Though quite a few of his plays had been produced in the north, and though he had written some clever dramatic criticism for The Manchester Guardian, he was unknown in London till the Stage Society produced Hindle Wakes. Then Fame came to him and knocked him off his feet. It is impossible to imagine a man more conscious of his success. His consciousness of it made him, on occasion, tongue-tied. In conversation he could be ready, and his repartee was frequently brilliant, but during the years I knew him his attitude always suggested that he [59] ]anticipated and feared attack. I saw him once at the bar of the Gaiety Theatre, Manchester, in the midst of a group of friends. I was not of their company, but I noticed that he stood silent, erect and strained, his head a little thrown back, his face set. Then, and on many other occasions, it seemed to me that he longed to break down the feeling of awkwardness—to throw off the obsession of self-consciousness—that overcame him.
But I must confess that I rarely saw him in company in which there were not two or three who were hostile to him; therefore I saw him but seldom at his best. Not infrequently, there was a “dead set” against him, and if the banter were edged with malice (as it not infrequently was) he withered like a lily under the grip of a frost. The truth is, he was not modest and he could not feign modesty. His vanity was neither charming nor aggressive; it was cold and distant, without geniality, without humour. Genius is one of the wombs of vanity, but Houghton had no genius; there was not a trace of magic in him; he was merely extraordinarily clever, closely observant and possessed of an instinctive sense of form and of literary values.
. . . . . . . .
There came a day when it entered my head to interview him for The Manchester Courier, a paper for which I wrote musical criticism. He accepted my proposal with alacrity, invited me to the Winter Garden of the Midland Hotel, and provided me with coffee, liqueurs and cigars.
He began by telling me that this was the first time he had been interviewed for the Press.
“An uncomfortable half-hour awaits you, then,” said I, and, on the instant, he began to fidget.
I noticed that he was dressed for the occasion; he looked prosperous and literary and there hung about him just a suspicion of cosmopolitanism. Not only sartorially was he prepared; his mind was in tune to the occasion [60] ]and the right pose was donned. That is to say, he was determined not to appear conceited or self-satisfied; but he did not succeed. He made light of his success in a heavy, emphatic way. He praised Hindle Wakes with faint damns, and suggested that this play would soon cease its successful run in London. He was careful not to evince any pleasure in his success, any natural buoyancy of spirit, any momentary delight. In a word, he was dull, tactless and insincere. There was nothing boyish or charming or graceful in his words; he had on all his heavy armour and it banged and clanged as he moved.
When the interview was over he invited me to his father’s house for the evening meal. I went. I went out of curiosity. He did not amuse me, but most certainly he did interest me.
When we had finished our meal he took me to his study. Near the window was a typewriter; in the typewriter was a sheet of paper half covered with script. There were very few erasures.
“I always compose straight on to the machine,” said Houghton.