Things seen; impressions of men, cities, and books

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Contents

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

The Monotype

Zola

Appendix

MEMOIR.

Through war and pestilence, red siege and fire, Silent and self-contained he drew his breath; Brave, not for show of courage — his desire Truth, as he saw it, even to the death.

— Rudyard Kipling.

The great necessity imposed upon our England by the policy of the Afrikanders inside and out of Cape Colony has cost us many precious lives. I speak for my own set, and with no better outlook than the rest over the many hundreds of brave and brilliant and beautiful creatures who, at the especial instance of the mad and criminal old man at Pretoria, have chosen ratlier to surrender this good earth, and all that she gifts her children withal, than to suffer that an insolent and monstrous wrong were done upon that piece of her to whose inheritance, in all its felicity of pride and freedom, they were born. But I do not think that I speak excessively when I say that, when George Steevens died at Ladysmith, of enteric fever (which is, being translated, filth and low living), there was lost in him as fine a spirit, as rare and as completely trained a brain, and as brave a heart, as we had to show. I write after Kimberley, Paardeberg, Pieter's Hill, Bloemfontein, Kroonstadt, with Mafeking rewarded for her brilviu MEMOIR

liant and heroic feat of arms, with what was the Orange Free State British territory, and with Lord Roberts knocking dreadfully at the heart of the Transvaal Republic; and I cannot choose but reflect upon the fact that these victorious feats all come to me the less triumphingly for that his part in them is not. He had many friends, so that in this I am by no means singular; and our consolation is that he was so good an Englishman that, were it now possible, he would be the first to rebuke us for our cowardice.

I

I have called this note a "Memoir"; but, in plain English, no memoir of him is possible. The story of his life consists in his school successes and in his books; and, apart from these, there is little or nothing to record. Does it, for instance, advance our knowledge of him so very much to record that he came of good, sound, middle-class stock, was born in a London suburb,^ and could read with a good appreciation of facts, at three to four years old? It has all to be said, I suppose; yet it isn't very interesting — surely? I gather, however, that, for all his precocity, he was that best of good things — a true child: which is as much as to say that he ended as he began, with "that child's heart within the man's"

^ His speech bewrayed him till the end. It may be that "II n'est bon bee que de Paris" is true of Chaucer's town as it was of Villon's. If it be, then George Steevens's accent was the best in England,

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an unending refreshment to him, and an unfailing joy to all the rightly constituted children whom he met.i In the beginning he ruled the roast; for one of his joys was an atlas, and when anybody got to anywhere in the illustrated papers, then he and his brothers and sisters also had to get there — in a packing-case for a ship, and with lots of information from the skipper as to the habits and customs of the natives, the longitude and latitude of the port of destination, the mineral, vegetable, and zoological features of the region, and all the rest of it. Presently he went to school, and in no great while he developed into a prize boy, and so into a prize student — an exhibitioner — a prodigy (even) — a don of as few years as a don may have and be real.

But he never lost (so I am told) his interest in "larks," whether informative or not. And his simplicity, his soundness of heart, his integrity of mind remained until the end of things unaltered and unalterable. So they tell me who knew him best in the early days. So they tell me who knew him afterwards, when he was no longer a kind of champion pot-hunter, but a man cut loose from his moorings and sent adrift on the sea of life and time and experience, there to play his game and approve

^ In the early days of our acquaintance he came to lunch with us. He was silent and shy, but he could not escape the eye of the serenest and sincerest thing that ever lived; and in the course of the afternoon she proposed to him, and he was finally taken into her exquisite and beautiful little life.

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himself. So I found him, and, as I have said, so he was found by a better — an infinitely better — judge than I. The truth is, I take it, that in George Steevens the character was even greater than the intelligence. He might have been the most brilliant and the most wonderful portent ever turned out of the Academies, and yet have been a "bounder" (there is no other word, so I must use the only word there is), or a pedant, or a pedant and a "bounder" both. But honesty, a radiant sincerity, straightness of mind and temper and tongue — these were George Steevens. That he had brains and accomplishment is not much to the point. The point is that he had character: a nature sweet yet strong, the finer instincts finely touched, so that he was beloved of children in his life, and in his death may neither be forgotten nor replaced among his friends.

In the beginning he went to a private teacher's, but at thirteen (1882) he won his way into the City of London School, and there he proceeded to distinguish himself as none had done before him. Prize after prize he took, medal after medal,^ till in

^ Four silver medals, and a (special) gold one. Here, from the School Magazine, is a list of his honours: "Leaving out of account numerous prizes and medals, his school and academic distinctions were as follows: Sassoon Entrance Scholarship, 1882; Carpenter Scholarship, 1885; Captain of the School, 1887; Classical Scholarship at Balliol College, Oxford, 1887; Sassoon Sanskrit Exhibition,

MEMOIR ^ XI

1887, being captain of the school, he took the Classical Scholarship at Balliol, and, having done so, proceeded to distinguish himself yet more, till he came to be known as "the Balliol prodigy." Not being a 'Varsity man (as they say), I cannot appreciate his triumphs as, being the writer of this Memoir, I ought, no doubt, to do. But the list of them is striking; and I have marvelled more than once, and been not alone in my marvelling, over the quality of his intelligence, which survived them all, and, more than that, came to the world's work perfectly accomplished, yet vigorous, apprehensive, athletic even, as could be.^ He might, I always felt, have won his way from pot to pot, from prize

City of London School, 1888; Abbott Scholarship, City of London School, 1888; Proxime accessit for Hertford University Scholarship (Oxford), 1888; Honourably mentioned for Ireland Scholarship (Oxford), 1888; First in honours at Matriculation Examination (London University), 1889; First Class in Classical Moderations (Oxford), 1890; Exhibition in Classics in Intermediate Examination (London University), 1889; Scholarship in Classics at B. A. Examination (London University), 1890; First Class in Final Classical School (Oxford), 1892; Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, 1893."

' "The mere quantity of his knowledge was astonishing; his command over it was still more so. He had a Napoleonic faculty for instantaneous and complete concentration of his intellectual forces." — B. A. Abrahams, in the 'City of London School Magazine,' March, 1900. That is most true. He was so complete master of his equipment and his means alike, that, as another school friend has recorded, he wrote his 'Monologues' with a running pen, and scarce ever a reference to the authorities shelved at his back.

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to prize, and then, his mind exhausted with the work of assimilation, have quietly declined upon a curacy, or a grammar-school mastership, or a tutor's place in his college: capable of living interest in nothing excepting drinks and the minor niceties, the riddles and cruces, of classical scholarship. But he did nothing of the kind. On the contrary, he came out into the world, and, for aught one knew, he was not lettered at all, but only a type of Young Oxford: a youth with a pince-nez and a soft hat and a turn for Ibsen and Zola and all manner of extremes. I read of him that he was a capital speaker, with a vein of paradox and a bottoming of humour which kept him ever within the pale of reasonable unreasonableness; and I can very well believe it. Humour he had, and wit, and that excellently trained intelligence of his was excellently active and sane: only, being above all things wise, he did not, young as he was, essentially and despite his tremendous tutoring — he did not choose to begin his real life in too flagrant a humour of offence. I think he must needs have been a little tired, and indefatigable athlete as he'd shown himself, was glad of a rest, and content to lie by and take stock of things. Be this as it may, he left Oxford for Cambridge, and at Cambridge he wrote and edited the 'Cambridge Observer:' a journal very plainly modelled (but with improvements!) on an older 'Observer/ in which latter he was afterwards to print his one serious contribution to English letters. I have read his 'Cambridge Ob-

MEMOIR xui

server' work, and it is enough that none of it has seemed worth reprinting in this volume either to my colleague, Mr. Street, or to myself. It showed, however, that there was somebody with a pen ; and a result of it was that, Mr. Oscar Browning aiding, George Steevens joined the staff of the 'Pall Mall Gazette,' and now came out into the world indeed.

III

He did so in a happy time. He was well and thrice well grounded in books; as ever, the golden chance was his, and he was to be well and thrice well grounded in affairs of men. A little before, there was nothing to be said about the 'Pall Mall Gazette* except that it had seen better days. A good thing in the beginning, it had gone on to be the most notorious journal in the world, and then, lighting upon evil and sober days, had fallen as low as a journal can, and live. Then, by a stroke of fortune as sudden and as dramatic, I think, as anything in the history of journalism, its estate was changed. It became the property of an American gentleman, Mr. William Waldorf Astor, who showed at once that he had wit and enterprise and savoir-faire, as well as money, by placing its control in the hands of a man who knew nothing whatever of journalism, but was, as was abundantly shown in the sequel, the most brilliant and daring Editor of his time. He was young, had read hard, had travelled far; knew all sorts and conditions of men; was

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versed in all sorts and conditions of things; had a great sense of politics : with prestance, gaiety, position, a beautiful temperament. With never a touch of Fleet Street in his make, he was better than all Fleet Street put together at Fleet Street's own particular game; and to him, as to David in the Cave of Adullam, there flocked the younger and more daring spirits of whose aid he stood in need. One was George Warrington Steevens, and he came out of the experience a made man. They were all young men in the office of the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' Even the Assistant Editor, albeit the oldest in years, had in him the stuff of unending youth, and despite his great range of knowledge, his fine sense of political conduct, his serene, immitigable Toryism, had gaiety of heart enough, and wit and talk, and experience of the comedy of life and time and affairs enough, to be not much the elder of the youngest. Then the 'National Observer,' a journal which, as I've said elsewhere, is still remembered with affection and regret "by the chosen few who wrote for it and the chosen fewer who read it" — the 'National Observer,' I say, was still afoot, and though conscious of its moribundity — of the fact that in the midst of life we are in death — was keeping the bravest of fronts; and its young men were burning for new worlds to conquer. These new worlds, or an approach to them, they found in the Tall Mall Gazette,' as that ancient and battered print was refashioned and refitted, te Teucro diice: with Mr. Gust at the helm, and Mr. W. W. Astor,

MEMOIR XV

in the guise of a favouring gale, at the prow. George Steevens came in with the rest. He was in the soft-hat-and-scarlet-tie stage of youthful manhood: a rather shy, a rather sulky or (so it seemed), a rather gloomy and socialistic junior don. So he appeared to me when at last I was privileged to make his acquaintance; so, I believe, he appeared to all the mariners in the new ship. But appearances were not long against him. I think he interested everbody from the first, and when he did so much as that, the sequel was inevitable. You started with a kindness for him, and you liked him, as you went on knowing him, better and better, more and more. And, believe me, it was a change and a chance for him. Hitherto he had been primus inter pares — a leader among boys. In the office of the 'Pall Mall Gazette' everybody, as I've said, was young; but he was the youngest of all, even as he was the only one who had not some salt of active life. Out of a past of books and prizes and debating societies and sentimental socialism, he came into an atmosphere of wit, and scholarship, and laughter, and sound Toryism, and the practice — the right practice — of affairs.^ As I said, he was

^ If he came to his work a philosophical Radical (whatever that may mean), he was very soon as good an Englishman as the best of his new-found yet unalterable friends. I have read somewhere that, in after years, he did but pretend to approve the reconquest of the Sudan, the reply to Mr. Kruger's declaration of war: that what he wrote about these matters was written to please the public, and in no sort represented his own convictions. As one who knew him very intimately, I can but say that I'll not xvi MEMOIR

sulky and shy — or rather he was shy to the point of seeming sulky. But he soon endeared himself to every man in the place; at last his gift of humour got an irritant and an outlet both; at last his pretensions to ascendency, superiority, impeccability were subjected to a common and continuous test, and he was howled at if he did ill, as he was applauded if he did well. As his Editor, who loved and understood him, gave him all manner of opportunities, and turned him, all in the day's work, now on to the writing of flippant paragraphs, now on to the conduct of a matter in dispute which might have embroiled two kingdoms, but in which his sound yet brilliant handling of maps and texts and facts was sure to keep the journal "right side up," and "with a lot to spare,"^ he came in for a great deal of both execration and applause. It was, as I believe, the making of him — it and, as I believe, the 'National Observer,' to which at this time he sent, from week to week, reviews which are models of their kind: reviews or scholarly or savage or merely blighting; and with these, and certain leaders and "middles" on matters of the moment, or on things in general, the several numbers of what must

believe it. He was too good an Englishman and too poor a hypocrite. That, despite his Toryism, he remained a philosophical Radical is like enough. I have yet to learn, in fact, that there is any very considerable difference between the several points of view.

^ In those days the 'Pall Mall Gazette' was easily, not to say loosely, written. I find that I have relapsed upon the manner of it. So I keep the slang.

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in the end be recognised as his sole achievement in pure Hterature. I mean, of course, those wonderful 'Monologues,'- in which, applying his reading and intelligence and humanity to the work of picturing and expressing the historical men and women of a bygone time, he recreated and renewed for us — brought as it were to our very doorsteps — ■ figures and characters so diverse and remote as Troilus and Xantippe, Brutus the pedant and Commodus the madman, Vespasian, with his work-aday views of empire, and Nero, Cicero, Alcibiades: the wonderful 'Augustus,' with its luminous and easy mastery of Rofnan politics at a time when Roman politics were at their cloudiest; and greatly daring, succeded in suggesting even the mighty Caius Julius. It is when you come to think that these re-creations, these interpretings, these admirable and daring transfigurations (so to speak) of living Greece and Rome were done at four- or five-and-twenty, between spells of journalism, that you realise the great capacity George Steevens had, and the sort of man of letters he might and should have been. It seemed other to the Gods. But

* Monologues of the Dead. London: Methuen. 1895. Note that the method is, so far as it goes, on all fours with Shakespeare's. Steevens translates, or transliterates, his Greeks and Romans into the terms of the life he knew, and takes his lingo from the 'Sporting Times' if need be. What else does Shakespeare do in "Troilus," in "Antony," in "Coriolanus"? His Thersites alone sufifices to show how very well his pupil had learned his lesson, and how brilliantly he put his learning out to use.

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knowing not their minds, men may lament, as I do, that they who gave us thus much refused us more.

IV

But Scripture saith. An ending! This peculiar set of circumstances was too good to last. Of the 'National Observer' there was presently left (1894) not much else than the aspect and the name, and not long afterwards not even these; and in the sequel (1895) the Tall Mall Gazette,' by the operation of a change as dramatic and as sudden as that which had resulted in its renascence, changed Editors and staffs once more, and, from being a power in the land, became once more an everyday evening journal. That Steevens did not instantly follow his friends into the vacancy of an enforced leisure was merely due, I believe, to the fact that he was working to the terms of an engagement. These fulfilled, he also went into retirement for a while; and, having married at the end of 1894, was content to lie low and be happy. At the same time, by way of keeping himself in touch with affairs, he proceeded to master and to say his say upon the question of the British Navy,^ and to make himself welcome, as a man qualified to speak with prestance and authority on many things, to 'Blackwood.' Then (1896) came the second chance of his life (I except his marriage, which was a thing

^ Naval Policy. By G. W. Steevens. London: Methuen. 1896.

MEMOIR xix

apart from the ordinary courses of human life, and was in the event as fortunate as in the beginning it had seemed bewildering), and on the invitation of Mr. Alfred Harmsworth, a man of large and splendid inventions, he joined the staff of the 'Daily Miail:' a journal in whose service he was to develop a talent of a strange and taking brilliancy (its existence none had suspected in him), which was to give its chief, if not its sole, literary interest, to the work he rejoiced to do for it. He had shown, not once but many times, that he could understand. He was now to prove to admiration that he could both understand and see : that, given a figure, an aspect, an incident, even a great and notable passage in affairs, he could apply that admirable brain of his to the task of observing and realising what he saw, on lines so essential and so clean that, his faculty of speech thrown in, 'twas easy for him — almost too easy — to pass on the final effect of his vision. This is putting it badly enough, no doubt; and I do not know that it will make matters very much better to note that, at the time of his recording his impressions in the terms which made his fame, he stood alone among English journalists. To be sure, the capacity he showed was not now for the first time shown in English journalism. Dickens had exampled it, and that with "an immense and far-reaching instinct of the Picturesque" (I quote from memory, from Mr. Henry James); so had Ruskin; so had Meredith and R. L. Stevenson; so had Rudyard Kipling.

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I do not think that Steevens was deeply read in any of these writers ;i and that I do not think so is enough to show that I hold him better versed in Greek and Latin than he was in English, All the same, he was cut out of the same stuff with them: the peculiar capacity for vision and realisation, which was theirs, was his also; so that his 'Omdurman,' done amid the stinks and horrors of the field, is like to remain a classic — and a classic unsurpassed — for many years to come. He had a sort of visual grip of things : not reckless, nor haphazard, nor touched with sentiment; but alert, athletic, of an absolute and unalterable serenity. I am told (and I can very well believe) that a certain commander-in-chief, himself the hardest and sternest of communicants, has, on his own confession, been more than once indebted to George's despatches for essentials in his own. And I believe that my friend would never have lost this "visual grip," but would have gone on putting it to what purpose he chose in very different work: work

^ He can scarce have seen Mr. Kipling's journalistic achievement; for this was made accessible only (1899) when he (Steevens) was shut up in Ladysmith. Mr. Kipling, too, is only one of several; for Dickens was, at the writing of his 'Uncommercial Traveller,' the most brilliant and commanding literary figure of his time; so that his 'Uncommercials,' though they were done for a weekly print (his own), were hardly journalism. A nearer parallel is Ruskin, whose 'Modern Painters' (to name no more of his works), though it hath ever existed as a book, is obviously mere journalism; stufif done to-day and forgot (of the writer) to-morrow.

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other in scope, in practice, in design and in effect, than that which he did for the 'Daily Mail.' On that journal he had four years of active literary life. He began with New York and These States in general; he went on to tell how the Turk made hay of the Greek; he went to Egypt, and saw Sir Herbert triumph at the Atbara; he went to Egypt again, and, after Omdurman, passed to Khartum; he steamed east with Lord Curzon, and spread his big intelligence out over India under the British Raj; he went to South Africa, and there, having told us what he thought of things as he saw themi in the desperate leaguer in which he lost himself — there, I say, he died. I need not pass these books^ in review. I have, I think, stated their dominant literary quality. The presence of that quality made their author remarkable even to-day, when near everybody writes well, and some few write with distinction. And behind it, as, having known the 'Monologues' of old, and having been privileged to read, with other notes, as much as he did of his first essay in fiction, I can asseverate, without fear of repentance, that behind it all there was a fine romantic imagination: even as, behind that, there was a capacity for high politics, which, had he but

^ (i) The Land of the Dollar. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1896.) (2) With the Conquering Turk. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1897.) (3) Egypt in 1898. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1898.) (4) With Kitchener to Khartum. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1898.) (5) In India. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1899.) (6) From Cape Town to Ladysmith. (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1900.)

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come out of Ladysmith, could not but have taken him far.