nothing further can be traced with regard to
Manning Green (as it was now commonly called) till
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE 127
the report in 1780 that coal had been found beneath
it. Such a deposit so near the metropolis naturally
attracted the attention of merchants, and the Family
sold the place for the last time to a merchant of the
name of Hogg for ^"20,000.
The report proved false ; yet, oddly enough, it was
the beginning of Mr. Hogg's prosperity.
We have no space to dwell on this interesting cha-
racter. " Hogg's Trustees " are an ecclesiastical
household word in our principal watering-places, and
the " Hogg Institute " at Brighton is a monument of
Christian endeavour. He was a shrewd bargainer, a
just man, and upon his mantel-pieces were to be dis-
covered ornaments in alabaster representing Joshua
and Richard Cceur de Lion.
The growth of the metropolis entered largely into
Mr. Hogg's enlightened prevision of the future, and
he obtained promises from a large number of people
to build houses upon his land, which houses should,
after a term of years, become his (Hogg's) property,
and cease to belong to those who had paid to put
them up. How Mr. Hogg managed to obtain such
promises is still shrouded in mystery, but the universal
prevalence of the system to-day in modern England
would surely prove that there is something in our
Imperial race which makes this form of charity an
element of our power.
Mr. Hogg's only daughter married Sir John
Moss, Lord Mayor ; and Mr. Moss, the son, was
the father of the present Lord Hemelthorpe. Thus
something romantic still clings to poor Manning
128 THE AFTERMATH
Green, of which Lord Hemelthorpe was, until his
recent bankruptcy, the proprietor.
There is little more to be said about Manning
Green. The Ebenezer Chapel has a history of its
own, written by the Rev. Napoleon Plaything, son of
Mr. Honey Q. Plaything, of Bismark, Pa. The success
of the boys' club has been detailed in God's London,
by Mr. Zitali, of the " Mission to the Latin Races."
The book is well worth buying, if only for this one
essay, written, as it is, by a brand saved from the
burning. Mr. Zitali was for a long time in the
employ of Messrs. Mariana, the restaurant keepers,
and no one is better fitted to deal strenuously with
the awful problems of our great cities.
Manning Green is about to disappear, and all its
wonderful associations will become (in the words of
Swinburne)
" Smoke, or the smoke of a smoke."
But until it disappears, and until its purchase price
is finally fixed by the committee, its historical asso-
ciations will still remain dear to those who (like the
present writer) are interested in this corner of the
Motherland. That men of our blood, and men
speaking our tongue nay, that those neither of our
blood, nor speaking our tongue, but devoted to a
common empire will remember Manning Green
when the sale is effected, is the passionate and heart-
felt prayer of JAMES BAYLEY.
ON EDITING.
ON EDITING.
I COME now to that part of my subject where pure
literature is of less moment than organization and
the power of arrangement ; and the last two divi-
sions of my great task concern work which has
been written by others, and with which the jour-
nalist has to deal in the capacity of manager rather
than that of author. These are, a few notes upon
editing, and some further remarks upon Revelations,
that is, unexpected and more or less secret political
announcements.
I deal here first with editing, by which I do not
mean the management of a whole newspaper for
this has no connection whatever with the art of
letters but the selection, arrangement, and anno-
tating of work produced by another hand, and
entrusted to the journalist for publication in his
columns. The work is far easier than might appear
at first sight.
The first rule in connection with it is to offend
as little as possible, and especially to spare the
living.
The second rule is to cut down the matter to fit
the space at your disposal. With the exception of
K 2
132 THE AFTERMATH
a number of MSS. so small that they may be neglected
in the calculation, it does not matter in the least what
you cut out, so long as you remember that the parts
remaining must make sense, and so long as you
make this second rule fit in with the exigencies of
the first.
As for annotation, it is the easiest thing in the
world. True to the general principle which governs
all good journalism, that the giving of pleasure should
always be preferred to the giving of pain, let your
annotations pleasantly recall to the reader his own
stock of knowledge, let them be as obvious as pos-
sible, and let him not learn too much from your re-
search. This method has the additional advantage,
that it also saves you an infinity of trouble.
The matter is really not so elaborate as to need any
further comment. I will proceed at once to my
example, prefacing it only with the shortest expla-
natory statement, which will show how thoroughly it
illustrates the rules I have just enunciated.
The wife of one of the principal candidates for
Parliament in our part of the country begged Dr.
Caliban to publish a simple, chatty diary, which
her sister (who was married to a neighbouring squire)
had kept during some years. Dr. Caliban was too
courteous to refuse, and had too profound an acquain-
tance with the rural character to despise this kind of
copy. On the other hand, he was compelled to point
out that he could not allow the series to run through
more than six months, and that he should, therefore,
be compelled to cut it down at his discretion Full
ON EDITING 133
leave was given him, and I do not think any man
could have done the work better.
Thus the lady's husband, though a good English-
man in every other way (an indulgent landlord and a
sterling patriot), was German by birth and language.
Here was a truth upon which it would have been
uncharitable and useless to insist a truth which it
was impossible to conceal, but which it was easy to
glide over; and Dr. Caliban, as the student will
see in a moment, glode over it with the lightest of
feet.
Again, a very terrible tragedy had taken place in
the Burpham family, and is naturally alluded to by
their near neighbour. It was impossible to cut out
all mention of this unhappy thing, without destroying
the diary ; but in Dr. Caliban's edition of the MS.,
the whole is left as vague as may be.
The particular part which I have chosen for a
model I think the most admirable piece of editing I
know is from that week of the diary which concerns
the outbreak of the recent difficulty with France, a
difficulty luckily immediately arranged, after scarcely
a shot had been fired, by the mutual assent of the
two nations and (as it is whispered) by the direct
intervention of High Authority.
The motto which Dr. Caliban chose for the whole
series (called, by the way, " Leaves from a Country
Diary "), is a fine sentence from the works of Mr.
Bagehot.
134 THE AFTERMATH
LEAVES FROM A COUNTRY DIARY.
" An aristocratic body firmly rooted in the national soil is not
only the permanent guarantee of the security of the State, but re-
sembles, as it were, a man better instructed than his fellows more
fromft, possessed of ample means, and yet entrusted -with power :
a matt moreover who never dies"
February 2nd, 19 . To-day is the Purification.
The lawn looked lovely under its veil of snow, and the
vicar came in to lunch. We did not discuss the
question of the service, because I know that Reuben
disapproves of it. The vicar told me that Mrs. Bur-
pham is in dreadful trouble. It seems that the Bank
at Molesworth refused to cash Algernon's cheque,
and that this led Sir Henry Murling to make inves-
tigations about the Chattington affair, so that he had
to be asked to resign his commission. To be sure it
is only in the Militia, but if it all comes out, it will be
terrible for the Monsons. They have already had to
dismiss two servants on these grounds. Jane has a
sore throat, and I made her gargle some turpentine
and oil ; Ali Baba's* hock is still sore. I do hope I
shall keep my old servants, it is an unwelcome thing
to dismiss them in their old age and the house is never
the same again. They meet to-morrow at Gumpton
corner, but not if this weather holds.
February yd, 19 . It is thawing. There are
marks of boots across the lawn on what is left of the
snow, and I am afraid some one must have gone
across it. I wish Reuben would come back. Called
* The pet name of the white pony. The name is taken from the
Arabian Nights.
ON EDITING 135
at Mrs. Burpham's, who is in dreadful trouble.
Algernon has gone up to town to see his solicitor.
Poor Mrs. Burpham was crying ; she is so proud of
her boy. He says it will be all right. They are very
bitter against the Bank, and Sir Henry, and the
regiment, and the Monsons. I fear they may quarrel
with Binston Park* also. Mrs. Burpham was so
curious about them ; Jane is no better.
February ^th, 19 . Reuben came home suddenly
by the 2.40 with Mr. Ehrenbreitstein and Lord
Tenterworth. He asked me to put Mr. Ehrenbreit-
stein in the Blue room and Lord Tenterworth in the
Parrot room opposite the broom and pail place,
where Aunt Marjory used to sleep. I shall have to
clear the clothes out of the drawers. Just before
dinner Mr. Bischoffen came in from the station.
Reuben told me he had asked him. I wish he would
give me longer notice. He brought a secretary with
him who cannot talk English. I think he must be a
Spaniard he is so dark. Jane can hardly speak,
her throat is so bad ; I told her she might stay in bed
to-morrow till nine.
February ^th, 19 . Mrs. Burpham is certainly in
dreadful trouble. She tells me Algernon has written
from St. Malo saying it will be all right. It was very
foolish and imprudent of him to go over there just
* The use of the name of an estate in the place of the name of its
owner or owners is very common with the territorial class in our
countrysides. Thus, people will say, " I have been calling at the
Laurels," or " I dined with the Monkey Tree " ; meaning, " I have
been calling upon Mrs. So-and-So," or, "I have been dining with
Sir Charles Gibbs."
136 THE AFTERMATH
now with all this trouble on with France. If only
he had stayed at home (Mrs. Burpham says) she
would not have minded so much, but she is afraid of
his getting killed. It seems they are so savage at
St. Malo.* Only the other day an English lady had
a stone thrown in her direction in the street. Mr. Bis-
choffen's secretary is not a Spaniard ; I think he is a
Pole ; his name is Brahms. There was a difficulty
about the asparagus last night. It seems the Germans
do not eat it with their fingers. Reuben said I ought
to have got little silver pincers for it. I remember
seeing them in his father's house, but papa said they
were very vulgar. Then Reuben used to apologise for
them, and say that his people were old fashioned,
which was nonsense, of course. I reminded Reuben
of this, and he said, " Ach ! Gott ! " and I had to leave
the room. AH Baba is all right ; he took a piece of
sugar from my hand ; but when I felt his hock he
kicked Jones severely. I fear Jones is really injured,
and I have sent for Dr. Minton and for the veterinary
surgeon.
February 6th, ig .Dr. Minton dined here last
night before going to set Jones' leg, and I gave the
veterinary surgeon supper in the old schoolroom. I
am afraid Dr. Minton took too much wine, for he
quarrelled with Mr. Ehrenbreitstein and Mr. Bischoffen
about the danger of war with France. He said they
had no right to speak, and got quite excited. Called
again on Mrs. Burpham, and only appreciated fully
to-day in what sad trouble she is. Algernon has
* A seaport in Britanny.
ON EDITING 137
telegraphed from Paris saying it will be all right.
Meanwhile she has certainly quarrelled with Binston
Park, and she even spoke bitterly against the Duke,
so that means another family gone for the Duke is
very proud. I see in the Standard that our Am-
bassador has delivered an ultimatum, and that the
French are doing all they can to shirk war. That is
what Mr. Bischoffen and Reuben said they would do,
but they must be taught a lesson. Newfoundlands
have fallen, but Reuben says they must rise after the
war. I do hope they will. The dear Bishop called.
He says this war is a judgment on the French. Jane
is much better, and can talk quite clearly, and Ali
Baba is almost well. Also it has thawed now com-
pletely, and they can meet on Saturday as usual, so
things are looking up all round.
February jth, 19 . Freddie goes to the Isle of
Wight with the Lambtonshire Regiment, and Mrs.
Burpham and the Bishop are both delighted, because
it will bring him and Hepworth together. It would
be such a solace to poor Mrs. Burpham if Freddie
could see active service and get promotion ; it would
help to wipe out Algernon's disgrace, for I fear there
is now no doubt of it, though he says it is all right in
his last letter, which is from Marseilles. Letters
still come through from France, because our Am-
bassador said that if any tricks were played with them
he would hold the French Government personally
responsible, and so cowed them. The Bishop has
gone to London with his family.
February 8th, 19 . The Standard has a large map of
138 THE AFTERMATH
the North of France, where the fighting will be. It
is very interesting. Reuben and his friends have
gone up to town again. I saw the Reserves marching
through Molesworth to-day ; they are going to
garrison Portsmouth.* The afternoon post did not
come in. Reuben said he would telegraph, but I
have not got any message. The 12.40 train was an
hour late, so I suppose everything is upset by the
war. Maria will have to come home by Bale, and I
do so dread the passage from Ostend for her ; even
the hour from Calais to Dover is more than she can
bear. The vicar says that our Government will
force the French to keep the Dover-Calais route open
for civilians. He says it would be against the practice
of civilised warfare to close it, and if that were done
we should lay waste the whole country ; but I fear he
does not know much about the legal aspect of the
thing : it is his heart, not his head that speaks. It is
dreadful to think what I shall do with Mademoiselle!
when she comes home with Maria. One can't blame
her when one thinks that it is her own country that
is going to be harried and her own brothers brought
here as prisoners ; but it will be very difficult' all the
same. The man who was killed at Bigley races was
not a Frenchman after all : the crowd only thought
he was because he had blacked his face like a negro.
It seems that Sir Henry was very hard in court, and
said that the ringleaders were lucky not to be indicted
* A large military port and dockyard on the coast of Hampshire.
t The generic term among the wealthy for French menials of the
weaker sex.
ON EDITING 139
for manslaughter. It has frozen again, and it is very
slippery in the drive. They are having fireworks or
something at Portsmouth, to judge by the sound.
Jones told Jane he thought there was a bonfire as
well, because he could see a glare now and then in the
sky from the window in his room. His leg is setting
nicely.
ON REVELATIONS.
ON REVELATIONS.
REVELATIONS, again, as we found to be the case with
editing, do not properly constitute a department of
the art of letters. Though they are of far more im-
portance than any other branch of contemporary
journalism, yet it is impossible to compare their
publication to a creative act of pure literature.
It may be urged that such Revelations as are
written in the office of the newspaper publishing
them are not only literature, but literature of a very
high order. They are, on the face of it, extremely
difficult to compose. If they are to have any chance
of deceiving the public, the writer must thoroughly
know the world which he counterfeits ; he must be
able to copy its literary style, its air, its errors. It
is even sometimes necessary for him to attempt the
exquisitely subtle art of forgery.
The objection is well found ; but it is not of this
kind of Revelation that I propose to speak. It be-
longs to the higher branches of our art, and is quite
unsuited to a little elementary manual.
The Revelation I speak of here is the ordinary
type of private communication, domestic treason, or
accidental discovery, dealing, as a rule, with public
affairs, and brought to the office spontaneously by
servants, colonial adventurers, or ministers of religion.
144 THE AFTERMATH
Nine Revelations out of ten are of this kind ; and
the young journalist who may desire to rise in his
great calling must make himself thoroughly familiar
with the whole process by which they are to be
procured and published.
A small amount of additional matter has, indeed,
sometimes to be furnished, but it is almost insigni-
ficant, and is, moreover, of so conventional a nature,
that it need not trouble us for a moment. Some such
phrase as " We have received the following communi-
cation from a source upon which we place the firmest
reliance," will do very well to open with, and at the
end : " We shall be interested to see what reply can
be given to the above," is a very useful formula.
Thus the words " To be continued," added at the end
are often highly lucrative. They were used by the
Courrier des Prises (a first-class authority on such
matters), when it recently published a number of
private letters, written (alas !) in the English tongue,
and concerning the noblest figure in English politics.
But though there is little to be done in the way of
writing, there is a considerable mental strain involved
in judging whether a particular Revelation will suit
the proprietor of the newspaper upon which one is
employed, and one must not unfrequently be pre-
pared to suffer from exhausting terrors for some
weeks after its publication.
Difficult as is the art of testing Revelation, the rules
that govern it are few and simple. The Revelator, if
a domestic servant, wears a round black bowler hat
and a short jacket, and a pair of very good trousers
ON REVELATIONS 145
stolen from his master ; he will be clean shaven. If
an adventurer or minister of religion, he will wear a
soft felt hat and carry a large muffler round his throat.
Either sort walk noiselessly, but the first in a firm,
and the second in a shuffling manner. I am far from
saying that all who enter newspaper offices under
this appearance bear with them Revelations even of
the mildest kind, but I do say that whenever
Revelations come, they are brought by one of these
two kinds of men.
I should add that the Revelator like the money-
lender, the spy, and every other professional man
whose livelihood depends upon efficiency is invariably
sober. If any man come to you with a Revelation
and seem even a trifle drunk, dismiss him without
inquiry, though not before you have admonished
him upon his shame and sin, and pointed out the
ruin that such indulgence brings upon all save the
wealthy.
When a man arrives who seems at all likely to
have a Revelation in his pocket, and who offers it for
sale, remember that you have but a few moments in
which to make up your mind ; put him into the little
room next to the sub-editor, take his MS., tell him
you will show it to your chief, and, as you leave him,
lock the door softly on the outside.
The next moment may decide your whole career.
You must glance at the Revelation, and judge in that
glance whether the public will believe it even for two
full hours. The whole difference between a success-
ful and an unsuccessful journalist lies in that power
L
146 THE AFTERMATH
of sudden vision ; nor will experience alone achieve
it, it must be experience touched with something like
genius.
Libellous matter you can delete. Matter merely
false will not be remembered against you ; but if that
rare and subtle character which convinces the mob
be lacking, that is a thing which no one can supply in
the time between the Revelator's arrival and the
paper's going to press.
Finally, when you have made your decision, return,
unlock, pay, and dismiss. Never pay by cheque.
Remember how short is the time at your disposal.
Remember that if your paper does not print a really
good Revelation when it is offered, some other paper
will. Remember the Times, the Chronicle, and Major
Esterhazy. Remember Mr. Gladstone's resignation.
. . . Remember the " Maine."
A few practical instances will help us to understand
these abstract rules.
Consider, for instance, the following one of the
wisest acts of Dr. Caliban's whole life.
Dr. Caliban was busy writing a leader for the
Sunday Englishman upon " Hell or Immortality"; for
it was Saturday night, he had just received the
weekly papers, and, as he well said, "A strong
Sunday paper has this advantage, that it can do what
it likes with the weeklies."
He was, I say in the midst of Hell or Immortality,
when he was interrupted by a note. He opened it,
read it, frowned, and passed it to me, saying :
" What do you make of this ? "
ON REVELATIONS 147
The note ran :
" I have just been dismissed from the Spectator for
sneezing in an indelicate manner. I have a Revelation
to make with regard to the conduct of that paper.
Please see me at once, or it may be too late. I have
with me a letter which the Spectator will publish next
week. It throws a searching light upon the Editor's
mind, and lays bare all the inner workings of the
paper. Price 40s."
I told Dr. Caliban, that in my opinion, on the one
hand, there might be something in it ; while on the
other hand, that there might not.
Dr. Caliban looked at me thoughtfully and said :
" You think that ? "
He touched an electric bell. As this did not ring,
he blew down a tube, and receiving no answer, nor
indeed hearing the whistle at the other end, he sent a
messenger, who, by some accident, failed to return to
the editorial office. Dr. Caliban himself went down
and brought up the stranger. He was a young man
somewhat cadaverous. He repeated what he had
said in his note, refused to bargain in any way,
received two sovereigns from Dr. Caliban's own purse,
sighed deeply, and then with a grave face said :
" It feels like treason."
He pressed his lips hard together, conquered him-
self, and left us with the utmost rapidity.
When Dr. Caliban and I were alone together, he
opened the sealed envelope and read these words,
written on a little slip of foolscap :
" The following letter is accepted by the Spectator, and
will be printed next week" To this slip was pinned a
L 2
148 THE AFTERMATH
rather dirty half sheet of note paper, and on this was
the following letter :
Balcarry Castle,
County Mayo.
Jan. i gth, 1903.
To the Editor of the Spectator.
Dear Sir,
Among your humorous Irish stories perhaps the
following will be worthy to find a place. A dear
uncle of mine, my father's half brother, and the
husband of the talented E. J. S., was bishop of Killi-
bardine, a prelate of great distinction and considerable
humour.
I well remember that somewhere in the summer of
1869, his valet having occasion to call unexpectedly
upon a relative (butler to the Duke of Kerry), the
latter observed " Indade, an' shure now an' is that
yourself, Pat, Pat asthor, at all, at all," to which the
witty fellow answered, with the true Irish twinkle in
his eye, " Was your grandfather a monkey ? "
I am very faithfully yours,
THE MACFFIN.
Dr. Caliban was heartily amused by the tale, and
told me that he had met the MacFfin some years ago
at Lady Marro way's.
" Nevertheless," he added, I don't think it would
be fair to comment on the little story ... I had
imagined that something graver was toward . .
He never spoke again of the small outlay he had
made, and I afterwards found that it had been
ON REVELATIONS 149
included in the general expenses of the paper. I
have never forgotten the lesson, nor since that date
have I ever accepted MSS. and paid for it without
making myself acquainted to some extent with the
subject. A little such foresight upon that occasion
would have convinced us that a letter of this kind
would never have found a place in a review of the
calibre of the Spectator.
Contrast with Dr. Caliban's wise and patriotic con-
duct upon this occasion the wickedness and folly of
the Evening German in the matter of the Cabinet Crisis.
For some time the saner papers, which see the
Empire as it is, had been issuing such placards as
" He must go," " Make room for Joseph " and other
terse and definite indications of a new policy.
The Evening German had for several days headed
its leading article, " Why don't he resign ? "
A member of the unscrupulous gang who ever lie in
wait for whatever is innocent and enthusiastic called,
just before press, upon the editor of the Evening
German, passing himself off as the valet of the
minister whose resignation was demanded. He
produced a small sheet of MSS., and affirmed it to be
the exact account of an interview between the minister
and his doctor, which interview the valet had over-
heard, " concealed," as he put it " behind an arras."
He said it would explain the situation thoroughly.
He received no less than 25 guineas, and departed.
Now let the student read what follows, and ask
himself by what madness a responsible editor came
to print a thing so self-evidently absurd.
I5O THE AFTERMATH
WHY HE DOES NOT RESIGN !
We have received upon an unimpeachable authority
the verbatim account of an interview between him
and his medical adviser, which we think thoroughly
explains the present deadlock in Imperial affairs.
We are assured upon oath that he was in bed when
the doctor called just before noon yesterday, and that
the following dialogue took place :
MINISTER (in bed) Good morning, Doctor, I am
glad to see you. What can I do for you ? . . .
I mean, I am glad to see you. Pray excuse the in-
advertence of my phrase, it is one that I have lately
had to use not a little.
DOCTOR Pray let me look at your tongue and feel
your pulse. So. We are getting along nicely. At
what hour were you thinking of rising ?
MINISTER At twelve, my usual hour. I see no
reason for lying in bed, Doctor. (There was a despairing
tone in this phrase). I am well enough, Doctor, well
enough. (Here he gazed sadly out of the window into St.
James's Park). I am a Minister, but I cannot minister
to a mind diseased (this rather bitterly). There is
nothing the matter with me.
DOCTOR (cheerily) My dear Mr. , do not talk
so. You will be spared many, many useful years, I
hope. Indeed, I am sure. There is, as you say,
nothing the matter nothing organically the matter ;
this lassitude and nervous exhaustion from which you
suffer is a distressing, but a common symptom of
ON REVELATIONS
mental activity. (Here the doctor dived into a black bag).
Let me sound the chest.
MINISTER Will it hurt? (This was said rather
anxiously).
DOCTOR Not a bit of it. I only wish to make
assurance doubly sure as we say in the profession.
(He put the stethoscope to the chest of the Cabinet Minister).
Now draw a deep breath . . . no, deeper than
that ... a really deep breath.
MINISTER (gasping) I can't.
DOCTOR Tut, tut. . . . Well, it's all a ques-
tion of lungs. (Here he moved the stethoscope again).
Now sing.
MINISTER La ! La ! . . . La !
DOCTOR Nothing wrong with the lungs. Only a
little feeble perhaps. Do you take any exercise ?
MINISTER (wearily) Oh ! yes ... I walk
about. ... I used to walk a lot in Ireland.
. . . I'm not like Ch n ; he never takes
any exercise (bitterly) ; but then, he was brought up
differently. (Sadly) Oh Doctor ! I am so tired !
. . . My back aches.
DOCTOR Well, Mr. , a little rest will do you
all the good in the world. You have the Easter
recess in which to take a thorough rest. Do not lie
in bed all day ; get up about five and drive to your
club. Whatever you do, don't write or think, and
don't let them worry you with callers. (The Doctor
here prepared to leave).
MINISTER (hopelessly) Doctor . . . there is some-
thing I want to ask you. . . . Can't I give it up ?
152 THE AFTERMATH
DOCTOR (firmly) No, Mr. , no. Upon no
account. I have told your uncle and your cousins so
fifty times. It is a point upon which I must be firm.
Politics are a necessity to you all. I would not
answer for you if it were not for politics. (Sympathe-
tically) You are none of you strong.
MINISTER (heaving a deep sigh) No. I am not
strong. . . . Alas ! Chaplin is. But
then, Chaplin's built differently. ... I wish you
would let me give it up, Doctor ?
DOCTOR (kindly) No, my dear Mr. , No ! Pray
put such thoughts out of your head. Every man
must occupy his brain and body. Most men discover
or choose an occupation, but I have not been a family
doctor for thirty years without distinguishing these
from such rare organisms as yours and your family's.
The House of Commons is the saving of you. (The
Doctor here paused, gazed anxiously at Mr. , and said
slowly) Perhaps, though, you take your work too
seriously. It is often so with highly strung men.
Do as little as you can.
MINISTER I do ... but still it wearies me
inexpressibly.
DOCTOR Not so much as writing a book would, or
travel, or country walks.
MINISTER (shaking his head) I never felt so tired
after " It May be True," nor even after " I Greatly
Doubt It," as I do now (smiling a little). They sold well.
DOCTOR And why ? Because you were engaged
in politics. Believe me, dear Mr. , without that
one regular employment you would do little or
ON REVELATIONS 153
nothing. It is the balance-wheel that regulates your
whole system. Change the rules, and, if you will,
limit debate to a minimum, but do not think of giving
up the one thing that keeps up your circulation.
More men die from inanition than I care to tell you.
MINISTER Very well, Doctor . . . (weakly
and quietly) it is nearly one ; I must sleep . . .
Good-bye.
The Doctor here went out on tip-toe. The Minister slept.
There was a great silence.
The Evening German suffered severely, and would
have been ruined but for the prompt action of the
Frankfort House ; and the whole incident shows as
clearly as possible what perils surround the most
tempting, but the most speculative, sort of journal-
istic enterprise.
The student may tell me and justly that I have
offered him none but negative examples. I will com-
plete his instruction by printing one of the best
chosen Revelations I know.
At the time when a number of letters addressed to
Mr. Kruger by various public men were captured,
and very rightly published, a certain number were,
for reasons of State, suppressed. To Dr. Caliban,
reasons of State were no reasons ; he held that no
servant of the people had a right to keep the people
in ignorance.
Within a week, a detective in his employ had
brought a little sheaf of documents, which, judged by
internal evidence alone, were plainly genuine.
154 THE AFTERMATH
They were printed at once. They have never
since been challenged.
I.
497, Jubilee Row,
B'ham,
19.7/99.
Dear Sir. We must respectfully press for the pay-
ment of our account. The terms upon which the
ammunition was furnished were strictly cash, and, as
you will see by the terms of our letter of the I5th
last, we cannot tolerate any further delay. If we do
not hear from you relative to same by next mail, we
shall be compelled to put the matter into the hands of
our solicitors.
Yours, &c.,
JOHN STANDFAST,
Pro Karl Biffenheimer and Co.
II.
Yacht Fleur de Lys.
$3rin n* ^aignt.
Palermo,
Sicile.
Ci, la feste de I'Assomption de la T.S.V.
(Vieux Style)
L'an de N.S.J.C. MCM.
(1900).
Monsieur Mon Frere. Nous vous envoyons nos
remerciemens pour vos souhaits et vous assurons de
ON REVELATIONS 155
la parfaicte amictie" qui liera toujours nos couronnes
allies. Faictes. Continuez.
Agre*ez, Monsieur Mon Frere, 1'assurance de notre
consideration Royale la plus distingue.
ORLEANS,
pour le Roy,
Chetif.
Vu, pour copie conforme,
Le Seneschal, BRU.
III.
Offices of the Siecle,
Paris,
Chef- lieu of the
department of the Seine,
France.
6, Thermidor, 108.
My good Kruger. It is evidently necessary that I
should speak out to you in plain English. I can't go
into a long dissertation, but if you will read the books
I send herewith, The Origin of Species, Spencer's
Sociology, Grant Allen's Evolution of the Idea of God,
&c., you will see why I can't back you up. As for
your contemptible offer, I cast it back at you with dis-
dain. My name alone should have protected me
from such insults. I would have you know that my
paper represents French opinion in England, and is
now owned by an international company. I am the
irremovable editor.
Yours with reserve,
YVES GUYOT.
156 THE AFTERMATH
P.S. I have been a Cabinet Minister. I send you
a circular of our new company. It is a good thing.
Push it along.
IV.
The Chaplaincy,
Barford College,
Old St. Winifred's Day,
1900.
My dear Mr. Kruger. Your position is at once
interesting and peculiar, and deserves, as you say, my
fullest attention. On the one hand (as you well
remark) you believe you have a right to your in-
dependence, and that our Government has no moral-
right to interfere in your domestic affairs. You speak
warmly of Mr. Chamberlain and describe him as lack-
ing in common morality or (as we put it) in breeding.
I think you are hardly fair. Mr. Chamberlain has
his own morality, and in that summing up of all ethics
which we in England call " manners," he is indis-
tinguishable from other gentlemen of our class. He
has had a great deal to bear and he has latterly borne
it in silence. It is hardly the part of a generous foe
to taunt him now. I fear you look upon these
matters a little narrowly and tend to accept one
aspect as the absolute. The truth is that international
morality must always be largely Utilitarian, and in a
very interesting little book by Beeker it is even doubted
whether what we call " ethics " have any independent
existence. This new attitude (which we call " moral
anarchism ") has lately cast a great hold upon our
younger men and is full of interesting possibilities.
ON REVELATIONS 1 57
If you meet Milner you should discuss the point with
him. I assure you this school is rapidly ousting the
old " comparative-positive " in which he and Curzon
were trained. There is a great deal of self-realization
going on also. Lord Mestenvaux (whom you have
doubtless met he was a director of the Johannesberg
Alcohol Concession) is of my opinion.
Believe me, my dear Mr. Kruger, with the fullest
and warmest sympathy for such of your grievances
as may be legitimate, and with the ardent prayer that
the result of this deplorable quarrel may turn out to
be the best for both parties,
Your affectionate Friend of old days,
JOSHIA LAMBKIN, M.A.,
Fellow and Chaplain.
V.
(Telegram.)
Send orders payable Amsterdam immediate, Liberal
party clamouring . . . (name illegible) risen to
ten thousand, market firm and rising. Waste no
money on comic paper. Not Read.
(Unsigned,)
Finally this damning piece of evidence must close
the terrible series.
VI.
To the Rev. Ebenezer Biggs, Capetown.
The House of Commons,
April ioth, 1899.
My dear Sin You put me in a very difficult
position, for, on the one hand, I cannot^ and would
158 THE AFTERMATH
not, work against the interests of my. country, and,
on the other hand, I am convinced that Mr. Chamber-
lain is determined to plunge that country into the
war spoken of by John in Revelations ix. Anything
I can do for peace I will, but for some reason or
other the Times will not insert my letters, though I
write to them twice and sometimes thrice in one day.
Sir Alfred Milner was once very rude to me. He is a
weak man morally, mainly intent upon " getting on ;"
he has agreed since his youth with every single person
of influence (except myself) whom he happened to
come across, and is universally liked. I fear that no
one's private influence can do much. The London
Press has been bought in a lump by two financiers.
Perhaps a little waiting is the best thing. There is
sure to be a reaction, and after all, Mr. Chamberlain
is a man of a very low order. His mind, I take it, is
not unlike his face. He thinks very little and very
clearly ... I have really nothing more to say.
Always your sincere friend,
EDWARD BAYTON.
No one knew better than Dr. Caliban that a Reve-
lation is but weakened by comment. But the war
was at its height, and he could not read without
disgust such words, written in such a place by such
a man.
He added the note :
" We understand that the law officers of the Crown
are debating whether or no the concluding sentences
of this disgraceful letter can be made to come within
26 Edward III., cap* 37, defining high treason. It is
ON REVELATIONS 159
certainly not a physical attack upon the Person, Con-
sort, or offspring of the Crown, nor is it (strictly
speaking) giving aid to the Queen's enemies. On the
other hand, it is devoutly hoped that the attack on Mr.
Chamberlain can be made to fall under 32 Henry VIII.,
1, whereby it is felony to strike or ' provoke ' the King's
servants within the precincts of the Palace. The in-
famous screed was certainly written in a palace, and
Mr. Chamberlain is as certainly a servant of the Queen.
He certainly was provoked nay nettled. The latter
clauses of the act, condemning those who attack the
doctrine of Transubstantiation to be roasted alive, have,
of course, fallen into desuetude. The earlier, milder,
and more general clauses stand, and should be enforced"
Let me not be misunderstood. I think it was an
error to pen that comment. Strong expressions, used
in a time of high party feeling, may look exaggerated
when they survive into quieter times. But if it was
an error, it was the only error that can be laid to the
charge of a just and great man in the whole course of
forty years, during which period he occasionally edited
as many as five journals at a time.
SPECIAL PROSE.
SPECIAL PROSE.
MRS. CALIBAN begged me to add a few words on
" Special Prose," and to subjoin an example of that
manner. She has suggested for the latter purpose
Mrs. Railston's " Appreciation of William Shake-
speare," written as a preface for the Charing Cross
Shakespeare in 1897. She has even been at the pains
of asking Mrs. Railston's leave to have it included in
this volume, a permission that was at once granted,
accompanied with the courteous request that Mrs.
Railston's name, address, and private advertisement
should accompany the same.
Were I dependent upon my own judgment alone,
the wisdom of adding such a division at the close of
these essays might seem doubtful. Special Prose is
an advanced kind of literature, too great an attraction
to which might at first confuse rather than aid the
student ; and I should hardly make a place for it in a
straightforward little Text-book.
Mrs. Caliban's wishes in all matters concerning
this work must be observed, and I have done what
she desired me, even to the degree of printing Mrs.
Railston's advertisement, though I am certain that
great Authoress does herself harm by this kind of
insistence . . . It is no business of mine. . .- .
M 2
164 THE AFTERMATH
It is only fair to add that prose of this sort is the
highest form of our Art, and should be the ultimate
goal of every reader of this Guide. If, however, the
student is bewildered in his first attempt to decipher
it (as he very well may be), my advice to him is this :
let him mark the point to which he has persevered,
and then put the whole thing aside until he has had
some little further practice in English letters. Then
let him return, fresh from other work, some weeks
later, and see if he cannot penetrate still further into
the close-knit texture. Soon he will find it almost
like his own tongue, and will begin to love and to
understand.
Not many months will pass before it will mean to
him something more than life, as he once imagined,
could contain.
Having said so much, let me hasten to obey Mrs.
Caliban's command.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
An Appreciation.
BY MARGARET RAILSTON.
How very manifestly well did not Montaigne (I think
it was) say in his essay upon Value that the " inner
part of Poesy is whilom hid, whilom bare, and it
matters little whether it be bare or hidden." That
was a sentence such as our Wordsworth might have
quoted at the high court of Plato when the poets were
arraigned as unworthy to be rooted in his Republic.
For the most part these dear poets of our tongue will
SPECIAL PROSE 165
rather have it bare than hidden, leaving the subtleties
of " The Misanthrope " to another race, and them-
selves preferring the straight verbal stab of " The
Idiot Boy" or "Danny Deever ; " so that many of
us see nothing in the Rhymed Heroics of the Grand
Siecle. Yet Moliere also had genius.
" Moliere a du genie et Christian etc beau."
That sentence given nasally by a Coquelin to a
theatre-full of People of the Middle-Class should
convince also us of the Hither-North that flowers
may blow in any season and be as various as multi-
plicity may.
William Shakespeare, without all question and
beyond any repining, is or rather was the first of
our Poets, and was or rather is the first to-day.
So that, with him for a well and the Jacobean Bible
for a further spring of effort, our English Poets make
up (" build " Milton called it) the sounding line. But
William Shakespeare also is of us : he will have it on
the surface or not at all ; as a man hastening to
beauty, too eager to delve by the way. And with it
all how he succeeds ! What grace and what apprecia-
tion in epithet, what subtle and sub-conscious effects
of verb ! What resonant and yet elusive diction !
It is true Shakespeare, that line
" Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May."
And that other
" Or stoops with the Remover to remove."
And these are true Shakespeare because in each there
l66 THE AFTERMATH
is we know not what of ivory shod with steel. A
mixture of the light and the strong, of the subtle
and the intense rescues his simple words from
oblivion. But another, not of our blood, would have
hidden far more ; he shows it all, frankly disdaining
artifice.
Also the great Elizabethan needs room for his
giant limbs, for his frame of thought and his thews of
diction. Cite him just too shortly, choose but a hair's
breadth too mickle an ensample of his work, and it is
hardly Poesy, nay, hardly Prose. Trius you shall
have Othello the Moor they call him betrayed and
raging, full of an African Anger. What does he say
of it ? Why very much ; but if you are of those that
cut out their cameos too finely ; you slip into quoting
this merely :
Oth. Hum ! Hum !
And that is not our Shakespeare at all, nor e'en
our Othello. Oh ! no, it is nothing but a brutish
noise, meaning nothing, empty of tragedy, unwished
for.
It was Professor Goodie who said that " none
needed the spaces of repose more than Shakespeare,"
and taught us in these words that the poet must have
hills and valleys ; must recline if he is to rise. But
does not Shakespeare, even in his repose, seem to
create ? The Professor will indeed quote to us the
mere sprawling leisure of Stratford, and shame us
with such lines as
MAC. The Devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon,
Where got'st thou that goose look ?
SPECIAL PROSE 1 67
Which is Shakespeare at full length. But we also,
that are not over sure of Shakespeare's failing, can
answer him with such excerpts as these :
HEN. Therefore do thou, stiff-set Northumberland,
Retire to Chester, and my cousin here,
The noble Bedford, hie to Glo'ster straight
And give our Royal ordinance and word
That in this fit and strife of empery
No loss shall stand account. To this compulsion
I pledge my sword, my person and my honour
On the Great Seal of England : so farewell.
Swift to your charges : nought was ever done
Unless at some time it were first begun.
This also is Shakespeare in his repose, but a better
Shakespeare than he whom the Professor would
challenge. For though there is here no work or
strain in the thing, yet it reeks of English. It is like
the mist over our valleys at evening, so effortless is it
and so reposeful, and yet so native. Note the climax
" On the Great Seal of England " and the quaint,
characteristic folklore of the concluding couplet, with
its rhyming effect. Note also how sparing is William
Shakespeare of the strong qualificative, however just
it may be. For when our moderns will speak hardly
of " the tolerant kine " or " the under-lit sky," or of
" the creeping river like a worm upturned, with silver
belly stiffened in the grass," though they be by all
this infinitely stronger, yet are they but the more
condensed and self-belittled/ Shakespeare will write
you ten lines and have in all but one just and sharp
adjective " stiff-set ; " for the rest they are a common
highway ; he cares not.
And here he is in the by-paths ; a meadow of
1 68 THE AFTERMATH
Poesy. I have found it hidden away in one of the
latter plays ; the flowers of his decline :
" Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
Nor the furious winter's rages ;
Now thine earthly task is done,
Thou'rt gone home and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and lasses must,
Like chimney-sweepers, come to dust."
There is in that a line I swear no one but Shakespeare
would have dared. " Thou'rt gone home and ta'en
thy wages." Commonplace ? A text on the wall ? A
sermon-tag ? All you will, but a jrame JOY glory.
This then is William Shakespeare in a last word.
A man at work full of doing ; the F epyov : glad if you
saw the mark of the chisel ; still more glad if you did
not see it. And if it be queried why are such things
written of him ? Why do we of the last and woful
days turn and return the matter of our past ? We
say this. Vixen Fortes ; that is, no fame were endur-
ing save by continued iterance and echo of similar
praise, nor any life well earned in the public sheets
that dared not touch on any matter and remodel all.
It is for ourselves and for William Shakespeare that
these things are done. For ourselves, that is a
private thing to hide under the veil of the Home-lofe.
For William Shakespeare, that is the public duty,
that his fame may not fail in the noise of new voices.
And we can borrow from him and return to him what
he said of another with such distinction of plane and
delicate observance of value :
" So long as men shall breathe and eyes can see,
This lives, and living, this gives life to thee."
SPECIAL PROSE 169
[Notices in this manner can be furnished at reasonable
notice upon any poet, preferably a young or a modern poet,
on the usual terms. The style is produced in seven distinct
sizes, of which this is No. 3. Please state No. when
ordering. All envelopes to be addressed.
Mrs. MARGARET RAILSTON,
c/o Charlie Bernberg,
48, Upper Gannimore Gardens,
Shepherd's Bush, W.
All envelopes to be marked "Appreciation." Accounts
monthly. All cheques to be crossed "Becker, Becker, <*
Bernberg."]
APPENDIX
PRICES CURRENT.
IN all ordinary lines Prices were well maintained and
rising at the outbreak of the Spanish- American War.
They rose sharply thenceforward till the second week of
the war in South Africa, since which date they have
been sagging, touching bed rock in the spring of this
year (March, 1903). There has been a slight reaction
since the beginning of the season, but it is not sup-
ported, and the market is still extremely dull. Patriotic
Poems have fallen out of sight, and Criticism is going
begging : in some offices books are no longer given to
their reviewers : sub-editors have latterly been asked
to bring their own suppers. The pinch is being felt
everywhere. Police reports are on piece-work and
the Religious Column is shut down to half shifts.
Leader writers have broken from noo a year to 300.
Editors have suffered an all-round cut in wages of 25
per cent. Publishers' carrying-over days are more
anxious than ever. Several first-class houses were
hammered on the last contango, and the Banks are
calling in loans. Private capital can hardly be
obtained save for day-to-day transactions, and even
so at very high rates of interest. The only lines
that are well maintained are City Articles and Special
Prose. Snippets are steady.
174
THE AFTERMATH
The following list is taken from Hunter's Hand-
book, and represents Prices at the close of May :
PROSE.
(Prices in shillings per thousand words}.
Special- Prose
Street Accidents
Reviews ...
Police Court Notices
Guaranteed Libels
Unguaranteed ditto
Deferred ditto
Pompous Leaders
Smart Leaders
Ten-line Leaderettes
Political Appeals
Attacks on Foreign N ations
Dramatic Criticism
Historical Work
Religious Notes
Attacks upon Christianity
3% 35/'
I0/- I2/-
7/6 io/-
RISE OR FALL.
Unchanged.
5/-
2o/-
IO/,
i5/-
20/-
lO/-
1 1/6
I2/-
3/6
25/-
6d.?
_2 5 /-!
Unchanged.
Unchanged.
(Practically
no demand).
4 /- 4/6 - 5 /- (A
very heavy fall for this
kind of matter).
VERSE.
(Prices in pence per line).
Bad Verse ... No price can be given-very variable.
Good minor Verse, sd. (much the same as last year).
Special Verse ... i/- (a heavy fall).
PRICES CURRENT 1 75
S
<o
OUSAl
oo I^N 10 ^t- o oo 10
t> 10 ro M t~~- cs O
W
t3
3,
1
u
.
O
5s
QvOCJ O^'-OOO'-i ro
u
e
**}
i *
o M ro T^ vO O^ ro *sO
u
Ss,
1
K
~
z
^ bbbboMM
H-
O
O
o
q
(U
Ul
ne or t
^'
g
o
^
u
.t;
in
J
p-(
O
^j
V
c
,
w
P<
"C
Pi
rt
^
-^
M
*
O
S3
5
~
P
o >O i ^O < i i i ^
ri
g
,a
*^
<0
6
g T MMf^rOTi-.^- 1
T3
o
d,
u
t
K
P-i
0)
(4
^3
C)
5
.2 _ ^. . _. j^
o
H
H
w
^ 1
X
f ro t>. w >Oc^ O fN.^ 1 " 1
% M M <M ro ro -M
o V>
o
1-1
<u
'O
<u
rt
P5
"iv" 1
-M
5
,
f^
o
z
H;
.iirovO O^rsoO ^* O '2
o
W)
.S
^
w
l^'l
r-s
tJQ
O
bo
i
"o
> ^
b
73
M
MH
?
8^
.2
bo
G
rt
"o
ui <
C U
x
i
&
<0
0,
a
S
Q
-s ^
Z
V
* ^
13
C7 1
^S o
rt
<^
W
&
. K
3
U
O
a
2 ,,,,,, w
3 tf) O v) O O Q Q u
165 MMOJro^rioo
1
acts anc
s'S
C
"" o
a
ys
s
8*
o
M )-H
a)
*3
8
13
g ro vO O~i i vO i <O "
C/3
X
V
P:
ID
<u
I
p
3
^ rt" 00 r tv, lo ^" M , ~
M M w ro Tf ^J
M
.S
*
1
C
O C
U)
rt
C
V
cS
3
*
X
>rrot>. M orN O l>
M M o* ro ro
rt
s
IS
C
4>
S
m
^i
^
C *"*
8
C3
<*
M
o
*j O
G *-
& a
4
w
ic
O
ft
'ej
^g
5 s
g
e|
1
1
>-c>
1
^
4J O
.2 cs
^
^
hi
a
3,
<u
(/}
<
IH
H rt
J9
w
u
ti " ^3 tS ^3 ^ "
(D
*
++"
*>
fe 3
<t
h
(The Sections dealing with " THE DETECTION OF
CLASSICAL AUTHORS " and " THE VIVID PRESENTA-
TION OF HISTORY," have been omitted by request of
the Family. It is perhaps as well.)
NOTE ON TITLES.
THE young journalist will never make an error as to
the title of an individual, and his proper style and
address, if he will but learn to trust the books of
reference provided by the office.
They are far more accurate than other works of the
kind.* Contrast, for instance, Bowley's Peerage and
Baronetage with Bowley's Register of Events during the
past year.
What may be called " derivative titles " differ in the
most complicated manner according to the rank of
the parent. It would be quite impossible for the
journalist to attempt to learn them. He had far
better write plain " Lord " and " Lady " where he
has occasion to, and on all other occasions what-
soever, " Mr." or, if he prefer the term, " Esquire."
In conversation no Lord should be addressed as
" My Lord," but a Bishop should always be so
addressed ; no Duke should be called " Your Grace "
to his face, but it is courteous to bestow this honour
upon an Archbishop. It is still more important to
avoid the term " milady " in speaking to the consorts
* They are often inaccurate with regard to the past history of
the families mentioned, and very often wrong in the spelling of the
family name ; but these details are furnished by the families them-
selves, upon whom the responsibility must rest.
N
178 THE AFTERMATH
of the above named, especially in the case of bishops'
wives, to whom the title does not apply. Baronets,
on the other hand, must always be addressed as " Sir,"
followed by a Christian name. The omission to do
this has led to grievous trouble. The principal
English titles are, Prince, Duke, Marquis, Marquess
(a more recent creation), Earl, Baron ; then comes a
division ; then Irish Peers, Baronets, Knights, and
finally Members of the Victorian Order.
The principal foreign titles are Count, Viscount
(which by the way is also an English title, but I
forgot it), Vidame, Chevalier, Excellency, Graf, Furst,
Margrave, Baron, Boyar, Monsignor, and Grandee
the latter used only in Spain, Ceuta, and the other
Spanish dominions beyond the seas.
Imperial titles are : the Maharajah, the Maharanee,
the Akon of Swat, the Meresala of Baghirmi, the Oyo
of Oya, the Allemami of Foutazallam, the Ameer, the
Emir, the Bally-o-Gum of Abe-o-Kuta,* and others
too numerous to mention. All these should, in
general, be addressed as Your Highness.
Colonials are called " The Honourable."
* I omit the ex-Jumbi of Koto-Koto, a rebellious upstart whom
the Imperial Government has very properly deposed.
NOTE ON STYLE.
ONE does well to have by one a few jottings that will
enable one to add to one's compositions what one
call's style in case it is demanded of one by an editor.
I would not insist too much upon the point ; it is
simple enough, and the necessity of which I speak
does not often crop up. But editors differ very much
among themselves, and every now and then one gets
a manuscript returned with the note, " please improve
style," in blue pencil, on the margin. If one had no
idea as to the meaning of this a good deal of time
might be wasted, so I will add here what are con-
sidered to be the five principal canons of style or
good English.
The first canon, of course, is that style should have
Distinction. Distinction is a quality much easier to
attain than it looks. It consists, on the face of it,
in the selection of peculiar words and their arrange-
, ment in an odd and perplexing order, and the objection
is commonly raised that such irregularities cannot be
rapidly acquired. Thus the Chaplain of Barford,
preaching upon style last Holy Week, remarked
"there is a natural tendency in stating some useless
and empty thing to express oneself in a common or
vulgar manner." That is quite true, but it is a
N 2
l8o THE AFTERMATH
tendency which can easily be corrected, and I think
that that sentence I have just quoted throws a flood
of light on the reverend gentleman's own deficiencies.
Of course no writer is expected to write or even to
speak in this astonishing fashion, but what is easier
than to go over one's work and strike out ordinary
words ? There should be no hesitation as to what to
put in their place. Halliwell's " Dictionary of
Archaic and Provincial Words " will give one all the
material one may require. Thus " lettick " is charm-
ing Rutlandshire for " decayed " or " putrescent,"
and " swinking " is a very good alternative for'
" working." It is found in Piers Plowman.
It is very easy to draw up a list of such unusual
words, each corresponding with some ordinary one,
and to pin it up where it will meet your eye. In all
this matter prose follows very much the same rules
as were discovered and laid down for verse on page
86.
The second canon of style is that it should be
obscure, universally and without exception. The dis-
turbance of the natural order of words to which I have
just alluded is a great aid, but it is not by any means
the only way to achieve the result. One should also
on occasion use several negatives one after the other,
and the sly correction of punctuation is very useful.
I have known a fortune to be made by the omission
of a full stop, and a comma put right in between a
noun and its adjective was the beginning of Daniel
Witton's reputation. A foreign word misspelt is also
very useful. Still more useful is some allusion to some
NOTE ON STYLE l8l
unimportant historical person or event of which your
reader cannot possibly have heard.
As to the practice, which has recently grown up, of
writing only when one is drunk, or of introducing
plain lies into every sentence, they are quite unworthy
of the stylist properly so called, and can never per-
manently add to one's reputation.
The third canon of style is the occasional omission of
a verb or of the predicate. Nothing is more agree-
ably surprising, and nothing more effective. I have
known an honest retired major-general, while reading
a novel in his club, to stop puzzling at one place for
an hour or more in his bewilderment at this delightful
trick, and for years after he would exclaim with
admiration at the style of the writer.
The fourth canon of style is to use metaphors of a
striking, violent, and wholly novel kind, in the place
of plain statement : as, to say " the classics were
grafted on the standing stirp of his mind rather than
planted in its soil," which means that the man had
precious little Greek, or again, "we propose to
canalize, not to dam the current of Afghan develop-
ment," which means that the commander of our
forces in India strongly refused to campaign beyond
the Khyber.
This method, which is invaluable for the purpose
of flattering the rich, is very much used among the
clergy, and had its origin in our great Universities,
where it is employed to conceal ignorance, and to
impart tone and vigour to the tedium of academic
society. The late Bishop of Barchester was a past
1&2 THE AFTERMATH
master of this manner, and so was Diggin, the war
correspondent, who first talked of a gun " coughing "
at one, and was sent home by Lord Kitchener for
lying.
The fifth canon of style is, that when you are bored
with writing and do not know what to say next, you
should hint at unutterable depths of idea by the
introduction of a row of asterisks.
THE ODE.
THE writing of Odes seems to have passed so com-
pletely out of our literary life, that I thought it
inadvisable to incorporate any remarks upon it with
the standing part of my book, but I cannot refrain
from saying a few words upon it in the Appendix,
since I am convinced that it is destined to play a
great part in the near future.
I will take for my example the well-known Ode
(almost the only successful modern example of this
form of composition) which was sung on the beach
at Calshott Castle, by a selected choir, on the return
of Mr. Joseph Chamberlain from South Africa ; and .1
will use some passages from it in order to emphasize
the leading principle that the Ode depends for its effective-
ness almost entirely upon the music accompanying it.
Thus, Mr. Daniel Witton's opening lines :
" What stranger barque from what imperial shores
The angry Solent dares to what mysterious goal ? "
would seem tame enough were it not for the wonder-
ful rising of the notes, which accompany them ; and
the famous outburst :
" She to Southampton steers ! "
is equally dependent upon the crash of music and the
combined voices of. the whole choir. It is difficult for
us, who have heard it rendered in the Albert Hall, to
184 THE AFTERMATH
appreciate what the words would be without this
adventitious aid. Even the lovely single line,
" Lift up your head, Southampton, dry your honourable tears,' 1
would be less without the delicate soprano floating
above- its syllables.
I will admit that the passage on the body-guard of
National Scouts is very fine, but then, precisely in
proportion as it is effective qua literature, it fails to
impress when accompanied by music, though the
author of the score was wise enough to set it to a
somewhat monotonous recitative. If the student will
read the lines slowly to himself, first with, and then
without, the notes, he will see what I mean.
" And who more fit than they
Whose better judgment led them to betray
An aged leader and a failing cause
Because
Because they found it pay."
Mr. Daniel Witton did not write that word " because "
twice over in his original manuscript. He put it in
twice to please the musician (whose ignorance of the
English tongue was a great handicap throughout),
and, as I at least think, he made an error in so doing.
All that passage where the great politician
"... taking off his hat,"
comes into the palace at Pretoria, where
" . . . in awful state alone,
Alone, the scientific Monist sat,
Who guards our realm, extends its narrow bounds,
And to achieve his end,
Is quite prepared to spend
The inconceivably imperial sum of twice three hundred times five
hundred thousand pounds,"
THE ODE 185
shows the grave difficulty of wedding the verse to
the music. The last line is intolerably clumsy, when
read without the air accompanying it ; and the whole
illustrates very well my contention that music should
be the chief thing in the composition of an ode, and
that the libretto should be entirely subservient to it.
A still better example is found in the great chorus
" Pretoria," which begins
" Pretoria with her hundred towers
Acknowledges his powers,"
and " Johannesburg," which ends
" Heil ! heil ! hoch ! heil ! du ubermenslich' wohl-gebornen Graf
von Chamberlein,
While underground,
While underground,
Such rare and scattered Kaffirs as are found
Repeat the happy, happy, happy, happy sound."
And of course the lyric at the end
" All in his train de luxe
Reading selected books,
Including Conan Doyle's ingenious fiction
And popular quota-
Tions, verses by the way
For which he has a curious predilection,
And Mr. Werther's work
Called ' England shall not shirk,'
Or ' The Cape to Cairo, Kairouan and Cadiz,
And ' Burke,' and ' Who is Who,'
And ' Men and Women ' too,
And ' Etiquette for Gentlemen and Ladies,'"
Et cetera, et cetera.
All that lyric depends entirely for its effects upon the
little Venetian air taken from Sullivan, who himself
took it from Verdi, who got it from a Gondolier. The
words by themselves have no beauty whatsoever.
1 86 THE AFTERMATH
Indeed, I think in the whole Ode there is but one
exception to the rule I have laid down, and. that is at
the very end, where they sing of the accomplished
task and, in a fine hyperbole, of the " Great story
that shall shake the affrighted years."
The last five lines are such good music and such
good verse that I cannot dissociate one from the
other :
CHORUS. And now returns he, turns, turns he to his own
TROMBONE. Ah, maddened with delight,
I welcome him upon the loud trombone.
THE BASS DRUM. I, in more subtle wise,
Upon the big bass drum.
THE TENOR. And I upon the trembling flute, that shrieks and
languishes and dies.
ALL THREE. Welcome, and make a widowed land rejoice :
Welcome, attuned voice ;
Sweet eyes !
It is a very fine ending, and I congratulate Mr.
Daniel Witton upon it most sincerely. . . .
******
It reminds one of the Bacchse.
******
Should the student desire to attempt something of
the kind for himself, he cannot do better than to in-
vite a musical friend and compose the ode strictly in
conjunction with him ; neither should write separately
from the other, and let there be no quarrels or tan-
trums, but let each be ready to give way.
I suggest, as a subject for this exercise, a Funeral
Ode upon the same statesman, to be sung when
occasion serves.
ON REMAINDERS AND PULPING.
SHOULD the student aspire to collect his journalistic
work, or the less ephemeral part of it, into book
form, he will do well to apply to some old and estab-
lished firm of publishers, who will give him a
reasonable estimate for its production, plus the cost of
advertising, warehousing, wear and tear, office
expenses, etc., etc., to which must be added the
customary Fee.
The book so issued will be sent to the Press for
notice and review, and will, some weeks later, be
either Remaindered or Pulped. It is important to
have a clear idea of these processes which accompany
an author throughout his career.
A book is said to be Remaindered when it is sold to
the secondhand bookseller in bulk ; 10 per cent, of
the sums so received, less the cost of cartage to and
fro from shop to shop, and the wages of the Persuader
who attempts to sell the volumes, is then credited to
the author in his account, which is usually pressed
upon the completion of the transaction.
The less fortunate must be content with Pulping.
In the midst of their chagrin they will be consoled by
the thought that their book enjoys a kind of resurrec-
tion, and will reappear beneath some other, and
1 88 THE AFTERMATH
who knows ? perhaps some nobler form. The very
paper upon which these words are printed may once
have formed part of a volume of verse, or of Imperial-
ist pamphlets subsidised by the South African
Women's League.
A book is said to be Pulped when it is sold at so
many pence the thousand copies to the Pulpers*
for Pulping. The transformation is effected as
follows: First the covers are thoroughly and skil-
fully torn off the edition by girls known as " Scalpers "
or " Skinners," and the Poems (or whatnot), after
going through this first process, are shot in batches
of twenty-four into a trough, which communicates by
an inclined plane with open receptacles known
technically as " bins." Hence the sheets are taken
out by another batch of hands known as " feeders"
for it is their duty to "feed " the marvellous machine
which is the centre of the whole works. The Poems
(as we may imagine them to be) are next thrown by
the " feeders," with a certain rapid and practised
gesture, into a funnel-shaped receiver, where they are
caught by Six Large Rows of strong Steel Teeth f
known as the " Jaws," which are so arranged as just
barely to miss each other ; these work alternatively
* Messrs. Ibbotson, of Fetter-lane, and Charlton and Co., of St.
Anne's, are the best-known Pulpers.
t Until Lord Balton (then Sir Charles Quarry) invented this part
of the machine, poems, apologies for Christianity, &c., in fact all
kinds of books, had to be torn laboriously into minute pieces by
hand. It is difficult for us*to realise now-a-days what exertion this
involved. We live in an age of machinery !
ON REMAINDERS AND PULPING 189
back and forth, and reduce the hardest matter to
shreds in an incredibly short time.
The shreds so formed fall on to a wide endless band,
which carries them on into the " bowl," where they
are converted under a continual stream of boiling
water, into a kind of loose paste. Lest any trace of
the original Poetic (or Prose) composition could re-
main to trouble the whiteness of the rapidly forming
mixture, this water contains a 30% solution of Sardonic
Oxide, two kilogrammes of which will bleach one
thousand kilos of shredded Poems or Essays in from
thirty-five to forty minutes. When the Poems or
whatnot have been finally reduced to a white and
formless mass, they are termed pulp and this pulp is
laid out into frames, to be converted once more into
paper, Art, glazed, and medium.
This principle of " the Conservation of Paper " or,
as Lord Balton (Sir Charles Quarry) has himself
called it, " the Circulation of Literature," is naturally
more developed among the Anglo-Saxon peoples than
upon the Continent. The patriotic reader will be
pleased to hear that whereas of existing German
books barely 35% are pulped within the year, of French
books not 27%, and of Italian but 15% ; of our total
production which is far larger no less than 73% are
restored to their original character of useful blank
paper within the year, ready to receive further im-
pressions of Human Genius and to speed on its
accelerated round the progress of Mankind.
AMEN.
INDEX.
Abingdon, History of, by Lord Charles Camber, see
Pulping, p. 187.
Action, Combination of, with Plot, Powerful Effect of in
Modern Novels, see Pulping, p. 187.
Advertisement, Folly and Waste of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Affection, Immoderate, for our own Work, Cure of, see
Pulping, p. 187.
All Souls, College of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Amusements of Printers and Publishers, see Pulping, p. 187.
Art, Literary, Ultimate End of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Astonishment of, Young Poet, see Pulping, p. 187.
Authorship, Vanity of Human, see Pulping, p. 187.
Baronets, Family Histories of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Benjamin Kidd, see Kidd.
Beaune, Wine of, Its Consoling Qualities, see Pulping, p. 187.
Beotius, Decline in Sale of Works of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Bilge, Literature so Termed, see Pulping, p. 187.
Bird, The Honourable, his " Essay on Popery," see Pulping,
p. 187.
Books, see Pulping, p. 187.
Bore, Books that, see Pulping, p. 187.
Boston, Effect of, upon American Culture, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Cabs, Necessity of, to Modern Publisher, see Pulping, p.
187.
Cabs to Authors, Unwarrantable Luxury, see Pulping, p. 187.
THE AFTERMATH
Call, Divine, to a Literary Career, see Pulping, p. 187.
Curse, Publishers a, see Pulping, p. 187.
Curzon, Lord, his Literary Works, see Pulping, p. 187.
Damn, Expletive, When Used, see Pulping, p. 187.
Damn, Thirteen Qualifications of Same, see Pulping, p. 187.
Daniel in Lion's Den Compared to a Just Author, see
Pulping, p. 187.
Dogs, Reputation Going to the, see Pulping, p. 187.
Dowagers, Novels Written by, see Pulping, p. 187.
Doyle, Conan, see O'Doyle.
Dozen, Trade Term for Thirteen, see Pulping, p. 187.
Dreyfus, Literature upon, see Pulping, p. 187.
Education, Futility of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Eighty Club, see Female Suffrage, also Suffrage.
Elders, see Suzanna.
England, Source and Wealth of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Evil, Origin of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Fame, see Pulping, p. 187.
Fate, see Pulping, p. 187.
Finesse, see Pulping, p. 187.
Finland, Doom of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Francis of Assisi, Saint, Modern Books on, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Fuss, Folly of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Genius, Indestructibility of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Hanging, Suicide by, when Caused by Failure, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Heaven, Monkish Fables upon, see Pulping, p. 187.
Hell, ditto, see Pulping, p. 187.
INDEX 193
Howl, The Sudden, When Excusable, see Pulping, p. 187.
*' Huguenot," pseudonym, his " Influence of Jesuits in
Europe," see Pulping, p. 187.
India, Lord Curzon's Views on, see Pulping, p. 187.
Inspiration, Sole Source of Poetry, see Pulping, p. 187.
Jesuits, Their Reply to " Huguenot," see Pulping, p. 187.
Kidd, Benjamin, Philosophy of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Kruger, Memoirs of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Limb, Charles, Centenary Edition of, see Pulping, p. 187.
London, Fascination of, see Pulping, p. 187.
" Lunaticus," his Essays on Foreign Politics, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Luzon, "How Old Glory Floats Over" (Putnam & Co., 3
dollars), see Pulping, p. 187.
"Mamma," "Darling Old," Story for Children, by the
Countess of K , see Pulping, p. 187.
Mache", Papier, see Pulping, p. 187.
Milner, Lord, Proclamations of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Moulds, Modern Books Printed from, see Pulping, p. 187.
" Mucker," " To Come a," Publishers' slang, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Name, Real, of "Diplomaticus," see Pulping, p. 187.
O'Doyle, Conan, Political Works of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Opper, Caricatures of England by, see Pulping, p. 187.
Paper, How Procured, see Pulping, p. 187.
Profits, Half, System of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Pulping, p. 187.
o
194 THE AFTERMATH
Queen of Roumania, Verses by, see Pulping, p. 187.
Rhodes, Cecil, Numerous Lives of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Rot, Inevitable End of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Rubbish, Common Fate of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Sabatier, see Pulping, p. 187.
Soul, Human, What is the, by James Heading, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Suffrage, Female, Arguments For and Against, by Members
of the Eighty Club, see Pulping, p. 187.
Suzanna and the Elders, Sacred Poem, see Pulping, p. 187.
Tax, Bread, Repeal of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Times Newspaper, History of War in South Africa, see
Pulping, p. 187.
Times, Obituary Notices of, Reprinted, see Pulping, p. 187.
Times, All Republications from, see Pulping, p. 187.
Transvaal, Truth About, by Patrick FitzPatrick, see Pulping,
p. 187.
Uganda Railway, Balance-sheet of, see Pulping, p. 187.
Vanitas, Vanitatum, see Vanitatum.
Vanitatum, Vanitas, see Pulping, p. 187.
Vindex, his Great Biography of Cecil Rhodes, see Pulping,
p. 187.
W. X. Y. Z., see Pulping, p. 187.
PRINTED BY R. FOLKARD AND SON,
22, DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN SQUARE, BU3OMSBURY.
One Shilling and Sixpence net per Volume, in Paper.
Two Shillings net, in Cloth.
DUCKWORTH & CO.'s
GREENBACK LIBRARY.
" A rather attractive series." Athenavm.
" That rather remarkable little series." Academy,
" A cheap and excellent little series." Westminster Gazette.
" The admirable Greenback Library." Freeman's Journal.
"A series remarkable for good work and originality." Pall Mall
Gazette.
1. TWENTY-SIX MEN AND A GIRL. By
MAXIM GORKY.
" In Gorky an original genius has arisen." The Speaker.
" Gorky brings us face to face with bare human nature." The Pilot.
" A man possessed of grim and terrible power as a literary artist."
Liverpool Daily Post.
" Nature is alive for him, and he renders a storm, whether on land
or at sea, with the magic touch of a poet." Pall Mall Gazette.
2. EL OMBU. By W. H. HUDSON.
" Mr. Hudson's wonderful and picturesque stories." Spectator.
" Makes the critical reader sniff with pleasure." Daily Chronicle.
" Though the world has gained a great naturalist in Mr. Hudson,
it has lost a great writer of fiction. Yet no man is better fitted to serve
two masters.'" The Times.
3. A KING AND HIS CAMPAIGNERS. By
VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM.
" This book is to be recommended to all lovers of fine literature of
any nationality." Queen.
" Eminently a book to read." Pall Mall Gazette.
" Burns itself into the memory like flakes of fire. ; ' Times.
4. SUCCESS. By R. B. CUNNINGHAME-GRAHAM.
" One realises that this author stands out from among his fellows,
since Stevenson died, as the embodiment of one thing in literature
. . . that rare thing, charm. . . . Full of pleasing whimsicality,
of literary distinction, of quaint, ironical philosophy . . . for all
readers who can appreciate literary grace and ironical humour."
Athen&um.
5. BUSH STUDIES. By BARBARA BAYNTON.
" Worth a dozen books by more familiar and accepted writers on
Australia." Daily Mail.
"The writer before us has a powerful brain."
" Daring and original."
" Has something of Ouida's almost agonising power of individualising
animals." Academy.
6. ROSSLYN'S RAID. By BEATRICE HELEN
BARMBY.
" Once again we are able unreservedly to congratulate the editor
and publisher of the ' Greenback Ljbrary.' . . . Outstandingly good,
. . . An admirable and distinguished piece of workmanship. . . .
Breathes the spirit of true romance. . . . The author scorned to
use the clumsy sensationalism by which many better-known writers
have won tht-ir circulation." Atkenteum.
X
000500544 2