Chapter V: Introduction (3)

I will take the Simple or Prattling style first. Choose a subject from out of doors, first because it is the fashion, and secondly because you can go and observe it closely. For you must know that manufactured verse is very like drawing, and in both arts you have to take a model and be careful of details. Let us take (_e.g._) a Pimpernel.

A Pimpernel is quite easy to write about; it has remarkable habits, it is not gross or common. It would be much harder to write about grass, for instance, or parsley.

First you write down anything that occurs to you, like this:--

“Pretty little Pimpernel,
May I learn to love you well?”

You continue on the style of “Twinkle, twinkle.”

“Hiding in the mossy shade,
Like a lamp of ¯˘ made,
Or a gem by fairies dropt
In their ...”

and there you stick, just as you had got into the style of the “L’Allegro.” I have no space or leisure to give the student the full treatment of so great a subject, how he would drag in the closing and opening of the flower, and how (skilfully avoiding the word “dell”) he would end his ten or fifteen lines by a repetition of the first (an essential feature of the Prattling style). I will confine myself to showing him what may be made of these ridiculous six lines.

The first has an obvious fault. It runs too quickly, and one falls all over it. We will keep “Little” and put it first, so one might write “Little Purple Pimpernel.” But even that won’t do, though the alliteration is well enough. What change can we make?

It is at this point that I must introduce you to a most perfect principle. It is called the Mutation of Adjectives--it is almost the whole art of Occ. verse. This principle consists in pulling out one’s first obvious adjective, and replacing it by another of similar length, _chosen because it is peculiar_. You must not put in an adjective that could not possibly apply; for instance, you must not speak of the “Ponderous Rabbit” or the “Murky Beasts;” your adjective must be applicable, but it must be startling, as “The Tolerant Cow,” “The Stammering Minister,” or “The Greasy Hill”--all quite true and most unexpected.

Now, here it is evident that Purple is commonplace. What else can we find about the Pimpernel that is quite true and yet really startling? Let us (for instance) call it “tasteless.” There you have it, “Little tasteless Pimpernel”--no one could read that too quickly, and it shows at the same time great knowledge of nature.

I will not weary you with every detail of the process, but I will write down _my_ result after all the rules have been properly attended to. Read this, and see whether the lines do not fit with my canons of art, especially in what is called the “choice of words:”--

“Little tasteless Pimpernel,
Shepherd’s Holt and warning spell
Crouching in the cushat shade
Like a mond of mowry made....”

and so forth. There you have a perfect little gem. Nearly all the words are curious and well chosen, and yet the metre trips along like a railway carriage. The simplicity lies in the method; the quaint diction is quarried from Mr. Skeats’ excellent book on etymology; but I need not point out any particular work, as your “Thesaurus” in this matter is for your own choosing.

So much for the Prattling style.

As for the Obscure style, it is so easy that it is getting overdone, and I would not depend too much upon it.

In its origins, it was due to the vagaries of some gentlemen and ladies who suffered from an imperfect education, and wrote as they felt, without stopping to think.

But that first holy rapture cannot be recovered. We must work by rule. The rules attaching to this kind of work are six:--

(1) Put the verb in the wrong place (some leave it out altogether);

(2) Use words that may be either verbs or nouns--plurals are very useful;

(3) Punctuate insufficiently;

(4) Make a special use of phrases that have two or three meanings;

(5) Leave out relatives;

(6) Have whole sentences in apposition.

Some of our young poets have imagined that the mere use of strange words made up the Obscure style. I need not say that they were wrong. Thus, the lines--

“And shall I never tread them more,
My murrant balks of wealden lathes?”

are singularly bad. Anyone could be obscure in so simple a fashion. It behoves the student rather to read carefully such lines as the following, in which I have again tackled the Pimpernel, this time in the Obscure manner.

I begin with “What Pimpernels,” which might mean “What! Pimpernels?” or, “_What_ Pimpernels?” or again, “What _Pimpernels_!”; expressing surprise, or a question, or astonished admiration: but do you think I am going to give the show away by telling the reader what I mean? Not a bit of it. There is something in our island temper which loves mystery: something of the North. I flatter myself I can do it thoroughly:--

“What Pimpernels; a rare indulgence blesses
The winter wasting in imperfect suns
And Pimpernels are in the waning, runs
A hand unknown the careless winter dresses,
Not for your largess to the ruined fells,
Her floors in waste, I call you, Pimpernels.”

There! I think that will do very fairly well. One can make sense out of it, and it is broad and full, like a modern religion; it has many aspects, and it makes men think. There is not one unusual word, and the second line is a clear and perfect bit of English. Yet how deep and solemn and thorough is the whole!

And yet, for all my ability in these matters, I may not offer an example for the reader to follow. I am conscious of something more powerful (within this strict channel), and I am haunted reproachfully by a great soul. May I quote what none but She could have written? It is the most perfect thing that modern England knows. Every lesson I might painfully convey there stands manifest, of itself, part of the Created Thing.

THE YELLOW MUSTARD.

Oh! ye that prink it to and fro,
In pointed flounce and furbelow,
What have ye known, what can ye know
That have not seen the mustard grow?

The yellow mustard is no less
Than God’s good gift to loneliness;
And he was sent in gorgeous press,
To jangle keys at my distress.

I heard the throstle call again
Come hither, Pain! come hither, Pain!
Till all my shameless feet were fain
To wander through the summer rain.

And far apart from human place,
And flaming like a vast disgrace,
There struck me blinding in the face
The livery of the mustard race.

* * * * *

To see the yellow mustard grow
Beyond the town, above, below;
Beyond the purple houses, oh!
To see the yellow mustard grow!

THE INTERVIEW.

THE INTERVIEW.

It is now some years ago since I was sitting in Mr. Caliban’s study, writing in his name upon the Balance of Power in Europe. I had just completed my article, and passed it to him to sign, when I noticed that he was too much absorbed in a book which he was reading to pay attention to my gesture.

Men of his stamp enforce courtesy in others by their mere presence. It would have been impossible to have disturbed him. I turned to a somewhat more lengthy composition, which was also to appear above his signature, entitled, “The Effect of Greek Philosophy upon European Thought.” When I had completed my analysis of this profound historical influence, I thought that my master and guide would have freed himself from the net of the author who thus entranced him. I was mistaken. I had, however, but just begun a third article, of which the subject escapes me, when he turned to me and said, closing the book between his hands:

“Will you go and interview someone for me?”

I fear my sudden change of expression betrayed the fact that the idea was repugnant to one familiar rather with foreign politics and with the Classics than with the reporters’ side of the paper.

Mr. Caliban looked at my collar with his kindly eyes, and kept them fixed upon it for some seconds. He then smiled (if such a man could be said to smile) and continued:

“I want to tell you something....”

There was profound silence for a little while, during which a number of thoughts passed through my mind. I remembered that Dr. Caliban was Editor at that moment of the _Sunday Herald_. I remembered that I was his right hand, and that without me the enormous labour he weekly undertook could never have been accomplished without trespassing upon the sanctity of the Sabbath. After a little hesitation, he pulled down his waistcoat, hitched his trousers at the knees, crossed his legs, made a half-turn towards me (for his study-chair was mounted upon a swivel), and said:

“It’s like this:-- ...”

I assured him that I would do what he wished, for I knew, whenever he spoke in this tone, that there was something to be done for England.

“It’s like this,” he went on, “I have found a man here who should _count_, who should _tell_. It is a fearful thought that such a mind can have remained so long hidden. Here is a man with something in him quite peculiar and apart--and he is unknown! It is England through and through, and the best of England; it is more than that. Even where I disagree with him, I find something like a living voice. He gets right at one, as it were ... yet I never heard his name!”

Here Mr. Caliban, having stopped for a moment, as though seeking something in his memory, declaimed in a rich monotone:

“Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”

There was a little silence. Then he said abruptly:

“Do you know Wordsworth’s definition of a poet? Take it down. I should like you to use it.”

I pulled out my note-book and wrote in shorthand from his dictation a sublime phrase, which was new to me: “_A Poet is a_ MAN _speaking to_ MEN.”

“This man,” said Dr. Caliban simply, “is a man speaking to men.”

He put the book into my hands; two or three of the leaves were turned down, and on each page so marked was a passage scored in pencil. The lines would have arrested my eye even, had a greater mind than my own not selected them.

“_A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke._”

“_Tied wrist to bar for their red iniquitee._”

“_To do butcher work_” (he is speaking of war) “_yer don’t want genlemen, ’cept to lead._”

“_I got the gun-barrels red-hot and fetched the whipcord out of the cupboard, while the other man held the screaming, writhing thing down upon the floor._”

“_Under whose_ (speaking of God) _awful hand we hold dominion over palm and pine._”

I have no space to quote a longer passage of verse, evidently intended to be sung to a banjo, and describing the emotions of the author in a fit of delirium tremens when he suffered from the hallucination that a red-hot brass monkey was himself attempting song. The poet showed no jealousy of the animal. There was the full, hearty Anglo-Saxon friendship for a comrade and even for a rival, and I met the same tone again on a further page in the line:

“You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

I looked up at Mr. Caliban and said:

“Well?”:--for these short phrases are often the most emphatic.

“Well,” said Dr. Caliban, “that man must not be allowed to go under. He must be made, and we must make him.”

I said that such a man could not fail to pierce through and conquer. He seemed the very salt and marrow of all that has made us great.

Dr. Caliban laid his hand in a fatherly way upon my shoulder and said:

“You are still young; you do not know how long fame may take to find a man, if the way is not pointed out to her; and if she takes too long, sometimes he dies of a broken heart.”

It was a noble thought in one who had known Fame almost from the very day when, as a lad of 22 years old, he had stood up in the chapel at Barking Level and answered the preacher with the words, “Lord, here am I.”

Dr. Caliban continued in a few simple words to convince me that my foolish pride alone stood between this young genius and the fame he deserved. He pointed out what a weight would lie upon my mind were that poet some day to become famous, and to be able to say when I presented myself at his receptions:

“Get ye hence: I know ye not!”

He added the awful words that death might find us at any moment, and that then we should have to answer, not for our reasons or our motives, but for the things we have done, and for the things we have left undone. He added that he would regard a visit to this new writer as overtime work, and that he was ready to pay my expenses, including cab fares to and from the station. He ended with an appeal which would have convinced one less ready to yield: a magnificent picture of the Empire and of the Voice for which it had waited so long.

* * * * *

It seems unworthy, after the relation of this intimate domestic scene, to add any words of exhortation to the reader and student.

I will not pretend that the interview is a form of true literature. If I have been guilty of too great a confidence, my excess has proceeded from an earnest desire to watch over others of my kind, and to warn them lest by one chance refusal they should destroy the opportunities of a lifetime.

To interview another, even a rival, is sometimes necessary at the outset of a career. It is an experience that need not be repeated. It is one that no earnest student of human nature will regret.

The powerful emotions aroused by the reminiscence of Dr. Caliban’s eloquence, and of the meeting to which it led, must not be desecrated by too lengthy an insistence upon the mere technique of a subsidiary branch of modern letters. I will state very briefly my conclusions as to what is indispensable in the regulation of this kind of literature.

It is, in the first place, of some moment that the young interviewer should take his hat and gloves with him in his left hand into the room. If he carries an umbrella or cane, this also should be carried in the same hand, leaving the right hand completely free. Its readiness for every purpose is the mark of a gentleman, and the maintenance of that rank is absolutely necessary to the _sans gêne_ which should accompany a true interview.

In the second place, let him, the moment he appears, explain briefly the object of his visit. Without any such introduction as “The fact is ...” “It is very odd, but ...”, let him say plainly and simply, like an Englishman, “I have been sent to interview you on the part of such and such a paper.”

He will then be handed (in the majority of cases) a short type-written statement, which he will take into his right hand, pass into his left, in among the gloves, stick, hat, &c., and will bow, not from the shoulders, nor from the hips, but subtly from the central vertebrae.

In the third place he will go out of the room.

There are two exceptions to this general procedure. The first is with men quite unknown; the second with men of high birth or great wealth.

In the first case, the hat and gloves should be laid upon a table and the stick leaning against it in such a way as not to fall down awkwardly in the middle of a conversation. The student will then begin to talk in a genial manner loudly, and will continue for about half-an-hour; he will end by looking at his watch, and will go away and write down what he feels inclined.

In the second case, he will do exactly the same, but with a different result, for in the first case he will very probably become the friend of the person interviewed, which would have happened anyhow, and in the second case he will be forbidden the house, a result equally inevitable.

I cannot conclude these remarks without exhorting the young writer most earnestly, when he is entering upon the first of these distressing experiences, to place a firm trust in Divine Providence, and to remember that, come what may, he has done his duty.

If he should have any further hesitation as to the general manner in which an interview should be written, he has but to read what follows. It constitutes the interview which I held with that young genius whom Mr. Caliban persuaded me to visit, and of whose fame I shall therefore always feel myself a part.

INTERVIEW

WITH HIM.

(Written specially for the _Sunday Englishman_, by the Rev. JAMES CALIBAN, D.D.)[8]

“_By the peace among the peoples, men shall know ye serve the
Lord._”--DEUTERONOMY xvi. 7.

... Leaping into a well-appointed cab, I was soon whirled to a terminus which shall be nameless, not a hundred miles from Brandon Street, and had the good luck to swing myself into the guard’s van just as the train was steaming out from the platform. I plunged at once _in medias res_, and some two hours later alit in the sunny and growing residential town of Worthing. I hailed a vehicle which plied for hire, and begged the driver to conduct me to 29, Darbhai Road, “if indeed,” to quote my own words to the Jehu, “if indeed it be worth a drive. I understand it is close upon a mile.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the honest fellow, “You will find, sir, that it is quite a mile, sir. Indeed, sir, we call it a little over a mile, sir.”

I was soon whirled, as fast as the type of carriage permitted, to Laburnum Lodge, Darbhai Road, where a neat-handed Phyllis smilingly opened the door for me, and took my card up to her master, bidding me be seated awhile in the hall. I had the leisure to notice that it was lit by two stained glass panels above the entrance, representing Alfred the Great and Queen Victoria. In a few minutes the servant returned with the message that her master would be down in a moment, and begged me to enter his parlour until he could attend me, as he was just then in his study, looking out of window at a cricket match in an adjoining field.

I found myself in a richly-furnished room, surrounded by curious relics of travel, and I was delighted to notice the little characteristic touches that marked the personal tastes of my host. Several skulls adorned the walls, and I observed that any natural emotion they might cause was heightened by a few tasteful lines such as actors paint upon their faces. Thus one appeared to grin beyond the ordinary, another was fitted with false eyes, and all had that peculiar subtle expression upon which genius loves to repose in its moments of leisure. I had barely time to mark a few more notable matters in my surroundings, when I was aware that I was in the presence of my host.

“No,” or “Yes,” said the great man, smiling through his spectacles and puffing a cloud of smoke towards me in a genial fashion, “I do not in the least mind telling you how it is done. I do not think,” he added drily, “that any other fellows will pull quite the same chock-a-block haul, even if I do give them the fall of the halyard. You must excuse these technical terms; I make it a point to speak as I write--I think it is more natural.”

I said I should be delighted to excuse him.

“I hope you will also excuse,” he continued, “my throwing myself into my favourite attitude.”

I said that, on the contrary, I had long wished to see it.

With a sigh of relief he thrust those creative hands of his into his trouser pockets, slightly stooped his shoulders, and appeared to my delight exactly as he does in the photograph he handed me for publication.

“To show you how it is done, I cannot begin better than by a little example,” he said.

He went to a neighbouring table, rummaged about in a pile of the _Outlook_ and _Vanity Fair_, and produced a scrap of paper upon which there was a type-written poem. His hands trembled with pleasure, but he controlled himself well (for he is a strong, silent kind of man), and continued:--

“I will not weary you with the whole of this Work. I am sure you must already be familiar with it. In the Volunteer camp where I was recently staying, and where I slept under canvas like anybody else, the officers knew it by heart, and used to sing it to a tune of my own composition (for you must know that I write these little things to airs of my own). I will only read you the last verse, which, as is usual in my lyrics, contains the pith of the whole matter.”

Then in a deep voice he intoned the following, with a slightly nasal accent which lent it a peculiarly individual flavour:--

“I’m sorry for Mister Naboth;
I’m sorry to make him squeak;
But the Lawd above me made me strawng
In order to pummel the weak.”

“That chorus, which applies to one of the most important problems of the Empire, contains nearly all the points that illustrate ‘How it is Done.’ In the first place, note the conception of the Law. It has been my effort to imprint this idea of the Law upon the mind of the English-speaking world--a phrase, by the way, far preferable to that of Anglo-Saxon, which I take this opportunity of publicly repudiating. You may, perhaps, have noticed that my idea of the Law is the strongest thing in modern England. ‘Do this because I tell you, or it will be the worse for you,’ is all we know, and all we need to know. For so, it seems to me, Heaven” (here he reverently raised the plain billy-cock hat which he is in the habit of wearing in his drawing-room) “governs the world, and we who are Heaven’s lieutenants can only follow upon the same lines. I will not insist upon the extent to which the religious training I enjoyed in early youth helped to cast me in that great mould. You have probably noticed its effect in all my work.”

I said I had.

“Well, then, first and foremost, I have in this typical instance brought out my philosophy of the Law. In my private conversation I call this ‘following the gleam.’”

“Now for the adventitious methods by which I enhance the value of my work. Consider the lilt. ‘Lilt’ is the ‘Túm ti ti túm ti túm’ effect which you may have felt in my best verse.”

I assured him I had indeed felt it.

“Lilt,” he continued, “is the hardest thing of all to acquire. Thousands attempt it, and hundreds fail. I have it (though I say it who should not) to perfection. It is the quality you will discover in the old ballads, but there it is often marred by curious accidents which I can never properly explain. Their metre is often very irregular, and I fancy that their style (which my Work closely resembles) has suffered by continual copying. No: where you get the true ‘Lilt’ is in the music halls--I am sorry it is so often wasted upon impertinent themes. Do you know ‘It is all very fine and large,’ or ‘At my time of life,’ or again, ‘Now we shan’t be long’?”

I answered I had them all three by heart.

“I shouldn’t say they were worth _that_,” he answered, as a shade of disappointment appeared upon his delicate, mobile features, “but there is a place where you get it to perfection, and that is Macaulay’s _Lays of Ancient Rome_. They are my favourite reading. But that is another story.”

“To turn to quite a different point, the Vernacular. It isn’t everything that will go down in ordinary English. Of course I _do_ use ordinary English--at least, Bible English, in my best work. For instance, there is a little thing called ‘In the Confessional,’ which I propose to read to you later, and which has no slang nor swear-words from beginning to end.”

“But, of course, that is quite an exception. Most things won’t stand anything but dialect, and I just give you this tip gratis. You can make anything individual and strong by odd spelling. It arrests the attention, and you haven’t got to pick your words. Did you ever read a beautiful work called _Colorado Bill; or, From Cowboy to President_? Well, I can assure you that when it was in English, before being turned into dialect, it was quite ordinary-like.”

“But that ain’t all. One has now and then to strike a deeper note, and striking a deeper note is so simple, that I wonder it has not occurred to others of our poets. You have got to imagine yourself in a church, and you must read over your manuscript to yourself in that kind of hollow voice--you know what I mean.”

I swore that I did.

“_Now_, you see why one puts ‘ye’ for ‘you,’ and ‘ye be’ for ‘you are,’ and mentions the Law in so many words. It is not very difficult to do, and when one does succeed, one gets what I call A1 copper-bottomed poetry.”

He went to a corner of the room, opened a large, scented, velvet-bound book upon a brass reading-desk, looked at me severely, coughed twice, and began as follows:

“I am about to read you ‘In the Confessional.’ The greatest critic of the century has called this the greatest poem of the century. I begin at the third verse, and the seventeenth line:--

* * * * *
“Lest he forget the great ally
In heaven yclept hypocrisy,
So help me Bawb! I’ll mark him yet--
Lest he forget! Lest he forget!”
* * * * *

He closed the book with becoming reverence.

And there was a silence, during which the grand words went on running in my head as their author had meant them to do. “Lest he forget! Lest he forget!” Ah, may heaven preserve its darling poet, and never let him fall from the height of that great message.

“Well,” said he, genially, anticipating my applause, “Good-bye. But before you go please let me beg you to tell the public that I lately wrote something for the _Times_ a great deal better than anything else I have ever written. Nobody seems to read the _Times_,” he continued, in a tone of slight petulance, “and I have not seen it quoted anywhere. I wonder if it is properly known? Please tell people that that little note about ‘copyright’ is only for fun. _Anyone_ may use it who likes--I had a paragraph put in the papers to say so. It’s like this--” He then added a few conventional words of God-speed, and I left him. I have never seen him since.

And yet ... and yet....

The student will now pardon me, I trust, if I go somewhat more deeply into things than is customary in text books of this class. That little conquest over pride, that little task honestly performed, earned me something I shall value for ever, something that will be handed down in our family “even unto the third and the fourth generation” (_Habb._ vii. 13). It is something that means far, far more to me than a mere acquaintance with an author could possibly have done. For who can gauge so volatile a thing as friendship? Who could with certitude have pointed me out and said, “There goes _His_ friend”? The Written Thing remained.

In my room, nay, just above me as I write, hangs framed the following note in pencil.

“Awfully glad to see the stuff in the ‘Herald,’ but say--are you old Caliban? That was rather stiff on a jack high? Wasn’t it? Never mind. You didn’t ask me for my auto, but I send it herewith right along, for I _like_ you.”

There is the Man Alone as He IS--.... It seems of small moment, but there is something more. Framed in dark oak and gold very sumptuously, and hanging quite apart, is the little shred of paper which He enclosed. Shall I whisper what is written upon it?...?... The first few jotted notes of the glorious song which rang through the Empire like a bugle-call, and hurled it at Nicaragua.

[Sidenote: _Mem.--Can a preposition begin with a capital?_]

Hark and attend my Chosen: Ye have heard me
_ye_ _people_
Out of the East,
_with an introduction_?

[Sidenote: _Mem.--Alternative, “with a bag and a blanket.”_]

I came and the nations trembled: I bore the Mark
_with a_ ■■■■■■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■
_glory about me?_
of the Beast,

[Sidenote: _Good!_]

And I made ye a hundred books--yea! even an hundred and one
Of all the labours of men that labour under the sun,

[Sidenote: _Second “yea”? Uncle says “delete.”_]

And I clad me about with Terrors: Yea! I covered my paths with dread,
And the women-folk were astonished at the horrible things I said.

And the men of the Island Race were some of them woundily bored,
But the greater part of them paid me well: and I praised the Lord.
And when--as the spirit was full--I sniggered and lapped and swore

[Sidenote: _Dick says “Days of Yore” is commonplace. Tore? Gore? Lore? More? provisional: see Emily also about it._]

As ever did men before me, men of the days of yore
(?)
When-as the spirit was full--But when it was rare and low
I copied the Psalms at random; and lo! it was even so!
■■■■■■■
(_Fill in here: ask_ ■■■■■■■)
_Publisher_

[Sidenote: _Uncle says that repetition is Greek. Mem.--plagiarism?_]

Then up and arose the Daughter-Nations: Up and arose
Fearless men reciting me fearlessly through the nose,
Some of them Presbyterian, and some of them Jews, and some

[Sidenote: _Frivolous. Change._]

Of the Latter-Day Church, King Solomon’s sect--which is awfully rum.
(_Stuck_.)
... the lot of it ... Anglo-Saxons ... shout it aloud
... at it again? ... back the crowd?
(_Fill in. Mem.--must be consecutive_)

Things are not as they were (_commonplace_)
(_delete_)
Things are not as they.... Things and the Change....
Things and ... things....
(_Leave this to fill in_)

* * * * *

And some of ye stand at a wicket, and they are the luckier men,

[Sidenote: _Whenas. Good. Mem.--use in “Horeb.”_]

But others field afar on a field, and ever and then,
When-as the over is over, they cross to the other side,
A weary thing to the flesh and a wounding thing to the pride.

[Sidenote: _He will have to go._]

And Cabinet Ministers play at a game ye should all avoid,
It is played with youngling bats and a pellet of celluloid,
And a little net on a table, and is known as the named (_better_)
PING and the PONG.
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do this wrong?
And some, like witherless Frenchmen, circle around in rings,
England, Daughter of Sion, why do you do these things?
Why do you....
(_Mem.--after Uncle to-morrow. Billy’s: refuse terms._)

These are the chance lines as they came--the disjointed words--everything--just as He wrote them down.

Reader--or whatever you be--was that a small reward? Are you willing _now_ to say that Interviewing has no wages of its own? Will you sneer at it as unfit to take its place in your art? Truly, “Better is he that humbleth himself than a pillar of brass, and a meek heart than many fastenings.”

PERSONAL PARS.

THE PERSONAL PAR.

Closely connected with the Interview, and forming a natural sequel to any treatise upon that Exercise, is the Personal Par. It contains, as it were, all the qualities of the Interview condensed into the smallest possible space; it advertises the subject, instructs the reader, and is a yet sharper trial of the young writer’s character.

The homely advice given in the preceding section, where mention was made of “pride” and of “pockets,” applies with far more force to the Personal Par. With the Interview, it is well to mask one’s name; with the Personal Par, it is absolutely necessary to conceal it. The danger the author runs is an attraction to Mrs. Railston, who in her book strongly advises this form of sport--she herself does Bess in _All About Them_. On the other hand, Lieut.-Col. Lory says, in his _Journalist’s Vade-mecum_ (p. 63): “A Personal Par should never be penned by the Aspirant to Literary honours. Undetected, it renders life a burden of suspense; detected, it spells ruin.”[9] He quotes twenty-five well-known peers and financiers who rose by steadily refusing to do this kind of work during their period of probation on the press.

The present guide, which is final, will run to no such extremes. Secrecy is indeed essential; yet there are three excellent reasons for writing Personal Pars, at least in early youth.

(1.) The Personal Par is the easiest to produce of all forms of literature. Any man or woman, famous or infamous for any reason, is a subject ready to hand, and to these may be added all persons whatsoever living, dead, or imaginary; and anything whatever may be said about them. Editors, in their honest dislike of giving pain, encourage the inane, and hence more facile, form of praise. Moreover, it takes but a moment to write, and demands no recourse to books of reference.

(2.) The Personal Par can always be placed--if not in England, then in America. Though written in any odd moments of one’s leisure time, it will always represent money; and the whole of the period from July to October, when ordinary work is very slack, can be kept going from the stock one has by one.

(3.) It has a high economic value, not only in the price paid for it, but indirectly, as an advertisement. This is a point which Lieut.-Col. Lory and Mrs. Railston both overlook.

A short specimen, written in August, 1885, at the very beginning of the movement, by my friend, Mrs. Cowley (the Folk-Lorist, not the Poetess), for the _Gazette_, will make these three points clear:--

“The capture of that rare bird, the Cross-tailed Eagle, which is cabled from St. Fandango’s, recalls the fact that the famous Picture ‘Tiny Tots’ was formerly in the possession of the present Governor of that island. The picture is put up to auction by Messrs. Philpots next Saturday, and, judging by the public attendance at their galleries during the last fortnight, the bidding should be brisk.”

There is no such bird as the Cross-tailed Eagle, nor any such person as the Governor of St. Fandango’s, nor indeed is there even any such island. Yet Mrs. Cowley was paid 5_s._ by the _Gazette_ for her little bit of research; it was copied into most of the papers, with acknowledgment, and she got a commission from Messrs. Philpots. The former owner of “Tiny Tots” (Mr. Gale of Kew, a wealthy man) wrote a long and interesting letter explaining that some error had been made, and that not he, but his wife’s father, had been an _Inspector_[10] (not Governor) in _St. Vincent’s_. He begged the writer to call on him--her call was the origin of a life-long friendship, and Mrs. Cowley was mentioned in his will.

I must detain the student no longer with what is, after all, a very small corner of our art, but conclude with a few carefully chosen examples before proceeding to the next section on Topographical Essays.

EXAMPLES.

_Wit and Wisdom of the Upper Classes._

Her Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Solothurn was driving one day down Pall Mall when she observed a poor pickpocket plying his precarious trade. Stopping the carriage immediately, she asked him gently what she could do for him. He was dumbfounded for a reply, and, withdrawing his hand from the coat-tail of an elderly major, managed to mumble out that he was a widower with a wife and six children who were out of work and refused to support him, though earning excellent wages. This reasoning so touched the Princess, that she immediately gave him a place as boot-black in the Royal Palace of Kensington. Discharged from this position for having prosecuted H.R.H. for six months’ arrears of wages, he set up as a publican at the “Sieve and Pannier” at Wimbledon, a licence of some ten thousand pounds in value, and a standing example of the good fortune that attends thrift and industry.

* * *

It is not generally known that the late Lord Grumbletooth rose from the ranks. His lordship was a singularly reticent man, and the matter is still shrouded in obscurity. He was, however, a politician in the best sense of the word, and owed his advancement to the virtues that have made England famous. The collection of domestic china at Grumbletooth House will vie with any other collection at any similar house in the kingdom.

* * *

Dr. Kedge, whose death was recently announced in the papers, was the son of no less a personage than Mr. Kedge, of the Old Hall, Eybridge. It is hardly fair to call him a self-made man, for his father paid a considerable sum both for his education and for the settlement of his debts on leaving the University. But he was a bright-eyed, pleasant host, and will long be regretted in the journalistic world.

* * *

Lady Gumm’s kindness of heart is well known. She lately presented a beggar with a shilling, and then discovered that she had not the wherewithal to pay her fare home from Queen’s Gate to 376, Park Lane (her ladyship’s town house). Without a moment’s hesitation she borrowed eighteen pence of the grateful mendicant, a circumstance that easily explains the persecution of which she has lately been the victim.

* * *

Lord Harmbury was lately discovered on the top of a ’bus by an acquaintance who taxed him with the misadventure. “I would rather be caught _on_ a ’bus than _in_ a trap,” said the witty peer. The _mot_ has had some success in London Society.

* * *

Mr. Mulhausen, the M.F.H. of the North Downshire Hunt, has recently written an article on “Falconry” for the _Angler’s World_. The style of the “brochure” shows a great advance in “technique,” and cannot fail to give a permanent value to his opinion on Athletics, Gentleman-farming, and all other manly sports and pastimes. Mr. Mulhausen is, by the way, a recently-elected member of the Rock-climbers’ Club, and is devoted to Baccarat.

* * *

There is no truth in the rumour that Miss Finn-Coul, daughter of Colonel Wantage-Brown, was about to marry her father’s second wife’s son by an earlier marriage, Mr. James Grindle-Torby. The Colonel is a strong Churchman, and disapproves of such unions between close relatives; moreover, as C.O., he has forbidden the young lieutenant (for such is his rank) to leave the barracks for a fortnight, a very unusual proceeding in the Hussars.

* * *

Lady Sophia Van Huren is famous for her repartee. In passing through Grosvenor Gate an Irish beggar was heard to hope that she would die the black death of Machushla Shawn. A sharp reply passed her lips, and it is a thousand pities that no one exactly caught its tenor; it was certainly a gem.

* * *

It is well known that the Bishop of Pontygarry has no sympathy with the extreme party in the Church. Only the other day he was so incensed at a service held in Ribble-cum-Taut, that he fought the officiating clergyman for half an hour in his own garden, and extorted a complete apology. He also forbad anyone in the village ever to go to Church again, and himself attended the Methodist Chapel on the ensuing Sunday. Had we a few more prelates of the same mettle things would be in a very different condition.

THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.

THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.

The Topographical Article is so familiar as to need but little introduction.... Personally, I do not recommend it; it involves a considerable labour; alone, of all forms of historical writing, it demands accuracy; alone, it is invariably un-paid.

Nevertheless, there are special occasions when it will be advisable to attempt it; as--in order to please an aged and wealthy relative; in order to strike up a chance acquaintance with a great Family; in order to advertise land that is for sale; in order to prevent the sale, or to lower the price (in these two last cases it is usual to demand a small fee from the parties interested); in order to vent a just anger; in order to repay a debt; in order to introduce a “special” advertisement for some manure or other; and so forth. Most men can recall some individual accident when a training in Topographical Writing would have been of value to them.

There even arise, though very rarely, conditions under which this kind of writing is positively ordered. Thus, when the Editor of the _Evening Mercury_ changed his politics for money on the 17th of September, 1899, all that part of his staff who were unable to drop their outworn shibboleths were put on to writing up various parts of London in the legal interval preceding their dismissal, and a very good job they made of it.

Never, perhaps, were the five rules governing the art more thoroughly adhered to. A land-owning family was introduced into each; living persons were treated with courtesy and affection; a tone of regret was used at the opening of each; each closed with a phrase of passionate patriotism; and each was carefully run parallel to the course of English History in general; and the proper praise and blame allotted to this name and that, according to its present standing with the more ignorant of the general public.[11]

It was in this series (afterwards issued in Book form under the title, _London! My London_) that the following article--which I can put forward as an excellent model--was the contribution of my friend, Mr. James Bayley. It may interest the young reader (if he be as yet unfamiliar with our great London names) to know that under the pseudonym of “Cringle” is concealed the family of Holt, whose present head is, of course, the Duke of Sheffield.

DISAPPEARING LONDON: MANNING GREEN.

At a moment when a whole district of the metropolis is compulsorily passing into the hands of a soulless corporation, it is intolerable that the proprietors of land in that district should receive no compensation for the historical importance of their estates. Manning Green, which will soon be replaced by the roar and bustle--or bustle and confusion, whichever you like--of a great railway station, is one of those centres whence the great empire-builders of our race proceeded in past times.

For many centuries it was a bare, bleak spot, such as our England could boast by the thousand in the rude but heroic days when the marvellous fortunes of the Anglo-Saxon race were preparing in the slow designs of Providence. For perhaps a generation it was one of those suburban villages that are said by a contemporary poet to “nestle in their trees.” Doubtless it sent forth in the sixties many brave lads to fight for the liberties of Europe in Italy or Denmark, but their humble record has perished. Such a thought recalls the fine lines of Gray:--

“Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country’s blood.”

Twenty to twenty-five years ago the advancing tide of the capital of the world swept round this little outlying place; it was submerged, and soon made part of greater London.

Relics are still to be discovered of the period when Manning Green had something rural about it, as Highgate and South Croydon have now. Thus “The Jolly Drover” (whose license was recently refused because it was not a tied house) recalls the great sheep-droves that once passed through the village from the north. It is now rare indeed to meet with a countryman driving his flock to market through the streets of London, though the sight is not absolutely unknown. The present writer was once stopped in the early morning by a herd of oxen south of Westminster Bridge, and what may seem more remarkable he has frequently seen wild animals in the charge of negroes pass through Soho on their way to the Hippodrome. It is as Tennyson says:--

“The old order changes, giving place to the new,”

until at last

“Beyond these voices there is peace.”

Another relic of the old village of Manning Green is the Court Baron, which is still held (how few Londoners know this!) once a year, for the purpose of providing a small but regular income to a relative of the Lord Chancellor. This Court was probably not held before the year 1895, but it is none the less of extreme interest to antiquarians.

The first mention of Manning Green in history is in a letter to Edward Lord Cringle, the pioneer and ally of the beneficent reforms that remain inseparably associated with the name of the eighth Henry. This letter is written from prison by one Henry Turnbull, a yeoman, and contains these phrases:--

“For that very certainly, my good Lord, I never did this thing,
no, nor met the Friar nor had any dealing with him. And whatever
I did that they say is treason I did it being a simple man,
as following the Mass, which I know is welcome to the King’s
Majesty, and not knowing who it was that sang it, no, nor
speaking to him after, as God knows. And, my dear Lord, I have
had conveyed to you, as you know, my land of Horton with the Grey
farm and _the mere called Foul Marsh or Manning_, having neither
son nor any other but my own life only, and for that willingly
would I give you this land, and so I have done; and, my good
Lord, speak for me at Court in this matter, remembering my gift
of the land....”

This Turnbull was afterwards executed for treason at Tyburn. There is still a Turnbull in the parish, but as his father’s name was Weissenstein he is very unlikely to have any connection with the original family of yeomen.

The land (if land it could then be called) did not, oddly enough, remain long in the Cringle family. It was sold by Lord Edward to the Carmelites, and on the dissolution of that order was returned by the grateful monarch to its original owner. We next find “Manning” or “Foul Marsh” drained during that period of active beneficence on the part of the great landlords which marked the seventeenth century. We are acquainted of this fact in our agricultural history by an action recorded in 1631, where it appears that one Nicholas Hedon had gone to shoot snipe, as had been once of common right in the manor, and had so trespassed upon land “now drained at his lordship’s charges, and by him enclosed.” Hedon lost both ears, and was pilloried.

Manning is probably alluded to also in a strong protest of the old Liberal blood[12] against ship-money, to which exaction it contributed 1_s._ 4_d._ The sum need not excite ridicule, as it represents quite 4_s._ of our present currency. The vigorous protest of the family against this extortion is one of the finest examples of our sterling English spirit on the eve of the Civil War. The money was, however, paid.

In the troubles of the Civil Wars Manning (now no longer a marsh, but a _green_) was sold to John Grayling, but the deed of conveyance being protested at the Restoration, it was restored to its original owners at the intruder’s charge by an action of _Novel Disseizin_. After Monmouth’s rebellion, Manning was in danger of suffering confiscation, and was hurriedly sold to a chance agent (William Greaves) at so low a price as to refute for ever all insinuations of rapacity upon the part of its now ducal owners. It was happily restored by a grateful nation as a free gift after the glorious Revolution of 1688, and the agent, who had only acquired it by taking advantage of the recent troubles, was very properly punished. King William congratulated the family in a famous epigram, which a natural ignorance of the Taal forbids us to transcribe.

In 1718, Manning being still pasture of a somewhat spongy nature (Guy, in his report, calls it “soggy and poor land, reedy, and fit for little”), there was a rumour that the New River canal would pass through it, and it was sold to Jonathan Hemp. The New River was proved, however, in the pleadings before both Houses of Parliament, to have no necessity for this canal, and Hemp was compelled (as it was a mere speculation on his part) to sell it back again to its distinguished owner at a merely nominal price.

Nothing further can be traced with regard to Manning Green (as it was now commonly called) till the report in 1780 that coal had been found beneath it. Such a deposit so near the metropolis naturally attracted the attention of merchants, and the Family sold the place for the last time to a merchant of the name of Hogg for £20,000.

The report proved false; yet, oddly enough, it was the beginning of Mr. Hogg’s prosperity.

We have no space to dwell on this interesting character. “Hogg’s Trustees” are an ecclesiastical household word in our principal watering-places, and the “Hogg Institute” at Brighton is a monument of Christian endeavour. He was a shrewd bargainer, a just man, and upon his mantel-pieces were to be discovered ornaments in alabaster representing Joshua and Richard Cœur de Lion.

The growth of the metropolis entered largely into Mr. Hogg’s enlightened prevision of the future, and he obtained promises from a large number of people to build houses upon his land, which houses should, after a term of years, become his (Hogg’s) property, and cease to belong to those who had paid to put them up. How Mr. Hogg managed to obtain such promises is still shrouded in mystery, but the universal prevalence of the system to-day in modern England would surely prove that there is something in our Imperial race which makes this form of charity an element of our power.

Mr. Hogg’s only daughter married Sir John Moss, Lord Mayor; and Mr. Moss, the son, was the father of the present Lord Hemelthorpe. Thus something romantic still clings to poor Manning Green, of which Lord Hemelthorpe was, until his recent bankruptcy, the proprietor.

There is little more to be said about Manning Green. The Ebenezer Chapel has a history of its own, written by the Rev. Napoleon Plaything, son of Mr. Honey Q. Plaything, of Bismark, Pa. The success of the boys’ club has been detailed in _God’s London_, by Mr. Zitali, of the “Mission to the Latin Races.” The book is well worth buying, if only for this one essay, written, as it is, by a brand saved from the burning. Mr. Zitali was for a long time in the employ of Messrs. Mañanâ, the restaurant keepers, and no one is better fitted to deal strenuously with the awful problems of our great cities.

Manning Green is about to disappear, and all its wonderful associations will become (in the words of Swinburne)

“Smoke, or the smoke of a smoke.”

But until it disappears, and until its purchase price is finally fixed by the committee, its historical associations will still remain dear to those who (like the present writer) are interested in this corner of the Motherland. That men of our blood, and men speaking our tongue--nay, that those neither of our blood, nor speaking our tongue, but devoted to a common empire--will remember Manning Green when the sale is effected, is the passionate and heartfelt prayer of

JAMES BAYLEY.

ON EDITING.

ON EDITING.

I come now to that part of my subject where pure literature is of less moment than organization and the power of arrangement; and the last two divisions of my great task concern work which has been written by others, and with which the journalist has to deal in the capacity of manager rather than that of author. These are, a few notes upon editing, and some further remarks upon Revelations, that is, unexpected and more or less secret political announcements.