Autograph Poem by Austin Dobson
Garnett was a rare spirit, and the British Museum has never seemed the same since he retired in 1899. Entrance to his private office was cleverly concealed by a door made up of shelf-backs of books, but once within the sanctum the genial host placed at the disposal of his guest, in a matter-of-fact way, such consummate knowledge as to stagger comprehension. But, far beyond this, the charm of his personality will always linger in the minds of those who knew him, and genuine affection for the man will rival the admiration for his scholarship.
One afternoon at Ealing, after tennis on the lawn behind the Dobson house, we gathered for tea. Our little party included Hugh Thomson, the artist who so charmingly illustrated much of Dobson’s work, Mr. and Mrs. Dobson, and one of his sons. The poet was in his most genial mood, and the conversation led us into mutually confidential channels.
“I envy you your novel writing,” he said. “Fiction gives one so much wider scope, and prose is so much more satisfactory as a medium than poetry. I have always wanted to write a novel. Mrs. Dobson would never have it. But she is always right,” he added; “had I persisted I should undoubtedly have lost what little reputation I have.”
He was particularly impressed by the fact that I wrote novels as an avocation. It seemed to him such a far cry from the executive responsibility of a large business, and he persisted in questioning me as to my methods. I explained that I devoted a great deal of time to creating mentally the characters who would later demand my pen; that with the general outline of the plot I intended to develop, I approached it exactly as a theatrical manager approaches a play he is about to produce, spending much time in selecting my cast, adding, discarding, changing, just so far as seemed to me necessary to secure the actors best suited to the parts I planned to have them play. He expressed surprise when I told him that I had long since discarded the idea of working out a definite scenario, depending rather upon creating interesting characters, and having them sufficiently alive so that when placed together under interesting circumstances they are bound to produce interesting dialogue and action.
“Of course my problem, writing essays and poetry, is quite different from yours as a novelist,” he said; “but I do try to assume a relation toward my work that is objective and impersonal. In a way, I go farther than you do.”
Then he went on to say that not only did he plan the outline of what he had to write, whether triolet or poem, wholly in his head, but (in the case of the poetry) even composed the lines and made the necessary changes before having recourse to pen and paper.
“When I actually begin to write,” he said, “I can see the lines clearly before me, even to the interlinear corrections, and it is a simple matter for me to copy them out in letter-perfect form.”
Dobson’s handwriting and his signature were absolutely dissimilar. Unless one had actually seen him transcribe the text of a letter or the lines of a poem in that beautiful designed script, he would think it the work of some one other than the writer of the flowing autograph beneath.