THE PRIVATE LIFE OF

  HENRY MAITLAND


  _A RECORD DICTATED BY J. H._



  REVISED AND EDITED BY
  MORLEY ROBERTS



  HODDER & STOUGHTON
  NEW YORK
  GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY




  Copyright, 1912,
  By George H. Doran Company




  INSCRIBED
  TO THE MEMORY OF
  MY WIFE




PREFACE

This book was dictated by J.H. mostly in my presence, and I consider
it well worth publishing.  No doubt Henry Maitland is not famous,
though since his death much has been written of him.  Most of it,
however, outside of literary criticism, has been futile and
uninstructed.  But J.H. really knew the man, and here is what he has
said of him.  We shall be told, no doubt, that we have used
Maitland's memory for our own ends.  Let that be as it may; such an
accusation can only be met by denial.  When there is no proof of
guilt, there may well be none of innocence.  The fact remains that
Henry Maitland's life was worth doing, even in the abbreviated and
censored form in which it now appears.  The man was not eminent, only
because he was not popular and did not live long enough.  One gets to
eminence nowadays by longevity or by bad work.  While Maitland
starved, X or Y or Z may wallow in a million sixpences.  In this
almost childishly simple account of a man's life there is the essence
of our literary epoch.  Here is a writing man put down, crudely it
may be, but with a certain power.  There is no book quite like it in
the English tongue, and the critic may take what advantage he will of
that opening for his wit.

At any rate here we have a portrait emerging which is real.  Henry
Maitland stands on his feet, and on his living feet.  He is not a
British statue done in the best mortuary manner.  There is far too
little sincere biography in English.  We are a mealy-mouthed race,
hypocrites by the grave and the monument.  Ten words of natural
eulogy, and another ten of curious and sympathetic comment, may be
better than tons of marble built up by a hired liar with his tongue
in his cheek.  In the whole book, which cannot be published now,
there are things worth waiting for.  I have cut and retrenched with
pain, for I wanted to risk the whole, but no writer or editor is his
own master in England.  I am content to have omitted some truth if I
have permitted nothing false.  The reader who can say truly, "I
should not have liked to meet Henry Maitland," is a fool or a
fanatic, or more probably both.  Neither of those who are primarily
responsible for this little book is answerable to such.  We do not
desire his praise, or even his mere allowance.  Such as are
interested in the art of letters, and in those who practise in the
High Court of Literature, will perceive what we had in our minds.
Here is life, not a story or a constructed diary, and the art with
which it is done is a secondary matter.  If Henry Maitland bleeds and
howls, so did Philoctetes, and the outcry of Henry Maitland is more
pertinent to our lives.  For all life, even at its best, is tragic;
and there is much in Maitland's which is dramatically common to our
world as we see it and live in it.  If we have lessened him at times
from the point of view of a hireling in biographic praise, we have
set him down life size all the same; and as we ask no praise, we care
for no blame.  Here is the man.

MORLEY ROBERTS.

NOTE.--The full manuscript, which may possibly be published after
some years, is, in the meantime placed in safe custody.




THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY MAITLAND



CHAPTER I

It is never an easy thing to write the life, or even such a sketch as
I propose making, of a friend whom one knew well, and in Henry
Maitland's case it is most uncommonly difficult.  The usual
biographer is content with writing panegyric, and as he must depend
for his material, and even sometimes for his eventual remuneration,
on the relatives of his subject, he is from the start in a hopeless
position, except, it may be, as regards the public side of the life
in question.  But in the case of a man of letters the personal
element is the only real and valuable one, or so it seems to me, and
even if I were totally ignorant of Maitland's work I think it would
yet be possible for me to do a somewhat lifelike and live sketch of
him.  I believe, moreover, that it is my duty to do it, although no
doubt in some ways it must be painful to those connected with him.
Yet soon after his death many came to me desiring me to write his
biography.  It was an understood thing that of all his friends I knew
him best, and was certainly the greatest and chief authority on his
career from the Moorhampton College days up to his final break with
his second wife.  But in 1904 there were many obstacles to my doing
this work.  His two sons were young.  His sisters and his mother were
still alive.  I say nothing of the wife herself, then being taken
care of, or of a third lady of whom I must speak presently.  Several
people came to me with proposals about a book on Henry Maitland.  One
of the partners of a big publishing house made me a definite offer
for it on behalf of his firm.  On the other hand one of his
executors, Miss Kingdon, a most kindly and amiable and very able
woman employed in a great accountant's office in the city, who had
done very much for Henry Maitland in his later life, begged me not to
do the book, or if I did it to hold it over until her
responsibilities as executrix and trustee for the sons were at an
end.  But it is now nearly nine years since he died, and I feel that
if I do not put down at once what I knew of him it never will be
written, and something will be lost, something which has perhaps a
little value, even though it is not so great as those could wish who
knew and loved Henry Maitland.

There is no doubt many people will accuse me of desiring to use his
memory for my own advantage.  "My withers are unwrung."  Those who
speak in this way must have little knowledge of the poor profit to be
derived from writing such a book, and the proportion of that profit
to the labour employed in it.  On three separate occasions I spoke to
Maitland about writing his biography, and it was an understood thing
between us that if he died before me I was to write his life and tell
the whole and absolute truth about him.  This he gave me the most
definite permission to do.  I believe he felt that it might in some
ways be of service to humanity for such a book to be written.  Only
the other day, when I wrote to Miss Kingdon concerning the biography,
she answered me: "If I seem lacking in cordiality in this matter do
not attribute it to any want of sympathy with you.  I am not
attempting to dissuade you.  Henry Maitland was sent into hell for
the purpose of saving souls; perhaps it is a necessary thing that his
story should be written by all sorts of people from their different
points of view."  Once I proposed to him to use his character and
career as the chief figure in a long story.  He wrote to me, "By all
means.  Why not?"  Had I not the letter in which he said this I
should myself almost doubt my own recollection, but it is certain
that he knew the value of his own experience, and felt that he might
perhaps by his example save some from suffering as he did.

No doubt very much that I say of him will not be true to others.  To
myself it is true at any rate.  We know very little of each other,
and after all it is perhaps in biography that one is most acutely
conscious of the truth in the pragmatic view of truth.  Those things
are true in Henry Maitland's life and character which fit in wholly
with all my experience of him and make a coherent and likely theory.
I used to think I knew him very well, and yet when I remember and
reflect it seems to me that I know exceedingly little about him.  And
yet again, I am certain that of the two people in the world that I
was best acquainted with he was one.  We go through life believing
that we know many, but if we sit down and attempt to draw them we
find here and there unrelated facts and many vague incoherencies.  We
are in a fog about our very dear friend whom but yesterday we were
ready to judge and criticise with an air of final knowledge.  There
is something humiliating in this, and yet how should we, who know so
little of ourselves, know even those we love?  To my mind, with all
his weaknesses, which I shall not extenuate, Maitland was a noble and
notable character, and if anything I should write may endure but a
little while it is because there is really something of him in my
words.  I am far more concerned to write about Henry Maitland for
those who loved him than for those who loved him not, and I shall be
much better pleased if what I do about him takes the shape of an
impression rather than of anything like an ordinary biography.  Every
important and unimportant political fool who dies nowadays is buried
under obituary notices and a mausoleum in two volumes--a mausoleum
which is, as a rule, about as high a work of art as the angels on
tombstones in an early Victorian cemetery.  But Maitland, I think,
deserves, if not a better, a more sympathetic tribute.

When I left Radford Grammar School my father, being in the Civil
Service, was sent to Moorhampton as Surveyor of Taxes, and his family
shortly followed him.  I continued my own education at Moorhampton
College, which was then beginning to earn a high reputation as an
educational centre.  Some months before I met Maitland personally I
knew his reputation was that of an extraordinary young scholar.  Even
as a boy of sixteen he swept everything before him.  There was nobody
in the place who could touch him at classical learning, and everybody
prophesied the very greatest future for the boy.  I met him first in
a little hotel not very far from the College where some of us young
fellows used to go between the intervals of lectures to play a game
of billiards.  I remember quite well seeing him sit on a little table
swinging his legs, and to this day I can remember somewhat of the
impression he made upon me.  He was curiously bright, with a very
mobile face.  He had abundant masses of brown hair combed backwards
over his head, grey-blue eyes, a very sympathetic mouth, an
extraordinarily well-shaped chin--although perhaps both mouth and
chin were a little weak--and a great capacity for talking and
laughing.

Henceforth he and I became very firm friends at the College, although
we belonged to two entirely different sets.  I was supposed to be an
extraordinarily rowdy person, and was always getting into trouble
both with the authorities and with my fellows, and he was a man who
loathed anything like rowdiness, could not fight if he tried,
objected even then to the Empire, hated patriotism, and thought about
nothing but ancient Greece and Rome, or so it would appear to those
who knew him at that time.

I learnt then a little of his early history.  Even when he was but a
boy of ten or eleven he was recognised as a creature of most
brilliant promise.  He always believed that he owed most, and perhaps
everything, to his father, who must have been a very remarkable man.
Henry never spoke about him in later life without emotion and
affection.  I have often thought since that Maitland felt that most
of his disasters sprang from the premature death of his father, whom
he loved so tenderly.  Indeed the elder man must have been a
remarkable figure, a gentle, courtly, and most kindly man, himself
born in exile and placed in alien circumstances.  Maitland often used
to speak, with a catch in his voice, of the way his father read to
him.  I remember not what books, but they were the classic authors of
England; Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Tennyson.  Some seem to imagine
that the father had what is called a well-stocked library.  This was
not true, but he had many good books and taught his son to love them.
Among these there was one great volume of Hogarth's drawings which
came into Henry Maitland's personal possession, only, I think, when
he was finally domiciled in a London flat, where he and I often
looked at it.  It is curious that as a boy Hogarth had a fascination
for him.  He sometimes copied these drawings, for as a child he had
no little skill as a draughtsman.  What appealed to him in later days
in Hogarth was the power of the man's satire, his painful bitterness,
which can only be equalled by the ironies of Swift in another medium.
Although personally I admire Hogarth I could never look at him with
anything like pleasure or, indeed, without acute discomfort.  I
remember that Maitland in later years said in his book about the
Victorian novelist: "With these faces who would spend hours of
leisure?  Hogarth copied in the strict sense of the word.  He gives
us life and we cannot bear it."

Maitland's family came, I think, from Worcester, but something led
the elder Maitland to Mirefield's, and there he came in contact with
a chemist called Lake, whose business he presently bought.  Perhaps
the elder Maitland was not a wholly happy man.  He was very gentle,
but not a person of marked religious feeling.  Indeed I think the
attitude of the family at that time was that of free thought.  From
everything that Henry said of his father it always seemed to me that
the man had been an alien in the cold Yorkshire town where his son
was born.  And Maitland knew that had his father lived he would never
have been thrown alone into the great city of Moorhampton, "Lord of
himself, that heritage of woe."  Not all women understand the dangers
that their sons may meet in such surroundings, and those who had
charge of Henry Maitland's future never understood or recognized them
in his youth.  But his father would have known.  In one chapter of
"The Vortex," there is very much of Maitland.  It is a curiously
wrought picture of a father and his son in which he himself played
alternately the part of father and child.  I knew his anxieties for
his own children, and on reading that chapter one sees them renewed.
But in it there was much that was not himself.  It was drawn rather
from what he believed his father had felt.  In "The Vortex" the
little boy spends an hour alone with his father just before bedtime,
and he calls it "A golden hour, sacred to memories of the world's own
childhood."

Maitland went to school in Mirefields and this school has been called
a kind of "Dotheboys Hall," which of course is absolutely ridiculous.
It was not, in fact, a boarding-school at all, but a day school.  The
man who ran it was called Hinkson.  Maitland said he was an
uneducated man, or at any rate uneducated from his point of view in
later years, yet he was a person of very remarkable character, and
did very good work, taking it all round.  A man named Christopher
started this school and sold it to Hinkson, who had, I believe, some
kind of a degree obtained at Durham.  The boys who attended it were
good middle class and lower middle class, some the sons of
professional men, some the offspring of the richer tradesmen.  Upon
the whole it was a remarkably good school for that time.  Many of the
boys actually left the Grammar School at Mirefields to attend it.
Henry Maitland always owned that Hinkson took great pains with his
scholars, and affirmed that many owed him much.  As I said, the
general religious air of Maitland's home at that time was one of free
thought.  I believe the feminine members of the family attended a
Unitarian Church, but the father did not go to church at all.  One
example of this religious attitude of his home came out when Hinkson
called on his boys to repeat the collect of the day and Maitland
replied with an abrupt negative that they did not do that kind of
thing at home.  Whereupon Hinkson promptly set him to acquire it,
saying sternly that it would do him no harm.

For the most part in those early days the elder Maitland and his son
spent Sunday afternoon in the garden belonging to their Mirefields
house.  Oddly enough this garden was not attached to the dwelling but
was a kind of allotment.  It has been photographically reproduced by
Henry Maitland in the seventh chapter of the first volume of
"Morning."  Very often Henry Maitland's father read to him in that
garden.

One of Maitland's schoolfellows at Hinkson's school was the son of
the man from whom his father had bought the druggist's business.  The
elder Lake was a friend of Barry Sullivan, and theatrically mad.  He
started plays in which Henry always took some part, though not the
prominent part which has been attributed to him by some.
Nevertheless he was always interested in plays and had a very
dramatic way of reading anything that was capable of dramatic
interpretation.  He always loved the sound of words, and even when he
was a boy of about twelve he took down a German book and read some of
it aloud to the younger Lake, who did not know German and said so.
Whereupon Maitland shook his fist at him and said: "But Lake, listen,
listen, listen--doesn't it sound fine?"  This endured through all his
life.  At this same time he used to read Oliver Wendell Holmes aloud
to some of the other boys.  This was when he was thirteen.  Even then
he always mouthed the words and loved their rhythm.

Naturally enough, his father being a poor man, there would have been
no opportunity of Henry Maitland's going to Moorhampton and to its
great college if he had not obtained some scholarship.  This, I
think, was the notion that his father had at the time, and the
necessity for it became more imperative when his father died.  He did
obtain this scholarship when he was somewhere about sixteen, and
immediately afterwards was sent over to Moorhampton quite alone and
put into lodgings there.  At his school in Mirefields he had taken
every possible prize, and I think it was two exhibitions from the
London University which enabled him to go to Moorhampton.  The
college was a curious institution, one of the earliest endeavours to
create a kind of university centre in a great provincial city.  We
certainly had a very wonderful staff there, especially on the
scientific side.  Among the men of science at the college were Sir
Henry Bissell; Schorstein, the great chemist; Hahn, also a chemist,
and Balfour, the physicist.  On the classical side were Professor
Little and Professor Henry Parker, who were not by any means so
eminent as their scientific colleagues.  The eminence of our
scientific professors did not matter very much from Henry Maitland's
point of view, perhaps, for from the day of his birth to the day of
his death, he took no interest whatever in science and loathed all
forms of speculative thought with a peculiar and almost amusing
horror.  Mathematics he detested, and if in later years I ever
attempted to touch upon metaphysical questions he used to shut up, to
use an American phrase, just like a clam.  But on the classical side
he was much more than merely successful.  He took every possible
prize that was open to him.  In his book "The Exile," there is a
picture of a youth on prize day going up to receive prize after
prize, and I know that this chapter contains much of what he himself
must have felt when I saw him retire to a modest back bench loaded
with books bound in calf and tooled in gold.

Of course a college of this description, which was not, properly
speaking, a university, could only be regarded, for a boy of his
culture, as a stepping-stone to one of the older universities,
probably Cambridge, since most of my own friends who did go to the
university went there from Moorhampton.  I do not think there was a
professor or lecturer or a single student in the college who did not
anticipate for Henry Maitland one of the brightest possible futures,
so far as success at the university could make it so.  It is possible
that I alone out of those who regarded him with admiration and
affection had some doubt of this, and that was not because I
disagreed as a boy with any of the estimates that had been formed of
him, but simply because for some reason or another he chose me as a
confidant.  Many years afterwards he said to me with painful
bitterness: "It was a cruel and most undesirable thing that I, at the
age of sixteen, should have been turned loose in a big city,
compelled to live alone in lodgings, with nobody interested in me but
those at the college.  I see now that one of my sisters should
certainly have been sent with me to Moorhampton."

One day he showed me a photograph.  It was that of a young girl, aged
perhaps seventeen--he at the time being very little more--with her
hair down her back.  She was not beautiful, but she had a certain
prettiness, the mere prettiness of youth, and she was undoubtedly not
a lady.  After some interrogation on my part he told me that she was
a young prostitute whom he knew, and I do not think I am exaggerating
my own feelings when I say that I recognised instinctively and at
once that if his relations with her were not put an end to some kind
of disaster was in front of him.  It was not that I knew very much
about life, for what could a boy of less than eighteen really know
about it?--but I had some kind of instinctive sense in me, and I was
perfectly aware, even then, that Henry Maitland had about as little
_savoir-vivre_ as anybody I had ever met up to that time, or anybody
I could ever expect to meet.  It may seem strange to some that even
at that time I had no moral views, and extremely little religion,
although I may say incidentally that I thought about it sufficiently
to become deliberately a Unitarian, refusing to be confirmed in the
English Church, very much to the rage of the parish clergyman, and
with the result of much friction with my father.  Yet although I had
no moral views I did my best to get Maitland to give up this girl,
but he would not do it.  The thing went on, so far as I am aware, for
the best part of a year.  He did all he could, apparently, to get
Marian Hilton to leave the streets.  He even bought a sewing machine
and gave it to her with this view.  That was another sample of his
early idealism.

This was in 1876, and the younger Lake, who was three years older
than Maitland, had by then just qualified as a doctor.  He was an
assistant at Darwen and one day went over to Moorhampton to see
Henry, who told him what he had told me about this Marian Hilton.  He
even went so far as to say that he was going to marry her.  Dr. Lake,
of course, being an older man, and knowing something of life through
his own profession, did not approve of this and strongly objected.
Afterwards he regretted a thousand times that he had not written
direct to Maitland's people to tell them of what was going on.
Still, although he was the older man, he was not so much older as to
have got rid of the boyish loyalty of one youth to another, and he
did not do what he knew he ought to have done.  He found out that
Maitland had even sold his father's watch to help this girl.  This
affair was also known to a young accountant who came from Mirefields
whom I did not know, and also to another man at the college who is
now in the Government Service.  So far as I remember the accountant
was not a good influence, but his other friend did what he could to
get Maitland to break off this very undesirable relationship, with no
more success than myself.

I have never understood how it was that he got into such frightful
financial difficulties.  I can only imagine that Marian must have
had, in one way or another, the greater portion of the income which
he got from the scholarships he held.  I do know that his affection
for her seemed at this time to be very sincere.  And out of that
affection there grew up, very naturally, a horror in his sensitive
mind for the life this poor child was leading.  He haunted the
streets which she haunted, and sometimes saw her with other men.  I
suppose even then she must have been frightfully extravagant, and
perhaps given to drink, but considering what his income was I think
he should have been able to give her a pound a week if necessary, and
yet have had sufficient to live on without great difficulty.
Nevertheless he did get into difficulties, and never even spoke to me
about it.  I was quite aware, in a kind of dim way, that he was in
trouble and looked very ill, but he did not give me his fullest
confidence, although one day he told me, as he had told Lake, that he
proposed marrying her.  I was only a boy, but I was absolutely
enraged at the notion and used every possible means to prevent him
committing such an absurd act of folly.  When I met him I discussed
it with him.  When I was away from him I wrote him letters.  I
suppose I wrote him a dozen letters begging that he would do no such
foolish thing.  I told him that he would wrong himself, and could do
the girl no possible good.  My instincts told me even then that she
would, instead of being raised, pull him down.  These letters of mine
were afterwards discovered in his rooms when the tragedy had happened.

During that time in 1876, we students at Moorhampton College were
much disturbed by a series of thefts in the common room, and from a
locker room in which we kept our books and papers and our overcoats.
Books disappeared unaccountably and so did coats.  Money was taken
from the pockets of coats left in the room, and nobody knew who was
to blame for this.  Naturally enough we suspected a porter or one of
the lower staff, but we were wrong.  Without our knowledge the
college authorities set a detective to discover who was to blame.
One day I went into the common room, and standing in front of the
fire found a man, a young fellow about my age, called Sarle, with
whom I frequently played chess--he was afterwards president of the
chess club at Oxford--and he said to me: "Have you heard the news?"
"What news?" I asked.  "Your friend, Henry Maitland, has been
stealing those things that we have lost," he said.  And when he said
it I very nearly struck him, for it seemed a gross and incredible
slander.  But unfortunately it was true, and at that very moment
Maitland was in gaol.  A detective had hidden himself in the small
room leading out of the bigger room where the lockers were and had
caught him in the act.  It was a very ghastly business and certainly
the first great shock I ever got in my life.  I think it was the same
for everybody who knew the boy.  The whole college was in a most
extraordinary ferment, and, indeed, I may say the whole of
Moorhampton which took any real interest in the college.

Professor Little, who was then the head of the college, sent for me
and asked me what I knew of the matter.  I soon discovered that this
was because the police had found letters from me in Maitland's room
which referred to Marian Hilton.  I told the professor with the
utmost frankness everything that I knew about the affair, and
maintained that I had done my utmost to get him to break with her, a
statement which all my letters supported.  I have often imagined a
certain suspicion, in the minds of some of those who are given to
suspicion, that I myself had been leading the same kind of life as
Henry Maitland.  This was certainly not true; but I believe that one
or two of those who did not like me--and there are always some--threw
out hints that I knew Maitland had been taking these things.  Yet
after my very painful interview with Professor Little, who was a very
delightful and kindly personality--though certainly not so strong a
man as the head of such an institution should be--I saw that he gave
me every credit for what I had tried to do.  Among my own friends at
the college was a young fellow, Edward Wolff, the son of the Rev. Mr.
Wolff, the Unitarian minister at the chapel in Broad Street.  Edward
was afterwards fifth wrangler of his year at Cambridge.  He got his
father to interest himself in Henry Maitland's future.  Mr. Wolff and
several other men of some eminence in the city did what they could
for him.  They got together a little money and on his release from
prison sent him away to America.  He was met on coming out of prison
by Dr. Lake's father, who also helped him in every possible way.

It seemed to me then that I had probably seen the last of Maitland,
and the turn my own career took shortly afterwards rendered this even
more likely.  In the middle of 1876 I had a very serious disagreement
with my father, who was a man of great ability but very violent
temper, and left home.  On September 23 of that year I sailed for
Australia and remained there, working mostly in the bush, for the
best part of three years.  During all that time I heard little of
Henry Maitland, though I have some dim remembrance of a letter I
received from him telling me that he was in America.  It was in 1879
that I shipped before the mast at Melbourne in a blackwall barque and
came back to England as a seaman.




CHAPTER II

A psychologist or a romancer might comment on the matter of the last
chapter till the sun went down, but the world perhaps would not be
much further advanced.  It is better, I think, for the man's apology
or condemnation to come out of the drama that followed.  This is
where Life mocks at Art.  The tragic climax and catastrophe are in
the first act, and the remainder is a long and bitter commentary.
Maitland and I never discussed his early life.  Practically we never
spoke of Moorhampton though we often enough touched on ancient things
by implication.  His whole life as I saw it, and as I shall relate
it, is but a development of the nature which made his disaster
possible.

So one comes back to my own return from Australia.  I had gone out
there as a boy, and came back a man, for I had had a man's
experiences; work, adventure, travel, hunger, and thirst.  All this
hardened a somewhat neurotic temperament, at any rate for the time,
till life in a city, and the humaner world of books removed the
temper which one gets when plunged in the baths of the ocean.  During
some months I worked for a position in the Civil Service and thought
very little of Maitland, for he was lost.  Yet as I got back into the
classics he returned to me at times, and I wrote to my own friends in
Moorhampton about him.  They sent me vague reports of him in the
United States, and then at last there came word that he was once more
in England; possibly, and even probably, in London.  Soon afterwards
I found an advertisement in the _Athenæum_ of a book entitled
"Children of the Dawn," by Henry Maitland.  As soon as I saw it I
went straightway to the firm which published it, and being ignorant
of the ways of publishers, demanded Maitland's address, which was
promptly and very properly refused--for all they knew I might have
been a creditor.  They promised, however, to send on a letter to him,
and I wrote one at once, receiving an answer the very next day.  He
appointed as our meeting-place the smoking-room of the Horse Shoe
Hotel at the bottom of Tottenham Court Road.  Conceivably it was one
of the most curious meetings that had ever taken place in such a
locality.  We met late at night in the crowded smoking-room, and I
found him very much his old self, for he was still a handsome and
intelligent boy, though somewhat worn and haggard considering his
years.  As for myself, I remember that he told me, chuckling, that I
looked like a soldier, which was no doubt the result of some years on
horseback--possibly I walked with a cavalry stride.  We sat and drank
coffee, and had whiskey, and smoked, until we were turned out of the
hotel at half-past twelve.  It was perhaps owing to the fact that I
was ever the greater talker that he learnt more of my life in
Australia than I learnt of his in the United States.  He was, in
fact, somewhat reserved as to his adventures there.  And yet, little
by little, I learnt a great deal--it was always a case of little by
little with him.  At no time did he possess any great fluency or
power of words when speaking of his own life.

It seems that friends had given him some letters to writers and
others in New York, and he made the acquaintance there of many whose
names I forget.  I only recollect the name of Lloyd Garrison, the
poet.  Maitland told me that upon one occasion Lloyd Garrison induced
him to go home with him about two o'clock in the morning to hear a
sonnet on which Garrison had been working, as he affirmed almost with
tears, for three whole months.  As Maitland said, the result hardly
justified the toil.  Among the friends that he made there were a few
artistic and literary tendencies who had made a little club, where it
was _de rigueur_ at certain times to produce something in the form of
a poem.  Maitland showed me the set of verses with which he had paid
his literary footing; they were amusing, but of no great importance.
So long as Maitland's money lasted in New York he had not an
unpleasant time.  It was only when he exhausted his means and had to
earn a living by using his wits that he found himself in great
difficulties, which were certainly not to be mitigated by the
production of verse.  But Maitland never pretended to write poetry,
though he sometimes tried.  I still have a few of his poems in my
possession, one of them a set of love verses which he put into one of
his books but omitted on my most fervent recommendation.  I believe,
however, that there is still much verse by him in existence, if he
did not destroy it in later years when circumstances, his wanderings
and his poverty, made it inconvenient to preserve comparatively
worthless papers.  And yet, if he did not destroy it, it might now be
of no small interest to men of letters.

When his means were almost exhausted he went to Boston, and from
there drifted to Chicago.  With a very few comments and alterations,
the account given in "Paternoster Row," contains the essence of
Maitland's own adventures in America.  It is, of course, written in a
very light style, and is more or less tinged with humour.  This
humour, however, is purely literary, for he felt very little of it
when he was telling me the story.  He certainly lived during two
days, for instance, upon peanuts, and he did it in a town called
Troy.  I never gathered what actually drove him to Chicago: it was,
perhaps, the general idea that one gets in America that if one goes
west one goes to the land of chances, but it certainly was not the
land for Henry Maitland.  Nevertheless, as he relates in "Paternoster
Row," he reached it with less than five dollars in his pocket, and
with a courage which he himself marvelled at, paid four and a half
dollars for a week's board and lodging, which made him secure for the
moment.  This boarding-house he once or twice described to me.  It
was an unclean place somewhere on Wabash Avenue, and was occupied
very largely by small actors and hangers-on at the Chicago theatres.
The food was poor, the service was worse, and there was only one
common room, in which they ate and lived.  It was at this time, when
he had taken a look round Chicago and found it very like Hell or
Glasgow, which, indeed, it is, that he determined to attack the
editor of the _Chicago Tribune_.  The description he gives of this
scene in "Paternoster Row" is not wholly accurate.  I remember he
said that he walked to and fro for hours outside the offices of the
paper before he took what remained of his courage in both hands,
rushed into the elevator, and was carried to an upper story.  He
asked for work, and the accessible and genial editor demanded, in
return, what experience he had had with journalism.  He said, with
desperate boldness, "None whatever," and the editor, not at all
unkindly, asked him what he thought he could do for them.  He
replied, "There is one thing that is wanting in your paper."  "What
is that?" asked the editor.  "Fiction," said Maitland, "I should like
to write you some."  The editor considered the matter, and said that
he had no objection to using a story provided it was good; it would
serve for one of the weekly supplements, because these American
papers at the end of the week have amazing supplements, full of all
sorts of conceivable matter.  Maitland asked if he might try him with
a story of English life, and got permission to do so.

He went away and walked up and down the lake shore for hours in the
bitter wind, trying to think out a story, and at last discovered one.
On his way home he bought a pen, ink, and paper, which they did not
supply at the boarding-house.  As it was impossible to write in his
bedroom, where there was, of course, no fire, and no proper heating,
it being so poor a place, he was compelled to write on the table of
the common room with a dozen other men there, talking, smoking, and
no doubt quarrelling.  He wrote this story in a couple of days, and
it was long enough to fill several columns of the paper.  To his
intense relief it was accepted by the editor after a day or two's
waiting, and he got eighteen dollars according to "Paternoster Row,"
though I believe as a matter of fact it was less in reality.  He
stayed for some time in Chicago working for the _Tribune_, but at
last found that he could write no more.  I believe the editor himself
suggested that the stories were perhaps not quite what he wanted.
The one that I saw I only remember vaguely.  It was, however, a sort
of psychological love-story placed in London, written without much
distinction.

The account Broughton gives in "Paternoster Row" of his visit to Troy
is fairly representative of Maitland's experiences.  It was there
that he lived for two or three days on peanuts, buying five cents'
worth in the street now and then at some Italian peanut stand.  In
"Paternoster Row" he calls them loathsome, and no doubt they soon do
become loathsome.  A few are rather pleasing, more than a few are
objectionable; and when anybody tries a whole diet of them for a day
or two there is no doubt "loathsome" would be the proper word.  After
that he worked for a photographer for a few days, and then, I think,
for a plumber, but of this I remember very little.  It is quite
certain that he never earned enough money in America to enable him to
return to England, but who lent it to him I have no idea.  To have
been twenty-four hours with no more than a handful of peanuts in his
pocket was no doubt an unpleasant experience, but, as I told him, it
seemed very little to me.  On one occasion in Australia I had been
rather more than four and a half days without food when caught in a
flood.  Nevertheless this starvation was for him one of the
initiation ceremonies into the mysteries of literature, and he was
always accustomed to say, "How can such an one write?  He never
starved."

Nevertheless to have been hard up in Chicago was a very great
experience, as every one knows who knows that desperate city of the
plains.  Since that time I myself have known Chicago well, and have
been there "dead broke."  Thus I can imagine the state that he must
have been in, and how desperate he must have become, to get out of
his difficulties in the way that he actually employed.  The endeavour
to obtain work in a hustling country like the United States is ever a
desperate proceeding for a nervous and sensitive man, and what it
must have been to Henry Maitland to do what he did with the editor of
the _Chicago Tribune_ can only be imagined by those who knew him.  In
many ways he was the most modest and the shyest man who ever lived,
and yet he actually told this editor: "I have come to point out to
you there is a serious lack in your paper."  To those who knew
Maitland this must seem as surprising as it did to myself, and in
later years he sometimes thought of that incident with inexpressible
joy in his own courage.  Of course the oddest thing about the whole
affair is that up to that moment he had never written fiction at all,
and only did it because he was driven to desperation.  As will be
seen when I come later to discuss his qualifications as a writer this
is a curious comment on much of his bigger work.  To me it seems that
he should never have written fiction at all, although he did it so
admirably.  I think it would be very interesting if some American
student of Maitland would turn over the files of the _Tribune_ in the
years 1878 and 1879 and disinter the work he did there.  This is
practically all I ever learnt about his life on the other side of the
Atlantic.  I was, indeed, more anxious to discover how he lived in
London, and in what circumstances.  I asked him as delicately as
possible about his domestic circumstances, and he then told me that
he was married, and that his wife was with him in London.

It is very curious to think that I never actually met his first wife.
I had, of course, seen her photograph, and I have on several
occasions been in the next room to her.  On those occasions she was
usually unable to be seen, mostly because she was intoxicated.  When
we renewed our acquaintance in the Horse Shoe Tavern he was then
living in mean apartments in one of the back streets off Tottenham
Court Road not very far from the hotel and indeed not far from a
cellar that he once occupied in a neighbouring street.  Little by
little as I met him again and again I began to get some hold upon his
actual life.  Gradually he became more confidential, and I gathered
from him that the habits of his wife were perpetually compelling him
to move from one house to another.  From what he told me, sometimes
hopefully, and more often in desperation, it seems that this poor
creature made vain and violent efforts to reform, generally after
some long debauch.  And of this I am very sure, that no man on earth
could have made more desperate efforts to help her than he made.  But
the actual fact remains that they were turned out of one lodging
after the other, for even the poorest places, it seems, could hardly
stand a woman of her character in the house.  I fear it was not only
that she drank, but at intervals she deserted him and went back, for
the sake of more drink, and for the sake of money with which he was
unable to supply her, to her old melancholy trade.  And yet she
returned again with tears, and he took her in, doing his best for
her.  It was six months after our first meeting in Tottenham Court
Road that he asked me to go and spend an evening with him.  Naturally
enough I then expected to make Mrs. Maitland's acquaintance, but on
my arrival he showed some disturbance of mind and told me that she
was ill and would be unable to see me.  The house they lived in then
was not very far from Mornington Crescent.  It was certainly in some
dull neighbourhood not half a mile away.  The street was, I think, a
cul-de-sac.  It was full of children of the lower orders playing in
the roadway.  Their fathers and mothers, it being Saturday night, sat
upon the doorsteps, or quarrelled, or talked in the road.  The front
room in which he received me was both mean and dirty.  The servant
who took me upstairs was a poor foul slut, and I do not think the
room had been properly cleaned or dusted for a very long time.  The
whole of the furniture in it was certainly not worth seven and
sixpence from the point of view of the ordinary furniture dealer.
There were signs in it that it had been occupied by a woman, and one
without the common elements of decency and cleanliness.  Under a
miserable and broken sofa lay a pair of dirty feminine boots.  And
yet on one set of poor shelves there were, still shining with gold,
the prizes Maitland had won at Moorhampton College, and his painfully
acquired stock of books that he loved so much.

As I came in by arrangement after my own dinner, we simply sat and
smoked and drank a little whiskey.  Twice in the course of an hour
our conversation was interrupted by the servant knocking at the door
and beckoning to Maitland to come out.  In the next room I then heard
voices, sometimes raised, sometimes pleading.  When Maitland returned
the first time he said to me, "I am very sorry to have to leave you
for a few minutes.  My wife is really unwell."  But I knew by now the
disease from which she suffered.  Twice or thrice I was within an ace
of getting up and saying, "Don't you think I'd better go, old chap?"
And then he was called out again.  He came back at last in a state of
obvious misery and perturbation, and said, "My dear man, my wife is
so ill that I think I must ask you to go."  I shook hands with him in
silence and went, for I understood.  A little afterwards he told me
that that very afternoon his wife had gone out, and obtaining drink
in some way had brought it home with her, and that she was then
almost insane with alcohol.  This was the kind of life that Henry
Maitland, perhaps a great man of letters, lived for years.
Comfortable people talk of his pessimism, and his greyness of
outlook, and never understand.  The man really was a hedonist, he
loved things beautiful--beautiful and orderly.  He rejoiced in every
form of Art, in books and music, and in all the finer inheritance of
the past.  But this was the life he lived, and the life he seemed to
be doomed to live from the very first.

When a weak man has a powerful sense of duty he is hard to handle by
those who have some wisdom.  In the early days I had done my best to
induce him to give up this woman, long before he married her, when he
was but a foolish boy.  Now I once more did my best to get him to
leave her, but I cannot pretend for an instant that anything I said
or did would have had any grave effect if it had not been that the
poor woman was herself doomed to be her own destroyer.  Her outbreaks
became more frequent, her departures from his miserable roof more
prolonged.  The windy gaslight of the slums appealed to her, and the
money that she earned therein; and finally when it seemed that she
would return no more he changed his rooms, and through the landlady
of the wretched house at which he found she was staying he arranged
to pay her ten shillings a week.  As I know, he often made much less
than ten shillings a week, and frequently found himself starving that
she might have so much more to spend in drink.

This went on for years.  It was still going on in 1884 when I left
England again and went out to Texas.  I had not succeeded in making a
successful attack upon the English Civil Service, and the hateful
work I did afterwards caused my health to break down.  I was in
America for three years.  During that time I wrote fully and with a
certain regularity to Maitland.  When I came back and was writing
"The Western Trail," he returned me the letters he had received from
me.  Among them I found some, frequently dealing with literary
subjects, addressed from Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, the Rocky Mountains,
Lower British Columbia, Oregon, and California.  In his letters to me
he never referred to Marian, but I gathered that his life was very
hard, and, of course, I understood, without his saying it, that he
was still supporting her.  I found that this was so when I returned
to England in 1887.  At that time, by dint of hard, laborious work,
which included a great deal of teaching, he was making for the first
time something of a living.  He occupied a respectable but very
dismal flat somewhere at the back of Madame Tussaud's, in a place at
that time called "Cumberland Residences."  It was afterwards renamed
"Cumberland Mansions," and I well remember Maitland's frightful and
really superfluous scorn of the snobbery which spoke in such a change
of name.  As I said, we corresponded the whole of the time I was in
America.  I used to send him a great deal of verse, some of which he
pronounced actually poetry.  No doubt this pleased me amazingly, and
I wish that I still possessed his criticisms written to me while I
was abroad.  It is, from any point of view, a very great disaster
that in some way which I cannot account for I have lost all his
letters written to me previous to 1894.  Our prolonged, and
practically uninterrupted correspondence began in 1884, so I have
actually lost the letters of ten whole years.  They were interesting
from many points of view.  Much to my surprise, while I was in
America, they came to me, not dated in the ordinary way, but
according to the Comtist calendar.  I wrote to him for an
explanation, because up to that time I had never heard of it.  In his
answering letter he told me that he had become a Positivist.  This
was doubtless owing to the fact that he had come accidentally under
the influence of some well-known Positivists.

It seems that in desperation at his utter failure to make a real
living at literature he had taken again to a tutor's work, which in a
way was where he began.  I find that in the marriage certificate
between him and Marian Hilton he called himself a teacher of
languages.  But undoubtedly he loathed teaching save in those rare
instances where he had an intelligent and enthusiastic pupil.  At the
time that I came back to England he was teaching Harold Edgeworth's
sons.  Without a doubt Harold Edgeworth was extremely kind to Henry
Maitland and perhaps to some little extent appreciated him, in spite
of the preface which he wrote in later years to the posthumous
"Basil."  He was not only tutor to Harold Edgeworth's sons, but was
also received at his house as a guest.  He met there many men of a
certain literary eminence; Cotter Morrison, for instance, of whom he
sometimes spoke to me, especially of his once characterising a social
chatterer as a cloaca maxima of small talk.  He also met Edmund
Roden, with whom he remained on terms of friendship to the last,
often visiting him in his house at Felixstowe, which is known to many
men of letters.  I think the fact that Edmund Roden was not only a
man of letters but also, oddly enough, the manager of a great
business, appealed in some way to Maitland's sense of humour.  He
liked Roden amazingly, and it was through him, if I remember rightly,
that he became socially acquainted with George Meredith, whom,
however, he had met in a business way when Meredith was reading for
some firm of publishers at a salary of two hundred a year.

Nevertheless, in spite of his making money by some tutorial work,
Maitland was still as poor as a rat in a cellar, and the absurd
antinomy between the society he frequented at times and his real
position, made him sometimes shout with laughter which was not always
really humorous.  It was during this period of his life that a lady
asked him at an "at-home" what his experience was in the management
of butlers.  According to what he told me he replied seriously that
he always strictly refrained from having anything to do with men
servants, as he much preferred a smart-looking young maid.  It was
during this period that he did some work with a man employed, I
think, at the London Skin Hospital.  This poor fellow, it seemed,
desired to rise in life, and possessed ambition.  He wanted to pass
the London matriculation examination and thus become, as he imagined,
somebody of importance.  Naturally enough, being but a clerk, he
lacked time for work, and the arrangement come to between him and
Maitland was that his teacher should go to his lodging at seven
o'clock in the morning and give him his lesson in bed before
breakfast.  As this was just before the time that Maitland worked for
Mr. Harold Edgeworth, he was too poor, so he said, to pay bus fares
from the slum in which he lived, and as a result he had to rise at
six o'clock in the morning, walk for a whole hour to his pupil's
lodging, and then was very frequently met with the message that Mr.
So-and-so felt much too tired that morning to receive him, and begged
Mr. Maitland would excuse him.  It is a curious comment on the
authority of "The Meditations of Mark Sumner," which many cling to as
undoubtedly authentic, that he mentions this incident as if he did
not mind it.  As a matter of fact he was furiously wrath with this
man for not rising to receive him, and used to go away in a state of
almost ungovernable rage, as he told me many and many a time.

After my return from America we used to meet regularly once a week on
Sunday afternoons, for I had now commenced my own initiation into the
mystery of letters, and had become an author.  By Maitland's advice,
and, if I may say so, almost by his inspiration--most certainly his
encouragement--I wrote "The Western Trail," and having actually
printed a book I felt that there was still another bond between me
and Maitland.  I used to turn up regularly at 7K Cumberland
Residences at three o'clock on Sundays.  From then till seven we
talked of our work, of Latin and of Greek, of French, and of
everything on earth that touched on literature.  Long before seven
Maitland used to apply himself very seriously to the subject of
cooking.  As he could not afford two fires he usually cooked his pot
on the fire of the sitting-room.  This pot of his was a great
institution.  It reminds me something of the gypsies' pot in which
they put everything that comes to hand.  Maitland's idea of cooking
was fatness and a certain amount of gross abundance.  He used to put
into this pot potatoes, carrots, turnips, portions of meat, perhaps a
steak, or on great days a whole rabbit, all of which he had bought
himself, and carried home with his own hands.  We used to watch the
pot boiling, and perhaps about seven or half-past he would
investigate its contents with a long, two-pronged iron fork, and
finally decide much to our joy and contentment that the contents were
edible.  After our meal, for which I was usually ready, as I was
practically starving much of this time myself, we removed the débris,
washed up in company, and resumed our literary conversation, which
sometimes lasted until ten or eleven.  By that time Maitland usually
turned me out, although my own day was not necessarily done for
several hours.  At those times when I was writing at all, I used to
write between midnight and six o'clock in the morning.

Those were great talks that we had, but they were nearly always talks
about ancient times, about the Greeks and Romans, so far as we
strayed from English literature.  It may seem an odd thing, and it
_is_ odd until it is explained, that he had very little interest in
the Renaissance.  There is still in existence a letter of his to
Edmund Roden saying how much he regretted that he took no interest in
it.  That letter was, I think, dated from Siena, a city of the
Renaissance.  The truth of the matter is that he was essentially a
creature of the Renaissance himself, a pure Humanist.  For this very
reason he displayed no particular pleasure in that period.  He was
interested in the time in which the men of the Renaissance revelled
after its rediscovery and the new birth of learning.  He would have
been at his best if he had been born when that time was in flower.
The fathers of the Renaissance rediscovered Rome and Athens, and so
did he.  No one can persuade me that if this had been his fate his
name would not now have been as sacred to all who love literature as
those of Petrarch and his glorious fellows.  As a matter of fact it
was this very quality of his which gave him such a lofty and lordly
contempt for the obscurantist theologian.  In my mind I can see him
treating with that irony which was ever his favourite weapon, some
relic of the dark ages of the schools.  In those hours that we spent
together it was wonderful to hear him talk of Greece even before he
knew it, for he saw it as it had been, or as his mind made him think
it had been, not with the modern Greek--who is perhaps not a Greek at
all--shouting in the market-place.  I think that he had a historical
imagination of a very high order, even though he undoubtedly failed
when endeavouring to use it.  That was because he used it in the
wrong medium.  But when he saw the Acropolis in his mind he saw it
before the Turks had stabled their horses in the Parthenon, and
before the English, worse vandals than the Turks, had brought away to
the biting smoke of London the marbles of Pheidias.  Even as a boy he
loved the roar and fume of Rome, although he had not yet seen it and
could only imagine it.  He saw in Italy the land of Dante and
Boccaccio, a land still peopled in the south towards Sicily with such
folks as these and Horace had known.  My own education had been
wrought out in strange, rough places in the new lands.  It was a
fresh education for me to come back to London and sit with Maitland
on these marvellous Sunday afternoons and evenings when he wondered
if the time would ever come for him to see Italy and Greece in all
reality.  It was for the little touches of realism, the little
pictures in the Odes, that he loved Horace, and loved still more his
Virgil; and, even more, Theocritus and Moshos, for Theocritus wrote
things which were ancient and yet modern, full of the truth of
humanity.  Like all the men of the Renaissance he turned his eyes
wistfully to the immemorial past, renewed in the magic alembic of his
own mind.

Nevertheless, great as these hours were that we spent together, they
were sometimes deeply melancholy, and he had nothing to console him
for the miseries which were ever in the background.  It was upon one
of these Sundays, I think early in January, 1888, that I found him in
a peculiarly melancholy and desperate condition.  No doubt he was
overworked, for he always was overworked; but he said that he could
stand it no longer, he must get out of London for a few days or so.
For some reason which I cannot for the world understand, he decided
to go to Eastbourne, and begged me to go with him.  Why he should
have selected, in Christmas weather and an east wind, what is
possibly the coldest town in England in such conditions, I cannot
say, but I remember that the journey down to the sea was mercilessly
cold.  Of course we went third class, and the carriages were totally
unheated.  We were both of us practically in extreme poverty.  I was
living in a single room in Chelsea, for which I paid four shillings a
week, and for many months my total weekly expenses were something
under twelve shillings.  At that particular moment he was doing
extremely badly, and the ten shillings that he paid regularly to his
wife frequently left him with insufficient to live upon.  I can
hardly understand how it was that he determined to spend even the
little extra money needed for such a journey.  When we reached
Eastbourne we walked with our bags in our hands down to the sea
front, and then, going into a poor back street, selected rooms.  It
was perhaps what he and I often called "the native malignity of
matter," and his extreme ill luck in the matter of landladies, which
pursued him for ever throughout his life in lodgings, that the
particular landlady of the house in which we took refuge was
extraordinarily incapable.  The dwelling itself was miserably
draughty and cold, and wretchedly furnished.  The east wind which
blows over the flat marshes between Eastbourne and the Downs entered
the house at every crack, and there were many of them.  The first
night we were in the town it snowed very heavily, and in our shabby
little sitting-room we shivered in spite of the starved fire.  We sat
there with our overcoats on and did our best to be cheerful.  Heaven
alone knows what we talked of, but most likely, and very possibly, it
may have been Greek metres, always his great passion.  Yet neither of
us was in good case.  We both had trouble enough on our shoulders.  I
remember that he spoke very little of his wife, for I would not let
him do so, although I knew she was most tremendously on his mind, and
was, in fact, what had driven him for the moment out of London.  Of
course, he had a very natural desire that she should die and have
done with life, with that life which must have been a torment to
herself as it was a perpetual torture and a running sore to him.  At
the same time the poor fellow felt that he had no right to wish that
she would die, but I could see the wish in his eyes, and heaven knows
that I wished it fervently for him.

The next morning we went for a long walk across the Downs to the
little village of East Dean.  It was blowing a whole gale from the
north east, and it was quite impossible to go near the steep cliffs.
The snow was in places two feet deep, and a sunk road across the
Downs was level with the turf.  I think now that none but madmen
would have gone out on such a day.  Doubtless we were mad enough; at
any rate we were writers, and by all traditions had the right to be
mad.  But when we once got started we meant going through it at all
events.  I did not remember many colder days, in spite of my travels,
but we persevered, and at last came to the little village and there
took refuge in the public-house and drank beer.  Maitland, with his
extraordinary mixture of fine taste and something which was almost
grossness in regard to food, loved all malt liquors--I think partly
because he felt some strange charm in their being historically
English drinks.  The walk back to Eastbourne tried us both hard, for
neither of us had been well fed for months, and the wind and snow in
our faces made walking heavy and difficult.  Nevertheless Maitland
was now almost boisterously cheerful, as he often was outwardly when
he had most reason to be the opposite.  While he walked back the
chief topic of conversation was the very excellent nature of the
pudding which he had instructed our landlady to prepare against a
hungry return.

He was always extraordinarily fond of rich, succulent dishes.  A
_fritto misto_ for instance, made him shout for joy, though he never
met with it until he went to Italy.  With what inimitable fervour of
the gastronomic mind would he declare these preferences!  Dr. Johnson
said that in a haggis there was much "fine, confused feeding," and
Maitland undoubtedly agreed with him, as he always said when he
quoted the passage.  In many of his books there are examples of his
curious feeling with regard to food.  They are especially frequent in
"Paternoster Row"; as, for instance, when one character says: "Better
dripping this than I've had for a long time....  Now, with a little
pepper and salt, this bread and dripping is as appetising a food as I
know.  I often make a dinner of it."  To which the other replies: "I
have done the same myself before now.  Do you ever buy
pease-pudding?" and to this the Irishman's reply was enthusiastic.
"I should think so!  I get magnificent pennyworths at a shop in
Cleveland Street, of a very rich quality indeed.  Excellent faggots
they have there, too.  I'll give you a supper of them one night
before you go."  I had often heard of this particular shop in
Cleveland Street, and of one shop where they sold beef, kept by a man
whose pride was that he had been carving beef behind the counter for
thirty years without a holiday.

And now we were hurrying back to Eastbourne, Maitland said, not
because it was cold; not because the north-east wind blew; not
because we were exposed to the very bitterest weather we remembered;
but because of an exceedingly rich compound known as an apple
pudding.  He and the wind worked me up to an almost equal expression
of ardour, and thus we came back to our poverty-stricken den in good
spirits.  But, alas, the dinner that day was actually disastrous.
The meat was grossly overdone, the vegetables were badly cooked, the
beer was thin and flat.  We were in dismay, but still we said to each
other hopefully that there was the pudding to come.  It was brought
on and looked very fine, and Maitland cut into it with great joy and
gave me a generous helping.  I know that I tasted it eagerly, but to
my tongue there was an alien flavour about it.  I looked up and said
to Maitland, "It is very curious, but this pudding seems to me to
taste of kerosene."  Maitland laughed, but when his turn came to try
he laughed no longer, for the pudding actually did taste of lamp oil.
It appeared, on plaintive and bitter inquiry, that our unfortunate
landlady after making it had put it under the shelf on which she kept
her lamp gear.  We subsided on melancholy and mouldy cheese.  This
disappointment, however childish it may appear to the better fed, was
to Henry Maitland something really serious.  Those who have read "The
Meditations of Mark Sumner," without falling into the error of
thinking that the talk about food in that melancholy book was only
his fun, will understand that it was a very serious matter with
Maitland.  It took all his philosophy and a very great deal of mine
to survive the tragedy, and to go on talking as we did of new words
and the riches of philology.  And as we talked the wind roared down
our street in a vicious frenzy.  It was a monstrously bad time to
have come to Eastbourne, and we had no compensations.

It was the next night that the great news came.  In spite of the
dreariest weather we had spent most of the day in the open air.
After our dinner, which this time was more of a success, or at any
rate less of a tragic failure, we were sitting hugging the fire to
keep warm when a telegram was brought in for him.  He read it in
silence and handed it over to me with the very strangest look upon
his face that I had ever seen.  It was unsigned, and came from
London.  The message was: "Your wife is dead."  There was nothing on
earth more desirable for him than that she should die, the poor
wretch truly being like a destructive wind, for she had torn his
heart, scorched his very soul, and destroyed him in the beginning of
his life.  All irreparable disasters came from her, and through her.
Had it not been for her he might then have held, or have begun to
hope for, a great position at one of the universities.  And now a
voice out of the unknown cried that she was dead.

He said to me, with a shaking voice and shaking hands, "I cannot
believe it--I cannot believe it."  He was as white as paper; for it
meant so much--not only freedom from the disaster and shame and
misery that drained his life-blood, but it would mean a cessation of
money payments at a time when every shilling was very hard to win.
And yet this was when he was comparatively well known, for it was two
years after the publication of "The Mob."  And still, though his
books ran into many editions, for some inexplicable reason, which I
yet hope to explain, he sold them one after another for fifty pounds.
And I knew how he worked; how hard, how remorselessly.  I knew who
the chief character was in "Paternoster Row" before "Paternoster Row"
was written.  I knew with what inexpressible anguish of soul he
laboured, with what dumb rage against destiny.  And now here was
something like freedom at last, if only it were true.

This message came so late at night that there was no possibility of
telegraphing to London to verify it even if he had been sure that he
could get to the original sender.  It was also much too late to go up
to town.  We sat silently for hours, and I knew that he was going
back over the burning marl of the past.  Sometimes he did speak,
asking once and again if it could be true, and I saw that while he
was still uncertain he was bitter and pitiless.  Yet if she were only
really dead...

We went up to town together in the morning.  In the train he told me
that while he was still uncertain, he could not possibly visit the
place she lived in, and he begged me to go there straight and bring
him word as to the truth of this report.  I was to explore the
desperate slum in the New Cut in which she had exhausted the last
dreadful years of her life, and upon leaving him I went there at
once.  With Maitland's full permission I described something of the
milieu in "John Quest."  On reaching the New Cut I dived into an
inner slum from an outer one, and at last found myself in a kitchen
which was only about eight or nine feet square.  It was, of course,
exceedingly dirty.  The person in charge of it was a cheerful
red-headed girl of about eighteen years of age.  On learning the
cause of my visit she went out and brought in her mother, and I soon
verified the fact that Marian Maitland was dead.  She had died the
first bitter night we spent at Eastbourne, and was found next morning
without any blankets, and with no covering for her emaciated body but
a damp and draggled gown.

Presently the neighbours came in to see the gentleman who was
interested in this woman's death.  They talked eagerly of the
funeral, for, as Maitland knew only too well, a funeral, to these
people, is one of their great irregular but recurring festivals.  At
Maitland's desire I gave them carte blanche up to a certain sum, and
I think they felt that, as the agent of the husband, I behaved very
well.  Of course they knew all about the poor girl who lay dead
upstairs, and although they were honest enough people in their way,
and though the red-headed girl to whom I first talked worked hard in
a factory making hooks and eyes, as she told me, they seemed to have
no moral feelings whatever about her very obvious profession.  I
myself did not see the dead woman.  I was not then acquainted with
death, save among strangers.  I could not bring myself to look upon
her.  Although death is so dreadful always, the surroundings of death
may make things worse.  But still, she _was_ dead, and I hastened
back to Maitland to tell him so.  It was a terrible and a painful
relief to him; and when he was sure she was gone, he grieved for her,
grieved for what she might have been, and for what she was.  He
remembered now that at intervals she used to send him heart-breaking
messages asking to be forgiven, messages that even his unwisdom at
last could not listen to.  But he said very little.  So far as the
expression of his emotions went he often had very great self-control.
It is a pity that his self-control so rarely extended itself to acts.
But now he was free.  Those who have forged their own chains, and
lived in a hell of their own dreadful making, can understand what
this is and what it means.  But he did go down to the pit in which
she died, and when I saw him a day or two later he was strangely
quiet, even for him.  He said to me, "My dear chap, she had kept my
photograph, and a very little engraving of the Madonna di San Sisto,
all these years of horrible degradation."  He spoke in the almost
inaudible tone that was characteristic of him, especially at that
time.  We arranged the funeral together, and she was buried.  If only
all the misery that she had caused him could have been buried with
her, it would have been well.  She died of what I may call,
euphemistically, specific laryngitis.  Once he told me a dreadful
story about her in hospital.  One of the doctors at St. Thomas's had
questioned her, and after her answers sent for Maitland, and speaking
to him on the information given him by the wife, was very bitter.
Henry, even as he told me this years after, shook with rage and
indignation.  He had not been able to defend himself without exposing
his wife's career.




CHAPTER III

There are many methods of writing biography.  Each has its
advantages, even the chronological compilation.  But chronology is no
strong point of mine, and in this sketch I shall put but little
stress on dates.  There is great advantage in describing things as
they impress themselves on the writer.  A portrait gains in coherency
and completeness by temporary omissions more than it can ever gain by
the empty endeavour to handle each period fully.  In this last
chapter I might have endeavoured to describe Maitland at work, or to
speak of his ambitions, or even to criticise what he had already
done, or to give my own views of what he meant to achieve.  There is
authority for every method, and most authorities are bad, save
Boswell--and few would pine for Boswell's qualities at the price of
his failings.  Yet one gets help from him everywhere, little as it
may show.  Only the other day I came across a passage in the "Journal
of a Tour to the Hebrides" which has some value.  Reporting Johnson,
he writes: "Talking of biography, he said he did not think the life
of any literary man in England had been well written.  Besides the
common incidents of life it should tell us his studies, his mode of
living, the means by which he attained to excellence, and his opinion
of his own works."  Such I shall endeavour to do.  Nevertheless
Johnson was wrong.  Good work had then been done in biography by
Walton, whose Lives, by the way, Maitland loved; and Johnson himself
was not far from great excellence when he described his friend Savage
in the "Lives of the Poets" in spite of its want of colloquial ease.
There came in then the value of friendship and actual personal
knowledge, as it did in Boswell's "Life," I can only hope that my own
deep acquaintance with Maitland will compensate for my want of skill
in the art of writing lives, for which novel-writing is but a poor
training.  Yet the deeper one's knowledge the better it is to
simplify as one goes, taking things by themselves, going forwards or
backwards as may seem best, without care of tradition, especially
where tradition is mostly bad.  We do not write biography in England
now as Romain Rolland writes that of Beethoven.  Seldom are we
grieved for our heroes, or rejoice with them.  Photography, or the
photographic portrait, is more in request than an impression.
However, to resume in my own way, having to be content with that, and
caring little for opinion, that fluctuant critic.

Long as our friendship existed it is perhaps curious that we never
called each other, except on very rare occasions, by anything but our
surnames.  This, I think, is due to the fact that we had been at
Moorhampton College together.  It is, I imagine, the same thing with
all schoolboys.  Provided there is no nickname given, men who have
been chums at school seem to prefer the surname by which they knew
their friends in the early days.  I have often noticed there is a
certain savage tendency on the part of boys to suppress their
Christian names, their own peculiar mark.  And sometimes I have
wondered whether this is not in some obscure way a survival of the
savage custom of many tribes in which nobody is ever mentioned by his
right name, because in that name there inheres mysteriously the very
essence of his being and inheritance, the knowledge of which by
others may expose him to some occult danger.

I believe I said above that from the time I first met Maitland after
my return from Australia, until I went away again to Arizona, I was
working in the Admiralty and the India Office as a writer at tenpence
an hour.  No doubt I thought the pay exiguous, and my prospects worth
nothing.  Yet when I came back from America and found him domiciled
at 7K Cumberland Residences, my economic basis in life became even
more exiguous, whatever hope might have said of my literary future.
I was, in fact, a great deal poorer than Maitland.  He lived in a
flat and had at least two rooms and a kitchen.  Yet it was a horrible
place of extraordinary gloom, and its back windows overlooked the
roaring steam engines of the Metropolitan Railway.  In some ways no
doubt my own apartment, when I took to living by myself in Chelsea,
was superior in cheerfulness to 7K.  Shortly after my return to
England, when I had expended the fifty pounds I received for my first
book, "The Western Trail," I took a single room in Chelsea, put in a
few sticks of furniture given to me by my people, and commenced
housekeeping on my own account on all I could make and the temporary
ten shillings a week allowed me by my father, who at that time, for
all his native respect for literature, regarded the practice of it
with small hope and much suspicion.  I know that it greatly amused
Maitland to hear of his views on the subject of the self revelations
in "The Western Trail," which dealt with my life in Western America.
After reading that book he did not speak to me for three days, and
told my younger brother, "These are pretty revelations about your
brother having been a common loafer."  At this Maitland roared, but
he roared none the less when he understood that three columns of
laudation in one of the reviews entirely changed my father's view of
that particular book.

I should not trouble to say anything about my own particular
surroundings if it were not that in a sense they also became
Maitland's, although I went more frequently to him than he came to
me.  Nevertheless he was quite familiar with my one room and often
had meals there which I cooked for him.  Of course at that time, from
one point of view, I was but a literary beginner and aspirant, while
Maitland was a rising and respected man, who certainly might be poor,
and was poor, but still he had published "The Mob" and other books,
his name was well known, and his prospects, from the literary, if not
from the financial point of view, seemed very good.  I was the author
of one book, the result of three years' bitter hard experience,
written in twenty-six days as a _tour de force_, and though I had
ambition I seemed to have nothing more to write about.  From my own
point of view Maitland was, of course, very successful.  His flat
with more rooms than one in it was a mansion, and he was certainly
making something like a hundred a year.  Still, I think that when he
came down to me and found me comparatively independent, he rather
envied me.  At any rate I had not to keep an errant wife on the money
that I made with infinite difficulty.  He came to see me in Chelsea
in my very early days, and took great joy in my conditions.  For one
thing I had no attendance with this room.  I was supposed to look
after it for myself in every way.  This, he assured me, made my
estate the more gracious, as any one can understand who remembers all
that he has said about landladies and lodging-house servants and
charwomen.  He was overjoyed with the list of things I bought: a
fender and fire-irons, a coal-scuttle, a dust-bin, and blacking
brushes.  He found me one day shaving by the aid of my own dim
reflection in the glass of an etching which I had brought from home,
because I had no looking-glass and no money to spare to buy one.  I
remember we frequently went together over the question of finance.
Incidentally I found his own habit of buying cooked meat peculiarly
extravagant.  I have a book somewhere among my papers in which I kept
accounts for my first three months in Chelsea to see how I was going
to live on ten shillings a week, which Maitland assured me was
preposterous riches, even if I managed to make no more.

Naturally enough, seeing that we had been friends for so long, and
seeing that he had encouraged me so greatly to write my first book,
he took a vast interest in all my proceedings, and was very joyous,
as he would have said, to observe that I could not afford sheets but
slept in the blankets which I had carried all over America.  I seek
no sympathy on this point, for after all it was not a matter of my
being unable to afford linen; it is impossible for the average
comfortable citizen to understand how disagreeable sheets become
after some thousands of nights spent camping in mere wool, even of
the cheapest.  It took me years to learn to resign myself to cold
linen, or even more sympathetic cotton, when I became a respectable
householder.

In the neighbourhood where I lived there was, of course, a great
artistic colony, and as I knew one or two artists already, I soon
became acquainted with all the others.  Many of them were no richer
than myself, and as Bohemia and the belief that there was still a
Bohemia formed one of Maitland's greatest joys, he was always
delighted to hear of any of our remarkable shifts to live.  It is an
odd thing to reflect that A. D. Mack, Frank Wynne, Albert Croft, and
three other artists whose names I now forget, and I once had a
glorious supper of fried fish served in a newspaper on the floor of
an empty studio.  The only thing I missed on that particular occasion
was Maitland's presence, but, of course, the trouble was that
Maitland would seldom associate with anybody whom he did not know
already, and I could rarely get him to make the acquaintance of my
own friends.  Yet such experiences as we were sometimes reduced to
more than proved to him that his dear Bohemia existed, though later
in his life, as one sees in "Mark Sumner," he often seemed to doubt
whether it was still extant.  On this point I used to console him,
saying that where any two artists butted their foolish heads against
the economic system, there was Bohemia; Bohemia, in fact, was living
on a course of high ideals, whatever the world said of them.  At this
hour there are writers learning their business on a little oatmeal,
as George Meredith did, or destroying their digestions, as I did mine
and Henry Maitland's, on canned corn beef.  Even yet, perhaps, some
writers and artists are making their one big meal a day on fried fish.

One Sunday when I missed going to Maitland's, because he was then out
of town visiting his family, I had a tale for him on his return.  It
appeared that I had been writing, and had got so disgusted with the
result of it that I found I could not possibly stay in my room, and
so determined to go round to my friend Mack.  No sooner had I made up
my mind on this subject than there was a knock at the door, and
presently in came Mack himself.  I said promptly, "It is no good your
coming here, for I was just going round to you."  Whereupon he
replied, "It is no good your coming to me because I have no coal, no
coke, and nobody will give me any more because I owe for so much
already."  I replied that I was not going to stay in my room in any
case, and affirmed that I would rather be in his studio in the cold
than the room where I was.  Whereupon he suddenly discovered that my
scuttle was actually full of coal, and proposed to take it round to
the studio.  This seemed a really brilliant idea, and after much
discussion of ways and means my inventive faculty produced an old
portmanteau and several newspapers, and after wrapping up lumps of
coal in separate pieces of paper we packed the portmanteau with the
coal and carried it round to the studio in Manresa Road.  This seemed
to Maitland so characteristic of an artist's life that he was very
much delighted when I told him.

It is an odd thing that in one matter Maitland and I were at that
time much alike.  From most points of view there can hardly have been
two more different men, for he was essentially a man of the study and
the cloister, while I was far more naturally a man of the open air.
Nevertheless, when it came to journalism we were both of the same
mind.  While I was away from England and he was teaching Harold
Edgeworth's sons, Edgeworth introduced him to John Harley, then
editing the _Piccadilly Gazette_, who offered, and would no doubt
have kept to it, to use as much matter as possible if Maitland would
supply him with something in the journalistic form.  Apparently he
found it too much against his natural grain to do this work, and I
was now in the same predicament.  It is true that I had something of
a natural journalistic flair which he lacked, but my nose for a
likely article was rendered entirely useless to me by the fact that I
never could write anything until I had thought about it for several
days, by which time it was stale, and much too late from the
newspaper point of view.  Nevertheless Maitland did occasionally do a
little odd journalism, for I remember once, before I went to America,
being with him when he received the proofs of an article from the
_St. James' Gazette_, and picking up "Mark Sumner" one may read: "I
thought of this as I sat yesterday watching a noble sunset, which
brought back to my memory the sunsets of a London autumn, thirty
years ago.  It happened that, on one such evening, I was by the river
at Chelsea, with nothing to do except to feel that I was hungry, and
to reflect that, before morning, I should be hungrier still.  I
loitered upon Battersea Bridge--the old picturesque wooden bridge,
and there the western sky took hold upon me.  Half an hour later I
was speeding home.  I sat down, and wrote a description of what I had
seen, and straightway sent it to an evening paper, which, to my
astonishment, published the thing next day--'On Battersea Bridge.'  I
have never seen that article since I saw the proof of it, but there
was something so characteristic in it that I think it would be worth
some one's while to hunt up the files of the _St. James' Gazette_ in
order to find it.  It appears that while he was leaning over the
bridge, enjoying the sunset, there was also a workman looking at it.
The river was at a low stage, for it was at least three-quarters-ebb,
and on each side of the river there were great patches of shining
mud, in which the glorious western sky was reflected, turning the
ooze into a mass of most wonderful colour.  Maitland said to me, "Of
course I was pleased to see somebody else, especially a poor fellow
like that, enjoying the beauty of the sunset.  But presently my
companion edged a little closer to me, and seeing my eyes directed
towards the mud which showed such heavenly colouring, he remarked to
me, with an air of the deepest interest, 'Throws up an 'eap of mud,
don't she?'"

Sometimes when Maitland came down to me in Danvers Street he used to
go over my accounts and discuss means of making them less.  I think
his chief joy in them was the feeling that some of his more
respectable friends, such as Harold Edgeworth, would have been
horrified at my peculiarly squalid existence.  In a sense it was, no
doubt, squalid, and yet in another it was perhaps the greatest time
in my life, and Maitland knew it.  In the little book in which I kept
my expenses he came across one day on which I had absolutely spent
nothing.  This was a great joy to him.  On another day he found a
penny put down as "charity."  On looking up the book I find that a
note still declares that this penny was given to a little girl to pay
her fare in the bus.  I remember quite well that this beneficence on
my part necessitated my walking all the way to Chelsea from Hyde Park
Corner.  Yet Maitland assured me that, compared with himself at
times, I was practically a millionaire, although he owned that he had
very rarely beaten my record for some weeks when all expenditure on
food was but three-and-six-pence.  One week it actually totalled no
more than one-and-elevenpence, but I have no doubt that I went out to
eat with somebody else on those days--unless it was at the time my
liver protested, and gave me such an attack of gloom that I went to
bed and lay there for three days without eating, firmly determined to
die and have done with the literary struggle.  This fast did me a
great deal of good.  On the fourth day I got up and rustled
vigorously for a meal, and did some financing with the admirable
result of producing a whole half-crown.

Whenever Maitland came to me I cooked his food and my own on a little
grid, or in a frying-pan, over the fire in my one room.  This fire
cost me on an average a whole shilling a week, or perhaps a penny or
two more if the coals, which I bought in the street, went up in
price.  This means that I ran a fire on a hundredweight of coal each
week, or sixteen pounds of coal a day.  Maitland, who was an expert
on coal, assured me that I was extremely extravagant, and that a fire
could be kept going for much less.  On trying, I found out that when
I was exceedingly hard up I could keep in a very little fire for
several hours a day on only eight pounds of coal, but sometimes I had
to let it go out, and run round to a studio to get warm by some
artist's stove,--provided always that the merchant in coke who
supplied him had not refused my especial friend any further credit.

At this time Maitland and I were both accustomed to work late,
although he was just then beginning to labour at more reasonable
times, though not to write fewer hours.  As for me, I used to find
getting up in the morning at a proper hour quite impossible.
Probably this was due to some inherited gout, to poisonous
indigestion from my own cooking, or to a continued diet of desiccated
soups and "Jungle" beef from Chicago.  However, it seemed to Maitland
that I was quite in the proper tradition of letters while I was
working on a long novel, only published years afterwards, which I
used to begin at ten or eleven o'clock at night, frequently finishing
at six o'clock in the morning when the sparrows began to chirp
outside my window.

As a result of this night-work I used to get up at four o'clock in
the afternoon, sometimes even later, to make my own breakfast.
Afterwards I would go out to see some of my friends in their studios,
and at the time most people were thinking of going to bed I sat down
to the wonderfully morbid piece of work which I believed was to bring
me fame.  This was a rather odd book, called "The Fate of Hilary
Dale."  It has no claim whatever to any immortality, and from my
point of view its only value lies in the fact that there is a very
brief sketch of Maitland in it.  He is described in these words:
"Will Curgenven, writer, teacher, and general apostle of culture, as
it is understood by the elect, had been hard at work for some hours
on an essay on Greek metres, and was growing tired of it.  His dingy
subject and dingy Baker Street flat began to pall on him, and he rose
to pace his narrow room."  Now Will Curgenven, of course, was
Maitland and the dingy Baker Street flat was 7K.  "'Damn the nature
of things,' as Porson said when he swallowed embrocation instead of
whisky!" was what I went on to put into his mouth.  This, indeed, was
one of Maitland's favourite exclamations.  It stood with him for all
the strange and blasphemous and eccentric oaths with which I then
decorated my language, the result of my experiences in the back
blocks of Australia and the Pacific Slope of America.  In this book I
went on to make a little fun of his great joy in Greek metres.  I
remember that once he turned to me with an assumed air of strange
amazement and exclaimed: "Why, my dear fellow, do you know there are
actually miserable men who do not know--who have never even heard
of--the minuter differences between Dochmiacs and Antispasts!"  That,
again, reminds me of a passage in "Paternoster Row," which always
gives me acute pleasure because it recalls Maitland so wonderfully.
It is where one of the characters came in to the hero and wanted his
opinion on the scansion of a particular chorus in the "Œdipus
Rex."  Maydon laid hold of the book, thought a bit, and began to read
the chorus aloud.  Whereupon the other one cried: "Choriambics, eh?
Possible, of course; but treat them as Ionics a minore with an
anacrusis, and see if they don't go better."  Now in this passage the
speaker is really Maitland, for he involved himself in terms of
pedantry with such delight that his eyes gleamed.  No doubt it was an
absurd thing, but Greek metres afforded so bright a refuge from the
world of literary struggle and pressing financial difficulty.

"Damn the nature of things!" was Porson's oath.  Now Maitland had a
very peculiar admiration for Porson.  Porson was a Grecian.  He loved
Greek.  That was sufficient for Maitland.  In addition to that claim
on his love, it is obvious that Porson was a man of a certain
Rabelaisian turn of mind, and that again was a sufficient passport to
his favour.  No doubt if Porson had invited Maitland to his rooms,
and had then got wildly drunk, it would have annoyed Maitland
greatly; but the picture of Porson shouting Greek and drinking
heavily attracted him immensely.  He often quoted all the little
stories told of Porson, such as the very well-known one of another
scholar calling on him by invitation late one evening, and finding
the room in darkness and Porson on the floor.  This was when his
visitor called out: "Porson, where are the candles, and where's the
whiskey?" and Porson answered, still upon the floor, but neither
forgetful of Greek nor of his native wit.

When any man of our acquaintance was alluded to with hostility, or if
one animadverted on some popular person who was obviously uneducated,
Maitland always vowed that he did not know Greek, and probably or
certainly had never starved.  His not knowing Greek was, of course, a
very great offence to Maitland, for he used to quote Porson on
Hermann:

  "The Germans in Greek
  Are far to seek.
  Not one in five score,
  But ninety-nine more.
  All save only Hermann,
  And Hermann's a German."

Of course a man who lacked Greek, and had not starved, was
anathema--not to be considered.  And whatever Porson may have done he
did know Greek, and that saved his soul.  Maitland often quoted very
joyfully what he declared to be some of the most charming lines in
the English language:

  "I went to Strasburg, and there got drunk
  With the most learned Professor Runck.
  I went to Wortz, and got more drunken
  With the more learned Professor Runcken."

But if the spirit was willing, the flesh was weak.  I never saw
Maitland drunk in his life.  Indeed he was no real expert in
drinking.  He had never had any education in the wines he loved.  Any
amateur of the product of the vine will know how to estimate his
actual qualifications as a judge, when I say that Asti, Capri, and
especially Chianti seemed to him the greatest wines in the world,
since by no means could he obtain the right Falernian of Horace,
which, by the way, was probably a most atrocious vintage.  As it
happened I had been employed for many months on a great vineyard in
California, and there had learnt not a little about the making and
blending of wine.  Added to this I had some natural taste in it, and
had read a great deal about wine-making and the great vintages of
France and Germany.  One could always interest Maitland by telling
him something about wine, provided one missed out the scientific side
of it.  But it was sad that I lacked, from his point of view, the
proper enthusiasm for Chianti.  Yet, indeed, one knows what was in
his classic mind, from the fact that a poor vintage in a real Italian
flask, or in something shaped like an amphora, would have made him
chuckle with joy far more readily than if a rich man had offered him
in a bottle some glorious first growth of the Medoc, Laflitte,
Latour, or Haut-Brion.  But, indeed, he and I, even when I refused
indignantly to touch the Italians, and declared with resolution for a
wine of Burgundy or the Médoc, rarely got beyond a Bourgeois vintage.

Nevertheless though I aspired to be his tutor in wines I owed him
more than is possible to say in the greater matters of education.  My
debt to him is really very big.  It was, naturally enough, through
his influence, that while I was still in my one room in Danvers
Street I commenced to read again all the Greek tragedies.  By an odd
chance I came across a clergyman's son in Chelsea who also had a
certain passion for Greek.  He used to come to my room and there we
re-read the tragedies.  Oddly enough I think my new friend never met
Maitland, for Maitland rarely came to my room save on Sundays, and
those days I reserved specially for him.  But whenever we met, either
there or at 7K, we always read or recited Greek to each other, and
then entered into a discussion of the metrical value of the
choruses--in which branch of learning I trust I showed proper
humility, for in prosody he was remarkably learned.  As for me, I
knew nothing of it beyond what he told me, and cared very little,
personally, for the technical side of poetry.  Nevertheless it was
not easy to resist Maitland's enthusiasm, and I succumbed to it so
greatly that I at last imagined that I was really interested in what
appealed so to him.  Heaven knows, in those days I did at least learn
something of the matter.

We talked of rhythm, and of Arsis or Ictus.  Pyrrhics we spoke of,
and trochees and spondees were familiar on our lips.  Especially did
he declare that he had a passion for anapæsts, and when it came to
the actual metres, Choriambics and Galliambics were an infinite joy
to him.  He explained to me most seriously the differences between
trimeter Iambics when they were catalectic, acatalectic,
hypercatalectic.  What he knew about comic tetrameter was at my
service, and in a short time I knew, as I imagined, almost all that
he did about Minor Ionic, Sapphic, and Alcaic verse.  Once more these
things are to me little more than words, and yet I never hear one of
them mentioned--as one does occasionally when one comes across a
characteristic enthusiast--but I think of Henry Maitland and his
gravely joyous lectures to me on that vastly important subject.  No
doubt many people will think that such little details as these are
worth nothing, but I shall have failed greatly in putting Maitland
down if they do not seem something in the end.  These trifles are,
after all, touches in the portrait as I see the man, and that they
all meant much to him I know very well.  To get through the early
days of literary poverty one must have ambition and enthusiasm of
many kinds.  Enthusiasm alone is nothing, and ambition by itself is
too often barren, but the two together are something that the gods
may fight against in vain.  I know that this association with him,
when I was his only friend, and he was my chief friend, was great for
both of us, for he had much to endure, and I was not without my
troubles.  Yet we made fun together of our squalor, and rejoiced in
our poverty, so long as it did not mean acute suffering; and when it
did mean that, we often-times got something out of literature to help
us to forget.  On looking back, I know that many things happened
which seem to me dreadful, but then they appeared but part of the
day's work.

It rarely happened that I went to him without some story of the
week's happenings, to be told again in return something which had
occurred to him.  For instance, there was that story of the lady who
asked him his experience with regard to the management of butlers.
In return I could tell him of going out to dinner at houses where
people would have been horrified to learn that I had eaten nothing
that day, and possibly nothing the day before.  For us to consort
with the comfortably situated sometimes seemed to both of us an
intolerably fine jest, which was added to by the difference of these
comfortable people from the others we knew.  Here and there we came
across some fatly rich person who, by accident, had once been
deprived of his usual dinner.  It seemed to give him a sympathetic
feeling for the very poor.  But, after all, though I did sometimes
associate with such people, I was happier in my own room with
Maitland, or in his flat, where we discussed our Æschylus, or wrought
upon metres or figures of speech--always a great joy to us.  Upon
these, too, Maitland was really quite learned.  He was full of
examples of brachyology.  Anacoluthon he was well acquainted with.
Not even Farrar, in his "Greek Syntax," or some greater man, knew
more examples of chiasmus, asyndeton, or hendiadys.  In these byways
he generally rejoiced, and we were never satisfied unless at each
meeting, wherever it might be, we discovered some new phrase, or new
word, or new quotation.

Once at 7K I quoted to him from Keats' "Endymion" the lines about
those people who "unpen their baaing vanities to browse away the
green and comfortable juicy hay of human pastures."  All that evening
he was denouncing various comfortable people who fed their baaing
vanity on everything delightful.  He declared they browsed away all
that made life worth while, and in return for my gift to him of this
noble quotation he produced something rather more astounding, and
perhaps not quite so quotable, out of Zola's "Nana."  We had been
talking of realism, and of speaking the truth, of being direct, of
not being mealy-mouthed; in fact, of not letting loose "baaing
vanities," and suddenly he took down "Nana" and said, "Here Zola has
put a phrase in her mouth which rejoices me exceedingly.  It is a
plain, straight-forward, absolutely characteristic sentiment, such as
we in England are not allowed to represent.  Nana, on being
remonstrated with by her lover-in-chief for her infidelities, returns
him the plain and direct reply, 'Quand je vois un homme qui me plait,
je couche avec.'  He went on to declare that writing any novels in
England was indeed a very sickening business, but he added, "I really
think we begin to get somewhat better in this.  However, up to the
last few years, it has been practically impossible to write anything
more abnormal about a man's relations with women than a mere bigamy."
Things have certainly altered, but I think he was one of those who
helped to break down that undue sense of the value of current
morality which has done so much harm to the study of life in general,
and indeed to life itself.  His general rage and quarrel with that
current morality, for which he had not only a contempt, but a
loathing which often made him speechless, comes out well in what he
thought and expressed about the Harold Frederick affair.  There was,
of course, as everybody knows, a second illegitimate family.  While
the good and orthodox made a certain amount of effort to help the
wife and the legal children, they did their very best to ignore the
second family.  However, to Maitland's great joy, there were certain
people, notably Mrs. Stephens, who did their very best for the other
children and for the poor mother.  Maitland himself subscribed,
before he knew the actual position, to both families, and betrayed
extraordinary rage when he learnt how that second family had been
treated, and heard of the endeavours of the "unco' guid" to ignore
them wholly.  But then such actions and such hypocrisy are
characteristic of the middle class in this country and not in this
country alone.  He loathed their morals which became a system of
cruelty; their greed and its concomitant selfishness: their timidity
which grows brutal in defence of a position to which only chance and
their rapacity have entitled them.

Apropos of his hatred of current morality, it is a curious thing that
the only quarrel I ever had with him showed his early point of view
rather oddly.  Among the few men he knew there was one, with whom I
was a little acquainted, who had picked up a young girl in a tavern
and taken her to live with him.  My own acquaintance with her led to
some jealousy between me and the man who was keeping her, and he
wrote to Maitland complaining of me, and telling him many things
which were certainly untrue.  Maitland when he considered the fact of
his having ruined his own life for ever and ever by his relations
with a woman of this order, had naturally built up a kind of theory
of these things as a justification for himself.  This may seem a
piece of extravagant psychology, but I have not the least doubt that
it is true.  Without asking my view of the affair he wrote to me very
angrily, and declared that I had behaved badly.  He added that he
wished me to understand that he considered an affair of that
description as sacred as any marriage.  Though he was young, and in
these matters no little of a prig, I was also young, and of a hot
temper.  That he had not made any inquiries of me, or even asked my
version of the circumstances, so angered me that I wrote back to him
saying that if he spoke to me in that way I should decline to have
anything more to do with him.  As he was convinced, most unjustly,
that his view was entirely sound, this naturally enough led to an
estrangement which lasted for the best part of a year, but I am glad
to remember that I myself made it up by writing to him about one of
his books.  This was before I went to America, and although I was
working, it was a great grief to me that we did not meet during this
estrangement for any of our great talks, which, both then and
afterwards, were part of my life, and no little part of it.  Often
when I think of him I recollect those lines of Callimachus to
Heracleitus in Corey's "Ionica":

  "They told me, Heracleitus, they told me you were dead;
  They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
  I wept as I remembered how often you and I
  Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky."




CHAPTER IV

In the last chapter I quoted from Boswell, always a favourite of
Maitland's, as he is of all true men of letters.  But there is yet
another quotation from the same work which might stand as a motto for
this book, as it might for the final and authoritative biography of
Maitland which perhaps will some day be done: "He asked me whether he
had mentioned, in any of the papers of the 'Rambler,' the description
in Virgil of the entrance into Hell, with an application to the
Press; 'for,' said he, 'I do not much remember them.'  I told him,
'No.'  Upon which he repeated it:

  _'Vestlbulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci,
  Lucius et ultrices posuere cubilia Curæ;
  Pallentesque habitant Morbi, tristisque Senectus,
  Et Metus, et malesuada Fames, ac turpis Egestas;
  Terribiles vis formæ: Letumque, Labosque.'_

'Now,' said he, 'almost all these apply exactly to an author; all
these are the concomitants of a printing-house.'"  Nevertheless,
although cares, and sometimes sullen sorrows, want and fear, still
dwelt with Maitland, a little time now began for him in which he had
some peace of mind, if not happiness.  That was a plant he never
cultivated.  One of his favourite passages from Charlotte Brontë,
whose work was in many ways a passion to him, is that in which she
exclaims: "Cultivate happiness!  Happiness is not a potato," and
indeed he never grew it.  Still there were two periods in his life in
which he had some peace, and the first period now began.  I speak of
the time after the death of his first wife.  The drain of ten
shillings a week--which must seem so absurdly little to many--had
been far more than he could stand, and many times he had gone without
the merest necessities of life so that the poor alien in the New Cut
should have money, even though he knew that she spent it at once upon
drink and forgetfulness.  Ten shillings a week was very much to him.
For one thing it might mean a little more food and better food.  It
meant following up his one great hobby of buying books.  Those who
know "The Meditations," know what he thought of books, for in that
respect this record is a true guide, even if it should be read with
caution in most things.  Nevertheless although he was happier and
easier, it is curious that his most unhappy and despairing books were
written during this particular period.  "In the Morning," it is true,
was done before his wife died, and some people who do not know the
inner history of the book may not regard it as a tragedy.  In one
sense, however, it was one of the greatest literary tragedies of
Henry Maitland's life, according to his own statement to me.

At that time he was publishing books with the firm of Miller and
Company, and, of course, he knew John Glass, who read for them, very
well indeed.  It seems that Glass, who had naturally enough,
considering his period, certain old-fashioned ideas on the subject of
books and their endings, absolutely and flatly declined to recommend
his firm to publish "In the Morning," unless Maitland re-wrote the
natural tragic end of the book and made it turn out happily.  I think
nothing on earth, or in some hell for men of letters, could have made
Maitland more angry and wretched.  If there was one thing that he
clung to during the whole of his working time, it was sincerity, and
sincerity in literary work implies an absolute freedom from alien and
extrinsic influence.  I can well remember what he said to me about
Glass' suggestion.  He abused him and the publishers; the public,
England, the world, and the very universe.  He almost burst into
tears as he explained to me what he had been obliged to do for the
sake of the great fifty pounds he was to get for the book.  For at
this time he only got fifty pounds for a long three-volume novel.  He
always wrote with the greatest pain and labour, but I do not suppose
he ever put anything on paper in his life which cost him such acute
mental suffering as the last three chapters of this book which were
written to John Glass' barbaric order.

After his wife's death he wrote "The Under-World," "Bond and Free,"
"Paternoster Row," and "The Exile."  It is a curious fact, although
it was not always obvious even to himself, and is not now obvious to
anybody but me, that I stood as a model to him in many of these
books, especially, if I remember rightly, for one particular
character in "Bond and Free."  Some of these sketches are fairly
complimentary, and many are much the reverse.  The reason of this use
of me was that till much later he knew very few men intimately but
myself; and when he wanted anybody in his books of a more or less
robust character, and sometimes more or less of a kind that he did
not like, I, perforce, had to stand for him.  On one occasion he
acknowledged this to me, and once he was not at all sure how I should
take it.  As a matter of fact the most life-like portrait of me ends
as a villain, and, as he had touched me off to the very life in the
first volume, it did make me a little sorer than I acknowledged.  I
leave the curious to discover this particular scoundrel.  Of course
it was only natural that my wild habits and customs, the relics of
Australia and America, afforded him a great deal of amusement and
study.  On one occasion they cost him, temporarily, the very large
sum of three pounds.  As he said, he used to look upon me as a kind
of hybrid, a very ridiculous wild man with strong literary leanings,
with an enormous amount of general and unrelated knowledge; and at
the same time as a totally unregulated or ill-regulated ruffian.
This was a favourite epithet of his, for which I daresay there was
something to be said.  Now one Sunday it happened that I was going up
to see him at 7K, and came from Chelsea with two or three books in my
hand, and, as it happened, a pair of spectacles on my nose.  At that
time I sometimes carried an umbrella, and no doubt looked exceedingly
peaceful.  As a result of this a young man, who turned out afterwards
to be a professional cricketer, thought I was a very easy person to
deal with, and to insult.  As I came to York Place, which was then
almost empty of passers by, I was walking close to the railings and
this individual came up and pushing rudely past me, stepped right in
front of me.  Now this was a most outrageous proceeding, because he
had fifteen free feet of pavement, and I naturally resented it.  I
made a little longer step than I should otherwise have done and
"galled his kibe."  He turned round upon me and, using very bad
language, asked me where I was going to, who I thought I was, and
what I proposed to do about it.  I did not propose to do anything,
but did it.  I smote him very hard with the umbrella, knocking him
down.  He remained on the pavement for a considerable time, and then
only got up at the third endeavour, and promptly gave me into
custody.  The policeman, who had happened to see the whole affair,
explained to me, with that civility common among the custodians of
order to those classes whose dress suggests they are their masters,
that he was compelled to take the charge.  I was removed to Lower
Seymour Street and put in a cell for male prisoners only, where I
remained fully half an hour.

While I was in this cell a small boy of about nine was introduced and
left there.  I went over to him and said, "Hullo, my son, what's
brought you here?"  Naturally enough he imagined that I was not a
prisoner but a powerful official, and bursting into tears he said,
"Oh, please, sir, it warn't me as nicked the steak!"  I consoled him
to the best of my ability until I was shortly afterwards invited down
to Marlborough Street Police Court, where Mr. De Rutzen, now Sir
Albert De Rutzen, was sitting.  As I had anticipated the likelihood
of my being fined, and as I had no more than a few shillings with me,
I had written a letter to Maitland, and procuring a messenger through
the police, had sent it up to him.  He came down promptly and sat in
the court while I was being tried for this assault.  After hearing
the case Mr. De Rutzen decided to fine me three pounds, which
Maitland paid, with great chuckles at the incident, even though he
considered his prospect of getting the money back for some months was
exceedingly vague.  It was by no means the first time that he had
gone to the police court for copy which "is very pretty to observe,"
as Pepys said, when after the Fire of London it was discovered that
as many churches as public houses were left standing in the city.
That such a man should have had to pursue his studies of actual life
in the police courts and the slums was really an outrage, another
example of the native malignity of matter.  For, as I have insisted,
and must insist again, he was a scholar and a dreamer.  But his
pressing anxieties for ever forbade him to dream, or to pursue
scholarship without interruption.  He desired time to perfect his
control of the English tongue, and he wanted much that no man can
ever get.  It is my firm conviction that if he had possessed the
smallest means he would never have thought himself completely master
of the medium in which he worked.  He often spoke of poor Flaubert
saying: "What an accursed language is French!"  He was for ever
dissatisfied with his work, as an artist should be, and I think he
attained seldom, if ever, the rare and infrequent joy that an artist
has in accomplishment.  It was not only his desire of infinite
perfection as a writer pure and simple, which affected and afflicted
him.  It was the fact that he should never have written fiction at
all.  He often destroyed the first third of a book.  I knew him to do
so with one three times over.  This, of course, was not always out of
the cool persuasion that what he had done was not good, for it often
was good in its way, but frequently he began, in a hurry, in despair,
and with the prospects of starvation, something that he knew not to
be his own true work, or something which he forced without adequate
preparation.  Then I used to get a dark note saying, "I have
destroyed the whole of the first volume and am, I hope, beginning to
see my way."  It was no pleasant thing to be a helpless spectator of
these struggles, in which he found no rest, when I knew his destiny
was to have been a scholar at a great university.

When one understands his character, or even begins to understand it,
it is easy enough to comprehend that the temporary ease with regard
to money which came after his wife's death did not last so very long.
The pressure of her immediate needs and incessant demands being at
last relaxed he himself relaxed his efforts in certain directions and
presently was again in difficulties.  I know that it will sound very
extraordinary to all but those who know the inside of literary life
that this should have been so.  A certain amount of publicity is
almost always associated in the minds of the public with monetary
success of a kind.  Yet one very well-known acquaintance of mine, an
eminent if erratic journalist, one day had a column of favourable
criticism in a big daily, and after reading it went out and bought a
red herring with his last penny and cooked it over the fire in his
solitary room.  It was the same with myself.  It was almost the same
with Maitland even at this time.  No doubt the worst of his financial
difficulties were before I returned from America, and even before his
wife died, but never, till the end of his life, was he at ease with
regard to money.  He never attained the art of the pot-boiler by
which most of us survive, even when he tried short stories, which he
did finally after I had pressed him to attempt them for some years.

In many ways writing to him was a kind of sacred mission.  It was not
that he had any faith in great results to come from it, but the
profession of a writer was itself sacred, and even the poorest
sincere writer was a _sacer vates_.  He once absolutely came down all
the way to me in Chelsea to show me a well-known article in which
Robert Louis Stevenson denied, to my mind not so unjustly, that a
writer could claim payment at all, seeing that he left the world's
work to do what he chose to do for his own pleasure.  Stevenson went
on to compare such a writer to a _fille de joie_.  This enraged
Maitland furiously.  I should have been grieved if he and Stevenson
had met upon that occasion.  I really think something desperate might
have happened, little as one might expect violence from such a
curious apostle of personal peace as Maitland.  Many years afterwards
I related this little incident to Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa,
but I think by that time Maitland himself was half inclined to agree
with his eminent brother author.  And yet, as I say, writing was a
mission, even if it was with him an acquired passion; but his
critical faculties, which were so keenly developed, almost destroyed
him.  There can be no stronger proof that he was not one of those
happy beings who take to the telling of stories because they must,
and because it is in them.  There was no time that he was not obliged
to do his best, though every writer knows to his grief that there are
times when the second best must do.  And thus it was that John Glass
so enraged him.  All those things which are the care of the true
writer were of most infinite importance to him.  A misprint, a mere
"literal," gave him lasting pain.  He desired classic perfection,
both of work and the mere methods of production.  He would have taken
years over a book if fear and hunger and poverty had permitted him to
do so.  And yet he wrote "Isabel," "The Mob," and "In the Morning,"
all in seven months, even while he read through the whole of Dante's
"Divina Commedia," for recreation, and while he toiled at the alien
labour of teaching.  Yet this was he who wrote to one friend: "Would
it not be delightful to give up a year or so to the study of some old
period of English history?"  When he was thirty-six he said: "The
four years from now to forty I should like to devote to a vigorous
apprenticeship in English."  But this was the man who year after year
was compelled to write books which the very essence of his being told
him would work no good.  Sometimes I am tempted to think that the
only relief he got for many, many years came out of the hours we
spent in company, either in his room or mine.  We read very much
together, and it was our delight, as I have said, to exchange
quotations, or read each other passages which we had discovered
during the week.  He recited poetry with very great feeling and
skill, and was especially fond of much of Coleridge.  I can hear him
now reading those lines of Coleridge to his son which end:

  "Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee
  Whether the summer clothe the general earth
  With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
  Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
  Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
  Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
  Heard only in the trances of the blast,
  Or if the secret ministry of frost
  Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
  Quietly shining to the quiet Moon."

And to hear him chant the mighty verse of the great Greeks who were
dead, and yet were most alive to him, was always inspiring.  The time
was to come, though not yet, when he was to see Greece, and when he
had entered Piræus and seen the peopled mountains of that country
Homer became something more to him than he had been, and the language
of Æschylus and Sophocles took on new glories and clothed itself in
still more wondrous emotions.  He knew a hundred choruses of the
Greek tragedies by heart, and declaimed them with his wild hair flung
back and his eyes gleaming as if the old tragedians, standing in the
glowing sun of the Grecian summer, were there to hear him, an alien
yet not an alien, using the tongue that gave its chiefest glories to
them for ever.  But he had been born in exile, and had made himself
an outcast.

Those who have read so far, and are interested in him, will see that
I am much more concerned to say what I felt about him than to relate
mere facts and dates.  I care little or nothing that in some ways
others know more or less of him, or know it differently.  I try to
build up my little model of him, try to paint my picture touch by
touch; often, it may be, by repetition, for so a man builds himself
for his friends in his life.  I must paint him as a whole, and put
him down, here and there perhaps with the grain of the canvas showing
through the paint, or perhaps with what the worthy critics call a
rich impasto, which may be compiled of words.  Others may criticise,
and will criticise, what I write.  No doubt they will find much of it
wrong, or wrong-headed, and will attribute to me other motives than
those which move me, but if it leads them to bring out more of his
character than I know or remember, I shall be content.  For the more
that is known of him, the more he will be loved.

It was somewhere about this time that I undertook to write one of two
or three articles which I have done about him for periodicals, and
the remembrance of that particular piece of work reminds me very
strongly of his own ideas of his own humour in writing.  There have
been many discussions, wise and otherwise, as to whether he possessed
any at all, and I think the general feeling that he was very greatly
lacking in this essential part of the equipment of a writer, to be on
the whole true.  Among my lost letters there was one which I most
especially regret not to be able to quote, for it was very long,
perhaps containing two thousand words, which he sent to me when he
knew I had been asked to do this article.  Now the purport of
Maitland's letter was to prove to me that every one was wrong who
said he had no humour.  In one sense there can be no greater proof
that anybody who said so was right.  He enumerated carefully all the
characters in all the books he had hitherto written in whom he
thought there was real humour.  He gave me a preposterous list of
these individuals, with his comments, and appealed to me in all
deadly seriousness to know whether I did not agree with him that they
were humorous.  But the truth is that, save as a talker, he had very
little humour, and even then it was frequently verbal.  It was,
however, occasionally very grim, and its strength, oddly enough, was
of the American kind, since it consisted of managed exaggeration.  He
had a certain joy in constructing more or less humorous nicknames for
people.  Sometimes these were good, and sometimes bad, but when he
christened them once he kept to it always.  I believe the only man of
his acquaintance who had no nickname at all was George Meredith, but
then he loved and admired Meredith in no common fashion.

In some of his books he speaks, apparently not without some learning,
of music, but there are, I fancy, signs that his knowledge of it was
more careful construction than actual knowledge or deep feeling.
Nevertheless he did at times discover a real comprehension of the
greater musicians, especially of Chopin.  Seeing that this was so, it
is very curious, and more than curious in a writer, that he had a
measureless adoration of barrel organs.  He delighted in them
strangely, and when any Italian musician came into his dingy street
or neighbourhood, he would set the window open and listen with
ardour.  Being so poor, he could rarely afford to give away money
even in the smallest sum.  Pennies were indeed pennies to him.  But
he did sometimes bestow pence on wandering Italians who ground out
Verdi in the crowded streets.  Among the many languages which he knew
was, of course, Italian; for, as I have said, he read the "Divina
Commedia" easily, reading it for relaxation as he did Aristophanes.
It was a great pleasure to him, even before he went to Italy, to
speak a few words in their own tongue to these Italians of the
English streets.  He remembered that this music came from the south,
the south that was always his Mecca, the Kibleh of the universe.
Years afterwards, when he had been in the south, and knew Naples and
the joyous crowds of the Chaiaja--long before I had been there and
had listened to its uproar from the Belvidere of San Martino--he
found Naples chiefly a city of this joyous popular music.  Naples, he
said, was the most interesting modern city in Europe; and yet I
believe the chief joy he had there was hearing its music, and the
singing of the lazzaroni down by Santa Lucia.  "Funiculi, Funicula,"
he loved as much as if it were the work of a classic, and "Santa
Lucia" appealed to him like a Greek chorus.  I remember that, years
later, he wrote to me a letter of absurd and exaggerated anger, which
was yet perfectly serious, about the action of the Neapolitan
municipality in forbidding street organs to play in the city.
Sometimes, though rarely, seeing that he could not often afford a
shilling, he went to great concerts in London.  Certainly he spoke as
one not without instruction in musical subjects in "The Vortex," but
I fancy that musical experts might find flaws in his nomenclature.
Nevertheless he did love music with a certain ardent passion.

He was a man not without a certain sensuality, but it was his
sensuousness which was in many ways the most salient point in his
character.  As I often told him, he was a kind of incomplete
Rabelaisian.  That was suggested to me by his delighted use of
Gargantuan epithets with regard to the great recurrent subject of
food.  He loved all things which were redolent of oil and grease and
fatness.  The joy of great abundance appealed to him, and I verily
believe that to him the great outstanding characteristic of the past
in England was its abundant table.  Indeed, in all things but rowdy
indecency, he was a Rabelaisian, and being such, he yet had to put up
with poor and simple food.  However, provided it was at hand in large
quantities, he was ready to feed joyously.  He would exclaim: "Now
for our squalid meal!  I wonder what Harold Edgeworth, or good old
Edmund Roden would say to this?"  When I think of the meagre preface
that Harold Edgeworth wrote in later years for "Basil," when that
done by G.H. Rivers--afterwards published separately--did not meet
with the approval of Maitland's relatives and executors, I feel that
Edgeworth somewhat deserved the implied scorn of Maitland's words.
As for Edmund Roden, he often spoke of him affectionately.  In later
years he sometimes went down to Felixstowe to visit him.  He liked
his house amazingly, and was very much at home in it.  It was there
that he met Grant Allen, and Sir Luke Redburn, whom he declared to be
the most interesting people that he saw in Felixstowe at that time.

I am not sure whether it was on this particular occasion, perhaps in
1895, that he went down to Essex with a great prejudice against Grant
Allen.  The reason of this was curious.  He was always most vicious
when any writer who obviously lived in comfort, complained loudly and
bitterly of the pittance of support given him by the public, and the
public's faithful servants, the publishers.  When Allen growled
furiously on this subject in a newspaper interview Maitland recalled
to me with angry amusement a certain previous article in which, if I
remember rightly, Grant Allen proclaimed his absolute inability to
write if he were not in a comfortable room with rose-coloured
curtains.  "Rose-coloured curtains!" said Maitland contemptuously,
and looking round his own room one certainly found nothing of that
kind.  It was perhaps an extraordinary thing, one of the many odd
things in his character, that the man who loved the south so, who
always dreamed of it, seemed to see everything at that period of his
life in the merest black and white.  There was not a spark or speck
of colour in his rooms.  Now in my one poor room in Chelsea I had
hung up all sorts of water-colours acquired by various means from
artists who were friends of mine.  By hook or by crook I got hold of
curtains with colour in them, and carpets, too, and Japanese fans.
My room was red and yellow and scarlet, while his were a dingy
monochrome, as if they sympathised with the outlook at the back of
his flat, which stared down upon the inferno of the Metropolitan
Railway.  But to return to Grant Allen.  Maitland now wrote:
"However, I like him very much.  He is quite a simple, and very
gentle fellow, crammed with multifarious knowledge, enthusiastic in
scientific pursuits.  With fiction and that kind of thing he ought
never to have meddled; it is the merest pot-boiling.  He reads
nothing whatever but books of scientific interest."

It was at Felixstowe, too, that he met Carew Latter who induced him
to write twenty papers in one of the journals Latter conducted.  They
were to be of more or less disreputable London life.  Some of them at
least have been reprinted in his volumes of short stories.  There is
certainly no colour in them; in some ways they resemble sketches with
the dry-point.  Of course after he had once been on the continent,
and had got south to Marseilles and the Cannebiere, he learnt to know
what colour was, and wrote of it in a way he had never done before,
as I noticed particularly in one paragraph about Capri seen at sunset
from Naples.  In this sudden discovery of colour he reminded me,
oddly enough, of my old acquaintance Wynne, the now justly celebrated
painter, who, up to a certain time in his life, had painted almost in
monochrome, and certainly in a perpetual grey chord.  Then he met
Marvell, the painter, who was, if anything, a colourist.  I do not
think Marvell influenced Wynne in anything but colour, but from that
day Wynne was a colourist, and so remains, although to it he has
added a great and real power of design and decoration.  It is true
that Maitland never became a colourist in writing, but those who have
read his work with attention will observe that after a certain date
he was much more conscious of the world's colour.

In those days our poverty and our ambition made great subjects for
our talks.  I myself had been writing for some years with no more
than a _succès d'estime_, and I sometimes thought that I would throw
up the profession and go back to Australia or America, or to the sea,
or would try Africa at last.  But Maitland had no such possibilities
within him.  He maintained grimly, though not without humour, that
his only possible refuge when war, or some other final disaster made
it impossible for writers to earn their difficult living, was a
certain block of buildings opposite 7K.  This, however, was not
Madame Tussaud's as the careless might imagine, it was the Marylebone
workhouse, which he said he regarded with a proprietary eye.  It
always afforded him a subject for conversation when his prospects
seemed rather poorer than usual.  It was, at any rate, he declared,
very handy for him when he became unable to do more work.  No doubt
this was his humour, but there was something in this talk which was
more than half serious.  He always liked to speak of the gloomy side
of things, and I possess many letters of his which end with
references to the workhouse, or to some impending, black disaster.
In one he said: "I wish I could come up, but am too low in health and
spirits to move at present.  A cold clings about me, and the future
looks dark."  Again he said: "No, I shall never speak of my work.  It
has become a weariness and toil--nothing more."  And again: "It is a
bad, bad business, that of life at present."  And yet once more: "It
is idle to talk about occupation--by now I have entered on the last
stage of life's journey."  This was by no means when he had come
towards the end of his life.  However, the workhouse does come up,
even at the end, in a letter written about two months before his
death.  He wrote to me: "I have been turning the pages with great
pleasure, to keep my thoughts from the workhouse."  Those who did not
know him would not credit him with the courage of desperation which
he really possessed, if they saw his letters and knew nothing more of
the man.




CHAPTER V

The art of portraiture, whether in words or paint, is very difficult,
and appears less easy as I attempt to draw Maitland.  Nevertheless
the time comes when the artist seems to see his man standing on his
feet before him, put down in his main planes, though not yet,
perhaps, with any subtlety.  The anatomy is suggested at any rate, if
there are bones in the subject or in the painter.  As it seems to me,
Maitland should now stand before those who have read so far with
sympathy and understanding.  I have not finished my drawing, but it
might even now suffice as a sketch, and seem from some points of view
to be not wholly inadequate.  It is by no means easy to put him down
in a few words, but patience and the addition of detail reach their
end, it may be not without satisfaction--for "with bread and steel
one gets to China."  It is not possible to etch Maitland in a few
lines, for as it seems to me it is the little details of his
character with which I am most concerned that give him his greatest
value.  It is not so much the detail of his actual life, but the
little things that he said, and the way he seemed to think, or even
the way that he avoided thinking, which I desire to put down.  And
when I say those things he wished not to think of, I am referring
more especially to his views of the universe, and of the world
itself, those views which are a man's philosophy, and not less his
philosophy when of set purpose he declines to think of them at all,
for this Maitland did without any doubt.  Goethe said, when he spoke,
if I remember rightly, about all forms of religious and metaphysical
speculation, "Much contemplation, or brooding over these things is
disturbing to the spirit."  Unfortunately I do not know German so I
cannot find the reference to this, but Maitland, who knew the
language very thoroughly and had read nearly everything of great
importance in it, often quoted this passage, having naturally a great
admiration for Goethe.  I do not mean that he admired him merely for
his position in the world of letters.  What he did admire in Goethe
was what he himself liked and desired so greatly.  He wished for
peace, for calmness of spirit.  He did not like to be disturbed in
any way whatsoever.  He would not disturb himself.  He wished people
to be reasonable, and thought this was a reasonable request to make
of them.  I remember on one occasion when I had been listening to him
declaiming about some one's peculiar lack of reasonableness, which
seemed to him the one great human quality, that I said: "Maitland,
what would you do if you were having trouble with a woman who was in
a very great rage with you?"  He replied, with an air of surprise,
"Why, of course, I should reason with her."  I said shortly, "Don't
ever get married again! " Nevertheless he was a wonderfully patient
and reasonable man himself, and truly lacked everything
characteristic of the combatant.  He would discuss, he would never
really argue.  I do not suppose that he was physically a coward, but
his dread of scenes and physical violence lay very deep in his
organisation.  Although he used me as a model I never really drew him
at length in any of my own books, but naturally he was a subject of
great psychological interest to me.  Pursuing my studies in him I
said, one day, "Maitland, what would you do if a man disagreed with
you, got outrageously and unreasonably angry, and slapped you in the
face?"  He replied, in his characteristically low and concentrated
voice, "Do?  I should look at him with the most infinite disgust, and
turn away."

His horror of militarism was something almost comic, for it showed
his entire incapacity for grasping the world's situation as it shows
itself to any real and ruthless student of political sociology who is
not bogged in the mud flats of some Utopian island.  Once we were
together on the Horse Guards' Parade and a company of the Guards came
marching up.  We stood to watch them pass, and when they had gone by
he turned to me and said, "Mark you, my dear man, this, _this_ is the
nineteenth century!"  In one of his letters written to me after his
second marriage he said of his eldest son: "I hope to send him
abroad, to some country where there is no possibility of his having
to butcher or be butchered."  This, of course, was his pure reason
pushed to the point where reason becomes mere folly, for such is the
practical antinomy of pure reason in life.  It was in this that he
showed his futile idealism, which was in conflict with what may be
called truly his real pessimism.  That he did good work in many of
his books dealing with the lower classes is quite obvious, and cannot
be denied.  He showed us the things that exist.  It is perfectly
possible, and even certainly true, that many of the most pessimistic
writers are in reality optimists.  They show us the grey in order
that we may presently make it rose.  But Maitland wrote absolutely
without hope.  He took his subjects as mere subjects, and putting
them on the table, lectured in pathology.  He made books of his
dead-house experiences, and sold them, but never believed that he, or
any other man, could really do good by speaking of what he had seen
and dilated upon.  The people as a body were vile and hopeless.  He
did not even inquire how they became so.  He thought nothing could be
done, and did not desire to do it.  His future was in the past.  The
world's great age would never renew itself, and only he and a few
others really understood the desperate state into which things had
drifted.  Since his death there has been some talk about his
religion.  I shall speak of this later, on a more fitting occasion;
but, truly speaking, he had no religion.  When he gave up his
temporary Positivist pose, which was entirely due to his gratitude to
Harold Edgeworth for helping him, he refused to think of these things
again.  They disturbed the spirit.  If I ever endeavoured to inveigle
him into a discussion or an argument upon any metaphysical subject he
grew visibly uneasy.  He declined to argue, or even to discuss, and
though I know that in later life he admitted that even immortality
was possible I defy any one to bring a tittle of evidence to show
that he ever went further.  This attitude to all forms of religious
and metaphysical thought was very curious to me.  It was, indeed,
almost inexplicable, as I have an extreme pleasure in speculative
inquiry of all kinds.  The truth is that on this side of his nature
he was absolutely wanting.  Such things interested him no more than
music interests a tone-deaf man who cannot distinguish the shriek of
a tom-cat from the sound of a violin.  If I did try to speak of such
things he listened with an air of outraged and sublime patience which
must have been obvious to any one but a bore.  Whether his philosophy
was sad or not, he would not have it disturbed.

His real interest in religion seemed to lie in his notion that it was
a curious form of delusion almost ineradicable from the human mind.
There is a theory, very popular among votaries of the creeds, which
takes the form of denying that any one can really be an atheist.
This is certainly not true, but it helps one to understand the
theologic mind, which has an imperative desire to lay hold of
something like an inclusive hypothesis to rest on.  So far as
Maitland was concerned there was no more necessity to have an
hypothesis about God than there was to have one about quaternions,
and quaternions certainly did not interest him.  He shrugged his
shoulders and put these matters aside, for in many things he had none
of the weaknesses of humanity, though in others he had more than his
share.  In his letters to G.H. Rivers, which I have had the privilege
of reading, there are a few references to Rivers' habits and powers
of speculation.  I think it was somewhere in 1900 or 1901 that he
read "Forecasts."  By this time he had a strong feeling of affection
for Rivers, and a very great admiration for him.  His references to
him in the "Meditations" are sufficiently near the truth to
corroborate this.  Nevertheless his chief feeling towards Rivers and
his work, beyond the mere fact that it was a joy to him that a man
could make money by doing good stuff, was one of amazement and
surprise that any one could be deeply interested in the future, and
could give himself almost wholly or even with partial energy, to
civic purposes.  And so he wrote to Rivers: "I must not pretend to
care very much about the future of the human race.  Come what may,
folly and misery are sure to be the prevalent features of life, but
your ingenuity in speculation, the breadth of your views, and the
vigour of your writing, make this book vastly enjoyable.  The
critical part of it satisfies, and often delights me.  Stupidity
should have a sore back for some time to come, and many a wind-bag
will be uneasily aware of collapse."

It is interesting to note, now that I am speaking of his friendship
for Rivers, and apropos of what I shall have to say later about his
religious views, that he wrote to Rivers: "By the bye, you speak of
God.  Well, I understand what you mean, but the word makes me stumble
rather.  I have grown to shrink utterly from the use of such terms,
and though I admit, perforce, a universal law, I am so estranged by
its unintelligibility that not even a desire to be reverent can make
those old names in any way real to me."  So later he said that he was
at a loss to grasp what Rivers meant when he wrote: "There stirs
something within us now that can never die again."  I think Maitland
totally misinterpreted the passage, which was rather apropos of the
awakening of the civic spirit in mankind than of anything else, but
he went on to say that he put aside the vulgar interpretation of such
words.  However, was it Rivers' opinion that the material doom of the
earth did not involve the doom of earthly life?  He added that
Rivers' declared belief in the coherency and purpose of things was
pleasant to him, for he himself could not doubt for a moment that
there _was_ some purpose.  This is as far as he ever went.  On the
other hand, he did doubt whether we, in any sense of the pronoun,
should ever be granted understanding of that purpose.  Of course all
this shows that he possessed no metaphysical endowments or apparatus.
He loved knowledge pure and simple, but when it came to the exercises
of the metaphysical mind he was pained and puzzled.  He lacked any
real education in philosophy, and did not even understand its
peculiar vocabulary.  However vain those of us who have gone through
the metaphysical mill may think it in actual products, we are all yet
aware that it helps greatly to formulate our own philosophy, or even
our own want of it.  For it clears the air.  It cuts away all kinds
of undergrowth.  It at any rate shows us that there is no
metaphysical way out, for the simple reason that there has never
existed one metaphysician who did not destroy another.  They are all
mutually destructive.  But Maitland had no joy in construction or
destruction; and, as I have said, he barely understood the technical
terms of metaphysics.  There was a great difference with regard to
these inquiries between him and Rivers.  The difference was that
Rivers enjoyed metaphysical thinking and speculation where Maitland
hated it.  But all the same Rivers took it up much too late in life,
and about the year 1900 made wonderful discoveries which had been
commonplaces to Aristotle.  A thing like this would not have mattered
much if he had regarded it as education.  However, he regarded it as
discovery, and wrote books about it which inspired debates, and
apparently filled the metaphysicians with great joy.  It is always a
pleasure to the evil spirit that for ever lives in man to see the
ablest people of the time showing that they are not equally able in
some other direction than that in which they have gained distinction.

It is curious how this native dislike of Maitland to being disturbed
by speculative thought comes out in a criticism he made of Thomas
Hardy.  He had always been one of this writer's greatest admirers,
and I know he especially loved "The Woodlanders," but he wrote in a
letter to Dr. Lake something very odd about "Jude the Obscure."  He
calls it: "a sad book!  Poor Thomas is utterly on the wrong tack, and
I fear he will never get back into the right one.  At his age, a
habit of railing at the universe is not overcome."  Of course this
criticism is wholly without any value as regards Hardy's work, but it
is no little side light on Maitland's own peculiar habits of thought,
or of persistent want of thought, on the great matters of
speculation.  His objection was not to anything that Hardy said, but
to the fact that the latter's work, filled with what Maitland calls
"railing at the universe," personally disturbed him.  Anything which
broke up his little semi-classic universe, the literary hut which he
had built for himself as a shelter from the pitiless storm of cosmic
influences, made him angry and uneasy for days and weeks.  He never
lived to read Hardy's "Dynasts," a book which stands almost alone in
literature, and is to my mind a greater book than Goethe's "Faust,"
but if he had read it I doubt if he would have forgiven Thomas Hardy
for disturbing him.  He always wanted to be left alone.  He had
constructed his pattern of the universe, and any one who shook it he
denounced with, "Confound the fellow!  He makes me unhappy."  The one
book that he did read, which is in itself essentially a disturbing
book to many people, and apparently read with some pleasure, was the
earliest volume of Dr. Frazer's "Golden Bough"; but it is a curious
thing that what interested him, and indeed actually pleased him, was
Frazer's side attacks upon the dogmas of Christianity.  He said: "The
curious thing about Frazer's book is, that in illustrating the old
religious usages connected with tree-worship and so on, he throws
light upon every dogma of Christianity.  This by implication; he
never does it expressly.  Edmund Roden has just pointed this out to
the Folk-lore Society, with the odd result that Gladstone wrote at
once resigning membership."  This was written after Gladstone died,
but it reads as if Maitland was not aware that he was dead.  Odd as
it may seem, it is perfectly possible that he did not know it.  He
cared very little for the newspapers, and sometimes did not read any
for long periods.  It is rather curious that when I proved to him in
later years that he had once dated his letters according to the
Positivist Calendar, he seemed a little disturbed and shocked.
Still, it was very natural that when exposed to Positivist influences
he should have become a Positivist, for among the people of that odd
faith, if faith it can be called, he found both kindness and
intellectual recognition.  But when his mind became clearer and
calmer, and something of the storm and stress had passed by, he was
aware that his attitude had been somewhat pathologic, and did not
like to recall it.  This became very much clearer to him, and indeed
to me, when another friend of ours, a learned and very odd German who
lived and starved in London, went completely under in the same
curious religious way.  His name was Schmidt.  He remained to the day
of Maitland's death a very great friend of his, and I believe he
possesses more letters from Henry Maitland than any man
living--greatly owing to his own vast Teutonic energy and industry in
writing to his friends.

But in London Schmidt came to absolute destitution.  I myself got to
know him through Maitland.  It appeared that he owned a collie dog,
which he found at last impossible to feed, even though he starved
himself to do so.  Maitland told me of this, and introduced me to
Schmidt.  On hearing his story, and seeing the dog, I went to my own
people, who were then living in Clapham, and asked them if they would
take the animal from Schmidt and keep it.  When I saw the German
again I was given the dog, together with a paper on which were
written all Don's peculiar tricks, most of which had been taught to
him by his master and needed the German language for their words of
command.  Soon after this Schmidt fell into even grimmer poverty, and
was rescued from the deepest gulf by some religious body analogous in
those days to the Salvation Army of the present time.  Of this
Maitland knew nothing, until one day going down the Strand he found
his friend giving away religious pamphlets at the door of Exeter
Hall.  When he told me this he said he went next day to see the man
in his single room lodging and found him sitting at the table with
several open Bibles spread out before him.  He explained that he was
making a commentary on the Bible at the instigation of one of his new
friends, and he added: "Here, _here_ is henceforth my life's work."
Shortly after this, I believe through Harold Edgeworth or some one
else to whom Maitland appealed, the poor German was given work in
some quasi-public institution, and with better fare and more ease his
brain recovered.  He never mentioned religion again.  It was thus
that Maitland himself recovered from similar but less serious
influences in somewhat similar conditions.  For some weeks in 1885 I
was myself exposed to such influences in Chicago, in even bitterer
conditions than those from which Schmidt and Maitland had suffered,
but not for one moment did I alter my opinions.  As a kind of final
commentary on this chapter and this side of Maitland's mind, one
might quote from a letter to Rivers: "Seeing that mankind cannot have
done altogether with the miserable mystery of life, undoubtedly it
behoves us before all else to enlighten as we best can the lot of
those for whose being we are responsible.  This for the vast majority
of men--a few there are, I think, who are justified in quite
neglecting that view of life, and, by the bye, Marcus Aurelius was
one of them.  Nothing he could have done would have made Commodus
other than he was--I use, of course, the everyday phrases, regardless
of determinism--and then one feels pretty sure that Commodus was not
his son at all.  For him, life was the individual, and whether he has
had any true influence or not, I hold him absolutely justified in
thinking as he did."  There again comes out Maitland's view, his
anti-social view, the native egoism of the man, his peculiar solitude
of thought.




CHAPTER VI

To have seen "Shelley plain" once only is to put down a single point
on clear paper.  To have seen him twice gives his biographer the
right to draw a line.  Out of three points may come a triangle.  Out
of the many times in many years that I saw Maitland comes the
intricate pattern of him.  I would rather do a little book like
"Manon Lescaut" than many biographical quartos lying as heavy on the
dead as Vanbrugh's mansions.  If there are warts on Maitland so there
were on Cromwell.  I do not invent like the old cartographers, who
adorned their maps with legends saying, "Here is much gold," or "Here
are found diamonds."  Nor have I put any imaginary "Mountains of the
Moon" into his map, or adorned vacant parts of ocean with whales or
wonderful monsters.  I put down nothing unseen, or most reasonably
inferred.  In spite of my desire, which is sincere, to say as little
as possible about myself, I find I have to speak sometimes of things
primarily my own.  There is no doubt it did Maitland a great deal of
good to have somebody to interest himself in, even if it were no one
of more importance than myself.  Although he was so singularly a
lonely man, he could not always bury himself in the classics, or even
in his work, done laboriously in eight prodigious hours.  We for ever
talked about what we were going to do, and there was very little that
I wrote, up to the time of his leaving London permanently, which I
did not discuss with him.  Yet I was aware that with much I wrote he
was wholly dissatisfied.  I remember when I was still living in
Chelsea, not in Danvers Street but in Redburn Street, where I at last
attained the glory of two rooms, he came to me one Sunday in a very
uneasy state of mind.  He looked obviously worried and troubled, and
was for a long time silent as he sat over the fire.  I asked him
again and again what was the matter, because, as can be easily
imagined, I always had the notion that something must be the matter
with him, or soon would be.  In answer to my repeated importunities
he said, at last: "Well, the fact of the matter is, I want to speak
to you about your work."  It appeared that I and my affairs were at
the bottom of his discomfort.  He told me that he had been thinking
of my want of success, and that he had made up his mind to tell me
the cause of it.  He was nervous and miserable, though I begged him
to speak freely, but at last got out the truth.  He told me that he
did not think I possessed the qualities to succeed at the business I
had so rashly commenced.  He declared that it was not that he had not
the very highest opinion of such a book as "The Western Trail," but
as regards fiction he felt I was bound to be a failure.  Those who
knew him can imagine what it cost him to say as much as this.  I
believe he would have preferred to destroy half a book and begin it
again.  Naturally enough what he said I found very disturbing, but I
am pleased to say that I took it in very good part, and told him that
I would think it over seriously.  As may be imagined, I did a great
deal of thinking on the subject, but the result of my cogitations
amounted to this: I had started a thing and meant to go through with
it at all costs.  I wrote this to him later, and the little incident
never made any difference whatever to our affectionate friendship.  I
reminded him many years after of what he had said, and he owned then
that I had done something to make him revise his former opinion.
When I come to speak of some of his letters to me about my later
books it will be seen how generous he could be to a friend who, for
some time then, had not been very enthusiastic about his own work.  I
have said before, and I always believed, that it was he and not
myself who was at the wrong kind of task.  Fiction, even as he
understood it, was not for a man of his nature and faculties.  He
would have been in his true element as a don of a college, and much
of his love of the classics was a mystery to me, as it would have
been to most active men of the world, however well educated.  I did
understand his passion for the Greek tragedies, but he had almost
more delight in the Romans; and, with the exception of Catullus and
Lucretius, the Latin classics are to me without any savour.  There is
no doubt that in many ways I was but a barbarian to him.  For one
thing, at that time I was something of a fanatical imperialist.  He
took no more interest in the Empire, except as literary material,
than he did in Nonconformist theology.  Then I was certainly highly
patriotic as regards England, but he was very cosmopolitan.  It was
no doubt a very strange thing that he should have spoken to me about
my having little faculty for writing fiction when I had so often come
to the same silent conclusion about himself.  Naturally enough I did
not dare to tell him so, for if such a pronouncement had distressed
me a little it would distress him very much more.  Yet I think he did
sometimes understand his real limitations, especially in later years,
when he wrote more criticism.  The man who could say that he was
prepared to spend the years from thirty-six to forty in a vigorous
apprenticeship to English, was perfectly capable of continuing that
apprenticeship until he died.

He took a critical and wonderful interest in the methods of all men
of letters, and that particular interest with regard to Balzac, which
was known to many, has sometimes been mistaken.  Folks have said, and
even written, that he meant to write an English "Comedie Humaine."
There is, no doubt, a touch of truth in this notion, but no more than
a touch.  He would have liked to follow in Balzac's mighty footsteps,
and do something for England which would possibly be inclusive of all
social grades.  At any rate he began at the bottom and worked
upwards.  It is quite obvious to me that what prevented him from
going further in any such scheme was not actually a want of power or
any failure of industry, it was a real failure of knowledge and of
close contact with the classes composing the whole nation.  Beyond
the lower middle class his knowledge was not very deep.  He was
mentally an alien, and a satiric if interested intruder.  He had been
exiled for the unpardonable sins of his youth.  It is impossible for
any man of intellect not to suspect his own limitations, and I am
sure he knew that he should have been a pure child of books, for as
soon as he got beyond the pale of his own grim surroundings, those
surroundings which had been burnt, and were still being burnt into
his soul, he apparently lost interest.  Though two or three of these
later books have indeed much merit, such novels as "The Vortex" and
"The Best of All Things" are really failures.  I believe he felt it.
Anthony Hope Hawkins once wrote to me apropos of something, that
there were very few men writing who really knew that all real
knowledge had to be "bought."  Maitland had bought his knowledge of
sorrow and suffering and certain surroundings at a personal price
that few can pay and not be bankrupt.  But while I was associating
with almost every class in the world he lived truly alone.  There
were, indeed, long months when he actually saw no one, and there were
other periods when his only friend besides myself was that
philosophic German whose philosophy put its lofty tail between its
legs on a prolonged starvation diet.

As one goes on talking of him and considering his nature there are
times when it seems amazing that he did not commit suicide and have
done with it.  Certainly there were days and seasons when I thought
this might be his possible end.  But some men break and others bend,
and in him there was undoubtedly some curious strength though it were
but the Will to Live of Schopenhauer, the one philosopher he
sometimes read.  I myself used to think that it was perhaps his
native sensuousness which kept him alive in spite of all his misery.
No man ever lived who enjoyed things that were even remotely
enjoyable more acutely than himself, though I think his general
attitude towards life was like his attitude towards people and the
world.  For so many good men Jehovah would have spared the Cities of
the Plains.  So in a certain sense the few good folk that he
perceived in any given class made him endure the others that he
hated, while he painted those he loved against their dingy and
dreadful background.  The motto on the original title-page of "The
Under World" was a quotation from a speech by Renan delivered at the
Académie Française in 1889: "La peinture d'un fumier peut être
justifiée pourvu qu'il y pousse une belle fleur; sans cela, le fumier
n'est que repoussant."  The few beautiful flowers of the world for
Henry Maitland were those who hated their surroundings and desired
vainly to grow out of them.  Such he pitied, hopeless as he believed
their position, and vain as he knew to be their aspirations.  In a
way all this was nothing but translated self-pity.  Had he been more
fortunate in his youth I do not believe he would have ever turned his
attention in any way towards social affairs, in which he took no
native interest.  His natural sympathy was only for those whom he
could imagine to be his mental fellows.  Almost every sympathetic
character in all his best books was for him like the starling in the
cage of Sterne--the starling that cried, "I can't get out!  I can't
get out!" Among the subjects that he refused to speak of or to
discuss was one which for a long time greatly interested me, and
interests me still--I refer to Socialism.  But then Socialism, after
all, is nothing but a more or less definitive view of a definite
organisation with perfectly recognised ends, and he saw no
possibility of any organisation doing away with the things he
loathed.  That is to say, he was truly hopeless, most truly
pessimistic.  He was a sensuous and not a scientific thinker, and to
get on with him for any length of time it was necessary for me to
suppress three-quarters of the things I wished to speak about.  He
was a strange egoist, though truly the hateful world was not his own.
It appeared to me that he prayed, or strove, for the power to ignore
it.  It is for this reason that it seems to me now that all his
so-called social work and analysis were in the nature of an alien
_tour de force_.  He bent his intellect in that direction, and
succeeded even against his nature.  He who desired to be a Bentley or
a Porson wrote bitterly about the slums of Tottenham Court Road.
With Porson he damned the nature of things, and wrote beautifully
about them.  I remember on one occasion telling him of a piece of
script in the handwriting of the great surgeon, John Hunter, which
ran: "Damn civilisation!  It makes cats eat their kittens, sows eat
their young, and women send their children out to nurse."  I think
that gave him more appreciation of science than anything he had ever
heard.  For it looked back into the past, and for Henry Maitland the
past was the age of gold.  In life, as he had to live it, it was
impossible to ignore the horrors of the present time.  He found it
easier to ignore the horrors of the past, and out of ancient history
he made his great romance, which, truly, he never wrote.

It is a curious thing that a man who was thus so essentially romantic
should have been mistaken, not without great reason, for a realist.
In one sense he was a realist, but this was the fatal result of his
nature and his circumstances.  Had he lived in happier surroundings,
still writing fiction, I am assured it would have been romance.  And
yet, curiously enough, I doubt if any of his ideas concerning women
were at all romantic.  His disaster with his first wife was due to
early and unhappily awakened sex feeling, but I think he believed
that his marrying her was due to his desire to save somebody whom he
considered to be naturally a beautiful character from the dunghill in
which he found her.  This poor girl was his first _belle fleur_.  In
all his relations with women it seems as if his own personal
loneliness was the dominating factor.  So much did he feel these
things that it was rarely possible to discuss them with him.
Nevertheless it was the one subject, scientifically treated, on which
I could get him to listen to me.  In the first five years of my
literary apprenticeship I began a book, which is still unfinished,
and never will be finished, called "Social Pathology."  So far as it
dealt with sex and sex deprivation, he was much interested in it.  In
all his books there is to be found the misery of the man who lives
alone and yet cannot live alone.  I do not think that in any book but
"The Unchosen," he ever made a study of that from the woman's side.
But it is curiously characteristic of his sex view that the chief
feminine character of that book apparently knew not love even when
she thought that she knew it, but was only aware of awakened senses.

One might have imagined, considering his early experiences, that he
would have led the ordinary life of man, and associated, if only
occasionally, with women of the mercenary type.  This, I am wholly
convinced, was a thing he never did, though I possess one poem which
implies the possible occurrence of such a passing liaison.  There
was, however, another incident in his life which occurred not long
before I went to America.  He was then living in one room in the
house of a journeyman bookbinder.  On several occasions when I
visited him there I saw his landlady, a young and not unpleasing
woman, who seemed to take great interest in him, and did her very
best to make him comfortable in narrow, almost impossible,
surroundings.  Her husband, a man a great deal older than herself,
drank, and not infrequently ill-treated her.  This was not wholly
Maitland's story, for I saw the man myself, as well as his wife.  It
appears she went for sympathy to her lodger, and he told her
something of his own troubles.  Their common griefs threw them
together.  She was obviously of more than the usual intelligence of
her class.  It appeared that she desired to learn French, or made
Maitland believe so; my own view being that she desired his company.
The result of this was only natural, and soon afterwards Maitland was
obliged to leave the house owing to the jealousy of her husband, who
for many years had already been suspicious of her without any cause.
But this affair was only passing.  He took other rooms, and so far as
I know never saw her again.

While I was in America he was living at 7K, and in that gloomy flat
there was an affair of another order, an incident not without many
parallels in the lives of poor artists and writers.  It seems that a
certain lady not without importance in society, the wife of a rich
husband, wrote to him about one of his books, and having got into
correspondence with him allowed her curiosity to overcome her
discretion.  She visited him very often in his chambers, and though
he told me but little I gathered what the result was.  Oddly enough,
by a curious chain of reasoning and coincidence, I afterwards
discovered this woman's name, which I shall, of course, suppress.  So
far as I am aware these were the only two romantic or quasi-romantic
incidents in Maitland's life until towards the end of it.  When I
came back from America he certainly had no mistress, and beyond an
occasional visit from the sons of Harold Edgeworth, he practically
received no one but myself.  His poverty forbade him entertaining any
but one of his fellows who was as poor as he was, and the few
acquaintances he had once met in better surroundings than his own
gradually drifted away from him, or died as Cotter Morison died.
Although he spoke so very little about these matters of personal
loneliness and deprivation I was yet conscious from the general tenor
of his writing and an occasional dropped word, how bitterly he felt
it personally.  It had rejoiced my unregenerate heart in America to
learn that he was not entirely without feminine companionship at a
time when the horror of his life was only partially mitigated by the
preference of his mad and wretched wife for the dens and slums of the
New Cut.  This woman of the upper classes had come to him like a
star, and had been a lamp in his darkness.  I wonder if she still
retains within her heart some memories of those hours.

I have not been able to discover whether it is true, as has been
said, that some of Maitland's ancestors were originally German.  He
himself thought this was so, without having anything definite that I
remember to go upon.  If it were true I wonder whether it was his
Teutonic ancestry which made him turn with a certain joy to the
German ideal of woman, that of the haus-frau.  If little or nothing
were known about him, or only so much as those know who have already
written of him, it might, in some ways, be possible to reconstruct
him by a process of deductive analysis, by what the school logicians
call the _regressus a principiatis ad principia_.  This is always a
fascinating mental exercise, and indeed I think, with a very little
light on Maitland's life, it should not have been difficult for some
to build up a picture not unlike the man.  For instance, no one with
a gleam of intelligence, whether a critic or not, could read some
portions of the chapter in "Victorian Novelists" on "Women and
Dickens" without coming to the inevitable conclusion that Maitland's
fortune with regard to the women with whom he had been thrown in
contact must have been most lamentably unfortunate.  Although Dickens
drew certain offensive women with almost unequalled power, he treats
them so that one becomes oblivious of their very offensiveness, as
Maitland points out.  Maitland's own commentary on such women is ten
thousand times more bitter, and it is _felt_, not observed, as in
Dickens' books.  He calls them "these remarkable creatures," and
declares they belong mostly to one rank of life, the lower middle
class.  "In general their circumstances are comfortable .... nothing
is asked of them but a quiet and amiable discharge of their household
duties; they are treated by their male kindred with great, often with
extraordinary consideration.  Yet their characteristic is acidity of
temper and boundless licence of querulous or insulting talk.  The
real business of their lives is to make all about them as
uncomfortable as they can.  Invariably, they are unintelligent and
untaught; very often they are fragrantly imbecile.  Their very
virtues (if such persons can be said to have any) become a scourge.
In the highways and byways of life, by the fireside, and in the
bed-chamber, their voices shrill upon the terrified ear."  He adds
that no historical investigation is needed to ascertain the
truthfulness of these presentments.  Indeed Maitland required no
historical investigation, he had his personal experience to go upon;
but this, indeed, is obvious.  Nevertheless one cannot help feeling
in reading this appalling indictment, that something might be said
upon the other side, and that Maitland's attitude was so essentially
male as to vitiate many of his conclusions.

A few pages further on in this book he says: "Another man, obtaining
his release from these depths, would have turned away in loathing;
Dickens found therein matter for his mirth, material for his art."
But Maitland knew that Dickens had not suffered in the way he himself
had done.  Thus it was that he rejoiced in the punishment which Mrs.
Joe Gargery received.  Maitland writes: "Mrs. Joe Gargery shall be
brought to quietness; but how?  By a half-murderous blow on the back
of her head, from which she will never recover.  Dickens understood
by this time that there is no other efficacious way with these
ornaments of their sex."

Having spoken of Dickens it may be as well to dispose of him, with
regard to Maitland, in this particular chapter.  It seems to be
commonly thought that Maitland wrote his book about the Victorian
novelists not only with the sympathy which he expressed, but with
considerable joy in the actual work.  This is not true, for he
regarded it essentially as a pot-boiler, and did it purely for the
money.  By some strange kink in his mind he chose to do it in Italy,
far from any reference library.  He wrote: "My little novelist book
has to be written before Christmas, and to do this I must get settled
at the earliest possible date in a quiet north Italian town.  I think
I shall choose Siena."  On what principle he decided to choose a
quiet north Italian town to write a book about Victorian novelists I
have never been able to determine.  It was certainly a very curious
proceeding, especially as he had no overwhelming love of North Italy,
which was for him the Italy of the Renaissance.  As I have said, he
actually disliked the work, and had no desire to do it, well as it
was done.  It is, however, curious, to me, in considering this book,
to find that neither he nor any other critic of Dickens that I have
ever read seems to give a satisfactory explanation of the great, and
at times overwhelming, attraction that Dickens has for many.  And yet
on more than one occasion I discussed Dickens with him, and in a
great measure he agreed with a theory I put forth with some
confidence.  I think it still worth considering.  For me the great
charm of Dickens lies not wholly in his humour or even greatly in his
humour.  It is not found in his characterisation, nor in his
underlying philosophy of revolt, although almost every writer of
consequence is a revolutionist.  It results purely and simply from
what the critics of the allied art of painting describe as "quality."
This is a word exceedingly difficult to define.  It implies more or
less the characteristic way in which paint is put upon the canvas.  A
picture may be practically worthless from the point of view of
subject or composition, it may even be comparatively poor in
colouring, and yet it may have an extreme interest of surface.  One
finds, I think, the same thing in Dickens' writings.  His page is
full.  It is fuller than the page of any other English writer.  There
are, so to speak, on any given page by any man a certain number of
intellectual and emotional stimuli.  Dickens' page is full of these
stimuli to a most extreme degree.  It is like a small mosaic, and yet
clear.  It has cross meanings, cross lights, reflections,
suggestions.  Compare a page of Dickens with a page, say, of
Thackeray.  Take a pencil and write down the number of mental
suggestions given by a sentence of Thackeray.  Take, again, a
sentence of Dickens, and see how many more there are to be found.  It
is this tremendous and overflowing fulness which really constitutes
Dickens' great and peculiar power.

But all this is anticipation.  Not yet was he to write of Dickens,
Thackeray, and the Brontës, for much was to befall him before he went
to Italy again.  He was once more alone, and I think I knew that this
loneliness would not last for long.  I have often regretted that I
did not foresee what I might have foreseen if I had considered the
man and his circumstances with the same fulness which comes to one in
later years after Fate has wrought itself out.  Had I known all that
I might have known, or done all that I might have done, I could
perhaps have saved him from something even worse than his first
marriage.  Yet, after all, I was a poor and busy man, and while
living in Chelsea had many companions, some of them men who have now
made a great name in the world of Art.  The very nature of Maitland
and his work, the dreadful concentration he required to do something
which was, as I insist again, alien from his true nature, forbade my
seeing him very often, or even often enough to gather from his
reticence what was really in his mind.  Had I gone to see him without
any warning, it would, I knew, have utterly destroyed his whole day's
work.  But this solitude, this enforced and appalling loneliness,
which seemed to him necessary for work if he was to live, ate into
him deeply.  It destroyed his nerve and what judgment he ever had
which, heaven knows, was little enough.  What it means to some men to
live in such solitude only those who know can tell, and they never
tell.  To Maitland, with his sensual and sensuous nature, it was most
utter damnation.

By now he had come out of the pit of his first marriage, and
gradually the horrors he had passed through became dim to his eyes.
They were like a badly toned photograph, and faded.  I did foresee
that something would happen sooner or later to alter the way in which
he lived, but I know I did not foresee, and could not have foreseen
or imagined what was actually coming, for no one could have
prophesied it.  It was absurd, impossible, monstrous, and almost
bathos.  And yet it fits in with the character of the man as it had
been distorted by circumstance.  One Sunday when I visited him he
told me, with a strange mixture of abruptness and hesitation, that he
had made the acquaintance of a girl in the Marylebone road.
Naturally enough I thought at first that his resolution and his
habits had broken down and that he had picked up some prostitute of
the neighbourhood.  But it turned out that the girl was
"respectable."  He said to me: "I could stand it no longer, so I
rushed out and spoke to the very first woman I came across."  It was
an unhappy inspiration of the desperate, and was the first act of a
prolonged drama of pain and misery.  It took me some time and many
questions to find out what this meant, and what it was to lead to,
but presently he replied sullenly that he proposed to marry the girl
if she would marry him.  On hearing this, I fell into silence and we
sat for a long time without speaking.  Knowing him as I did, it was
yet a great shock to me.  For I would rather have seen him in the
physical clutches of the biggest harpy in the Strand--knowing that
such now could not long hold him.  I had done my best, as a mere boy,
to prevent him marrying his first wife, and had failed with the most
disastrous results.  I now determined to stop this marriage if I
could.  I ventured to remind him of the past, and the part I had
played in it when I implored him to have no more to do with Marian
Hilton long before he married her.  I told him once more, trying to
renew it in him, of the relief it had been when his first wife died,
but nothing that I could say seemed to move, or even to offend him.
His mind recognised the truth of everything, but his body meant to
have its way.  He was quiet, sullen, set--even when I told him that
he would repent it most bitterly.  The only thing I could at last get
him to agree to was that he would take no irrevocable step for a week.

I asked him questions about the girl.  He admitted that he did not
love her in any sense of the word love.  He admitted that she had no
great powers of attraction, that she seemed to possess no
particularly obvious intellect.  She had received his advances in the
street in the way that such girls, whose courtship is traditionally
carried on in the open thoroughfare, do receive them.  But when he
asked her to visit him in his chambers she replied to that invitation
with all the obvious suspicion of a lower-class girl from whom no sex
secrets were hidden.  From the very start the whole affair seemed
hopeless, preposterous, intolerable, and I went away from him in
despair.  It was a strange thing that Maitland did not seem to know
what love was.  If I have not before this said something about his
essential lack of real passion in his dealings with women it must be
said now.  Of course, it is quite obvious that he had a boyish kind
of passion for Marian Hilton, but it was certainly not that kind of
passion which mostly keeps boys innocent.  Indeed those calf loves
which afflict youths are at the same time a great help to them, for a
boy is really as naturally coy as any maiden.  If by any chance
Maitland, instead of coming into the hands of a poor girl of the
streets of Moorhampton, had fallen in love with some young girl of
decent character and upbringing, his passions would not have been so
fatally roused.  I think it was probably the whole root of his
disaster that this should have occurred at all.  Possibly it was the
horror and rage and anger connected with this first affair, combined
with the fact that it became actually sensual, which prevented him
having afterwards what one might without priggishness describe as a
pure passion.  At any rate I never saw any signs of his being capable
of the overwhelming passion which might under other circumstances
drive a man down to hell, or raise him to heaven.  To my mind all his
books betray an extreme lack of this.  His characters in all their
love-affairs are essentially too reasonable.  A man wishes to marry a
girl, not because he desires her simply and overwhelmingly, but
because she is a fitting person, or the kind of woman of whom he has
been able to build up certain ideas which suit his mind.  In fact the
love of George Hardy for Isabel in "The Exile" is somewhat typical of
the whole attitude he had towards affairs of passion.  Then again in
"Paternoster Row" there is the suicide of Gifford which throws a very
curious light on Maitland's nature.  Apparently Gifford did not
commit suicide because of his failure, or because he was half
starving, it was because he was weakly desirous of a woman like
Anne--not necessarily Anne herself.  In Maitland's phrase, he desired
her to complete his manhood, to my mind the most ridiculous way of
putting the affair.  It is in this, I think, that Maitland showed his
essential lack of knowledge of the other sex.  A man does not
captivate women by going to them and explaining, with more or less
periphrasis, that they are required to complete his manhood, that he
feels a rather frustrate male individual without them.  And if he has
these ideas at the back of his head and goes courting, the result is
hardly likely to be successful.  Maitland never understood the
passion in the man that sweeps a woman off her feet.  One finds this
lack in all his men who live celibate lives.  They suffer physically,
or they suffer to a certain degree from loneliness, but one never
feels that only one woman could cure their pain, or alleviate their
desolation.  At times Maitland seemed, as it were, to be in love with
the sex but not with the woman.  Of course he had a bitter hatred of
the general prejudices of morality, a thing which was only natural to
any one who had lived his life and thought what he thought.  It is a
curious thing to note that his favourite poem in the whole English
language was perhaps the least likely one that could be picked out.
This was Browning's "Statue and the Bust," which is certainly of a
teaching not Puritan in its essence.  The Puritan ideal Maitland
loathed with a fervour which produced the nearest I have ever seen in
him to actual rage and madness.  He roared against it if he did not
scoff.  He sometimes quoted the well-known lines from the unknown
Brathwait:

  "Where I saw a Puritane one
  Hanging of his Cat on Monday,
  For killing of a Mouse on Sonday."

I remember very well his taking down Browning when I was with him one
afternoon at 7K.  He read a great portion of "The Statue and the
Bust" out aloud, and we discussed it afterwards, of course pointing
out to each other with emphasis its actual teaching, its loathing of
futility.  It teaches that the two people who loved each other but
never achieved love were two weaklings, who ought to have acted, and
should not have allowed themselves to be conquered by the lordly
husband.  Maitland said: "Those people who buy Browning and think
they understand it--oh, if they really knew what he meant they would
pick him up with a pair of tongs, and take him out, and burn him in
their back yards--in their back yards!"  It strikes one that
Maitland, in his haste, seemed to imagine that the kind of bourgeois
or bourgeoise whom he imagined thus destroying poor Browning with the
aid of tongs, possessed such things as back yards, and, perhaps,
frequented them on Sunday afternoons.  But he had lived for so many
years in houses which had not a garden, or anything but a small, damp
yard behind, that he began to think, possibly, that all houses were
alike.  I roared with laughter at his notion of what these prosperous
Puritans would do.  I had a picture in my mind of some well-dressed
woman of the upper middle-class bringing out "The Statue and the
Bust" with a pair of tongs, and burning it in some small and horrible
back yard belonging to a house in the slums between Tottenham Court
Road and Fitzroy Square.  And yet, although he understood Browning's
sermon against the passive futility of these weak and unfortunate
lovers he could not, I think, have understood wholly, or in anything
but a literary sense the enormous power of passion which Browning
possessed.  This lack in him is one of the keys to his character, and
it unlocks much.  When I left him after he told me about this new
affair, I went back to my own rooms and sat thinking it over,
wondering if it were possible even now to do anything to save him
from his own nature, and the catastrophe his nature was preparing.
Without having seen the girl I felt sure that it would be a
catastrophe, for I knew him too well.  Nevertheless on reflecting
over the matter it did seem to me that there was one possible chance
of saving him from himself.  It was a very unlikely thing that I
should succeed, but at any rate I could try.

I have said that we rarely spoke of his early life, and never of what
had happened in Moorhampton.  Nevertheless I was, of course, aware
that it dominated the whole of his outlook and all of his thoughts in
any way connected with ordinary social life, especially with regard
to intercourse with those who might know something about his early
career.  At this time I do not think that he actually blamed himself
much for what had happened.  Men die many times in life and are born
again, and by this time he must have looked on the errant youth who
had been himself as little more than an ancestor.  He himself had
died and risen again, and if he was not the man he might have been,
he was certainly not the man he had been.  Nevertheless he was
perpetually alive to what other people might possibly think of him.
I believe that the real reason for his almost rigid seclusion from
society was that very natural fear that some brute, and he knew only
too well that there are such brutes, might suddenly and unexpectedly
expose his ancient history.  It is true that even in our society in
England, which is not famous all the world over for tact, it was not
very likely to happen.  Nevertheless the bare possibility that it
might occur absolutely dominated him.  It requires very little
sympathy or understanding of his character to see that this must have
been so.  No doubt it was mainly from this cause that he considered
he had no right to approach women of his own class, seeing that he
had declassed himself, without telling the whole truth.  But this was
quite impossible for him to do, and I knew it.  In some cases it
would have been wise, in some unwise, but Henry Maitland was unable
to do such a thing.  The result was this sudden revolt, and the
madness which led him to speak to this girl of the Marylebone Road,
whom I had not yet met but whom I pictured, not inadequately, in my
mind.  At the first glance it seemed that nothing could possibly be
done, that the man must be left to "dree his weird," to work out his
fate and accomplish his destiny.  And yet I lay awake for a very long
time that night thinking of the whole situation, and I at last
determined to take a step on his behalf which, at any rate, had the
merit of some originality and courage.

Years ago in Moorhampton, when he was a boy, before the great
disaster came, Maitland had visited my uncle's house, and had
obviously pleased every one he met there.  He was bright, not bad
looking, very cheerful and enthusiastic, and few that met him did not
like him.  Among those whose acquaintance he made at that house were
two of my own cousins.  In later years they often spoke of him to me,
even although they had not seen him since he was a boy of seventeen.
I now went to both of them and told them the whole affair in
confidence, speaking quite openly of his character, and the
impossibility he discovered within himself of living in the
desolation which fate had brought upon him.  They understood his
character, and were acquainted with his reputation.  He was a man of
genius, if not a man of great genius, and occupied a certain position
in literature which would one day, we all felt assured, be still a
greater position.  They were obviously exceedingly sorry for him, and
not the less sorry when I told them of the straits in which he
sometimes found himself.  Nevertheless it seemed to me, as I
explained to them, that if he had been lucky enough to marry some one
in sympathy with him and his work, some one able to help in a little
way to push him forward on the lines on which he might have attained
success, there was yet great hope for him even in finance, or so I
believed.  Then I asked them whether it would not be possible to stop
this proposed outrageous marriage, a thing which seemed to me utterly
unnatural.  They were, however, unable to make any suggestion, and
certainly did not follow what was in my mind.  Then I opened what I
had to say, and asked them abruptly if it were not possible for one
of them to consider whether she would marry him if the present affair
could be brought decently to an end.  They were both educated women,
and knew at least two foreign languages.  They were accustomed to
books, and appreciated his work.

No doubt my proposal sounded absurd, unconventional, and perhaps not
a little horrifying.  Nevertheless when I have had anything to do in
life I have not been accustomed to let convention stand in my way.
Such marriages have been arranged and have not been unsuccessful.
There was, I thought, a real possibility of such a marriage as I
proposed being anything but a failure.  Our conversation ended at
last in both of them undertaking to consider the matter if, after
meeting Maitland again, they still remained of the same mind, and if
he found that such a step was possible.  I have often wondered since
whether any situation exactly like this ever occurred before.  I own
that I found it somewhat interesting, and when at last I went back to
Maitland I felt entitled to tell him that he could do much better
than marrying an unknown girl of the lower classes whom he had
accosted in the streets in desperation.  But he received what I had
to say in a very curious manner.  It seemed to depress him
profoundly.  Naturally enough, I did not tell him the names of those
who were prepared to make his acquaintance, but I did tell him that I
had been to a lady who had once met him and greatly admired his work,
who would be ready to consider the possibility of her becoming his
wife if on meeting once again they proved sympathetic.  He shook his
head grimly, and, after a long silence, he told me that he had not
kept his word, and that he had asked Ada Brent to marry him.  He had,
he said, gone too far to withdraw.

There is such a thing in life as the tyranny of honour, and
personally I cared very little for this point of honour when I
thought of his future.  It was not as if this girl's affections were
in any way engaged.  If they had been I would have kept silence,
bitterly as I regretted the whole affair.  She was curious about him,
and that was all.  It would do her no harm to lose him, and, indeed,
as the event proved, it would have been better if she had not married
at all.  Therefore I begged him to shut up the flat and leave London
at once.  I even offered to try and find the money for him to do so.
But, like all weak people, he was peculiarly obstinate, and nothing
that I could urge had the least effect upon him.  I have often
thought it was his one great failure in rectitude which occurred at
Moorhampton that made him infinitely more tenacious of doing nothing
which might seem in any way dishonourable, however remotely.  I did
not succeed in moving him, with whatever arguments I plied him, and
the only satisfaction I got out of it was the sense that he knew I
was most deeply interested in him, and had done everything, even much
more than might have been expected, to save him from what I thought
must lead to irreparable misery.  Certainly the whole incident was
remarkable.  There was, perhaps, a little air of curiously polite
comedy about it, and yet it was the prelude to a tragedy.

It was soon after this, in fact it was on the following Sunday, that
I made the acquaintance of the young woman who was to be his second
wife, to bear his children, to torture him for years, to drive him
almost mad, and once more make a financial slave of him.  We three
met in the gloomy sitting-room at 7K.  My first impression of this
girl was more unfavourable than I had expected.  She was the daughter
of a small tradesman but little removed from an artisan, and she
looked it.  In the marriage certificate her father is described as a
carver, for what reason I am unable to determine, for I have a very
distinct recollection that Maitland told me he was a bootmaker,
probably even a cobbler.  I disliked the young woman at first sight,
and never got over my early impression.  From the very beginning it
seemed impossible that she could ever become in any remote degree
what he might justifiably have asked for in a wife.  Yet she was not
wholly disagreeable in appearance.  She was of medium height and
somewhat dark.  She had not, however, the least pretence to such
beauty as one might hope to find even in a slave of the kitchen.  She
possessed neither face nor figure, nor a sweet voice, nor any
charm--she was just a female.  And this was she that the most
fastidious man in many ways, that I knew, was about to marry.  I went
away with a sick heart, for it was nothing less than a frightful
catastrophe, and I had to stand by and see it happen.  He married her
on March 20, 1891, and went to live near Exeter.




CHAPTER VII

For many months after he left London I did not see Maitland, although
we continued to correspond, somewhat irregularly.  He was exceedingly
reticent as to the results of his marriage, and I did not discover
definitely for some time to what extent it was likely to prove a
failure.  Indeed, I had many things to do, and was both financially
and in other matters in a parlous condition.  In some ways it was a
relief to me that he should be living in the country, as I always
felt, rightly or wrongly, a certain feeling of responsibility with
regard to him when he was close at hand.  Marriage always takes one's
friends away from one, and for a time he was taken from me.  But as I
am not anxious to write in great detail about the more sordid facts
of his life, especially when they do not throw light on his
character, I am not disturbed at knowing little of the earlier days
of his second marriage.  The results are sufficient, and they will
presently appear.  For Maitland remained Maitland, and his character
did not alter now.  So I may return for a little while to matters
more connected with his literary life.

I have, I think, before this endeavoured to describe or suggest his
personal appearance, but whenever I think of him I regret deeply that
no painter ever made an adequate portrait of the man.  He was
especially interesting-looking, and most obviously lovable and
sympathetic when any of his feelings were roused.  His grey eyes were
very bright and intelligent, his features finely cut, and at times he
was almost beautiful; although his skin was not always in such a good
condition as it should have been, and he was always very badly
freckled.  For those who have never seen him a photograph published
in a dull literary journal, which is now defunct, is certainly the
most adequate and satisfying presentment of him in existence.  On a
close inspection of this photograph it will be observed that he
brushed his hair straight backward from his forehead without any
parting.  He had a curious way of dressing his hair, about which he
was very particular.  It was very fine hair of a brown colour,
perhaps of a rather mousy tint, and it was never cut except at the
ends at the nape of his neck.  Whenever he washed his face he used to
fasten this hair back with an elastic band which he always carried in
his waistcoat pocket.  On some occasions, when I have stayed the
night at 7K and seen him at his toilette, this elastic band gave him
a very odd appearance, almost as if he wore, for the time being, a
very odd halo; but as his hair was so long in front it would
otherwise have fallen into the basin of water.  He told me that once
in Germany a waiter entered the room while he was washing his face,
and on perceiving this peculiar head-dress betrayed signs of mixed
amusement and alarm.  As Maitland said, "I believe he thought I was
mad."

His forehead was high, his head exceedingly well shaped but not
remarkably large.  He always wore a moustache.  Considering his very
sedentary life his natural physique was extremely good, and he was
capable of walking great distances if he were put to it and was in
condition.  Seen nude, he had the figure of a possible athlete.  I
used to tell him that he might be an exceedingly strong man if he
cared to take the trouble to become one, but his belief, which is to
be found expressed in one passage of "The Meditations," was that no
one in our times could be at once intellectually and physically at
his best.  Indeed, he had in a way a peculiar contempt for mere
strength, and I do not doubt that much of his later bodily weakness
and illness might have been avoided if he had thought more of
exercise and open air.

In no way was he excessive, in spite of his jocular pretence of a
monstrous addiction to "strong waters" as he always called them.  He
did love wine, as I have written, but he loved it with discretion,
although not with real knowledge.  It was a case of passion and faith
with him.  I could imagine that in some previous incarnation--were
there such things as reincarnations--he must have been an Italian
writer of the South he loved so well.  A little while ago I spoke of
the strange absence of colour in his rooms.  On rereading "The
Meditations," I find some kind of an explanation, or what he
considered an explanation, of this fact, to which I myself drew his
attention.  He seemed to imagine that his early acquaintance with his
father's engravings inspired him with a peculiar love of black and
white.  More probably the actual truth is that his father's possible
love of colour had never been developed any more than his son's.

His fantastic attempts at times to make one believe that he was a
great drinker, when a bottle of poor and common wine served him and
me for a dinner and made us joyous, were no more true than that he
was a great smoker.  He had a prodigious big pot of tobacco in his
rooms in the early days, a pot containing some form of mild returns
which to my barbaric taste suggested nothing so much as hay that had
been stored next some mild tobacco.  It was one of my grievances
against him that when I visited his rooms hard up for tobacco, a
thing which frequently occurred in those days, I was almost unable to
use his.  But it was always a form of joke with him to pretend that
his habits were monstrously excessive.  As I have said, one of his
commonest forms of humour was exaggeration.  Many people
misunderstood that his very expressions of despair were all touched
with a grim humour.  Nevertheless he and his rooms were grim enough.
On his shelves there was a French book, the title of which I forget,
dealing without any reticence with the lives of the band of young
French writers under the Second Empire, who perished miserably in the
conditions to which they were exposed.  This book is a series of
short and bitter biographies, ending for the most part with, "mourut
à l'hôpital," or "brûlait la cervelle."  We were by no means for ever
cheerful in these times.

I do not think I have said very much, except by bitter implication,
of his financial position, or what he earned.  But his finances were
a part of his general life's tragedy.  There is a passage somewhere
at the end of a chapter in "In the Morning" which says: "Put money in
thy purse; and again, put money in thy purse; for, as the world is
ordered, to lack current coin is to lack the privileges of humanity,
and indigence is the death of the soul."  I have been speaking wholly
in vain if it is not understood that he was a man extremely difficult
to influence, even for his own good.  This was because he was weak,
and his weakness came out with most exceeding force in all his
dealings with publishers and editors.  For the most part he was
atrociously paid, but the fact remains that he was paid, and his
perpetual fear was that his books would presently be refused, and
that he would get no one to take them if he remonstrated with those
who were his taskmasters.  In such an event he gloomily anticipated,
not so much the workhouse, but once more a cellar off the Tottenham
Court Road, or some low, poverty-stricken post as a private tutor or
the usher of a poor school.  Sometimes when we were together he used
to talk with a certain pathetic jocosity, or even jealousy, of
Coleridge's luck in having discovered his amiable patron, Gillman.
He did not imagine that nowadays any Gillmans were to be found, nor
do I think that any Gillman would have found Maitland possible.  One
night after we had been talking about Coleridge and Gillman he sat
down and wrote a set of poor enough verses, which are not without
humour, and certainly highly characteristic, that ran as follows:

  THE HUMBLE ASPIRATION OF H.M., NOVELIST

  "Hoc erat in votis."

  Oh could I encounter a Gillman,
    Who would board me and lodge me for aye,
  With what intellectual skill, man,
    My life should be frittered away!

  What visions of study methodic
    My leisurely hours would beguile!--
  I would potter with details prosodic,
    I would ponder perfections of style.

  I would joke in a vein pessimistic
    At all the disasters of earth;
  I would trifle with schemes socialistic,
    And turn over matters for mirth.

  From the quiddities quaint of Quintilian
    I would flit to the latest critiques;--
  I would visit the London Pavilion,
    And magnify lion-comiques.

  With the grim ghastly gaze of a Gorgon
    I would cut Hendersonian bores--
  I would follow the ambulant organ
    That jingles at publicans' doors.

  In the odorous alleys of Wapping
    I would saunter on evenings serene;
  When the dews of the Sabbath were dropping
    You would find me on Clerkenwell Green.

  At the Hall Scientific of Bradlaugh
    I would revel in atheist rant,
  Or enjoy an attack on some bad law
    By the notable Mrs. Besant.

  I would never omit an oration
    Of Cunninghame Graham or Burns;
  And the Army miscalled of Salvation
    Should furnish me frolic by turns.

  Perchance I would muse o'er a mystic;
    Perchance I would booze at a bar;
  And when in the mind journalistic
    I would read the "Pall Mall" and the "Star."

  Never more would I toil with my quill, man,
    Or plead for the publishers' pay.--
  Oh where and O where is the Gillman,
    Who will lodge me and board me for aye?


Now as to his actual earnings.  His first book "Children of the
Dawn," was published by Hamerton's.  So far as I am aware it brought
him in nothing.  The book, naturally enough, was a dead failure;
nobody perceived its promise, and it never sold.  I do not think he
received a penny on account for it.  He got little more for "Outside
the Pale," which was published in 1884, the year I went to America,
and was dedicated to me, as the initials J.C.H. on the dedication
page of the first edition testify.  At that time I still retained in
signature my second initial.  This book was published by Andrews and
Company, and it was through it that he first made acquaintance in a
business way with George Meredith, then quite a poor man, and working
for the firm as a reader just before he went to Chapman and Hall.

In "Outside the Pale," as a manuscript there was a chapter, or part
of a chapter, of a curiously romantic kind.  It was some such theme
as that which I myself treated in a romantic story called "The
Purification."  Hilda Moon, the idealised heroine of the streets,
washed herself pure of her sins in the sea at midnight, if I remember
the incident rightly, for I never actually read it.  It appears that
George Meredith was much taken with the book, but found his sense of
fitness outraged by the introduction of this highly romantic
incident.  It seemed out of tone with the remainder of the book and
the way in which it was written.  He begged Maitland to eliminate it.
Now as a rule Maitland, being a young writer, naturally objected to
altering anything, but he knew that Meredith was right.  At any rate,
even at that period, the older man had had such an enormous
experience that Maitland accepted his opinion and acted upon it.  He
told me that George Meredith came downstairs with him into the
street, and standing on the doorstep once more reiterated his advice
as to this particular passage.  He said in the peculiar way so
characteristic of him, "My dear sir, I beg you to believe, it made me
_shiver_!"  That passage is missing in the published book.

"Outside the Pale" had a kind of _succès d'estime_.  Certain people
read it, and certain people liked it.  It was something almost fresh
in English.  Nevertheless he made little or nothing out of it.  Few,
indeed, were those who made money out of Andrews and Company at that
time.  The business was run by Harry Andrews, known in the trade as
"the liar," a man who notoriously never spoke the truth if a lie
would bring him in a penny.  I afterwards published a book with the
same firm, and had to deal with the same man.  After "Outside the
Pale" came "Isabel," which, as I have said, was obviously written
under the influence of Tourgeniev.  So far as I am aware this
influence has not been noted, even by so acute a critic as Thomas
Sackville, but I myself was at that time a great reader of
Tourgeniev, partly owing to Maitland's recommendation and insistence
upon the man, and I recognised his influence at once.  Maitland
openly acknowledged it, a thing no writer does without very strong
reason.  This book, of course, was not a success.  That, I believe,
was the last work he published with Andrews and Company.  So far as
he was concerned the firm had not been a success.  He was still
compelled to earn his bread and cheese and rent by teaching.

Although Tourgeniev was the earliest great influence upon Maitland,
his influence was very largely that of form.  So far as feeling was
concerned his god for many years was undoubtedly Dostoievsky.  That
Russian writer himself suffered and had been down into the depths
like the modern writer Gorki, which was what appealed to Maitland.
Indeed he says somewhere: "Dostoievsky, a poor and suffering man,
gives us with immense power his own view of penury and wretchedness."
It was Maitland who first introduced "Crime and Punishment," to me.
There is no doubt, when one comes to think of it seriously, a certain
likeness between the modern Russian school and Maitland's work, and
that likeness is perhaps founded on something deeper than mere
community of subject which shows itself here and there.  Perhaps
there is something essentially Slav-like in Maitland's attitude to
life.  He was a dreamer, rebellious and unable.  If, indeed, his
ancestry was partly Teutonic, he might have been originally as much
Slav as German.

In 1886, while I was still in America, he began "The Mob."  At that
time, just when he had almost done the first two volumes, there
occurred the Trafalgar Square Riots, in which John Burns, Hyndman,
and Henry Hyde Champion, were concerned.  Fool as Maitland was about
his own affairs, he yet saw that it was a wonderful coincidence from
his point of view that he should have been dealing with labour
matters and the nature of the mob at this juncture.  Some rare
inspiration or suggestion led him to rush down with the first two
volumes to Messrs. Miller and Company, where they were seen by John
Glass, who said to him, "Give us the rest at once and we will begin
printing it now."  He went home and wrote the third volume in a
fortnight while the other two volumes were in the press.  This book
was published anonymously, as it was thought, naturally enough, that
this would give it a greater chance of success.  It might reasonably
be attributed to any one, and Maitland's name at that time, or indeed
at any time afterwards, was very little help towards financial
success.  Now I am of opinion, speaking from memory, that this book
was bought out and out by the publishing firm for fifty pounds.  To a
young writer who had never made so much fifty pounds was a large sum.
In Maitland's exaggerated parlance it was "gross and riotous wealth."

Having succeeded in getting hold of a good firm of notable and
well-known publishers, he dreaded leaving them, even though he very
soon discovered that fifty pounds for a long three-volume novel was
most miserable pay.  That he wrote books rapidly at times was no
guarantee that he would always write them as rapidly.  For once in
his life he had written a whole volume in a fortnight, but it might
just as well take him many months.  There are, indeed, very few of
his books of which most of the first volume was not destroyed,
rewritten, and sometimes destroyed and again rewritten.  Nevertheless
he discovered a tremendous reluctance to ask for better terms.  It
was not only his fear of returning to the old irremediable poverty
which made him dread leaving a firm who were not all they might have
been, but he was cursed with a most unnecessary tenderness for them.
He actually dreaded hurting the feelings of a publishing firm which
had naturally all the qualities and defects of a corporation.  The
reason that he did at last leave this particular firm was rather
curious.  It shows that what many might think a mere coincidence may
prejudice a fair man's mind.

As I have said, he had been in the habit of selling his books
outright for fifty pounds.  After this had gone on for many books I
suggested to him, as everything he wrote went into several editions
under the skilful management of the firm, that it might be as well to
sell them the first edition only and ask for a royalty on the
succeeding ones.  Now this would never have occurred to him, and he
owned that it was a good idea.  So when "The Flower," was finished he
sold the first edition for forty pounds, and arranged for a
percentage on succeeding editions.  He went on with the next book at
once.  Now as it happened, curiously enough, there was no second
edition of "The Flower" called for, and this so disheartened poor
Maitland that he sold his two next novels outright for the usual sum.

One day when I was with him he spoke of the bad luck of "The Flower,"
which seemed to him almost inexplicable.  It was so very unlucky that
it had not done well, for the loss of the extra ten pounds was not
easy for him to get over in his perpetual and grinding poverty.  When
we had discussed the matter he determined to ask the firm what they
would give him for all further rights in the book.  He did this, and
they were kind enough to pay the sum of ten pounds for them, making
up the old price of fifty pounds for the whole book.  Then, by one of
those chances which only business men are capable of thoroughly
appreciating, a demand suddenly sprang up for the story and the
publishers were enabled to bring out a new edition at once.  Some
time later it went into a third edition, and, I believe, even into a
fourth.  Now it will hardly be credited that Maitland was very sore
about this, for he was usually a very just man; and when I suggested,
for the hundredth time but now at the psychological moment, that the
firm of Bent and Butler who were then publishing for me, might give
him very good terms, he actually had the courage to leave his own
publishers, and never went back to them.

I have insisted time and again upon Maitland's weakness and his
inability to move.  Nothing, I believe, but a sense of rankling
injustice would have made him move.  I had been trying for three
years to get him to go to my publishing friends, and I have heard his
conduct in the matter described as obstinacy.  But to speak truly it
was sheer weakness and nervousness.  The older firm at any rate gave
him fifty pounds for a book, and they were wealthy people, likely to
last.  My own friends were new men, and although they gave him a
hundred pounds on account of increasing royalties, it was conceivably
possible that they might be a failure and presently go out of
business.  His notion was that the firm he had left would then refuse
to have anything more to do with him, that he would get no other firm
to publish his work, and that he would be thrown back into the ditch
from which he had crawled with so much difficulty.  It is an odd
comment on himself where he makes one man say to another in
"Paternoster Row": "You are the kind of man who is roused by
necessity.  I am overcome by it.  My nature is feeble and luxurious.
I never in my life encountered and overcame a practical difficulty."
He spoke afterwards somewhat too bitterly of his earlier publishing
experiences, and was never tired of quoting Mrs. Gaskell to show how
Charlotte Brontë had fared.

In "The Meditations" he says: "Think of that grey, pinched life, the
latter years of which would have been so brightened had Charlotte
Brontë received but, let us say, one-third of what, in the same space
of time, the publisher gained by her books.  I know all about this;
alas! no man better."  There was no subject on which he was more
bitterly vocal.  Mr. Jones-Brown, the senior partner of Messrs.
Miller and Company, I knew myself, for after I wrote "The Wake of the
Sun," it was read by Glass and sold to them for fifty pounds.  When
this bargain was finally struck Mr. Jones-Brown said to me: "Now, Mr.
H., as the business is all done, would you mind telling me quite
frankly to what extent this book of yours is true?"  I replied: "It
is as true in every detail as it can possibly be."  "Then you mean to
say," he asked, "that you actually did starve as you relate?"  I
said: "Certainly I did, and I might have made it a deal blacker if I
had chosen."  He fell into a momentary silent reverie and shaking his
head, murmured: "Ah, hunger is a dreadful thing;--I once went without
dinner myself!"  This was a favourite story of Henry Maitland's.  It
was so characteristic of the class he chiefly loathed.  Those who
have gathered by now what his satiric and ironic tendencies were, can
imagine his bitter, and at the same time uproariously jocular
comments on such a statement.  For he was the man who had stood
cursing outside a cookshop without even a penny to satisfy his raging
hunger, as he truly relates under cover of "The Meditations."

It is an odd, and perhaps even remarkable fact, that the man who had
suffered in this way, and was so wonderfully conscious of the
absurdities and monstrosities of our present social system, working
by the pressure of mere economics, should have regarded all kinds of
reform not merely without hope, but with an actual terror.  He had
once, as he owned, been touched by Socialism, probably of a purely
academic kind; and yet, when he was afterwards withdrawn from such
stimuli as had influenced him to think for once in terms of
sociology, he went back to his more natural depairing conservative
frame of mind.  He lived in the past, and was conscious every day
that something in the past that he loved was dying and must vanish.
No form of future civilisation, whatever it might be, which was
gained by means implying the destruction of what he chiefly loved,
could ever appeal to him.  He was not even able to believe that the
gross and partial education of the populace was better than no
education at all, in that it must some day inevitably lead to better
education and a finer type of society.  It was for that reason that
he was a Conservative.  But he was the kind of Conservative who would
now be repudiated by those who call themselves such, except perhaps
in some belated and befogged country house.

A non-combative Tory seems a contradiction in words, but Maitland's
loathing of disturbance in any form, or of any solution of any
question by means other than the criticism of the Pure Reason, was
most extreme.  As for his feelings towards the Empire and all that it
implied, that is best put in a few words he wrote to me about my
novel "In the Sun": "Yes, this is good, but you know that I loathe
the Empire, and that India and Africa are abomination to me."  To
anticipate as I tell his story I may quote again on the same point
from a letter written to me in later years when he was in Paris: "I
am very seriously thinking of trying to send my boy to some part of
the world where there is at least a chance of his growing up an
honest farmer without obvious risk of his having to face the slavery
of military service.  I would greatly rather never see him again than
foresee his marching in ranks; butchering, or to be butchered."

This implies, of course, as I have said before, that he failed for
ever to grasp the world as it was.  He clung passionately and with
revolt to his own ideas of what it ought to be, and protested with a
curious feeble violence against the actual world as he would not see
it.  It is a wonder that he did any work at all.  If he had had fifty
pounds a year of his own he would have retreated into a cottage and
asphyxiated himself with books.

I have often thought that the most painful thing in all his work was
what he insisted on so often in "Paternoster Row" with regard to the
poor novelist there depicted.  The man was always destroying
commenced work.  Once he speaks about "writing a page or two of
manuscript daily, with several holocausts to retard him."  Within my
certain knowledge this happened scores of times to Maitland.  He
destroyed a quarter of a volume, half a volume, three quarters of a
volume, a whole volume, and even more, time and time again.  He did
this, to my mind, because he fancied nervously that he must write,
that he had to write, and began without adequate preparation.  It
became absolutely tragic, for he commenced work knowing that he would
destroy it, and knowing the pain such destruction would cost him,
when a little rest might have enabled him to begin cheerfully with a
fresh mind.  I used to suggest this to him, but it was entirely
useless.  He would begin, and destroy, and begin again, and then only
partially satisfy himself at last when he was in a state of financial
desperation, with the ditch or the workhouse in front of him.

In this he never seemed to learn by experience.  It was a curious
futility, which was all the odder because he was so peculiarly
conscious of a certain kind of futility exhibited by our friend
Schmidt.  He used to write to Maitland at least a dozen times a year
from Potsdam.  These letters were all almost invariably read to me.
They afforded Maitland extraordinary amusement and real pleasure, and
yet great pain.  Schmidt used to begin the letter with something like
this: "I have been spending the last month or two in deep meditation
on the work which it lies in my power to do.  I have now discovered
that I was not meant to write fiction.  I am therefore putting it
resolutely aside, and am turning to history, to which I shall
henceforward devote my life."  About two months later Maitland would
read me a portion of a letter which began: "I have been much troubled
these last two months, and have been considering my own position and
my own endowments with the greatest interest.  I find that I have
been mistaken in thinking that I had any powers which would enable me
to write history in a satisfactory manner.  I see that I am
essentially a philosopher.  Henceforth I shall devote myself to
philosophy."  Again, a month or two after, there would come a letter
from him, making another statement as if he had never made one
before: "I am glad to say that I have at last discovered my own line.
After much thought I am putting aside philosophy.  Henceforward I
devote myself to fiction."  This kind of thing occurred not once but
twenty or thirty times, and the German for ever wrote as if he had
never written anything before with regard to his own powers and
capabilities.  One is reminded forcibly of a similar case in England,
that of J.K. Stephen.

As I have been speaking of "Paternoster Row," it is very interesting
to observe that Maitland was frequently writing most directly of
himself in that book.  It is curious that in this, one of his most
successful novels, he should have recognised his own real
limitations.  He says that "no native impulse had directed him to
novel-writing.  His intellectual temper was that of the student, the
scholar, but strongly blended with a love of independence which had
always made him think with detestation of a teacher's life."  He goes
on to speak of the stories which his hero wrote, "scraps of immature
psychology, the last thing a magazine would accept from an unknown
man."  It may be that he was thinking here of some of his own short
stories, for which I was truly responsible.  Year after year I
suggested that he should do some, as they were, on the whole, the
easiest way of making a little money.  Naturally I had amazing
trouble with him because it was a new line, but I returned to the
charge in season and out of season, every Sunday and every week-day
that I saw him, and every time I wrote.  We were both perfectly
conscious that he had not the art of writing dramatic short stories
which were essentially popular.  There is no doubt that he did not
possess this faculty.  When one goes through his shorter work one
discovers few indeed which are stories or properly related to the
_conte_.  They are, indeed, often scraps of psychology, sometimes
perhaps a little crude, but the crudeness is mostly in the
construction.  They are in fact rather possible passages from a book
than short stories.  Nevertheless he did fairly well with these when
he worked with an agent, which he did finally and at last on
continued pressure from me.  I notice, however, that in his published
volumes of short stories there are several missing which I should
like to see again.  I do not know whether they are good, but two or
three that I remember vaguely were published, I believe, in the old
"Temple Bar."  One was a story about a donkey, which I entirely
forget, and another was called "Mr. Why."  It was about a poor man,
not wholly sane, who lived in one room and left all that that room
contained to some one else upon his death.  On casual search it
seemed that the room contained nothing, but the heir or heiress
discovered at last on the top of an old cupboard Why's name written
large in piled half-crowns.

It may have been noticed by some that he spoke in the little
"Gillman" set of verses which I have quoted, of "Hendersonian bores."
This perhaps requires comment.  For one who loved his Rabelais and
the free-spoken classics of our own tongue, Maitland had an extreme
purity of thought and speech, a thing which one might not, in some
ways, have looked for.  No one, I think, would have dared to tell him
a gross story, which did not possess remarkable wit or literary
merit, more than once.  His reception of such tales was never
cordial, and I remember his peculiar and astounding indignation at
one incident.  Somehow or another he had become acquainted with an
East End clergyman named Henderson.  This Henderson had, I believe,
read "The Under World," or one of the books dealing with the kind of
parishioner that he was acquainted with, and had written to Maitland.
In a way they became friends, or at any rate acquaintances, for the
clergyman too was a peculiarly lonely man.  He occasionally came to
7K, and I myself met him there.  He was a man wholly misplaced, in
fact he was an absolute atheist.  Still, he had a cure of souls
somewhere the other side of the Tower, and laboured, as I understood,
not unfaithfully.  He frequently discussed his mental point of view
with Maitland and often used to write to him.  By some native kink in
his mind he used to put into these letters indecent words.  I suppose
he thought it was a mere outspoken literary habit.  As a matter of
fact this enraged Maitland so furiously that he brought the letters
to me, and showing them demanded my opinion as to what he should do.
He said: "This kind of conduct is outrageous!  What am I to do about
it?"  Now, it never occurred to Maitland in a matter like this, or
indeed in any matter, to be absolutely outspoken and straightforward.
He was always so afraid of hurting people's feelings.  I said: "It is
perfectly obvious what to do.  My good man, if you don't like it,
write and tell him that you don't."  This was to him a perfectly
impossible solution of a very great difficulty.  How it was solved I
do not exactly remember, but I do know that we afterwards saw very
little of Mr. Henderson, who is embalmed, like a poor fly, in the
"Gillman" poem.

It was characteristic, and one of the causes of his continued
disastrous troubles, that Maitland was incapable of being abruptly or
strenuously straightforward.  A direct "No," or "This shall not be
done," seemed to him, no doubt, to invite argument and struggle, the
one thing he invariably procured for himself by invariably avoiding
it.

"Paternoster Row," was written, if I remember rightly, partly in
1890, and finished in 1891, in which year it was published.  It is an
odd thing to think of that he was married to his second wife in March
1891, shortly before this book came out.  In the third volume there
is practically a strange and bitter, and very remarkable, forecast of
the result of that marriage, showing that whilst Maitland's instincts
and impulses ran away with him, his intellect was yet clear and cold.
It is the passage where the hero suggests that he should have married
some simple, kind-hearted work-girl.  He says, "We should have lived
in a couple of poor rooms somewhere, and--we should have loved each
other."  Whereupon Gifford--here Maitland's intellect--exclaims upon
him for a shameless idealist, and sketches, most truly the likely
issue of such a marriage, given Maitland or Reardon.  He says: "To
begin with, the girl would have married you in firm persuasion that
you were a 'gentleman' in temporary difficulties, and that before
long you would have plenty of money to dispose of.  Disappointed in
this hope, she would have grown sharp-tempered, querulous, selfish.
All your endeavours to make her understand you would only have
resulted in widening the impassable gulf.  She would have
misconstrued your every sentence, found food for suspicion in every
harmless joke, tormented you with the vulgarest forms of jealousy.
The effect upon your nature would have been degrading."  Never was
anything more true.




CHAPTER VIII

Whatever kind of disaster his marriage was to be for Maitland, there
is no doubt that it was for me also something in the nature of a
catastrophe.  There are marriages and marriages.  By some of them a
man's friend gains, and by others he loses, and they are the more
frequent, for it is one of the curiosities of human life that a man
rarely finds his friend's wife sympathetic.  As it was, I knew that
in a sense I had now lost Henry Maitland, or had partially lost him,
to say the least of it.  Unfair as it was to the woman, I felt very
bitter against her, and he knew well what I felt.  Thinking of her as
I did, anything like free human intercourse with his new household
would be impossible, unless, indeed, the affair turned out other than
I expected.  And then he had left London and gone to his beloved
Devonshire.  How much he loved it those who have read "The
Meditations" can tell, for all that is said there about that county
was very sincere, as I can vouch for.  Born himself in a grim part of
Yorkshire, and brought up in Mirefields and Moorhampton, that rainy
and gloomy city of the north, he loved the sweet southern county.
And yet it is curious to recognise what a strange passion was his for
London.  He had something of the same passion for it as Johnson had,
although the centre of London for him was not Fleet Street but the
British Museum and its great library.  He wrote once to his doctor
friend: "I dare not settle far from London, as it means ill-health to
me to be out of reach of the literary 'world'--a small world enough,
truly."  But, of course, it was most extraordinarily his world.  He
was a natural bookworm compelled to spin fiction.  And yet he did
love the country, though he now found no peace there.  With his wife
peace was impossible, and this I soon learnt from little things that
he wrote to me, though he was for the first few months of his
marriage exceedingly delicate on this subject, as if he were willing
to give her every possible chance.  I was only down in Devonshire
once while he was there with his wife.  I went a little trip in a
steamship to Dartmouth, entering its narrow and somewhat hazardous
harbour in the middle of the great blizzard which that year
overwhelmed the south of England, and especially the south of Devon,
in the heaviest snow drifts.  When I did at last get away from
Dartmouth, I found things obviously not all they should be, though
very little was said about it between us.  I remember we went out for
a walk together, going through paths cut in snow drifts twelve or
even fifteen feet in depth.  Though such things had been a common
part of some of my own experiences they were wonderfully new to
Maitland, and made him for a time curiously exhilarated.  I did not
stay long in Devon, nor, as a matter of fact, did he.  For though he
had gone there meaning to settle, he found the lack of the British
Museum and his literary world too much for him, and besides that his
wife, a girl of the London streets and squares, loathed the country,
and whined in her characteristic manner about its infinite dulness.
Thus it was that he soon left the west and took a small house in
Ewell, about which he wrote me constant jeremiads.

He believed, with no rare ignorance, as those who are acquainted with
the methods of the old cathedral builders will know, that all honest
work had been done of old, that all old builders were honourable men,
and that modern work was essentially unsound.  He had never learned
that the first question the instructed ask the attendant verger on
entering a cathedral is: "When did the tower fall down?"  It rarely
happens that one is not instantly given a date, not always very long
after that particular tower was completed.  I remember that it
annoyed him very much when I proved to him by documentary evidence
that a great portion of the work in Peterborough Cathedral was of the
most shocking and scandalous description.  Nevertheless these facts
do not excuse the modern jerry-builder, and the condition of his
house was one, though only one, of the perpetual annoyances he had to
encounter.

But, after all, though pipes break and the roof leaks, that is
nothing if peace dwells in a house.  There could be no peace in
Maitland's house, for his wife had neither peace nor any
understanding.  Naturally enough she was an uneducated woman.  She
had read nothing but what such people read.  It is true she did not
speak badly.  For some reason which I cannot understand she was not
wholly without aspirates.  Nevertheless many of her locutions were
vulgar, and she had no natural refinement.  This, I am sure, would
have mattered little, and perhaps nothing, if she had been a simple
housewife, some actual creature of the kitchen like Rousseau's
Thérèse.  As I have said, I think that Maitland was really incapable
of a great passion, and I am sure that he would have put up with the
merest haus-frau, if she had known her work and possessed her patient
soul in quiet without any lamentations.  If there was any lamenting
to be done Maitland himself might have done it in choice terms not
without humour.  And indeed he did lament, and not without cause.  On
my first visit to Ewell after his return from Devon I again met Mrs.
Maitland.  She made me exceedingly uneasy, both personally, as I had
no sympathy for her, and also out of fear for his future.  It did not
take me long to discover that they were then living on the verge of a
daily quarrel, that a dispute was for ever imminent, and that she
frequently broke out into actual violence and the smashing of
crockery.  While I was with them she perpetually made whining and
complaining remarks to me about him in his very presence.  She said:
"Henry does not like the way I do this, or the way I say that."  She
asked thus for my sympathy, casting bitter looks at her husband.  On
one occasion she even abused him to my face, and afterwards I heard
her anger in the passage outside, so that I actually hated her and
found it very hard to be civil.

By this time I had established a habit of never spending any time in
the company of folks who neither pleased nor interested me.  I
commend this custom to any one who has any work to do in the world.
Thus my forthcoming refusal to see any more of her was anticipated by
Maitland, who had a powerful intuition of the feelings I entertained
for his wife.  In fact, things soon became so bad that he found it
necessary to speak to me on the subject, as it was soon nearly
impossible for any one to enter his house for fear of an exhibition
of rage, or even of possible incivility to the guest himself.  As he
said, she developed the temper of a devil, and began to make his life
not less wretched, though it was in another way, than the poor
creature had done who was now in her grave.  Naturally, however, as
we had been together so much, I could not and would not give up
seeing him.  But we had to meet at the station, and going to the
hotel would sit in the smoking-room to have our talk.  These talks
were now not wholly of books or of our work, but often of his
miseries.  One day when I found him especially depressed he
complained that it was almost impossible for him to get sufficient
peace to do any of his work.  On hearing this the notion came to me
that, though I had been unable to prevent him marrying this woman, I
might at any rate make the suggestion that he should take his courage
in both his hands and leave her.  But I was in no hurry to put this
into his head so long as there seemed any possibility of some kind of
peace being established.  However, she grew worse daily, or so I
heard, and at last I spoke.

He answered my proposal in accents of despair, and I found that he
was now expecting within a few months his first child's birth.  Under
many conditions this might have been a joy to him, but now it was no
joy.  And yet there was, he said, some possibility that after this
event things might improve.  I recognised such a possibility without
much hope of its ever becoming a reality.  Indeed it was a vain hope.
It is true enough that for a time, the month or so while she was
still weak after childbirth, she was unable to be actively offensive;
but, honestly, I think the only time he had any peace was before she
was able to get up and move about the house.  During the last weeks
of her convalescence she vented her temper and exercised her uncivil
tongue upon the nurses, more than one of whom left the house, finding
it impossible to stay with her.  However he was at any rate more or
less at peace in his own writing room during this period.  When she
again became well I gathered the real state of the case from him both
from letters and conversations, and I saw that eventually he would
and must leave her.  Knowing him as I did, I was aware that there
would be infinite trouble, pain, and worry before this was
accomplished, and yet the symptoms of the whole situation pointed out
the inevitable end.  I had not the slightest remorse in doing my best
to bring this about, but in those days I had trouble enough of my own
upon my shoulders, and found it impossible to see him so often as I
wished; especially as a visit from me, or from anybody else, always
meant the loss of a day's work to him.  Yet I know that he bore ten
thousand times more than I myself would have borne in similar
circumstances, and I shall give a wrong impression of him if any one
thinks that most of his complaints and confessions were not dragged
out of him by me.  He did not always complain readily, but one saw
the trouble in his eyes.  Yet now it became evident that he would and
must revolt at last.  It grew so clear at last, that I wanted him to
do it at once and save himself years of misery, but to act like that,
not wholly out of pressing and urgent necessity but out of wisdom and
foresight, was wholly beyond Henry Maitland.

It was in such conditions that the child was born and spent the first
months of its life.  Those who have read his books, and have seen the
painful paternal interest he has more than once depicted, will
understand how bitterly he felt that his child, the human being for
whose existence he was responsible, should be brought up in such
conditions by a mother whose temper and conduct suggested almost
actual madness.  He wrote to me: "My dire need at present is for a
holiday.  It is five years since I had a real rest from writing, and
I begin to feel worn out.  It is not only the fatigue of inventing
and writing; at the same time I keep house and bring up the boy, and
the strain, I can assure you, is rather severe.  What I am now trying
to do is to accumulate money enough to allow of my resting, at all
events from this ceaseless production, for half a year or so.  It
profits me nothing to feel that there is a market for my work, if the
work itself tells so severely upon me.  Before long I shall really be
unable to write at all.  I am trying to get a few short stories done,
but the effort is fearful.  The worst of it is, I cannot get away by
myself.  It makes me very uncomfortable to leave the house, even for
a day.  I foresee that until the boy is several years older there
will be no possibility of freedom for me.  Of one thing I have very
seriously thought, and that is whether it would be possible to give
up housekeeping altogether, and settle as boarders in some family on
the Continent.  The servant question is awful, and this might be an
escape from it, but of course there are objections.  I might find all
my difficulties doubled."

I do not think that this letter requires much comment or
illustration.  Although it is written soberly enough, and without
actual accusation, its meaning is as plain as daylight.  His wife was
alternately too familiar, or at open hostility with the servant; none
could endure her temper.  She complained to him, or the servant
complained to him, and he had to make peace, or to try to make
it--mostly in vain.  And then the quarrel broke out anew, and the
servant left.  The result was that Maitland himself often did the
household work when he should have been writing.  He was dragged away
from his ordinary tasks by an uproar in the kitchen; or perhaps one
or both of the angry women came to him for arbitration about some
point of common decency.  There is a phrase of his in "The
Meditations" which speaks of poor Hooker, whose prose he so much
admired, being "vixen-haunted."  This epithet of his is a reasonable
and admirable one, but how bitter it was few know so well as myself.

In this place it does not seem to me unnatural or out of place to
comment a little on Raymond, the chief character in "The Vortex."  He
was undoubtedly in a measure the later Maitland.  His idea was to
present a man whose character developed with somewhat undue slowness.
He said that Raymond would probably never have developed at all after
a certain stage but for the curious changes wrought in his views and
sentiments by the fact of his becoming a father.  Of course it must
be obvious to any one, from what I have said, that Maitland himself
would never have remained so long with his second wife after the
first few months if it had not been that she was about to become a
mother.  The earlier passages in "The Vortex" where he speaks about
children, or where Raymond himself speaks about them, are meant to
contrast strongly with his way of thinking in the later part of the
book when this particular character had children of his own.  The
author declared that Raymond, as a bachelor, was largely an egoist.
Of course the truth of the matter is that Maitland himself was
essentially an egoist.  I once suggested to him that he came near
being a solipsist, a word he probably had never heard of till then,
as he never studied psychology, modern or otherwise.  However, when
Raymond grew riper in the experience which killed his crude egoism,
he became another man.  Maitland, in writing about this particular
book, said: "That Raymond does nothing is natural to the man.  The
influences of the whirlpool--that is London--and its draught on the
man's vitality embarrass any efficiency there might have been in
him."  Through the whole story of Maitland one feels that everything
that was in any way hostile to his own views of life did essentially
embarrass, and almost make impossible, anything that was in him.  He
had no strength to draw nutriment by main force from everything
around him, as a strong man does.  He was not so fierce a fire as to
burn every kind of fuel.

I remember in this connection a very interesting passage in Hamley's
"Operations of War": "When a general surveying the map of the theatre
finds direct obstacles in the path he must advance by, he sees in
them, if he be confident of his skill in manoeuvring, increased
opportunities for obtaining strategical successes ... in fact, like
any other complications in a game, they offer on both sides
additional opportunities to skill and talent, and additional
embarrassments to incapacity."  But then Maitland loathed and hated
and feared obstacles of every kind.  He was apt to sit down before
them wringing his hands, and only desperation moved him, not to
attack, but to elude them.  It is an odd thing in this respect to
note that he played no games, and despised them with peculiar vigour.
There is a passage in one of his letters to Rivers about a certain
Evans, mentioned with a note of exclamation, and thus kindly
embalmed: "Evans, strange being!  Yet, if his soul is satisfied with
golf and bridge, why should he not go on golfing and bridging?  At
all events he is working his way to sincerity."

The long letter I quoted from above was written, I believe, in 1895,
when the boy was nearly three years old.  I have not attempted, and
shall not attempt, to give any detailed account month by month, or
even year by year, of his domestic surroundings.  It was a wonder to
me that the marriage lasted, but still it did last, and all one knew
was that some day it must come to an end.  The record of his life in
these days would be appalling if I remembered it sufficiently, or had
kept a diary--as no doubt I ought to have done--or had all the
documents which may be in existence dealing with that time.  That he
endured so many years was incredible, and still he did endure, and
the time went on, and he worked; mostly, as he said to me, against
time, and a good deal on commission.  He wrote: "The old fervours do
not return to me, and I have got into the very foolish habit of
perpetually writing against time and to order.  The end of this is
destruction."  But still I think he knew within him that it could not
last.  Had it not been for the boy, and, alas, for the birth of yet
another son, he would now have left her.  He acknowledged it to
me--if he could not fight he would have to fly.

This extraordinary lack of power to deal with any obstacle must seem
strange to most men, though no doubt many are weak.  Yet few are so
weak as Maitland.  Oddly enough I have heard the idea expressed that
there was more power of fight in Maitland than he ever possessed, and
on inquiry I have learned that this notion was founded on a partial,
or perhaps complete misunderstanding of certain things he expressed
in the latter part of "The Vortex."  Towards the end of the book it
seems to be suggested that Maitland, or Raymond, tended really
towards what he calls in one of his letters a "barrack-room" view of
life.  Some people seem to think that the man who was capable of
writing what he did in that book really meant it, and must have had a
little touch of that native and natural brutality which makes
Englishmen what they are.  But Maitland himself, in commenting on
this particular attitude of Raymond, declared that this quasi or
semi-ironic imperialism of the man was nothing but his hopeless
recognition of facts which filled him with disgust.  The world was
going in a certain way.  There was no refusing to see it.  It stared
every one in the eyes.  Then he adds: "But _what_ a course for things
to take!"

Raymond in fact talks with a little throwing up of the arm, and in a
voice of quiet sarcasm, "Go ahead--I sit by and watch, and wonder
what will be the end of it all."  This was his own habit of mind in
later years.  He had come at last and at long last, to recognise a
course of things which formerly he could not, or would not, perceive;
and he recognised it with just that tossing of arm or head,
involuntary of course.  I do not think that at this time he would
have seen a battalion of Guards go by and have turned to me saying:
"And this, _this_ is the nineteenth century!"  He once wrote to
Rivers, what he had said a hundred times to me: "I have a conviction
that all I love and believe in is going to the devil.  At the same
time I try to watch with interest this process of destruction,
admiring any bit of sapper work that is well done."  It is rather
amusing to note that in the letter, written in the country, which
puts these things most dolefully, he adds: "The life here shows
little trace of vortical influence."  Of course this is a reference
to the whirlpool of London.

In 1896 I was myself married, and went to live in a little house in
Fulham.  I understood what peace was, and he had none.  As Maitland
had not met my wife for some years I asked him to come and dine with
us.  It was not the least heavy portion of his burden that he always
left his own house with anxiety and returned to it with fear and
trembling.  This woman of his home was given to violence, even with
her own young children.  It was possible, as he knew, for he often
said so to me, that he might return and find even the baby badly
injured.  And yet at last he made up his mind to accept my
invitation.  Whether it was the fact that he had accepted one from
me--and I often fancy that his wife had a grudge against me because I
would not go to her house any more--I do not know, but when I met him
in the hall of my own house I found him in the most extraordinary
state of nervous and physical agitation.  Though usually of a
remarkable, if healthy, pallor, he was now almost crimson, and his
eyes sparkled with furious indignation.  He was hot, just as if he
had come out of an actual physical struggle.  What he must have
looked like when he left Ewell I do not know, for he had had all the
time necessary to travel from there to Fulham to cool down in.  After
we shook hands he asked me, almost breathlessly, to allow him to wash
his face, so I took him into the bathroom.  He removed his coat, and
producing his elastic band from his waistcoat pocket, put it about
his hair like a fillet, and began to wash his face in cold water.  As
he was drying himself he broke out suddenly: "I can't stand it any
more.  I have left her for ever."  I said: "Thank heaven that you
have.  I am very glad of it--and for every one's sake don't go back
on it."

Whatever the immediate cause of this outburst was, it seems that that
afternoon the whole trouble came to a culmination.  The wife behaved
like a maniac; she shrieked, and struck him.  She abused him in the
vilest terms, such as he could not or would not repeat to me.  It was
with the greatest difficulty that I at last got him calm enough to
meet any one else.  When he did calm down after he had had something
to eat and a little to drink, the prospect of his freedom, which he
believed had come to him once more, inspired him with pathetic and
peculiar exhilaration.  In one sense I think he was happy that night.
He slept in London.

I should have given a wholly false impression of Maitland if any one
now imagined that I believed that the actual end had come to his
marriage.  No man knew his weakness better than I did, and I moved
heaven and earth in my endeavours to keep him to his resolution, to
prevent him going back to Epsom on any pretext, and all my efforts
were vain.  In three days I learned that his resolution had broken
down.  By the help of some busybody who had more kindness than
intelligence, they patched up a miserable peace, and he went back to
Ewell.  And yet that peace was no peace.  Maitland, perhaps the most
sensitive man alive, had to endure the people in the neighbouring
houses coming out upon the doorstep, eager to inquire what disaster
was occurring in the next house.  There were indeed legends in the
Epsom Road that the mild looking writer beat and brutalised his wife,
though most knew, by means of servants' chatter, what the actual
facts were.

It was in this year that he did at last take an important step which
cost him much anxiety before putting it through.  His fears for his
eldest child were so extreme that he induced his people in the north
to give the child a home--the influence and example of the mother he
could no longer endure for the boy.  His wife parted with the child
without any great difficulty, though of course she made it an
occasion for abusing her husband in every conceivable way.  He wrote
to me in the late summer of that year: "I much want to see you, but
just now it is impossible for me to get to town, and the present
discomfort of everything here forbids me to ask you to come.  I am
straining every nerve to get some work done, for really it begins to
be a question whether I shall ever again finish a book.
Interruptions are so frequent and so serious.  The so-called holiday
has been no use to me; a mere waste of time--but I was obliged to go,
for only in that way could I have a few weeks with the boy who, as I
have told you, lives now at Mirefields and will continue to live
there.  I shall never let him come back to my own dwelling.  Have
patience with me, old friend, for I am hard beset."  He ends this
letter with: "If the boy grows up in clean circumstances, that will
be my one satisfaction."

Whether he had peace or not he still worked prodigiously, though not
perhaps for so many hours as was his earlier custom.  But his health
about this time began to fail.  Much of this came from his habits of
work, which were entirely incompatible with continued health of brain
and body.  He once said to Rivers: "Visitors--I fall sick with terror
in thinking of them.  If by rare chance any one comes here it means
to me the loss of a whole day, a most serious matter."  And his whole
day was, of course, a long day.  No man of letters can possibly sit
for ever at the desk during eight hours, as was frequently "his brave
custom" as he phrased it somewhere.  If he had worked in a more
reasonable manner, and had been satisfied with doing perhaps a
thousand words a day, which is not at all an unreasonably small
amount for a man who works steadily through most of the year, his
health might never have broken down in the way it did.  He had been
moved in a way towards these hours, partly by actual desperation;
partly by the great loneliness which had been thrust upon him; very
largely by the want of money which prevented him from amusing himself
in the manner of the average man, but chiefly by his sense of
devotion to what he was doing.  One of his favourite stories was that
of Heyne, the great classical scholar, who was reported to work
sixteen hours a day.  This he did, according to the literary
tradition, for the whole of his working life, except upon the day
when he was married.  He made, for that occasion only, a compact with
the bride that he was to be allowed to work half his usual stint.
And half Heyne's usual amount was Maitland's whole day, which I
maintain was at least five hours too much.  This manner of working,
combined with his quintessential and habitual loneliness made it very
hard, not only upon him, but also on his friends.  It was quite
impossible to see him, even about matters of comparative urgency,
unless a meeting had been arranged beforehand.  For even after his
work was done, it was never done.  He started preparing for the next
day, turning over phrases in his mind, and considering the next
chapter.  I believe that in one point I was very useful to him in
this matter, for I suggested to him, as I have done to others, that
my own practice of finishing a chapter and then writing some two or
three lines of the next one while my mind was warm upon the subject,
was a vast help for the next day's labour.

Now the way he worked was this.  After breakfast, at nine o'clock, he
sat down and worked till one.  Then he had his midday meal, and took
a little walk.  In the afternoon, about half-past three, he sat down
again and wrote till six o'clock or a little after.  Then he worked
again from half-past seven to ten.  I very much doubt whether there
is any modern writer who has ever tried to keep up work at this rate
who did not end in a hospital or a lunatic asylum, or die young.  To
my mind it shows, in a way that nothing else can, that he had no
earthly business to be writing novels and spinning things largely out
of his subjective mind, when he ought to have been dealing with the
objective world, or with books.  I myself write with a certain amount
of ease.  It may, indeed, be difficult to start, but when a thing is
begun I go straight ahead, writing steadily for an hour, or perhaps
an hour and a half--rarely any more.  I have then done my day's work,
which is now very seldom more than two thousand words, although on
one memorable occasion I actually wrote thirteen thousand words with
the pen in ten hours.  Maitland used to write three or four of his
slips, as he called them, which were small quarto pages of very fine
paper, and on each slip there were twelve hundred words.  Whether he
wrote one, or two, or three slips in the day he took an equal length
of time.

Among my notes I find one about a letter of his written in June 1895
to Mrs. Lake, declining an invitation to visit Dr. Lake's house
which, no doubt, would have done him a great deal of good.  He says:
"Let me put before you an appalling list of things that have to be
done, (1) Serial story (only begun) of about eighty thousand words.
(2) Short novel for Cassell's to be sent in by end of October.
Neither begun nor thought of.  (3) Six short stories for the _English
Illustrated_--neither begun nor thought of.  (4) Twenty papers for
_The Sketch_ of a thousand words each.  Dimly foreseen."  Now to a
man who had the natural gift of writing fiction and some reasonable
time to do it in, this would seem no such enormous amount of work.
For Maitland it was appalling, not so much, perhaps, on account of
the actual amount of labour--if it had been one book--but for its
variousness.  He moved from one thing to another in fiction with
great slowness.

As I have said, his health was not satisfactory.  I shall have
something to say about this in detail a little later.  It was his own
opinion, and that of certain doctors, that his lung was really
affected by tuberculosis.  Of this I had then very serious doubts.
But he wrote in January 1897: "The weather and my lung are keeping me
indoors at present, but I should much like to come to you.
Waterpipes freezing--a five-pound note every winter to the plumber.
Of course this is distinctly contrived by the building fraternity."

But things were not always as bad as may be gathered from a casual
consideration of what I have said.  In writing a life events come too
thickly.  For instance in 1897 he wrote to me: "Happily things are
far from being as bad as last year."  It appears that a certain lady,
a Miss Greathead, about whom I really know nothing but what he told
me, interested herself with the utmost kindness in his domestic
affairs.  He wrote to me: "Miss Greathead has been of very great use,
and will continue to be so, I think.  This house is to be given up in
any case at Michaelmas, and another will not be taken till I see my
way more clearly.  Where I myself shall live during the autumn is
uncertain.  We must meet in the autumn.  Work on--I have plans for
seven books."




CHAPTER IX

What dismal catastrophe or prolonged domestic uproar led to the final
end of his married life in 1897 I do not know.  Nor have I cared to
inquire very curiously.  The fact remains, and it was inevitable.
Towards the end of the summer he made up his mind to go to Italy in
September.  He wrote to me: "All work in England is at an end for me
just now.  I shall be away till next spring--looking forward with
immense delight to solitude.  Of course I have a great deal to do as
soon as I can settle, which I think will be at Siena first."  As a
matter of fact the very next letter of his which I possess came to me
from Siena.  He said: "I am so confoundedly hard at work upon the
Novelists book that I find it very difficult to write my letters.
Thank heaven, more than half is done.  I shall go south about the
tenth of November.  It is dull here, and I should not stay for the
pleasure of it.  You know that I do not care much for Tuscany.  The
landscape is never striking about here, and one does not get the
glorious colour of the south."  So one sees how Italy had awakened
his colour sense.  As I have said, it was after his first visit to
Italy that I noted, both in his books and his conversation, an acute
awakening passion for colour.  I think it grew in him to the end of
his life.  He ended this last letter to me with: "Well, well, let us
get as soon as possible into Magna Graecia and the old dead world."

I said some time ago that I had finished all I had to write about the
Victorian novelists, and yet I find there is something still to say
of Dickens, and it is not against the plan of such a rambling book as
this to put it down here and now.  When he went to Siena to write his
book of criticism it seemed to me a very odd choice of a place for
such a piece of work, and indeed I wondered at his undertaking it at
any price.  It is quite obvious to all those who really understand
his attitude towards criticism of modern things that great as his
interest was in Dickens it would never have impelled him to write a
strong, rough, critical book mostly about him had it not been for the
necessity of making money.  Indeed he expressed so much to me, and I
find again in a letter that he wrote to Mrs. Rivers, with whom he was
now on very friendly terms, "I have made a good beginning with my
critical book, and long to have done with it, for of course it is an
alien subject."  No doubt there are at least two classes of
Maitland's readers, those who understand the man and love his really
characteristic work, and those who have no understanding of him at
all, or any deep appreciation, but probably profess a great
admiration for this book which they judge by the part on Dickens.  I
think that Andrew Lang was one of these, judging from a criticism
that he once wrote on Maitland.  I know that I have often heard
people of intelligence express so high an opinion of the "Victorian
Novelists" as to imply a lack of appreciation of his other work.  The
study is no doubt written with much skill, and with a good writer's
command of his subject, and command of himself.  That is to say, he
manages by skill to make people believe he was sufficiently
interested in his subject to write about it.  To speak plainly he
thought it a pure waste of time, except from the mere financial point
of view, just as he did his cutting down of Mayhew's "Life of
Dickens"--which, indeed, he considered a gross outrage, but professed
his inability to refuse the "debauched temptation" of the hundred and
fifty pounds offered him for the work.

It would be untrue if I seemed to suggest that he was not
enthusiastic about Dickens, even more so than I am myself save at
certain times and seasons.  For me Dickens is a man for times and
periods.  I cannot read him for years, and then I read him all.  What
I do mean is that Maitland's love of this author, or of Thackeray,
say, would never have impelled him to write.  Yet there is much in
the book which is of great interest, if it were only as matter of
comment on Maitland's own self.  The other day I came across one
sentence which struck me curiously.  It was where Maitland asked the
reader to imagine Charles Dickens occupied in the blacking warehouse
for ten years.  He said: "Picture him striving vainly to find
utterance for the thoughts that were in him, refused the society of
any but boors and rascals, making perhaps futile attempts to succeed
as an actor, and in full manhood measuring the abyss which sundered
him from all he had hoped."  When I came to the passage I put the
book down and pondered for a while, knowing well that as Maitland
wrote these words he was thinking even more of himself than of
Dickens, and knowing that what was not true of his subject was most
bitterly true of the writer.  There is another passage somewhere in
the book in which he says that Dickens could not have struggled for
long years against lack of appreciation.  This he rightly puts down
to Dickens' essentially dramatic leanings.  The man needed immediate
applause.  But again Maitland was thinking of himself, for he had
indeed struggled many years without any appreciation save that of one
or two friends and some rare birds among the public.  I sometimes
think that one of Maitland's great attractions to Dickens lay in the
fact, which he himself mentions and enlarges on, that Dickens treated
of the lower middle class and the class immediately beneath it.  This
is where the great novelist was at his best, and in the same way
these were the only classes that Maitland really knew well.  There is
in several things a curious likeness between Dickens and Maitland,
though it lies not on the surface.  He says that Dickens never had
any command of a situation although he was so very strong in
incident.  This was also a great weakness of Henry Maitland.  It
rarely happens that he works out a powerful and dramatic situation to
its final limits, though sometimes he does succeed in doing so.  This
failure in dealing with great situations is peculiarly characteristic
of most English novelists.  I have frequently noticed in otherwise
admirable books by men of very considerable abilities and
attainments, with tolerable command of their own language, that they
have on every occasion shirked the great dramatic scene just when it
was expected and needed.  Perhaps this is due to the peculiar
_mauvaise honte_ of the English mind.  To write, and yet not to give
oneself away, seems to be the aim of too many writers, though the
great aim of all great writing is to do, or to try to do, what they
avoid.  The final analysis of dreadful passion and pain comes,
perhaps, too close to them.  They feel the glow but also a sensation
of shame in the great emotions.  There are times that Maitland felt
this, though perhaps unconsciously.  It is at any rate certain that,
like so many people, he never actually depicted with blood and tears
the frightful situations in which his life was so extraordinarily
full.

It is an interesting passage in this book in which Maitland declares
that great popularity was never yet attained by any one deliberately
writing down to a low ideal.  Above all men he knew that the artist
was necessarily sincere, however poor an artist he might be.  So
Rousseau in his "Confessions" asserts that nothing really great can
come from an entirely venal pen.  I remember Maitland greatly enjoyed
a story I told him about myself.  While I was still a
poverty-stricken and struggling writer my father, who had no
knowledge whatever of the artistic temperament, although he had a
very great appreciation of the best literature of the past, came to
me and said seriously: "My boy, if you want money and I know you do,
why do you not write 'Bow Bells Novelettes'?  They will give you
fifteen pounds for each of them."  I replied to him, not I think
without a tinge of bitterness at being so misunderstood: "My dear
sir, it is as much a matter of natural endowment to be a damned fool
as to be a great genius, and I am neither."

I have said that Maitland was most essentially a conservative, indeed
in many ways a reactionary, if one so passive can be called that.  I
think the only actual revolutionary utterance of his mind which
stands on record is in the "Victorian Novelists."  It is when he is
speaking of Mr. Casby of the shorn locks.  He wrote: "This question
of landlordism should have been treated by Dickens on a larger scale.
It remains one of the curses of English life, and is likely to do so
till the victims of house-owners see their way to cutting, not the
hair, but the throats, of a few selected specimens."

It may seem a hard thing to say, but it is a fact, that any
revolutionary sentiment there was in Maitland was excited, not by any
native liberalism of his mind, or even by his sympathy for the
suffering of others, but came directly out of his own personal
miseries and trials.  He had had to do with landlords who refused to
repair their houses, and with houses which he looked upon as the
result of direct and wicked conspiracy between builders and plumbers.
But his words are capable of a wider interpretation than he might
have given them.

If I had indeed been satisfied that this departure of Maitland's to
Italy had meant the end of all the personal troubles of his marriage,
I should have been highly satisfied, and not displeased with any part
I might have taken in bringing about so desirable a result.  But I
must say that, knowing him as I did, I had very serious doubts.  I
was well aware of what a little pleading might do with him.  It was
in fact possible that one plaintive letter from his wife might have
brought him back again.  Fortunately it was never written.  The woman
was even then practically mad, and though immensely difficult to
manage by those friends, such as Miss Greathead and Miss Kingdon, who
interested themselves in his affairs and did much more for him at
critical times than I had been able to do, she never, I think,
appealed to her husband.  But it was extraordinary, before he went to
Italy, to observe the waverings of his mind.  When he was keeping his
eldest boy at Mirefields, supplying his wife with money for the house
and living in lodgings at Salcombe, he wrote giving a rough account
of what he might do, or might have to do, and ended up by saying:
"Already, lodgings are telling on my nerves.  I almost think I suffer
less even from yells and insults in a house of my own."  He even
began to forget "the fifth-rate dabblers in the British gravy," for
which fine phrase T.E. Brown is responsible.  Maitland ought to have
known it and did not.  It was this perpetual wavering and weakness in
him which perplexed his friends, and would indeed have alienated at
last very many of them had it not been for the enduring charm in all
his weakness.  Nevertheless he was now out of England, and those who
knew him were glad to think it was so.  He was, perhaps, to have a
better time.  Nevertheless, even so, he wrote to his friend Lake:
"Yes, it is true that I am going to glorious scenes, but do not
forget that I go with much anxiety in my mind--anxiety about the
little children, the chances of life and death, &c., &c.  It is not
like my Italian travel eight years ago, when--save for cash--I was
independent.  I have to make a good two hundred a year apart from my
own living and casual expenses.  If I live I think I shall do it--but
there's no occasion for merriment."  Yet if it was no occasion for
mere merriment it was an occasion for joy.  He knew it well, and so
did those know who understand the description that Maitland gave in
"Paternoster Row," of the sunset at Athens.  It is very wonderfully
painted, and as he describes it he makes Gifford say: "Stop, or I
shall clutch you by the throat.  I warned you before that I cannot
stand these reminiscences."  And this reminds me that when I wrote to
him once from Naples, he replied: "You fill me with envious gloom."
But now, when he had finished his pot-boiler of Siena, he was going
south to Naples, his "most interesting city of the modern world," and
afterwards farther south to the Calabrian Hills, and the old dead
world of Magna Graecia.

As a result of that journey he gave us "Magna Graecia."  This book of
itself is a sufficient proof that he was by nature a scholar, an
inhabitant of the very old world, a discoverer of the time of the
Renaissance, a Humanist, a pure man of letters, and not by nature a
writer of novels or romances.  Although Maitland's scholarship was
rather wide than deep save in one or two lines of investigation, yet
his feeling for all those matters with which a sympathetic
scholarship can deal was amazingly deep and true.  Once in Calabria
and the south he made and would make great discoveries.  In spite of
his poverty, which comes out so often in the description of his
conditions upon this journey, he loved everything he found there with
a strange and wonderful and almost pathetic passion.  I remember on
his return how he talked to me of the far south, and of his studies
in Cassiodorus.  One incident in "Magna Graecia," which is related
somewhat differently from what he himself told me at the time,
pleased him most especially.  It was when he met two men and
mentioned the name of Cassiodorus, whereupon they burst out with
amazement, "Cassiodoria, why we know Cassiodoria!"  That the name
should be yet familiar to these live men of the south gratified his
historic sense amazingly, and I can well remember how he threw his
head back and shook his long hair with joy, and burst into one of his
most characteristic roars of laughter.  It was a simple incident, but
it brought back the past to him.

Of all his books I think I love best "Magna Graecia."  I always liked
it much better than "The Meditations of Mark Sumner," and for a
thousand reasons.  For one thing it is a wholly true book.  In "The
Meditations," he falsified, in the literary sense, very much that he
wrote.  As I have said, it needs to be read with a commentary or
guide.  But "Magna Graecia" is pure Maitland; it is absolutely
himself.  It is, indeed, very nearly the Maitland who might have been
if ill luck had not pursued him from his boyhood.  Had he been a
successful man on the lines that fate pointed out to him; had he
succeeded greatly--or nobly, as he would have said--at the
University; had he become a tutor, a don, a notable man among men of
letters, still would he have travelled in southern Italy, and made
his great pilgrimage to the Fonte di Cassiodorio.  Till he knew south
Italy his greatest joy had been in books.  That he loved books we all
know.  There, of a certainty, "The Meditations" is a true witness.
But how much more he loved the past and the remains of Greece and
old, old Italy, "Magna Graecia" proves to us almost with tears.

I have said that Maitland was perhaps not a deep scholar, for
scholarship nowadays must needs be specialised if it is to be deep.
He had his odd prejudices, and hugged them.  The hypothesis of Wolf
concerning Homer visibly annoyed him.  He preferred to think of the
Iliad and the Odyssey as having been written by one man.  This came
out of his love of personality--the great ones of the past were as
gods to him.  All works of art, or books, or great events were wholly
theirs, for they made even the world, and the world made them not.
Though I know that he would have loved, in many ways, a book such as
Gilbert Murray's "Rise of the Greek Epic," yet Murray's fatally
decisive analysis of the Homeric legend would have pained him deeply.
On one occasion I remember sending to him, partly as some reasonable
ground for my own scepticism, but more, I think, out of some
mischievous desire to plague him, a cleverly written pamphlet by a
barrister which threw doubts upon the Shakespearean legend.  He wrote
to me: "I have read it with great indignation.  Confound the
fellow!--he disturbs me."  But then he was essentially a
conservative, and he lived in an alien time.




CHAPTER X

What he suffered, endured, and enjoyed in Magna Graecia and his old
dead world, those know who have read with sympathy and understanding.
It was truly as if the man, born in exile, had gone home at last--so
much he loved it, so well he understood the old days.  And now once
more he came back to England to a happier life, even though great
anxieties still weighed him down.  Yet with some of these anxieties
there was joy, for he loved his children and thought very much of
them, hoping and fearing.  One of the very first letters I received
from him on his return from Italy is dated May 7, 1898, and was
written from Henley in Arden: "You have it in your power to do me a
most important service.  Will you on every opportunity industriously
circulate the news that I am going to live henceforth in
Warwickshire?  It is not strictly true, but a very great deal depends
on my real abode being protected from invasion.  If you could inspire
a newspaper paragraph....  I should think it impudent to suppose that
newspapers cared about the matter but that they have so often
chronicled my movements, and if by any chance the truth got abroad it
would mean endless inconvenience and misery to me.  You shall hear
more in detail when I am less be-devilled."  All this requires little
comment.  Every one can understand how it was with him.

Later in the year he wrote to me: "My behaviour is bestial, but I am
so hard driven that it is perhaps excusable.  All work impossible
owing to ceaseless reports of mad behaviour in London.  That woman
was all but given in charge the other day for assaulting her landlady
with a stick.  My solicitor is endeavouring to get the child out of
her hands.  I fear its life is endangered, but of course the
difficulty of coming to any sort of arrangement with such a person is
very great....  Indeed I wish we could have met before your departure
for South Africa.  My only consolation is the thought that something
or other decisive is bound to have happened before you come back, and
then we will meet as in the old days, please heaven.  As for me, my
literary career is at an end, and the workhouse looms larger day by
day.  I should not care, of course, but for the boys.  A bad job, a
bad job."  But better times were perhaps coming for him.  The child
that he refers to as still in the hands of his mother was his
youngest boy.  Much of his life at this time is lost to me because
much happened while I was absent in South Africa, where I spent some
months in travel.  I remember it pleased him to get letters from me
from far-off places such as Buluwayo.  He always had the notion that
I was an extraordinarily capable person, an idea which only had some
real truth if my practical capacities were compared with his strange
want of them.  By now he was not living in Warwickshire; indeed, if I
remember rightly, on my return from Africa I found him at Godalming.

When I left Cape Town I was very seriously ill, and I remained ill
for some months after my return home.  Therefore it was some time
till we met again.  But when we did meet it was at Leatherhead, where
he was in lodgings, pleased to be not very far from George Meredith,
who indeed, I think, loved him.  It was, of course, as I have said,
through Maitland that I first met Meredith.  For some reason which I
do not know, Maitland gave him a volume of mine, "The Western Trail,"
which the old writer was much pleased with.  Indeed it was in
consequence of his liking for that book that he asked me to dine with
him just before I went to Africa.  Maitland was not present at this
dinner, he was then still in Warwickshire; but Meredith spoke very
affectionately of him, and said many things not unpleasing about his
work.  But probably Meredith, like myself, thought more of the man
than he did of his books, which is indeed from my point of view a
considerable and proper tribute to any writer.  Sometimes the work of
a man is greater than himself, and it seems a pity when one meets
him; but if a man is greater than what he does one may always expect
more, and some day may get it.  It was apropos of Maitland, in some
way which I cannot exactly recall, that Meredith, who was in great
form that night, and wonderful in monologue--as he always was, more
especially after he became so deaf that it was hard to make him
hear--told us an admirably characteristic story about two poor
schoolboys.  It appeared, said Meredith, that these two boys, who
came of a clever but poverty-stricken house, did very badly at their
school because they were underfed.  As Meredith explained this want
of food led to a poor circulation.  What blood these poor boys had
was required for the animal processes of living, and did not enable
them to carry on the work of the brain in the way that it should have
done.  However, it one day happened that during play one of these
boys was induced to stand upon his head, with the result that the
blood naturally gravitated to that unaccustomed quarter.  His ideas
instantly became brilliant--so brilliant, indeed, that a great idea
struck him.  He resumed his feet, rushed home, and communicated his
discovery to his brother, and henceforward they conducted their
studies standing upon their heads, and became brilliant and visibly
successful men.  Of course it was a curious thing, though not so
curious when one reflects on the nature of men who are really men of
letters, that Meredith and Henry Maitland had one thing tremendously
in common, their love of words.  In my conversation with Meredith
that day I mentioned the fact that I had read a certain interview
with him.  I asked him whether it conveyed his sentiments with any
accuracy.  He replied mournfully: "Yes, yes,--no doubt the poor
fellow got down more or less what I meant, but he used none of my
beautiful words, none of my beautiful words!"

It does not seem unnatural to me to say something of George Meredith,
since he had in many ways an influence on Maitland.  Certainly when
it came to the question of beautiful words they were on the same
ground, if not on the same level.  I myself have met during my
literary life, and in some parts of the world where literature is
little considered, many men who were reputed great, and indeed were
great, it may be, in some special line, yet Meredith was the only man
I ever knew to whom I would have allowed freely the word "great" the
moment I met him, without any reservation.  This I said to Maitland
and he smiled, feeling that it was true.  I remember he wrote to Lake
about Meredith, saying: "You ought to read 'Richard Feverel,' 'Evan
Harrington,' 'The Egoist,' and 'Diana of the Crossways.'  These, in
my opinion, are decidedly his best books, but you won't take up
anything of his without finding strong work."  And "strong work" with
Maitland was very high praise indeed.

By now, when he was once more in Surrey, we did not meet so
infrequently as had been the case after his second marriage and
before the separation.  It is true that his living out of London made
a difference.  Still I now went down sometimes and stayed a day with
him.  We talked once more in something of our old manner about books
and words, the life of men of letters, and literary origins or
pedigrees, always a strong point in him.  It was ever a great joy to
Maitland when he discovered the influence of one writer upon another.
For instance, it was he who pointed out to me first that Balzac was
the literary parent of Murger, as none indeed can deny who have read
the chapter in "Illusions Perdues" where Lucien Rubempré writes and
sings the drinking song with tears in his eyes as he sits by the
bedside of Coralie, his dead mistress.  This he did, as will be
remembered, to obtain by the sale of the song sufficient money to
bury her.  From that chapter undoubtedly sprang the whole of the "Vie
de Bohème," though to it Murger added much, and not least his
livelier sense of humour.  Again, I well remember how Maitland took
down Tennyson--ever a joy to him, because Tennyson was a master of
words though he had little enough to say--and showed me the influence
that the "Wisdom of Solomon," in the Apocrypha, had upon some of the
last verses of "The Palace of Art."  No doubt some will not see in a
mere epithet or two that Solomon's words had any connection with the
work of the Poet-Laureate, whom I nicknamed, somewhat to Maitland's
irritation, "the bourgeois Chrysostom."  Yet I myself have no doubt
that Maitland was right; but even if he were not he would still have
taken wonderful joy in finding out the words of the two verses which
run: "Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds
among the spreading branches, or a pleasant fall of water running
violently, or a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a running that
could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most
savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains;
these things made them swoon for fear."  Of course he loved all
rhythm, and found it sometimes in unexpected places, even in
unconsidered writers.  There was one passage he used to quote from
Mrs. Ewing, who, indeed, was no small writer, which he declared to be
wonderful, and in its way quite perfect: "He sat, patient of each
succeeding sunset, until this aged world should crumble to its
close."  Then, again, he rejoiced when I discovered, though no doubt
it had been discovered many times before, that his musical Keats owed
so much to Fletcher's "Faithful Shepherdess."

It would be a very difficult question to ask, in some examination
concerning English literature, what book in English by its very
nature and style appealed most of all to Henry Maitland.  I think I
am not wrong when I say that it was undoubtedly Walter Savage
Landor's "Imaginary Conversations."  That book possesses to the full
the two great qualities which most delighted him.  It is redolent of
the past, and those classic conversations were his chief joy; but
above and beyond this true and great feeling of Landor's for the past
classic times there was the most eminent quality of Landor's rhythm.
I have many times heard Maitland read aloud from "Æsop and Rhodope,"
and I have even more often heard him quote without the book the
passage which runs: "There are no fields of amaranth on this side of
the grave; there are no voices, O Rhodope, that are not soon mute,
however tuneful; there is no name, with whatever emphasis of
passionate love repeated of which the echo is not faint at last."
Maitland knew, and none knew better, that in a triumphant passage
there is triumphant rhythm, and in a passage full of mourning or
melancholy the accompanying and native rhythm is both melancholy and
mournful.  How many times, too, I have heard him quote, again from
Landor, "Many flowers must perish ere a grain of corn be ripened."

All this time the wife was I know not where, nor did I trouble much
to inquire.  Miss Kingdon and Miss Greathead looked after her very
patiently, and did good work for their friend Maitland, as he well
knew.  But although he was rejoiced to be alone for a time, or at any
rate relieved from the violent misery of her presence, I came once
more to discern, both from things he said and from things he wrote to
me, that a celibate life began again to oppress him gravely.  Yet it
was many months before he at last confided in me fully, and then I
think he only did it because he was certain that I was the one friend
he possessed with whom he could discuss any question without danger
of moral theories or prepossessions interfering with the rightful
solution.  Over and beyond this qualification for his confidence
there was the fact that I knew him, whereas no one else did.  To
advise any man it is necessary to know the man who is to be advised,
for wisdom _in vacuo_ or _in vitro_ may be nothing but foolishness.
Others would have said to him, "Look back on your experience and
reflect.  Have no more to do with women in any way."  No doubt it
would have been good advice, but it would have been impossible for
him to act on it.  Therefore when he at last opened his mind to me
and told me of certain new prospects which were disclosing themselves
to him, I was not only sympathetic but encouraging.  It seems that in
the year 1898 he first met a young French lady of Spanish origin with
whom he had previously corresponded for some little time.  Her name
was Thérèse Espinel.  She belonged to a very good family, perhaps
somewhat above the _haute bourgeoisie_, and was a woman of high
education and extreme Gallic intelligence.  As I came to know her
afterwards I may also say that she was a very beautiful woman, and
possessed, what I know to have been a very great charm to Maitland,
as it always was to me, a very sweet and harmonious voice--it was
perhaps the most beautiful human voice for speaking that I have ever
heard.  Years afterwards I took her to see George Meredith.  He
kissed her hand and told her she had beautiful eyes.  As she was
partly Spanish she knew Spanish well.  Her German was excellent, her
English that of an educated Englishwoman.  It appears that she came
across Maitland's "Paternoster Row," and it occurred to her that it
should be translated into French.  She got into correspondence with
him about this book, and in 1898 came over to England and made his
acquaintance.  It is curious to remember that on one other occasion
Maitland got into correspondence with another French lady, who
insisted emphatically that he was the one person whom she could trust
to direct her aright in life--a notion at the time not a little
comical to me, and also to the man who was to be this soul's director.

When these two people met and proved mutually sympathetic it was not
unnatural that he should tell her something of his own life,
especially when one knows that so much of their earlier talks dealt
with "Paternoster Row" and with its chief character, so essentially
Henry Maitland.  He gave her, indeed, very much of his story, yet not
all of it, not, indeed, the chief part of it, since the greatest
event in his life was the early disaster which had maimed and
distorted his natural career and development.  Yet even so much as he
told her of his first and second marriage--for he by no means
concealed from the beginning that he was yet married--very naturally
engaged her womanly compassion.  Adding this to her real and fervent
admiration of his literary powers, his personality and story seem to
have inclined her to take an even tenderer interest in him.  She was
certainly a bright and wonderful creature, although not without a
certain native melancholy, and possessed none of those conventional
ideas which wreck some lives and save others from disaster.
Therefore I was not much surprised, although I had not been told
everything that had happened, when Maitland wrote to me that he
contemplated taking a very serious step.  It was indeed a very
serious one, but so natural in the circumstances, as I came to hear
of them, that I myself made no strictures on his scheme.  It was no
other than the proposal that he and this new acquaintance of his
should cast in their lot together and make the world and her
relatives believe that they were married.  No doubt when I was
consulted I found it in some ways difficult to give a decision.  What
might be advisable for the man might not be so advisable for his
proposed partner.  He was making no sacrifice, and she was making
many.  Nevertheless, I hold the view that these matters are matters
for the people concerned and are nobody else's business.  The thing
to be considered from my point of view was whether Maitland would be
able to support her, and whether she was the kind of woman who would
retain her hold upon him and give him some peace and happiness
towards the end of his life.  In thinking over these things I
remembered that the other two women had not been ladies.  They had
not been educated.  They understood nothing of the world which was
Maitland's world, and, as I knew, a disaster was bound to come in
both cases.  But now it appeared to me that there was a possible hope
for the man, and a hope that such a step might almost certainly end
in happiness, or at any rate in peace.  That something of the kind
would occur I knew, and even if this present affair went no farther,
yet some other woman would have to be dealt with even if she did not
come into his life for a long while.  Thérèse Espinel was at any
rate, as I have said, beautiful and accomplished, essentially of the
upper classes, and, what was no small thing from Maitland's point of
view, a capable and feeling musician.  Of such a woman Maitland had
had only a few weeks' experience many years before.  I thought the
situation promised much, and raised no moral objection to the step he
proposed to take as soon as I saw he was strongly bent in one
direction.  For one thing I was sure of, and it was that anything
whatever which put a definite obstacle in the way of his returning to
his wife was a thing to be encouraged.  It was, in fact, absolutely a
duty; and I care not what comments may be made upon my attitude or my
morals.

That Maitland would have gone back to his wife eventually I have very
little doubt, and of course nothing but disaster and new rage and
misery would have come of his doing so.  For these reasons I did
everything in my power to help and encourage him in a matter which
gave him extreme nervousness and anxiety.  I know he said to me that
the step he proposed to take early in 1899 grew more and more serious
the more he thought of it.  Again, I think there was no overwhelming
passion at the back of his mind.  Yet it was a true and sincere
affection, of that I am sure.  But there were many difficulties.  It
appears that the girl's father had died a few months before, and as
there was some money in the family this fact involved certain serious
difficulties about the future signing of names when all the legal
questions concerned with the little property that there was came to
be settled.  Then he asked me what sort of hope was there that this
pretended marriage would not become known in England.  He said: "I
fear it certainly would."  When I reflect now upon the innumerable
lies and subterfuges that I myself indulged in with the view of
preventing anybody knowing of this affair in London, I can see he was
perfectly justified in his fears, for when the step was at last taken
I was continually being asked about Maitland's wife.  Naturally
enough, it was said by one set of people that she was with him in
France; while it was said by others, much better informed, that she
was still in England.  I was sometimes requested to settle this
difficult matter, and I did find it so difficult that at times I was
compelled to state the actual truth on condition that what I said was
regarded as absolutely confidential.

He and Thérèse did, indeed, discuss the possibility of braving the
world with the simple truth, but that he knew would have been a very
tremendous step for her.  The mother was yet living, and she played a
strange part in this little drama--a part not so uncommonly played as
many might think.  She became at last her daughter's _confidante_ and
learned the whole of Maitland's story, and although she opposed their
solution of the trouble to the very best of her power, when it became
serious she at last gave way and consented to any step that her
daughter wished to take, provided that there was no public scandal.

Of course, many people will regard with horror the part that her
mother played in this drama, imputing much moral blame.  There are,
however, times when current morality has not the value which it is
commonly given, and I think Madame Espinel acted with great wisdom,
seeing that nothing she could have pleaded would have altered
matters.  Her daughter was no longer a child; she was a grown-up
woman, not without determination, and entirely without religious
prejudice, a thing not so uncommon with the intellectual Frenchwoman.
Certainly there are some who will say that a public scandal was
better than secrecy, and in this I am at one with them.  Nevertheless
there was much to consider, for there would certainly have been what
Henry himself called "a horrific scandal," seeing that the family had
many aristocratic relatives.  Maitland, in fact, stated that it would
be taking an even greater responsibility than he was prepared to
shoulder if this were done.  He wrote to me asking for my opinion and
counsel, especially at the time when there was a vague and probably
unfounded suggestion that he might be able to get a divorce from his
wife.  It appears more than one person wrote to him anonymously about
her.  I am sure he never believed what they told him, nor do I.  No
doubt from some points of view I have been very unjust to his wife,
though I have tried to hold the balance true, but I never saw, or
heard from Maitland, anything to suggest that his wife was not all
that she should have been in one way, just as she was everything she
should not have been in another.  Seeing that Maitland would have
given ten years of his life and every penny he possessed to secure a
divorce, it is certain that he absolutely disbelieved what he was
told.  In fact, if he could have got a divorce by consent or
collusion he would have gladly engaged to pay her fifty pounds a year
during his life, whatever happened and whatever she did.  But of
course this could not be said openly, either by myself or by him, and
nothing came out of the suggestion, whoever made it first.

I proposed to him one afternoon when I was with him that he should
make some inquiries as to what an American divorce would do for him.
Whether it were valid or not, it might perhaps make things
technically easier and enable him to marry in France with some show
of legality.  At the moment he paid no attention to what I said, or
seemed to pay no attention, but it must have sunk into his mind, for
a few days afterwards he wrote to me and said: "Is it a possible
thing to get a divorce in some other country as things are?--a
divorce which would allow of a legal marriage, say, in that same
country.  I have vaguely heard such stories, especially of
Heligoland.  The German novelist, Sacher Masoch, is said to have done
it--said so by his first wife, who now lives in Paris."  Upon
receiving this letter of his I wrote and reminded him of what I had
said about American divorces, and gave him all the information that I
had in my mind and could collect at the moment, especially mentioning
Dakota or Nevada as two States of the United States which had the
most reasonable and wide-minded views of marriage and divorce.  For
this letter he wrote and thanked me heartily, but quoted from a
letter of Thérèse which seemed to indicate, not unclearly, that she
preferred him to take no steps which might lead to long legal
processes.  They should join their fortunes together, taking their
chance as to the actual state of affairs being discovered afterwards.
His great trouble, of course, was the absolute necessity of seeming
in Paris to be legally married, out of regard for her relatives.
Besides these connections of her family, she knew a very great number
of important people in Paris and Madrid, and many of them should
receive by custom the _lettres de faire part_.  With some little
trouble the financial difficulties with regard to the signing of
documents were got over for the moment by a transfer of investments
from Thérèse to her mother.  On this being done their final
determination was soon taken, and they determined, after this
"marriage" was completed, to leave Paris and live somewhere in the
mountains, perhaps in Savoy; and he then wrote to me: "You will be
the only man in London who knows this story.  Absolute silence--it
goes without saying.  If ever by a slip of the tongue you let a
remark fall that my wife was dead, _tant mieux_; only no needless
approach of the topic.  A grave, grave responsibility mine.  She is a
woman to go through fire for, as you saw.  An incredible woman to one
who has spent his life with such creatures....  I have lately paid a
bill of one pound for damage done by my wife, damage in a London
house where she lived till turned out by the help of the police.
Incredible stories about her.  She attacked the landlord with a
stick, and he had seriously to defend himself.  Then she tore up
shrubs and creepers in the garden.  No, I have had my time of misery.
It must come to an end."

In the first part of this letter which I have just quoted he says,
"She is a woman to go through fire for, as you saw."  This expression
does not mean that I had ever met her, but that I had seen sufficient
of her letters to recognise the essential fineness of her character.
I urged him once more to a rapid decision, and he promised that he
would let nothing delay it.  Nevertheless it is perfectly
characteristic of him that, having now finally decided there should
be no attempt at any divorce, he proceeded instantly to play with the
idea again.  No doubt he was being subjected to many influences of
different kinds, for I find that he sent me a letter in which he told
me that it seemed to be ascertained that an American divorce and
remarriage would satisfy French law.  If that was so, he would move
heaven and earth to get all the necessary details of the procedure.
He had written to a friend in Baltimore who knew all about such
matters, but he implored me to find out if there were not some book
which gave all possible information about the marriage and divorce
laws of all the separate States of North America.  He asked: "Do you
really think that I can go and present myself for a divorce without
the knowledge of the other person?  The proceedings must be very
astounding."  His knowledge of America was not equal to my own, much
as I had spoken to him about that country.  The proceedings in
divorce courts in some of the United States have long ceased to
astonish anybody.  He told me, however, that he had actually heard of
American lawyers advertising for would-be divorcers, and he prayed
devoutly that he could get hold of such a man.  I did my best to rake
up for him every possible piece of information on the subject, and no
doubt his friend in Baltimore, of whom I know nothing, on his part
sent him information.  It seemed, however, that any proceeding would
involve some difficulties, and on discovering this he instantly
dropped the whole scheme.  I find that he wrote to me afterwards,
saying: "It is probable that I leave England at the end of April.
Not one syllable about me to any one, of course.  The step is so bold
as to be really impudent, and I often have serious fears, not, of
course, on my own account.  You shall hear from abroad....  If some
day one could know tranquillity and all meet together decently."

After many qualms, hot and cold fits, despondency, and inspirations
of courage, he at last took the decisive step.  In May he was in
Paris, and I think it was in that month that the "marriage" took
place.  I am singularly ignorant of the details, for he seemed to be
somewhat reluctant to speak of them, and I do not even know whether
any actual ceremony took place or not, nor am I much concerned to
know.  They were at any rate together, and no doubt tolerably happy.
He wrote me nothing either about this subject or anything else for
some time, and I was content to hear nothing.  I do know, however,
that they spent the summer together in Switzerland, moving from
Trient, near the Col de Balme, to Locarno, on Lago Maggiore.  He
wrote to me once from the Rhône Valley saying that as a result of his
new domestic peace and comfort, even though it were but the comfort
of Swiss hotels, and owing also to the air of the mountains, which
always suited him very well, he was in much better health than he had
been for years past.  His lung, the perpetual subject of his
preoccupation, appears to have given him little trouble, although,
knowing that its state was attributable in some measure to emphysema,
he wrote to me for detailed explanations of that particular
complaint.  During the whole of this time, the only honeymoon he had
ever had, he was, however, obliged to work very hard, for he was in
ceaseless trouble about money.  In his own words, he had to "publish
furiously" in order to keep pace with his expenses.  There was his
wife in England, and there were also his children to be partially
provided for.  But for the time all went well with him.  There were
fears of all sorts, he told me, but they were to be forgotten as much
as possible.  He and Thérèse returned to Paris for the winter.

During this time, or just about this time, which was when the South
African War was raging, I wrote for a weekly journal, which I used to
send regularly to Paris with my own contributions marked in it.  This
temporary aberration into journalism so late in my literary life
interested him much.  He wrote to me: "In the old garret days who
would have imagined the strange present?  I suppose you have now a
very solid footing in journalism as well as in fiction.  Of course it
was wise to get it, as it seems more than probable that the novelists
will be starved out very soon.  With Europe in a state of war, which
may last for a decennium, there will be little chance for
story-tellers."  Then, in spite of his new happiness, his inherited
or acquired pessimism got the worst of him.  He adds: "I wish I had
died ten years ago.  I should have gone away with some hope for
civilisation, of which I now have none.  One's choice seems to be
between death in the workhouse, or by some ruffian's bullet.  As for
those who come after one, it is too black to think about."

No doubt this was only his fun, or partly such.  There is one phrase
in Boswell's "Johnson" that he always loved amazingly; it is where
Johnson declares that some poor creature had "no skill in
inebriation."  Maitland perhaps had no skill in inebriation when he
drank at the fountain of literary pessimism, for indeed when he did
drink there his views were fantastic and preposterous.  As a matter
of fact he was doing very well, in spite of the workhouse in
Marylebone Road, from which he was now far enough.  There might be
little chance for story-tellers, yet his financial position, for the
first time in his life, was tolerably sound.  One publisher even gave
him three hundred pounds on account for a book which I think was "The
Best of all Things."  For this book he also received five hundred
dollars from America; so, for him, or indeed for almost any writer,
he was very well paid.  Little as the public may believe it, a sum of
three hundred pounds on account of royalties is as much as any
well-known man gets--unless by some chance he happens to be one of
the half-dozen amazingly successful writers in the country, and they
are by no means the best.  It has been at my earnest solicitation
that he had at last employed an agent, though, with his peculiar
readiness to receive certain impressions, he had not gone to one I
recommended, but to another, suddenly mentioned to him when he was
just in the mood to act as I suggested.  This agent worked for him
very well, and Maitland was now getting five guineas a thousand words
for stories, which is also a very good price for a man who does
really good work.  It is true that very bad work is not often well
paid, but the very best work of all is often not to be sold at any
price.  About this time I obtained for him a very good offer for a
book, and he wrote to me: "It is good to know that people care to
make offers for my work.  What I aim at is to get a couple of
thousand pounds safely invested for my two boys.  Probably I shall
not succeed--and if I get the money, what security have I that it
will be safe in a year or two?  As likely as not the Bank of England
will lie in ruins."  After all, I must confess that he was skilful in
the inebriation of his pessimism, for to me these phrases are
delightful, in spite of the half-belief with which they were uttered.

During the last winter of 1900 he wrote to me from Paris that he
proposed to be in London for a few days in the spring of 1901, but
much depended on the relation, which seemed to him highly
speculative, between the money he received and the money he was
obliged to spend.  Apparently he found Paris anything but cheap.
According to his own account, he was therefore in perpetual straits,
in spite of the good prices he now obtained for his work.  He added
in this letter: "I hope to speak with you once more, before we are
both shot or starved."  This proposal to come across the Channel in
the spring ended in smoke.  He was not able to afford it, or was
reluctant to move, or more likely reluctant to expose himself to any
of the troubles still waiting for him in England.  So long as his
good friends who were looking after his wife, and more or less
looking after his children, could do their work and save him from
anxiety, he was not likely to wish his peace disturbed by any
discussions on the subject.  When he had decided not to come he sent
me a letter in which one of the paragraphs reads: "I am still trying
to believe that there is a King of England, and cannot take to the
idea, any more than to the moral and material ruin which seems to be
coming upon the old country.  Isn't it astounding that we have the
courage to write books?  We shall do so, I suppose, until the day
when publishers find their business at an end.  I fear it may not be
far off."  At this moment, being more or less at peace, and working
with no peculiar difficulty, he declared himself in tolerable health,
although he affirmed he coughed a great deal.  It seemed to me that
he did not think so much about his health as he had done before and
was to do later, and he displayed something like his old real nature
with regard to literary enterprise.  It was just about this time that
he reminded me of his cherished project for a story of the sixth
century A.D.  This, of course, was the book published after his
death, "Basil."  He had then begun to work upon it, and said he hoped
to finish it that summer.  This cheered him up wonderfully, and he
ended one letter to me with: "Well, well, let us be glad that again
we exchange letters with address other than that of workhouse or
hospital.  It is a great demand, this, to keep sane and solvent--I
dare hope for nothing more."  Occasionally in his letters there
seemed to me to be slight indications that he was perhaps not quite
so happy as he wished to be.

During that summer my wife and I were in Switzerland, and he wrote to
me, while we were on the Lake of Geneva, from Vernet-les-Bains in the
Eastern Pyrenees.  By this time Thérèse and I, although we had never
met, were accustomed to send messages to each other.  It was a
comfort to me to feel that he was with some one of whom I could think
pleasantly, and whom I much wished to know.  We had, indeed, proposed
to meet somewhere on the Continent, but that fell through, partly
because we were obliged to return to England earlier than we had
proposed.  Nevertheless, although we did not meet, and though I had
some fears for him, I was tolerably happy about him and his affairs,
and certainly did not anticipate the new crisis which was
approaching, nor the form it would take.




CHAPTER XI

It was Maitland's custom to rely for advice and assistance on
particular people at certain crises.  In some cases he now appealed
to Rivers; in very many he appealed to me; but when his health was
particularly involved it was his custom to relapse desperately on his
friend Dr. Lake.  He even came to Lake on his return from Magna
Graecia when he had taken Potsdam on his way home to England.  He had
gone there at Schmidt's strong invitation and particular desire that
he should taste for once a real Westphalian ham.  It is a peculiarly
savage and not wholly safe custom of Germans to eat such hams
uncooked, and Maitland, having fallen in with this custom, though he
escaped trichinosis, procured for himself a peculiarly severe attack
of indigestion.  He came over from Folkestone to Lake in order to get
cured.  The ham apparently had not given him the lasting satisfaction
which he usually got out of fine fat feeding.  As I have said, Lake
and Maitland had been friends from the time that Maitland's father
bought his chemist's business from the Doctor's father.  For they had
been schoolfellows together at Hinkson's school in Mirefields.
Nevertheless it was only in 1894 that they renewed their old
acquaintance.  Dr. Lake saw him once at Ewell, soon after a local
practitioner had frightened Maitland very seriously by diagnosing
phthisis and giving a gloomy prognosis.  On that occasion Lake went
over Maitland's chest and found very little wrong.  Technically
speaking, there was perhaps a slight want of expansion at the apex of
each lung, and apparently some emphysema at the base of the left one,
but certainly no active tubercular mischief.

I speak of these things more or less in detail because health played
so great a part in the drama of his life; as, indeed, it does in most
lives.  It is not the casual thing that novelists mostly make of it.
It is a perpetually acting cause.  Steady ill-health, even more than
actually acute disease, is what helps to bring about most tragedies.
When Lake made his diagnosis, with which I agree, though there is
something else I must presently add to it, he took him to London,
that he might see a notable physician, in order to reassure
Maitland's mind thoroughly.  They went together to Dr. Prior
Smithson.  I have never noted that it was Maitland who introduced Dr.
Lake to Rivers.  When Lake had arranged this London visit Maitland
wrote to Rivers saying: "I am coming up to town to see a scoundrel
specialist in diseases of the lung, who is as likely as not to upset
all my plans of life.  But don't be afraid of my company; you shall
have no pathology.  There will be with me an old schoolfellow of
mine, a country surgeon, in whose house I am staying at present.  He
would think it very delightful to meet you."  They did meet upon that
occasion, when Dr. Smithson confirmed Lake's diagnosis and
temporarily did a great deal to reassure Maitland.  From my own
medical knowledge and my general study of Maitland, combined with
what some of his doctors have told me, I have come to the conclusion
that he did suffer from pulmonary tuberculosis, but that it was
practically arrested at an early stage.  However, even arrested
tuberculosis in many cases leaves a very poor state of nutrition.
That his joy in food remained with him, though with a few lapses,
points strongly to the conclusion that at this time tuberculosis was
certainly not very active in him.  He always needed much food, and
food, especially, which he liked and desired.  To want it was a
tragedy, as I shall show presently.

In 1897 when he went down to Salcombe he reported to Lake a great
improvement in health, saying that his cough was practically gone,
and that of course the wonderful weather accounted for it.  He ate
heartily, and even walked five miles a day without fatigue.  He
added: "The only difficulty is breathing through the nose.  The other
day a traction engine passed me on the road, and the men upon it
looked about them wondering where the strange noises came from.  It
was my snoring!  All the nasal cavities are excoriated!  But I shall
get used to this.  I have a suspicion that it is _not_ the lung that
accounts for this difficulty, for it has been the same ever since I
can remember."  By this he probably meant merely that it had lasted a
long time.  There was a specific reason for it.  From Salcombe he
reported to Lake that he had recovered a great deal of weight, but
that for some time his wheezing had been worse than ever when the
weather got very bad.  He wrote: "Then again a practical paradox that
frenzies one, for sleep came when bad weather prevented me from being
so much out of doors!"  All this he did not understand, but it is
highly probable that at that time he had a little actual tubercular
mischief, and a slight rise of temperature.  As frequently happens,
enforced rest in the house did for him what nothing else could do.
But his health certainly was something of a puzzle.  In 1898, when he
was in Paris with Thérèse, he saw a Dr. Piffard, apparently not a
lung specialist, but, as I am told, a physician of high standing.
This doctor spoke rather gravely to him, and of course told him that
he was working much too hard, for he was still keeping up his
ridiculous habit of writing eight hours a day.  He said that there
was a moist spot in the right lung, with a little chronic bronchitis,
and that the emphysema was very obvious.  He had, too, some chronic
rheumatism, and also on the right side of his forehead what Maitland
described as a patch of psoriasis.  Psoriasis, however, is not as a
rule unilateral, and it was due to something else.  This patch had
been there for about a year, and was slowly getting worse.  Dr.
Piffard prescribed touching him under the right clavicle with the
actual cautery, and for the skin gave him some subcutaneous
injections of an arsenical preparation.  He fed him with eggs, milk,
and cod-liver oil, ordering much sleep and absolute rest.  During
this treatment he improved somewhat, and owned that he was really
better.  The cough had become trifling, his breath was easier and his
sleep very good.  His strength had much increased.  He also declared
that he saw a slight amelioration in the patch of so-called
psoriasis.  The truth is, I think, that nearly all this improvement
was due to making him rest and eat.  No doubt very much of his
ill-health was the result of his abnormal habits, although there was
something else at the back of it.  For one thing he had rarely taken
sufficient exercise, the exercise necessary for his really fine
physique.  As I have said, he never played a game in his life after
he left Hinkson's school in Mirefields.  Cricket he knew not.
Football was a mystery to him, and a brutal mystery at that.  It is
true that occasionally he rowed in a boat at the seaside, for he did
so at Salcombe when his eldest boy was there with him, but any kind
of game or sport he actually loathed.  It was a surprise to me to
find out that Rivers, while he was at Folkestone, actually persuaded
him to take to a bicycle.  He even learned to like it.  Rivers told
Lake that he rode not badly, and with great dignity; and as Rivers
rode beside him he heard him murmur: "Marvellous proceedings!  Was
the like ever seen?"

However, the time was now coming when he was to appeal to Lake once
more.  In 1901 he had proposed to come over to England and see me,
but he said that the doctor in Paris had forbidden him to go north,
rather indicating the south for him.  He wrote to me: "Now I must go
to the centre of France--I don't think the Alps are possible--and
vegetate among things which serve only to remind me that here is
_not_ England.  Then, again, I had thought night and day of an
English potato, of a slice of English meat, of tarts and puddings,
and of teacakes.  Night and day had I looked forward to ravening on
these things.  Well, well!"  But he did at last come back to England
for some time.

There is no doubt that the feeding in his French home was not fat, or
fine, or confused feeding.  Probably the notion of a Scotch haggis
would give any French cook a fit of apoplexy.  Just before he did
come over from Paris, Lake had a letter from him which was much like
the one he wrote to me: "Best wishes for the merry, merry time,--if
merriment can be in the evil England of these days.  I wish I could
look in upon you at Christmas.  I should roar with joy at an honest
bit of English roast beef.  Could you post a slice in a letter?--with
gravy?"  Lake said to his wife when he received this letter: "Why,
this is written by a starving man!"  Naturally enough, although I
heard from him comparatively seldom, I had always been aware of these
hankerings of his for England and English food.  He did not take
kindly to exile, or to the culinary methods of a careful French
interior.  Truly as he loved the Latin countries, there was much in
their customs which troubled him greatly, and the food was his
especial trouble when he was not being fed in Italy with oil and
Chianti.  I find occasional melancholy letters of his upon the
subject, when he indulged in dithyrambs about the fine abundance of
feeding in England--eggs and bacon and beer.  There was no doubt he
was not living in the way he should have lived.  At any rate, it was
about this time--although I did not know it, as I was either in the
North of England or abroad, I forget which--that he came once more to
Lake, and was found standing on his doorstep tolerably early in the
morning.  According to the doctor, on his arrival from Paris he was
in the condition of a starved man.  The proof of this is very simple.
At that time, and for long after, Rivers was living at Folkestone,
and as Lake's house was at that time full he was unable to entertain
Maitland for long, and it was proposed that he should go over for a
time and stay at Folkestone.  When Lake examined Maitland he was
practically no more than a skeleton, but after one week in Rivers'
house he had picked up no less than seven pounds weight.  There were
then no physical signs of active mischief in the lungs except the
remaining and practically incurable patch of emphysema.  Although
this sudden increase of weight does not entirely exclude
tuberculosis, it is yet rather uncommon for so rapid an increase to
take place in such cases, and it rather puts tuberculosis out of
court as being in any way the real cause of much of his ill-health.
Now of all this I knew very little, or next door to nothing, until
afterwards.  Although I was aware that he was uneasy about many
things, I had not gathered that there was anything seriously wrong
with him except his strong and almost irresistible desire to return
to England.  I now know that his reticence in speaking to me was due
to his utter inability to confess that his third venture had almost
come to disaster over the mere matter of the dining-table.  I knew so
much of the past that he feared to tell me of the present, though I
do not think he could have imagined that I should say anything to
make him feel that he had once again been a sad fool for not
insisting good-humouredly on having the food he wanted.  But he was
ashamed to speak to me of his difficulties, fearing, perhaps, that I
might not understand, or understand too well.

Now he and Thérèse lived together with Madame Espinel.  The old lady,
a very admirable and delicate creature of an aristocratic type, was
no longer young, and was typically French.  She was in a poor state
of health, and lived, like Cornaro, on next to nothing.  Her views on
food were what Maitland would have described as highly exiguous.  She
stood bravely by the French breakfast, a thing Maitland could endure
with comfort for no more than a week or two at a time.  Her notions
as to the midday meal and dinner were not characterised by that early
English abundance which he so ardently desired.  After a long period
of subdued friction on the subject it appears that his endurance of
what he called prolonged starvation actually broke down.  He demanded
something for breakfast, something fat, something in the nature of
bacon.  How this was procured I do not know; I presume that bacon can
be bought in Paris, though I do not remember having ever seen it
there; perhaps it was imported from England for his especial benefit.
However pleasing for the moment the result may have been to him from
the gastronomic point of view, it led Madame Espinel to make as he
alleged, uncalled-for and bitter remarks upon the English grossness
of his tastes.  As he was certainly run down and much underfed, his
nerves were starved too, and he got into one of his sudden rages and
practically ran away from France.  I hinted, or said, not long ago
that he was in a way an intellectual coward because he would never
entertain any question as to the nature of the universe, or of our
human existence in it.  Things were to be taken as they stood, and
not examined, for fear of pain or mental disturbance.  It was a
little later than this that Rivers said acutely to Lake: "Why, the
man is a moral coward.  He stands things up to a certain point and
then runs away."  So now he ran away from French feeding to Lake's
doorstep, and Lake, as I have said, sent him to Rivers with the very
best results, for Mrs. Rivers took a great interest in him, looking
on him no doubt as a kind of foolish child of genius, and fed him, by
Lake's direction, for all that she was worth.  As soon as he was in
anything like condition, or getting on towards it, he was unable to
remain any longer at Folkestone and proposed to return once more to
France.  This, however, the doctor forbade, and thinking that a
prolonged course of feeding and rest was the one thing he required,
induced him to go to a sanatorium in the east of England.  At this
time Lake had practically no belief whatever in the man being
tuberculous, but he used Maitland's firm conviction that he was in
that condition to induce him to enter this establishment.  It was
perhaps the best thing which could be done for him.  He was looked
after very well, and the doctor at the sanatorium agreed with Lake in
finding no evidence of active pulmonary trouble.

As I have said, Maitland kept much, or most, of this from me--it was
very natural.  He wrote to me from the sanatorium very many letters,
from which I shall not quote, as they were after all only the natural
moans of a solitary invalid.  But he forbade me to come to him, and I
did not insist on making the visit which I proposed.  I was quite
aware, if it were only by instinct and intuition, that he had no
desire for me to discover exactly how things had been going with him
in France.  Nevertheless I did understand vaguely, though it was not
till afterwards that I discovered there had been a suggestion made
that he should not return there, or, indeed, go back to the
circumstances which had proved so nearly disastrous.  I do not think
that this suggestion was ever made personally to him, although I
understand it was discussed by some of his friends.  It appears that
a year or so afterwards when he was talking to Miss Kingdon, she told
him that it had been thought possible that he might not return to
France.  This he received with much amazement and indignation, for
certainly he did go back, and henceforth I believe the management of
the kitchen was conducted on more reasonable lines.  Certainly he
recovered his normal weight, and soon after his return was actually
twelve stone.  As a matter of fact, even before he left the
sanatorium, he protested that he was actually getting obese.

He was perfectly conscious after these experiences at Folkestone, and
the east of England, that he owed very much both to Lake and Rivers.
In fact he wrote to the doctor afterwards, saying that he and Rivers
had picked him out of a very swampy place.  He had always a great
admiration for Rivers as a writer, and used to marvel wonderfully at
his success.  It seemed an extraordinary thing to Maitland that a man
could do good work and succeed by it in England.

It was in 1902 that Maitland and Thérèse took up their abode in St.
Pée d'Ascain, under the shadow of the Pyrenees.  From there he wrote
me very frequently, and seemed to be doing a great deal of work.  He
liked the place, and, as there was an English colony in the town, had
made not a few friends or acquaintances.  By now it was a very long
time since I had seen him, for we had not met during the time of his
illness in England; and as I had been very much overworked, it
occurred to me that three or four days at sea, might do something for
me, and that I could combine this with a visit to my old friend.  I
did not, however, write to him that I was coming.  Knowing his ways
and his peculiar nervousness, which at this time most visibly grew
upon him, I thought it best to say nothing until I actually came to
Bordeaux.  When I reached the city on the Gironde I put up at a hotel
and telegraphed to know whether he could receive me.  The answer I
got was one word only, "Venez," and I went down by the early train,
through the melancholy Landes, and came at last to St. Pée by the way
of Bayonne.  He met me at the station--which, by the way, has one of
the most beautiful views I know--and I found him looking almost
exactly as he had looked before, save that he wore his hair for the
time a little differently from his custom in order to hide a fading
scar upon his forehead, the result of that mysterious skin trouble.
We were, I know, very glad to meet.

I stayed at a little hotel by myself as he could not put me up, but
went later to his house.  It was now that I at last met Thérèse.  As
I have said, she was a very beautiful woman, tall and slender, of a
pale, but clear complexion, very melancholy lovely eyes, and a voice
that was absolute music.  I could not help thinking that he had at
last come home, for at that time my knowledge of their little
domestic difficulties owing to the warring customs of their different
countries was very vague, and she impressed me greatly.  And yet I
knew before I left that night that all was not well with Maitland,
though it seemed so well with him.  He complained to me when we were
alone about his health, and even then protested somewhat forcibly
against the meals.  The house itself, or their apartment, was--from
the foreign point of view--quite comfortable, but it did not suggest
the kind of surroundings which I knew Maitland loved.  There is, save
in the best, a certain air of cold barrenness about so many foreign
houses.  The absence of rugs or carpets and curtains, the polish and
exiguity of the furniture, the general air of having no more in the
rooms than that which will just serve the purposes of life did not
suit his sense of abundance and luxury.

Blake has said, though I doubt if I quote with accuracy: "We do not
know that we have enough until we have had too much," and this is a
saying of wisdom as well concerning the things of the mind as those
of the body.  He had had at last a little too much domesticity, and,
besides that, his desires were set towards London and the British
Museum, with possibly half the year spent in Devonshire.  He yearned
to get away from the little polished French home he had made for
himself and take Thérèse back to England with him.  But this was
impossible, for her mother still lived with them and naturally would
not consent to expatriate herself at her age from her beloved France.
It had been truly no little sacrifice for her, a very gentle and
delicate woman even then suffering from cardiac trouble, to leave
Paris and its neighbourhood and stay with her child nigh upon the
frontier of Spain, almost beyond the borders of French civilisation.

I stayed barely a week in St. Pée d'Ascain, but during that time we
talked much both of his work and of mine.  Once more his romance of
the sixth century was in his mind and on his desk, though he worked
more, perhaps, at necessary pot-boilers than at this long pondered
task.  Although he did not write so much as of old I found it almost
impossible to get him to go out with me, save now and again for half
an hour in the warmest and quietest part of the day.  He had
developed a great fear of death, and life seemed to him
extraordinarily fragile.  Such a feeling is ever the greatest warning
to those who know, and yet I think if he had been rather more
courageous and had faced the weather a little more, it might have
been better for him.  During these few days I became very friendly
with Madame Espinel and her daughter, but more especially with the
latter, because she spoke English, and my French has never been very
fluent.  It requires at least a month's painful practice for me to
become more or less intelligible to those who speak it by nature.  As
I went away he gave me a copy of his new book "The Meditations of
Mark Sumner."  It is one of those odd things which occur so
frequently in literary life that I myself had in a way given to him
the notion of this book.  It was not that I suggested that he should
write it, indeed I had developed the idea of such a book to him upon
my own account, for I proposed at that time to write a short life of
an imaginary man of letters to whom I meant to attribute what I
afterwards published in "Apteryx."  Perhaps this seed had lain
dormant in Maitland's mind for years, and when he at last wrote the
book he had wholly forgotten that it was I who first suggested the
idea.  Certainly no two books could have been more different,
although my own plan was originally much more like his.  In the same
way I now believe that my story "The Purification" owed its inception
without my being aware of it to the suppressed passage in "Outside
the Pale" of which I spoke some time ago.  This passage I never read;
but, when Maitland told me of it, it struck me greatly and remained
in my mind.  These influences are one of the great uses of literary
companionship among men of letters.  As Henry Maitland used to say:
"We come together and strike out sparks."

As I went north by train from St. Pée d'Ascain to Bordeaux, passing
ancient Dax and all the sombre silences of the wounded serried rows
of pines which have made an infertile soil yield something to
commerce, Maitland's spirit, his wounded and often sickly spirit, was
with me.  I say "sickly" with a certain reluctance, and yet that is
what I felt, for I know I read "The Meditations" with great revolt in
spite of its obvious beauty and literary sincerity.  Life, as I know
well, is hard and bitter enough to break any man's spirit, and I knew
that Maitland had been through a fire that not many men had known,
yet as I read I thought, and still think, that in this book he showed
an undue failure of courage.  If he had been through so many
disasters yet there was still much left for him, or should have been.
He had not suffered the greatest disaster of all, for since the death
of his father in his early youth he had lost none that he loved.  The
calculated dispirited air of the book afflicted me, and yet,
naturally enough, I found it wonderfully interesting; for here was so
much of my lifelong friend, even though now and again there are
little lapses in sincerity when he put another face on things, and
pretended, even to himself, that he had felt in one way and not in
another.  There is in it only a brief mention of myself, when he
refers to the one solitary friend he possessed in London through so
many years which were only not barren to him in the acquisition of
knowledge.

But even as I read in the falling night I came to the passage in
which he speaks of the Anabasis.  It is curious to think of, but I
doubt if he had ever heard that modern scholarship refuses to believe
it was Xenophon who wrote this book.  Most assuredly had he heard it
he would have rejected so revolutionary a notion with rage and
indignation, for to him Xenophon and the Anabasis were one.  In
speaking of the march of the Greeks he quotes the passage where they
rewarded and dismissed the guide who had led them through very
dangerous country.  The text says: "when evening came he took leave
of us, and went his way by night."  On reaching Bordeaux I surprised
and troubled the telegraph clerk at the railway station by
telegraphing to Henry Maitland those words in the original Greek,
though naturally I had to write them in common script.  Often-times I
had been his guide but had never led him in safety.

When I reached England again I wrote him a very long letter about
"The Meditations," and in answer received one which I may here quote:
"My dear old boy, it is right and good that the first word about
'Mark Sumner' should come from you.  I am delighted that you find it
readable.  For a good ten years I had this book in mind vaguely, and
for two years have been getting it into shape.  You will find that
there is not very much reminiscence; more philosophising.  Why, of
course, the solitary friend is you.  Good old Schmidt is mentioned
later.  But the thing is a curious blend, of course, of truth and
fiction.  Why, it's just because the world is 'inexplicable' that I
feel my interest in it and its future grows less and less.  I am a
little oppressed by 'the burden of the mystery'; not seldom I think
with deep content of the time when speculation will be at an end.
But my delight in the beauty of the visible world, and my enjoyment
of the great things of literature, grow stronger.  My one desire now
is to _utter_ this passion--yet the result of one's attempt is rather
a poor culmination for Life."

During this year, and indeed during the greater part of 1902, I was
myself very ill and much troubled, though I worked exceedingly hard
upon my longest book, "Rachel."  In consequence of all I went through
during the year I wrote to him very seldom until the beginning of the
following spring I was able to send him the book.  For a long time
after discovering the almost impossibility of making more than a mere
living out of fiction, I had in a sense given up writing for the
public, as every man is more or less bound to do at last if he be not
gratified with commercial success.  Indeed for many years I wrote for
some three people: for my wife; for Rawson, the naturalist, my almost
lifelong friend; and for Maitland, the only man I had known longer
than Rawson.  Provided they approved, and were a little enthusiastic,
I thought all was well, even though I could earn no more than a mere
living.  And yet I was conscious through all these working years that
I had never actually conquered Maitland's utmost approval.  For I
knew what his enthusiasm was when he was really roused; how obvious,
how sincere, and how tremendous.  When I reflect that I did at last
conquer it just before he died I have a certain melancholy pleasure
in thinking of that book of mine, which indeed in many ways means
very much to me, much more than I can put down, or would put down for
any one now living.  Were this book which I am now doing a life of
myself rather than a sketch of him, I should certainly put in the
letter, knowing that I should be forgiven for inserting it because it
was a letter of Maitland's.  It was, indeed, a highly characteristic
epistle, for when he praised he praised indeed, and his words carried
conviction to me, ever somewhat sceptical of most men's approval.  He
did even more than write to me, for I learnt that he spoke about this
book to other friends of his, especially, as I know, to Edmund Roden;
and also to George Meredith, who talked to me about it with obvious
satisfaction when I next met him.  Nothing pleased Maitland better
than that any one he loved should do good work.  If ever a man lived
who was free from the prevalent vices of artistic and literary
jealousy, it was Maitland.

But now his time was drawing to an end.  He and Thérèse and Madame
Espinel left St. Pée d'Ascain in June 1903 and went thirty miles
further into the Pyrenees.  He wrote to me a few days after reaching
the little mountain town of St. Christophe.  The change apparently
did him good.  He declared that he had now no more sciatica, of which
disease, by the way, I had not previously heard, and he admitted that
his general health was improving.  St. Christophe is very
picturesquely situated, and Maitland loved it not the less for its
associations in ancient legend, since it is not very far from the
Port or Col de Roncesvalles, where the legendary Roland was slain
fighting in the rearguard to protect Charlemagne's army.  He and
Thérèse went once further down the valley and stayed a night at
Roncesvalles.  If any man's live imagination heard the horn of Roland
blow I think it should be Maitland.  And yet though he took a great
pleasure in this country of his, it was not England, nor had he all
things at his command which he desired.  I find that he now greatly
missed the British Museum, which readers of "The Meditations" will
know he much frequented in those old days.  For he was once more hard
at work upon "Basil," and wrote to me that he was greatly in want of
exact knowledge as to the procedure in the execution of wills under
the later Roman Empire.  This was a request for information, and such
requests I not infrequently received, always doing my best to tell
him what I could discover, or to give him the names of authorities
not known to himself.  He frequently referred to me about points of
difficulty, even when he was in England but away from London.  At
that time, naturally enough, I knew nothing whatever about wills
under the Roman Empire, but in less than a week after he had written
to me I think it highly probable that I knew more than any lawyer in
London who was not actually lecturing on the subject to some pupils.
I sent him a long screed on the matter.  Before this reached him I
got another letter giving me more details of what he required, and
since this is certainly of some interest as showing his literary
methods and conscientiousness I think it may be quoted.  He says:
"And now, hearty thanks for troubling about the legal question.  The
time with which I am concerned is about A.D. 540.  I know, of course,
that degeneration and the Gothic War made semi-chaos of Roman
civilisation; but as a matter of fact the Roman law still existed.
The Goths never interfered with it, and portions even have been
handed down.  Now the testator is a senator.  He has one child only,
a daughter, and to her leaves most of his estate.  There are legacies
to two nephews, and to a sister.  A very simple will, you see--no
difficulty about it.  But he dying, all the legatees being with him
at the time, how, as a matter of fact, were things settled?  Was an
executor appointed?  Might an executor be a legatee?

Probate, I think, as you say, there was none, but who inherited?
Still fantastic things were done in those times, but what would the
law have dictated?  Funny, too, that this is the only real difficulty
which bothers me in the course of my story.  As regards all else that
enters into the book I believe I know as much as one can without
being a Mommsen.  The senator owns property in Rome and elsewhere.  I
rather suppose it was a case of taking possession if you could, and
holding if no one interfered with you.  Wills of this date were
frequently set aside on the mere assertion of a powerful senator that
the testator had verbally expressed a wish to benefit him....  It is
a glorious age for the romancer."  As a full answer to this letter I
borrowed and sent to him Saunders' "Justinian," and received
typically exaggerated thanks.




CHAPTER XII

Now again he and I were but correspondents, and I do not think that
in those days when I had so much to do, and had also very bad health,
I was a very good correspondent.  Maitland, although he sometimes
apologised humorously, or even nervously, for writing at great
length, was an admirable letter writer.  He practised a lost art.
Sometimes he put into his letters very valuable sketches of people.
He did so both to me and to Rivers, and to others, and frequently
made sharply etched portraits of people whom he knew at St Pée.  He
had a curious habit of nicknaming everybody.  These nicknames were
perhaps not the highest form of art, nor were they even always
humorous, still it was a practice of his.  He had a peculiarly verbal
humor in these matters.  Never by any chance, unless he was
exceedingly serious, did he call any man by his actual name.  Rawson,
my most particular friend, whom he knew well, and whose books he
admired very much for their style, was always known as "The
Rawsonian," and I myself was referred to by a similarly formed name.
These are matters of no particular importance, but still they show
the man in his familiar moods and therefore have a kind of value--as
if one were to show a score of photographs or sketches that were
serious and then insert one where the wise man plays the child, or
even the fool.  There was not a person of any importance in St. Pée
d'Ascain, although nobody knew it, who did not rejoice in some absurd
nickname.

However he went further than mere nicknames, and there is in one
letter of his to Rivers a very admirable sketch of a certain
personage: "one of the most cantankerous men I ever came across;
fierce against the modern tendencies of science, especially in
England; an anti-Darwinite &c.  He rages against Huxley, accusing him
of having used his position for personal vanity and gain, and of
ruining the scientific and industrial prospects of England; charges
of the paltriest dishonesty against H. and other such men abound in
his conversation.  X., it seems, was one of the original students of
the Jermyn Street School of Mines, and his root grievance is the
transformation of that establishment--brought about, he declares, for
the personal profit of Huxley and of--the clerks of the War Office!
_You_, he regards as a most valuable demonstration of the evils
resulting from the last half-century of 'progress,' protesting loudly
that every one of your books is a bitter satire on Huxley, his
congeners, and his disciples.  The man tells me that no scientific
papers in England will print his writing, merely from personal
enmity.  He has also quarrelled with the scientific societies of
France, and now, being a polyglot, he writes for Spain and
Germany--the only two countries in Europe where scientific
impartiality is to be found."

In another letter of his he says: "By the bye, an English paper
states that Henley died worth something more than eight hundred
pounds."  One might imagine that he would then proceed to condole
with him on having had so little to leave, but that was not our
Maitland.  He went on: "Amazing!  How on earth did he amass that
wealth?  I am rejoiced to know that his latter years have been passed
without struggle for bread."

The long letter about the Roman Empire and Roman law from which I
quoted in the last chapter, was dated August 6, 1903, and I did not
hear again from Maitland until November 1.  I had written to him
proposing to pay another visit to the south-west of France in order
to see him in his Pyrenean home, but he replied very gloomily, saying
that he was in evil case, that Thérèse had laryngitis, and that
everything was made worse by incredibly bad weather.  The
workhouse--still the workhouse--was staring him in the face.  He had
to labour a certain number of hours each day in direly unfavourable
conditions.  If he did not finish his book at the end of the year
sheer pauperdom would come upon him.  In these circumstances I was to
see that he dreaded a visit from any friend, indeed he was afraid
that they would not be able to stay in St. Christophe on account of
its excessive dampness.  According to this pathetically exaggerated
account they lived in a thick mist day and night.  How on earth it
came to be thought that such a dreadful country was good for
consumptive people he could not imagine; though he owned, somewhat
grudgingly, that he himself had got a good deal of strength there.
He told me that as soon as the eternal rain ceased they were going
down to Bayonne to see a doctor, and if he did no good Thérèse would
go to the south of France.  Finally, he was hanged if he knew how it
would be managed.  He ended up with: "In short I have not often in my
life been nearer to an appalling crisis."  At the end of this dismal
letter, which did not affect me so much as might be thought, he spoke
to me of my book, "Rachel," and said: "I have been turning the pages
with great pleasure to keep my thoughts from the workhouse."

As I have hinted, those will have gathered very little of Maitland
who imagine that I took this _au pied de lettre_.  Maitland had cried
"Wolf!" so often, that I had almost ceased to believe that there were
wolves, even in the Pyrenees.  All things had gradually become
appalling crises and dreadful disasters.  A mere disturbance and an
actual catastrophe were alike dire and irremediable calamities.  And
yet, alas, there was more truth underlying his words than even he
knew.  If a man lives for ever in shadow the hour comes at last when
there is no more light; and even for those who look forward, one
would think with a certain relief, to the workhouse, there comes a
day that they shall work no more.  I smiled when I read this letter,
but, of course, telegraphed to him deferring my visit until the rain
had ceased, or laryngitis had departed from his house, or until his
spirits recovered their tone on the completion of his great romance.
One could do no other, much as I desired to see him and have one of
our prodigious and preposterously long talks in his new home.  I do
not think that I wrote to him after this lamentable reply of his, but
on November 16 I received my last communication from him.  It was
three lines on a post-card, still dated from St. Christophe.  He
referred in it once more to my book, and said: "Delighted to see the
advertisement in ------ to-day, especially after their very base
notice last week.  Hurrah!  Illness and struggle still going on
here."  The struggle I believed in, but, as ever with one's friends,
one doubted if the illness were serious.  And yet the catastrophe was
coming.

At this time I was myself seriously ill.  A chronic disease which had
not been diagnosed resulted in a more or less serious infection of my
own lungs, and, if I recollect truly, I had been in bed for nearly a
fortnight.  During the early days of my convalescence I went down to
my club, and there one afternoon got this telegram from Rivers: "Have
received following telegram from Maitland, 'Henry dying.  Entreat you
to come.  In greatest haste.'  I cannot go, can you?"  This message
to me was dated Folkestone, where Rivers was then living.  Now at
this time I was feeling very ill and utterly unfit to travel.  I
hardly knew what to do, but thought it best to go home and consult
with my wife before I replied to Rivers.  Anxious as she was to do
everything possible for Maitland, she implored me not to venture on
so long a journey, especially as it was mid-winter, just at
Christmas-time.  If I had not felt really ill she would not have
placed any obstacles in my path, of that I am sure.  She would,
indeed, have urged me to go.  After a little reflection I therefore
replied to Rivers that I was myself very ill, but added that if he
could not possibly go I would.  At the same time I telegraphed to
Maitland, or rather to Thérèse, saying that I was ill, but that I
would come if she found it absolutely necessary.  I do not think I
received any answer to this message, a fact one easily understands
when one learns how desperate things really were; but on December 26
I got another telegram from Rivers.  I found that he had gone to St.
Christophe in spite of not being well.  He wired to me: "No nurse.
Nursing help may save Maitland.  Come if possibly can.  Am here but
ill."  Such an appeal could not be resisted.  I went straight home,
and showing this telegram to my wife she agreed with me that I ought
to go.  If Rivers was ill at St. Christophe it now seemed my absolute
duty to go, whatever my own state of health.

I left London that night by the late train, crossing to Paris by way
of Newhaven and Dieppe in order that I might get at least three hours
of rest in a recumbent position in the steamer, as I did not at that
time feel justified in going all the way first class and taking a
sleeper.  I did manage to obtain some rest during the sea-passage,
but on reaching Paris early in the morning I felt exceedingly unwell,
and at the Gare St.-Lazare found at that hour no means of obtaining
even a cup of coffee.  I drove over to the Quai d'Orsay, and spent an
hour or two in the coffee-room waiting for the departure of the
express to Bordeaux.  Ill as I was, and full of anxiety about
Maitland, and now about Rivers, that journey was one long nightmare
to me.  I had not been able to take the Sud Express, and when at
last, late in the evening, I reached Bayonne, I found that the last
train to St. Christophe in its high Pyrenean valley had already gone
hours before my arrival.  While I was on my journey I had again
telegraphed from Morcenx to Rivers or to Thérèse asking them to
telegraph to me at the Hotel du Commerce, Bayonne, in case I was
unable to get on that night, as I had indeed feared, although I was
unable to get accurate information.  On reaching this hotel I found
waiting for me a telegram, which I have now lost, that was somehow
exceedingly obscure but yet portended disaster.  That I expected the
worst I know, for I telegraphed to my wife the news in code that
Maitland was dying and that the doctor gave no hope.

If I had been a rich man, or even moderately furnished with money on
that journey, I should have taken a motor-car if it could have been
obtained, and have gone on at once without waiting for the morning.
But now I was obliged to spend the night in that little old-fashioned
hotel in the old English city of Bayonne, the city whose fortress
bears the proud emblem "Nunquam polluta."  I wondered much if I
should yet see my old friend alive.  It was possible, and I hoped.
At any rate, he must know that I was coming and was near at hand if
only he were yet conscious.  How much I was needed I did not know
till afterwards, for even as I was going south Rivers was once more
returning to Paris on his homeward journey.  As I learnt afterwards,
he was far too unwell to stay.  In the morning I took the first train
to St. Christophe, passing Cambo, where Rostand, the poet, makes his
home.  On reaching the town where Maitland lived I found no one
waiting for me as I had expected; for, naturally enough, I thought it
possible that unless Rivers were very ill he would be able to meet
me.  It was a cold and gloomy morning when I left the station.
Taking my bag in my hand, I hired a small boy to show me the house in
which Maitland lived on the outskirts of the little Pyrenean town.
This house, it seems, was let in flats, and the Maitlands occupied
the first floor.  On entering the hall I found a servant washing down
the stone flooring.  I said to her, "Comment Monsieur se porte-t-il?"
and she replied, "Monsieur est mort."  I then asked her where I
should find the other Englishman.  She answered that he had gone back
to England the day before, and then took me upstairs and went in to
tell Thérèse that I had come.

I found her with her mother.  She was the only woman who had given
him any happiness.  Now she was completely broken down by the anxiety
and distress which had come upon her so suddenly.  For indeed it
seems that it had been sudden.  Only four or five days ago Maitland
had been working hard upon "Basil," the book from which he hoped so
much, and in which he believed so fervently.  Then it seems that he
developed what he called a cold, some slight affection of the lungs
which raised his temperature a little.  Strangely enough he did not
take the care of himself that he should have taken, or that care
which I should have expected him to use, considering his curiously
expressed nervousness about himself.  By some odd fatality he became
suddenly courageous at the wrong time, and went out for a walk in
desperately bad weather.  On the following day he was obviously very
seriously ill, and sent for the doctor, who suspended judgment but
feared that he had pneumonia.  On the day succeeding this yet another
doctor was called into consultation, and the diagnosis of pneumonia
was confirmed without any doubt.  But that was not, perhaps, what
actually killed him.  There was a very serious complication,
according to Maitland's first physician, with whom I afterwards had a
long conversation, partly through the intermediary of the nurse, an
Englishwoman from Bayonne, who talked French more fluently than
myself.  He considered that Maitland also had myocarditis.  I
certainly did not think, and do not think, that he was right in this.
Myocarditis is rarely accompanied with much or severe pain, while the
anguish of violent pericarditis is often very great, and Maitland had
suffered most atrociously.  He was not now a strong man, not one with
big reserves and powers of passive endurance, and in his agony he
cried aloud for death.

In these agonies there were periods of comparative ease when he
rested and was quiet, and even spoke a little.  In one of these
intermissions Thérèse came to him and told him that I was now
actually on my way.  There is no reason, I think, why I should not
write what he said.  It was simply, "Good old H----."  By this time
Rivers had gone; but before his departure he had, I understand,
procured the nurse.  The last struggle came early that morning,
December 28, while I was at the Bayonne hotel preparing to catch the
early train.  He died quietly just before dawn, I think at six
o'clock.

I was taken in to see Thérèse, who was still in bed, and found her
mother with her.  They were two desolate and lonely women, and I had
some fears that Thérèse would hardly recover from the blow, so deeply
did his death affect her.  She was always a delicate woman, and came
from a delicate, neurotic stock, as one could see so plainly in the
elder woman.  I did my best to say what one could say, though all
that can possibly be said in such cases is nothing after all.  There
is no physic for grief but the slow, inevitable years.  I stayed not
long, but went into the other chamber and saw my dead friend.  The
bed on which he lay stood in a little alcove at the end of the room
farthest from the window.  I remember that the nurse, who behaved
most considerately to me, stood by the window while I said farewell
to him.  He looked strangely and peculiarly intellectual, as so often
happens after death.  The final relaxation of the muscles about his
chin and mouth accentuated most markedly the strong form of the
actual skull.  Curiously enough, as he had grown a little beard in
his last illness, it seemed to me that he resembled very strongly
another English writer not yet dead, one whom nature had, indeed,
marked out as a story-teller, but who lacked all those qualities
which made Maitland what he was.  As I stood by this dead-bed
knowing, as I did know, that he had died at last in the strange
anguish which I was aware he had feared, it seemed to me that here
was a man who had been born to inherit grief.  He had never known
pure peace or utter joy as even some of the very humblest know it.  I
looked back across the toilsome path by which he had come hither to
the end, and it seemed to me that from the very first he had been
doomed.  In other times or some other age he might have had a better
fate, but he was born out of his time and died in exile doubly.  I
put my hand upon his forehead and said farewell to him and left the
room, for I knew that there was much to do and that in some way I had
to do it.

Thérèse was most anxious that he should not be buried in St.
Christophe, of which she had conceived a natural horror.  There was
at this time an English clergyman in the village, the chaplain of the
English church at St. Pée, about whom I shall have something to say
later.  With him I concerted what was to be done, and he obtained the
necessary papers from the _mairie_.  And all this time, across the
road from the stone house in which Henry Maitland lay dead, I heard
the sound of his coffin being made in the little carpenter's shop
which stood there.  When all was done that could be done, and
everything was in order, I went to the little hotel and had my lunch
all alone, and afterwards dined alone and slept that night in the
same hotel.  The next day, late in the afternoon, I went down to St.
Pée d'Ascain in charge of his body.  During this journey the young
doctor who had attended Maitland accompanied me part of the way, and
for the rest of it his nurse was my companion.  At St. Pée d'Ascain,
where it was then quite dark, we were received by the clergyman, who
had preceded us, and by a hearse, into which we carried Maitland's
body.  I accompanied it to the English chapel, where it remained all
night before the altar.  I slept at my old hotel, where I was known,
as I had stayed there at the time I last saw Maitland alive.

In the morning a service was held for him according to the rites of
the English Church.  This was the desire of Thérèse and Madame
Espinel, who, if it had been possible, I think would have desired to
bury him according to the rites of the Catholic Church.  Maitland, of
course, had no orthodox belief.  He refused to think of these things,
for they were disturbing and led no-whither.  Attending this service
there were many English people, some who knew him, and some again who
did not know him but went there out of respect for his name and
reputation, and perhaps because they felt that they and he were alike
in exile.  We buried him in the common cemetery of St. Pée, a place
not unbeautiful, nor unbeautifully situated.  And while the service
went on over his grave I was somehow reminded of the lovely cemetery
at Lisbon where another English man of letters lies in a tomb far
from his own country.  I speak of Fielding.

I left Thérèse and Madame Espinel still at St. Christophe, and did
not see them again before I started for England.  They, I knew, would
probably return to Paris, or perhaps would go to relatives of theirs
in Spain.  I could help them no more, and by now I discovered that my
winter journey, or perhaps even my short visit to the death-chamber
of Henry Maitland, had given me some kind of pulmonary catarrh which
in my overwrought and nervous state seemed likely, perhaps, to result
in something more serious.  Therefore, having done all that I could,
and having seen him put in the earth, I returned home hurriedly.  On
reaching England I was very ill for many days, but recovered without
any serious results.  Soon afterwards some one, I know not who it
was, sent me a paragraph published in a religious paper which claimed
Maitland as a disciple of the Church, for it said that he had died
"in the fear of God's holy name, and with the comfort and strength of
the Catholic faith."  When some men die there are for ever crows and
vultures about.  Although I was very loath to say anything which
would raise an angry discussion, I felt that this could not be passed
by and that he would not have wished it to be passed by.  Had he not
written of a certain character in one of his books "that he should be
buried as a son of the Church, to whom he had never belonged, was a
matter of indignation"?  That others felt as I did is proved by a
letter I got from his friend Edmund Roden, who wrote to me: "You have
seen the report that the ecclesiastical buzzards have got hold of
Henry Maitland in articulo mortis and dragged him into the fold."

My own views upon religion did not matter.  They were stronger and
more pronounced, and, it may be, more atheistical than his own.
Nevertheless I knew what he felt about these things, and in
consequence wrote the following letter to the editor of the paper
which had claimed him for the Church: "My attention has been drawn to
a statement in your columns that Henry Maitland died in communion
with the Church of England, and I shall be much obliged if you will
give to this contradiction the same publicity you granted, without
investigation, to the calumny.  I was intimate with Maitland for
thirty years, and had every opportunity of noting his attitude
towards all theological speculation.  He not only accepted none of
the dogmas formulated in the creeds and articles of the Church of
England, but he considered it impossible that any Church's definition
of the undefinable could have any significance for any intelligent
man.  During the whole of our long intimacy I never knew him to waver
from that point of view.

"What communication may have reached you from any one who visited
Maitland during his illness I do not know.  But I presume you do not
maintain that a change in his theological standpoint can reasonably
be inferred from any words which he may have been induced to speak in
a condition in which, according to the law of every civilised
country, he would have been incompetent to sign a codicil to his will.

"The attempt to draw such a deduction will seem dishonest to every
fair-minded man; and I rely upon your courtesy to publish this
vindication of the memory of an honest and consistent thinker which
you have, however unintentionally, aspersed."

Of course this letter was refused publication.  The editor answered
it in a note in which he maintained the position that the paper had
taken up, stating that he was thoroughly satisfied with the sources
of his information.  Naturally enough I knew what those sources were,
and I wrote a letter in anger to the chaplain of St. Pée, which, I
fear, was full of very gross insults.

Seeing that the paper refused my letter admission to its columns, on
the advice of certain other people I wrote to a London daily saying:
"As the intimate friend of Henry Maitland for thirty years, I beg to
state definitely that he had not the slightest intellectual sympathy
with any creed whatsoever.  From his early youth he had none, save
for a short period when, for reasons other than intellectual, he
inclined to a vague and nebulous Positivism.  His mental attitude
towards all theological explanations was more than critical, it was
absolutely indifferent; he could hardly understand how any one in the
full possession of his faculties could subscribe to any formulated
doctrines.  No more than John Stuart Mill or Herbert Spencer could he
have entered into communion with any Church."

Of course I knew, as any man must know who is acquainted with
humanity and its frailties, that it was possible for Maitland, during
the last few poisoned hours of his life, to have gone back in his
delirium upon the whole of his previous convictions.  He knew that he
was dying.  When he asked to know the truth he had been told it.  In
such circumstances some men break down.  There are what people call
death-bed repentances.  Therefore I did my best to satisfy myself as
to whether anything whatever had occurred which would give any colour
to these theologic lies.  I could not trouble Thérèse upon this
particular point, but it occurred to me that the nurse, who was a
very intelligent woman, must be in a position to know something of
the matter, and I therefore wrote to her asking her to tell me all
she knew.  She replied to me about the middle of January, telling me
that she had just then had a long talk with Mrs. Maitland, and giving
me the following facts.

It appears that on Monday, December 21, Maitland was so ill that a
consultation was thought necessary, and that both the doctors agreed
that it was impossible for the patient to live through the night,
though in fact he did not die till nearly a week afterwards.  On
Thursday, December 24, the chaplain was sent for, not for any
religious reasons, or because Maitland had called for him, but simply
because Thérèse thought that he might find some pleasure in seeing an
English face.  When the clergyman came it did indeed have this
effect, for Maitland's face lit up and he shook him heartily by the
hand.  At this moment the young doctor came in and told the clergyman
privately that Maitland had no chance whatever, and that it was a
wonder that he was still alive.  It is quite certain that there was
no religious conversation between the clergyman and the patient at
this time.  The nurse arrived at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning,
and insisted on absolute quietness in the room.  The clergyman simply
peeped in at the door to say good-bye, for at that time Mr. Rivers
was in charge in the bedroom.

The chaplain did not see Maitland again until the day I myself came
to St. Christophe, when all was over.  While Maitland was delirious
it appears that he chanted some kind of _Te Deum_ repeatedly.  To
what this was attributable no man can say with certainty, but it is a
curious thing to reflect upon that "Basil" was about the time of
Gregory, and that Maitland had been studying most minutely the
history of the early Church in many ecclesiastical works.  According
to those who heard his delirious talk, it seems that all he did say
had reference to "Basil," the book about which he had been so
anxious, and was never to finish.  At any rate it is absolutely
certain that Maitland never accepted the offices of the Church before
his death, even in delirium.  Before I leave this matter I may
mention that the chaplain complicated matters in no small degree
before he retired from the scene, by declaring most disingenuously
that he had not written the notice which appeared in print.  Now this
was perfectly true.  He did not write it.  He had asked a friend of
his to do so.  When he learnt the truth this friend very much
regretted having undertaken the task.  I understand that though the
editor refused to withdraw this statement the authorities of the
paper wrote to the chaplain in no pleased spirit after they had
received my somewhat severely phrased communication.  It is a sad and
disagreeable subject, and I am glad to leave it.




CHAPTER XIII

For ever on looking backwards one is filled with regrets, and one
thing I regret greatly about Henry Maitland is that, though I might
perhaps have purchased his little library, the books he had
accumulated with so much joy and such self-sacrifice, I never thought
of this until it was too late.  Books made up so much of his life,
and few of his had not been bought at the cost of what others would
consider pleasure, or by the sacrifice of some sensation which he
himself would have enjoyed at the time.  Now I possess none of his
books but those he gave me, save only the little "Anthologia Latina"
which Thérèse herself sent to me.  This was a volume in which he took
peculiar delight, perhaps even more delight than he did in the Greek
anthology, which I myself preferred so far as my Greek would then
carry me.  Many times I have seen him take down the little Eton
anthology and read aloud.  Now I myself may quote:

  _Animula vagula, blandula,
  Hospes comesque corporis,
  Qua nunc abibis in loca
  Pallidula, rigida, nudula----_


I believe his library was sold in Paris, for now that Thérèse had no
settled home it was impossible to carry it about with her.  Among
these books were all those beautifully bound volumes which he had
obtained as prizes at Moorhampton College, and others which he had
picked up at various times in the various bookshops of London, so
many of which he speaks of in "The Meditations"--his old Gibbon in
quarto, and some hundreds of others chosen with joy because they
appealed to him in a way only a book-lover can understand.  He had a
strange pleasure in buying old copies of the classics, which shows
that he was perhaps after all more of a bookman than a scholar.  He
would perhaps have rather possessed such a copy of Lucretius as is on
my own shelves, which has no notes but is wonderfully printed, than
the newest edition by the newest editor.  He was conscious that his
chief desire was literature rather than scholarship.  Few indeed
there are who know the classics as well as he did, who read them for
ever with so much delight.

Maitland, for an Englishman, knew many languages.  His Greek, though
not extraordinarily deep, was most familiar.  He could read
Aristophanes lying on the sofa, thoroughly enjoying it, and rarely
rising to consult Liddell and Scott, a book which he adored in the
most odd fashion, perhaps because it knew so much Greek.  There was
no Latin author whom he could not read fluently.  I myself frequently
took him up a difficult passage in Juvenal and Persius, and rarely,
if ever, found him at fault, or slow to give me help.  French he knew
very nearly as well as a Frenchman, and spoke it very fluently.  His
Italian was also very good, and he spoke that too without hesitation.
Spanish he only read; I do not think he often attempted to speak it.
Nevertheless he read "Don Quixote" in the original; and his Italian
can be judged by the fact that he read Dante's "Divina Commedia"
almost as easily as he read his Virgil.  German too was an open book
to him, and he had read most of the great men who wrote in it,
understanding even the obscurities of "Titan."  I marked down the
other day many of the books in which he chiefly delighted, or rather,
let me say, many of the authors.  Homer, of course, stood at the head
of the list, for Homer he knew as well as he knew Shakespeare.  His
adoration for Shakespeare was, indeed, I think, excessive, but the
less said of that the better, for I have no desire to express fully
what I think concerning the general English over-estimation of that
particular author.  I do, however, understand how it was that
Maitland worshipped him so, for whatever may be thought of
Shakespeare's dramatic ability, or his characterisation, or his
general psychology, there can be no dispute about his having been a
master of "beautiful words."  Milton he loved marvellously, and
sometimes he read his sonnets to me.  Much of "Lycidas" he knew by
heart, and some of "Il Penseroso."  Among the Latins, Virgil,
Catullus, and Tibullus were his favourites, although he took a
curious interest in Cicero, a thing in which I was never able to
follow him.  I once showed to Maitland in the "Tusculan Disputations"
what Cicero seemed to think a good joke.  It betrayed such an
extraordinary lack of humour that I was satisfied to leave the
"Disputations" alone henceforth.  The only Latin book which I myself
introduced to Maitland was the "Letters" of Pliny.  They afterwards
became great favourites with him because some of them dealt with his
beloved Naples and Vesuvius.  Lucian's "Dialogues" he admired very
much, finding them, as indeed they are, always delightful; and it was
very interesting to him when I showed him to what extent Disraeli was
indebted to Lucian in those clever _jeux d'esprit_ "Ixion in Heaven,"
"Popanilla," and "The Infernal Marriage."  The "Golden Ass" of
Apuleius he knew almost by heart.  Petronius he read very frequently;
it contained some of the actual life of the old world.  He knew
Diogenes Laertius very well, though he read that author, as Montaigne
did, rather for the light he throws upon the private life of the
Greeks than for the philosophy in the book; and he frequently dipped
into Athenæus the Deipnosophist.  Occasionally, but very
occasionally, he did read some ancient metaphysics, for Plato was a
favourite of his--not, I think, on account of his philosophy, but
because he wrote so beautifully.  Aristotle he rarely touched,
although he knew the "Poetics."  He had a peculiar admiration for the
Stoic Marcus Aurelius, in which I never followed him because the
Stoic philosophy is so peculiarly inhuman.  But, after all, among the
Greeks his chief joy was the tragedians, and there was no single play
or fragment of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides that he did not
know almost by heart.  Among the Frenchmen his great favourites were
Rabelais and Montaigne and, later, Flaubert, Maupassant, Victor Hugo,
Zola, Balzac, and the Goncourts.  As I have said before, he had a
great admiration for the Russian writers of eminence, and much
regretted that he did not know Russian.  He once even attempted it,
but put it aside.  I think Balzac was the only writer of importance
that he read much of who did not possess a style; he owned that he
found him on that account at times almost impossible to read.
Nevertheless he did read him, and learnt much from him; but his chief
admiration among the French on the ground of their being artists was
for Flaubert and Maupassant.  Zola's style did not appeal to him; in
fact in many of his books it is little better than Balzac's.
Maitland's love of beautiful words and the rhythms of prose was as
deep as that of Meredith; and as I have said, his adoration of
Shakespeare was founded on the fact that Shakespeare still remains
the great enchanter in the world of phrases.  He read English very
deeply.  There was little among the fields of English prose that he
did not know well; but again he loved best those who had a noble
style of their own, notably Sir Thomas Browne.  If a man had
something to say and did not say it well, Maitland read him with
difficulty and held him at a discount.  That is why he loved Landor
at his best, why he loved Meredith, and why he often adored Hardy,
especially in Hardy's earlier works, before he began to "rail at the
universe" and disturb him.  I think among other living writers of
English fiction I can hardly mention more than one of whom he spoke
with much respect, and he was Henry James.  As he was a conservative
he was especially a conservative critic.  He found it difficult to
appreciate anything which was wholly new, and the rising school of
Celtic literature, which means much, and may mean more, in English
literature, did not appeal to him greatly.  He lived in the past,
even in English, and often went back to Chaucer and drank at his well
and at the everlasting fountain of Malory.  So, as I have said, he
loved old Walton.  Boswell he read yearly at least, for he had an
amazing admiration for old Johnson, a notable truth-teller.  The man
who could say what he thought, and say it plainly, was ever his
favourite, although I could never induce him to admire Machiavelli,
for the coldness of Machiavelli's intellect was a little too much for
him.  The pure intellect never appealed to Maitland.  I think if he
had attempted "The Critique of Pure Reason" he would have died before
he had learnt Kant's vocabulary.  Yet I once gave him a copy of it in
the original.  The only very modern writer that he took to was Walt
Whitman, and the trouble I had in getting him to see anything in him
was amazing, though at last he succumbed and was characteristically
enthusiastic.

What he wanted in literature was emotion, feeling, and
humour--literature that affected him sensuously, and made him happy,
and made him forget.  For it is strange when one looks back at his
books to think how much he loved pure beauty, though he found himself
compelled to write, only too often, of the sheer brutality of modern
civilisation and the foulest life of London.  Of course he loved
satire, and his own mind was essentially in some ways satiric.  His
greatest gift was perhaps that of irony, which he frequently
exercised at the expense of his public.  I remember very well his joy
when something he had written which was ironically intended from the
first word to the last was treated seriously by the critics.  He was
reminded, as he indeed reminded me, of Samuel Butler's "Fairhaven,"
that book on Christianity which was reviewed by one great religious
paper as an essay in religious apologetics.  This recalls to my mind
the fact that I have forgotten to say how much he loved Samuel
Butler's books, or those with which he was more particularly
acquainted, "Erewhon" and "Erewhon Revisited."  Anything which dug
knives into the gross stupidity of the mass of English opinion
afforded him the intensest gratification.  If it attacked their
religion or their vanity he was equally delighted, and when it came
to their hypocrisy--in spite of the defence he made later in "The
Meditations" of English hypocrisy--he was equally pleased.  In this
connection I am reminded of a very little thing of no particular
importance which occurred to him when he was upon one occasion at the
Royal Academy.  That year Sir Frederick Leighton exhibited a very
fine decorative panel of a nude figure.  While Maitland was looking
at it a typical English matron with three young flappers of daughters
passed him.  One of the girls stood in front of this nude and said,
"Oh, mamma, what is this?"  Whereupon her mother replied hurriedly,
"Only a goddess, my dear, only a goddess!  Come along,--only a
goddess."  And he quoted to himself and afterwards to me, from "Roman
Women": "And yet I love you not, nor ever can, Distinguished woman on
the Pincian!"  If I remember rightly, the notable address to
Englishwomen in T.E. Brown's poem was published separately in a
magazine which I brought to him.  It gave great occasion for
chuckling.

I have not attempted to give any far-reaching notion of all
Maitland's reading, but I think what I have said will indicate not
unfairly what its reach was.  What he desired was to read the best
that had been written in all western languages; and I think, indeed,
that very few men have read so much, although he made, in some ways,
but little use of it.  Nevertheless this life among books was his
true life.  Among books he lived, and among them he would have died.
Had any globe-trotting Gillman offered to show him the world, he
would have declined, I think, to leave the littoral of the
Mediterranean, though with a book-loving Gillman he might have
explored all literature.




CHAPTER XIV

There have been few men so persecuted by Fortune as to lead lives of
unhappiness, lighted only by transient gleams of the sun, who are yet
pursued beyond the grave by outcries and misfortune, but this was
undoubtedly the case with Maitland.  Of course he always had notable
ill luck, as men might say and indeed do say, but his ill luck sprang
from his nature as well as from the nature of things.  When a man
puts himself into circumstances to which he is equal he may have
misfortunes, or sometimes disasters, but he has not perpetual
adversity.  Maitland's nature was for ever thrusting him into
positions to which he was not equal.  His disposition, his very
heredity, seems to have invited trouble.  So out of his first great
disaster sprang all the rest.  He had not been equal to the stress
laid upon him, and in later life he was never equal to the stress he
laid upon himself.  This is what ill luck is.  It is an instinctive
lack of wisdom.  I think I said some chapters ago that I had not
entirely disposed of the question of his health.  I return to the
subject with some reluctance.  Nevertheless I think what I have to
say should be said.  It at any rate curiously links the last days of
Maitland's life to the earlier times of his trouble, or so it will
seem to physicians.  I shall do no more than quote a few lines from a
letter which he wrote to Lake.  He says: "You remember that patch of
skin disease on my forehead?  Nothing would touch it; it had lasted
for more than two years, and was steadily extending itself.  At last
a fortnight ago I was advised to try iodide of potassium.
Result--perfect cure after week's treatment!  I had resigned myself
to being disfigured for the rest of my life; the rapidity of the cure
is extraordinary.  I am thinking of substituting iodide of potassium
for coffee at breakfast and wine at the other meals.  I am also
meditating a poem in its praise--which may perhaps appear in the
_Fortnightly Review_." Dr. Lake replied to these dithyrambs with a
letter which Maitland did not answer.  There is no need to comment
upon this more particularly; it will at any rate be clear to those
who are not uninstructed in medicine.

His ill luck began early.  It lasted even beyond the grave.  Some men
have accounted it a calamity to have a biography written of them.
The first who said so must have been English, for in this country the
absence of biographic art is rendered the more peculiarly dreadful by
the existence in our language of one or two masterpieces.  In some
ways I would very willingly cease to speak now, for I have written
nearly all that I had in my mind, and I know that I have spoken
nothing which would really hurt him.  As I have said in the very
first chapter, he had an earnest desire that if anything were written
about him after his death it should be something true.  Still there
are some things yet to be put down, especially about "Basil" and its
publication.  He left this book unfinished: it still lacked some few
chapters which would have dealt with the final catastrophe.  It fell
to the executors to arrange for the publication of the incomplete
book.  As Maitland had left no money, certainly not that two thousand
pounds which he vainly hoped for, there were still his children to
consider; and it was thought necessary, for reasons I do not
appreciate, to get a preface written for the book with a view, which
seemed to me idle, of procuring it a great sale.

It appears that Rivers offered to write this preface if it were
wanted.  What he wrote was afterwards published.  The executors did
not approve it, again for reasons which I do not appreciate, for I
think that it was on the whole a very admirable piece of work.  Yet I
do not believe Rivers was sincere in the view he took of "Basil" as a
work of art.  In later years he acknowledged as much to me, but he
thought it was his duty to say everything that could possibly be said
with a view of imposing it on a reluctant public.  The passage in
this article mainly objected to was that which speaks obscurely of
his early life at Moorhampton College and refers as obscurely to his
initial great disaster.  The reference was needed, and could hardly
be avoided.  Rivers said nothing openly but referred to "an abrupt
incongruous reaction and collapse."  This no doubt excited certain
curiosities in certain people, but seeing that so many already knew
the truth, I cannot perceive what was to be gained by entire silence.
However, this preface was rejected and Mr. Harold Edgeworth was asked
to write another.  This he did, but it was a frigid performance.  The
writer acknowledged his ignorance of much that Maitland had written,
and avowed his want of sympathy with most of it.

Naturally enough, the trouble growing out of this dispute gave rise
to considerable comment.  As some theological buzzards had dropped
out of a murky sky upon Maitland's corpse, so some literary kites now
found a subject to gloat upon.  Nevertheless the matter presently
passed.  "Basil," unhappily, was no success; and if one must speak
the truth, it was rightly a failure.  It is curious and bitter to
think of that when he was dealing at the last in some kind of peace
and quiet with his one chosen subject, that he had thought of for so
many years and prepared for so carefully, it should by no means have
proved what he believed it.  There is, indeed, no such proof as
"Basil" in the whole history of letters that the writer was not doing
the work that his nature called for.  Who that knows "Magna Graecia,"
and who, indeed, that ever spoke with him, will not feel that if he
had visited one by one all the places that he mentions in the book,
and had written about them and about the historical characters that
he hoped to realise, the book might have been as great or even
greater than the shining pages of "Magna Graecia"?  It was in the
consideration of these things, while reviving the aspects of the past
that he felt so deeply and loved so much, that his native and natural
genius came out.  In fiction it was only when rage and anger and
disgust inspired him that he could hope to equal anything of the
passion which he felt about his temperamental and proper work.  Those
books in which he let himself go perfectly naturally, and those books
which came out of him as a terrible protest against modern
civilisation, are alone great.  Yet it is hard to speak without
emotion and without pain of "Basil."  He believed in it so greatly,
and yet believed in it no more than any writer must while he is at
work.  The artist's own illusion of a book's strength and beauty is
necessary to any accomplishment.  He must believe with faith or do
nothing.  Maitland failed because it was not his real work.

In one sense the great books of his middle period were what writers
and artists know as "pot-boilers."  They were, indeed, written for an
actual living, for bread and for cheese and occasionally a very
little butter.  But they had to be written.  He was obliged to do
something, and did these best; he could do no other.  He was always
in exile.  That was the point in my mind when I wrote one long
article about him in a promising but passing magazine which preened
its wings in Bond Street and died before the end of its first month.
This article I called "The Exile of Henry Maitland."  There is
something of the same feeling in much that has been written of him by
men perhaps qualified in many ways better than myself had they known
him as well as I did.  I have, I believe, spoken of the able
criticism Thomas Sackville wrote of him in the foreword of the book
of short stories which was published after Maitland's death.  In the
_Fortnightly Review_ Edwin Warren wrote a feeling and sympathetic
article about him.  Jacob Levy wrote not without discernment of the
man.  And of one thing all these men seemed tolerably sure, that in
himself Maitland stood alone.  But he only stood alone, I think, in
the best work of his middle period.  And even that work was alien
from his native mind.

In an early article written about him while he yet lived I said that
he stood in a high and solitary place, because he belonged to no
school, and most certainly not to any English school.  No one could
imitate, and no one could truly even caricature him.  The essence of
his best work was that it was founded on deep and accurate knowledge
and keen observation.  Its power lay in a bent, in a mood of mind,
not by any means in any subject, even though his satiric discussion
of what he called the "ignobly decent" showed his strength, and
indirectly his inner character.  His very repugnance to his early
subjects led him to choose them.  He showed what he wished the world
to be by declaring and proving that it possessed every conceivable
opposite to his desires.  I pointed out some time ago, but should
like to insist upon it again, that in one sense he showed an
instinctive affinity for the lucid and subtle Tourgeniev.  There is
no more intensely depressing book in the entire English language than
"Isabel."  The hero's desires reached to the stars, but he was not
able to steal or take so much as a farthing rushlight.  Not even
Demetri Roudine, that futile essence of futility, equals this,
Maitland's literary child of bitter, unable ambitions.  These
Russians indeed were the writers with whom Maitland had most
sympathy.  They moved what Zola had never been able to stir in him,
for he was never a Zolaist, either in mind or method.  No man without
a style could really influence him for more than a moment.  Even his
beloved Balzac, fecund and insatiable, had no lasting hold upon him,
much as he admired the man's ambitions, his unparalleled industry,
his mighty construction.  For Balzac was truly architectonic, even if
barbarous, and though these constructions of his are often imaginary
and his perspectives a mystery.  But great construction is obviously
alien from Maitland.  He wanted no elaborate architecture to do his
thinking in.  He would have been contented in a porch, or preferably
in a cloister.

I have declared that his greatest book is "The Exile"--I mean his
greatest book among his novels.  To say it is a masterpiece is for
once not to abuse the word; for it is intense, deeply psychological,
moving, true.  "_L'anatomia presuppone il cadavere_," says Gabriele
D'Annunzio, but "The Exile" is intolerable and wonderful vivisection.
Yet men do bleed and live, and the protagonist in this book--in much,
in very much, Henry Maitland--bleeds but will not die.  He was born
out of the leisured classes and resented it with an incredible
bitterness, with a bitterness unparalleled in literature.  I know
that on one occasion Maitland spoke to me with a certain joy of
somebody who had written to him about his books and had selected "The
Exile" as the greatest of them.  I think he knew it was great.  It
was, of course, an ineffable failure from the commercial point of
view.

On more than one occasion, as it was known that I was acquainted with
Maitland, men asked me to write about him.  I never did so without
asking his permission to do it.  This happened once in 1895.  He
answered me: "What objection could I possibly have, unless it were
that I should not like to hear you reviled for log-rolling?  But it
seems to me that you might well write an article which would incur no
such charge; and indeed, by so doing, you would render me a very
great service.  For I have in mind at present a careful and
well-written attack in the current _Spectator_.  Have you seen it?
Now I will tell you what my feelings are about this frequent attitude
in my critics."

Maitland's views upon critics and reviewing were often somewhat
astounding.  He resented their folly very bitterly.  Naturally
enough, we often spoke of reviewers, for both of us, in a sense, had
some grievances.  Mine, however, were not bitter.  Luckily for me, I
sometimes did work which appealed more to the general, while his
appeal was always to the particular.  Apropos of a review of one of
Rivers' books he says: "I have also, unfortunately, seen the ----.
Now, can you tell me (in moments of extreme idleness one wishes to
know such things) who the people are who review fiction for the ----?
Are they women, soured by celibacy, and by ineffectual attempts to
succeed as authors?  Even as they treat you this time they have
consistently treated me--one continuous snarl and sneer.  They are
beastly creatures--I can think of no other term."

It was unfortunate that he took these things so seriously, for nobody
knows so well as the reviewers that their work is not serious.  Yet,
according to them the general effect of Maitland's books, especially
"Jubilee," was false, misleading, and libellous; and was in essence
caricature.  One particular critic spoke of "the brutish stupefaction
of his men and women," and said, "his realism inheres only in his
rendering of detail."  Now Maitland declared that the writer
exhibited a twofold ignorance--first of the life he depicted, and
again of the books in which he depicted it.  Maitland went on to say:
"He--the critic--speaks specially of 'Jubilee,' so for the moment we
will stick to that.  I have selected from the great mass of lower
middle-class life a group of people who represent certain of its
grossnesses, weaknesses, &c., peculiar to our day.  Now in the first
place, this group of people, on its worst side, represents a
degradation of which the critic has obviously no idea.  In the second
place, my book, if properly read, contains abundant evidence of good
feeling and right thinking in those members of the group who are not
hopelessly base.  Pass to instances: 'The seniors live a ... life
unglorified by a single fine emotion or elevating instinct.'  Indeed?
What about Mr. Ward, who is there precisely to show that there can
be, and are, these emotions and instincts in individuals?  Of the
young people (to say not a word about Nancy, at heart an admirable
woman), how is it possible to miss the notes of fine character in
poor Halley?  Is not the passionate love of one's child an 'elevating
instinct'? nor yet a fine emotion?  Why, even Nancy's brother shows
at the end that favourable circumstances could bring out in him
gentleness and goodness."

There indeed spoke Maitland.  He felt that everything was
circumstance, and that for nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a
thousand circumstance was truly too much, as it had been for him.  It
appears that the critic added that the general effect of the book was
false; and Maitland replied that it would be so to a very rapid
skimmer of the book, precisely as the general effect upon a rapid
observer of the people themselves would be false.  He was enraged to
think that though people thought it worth while to write at length
about his books, they would not take the trouble to study them
seriously.  He added: "In this section of the lower middle class the
good is not on the surface; neither will it be found on the surface
of my narrative."

In this letter he went on to say something more of his books in
general.  Apropos of a paragraph written by Mr. Glass about his work
as a whole, he said: "My books deal with people of many social
strata; there are the vile working class, the aspiring and capable
working class, the vile lower middle, the aspiring and capable lower
middle, and a few representatives of the upper middle class.  My
characters range from the vileness of 'Arry Parson to the genial and
cultured respectability of Mr. Comberbatch.  There are books as
disparate as 'The Under World' and 'The Unchosen.'  But what I desire
to insist upon is this, that the most characteristic, the most
important, part of my work is that which deals with a class of young
men distinctive of our time--well-educated, fairly bred, _but without
money_.  It is this fact, as I gather from reviews and conversation,
of the poverty of my people which tells against their recognition as
civilised beings.  'Oh,' said some one to Butler, 'do ask Mr.
Maitland to make his people a little better off.'  There you have it."

And there one has also the source of Maitland's fountain of
bitterness.  He went on to say: "Now think of some of these young
men, Hendon, Gifford, Medwin, Pick, Early, Hillward, Mallow.  Do you
mean to say that books containing such a number of such men deal,
first and foremost, with the commonplace and the sordid?  Why, these
fellows are the very reverse of commonplace; most of them are
martyred by the fact of possessing uncommon endowments.  Is it not
so?  This side of my work, to me the most important, I have never yet
seen recognised.  I suppose Glass would class these men as 'at best
genteel, and not so very genteel.'  Why, 'ods bodikins! there's
nothing in the world so hateful to them as gentility.  But you know
all this, and can you not write of it rather trenchantly?  I say
nothing about my women.  That is a moot point.  But surely there are
some of them who help to give colour to the groups I draw."  The end
of the letter was: "I write with a numbed hand.  I haven't been warm
for weeks.  This weather crushes me.  Let me have a line about this
letter."

The sort of poverty which crushed the aspiring is the keynote to the
best work he did.  He knew it, and was right in knowing it.  He
played all these parts himself.  In many protean forms Maitland
himself is discerned under the colour and character of his chosen
names; and so far as he depicted a class hitherto untouched, or
practically untouched, in England, as he declares, he was a great
writer of fiction.  But he was not a romantic writer.  There were
some books of romance he loved greatly.  We often and often spoke of
Murger's "Vie de Bohème."  I do not think there was any passage in
that book which so appealed to him as when Rodolphe worked in his
adventitious fur-coat in his windy garret, declaring genially:
"Maintenant le thermomètre va être furieusement vexé."  Nevertheless,
as I have said before, he knew, and few knew so well, the very bitter
truth that Murger only vaguely indicated here and there in scattered
passages.  In the "Vie de Bohème" these characters "range" themselves
at last; but mostly such men did not.  They went under, they died in
the hospital, they poisoned themselves, they blew out their brains,
they sank and became degraded parasites of an uncomprehending
bourgeoisie.

I spoke some time back of the painful hour when Maitland came to me
to declare his considered opinion that I myself could not write
successful fiction.  It is an odd thing that I never returned the
compliment in any way, for though I knew he could, and did, write
great fiction, I knew his best work would not have been fiction in
other circumstances.  Out of martyrdom may come great things, but not
out of martyrdom spring the natural blossoms of the natural mind.
That he lived in the devil's twilight between the Dan of Camberwell
and the Beersheba of Camden Town, when his natural environment should
have been Italy, and Rome, or Sorrento, is an unfading tragedy.  Only
once or twice in his life did a spring or summer come to him in which
he might grow the flowers he loved best and knew to be his natural
destiny.  The greatest tragedy of all, to my mind, is that final
tragedy of "Basil" where at last, after long years of toil in fiction
while fiction was yet necessary to his livelihood, he was compelled
by his training to put into the form of a novel a theme not fit for
such treatment save in the hands of a native and easy story-teller.

I have said nothing, or little except by implication, of the man's
style.  In many ways it was notable and even noble.  To such a
literary intelligence, informed with all the learning of the past
towards which he leant, much of his style was inevitable; it was the
man and his own.  For the greater part it is lucid rather than
sparkling, clear, if not cold; yet with a subdued rhythm, the result
of much Latin and more Greek, for the metres of the Greek tragedies
always inspired him with their noble rhythms.  Though he was often
cold and bitter, especially in his employment of irony, of which he
is the only complete master in English literature except Samuel
Butler, he could rise to heights of passionate description; and here
and there a sense of luxury tinges his words with Tyrian purple--and
this in spite of all his sense of restraint, which was more marked
than that of almost any living writer.

When I think of it all, and consider his partly wasted years, I even
now wonder how it was he induced himself to deal with the life he
knew so well; but while that commercialism exists which he abhorred
as much as he abhorred the society in which it flourishes, there
seems no other practicable method for a man of letters to attain
speech and yet to live.  I often declared that fiction as we wrote it
was truly diagnostic of a disordered and unnecessarily degraded form
of civilisation; and he replied with deep feeling that to him the
idylls of Theocritus, of Moschus, the simple tragedies, the natural
woes and joys of men who ploughed the soil or worked at the
winepress, were the truest and most vivid forms and subjects of Art.
Neither before his death nor after did he attain the artist's true
and great reward of recognition in the full sense that would have
satisfied him even if he had remained poor.  Nevertheless there were
some who knew.  There are perhaps a few more who know now that he is
gone and cannot hear them.  Popularity he never hoped for, and never
will attain, but he has a secure place in the hierarchy of the
literature of England which he loved.  But he appeals now, as he
appealed while he lived, not to the idle and the foolish, not to the
fashionable mob, but to the more august tribunal of those who have
the sympathy which comes from understanding.