Twenty Years of My Life

by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

Egerton Castle, whose Young April is the most delightful book of the romantic school, in which Anthony Hope, Henry Harland, and a few others have written with such charm, was a rare visitor. Any one could see that he had been a soldier. But the militariness of his active, upright figure is no doubt partly due to the fact that he is one of the finest fencers in the country. He has been a representative of England in the international contests. He is likewise, as his books show, a notable connoisseur, and he has ample means to indulge his tastes, not only from the wide popularity of the novels which he writes, mostly in collaboration with his wife, but from his having owned one of the chief daily newspapers, the Liverpool Mercury, which is now amalgamated with the Liverpool Post. The Agnes Castle who collaborates with him is, of course, his wife, not his sister.

Percy White was a constant visitor. He has been my intimate friend since he published his first novel, Mr. Bailey Martin, that merciless dissection of suburban snobbery. I used to write for him when he edited Public Opinion, and that was a long time ago. He was one of the handsomest men in literature, with his merry, boyish face, dark eyes, and bright golden hair. C. B. Fry, the greatest all-round athlete in the records of sport, is his nephew, and, though darker, reminds me very much of Percy White as he was. Florence White, who paints portraits, is his sister.

Percy White’s books have never met with the circulation they deserve. If he had been born an American, they might have had the largest circulation in the world. He is just the writer whose circulation would have spread like wildfire, if he had lived in America, and written of American social life as he has written of ours. No one could have expressed the good and the bad in the American character with the same light touch and ruthless penetration. His is just the pen to depict the iron courage and the insight of genius which, with or without chicanery, lead to the amassing of millions—the selfishness, made endurable by grit and personal charm, of the American woman—the brilliant wit and pathetic lack of humour in Americans as a nation—the business side of sport.

Once upon a time I introduced him to a man whom I will call the Vidler, who ran a newspaper, and never paid anybody anything except by advertisements in that paper. He made periodical business journeys, collecting advertisements for his paper—my heart bled for the advertisers—and used to engage an editor to look after his paper while he was away. He chose Percy White for the honour on this occasion, and asked me if I could bring them together. I gave White his message, warning him that he would only be paid in promises, and was surprised to hear that he was willing to discuss the matter with the Vidler. The Vidler gave him a wonderful dinner at the Carlton, probably not paid for yet, and then took him back to his chambers to discuss the matter in hand. White sat up with him nearly all night, gravely taking down notes of his projects for the paper, but reserved his decision, which resulted in a negative. I met him the next day, and asked him how he had got on, and when I heard how late he had been kept, apologised for all the trouble to which I had put him, knowing how little chance there was of his getting any pecuniary advantage out of it.

“Don’t apologise, my dear Douglas,” he said; “I got a whole book out of him. He’s the finest study I ever met in my life.”

As Percy White did not take up the appointment, I set myself to find a man who was willing to take the post, and would not suffer for it. I found a man who was as sharp a diamond as the Vidler himself. He was duly engaged, and I always wondered which did the other in the eye. I have my suspicions, because when I met the Vidler a year or two afterwards at Monte Carlo, he did not allude to the finish.

George Gissing did not come often, though we had the great link of both knowing and loving the Ionian Sea.

If Gissing had not died, and there was no reason why he should have died if he had taken ordinary care of himself—he would only be fifty-six if he were alive now—he would have had a reputation like Barrie or Bernard Shaw by this time, for even during his lifetime people were just beginning to wake up to the extraordinary qualities of his writing. I am not comparing him to either of those two; I only make the comparison because everything pointed to his having popularity. Every now and then some excellent writer achieves popularity. No one knows why. His excellence is against his having a wide public, and it is very seldom possible to tell why one is taken and another left. As the Bible proverb says, “Two women shall be grinding at the mill; one shall be taken and the other left.”

Gissing had a genius for imparting romance to the sordid.

W. J. Locke often came in those days. He was secretary to the Royal Institute of British Architects, and combined with it the post of literary adviser to John Lane, the publisher—a collaboration which resulted in the publication of many notable books, of which none were more eventually successful than his own, except, I suppose, H. G. Wells’s, and I think that it was he who advised Lane to bring out the works of Wells, and Harland’s The Cardinal’s Snuff-box, and Kenneth Grahame’s Golden Age.