The topic did not prove fruitful, and I can imagine Houghton cudgelling his brains to discover what strangulated hernia really was, and Mair saying something witty about it. But with his second cup of coffee and his marmalade and toast Bennett once more talked of the cabman, the impossible trunk, and the cabman’s hypothetical hernia.
“Of course,” he remarked meditatively, “the man must have some reason for owning such an incredibly large trunk, but I confess I can’t guess the reason. And, in any case, it is bound to be a selfish one. Now, strangulated hernia——”
And that was all that issued during a whole hour from one of the cleverest brains in England.
That Arnold Bennett is almost painfully conscious of [71] ]his own cleverness there is no manner of doubt. He is stupendously aware of the figure he cuts in contemporary literature. He is for ever standing outside himself and enjoying the spectacle of his own greatness, and he whispers ten times a day: “Oh, what a great boy am I!” I was once shown a series of privately printed booklets written by Bennett—booklets that he sent to his intimates at Christmas time. They consisted of extracts from his diary—a diary that, one feels, would never have been written if the de Goncourts had not lived. One self-conscious extract lingers in the mind; the spirit of it, though not the words (and perhaps not the facts) is embodied in the following:—“It is 3 A.M. I have been working fourteen hours at a stretch. In these fourteen hours I have written ten thousand words. My book is finished—finished in excitement, in exaltation. Surely not even Balzac went one better than this!”
A great writer: no doubt, a very great writer: but you might gaze at him across a railway carriage for hours at a time and never suspect it.
. . . . . . . .
But if Arnold Bennett is the least picturesque and literary of figures, G. K. Chesterton is the most picturesque and literary. His mere bulk is impressive. On one occasion I saw him emerge from Shoe Lane, hurry into the middle of Fleet Street, and abruptly come to a standstill in the centre of the traffic. He stood there for some time, wrapped in thought, while buses, taxis and lorries eddied about him in a whirlpool and while drivers exercised to the full their gentle art of expostulation. Having come to the end of his meditations he held up his hand, turned round, cleared a passage through the horses and vehicles and returned up Shoe Lane. It was just as though he had deliberately chosen the middle of Fleet Street as the most fruitful place for thought. Nobody else in London could have done it with his air of absolute unconsciousness, of [72] ]absent-mindedness. And not even the most stalwart policeman, vested with full authority, could have dammed up London’s stream of traffic more effectively.
The more one sees of Chesterton the more difficult it is to discover when he is asleep and when he is awake. He may be talking to you most vivaciously one moment, and the next he will have disappeared: his body will be there, of course, but his mind, his soul, the living spirit within him, will have sunk out of sight.
One Friday afternoon I went to The Daily Herald office to call on a friend. As I entered the building a taxi stopped at the door and I found G. K. C. by my side.
“I have half-an-hour for my article,” said he, rather breathlessly. “Wait here till I come back.”