"It was curious," writes his sister, Mrs. A. Jones, "that for all my brother's splendid health, great and varied interests, and good spirits—though not of the wildly elated kind—there was a strain of sadness in his nature, and he had not the love of life that would have seemed so natural—though there seemed to be so much in his life to live for. I have often heard him say that he would not mind dying at all, or would as soon die as live, or some expression to that effect. He was very philanthropic, and accepted any reverse of fortune or disappointment with calmness and fortitude. He suffered much, I think, through his views on the Boer War, but he was steadfast and true to his beliefs and principles always, and in this he showed a fine and noble spirit. This high sense of honour and integrity shone out like a bright star from a very feebly lit world in this respect. To me he was ever the most loving and tender brother, and his loss I shall ever lament."
All men and women have a real age which never leaves them from the cradle to the grave. Some are always twenty, and others drag through life with the soul of sixty. Fred Selous was one of those happy creatures who die young, for he never resigned his youthful ideals.
He had a great sympathy with emotional people. Good acting or the "French temperament" appealed to him. Though slow to anger as a rule, it was not rare to see him spring from his chair and jerk his head fiercely from side to side at any story of injustice. The Norman blood in his veins caused him to like the French and to appreciate their "bonhomie" and excitability. With him too it was always near the surface—ready to sympathize, swift to resent—but over it all was the iron check of Scottish caution.
One night in Vienna, in 1910, Prince Henry Liechtenstein gave a little dinner party at "Sacher's." Slatin Pasha was there, and told us some interesting stories of his adventures as a captive of the Mahdi. Then came what I thought to be a somewhat garbled version of the Fashoda incident. Finally he made certain remarks, in very bad taste, of the leave-taking of Marchand with the French colony at the Cairo railway station. To him it was exceedingly "funny" that Marchand should burst into tears and kiss his friends. I got angry at this, and we had a somewhat heated passage of words. "Why," he sneered in conclusion, "what had Marchand to complain of—he was only a miserable Captain before, and was now made a Colonel." Such a gross misunderstanding of a man's temperament and ideals and ambitions seemed deplorable indeed. It was quite German in its total failure to appreciate national psychology. In those two years of trial, privation and danger which Marchand had to face what must his thoughts have been. Twice on the road his expedition met with disaster from sickness, desertion and other causes. Yet he had re-formed it and marched successfully across unknown Africa from West to East with a handful of Senegalese sharpshooters, courting almost certain death at the end at the hands of the Mahdists. Only our expedition to Khartoum had saved him, by destroying the power of the Khalifa at the eleventh hour. What did such a man as he care for a trumpery military advancement? He was out to do his duty for France, and he did it where nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand would have failed. He achieved his end, but owing to our policy—for once strong—his Government failed him. Marchand was truly a great man. When I told this trifling incident to Selous he seemed to be thrown into a frenzy of rage, for I did not then know his views on Marchand. "Why," he shouted, "Marchand did the biggest thing any man has ever done in Africa, and of course no one knows it—I should like to kiss him myself!"
In speaking his voice possessed a singularly rich tone and resonance, and with all it carried a sympathetic quality that seemed to play directly on the heartstrings of his audience. Such gestures as he used were purely natural and necessary, and though possessing the volubility and excitable temperament of the southern races, the northern strain kept in check any excessive gesticulation. Although latterly his hearing was poor, he possessed a wonderful discrimination in shades of pronunciation when making use of native or foreign languages. Ever alive to the picturesque or the romantic, he clothed his stories in the language of which the true story-teller has the key, whilst over all hung the indelible stamp of truth and accuracy that characterized the man himself. His thoughts ranged over a wide field of emotions and ideas, in which chivalry perhaps played the most important part. It was always present in all his thoughts and acts. This with the intense energy or "fury of play," backed by the vehemence of emotion, carried him far in the higher flights both of act and imagination. "It is easy to be an ass and to follow the multitude like a blind besotted bull in a stampede," says Stevenson. Selous followed no leader but himself. Success left him humble, and the sharp ferule of calamity only crushed him for the moment. As he hated conventionality, so he loathed respectability—"that deadliest gag and wet blanket that can be laid on men." It meant nothing to him but the crystallized demeanour of spineless invertebrates. Thus when he spoke either in public or private life, he spoke direct from his heart and experience, and Men recognized the Man. He had a few mannerisms, and all have that—but was never the victim of stereotyped phrase or trite quotation. He took infinite care in his composition, but seldom altered, once the written thought was on paper. Unlike most authors he did not prune the "flesh" off his "bones" until the residue was satisfactory. Every line was complete when once he had set it down, and his manuscripts are as unaltered as at the moment they were written. In his lectures, as in his writings, he seemed to complete his thoughts before they were transferred to speech or writing. Having made up his mind what to say he just delivered himself over, as it were, to the absorbing interest or ruling passion of the moment. All his written work cannot be said to be of equal merit. Perhaps his best efforts are to be found in "African Nature Notes and Reminiscences," in which his command of English reaches a high level, yet in all circumstances, especially when narrating his own adventures in simple style such as in "A Hunter's Wanderings," or his escape from the Mushukulumbwe, he enjoyed "the happy privilege of making lovers among his readers." He possessed a certain quiet gift of humour, which he seldom indulged in except in such quaint instances as the remarks he makes on the vicious horse he gave to Lobengula in the hope that he would give it to one of his chiefs whom Selous particularly detested.
Pathos too, to the man who so frequently met with it, was something too terrible for soul disintegration. He often told me he simply could not speak of the circumstances of poor French's death in the bush in 1879. It hurt him so much. But romance, tragedy, the beautiful, the picturesque, or the noble deeds of unpretentious men all fell into their natural places in his scheme of colour and formed a completed whole that was the outcome of perfect spontaneity and natural utterance. Thus he saw life in a vision as wide and untrammelled as the desolate plains he loved. He seemed to divine from his own experience how other men felt, and with the intensity of human sympathy knew how to encourage and console others in times of difficulty. To him no man was so poor that he was not ready to give him a "lift" on his waggon or through his purse. Sternness and tenderness were nearly matched in his conduct, the former for himself and the latter for the failings of others. In spite of his knowledge of the world he had no cynicism, his motto being to make things easier to those who were less fortunate than himself. He bore no grudge, nor did he feel sore at ingratitude, and might truly have said, "There is no man born with so little animosity as I."
In later years Selous often confessed to an enduring restlessness. There was always so much to be done and so little time to do it. Even when at home, where he was perfectly happy and always immersed in some form of brain work or outdoor activity, this restlessness never left him. He felt it ever in his blood, and it would act like some violent force—most violent when the turmoil and pettiness of human life or the futile presence of crowds jarred upon him. Life in cities was to him so infinitely inferior to the grandeur of nature and interest of the unknown. Having tasted of the best it is hard after a life spent amid romance and adventure to settle down comfortably amidst the tiny affairs and tittle-tattle of everyday things at home. He hated intensely lawyers, politicians, theorists and men who daily live in the public eye without knowing anything of the great world in its wide sense. This spirit of restlessness seems to have been ever present in his later life. He confessed that he found it difficult to stay in England for more than six months at a time. There was always some new country and the pursuit of some new animals which he wished to add to his unique collection. Africa seemed to draw him like a loadstone, as it had always done, and its never-ceasing call was ever sounding in his ears. Even when on service in 1916 he talked with William Judd in Nairobi of a trip he wished to make with him, after the war had ended, to the Amala to get a really good black-maned lion. Yet when he was on board ship he confessed that he was overcome with such home-sickness that he felt inclined to "throw himself overboard and swim ashore." It must be admitted that he suffered to some extent in his later days from a disease which for want of a better word we must call the Nostalgia of Travel—a disease which attacks many old Big Game hunters—for often there comes a time when weariness of actual travelling creates depression, but in his subsequent letters from the actual hunting-grounds these adverse conditions disappear and he is once more keen and happy in the fascination of the chase and the clean conditions of a hunter's life. If we read carefully the classics in hunting and travel such as Baldwin, Neumann, Livingstone, etc., we constantly come across records of depression on the part of the writers. Were all the hardship, toil, dangers and the eternal difficulties of keeping an outfit in order and even temper good enough? Was not all the money so hardly won to gain this trip not thrown away? Would the elephants (it was generally elephants) or the rare horns ever be sighted? Would the horses or oxen that were left be sufficient to carry the expedition through after the best had been killed or died of sickness? And yet there was always an answer to these questions when the leaders were men of grit. Clouds pass away, men recover their spirits, and we find them writing, it may be a few weeks or even days afterwards, as if "all was lovely in the garden."
All his life he was a great reader, and rather preferred the old "classics" of English literature to modern books, except those on travel and big game hunting, of which he had an extensive library. He would read again and again and enjoy the works of Thackeray and Dickens, and amongst poets Byron was his favourite. Of modern writers no one appealed to him so much as Thomas Hardy, all of whose works found great favour, and especially "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," which he rightly esteemed as perhaps the greatest modern novel in the English language. Of writers on Big Game he esteemed highly Baldwin, Roosevelt, Charles Sheldon, Stewart Edward White, and Arthur Neumann. If he was bored in a crowd or had to wait at a railway station, he generally had a book in his pocket, and passed the hours happily in complete absorption of the author's descriptions. His tastes were wide, as we should expect, ranging from Tom Hood's humorous poems and such modern imaginative adventures as "Raffles" and "Stingaree", to Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." He considered "Robbery under Arms" the most delightful modern romance, with a substratum of fact, he had ever read, but it always held second place to "Tess." He loved novels about imaginary people leading heroic lives, suffering, loving, hating, adventuring and fighting—all on some high level above the petty joys and sorrows of a work-a-day world.
Of his personal friends it is somewhat difficult to speak, as he knew so many in so many different lands. His circle of acquaintances was immense, though it was natural that his intimates should be men of similar tastes. In England we have a very excellent institution known as the "Shikari Club," an association of Big Game hunters founded by Captain C. E. Radclyffe, Captain P. B. Vanderbyl and Selous himself under the presidency of the Earl of Lonsdale. This club meets but once a year on the night of the Oaks, and members dine together at the Savoy Hotel. Here all matters relating to hunting throughout the world are discussed, plans are made for the future, and it is, as it were, a general meeting round the camp fire of brothers of the rifle. The camaraderie is excellent, and we all know and help each other with information as to future travels. Admission to its ranks is somewhat severe, for no man, unless he has proved himself to be a sportsman of the best type, is ever elected. Amongst these men, who have probably travelled and hunted more extensively than any other community in the world, Selous counted many close friends whose names are too numerous to mention, and from them he got the latest information for some projected trip just as he on his part helped many of them. Another club which at one time he constantly visited to hear discussions on the subject of birds was the British Ornithologists', a dining branch of the British Ornithologists' Union, where after dinner specimens of interest were exhibited, and discussions took place. Most of the principal members were his friends, as well as leading Zoologists in the Zoological Society and the British Museum (Natural History), whom it was always his pleasure to serve and help with new specimens. In later years nearly all his old South African friends were dead or had retired, so he saw little of them, but in England, after his return from South Africa, he made many new friends whose homes he constantly visited. From 1896 till the time of his death he often stayed with Lord Egerton of Tatton, whose son, the Hon. Maurice Egerton, whom he had first met in Alaska, was a great friend of his; with Abel Chapman, with whom he had been at school at Rugby, and who had many kindred tastes; with Heatley Noble, to whom he was much attached; with Sir Philip Brocklehurst and his family, for whom he entertained a warm affection; and with Mr. MacMillan, in Devonshire. These are only a few of the friends who were in intimate sympathy with him, and to whom he constantly wrote accounts of his more recent travels. I met him first in 1897, and from then until his death he wrote to me constantly, and never did either of us go on an expedition without his coming to see me or my going to Worplesdon to discuss the matter in the smallest detail. In those twenty years we both hunted or wandered in other lands every year, and I cannot adequately express what his warm friendship and help was to me, for when Selous opened his soul to anyone he did it with a whole-heartedness and an abandonment of all reserve that are rare in these days. In our lives there come only a few fellow-creatures to whom we can say anything that comes into our minds without being misinterpreted. Even in absence we think about them as they about us, and we know how they will rejoice at our successes and sympathize with our failures, because they know and understand. When such a man as Selous passes away, and we have enjoyed that intimacy, the world indeed seems desolate, even though we have the poor consolation that what has been was very good.
In his own home Selous was hospitality itself, and loved to entertain visitors from all parts of the world who came to see him or his museum. Complete strangers were received with the same courtesy as intimate friends, and Selous would spend hours showing his trophies to anyone who exhibited the smallest interest in the subject. Officers from Aldershot or Naval men were always welcome, and I should think that a large portion of the British Army and Navy had at one time or another enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his trophies under his personal supervision, and it was this abandonment of self and personal interest in his fellow-creatures that made him so popular.