In person he bore, especially in later years, a striking resemblance to Mark Twain; indeed, at the time of Mark's last visit to London, Bullen humorously complained of the awkwardness of being publicly recognised as someone else. He loved tramping and rambling—not exactly walking—whether in country or town; and as a young man had acquired a knowledge of the high-roads and antiquities of England and Wales that was outdone only by his extensive and peculiar knowledge of various brewages obtainable along the road. Here is a characteristic piece of Bullen's writing—an Editorial Note in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1906:
Sylvanus Urban, then but a boy, had started from Chepstow on a solitary walking tour, and was soon caught in a rattling thunderstorm on the Wyndcliff. Tintern Abbey and Raglan Castle are fresh in his memory to-day. A mile or two out of Monmouth he came upon some excellent nutty-hearted ale that George Borrow would have immortalised. As he pursued his way to Raglan Castle he pondered on the ale—"this way and that dividing the swift mind"—until at length, in despair of meeting an equal brew, he turned back again and had another tankard. Heavens, what days were those! In his pack he carried the Essays of Elia and read them in an old inn at Llandovery, where the gracious hostess lighted in his honour tall wax candles fit to stand before an altar. After leaving Llandovery, he lost his way among the Caermarthenshire hills, and was in very poor plight with hunger and fatigue when he reached the white-washed walls of Tregaron. At Harlech he rested for a couple of days, and then covered the way to Beddgelert—twenty miles, if he remembers rightly—at a spanking pace; proceeding in the late afternoon to climb Snowdon, and arriving at Llanberis an hour or so before midnight. Back to London, every inch of the way, walked the young Sylvanus. He indulges the hope that he may yet shoulder his pack again.
He read and re-read unendingly; he loved to talk of men and books with a boon companion, pacing to and fro, ruffling his grey mane and smoking continuously. On such occasions he would stagger his friends with an unexpected display of familiarity with recondite literature, or charm them with impromptu quotations, often at great length, declaimed with a loving appreciation of sound and rhythm. Everything that was old and ripe with goodness he loved, whether literature or furniture; in poetry above all his instinct for the best was infallible. In English, from 1550 to his own day, he seemed to have read and judged everything; but the atmosphere of antiquity that he breathed shut him off from appreciating many contemporary writers. He would keep Epictetus by his bedside, and chant Mrs. Browning's Pan while he dressed; he championed Coventry Patmore and could not admire Meredith. His very craftsmanship was antique; he could not ride a bicycle, infinitely preferring to walk; a typewriter was offensive to one who wrote innumerable letters all in his own hand; he did not even shave himself, finding, no doubt, a daily pleasure in visiting the barber. He was equally sound in his judgments on mezzotints or mutton, and preferred old English fare, with beer, to "Frenchified fuss." A chivalrous and generous scholar and gentleman; those who knew him will call to mind the phrase in which Bullen would refer to a dead friend—"now with God."
Mr. G. D. Smith, the prince of book-dealers, died suddenly in America early in the month. He had but recently been in England, and a few days before his death was cabling to England offers for an important library, which he had tracked down just before leaving. It was he who purchased the famous Venus and Adonis for £15,100 in the winter; he bought largely for the Huntingdon Library, and when he, or one of his millionaire clients, really wanted a book in the English salerooms the prices might break records, but there was no doubt about the book's destination. Mr. Smith was not, to put it mildly, a reading man, but he had a wonderful nose for a good thing, and he was an agreeable man to deal with—a good business man, but not one who attempted to trade unduly upon people's ignorance.
POETRY
"Skindle's" in Poperinghe
(The Salient, 1917)