Читать книгу Twenty Years of My Life - Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen - Страница 12

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Of all the men who used to come to 32, Addison Mansions from our having met them at the Idler teas, none were more identified with the success of Jerome’s two periodicals The Idler and To-day than Arthur Conan Doyle and Israel Zangwill. Doyle had been writing for ten years before he achieved commanding success. Be that as it may, he was undoubtedly the most successful of the younger authors who were familiar figures in that Vagabond and Idler set. Doyle, who was the son of that exquisite artist, Charles Doyle, and grandson of the famous caricaturist H. B., and nephew of Dicky Doyle of Punch, ought to have been granted a royaller road to success, for he had enjoyed a very early connection with literature, having sat as a little child on the knee of the immortal Thackeray. Thackeray’s old publishers, Smith, Elder & Co., have been his, but he had travelled to the Arctic regions and to the tropics and practised for eight years as a doctor at Southsea before he charmed the world with his famous novels The White Company in 1890, and The Refugees in 1891, and astonished it with the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the latter year. He was a doctor at Norwood when I first made his acquaintance. He was a little over thirty then, and a keen cricketer, being nearly county form (indeed, he did actually play once for Hampshire, and might at one time have played regularly for Hampshire as an Association back). It was not until late in life, however, that he found time enough to get much practise at games. Then for some years he played occasional first-class cricket, having an average of thirty-two against Kent, Derbyshire and other good teams; in the last year he played for the M.C.C. That was after the war, when he was over forty. He played a hard Association match in his forty-fourth year.

From an early stage in his literary career he enjoyed the admiration and the deepest respect of all his fellows in the craft, and for years past has undoubtedly been morally the head of the profession. Upon him has fallen the mantle of Sir Walter Besant. In saying this, I am not instituting any comparison between the merits of his various lines of work, which in their own line are quite unexcelled, and those of the other leading authors, but he is not only among the handful who may be called the very best authors of the day, he is the man to whom the profession would undoubtedly look for a lead in any crisis.

Say, for instance, that the idea, so often debated recently, of authors combining with publishers to fix the price of a novel at ten and sixpence, and refusing to work for or sell their goods to any one who would not abide by this decision, were put to a vote in the literary profession, what Doyle thought would count most. The profession as an army would range themselves under his banner. Suppose a question, like the insurance question which has been threatening the livelihood of thousands of doctors, were to arise for authors, they would look to Doyle for a lead. If the decision which he made benefited authors as a whole, but cost him half or three-quarters of his income, and a syndicate approached him with a huge offer to abandon the camp, nobody could suppose for one moment that Doyle would listen to them. His moral courage, his loyalty, his generosity, his patriotism, added to his wonderful literary gifts, have confered upon him a commanding position. Of his gifts I shall speak lower down. It is as the patriot that one must always consider him first. He is not naturally a party man, though he happens to have contested Edinburgh as a Liberal Unionist, and the Hawick boroughs as a Tariff Reformer. There have been moments when he has been openly opposed to some measure of the Unionist Party. He really belongs to the Public Service party. He made notable sacrifices for his country at the time of the Boer War. First he gave up his literary work to serve unpaid on the staff of the Langman Field Hospital and afterwards to write the pamphlet on The Cause and Conduct of the War, an attempt to place the true facts before the people of Europe, which brought him nothing but great expense and the undying gratitude and respect of his fellow-countrymen. That he cares nothing for popularity where principles are concerned is shown by the attitude he took over the famous horse-maiming case, or his acceptance of the Presidency of the Divorce Law Reform Union.

SIR A. CONAN DOYLE

Drawn by Yoshio Markino

His sturdy character is reflected in his physique, and there are few people in London who do not know that unusually big and strong frame, that round head, with prominent cheek-bones, and dauntless blue eyes, the bluff, good-humoured face: for his sonorous voice is frequently heard from the chair of public meetings where some protest for the public good has to be raised, or at a dinner-table on the guest nights of clubs. Sir Arthur, for he was knighted in 1902, is a most popular speaker; hearty, engaging, amusing, in his lighter moods, most trenchant and convincing in a crisis, of all the authors of the day he merits most the title of a great man.

The curious thing is that although every one knows how much he respects Doyle as a great man, and every one is aware that he is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, of the authors of the day, not every one has analysed the soundness of his literary fame. In my opinion, of all very popular authors, Doyle deserves his popularity as an author most. No man living has written better historical novels, judged from the standpoint of eloquence, accuracy or thrill. Doyle has carried the accuracy of the man of science into all his studies, and his power to thrill with eloquence and incident is beyond question. His detective stories are equal to the best that have ever been written. His history of the South African War is not only the best history of the war, but it is a model of contemporary history, always the most difficult kind to write, because only the eye of intuition can distinguish respective values amid contemporary incidents. He has been highly successful as a playwright too. His House of Temperley is the best Prize-Ring play in the language, as his novel, Rodney Stone, which had no lady-love heroine, was the best Prize-Ring novel, and his play on Waterloo, produced by Sir Henry Irving, has become a classic. I have alluded elsewhere to the dramatisation of his Sherlock Holmes which has been played thousands of times. Doyle not only was present at our at-homes at 32 Addison Mansions, but, living out of town, once stayed with us there, as we stayed with him at Hindhead on another occasion. But owing to his living out of town, he was a great deal less familiar figure at receptions than most of the other younger authors of the first rank, except Rudyard Kipling and J. M. Barrie, both of whom cordially hate “functions” of any kind. Doyle, placed in the same circumstances as they are, forces himself to go to many functions for which he has less time than they have, for his literary output is infinitely greater, and he has so many other duties to perform, and always performs them.

When I asked Doyle what first turned him to writing, he said—

“All the art that is in our family—my grandfather, three uncles, and father were all artists—ran in my blood, and took a turn towards letters. At six I was writing stories; I fancy my mother has them yet. At school I was, though I say it, a famous story-teller; at both schools I was at I edited a magazine, and practically wrote the whole of it also.

“When I started studying medicine, the family affairs were very straitened. My father’s health was bad, and he earned little. I tried to earn something, which I did by going out as medical assistant half the year. Then I tried stories. In 1878, when I was nineteen years old, I sent The Mystery of the Sassasa Valley to Chambers. I got three guineas. It was 1880 before I got another accepted. It was by London Society. From then until 1888 I averaged about fifty pounds a year, getting about three pounds a story. My first decent price was twenty-eight pounds from the Cornhill for Habakuk Jephson’s Statement in 1886. Then at New Year, 1888, Ward, Lock & Co. brought out A Study in Scarlet, paying twenty-five pounds for all rights. I have never had another penny from that book; I wonder how much they have had? Then came Micah Clarke at the end of 1888, which got me a more solid public. It was not until 1902 that I was strong enough to be able to entirely abandon medical practice. Of course, it was the Holmes stories in the Strand which gave me my popular vogue, but The White Company, which has been through fifty editions, has sold far more as a book than any of the Holmes books.”

Kipling I regard as the genius of the junction of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and England owes an incalculable debt to his patriotism and eloquence. If Doyle is the voice of the literary profession, Kipling is the voice of the country. He speaks for the manhood of England in a crisis. All through the African War a letter or a poem from Kipling was the trumpet voice of national feeling. No poet who has written in English has ever inspired his countrymen like Kipling. His poems, though they have not the poetical quality of those of our great standard poets, have the prophetical quality, which is just as important in poetry, in a higher degree than any of them. They are Rembrandt poems, not Raphael poems, and they will remain without loss of prestige, an armoury for every patriotic or manful writer and speaker to quote from. I reviewed Kipling’s poems when they were first published in America for the leading Canadian paper. I am thankful that I hailed them as the work of genius, and it was a proud moment when I first shook hands with him in the early ’nineties. Though his short stories are the best in the language, I always think of him as a poet, because he is our vates.

It is best to mention Barrie, our other genius, here, though I have little to say about him. On the rare occasions when he speaks in public, he speaks admirably, and he enjoys universal respect. As far as literature is concerned, no man’s lines have been laid in pleasanter places. Unlike Doyle, Anthony Hope, Stanley Weyman and others, Barrie did not have to wait for recognition. It is notorious that from the very beginning he never had the proverbial manuscript in the drawer; in other words, that he always found an immediate sale for whatever he wrote. He began as a journalist.

Anthony Hope I first met at an Idler tea. He was one of the brilliant band of younger authors whom Jerome was among the first to recognise. In those days he kept the distinction between “Anthony Hope” the writer, and Anthony Hope Hawkins the barrister, most rigidly. Being the son of a famous London clergyman, Mr. Hawkins, of St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, a cousin of Mr. Justice Hawkins, a scholar of Balliol, and an eloquent speaker, his prospects at the Bar were very good. There was an idea that they would suffer if it were known that he indulged in anything so frivolous as writing love-stories. These were the days when he was composing his immortal “Dolly Dialogues” for the Westminster Gazette, and when he was just beginning the succession of witty and delicate novels which made his fame. He had, I have always understood, been writing for some years, before he could make any impression on the public, and even then he had no hope of making a living by literature. I made one of his early novels my book of the week in The Queen, in a most enthusiastic review, and incidentally mentioned his real name. His friends, perhaps they were officious, entreated me not to do it again, lest it should injure his prospects. A year or two afterwards there was no question off which profession he was to make a living, though as he coquetted with politics, and contested a constituency or two, he probably kept up the legal fiction of his being at the Bar for some time longer.

As he had enjoyed the distinction of being President of the Oxford Union, he was a practised speaker before he came to London. He had plenty of opportunities of exercising his skill without waiting for briefs, for he became a frequent speaker at Club dinners. The charm of his voice and his delivery, the polish and wit of his speeches were recognised at once, and his popularity as a speaker has been undisputed from that day to this.

It was noticed that, though he was so brilliant and fluent, when making a speech, he was rather a silent man at receptions, except where politeness demanded that he should exert himself. But this is a common trait in the more considerable authors. They are frequently not only rather silent, but ill at ease. In those days one could count the authors who were both brilliant socially and brilliant writers, on one’s fingers.

One legal habit Anthony Hope retained; he went to chambers to do his writing as he had been accustomed, and lived in other chambers, and was regarded as a confirmed bachelor till he married. He came to Addison Mansions very frequently in the ’nineties. The incident I remember best was his loss of presence of mind when I tried to save him from a terrific American bore, a middle-aged lady. Somebody had brought her; I had not met her before, and she was having a systematic lion-hunt. She thought that A. H. H. was Anthony Hope, but she was not certain, and said to me, “Is that Anthony Hope? I must know Anthony Hope.”

Wishing to save him from the infliction, because he was always rather distrait with bores, I said, “That is Mr. Hawkins.” I didn’t think she knew enough about literature to be aware of the identity, nor did she, but he had unfortunately caught the words “Anthony Hope,” and smiled, and started forward, and was lost. As he had unconsciously convicted me of falsehood, I left him to his fate.

Generous to needy brother authors, punctilious in the performance of the duties to the literary profession, which his eminence confers on him (in such matters as the Authors’ Society and literary clubs), wonderfully patient and courteous, an admirable literary craftsman, who never turns out slipshod work, as well as a brilliant romancer and witty dialogist, Anthony Hope Hawkins deserves every particle of his popularity and success.

I have not dilated on his plays, though he has achieved great success on the stage, because dramatists tell me that he is not going to write for it any more.

The popularity of our at-homes was at its height before Frankfort Moore had decided to come over to England, giving up the editorial post he held in Ireland, to devote all his time to novel-writing. He and his delightful wife, the sister of Mrs. Bram Stoker, took lodgings at Kew, and were ready for many receptions, so that he might meet his fellow-authors in London. As Bram Stoker had then for years been Irving’s right hand, they had an excellent introduction ready-made, but they brought letters of introduction to us, and, up to the time of his leaving London, he was among our most intimate literary friends.

Frankfort Moore’s success in London was instantaneous, as well it might have been, since he was a brilliant and witty speaker, as well as a writer of brilliant, witty and very charming books. Hutchinson eagerly took up the publication of his works, and the literary clubs soon learned to depend upon him as one of the best after-dinner speakers. In about ten years he made a fortune, and retired to take things in a more leisurely way at an old house in Sussex, where he was able to adequately house his fine collection of old oak, old brass, old engravings and old china, in which he was a noted connoisseur.

His immediate success justified his giving up his lodgings at Kew, and taking a nice, old-fashioned house in Pembroke Road, which he soon began to transform with his panelling, and his collections. His retirement from London left a great gap in many social circles. He was a universal favourite—a man of real eminence, although he regarded his achievements so modestly.

One of the most valued of our visitors was the celebrated Father Stanton, of St. Alban’s, Holborn, who introduced himself to me when he was on his way to Syracuse with F. E. Sidney, with whom he went to Seville on that expedition which resulted in the publication of the latter’s Anglican Innocents in Spain, the book which aroused such anger among Roman Catholics. We were the only two occupants of a sleeping compartment on the Italian railways. He was not wearing clerical dress, and I had no notion who he was until the conclusion of our journey, when Sidney, who had joined us, informed me. We did a lot of sight-seeing in Syracuse together, especially in the cathedral (built into an entire Greek temple, ascribed to Pallas Athene). Both Stanton and Sidney were experts in old gilt, in which Sicily is very rich—the organ at Syracuse is an example. From that time until Stanton’s death we constantly met at the house of Sidney, who has the best collection of sixteenth-century stained glass in England, and built a house in Frognal with the proper windows to receive it. Though Stanton and I did not agree in Church matters, we were yet staunch friends, and I was an immense admirer of one who did so much for the regeneration of the poor in one of the worst districts of London.

The greatest compliment we ever received at our at-homes was when Lord Dundonald, who had known us for some years, and had just come back from his famous relief of Ladysmith with his irregular cavalry, came and spent the best part of the afternoon with us. He looked worn and very sunburnt, but it was one of the events of our lifetimes to hear the stirring details of England’s greatest military drama in this generation, direct from the lips of the man who had given it its happy termination.