2
The sojourn in the Chilterns was not as unproductive as Machen has implied. He had written perhaps more than we shall ever know—most of his stories lived with him for years before they were written, and a book or two destroyed did not cease to exist. Many of his best tales were born and others matured in the Chiltern cottage. Still, two years in the country seemed quite enough.
When Machen returned to London in 1893 he was a man of property or, if not property in the Galsworthian sense, of substance in his own. For the various legacies from deceased Scottish relations that might have meant so much a few years earlier, had been coming through and accumulating, and there were now between three and four thousand pounds in the bank. The days of Clarendon Road, of green tea and stale bread and tobacco, were over and there were rooms in Great Russel Street and later in Gray’s Inn. There was Benedictine in the buffet and a growing circle of friends and companions.
The possession of several thousand pounds presented problems—at least the semi-important one of how to invest it. After looking about for a “good thing,” in a characteristically casual way, Machen thought of the Brothers—that courteous pair under whose benevolent auspices he had translated Casanova in a basement. They had, as Machen knew, a proposition now and then, and he thought perhaps they might have suggestions. They had, as it happened, an excellent one. The Memoirs of Casanova, which he had translated some years before, was about to be published. A thousand pounds invested in the project might be a good thing indeed. Machen had at least that much confidence in the Brothers, or in his own work—at any rate, he invested. It was then that one of the Brothers, the more benevolent of the two no doubt, suggested that he might, since he was now financially interested, wish to polish up here and there.
Machen was content, however, to limit his contribution to the translation and the thousand pounds, and let him polish who so desired.
The monumental memoirs came out in 1894. Machen’s translation was the first in the English language and, I believe, the only complete one to this day. So it is likely to remain until some unsuspecting scholar may once more be imposed upon, or some highly solvent professor or richly subsidized fellow undertakes the task.