My mother was
a great reader, and with ten
minutes to spare
before the starch was ready would
begin the 'Decline and Fall'
- and finish it, too, that winter.
Foreign words in the text annoyed
her and made her bemoan her want
of a classical education - she
had only attended a Dame's school
during some easy months - but
she never passed the foreign
words by until their meaning
was explained to her, and when
next she and they met it was
as acquaintances, which I think
was clever of her. One of her
delights was to learn from me
scraps of Horace, and then bring
them into her conversation with
'colleged men.' I have come upon
her in lonely places, such as
the stair-head or the east room,
muttering these quotations aloud
to herself, and I well remember
how she would say to the visitors,
'Ay, ay, it's very true, Doctor,
but as you know, "Eheu fugaces,
Postume, Postume, labuntur anni,"'
or 'Sal, Mr. So-and-so, my lassie
is thriving well, but would it
no' be more to the point
to say, "O matra pulchra filia pulchrior"?' which astounded them very much if
she managed to reach the end without being flung, but usually she had a fit of
laughing in the middle, and so they found
her out.
Biography and exploration were
her favourite reading, for choice
the biography of men who had
been good to their mothers, and
she liked the explorers to be
alive so that she could shudder
at the thought of their venturing
forth again; but though she expressed
a hope that they would have the
sense to stay at home henceforth,
she gleamed with admiration when
they disappointed her. In later
days I had a friend who was an
African explorer, and she was
in two minds about him; he was
one of the most engrossing of
mortals to her, she admired him
prodigiously, pictured him at
the head of his caravan, now
attacked by savages, now by wild
beasts, and adored him for the
uneasy hours he gave her, but
she was also afraid that he wanted
to take me with him, and then
she thought he should be put
down by law. Explorers' mothers
also interested her very much;
the books might tell her nothing
about them, but she could create
them for herself and wring her
hands in sympathy with them when
they had got no news of him for
six months. Yet there were times
when she grudged him to them
- as the day when he returned
victorious. Then what was before
her eyes was not the son coming
marching home again but an old
woman peering for him round the
window curtain and trying not
to look uplifted. The newspaper
reports would be about the son,
but my mother's comment was 'She's
a proud woman this night.'
We read many books together
when I was a boy, 'Robinson Crusoe'
being the first (and the second),
and the 'Arabian Nights' should
have been the next, for we got
it out of the library (a penny
for three days), but on discovering
that they were nights when we
had paid for knights we sent
that volume packing, and I have
curled my lips at it ever since.
'The Pilgrim's Progress' we had
in the house (it was as common
a possession as a dresser-head),
and so enamoured of it was I
that I turned our garden into
sloughs of Despond, with pea-sticks
to represent Christian on his
travels and a buffet-stool for
his burden, but when I dragged
my mother out to see my handiwork
she was scared, and I felt for
days, with a certain elation,
that I had been a dark character.
Besides reading every book we
could hire or borrow I also bought
one now and again, and while
buying (it was the occupation
of weeks) I read, standing at
the counter, most of the other
books in the shop, which is perhaps
the most exquisite way of reading.
And I took in a magazine called
'Sunshine,' the most delicious
periodical, I am sure, of any
day. It cost a halfpenny or a
penny a month, and always, as
I fondly remember, had a continued
tale about the dearest girl,
who sold water-cress, which is
a dainty not grown and I suppose
never seen in my native town.
This romantic little creature
took such hold of my imagination
that I cannot eat water- cress
even now without emotion. I lay
in bed wondering what she would
be up to in the next number;
I have lost trout because when
they nibbled my mind was wandering
with her; my early life was embittered
by her not arriving regularly
on the first of the month. I
know not whether it was owing
to her loitering on the way one
month to an extent flesh and
blood could not bear, or because
we had exhausted the penny library,
but on a day I conceived a glorious
idea, or it was put into my head
by my mother, then desirous of
making progress with her new
clouty hearthrug. The notion
was nothing short of this, why
should I not write the tales
myself? I did write them - in
the garret - but they by no means
helped her to get on with her
work, for when I finished a chapter
I bounded downstairs to read
it to her, and so short were
the chapters, so ready was the
pen, that I was back with new
manuscript before another clout
had been added to the rug. Authorship
seemed, like her bannock-baking,
to consist of running between
two points. They were all tales
of adventure (happiest is he
who writes of adventure), no
characters were allowed within
if I knew their like in the flesh,
the scene lay in unknown parts,
desert islands, enchanted gardens,
with knights (none of your nights)
on black chargers, and round
the first corner a lady selling
water-cress.
At twelve or thereabout I put
the literary calling to bed for
a time, having gone to a school
where cricket and football were
more esteemed, but during the
year before I went to the university,
it woke up and I wrote great
part of a three-volume novel.
The publisher replied that the
sum for which he would print
it was a hundred and - however,
that was not the important point
(I had sixpence): where he stabbed
us both was in writing that he
considered me a 'clever lady.'
I replied stiffly that I was
a gentleman, and since then I
have kept that manuscript concealed.
I looked through it lately, and,
oh, but it is dull! I defy any
one to read it.
The malignancy of publishers,
however, could not turn me back.
From the day on which I first
tasted blood in the garret my
mind was made up; there could
be no hum-dreadful-drum profession
for me; literature was my game.
It was not highly thought of
by those who wished me well.
I remember being asked by two
maiden ladies, about the time
I left the university, what I
was to be, and when I replied
brazenly, 'An author,' they flung
up their hands, and one exclaimed
reproachfully, 'And you an M.A.!'
My mother's views at first were
not dissimilar; for long she
took mine jestingly as something
I would grow out of, and afterwards
they hurt her so that I tried
to give them up. To be a minister
- that she thought was among
the fairest prospects, but she
was a very ambitious woman, and
sometimes she would add, half
scared at her appetite, that
there were ministers who had
become professors, 'but it was
not canny to think of such things.'
I had one person only on my
side, an old tailor, one of the
fullest men I have known, and
quite the best talker. He was
a bachelor (he told me all that
is to be known about woman),
a lean man, pallid of face, his
legs drawn up when he walked
as if he was ever carrying something
in his lap; his walks were of
the shortest, from the tea- pot
on the hob to the board on which
he stitched, from the board to
the hob, and so to bed. He might
have gone out had the idea struck
him, but in the years I knew
him, the last of his brave life,
I think he was only in the open
twice, when he 'flitted' - changed
his room for another hard by.
I did not see him make these
journeys, but I seem to see him
now, and he is somewhat dizzy
in the odd atmosphere; in one
hand he carries a box-iron, he
raises the other, wondering what
this is on his head, it is a
hat; a faint smell of singed
cloth goes by with him. This
man had heard of my set of photographs
of the poets and asked for a
sight of them, which led to our
first meeting. I remember how
he spread them out on his board,
and after looking long at them,
turned his gaze on me and said
solemnly,
What can I do to be for ever
known, And make the age to come
my own?
These lines of Cowley were
new to me, but the sentiment
was not new, and I marvelled
how the old tailor could see
through me so well. So it was
strange to me to discover presently
that he had not been thinking
of me at all, but of his own
young days, when that couplet
sang in his head, and he, too,
had thirsted to set off for Grub
Street, but was afraid, and while
he hesitated old age came, and
then Death, and found him grasping
a box-iron.
I hurried home with the mouthful,
but neighbours had dropped in,
and this was for her ears only,
so I drew her to the stair, and
said imperiously,
What can I do to be for ever
known, And make the age to come
my own?
It was an odd request for which
to draw her from a tea-table,
and she must have been surprised,
but I think she did not laugh,
and in after years she would
repeat the lines fondly, with
a flush on her soft face. 'That
is the kind you would like to
be yourself!' we would say in
jest to her, and she would reply
almost passionately, 'No, but
I would be windy of being his
mother.' It is possible that
she could have been his mother
had that other son lived, he
might have managed it from sheer
love of her, but for my part
I can smile at one of those two
figures on the stair now, having
long given up the dream of being
for ever known, and seeing myself
more akin to my friend, the tailor,
for as he was found at the end
on his board, so I hope shall
I be found at my handloom, doing
honestly the work that suits
me best. Who should know so well
as I that it is but a handloom
compared to the great guns that
reverberate through the age to
come? But she who stood with
me on the stair that day was
a very simple woman, accustomed
all her life to making the most
of small things, and I weaved
sufficiently well to please her,
which has been my only steadfast
ambition since I was a little
boy.
Not less than mine became her
desire that I should have my
way - but, ah, the iron seats
in that park of horrible repute,
and that bare room at the top
of many flights of stairs! While
I was away at college she drained
all available libraries for books
about those who go to London
to live by the pen, and they
all told the same shuddering
tale. London, which she never
saw, was to her a monster that
licked up country youths as they
stepped from the train; there
were the garrets in which they
sat abject, and the park seats
where they passed the night.
Those park seats were the monster's
glaring eyes to her, and as I
go by them now she is nearer
to me than when I am in any other
part of London. I daresay that
when night comes, this Hyde Park
which is so gay by day, is haunted
by the ghosts of many mothers,
who run, wild-eyed, from seat
to seat, looking for their sons.
But if we could dodge those
dreary seats she longed to see
me try my luck, and I sought
to exclude them from the picture
by drawing maps of London with
Hyde Park left out. London was
as strange to me as to her, but
long before I was shot upon it
I knew it by maps, and drew them
more accurately than I could
draw them now. Many a time she
and I took our jaunt together
through the map, and were most
gleeful, popping into telegraph
offices to wire my father and
sister that we should not be
home till late, winking to my
books in lordly shop-windows,
lunching at restaurants (and
remembering not to call it dinner),
saying, 'How do?' to Mr. Alfred
Tennyson when we passed him in
Regent Street, calling at publishers'
offices for cheque, when 'Will
you take care of it, or shall
I?' I asked gaily, and she would
be certain to reply, 'I'm thinking
we'd better take it to the bank
and get the money,' for she always
felt surer of money than of cheques;
so to the bank we went ('Two
tens, and the rest in gold'),
and thence straightway (by cab)
to the place where you buy sealskin
coats for middling old ladies.
But ere the laugh was done the
park would come through the map
like a blot.
'If you could only be sure
of as much as would keep body
and soul together,' my mother
would say with a sigh.
'With something over, mother,
to send to you.'
'You couldna expect that at
the start.'
The wench I should have been
courting now was journalism,
that grisette of literature who
has a smile and a hand for all
beginners, welcoming them at
the threshold, teaching them
so much that is worth knowing,
introducing them to the other
lady whom they have worshipped
from afar, showing them even
how to woo her, and then bidding
them a bright God-speed - he
were an ingrate who, having had
her joyous companionship, no
longer flings her a kiss as they
pass. But though she bears no
ill-will when she is jilted,
you must serve faithfully while
you are hers, and you must seek
her out and make much of her,
and, until you can rely on her
good- nature (note this), not
a word about the other lady.
When at last she took me in I
grew so fond of her that I called
her by the other's name, and
even now I think at times that
there was more fun in the little
sister, but I began by wooing
her with contributions that were
all misfits. In an old book I
find columns of notes about works
projected at this time, nearly
all to consist of essays on deeply
uninteresting subjects; the lightest
was to be a volume on the older
satirists, beginning with Skelton
and Tom Nash - the half of that
manuscript still lies in a dusty
chest - the only story was about
Mary Queen of Scots, who was
also the subject of many unwritten
papers. Queen Mary seems to have
been luring me to my undoing
ever since I saw Holyrood, and
I have a horrid fear that I may
write that novel yet. That anything
could be written about my native
place never struck me. We had
read somewhere that a novelist
is better equipped than most
of his trade if he knows himself
and one woman, and my mother
said, 'You know yourself, for
everybody must know himself'
(there never was a woman who
knew less about herself than
she), and she would add dolefully,
'But I doubt I'm the only woman
you know well.'
'Then I must make you my heroine,'
I said lightly.
'A gey auld-farrant-like heroine!'
she said, and we both laughed
at the notion - so little did
we read the future.
Thus it is obvious what were
my qualifications when I was
rashly engaged as a leader-writer
(it was my sister who saw the
advertisement) on an English
provincial paper. At the moment
I was as uplifted as the others,
for the chance had come at last,
with what we all regarded as
a prodigious salary, but I was
wanted in the beginning of the
week, and it suddenly struck
me that the leaders were the
one thing I had always skipped.
Leaders! How were they written?
what were they about? My mother
was already sitting triumphant
among my socks, and I durst not
let her see me quaking. I retired
to ponder, and presently she
came to me with the daily paper.
Which were the leaders? she wanted
to know, so evidently I could
get no help from her. Had she
any more newspapers? I asked,
and after rummaging, she produced
a few with which her boxes had
been lined. Others, very dusty,
came from beneath carpets, and
lastly a sooty bundle was dragged
down the chimney. Surrounded
by these I sat down, and studied
how to become a journalist.
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