MODERN MEN 
 AND MUMMERS 
 
 BY 
 
 HESKETH PEARSON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
 
 CT 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE U S. A. BV 
 
 THE QUINN a BODEN COMPANY 
 
 RAHWAY. N. J.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Modern Men and Mummers 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. BERNARD SHAW 7 
 
 II. SIR HERBERT TREE .... 38 
 
 III. SIR FRANCIS GALTON .... 58 
 
 IV. SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER ... 74 
 V. FRANK HARRIS . . . . . 95 
 
 VI. LYTTON STRACHEY .... 125 
 
 VII. SIR JOHNSTON FORBES-ROBERTSON . 132 
 
 VIII. STEPHEN PHILLIPS .... 137 
 
 IX. FRANK BENSON 148 
 
 X. ROBERT Ross 152 
 
 XI. PLAYWRIGHT PRODUCERS . . . 161 
 
 Post-Impressions 
 
 I. H. G. WELLS . . . . . 173 
 
 II. EDMUND GOSSE * . . 175 
 
 III. ARTHUR BOURCHIER .... 177 
 
 IV. MRS. ASQUITH ... . . 179 
 V. SIR HALL CAINE 180 
 
 VI. LEWIS WALLER 185 
 
 VII. WINSTON CHURCHILL 187
 
 4 CONTENTS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 VIII. JOSEPH CONRAD 189 
 
 IX. DEAN INGE 191 
 
 X. MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL . . .192 
 
 XI. FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN . . 194 
 
 XII. IRENE VANBRUGH .... 196 
 
 XIII. LLOYD GEORGE 198 
 
 XIV. GENEVIEVE WARD .... 200 
 XV. "JOHN BULL" ..... 201 
 
 XVI. THE IRVINGS . . . . .203 
 
 XVII. THE CHESTERTONS .... 205 
 
 XVIII. GERALD CUMBERLAND 208
 
 MODERN MEN 
 AND MUMMERS
 
 BERNARD SHAW 
 
 WE moderns are the products of Bernard Shaw. In 
 that whole riot of imaginary nonsense which G. K. 
 Chesterton gave to the world under the heading of 
 " George Bernard Shaw," there stands out one very 
 fine and very true thing the summary of Shaw's 
 ennobling influence on the spirit of his age. The rest 
 of the book is worthless as a criticism of Shaw though 
 interesting as a revelation of Chesterton. 
 
 The thing that alienated most people from Shaw 
 was precisely the thing that first drew me to him; I 
 mean the pamphlet entitled " Commonsense about the 
 War " which he issued in November, 1914. It is the 
 greatest piece of journalism, the finest tract for the 
 times, he has ever written. It should be republished 
 in a small pocket edition and presented to every bud- 
 ding politician as a model of how statesmen ought to 
 use their heads when other people lose theirs. It is 
 the classic text-book of mental balance and sobriety. 
 Incidentally, too, it was the pluckiest thing Shaw ever 
 did; and, although unrecognized as such at the time, 
 it typified the spirit of the average Englishman who 
 won the war as distinct from the average Englishman 
 who talked twaddle about how it ought to be won. 
 The sane instinct behind that pamphlet was the sane 
 instinct of the men who fought in the trenches and 
 on the deserts. Of course it gained the author a 
 
 7
 
 8 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 pretty thorough share of obloquy at the time, but (as 
 I found in the East) jackals invariably howl when 
 they scent a thoroughbred. 
 
 Thus it was not till 1914 that I began to read 
 Shaw's books seriously. Among modern authors, he 
 was the only first-class pre-war writer in England 
 who is not a post-war back-number. And, dreadful 
 to relate, his influence has developed so enormously 
 that there is every possibility of his shortly being ac- 
 cepted as a classic, even by the professional critics. 
 
 As everyone knows, Shaw's longer plays and 
 prefaces are penetrating studies of prevailing socio- 
 logical conditions all except three. The immense 
 superiority of his " Three Plays for Puritans " over 
 all his other works is so remarkable that I am amazed 
 to find their peculiar significance passed over by 
 every critic who has worried himself about Shaw. 
 And yet to me it is the one outstanding and immortal 
 thing about the man. Of course he doesn't think so 
 himself, but then he is his own worst critic. He pre- 
 fers the formless dialectic of " Getting Married " and 
 " Misalliance " to the deeper, simpler things of an ear- 
 lier period. 
 
 Now there are three or four subjects fundamental 
 to all great art, at the root of all philosophy, and 
 perennially interesting throughout the ages. The 
 best work of all the greatest artists and prophets has 
 concerned itself with one or other of these things. In- 
 deed that best work has often helped to keep alive the 
 propaganda, journalism and pot-boilers which nearly 
 every great artist produces alongside of it. One of 
 these things is Religion. Another is Statecraft. A 
 third is Sex. These are the chief, the primal topics
 
 BERNARD SHAW 9 
 
 of the world. They always have been and they al- 
 ways will be. In comparison with them everything 
 else is local, national, and of momentary value. Any 
 work of philosophy or art that does not deal with one 
 of these things cannot be regarded as of the slightest 
 ultimate importance. And according to the spiritual 
 significance given to these themes, the larger outlook, 
 the freer mind, so will the prophet-artist live in the 
 memory of later ages. In most works, ancient as well 
 as modern, Religion is degraded to the level of a 
 bigoted sectarianism, Statecraft is confused with 
 politics and patriotism, and Sex is debased for the 
 glorification of lust or sentiment. 
 
 With regard to Sex, the trouble is that in all dis- 
 cussions on the subject nearly everybody disagrees. 
 It seems that no two thinking people have a single 
 common idea about it. So, while it will continue to 
 be the main theme for controversialists, it will never 
 be settled to anyone's complete satisfaction. In 
 " Man and Superman," " Getting Married " and else- 
 where, Shaw has succeeded in clearing the ground of 
 much sloppy and dirty thinking, but in this instance 
 his emotion always an intellectual one does not 
 reach down into our natures deep enough to gain the 
 response we can easily give where the appeal is more 
 general than personal. 
 
 But with the other two matters he is on sure 
 ground. Ail intensely religious people are exactly 
 alike. They are all outcasts, all despised and re- 
 jected of men and women, all hopelessly unconven- 
 tional, free-tongued, fanatical, violent, unsentimental, 
 unromantic, careless and fearless of people and 
 things. They have been symbolized for ever in the
 
 10 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 character of the Devil's Disciple the hated enemy of 
 Scribes and Pharisees all the world over, the sedition- 
 monger who must be burnt or crucified, the man who 
 is more dangerous to the ruling classes than a thou- 
 sand Barabbases, the fellow who does not aspire to 
 an upper place in the feast-room and who will not 
 go to church every sabbath in a top hat and " mourn- 
 ing " coat. 
 
 " The Devil's Disciple " was the first play to be 
 written and acted in the English language with a big 
 constructive idea behind it. It will remain vital to us 
 as long as the audiences that witness it approximate 
 more nearly to Dick Dudgeon's relations than to 
 himself. And it will never cease to be remembered 
 as one of the glorious milestones on our journey to- 
 wards the light. 
 
 Religion, then, was the first eternal theme that 
 Shaw grappled with. He has touched on it frequently 
 since, but never again with the hand of a master- 
 artist, nor with the glowing prophetic power he then 
 displayed. There are a dozen other things in the play 
 that would have made the fame of smaller men, but 
 the great central fact and inspiration about it is the 
 faith and force of Dudgeon. Still, it is impossible 
 not to mention Anderson, parson of parsons, who ar- 
 rives at self-knowledge through action, and, being an 
 honest man, throws over his job of word-purveyor to 
 the parish; and General Burgoyne, already by con- 
 sent a classic notability. To my mind, Burgoyne is 
 the most finished, picturesque and delightful portrait 
 of a born aristocrat ever penned. The only criticism 
 one can make about him is that nowadays the sort of 
 person who has his brains wouldn't have his opinions.
 
 BERNARD SHAW 11 
 
 His humor suits him as perfectly as his clothes, and 
 his wit is as beautifully polished as his manners. He 
 is inimitable a creation of unbounded joy, done for 
 pure love. I would like to go on talking about him 
 and his exquisite niche in the Temple of Literature, 
 but I am awed to silence by a remark his creator once 
 made to me : "I don't take the slightest interest in 
 literature with a capital L. I am a prophet, not a 
 fancier 1 " 
 
 Too many people have got into the habit of read- 
 ing criticisms on writers instead of the works criti- 
 cized. This perhaps accounts for the utterly wrong 
 estimation of Shaw's finest achievements. I have no 
 wish to explain why G.B.S. is right, or why wrong, 
 in this or that controversial matter. (He is usually 
 right, by the way.) I merely wish to insist that on 
 two or three occasions he has written works that are 
 quite outside the question of agreement or disagree- 
 ment, that these works deal with the big funda- 
 mental things of life, not the local and topical things, 
 and that he has given us, by dramatic characteriza- 
 tion, immortal symbols for them. 
 
 I once asked him why he didn't write a book in 
 reply to the ridiculous things that had been written 
 about him, especially Chesterton's rigmarole which so 
 thoroughly distorted his outlook. He answered: 
 
 " Chesterton's book is a very good one in itself. It 
 has little to do with me, as G.K.C. has never made 
 any study of my works, and in one place actually 
 illustrates my limitations by telling the world some- 
 thing I would have made one of the characters say in 
 Major Barbara if I could have transcended those 
 limitations: the joke being that it is exactly what I
 
 12 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 did make the character say, as Chesterton might have 
 found had he taken the trouble to open the book 
 (probably he never possessed a copy) and refer to 
 the passage. But if you leave me out of account, 
 you will find, I think, that the book is full of good 
 things, and very generous into the bargain." 
 
 Some little time later I sent him a pen-portrait of 
 himself by Frank Harris, and he wrote : 
 
 " Frank Harris cannot really do a good Contem- 
 porary Portrait of me because he has never read my 
 works. It is true that Gilbert Chesterton wrote a 
 very good book under the same disqualification; but 
 it was not about me, and it was a sort of book that 
 Frank can't write." 
 
 The second of the eternal world-themes, State- 
 craft, was superbly treated by Shaw in " Csesar and 
 Cleopatra," where for the first and only time in Eng- 
 glish dramatic literature a great statesman and man 
 of action is painted to the life. This play is Shaw's 
 master-work. It reveals himself, his very soul, and 
 at the same time it gives us, in the character of 
 Caesar, far and away his finest achievement as an 
 objective artist. 
 
 Shaw has said all tHat needs to be said about 
 Ceesar, and about natural greatness, in the preface 
 and notes to his play. Every word is incontroverti- 
 ble: not a phrase can be improved upon. On that 
 matter, therefore, I shall be silent. But there are 
 two points about this play that I wish to discuss 
 briefly, because it has been said stupidly and insis- 
 tently, by people who ought to know better, that Shaw 
 " guys " history and can't write poetry which is sim- 
 ply another way of saying he is not an artist.
 
 BERNARD SHAW 13 
 
 First, I suppose everyone will agree when I say 
 that the main object of art is to be articulate. The 
 man who has something to express but can't express 
 it is not an artist. The man who conveys his mean- 
 ing, or expresses himself, most clearly to the greatest 
 number of intelligent or literate people is the su- 
 preme artist. This granted and there is really no 
 other conceivable postulate Shaw stands on firm 
 ground, for he has received in his own lifetime the 
 verdict of cultured Asia, as well as Europe and Amer- 
 ica. (While I was in India I found that the native 
 students could only converse about two English 
 writers: Shakespeare and Shaw.) So much for art. 
 That curious searching after a means, that attempt 
 to formulate impressions, which has marked and 
 doomed so much modern painting (by reason of the 
 fact that it can only be appreciated through alcoholic 
 fumes or by closing one eye and crossing the other) 
 has no distant relationship with living art. The only 
 art worth the name is the art of realism, or, a better 
 term still, naturalism. This is the art of Shaw, and 
 he is the greatest dramatic exponent of it since 
 Shakespeare. He has, besides, gone much further 
 than Shakespeare, by adding the role of prophet to 
 that of artist. 
 
 The absurd charge that Shaw " guys " history can 
 be easily met with the question: "Who does not?" 
 How is it possible to prove that any fictional or dra- 
 matic representation of history is purely historical? 
 Shaw took all the necessary details from Mommsen, 
 who was far more exact than Plutarch, from whom 
 Shakespeare took his story; and while Shaw keeps 
 close to Mommsen even in the characterization,
 
 14 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 Shakespeare left Plutarch on several important 
 points. Of the two, then, Shakespeare " guys " his- 
 tory and Shaw is slavishly correct. Suppose Shaw 
 had suggested that " ping-pong " was the favorite 
 relaxation of all wealthy Egyptians in Cleopatra's 
 time. "Absurd and monstrous anachronism!" the 
 English critics would have crowed. Yet Shakespeare 
 is allowed to mention billiards in " Antony and Cleo- 
 patra " without bringing on his head anything worse 
 than a scholarly footnote of deferential expostulation, 
 qualified by complete absolution on the ground of 
 poetic license because he wrote in an archaic lan- 
 guage. But all this is beside the point. An artist 
 can only interpret the actions and characters in his- 
 tory by reference to the life and humanity he knows ; 
 and he can only render a faithful picture of ancient 
 modernity by its equivalent in present-day modernity. 
 For the world is always modern and human nature 
 appallingly ancient. 
 
 Shakespeare set the disastrous fashion of making 
 history walk on stilts. He was not the first to do 
 so, but he was the most important, and his example 
 has ruined historical drama to this day. Of course 
 Shakespeare did it excellently, made history stalk 
 about on the finest gold and jeweled stilts obtainable, 
 but it was an unfortunate thing to do. It has made 
 writers with little genius, and readers as well, get 
 hold of the idea that kings and their like must talk 
 pompously and bombastically in pentametrical ca- 
 dences. Kings don't do it and never have done it. 
 There would be a much longer lict of royal execu- 
 tions to record if the practice had ever been a general 
 one. It is just possible that such a habit may explain
 
 BERNARD SHAW 15 
 
 the so-called heartless behavior of rival monarchs in 
 pre-Jacobean days ; and this would certainly clear up 
 the Malmsey wine mystery, on the principle that an- 
 other " butt " in addition to what the gentleman had 
 already taken would make his verse entirely blank. 
 However, that is only a theory. The thing to bear in 
 mind is that Shakespeare's Richard II, for instance, 
 is a creature of unalloyed fancy. He no more belongs 
 to our world than the idea of Divine Right, which 
 pleases him, belongs to practical politics. 
 
 Shaw realized that the only way to explain history, 
 to make it attractive and life-like, was to write it in 
 the phraseology of his own time. We may be sure 
 that Csesar had a colloquialism for " hocus-pocus," 
 just as some ancient Briton probably anticipated Mrs. 
 Grundy and Mr. Disraeli, and some early Egyptian 
 toyed with esthetic ideas or played with psychical 
 beliefs or taunted another (especially when that other 
 was Cleopatra) with being a " New Woman." Cleo- 
 patra may have talked, in Shakespeare's words, of 
 her " immortal longings " though I doubt it but I 
 am convinced she couldn't have kept her everyday 
 conversation on that level ; whereas there can't be the 
 least doubt that she called her nurse an old idiot and 
 her court ladies a pack of silly fools quite frequently. 
 (Also, having a son of my own, I am in a position to 
 state quite positively that Shakespeare's Arthur isn't 
 in the running with Shaw's Ptolemy !) Romantic his- 
 tory makes Cleopatra say " Yare, yare, good Iras," 
 but natural history would probably make her say 
 "Now, Iras: hurry up." I am not suggesting that 
 Mr. George Robey's method of dealing with history 
 is, in every sense, the right one ; but the ancient world
 
 undoubtedly had its Robey element just as much as 
 the modern world. Shaw has got his period better 
 than any of your romantic faddists ; and he has made 
 history vital to us by spicing it with all his modern 
 charm. 
 
 In truth, his interpretation of history is the only 
 possible one, though I willingly admit that he chose an 
 ideal subject for his treatment. His high critical in- 
 stinct dictated the choice. This Csesar is a living, 
 breathing man. He has his great moments and his 
 trivial moments, and he is always consummately nat- 
 ural. None of your romantic, rubbishy heroics for 
 him! I mean the kind of stuff Shakespeare puts into 
 the mouth of his ideal Roman, Brutus, who is puffed 
 out with self-praise and feeds on the illusions which 
 flatter his public sentiment and his private vanity. 
 Until Shaw wrote " Caesar and Cleopatra " and 
 bodied forth the synthetic, constructive idea, all the 
 notable figures in our literature, from Hamlet to Dick 
 Dudgeon, were at heart revolutionists. Here we have 
 the first great statesman, pioneer, lawgiver, leader of 
 men, in English art. He is the Soul of Man in its 
 fine creative moments, in its aloofness, its solitariness, 
 and its superiority to the pettiness and meanness of 
 ordinary insect-humanity. The miscalled heroes of 
 an earlier day were conceived romantically and manu- 
 factured on the artificial and stereotyped plan of as- 
 suming greatness where its absence to any but the 
 smallest intelligence was obvious. Like our present- 
 day politicians, they were either " purple patch " 
 demagogues or platitudinous moralists. It is true 
 that Carlyle first touched the right key; but he re-
 
 BERNARD SHAW . 17 
 
 fused to see weaknesses and faults in his heroes, and 
 ruined his portraits by over-emphasis. 
 
 It is as prophet-artist that Shaw reigns supreme. 
 He is the most noteworthy figure among all our dra- 
 matists except the author of " Hamlet," and his mes- 
 sage is obviously of greater moment than by the na- 
 ture of the case Shakespeare's could ever have been. 
 In the " Three Plays for Puritans," where he gave us 
 the pith and marrow of his unmatchable faculties, and 
 particularly in " Csesar and Cleopatra," he reveals 
 himself as a poet of rare spiritual beauty and ex- 
 altation. One has only to read Caesar's first speech 
 to realize that. " A man," says Scott, " may be a poet 
 without measuring spondees and dactyls like the an- 
 cients, or clashing the ends of lines into rime like the 
 moderns, as one may be an architect though unable 
 to labor like a stonemason." Caesar is just as much 
 a creature of poetry and passion as he is the creation 
 of the sanest, most evenly balanced mind that ever 
 took to letters for a living. He is inspired in the rare 
 and real sense with a mission a mission of warning 
 and a mission of hope. In magical sentences of deep 
 poetic insight, he reaches time after time the very 
 heart-core of prophecy. He says the sort of things 
 that stagger one with the reflection that the world 
 has had to wait a few thousand years to hear them. 
 Having waited all that time, it will doubtless be con- 
 tent to wait another century or two before attempting 
 to grasp their significance. And yet perhaps not. 
 After all, the age of the Puritans in England followed 
 as a natural consequence a popular version of the 
 Bible. Superstitions were shattered by the pure and
 
 18 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 naked word. Ritual gave place to realism, tokens to 
 truths, symbols to sermons. A light in the heart ex- 
 tinguished the lights on the altar. Well, these " Plays 
 for Puritans " might truly be called the Bible of the 
 twentieth century only (and one cannot be too 
 thankful for it) a Bible with humor, which I sincerely 
 hope the next age of idol-breakers will bear in mind! 
 " Captain Brassbound's Conversion," though it 
 stands head and shoulders above Shaw's controversial 
 plays in the strength, simplicity and universality of 
 its appeal, is nevertheless a slight production in com- 
 parison with the other two works in this volume. It 
 is just a sermon; but it is a sermon by the most de- 
 lightful of preachers, a sermon that does not send one 
 to sleep. It not only enforces the finer elements in 
 Christianity but explains why the old Mosaic ideas 
 are stupid and hurtful, which Jesus omitted to do. 
 Apart from its moral, however, the play is chiefly 
 memorable for one thing, and we cannot be too grate- 
 ful for the enduring charm and beauty of the only 
 quite lovable woman in the Shavian portrait gallery. 
 No such gracious tribute to the other sex was ever 
 paid by a man. It is an exquisite creation; and if 
 Shaw has failed as who has not failed? to speak 
 the perfect reconciling word on the subject of sex, 
 he has at any rate done the next best thing. Lady 
 Cecily Waynflete is the most enchanting, irresistible 
 thing the art of realism has produced. She is more 
 than that. She is a positive character, constructive in 
 the Casarian sense: that is to say, she accepts life as 
 it is and tries to make the best of it she doesn't per- 
 petually whine that life is not what she would like it 
 to be, and spend her own existence in railing at it.
 
 BERNARD SHAW 19 
 
 She is, in fact, the creator and shield, the eternal 
 
 Mother, in woman. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Three things struck me when I first read Shaw's 
 works through without a break. First, that he had 
 not dealt with law as comprehensively as the other 
 big social matters. Second, that he had wasted far 
 too much of his time in turning out pot-boilers. 
 Third, that his work spread over too great a field for 
 easy assimilation by the average reader. I wrote to 
 him on these lines; but he wouldn't have it at any 
 price. Here is his answer: 
 
 " If you won't read my works by degrees, you 
 must at least ask questions about them by degrees. 
 How can I answer for my whole life to you between 
 one bit of crowded work and another? You are 
 worse than the Recording Angel. 
 
 " Hastily, I have said a good deal about judges 
 and the criminal law in the course of my writings; 
 and I do not know that I have anything to add. I 
 wish I had taken law up as a profession, as it is a 
 subject that interests me very strongly; but it is too 
 late now, and I have said my say as to the general 
 human aspect of it. 
 
 " I do not waste my time writing pot-boilers : the 
 pot must be boiled, and even my pot au feu has some 
 chunks of fresh meat in it. 
 
 * The Golden Treasury is no doubt needed, but I 
 have to take my work as it comes and other people 
 must do the same. There is no royal road to Shavian- 
 ism. My wife has made a book of ' selected passages ' 
 but it is no use. The mess of plays, prefaces, tracts 
 and articles from which my philosophy has to be ex-
 
 20 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 traded is not only the form imposed by circumstances, 
 but the only form in which it can be properly as- 
 similated. I have no time to boil myself down; and 
 anyhow I could not do so and preserve all the neces- 
 sary nutriment and the flavoring on which the digesti- 
 bility depends." 
 
 " A most amusing man, but of course you can't 
 take him seriously." Thus the majority of his con- 
 temporaries on Bernard Shaw. And every time I 
 hear it I want to tear the speaker's hair out, slowly, 
 by the roots. I have often said that if Jesus appeared 
 in the world to-day, everybody would roar with 
 laughter at his paradoxes and call him a very funny 
 fellow with an irresistibly quaint way of putting 
 things. He might eventually, through journalistic 
 influence, receive the honor of imprisonment per- 
 haps the highest honor we, as a nation, are able to 
 confer but in all probability some of his crowning 
 absurdities (e.g. " He that shall save his life shall 
 lose it ") would keep him out of jail, much as Shaw 
 is kept out of it, by gaining him the reputation of a 
 jester. The ruling classes at the time of Jesus took 
 matters rather seriously as far as we can judge, and 
 behaved, as is usual with humanity, like wolves when 
 a suitable opportunity presented itself. We, on the 
 contrary, without sacrificing our wolf-like qualities, 
 are closer akin to hyenas: anything will furnish us 
 with an excuse to laugh. When Shaw strikes a note 
 of truly heartrending tragedy, we explode with 
 laughter and exclaim: " How screamingly funny! " 
 
 Nowadays we are dreadfully afraid of superlatives. 
 That's because we don't know our own minds. In 
 all the best criticism it is only the superlative that
 
 BERNARD SHAW 21 
 
 matters. But our self-styled critics don't write criti- 
 cisms: they write reviews. And in reviews it is only 
 the comparative that matters. True, I have dragged 
 Shakespeare into this essay several times, but solely 
 because he is so generally regarded as our final 
 standard, our convention, in art. Shakespeare did 
 one thing that no one will ever have the chance of 
 doing again. He took the rough, uncouth English 
 language and molded it into the most gorgeous, flexi- 
 ble medium of expression in the world. That is his 
 grand achievement ; and we may well stare at it, won- 
 der-stricken. I suggest to our modern poets that they 
 will save a great deal of valuable time if they give 
 up trying to copy his method. We have a different 
 medium now; and the world wants to be spoken to 
 in a language it can understand. Shaw has spoken 
 to it in that language, and because he has spoken 
 simply, without complexity, and with none of the 
 drossy illusions of the romancists, the sentimental 
 critics beat their breasts and call on the various Baals 
 of their idolatry in the proper and orthodox manner 
 employed by all worshipers of the obsolete. But as 
 their gods have not heard them, while Shaw's circula- 
 tion continues to increase, I can only hope that future 
 master-minds will not be utterly cast down when the 
 critics of their day trot out the awful, and by that 
 time venerable, works of Bernard Shaw as the final 
 
 word in all things pertaining to faith and godliness. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Directly I jumped to the conclusion that in the 
 * Three Plays for Puritans " we had the very quint- 
 essence of Shaw, I was all eagerness to know every- 
 thing there was to be known about them. Shaw, very
 
 22 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 generously, pandered to my curiosity and wrote me 
 a wonderful letter, which is far too good to keep to 
 myself. What a pity no one prevailed upon Shake- 
 speare to write an account of his masterpieces in this 
 delightfully personal manner! I would willingly 
 sacrifice half his plays for a letter about " Hamlet " 
 as good as this one of Shaw's about the Puritan 
 plays: 
 
 " Why did it need a colossal war to make people 
 read my books? The whole army seems to do noth- 
 ing else, except when it lays down the book to fire 
 a perfunctory shot at Jerry or to write me a letter 
 asking me what I meant by it. 
 
 " Plays for Puritans are about as old as the cen- 
 tury; and I do not remember very much about them. 
 I wrote The Devil's Disciple for William Terriss, 
 then a pet melodramatic hero at the Adelphi, which 
 was the London home of melodrama. He and Jessie 
 Millward and Harry Nicholls were London institu- 
 tions; and they did their work extremely well. Ter- 
 riss wanted to tour the world as a star. He asked me 
 to collaborate with him in a play, the plot to be sup- 
 plied by him. It was more than a plot: it was all the 
 plots of all the melodramas he had ever played in. 
 At the end of every act he was dragged away to penal 
 servitude through the treachery of the beautiful devil 
 who was the villainess of the piece ; and he turned up 
 in the next as fresh as paint without an attempt to 
 explain this happy change in his fortune. I told him 
 that it would be spendid for the Adelphi, but that in 
 foreign cities, where they would have their own par- 
 ticular native Terriss, they would not stand melo- 
 drama from him, but would expect something like
 
 BERNARD SHAW 23 
 
 Hamlet. He put his plot in the fire (having several 
 typed copies in his desk) and said: ' Mr. Shaw, you 
 are right.' 
 
 " So I wrote The Devil's Disciple for him, and 
 read it to him in Jessie Millward's flat. He listened 
 in deep perplexity until I had nearly finished the first 
 act, when he said ' Excuse my interrupting you; but 
 is this an interior? ' (Melodramas usually begin on 
 the village green.) I said it was. ' Right,' he said, 
 ' now I have it. Go on. You won't mind my inter- 
 rupting you? ' 
 
 " I went on. When I had read about two pages 
 of the second act, he said, with despair in his face, 
 * Sorry to interrupt you again ; but is this an interior? ' 
 I said it was; and he assured me that I had now set 
 his mind completely at rest, and would I excuse him 
 for interrupting me, and fire away. I fired away. 
 When the barrage had lasted two minutes longer he 
 had fallen into a coma so profound that Jessie and 
 I had to carry him into the next room and give him 
 some strong tea before he was thoroughly awake and 
 ashamed of the failure of his effort to live up to the 
 higher drama. 
 
 " Nothing more passed between us until he heard 
 that Richard Mansfield had at last conquered New 
 York with a tremendously successful melodrama, and 
 that this was The Devil's Disciple. He sent for me 
 hastily to discuss business with him; but before the 
 appointment came off he was stabbed by a lunatic at 
 the stage door of the Adelphi, which, in its old aspect 
 as a temple of melodrama, may be said to have per- 
 ished with him. 
 
 '* The only other thing I remember about the play
 
 24 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 is that I wrote most of it sitting on the end of a table 
 in the studio of a young artist named Nellie Heath, 
 who was painting a portrait of me. 
 
 " The play was written round the scene of Dick's 
 arrest, which had always been floating in my head as 
 a situation for a play. Mrs. Dudgeon is a variation 
 on Dickens's Mrs. Clennam. 
 
 " I wrote Ca3sar and Cleopatra for Forbes-Robert- 
 son and Mrs. Patrick Campbell when they were play- 
 ing together. But it was not played by him until they 
 had gone their several professional ways; and Cleo- 
 patra was ' created ' by Gertrude Elliott, who had 
 already played in The Devil's Disciple with Robert- 
 son, and is now Lady Forbes-Robertson. It is what 
 Shakespeare called a history: that is, a chronicle play; 
 and I took the chronicle without alteration from 
 Mommsen. I read a lot of other stuff, from Plutarch, 
 who hated Caesar, to Warde-Fowler ; but I found that 
 Mommsen had conceived Ca?sar as I wished to present 
 him, and that he told the story of the visit to Egypt 
 like a man who believed in it, which many historians 
 don't. I stuck nearly as closely to him as Shakespeare 
 did to Plutarch or Holinshed. I infer from Goethe's 
 saying that the assassination of Caesar was the worst 
 crime in history that he also saw Caesar in the 
 Mommsen-Shaw light. Although I was forty-four 
 or thereabouts when I wrote the play, I now think I 
 was a trifle too young for the job; but it was not bad 
 for a juvenile effort. 
 
 " It may interest you, now that you are enduring 
 the discomforts and terrors of active service, to know 
 that when I wrote Caesar I was stumbling about on 
 crutches with a necrosed bone in my foot that every-
 
 BERNARD SHAW 25 
 
 body believed would turn cancerous and finish me. 
 It had been brought on by an accident occurring at 
 the moment when I was plunging into one of those 
 break-downs in middle life which killed Schiller and 
 very nearly killed Goethe, and which have led to the 
 saying that every busy man should go to bed for a 
 year when he is forty. In trying to come downstairs 
 on crutches before I was used to them I shot myself 
 into empty space and fell right down through the 
 house on to the flags, complicating the useless foot 
 with a broken arm. It was in this condition that I 
 wrote Ca?sar and Cleopatra; but I cannot see any 
 mark of it on the play. I remember lying on the top 
 of a cliff in the Isle of Wight with my crutches in the 
 grass beside me, and writing the lines 
 
 The white upon the blue above 
 Is purple on the green below 
 
 as a simple memorandum of what I saw as I looked 
 from the cliff. The Sphinx scene was suggested by 
 a French picture of the Flight into Egypt. I never 
 can remember the painter's name ; but the engraving, 
 which I saw in a shop window when I was a boy, of 
 the Virgin and child asleep in the lap of a colossal 
 Sphinx staring over a desert, so intensely still that 
 the smoke of Joseph's fire close by went straight up 
 like a stick, remained in the rummage basket of my 
 memory for thirty years before I took it out and ex- 
 ploited it on the stage. 
 
 " Captain Brassbound's Conversion, which, like my 
 Blanco Posnet, is an excellent religious tract, was 
 written for Ellen Terry. When her first grandchild 
 was born Ellen said that nobody would ever write a
 
 26 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 play for her now she was a grandmother. I said I 
 would ; and Brassbound was the result. She tried to 
 induce Irving to produce the play. But he put his 
 finger on the scene where Brassbound, after figuring 
 through the first two acts as a picturesque seaman, 
 comes in in a frock coat and top hat; and he said, 
 ' Shaw put that in to get me laughed at.' He was 
 perfectly right ; and the stroke was so successful that 
 when Laurence Irving ' created ' the part the audi- 
 ence laughed for two solid minutes at him at this 
 point. Years afterwards Ellen played it, under the 
 Vedrenne-Barker management at the Court Theatre, 
 and then made her farewell tour through the United 
 States in it. 
 
 " I wanted Ada Rehan to play it in America; and 
 an agent sent her the book. She was furious at being 
 offered a thing that was not a play at all, and in 
 which the man, she thought, had the best part. Years 
 later, when I read it to her (not being supposed to 
 know anything about this early miscarriage), it threw 
 her into a condition of extraordinary excitement, in 
 which she exclaimed incoherently that actresses of her 
 generation had been taught to believe that they had 
 nothing to do but be beautiful, and that here was 
 something quite new, quite different. She declared 
 that she must play it. But the illness which finally 
 killed her intervened and ended her stage career. ' I 
 wish I dare play,' she said, ' but I cannot : I never 
 know when I shall flop.' 'Flop away,' I said: 'we 
 can drop the curtain till you get up again.' ' Oh, I 
 wish I could,' she said. But she never did. 
 
 " Now that even the old professionals who still find 
 it difficult to admit that my plays are plays have
 
 BERNARD SHAW 27 
 
 adopted it as an article of faith that I write very good 
 parts, it is hard to believe that so many actors and 
 actresses to whom I offered parts that were first-rate 
 chances for them, refused them as absurd and un- 
 dramatic. Omitting four or five names of artists who, 
 being still alive, might fancy that I am reproaching 
 them, Ada Rehan, Irving, Tree, Mansfield, Wynd- 
 ham, Terriss, Alexander, Fanny Coleman, all landed 
 themselves in this way. They were like the old 
 Italian singers confronted with Wagner. 
 
 " As to the ideas in the plays, they are not local or 
 
 temporal: they were born in me, I suppose." 
 
 ***** 
 
 I want to give a brief idea of the man behind these 
 works. It is impossible to convey a true impression 
 of his vivid charm. Anything in the nature of 
 nervousness with him is quite out of the question. 
 He puts one completely at ease the moment he meets 
 one. He has more than his share of vitality. He is 
 very jerky in movement, though his gestures are 
 frank, full and free. As he sits talking, he perpetu- 
 ally crosses, uncrosses and recrosses his legs, shoves 
 his hands into his pockets, pulls them out again, by 
 turns sits back and then up in his chair, bends for- 
 wrd, stretches backwards with feet right out to the 
 full length of his body altogether leaving the impres- 
 sion that he can't sit still for twenty consecutive sec- 
 onds if his life were to be forfeit for not doing so. 
 He is a full six feet in height, very spare in frame, 
 with white hair and benrd the latter narrowing to- 
 wards the tip an exceedingly high forehead, head flat 
 at the back, and bristling white mustache. A most 
 expressive, though not actually mobile, face, very
 
 28 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 pleasant if at times the least bit sardonic, very much 
 alive. Like his prose, his conversation is emphatic, 
 though it is relieved by a soft, charming voice and a 
 slight, fascinating Irish brogue. He talks quickly, 
 with now and then a sort of half -laugh, and his light 
 eyes help to complete that sense of supreme pleasant- 
 ness about his whole personality which is quite incom- 
 municable by picture or pen. His humor is irresisti- 
 ble, and his manner is so winning that an audience 
 will rock with laughter in sheer delight at being in- 
 sulted by him so charmingly. At rehearsal, too, he 
 puts his artists through their paces in a way that 
 would disarm and pacify the grumpiest of dyspeptics! 
 
 I find it difficult to speak of the man himself with- 
 out covering my page with exclamation marks. As a 
 member-of society, he is apparently a bundle of all the 
 virtues and none of the vices. And yet it is a mistake 
 to imagine anyone, even Shaw, as perfect. As I see 
 him, he has one very serious, almost disabling, defect ; 
 and one unexampled, superman-like virtue. The first 
 is due to his unnatural seriousness; the second is due 
 to his unfailing kindliness. Fortunately I can give 
 illuminative examples of both. 
 
 His defect can be summarized very clearly in the 
 fact that he once took the trouble to criticize that 
 masterpiece of merriment, " The Importance of being 
 Earnest," calling it sinister and heartless. Now the 
 man who can sit down and seriously diagnose such a 
 work has got something the matter with him. It is 
 a sort of literary measles, and in Shaw's case it seems 
 to be chronic. He is able to enjoy the lighter things, 
 just as the invalid enjoys chicken and grapes, but he 
 can't forget the heavier things, any more than the
 
 BERNARD SHAW 29 
 
 invalid forgets the measles. He doesn't enjoy for 
 the sake of enjoyment; he appears to enjoy for the 
 sake of sorrow. 
 
 Shaw's peculiar virtue lies in his absolute freedom 
 from envy, pettiness and vanity. Practically all the 
 worries and calamities that afflict nations and individ- 
 uals spring from these three things. I am in a posi- 
 tion to record a noble instance of Shaw's immunity 
 from the ills that beset the rest of humanity, even, its 
 leaders, by placing his conduct side by side with that 
 of two of his greatest contemporaries and as many 
 others as you like to mention. 
 
 Sometime during 1916, when all the world (in- 
 cluding myself) was in khaki, Frank Harris sent me 
 several copies of a book he had just issued in Amer- 
 ica. It was his " Life of Oscar Wilde." Previous to 
 this Harris had delivered, in the preface to his play 
 on Shakespeare, a fairly snorting and, I believe, quite 
 unjust attack on Shaw. Anyone but Shaw would 
 have been furious about it; but Shaw had turned the 
 other cheek and written by way of reply a magnificent 
 eulogy of Harris in his preface to " The Dark Lady 
 of the Sonnets." 
 
 Shortly after the outbreak of war Harris went to 
 America and promptly wrote some absurd articles 
 about Shaw, which he called a " portrait." I cannot 
 account for his action except on the rather miserable 
 ground that the American public like reading stupid 
 things about eminent people, and Harris was in fairly 
 low water at the time. 
 
 Anyhow, the books turned up and Harris asked me 
 to send copies to various famous people over here and 
 get their opinions on it. All the people who weren't
 
 30 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 in khaki at the time (I mean of course the over- 
 military-age crowd) loathed Harris like poison be- 
 cause he was repeating opinions he had always pro- 
 fessed and constantly stated during the twenty odd 
 years he had spent in England before the war broke 
 out. These people, you see, had just discovered how 
 very obnoxious a person can be who holds to his opin- 
 ions through thick and thin. Well, I received quite 
 a lot of insults and cold shoulders in my efforts on 
 Harris's behalf. Among others, Mr. Joseph Conrad 
 wrote in the third person (which until then I had 
 assumed was the right only of monarchs and editors, 
 with the possible alternative on state occasions of the 
 first person plural) returning the book. He informed 
 me that he was glad of having the opportunity to send 
 back the work which reached him some time ago. 
 " The subject does not interest him and with the 
 writer he is out of sympathy on this and on more seri- 
 ous matters." Fancy that now! 
 
 Mr. H. G. Wells was more explicit, and, which was 
 very nice of him, called me " Dear Sir " with capi- 
 tals, just like that! He went on to thank me for the 
 copy of Frank Harris's book on Wilde and for the 
 magazine containing his " lies about poor old W 
 
 L and Conrad." Neither altered his opinion of 
 
 Mr. Harris in the slightest degree. (Note that 
 " Mr."!) He thought my letter rather impertinent 
 but quite well meaning. He knew Harris. . . . My 
 letter, by the way, was simply an, urgent request that 
 he should talk and write about the book. 
 
 I was stung several times in the hornet's nest I 
 had thus put my head into, and was forced to shed
 
 BERNARD SHAW 31 
 
 several cherished illusions relative to our noble army 
 of artist-thinkers. 
 
 So I poured my woes out to Shaw in a letter, to 
 which he replied: " Frank's present tack of describing 
 to the Americans how he discovered Wells, Kipling, 
 'Conrad, myself, and other neglected geniuses, and 
 rescued them from obscurity, is no doubt quite sin- 
 cere; for he probably believes that America was dis- 
 covered at the moment when he first landed there; 
 but if these writers refuse to take it good-humoredly 
 as I do, you cannot reasonably quarrel with them on 
 that account." 
 
 The way Shaw himself hit back at Harris, with 
 infinitely greater provocation than the others, was as 
 follows : he sat down, wrote a letter about his personal 
 meetings with Wilde and about Harris's book, and 
 then, discovering that the letter was almost as long 
 as one of the prefaces to his own plays, calmly in- 
 formed Harris that he could, if he liked, use it as an 
 appendix to any future edition of the work he de- 
 cided to publish. This astounding act of generosity, 
 unique in literary history if all the circumstances are 
 carefully taken into account, helped Harris to an ex- 
 ceptional public prestige in the States, put him firmly 
 on his legs, and sent his book into as many editions as 
 even popular authors only occasionally dream about 
 
 in their most sanguine moments. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 I owe an apology to Bernard Shaw, because he told 
 me not to waste my time writing about him. But I 
 couldn't help it. It had to be done. I had been 
 brooding on the matter for several years, and I knew
 
 32 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 I wouldn't be happy until it was over and finished 
 with. But as a very sound guide to future would-be 
 Shavians or would-be anyone else, I shall here quote 
 his excellent advice: 
 
 " Neither I nor any man of my generation takes 
 the smallest interest in you, or can be anything to you 
 but a snare. You must deal with the world as you 
 find it, not as I found it. Of all literary bores and 
 failures the most hopeless are the Don Quixotes who 
 make Dulcirieas of their pet authors and rush about 
 breaking lances for them instead of doing honest 
 original work. What do you suppose I should have 
 been if I had spent my life pestering people about 
 Ruskin and Carlyle, Mill and Herbert Spencer, in- 
 stead of about Shaw? It is true that I wrote books 
 about Wagner and Ibsen ; but they were virtually my 
 contemporaries; and what I called attention to was 
 not their music-dramas and plays, but a modern 
 philosophy of life of which they, like myself, were 
 exponents. 
 
 ' Your bread and butter will never be safe until, in 
 the language of the trench and the home, you allude 
 to me contemptuously as ' a - - old back number.' 
 Don't talk about me, or write about me, or about 
 Frank Harris, or about anybody over forty except 
 the dead, and not too much about them. 
 
 " I really tremble for your future when I find you 
 still going on exactly as you did before you got torn 
 up by the roots and planted in the city of Haroun al 
 Raschid."
 
 II 
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 
 
 AT the age of eighteen I was literally hypnotized by 
 Tree. His theater seemed to me a veritable temple 
 of all the arts, and I used to dream over the hours 
 spent there. As for the man himself, I thought him 
 the most wonderful thing that had ever happened. 
 Imagine, then, the trepidation with which I lingered 
 around a certain pillar box in Hampstead, a letter in 
 my hand which I dared not post, stamped, and ad- 
 dressed to H. Beerbohm Tree Esq., His Majesty's 
 Theatre, Haymarket, S.W. In it I asked him if he 
 would let me " walk on " in one of his productions. 
 But I had no spur to prick the sides of my intent. 
 The letter was never posted. An unexpected legacy 
 relieved me from the drudgery of city life, and I 
 roamed for a year or two. Mexico, the United States, 
 Canada and the West Indies between them relieved 
 me of my legacy, and then for the first time I touched 
 the hem of my hero's costume. 
 
 I was working, or pretending to work, in Brighton, 
 and the idea seized me that I would like to see Tree's 
 Hamlet again, after a long interval, during one of 
 his annual festivals. So I wired to him: " Can you 
 play Hamlet in a business-like manner next Thursday 
 so as to enable me to catch midnight train from Vic- 
 toria? " His answer came back: " Cannot alter my 
 conception of the part to fit midnight train but will 
 
 33
 
 34 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 cut a scene if you'll run to Victoria." I agreed to 
 run and he to cut someone else's scene, of course. 
 
 After that I met him. It was during his famous 
 production of " Henry VIII." I wrote to say I 
 wanted to begin my stage career under his banner. 
 He replied: " Come and see me, but don't be too 
 optimistic. You should have independent means or 
 relations with Court Circles to be successful on the 
 stage nowadays. If you have the former, why go on 
 the stage? If the latter, the kings and queens of real 
 life should satisfy you; though I admit we can give 
 you the romantic article better than they, because a 
 cardboard crown is more artistic than a top hat." 
 
 Thus it came about that I was ushered into the 
 mighty presence of Cardinal Wolsey one night during 
 the performance of " Henry VIII." It was an im- 
 mense moment for me. Wolsey- Tree was sitting at 
 the desk in his outer dressing-room as I entered. He 
 rose, shook hands, said " How do you do? Take a 
 seat," and sat down again. I took a seat. He leaned 
 back in his, and stared hard at me for about two 
 minutes without speaking. I became fretful. Sud- 
 denly he said: "Don't bite your nails. It's a sign 
 of mental stagnation." I ventured a remark about 
 one of the pictures in his room. He apparently didn't 
 hear me speak. Another long silence. Then he broke 
 out: "Don't suck your thumb. It signifies lack of 
 stamina." This rather irritated me. I asked whether 
 he would like to write me a. prescription? He imme- 
 diately took up his pen and wrote some words on a 
 slip of paper. Then he rose, handed me the paper, 
 murmured " Come again after the next act," took me 
 a few steps along the corridor outside his room, and
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 35 
 
 pushed me through a door that opened into the dress 
 circle. I looked at the paper and read the following: 
 
 DISEASE: Want of philosophic calm, typically modern. 
 CUKE : One performance of Henry VIII, to be taken weekly. 
 
 H. B. T. 
 
 At the end of the act I found my way back into 
 his dressing-room. 
 
 " Who are you? " he asked the moment I entered. 
 
 I told him who I was. 
 
 ' What do you want? " he demanded. 
 
 " Surely you can't have forgotten that " I 
 
 began. 
 
 " Answer my question," he broke in ; " I forget 
 everything I don't wish to remember." 
 
 I now realized that I was dealing either with a 
 maniac or with a man who carried his profession into 
 his private life. I decided in favor of the latter, and 
 the conversation continued in this strain: 
 
 ME. I want a job. 
 
 THEE. Can you speak German? 
 
 ME. No; but does one have to speak German to 
 go on the stage? 
 
 TREE. It would certainly be useful if you wanted 
 to go on the German stage. 
 
 ME. I don't. 
 
 TREE. Well, that settles it, doesn't it? Can you 
 speak French? 
 
 ME. Yes. 
 
 TREE. Fluently? 
 
 ME. No. 
 
 TREE. What a pity! 
 
 ME. Why?
 
 TREE. Because one should always swear in a for- 
 eign language at rehearsals. 
 
 ME. Is there any necessity to swear at all? 
 
 TREE. No necessity, but a great relief. Are you 
 fond of your wife? 
 
 ME. I haven't got one. 
 
 TREE. Yes, but are you fond of her? 
 
 ME. How the dickens can I be fond of a wife I 
 haven't got? 
 
 TREE. Ah, I hadn't thought of that. . . . Have 
 you read much? 
 
 ME. It depends upon what you call reading much. 
 
 TREE. I mean the perusal of a vast quantity of 
 words printed on paper and bound in books. 
 
 ME. Yes, yes, of course I knew you meant that; 
 but to what class of reading do you refer? 
 
 TREE. Oh, the kind that teaches facts and figures. 
 
 ME. I know nothing of facts and figures. They 
 don't interest me. 
 
 TREE. That's right, quite right. Beware of the 
 encyclopedias. A little knowledge is a dangerous 
 thing, but a lot ruins one's digestion. 
 
 At this moment Mr. Henry Dana, Tree's manager, 
 came into the room, and for several minutes Tree 
 had to wrestle with some figures in a ledger that Mr. 
 Dana had brought with him. I sat and watched him. 
 He kept turning the leaves backwards and forwards 
 without the haziest idea of what was being explained 
 to him, and now and then he would put his finger on 
 some possibly conspicuous figure and say : " What's 
 that?" rather in the way a baby might exclaim: 
 " Oh, look at that lovely big one there! " After a 
 while Mr. Dana left, and Tree was called for his next
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 37 
 
 act. He told me to return when it was over, and then 
 left me. Just as I was disappearing into the dress 
 circle, however, he came trotting back along the cor- 
 ridor, dragged me back into his room and, placing 
 his mouth against my ear, whispered, " Have you 
 ever been to Jerusalem? " I replied that I had not. 
 " How interesting! " he remarked as he drifted back 
 down the passage. 
 
 The next act was the last, and when it was over I 
 watched him removing his make-up and changing. 
 Meanwhile he continued to murmur eccentric noth- 
 ings. There was no apparent connection in his train 
 of thought; and as he didn't pay the slightest atten- 
 tion to anything I thought fit to say, I will just record 
 his monologue without my own interpellations : 
 
 " How did you like the play ? Wonderful produc- 
 tion, isn't it ? Have you read my brochure on ' Henry 
 VIII '? Quite a charming little essay. I wrote it 
 during my holiday. It's always useful to have a job 
 on hand during one's holiday ; it saves one from bores 
 who insist on interrupting one's dreams with tedious 
 prattle about politics or mixed bathing. Did you ever 
 see old Irving? A strange personality, but hard ... 
 hard. ... I couldn't get on with him at all. Quite 
 unlike his two boys, Harry and Laurence. Such nice 
 lads ; I like 'em both. . . . Don't forget to remember 
 me to your wife. . . .See that letter? It's from a 
 girl who wants to go on the stage. She writes: * The 
 enclosed photo will show you how attractive I am. 
 I also send a photo of my aunt, who has the tooth- 
 ache.' . . . The English public doesn't really like 
 Shakespeare; it prefers football. . . . Shakespearean 
 scholars say I'm wrong in tempting people to come
 
 38 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 to the theater and giving them a spectacle instead of 
 Shakespeare. But I prefer a spectacle on the stage 
 to spectacles in the audience. . . . Some day you will 
 tell me how it was you didn't go to Jerusalem. It 
 must have been a delightful experience not to have 
 gone after all. . . . Winkles! yes, that's a fine oc- 
 cupation picking winkles out of shells on a frosty 
 night in Pimlico. (Are they in shells, by the way?) 
 Take my advice : don't go on the stage pick winkles 
 out of shells. . . . Do you believe in God? Perhaps 
 you aren't old enough. The reason old people believe 
 in God is because they've given up believing in any- 
 thing else, and one can't exist without faith in some- 
 thing. Besides, after sixty, one hasn't the vitality to 
 combat the instincts of the majority. God is a sort of 
 burglar. As a young man you knock him down; as 
 an old man, you try to conciliate him because he may 
 knock you down. Moral: don't grow old. With age 
 comes caution, which is another name for cowardice, 
 and both are the effect of a guilty conscience. What- 
 ever else you do in life, don't cultivate a conscience. 
 Without a conscience a man may never be said to 
 grow old. This is an age of very old young men. 
 . . . Never neglect an opportunity to play leap-frog; 
 it is the best of all games, and, unlike the terribly 
 serious and conscientious pastimes of modern youth, 
 will never become professionalized. . . . Have you 
 ever been in love? That is the greatest thing in life. 
 Don't confuse love with matrimony. Love keeps you 
 young, matrimony makes you old. Love should never 
 be allowed to disturb the excellent economic founda- 
 tion of the domestic hearth. Love is more precious 
 than life; but a silver wedding speaks for itself. . . .
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 89 
 
 Why is it that we have to go to Germany for our 
 grease paints? ..." 
 
 During this little homily, Tree floated to and from 
 his inner dressing-room, a sort of washing sanctum, 
 in a state of complete uncertainty as to where he was, 
 who he was talking to, and what he was supposed to 
 be doing. It was entirely due to the ministrations of 
 his dresser that he managed to complete his toilet at 
 all. Occasionally he would ejaculate little expressions 
 of annoyance at not finding what he wanted the mo- 
 ment he wanted it. These would often occur in the 
 most unexpected places. For instance, he followed up 
 his query " Do you believe in God? " with " Where's 
 that damned stud?" His movements struck me as 
 rather feminine, in particular the way he walked. He 
 always gave the impression of drifting, sometimes 
 even of floating, from one place to another; his legs 
 appeared to move from the knees, not from the hips. 
 He had a fine head, a brow both tall and broad, and 
 the most alert, expressive eyes I have ever seen in 
 my life. Quite blue they were, but startlingly keen 
 and probing. The soul of Tree looked through those 
 eyes at one moment dull and dreamy, at another 
 flashing and joyous. But whether in repose or alive 
 with light, they were always extraordinary. No one 
 who met Tree is ever likely to forget his eyes. An- 
 other memorable thing about him was his voice. It 
 was a soft, purring, nasal voice, so much a part of 
 himself that dozens of the funniest sayings attributed 
 to him are only amusing to those who remember the 
 tone of voice in which he would have said them. It 
 was far more pleasant off the stage than on it. When 
 acting, especially in Shakespeare, he frequently forced
 
 40 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 it. This accentuated its nasal quality and killed its 
 dreamy, haunting notes. 
 
 It has been said that Tree was a great wit and 
 humorist. But this is only half true. His wit was 
 studied, not spontaneous, and most of his humor was 
 just personal mannerism his way of saying a thing, 
 rather than the thing said. He had a fantastic and 
 humorous personality. Once, during a rehearsal of 
 " Othello," he made Laurence Irving, a naturally 
 serious (almost lugubrious) person, roar with laugh- 
 ter for several minutes together by simply saying to 
 the stage-manager: " Oh, for God's sake stop people 
 from passing in and out of that door! They look like 
 the horrible objects that glide to and fro somewhere 
 at the bottom of the sea." 
 
 Nor had Tree any touch of eloquence. His 
 speeches were halting and not seldom pathetically 
 self-conscious. The attempt to be witty at all costs 
 was painfully obvious. And when the bon mot failed 
 to come off, as it usually did, he'd often labor away 
 at the next with blithe indifference to the feelings of 
 those well-wishers who had been polite enough to 
 snigger at the last. This epigrammatic pose, mod- 
 eled of course on Oscar Wilde, was not in any sense a 
 sign of insincerity. It was simply his cap and bells, 
 the inevitable surface-expression of his whimsical 
 temperament. Actually, Tree was intensely keen on 
 his art, knit up with it body and soul, and expressed 
 his mind very honestly and forcibly about it when- 
 ever called upon in public to do so. I certainly re- 
 member an occasion when he informed his audience 
 that even though they might be pleased with his work, 
 it didn't follow that he should feel pleased with it him-
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 41 
 
 self thus asserting the independence of the artist 
 and defending his most sacred right to unfettered self- 
 expression. 
 
 To the average man Tree always appeared more 
 like a big baby than a serious and successful member 
 of the community. Everyone knows the story of how 
 an actor, whom he had known well in earlier days, 
 came to see him during his performance of Fagin. 
 Tree looked at him hard, without a glimpse of recog- 
 nition, for a minute or so ; after which the actor, tem- 
 porarily non-plussed, held out his hand and said: 
 " Surely you remember me, Mr. Tree? I am 
 
 K ." " Ah, yes, of course," replied Tree, " you 
 
 must forgive me; I didn't recognize you in my dis- 
 guise." Some people took offense at this kind of 
 thing, and hated Tree as a poseur. But it was only 
 his fun. He loved, Puck-like, to watch the effects of 
 his own impudence. There was not an atom of real 
 hardness in his nature. 
 
 Tree was invariably at his best during rehearsals. 
 His inventive faculties then came into full play. He 
 showed, times without number, that he could play all 
 the parts better than the actors who were cast for 
 them. By a fleeting gesture, a glance, a tone of the 
 voice, a physical pose, he could bring a character be- 
 fore one with the most astounding 1 vividness. It 
 didn't matter in the least whether the characters were 
 tragic, comic, fantastical, light, heavy, intense, 
 rhetorical all came to him as easily as walking down- 
 stairs or drinking champagne. In " A Midsummer 
 Night's Dream," when Mr. Arthur Bourchier was 
 playing Bottom, again and again Tree managed to 
 body forth the very soul of the immortal Weaver,
 
 42 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 and we all wondered why on earth he was letting 
 Bourchier burlesque the part like a circus clown. 
 After dozens of attempts, he gave up the job of try- 
 ing to convert Bourchier into Bottom, and then 
 taught the rest of the cast so well that not even 
 Bourchier was able to persuade the audience that 
 Samuel Pepys was right in calling the play a piece 
 of buffoonery. The activity of Lady Tree at re- 
 hearsals used sometimes to get on his nerves; her 
 exuberance and affectation worried him. During the 
 " Dream " rehearsals she kept fussing him about the 
 fairies : should they be masculine or feminine ? At last 
 he turned on her: " Oh, make them neuter. Only so 
 can they be at peace." 
 
 Occasionally, as a rule when he was rehearsing a 
 tragedy, Tree would become quite unbearable. In 
 " Macbeth " he once did the banquet scene twelve 
 times in succession, cursing everybody at odd mo- 
 ments throughout the ten hours or more which he took 
 to do it. On these occasions he used to drink fairly 
 heavily to keep himself going ; and the more he drank, 
 the more sullen and irritable he became. It was dur- 
 ing the run of " Macbeth " that he put on a play by 
 Zangwill called " The War God " for two matinees 
 only. The rehearsals were more than trying. Zang- 
 will, who I believe had quite a good opinion of his 
 blank verse, was roundly informed that a great deal 
 of his pet poetry was " mere journalism " and had to 
 be cut out. And one actor of considerable standing 
 was ordered out of the theater for being " a bloody 
 old woman." (As a matter of fact, he had been rather 
 a nuisance.) 
 
 After I joined the company at His Majesty's
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 43 
 
 Theatre, I saw a good deal of Tree both off and on 
 the stage ; and the fundamental simplicity of his char- 
 acter was revealed to me over and over again. He 
 had a child-like love of flattery, but was much too 
 clever to drink it all in. As I admired him on the 
 whole more than any other actor I had seen, I was 
 able quite honestly to give him all the praise that was 
 good for him, and this made him very susceptible to 
 my criticism whenever it came. He was really quite 
 cut up when I told him he wasn't suited to Othello, 
 and he began a lengthy disquisition to the effect that 
 it was his finest Shakespearean performance be- 
 cause, apparently, it made him sweat more than any 
 of the others ! He was annoyed when I said one day 
 that Sargent's sketch, though a brilliant likeness, made 
 him look much younger than he was, and for about an 
 hour afterwards he kept returning to the subject 
 with: " You don't know me as well as Sargent does," 
 or " You ought to study the art of expression," or 
 " Go and see an oculist, my friend." 
 
 Once he gave me his opinion of the dramatic critics. 
 ' There are," he said, " three kinds of dramatic critics. 
 There are those who say the drama is going to the 
 devil, those who say it's ascending to heaven, and 
 those who .halt between two opinions. So far as my 
 own theater is concerned I am inclined to agree with 
 the second class. Of course not one of them really 
 knows what he is talking about. They all make state- 
 ments that the intelligent public disprove. And it's 
 the public, not the critics, who have kept Shakespeare 
 alive. If it were possible to put on an unknown play 
 by Shakespeare and give its author's name as John 
 Smith, there'd not be a single critic in London with
 
 44 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 sufficient discernment to spot the poet. In Germany 
 things are different. There the critics possess true 
 culture and literary ability. But here I sometimes 
 think they've sent the football reporter to our first 
 nights instead of the dramatic critic. Perhaps it's the 
 same person, you say? Yes, there's something in that. 
 I must try to find out. Their extraordinary prefer- 
 ence for what they call virile acting certainly bears out 
 your suggestion. What's wrong with the English 
 theater is not the drama or the actor or the public, 
 but the dramatic critic. Personally I have nothing 
 but praise for the social qualities of our critics. They 
 are delightful fellows. No words could do justice to 
 their personal charm, their generosity, their sincerity, 
 their patriotism, their domestic virtues and their un- 
 fathomable ignorance! " 
 
 I spent a curious hour or two with Tree one night 
 not long after I joined him. I was leaving the theater 
 at the close of the performance when suddenly I heard 
 Tiis voice on the stairs behind me: "Where are you 
 going?" "Home to bed," I replied. "Don't be 
 rash," said he; "young and yet careful." Then he 
 gripped my arm, hailed a taxi, pushed me inside, got 
 in himself, and slammed the door. The driver left his 
 seat, opened the door and asked where we wanted to 
 go. 
 
 ' That is not the sort of question that should be put 
 to a gentleman at this time of night," rejoined Tree. 
 
 " Come orf it," snapped the driver. 
 
 " He means ' off,' using the term in a metaphorical 
 sense," Tree murmured. 
 
 " Are you going to tell me where you want to go, 
 or shall I fetch a bobby? " demanded the man.
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 45 
 
 "Whither thou goest, we will go," quoted Tree; 
 " but where thou lodgest we certainly don't intend to 
 lodge." Then, seeing the man was getting angry, he 
 added : " Drive us slowly round and round the West 
 End until we tell you to stop. If you see a man in 
 green trousers, a top hat and spotted waistcoat, blow 
 your horn three times and increase your speed." 
 
 The driver, not altogether certain whether he was 
 indulging a privileged lunatic or dealing with a Scot- 
 land Yard detective, returned to his seat and started 
 off. Tree lay back in his corner, crossed his legs and 
 talked. Now and then I said something, to which he 
 paid no more attention than a grunt, and his purrings 
 practically amounted to a soliloquy, of which I give 
 here only those parts I remember accurately. The 
 dots denote, according to their number, short and long 
 pauses. I should add that the gentleman to whom 
 he refers so frequently had just been hung for mur- 
 dering his wife: 
 
 " I used to believe the world was round. Nowa- 
 days I am sure it is flat Poor old Crippen! 
 
 .... Why? you naturally ask." (I hadn't, but it 
 didn't matter.) " I don't know. Possibly because 
 I can't believe that God plays football with the 
 planetary system. The idea is outrageous. It is hor- 
 rible that a man of your intelligence should support 
 it." (I hadn't uttered a word in its favor, but that 
 was neither here nor there.) " You have what I may 
 call a Crystal Palace mind. I don't mean to suggest 
 that your mind is as clear as crystal. It isn't. No 
 Crystal Palace minds are. That is the paradox of 
 the Victorian era. . Poor old Crip- 
 pen! Don't talk so much. Talking
 
 46 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 hinders thought. I always think aloud, and I can't 
 stand people talking while I'm thinking at the 
 top of my voice. Do you really imagine that any- 
 thing you say is of the smallest importance? Your 
 
 tongue was given you to hold it Poor old 
 
 Crippen! Once, many years ago, 
 
 while I was witnessing my own impersonation of 
 Hamlet a beautiful performance the thought 
 struck me that I would, some time or another, pro- 
 duce one of Shakespeare's plays. But alas! don't 
 interrupt me all our ideals escape us. Besides it 
 wouldn't be fair to Sidney Lee and the rest of the 
 would-be Elizabethans, none of whom would have 
 anything to grumble about if I stuck to the ' true and 
 perfect coppie '. Their occupation would be gone, 
 and one cannot trifle with the problem of the Unem- 
 ployable Does your eye ever roll in a fine 
 
 frenzy? JsTo, of course not. You would be in Han- 
 well if it did. As I said before, you have a Crippen 
 Palace mind. . . . Poor old Crystal ! . . . " 
 
 At this point Tree lapsed into silence for about 
 ten minutes. Then he commenced to murmur, but I 
 only caught one phrase " She probably deserved it " 
 referable no doubt to the late Mrs. Crippen. Then 
 silence again. I began to feel sleepy and had got 
 into a sort of nodding condition when the taxi stopped 
 and the driver opened the door violently. " 'Ow 
 long's this going on for? " he shouted. Tree, without 
 moving, said to me: " Give him something on ac- 
 count." 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry," I replied, " but I've only got 
 half-a-crown on me." 
 
 " My God ! " exclaimed Tree ; " fancy inviting a
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 47 
 
 man to go for a ride and then expecting him to pay 
 for it." 
 
 ME. But, Sir Herbert, it was you who invited me. 
 
 TREE. Yes, I know. I regard my behavior as 
 perfectly scandalous. 
 
 ME. Oh, I beg your pardon. 
 
 TREE. You do not beg in vain. 
 
 DRIVER. I'd like you two gentlemen's names and 
 addresses. 
 
 TREE. I know what ! He shall have seats. Yes, 
 he shall have as many seats as he likes. He shall have 
 rows of seats all to himself. He shall have tier upon 
 tier of boxes and circles. We shall build a theater to 
 hold countless seats and he shall have them all. 
 Poor old Crippen! . . 
 
 ME (to Driver). Will you please drive us back 
 to His Majesty's Theatre. My name wouldn't inter- 
 est you, but this is Sir Herbert Tree a great man 
 with curious habits. 
 
 DRIVER. Right you are, sir. I've 'card of 'im. 
 
 We must have been somewhere in St. James's dur- 
 ing this incident, because I remember driving at an 
 unholy rate through King Street, across the Square 
 and along Charles Street. We narrowly missed an- 
 other taxi in Waterloo Place, which brought Tree up 
 with a jerk and an exclamation: " I'm sure he didn't 
 mean to do it " which may have been inspired either 
 by the driver or Dr. Crippen. At the theater he man- 
 aged to borrow some money for the taxi man, and 
 then I left him. His last words were: " Good night, 
 my boy. . . . Why in heaven's name can't they use 
 the Lethal Chamber?" 
 
 Tree's chief failing, which constituted no little of
 
 48 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 his charm, was this whimsical inappropriatene'js that 
 I have tried to illustrate. One was never perfectly 
 certain where sincerity began and absurdity left off. 
 He undoubtedly adopted a pose, but a pose may be 
 just as much a part of a man as a temper. It is 
 wrong to call a man insincere just because he poses. 
 We all pose, more or less. With Tree, at any rate, 
 the pose was the man. Without it, he would not have 
 been Tree. Let me give two characteristical in- 
 stances. They both show him in his habit as he lived. 
 
 An actor of my acquaintance, having heard that 
 Tree was very interested in the art of make-up and 
 always noticed those of his company who took pains 
 to get the right effect, decided to give his imagination 
 full play, and arrived on the stage at the first dress 
 rehearsal in a quite masterly disguise. Tree spotted 
 him from afar and drifted towards him. The follow- 
 ing conversation then took place: 
 
 TREE. My God! How did you do it? 
 
 ACTOR (immensely elated). Oh, I well, I did it. 
 
 TREE. The result of life-long study what? 
 
 ACTOR. Oh, hardly that, sir, but of course a good 
 deal. 
 
 TREE. I've never seen such shadow effects won- 
 derful! But surely, surely someone must have helped 
 you? You couldn't have done it entirely out of your 
 own head? 
 
 ACTOR. It's very gratifying to hear you talk like 
 that, sir. Yes, I did it all, quite on my own. " Alone 
 I did it" Ha, ha!. . 
 
 TREE. A wit, too. Very good. Ha, ha, ha! 
 
 ACTOR. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha ! 
 
 TREE. Quite so. Ha! It's amazing. Let me see
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 49 
 
 you in profile. Yes, yes. Astonishing. Now the 
 back view please. Most remarkable. No, no; don't 
 turn round ; the back view couldn't be improved upon. 
 The ' hair ' effect is quite unique. How did you man- 
 age it? 
 
 ACTOE. But that's my own hair, sir. 
 
 TREE. Oh, I see. Your own hair? Yes, yes. 
 The old quarrel between nature and art. Now you 
 may turn round. My God! What a face! A 
 
 miracle But, I say, you aren't going on like 
 
 that, are you? 
 
 All this was rather cruel on the poor actor, but it 
 probably did him a lot of good in the long run, and 
 he tells the story now against himself without any 
 spice of malice against Tree. 
 
 The other instance is still more typical of the man. 
 He was lunching one day with a friend at the 
 Carlton. Suddenly he noticed someone lunching 
 alone at another table. He called the waiter and 
 said: 
 
 " My compliments to Mr. Henry Arthur Jones 
 the gentleman over there and will he very kindly 
 come and speak to me for a minute? " The waiter 
 did as he was asked, and returned to say that Sir 
 Herbert was mistaken the gentleman was not Mr. 
 Henry Arthur Jones. 
 
 * Yes, yes," said Tree, " very funny, very funny 
 indeed: he always did like his little joke. But this is 
 important. Please tell Mr. Jones that I would feel 
 very grateful if he will behave seriously for once. I 
 am most anxious to speak to him." 
 
 The waiter again approached the solitary gentle- 
 man and gave Tree's message. Again he returned
 
 50 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 and said: " The gentleman is not joking at all. He 
 says he is quite serious and he is not Mr. Henry 
 Arthur Jones." Tree dismissed the waiter with a 
 laugh which implied that Mr. Jones was incorrigible 
 and went on with his lunch. 
 
 The solitary gentleman finished his meal before the 
 others, and on his way out stopped at Tree's table. 
 Addressing Tree with some little heat, he said: "I 
 don't see why you should insist on knowing me. 
 Surely it was enough to point out your mistake once? 
 My name is not Jones." 
 
 " Do you mean to tell me quite seriously that you 
 are not Mr. Henry Arthur Jones? " queried Tree. 
 
 " I do, sir! " shouted the other. 
 
 " Then you were quite right to deny it," mildly 
 returned Sir Herbert as he continued his lunch. 
 
 I have said that Tree's wit was labored, but some- 
 times he did say the most delightful things with ap- 
 parent spontaneity. For example, when he first saw 
 " Chu Chin Chow " in 1916 he summed it up su- 
 premely in a phrase: "It's more navel than mil- 
 linery," which was worth more as a criticism alone 
 than all the columns both pro and con that had ap- 
 peared in the papers. 
 
 The last time I saw him was, curiously, the last 
 time I saw George Alexander and H. B. Irving. It 
 was in the autumn of 1916 and Tree had crossed over 
 from America for a week or two in England. As 
 President of the Actors' Committee for the Shake- 
 speare Tercentenary Performance he came to the St. 
 James's Theatre one day for the purpose of making 
 me a presentation from the Committee for my services 
 as Secretary. Alexander and Irving were the only
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 51 
 
 other members of the Committee present. All three 
 died while I was serving abroad. 
 
 Tree asked me how I liked the Army. I replied in 
 suitable terms. " Do you want to go to the front? " 
 he asked. " Does anyone not want to? " I countered. 
 " I don't," he answered emphatically, and then, as an 
 afterthought, " at least I shan't pretend I do." This 
 was a most refreshing statement in those days when 
 all the old men in the country went about canting 
 their hypocritical twaddle: " If only we were 
 younger! " 
 
 Tree then described, with much gesticulation, the 
 inventions that were shortly to be used against the 
 Zeppelins. I remember he spoke of some astound- 
 ing things that our airmen were to carry, referring 
 to them as " great tentacles of fire " the entire idea 
 having no doubt originated, and elaborated itself, in 
 his own mind. 
 
 Next, H. B. Irving had a yarn (straight from 
 Whitehall, of course) relating to Lord Kitchener's 
 death. Kitchener had apparently received a telegram 
 a day or two before he started for Russia which ran: 
 " Shall Henry enter the London Academy next De- 
 cember? " He couldn't make head or tail of it; but 
 shortly after the ship which carried him had been 
 sunk off the Shetlands, someone discovered that the 
 first letter of each word in the telegram spelt the 
 ominous name. " Dirty work, I should think," 
 summed up H. B. 
 
 " I must take a copy of that, Harry," exclaimed 
 Tree, with all the child's interest in a new toy. 
 
 That was his abiding charm. He never grew up.
 
 52 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 And now I want to say a few words about Tree's 
 work and position as an artist. He was, beyond any 
 cavil or question, the last of the great actor -managers. 
 With him a system died. It was a system with a few 
 fine virtues and some serious faults. He was, per- 
 haps, the best possible example of both. By its 
 virtues we were his debtors for a few unforgettable 
 impersonations, some astonishingly fine productions, 
 and a really big personality. By its faults we 
 were his creditors for some terrible examples of 
 bad casting, not a few atrociously poor plays 
 staged for the sole purpose of providing him with fat 
 character parts and an occasionally frightful ex- 
 penditure of lime-light. His death raised the inter- 
 esting question of how far individualism may benefit 
 art or how far socialism might redeem it. Undoubt- 
 edly his best performances would have suffered from 
 outside interference; undoubtedly, too, outside inter- 
 ference would have saved us from his worst perform- 
 ances. And the same can be said with equal truth of 
 the plays he produced. 
 
 I have already stated at the beginning of this essay 
 that at a very impressionable age Tree's art exercised 
 considerable influence over me. In 1906, fresh from 
 school, I saw him for the first time in Stephen 
 Phillips's rhetorical masterpiece, " Nero." That was 
 the first big artistic moment of my life. Unsophisti- 
 cated though I was, I think I realized that Tree was 
 unsuited to the part, except .in make-up and general 
 conception. As with Macbeth of a later date, his 
 idea of the thing could not have been bettered: the 
 execution only was wanting. Still, " Nero " was a 
 great show, taken on the whole, and my imagination,
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 53 
 
 half famished by the paralyzing curriculum of an 
 English public school, awoke to a new world a world 
 of poetry, music and beauty. 
 
 Then I began to lunch in the City on a cup of 
 coffee and a roll and butter, so as to save my money 
 for the pit of His Majesty's Theatre. I saw prac- 
 tically all his famous impersonations, in revivals or 
 otherwise, and a large number of his infamous im- 
 personations as well. The common notion of Tree's 
 best pieces of acting was never right. His was much 
 too fantastical in such popular parts as Falstaff, 
 Demetrius, Malvolio, Fagin, Shylock, Svengali, 
 Micawber, Zakkuri. They were brilliantly clever 
 caricatures, intellectually great caricatures what 
 you will but not real living characters. His 
 performances of them merely went to show that 
 caricatures can amuse and interest as much as 
 their prototypes. In my opinion Tree's Malvolio 
 was a much more entertaining person than Shake- 
 speare's, and his Shylock made a far more majestic 
 figure than the poet's " periwig-pated fellow." How- 
 ever, this was not strictly legitimate work, and 
 bardoloters may be forgiven for having considered it a 
 crime and Tree a most offensive criminal. Then, 
 too, he caricatured those two already excellent cari- 
 catures, Fagin and Svengali, and, needless to say, got 
 'more fun out of them than their creators ever dreamt 
 of putting into them. In fact it is not too much 
 to say that just as his half-brother, Max Beerbohm, 
 is the greatest of pictorial caricaturists, so Tree was 
 the greatest of histrionic caricaturists. He converted 
 the peculiarities of the original into the characteristics 
 of the copy. Very rarely did he subdue this Puck-
 
 54 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 like element in his work, but we owed Colonel New- 
 come, Beethoven, Paragot and Richard II to those 
 rare occasions. Tree did not read Shakespeare by 
 flashes of lightning he usually read him by flashes 
 of lime-light but as Richard II he read him by 
 flashes of insight. He used the X-ray of sympathy 
 and imagination. 
 
 One can but treat actors by comparison with con- 
 temporaries of their cloth, if I may so term it. " They 
 are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time " 
 Hamlet tells us. The finer spirits among them are 
 the priests of the literary gods. True, with the help 
 of the gramophone and the cinematograph a sort of 
 pale understudy may be immortalized, but the charm 
 (if there is any), the personality, make their final 
 exeunt with the owner. A comparison with the rest 
 of the stage celebrities of his day shows us that Tree 
 had not the virility of Lewis Waller, the classical 
 naturalness and unequaled elocution of Forbes- 
 Robertson. Tree's Hamlet, for example, was a ro- 
 mantic idealization of the commoner things, the very 
 absence of which distinguishes the real Hamlet from 
 the pettifogging world around him. Forbes-Robert- 
 son's Hamlet was the only possible Hamlet in con- 
 ception and the only thinkable Hamlet in execution 
 a flawless performance. Again, Tree was utterly 
 incapable of the pit-popular heroic parts in which 
 Waller excelled. Tree's Hotspur must have been 
 quite painful to watch, and his Antony was too fear- 
 some to capture a real mob. As lago he would have 
 swamped any Othello on the stage, but he chose to 
 play Othello and missed one of the chances of his life. 
 This was a great pity, for he might have established
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 55 
 
 an excellent tradition by turning I ago into a figure 
 of farce. 
 
 His extraordinary faculty for caricature was the 
 direct outcome of a restless, inventive mind. He was 
 never contented, always wanting to improve, to build 
 up, a part. Then, when he became tired, or when 
 his fertility was momentarily exhausted, he used 
 calmly to " walk through " the performance and pull 
 faces or make jokes at other people on the stage. 
 When he was not flattering the public with his best, 
 he was insulting the public with his worst. He sim- 
 ply couldn't help it; and this strange behavior was 
 certainly due to the appalling effect of long runs on 
 a highly sensitive and artistic temperament. He 
 should never have been allowed to play a part for 
 more than three consecutive performances. 
 
 Tree's personality was all-dominant whenever he 
 choose to exercise it. It was just as fantastical off the 
 stage as on it, and just as willful. The best part he 
 ever played was Herbert Beerbohm Tree in the play 
 of that name. He was his own best mimic. He was 
 a perpetual caricature of himself. He always took 
 possession of a place or a number of people in a 
 weird, childlike way. At the Coronation Gala Per- 
 formance in 1911 he acted Antony in the Forum 
 scene from " Julius Csesar," and it was arranged that 
 Granville Barker should produce the scene. Nearly 
 every actor of any importance on the British stage 
 and a large number (like myself) of no importance 
 whatever appeared in this " star turn " as the crowd 
 of citizens. In honor of so famous an occasion, 
 Barker spent many sleepless nights (so I imagine) 
 in preparing " a book of the words." This turned
 
 56 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 out to be a pamphlet of two dozen pages containing 
 the movements of everybody concerned at each point 
 in the proceedings e.g. "X365 strikes his breast and 
 moves up stage to left center, where he is met by 
 Y29 and Z123, who condole with him," or something 
 of that nature. Altogether a noteworthy enterprise. 
 After two or three desperate rehearsals, the effect of 
 which should have whitened the hair of any ordinarily 
 constituted man, Enter Tree. Within a very few 
 minutes Barker's booklets were considerably below 
 par and Tree was dominating the entire assembly 
 with eagle glance and outstretched arm. " I will 
 sway them," he declaimed: "the movements they 
 make shall be dictated by the magic of my utterance ; 
 they shall all weep when I weep, all execrate when 
 I execrate, and be silenced as one man by the uplift- 
 ing of my hand " or words to that effect. 
 
 And so it was. And so it always was. Quite po- 
 litely and quite firmly Tree invariably did exactly 
 what he wanted to do. But he was a dreamer, too, 
 with all the dreamer's elusive charm and changing 
 fancy. It was the dreamer in him, the poet, that 
 brought Richard II to life so vividly and naturally, 
 making him infinitely human and lovable, and yet a 
 spirit from the spheres, haunting, wistful, appeal- 
 ing. 
 
 London has not been the same place to me since 
 Tree's death. A link with my youth has snapped. 
 The great theater which he loved and lived in will 
 remain, but the genius which made it great has gone, 
 and in going has bereft it of a certain nobility and 
 glamor quite unlike the temporary distinctions of 
 other theaters.
 
 SIR HERBERT TREE 57 
 
 In gratitude for some sacred benefits, which can 
 no more be repeated or described than past moments 
 of one's spiritual growth, I have here tried to keep 
 the memory of these passing things, now alas ! fading 
 away so soon to become the pale shadows of a dream.
 
 Ill 
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 
 
 THE most difficult art in the world is the art of under- 
 standing your fellow man. Sympathy has to be al- 
 most abnormally developed in order to do so. And 
 you must begin the study by trying to understand 
 yourself. In literature, the paucity of great biogra- 
 phies is sufficient evidence of the difficulty, and the 
 negligible quantity of great autobiographies throws a 
 flood of light on the significance of this. 
 
 Unfortunately, a biographer usually limits his work 
 to the record of his subject's achievements and leaves 
 out the very thing his readers are clamoring for, viz., 
 the heart and soul interest, the personality, that is 
 behind everything. Thus we are invariably left to 
 discover the Man in this or that tit-bit of scandal or in 
 the gossip of two or three brief sketches by some of 
 his friends. 
 
 Sir Francis Gal ton's contemporaries have told us 
 very little about him, and the majority have of course 
 gone the way of all flesh. It seems to me a pity that 
 no one should have taken the trouble to write a per- 
 sonal sketch of him, as distinct from the very long 
 and very official (that is, scientific) " Life and La- 
 bours," by his friend, Professor Karl Pearson. His 
 influence will, I am convinced, increase with the years, 
 and it is certain that our children will want to know 
 
 58
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 59 
 
 more about him personally than we ourselves have 
 yet been told. 
 
 At any rate I shall try in a few paragraphs to give 
 an idea of the Man, Galton, and leave his works to 
 take care of themselves. I can't do much harm by 
 it and I may do a little good. 
 
 I first got to know him (he was my great-great- 
 uncle, by the way) when I had just left school and 
 was in business in the City. I was 19: he was 84. 
 I expanded with self-importance; he was strangely 
 simple and unaffected. I had begun to feel that I 
 knew everything: he had long passed the age when 
 he first felt that he knew nothing. In brief, I was 
 a dogmatic prig: he was a tolerant philosopher. He 
 at once began talking to me about my life in the City. 
 Did it interest me? Had I learnt much? Was it 
 my intention to keep at it and pave out a business 
 career? He soon changed the topic when he found 
 that I was indifferent, and in a very short time got 
 at my momentary weakness theaters and playgoing 
 generally. We talked of the modern drama and of 
 Tree's Shakespearean productions. The latter in- 
 terested me enormously, the former (in those days) 
 hardly at all. I had not begun to grow. He wanted 
 me to see one or two of Shaw's plays, and took tickets 
 for me at the Court Theatre several times. In return 
 for this concession on my part, he went with me to 
 see Tree in " Nero." It pleased him, I remember, as 
 he was already a little deaf and the spectacular part 
 of the production appealed to him. He thought Tree 
 " looked " the part. He noticed that some of the 
 people got on their feet during the Tableau of the 
 Burning of Rome, and thought this was strange, since
 
 60 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 the scene had already been given without mishap a 
 sufficient number of times to allay any fear that its 
 realism might otherwise engender. I said that they 
 got up to go, as the play was almost over. " No," 
 he replied, " for if that was so, they would make some 
 attempt to search for their hats or coats in the act of 
 rising." Details like this never escaped him. On 
 one occasion he was asked to lecture on Eugenics 
 before some social gathering. Owing to his age he 
 wrote out the lecture and arranged for someone else 
 to read it. Upon being asked to make a few remarks 
 at the close of the meeting he said: " I have often 
 observed that when people are interested in a dis- 
 course, the movements of their hands or legs are 
 roughly two in every minute. When they are bored 
 this number may be multiplied by four, or, at mo- 
 ments of excessive ennui, five. It gave me real pleas- 
 ure to perceive that you were even absorbed in my 
 paper. Your movements have averaged only one to 
 the minute." 
 
 His mind and way of life were so practical as 
 almost to seem eccentric. For instance, at one time 
 he used to secrete a brick somewhere on his person. 
 This would be attached to a piece of cord ; and, unob- 
 served by those around him, he would quietly release 
 the brick from its position, let it down to the ground, 
 mount in order to gain a good view of some procession 
 or other and draw it up to its resting-place at the close 
 of the proceedings. At another time he was anxious 
 to get material for a book, when it was necessary that 
 he should strike a fair proportion in estimating the 
 beauty or otherwise of the average woman. There- 
 upon he improvised some machine which ticked off
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 61 
 
 numbers on a sheet of paper when a button was 
 pressed. He placed one machine in his right-hand 
 trousers pocket and another in his left. After which 
 he strolled through the streets with his hands in his 
 pockets and calmly pressed buttons right, beauty; 
 left, otherwise as the female population passed him 
 " regardless of their doom." 
 
 Galton had a character of great simplicity: there 
 was not a shade of pose or affectation in him. It is 
 a tribute to say of him that never once were you made 
 conscious of his position in the scientific world. He 
 was uniformly courteous and charming and simple. 
 This simplicity was one of his three distinguishing 
 characteristics. Another was his eminently practical, 
 or, to speak more accurately, scientific, mind. Of this 
 I have already given some examples. The third out- 
 standing feature about him was the astonishing in- 
 terest he took in almost every subject under the sun. 
 
 I think Boswell attributed to Johnson in a special 
 degree the art of drawing out the best in everyone 
 by discovering their chief interests and making these 
 the topic of conversation. This is an exceptional gift 
 and must be used spontaneously to have the right 
 effect; there must not be a shadow of effort about it. 
 I could never find a subject that Galton was not will- 
 ing and eager to discuss from golf to Egyptology. 
 And he always managed to throw new light on mat- 
 ters upon which one liked to believe oneself an ex- 
 pert. I remember him asking me for my impressions 
 of Mexico, where I had just been, and I was almost 
 electrified at the knowledge he displayed, though he 
 had never visited the country and the things we dis- 
 cussed were those little everyday affairs in the life
 
 62 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 of a people such as one could only seize upon and 
 make actual to the listener after a personal visit to the 
 place. 
 
 I think this part of his character, this well-nigh 
 unlimited interest he took in everybody and every- 
 thing, was the most distinctive thing about him, as 
 it was certainly the cause of his many friendships and 
 the attraction of all sorts and conditions of people to 
 him. My mother, who knew him intimately for years, 
 writes to me: " One thing perhaps that always struck 
 me anew every time I saw him was the extraordinary 
 sweetness of his expression, and as I think expression 
 shows the inner man, I have always thought of him 
 as being so full of kindliness. He certainly never 
 frightened me as some great men might have done, 
 and I never minded showing him my ignorance. He 
 also explained things so very well, made things easy 
 to understand. He generally managed to find out 
 the things you were interested in and talked of these, 
 taking such an extraordinary interest in them himself 
 that the conversation was a delight. He was very 
 lovable, and I think everyone who had much to do 
 with him,, high or low, was devoted to him. He was 
 also unselfish and hated giving trouble to others. He 
 was very fond of poetry and generally had a volume 
 of Shakespeare close to him, but music he rather dis- 
 liked than otherwise. None of the Galtons care much 
 for music " 
 
 Strangely enough, in the variety of topics he 
 touched upon and so often irradiated with the torch- 
 light of common-sense, Johnson seems to me the only 
 big man of whom we have record at all comparable 
 to Galton, though of course the enormous advance in
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 63 
 
 the mental and spiritual outlook since Johnson's time 
 no less than the unthinkable addition of inventions 
 and the thousand and one other complexities of mod- 
 ern existence, made of Galton a man of far rarer 
 caliber and wider culture. 
 
 In appearance, Galton was exactly like the painting 
 Furze did of him. The likeness shows him in a very 
 characteristic attitude and gets his expression, even 
 the mold of the face, to perfection. His eyes were 
 quite blue and set deep in his head, with finely promi- 
 nent brows; the well-chiseled nose was surmounted 
 by a forehead of such perfect proportion that one 
 never really thought of him as bald; the mouth and 
 chin, also, were statuesque in their modeling. When 
 in repose, he sometimes, I don't know how, reminded 
 me of the statue of the Dying Napoleon at Versailles. 
 He was short, about 5 foot 6 inches I imagine, and 
 at the time of which I am speaking he stooped con- 
 siderably when walking. His voice was soft and had 
 a smooth, sweet quality which enhanced the stillness 
 and peace of his personality. There was always 
 something very homely and quiet about him. He 
 almost made a religion of cleanliness and fresh air. 
 This sometimes amounted to bleakness. Visitors slid 
 towards him over parquet floors and smoking was 
 strictly prohibited. Thick carpeting and upholstery 
 he hated, for hygienic and asthmatic reasons. 
 
 He was fond of recounting little incidents in his 
 own life or in the lives of his friends. He used, in 
 fact, to make a story out of an incident, rounding 
 it off artistically. Here is a typical example I re- 
 member it because I heard him tell it twice its sim- 
 plicity perhaps appealed to him: " The Spaniards are
 
 64 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 still very superstitious. A friend of mine who lived 
 in Spain once experienced a rather unpleasant exam- 
 ple of this. He was driving home in his carriage one 
 day when he passed a priest who was toiling up a hill 
 with evident difficulty. He pulled the cord which 
 communicated with his coachman on the box outside, 
 and the carriage drew up at the side of the road. He 
 then got out and offered the priest a seat in the car- 
 riage as far as he wanted to go. When inside, he 
 asked the priest where he would like to descend : the 
 priest told him, and the conversation drifted on to 
 other things. At the appointed place, my friend 
 pulled the communication cord, the carriage stopped, 
 and the priest alighted after thanking him cordially 
 for his kindness. Three days later, when out driving, 
 his carriage suddenly pulled up with a jolt and he 
 was politely requested by someone to step outside for 
 a few minutes. Immediately his feet reached the 
 ground, his arms were tightly pinioned behind him, 
 a handkerchief was tied over his eyes, another over 
 his mouth, and he was inarched for some distance in 
 complete silence with a hand of iron on each arm. 
 At last they came to a house, and the door which 
 closed behind them sounded heavily. He was pushed 
 into a room where he remained for a short time ap- 
 parently alone. In a few minutes, two or three men 
 entered and took him along several passages into what 
 seemed to him a large hall. Here his arms were freed 
 and the bandages taken from his mouth and eyes. He 
 found himself in a long, low room, lit by a few candles 
 here and there, and standing before three masked men 
 in dark gowns who were seated at a table draped in
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 65 
 
 black. One of these men had a written scroll before 
 him, which he commenced to read at once in a hard, 
 firm voice: ' On Tuesday last, senor, you were on 
 infallible grounds proved to be in league with the Evil 
 One. But inasmuch as you showed sympathy with 
 our brother Resarti, you have been granted the favor 
 of appearing before these holy fathers, not for the 
 object of proving yourself innocent, since that is im- 
 possible, but in order that you may receive forgiveness 
 by rendering up to us the terms of your secret com- 
 pact.' My friend, who had up to now regarded the 
 adventure in the light of an amusing experience fol- 
 lowing on some easily rectifiable mistake, now realized 
 that matters were more serious than he had imagined. 
 " ' What is the nature of the indictment? ' he 
 asked. 
 
 ' Perhaps, senor, it will be unnecessary to repeat 
 it if I recall briefly the occurrences of these forty 
 minutes which our brother Resarti spent in your car- 
 riage on Tuesday last,' replied the first speaker. 
 * Please be good enough to do so,' said my friend, who 
 was beginning to feel decidedly uneasy. The man 
 continued to read from the paper before him : ' You 
 will remember, then, that while you were both inside 
 the carriage, but not before, our brother gave you 
 the name of the hostel at which he desired to alight. 
 You were unable to inform your coachman of this 
 fact without first of all leaning out of the window and 
 speaking plainly to him. This you did not do. No 
 sign of communication between you and your servant 
 in sin was made ; and yet the carriage stopped within 
 four feet of the door at which our brother requested
 
 66 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 that he might descend. These doings, senor, are 
 only possible among the fellows and disciples of 
 Satan. 
 
 Galton's marriage, as far as I can make out, was 
 not a particularly happy one. His wife took advan- 
 tage of his essential kindness of heart and unselfish 
 disposition. I have been told that any comfort which 
 might have given pleasure to his leisure hours was 
 often denied him by her. Even the chairs in the 
 drawing-room were straight-backed and hard. She 
 had, apparently, a mania for collecting letters written 
 by celebrated people. At any rate a couple of albums 
 crammed with autographs and letters (not all, by any 
 means, written to her) were unearthed when Galton 
 died. An original despatch from the Duke of Wel- 
 lington, a trite postcard from Walter Pater, letters 
 from Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, and a host of other 
 famous people, were there. I hardly think Galton 
 could have taken much interest in this whirl of celeb- 
 rity hunting. I fear he must have felt sadly out of it. 
 
 But his later years were very happy ones. His 
 niece, Miss Evelyn Biggs, gave him the full benefit 
 of a charming and invigorating companionship. Her 
 unselfish care and joy of living helped in no small 
 degree to make his life at the latter end one of great 
 content and exceptional enjoyment. I must quote 
 here from a letter she sent me nine years after his 
 death: " Uncle Frank was full of ready wit in small 
 everyday matters. We had a cook from the Isle of 
 Man, and when she had left the room, after being 
 interviewed for the first time, he gravely remarked: 
 ' I didn't see her third leg did you notice it? ' He 
 was particularly amusing in repartee. When he and
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 67 
 
 Mary Coleridge met, they were most witty together, 
 and one was simply astonished at the fund of wit and 
 learning of each. They were the best of friends. But 
 when Dr. Lillias Hamilton came to the house, the 
 repartee was like lightning; no one spoke but these 
 two, and the company laughed all the time without 
 stopping. It was pure fun, and hardly any dinner 
 was eaten even I forgot my food, which is rare! " 
 
 Let me, finally, try to give some idea of his wide 
 interests and deeper feelings. It was never easy to 
 get him to talk of things that aifected himself. He 
 preferred always to find out what people had to say 
 for themselves and to keep the discussion well within 
 the region of everyday happenings. In fact I only 
 got to know him at all intimately during the last few 
 talks we had together, while I was staying with him 
 for two or three days during the winter of 1909-10 
 in a house he had taken at Haslemere. 
 
 One day we drove over to Tennyson's house " to 
 renew my memories of him," he said. While we stood 
 on the terrace in front of the house, looking at the 
 splendid view, he remarked : " Tennyson was a great 
 poet, but his over-done popularity during his life- 
 time has cost him dear. People foolishly likened him 
 to Shakespeare and the inevitable reaction has set 
 in. His worst poetry was invariably the most popu- 
 lar; but he will come into his right place when the 
 tide turns. He had more to say than Swinburne, but 
 Swinburne will be paid the price of neglect and so 
 win the popularity that Tennyson has lost." On the 
 road we passed the spot where Tyndall lies buried. 
 Galton told me that Tyndall had expressed a desire 
 to be buried in unconsecrated ground and had par-
 
 68 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 ticularly requested that no Church Service should be 
 said over his body. He had even charged Galton 
 himself to see that his wishes were carried out. 
 " After a battle-royal with his widow," said my uncle, 
 " we won the day." And there, sure enough, Tyn- 
 dall lies, with no stone to mark his resting-place, since 
 he had wished it so, in an open field, his grave cov- 
 ered with wild flowers and brambles. 
 
 " Were you glad you were knighted? " I asked him 
 later. "Yes and no," he replied: "Yes, because it 
 has drawn more public attention to Eugenics; no, 
 because it has trebled my correspondence." He did 
 not believe in over-straining the case in favor of Eu- 
 genics; he felt certain it would by degrees be ac- 
 cepted on common-sense grounds: "It should be 
 spread by Fabian methods, a gradual inculcation of 
 its needs ; it would do more harm than good if forcibly 
 pressed forward in its entirety we would become 
 cranks in the public eye." Here, as always, he was 
 very far-seeing. The big Eugenic Conference in 
 London after his death was made the subject of some 
 ridicule, and Eugenics has already produced antag- 
 onism (chiefly, perhaps, in the spasms of G. K. Ches- 
 terton) where, if left to the time-influence, it would 
 be accepted as a necessary part of social evolution. 
 
 " How is it," I asked him once, " that Bertillon has 
 received the honor and glory of the finger-print dis- 
 covery, and you are never mentioned in connection 
 with it? " 
 
 " I believe," he answered, " that the man who in- 
 vents a thing, or the pioneer of a movement, never 
 gets the fame of the man who makes a practical ap- 
 plication of the invention or who opens out the further
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 69 
 
 possibilities (usually lucrative) of the discovery. I 
 suggested to Bertillon that he should use my finger- 
 print theory to make his method of measurements 
 doubly effective. He did not see his way to adopt 
 my plan for some time, but afterwards it became his 
 chief stock-in-trade; in fact his own theories were a 
 complete failure in many respects. The finger-print 
 system was afterwards introduced into other coun- 
 tries, but as my own time was then occupied with dif- 
 ferent work, Bertillon played the showman wherever 
 it went. In that way, I suppose, he got nearly all 
 the kudos of the undertaking and gradually people 
 began to suppose the discovery his." 
 
 One evening I happened to say that I was becom- 
 ing a Liberal in politics, since the Conservatives didn't 
 seem to know what they wanted they had no con- 
 structive program. " Fancy being a Conservative 
 at your age ! " said he, laughing. " Most men begin 
 life as red-hot Republicans and end life as stiff- 
 necked Tories. Why, I thought all the young men 
 in the country nowadays were Socialists. All think- 
 ing men change their politics, and the majority 
 change them for worse. If you are a Conservative 
 now, I shan't envy your fireside acquaintances when 
 you are seventy. You'll be a blood-red revolutionist 
 at an age when most men are content with the opin- 
 ions of their grand-parents! " " Did you ever admire 
 any particular big-pot in the political world?" I 
 asked. " I'm afraid," he replied, " that my interest 
 in politicians has always been a phrenological one. 
 Their views don't interest me as much as their heads. 
 Gladstone had one of the finest heads of any man of 
 my time. He once allowed me to measure it, and I
 
 70 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 told him that there was only one finer head than his 
 in the kingdom. * Really,' said he, rather annoyed, 
 I thought, that his head was not as exceptional as his 
 oratory, ' I would like to meet the owner we must 
 find him a place in the Cabinet who is he? ' * My- 
 self,' I replied ; ' your powers of observation are not 
 acute.' He was amused at my impertinence, but I 
 noticed that my head received his critical regard more 
 than once before he left. A few years later I was at 
 a dinner given by some Society to the leading lights 
 of the various professions. Nearly opposite me sat a 
 man with the most marvelous head I have ever seen 
 in my life. I immediately asked my neighbor who 
 it was. * Henry Irving, the actor,' I was told. I 
 had never been to the Lyceum Theatre, but, without 
 knowing it, Irving had made a conquest of me at first 
 sight, and his head did what a stage-version of Shake- 
 speare could never have done it drew me to his 
 theater time after time. But as everybody is not 
 necessarily a student of phrenology, I never sug- 
 gested to him that he should take down his advertise- 
 ments and merely walk about the streets with his hat 
 off!" 
 
 I remember at about that time Oscar Wilde's works 
 had made a great impression on me his wit and style 
 seemed to me inimitable and I asked Galton whether 
 he had ever met him. 
 
 :< I used to see him occasionally, but I never wanted 
 to make his acquaintance. He annoyed me by posing 
 in elegant attitudes at a club I sometimes frequented. 
 Everything about him seemed to denote a lazy bore- 
 dom. I believe he was utterly insincere." 
 
 This was the first time I had ever known him speak
 
 71 
 
 harshly of anyone, and his manner surprised me. 
 " Have you read his work? " I pursued; " surely you 
 must allow him genius? read this," I added before 
 he could reply, and I gave him " The Soul of Man 
 under Socialism." 
 
 But he laid it aside. " Sure to be well put," was 
 all he said, dismissing the subject with a wave of the 
 hand. Strange, I thought, that so broad-minded a 
 man should allow personal dislike to interfere with 
 literary appreciation. Besides, humor was the quality 
 in literature he prized the most. Coming back into 
 the room a short while after, I found him reading 
 " The Soul of Man " with evident interest. But I 
 did not remark on it, thinking that to renew the sub- 
 ject would displease him he had shown for the first 
 time in my knowledge such obvious bias. Hamlet's 
 words came to mind. ' There is something in this 
 more than natural, if philosophy could find it 
 out. ..." And then in a flash I remembered that he 
 came from a Quaker stock. So it wasn't altogether 
 his fault. 
 
 Some months before this time (I was staying with 
 him early in February, 1910) he had picked up at 
 St. Jean de Luz, while on a visit to the Continent, 
 a little piece of " drain-trap " (he called it) which 
 seemed to be covered with the rust of ages. I sup- 
 pose he had found it in some out-of-the-way street. 
 He seemed to attach great value to this bit of old 
 metal, regarding it in the light of a relic, and he used 
 it on his desk as a pen-holder. He had tried without 
 success to get it clean and bright, but the rust had 
 bitten into it, and no smithy could doctor it up. I 
 said that I thought it could be done, and he gave it
 
 72 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 me to take away, not without considerable anxiety on 
 his part that I should on no account lose sight of it. 
 I had it brightened up in a motor workshop, and 
 received this very characteristic letter from him in 
 acknowledgment: " 1,000 thanks. The dear old piece 
 of drain-trap is now rendered beautiful, and will 
 adorn my writing-table for the rest of my working 
 life. I see the marks upon it of the grinding sub- 
 stance. This cast iron is, I suppose, of the nature of 
 what is used in the Navy for ' chilled ' shot and armor 
 plates. Its exceeding hardness makes one hope to 
 get further improvement in bettering steel tools (but 
 quere). ..." At the age of 89 he was still inter- 
 ested in everything that could perplex or employ the 
 human brain, his mind still open to the possibilities of 
 invention and ingenuity, still occupied with everyday 
 matters which lesser men would label insignificant 
 and ignore ! 
 
 The morning of the day I left we had a last chat 
 together. Long before this I had noticed that Shake- 
 speare's comedies (especially "Henry IV") and 
 Sheridan's and Congreve's plays seemed his favorite 
 reading for recreative purposes, and I wanted to find 
 out why it was he preferred the lighter classics and 
 rarely paid much attention to the deeper things in 
 literature. I asked him this, and his reply was of 
 great interest. I had never thought of him as very 
 sensitive, even weak, and the added touch made him 
 intensely human to me. " I used to read your favorite 
 works at one time," he said, " and they have all af- 
 forded me keen enjoyment. But poetry, especially 
 the poetry of Shakespeare's great period ' Hamlet ' 
 and * Lear ' makes me sad and unhappy now. 
 Shakespearean tragedy is so real, so true, that it
 
 SIR FRANCIS GALTON 73 
 
 brings the unending tragedy of life before my eyes, 
 and I have to close the book to keep a hold over my- 
 self. I am, alas! too much of a sentimentalist by 
 nature, and all through my life I have had to put 
 restraint on my emotions. Music, also, I avoid as 
 much as possible: it awakes memories, and mine are 
 naturally too keen to need a stimulus. Sometimes I 
 come across a simple lyric that I once knew by heart, 
 embedded in a newspaper article, and I have to rid 
 myself of it before I can get to work. . . . Humor, 
 on the other hand, invigorates me wonderfully. I 
 simply revel in Falstaff, and Sheridan's wit gives me 
 constant delight, though Moliere is my favorite after 
 Shakespeare." He spoke all this in a simple unaf- 
 fected manner, though he broke off once and gazed 
 into the fire for a moment. 
 
 Glancing back at him there by the fire, with the 
 glow of it on his face, I thought again of the sitting 
 figure of Napoleon at Versailles : the likeness seemed 
 stronger than ever. And yet, what a contrast ! The 
 very idea was unthinkable. ... I never saw him 
 again, but my memory of him remains, clear and un- 
 dimmed with the passage of time. 
 
 As a man lives, so does he die. Charles II as wit, 
 Oscar Wilde as humorist, lived up to their reputa- 
 tions at the final Exit. And now I must add another 
 characteristic end to the many that have gone before. 
 When Galton was being shown over the house he 
 eventually took at Grayshott for the winter of 
 1910-11, and in which he died a month or so after his 
 arrival, he remarked on reaching the top of the stairs 
 leading to his bedroom: " This will be an awkward 
 corner to get my coffin round." 
 
 Practical io the last. . . .
 
 IV 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 
 
 THE letters G. A., in big, bold capitals, which ap- 
 peared for so many years in gilt on portions of the 
 St. James's Theatre, in type on its programs, and 
 eventually in sculpture over the portal to his house 
 at Chorley Wood, give us a first-rate index to the 
 man, George Alexander, his mind and art. They 
 stood both for his success and the method whereby it 
 was attained. He was the best and most typical prod- 
 uct of London Society for twenty-five years before 
 August, 1914. He catered to the tastes and foibles 
 of that Society in its theater-going just as the man- 
 ager of the Savoy Hotel catered to the tastes and 
 foibles of that Society in its restaurant -going; and 
 exactly in so far as such drama was more or less im- 
 portant than such tables d'hote, was the manager of 
 the St. James's Theatre more or less important than 
 the manager of the Savoy Hotel. He produced plays 
 that were correctly risky, and they became the talk of 
 a social world that was correctly risky. He seldom 
 deviated one hair's breadth from the safe path of cor- 
 rect riskiness. 
 
 For the most part, his theater mirrored to absolute 
 perfection the people who patronized its stalls. He 
 knew, none better, that the stalls enjoyed the gilded 
 pill of romance about themselves, and that the gallery 
 loved to see the stalls swallow it. No real medicine 
 
 74
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 75 
 
 was possible, for his audiences wouldn't pay to be 
 choked or for the privilege of having a nasty taste in 
 the mouth. The light parts had to be charmingly 
 playful, the serious parts had to be pleasantly senti- 
 mental, and the plot had to savor of scandal without 
 being in any way truthfully objectionable. Adultery 
 was invariably touched on and inevitably touched up. 
 Murder, suicide and dipsomania conformed to the 
 limits of the respectable and were made unshockingly 
 dramatic. The working classes were seldom, if ever, 
 introduced. Significant social problems were care- 
 fully avoided. It was the drama of the genteel the 
 Apotheosis of the Butterfly. In a commercial age, 
 he adhered strictly to commercial plays ; the box office 
 receipts were his justification and his reward. His 
 dramas were triumphs of monetary speculation: they 
 were quite innocent of mental speculation. Pinero 
 was his god; Wilde was his rather uncertain arch- 
 angel. 
 
 The question naturally arises: what did he do for 
 the stage worthy of record? I think his public fame 
 will rest entirely on the fact that he produced the 
 greatest farcical comedy in the English language; 
 while to his brother-artists he was an ideal actor- 
 manager. 
 
 Firstly, a word on his public work. Not to be out 
 of the running, he produced two Shakespearean 
 plays; but owing to his infallible sense of what was, 
 or should have been, popular, he picked on Shake- 
 speare's most commonplace, conventional, Victorian 
 pieces " As You Like It " and " Much Ado About 
 Nothing." No comment is necessary. Then, not to 
 be behind a time that was itself behind the times, he
 
 76 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 gave a series of Pineronian masterpieces, beginning 
 with that very unmasterly experiment " The Second 
 Mrs. Tanqueray " (which was simply the St. James's 
 version of what I should like to term a Melvillo- 
 drama) and consummating the series with the best 
 example of a " well-made " play in existence " His 
 House In Order " which a pseudo-religious theater- 
 going public found altogether satisfactory. Pinero 
 exhausted the obvious on the boards of the St. James's 
 Theatre. He was, I believe, the least spontaneous 
 writer who ever attempted emotion in drama and 
 George Alexander " produced " him to perfection. 
 
 Leaving Shakespeare and Pinero out of the ques- 
 tion, therefore since the Shakespearean productions 
 were not sufficiently important to count and none of 
 Pinero's plays count at all we come to Oscar Wilde, 
 whose master-work, " The Importance of being Ear- 
 nest," is unique on the stage of this or any other coun- 
 try. A great deal of nonsense has been talked at one 
 time or another about Wilde's place in literature. 
 The commonest form of nonsense talked about his 
 plays is that they stand in the direct line of artificial 
 comedy, established in this country by Congreve and 
 Sheridan. This is so ridiculously untrue that I am 
 amazed no one has had the ordinary critical ability to 
 contradict it. Wilde brought to drama a humor and 
 humanity which they utterly lacked. One laughs at 
 their characters but with his. They were objective 
 artists; he was a subjective artist. His plays contain 
 a very definite moral criticism ; their plays are merely 
 immoral curiosities. They catalogued but did not 
 comment, except superficially. His wit sparkled
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 77 
 
 from a higher intellectual level than theirs, and his 
 humanity lent him emotion and a sense of the deeper 
 things in life ; while they never went beneath the sur- 
 face, skimming lightly on the crystal ice that froze 
 over the shallows of existence. In short, their comedy 
 glitters from without, while his comedy glows from 
 within. 
 
 But though Wilde was the only dealer in the Com- 
 edy of Manners who did not turn it into a mannerism 
 of comedy, there is some truth in the statement that 
 he followed the Congreve-Sheridan tradition in his 
 three serio-comedies, if only because they are pri- 
 marily witty and may be regarded as the literary 
 fashion-plates of the eight een-nineties. When, how- 
 ever, he wrote " The Importance of being Earnest," 
 he broke away even from that shadowy tradition and 
 produced a work that will be the unending delight of 
 " states unborn and accents yet unknown." Its wit is 
 only accidental humor, a much greater thing, per- 
 meates it. It is the only work of its kind that stands 
 quite outside criticism. It reveals the most enter- 
 taining personality in literary history and there is 
 simply nothing more to be said about it. 
 
 Now to Alexander belongs the certain honor, then 
 a risky one, of introducing Wilde as a dramatist to 
 the public, and the uncertain honor, then a correct 
 one, of dropping the curtain on him when Society de- 
 cided it should be dropped. Also, the ease and polish, 
 the finish, of Alexander's work as actor and producer 
 were just the qualities for these dramas; and if Wilde 
 does, as I fear, become a classic even if, as I hope, 
 he keeps his freshness for the delight, but not the
 
 78 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 model-hunters, of future generations then George 
 Alexander will be held in grateful memory as the 
 man who paid him first tribute. 
 
 One other thing happened during his reign at the 
 St. James's which I mustn't neglect to mention. This 
 was something right off his too- well-beaten track. 
 He produced the most deliciously beautiful blank- 
 verse play since Shakespeare: Stephen Phillips's 
 " Paolo and Francesca." But as blank-verse drama 
 is a played-out fashion ( Shakespeare having made it 
 fashionable and having played it out), Alexander's 
 fame as an actor-manager must stand or fall with 
 Wilde's fame as a dramatist. 
 
 Imaginatively and artistically Alexander was im- 
 mature. He had, of course, the business instinct very 
 strongly developed, knew as a rule whether a play 
 would be a money-maker or not, but resolutely turned 
 his back on the intellectual movement in the theater 
 that was going on all round him. He was simply 
 incapable of original judgment on the plays he pro- 
 duced himself or the plays anyone else produced. He 
 had one word, " charming," to express his likes, and 
 one word, " unpleasant," to express his dislikes. All 
 Shakespeare, from " A Midsummer Night's Dream " 
 to " King Lear," was, as a matter of course, " charm- 
 ing." All Shaw was, equally as a matter of course, 
 " unpleasant." " The Blue Bird," " Charley's Aunt," 
 " (Edipus Rex," the latest Revue and " The Silver 
 Box " were all " charming." Ibsen in general was 
 " unpleasant," and " Ghosts " in particular was " dis- 
 gusting." I only heard him use the last word that 
 once. He rarely committed himself so far. His lan- 
 guage, like himself, was nothing if not genteel. He
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 79 
 
 never gave himself away, never stepped outside the 
 limits of correct physical deportment and perfect 
 mental decorum. His mind and his trousers were 
 always immaculately pressed and creased. That his 
 mind should move freely and unconventionally, or 
 that his trousers should become baggy and unfashion- 
 able, was inconceivable. In method and in manner he 
 was spick-and-span. 
 
 His curious conservatism and lack of individual 
 taste were amazingly illustrated in his house at 
 Chorley Wood, where the furniture was all arranged 
 exactly as in a scene of a Pinero drama. While sit- 
 ting on a perfect specimen of Tottenham Court Road 
 art, I couldn't help feeling that the curtain might at 
 any moment go up, when everyone would be expected 
 to behave in a proper Tanqueray manner. 
 
 Towards the end of his life, he became regretful 
 and reminiscential. He was sorry, for example, that 
 lie had treated Oscar Wilde so badly, and more and 
 more he lapsed sentimentally towards past achieve- 
 ments and the memory of earlier things. He tried to 
 make up for the former by leaving at his death the 
 rights of " Lady Windermere's Fan " and " The Im- 
 portance of being Earnest " to Wilde's children, hav- 
 ing previously made a fortune out of them for him- 
 self; and when I remarked one evening that the pit 
 queue was excellent, I caught him bemoaning his 
 halcyon days: " Ah! " he sighed, " you would not say 
 that if you had been with me in * The Prisoner of 
 Zenda.' Then the queues stretched into St. James's 
 Street." I ought perhaps to add that " The Prisoner 
 of Zenda " was a " charming " play. 
 
 But I want to do justice to Alexander. He was at
 
 80 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 his very best on a committee. It is as a committee- 
 worker that I wish to commemorate him. He was a 
 flawless committee man. He had a committee tem- 
 perament, if I may so express it without seeming to 
 disparage a really remarkable gift. Most committees 
 are, as everyone knows, self-admiration associations. 
 The chief point about them is the unlimited love each 
 member has for himself and his own obsolete or ob- 
 structive ideas. As I knew them, theatrical commit- 
 tees without Alexander were far more entertaining 
 than the average plays produced by the " stars " who 
 sat on them. With him, they were undramatically 
 brief and business-like ; everything was done with the 
 least possible amount of talk, difficulties were cleared 
 away in a moment, and whole heaps of impossible 
 nonsense disappeared from agenda papers and minute 
 books. In fact, he converted them from the usual 
 lengthy and amusing absurdities into unusually dry 
 and short-lived proceedings. He introduced method 
 and work into a world of glorified footledom. His 
 idea when attending a committe meeting was that 
 something had to be done, and he did it. Other peo- 
 ple considered that something had to be talked about, 
 and they chattered mostly about themselves. 
 
 Luckily I am able to show him at work on the stiff- 
 est committee job, as he afterwards confessed to me, 
 that he had ever undertaken; and in doing so, I can 
 place his bearing and behavior side by side with that 
 of his brother-artists. He comes out well in the con- 
 trast. 
 
 Alexander was Chairman, and I was Secretary, of 
 the organizing committee for the Shakespeare Ter- 
 centenary Performance at Drury Lane Theatre in
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 81 
 
 1916. All the leading actors of the day were on that 
 committee. One or two never came to the meetings 
 at all, notably Tree, the President, who was in Amer- 
 ica at the time; but Alexander was the only member 
 except myself who never missed a single meeting. 
 There were, besides, several sub-committees, the meet- 
 ings of which we both regularly attended, dealing with 
 such matters as the casting of the play ("Julius 
 Csesar "), the casting of the tableaux, the music, the 
 sale of programs, and so on. It was felt an honor by 
 nearly everyone to be connected in any way, however 
 small, with such a memorable affair, and every actor 
 who was not serving out of England at the time wil- 
 lingly offered his services in any humble capacity de- 
 signed for him by the committee. Every actor, that 
 is, except the so-called or self-styled " stars." 
 
 George Alexander flung himself, heart and soul, 
 into the business, in spite of many painful bouts of 
 the illness that eventually killed him. He worked, 
 he drudged, unceasingly. Practically the whole thing 
 was done off his own bat the committee of famous 
 actors was merely an obstruction. When his ear was 
 not glued to the telephone, he was writing letters, 
 seeing people, or talking matters over with me. At 
 any time morning, afternoon, and at night during 
 the spasmodic intervals of his own performances he 
 would be at my disposal, patiently listening to the 
 hundred and one points that cropped up almost 
 hourly, advising, listening to advice, explaining, lis- 
 tening to explanations, with an untiring courtesy, 
 humor and charm quite beyond any praise of mine. 
 His business capacity throughout was only equaled 
 by his imperturbability and his sound common-sense.
 
 82 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 I never knew him give an opinion that was not incom- 
 parably more lucid, admirable, and in the event more 
 practical, than that of anyone else on the various 
 committees he served with. The real work of the 
 world is done by committees, and Alexander was a 
 born world-worker. It was a pity his activities were 
 chiefly concerned with the stage. He had the self- 
 effacing conscientiousness of a great statesman, while 
 most of his brother-managers had the self -glorifying 
 unscrupulousness which distinguishes our front- 
 benchers and politicians. 
 
 The first decision Alexander came to, as chairman 
 of the casting sub-committee, was to cut himself com- 
 pletely out of the cast. He would, as a matter of 
 fact, have played Brutus better than anyone, and he 
 would have enjoyed doing it, but he decided to take 
 no part in it on the ground that the younger men 
 should be given a chance. He suggested Matheson 
 Lang for Brutus and the committee agreed, though 
 without much enthusiasm from one or two quarters. 
 Thereafter it was adumbrated that Mr. Arthur 
 Bourchier felt slighted at being passed over, he hav- 
 ing already played the part with Sir Herbert Tree 
 at His Majesty's Theatre, receiving high praise for 
 his performance from all those who believed he might 
 again go into management on his own account and 
 be of some use to them. Delicately, therefore, Mr. 
 Bourchier absented himself from the next meeting of 
 the casting committee, and the crisis was discussed. 
 
 " I can't see him in the part, myself," said Alex- 
 ander. " Nor can anyone else," said H. B. Irving. 
 " Except himself," chipped in Du Maurier. Every- 
 one agreed finally that he was the very last man for
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 83 
 
 the part and everyone agreed finally that he must 
 be cast for it. " We mustn't have bad feeling on the 
 committee," Alexander summed up, " so I'm afraid 
 there's only one thing for it: give him the part and 
 he'll help us on the committee, don't give it him and 
 we'll never hear the end of it." The general feeling 
 of the committee being that matters would run more 
 smoothly with Bourchier soothed by Brutus than ruf- 
 fled by Flavius or Marullus, it was agreed that the 
 part should be offered him. (Note. Thus placated, 
 he literally ate out of the committee's hands thence- 
 forward. ) 
 
 Next came the question of Marc Antony. Alex- 
 ander said " Henry Ainley." After the Bourchier 
 episode everyone agreed hastily, almost falling over 
 one another in their excitement to eclipse themselves 
 utterly. There was, for a moment, a perfect craze 
 for self -suppression. " What about Cassius? " que- 
 ried Sir George. " I suggest Harry," he continued, 
 turning to H. B. Irving. 'Yes, yes, admirable," 
 murmured the committee. " No, no, what of the 
 younger men? " risked H. B. It certainly was a risk, 
 because the rest of the committee were beginning to 
 wonder what they would be doing when all the fat 
 parts had been bestowed. The committee murmured 
 correct responses, but the post-Bourchier enthusiasm 
 was noticeably on the wane; so, veering to the only 
 quite safe point on the compass, H. B. asked Alex- 
 ander : " Do you really think it would be best ? " And, 
 comforted by the latter's reply, he quickly accepted 
 in the following well-chosen words : " I shall try to 
 deserve the honor you all do me, but I will gladly 
 retire in favor of anyone more worthy than I and
 
 84 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 there are many." No one feeling equal to the occa- 
 sion, Alexander rapidly went on with the casting. " I 
 think," he said, " that I am not only voicing the opin- 
 ion of the committee but of the whole theatrical pro- 
 fession, as well as the general public, when I say that 
 Frank Benson should play the title-role." This time 
 there was manifested quite honest enthusiasm, not 
 only because Frank had no enemies, but also because 
 the part of Julius Caesar is the most thankless title- 
 role in the whole body of English dramatic art, and 
 everyone knew that dear old Benson couldn't possibly 
 out-mouth Csesar's mouthing. It was a piece of cast- 
 ing both safe and popular. Also no member of the 
 committee hankered after the part. Benson bowed 
 his head gracefully before the storm of eager gratula- 
 tion, and accepted his fate with becoming modesty 
 and thankfulness. 
 
 Mutually complimentary speeches having been 
 given and received, there was a lull, at the end of 
 which Du Maurier asked to be put down for one of 
 the citizens. This terrific act of self-abasement sent 
 a shudder through everybody present. The tension 
 was increased when Charles Hawtrey said that he 
 would " walk-on." Everyone was, of course, thank- 
 ful they had not suggested themselves for serious 
 parts, but for decency's sake it was generally felt 
 they should have kept silent and " let determined 
 things to destiny hold unbewailed their way." But 
 it is a wonderful and beautiful thing to see a great 
 man humbling himself, for in few other ways can he 
 be so exalted. Curiously enough, however, the dis- 
 ease is not catching, and the rest of the committee 
 regarded the action of these two in the light of a joke,
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 85 
 
 quite characteristic of both comedians. I solemnly 
 entered their names under the heading of " Citizens 
 with lines " (i.e. lines supplied by Shakespeare, not 
 those left to the imagination of the incoherent if 
 articulate mob) and the serious business of the meet- 
 ing was resumed. 
 
 Casca was the next part to be cast. Everyone 
 agreed that it should be given to a corpulent member 
 of the fraternity. Someone said (I think it was Ben 
 Greet, but my notes do not help me here) that this 
 was the part Bourchier ought to play. Sensation. 
 Alexander emphatically intervened. ' That's already 
 settled by vote of the committee," he said, scenting 
 the danger; " we must think of someone else." 
 
 ' Who has the larger belly Asche or Calvert? " 
 asked Hawtrey. The subject of stomachs was care- 
 fully gone into, and Oscar Asche gained the suffrages 
 of the majority. He was duly cast for the part. 
 
 There now only remained the subsidiary parts. 
 The final decision as to these was left to Alexander, 
 but a number of names were definitely pronounced 
 worthy of inclusion, among others Martin Harvey 
 and Fred Terry, neither of whom was present. 
 
 Finally I read several letters. One of them was 
 from Godfrey Tearle, begging to be allowed to take 
 any part, long or short, in the performance, and offer- 
 ing his services as an assistant stage-manager, or in 
 any other drudging capacity. Charles Hawtrey 
 promptly objected on the ground that Tearle was 
 not in khaki. " I," said he, " will sever my connec- 
 tion with the whole affair if Tearle is allowed to do 
 anything." This virtuous and patriotic sentiment, 
 coming as it did from a man of such high standing
 
 86 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 in his profession, was perforce echoed by his com- 
 rades, if somewhat shamefacedly by the younger ones, 
 who felt they themselves might be called to the colors 
 if the war went on long enough. But Hawtrey, in 
 the full security of his age, bated no jot of his martial 
 vigor. The fact that " Dear Old Charley " had been 
 through the Bankruptcy Courts was a feather in the 
 scale against the immense issues now involved, and 
 Godfrey Tearle was sacrificed by the committee on 
 the altar of Hawtrey's civic morality. 
 
 Having thus satisfied their consciences, both by the 
 work they imagined they had done and the patriotic 
 tinge that had been imparted to their disinterested 
 endeavors, the committee broke up. It is hardly nec- 
 essary to add that George Alexander had guided and 
 inspired all the work except the black-balling episode 
 just related. 
 
 Fred Terry and Martin Harvey answered the invi- 
 tation of the committee to take part in the perform- 
 ance, the former stating that he was on tour and 
 couldn't give the necessary time to rehearsals, the 
 latter by expressing his surprise that he hadn't been 
 cast for Antony. His services to Shakespeare and 
 his prestige as an actor, he said, entitled him to the 
 part. Under the circumstances he regretted he 
 couldn't associate himself with the proceedings. I 
 understand that our leading actors will unhesitatingly 
 sacrifice everything to Shakespeare except the right 
 to play his leading parts. It is, you see, merely a 
 question of prestige, which must on no account be con- 
 fused with vanity or any such common failing. 
 
 Poor old G. A., as we used to call him. He had his 
 share of this sort of thing all through those prepara-
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 87 
 
 tory weeks. I remember he was worried to death by 
 Raymond Roze, who asked if he could conduct his 
 own music to " Julius Cassar," Permission being 
 granted, Roze pestered Alexander, day in, day out, 
 for an increase in the orchestra. " My work, my posi- 
 tion " (he meant prestige) " demand it," he said. 
 Nothing short of converting the entire auditorium as 
 well as the stage into a gigantic orchestra would have 
 pleased him. 
 
 Then there was Lady Alexander with her " stunts," 
 one of which was to provide beautiful dresses (" uni- 
 forms " she called them) for the program sellers. 
 This would have probably swallowed up all the profits 
 of the performance. Then there were the aged actor- 
 knights, Bancroft, Hare and Wyndham, and their 
 unknighted contemporary Kendal, who wanted the 
 show to be run their way, which would have resulted 
 in their all pulling different ways, plus an indefinite 
 postponement of the Tercentenary Celebration of 
 Shakespeare's death till it was about time to celebrate 
 the Quatercentenary of his birth. 
 
 Also, we received a letter from Miss Marie Corelli. 
 It was a gem. It should have been printed and cir- 
 culated with an edition de luxe of her complete works, 
 thus ensuring the continued support of the great 
 Caine-Corelli public. In it she said that a special 
 grand-tier box should have been reserved for her. 
 Why wasn't it? It should have been the best box in 
 the house after (loyal woman!) the Royal Box. It 
 was due to her position (or did she say prestige?) as 
 the leading female novelist of the age. She regarded 
 the omission as a decided slur on her qualities as an 
 artist. She might, in a sense, she said, almost be
 
 88 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 called America's representative on the occasion, since 
 an influential U.S. paper had asked her to describe 
 the event fully. Did we realize that in not giving 
 her the best box we were risking a rupture between 
 Great Britain and the United States at a crucial mo- 
 ment in the former's fortunes? The result of the war 
 might be said to depend upon that box, etc., etc. In 
 conclusion, she washed her hands of the whole matter. 
 She would not come now if we went on our bended 
 knees. If America declared war on England, we 
 could thank ourselves for having provided the casus 
 belli, as the decisive factor would be the box, and so 
 forth and so on. The foregoing may not be an accu- 
 rate transcription, but it very faithfully renders the 
 tone of Miss Corelli's letter. It was all very, very 
 terrible. We had heard the lady was an author of 
 great " cutting " power. This time she had cut, and 
 cut, and come again! 
 
 Lastly yes, for purely artistic purposes it must 
 be lastly there was the great Tree scene. I call it 
 the great Tree scene because Herbert Beerbohm was 
 undoubtedly the protagonist, though he didn't per- 
 sonally act a part in it. Quite definitely he was the 
 hero, but it was his Lady who daubed his statue. 
 
 One day, while I was working in my office at the 
 St. James's Theatre, I received an urgent request to 
 go up and see Sir George. I found him walking up 
 and down his room. He looked careworn and seemed 
 to have suddenly put a dozen years on to his age. My 
 heart went out to him as I realized that, between us, 
 we were killing him before his time. From that mo- 
 ment I decided to take as few of my own secretarial 
 worries to him as possible. I am glad to say I kept to
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 89 
 
 my decision, though I got into hot water on one or 
 two later occasions for having acted on my own re- 
 sponsibility. 
 
 From the worried look on his face as he paced to 
 and fro I guessed that something quite out of the 
 common had occurred. I was both right and wrong. 
 What had happened was not quite out of the common, 
 because it was the sort of thing that frequently occurs 
 in organizing big theatrical entertainments. But the 
 fuss that had been made out of a tiny and easily 
 rectifiable slip was, I am glad to say, most uncommon. 
 In sending out the preliminary notices to the press, I 
 had forgotten to mention that the scenery and cos- 
 tumes for " Julius Caesar " were being lent by Sir 
 Herbert Tree. That was all. But it cost the already 
 weary and over-worked chairman a very painful forty 
 minutes on the telephone. I must partly imagine the 
 details of the scene, the main points of which Alex- 
 ander there and then gave me. I fully realize that 
 only Dickens could do justice to the thing, but that 
 does not absolve me from doing my best. 
 
 Lady Tree, with her distinguished husband en- 
 gaged in cinema work on the far side of America, 
 naturally felt that she was guardian of the family's 
 fair name in the other four continents. With a due 
 sense of her far-reaching responsibilities, she had that 
 morning digested " The Times " with her eggs and 
 bacon. To do her justice, we must assume that the 
 list of casualties from the various fronts that morning 
 was not more than ordinarily high. At any rate she 
 did not waste much time over them. Her eye caught 
 and was held by a paragraph headed " Shakespeare 
 Tercentenary Commemoration Performance." Gott
 
 90 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 im Himmel! There was no mention in it of Herbert. 
 True, it was merely a preliminary puff, but Herbert's 
 name should not only be puffed but blown at all times 
 and in all seasons. Alexander told me that by the 
 time she had got through to him on the 'phone, she 
 was nearly speechless and IT (the paragraph) was 
 in capital letters. He naturally thought at first that 
 " it " had reference to the war, and upon being asked 
 breathlessly by her whether he had seen " it," he 
 glanced out of the window and up at the sky, expect- 
 ing to see a super-Zeppelin dropping bombs as big as 
 St. Paul's Cathedral. 
 
 Eventually, however, he rose to the occasion, and 
 for well over half an hour the following piece of dia- 
 logue was repeated ad nauseam: 
 
 LADY TREE. It's dreadful to think of poor dear 
 Herbert being left out. He's so sensitive. He'll feel 
 it was done on purpose. 
 
 ALEXANDER. No, no, I assure you 
 
 LADY TREE. But can't something be done at once? 
 
 ALEXANDER. Well, I'm afraid we can't suppress 
 the morning papers, but I promise to 
 
 LADY TREE. It's awful. It really is. You must 
 do something this very minute. 
 
 ALEXANDER. Certainly ; I'll arrange for 
 
 LADY TREE. What on earth will people think? 
 Don't you see that this paragraph must be stopped 
 now? 
 
 ALEXANDER. I'm really more sorry than I can say. 
 I will- 
 
 LADY TREE. I don't know what the Prime Min- 
 ister will say. I hardly dare speak to him about it.
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 91 
 
 ALEXANDER. Xo, please don't. Believe me 
 
 LADY TREE. It has upset me. I would rather 
 anything happened but this. It's really most un- 
 chivalrous of you. 
 
 ALEXANDER. Now I beg you to leave this to me. 
 I promise faithfully 
 
 LADY TREE. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! It doesn't bear 
 thinking about. For Herbert's sake you must do 
 something immediately. Please, please. He's so 
 sensitive. . . . 
 
 Etc., etc. (recurring) . 
 
 After the first three or four repetitions, Sir George 
 liad learnt his words by heart, and went on saying 
 them with growing conviction, building the part up, 
 so to speak, but he expressed himself to me as " a 
 sadder and a wiser man," when he hung up the re- 
 ceiver at the close of the final performance. 
 
 At his bidding I returned to my office and sent 
 about sixty telegrams to the leading papers and press 
 agencies of the United Kingdom making good the 
 omission. We then wrote a letter to Lady Tree tell- 
 ing her what had been done, since she wouldn't allow 
 Alexander to get in a word edgeways over the 'phone, 
 and expressed the heartfelt regrets of everybody con- 
 cerned for the Shakespearean calamity that had over- 
 taken the various members of her family. Then, but 
 not till then, we breathed again, and carried on the 
 more necessary, if less devitalizing, work we had in 
 hand. 
 
 But the incident threatened to assume international 
 momentousness. I must again draw attention to the 
 fact that Europe was at that time engaged in a vast
 
 92 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 and varying conflict. Perhaps the most important 
 personage then alive was the Right Honorable H. H. 
 Asquith, English Prime Minister, and he lay sick in 
 bed. Undeterred by his illness, and the fact that 
 whatever strength he possessed would doubtless be 
 required to deal with the many military and political 
 problems of the hour, Lady Tree descended upon 
 Number 10 Downing Street, armed with that fatal 
 press cutting. We do not know, we cannot guess, 
 what took place at the meeting. I can picture it to 
 myself, but the picture is far too rich and affecting 
 to be put into words. The thought of it will solace 
 me in my dying hours. 
 
 Lady Tree wrote a letter describing the Premier's 
 solicitude for her distress and his anxiety that her 
 husband should figure in all bills, programs, press 
 notices and other public announcements. In handing 
 the letter to me, Alexander said with an ironical grin : 
 ' What a treat it is to meet in real life a truly de- 
 voted couple like the Trees ! " 
 
 When the Tercentenary Celebration was over and 
 done with, Alexander asked me what I thought of 
 our leading actors and actresses. I said that they 
 didn't bear thinking about. " And how," I added, 
 " do you feel about it all? " He sank back into his 
 chair, and., with something between a sigh and a groan, 
 
 replied: " Never again! " 
 
 ***** 
 
 In conclusion I would like to speak an actor's word 
 on the manager's personality. He was a strangely 
 reticent man. One always felt that conversation with 
 him might at any moment come suddenly to an end, 
 and that everything depended upon one's own powers
 
 SIR GEORGE ALEXANDER 98 
 
 of keeping it up. Possibly this did not apply to men 
 of his own age. Probably it was due to his business- 
 like habits. He was perpetually doing something. I 
 could never imagine him reclining in an arm-chair 
 with carpet-slippered feet resting on the mantelpiece. 
 His cut-and-dried, practical methods were a godsend 
 to a nerve-racked generation of actors and actresses 
 who, at the St. James's, could always depend within 
 a very few minutes on the hour of commencement 
 and the hour of dismissal at rehearsals. At any other 
 theater I was acquainted with, they could depend on 
 nothing except that no rehearsal would begin or end 
 at the stipulated hour. Another inestimable point ill 
 his favor was that he never attempted to browbeat 
 anyone in his employ; he never lost his temper and 
 was never sarcastic at another's expense. He was in- 
 variably considerate, the essence of courtesy, thought- 
 fulness, sympathy and tact and he was as just as 
 he was thorough. These things may appear insig- 
 nificant to an outsider, but they were important to 
 the members of a profession who, in the hands of 
 many of his managerial contemporaries, were in turn 
 bullied, cheated, insulted, worsted, and in general 
 chivied about from pillar to post. 
 
 I, personally, have especial cause to be grateful to 
 Alexander. He helped and encouraged me at a time 
 when help and encouragement were priceless. And 
 mine was by no means a solitary case. Indeed, I 
 never knew a man who was so appreciated by his 
 fellow-workers. He judged people on their merits, 
 and in giving opportunities to others he served no 
 selfish purpose. His judgment, too, was rarely at the 
 mercy of his sentiment. Essentially one's affection
 
 94 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 for him was tempered by respect, because he had none 
 of the weaknesses usually associated with his pro- 
 fessional brethren. He was humane without being 
 very human, likeable without being very lovable. 
 
 And, whatever his shortcomings as actor and play- 
 monger, let this be his epitaph: He was a man first 
 and a mummer afterwards thus reversing the cus- 
 tomary procedure of stage celebrities.
 
 FRANK HARRIS 
 
 FRANK HARRIS is the most dynamic writer alive. He 
 has brought the impulse of life into letters. He has 
 lived his own writings. Others have brought ordi- 
 nary, everyday life into contact with letters Kipling, 
 for instance, and the journalists but to Harris be- 
 longs the honor of transferring tense spiritual emo- 
 tions to the written page. His appeal is to the men 
 and women who have lived, not drifted, through life ; 
 or to those who have the instinct, without the actual 
 experience, of life's primary sensations. That is why 
 he doesn't appeal to our so-called literary artists. He 
 has no conscious style of expression. The style is the 
 man. He does not deal in " situations " and " third 
 acts." All the acts in his dramas are equally good. 
 If a climax occurs at all, it occurs in the right, the 
 inevitable place; it is never forced. A work by most 
 writers is like a manure heap, with a solitary rose- 
 bush in the center. A work by Frank Harris is 
 tropical. You don't know how it all grows; you just 
 realize the amazing fact that it has grown and that it 
 is all very much alive and pricking. 
 
 We are a very chaste nation. Our literature is 
 chaste, our morality is chaste, our art is chaste. We 
 even worship a chaste God, regarding as we do chas- 
 tity as a virtue. It was my painful duty at one time 
 to read all the books on Shakespeare that had ever 
 
 95
 
 96 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 been written by English critics. They were all chaste 
 books by chaste writers and their object was to prove 
 Shakespeare a model of chastity. At the end of that 
 appalling experience I came across Frank Harris's 
 books on Shakespeare. I knew at once that they 
 were the finest, indeed the only great, works of crea- 
 tive criticism in the language. As to whether his 
 "Man: Shakespeare" was in truth the very person 
 who wrote " Hamlet," " Henry IV," etc., hardly mat- 
 tered a scrap. What did matter was that Shake- 
 speare, for the first time, had been humanized for us 
 and that the vital personality of Harris was very 
 clearly reflected in the mirror of Shakespeare's 
 poetry. 
 
 So I got the rest of his books and was astounded to 
 find my admiration for the author increasing by leaps 
 and bounds. As a rule, with me, it is the other way 
 about. I shall never forget my delight when I read 
 :< The Bomb," a novel in a million, and " Sonia," a 
 short story without a peer both of them gospels for 
 the great and caviare to the coward. Then came 
 " Unpath'd Waters," which contains more real genius, 
 a larger humanity, a deeper comprehension, a wider 
 vision, than any volume of short stories I know. And, 
 lastly, but facile princeps, that wonderful series of 
 " Contemporary Portraits," a new art in our lan- 
 guage, with its master-portrait of Oscar Wilde, surely 
 
 the most poignant soul-study we possess. 
 
 ***** 
 
 I first got to know Frank Harris in July, 1913. 
 He then occupied a flat at 67 Lexham Gardens, South 
 Kensington. I heard him lecture at a curious under- 
 ground club called the Petit Cabaret in Heddon
 
 FRANK HARRIS 97 
 
 Street, and afterwards went to see him at his flat. 
 First impressions of unusual men are apt to be strik- 
 ing, but a first impression of Harris is more likely to 
 be startling. The vigor and violence of his speech 
 alone took my breath away. He had the most reso- 
 nant voice I have ever heard in my life, and the most 
 uncompromising method of expressing himself. Al- 
 most, one might say, electric sparks flew out of him 
 in every direction. This has gained him all his ene- 
 mies, because the majority of people don't like being 
 electrified. It has also gained him his greatest friends, 
 because some people like the human dynamo. He is 
 nothing if not downright. He never " hedges " an 
 issue. He wouldn't dream of saying about anyone: 
 " So-and-so is questionably honest." He would say: 
 "So-and-so is a damned scoundrel!" I was stag- 
 gered by the colossal number of damned scoundrels, 
 blackguards, miscreants and Judases to whom I was 
 introduced, by name only, before I had been in his 
 company half an hour. I must admit I liked it (there 
 isn't half enough of that sort of thing in the ordinary 
 way ) , and Harris praises just as wholeheartedly as he 
 damns. The impression I got of him, then, was of a 
 man whose every pulse and nerve was quickened to an 
 almost delirious intensity, a man who exuded vitality 
 as a politician exudes platitudes. Physically, he was 
 short and thickset, not in any sense corpulent, a head 
 thickly covered with dark hair, mustache to match, a 
 bold jaw and aggressive nose. We talked until the 
 early hours on every subject under the sun, and I 
 found that he spoke about everything, from engineer- 
 ing to cooking, with the same keenness and relish, the 
 same fire and curiosity.
 
 98 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 A month later I saw him again. Davidson, the 
 sculptor, was with him, and Simpson, the artist, too. 
 The former had just completed a bust of Harris, at 
 least he put the final touches to it this same evening 
 when we went round to his studio. Harris, while 
 standing as Davidson finished it off, regaled us with 
 humorous incidents of his early life in America. His 
 leg was pulled repeatedly by the other two, but he 
 took it all in good part and went on with the yarn. 
 Eventually the bust was baptized with whisky 
 everyone having been careful to baptize his own inner 
 man previous to this and we all rolled into the street. 
 I now became conscious of the presence of several 
 other people, but where they came from or who they 
 were I hadn't the foggiest idea. In this condition 
 (I seem to remember that Harris was the only one 
 not, strictly, in this condition) we all entered a pub, 
 where Harris was introduced to the barman as Shake- 
 speare, Davidson as Michael Angelo, and Simpson as 
 Rembrandt. They didn't quite know what to call me, 
 so a compromise was effected between the names of 
 Shaw and Wells, and the barman would, I feel sure, 
 if confronted with me now, swear on his Bible-oath 
 that my name is " Mr. Shells." Everything went very 
 agreeably until someone decided that someone else 
 had insulted him. Then the glass-breaking phase 
 commenced. Now I have never been able to under- 
 stand the extraordinary pleasure some men must feel 
 at the sound of breaking glass. At any rate the cus- 
 tom is so frequently regarded as the jolliest part of a 
 jolly evening that I assume Bacchus himself must 
 have lived in a glass house. On this particular occa- 
 sion I certainly intended to see the business through
 
 96 
 
 with as complete a sense of detachment as possible. 
 But everything conspired to upset my sang-froid. 
 First, the seat on which I sat was shattered by a blow 
 from an iron pole, which would certainly have fin- 
 ished my career if it had hit me instead of the chair. 
 Next, a spittoon (I had no idea it was such a con- 
 siderable piece of furniture) came hurtling through 
 the air, missed my head by the veriest fraction of an 
 inch, wrecked several items of adornment in an alcove 
 behind me and dropped with miraculous precision on 
 the toe of a contemplative gentleman near by. The 
 latter, with unlooked-for ferocity, seized a chair, shot 
 past me in the direction from whence the spittoon 
 came, and felled a perfectly innocent man to the 
 ground with a sickening crash. Finally, the police 
 arrived and I have not seen Frank Harris since. 
 
 Later in the same year I heard that he had taken 
 over the editorship of a paper called " Modern So- 
 ciety," and later still, I read that he had been impris- 
 oned for libel or contempt of Court or some such 
 thing. I tried to get permission to see him, but failed. 
 Afterwards came the war, but I will show his attitude 
 towards that more clearly, as it appears in some of 
 his letters to me, when I have given the keynote to 
 this character. 
 
 Bernard Shaw, in a letter to Harris, expressed him- 
 self on the apparently irreconcilable qualities of Har- 
 ris's nature as follows : 
 
 ' There is an old story told sometimes about 
 Mazarin, sometimes about Richelieu, of a Minister's 
 antechamber hung with pictures; those on one side 
 being all idyllic landscapes and scenes of domestic 
 sentiment; those on the other scenes of battle and
 
 100 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 blood and torture. The Minister, when he wanted to 
 size up a new man, watched how he took the pictures. 
 If he clung to the battle pictures, the Minister knew 
 that he was a timid man of peace, for whom action 
 and daring were full of romantic fascination. If he 
 wallowed in cottage sentiment and the Maiden's 
 Prayer, he was immediately marked down for mili- 
 tary preferment and dangerous jobs. 
 
 " Have you ever known a sportsman who was 
 ferocious ? Have you ever known a humanitarian who 
 was not ferocious? You are yourself so in love with 
 the Sermon on the Mount, and with all aspects of 
 gentleness and pity, that people who have never met 
 you possibly imagine you as a Christ-like, dove-eyed 
 figure. But has anybody who has met you personally 
 ever described you as ' Gentle Francis, meek and 
 mild ! ' The apparent contradiction of your pity for 
 Sonia and Oscar Wilde by your buccaneering man- 
 ners and occasionally frightful language is a familiar 
 natural phenomenon." 
 
 Later, when Harris wrote to ask why Shaw had 
 described him as a "ruffian," Shaw replied: 
 
 ' You must not take my comments on your per- 
 sonal characteristics as sneers and disparagements. 
 If you do you will find me an impossible man to 
 have any relations with. I tell you you are a ruffian 
 exactly as an oculist might tell you that you are 
 astigmatic. I will tell you now more precisely what 
 I mean if I have done so already you have brought 
 the repetition on yourself. 
 
 " Somebody in London society who likes inter- 
 esting people meets you and invites you to dinner. 
 He asks you to take in a bishop's wife. You enter-
 
 FRANK HARRIS 101 
 
 tain her with deep-voiced outpourings of your scorn 
 for the hypocrisy and snobbery of the Church, finish- 
 ing up with a touch of poetry about Mary Magda- 
 lene and her relations with Jesus. When the poor 
 lady escapes to the drawing-room and you find your- 
 self between the bishop and Edmund Gosse, you turn 
 the conversation on to the genius of Hops, and prob- 
 ably produce a specimen of his work, broadening 
 your language at the same time into that of the fore- 
 castle of a pirate sloop. 
 
 " And if you observe the least sign of restiveness 
 or discomfort on the part of the twain, you re-double 
 your energy of expression and barb it with open and 
 angry scorn. When they escape upstairs in their 
 turn, they condole with one another. Gosse says, 
 * My God, what a man ! ' The bishop says, ' Oh, im- 
 possible ; quite impossible ! ' 
 
 " Now though this particular picture is a fancy 
 one, it is not founded on any lies that people have 
 told me. I have seen and heard you do such things ; 
 I have been condoled with, and have had to admit 
 that you are a monster, and that clever as you are, 
 it is impossible to ask anyone to meet you unless they 
 are prepared to stand anything that the uttermost 
 freemasonry of the very freest thought and expres- 
 sion in the boldest circles can venture on. Poor old 
 Adolphe Adam used to run away from Beethoven's 
 symphonies crying ' J'aime la musique qui me berce ! ' 
 You would have run after him with a trombone 
 blaring Beethoven's most challenging themes into 
 his ears. 
 
 " Now intensely disagreeable as this was to our 
 Adams and snobs and conventional people in gen-
 
 eral, it was not at all disagreeable to me. It was 
 quite genuine and natural, like Beethoven walking 
 truculently through the court group with his hat 
 thrust down on his eyebrows when Goethe stood aside 
 politely hat in hand like a good Geheimrath. When 
 Beethoven's brother put ' Landbesitzer ' (Landed 
 Proprietor) on his visiting card, Beethoven put 
 ' Hirnbesitzer ' (Brain Owner) on his. All that was 
 ruffianism on Beethoven's part; but it was an asser- 
 tion of real values; and the man who asserts real 
 values cannot be passed over by nobodies, or disliked 
 by somebodies, merely because he asserts them in a 
 ruffianly way. And your ruffianism was on the whole 
 of this description. If it had been aristocratic in- 
 solence and impatience of self-restraint like that of 
 
 C or D , it would have been intolerable. As 
 
 it was, I liked it. 
 
 " BUT and here is the point of insisting on it 
 as I do it damaged you socially. It must have 
 agonized Wilde, not merely because he was a snob 
 and could hear Shakespeare saying, ' Harris with 
 his teeth ever in the plump calf of prosperity,' but 
 because he shrank from seeing nice and innocent peo- 
 ple wounded and scorned merely because they were 
 not geniuses. But Wilde did not greatly matter 
 socially; what did matter was that though one could 
 ask you to meet Julia Frankau and Lady Jessica 
 Sykes, one could not ask you to meet Mrs. Humphry 
 Ward. You may say ' God be praised for that! I 
 never wanted to meet Mrs. Humphry Ward.' All 
 the same, you cannot have a career in London as a 
 journalist and politician unless you can be trusted 
 to take Mrs. Humphry Ward in to dinner and leave
 
 FRANK HARRIS 103 
 
 her under the impression that you are either a very re- 
 spectable or a very charming man. 
 
 " You may say that this may be true, but why rub 
 it into you now that you are out of London? Well, 
 you are out of London; but you have left a reputa- 
 tion there, part of which consists of a vague impres- 
 sion that in some way or other you made yourself 
 impossible and had to go off to Monte Carlo and 
 then to America, where you publicly shook the dust 
 of London from your feet. People whose curiosity 
 is roused by your writings ask, ' What was wrong 
 with Frank Harris ? Wasn't he a Jew, or a financial 
 blackmailer- journalist, or another Verlaine, or a 
 German spy, or something? ' It is necessary to 
 reply, * No : he was simply the most impossible ruf- 
 fian on the face of the earth,' and explain in the sense 
 in which I have explained above. . . . 
 
 " As to myself, of course I am a ruffian. Set a 
 ruffian to catch a ruffian. But I am only ruffianly 
 nor-nor-west. Though it be ruffianism, yet there's 
 method in't. . . ." 
 
 Now all this, coupled with the remarks Shaw had 
 already made about Harris's work in his preface to 
 "The Dark Lady of the Sonnets," gives a very true 
 idea of the man from one point of view. But it can- 
 not be regarded as complete in another sense. What 
 Shaw does not, apparently, see is that the Harris of 
 " Sonia," " The Magic Glasses," and " The Miracle 
 of the Stigmata " is just as much the Harris of real 
 life as is the violent denouncer of wars, snobs and 
 capitalists. The man who no doubt did terrify Wilde 
 on occasion is the same man whose heart-felt winning 
 sympathy drew from him those deeply intimate con-
 
 104 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 fessions which Harris has since given to the world. 
 Only a man who can love greatly can feel intensely 
 enough to lash out with a will. A naturally sympa- 
 thetic man is invariably a good hater. The two 
 things are part and parcel of the same thing, as 
 Shaw has shown; but they exist together, in the man 
 and his work, at one and the same time, which Shaw 
 does not seem to realize. The too sensitive spirit 
 masks itself before the world. Harris is super- 
 sensitive, and his mask is all the more frightening. 
 He has pawned his own things a hundred times in 
 order to help friends in distress (no doubt accom- 
 panying the deeds with loud and savory oaths) and 
 he is one of those strange, occasionally awkward, 
 people who are quite incapable of attaching the 
 smallest consequence to money, except for the im- 
 mediate use it has in helping others or spending 
 royally. He is indeed a monster according to all con- 
 ventional standards, but his monstrosity only offends 
 the shallow people who can't see beyond it to the 
 soul of greatness underneath it and they are the 
 people who simply aren't worth propitiating. " Har- 
 ris," said Shaw on another occasion, " was born an 
 outlaw, and will never be anything else." That is 
 strictly true. All the higher wisdom we poor mortals 
 enjoy comes from the few choice spirits who stand 
 outside and above the common law. 
 
 A man reveals himself best in his private corre- 
 spondence. Here only does he " let himself go." 
 Here only do his inner thoughts come to light, marked 
 by his every characteristic. It was my joy to be
 
 FRANK HARRIS 105 
 
 Harris's most constant English correspondent be- 
 tween the years 1914 and 1919, when even his chief 
 admirers and friends had turned their backs on him. 
 This was not because I agreed with his attitude to- 
 wards the war. Indeed I frequently wrote and criti- 
 cized the views he was expressing. I suppose it was 
 because I happen to have been born with a faculty 
 for friendship which transcends all my other feelings. 
 At any rate, I want him now to picture himself to 
 my readers as I saw him all through those disastrous 
 times. He has been neglected quite long enough. 
 Sooner or later we must wake up to the fact that an 
 appreciation of genius is a higher form of patriotism 
 than a depreciation of Germans (or whatever other 
 race we happen to be fighting) . Our Shakespeares, 
 not our soldiers, redeem us in the sight of the world. 
 And we mustn't always be content to leave our big- 
 gest people to the justice and honor of posterity. 
 " Future Renown " is certainly a pleasant prospect, 
 but it isn't enough. It is not, I think, unreasonable 
 to ask that our men of genius should be rewarded 
 by (shall we say?) half the comfort and security en- 
 joyed by the secretary of a Football League. 
 
 September 30, 1915* 
 
 I don't know how to thank you enough for your 
 brave, kind, sympathetic letter: it has done me good, 
 quickening and encouraging me in this mad world. 
 . . . From the enclosed article, you will see that I 
 am preaching a generous peace even to Germans. 
 . . . The baser sort of English journalists say I 
 have been bought by the Germans (to praise the
 
 106 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 French in and out of season?). If only someone 
 would pay me for preaching what I believe, I should 
 rejoice. No such luck, I'm afraid. And the English 
 at any rate ought to know that I can't be bought to 
 praise or even tolerate what I dislike or did the 
 Boers pay me too, that I ruined myself defending 
 them? 
 
 November 4, 1915. 
 
 Your charming, kindly letter touched me deeply: 
 the bolder front we turn to the world, the sorer is 
 the heart. All my life I have been an exile; but as 
 age comes on transplanting's like amputation, one's 
 apt to bleed to death. Shakespeare says : " 'Tis 
 honor with most lands to be at odds." I have always 
 felt at odds with every land, and now, were I given 
 to self-pity, I could arrange a moving tale: friends 
 and money lost; health shaken; universal contempt; 
 unpopular opinions; exiled and old 
 
 Better men fared thus before you, 
 Fired their ringing shot and passed 
 Hotly charged though broke at last. 
 
 But even that is not my humor completely. Life's 
 a noble, gorgeous gift; I accept good and ill with 
 gratitude; luck's a blessing and ill-luck's a greater 
 blessing still if we will but find the soul of goodness 
 in it. Yet for the moment I'm sad and depressed, 
 and another verse, a bitter one, rings in my memory : 
 
 Aye, look : high heaven and earth ail from the prime founda- 
 tion; 
 All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain:
 
 FRANK HARRIS 107 
 
 Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation 
 Oh, why dad I wake? When shall I sleep again? 
 
 And this: 
 
 Be still, be still, my soul ; it is but for a season : 
 Let us endure an hour and see injustice done. 
 
 But the bad moment passes and my courage holds 
 and the resolve to grow as long as I can and see 
 as much as may be of this God's world. And so I 
 send you greeting and thanks. They say I'm bought 
 with German gold and living in a great apartment 
 in the dearest hotel in New York. I stayed in the 
 dear St. Regis three days in all, while I was search- 
 ing a lodging, and at this moment I am at work as 
 advertising agent for the Chesapeake and Ohio Rail- 
 way, as my political opinions are generally detested 
 in New York, and, indeed, throughout these United 
 States. I cannot get work on any paper save by 
 chance. On November 20th, Collier's Weekly will 
 publish an article from me entitled " England's 
 Hope," which will prove, among other things, that 
 German efficiency is at its worst in the Army and 
 Navy, because there it is enfeebled by German 
 snobbery and Germany's hereditary aristocracy and 
 hereditary Kaiser! But the British press will find 
 in this paper another proof of " traitorism," by which 
 the editors mean apparently unswerving loyalty to 
 truth. I can only love any country in so far as it 
 stands for truth and beauty and humanity, and I 
 come perilously near hating these savage Germanic 
 peoples with their big bellies and combative instincts. 
 I prefer the Celts, who cherish a humane ideal and
 
 can be moved by abstract and ideal causes. . . . I'm 
 trying to build up another home all to begin over 
 again ; but a brave heart finds the toil a new and en- 
 chanting adventure. . . . I've learned life's chief 
 lessons very thoroughly and it doesn't frighten me. 
 But that the British should yell hate and fury at me 
 because I sell myself makes me smile, even were the 
 accusation true, for they are accustomed to expect it 
 in their favorites. Why did Winston Churchill cross 
 the floor of the House, take office under the Liberals 
 and attack the Unionists? Why did Thingumbob 
 shuffle off his belief in Free Trade and take up the 
 cudgels for Protection? Simply for a peerage. And 
 these men had comparatively no temptation. They 
 had not been ruined by illegality, broken in health 
 by an unjust imprisonment, exiled in poverty and 
 age. . . . 
 
 February 3, 1916. 
 
 It seems ages since I heard from you, though I 
 hear of you now and again. I'm almost afraid that 
 my war-book, " England or Germany? " must have 
 hurt or disappointed you. Yet I say to myself that 
 no opinion of yours would change my estimate of 
 your character and disposition. Tired of consoling 
 myself with reasonings, I write frankly to you: I 
 hope I've said or done nothing to alienate you, and 
 I am conscious of being as affectionately minded 
 towards you as ever. This square (Washington 
 Square) is as large as Trafalgar Square. Fifth 
 Avenue runs into the middle of it and at the junc- 
 ture there's a meaningless arch, which, however use- 
 less and in itself foolish, has in winter, when fes-
 
 FRANK HARRIS 109 
 
 tooned with snow or gleaming with icicles, a certain 
 esthetic value. To-night I saw it in hard frost, the 
 sky purple with rain of diamonds, and above the 
 arch a cross in golden fire on the spire of some 
 Catholic Church. This New York is hard and shal- 
 low and greedy as an old whore: the most terrible 
 city in the world for the weakling or artist or scien- 
 tist, or, indeed, any man of genius or distinction. 
 This people loves education and endows it with an 
 incomparable munificence, but it cares nothing for 
 the flower and fruit and object of education men 
 and women of talent. Americans are appallingly 
 purblind and self-satisfied. There! I've fired off my 
 Jeremiad, and can now tell you I'm fairly content 
 as advertising manager of the Chesapeake and Ohio 
 Railway Company and of the Union Pacific. I can 
 run across the Continent from side to side and study 
 the people east and west and find a little time besides 
 for writing. . . . This war is evidently going on for 
 at least another year a long struggle between Rome 
 and Carthage again, land power against sea power, 
 a game all will lose at. ... To-morrow I'm off to 
 Virginia. Do tell me about London in your next: 
 is there any suffering or are the poor better off than 
 before? 
 
 April 5, 1916. 
 
 Your letter did me a lot of good : it chimed in with 
 my thought. I've not been able to explain lately 
 why new stories come to me so rarely now, whereas 
 portraits of men I've known are always suggesting 
 themselves. I've always thought the stories higher, 
 more creative in character. Now you tell me that
 
 110 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 though my stories are of the best, still my critical 
 portraits and biographies are better. I'm glad, 
 though by no means so sure of their superiority as 
 you are, for it's easier to write a " Portrait " like that 
 of Burton or Renan than a story like " The English 
 Saint," or " The Miracle of the Stigmata." But in 
 one point I'm pretty sure you are mistaken. I re- 
 gard it as a duty to draw the portraits of my con- 
 temporaries. I always felt that St. Paul and Ben 
 Jonson missed the chance of their lives writing their 
 own life-story and plays, instead of the history of 
 the greater men whom they had met. But it's surely 
 different when you pass from contemporaries to 
 those you've never met. What can I say about 
 Balzac or Cervantes, Charles V, Napoleon or Co- 
 lumbus to take only those in whom I've been espe- 
 cially interested that a more careful and younger 
 student might not be able to surpass? But no one 
 will ever write of Carlyle or Renan or Davidson or 
 Maupassant or Verlaine or France, in the future, 
 without bottoming himself on my work. Every new 
 " Portrait " I do of the Shining Ones I have known 
 is sure to increase my readers in all the time to come ; 
 and it would surely be better for me to spend all the 
 time I can on my own history rather than on the his- 
 tory of Balzac or Napoleon. The one I must know 
 better than anyone else can ever know it. Tell me: 
 don't you, on second thoughts, agree with me? But 
 alas! here no one seems to want my work especially. 
 I've hawked about my Portraits and no one will take 
 'em. But then these brainless Americans, filled with 
 vain hatred of what they call my pro-German atti- 
 tude, will not take my stories either: they prefer the
 
 FRANK HARRIS 111 
 
 trash and drivel of little love stories intended to ex- 
 cite the amorous propensities of boys and girls. . . . 
 Bit by bit I'm getting poorer, though I'm once more 
 after a fortune. Well, it's on the knees of the gods 
 and I don't whimper, for their judgment must be 
 a vindication in time. . . . Meanwhile, Ave atque 
 Vale. Sometimes I think my foot is in the stirrup. 
 
 April 25, 1916. 
 
 I'm about to work desperately, for I've given up 
 being advertising agent. Though the pay was good, 
 it brought me no nearer the mark of my high calling, 
 so I had to chuck it. Now I've got a small interest 
 in some Unpuncturable Pneumatic Tires. If it 
 comes off, I'll make a " pile." If it doesn't, I must 
 just hugger-mugger along, keeping eyes and ears 
 and heart open for another chance, meanwhile work- 
 ing as hard as I can. It's the devil to begin again at 
 60 when you're practically unknown and altogether 
 unappreciated ; but whom the gods love, they chasten, 
 and I don't complain. Every such experience en- 
 riches one with new knowledge, and I'm being taught 
 in order to teach the more efficaciously. . . . 
 
 July 1, 1916. 
 
 I've got a magazine at last. I am going to fight 
 for Peace and Goodwill to Men and for fair-play 
 to all and truth. I need not tell you, I hope, that 
 I love France more than Germany, and have always 
 talked in that way. The Germans here would not 
 even publish my war-book or help me to find a pub- 
 lisher.
 
 112 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 August 14, 1916. 
 
 You may find me pro-Irish and pro-French, but 
 I'm not conscious of being anti anything. However, 
 in war-time reason is at a discount and my time will 
 probably come when men recover their partial sanity ; 
 but even then they'll hate me for having kept aloof. 
 ... I hate your being a soldier in these woeful 
 days. 
 
 September 19, 1916. 
 
 I hope time may be given me to do all my work. 
 I have a sort of belief that no one dies in this world 
 till their soul dies, and I am afraid my time may be 
 near at hand because I do not seem to have grown 
 in America. There is a sort of arrest in my develop- 
 ment through this transplantation. It is a harsh un- 
 friendly climate for the soul this one of New York 
 and I have no roots here. I put out little tendrils 
 now and then, but they all get nipped. ... I want 
 the war to end. I want to get back to my frank, 
 friendly French people again. . . . Don't be afraid 
 of excessive hero-worship; after assimilating all of 
 another's spirit that we need, our own ego quickly 
 reacts and recovers its own poise and balance. As 
 a boy, I was hypnotized by one man ten years my 
 elder, and for two years did not regain my center of 
 gravity. Then I became myself again and never lost 
 my own soul afterwards. ... I have found it hard 
 to live even in America. I don't mean hard to earn 
 my living; I mean that the soul suffers, the mind 
 withers, the sympathies are all frost-bitten in this 
 selfish, individualist, pushing, vulgar crowd. Your 
 warm flattering letters have helped me to face this
 
 FRANK HARRIS 113 
 
 all-hating, all-envying, all-deriding world. ... I 
 want to begin my second volume of " Contemporary 
 Portraits " with Bernard Shaw, whom, like yourself, 
 I regard as the only first-rate figure in the England 
 of to-day. I consider Shaw's an almost ideal life. 
 At any rate I do not know fault enough in him to 
 make his portrait really fine, for, as I have said, the 
 shadows must be in proportion to the high lights. I 
 know nothing whatever against his private life, and 
 his public services, both of courage and brains, are 
 of the first order. I only know one person I shall 
 find as difficult to draw, and that is Alfred Russel 
 Wallace, who was the sweetest and noblest person I 
 have ever met. . . . 
 
 December 12, 1916. 
 
 My autobiography will, of course, include intimate 
 portraits of my contemporaries, much more intimate 
 than I could put in print for general use. I shall 
 not write it at all unless I am able to write it with 
 absolute freedom and fidelity to fact. The reason I 
 told you of Gautier's portraits was that he has writ- 
 ten one on Balzac that puts the rest completely 
 in the shade. I do not know how to criticize it. 
 If I had read it before I had done my own por- 
 traits, I should have given him the credit for being 
 first in the new field, all on the strength of this one 
 on Balzac, which, however, has two weak points in 
 it. It does not attempt to classify Balzac, to put him 
 in his place among great men; nor does it give us 
 that intimate knowledge of his relations with women 
 which we ought to have. Gautier tells us that he is 
 going to do it and then does not do it a fatal gap.
 
 114 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 He does not even tell us how Balzac regarded women; 
 he just fails to tell us what we most want to know. 
 ... I always put Balzac with Goethe and Shakes- 
 peare, in spite of his lack of certain artist qualities 
 which I must love. But when you say that he inter- 
 ests you far more than Christ, I cannot go with you. 
 No one to me is as great as Jesus ; no one has reached 
 his sweetness and height. . . . To say nothing of the 
 Jesus story and Paul's Epistles, I would rather have 
 written Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon than 
 anything else I know. I wish I could show you 
 pieces in them, but read them and the jewels will 
 stand out impossible to be overlooked. Fancy a per- 
 son writing of love: 
 
 I sleep but my heart waketh ; 
 
 It is the voice of the beloved that knocketh, 
 
 I never give an opinion on books that I have not 
 been able to read two or three times. Memory, after 
 all, is the prototype of the good critic; simply lets 
 the poor book drop through its meshes into oblivion 
 and rescues the best scenes or characters of the best 
 books. 
 
 You tell me I am able to put more creative power 
 into real circumstances and real people than into 
 imaginary characters. If you are right, it probably 
 comes from the fact that I began to write late in 
 life. My earliest short story dates from about '90 
 and was not written much before I was five and 
 thirty. As one gets older, one's love of fiction 
 diminishes and one becomes entranced by the magical 
 possibilities of reality. One of the chief merits in
 
 FRANK HARRIS 115 
 
 me, I think, is that I love life more passionately eveiy 
 year I live and enjoy it more intensely. . . . We 
 picture character through words. I should have liked 
 to have pictured one character through deeds alone, 
 but actions are a recalcitrant medium and such a 
 story would be like hammered bronze. 
 
 January 23, 1917. 
 
 You ask me whether Wilde told me the story of 
 the boy in the ball. ("Unpath'd Waters.") Yes, 
 the first idea of the story came from Wilde but the 
 ending of it, that the boy was not in the ball, was 
 my idea. Wilde told it me one night very casually, 
 saying he had a story. I said of course the boy must 
 not be in the ball at the end, so that the man could 
 have worsted his critics if he only had had the self- 
 confidence of virtue, but his cheating had weakened 
 him and so he came to grief. The moment I said it, 
 Oscar jumped at the idea and said: "Oh! Frank, 
 what a splendid ending; but that makes the story 
 yours; I have no more interest in it; you must write 
 it." He never wrote it, I believe, but I heard him 
 telling it once afterwards with my addition, saying 
 at the end laughing: " This is our story, Frank." So 
 I told it, adding all the modern scientific stuff to give 
 it probability as I thought, or to put round it a sort 
 of haze of the actual. ... If it had not been for 
 English puritanism and American puritanism, I 
 should have written better short stories than any I 
 have done. My best love story is in " The Bomb," 
 and even there the publisher, helped by the printer, 
 refused to publish it unless I rewrote the love meet- 
 ings and draped the figures; they simply forced me
 
 116 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 to re-do it, and I assure you it worsened it. Just 
 because my hero was going to show absolute self- 
 abnegation, I thought myself justified in painting the 
 physical attraction nakedly. Then I had to cut out 
 all the bodily urge and delightful intoxication. Of 
 course, I never saw any of the people in " The 
 Bomb," though Shaw said he had met Mrs. Parsons 
 when she came to London. Lingg I took from the 
 portrait given of him in some newspapers, and I 
 idealized him into the spirit of revolution, giving him 
 certainly a bigger mind than he had and basing his 
 revolt on truth as on a rock. Schnaubelt I took as 
 the type of a first-class cultured mediocrity. Lingg 
 is the natural instrument and helper, and I thought 
 it significant that the lieutenant should kill others 
 and that the master revolutionary should kill himself. 
 The love story in the book is purely imaginary, 
 though of course heated by my own experience, col- 
 ored by my own passion. I had drawn an American 
 woman in " A Modern Idyll " a coquette, who 
 uses the cooler nature of woman to excite and mad- 
 den the man. This time in Elsie I wanted to give a 
 picture of all but the best type of woman a creature 
 splendidly endowed physically. Your praise makes 
 me think of Meredith when he says in one of his let- 
 ters that too much praise is not good for us ; we want 
 just enough to incite us to do our best enough, if 
 you will, to do better than our best, but never enough 
 to make us persuade ourselves that in us humanity 
 has reached its zenith. I do not know how to thank 
 you for all your kindness to me. It has been hard to 
 live here; so little affection in the place, so little kind- 
 ness. It is like working in a devilish machine shop
 
 FRANK HARRIS 117 
 
 among strangers. I have never felt myself so out- 
 cast before. Your letters have helped me to live. 
 
 January 31, 1917. 
 
 You reproach me for not thinking more of Bernard 
 Shaw, and you advise me to read him all over again 
 and try to do justice to his genius. None of us can 
 see all things fairly, much less all men, and our con- 
 temporaries usually come to us like the goddesses in 
 Virgil, clothed with a mist, and alas! their movement 
 strikes us as anything but divine : Incessu non patuit 
 Deus. Of course I try to do all my contemporaries 
 justice, especially Shaw, who is not only the greatest 
 of them, but the only one who recognizes the chief 
 obligation of greatness by trying to do justice to his 
 peers. ... I have always spoken and written of 
 Shaw as the biggest Englishman of his time, the only 
 original and fine mind of his day; and his character, 
 too, is as nobly independent as his mind; but he has 
 brought up with him from earlier years a sort of 
 tartness which I do not care for. By the way, I am 
 amused by discovering that he thinks the same of me, 
 for he advises me in his latest letter, to put vinegar 
 and not bitter into my salad. I suppose because we 
 are both standing on somewhat the same level, and 
 looking at much the same things, we cannot under- 
 stand the tremendous discrepancies of vision. . . . 
 You say you will never be able to see with me as to 
 the Bible, and you scoff at divine perfection. The 
 portrait of Jesus, you say, is " inhumanly perfect." 
 True, true, true but there is no chapter in all litera- 
 ture to me greater than the last chapter of Ecclesi- 
 astes. Job, too, is a great work, and Isaiah, and
 
 the Song of Solomon. And then there is Jesus and 
 Paul Paul a greater St. Bernard the greatest of 
 all the saints militant. And Jesus, the man who first 
 discovered the soul and first brought love into life, 
 made it the principle of all our actions, the Sun of 
 all our seeing. He had imperfections enough. I 
 always see his hands in the hair of Mary Magdalene, 
 and she is not at his feet but on his heart. Where else 
 did he learn " Much shall be forgiven her, for she 
 loved much?" He made lots of mistakes, and then 
 that final mistake, the going up to Jerusalem 
 heralded by triumph on all the sunlit ways " Blessed 
 is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." Was 
 there ever such a divine blunder? 
 
 March 27, 1917. 
 
 Another milestone on the dreadful road, another 
 month's magazine edited. I got on board a water- 
 logged ship in July last. Now I've stopped the big 
 leaks and the ship is sea-worthy. A last effort and 
 I shall probably get the last few years of my life 
 free from money troubles and a chance to write four 
 or five terrible and beautiful volumes of autobiog- 
 raphy, truer and more joyful than anything yet con- 
 ceived. What do you think of that? How I kissed 
 the girls and met my peers and joyed and feasted 
 and loved and had a great life, able every year to 
 mark growth right up to the present time. A gor- 
 geous delightful life which has shown me every cor- 
 ner of this wonderful world ; for I lived in the great- 
 est period of recorded time, saw the first airship, a 
 ship heavier than air, rise from the ground and circle 
 over me, with thunder of machines working, and then
 
 FRANK HARRIS 119 
 
 soar higher and higher into the blue above the startled 
 birds while we below gazed in ecstasy through tears 
 of joy. I saw, too, the first submarine and knew that 
 man having conquered the sea and air would go on 
 until he conquered ether too and could visit this star 
 and that planet. For the moment he could measure 
 the movement of the stars by mathematical formulae 
 of his own conceiving; the moment laws in his mind 
 are laws by which the suns grow and move and have 
 their being, he possesses the key to the universe and 
 can solve all problems, gratify his every desire. He 
 is a god incarnate and can make of life what he will. 
 And instead of realizing the vision splendid, he is in- 
 tent now on murdering his fellowman and stealing 
 his territory and his trade, and is altogether given over 
 to hatreds and vileness ; he is making of the fairest of 
 lands a butcher's shop, where human beings are being 
 carved and killed by the thousand. The silly little 
 brute. No wonder my heart grows sick 
 
 How long, O Lord, how long 
 Shall thy servant linger; 
 She who shall right the wrong, 
 And make the oppressed strong, 
 Sweet morrow bring her! 
 
 Never mind; the sun's still shining; love is still pos- 
 sible, and no one who knows what beauty is can wish 
 to die. 
 
 'April 30, 1918. 
 
 You ask me what I think of Wells and whether 
 I have done any portrait of him. You say you are 
 greatly interested in him. I was more interested in
 
 120 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 him in the beginning than in anyone, but when his 
 great success came with " Tono Bungay " and " Ann 
 Veronica " I found it impossible to read him. I read 
 the first chapters of " Machiavelli " with intensest 
 interest, and then broke off altogether. " Mr. Brit- 
 ling " I forced myself to read from start to finish; 
 there are some good bits in it towards the end, a page 
 or two that has been lived, but the whole thing is 
 insular, over-strained, silly, and I'm sure nobody will 
 read it in the future. I have no patience with the 
 fellow and his nonsensical diatribes against the Ger- 
 mans whom he knows nothing about. Surely we can 
 fight the Germans without shrieking filthy insults at 
 them as if we were corner boys in a low prize-fight. 
 It humiliates me that Wells and Arnold Bennett 
 should be such fools. All the best books on the war 
 have come from French sources. " Le Feu " of 
 Henri Barbusse is worth more than all the English 
 have written. Wells's " God " books, too, are inept; 
 they expose his innate silliness; he writes like a 
 bishop! When I first knew him he had a strong 
 cockney accent and talked about " lydies," and now 
 he puts on airs and an Oxford accent that would 
 bear. But the man who can go so utterly wrong over 
 this wretched war is not one of the sacred guides 
 who steer humanity. Fancy his saying that Germany 
 must be blotted out! I wonder how many Wellses 
 we would sacrifice rather than blot out Germany? 
 The chief thing about great men is that they belong 
 to no country and hardly to any time; they may 
 be shadows but, like all shadows, point to the sun. 
 . . . The moral aspect of the war has changed. 
 The shameful aggressions of the Germans in Russia,
 
 FRANK HARRIS 121 
 
 the disgraceful stealing of Batoum and Kars, and 
 the handing over of the whole of that fertile prov- 
 ince of Georgia to the unspeakable Turk, is one of 
 those crimes that can never be forgiven, and for a 
 year now I have seen that the Germans must be 
 beaten. We go perpetually the wrong way about it, 
 but still it will be done; so, for the first time, I am 
 at one with my kind, and though not so savage as 
 the majority of men have managed to make them- 
 selves, perhaps not less determined. . . . You ask 
 for details of my daily life. I wake about eight in 
 the morning, get a grape-fruit and a couple of cups 
 of tea and write or dictate till twelve-thirty; then I 
 get up and dress. I try to go out for five or ten 
 minutes' walk or run before my lunch at one-thirty; 
 from two- thirty to three-thirty I snoozel; at three- 
 thirty I go to the office to see people, deal with cor- 
 respondence, calls, etc.; from six to seven-thirty I 
 take a walk if I can; then I come in and have a cup 
 of soup, no bread; afterwards I either read or cor- 
 rect manuscript till one o'clock. Then I am sup- 
 posed to go to bed; but if I have taken any coffee 
 during the day, and it is a perpetual temptation to 
 me, I probably do not sleep till three or four and 
 pay for it by feeling tired and worn out next morn- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 June 12, 1918. 
 
 I had no idea, till I got your letter, that the Rus- 
 sians had behaved badly in Asia Minor. You say 
 the Russian has done his job by " absolute savagery." 
 I have always liked and admired the Russians im- 
 mensely. The Turk has been guilty of savagery
 
 122 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 again and again we have proofs of that and worse 
 savagery of all, has given himself up to mere selfish 
 sensuality; but the Russian has done fine work and 
 I think will found a very high civilization, though 
 I'm afraid the Bolsheviki have bitten off more than 
 they can chew. Still, I have met Lenin and Trotzky, 
 and have a very high opinion of them. Trotzky spent 
 a few hours with me the day before he left America. 
 I begged him to be content with getting the land 
 for the people, but he was sure that the Russian peo- 
 ple were ripe for a complete social revolution. I am 
 afraid he was mistaken. . . . 
 
 August 3, 1918. 
 
 They have given up trying to call me a pro- 
 German here and now say I am anti-British, the one 
 label being as absurd as the other. . . . Curious, is 
 it not, that poor old crusted Tory Lansdowne should 
 write so nobly in favor of reason and peace, and men 
 with a real touch of genius like Lloyd George should 
 write so ignobly and stupidly? But if I said even 
 this much they would declare here that I was writing 
 against England: " stabbing England in the back " 
 is the favorite American expression now. God help 
 us all, for we have fallen on evil days and evil 
 tongues! Your appreciation of my work is a per- 
 petual incentive to me, and I need some incentive. 
 I'm tired to death and growing weary. I shan't be 
 sorry to say the Nunc Dimittis. Men are more 
 idiotic than ever! 
 
 September 5, 1919. 
 
 While you are fighting flies and fleas in Bagdad, 
 I am fighting to get some money in America, so
 
 FRANK HARRIS 123 
 
 that I may return as quickly as possible to Paris and 
 write my autobiography. First, however, I want to 
 go round the world for the third time. I want to go 
 through Siberia to Petrograd and see Lenin and 
 Trotzky and their wonderful communist republic. 
 Then I want to go to Germany to Berlin and 
 Dresden, then to Vienna, then to Munich and 
 through north Italy to Paris. I want three volumes 
 of my autobiography to be terminated by these three 
 voyages round the world. The first that ended in 
 '76, the next in '95, and then this third one now. Up 
 to the entrance of America into the war I did not age 
 in my opinion. I was just as keen about life and 
 living as ever ; filled with hope in the development of 
 man and in his spiritual growth. Two years in 
 America under this cursed Wilson regime have al- 
 most broken me. I do not mean in health, but in 
 hope and belief in humanity. He is such a hypocrite, 
 such a liar. He has debased the moral currency of 
 the world and I want to plead for his impeachment, 
 but I can get no one to listen. Americans care for 
 nothing except getting rich ; a pretty wife and a new 
 motor car are all they think of. I want to get away 
 from the thin mouths and heavy jaws and brainless 
 greed of the Common. Bacon's great word is ever 
 in my mouth: " The crowd incapable of perfectness." 
 This country has taught me good things in England ; 
 that the aristocracy, besides giving the standard of 
 manners, keeps up the standard of honor. Here 
 there are no manners and no honor and as little hon- 
 esty as possible. Oh, I am sick at heart, sick to 
 death. But what is the use of giving a younger man 
 my discouragements and disappointments, my doubt-
 
 124) MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 ings and despair. The ruin of Vienna affects me as 
 a personal injury. It was the only capital besides 
 Paris and London that had a soul, and this Wilson 
 has killed it. No wonder I call Wilson, George and 
 Clemenceau, the World, the Flesh and the Devil. 
 And now I am going to write my leader for this 
 month's magazine " The League of Dam-Nations 
 by Greed out of Lies." . . . After going round the 
 world, I will get back to Paris and spend three or 
 four years writing these three or four volumes of 
 autobiography, and then I want to pull the curtain 
 down and go out. I have had enough of the show. 
 The last act that I thought would crown all has 
 turned the great drama into the commonest knock- 
 out farce, and the taste of it is in my mouth and will 
 be till I die.
 
 VI 
 LYTTON STRACHEY 
 
 THIS is a biographical age. For the first time in the 
 literature of our country, biography as an independ- 
 ent art is coming into its own. Until now we have 
 had no conscious art of biography. I say this in spite 
 of the very obvious art in such works as BoswelFs 
 " Johnson," and Mrs. Gaskell's " Brontes." But if 
 art means anything, it means selection ; and until the 
 year 1910 it had never entered into the head of any 
 biographer that his work could be as free of its sub- 
 ject as the Venus of Milo, the Falstaff of Shakes- 
 peare, or the Philip of Velasquez. When all's said, 
 the art of the biographer is the art of the dramatist. 
 He has a story to tell and a portrait to paint. If 
 the story is to grip, it must have its climax in the 
 right place, its drama artistically presented. If the 
 portrait is to live, it must be painted in shadows and 
 high-lights; the many-colored mantle of life must be 
 shown in true perspective; hidden motives must be 
 revealed, the mainsprings of action brought to light, 
 the soul of man exposed to view. 
 
 When Boswell set out to write his " Life of John- 
 son," he started with the conscious object of getting 
 as much of Johnson on to paper as he could. Every 
 letter that Johnson wrote, every trivial detail of his 
 everyday life, every comment he made on any stupid 
 occurrence nothing was too absurd, too slight, too 
 
 125
 
 126 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 redundant for inclusion. The consequence is that we 
 get an amazing mass of material which, because of 
 the author's narrative charm, is wonderfully enter- 
 taining, but the essential Johnson is lost in the maze. 
 Boswell's extraordinary knack of making " good 
 copy " has blinded his critics to the central fault of 
 the book. It is a masterpiece of the Insignifi- 
 cant. . . . 
 
 Bozzy's monumental work practically laid waste 
 the art of biography as practiced by many eminent 
 writers in the nineteenth century. Lockhart, Foster, 
 Froude and the rest imagined (poor innocent souls!) 
 that the Gospel must be written according to St. 
 Boswell, and they labored away at their dreary 
 tomes with a painstaking solicitude which one cannot 
 sufficiently admire and pity! They all told at great 
 length everything about their heroes that no one 
 wanted to know. They succeeded magnificently in 
 burying their giants under a mountain of facts. Until 
 the year 1910 there was hardly a biography in the 
 English language that would not have been improved 
 out of all recognition by being cut down to half its 
 published size; and even then, not one of them (ex- 
 cept Boswell and, perhaps, Mrs. Gaskell) would be 
 as interesting as a good novel. 
 
 The mere suggestion that a biography should be 
 as interesting as a novel will make some people stare. 
 But if an artist cannot make a single subject drawn 
 from real life a thousand times more absorbing than 
 a whole gallery of imaginative characters, he had 
 better diet himself on opium. And that is where the 
 whole trouble lies. We have had no artist-biog- 
 raphers. All our so-called great biographers have
 
 LYTTON STRACHEY 127 
 
 been either slavish disciples of the men they have 
 tried to depict, or mere hack-work journalists. They 
 have been incapable both of art and truth. They have 
 laboriously manufactured their heroes' shrouds. . . . 
 
 Quietly, in the year 1910, the first great bio- 
 graphical work of art in the English language was 
 finished. Quietly, too, privately printed and sub- 
 scribed for, it was issued in 1916. The author, 
 Frank Harris, had recreated his subject, Oscar 
 Wilde, and unfolded the astounding drama, with an 
 unequaled intimacy, power, vividness and truth. It 
 established an epoch in literary history and created 
 a biographical tradition in its kind. 
 
 Two years later, Strachey's " Eminent Victorians " 
 was given to the world. The world received it with 
 approbation. The world, for once, was quite right. 
 Strachey's art in its detached, historical, impersonal 
 way is just as new to our literature as Harris's. He 
 approaches his subjects, of course, from a totally 
 different angle; he writes as a student, not as a 
 friend; but he has all the probing power, the high 
 impartiality, the born story-teller's enchantment, the 
 emotion, color, truth, creative vitality of a supreme 
 artist. There is, besides, a sub-current of ironic 
 humor in his work that gives it an exquisite flavoring 
 and supplies the personal note, the ego-element, 
 without which any mere display of literary excel- 
 lence is cold and lifeless. 
 
 Again, in his " Life of Queen Victoria," Strachey 
 played ducks and drakes with our academical his- 
 toriographers, and wrote a book as free, harmonious, 
 independent and perfectly balanced as the finest 
 novel imaginable. It is not just a " Life of Vic-
 
 128 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 toria " that happens to be a work of art, but a work 
 of art that happens to be a " Life of Victoria." In 
 style, treatment, construction and poise it is a mas- 
 terpiece, infinitely more fascinating than any novel 
 I know, and incomparably the greatest piece of his- 
 torical biography in the English language. . . . 
 
 The man who has thus lifted biography at a bound 
 to its rightful place among the arts is not easy to 
 describe. Physically, he is tall and thin, and one has 
 the impression that he is exceptionally frail. He 
 wears spectacles, has a fairly long reddish beard and 
 brushes his hair flat across the head. A pointed, thin 
 nose and long, narrow face accentuate those scholarly 
 and aristocratic qualities which his personality and 
 his writings suggest. Perhaps the most striking 
 thing about him at a first glance is an intense and 
 restless nervousness. This gives him a bashful and 
 timid manner, not without grace, emphasized by 
 long, tremulous, tapering fingers and a high-pitched 
 quavering voice. 
 
 Lytton Strachey is nothing if not diligent. He 
 doesn't turn his work out with the feverish, furtive 
 haste of most modern authors. Shortly after the ap- 
 pearance of " Queen Victoria," I was lunching with 
 him at the Cafe Royal, and he told me that the work 
 and study he had expended on his latest biography 
 had left him tired out. " I have to bury myself in 
 the country when I want to work," he said; " it isn't 
 so much the noises of London that prevent concen- 
 tration, but the constant social calls upon one's time 
 the exits and entrances. It has taken me three 
 years solid work to write ' Victoria/ and I am now 
 suffering from mental prostration."
 
 LYTTON STRACHEY 129 
 
 " How does it feel to be the author of a best- 
 seller? " I asked. 
 
 "It leaves me unmoved," he rejoined; "indeed 
 the success of my work is beginning to make me 
 question its merit. Can a popular author be a good 
 one?" 
 
 " It's uncommon," I said, " but it's not impossible. 
 Look at Shakespeare and Shaw ! " 
 
 " I wonder if Shakespeare really is popular? " he 
 queried. 
 
 " Not a doubt of it! Even in England! " I cried. 
 
 ' You set me rather a high standard ! " he returned. 
 " By the way, have you ever read Johnson's * Lives 
 of the Poets'?" 
 
 ' Yes and no. I read them at school, which is as 
 much as to say I've forgotten them. Why? " 
 
 " Because you call my work entirely original. You 
 will find in them (shall we say?) a foretaste of the 
 Stracheyan artistry." 
 
 He appears to have a thorough-going affection for 
 artificial writers in general, such as Congreve, and 
 for the eighteenth century in particular. He speaks 
 with intense admiration of Gibbon and Sterne; and 
 he considers Boswell's Life chiefly remarkable for 
 the sense of proximity to Johnson one is made to 
 feel. One can almost, he says, hear the very voice 
 of Johnson, even the tone of voice in which he spoke. 
 
 " Why don't you now try to give us some of the 
 big Victorian thinkers and artists? " I asked him. 
 
 He was silent for a moment, and then, in a hesi- 
 tating manner, said : " I think I shall write a play 
 next." That set me going. He listened in silence 
 for the next five minutes while I explained why it
 
 130 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 was vitally necessary that he should stick to a job 
 he can do better than anyone else, and not attempt 
 a job he couldn't hope to do as well as Shaw. At 
 the end of my discourse he said : " Perhaps you are 
 right." 
 
 In answer to further questions, he told me he 
 would like to do a study of Queen Elizabeth. " A 
 ' History of the World ' wants writing, too," he re- 
 marked: "it's a job I'd like to take on. It should 
 be printed in a single, neat, easily-portable volume. 
 The whole thing must be a compact condensation of 
 essential facts not a series of moral strictures on 
 eminent people, like most histories." 
 
 He spoke enthusiastically of Charles Darwin a 
 great subject for a biography, he said. 
 
 " What about Disraeli?" I questioned: "there's 
 drama for you and character!" 
 
 " I can't make him out," Strachey answered ; "his 
 character is so utterly contradictory. Think of his 
 cynicism and his child-like love of place! The two 
 things don't go together. How could such a bril- 
 liant, witty man be satisfied, beglamored, by such a 
 paltry thing as a Premiership? His novels are ex- 
 traordinarily clever and yet one is faced with the 
 monstrous fact that their author fell in love with 
 the Garter!" 
 
 ' That was probably the Jew in him," I suggested : 
 " with an Israelite, the realist and the showman go 
 hand-in-hand. . . ." 
 
 But it isn't really of the least importance what par- 
 ticular subject Lytton Strachey chooses for his next 
 work, or his next dozen works. He can relume the 
 pageant of history and give its personalities the
 
 LYTTON STRACHEY 131 
 
 breath of life. In his hands a second-rate man like 
 Cardinal Manning or Dr. Arnold can shine with all 
 the luster of an immortal character in romance; and 
 a great figure like Gordon or Florence Nightingale 
 can assume epic significance. The tedious becomes 
 fascinating when touched by the magic of his pen. 
 
 One can only compare him with himself. He is 
 the Strachey of biographers. . . .
 
 VII 
 SIR JOHNSTON FORBES-ROBERTSON 
 
 AN unique, a flawless, executive artist much too 
 perfect to arouse vast enthusiasm or fail to get con- 
 siderable applause, much too rare to score any tre- 
 mendous failures or reach any colossal heights. Not 
 a romantic, but a classical actor. Such was Forbes- 
 Robertson. Hence his comparative failure in all the 
 romantic Shakespearean parts he played : hence, also, 
 his supreme success as Hamlet and Julius Caesar. 
 These were, in fact, his only big achievements in the 
 later years. The rest of the plays in his repertoire 
 were unimportant and need not detain us. He did 
 practically nothing for the stage, he gained no excep- 
 tional prestige : but he produced the greatest tragedy 
 and the greatest historical drama in our language, 
 acting the protagonists of both in such a faultless 
 manner, that one simply had to realize the absurdity 
 of criticizing either performance. Actors with not 
 half his skill had big moments the like of which he 
 never knew, for the little is as often great as the 
 great is little. He never soared, never had large con- 
 ceptions, but executed with absolute nicety what he 
 understood. And, believe me, he understood Ham- 
 let, as Hamlet was never understood before. He 
 grasped the primal truth about Hamlet: that he is 
 not a bunch of romantic possibilities and hidden 
 meanings. Indeed, the only thing that has never been 
 
 132
 
 FORBES-ROBERTSON 133 
 
 said about Hamlet is the only thing worth saying 
 about him: that he is the essence of simplicity. The 
 reason that Shakespeare made Hamlet pretend mad- 
 ness is undiscoverable because there is no reason. 
 Had Shakespeare been adaptable to mere reason, he 
 would have been incapable of creating Hamlet. 
 Genius is the most utterly unreasonable thing in the 
 universe, but it is always simple. It is the unim- 
 aginative pedant who takes refuge in complexity. 
 Shakespeare, like all geniuses, never left school, which 
 means that he never ceased putting his tongue out 
 at the professors! And every succeeding age has 
 produced a further batch of professors (we call them 
 critics nowadays) who have qualified for a lunatic 
 asylum in their logical endeavors to prove that Ham- 
 let was mad. Again and again Shakespeare spoke 
 his heart from under the jester's cap and bells. 
 Surely this ought to have put the academic owls and 
 bardolatrous bats on the track of the Hamlet idea! 
 " Invest me in my motley ; give me leave to speak 
 my mind " this is the text for the exuberant, super- 
 abundant genius. The desire of Jacques becomes 
 the vesture of Hamlet just Shakespeare letting off 
 steam, cleansing his bosom of much " perilous stuff," 
 giving his soul an outlet through the mask of in- 
 sanity. Nothing is so surely diagnostic of genius 
 as a kind of wild, illogical gayety. 
 
 No literary criticism of Hamlet was worth two- 
 pence by the side of Forbes-Robertson's dramatic 
 explanation of him. The whole thing from start to 
 finish was final in its exquisite simplicity; nothing 
 could possibly be said from any other point of view. 
 
 Leaving entirely on one side the actor's extraor-
 
 134 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 dinary physical grace and the organ-music of his 
 marvelous voice, he was the only artist of his time 
 I dare guess of any time who was Hamlet in ges- 
 ture and speech. He lived in the period and spoke 
 its language. Poetry was his natural medium of 
 expression and medieval dress his fitting habit. One 
 never felt that he was assuming a period not his own 
 or a speech foreign to his everyday conversation. He 
 did not have to act Hamlet : he came to life as Ham- 
 let. The character as he conceived it (having already 
 been conceived in precisely the same manner by the 
 author) was the embodiment of humanity's soul, not, 
 as other actors seem to imagine, its sentiment. He 
 epitomized the fine not the common aspirations of 
 mankind. His was the only Hamlet who would ac- 
 tually have jumped into Ophelia's grave the rest 
 would have dropped flowers into it. What I mean 
 is that he was more furious at Laertes' ridiculously 
 theatrical behavior than grieved at the cause for it. 
 His " rogue and peasant slave " soliloquy was not 
 devised for the purpose of calling the king unpleas- 
 ant names, but in order to find a reason for his own 
 peculiarity. He arrives at the conclusion (impolitely 
 expressed by himself of course) that he can't behave 
 in the usual conventional way. When he says that 
 he is " pigeon-livered " he does not mean to imply 
 that he is chicken-hearted, but that he is not morally 
 respectable. In short, he discovers himself to be a 
 man with a mind instead of a man with orthodox 
 opinions. 
 
 If Goethe or Coleridge had seen this performance, 
 they wouldn't have written criticisms on " Hamlet "; 
 they would simply have said: " Go and see Forbes-
 
 FORBES-ROBERTSON 135 
 
 Robertson." People who have been lucky enough 
 to see it, but who still prefer the romantic tours de 
 force and stage pauses of other actors, should con- 
 tinue or commence to patronize melodrama and mu- 
 sical comedy. It is just possible they may appre- 
 ciate the rest of Shakespeare's plays, the, majority 
 of which are romantic melodramas or poetic-musical 
 comedies, but they certainly can't appreciate " Ham- 
 let." They have still to be modernized and still to 
 get a soul. Forbes-Robertson's " Hamlet " was the 
 only Shakespearean performance one could see 
 twenty times (and twice in one day) yet wish to go 
 on seeing it twenty times twenty. After which, there 
 is nothing more to be said. 
 
 When an actor has a part written for him (as 
 Shaw wrote " Caesar " for Robertson) one may be 
 sure the author considers the actor worthy of it. 
 This being so, it is hardly an exaggeration to say 
 that no actor in the world's history was ever so highly 
 complimented as Forbes-Robertson. Also, the high- 
 est possible praise of Robertson's art is just this: he 
 was worthy of it. First, he had the Caesarian features 
 and the Caesarian build though I'm pretty certain 
 Caesar hadn't his voice. Next, he was born with the 
 Caesarian modernity and dignity; his inflections gave 
 the essential measure of Caesar's culture and nobility. 
 Mommsen, in that astonishing revelation of Caesar's 
 genius which so largely helps to give his book chief 
 place among historical works, showing as it does a 
 faculty for acute perception which no other historian 
 can lay claim to, says : "If in a nature so harmoni- 
 ously organized there is any one trait to be singled 
 out as characteristic, it is this that he stood aloof
 
 136 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 from all ideology and everything fanciful. As a 
 matter of course, Caesar was a man of passion, for 
 without passion there is no genius; but his passion 
 was ever under his control." This was exactly the 
 impression Forbes-Robertson's acting gave. He 
 played the great statesman, letting us into his mind 
 and way of thought so superbly, that on the strength 
 of this performance alone, a nation of intellectual 
 aristocrats might have made him Prime Minister on 
 the spot. Though I ought to add that a nation of 
 supermen would have promptly crowned Caesar's 
 creator. 
 
 There was something haunting about Robertson's 
 Caesar. When he bade farewell to his soldiers and 
 to Egypt at the end of the play, one felt that the sun 
 was undergoing eclipse, that clouds were passing over 
 its face. Rufio and the rest stood there as the ship 
 left the quay with shadows flickering amongst them, 
 the light of their days burning low in its socket. 
 Something had, one felt, gone out of their lives 
 and out of our lives. It was as if a friend had died. 
 A strange thing, this the haunting quality of art 
 a sure passport to immortality. Shaw makes us feel 
 it all through, as he makes Cleopatra feel it. A won- 
 derful personality at once Shavian and Caesarian 
 moves through the play, a big influence to fine think- 
 ing and a morality far higher than the one we know. 
 
 What a splendid tribute to Forbes-Robertson! 
 Without him, a masterpiece of art might not have 
 ennobled an era. With him, dramatic literature has 
 been enriched beyond present calculation ; and a mag- 
 nificent creation was inspired by his personal charm 
 and the perfection of his wonderful art.
 
 VIII 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 
 
 IT is strange how popularity and success can ruin a 
 man both morally and artistically. The career of 
 Stephen Phillips was meteoric. He shot up and he 
 shot down. I am told he reached an equilibrium to- 
 wards the end, but he went utterly out of my life in 
 1910, and I never even saw him again. 
 
 I sometimes question whether his work will live. 
 Most of it was too obviously the direct product of a 
 fleeting, though temporarily immense, success. Still, 
 there was about his finest lyrical outbursts a quality, 
 a sort of ecstasy, that we can hardly find matched 
 among that ever-growing throng of poets whom we 
 call " Minor." Undeniably he was a minor poet, but 
 he was also, now and again, capable of a major key. 
 " Paolo and Francesca " immediately took a definite 
 place in English poetic drama. It was a stage suc- 
 cess and a thing of beauty a combination unique 
 outside Shakespeare. And if he failed afterwards to 
 keep the level reached in " Paolo," we must remem- 
 ber that there has only been one Shakespeare, and 
 refuse to dismiss Phillips as negligible for not being 
 another. Besides, there are some gorgeous passages 
 in his later plays which almost atone for their other- 
 wise bombastic structure. No poet would benefit so 
 much as Phillips by a Golden Treasury selection. 
 He was essentially a man of moments ; and I do not 
 
 137
 
 138 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 think I am over-estimating him in saying that he had 
 more moments of inspired beauty than any other 
 minor poet. Many of his phrases are tense with emo- 
 tion of a very rare and exalted nature. They beat 
 the cage of word-expression with a mighty sweep. 
 They ring and resound in the memory. . . . 
 
 One day in the year 1909, I was dining at a cafe 
 in East Street, Brighton. About half-way through 
 the meal three men came in and took a table next 
 to mine. Two of them had apparently been playing 
 golf that afternoon, because I heard the third chaf- 
 fing them about it, calling them typical brainless 
 Englishmen, who couldn't use their time to better 
 purpose than in hitting a ball about a links and chas- 
 ing it. " Oh, it's all very well for you to talk like 
 that, Phillips," replied one of the others, " but we 
 don't write poetry, and we don't waste our time read- 
 ing it." The two words, " Phillips " and " poetry," 
 made me sit up. I turned my chair slightly to get 
 a better view of their table, and had my first look 
 at the author of " Paolo and Francesca." . . . 
 
 He sat with his elbows on the table, hunched-up 
 and ungainly-looking. His proportions were Fal- 
 staffian. His belly was far too large, and he didn't 
 know how to make the best of it. The chief points 
 about his face were a very square jaw and a set and 
 rather cruel expression not unlike, I imagined, a 
 Roman Emperor of the decadence, except for the 
 nose. 
 
 As the dinner at the next table progressed, the con- 
 versation became louder and more acrid. The other 
 diners in the cafe began to prick up their ears, and 
 eventually the manager had to ask Phillips to mod-
 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 139 
 
 erate either his voice or his opinions. This brought 
 a storm of abuse on the unfortunate manager's head. 
 Phillips turned and rent him. He was informed, 
 firstly, that he was apparently unaware of his (the 
 speaker's) importance in the literary world, secondly 
 that it was a public place and one did not resort to 
 public places for the purpose of speaking in whis- 
 pers, thirdly that England had often been called 
 (wrongly no doubt) a free country, and fourthly 
 that the wine at this particular restaurant was un- 
 drinkable! I did not stay to hear the end of the 
 scene, but I could hear Phillips's high, raucous voice 
 for several yards down the street outside. 
 
 A month or two later I saw him again and experi- 
 enced my first talk with him. I use the word " ex- 
 perienced " advisedly. To a nervous and rather 
 hesitant youth, as I was then, a first talk with Phillips 
 in his post-halcyon days was a rather alarming ad- 
 venture ; especially when he was in his cups ; and dur- 
 ing 1909 he was seldom out of them. 
 
 This time I ran across him in a common or garden 
 pub, which I used to visit now and then for a game 
 of billiards. He sat, bunched up, in a corner, with 
 a large glass of whisky by his side. He looked very 
 disreputable, his slouch hat drawn well over his eyes, 
 and he seemed to glower in a semi-fuddled manner 
 at the other occupants of the room. I took my 
 courage in both hands and marched up to him. 
 
 " May I introduce myself, sir? " I asked. 
 
 " No, you mayn't! " he snarled back. 
 
 I turned away after that, and was just leaving the 
 room when he shouted after me : 
 
 ' Who the devil are you, anyway? "
 
 140 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 Thus encouraged, I ventured again timidly: 
 
 " My name is Pearson." 
 
 " Don't know you," said he, and then, after a pause: 
 "Don't want to either!" 
 
 " You are very polite," I put in. 
 
 " Go to hell! " he rejoined. 
 
 Taking our surroundings into consideration, we 
 were getting on famously, so I decided to stand my 
 ground. 
 
 " I know you, though," I proclaimed ; " you are the 
 author of some of the finest verse of the time, and I 
 want to tell you how much I admire your work." 
 
 " Rubbish ! " he answered : " that's what they all 
 say, but they don't encourage me to go on with it. 
 A poet in England is a fool. He is also an anachron- 
 ism. England doesn't want poets. She wants Kip- 
 lings. In fact she doesn't know what she wants and 
 I hope she suffers for her blasted absentminded- 
 ness ! " 
 
 " If you'll excuse me for saying it . . . " I began. 
 
 " I won't excuse you for anything, damn you! " he 
 retorted. 
 
 Obviously he was not a man to waste courtesy over, 
 so I didn't ask his leave for any further remarks I 
 had to make. 
 
 : ' Then I think you should consider yourself 
 damned lucky! " I said, adopting his lingo. " There 
 are a dozen poets of equal genius to yourself prac- 
 tically starving, or doing hack-work to keep them- 
 selves out of the gutter; while you have had success 
 after success, greater success than any dramatic poet 
 has had since Shakespeare. I really don't know what 
 you have got to grumble about."
 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 141 
 
 "When I allowed you to introduce yourself to 
 me . . . . " he commenced. 
 
 "You didn't! "I cut in. 
 
 " Be silent! " he shouted. " When, I repeat, I al- 
 lowed you to address me without giving myself the 
 pleasure of kicking your backside, I imagined God 
 forgive me! that you might have something to say 
 that hasn't already been said by every Grub Street 
 growler in the kingdom. You are talking poisonous 
 rot, man! But I will smother my present inclination 
 to throw a glass of execrable whisky over you, be- 
 cause I want you to name the dozen poets of equal 
 genius to myself (as you so abominably phrase it) 
 and also because you do not appear to be yet out of 
 your 'teens." 
 
 " I mentioned a dozen at random," I replied. " But 
 you have doubtless heard of Davidson, Watson, 
 Noyes, Newbolt and Bridges to say nothing of 
 those three obscure little scribblers, Hardy, Mere- 
 dith and Swinburne." 
 
 " Don't try to be funny ! " he sneered : " humor is 
 not a virtue of the cradle. You'd better be toddling 
 home now, or your nurse will be getting nervous. 
 Wait a moment, though ! Now you are here, you can 
 make yourself useful. Get me another whisky." 
 
 " Delighted ! " I said : " I had no idea poets could 
 be such charming companions." And without wait- 
 ing for an answer, I went to the bar and ordered his 
 refreshment. When I came back, he appeared to be 
 half -asleep, and I had to poke him in the ribs before 
 lie was aware of my return. 
 
 "You still here!" he cried. "Whatever will 
 Mammy say?"
 
 142 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 " Drink that, you fat-gutted old beast," was my 
 not altogether genteel rejoinder, " and then say your 
 prayers." After which suitable remark I quitted the 
 pub without more ado. 
 
 This was not a particularly brilliant start-off for 
 an acquaintanceship. I certainly did not intend to 
 continue it. But fate intended it otherwise. I saw 
 him again and again after that, and nearly always 
 he addressed me with a mixture of politeness and 
 rudeness. Here are a few of his odd sayings that 
 have stuck in my memory : 
 
 " Hullo! Still studying the poets? Why not try 
 to climb Parnassus yourself? If you look in your 
 atlas, you will find Parnassus in the heart of Ger- 
 many. The railway porters of that country read 
 Shakespeare. Have a drink! " 
 
 ;< The only truly generous people in the world are 
 drunkards." 
 
 " I can't understand the pleasure some folk derive 
 from motoring. I don't go into the country to enjoy 
 man-made mechanism. And I don't want to be 
 jolted until I'm in my coffin." 
 
 ' The romantic attitude towards life leads to the 
 Thames or to Hanwell. Christ was crucified because 
 Jerusalem had neither. I prefer a public house to 
 both." 
 
 " I wrote ' Paolo and Francesca ' for love, ' Herod ' 
 for popularity, ' Ulysses ' for money, and ' Nero ' for 
 all three." 
 
 ' The whole art of argument is to assume that the 
 other man doesn't know what he is talking about." 
 
 " A love of stomach is the beginning of wisdom." 
 
 One day I asked him what was the meaning of the
 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 143 
 
 line in "Paolo": "O! and that bluer blue that 
 greener green ! " 
 
 " I haven't the least idea," he confessed: " I am a 
 poet, not a statistician." 
 
 At last I got to the soul of the man. It was a 
 rainy, boisterous day towards the end of the year. I 
 had caught sight of him just as he was turning into 
 a side street off the Brighton front. His loose cape, 
 with mackintosh beneath, ballooned from the massive 
 shoulders as he struggled round the corner. Having 
 nothing better to do, I followed him into his den. He 
 was reasonably polite, if at first a trifle morose. We 
 drank one another's healths and sat down by the fire. 
 With the exception of a moldy-looking old gentleman, 
 who was busy muttering to himself in another corner, 
 we were alone. I started the ball rolling. 
 
 ' Winy did you suddenly break away from lyrical 
 poetry and begin writing rhetorical verse? " 
 
 ' Why did Shakespeare? " he parried. 
 
 " He didn't not in the sense I mean. There is 
 even a strong lyrical current beneath the stilted style 
 of his last plays. He remained a poet to the end 
 even in prose." 
 
 " And is there no poetry in my * Nero,' my ' Sin of 
 David 5 ? "he asked. 
 
 ' Yes; of a high-falutin, pretentious kind. But it's 
 the work of a poet who's running away from poetry, 
 not of a poet whose poetry is running away with 
 him." 
 
 " Ah, but I had to take time by the forelock, and 
 a poet should never woo the success I sought after." 
 He mused a while, and then went on : " Every man 
 Has a turning-point in his career. It's merely a ques-
 
 144 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 tion of whether he keeps to the path he set out on, 
 or side-tracks his ideals. My turning-point came im- 
 mediately I had written the last line in ' Paolo.' 
 Every rhythm in that play I felt, every touch of true 
 poetry in it was a part of myself. I, too, loved as 
 Paolo loved. This was my very cri de cceur " and 
 he recited the lines : 
 
 O God, Thou seest us Thy creatures bound 
 Together by that law which holds the stars 
 In palpitating cosmic passion bright; 
 By which the very sun enthrals the earth, 
 And all the waves of the world faint to the moon* 
 Even by such attraction we two rush 
 Together through the everlasting years. 
 Us, then, whose only pain can be to part, 
 How wilt Thou punish? For what ecstasy 
 Together to be blown about the globe! 
 What rapture in perpetual fire to burn 
 Together! where we are is endless fire. 
 There centuries shall in a moment pass, 
 And all the cycles in one hour elapse! 
 Still, still together, even when faints Thy sun, 
 And past our souls Thy stars like ashes fall, 
 How wilt Thou punish us who cannot part? 
 
 He recited musically, in a high-pitched monotone, 
 with a keener feeling for sound than for sense. When 
 he came to the end, he paused for a few seconds. 
 Then, weighing his words with a care not at all char- 
 acteristic of him, he proceeded: 
 
 " But I couldn't keep to that level in poetry or in 
 life. I wasn't strong enough. Things happened. 
 Stupid, vexing things. And I was ambitious. I
 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 145 
 
 wanted renown. ... I love life too well the good, 
 comfortable things of life. I sacrificed my poetry for 
 pounds and pence. Though (who knows?) perhaps 
 I had no more of the real stuff in me. A poet must 
 live his poems; and when he ceases to live them, he 
 ceases to write them. ... I lost the poetry of life 
 shortly after * Paolo ' was written, and a hunger for 
 the easy, pleasant things came in its place. Since 
 then, I have written my dramas for money only 
 money. And why not? It's the next best thing to 
 love." 
 
 I suppose I had, in a dim sort of way, divined as 
 much as he told me, because I remember feeling no 
 surprise at it. He was simply a sensualist, a full- 
 blooded, passionate sensualist, who, whether in love or 
 in drink, indulged himself to excess. He was greedy 
 for life's primitive sensations, and his desires were too 
 violent to be controlled. This explained to me also 
 his sudden falling off in poetry. The desire for the 
 high-sounding phrase had over-topped his purely 
 lyrical gift and he gave way to it, just as in life he 
 had allowed the coarser things to force back the gen- 
 tler. He wallowed in the majestic phrase just as he 
 wallowed in strong drinks. 
 
 We talked a great deal that afternoon, and it was 
 about 7 o'clock when we parted. He touched upon 
 several things of a still more intimate nature, but they 
 shed no further light on his character, so there is no 
 point in repeating them here. . . . 
 
 The last time I saw him was in 1910, when I found 
 myself by his side at the counter of the Brighton post 
 office. We were both buying stamps and while he 
 was fixing one on to an envelope he remarked: " Dis-
 
 gusting business, this stamp -licking! Why can't we 
 run the postal service without filling our mouths with 
 gum? " I recommended the suggestion to our social 
 reformers. 
 
 Let me, finally, try to do justice to Stephen 
 Phillips. I have already spoken of his later plays, and 
 his " Faust " and " Armageddon " show poetical pov- 
 erty even more unmistakably than " Ulysses." 
 There is, however, a stern simplicity and restrained 
 beauty about his very last work, " Harold," that 
 speaks more eloquently than report of sounder living 
 towards the end. 
 
 But, when every allowance is made and the ac- 
 count finally balanced, it is " Paolo and Francesca " 
 that people will remember him by. Shortly after his 
 death, Mrs. Meynell tried hard to make out that his 
 best work was in the 1897 " Poems." But it's no 
 good! The man who wrote the most exquisite love- 
 duet in the language outside " Romeo and Juliet " is 
 not likely to be remembered for anything less won- 
 derful. This is where Stephen Phillips gained our 
 first and lasting gratitude. Listen to the liquid love- 
 liness of it: 
 
 P. Now fades the last 
 
 Star to the East: a mystic breathing comes: 
 And all the leaves once quivered, and were still. 
 
 F. It is the first, the faint stir of the dawn. 
 
 P. So still it is that we might almost hear 
 The t>igh of all the sleepers in the world. 
 
 F. And all the rivers running to the sea. 
 ***** 
 
 P. Remember how when first we met we stood 
 Stung with immortal recollections.
 
 STEPHEN PHILLIPS 147 
 
 face immured beside a fairy sea, 
 
 That leaned down at dead midnight to be kissed! 
 
 O beauty folded up in forests old ! 
 
 Thou wast the lovely quest of Arthur's knights 
 F. Thy armor glimmered in a gloom of green. 
 P. Did I not sing to thee in Babylon? 
 F. Or did we set a sail in Carthage bay? 
 P. Were thine eyes strange? 
 F. Did I not know thy voice? 
 
 All ghostly grew the sun, unreal the air 
 
 Then when we kissed. 
 P. And in that kiss our souls 
 
 Together flashed; and now they are as flame, 
 
 Which nothing can put out, nothing divide. 
 
 And the deathless pathos of Giovanni's last lines: 
 
 She takes away my strength. 
 I did not know the dead could have such hair. 
 Hide them. They look like children fast asleep!
 
 IX 
 FRANK BENSON 
 
 KING GEOEGE V knighted him, but for the purposes 
 of this article I shall dub him squire. He was known 
 all over the country as F. R. Benson, and by the 
 members of his own company affectionately as " Pa." 
 On a man like Benson, knighthood confers no honor 
 and no dignity. In fact, since the honor became 
 synonymous for success in the making of soap, butter, 
 hair-oil, and kindred commodities, artists who have 
 yielded to the temptation have merely vied with one 
 another in proclaiming the relative unimportance of 
 their art or at least its similarity to canned food and 
 their own likeness to that growing class of universal 
 providers whose chief quality is that they provide 
 everything except what is wanted. I'm not idiot 
 enough to suggest that a special honor should be 
 invented for artists, for the very excellent reason that 
 if such a thing existed all the wrong people would 
 get it. At any rate, let it be said once for all that 
 Benson honored his brother knights; they did not 
 honor him. I admit the honor would have been the 
 other way about if they had been forced to sit 
 through one of his ordinary tragic performances, 
 though he could act with dignity and moderation on 
 rare occasions but the chief point to remember about 
 Benson's work is not what he personally did but what 
 he generally aimed at doing. 
 
 148
 
 FRANK BENSON 149 
 
 As a boy at school, I used to love his acting, largely 
 perhaps because I couldn't understand a word he ever 
 said. There was a mystery about it all which 
 wrapped Shakespeare up in a chaotic glamor and 
 served as a splendid antidote to the tedious, prosaic 
 business of repetition in the class-room. No quite nat- 
 ural acting could possibly have done this. I owe it to 
 Benson, then, that Shakespeare was not killed for me 
 at an age he is usually killed for the majority of boys. 
 Benson saved Shakespeare for me off the stage by 
 simply murdering him for me on the stage. Later, 
 when I came to manhood, and after seeing such splen- 
 did things as Robertson's Hamlet, Tree's Richard II 
 and Waller's Hotspur, I had another peep at Ben- 
 son. Age cannot wither the memory of that lamenta- 
 ble Macbeth, that execrable Hamlet. I immediately 
 understood why Benson had been practically bank- 
 rupt on several occasions, and why his performances 
 had made Shakespeare a household word in the prov- 
 inces, and why Hamlet thought it necessary to ieach 
 actors how to act and a dozen other things. .It was 
 really quite dreadful an infinite monotony. Ben- 
 son, who produced all our best Shakespearean actors, 
 himself the "horrible example." He should have 
 said: " Do you wish to learn how to act? Well, mark 
 me and I will show you how not to do it. Note my 
 manner of speech and go and do thou otherwise! " 
 But personal triumphs are small and of little ac- 
 count beside the higher issues of art, and Benson will 
 be remembered deserves to be remembered in 
 England as that man who above all others in our 
 theatrical history realized a mission. He was the only 
 actor who ever spread Shakespeare broadcast in these
 
 160 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 islands. His companies, at least when I was at schoo M 
 gave the best all-round performances one could ever 
 hope to see; infinitely better than one could see in 
 first-class West End productions, in which by the way 
 nearly all the best performers were old Bensonians. 
 He taught his people that the important thing was to 
 make themselves heard. " Seek ye first a clear and 
 rapid elocution," he said, " and all other things will 
 be added unto you." Or, in other words, " Don't 
 mumble and don't be dull." And his own outrageous 
 bawling may have been the direct outcome of this 
 republican lesson. If so, I for one was willing to 
 suffer the pain of listening to it though I sometimes 
 wish he had spouted through a sponge. 
 
 Of course Benson made the usual mistake of acting 
 all the chief parts himself, and thus in a sense under- 
 mining the force and fineness of his mission. But this 
 was simply a part of that vanity which seems in- 
 separable from the individual members of his profes- 
 sion. I should have done much the same thing 
 myself. 
 
 Benson felt his mission, felt it so sincerely that he 
 was always dreaming about it. It wrapped him up 
 in a sort of Quixotic cloak. It pervaded his acting, 
 making him misquote nearly eveiy other line of his 
 parts. It found expression in all directions: the 
 Pageant revival, Morris dancing, medieval street pro- 
 cessions, banner-waving, folk-songs, early music, ath- 
 letic sports, and a general picturesqueness which he 
 associated with the rollicking days of Eliza. He was 
 blessed with entire belief in his,religion and was there- 
 fore exceptionally happy. I loved him for that. 
 There was about him a winning simplicity and child-
 
 FRANK BENSON 151 
 
 ish enthusiasm altogether attractive. Indeed, the 
 inner man was faithfully reflected in the outer. I 
 never met anyone who had such a charming, naive 
 address, such a courteous, engaging manner. It 
 seemed a natural part of himself, not acquired but 
 instinctive. He would, I think, have made a first-rate 
 constitutional monarch was, in fact, born for the 
 part. After years of work, which included not a few 
 trials and tribulations, he remained the same unspoilt, 
 ingenuous darling of nature. 
 
 His histrionic defects were, as I have said, consid- 
 erable, but in spite of these he must go down to his- 
 tory as Shakespeare's most devoted stage-disciple a 
 man whose singularly noble ideal enriched his native 
 land with an artistic impetus as rare as it was beau- 
 tiful.
 
 X 
 
 ROBERT ROSS 
 
 A LITTLE, pleasant, bald-headed man, with quiet ways, 
 a slightly baffled expression and a subdued air that is 
 how Robert Ross first appeared to me. Later he 
 charmed me by his unexpected, rather parenthetical, 
 turns of witty speech and sudden gleams of humorous 
 comprehension. With curious insight into character 
 he could make a man live again in a few well-chosen 
 phrases, and hit off his mannerisms with cameo-like 
 effect. 
 
 I cannot imagine a more delightful, entertaining 
 companion at a quiet dinner than Robert Ross. 
 Sometime in 1916 he asked me to dine with him at 
 Prince's, and I spent one of the most enjoyable even- 
 ings of my life. It was dawn before I left his cham- 
 bers in Half Moon Street, where we had spent the 
 midnight hours after dinner, and I reached my billet 
 too late (or too early) to arouse the suspicions of the 
 guard. 
 
 To look at him, no one would imagine that he had 
 been one of the leading actors in the succession of 
 tragedies and tragi-comedies that had followed the 
 hounding of his great friend, Oscar Wilde, from pub- 
 lic life. He had, if anyone ever had, a restful person- 
 ality. And yet, I suppose, no one was ever made to 
 suffer as he was for a lifelong loyalty and an undying 
 affection. That loyalty, that affection, was its own 
 
 152
 
 ROBERT ROSS 153 
 
 reward. He gained no other; but, instead, he was 
 subjected to an unending series of calumnious attacks 
 and malicious insults that have no parallel in the an- 
 nals of envy and hatred. 
 
 Many things he told me that night I cannot, of 
 course, repeat, but several other things may be of 
 general interest and can't do much harm by repetition. 
 
 Speaking of Oscar Wilde he said: 
 
 " His wife was quite unsympathetic towards him. 
 This will give you an idea of her. Oscar was always 
 the essence of charm and good nature, and would 
 never do anything to disappoint her. One day, when 
 I was with them at Tite Street, she asked him if he 
 would come in for lunch on the following day, as 
 some old Dublin friends (a clergyman among them) 
 were coming to see her and very much wanted to 
 meet him. Oscar, to whom this sort of thing was the 
 reverse of attractive, said: 'All right, my dear, if 
 Bobbie can come as well.' Of course she asked me, 
 though I knew she didn't want to, and it was then 
 and there arranged. We found his wife's friends the 
 typical provincial sort, full of their own local news 
 and nothing much else. Oscar talked during lunch 
 as I never heard him talk before divinely. Had the 
 company included the Queen and all the Royal Fam- 
 ily, he couldn't have surpassed himself. Humor, tale, 
 epigram, flowed from his lips, and his listeners sat 
 spellbound under the influence. Suddenly in the 
 midst of one of his most entrancing stories his audi- 
 ence with wide eyes and parted mouths, their food 
 untasted his wife broke in: * Oh, Oscar, did you re- 
 member to call for Cyril's boots? ' 
 
 " Oscar could never be got to speak about his child-
 
 154. MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 hood; in fact he rarely, if ever, spoke of his own life 
 at all. But, very strangely, just after he came out of 
 prison, for several days he continually reverted to 
 his boyhood. Reggie Turner and I were, of course, 
 burning to hear all about his life in prison, and we 
 were perpetually bringing his thoughts back from the 
 one topic to the other. Neither of us can remember 
 a single thing of importance concerning his early days 
 that he then told us, and I am always blaming myself 
 for the omission though perhaps it was natural un- 
 der the circumstances. Two very slight things linger 
 in my memory, and that is all. The first was that he 
 once ran away from home or school and hid in a cave. 
 The second was that he and his brother used to fish 
 in a lake : ' It was full,' he told us, ' of large melan- 
 choly salmon, which lay at the bottom of the lake and 
 paid no attention to our bait.' ' 
 
 I had often thought that the most characteristic 
 things Wilde ever wrote were his private letters, and 
 I asked Ross why he didn't publish a good selection. 
 He answered: 
 
 ' The question of the Wilde letters has often been 
 discussed, but for the moment must be postponed sine 
 die. Douglas, who proposed at one time to publish 
 those belonging to himself, was injuncted by me from 
 doing so, because the copyright of them belongs to the 
 Wilde estate, which I administer for the children. 
 On finding that he could not make money out of them 
 in that way, he sold the originals to Quaritch, and I 
 believe they have gone to America; in any case, I 
 would not, of course, hold any communication with 
 him on the subject. Sherard, I know, must have sold 
 most of his, as they have been on the market at vari-
 
 ROBERT ROSS 155 
 
 ous prices for a good many years. At one time I 
 actually contemplated carrying out your suggestion, 
 but I found, much to my disappointment and dismay, 
 that nearly all those who had corresponded with the 
 author prior to 1895 had destroyed all his letters, the 
 Burne-Jones's and the Acton's among others. They 
 even destroyed many of his manuscripts which he had 
 given them. After the release in '97 he wrote inter- 
 mittently, but too often about private matters which 
 could not be published; and it is true to say that he 
 was never, except when a very young man, a constant 
 correspondent." 
 
 * What do you think of Frank Harris's biography 
 of Wilde? " I asked him. " Personally I don't think 
 there's anything in biographical literature to touch it 
 as a breathing pulsating creation." 
 
 " I wrote to Harris," he replied, " directly I re- 
 ceived the book, saying that it was ' a portrait by 
 Franz Hals, not Frank Harris.' The portrait is a 
 terribly faithful one at all events of Wilde in certain 
 aspects. I wish it could have been more compre- 
 hensive; but the materials are not accessible, because 
 the indispensable cooperation of those who knew 
 Wilde long before Harris or I did would not be avail- 
 able. I agree with you that as a biographical sketch 
 it is unique. Indeed the only criticism I would make 
 is that in presenting as he does so admirably the spirit 
 and matter of Wilde's talk, he sometimes uses a vo- 
 cabulary and phraseology that Wilde would never 
 have used. Harris has too much personality to be a 
 quite faithful chronicler in this respect. But it is a 
 minor point, and the truth and power of the portrait 
 as a whole make the book, to me, rather painful.
 
 156 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 Some of the incidents Harris describes (the ' gamin ' 
 scene in Paris, for example) are so vividly character- 
 istic that I could swear they happened exactly as nar- 
 rated, even though I wasn't present at the precise 
 episodes given. If you are writing to him, do please 
 convey my best thanks and most sincere admiration 
 of his work." 
 
 Somehow I had got the impression that Ross was 
 a very keen Catholic, and was amazed when he told 
 me that he was a confirmed Atheist. " But weren't 
 you responsible for Wilde's death-bed conversion? " 
 I asked. " Oh, I was a Catholic in those days right 
 enough," he replied, " though I most certainly was 
 not responsible for Wilde's conversion in fact, I 
 wasn't a bit keen on it, as it wouldn't have suited his 
 constitution and no priest could possibly have listened 
 to his confessions in a becoming frame of mind. No, 
 he made me promise to bring a priest when he was 
 no longer in a fit condition to shock one, which I did. 
 The truth is I left the Roman Church when Douglas 
 entered it. I felt it wasn't big enough to hold both 
 of us." 
 
 I was very lucky that night. In the course of con- 
 versation, and split up between innumerable little bits 
 of jollification that had nothing to do with the sub- 
 ject, I managed to get Ross's final words on the labor 
 that had chiefly occupied his curiously unselfish exist- 
 ence; and his valedictory remarks, so to speak, on the 
 one interest of his lifetime that will as surely gain 
 him posterity's gratitude as it shortened his own lease 
 of years. 
 
 I will put it all down here, not, as I have said, ex- 
 actly as I first received it from him, but without the
 
 ROBERT ROSS 157 
 
 hundred and one asides and comments which made it 
 flow easily in ordinary conversational channels at the 
 lime. He afterwards read and approved the result 
 of my Boswellian ardor, precisely in the form in which 
 I now give it to the reader. 
 
 " I do not agree with the views of Harris, Shaw or 
 Moore, on Wilde or his writings. The interest of 
 Wilde appeals quite differently to different people, as 
 I have tried to explain in the Preface to the 14th edi- 
 tion of ' De Profundis.' The point of Harris's book 
 is that it is his view. As Wilde said, * Attitude in Art 
 is everything,' and ' The highest as the lowest form of 
 criticism is a mode of autobiography.' All I have to 
 say myself on the subject is included in the various 
 Prefaces I have written to his works, purposely and 
 deliberately concealed in as few words as possible. 
 
 " Alfred Douglas indeed objected to what he called 
 my ' detached and patronizing attitude ' about 
 Wilde's writings. But I will confess to a certain craft 
 in exercising a reticence which I do not propose to 
 break. In the first place, my views of Wilde as a 
 writer would not be regarded as of any importance; 
 and my views of Wilde as a man would be regarded 
 as too biased. The latter objection would hold with 
 regard to his writings, even if I were accepted as 
 literary critic of any kind. Douglas and Crosland 
 sought vainly to discover some word of approval of 
 Wilde or his life among my sparse contributions to 
 literature on the subject. That they failed to do so 
 was one of the most gratifying tributes I have ever 
 received; but apart from that, I always calculated 
 that if I said nothing the reviewers of the new edi- 
 tions would not have anything to contradict, and
 
 158 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 would be compelled to discuss for the first time 
 Wilde's books on their own merits. In his lifetime 
 the reviewers merely reviewed his life and opinions. 
 My plan, I am pleased to say, has succeeded. 
 
 " I must admit that my attitude is a little like that 
 of Watts Dunton towards Rossetti. Indeed, in 
 darker moments I feel another Watts Dunton, with- 
 out complementary Swinburne to occupy my old age. 
 But let me say this to you, under the seal of publicity, 
 with regard to the viewpoints of Shaw and Moore, I 
 would never accept the criticism of another Irishman 
 on any Irish writer, living or dead. The Irish are 
 the best critics in the world on Greek, Latin, German 
 or English authors. They dislike each other too much 
 to be good critics of themselves. 
 
 ;< Wilde was quite incapable of judging Shaw, 
 whose facility and originality he undoubtedly envied 
 and admired; or Moore, whose industry and percep- 
 tion dazzled him more than he would admit; just as 
 Moore and Shaw, who, of course, disliked Wilde, are 
 possibly irritated with the interest which Wilde's 
 work excites among their contemporaries, particu- 
 larly as they honestly do not admire the work. 
 
 " Now about Douglas's book entitled ' The myth 
 of Oscar Wilde.' The only myth was that invented 
 by Douglas himself and subsequently maintained by 
 his family. I certainly never contradicted the myth 
 and always allowed ample room for credence in the 
 Preface to * De Profundis ' already mentioned ; but 
 Douglas became so enthusiastic that I suppose he 
 began to believe the myth himself. Its entire un- 
 truth was settled in the Ransome case, not merely by 
 the verdict of the Jury in Ransome' s favor, but by
 
 ROBERT ROSS 169 
 
 Douglas's own letters, one of which Harris quotes 
 with such excellent effect, and by his admissions in 
 the witness-box. 
 
 "When Douglas inherited 25,000 from Lord 
 Queensberry in the early part of 1900, Wilde still 
 being alive, I asked him to pay off Wilde's debts and 
 thereby acquire copyrights, which I offered to admin- 
 istrate on his behalf until he was repaid. Instead he 
 bought a stud at Chantilly and got through the money 
 in less than six months. What happened afterwards 
 Harris has recorded in his own vivid and inimitable 
 way with absolute truth. 
 
 " But Douglas never forgave either himself or me 
 for having rejected such a very good business pro- 
 posal. As years went on he became frankly jealous 
 at the prestige which I obtained for having rescued 
 Wilde's estate from bankruptcy, and he was envious 
 at the not inconsiderable proceeds which, if he had ac- 
 cepted my offer, would have been his. That was the 
 real basis of our final quarrel. . . . With the active 
 assistance of his cousin, George Wyndham, he then 
 began that series of actions, hoping not merely to turn 
 the tables on me, but to repatch his threadbare reputa- 
 tion for loyalty. 
 
 "Why George Wyndham should have played a 
 prominent part in the business is not, as Sir Thomas 
 Browne says, beyond all conjecture; but that is an- 
 other story which will have to be written some day. 
 
 " The function which I set myself in 1900 was to 
 try and get the books and plays a fair hearing and a 
 fair reading, and to obtain some benefit from their 
 sale for Wilde's children. My friends, and particu- 
 larly Frank Harris, have been more than generous in
 
 160 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 recognizing the success of my efforts, but I really 
 think my function has now come to an end, and if I 
 feel too complacent it is Harris and others who have 
 made me so by their exaggerated tributes to me. 
 
 ;< To paroday one of Wilde's jests with which you 
 are doubtless familiar, there are two ways of disliking 
 Wilde and his works. One way is to dislike them. 
 The other is to say that Robert Ross was too kind to 
 his children."
 
 XI 
 
 PLAYWRIGHT PRODUCERS 
 
 PLAY-PKODUCEKS are a race apart. Few other classes 
 of the community have the opportunity of being so 
 popular or so unpopular, so loved or so hated. They 
 are absolute despots; but the popular ones among 
 them have established benevolent autocracies, the un- 
 popular ones malevolent oligarchies. Unfortunately 
 this state of affairs can never be remedied until actors 
 and actresses are born again, and become a quite dif- 
 ferent set of individuals from what they are at present. 
 An ochlocracy on the stage is unthinkable as long as 
 the artists consider their parts more important than 
 the plays they are acting in. 
 
 Autocratic play-producers are therefore a neces- 
 sary evil the more autocratic the better until our 
 artists become socialized. 
 
 Perhaps the best producers in the world are the 
 authors of the plays produced. It is consequently up 
 to every professional producer, if he wants to keep his 
 job, to prevent the author from opening his mouth 
 at rehearsals. Once let it be realized that the author 
 is the only person who can, and should, produce his 
 own play, and the days of the professional producer 
 will be numbered. Of course the author, unless he has 
 mastered all the technicalities of stage production, 
 must have a scenery and lighting expert at command ; 
 
 161
 
 162 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 but that will simply mean the substitution of profes- 
 sional producers by professional technicians. 
 
 As things go at present, very few authors are al- 
 lowed to tamper with their own works. There are, 
 as far as I know, only three playwrights of recent 
 years who have managed to get matters entirely into 
 their own hands: Bernard Shaw, Sir Arthur Pinero 
 and Granville Barker. And of these only Granville 
 Barker has made a profession of the business that 
 is to say, he has produced other people's plays as well 
 as his own. The rest of our leading dramatists John 
 Galsworthy and Sir James Barrie for example con- 
 tent themselves with a few grandmotherly hints here 
 and there to producers and actors alike. 
 
 I don't suppose, if you searched theatrical history 
 from the time of Shakespeare to the present, you 
 would come across two men who differed more in their 
 methods of producing plays than Shaw and Pinero. 
 When I say that they differ in method, I ought to 
 qualify the statement by adding that their plays re- 
 quire a different kind of acting. They both write 
 plays with a purpose, but the purpose of Shaw's plays 
 is to make people think, while the purpose of Pinero's 
 plays is to make people pay. The former asks his 
 actors to realize what they are saying; the later asks 
 his actors to make the audience realize that something 
 is being said. Now the obvious result in the case of 
 Shaw is that he mustn't lose his temper; he often has 
 to explain what he is driving at, and one can't shout 
 explanations. But the equally obvious result in the 
 case of Pinero is that the more he shouts the better 
 he gets his effects: that is to say, the actor sometimes
 
 shouts back at him, which is precisely what he wants 
 or rather what he is positive his audience wants. 
 
 I remember once when Pinero lost his temper (and, 
 which was more to the purpose, found his voice) he 
 bellowed at someone : " I can't hear a damned sylla- 
 ble! For God's sake speak up!" The actor, en- 
 raged, literally howled his next line, which was some- 
 thing like: "Don't talk so loudly; they'll hear what 
 we say." There was a feeling of restraint about the 
 theater for the rest of that day. 
 
 " Too confidential," Pinero once said to me; " don't 
 forget the back row of the gallery." Another time, 
 after the curtain had fallen on one of the acts, he 
 came on to the stage, walked about darkly in a Na- 
 poleonic manner for a while, and then said : :" I'm 
 glad you are all enjoying the play; I've heard it's an 
 excellent one, and I'm sure it's too good to keep alto- 
 gether to yourselves. Don't be so selfish. Let me 
 have some of it." And he marched back to the stalls, 
 the curtain went up, and the act was played over 
 again. 
 
 Pinero is mad on details : positions to a square inch, 
 movements, inflections of voice, above all syllabic per- 
 fection in speaking the text. He treats his perform- 
 ers like a lot of babies. (He used to take Sir George 
 Alexander through his part like a child.) He has a 
 deep-rooted belief that actors can't think for them- 
 selves. He has been one himself, so he ought to know ! 
 I think someone must have told him that he resembles 
 Napoleon, or his aping of the Emperor may be un- 
 conscious. At any rate, he walks, head forward, in 
 short, quick steps, one hand behind his back, and
 
 164 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 glowers at one under bushy and autocratically-puck- 
 ered eyebrows. He is very short, inclined to stout- 
 ness, and has a deep voice that would be useful during 
 a cannonade. He smoke cigarettes interminably 
 never has one out of his mouth for five consecutive 
 minutes and for some reason best known to himself, 
 he never takes his gloves off. 
 
 The Pineronian method has, nevertheless, for all 
 its unbending theory of divine right of authors, one 
 distinct advantage over the Shavian. Pinero's mi- 
 nute attention to every detail, though often ridicu- 
 lous, is extended to the " small part " people ; and 
 there is great merit in this. Shaw never bothers him- 
 self much over the small parts. I suppose he im- 
 agines anybody can fill them adequately enough, but 
 he is mistaken. I have acted both large and small 
 parts, and I hereby put on record for the guidance 
 of future producers that the small part is much the 
 more difficult of the two. You may fail with a large 
 part in fifty places, but there are fifty more places 
 where you can make a dazzling success. A large part 
 covers a multitude of sins. That is what critics mean 
 (though they don't know they mean it) when they say 
 that no actor ever completely fails as Hamlet. If a 
 man fails in every scene as Hamlet, the sooner he 
 adopts pig-sticking as a trade the better! The thing 
 is morally and physically impossible for anyone with 
 half an ounce of brains or imagination. But a small 
 part is quite another matter. You've got to get 
 " right there " in a dozen lines or so, and the united 
 brains of actor, author and producer should be con- 
 centrated on the single question of How to do it. 
 
 Now, if you are playing a small part, Shaw will
 
 PLAYWRIGHT PRODUCERS 165 
 
 just correct you and then leave you to your fate. 
 He presupposes exceptional intelligence at <3 a week, 
 and if you don't show it he probably says to himself: 
 " God help the blithering idiot I shan't! " All the 
 same, I would rather suggest a " reading " of some- 
 thing or other to Pinero than to Shaw. I would feel 
 that Shaw has a contempt for mere technicalities. He 
 wants the brain sound and doesn't mind if the legs 
 wobble! 
 
 It is strange that Pinero, the theatrical, should sit 
 in the front row of the stalls, and that Shaw, the con- 
 fidential, should sit in the front row of the dress circle, 
 at rehearsal. In view of what I have said, one would 
 imagine Pinero behind the gallery, if not in the street 
 outside, and Shaw in the wings, if not walking about 
 among his characters on the stage. I can only sup- 
 pose the former stuffs his ears with cotton wool and 
 the latter uses an ear-trumpet. 
 
 When the curtain has fallen on an act at rehearsal, 
 Shaw comes round to the stage with a volume of notes 
 made during the performance. He then takes each 
 actor, quite personally and intimately, through the 
 notes that concern him. Pinero, on the contrary, 
 remembers all the faults in an act when it is finished 
 by going through it again, with himself of course 
 strolling about on the stage Tableau: Napoleon at 
 St. Helena. He then pulls you up at particular 
 places, after first giving you a hint that you were, all 
 through, too quiet, and says: " Ah, yes; this is where 
 I want you to turn slightly to the left, walk slowly to 
 a position exactly behind the center of the sofa, three 
 feet from it, put one hand in your right coat pocket, 
 scratch the lower part of your chin with the other
 
 166 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 hand, and say ' Oh! ' three times . . ."or something 
 to that effect. 
 
 Only once, I believe, has Shaw had nothing to do 
 with the London production of one of his plays until 
 the eleventh hour. Barker produced " Androcles and 
 the Lion " while Shaw was away on a holiday, and 
 things went fairly smoothly for several weeks until, 
 in fact, we started dress rehearsals. Then the author 
 turned up and proceeded to alter the greater part of 
 Barker's " business," keeping us all up till about 3 
 a.m. Such small regard for others struck me as curi- 
 ous in Shaw, since he is in so many respects the ideal 
 producer: his manner is ingratiating, he never loses 
 his temper, he is very helpful, very kind, very unself- 
 ish. He usually gets his way without the slightest 
 friction, though I remember seeing Barker on the 
 occasion just mentioned sitting with a face of 
 whimsical dejection as he watched G. B. S., who, 
 with angelic sweetness, was calmly undoing the work 
 of weeks. Another thing greatly in Shaw's favor: 
 he never makes one nervous, and to an actor this 
 quality alone would outweigh (if he had them) a 
 thousand crimes of colossal magnitude. 
 
 To each his due. Pinero wouldn't dream of keep- 
 ing his company busy till the small hours, and the 
 question imposes itself: Is it better to be treated like 
 a machine, with clock-work punctuality to match 
 (Pinero- Alexander), or to be treated like a human 
 being, with irregular hours as payment for your pli- 
 ability ( Shaw-Barker) ? 
 
 I would like to tell you of the gems of scintillating 
 wit that one would naturally suppose drop by the 
 score from the mouth of Shaw at each and every
 
 PLAYWRIGHT PRODUCERS 167 
 
 rehearsal. But in this respect (I must apologize for 
 destroying the illusion) he very much resembles the 
 average man. In short, he conducts his business in 
 a business-like manner. 
 
 There is really nothing more to be said about Shaw 
 and Pinero at rehearsal. They would both doubtless 
 improve over a bottle of champagne. Rehearsing is 
 too sorry a business to induce souls to blossom forth 
 like flowers to the view, and an author is invariably 
 at his worst when he is in a state of excitement over 
 
 his own work. 
 
 * # # # # 
 
 Granville Barker is the greatest producer of his 
 time in England. Without people being altogether 
 aware of it, he has revolutionized stage production in 
 this country. I don't know enough about it to ex- 
 plain how or why. I simply know that he has. His 
 work is always distinguished for its detail. There 
 are no rough edges in his productions, and his com- 
 panies are always the best for what is known as 
 " team work " in London. Even his " stars " have 
 taken their proper place in the planetary system; 
 they haven't been allowed to dazzle the lesser con- 
 stellations out of existence. 
 
 His method of producing is, on the whole, Shavian. 
 He takes things quietly and talks matters over inti- 
 mately. But he has some curiously anti-Shavian 
 lapses from grace. For one thing, he gets annoyed 
 and shows it. Shows it in a very terrifying manner. 
 His curses are neither loud nor deep: they are at- 
 mospheric. It is what he doesn't say that paralyzes 
 one. He looks; and having looked, he turns his back 
 to the stage and you can still see him looking
 
 168 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 through the back of his head. You feel that he is 
 saying quite a lot of things to himself, saying them 
 thoughtfully and wither ingly annihilating things. 
 You wish he would turn round and say them aloud. 
 You wish he would assault you with whatever con- 
 sequences to yourself. You wish he would do any- 
 thing rather than imitate a potential earthquake. 
 Sometimes he will execute a little dance, a quiet, soli- 
 tary waltz with ghastly possibilities. That is when 
 he thinks you are quite unimaginably shocking in your 
 efforts to get what he wants. It would be a grave 
 mistake to speak to him at those moments. The best 
 thing to do is to hide yourself from him completely 
 until he calls you back. By that time he will have 
 recovered, and will be quite charming. Perhaps he 
 will take you by the arm and call you his " dear 
 friend." Later, you will ask someone what hap- 
 pened after you had gone away. You will be told 
 that nothing happened nothing whatever! That is 
 the appalling thing about Barker. Nothing happens. 
 But all sorts of things are going to happen. He is the 
 supreme artist of Suggestion. 
 
 Like all exceptional men, he has his fads. One of 
 them is that he expects his artists to suggest things 
 in their parts as well as he can suggest other more 
 terrible things at rehearsal. To give an example. 
 He was rehearsing me for the part of Valentine in a 
 revival of "Twelfth Night" that didn't mature. 
 Valentine has a speech in which he gives a message 
 from Olivia to Orsino. I, very naturally, rendered 
 the speech exactly as given me by (presumably) 
 Maria. The actual words are : " But from her hand- 
 maid do return this answer." But that wasn't good
 
 PLAYWRIGHT PRODUCERS 169 
 
 enough for Barker. Oh, no ! He explained to me at 
 great length, and (I regret to say it) quite uncon- 
 vincingly, that part of the speech was Maria's own, 
 that Malvolio had probably touched it up in places, 
 and that Sir Toby Belch had unquestionably put a 
 phrase in here and there. He didn't tell me how all 
 this was to be suggested, short of imitating the voice 
 and manner of the various authors, so I failed to give 
 it Barker- justice. He ruffled his hair, executed a pas 
 de seulj and eventually (not, I hope, on account of 
 me) substituted another play. 
 
 After a play is launched on the public, Barker will 
 sometimes take it into his head to watch it, unseen, 
 from some obscure corner of the theater; and then 
 amuse himself by sending little notes to members of 
 the cast containing such cryptic sentences as : " You 
 are acting. Why? " or " You are not acting. Why 
 not? " or " How serious you are getting! " or " Re- 
 member this is a comedy." 
 
 Granville Barker was the directing artistic spirit 
 behind the most famous epoch in theatrical manage- 
 ment since the days of the Globe on Bankside. His 
 name will be wedded to Shaw's in the history of the 
 English theater. Without him, it is possible that 
 Shaw would never have obtained his English audi- 
 ence. The Vedrenne-Barker tenancy of the Court 
 Theatre is the most shining event in the story of our 
 drama since the time of Shakespeare. 
 
 That is fine enough achievement for a man without 
 the additional luster of personal dramatic triumphs. 
 But his own plays were, and to some extent still are, 
 notable. He suffered of course, like the rest of his 
 compeers, from following in the footsteps of Shaw
 
 170 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 the spiritual father of all our ' repertory ' dramatists, 
 if one may call them so. All the same, he brought a 
 kind of ironic seriousness to his work which struck 
 a sufficiently individual note to give him a niche to 
 himself. I must confess I can't read his plays with 
 much enjoyment, but I was delighted with " The 
 Voysey Inheritance " when I saw it, and " Waste " 
 was quite a good political pamphlet. 
 
 Some day the chronicle of our drama in the first 
 decade of this century will be written. It had its 
 exceptional features, quite apart from the plays of 
 Shaw, and Barker will be found to take his rightful 
 place in that chronicle as a very eminent Edwardian.
 
 POST-IMPRESSIONS
 
 H. G. WELLS 
 
 A MAN who writes a book about present-day person- 
 alities and leaves out H. G. Wells does an injustice 
 to posterity. A hundred years hence people will 
 want to know why we all made such a fuss about him. 
 It is up to us to satisfy their curiosity. It can be 
 done in a phrase. H. G. Wells is the literary 
 Weather-Cock of the age. When the war-clouds 
 banked up on the south-eastern horizon in 1914, he 
 spotted them from afar, and click! round he went 
 with the popular gale. Long before the war the 
 Woman Suffrage movement, when it was too 
 strong for a modern thinker to resist, found in him 
 a doughty champion. There never was a more heroic 
 fighter on the winning side. The moment an enemy 
 turns tail "the world's greatest writer" (as the ad- 
 vertisements call him) will jump and shout and shake 
 his fist and put out his tongue until it's time to spin 
 round and exhibit his gifts in another direction. 
 
 His public behavior leads one to believe that in 
 extreme youth he was the spoilt child of the family. 
 I feel certain that as a youngster he was perpetually 
 being stuffed with sweets and similar delicacies by 
 fond and admiring relations a sort of fat boy. As 
 a writer, too, he has been successful from the start, 
 spoilt by good fortune, and he has gone on from tri- 
 umph to triumph. No poor, neglected, struggling 
 author for him! 
 
 When someone happens to disagree with him over 
 
 173
 
 174 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 one of his touchy subjects, he works himself up into 
 a state of ungovernable fury and attacks his critic 
 with vitriolic violence. His critic naturally thinks 
 that Wells will never speak to him again: indeed he 
 is not at all certain that he wants to speak to Wells 
 again. But he reckons without his antagonist. At 
 the first encounter after one of these utterly unwar- 
 rantable attacks, Wells will meet him with extended 
 arms and chat away with extraordinary warmth as 
 though nothing of the smallest consequence had oc- 
 curred to change their quite brotherly affection for 
 one another. After which the critic feels rather like 
 the Prodigal Son. 
 
 Asked to explain one of these devastating on- 
 slaughts, our versatile novelist will no doubt apologize 
 profusely, tell his faltering critic not to take him too 
 seriously as he really couldn't help it, he was made 
 like that, and so on. 
 
 Some people get annoyed at this kind of thing; but 
 they needn't lose their sleep over it. All they have 
 to do is to picture the fat boy being gorged with 
 plums!
 
 EDMUND GOSSE 
 
 MR. GOSSE if he is still writing reviews when my 
 book appears, and if he deigns to review mine will 
 deny me. He will say: " I know not the man." And 
 he will be quite right. Although I have sat in his 
 company twenty times, and once actually sat on his 
 coat-tails, he has probably never seriously considered 
 my existence. We have even been together, he and 
 I, at 10 Downing Street, but he probably thought I 
 was there to help him on with his coat, and no doubt 
 regarded me through his spectacles with mild amaze- 
 ment when I showed no inclination to do so. 
 
 After suffering my presence, cheek by jowl so to 
 speak, on fourteen committees, it is recorded that he 
 referred to me in the ensuing phrase, addressed rather 
 despairingly to a fellow committee-man: "Who is 
 this young person? " His query was prompted by a 
 remark I had just made, in a louder tone than usual, 
 on the stupidity of most literary critics. 
 
 The answer of his fellow committee-man appar- 
 ently didn't take root, and he continued to gaze at 
 me, when there was nothing else left to gaze at, with 
 now and then a suspicion of fright in his eyes as of 
 one who is afraid a tip may be required of him when 
 he has run out of small change. 
 
 Like so many other " modern " writers of his 
 period, he refuses to believe that the world has ad- 
 vanced since the death of Ibsen. His quiet little 
 jokes, much appreciated by Peers of the Realm, and 
 
 175
 
 176 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 his felicitous little apothegms, very popular at gen- 
 teel tea-parties, have gained him the ear of the Elect. 
 His manners are just what they should be; he is 
 nothing if not respectable; and no one, except an 
 anarchist, could possibly take the smallest exception 
 to him.
 
 ARTHUR BOURCHIER 
 
 THEEE is a most refreshing breeziness about the per- 
 sonality of Arthur Bourchier. He brings the at- 
 mosphere of our drama's good old palmy days back 
 on to the stage. I don't know what those good old 
 palmy days precisely were; but I am positive Arthur 
 Bourchier is a relic of them. Someone talks of the 
 Higher Drama. " Higher Rubbish! " says our 
 Arthur and the Walls of Jericho promptly collapse. 
 He produces plays that conform to the standard of 
 palmy drama. They usually fail to attract a palmy 
 public, but nothing will induce him to give in. He 
 continues to palm them off as novelties upon play- 
 goers who are quite willing to stand him, but simply 
 won't stomach his mid-Victorian tastes. 
 
 He will clinch any argument by dragging in Shake- 
 speare. Not that he really cares for Shakespeare, or 
 understands him, but he is certain that Shakespeare 
 (probably because he wrote spanking big Bour- 
 chierian parts) was the palmiest of all our play- 
 wrights. The Arthur Bourchiers of two hundred 
 years hence will be bludgeoning their antagonists with 
 the name of Shaw, just as those of to-day knock down 
 theirs with the name of Shakespeare. They will do 
 it all with the utmost good-humor, in a winning, 
 breezy, urbane manner. And they will mention the 
 fact (which might otherwise have escaped their oppo- 
 nents) that they have been at Oxford. Not for any 
 snobbish reason, of course, but merely to prove that 
 
 177
 
 178 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 they know a little more than a thing or two about the 
 classics and the moderns. 
 
 The spectacle of our own particular Bourchier hob- 
 nobbing with the great ones of the world has been 
 vouchsafed to me. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring 
 sight ; and one cannot help feeling astonished that his 
 courtier-like qualities have not received some kingly 
 recompense. Alas ! the interest of the Royal Family 
 in stage personalities is unavoidably narrowed in sev- 
 eral directions. An actor's presence in the Divorce 
 Court is fatal to his presence at the Royal Court, and 
 a nodding acquaintance with His Majesty's judges 
 is not favorable to an acquaintance, however slight, 
 with His Majesty. A leading actor may hobnob with 
 a live Princess or several live Princesses but bang 
 goes his knighthood if he dares to " gag " his mar- 
 riage lines. Everyone will agree that this is a shock- 
 ing state of affairs. It is terrible to think that a great 
 and good man may be forced to eat his heart out in 
 silence as an ordinary esquire; but so it is. . . .1 am 
 wandering from the point. . . . 
 
 The Arthur Bourchiers of all ages never move for- 
 ward. They existed in the beginning and they will 
 be in at the death. The world couldn't get on with- 
 out them. They are necessary, if only to delay the 
 Millennium. Just imagine how dreadful it would be 
 if every new idea were allowed to expand ( and even 
 God spare us! fructify) without being held in check 
 by the Bourchier of its time, who merely has to ex- 
 claim (breezily, of course) "Bosh!" and "Shake- 
 speare! " in order to settle the matter for a score of 
 years or more I
 
 MRS. ASQUITH 
 
 I ONCE shook hands with Margot. That may not 
 sound particularly exciting. But it was at least an 
 experience. Margot does literally shake hands: she 
 doesn't merely present you with three or more fin- 
 gers. And she's like that herself. To meet her is 
 a distinct mental and physical experience, a sort of 
 personal impact. She comes to grips with you in- 
 stantly, and she is one of those very uncommon people 
 who insist upon your undivided attention: you 
 couldn't possibly carry on a conversation with her and 
 somebody else at one and the same time. 
 
 She has the art of making you believe she thinks 
 a devil of a lot of you, thus achieving her real object, 
 viz., to make you think a devil of a lot of her ! Those 
 who succumb to her charms are given a place in her 
 autobiography, with their conversations verbatim. 
 Those who don't succumb to her charms are also 
 given a place in her autobiography, with their con- 
 versations Margotized. The truly fortunate ones are 
 those who, like myself, are content to shake hands 
 and then remember an important appointment. 
 
 But I was never seriously in danger at all. Be- 
 cause the one great attraction of Margot's Memoirs 
 to the man in the street is that the authoress appears 
 to have suffered from the most curious lapses of mem- 
 ory whenever she was in the company of the man in 
 the street. . . . 
 
 179
 
 SIR HALL CAINE 
 
 IT would be impossible to impress the personality of 
 Hall Caine on the world more forcefully than he him- 
 self has already impressed it. The vision of the 
 domed head, saucer eyes and neatly pointed beard- 
 all resting lightly, aslant, on long, shapely fingers 
 will be remembered until it is forgotten. 
 
 For the benefit of remote posterity, which one can 
 only pray will never cease to be remote, I shall record 
 three scenes in which, I am led to believe, this master- 
 Manxman entirely succeeded in impressing his per- 
 sonality on such contemporaries as were fortunate 
 .enough to participate in them. 
 
 SCENE 1. THE DOGGER BANK. 
 
 The news was already twenty-four hours old. The 
 country was humming with excitement. Some peace- 
 ful English fishing smacks had been fired on by the 
 Russian Baltic Fleet, on its way to join battle with 
 the Japs in the Far East. The editor of a leading 
 London paper was discussing the situation with sev- 
 eral members of his staff in the editorial office. Mr. 
 Hall Caine was announced. He entered immediately. 
 The members of the staff moved towards the door. 
 " Don't go, gentlemen," said the great novelist with 
 his well-known courtesy. The door was shut, the 
 members of the staff formed a little group by the fire- 
 place, and Mr. Caine subsided on the nearest sofa. 
 
 180
 
 SIRHALLCAINE 181 
 
 He was visibly agitated, but managed, nevertheless, 
 to subside in the attitude familiarized by the statue 
 of Shakespeare in Leicester Square. He looked at 
 nothing, very intently, for half a minute, and then 
 spoke : 
 
 " I can't do it," he said. 
 
 " What? " asked the editor. 
 
 Hall Caine lifted his head ever so slightly. 
 
 " Did you say * What '? " he murmured. 
 
 " Oh, I was forgetting I must apologize," said 
 the editor; "the latest news had driven your article 
 out of my head; " and then, quickly recollecting him- 
 self, he added : " just for a minute, I mean." 
 
 Hall Caine sighed deeply. The editor went on: 
 
 " Do you really mean you can't write the account 
 for us? But you were on the spot. You saw the 
 smacks come in " 
 
 "Don't remind me of it!" broke in the famous 
 writer; " it will be for ever branded in my memory. 
 The women! The children! Their cries! Ah, too 
 terrible! Too too too " 
 
 At this point, being unable to think of a more em- 
 phatically expressive word than "terrible" (even 
 Shakespeare sometimes stumbled in his speech), Hall 
 Caine covered his face with his hands, overcome with 
 emotion. After a few moments his natural manliness 
 reasserted itself. With astonishing self-control he re- 
 sumed his original position to a square inch and pro- 
 ceeded : 
 
 " Knowing the power of my pen, aware of the 
 influence my works exercise on the thoughts of so 
 many people, convinced that a description by me of 
 the Dogger Bank incident might sway the minds of
 
 182 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 multitudes and plunge this nation into war, I decided 
 to take counsel with my friends. I first approached 
 Lord Rosebery. I laid my misgivings plainly before 
 him. I asked for his advice. ' Your pen,' he said, 
 ' should never be used unworthily ; you are right to 
 hesitate; reserve it, I beg you, for the greatest of all 
 causes: Peace and Civilization.' I then called on my 
 old friend the Bishop of London. I informed him 
 of your offer. ' My dear fellow,' he said, taking me 
 by the arm, ' you can only settle a matter of such 
 dreadful moment on your knees. God will help you 
 at this crisis if you call upon Him. As for me, I 
 would not deserve the name of friend if I did not 
 exhort you to hold your hand.' ' 
 
 Mr. Caine paused, and then got up to go. At the 
 door he turned to the editor and said in the voice of 
 a man who has suffered and triumphed: " I am sorry, 
 deeply sorry, I cannot do as you ask. The considera- 
 tions that urge me to a refusal are too high to be ig- 
 nored. Good morning, gentlemen." 
 
 SCENE 2. READING HIS PLAY. 
 
 The whole company was assembled, and sat in a 
 semicircle awaiting the author. At last he entered, 
 carrying a portfolio, half an hour late. " This chair 
 is not high enough," said the author. Cushions were 
 sent for. ' The cushions are too soft," said the au- 
 thor. Another chair was sent for. " I don't like the 
 position of the light," said the author. The position 
 of the light was changed. " I would like a tilted desk 
 or lectern to read on," said the author. A lectern 
 jvas fetched from a neighboring store. " I have for-
 
 SIRHALLCAINE 183 
 
 gotten my reading spectacles," said the author. A 
 taxicab was despatched to bring his reading 
 spectacles. 
 
 Two hours after the company assembled, the au- 
 thor was adjusting his spectacles. The operation 
 concluded, he glanced over the spectacles at each 
 member of the company, beginning on his extreme 
 left and ending on his extreme right. He then pro- 
 duced a red silk pocket-handkerchief and placed it 
 on the lectern. He coughed slightly twice, and in 
 a low, impressive tone read the words : " Act I, 
 Scene I." He coughed slightly a third time, read- 
 justed his spectacles, glanced once more at the com- 
 pany, as though surprised they hadn't broken out into 
 applause, and then continued. The first word had 
 hardly left his mouth when a barrel-organ immedi- 
 ately beneath the window struck up : " It's a long 
 way to Tipperary." The author sat back in his seat. 
 A nervous tremor passed through the company. 
 
 ' Will someone go quickly and tell that man," 
 spake the author, " that HALL CAINE is reading 
 his play! " 
 
 SCENE 3. IN CHURCH. 
 
 The memorial service for Sir Herbert Tree was 
 being held at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. It was a 
 most impressive service, and the majority of those 
 present were deeply affected. One member of the 
 congregation, more wrought upon than the others 
 and unable to contain his emotion in the pew assigned 
 to him, stepped out into the center of the aisle and 
 remained for several minutes gazing upwards in a 
 trance-like posture.
 
 184 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 " Hullo! " said everyone to his neighbor: " There's 
 HALL CAINE!" 
 
 The great man, whose noblest inspirations (it is 
 said) come to him on mountain- tops, continued to 
 gaze upwards. . . .
 
 LEWIS WALLER 
 
 HE didn't like it a bit, but he had to pretend he did 
 all the same. I believe it was "Punch" that first 
 satirized the clique of maiden ladies who made poor 
 Waller look ridiculous in and out of season. Our 
 national comic organ called them the " K.O.W. Bri- 
 gade." (Explanatory note for future historians: 
 K.O.W. = Keen On Waller.) 
 
 Lewis Waller was an exceptionally pleasant, hail- 
 fellow-well-met, clubable type of man. And he 
 wasn't half as conceited as he might forgivably have 
 been. He was gifted with a handsome presence and 
 a superb voice. In the art of declaiming Shakespeare 
 he was without a rival in his generation. His voice 
 hadn't the flute-like flexibility, the exquisite timbre 
 of Forbes-Robertson's; but it had a resonance about 
 it, a bell-like quality, that compelled one's admiration 
 even for such a wretched person as Henry V. 
 
 He once told me that he worshiped Shakespeare 
 and never wanted to act in anyone else's plays. 
 
 ; ' Then why in the name of conscience don't you go 
 on producing Shakespeare? " I asked. 
 
 " I would if I could, but I can't! " he said. " If 
 only I could pay my way, without a cent of profit, 
 I'd stick to Shakespeare. But it's no good. The 
 public want ' Robin Hood ' and ' Monsieur Beau- 
 caire '; and after all I must live! " 
 
 " But what about your crowds of female admirers? 
 
 185
 
 186 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 Surely they come regularly to whatever you put on? 
 Their taste in plays is, I understand, catholic. So 
 long as you are in them, they'll be content with any- 
 thingfrom ' Hamlet ' to * Charley's Aunt.' " 
 
 Waller's eyes danced with merriment while I was 
 speaking. Then he became grave, and answered my 
 questions with two more: " Will no one rid me of 
 these turbulent priestesses? . . . Besides, what shall 
 it profit a manager if he fill the whole pit and has to 
 paper his stalls? " 
 
 So, as I said before, he didn't like it a bit, but he 
 had to pretend he did all the same. . . .
 
 WINSTON CHURCHILL 
 
 NOTHING short of death will prevent Winston from 
 becoming Prime Minister of the country for which 
 he has so nobly sacrificed all his principles. Our 
 front benchers would be lost without him. Firstly 
 because he has a very pretty wit and is a master of 
 the art of saying nothing at great length. Secondly 
 because his hand never trembles as he throws the dice 
 at the Whitehall Gambling Saloons. 
 
 He is the Jack-in-the-box of the English political 
 world like his ancestors before him. No power on 
 earth will keep him boxed up for long. The man 
 who can survive the Antwerp and Gallipoli hazards 
 of the late war will survive anything except national 
 education. 
 
 Like most men of his class, he is a half -finished 
 product. His knowledge is synoptic, his instincts 
 barbarous. But he has the supreme gift of plausi- 
 bility, and this, in the ordinary course of things, 
 should land us into several dozen minor campaigns 
 and possibly one or two more spanking big wars be- 
 fore he is laid to rest by a sorrowing and grateful 
 nation in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 I have only once known him to be temporarily 
 cornered in an argument. Someone asked him to 
 say, honestly, whether he thought the recurrence of 
 war for its own sake morally justifiable. Winston 
 dashed off a lengthy series of qualifications and his- 
 torical instances to prove, in effect, that there was 
 
 187
 
 188 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 a great deal to be said in favor of it. His inter- 
 locutor wouldn't be put off ; he repeated his question, 
 adding the emphatic: cf Yes or No?" 
 
 Winston was momentarily nonplussed; then, with 
 an effort, he rose to the occasion in true parlia- 
 mentary style 
 
 "Ye. . . , O!" he said.
 
 JOSEPH CONRAD 
 
 IT is remarkable how willing we are, as a nation, to 
 idolize anything we don't produce particularly if 
 the product flatters us by taking up his, her or its 
 residence among us as naturally as any home-bred 
 substance. Of course the foreign import whether 
 animal, vegetable or mineral has to fight tooth and 
 nail for recognition; but when once we take it to our 
 hearts and homes, nothing is good enough for it. It 
 begins to assume a sort of Divine Right. It can do 
 no wrong. It is better, far better, than anything 
 originally our own. Look at the difficulties it has 
 had to encounter! Look at the obstacles it has had 
 to surmount! 
 
 Mr. Joseph Conrad has taken the country by 
 storm. From the moment of his first success each 
 work has been pronounced greater than its prede- 
 cessor. The English language has been ransacked 
 for superlatives to do his genius justice. I tremble 
 to think what will happen when his next book ap- 
 pears. May I venture the suggestion that the critics 
 should, for the future, discuss him in Sanskrit? 
 Otherwise they will be forced to repeat everything 
 they've already said. 
 
 What is the grand secret of Conrad's success? 
 Not, I am convinced, his genius; because there was 
 real genius in his earlier works, and they were not 
 successful. I am afraid his popularity has been 
 gained by his style. It is a style that hints at im- 
 
 189
 
 190 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 mensities, at vastnesses, at expanses, at illimitables 
 at anything, in fact, that a walled-in, boxed-down, 
 mentally-cramped, urban population knows nothing 
 about and therefore dotes upon. The souls of his 
 readers wander aimlessly through the star-lit spaces, 
 trying to find expression in those terrific silences. 
 The creed was revealed to me not long ago by an 
 ardent Conradian in these mystical words: 
 
 " Heavens alive, man! One can even feel his 
 dots.
 
 DEAN INGE 
 
 I MET the " Gloomy Dean " before he became gloomy 
 or a dean at least before he became notoriously 
 gloomy. He was never, I believe, renowned for 
 joviality. In those days he had a fashionable con- 
 gregation somewhere west of Hyde Park Corner, 
 and he was to be seen sipping tea in swagger drawing- 
 rooms not a hundred miles from Prince's Gate. 
 
 He had always what I may describe as a " down 
 on democracy." He is, as a matter of fact, a typical 
 product of the Upper Middle Class, and he cannot 
 forget that the Duke of Wellington was reported 
 to have said that the Battle of Waterloo was won 
 on the playing-fields of Eton. His " Outspoken 
 Essays " are regarded as courageous merely because 
 they are by the Dean of St. Paul's. His so-called 
 advanced views are no more advanced than Plato's, 
 and he can thank the classics for whatever fame he 
 has achieved. 
 
 He is simply a class-prejudiced clergyman who 
 happened not to skip Demosthenes at school, and his 
 hatred of Trades Unions is founded on an ineradi- 
 cable belief that the rest of the world is in a con- 
 spiracy against him. 
 
 101
 
 MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL 
 
 GEORGE ALEXANDER told me that the most remark- 
 able discovery he had ever made in his life was Mrs. 
 Patrick Campbell and that he had never ceased to 
 regret it! 
 
 Mrs. Pat is the most astonishing and the most dis- 
 concerting actress on the English stage. To quote 
 Tree: "When she's good, she's divinely good; but 
 when she's bad oh, my God!" She can make or 
 mar a play. No one ever had more of the true his- 
 trionic afflatus than she. And no one ever more care- 
 lessly treated such gifts. Alternately she will make 
 you want to rise from your seat and cheer her to 
 the echo, or rise from your seat and walk out of the 
 theater. 
 
 She can, and does, produce the same contrary 
 effects upon her managers (managers indeed!) and 
 her fellow-artists. She either drives them frantic 
 with despair or makes them want to lick her boots. 
 I have known occasions when everyone in the theater 
 was running about doing things, or trying to find 
 things to do, for Mrs. Pat; and I have known other 
 occasions when everyone in the theater, from manager 
 to call-boy, was locked up in a distant room, or 
 otherwise concealed, for the purpose of tearing his 
 hair in sacred solitude. According to the whim of 
 the moment she can transport those about her to 
 Heaven or Hanwell! 
 
 That unique temperament of hers has brought our 
 
 192
 
 MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL 193 
 
 dramatists and theatrical managers to their knees. 
 They entreat her to play their Mrs. Tanquerays and 
 what-nots, because no other living actress is a con- 
 ceivable substitute, but shudder at the fate that may 
 overtake them the moment she darkens the stage- 
 door! 
 
 She can't help it. She was made like that. God 
 be praised for it! And the Devil be damned for it!
 
 FATHER BERNARD VAUGHATsT 
 
 A CLERGYMAN has this tremendous advantage over a 
 layman: he is taken on trust. It is assumed that a 
 cassock and a comic collar transform a man internally 
 as well as externally. Certain things are definitely 
 expected of reverend gentlemen. Among other 
 things, reverence itself is expected of them rever- 
 ence for customs and conventions no less than for 
 creeds. Thus, when a priest proclaims from the 
 pulpit certain matters that everyone except a priest 
 is supposed to know, he immediately reaches a fame 
 that is only attained in other spheres by geniuses, 
 criminals and polyandrous actresses. 
 
 This is an age of self-advertisement. The suc- 
 cessful man, the famous man, the popular man is the 
 one who booms himself to the best advantage. 
 Luckily most clergymen don't boom with the rest of 
 us for all they are worth, but are generally content 
 to intone to select and dwindling congregations of 
 their own. Here and there, however, a man of God 
 springs forth into the arena, filled with that rare and 
 exalted spirit of denunciation which characterized 
 his primitive predecessors. Of such is Dean Inge. 
 Of such was Bernard Vaughan in the first decade 
 of the present century. He is now, for all practical 
 purposes, a back-number, largely because he began 
 by shouting so loud that his lungs couldn't keep pace 
 with his indignation. Also people got tired of being 
 bawled at on one note. 
 
 194
 
 FATHER BERNARD VAUGHAN 195 
 
 I have been near him in restaurants, at private 
 views, and in the mansions of the great. Once I 
 spoke to him for several minutes together; but I 
 couldn't regard our conversation as in any sense in- 
 timate because he contrived simultaneously to ad- 
 dress everybody else within earshot. 
 
 Yet I would be the last to complain of our Bernard 
 Vaughans; for though as demagogues they eclipse 
 the laity of nations, they never fail to increase the 
 public stock of harmless pleasure. . . .
 
 IRENE VANBRUGH 
 
 THE mere existence of Irene Vanbrugh is a standing 
 reproach to the modern stage. What juvenile actress 
 of the present day has an earthly chance of taking 
 her place or anything like her place? She went on 
 the stage at a time when one had to win through by 
 sheer merit. Her art is an art, not a trick of per- 
 sonality. 
 
 The London stage of to-day is overrun by flappers 
 and jazzers. A lady has to be either killingly beau- 
 tiful or killingly herself, somehow or otherhow, to 
 be a really big success. She doesn't have to act: she 
 has to allure. Preferably, too, there should be just 
 a breath of scandal about her, because an unspotted 
 domestic life will never cause a run on the box office. 
 She doesn't have to learn a job. (Why worry about 
 learning a job when one gets paid better for being, 
 adorably, oneself?) Instead, she plays golf, attends 
 tea-parties in fashionable West End restaurants, 
 gambles, smokes cigarettes or eats chocolates in her 
 spare moments, talks thirteen to the dozen (chiefly 
 about nothing), and finishes off the rollicking day 
 with a pirouette. 
 
 We cannot be too grateful for the fact that when 
 Irene Vanbrugh commenced her career, the public 
 and the managers had not yet discovered that a 
 single success, repeated ad nauseam, was the only 
 requisite of a " star " actress. They even realized 
 
 196
 
 IRENE VANBRUGH 197 
 
 that it was not necessary for a lady to resemble an 
 orthodox portrait of St. Agatha in order to give a 
 good performance. Perhaps one may go so far as 
 to say that they actually preferred human versatility 
 to human statuary!
 
 To the question: " What do you think of the present 
 state of affairs?" the Prime Minister replied: 
 
 " The eruption is subsiding: the lava is cooling. 
 Black clouds have been shrouding the valley, but 
 already I see glimpses of the sun upon the mountain- 
 tops. The ship of state has been buffeted by squalls 
 and hurricanes; and though the pilot's hair is now a 
 trifle bleached, the port is in sight and we will soon 
 slip anchor in calmer waters than those through 
 which we have manfully plowed." 
 
 " But," I said, " what of the Unemployment ques- 
 tion? " 
 
 " I am coming to that," answered the Premier. 
 ' The sharks are surrounding the vessel, and we 
 must throw them all the waste food we can spare 
 to keep them from gnawing the rudder. They poison 
 the waters about us, while we are prostrated with 
 thirst. Sooner or later the crew must perish or over- 
 come these despoilers of plenty. . . ." 
 
 "How do you propose to deal with the serious 
 question of high prices and lowering wages?" I 
 broke in. 
 
 " I will tell you," said the Premier. ' The corn 
 is standing thick in the fields, but the reapers are 
 wrangling in the market-place. Our ships go out to 
 India, to America, to South Africa, to China yea, 
 even to the Antipodes but they go with empty holds. 
 In ten years' five years' two years' time. . . ." 
 
 198
 
 LLOYD GEORGE 199 
 
 " Are there, then, no bright spots on the horizon? " 
 " I hear a rumbling under the earth . . . Oh, that 
 
 reminds me! I have to meet the Union leaders at 
 
 the House in ten minutes. Good-morning. I think 
 
 I have answered all your questions." 
 And, with a gracious bow, Mr. Lloyd George 
 
 slipped from the room. 
 
 (N.B. Feeling that, at such a serious moment in 
 our country's history, the foregoing passages from 
 my interview with the Prime Minister will help and 
 inspire all classes of the community, I have arranged 
 with the publishers that no action shall be taken 
 against any infringement of the copyright as it con- 
 cerns this particular Post-Impression.)
 
 GENEVIEVE WARD 
 
 I HAVE only seen one actress of the grand style in 
 my life. Her name: Genevieve Ward. By a re- 
 markable stroke of good fortune her Volumnia in 
 " Coriolanus," her Margaret in " Richard III " have 
 survived their own dramatic epoch and have been 
 seen by a Revue-ridden generation. 
 
 I take pride in the fact that I have played with 
 her too; and it was, if possible, a more wonderful 
 experience to do that than to watch her from the 
 stalls. 
 
 Genevieve Ward is, I suppose, the last in the line 
 of a great tradition. It was a tradition of histrionic 
 technique. Freeness of movement, fullness of ges- 
 ture, richness of declamation, breadth of conception 
 all these went to the making of that grand manner 
 which built up the tradition and which will pass away 
 for ever with " our last tragedienne." 
 
 The spacious days of Burbage and Betterton, 
 Mrs. Siddons and David Garrick, Edmund Kean 
 and Henry Irving, are over and done with. The 
 tradition, which goes back to Marlowe, is now as 
 dead as Samuel Phelps and not a little of Shake- 
 speare's stage popularity was buried with the won- 
 derful old actor of Sadler's Wells. 
 
 We are fortunate to have come into the world just 
 in time to catch the thrill of that great school, im- 
 parted to us by the flaming art of Genevieve Ward. 
 
 200
 
 "JOHN BULL" 
 
 THE sincerity of our big public men has frequently 
 been called in question. Personally, I refuse to be- 
 lieve that an insincere man can reach eminence and 
 gain popular esteem. 
 
 Perhaps the biggest of all our big men and there- 
 fore, according to my calculation, the most sincere 
 is Mr. Horatio Bottomley. 
 
 I shall never forget a wonderful evening in the 
 Xorth sometime during the great war. Mr. Bot- 
 tomley was announced as the principal speaker, and 
 the hall was crammed from floor to ceiling. Never, 
 surely, was this always-powerful orator more potent. 
 His auditors were moved and enchanted beyond 
 words. I cannot (who could?) give any idea of the 
 emotion that seized and choked us at points in his 
 astonishing discourse. His peroration still haunts 
 me a thing of beauty and a joy forever. The en- 
 thusiasm it evoked was as " unprecedented " as it 
 always is whenever Mr. Bottomley speaks. 
 
 " And now, ladies and gentlemen," he said, " there 
 are three things that are going to win us this war. 
 One thing is our position in regard to munitions." 
 At this point the speaker said a few words about the 
 munitions situation generally. He continued : " The 
 second thing that will help us through this terrible 
 ordeal is that we are Englishmen ! " This sentiment 
 was naturally greeted with an immense outburst of 
 
 201
 
 202 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 cheering. For several minutes Mr. Bottomley stood 
 erect on the platform waiting for the silence that 
 patriotism would hardly give. At last he held up 
 his hand and order was restored. In solemn tones 
 the orator proceeded: 
 
 "And the last thing, ladies and gentlemen, that 
 will beyond cavil or question give us Victory 
 Triumphant is THAT THERE IS A GOD IN 
 HEAVEN!" 
 
 At these inspiring words the whole audience rose 
 as one man and nearly lifted the roof off. Mr. Bot- 
 tomley bent before the deafening roar, and then, 
 with a bashfulness that does him honor, quietly dis- 
 appeared from the public gaze. He was naturally 
 pleased at the success of his efforts in the sacred cause 
 of Humanity, but being a really big man he mini- 
 mized the true extent of his magnificent achievement 
 by saying to the first person he ran up against after 
 leaving the stage: 
 
 "That fetched 'em what?"
 
 THE IRVINGS 
 
 THE brothers, H. B. and Laurence Irving, were a 
 curious pair. Great things were at one time expected 
 of H. B., but they never came to anything. Great 
 things were then expected of Laurence, but they 
 never came to anything either. 
 
 I am informed, and am quite willing to believe, 
 that H. B. Irving was a rattling good actor when 
 he took the town by storm as The Admirable 
 Crichton. But when I first saw him, he was hard at 
 work modeling himself on his father and acting in 
 his father's tenth-rate melodramas. Having rever- 
 ently prostrated himself before the tradition of Sir 
 Henry, he never properly got on his feet again; and 
 whenever he essayed a serious role, he succumbed 
 to the illusion that, to be thoroughly effective, the 
 words should be spoken in a moan or a wail. Un- 
 fortunately his father died before I left school, and 
 I never saw him; but I assume that the mantle of 
 Elijah fell upon the shoulders of Elisha, his first- 
 born, and practically smothered him in the process. 
 H. B. was a first-rate comedian. A Repertory 
 Theater would have picked him out consistently for 
 its Charley's Aunts and its Private Secretaries. But 
 his performance of Hamlet should have been for- 
 bidden by Act of Parliament. It was too bad even 
 to make jokes about. . . . 
 
 Brother Laurence was something of a scholar. He 
 was excellent in " thinking " parts, and once, in 
 
 203
 
 204 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 " Typhoon," he achieved greatness. I think he must 
 have had more of his father's peculiar genius than 
 his brother, because there were moments of quite 
 superb tragic force in his acting. He was a naturally 
 morbid man suicidally so and the influence of 
 Russia and Russian literature upon him were not of 
 a kind to dispel his constitutional gloom. He didn't, 
 like his brother, display a dilettantish interest in 
 crime. He knew too much about it. ... 
 
 All in all, I imagine H. B. inherited his father's 
 superficial, and Laurence his father's fundamental, 
 characteristics. Neither of them added much to their 
 inheritance.
 
 THE CHESTERTONS 
 
 I SENT several essays to Cecil Chesterton, when he 
 was editor of " The New Witness." They were, in 
 my opinion, very good essays. I mentioned in my 
 letter that it was just possible my work showed the 
 influence of his famous brother G. K. C., whose writ- 
 ings at that time were making a great impression on 
 me. Cecil replied gracefully, asking me to come and 
 see him. 
 
 "I like your essays very much indeed," he said; 
 " would you care to try your hand at reviews of 
 novels for the ' Witness ' ? I can offer you 3 a 
 week." 
 
 ' Very sorry," said I, " but I can't write about 
 what doesn't interest me. Novels don't interest me. 
 If you'll put me on to the historical stuff, memoirs, 
 etc., I'll be delighted." 
 
 He shook his head. " Full up ! sorry very sorry 
 can't be helped, I suppose but I'd like to have 
 you working here if only because of my brother." 
 
 I didn't quite catch his meaning. " Your brother! " 
 I exclaimed; " what's he got to do with it? " 
 
 He looked at me severely. " You are a friend of 
 his, I understood you to say? " 
 
 ' You misunderstood me. I said in my letter that 
 he had influenced me that is all ! " 
 
 Cecil searched for my letter, found it eventually, 
 and held the sheet about two inches from his nose 
 
 205
 
 206 MODERN MEN AND MUMMERS 
 
 as he read it. Then he rose, held out his hand, wished 
 me a " good-morning " and I left hurriedly. 
 
 " The love of brothers passeth all understanding,'* 
 I murmured as I turned into the Strand. . . . 
 
 A year later I was in a public-house somewhere in 
 the region of Fleet Street. An enormous person 
 with bushy hair, a mustache and eye-glasses, filled a 
 good third of the saloon. ' That," I said to myself, 
 " can be no other than the creator of ' Sunday '." 
 
 I edged round him and got to a position from 
 which I could address him with a minimum of dis- 
 comfort to either of us. 
 
 "How's your brother?" I demanded. 
 
 His glasses fell from his eyes and he muttered to 
 himself several words, of which I caught only the 
 following: "Where does he pick them up?" ' 
 
 I ordered a bitter while he was recovering. At 
 last he said, in a low voice : " Is this your first drink 
 to-day?" 
 
 " Yes," I replied. 
 
 " Scandalous! " he said, and added quickly: " Your 
 health!" 
 
 ' Yours! " I reciprocated. " By the way," I went 
 on, " there is one thing about you that has always 
 puzzled me. Why do you run down the eighteen- 
 nineties, and especially its god, Oscar Wilde, when 
 your own works are just as paradoxical, just as 
 forgive me absurd, though not as amusing, as his? 
 Indeed, in many respects, you are a disciple of 
 Wilde's." 
 
 G. K. C. paused, with his mug half-way to his 
 mouth. "I have heard that heresy before!" he 
 thundered ; and then, with an awful solemnity, he vin-
 
 THECHESTERTONS 207 
 
 dicated the seriousness of his calling in these words: 
 " The wildest thing that has ever been said about me 
 is that I am influenced by Wilde. Wilde's writings 
 are essentially refined. It is vulgar to be refined. 
 I am not refined and I am not vulgar, though (thank 
 God!) I am low. Lowliness is next to godliness. 
 The Eternal Bar is reached by way of the public 
 bar: the tap-root of heaven is the tap-room of earth. 
 It follows that the Kingdom of Heaven can only be 
 entered with a bottle of Bass's pale ale in either 
 hand. Now Wilde was sufficient of a snob to at- 
 tempt admission with champagne or even sherbet ! 
 and I haven't the least doubt that Peter (whose sur- 
 name, by the way, was Guinness) refused him." 
 
 There was a dead silence. The spell was at length 
 broken by someone calling for a pint of 'arf-an-'arf. 
 
 " What is your name? " suddenly asked G. K. C. 
 
 " M or N," I answered, feeling at the moment that 
 I might be in the presence of the Almighty. 
 
 " Sunday " lifted his hand and was on the point of 
 opening his mouth when, with a mighty effort, I 
 regained my earthly consciousness and vanished. 
 
 It is all I can do to prevent my hand from auto- 
 matically rising to my hat whenever I pass that 
 apostolic pub. . . .
 
 GERALD CUMBERLAND 
 
 IT is a pity that Gerald Cumberland doesn't stick 
 to racy impressions of his contemporaries. He does 
 that kind of thing so much better than the serious 
 stuff he has attempted since. Not that I think the 
 personal sketches in his first book have any lasting 
 value he hasn't enough critical power for that but 
 they are at least entertaining, if rather hard on him- 
 self. He isn't half as unpleasant as they make him 
 out to be. He's a friendly, jovial little man, with a 
 taking twinkle in his eyes; and he appears to labor 
 under the quite charming delusion that he can write 
 love-stories. 
 
 He brought a most enjoyable morning's chat to a 
 close by asking me if I would like a copy of his 
 ' Tales of a Cruel Country." Naturally I said I 
 would be delighted. Before handing me the book 
 he said he would mark which, in his opinion, were the 
 best stories in it. " Very interesting " I assented as 
 he searched for a pencil. He then proceeded to mark 
 each story from the top downwards, without missing 
 a single title. I stopped him at about the eighth and 
 suggested that it would save time if he put a cross 
 against those (if there were any) which in his opinion 
 weren't quite as good as the others. He agreed, and 
 put a cross against two stories out of a total of 
 twenty-two. 
 
 After reading the book, I did not want to quarrel 
 with him over those two. . . . 
 
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