But I told him that I was reading Dowson, that I was presently going to read a volume of Æ, and after that I had the fullest intention of strangling Debussy on the piano.
So he went away to enlist as a cook. I heard, however, that when he was told that, in addition to his duties as an army cook, he might be called upon to slaughter animals, he came away sad and dejected, and, I think, turned his mind to other things.
Where he is now, I do not know. The war has blotted most of us out, and few men know whether their best friends are at the other end of the world or fighting in the trenches in the very next sector on their right or left.
. . . . . . . .
I have said somewhere that singers do not interest me. Nor do they. But John Coates is something more than a singer—superb artist, generous friend, unflagging enthusiast, maker of reputations. He is at once a grown-up boy full of high spirits and a profound mystic. There are many men who have seen him on the stage in some light opera who have never guessed that his buoyant spirits are the outcome of a soul that is content with its own destiny. To me, his interpretation of Elgar’s Gerontius is one of the great things of modern times—as great as Ackté’s Salome, as great as Kreisler’s [262] ]violin-playing, as wonderful as the genius of Augustus John. “Honest John Coates!” is his title: I have heard him so described many times in London and the provinces. A man you can trust with anything: a very fine and noble gentleman, humble yet proud.
His reverence for Elgar is extraordinary. I have been told that, on one occasion, after being in the company of the distinguished composer for an hour or so, he joined a few friends who were sitting in another room.
“I have just been talking to the greatest man living,” said he, with deep impressiveness and in the manner of one who has been in the presence of someone holy.
I love such hero-worship. The man who can feel as Coates does about Elgar is himself noble and not far removed from greatness.
. . . . . . . .
Cyril Scott possesses a mind of such exquisite refinement that it can react only to the most delicate of appeals. He is perhaps a little exotic, like his swaying and deliciously scented Lotus Flower. Many years ago I was introduced to his music, and in pre-war days I very rarely let a week go by without playing something of his. On only one occasion was I thrown into his company, and even then I was not aware of the identity of the somewhat excited and, to me, extraordinarily interesting man who sat restlessly in his chair and spoke a little vehemently. He struck me as a man easily carried away by his ideals, carried away into a world where logic is useless and facts are worse than dust.