I may here appropriately point out how great an effect his book of collected Spectator articles dealing with Asia, and especially India, has had upon public opinion. Asia and Europe (Constable, London, Putnam, New York) remains the essential book on the subject handled, and every year its influence is widening. No one can understand Asia or Islam without reference to its inspiring and also prophetic pages. For example, I notice that Mr. Stoddard, in his recent book on The Revival of Islam (Scribner), constantly quotes Mr. Townsend on the subject. And this, remember, is not due to any fascination of style, but rather to the fact that many of Townsend's prophecies, which at the time seemed wild and unsubstantial enough, have come true.
Though I have said that Mr. Townsend's style as a journalist was perfect, and I firmly believe this, it must be confessed that occasionally he indulged in paradoxes which cannot be defended. I will not conceal the fact that these occasional kickings over the traces personally delighted me as a young man, and still delight me, but, all the same, they are indefensible from the point of view of the serious man—that dreadful person, the vir pietate gravis. For instance, it was always said by some of his friends, and I think with truth, for I have not dared to verify the point, that he began his leader recording the Austrian defeat and the Battle of Sadowa with these words: "So God not only reigns but governs"
Another example of his trenchant style occurred in a "sub-leader" on a story from America, which related how the inhabitants of the "coast towns," i.e., villages in one of the Eastern States, had refused to allow a ship that was supposed to contain cholera or fever patients from New York to land at a local port. The farmers went down with their rifles and shot-guns, so the story went, fired upon the sailors and even the invalids, while they were attempting to land, and drove them back to their ship. Townsend's leader on this legend, no doubt purely apocryphal, was full of wise things, but ended up with the general reflection that people are apt to forget that "mankind in general are tigers in trousers" and that the majority of them "would cheerfully shoot their own fathers to prevent the spread of infection."
No doubt, if you had asked Townsend to justify his statement, he would at once have admitted that the language was a little strong, and would have been quite willing to introduce some modification, such as "men occasionally behave as if they were tigers in trousers," and to add that "in certain instances some men might even go so far as to hold that it might be a public duty to shoot their own fathers to prevent the spread of infection." He was always rather sad, however, if one suggested a little hedging of this kind when one was reading over the final proofs of the paper. What he liked, and as a journalist was quite right to like, was definiteness. Qualifying words were an abomination to his strong imagination. No man ever loved the dramatic side of life more than he did. He even carried this love of drama to the lengths of honestly being inclined to believe things simply and solely because they were sensational. The ordinary man when he hears an extraordinary tale is inclined to say, "What rubbish! That can't be true. I never heard anything like that before," and so on. Townsend, on the other hand, was like the Father of the Church who said, "Credo quia impossibile." If you told Townsend a strange story, and suggested that it could not possibly be true because of some marvellous or absurd incident which was supposed to have occurred, his natural and immediate impulse was to look upon that special circumstance as conclusive proof of its credibility and truth. His extraordinarily wide, if inaccurate, recollections of historical facts and fictions would supply him with a hundred illustrations to show that what seemed to you ridiculous, or, at any rate, inexplicable, was the simplest and most reasonable thing in the world. This leaning toward the sensational, which belongs to so many journalists and is probably a beneficial part of their equipment, should not be forgotten by those who are tempted to judge the Press harshly in the matter of scare headlines and scare news. When something has been inserted in the Press that turns out later to be a cock-and-bull story, the plain man is apt to think that it must have been "put in" because the editor, though he knew it was false, thought it good copy and likely to sell his paper. In my experience that is not in the least how the thing works. A great many editors, however, greatly like and are naturally inclined to believe in "good copy." And, after all, they have got many more excuses for doing so than the ordinary man realises. Nobody can have anything to do with a newspaper without being amazed at the strangeness, the oddity, the topsy-turvy sensationalism of life, when once it is laid bare by the newspaper reporters.
For example, they write an article to show how astrology has absolutely died out in England. A day afterwards you get a letter from some old gentleman in Saffron Walden or Peckham Rye or Romford, informing you that in his small town, or suburban district, "there are ten practising astrologers, not to mention various magicians who do a little astrology in their odd moments." And all this is written with an air of perfect simplicity, as if the information conveyed were the most natural thing in the world and would be no surprise to any ordinary well-informed person.
But it was not only in outside affairs and in his view of the world that lay outside the windows of his mind that Townsend found life a thing of odd discoveries, strange secrets, and thrilling hazards. His own existence, though in reality an exceedingly quiet one, indeed almost that of a recluse, was still to him a great adventure. There was always for him the possibility of the sudden appearance of the man in the black cloak with hat drawn over his brows, either looking, or saying "Beware!" I remember well his pointing out to a member of the staff who is still, I am glad to say, a colleague of mine, a delightful reason for the arrangement of the furniture in his, Townsend's, room at 1 Wellington Street, Strand. Townsend complained that his writing-table was in a very cold corner, and that from it he could not feel the warmth of the fire. It was suggested to him that the best plan would be to bring the table nearer to the fire and to sit with his back to the door. "But don't you see," said Townsend, "that would be impossible? I couldn't see who was entering the room." As he spoke there rose up visions of Eastern figures in white turbans gliding in stealthily and with silent tread, and standing behind the editorial chair, unseen but all-seeing. Alas! we did not often have such adventures in Wellington Street, but no doubt it stimulated Townsend's mind in what might otherwise have been insupportably dull surroundings to think of such possibilities. This idea, indeed, of watching the entry was a favourite topic of his. I remember his telling me when I first came regularly to the office, that Mr.—-, the then manager, who sat in the inner room downstairs, had a mirror so placed that he could see all who came through the main door, without himself being seen, and so appearing to place callers under observation. At my expressing some surprise that this was necessary, I was met with the oracular reply that though it wasn't talked about, such an arrangement would be found "in every office in London." Of a piece with this half-reality, half make-believe, with which, as I say, Townsend transformed his quiet life into one long and thrilling adventure, was a remark which I remember his making in the course of a most innocent country walk: "If the country people knew the secret of the foxglove root it would be impossible to live in the country." Apropos of this remark, my painter brother, who had always lived in the country and had plenty of cottage friends in Somersetshire, pointed out that as a matter of fact the country people knew the effects of digitalis as a poison exceedingly well, even though they were not inclined so to use it as to make life in the country impossible. He went on to tell, if I may be discursive for a moment, how, one day he was painting quietly behind a hedge, he caught a scrap of conversation between two hedge-makers who were unaware of his presence. It ran as follows: "And so they did boil down the hemlock and gave it to the woman, and she died." That was the statement: whether ancient or modern, who knows? For myself, I have always wondered what the hedgers would have said if they had suddenly had their rustic on dit capped with the tale of how the hemlock was used in Athens 2,400 years ago. Did the "woman" of Somersetshire stave off the effects of the poison by walking about? Did her limbs grow cold and numb and dead while the brain still worked? But such questions are destined to remain for ever unanswered. Country people do not like to be cross-questioned upon stray remarks of this character, and if you attempt to fathom mysteries will regard you with suspicion almost deadly in its intensity till the end of your days. "What business had he to be asking questions like that?" is the verdict which kills in the country.
CHAPTER XVII
MEREDITH TOWNSEND (Continued)
Though I cannot resist writing upon the picturesque side of Townsend's character, I must take care not to give a wrong impression. Nobody must think, because of Townsend's emphasis and vividness of language, and that touch of imagination he introduced into every thought and every sentence, that he was an oddity or an eccentric. In spite of the fact that he would never take life plain when he could get it coloured, he was a perfectly sane person. As I have said, the more you knew him the more you felt that, though you might be shocked by the first rashness of his thought, it would very likely turn out to be a perfectly sane judgment—proper discount being allowed for his brilliance of vision. I used sometimes to put some of his most wonderful and hair-raising statements into dull English, and then ask him whether that wasn't what he meant. I generally received the instant assurance that my sober version exactly represented his view.
His attitude of mind might, indeed, be summed up by a thing that he once said to me in a period of political calm in the middle of August in the 'nineties. "Strachey, I wish something dramatic would happen." He went on to explain how he was fretted almost beyond endurance by the dullness of the world. And yet I often wonder whether even he might not have found the last six years almost too highly "accidented" even for him. But I know one thing. If he had the anxious mind developed to the highest point, he was essentially a brave man and a true lover of his country. If he had been destined to live through the war there would have been no stouter heart than his, and none would have given a more stimulating expression to the spirit of the nation than he.