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Cosmo! He meets ’em one and all,
The Douglas Fairbanks in his hall,
The Lloyd George in his den!
Cosmo! He meets ’em low and high;
He holds ’em with his glittering eye
And draws ’em with his pen.
...
Cosmo! He meets ’em in the flesh!
All his celebrities are fresh!
No has-been like Frank Harris!
He keeps his contacts up to date!
Cosmo! The great and the near-great
From Hollywood to Paris!
—Keith Preston in the Chicago Daily News.
He was the brother to whose early literary success Philip Gibbs looked up with admiration; while Philip Gibbs grew more and more to look like an ascetic, “a tired Savonarola,” Cosmo Hamilton (Gibbs) continued to be impressively good-looking, so that today he is not infrequently called the handsomest of male authors. And his looks are no deception, for in ease, urbanity, savoir faire few authors excel him—perhaps none. He can make an agreeable speech, talk interestingly, write a play or a novel with dexterity and a finished effect. It is true that in his lively memoirs, Unwritten History, he has embedded an occasional groan about the labors of authorship, and tells of one instance in which an indolent writer was led back to the paths of virtuous industry. But for all that, in his own case, it has probably never been as hard work as sometimes it seemed to himself; while as for anyone else, the association of Cosmo Hamilton with toil must forever be an act of mental violence.
No! No photograph exists showing him with the dampened towel binding his brows, the cup of strong black coffee at his lips. It is even doubtful if, were one produced, any but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle would accept its authenticity.
The fact that he made a success so young—he was scarcely twenty-one when his first novel was published—and the fact that this success was immediately followed by others more marked is, no doubt, as much responsible as anything. But the feeling that he managed easily what most men contrive with the most desperate struggle is not lessened by such words as these of his brother’s:
“Among my literary friends as a young man,” writes Philip Gibbs in his Adventurers in Journalism,[61] “was, first and foremost—after my father, who was always inspiring and encouraging—my own brother, who reached the heights of success (dazzling and marvelous to my youthful eyes) under the name of Cosmo Hamilton.[62] After various flights and adventures, including a brief career on the stage, he wrote a book called Which Is Absurd, and after it had been rejected by many publishers, placed it on the worst possible terms with Fisher Unwin. It made an immediate hit, and refused to stop selling. After that success he went straight on without a check, writing novels, short stories, and dramatic sketches which established him as a new humorist, and then, achieving fortune as well as fame, entered the musical comedy world with ‘The Catch of the Season,’ ‘The Beauty of Bath,’ and other great successes, which he is still maintaining with unabated industry and invention. He and I were close ‘pals,’ as we still remain, and, bad form as it may seem to write about my brother, I honestly think there are few men who have his prodigality of imagination, his overflowing storehouse of plots, ideas, and dramatic situations, his eternal boyishness of heart—which has led him into many scrapes, given him hard knocks, but never taught him the caution of age, or moderated his sense of humor—his wildness of exaggeration, his generous good nature, or the sentiment and romance which he hides under the laughing mask of a cynic. In character he and I are poles apart, but I owe him much in the way of encouragement, and his praise has always been first and overwhelming when I have made any small success. As a young man I used to think him the handsomest fellow in England, and I fancy I was not far wrong.”
COSMO HAMILTON
Photograph by Lewis Smith, Chicago.