THE PERSONAL PAR.
Closely connected with the Interview, and forming a natural sequel to any treatise upon that Exercise, is the Personal Par. It contains, as it were, all the qualities of the Interview condensed into the smallest possible space; it advertises the subject, instructs the reader, and is a yet sharper trial of the young writer’s character.
The homely advice given in the preceding section, where mention was made of “pride” and of “pockets,” applies with far more force to the Personal Par. With the Interview, it is well to mask one’s name; with the Personal Par, it is absolutely necessary to conceal it. The danger the author runs is an attraction to Mrs. Railston, who in her book strongly advises this form of sport—she herself does Bess in All About Them. On the other hand, Lieut.-Col. Lory says, in his Journalist’s Vade-mecum (p. 63): “A Personal Par should never be penned by the Aspirant to Literary honours. Undetected, it renders life a burden of suspense; detected, it spells ruin.”[9] He quotes twenty-five well-known peers and financiers who rose by steadily refusing to do this kind of work during their period of probation on the press.
The present guide, which is final, will run to no such extremes. Secrecy is indeed essential; yet there are three excellent reasons for writing Personal Pars, at least in early youth.
(1.) The Personal Par is the easiest to produce of all forms of literature. Any man or woman, famous or infamous for any reason, is a subject ready to hand, and to these may be added all persons whatsoever living, dead, or imaginary; and anything whatever may be said about them. Editors, in their honest dislike of giving pain, encourage the inane, and hence more facile, form of praise. Moreover, it takes but a moment to write, and demands no recourse to books of reference.
(2.) The Personal Par can always be placed—if not in England, then in America. Though written in any odd moments of one’s leisure time, it will always represent money; and the whole of the period from July to October, when ordinary work is very slack, can be kept going from the stock one has by one.
(3.) It has a high economic value, not only in the price paid for it, but indirectly, as an advertisement. This is a point which Lieut.-Col. Lory and Mrs. Railston both overlook.
A short specimen, written in August, 1885, at the very beginning of the movement, by my friend, Mrs. Cowley (the Folk-Lorist, not the Poetess), for the Gazette, will make these three points clear:—
“The capture of that rare bird, the Cross-tailed Eagle, which is cabled from St. Fandango’s, recalls the fact that the famous Picture ‘Tiny Tots’ was formerly in the possession of the present Governor of that island. The picture is put up to auction by Messrs. Philpots next Saturday, and, judging by the public attendance at their galleries during the last fortnight, the bidding should be brisk.”
There is no such bird as the Cross-tailed Eagle, nor any such person as the Governor of St. Fandango’s, nor indeed is there even any such island. Yet Mrs. Cowley was paid 5s. by the Gazette for her little bit of research; it was copied into most of the papers, with acknowledgment, and she got a commission from Messrs. Philpots. The former owner of “Tiny Tots” (Mr. Gale of Kew, a wealthy man) wrote a long and interesting letter explaining that some error had been made, and that not he, but his wife’s father, had been an Inspector[10] (not Governor) in St. Vincent’s. He begged the writer to call on him—her call was the origin of a life-long friendship, and Mrs. Cowley was mentioned in his will.
I must detain the student no longer with what is, after all, a very small corner of our art, but conclude with a few carefully chosen examples before proceeding to the next section on Topographical Essays.
Examples.
Wit and Wisdom of the Upper Classes.
Her Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duchess of Solothurn was driving one day down Pall Mall when she observed a poor pickpocket plying his precarious trade. Stopping the carriage immediately, she asked him gently what she could do for him. He was dumbfounded for a reply, and, withdrawing his hand from the coat-tail of an elderly major, managed to mumble out that he was a widower with a wife and six children who were out of work and refused to support him, though earning excellent wages. This reasoning so touched the Princess, that she immediately gave him a place as boot-black in the Royal Palace of Kensington. Discharged from this position for having prosecuted H.R.H. for six months’ arrears of wages, he set up as a publican at the “Sieve and Pannier” at Wimbledon, a licence of some ten thousand pounds in value, and a standing example of the good fortune that attends thrift and industry.
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It is not generally known that the late Lord Grumbletooth rose from the ranks. His lordship was a singularly reticent man, and the matter is still shrouded in obscurity. He was, however, a politician in the best sense of the word, and owed his advancement to the virtues that have made England famous. The collection of domestic china at Grumbletooth House will vie with any other collection at any similar house in the kingdom.
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Dr. Kedge, whose death was recently announced in the papers, was the son of no less a personage than Mr. Kedge, of the Old Hall, Eybridge. It is hardly fair to call him a self-made man, for his father paid a considerable sum both for his education and for the settlement of his debts on leaving the University. But he was a bright-eyed, pleasant host, and will long be regretted in the journalistic world.
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Lady Gumm’s kindness of heart is well known. She lately presented a beggar with a shilling, and then discovered that she had not the wherewithal to pay her fare home from Queen’s Gate to 376, Park Lane (her ladyship’s town house). Without a moment’s hesitation she borrowed eighteen pence of the grateful mendicant, a circumstance that easily explains the persecution of which she has lately been the victim.
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Lord Harmbury was lately discovered on the top of a ’bus by an acquaintance who taxed him with the misadventure. “I would rather be caught on a ’bus than in a trap,” said the witty peer. The mot has had some success in London Society.
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Mr. Mulhausen, the M.F.H. of the North Downshire Hunt, has recently written an article on “Falconry” for the Angler’s World. The style of the “brochure” shows a great advance in “technique,” and cannot fail to give a permanent value to his opinion on Athletics, Gentleman-farming, and all other manly sports and pastimes. Mr. Mulhausen is, by the way, a recently-elected member of the Rock-climbers’ Club, and is devoted to Baccarat.
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There is no truth in the rumour that Miss Finn-Coul, daughter of Colonel Wantage-Brown, was about to marry her father’s second wife’s son by an earlier marriage, Mr. James Grindle-Torby. The Colonel is a strong Churchman, and disapproves of such unions between close relatives; moreover, as C.O., he has forbidden the young lieutenant (for such is his rank) to leave the barracks for a fortnight, a very unusual proceeding in the Hussars.
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Lady Sophia Van Huren is famous for her repartee. In passing through Grosvenor Gate an Irish beggar was heard to hope that she would die the black death of Machushla Shawn. A sharp reply passed her lips, and it is a thousand pities that no one exactly caught its tenor; it was certainly a gem.
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It is well known that the Bishop of Pontygarry has no sympathy with the extreme party in the Church. Only the other day he was so incensed at a service held in Ribble-cum-Taut, that he fought the officiating clergyman for half an hour in his own garden, and extorted a complete apology. He also forbad anyone in the village ever to go to Church again, and himself attended the Methodist Chapel on the ensuing Sunday. Had we a few more prelates of the same mettle things would be in a very different condition.
THE TOPOGRAPHICAL ARTICLE.