Old Familiar Faces

by Theodore Watts-Dunton

On the whole, he leaned towards the idea of going into politics. The way in which he put the case to me was thoroughly characteristic of

him: “Even if my verse were strong and vital, which I fear it is not, there is almost no chance for men of my generation receiving more than a slight attention at the present day. Things have altogether changed since the sixties and seventies, when I published my most important work—at a time when the prominent names were Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne. The old critical oracles are now dumb; the reviewers are all young men whose knowledge of poetry does not go back so far as the sixties. Those who reviewed the selection from my work in Miles’s book showed themselves to be entirely unconscious of the name of Leicester Warren, and treated the poems there selected as being the work of a new writer; and even when the poems published by Lane came out, no one seemed to be aware that they were by a writer who was very much to the fore a quarter of a century ago. That book has had a flutter of success, but in how large a degree was the success owing to the curiosity excited by the book of a man of my generation being brought out now, and by the publisher of the men of this? With all my sympathy with the work of the younger men and my admiration of some of it, things, I say, have changed since those days.”

I did not share these pessimistic views. Moreover, knowing as I did how extremely

sensitive he was, I knew that his figuring in Parliament would result in the greatest pain to him, and if I gave a somewhat exaggerated expression with regard to my hopes of him in the literary world, it was a kindly feeling towards himself that impelled me to do so. He took my advice and proceeded to gather material for another volume.

To define clearly the impression left upon one by intercourse with any man is difficult. In De Tabley’s case it is almost impossible. His remarkable modesty, or rather diffidence, was what, perhaps, struck me most. It was a genuine lack of faith in his own powers; it had nothing whatever to do with “mock-modesty.” I had a singular instance of this diffidence in the autumn of last year. Lord de Tabley, who was staying at Ryde, having learnt that I was staying with a friend near Niton Bay, wrote to me there saying that he somewhat specially wanted to see me, and proposed our lunching together at an hotel at Ventnor. I was delighted to accede to this, for, like all who fully knew Lord de Tabley, I was thoroughly and deeply attached to him. He was so genuine and so modest and so genial—unsoured by the great and various sorrows of which he used sometimes to talk to me by the cosy study fire—nay, sweetened by them, as I often thought—so grateful for the smallest service rendered in an arena where ingratitude sometimes seems

to be the vis motrix of life—a truly lovable man, if ever there was one.

I drove over to Ventnor. As I chanced to reach the hotel somewhat before the appointed time, and he had not arrived, I drove on to Bonchurch along the Shanklin road. On my way back, I passed a four-wheel cab; but not dreaming that his love of the “growler” reached beyond London, I never thought of him in connexion with it until I saw the well-known face with its sweet thoughtful expression looking through the cab window. On this occasion it looked so specially thoughtful that I imagined something serious had occurred. At the hotel I found that he had secured a snug room and a luxurious luncheon. An ominous packet of writing-paper peering from his overcoat pocket convinced me that it was a manuscript brought for me to read, and feeling that I should prefer to get it over before luncheon, I asked him to show it to me. He then told me its history. Having sent by special invitation a poem to The Nineteenth Century, the editor had returned it—returned it with certain strictures upon portions of it. This incident he had at once subjected to the usual analysis, and had come to the conclusion that certain outside influences of an invidious kind had been brought to play upon the editor.

Time was when I should have shrunk with terror from so thankless a task as that of reading

a manuscript with such a frightful history, but it is astonishing what a long experience in the literary world will do for a man in perplexities of this kind. I read the manuscript and the editor’s courteous but sagacious comments, and I found that the poet had undertaken a subject which was utterly and almost inconceivably alien to his genius. As I read I felt the wistful gaze fixed upon me while the waiter was moving in and out of the room, preparing the luncheon table. “Well,” said he, as I laid the manuscript down, “what do you think? do you agree with the editor?” “Not entirely,” I said. “Not entirely!” he exclaimed; then turning to the waiter, he said, “You can leave the soup, and I will ring when we are ready.” “Not entirely,” I repeated. “With all the editor’s strictures I entirely agree, but he says that by working upon it you may make it into a worthy poem: there I disagree with him. I consider it absolutely hopeless. I regret now that we did not leave the matter until after luncheon, but we will not let it spoil our appetites.”

I am afraid it did spoil our appetites nevertheless, for I felt that I had been compelled, for his own sake, to give him pain. He was much depressed, declared that the success of his late book was entirely factitious, and vowed that nothing should ever persuade him to write another line of verse, and that he would now devote his attention to a peer’s duties in the