There used to be very large at-homes every Sunday night at the flat of a wealthy old lady who owned an important newspaper. Her guests were mostly authors and artists, and she hardly knew any of them by sight, and never gave any of them commissions to work for her paper. Sometimes she did not even put in an appearance at her at-homes, which went on just the same, as if she had been there. Her guests came to meet each other, not her. She was not at all literary; her only ambition was like Queen Elizabeth’s—to be taken for a young and beautiful woman. She was no longer either, but she dressed the part. Young America used openly to make fun of her weakness on these occasions, and I well remember the editor of Puck (a New York comic paper), to whom she was showing a beautiful copy of Canova’s nude statue of Napoleon’s sister, Pauline Borghese, gravely pretending that he thought it was a statue of herself, and complimenting her on the likeness which the sculptor had achieved. His impudence carried him through; his delighted hostess believed that he believed it, and explained, with genuine colour coming into her rouged cheeks, that in spite of the likeness, it was not her, but “Princess Pauline.”
As the refreshments at this house were on a very liberal scale, it was a good place to meet the section of the Press which is not satisfied with a mere feast of reason and flow of soul. One also met fame-hunters, like the sculptor whom I will call Vermont, who came to cultivate the Press. I was introduced to him at this house, and I hoped that I should never see him again, because he was such a colossal egotist. One day, a few years afterwards, to my dismay, I met him in Fleet Street. I said, “How do you do, Mr. Vermont?”
He said at once, “Can you do something for me?” which was his invariable habit.
I said “yes” cheerfully, meaning to wriggle out of it, for I did not want to do it. I was under no obligation to him, because I had been careful not to give him the opportunity of offering me any hospitalities while I was over there. He said, “I have never been in England before. Can you tell me if I ought to use a letter-writer?”
I said, “I think so; what is it—a new kind of typewriter?”
He said, “No, it is a book which tells you the proper ways for writing letters.”
Remembering that the last letter I had received from him began, “Mr. Douglas Sladen, Esq., Dear Sir,” I said I thought he ought, and as we were in Fleet Street, recommended him to go to Hatchard’s in Piccadilly. I was interested to know the kind of impression he would make on Arthur Humphreys, to whom I sent him with my card. I carefully gave him a card without an address in the hope that I should not see him any more. But he got my address from Humphreys, and came to see me the next day. It appeared that he had brought a large group of statuary with him, which he wished to present to the City of London. Could I help him in this? he wished to know. I said yes. I gave him an introduction to the Lord Mayor, and to the editor of the Illustrated London News, to both of whom I was a total stranger. He went away very pleased with himself. The next time I met him was at the Lord Mayor’s Day banquet at the Mansion House. I asked him how he had got on, and he said that he owed more to me than any one he had ever met. The Lord Mayor had accepted the sculpture, and given orders for it to be erected somewhere in the Guildhall Library until its final position could be decided on, and the editor of the Illustrated London News was going to give the front page of his next number to a reproduction of the immortal work. After this I met him at every important function to which I received an invitation.
CHAPTER VII
WE START OUR LITERARY AT-HOMES IN LONDON
I was well known at authors’ clubs and authors’ receptions long before I was known as an author. In fact, I doubt if many of those who swarmed to our at-homes ever thought of me seriously as an author, or even realised that I wrote. They knew of me as the friend of authors, artists, and actors, and people who were merely charming, and well enough off to entertain, and enjoyed meeting the celebrities of Bohemia. They credited me with a certain capacity as a host, who always introduced the right people to each other.