The ball was kept up till late; it was past five o’clock before we returned, little thinking to find our guests still in possession; and our surprise was the greater when, on mounting to our single sitting-room in Great Russell Street, we found, in the light of the sunshine that was streaming into the room, Kingston and his companion, both with coat and waistcoat removed, pounding away as hard as they could go at some difficult composition which they were trying over for the third time. The two artists, whom we had left with some misgiving in an attitude of veiled hostility towards each other, were now, as we discovered to our surprise, the closest friends, and, although the morning was well advanced, Kingston insisted that we should sit down and listen to one or two of the gems which they had been performing, and which were now repeated once more for our benefit—the most persuasive plea he urged being that in half an hour the public-houses would be open, and that we could then replenish our slender store of whisky which they had already exhausted.
Kingston had been for some time a special correspondent to the Daily Telegraph in Berlin, and afterwards came to London as its foreign editor. Apart from his musical talent, he spoke with ease many foreign languages, and in this respect resembled Sala, whose facilities as a linguist were great, though, as he once confessed, he inclined by preference to the languages of the Latin races. As he himself picturesquely put it, “My tongue is hung in a Southern belfry.”
Of all the editors with whom my journalistic experience brought me into contact, the man who stood nearest to me as a friend was Professor Minto of the Examiner.
On the Examiner I felt free and unfettered, free to choose any topic that pleased me, and to treat it in whatever way seemed to me best. I have always thought that Minto’s great powers as a critic of literature have never been sufficiently recognised. His separate volumes on the Poetic Writers and the Prose Writers of England contain some of the best criticism of our time, and, in especial, the section in the former devoted to the tragedies of Shakespeare has hardly been equalled in fineness of perception and in sustained eloquence of style.
Though in many ways characteristically Scotch, he had a liberal and supple mind, with a wide grasp and a generous outlook on political affairs, and an appreciation even of lighter works of literature that was hardly to be suspected from his grave and sober personality.
Very delightful were the little smoking evenings he instituted in the offices of the Examiner, which were then situated near Wellington Street in the Strand. There it was that I first met the late Bishop Creighton, who was at the time a constant contributor to the paper. Theodore Watts-Dunton was also a pretty regular visitor on these simple social occasions, and there, too, I met that strangest of accomplished scholars, “Student Williams,” who had long been known as an Oxford coach, and who was now devoting himself to a journalistic career.
It is strange to reflect what a complete revolution has overtaken English journalism in the period of thirty years that has passed since the time of which I am speaking. Literature and journalism have now almost parted company, and although the older tradition still honourably survives in individual instances, it is impossible not to be conscious that the function of a journalist, as it is now most widely accepted, has entirely changed its character.
The sort of article that was eagerly sought for then is now rarely welcomed, and when we recall the names of the men who wrote for the Saturday Review, and the great body of accomplished writers who lifted the Pall Matt Gazette in its earlier days into a foremost position among English journals, it will readily be conceded that the revolution is already complete. Reporting has largely taken the place of criticism, and the modern newspaper office, ordered on popular lines, more nearly approaches day by day to a powerful agency for private inquiry and detection.
CHAPTER IV
THE BAR
While this journalistic work was in its earliest stages, I was still seriously engaged in trying to fit myself for work at the Bar. My earlier knowledge of the Law had been gained under the tutorship of Professor Stewart Brice, who had successfully prepared me for my examination at the London University. And now, during the last six months of my studentship, I read in chambers with Charles Crompton, who was a prosperous Junior of the Northern Circuit. Charles Crompton had taken high honours at Cambridge, and was an accomplished lawyer; but his gift of speech was small, and would always have left him unfit for the higher honours of leadership. It was through his influence that I was elected as Junior to the Northern Circuit, which then covered a larger area than is assigned to it now. When I was Junior the towns visited included Appleby, Durham, Newcastle, Carlisle, Lancaster, Manchester, and Liverpool, and until I began to feel the pinch of the great expense which these Circuit tours involved, I keenly enjoyed every hour of the time in which, by my patient presence in the Courts, I was endeavouring to master the principles of the Law.