X

As soon as he was well enough to be moved, Teixeira came up from Hove and, after a few days in Chelsea, went to a nursing-home in Crowborough for the summer.

Nothing is more characteristic of him than that the first message he sent after the beginning of his illness was one of reassurance and optimism:

Sent you a wire this morning,he writes, lest you be seriously distressed. Really much better after nine hours’ sleep.... I expect I shall be quite well by Saturday, when we return but I shall have to be jolly careful....

Thanks for your letters,he writes, 8.5.20, when we were arranging to meet. Nothing you can do for me at present except converse with me in the form of: Tex. Very short questions: Stephen. Very long answers. I’m getting plaguily impatient at the slowness of my recovery: it’s very wrong, wicked and impatient of me.I enclose.A. Two lines from your favourite “poet” (save the Mark Tapley)!B. Some wedding-effusions which remind me that Burne-Jones, when they told him that marriage was a lottery, said:“Then it ought to be made illegal.”

I enclose.

A. Two lines from your favourite “poet” (save the Mark Tapley)!

B. Some wedding-effusions which remind me that Burne-Jones, when they told him that marriage was a lottery, said:

“Then it ought to be made illegal.”

While undergoing his rest-cure, he not infrequently communicated with me by means of annotations to the letters which I wrote him. His comments are given in parenthesis.

I ... went to seeAs You Like Itat the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith,I wrote, 15.5.20. It is a good production but an uncommonly bad play, like so many of that author’s. If any dramatist of the present day served up that kind of musical comedy without the music, but with all the existing purple patches, I wonder what your modern critic would make of it.(Laurence Irving used to go about saying, “Teixeira says that Shakespeare wrote only one decent play:Timon of Athens!Wha-art d’ye think of that? The mun’s mud!” Talking of Shakespeare, if you want to laugh, really to laugh,ce qu’on appelleto laugh, read (you will never see it acted) a stage-play calledTitus Andronicus....)(Help! A man waved to me on the lawn y’day: an Ebrew Jew ... had motored down to see his sister here; told me I’d find her very “bright.” She’s fiftybien sonnés. Told him I’d feel too shy to talk to anybody for weeks. But I’m lending her books. Help!)

(Laurence Irving used to go about saying, “Teixeira says that Shakespeare wrote only one decent play:Timon of Athens!Wha-art d’ye think of that? The mun’s mud!” Talking of Shakespeare, if you want to laugh, really to laugh,ce qu’on appelleto laugh, read (you will never see it acted) a stage-play calledTitus Andronicus....)

(Help! A man waved to me on the lawn y’day: an Ebrew Jew ... had motored down to see his sister here; told me I’d find her very “bright.” She’s fiftybien sonnés. Told him I’d feel too shy to talk to anybody for weeks. But I’m lending her books. Help!)

Strictly limited in the amount of work which he was allowed to do, Teixeira in these weeks read voraciously; and his letters of this period contain almost the only critical judgements that I was able to extract from him.

On 25.5.20. he writes:

Was Pearsall Smith the inventor of the pedigree tracing the descent of the English from the ten lost tribes of Israel?Isaac||Isaacson||SaxonWhat was the other famous book, besidesErewhon, which George Meredith (whom I am beginning to dislike almost as much as Henry James and Pearl Craigie) caused Smith, Elder& Co. to reject? Was itTreasure Islandor something quite different?Which Samuel Butlers am I to buy now? I have (in the order of which I have enjoyed them):The Way of all FleshAlps and SanctuariesThe NotebooksErewhon RevisitedErewhonThe machinery part of the last-named bored me; the philosophy also; and I fear I missed much of the irony. But the style! It’s unbeaten. It’s as good as Defoe. It knocks Stevenson silly because it’s so utterly natural. Hats off to that for style.Should I enjoyThe Humour of Homer, though knowing nothing or little about Homer?The Authoress of the Odyssey: would this be wasted on me? What isThe Fair Havenabout? I don’t want to read Butler’s religious views—all you Britons think and talk and write much too much about religion—nor his views on evolution: he is too much in sympathy, I gather, with that dishonest fellow, Darwin.What shall I read of that same Darwin, so that I may do my own chuckling? Please namethe best two or three, in their order as written.Where shall I find the quarrels between Huxley and Darwin? That accomplished gyurl, my stepdaughter, had read all about them before she was sixteen but was unable to point me to the book.At your leisure, my dear Stephen, answer me all these questions. As you see, I’m making progress. I have neither capacity nor inclination (thank God) for work yet, but I can read day without end.Pearsall Smith’sStories from the Old Testamentwould amuse you. It’s too dear; but it would amuse you, in parts.

Was Pearsall Smith the inventor of the pedigree tracing the descent of the English from the ten lost tribes of Israel?

Isaac||Isaacson||Saxon

What was the other famous book, besidesErewhon, which George Meredith (whom I am beginning to dislike almost as much as Henry James and Pearl Craigie) caused Smith, Elder& Co. to reject? Was itTreasure Islandor something quite different?

Which Samuel Butlers am I to buy now? I have (in the order of which I have enjoyed them):

The machinery part of the last-named bored me; the philosophy also; and I fear I missed much of the irony. But the style! It’s unbeaten. It’s as good as Defoe. It knocks Stevenson silly because it’s so utterly natural. Hats off to that for style.

Should I enjoyThe Humour of Homer, though knowing nothing or little about Homer?The Authoress of the Odyssey: would this be wasted on me? What isThe Fair Havenabout? I don’t want to read Butler’s religious views—all you Britons think and talk and write much too much about religion—nor his views on evolution: he is too much in sympathy, I gather, with that dishonest fellow, Darwin.

What shall I read of that same Darwin, so that I may do my own chuckling? Please namethe best two or three, in their order as written.

Where shall I find the quarrels between Huxley and Darwin? That accomplished gyurl, my stepdaughter, had read all about them before she was sixteen but was unable to point me to the book.

At your leisure, my dear Stephen, answer me all these questions. As you see, I’m making progress. I have neither capacity nor inclination (thank God) for work yet, but I can read day without end.

Pearsall Smith’sStories from the Old Testamentwould amuse you. It’s too dear; but it would amuse you, in parts.

In discussing Darwin’s books, I suggested that Teixeira should find out whether the members of his church were encouraged to read them.

He replies, 28.5.20:

... I am very glad that Darwin is on the Index and I hope that this interferes with his royalties....

And on 2.6.20:

Pray bear with a postcard. I noticed that you used “detour” on two occasions.... I sympathize.There’s no English equivalent save Tony Lumpkin’s seriocomic “circumbendibus.” But I meant to tell you of my recent discovery that Chesterton uses “detour,”sicwithout an accent or italics. And it’s well worth considering. I, for my part, have made up my mind to adopt it in future, by analogy with “depot” and, for that matter, “tour,” which is never italicized.I also intend to adopt your “judgement”....What a lot one can still write for a penny!Tex.

I also intend to adopt your “judgement”....

What a lot one can still write for a penny!

Tex.

In acknowledging one of his translations, I wrote:

Two of my worst faults as a reader are that I always finish a book which I have begun and always begin a book which has been presented to me by the author or translator.

Teixeira comments:

(I always thought highly of your brain till now. I regret to tell you that the only other human being who has ever confessed that vice to me is J. T. Grein’s mother.... Drop that vice. Why, I once “began” to read the Bible!...)

With most of your criticisms I agree,my letter continued. Teixeira had been reading themanuscript of some short stories;though there are one or two points on which I remain adamant. If you wish to shorten your life, ask any Coldstreamer whether he belongs to the Coldstreams. It is always either the Coldstream Guards or the Coldstream....[11](I suspected you of being right, but I was not ashamed to ask you. You may or may not have observed how much less of a snob I am than most of the people you strike. Cricketing terms, nautical terms, military terms, Latin quantities, those endless excuses for the worst forms of British snobbery, all leave me cold.)

(I suspected you of being right, but I was not ashamed to ask you. You may or may not have observed how much less of a snob I am than most of the people you strike. Cricketing terms, nautical terms, military terms, Latin quantities, those endless excuses for the worst forms of British snobbery, all leave me cold.)

In discussing methods of work, he writes:

(... It will interest you to know that Oscar Wilde dropped all his pleasures when he wrote his plays; retired into rooms in St. James’ Place, hiredad hoc, to write the first line; and did not leave them till he had written the last. And one of them at least,The Importance, was a perfect work of art, whatever one may think of the others.)

Though he enjoyed his rest-cure, it gave him—he complained—no news to communicate:

You’re not interested in my brown dog and I speak to no one else.

On my pointing out that I could not be interested in an animal of which I had hitherto not heard, Teixeira wrote, 4.6.20:

... It must have been my morbid delicacy that prevented me, knowing your dislike of dogs, from mentioning the brown dog before. As a man gains strength, he loses delicacy: that explains though it does not excuse my late reference to him. He is an Irish terrier, endowed with a vast sense of humour, who runs about on three legs (which is one more than I, who am eighteen times his age, can boast) and plays with me from ten till half-past six (when I go to bed). He saves me from all boredom and I am grateful to him....Little by little I am beginning to itch for work.... I can’t work yet; but I regard the itching as a good sign. And I no longer find these longish letters so much of a strain. It takes a lot to kill a Portugal.[12]Bring me to the gentle remembrance of your charming host and hostess. I wonder if I shall ever meet either of them at one of your pleasantdinners again. I wonder if I shall ever dine with you again at all....

Little by little I am beginning to itch for work.... I can’t work yet; but I regard the itching as a good sign. And I no longer find these longish letters so much of a strain. It takes a lot to kill a Portugal.[12]

Bring me to the gentle remembrance of your charming host and hostess. I wonder if I shall ever meet either of them at one of your pleasantdinners again. I wonder if I shall ever dine with you again at all....

On 8.6.20 he writes:

... I send you a letter from ... a Beaumont master and scholastic in minor orders. Apart from its nice misspelling, its noble, broad-minded casuistry will explain to you why I love the Church, as it explains to me why you hate it.CependantI suppose that I must set to work and read me a little Darwin.I am making fair progress, as my recent letters must have proved to you. But I do not yet consider myself near enough to complete recovery to return to town....

I am making fair progress, as my recent letters must have proved to you. But I do not yet consider myself near enough to complete recovery to return to town....

In June Teixeira was created a Chevalier of the Order of Leopold II. My letter of congratulation was annotated on this and other subjects:

Referring to a criticism ofKipps, I had written:

It is excellent stuff, and I always regard Wells as being one of the ... greatest ... comedy-writers. But I always feel that inKippsand all the earlier books he is only working up toMr.Polly, which is the most exquisite thing that he has done in that line.(I have read both down here and preferKipps. The phrases underlined, quoted in theTimesnotice (attached) of Wells’ Polly-Kippsian “History of the World” reminds me irresistibly of the old lady who, witnessing a performance of “Anthony and Cleopatra,” by your Mr. Shakespeare or our Mr. Shaw, observed: “How different from the home life of our dear queen!”)... Let me offer you—a trifle belatedly perhaps—my congratulations on your new dignity.(“Thanks.” A. Kipps)Certainly you should tell the[Belgian]Ambassador that it is not only inconvenient but impossible for you to be invested in person and that he must send you the warrant and insignia....Did I ever tell you the story of Mr. G.’s search for a decoration? The Kaiser refused to give him one on any consideration, and he therefore toured Europe, lending or giving money to one government after another in the hope of being ultimately rewarded with the 4th class of the Speckled Pig. In every court he was promised his decoration, but, when he presented himself for the investiture, the court officials turned from him with just that expression of loathing and nausea which he had formerly observed on theface of the Kaiser. It was only when he reached Bulgaria that he found the Czar and his court less squeamish. On payment of a considerable solatium he was invested with the 19th class of the Expiring Porpoise and returned in triumph to his native Stettin. Here, however, his troubles were only beginning, as he was unable to obtain permission to wear the Expiring Porpoise at any public function in Germany. Seeing that he had paid one considerable sum to the Bulgarian Czar and another to the firm of jewellers, who substituted diamonds for the paste of the jewel he felt, naturally enough, that he was receiving little value for his lavish expenditure. Bulgaria, it seemed, was the only country where the Expiring Porpoise could be worn. Accordingly he returned to Sofia and paid a further sum to be invited to the banquet which the burgomaster of Sofia was giving on the Czar’s birthday. Here he was at length rewarded for so many months of disappointment and neglect. Before the soup had been served, the Czar had hurried round to his place and was kissing him on both cheeks. “My dear old friend!” said he, “No, you are not to call me ‘sir’; henceforth it is ‘Fritz’ and ‘Ferdinand’ between us, is it not? How long it is since last I saw you! I have been waiting to express my heart-felt regret for the unpardonablecarelessness of my Chamberlain. When it was too late and you had left Sofia (I feared for ever), my Chamberlain discovered that you had been invested with the 19th Class of the Expiring Porpoise. You must have thought me mad, for no sane man would offer the 19th class to a person of your distinction. It was the 1st class that I intended. This bauble that I am wearing round my neck to-night. Tell me, my dear Fritz, that it is not too late for me to repair my error.” With that word the Czar removed the collar and jewel from his own neck and slipped it over the head of G. taking in exchange G.’s despised collar and jewel of the 19th class. It was only when our friend returned to his hotel that he discovered the new jewel to be of the most unfinished paste, as cheap or cheaper than the paste which he had previously removed at such expense from the jewel of the 19th class.(This is a splendid story.)I am afraid,I added, that I have no idea who is the official to whom you apply for leave to wear these things....(My dear Stephen, you had better here and now adopt as your maxim what I said to Browning soon after he had engaged my services on behalf of H.M.G.: “I yield to no man living in my ignorance on every subject under the sun.”You outdo and outvie me. You never know anything. In other words, you know nothing. But I’ll wager that these are worn without permission. What’s the penalty?The Morning Postto-day names a couple of dozen to whom it’s been granted.)

(I have read both down here and preferKipps. The phrases underlined, quoted in theTimesnotice (attached) of Wells’ Polly-Kippsian “History of the World” reminds me irresistibly of the old lady who, witnessing a performance of “Anthony and Cleopatra,” by your Mr. Shakespeare or our Mr. Shaw, observed: “How different from the home life of our dear queen!”)

... Let me offer you—a trifle belatedly perhaps—my congratulations on your new dignity.

(“Thanks.” A. Kipps)

Certainly you should tell the[Belgian]Ambassador that it is not only inconvenient but impossible for you to be invested in person and that he must send you the warrant and insignia....

Did I ever tell you the story of Mr. G.’s search for a decoration? The Kaiser refused to give him one on any consideration, and he therefore toured Europe, lending or giving money to one government after another in the hope of being ultimately rewarded with the 4th class of the Speckled Pig. In every court he was promised his decoration, but, when he presented himself for the investiture, the court officials turned from him with just that expression of loathing and nausea which he had formerly observed on theface of the Kaiser. It was only when he reached Bulgaria that he found the Czar and his court less squeamish. On payment of a considerable solatium he was invested with the 19th class of the Expiring Porpoise and returned in triumph to his native Stettin. Here, however, his troubles were only beginning, as he was unable to obtain permission to wear the Expiring Porpoise at any public function in Germany. Seeing that he had paid one considerable sum to the Bulgarian Czar and another to the firm of jewellers, who substituted diamonds for the paste of the jewel he felt, naturally enough, that he was receiving little value for his lavish expenditure. Bulgaria, it seemed, was the only country where the Expiring Porpoise could be worn. Accordingly he returned to Sofia and paid a further sum to be invited to the banquet which the burgomaster of Sofia was giving on the Czar’s birthday. Here he was at length rewarded for so many months of disappointment and neglect. Before the soup had been served, the Czar had hurried round to his place and was kissing him on both cheeks. “My dear old friend!” said he, “No, you are not to call me ‘sir’; henceforth it is ‘Fritz’ and ‘Ferdinand’ between us, is it not? How long it is since last I saw you! I have been waiting to express my heart-felt regret for the unpardonablecarelessness of my Chamberlain. When it was too late and you had left Sofia (I feared for ever), my Chamberlain discovered that you had been invested with the 19th Class of the Expiring Porpoise. You must have thought me mad, for no sane man would offer the 19th class to a person of your distinction. It was the 1st class that I intended. This bauble that I am wearing round my neck to-night. Tell me, my dear Fritz, that it is not too late for me to repair my error.” With that word the Czar removed the collar and jewel from his own neck and slipped it over the head of G. taking in exchange G.’s despised collar and jewel of the 19th class. It was only when our friend returned to his hotel that he discovered the new jewel to be of the most unfinished paste, as cheap or cheaper than the paste which he had previously removed at such expense from the jewel of the 19th class.

(This is a splendid story.)

I am afraid,I added, that I have no idea who is the official to whom you apply for leave to wear these things....

(My dear Stephen, you had better here and now adopt as your maxim what I said to Browning soon after he had engaged my services on behalf of H.M.G.: “I yield to no man living in my ignorance on every subject under the sun.”You outdo and outvie me. You never know anything. In other words, you know nothing. But I’ll wager that these are worn without permission. What’s the penalty?The Morning Postto-day names a couple of dozen to whom it’s been granted.)

Evidently feeling that I was living too much alone, Teixeira enclosed a copy ofThe Times’list of forthcoming dances:

(Don’t wait for invitations,he urged in a postscript. Ring the top bell and walk inside.)

The next letter needs to have Teixeira’s use of the word palimpsest explained. His good-nature in reading his friends’ manuscripts was inexhaustible. I never intended him to do more than give me a general opinion; but his critical vision was microscopic, and he filled the margins with questions and comments. In returning me one manuscript, he wrote:

I have made some 800 notes, of which 600 are purely frivolous. Six are worth serious attention.

While this textual scrutiny was quite invaluable,Teixeira seldom gave that general opinion of which I always felt in most need at the moment when I had lately finished a book and was unable to regard it with detachment. Accordingly, the manuscript, on leaving him, was usually sent to another friend, who commented not only on the text but also on the marginalia. As her occasional controversies with Teixeira (expressed in such minutes as:

“Pull yourself together, Mr. T!”

“You men! One’s as bad as the other, you know.”

“Never mind what Mr. T. says, Stephen:Iunderstand.”

“Iwishmy brain worked as quickly as that.”)

and with me invited rejoinders, the first version of a manuscript sometimes took on the appearance of a contentious departmental file. It was in this form that Teixeira called it a palimpsest.

On 22.6.20 he writes:

Thanks for your letter and the palimpsest.... I’ve studied it amid distressing circumstances, ina long-chair, on a lawn, beneath the sun, surrounded by breezes and patients, who being forbidden to speak to me, dare not help me to collect the scattered pages....Lady D. is another of England’s darlings. In the first place, she nearly always agrees with me and there she’s right: I have told you time after time that, if only everybody would agree with me, the world would be an infinitely sweeter place. In the second place, she dislikes Browning almost as much as I do. No one can dislike him quite so much; but she certainly disapproves of your particular taste in extracts from the burjoice mountebank’s rhymed works.I can understand that she sometimes unsettles you by condemning you for the quite logical behaviour of the male characters in your trilogy: you might meet this by presenting her with a copy ofThus spake Zarathustrain addition to those pencils which will mark which you already had in mind for her. On the other hand, I think that you may safely take her word for it when she says:“Oh, Stephen, women aren’t like this!”Send me more! Send me more!

Lady D. is another of England’s darlings. In the first place, she nearly always agrees with me and there she’s right: I have told you time after time that, if only everybody would agree with me, the world would be an infinitely sweeter place. In the second place, she dislikes Browning almost as much as I do. No one can dislike him quite so much; but she certainly disapproves of your particular taste in extracts from the burjoice mountebank’s rhymed works.

I can understand that she sometimes unsettles you by condemning you for the quite logical behaviour of the male characters in your trilogy: you might meet this by presenting her with a copy ofThus spake Zarathustrain addition to those pencils which will mark which you already had in mind for her. On the other hand, I think that you may safely take her word for it when she says:

“Oh, Stephen, women aren’t like this!”

Send me more! Send me more!

In a letter of 22.6.20, he wrote:

To-morrow I make my way up to Oxford for the House Gaudy but before leaving I may find a moment to report my movements.

Teixeira comments:

I have heard of the House Beautiful but never of the House Gaudy. Now don’t be a British snob but answer like a little Irish gentleman, as I should answer if you asked me what “acht-en-tachtig Achtergracht” mean in Dutch. Of course, working it out in the light of my own intelligence, I feel that, if “House” is an Oxford sobriquet for Christ Church and “gaudy” Oxford slang for a merrymaking of sorts, you ought to have suppressed that capital G and written “the House gaudy,” in distinction from the Balliol gaudy, the Magdalen gaudy, etc.You are not a Hottentot (Loud cheers), but you are as fond of capital letters as a Hottentot is of glass beads.I’m feeling rather full of beans to-day ... (as you perceive.)...

You are not a Hottentot (Loud cheers), but you are as fond of capital letters as a Hottentot is of glass beads.

I’m feeling rather full of beans to-day ... (as you perceive.)...

The improvement was visibly maintained in his letter of 25.6.20:

Thanks for your two letters of the 23rd and 24th instant postum. Don’t start; instant postum is the ridiculous name of the toothsome beveragewhich my specialist ordered me to take instead of tea or coffee....I jump at the chance of playing the schoolmaster in the matter of those capital letters. It is too utterly jolly finding you in a compliant mood....My rule and yours might well be to start with a definite prejudice against capital letters in the middle of a sentence, combined with a resolve never to use them if it can be avoided. Having taken up this firm standpoint, we can afford and we can begin to make concessions. For instance, my heart leapt with joy, nearly twenty years ago, when the founders of theBurlington Reviewdecided to abolish all capitals to adjectives, to print “french, german, egyptian, persian,” etc. You have no idea how well this affected the page. But what is all right in a majestic review (or was it magazine, by the way?) like theBurlingtonmay look ultraprecious in a novel. Therefore I concede French, German, etc. Only remember that it is a concession, a concession to Anglo-American vulgarity. A Frenchman writes (and that not invariably: I mean, not every Frenchman). “Un Français les Anglais,” but (invariably) “L’elan français, le rosbif anglais”. The Germans and Danes begin all nouns with a capital (as the English did, in some centuries), butno adjectives whatever. The Italians, Norwegians and Swedes have no capitals to their adjectives; the Dutch are gradually discarding them; they are discarded entirely in scientists’ Latin: the Narbonne Lycosa (a certain spider of the Tarantula genus) in Latin becomesLycosa narbonniensis....Your question about “high mass” is, involuntarily, not quite fair. Mass quite conceivably comes within the category of such words as State and a few others, which are spelt with a capital in one sense and not in another.[13]I write “going to mass” (no French catholic would write “allant à la Messe!”) and I see no reason why catholics should write Mass except in a technical work. They would write “the Host” because of the real presence; but I see no more reason for the Mass than for Matins or Compline. Obviously, it is different in a technical work in translating Fabre, I speak of a Wasp, a Spider, a Beetle; in translating Couperus, I do not....“The Colonel, the Major, the Vicar,” in a novel; don’t they set your teeth on edge? As well write about the Postmistress of the village.When in doubt, as I wrote to you on the subject of the hyphenated nouns, take little Murray[14]for your guide. He has the sense to begin the vast, the immense majority of his words with a lower-case letter. And there are doubtful words: Titanic, Cyclopean. I never know these without turning ’em up for myself.To sum up:(a) take a firm stand against capitals generally;(b) be prepared to make moderate (i.e. grudging,) concessions;(c) have little Murray at your elbow.

I jump at the chance of playing the schoolmaster in the matter of those capital letters. It is too utterly jolly finding you in a compliant mood....

My rule and yours might well be to start with a definite prejudice against capital letters in the middle of a sentence, combined with a resolve never to use them if it can be avoided. Having taken up this firm standpoint, we can afford and we can begin to make concessions. For instance, my heart leapt with joy, nearly twenty years ago, when the founders of theBurlington Reviewdecided to abolish all capitals to adjectives, to print “french, german, egyptian, persian,” etc. You have no idea how well this affected the page. But what is all right in a majestic review (or was it magazine, by the way?) like theBurlingtonmay look ultraprecious in a novel. Therefore I concede French, German, etc. Only remember that it is a concession, a concession to Anglo-American vulgarity. A Frenchman writes (and that not invariably: I mean, not every Frenchman). “Un Français les Anglais,” but (invariably) “L’elan français, le rosbif anglais”. The Germans and Danes begin all nouns with a capital (as the English did, in some centuries), butno adjectives whatever. The Italians, Norwegians and Swedes have no capitals to their adjectives; the Dutch are gradually discarding them; they are discarded entirely in scientists’ Latin: the Narbonne Lycosa (a certain spider of the Tarantula genus) in Latin becomesLycosa narbonniensis....

Your question about “high mass” is, involuntarily, not quite fair. Mass quite conceivably comes within the category of such words as State and a few others, which are spelt with a capital in one sense and not in another.[13]I write “going to mass” (no French catholic would write “allant à la Messe!”) and I see no reason why catholics should write Mass except in a technical work. They would write “the Host” because of the real presence; but I see no more reason for the Mass than for Matins or Compline. Obviously, it is different in a technical work in translating Fabre, I speak of a Wasp, a Spider, a Beetle; in translating Couperus, I do not....

“The Colonel, the Major, the Vicar,” in a novel; don’t they set your teeth on edge? As well write about the Postmistress of the village.

When in doubt, as I wrote to you on the subject of the hyphenated nouns, take little Murray[14]for your guide. He has the sense to begin the vast, the immense majority of his words with a lower-case letter. And there are doubtful words: Titanic, Cyclopean. I never know these without turning ’em up for myself.

To sum up:

(a) take a firm stand against capitals generally;

(b) be prepared to make moderate (i.e. grudging,) concessions;

After so long a letter, Teixeira contented himself with a few annotations to one next day.

On my telling him that I had congratulated a common friend of his son’s “blue”, he interposed:

(I would write to A. P. if I knew what a “blue” was; but I really have not the remotest idea. Word of honour, I’m not conniegilchristing. I presume it has to do with cricket; and it’s a mere guess.)I have studied your exposition of capitals,I continued, with great interest and, I hope, profit, though there is a fundamental difficulty which Ihasten to put before you.... So long as proper names intrude their capitals into mid-sentence you cannot arrive at flat uniformity, and a few capitals more or less do not offend me....I did not intend to be unfair about High Mass and first thought of suggesting for your consideration either Holy Communion or that hideous, hypocritical, pusillanimous compromise beloved of Anglicans, the “eucharist,” then substituted the name of a ceremonial in your own church. You, I see, write of the Real Presence without capitals.(Gross knavery and insincerity on my part; rank scoundrelism. I’d have put caps, on any other occasion.)I should give capitals to this and to such words as Incarnation, Crucifixion and Ascension, when used in a religious connection. Also to the word Hegira and any similar words culled from any other religion. As I told you before, I am without a rule and would let almost any word have its capital, if I could please it thereby. Words used in a special sense also have their capitals from me, as for example Hall, when that means a college dinner served in hall. No, I am afraid that a capital for colonel, major and vicar leaves my teeth unmoved, and I could write postmistresswith a capital light-heartedly. On the other hand I should not use a capital for dustman, as this is not a title or office.I am, as you see, quite illogical and inconsistent; and, if I try to follow your rules, it will be only in the hope of pleasing you. I cannot rouse myself to any enthusiasm for or against a liberal use of capitals and I do not think that it is a matter of great importance. On considerations of comeliness, I think the French printed page, with its vile type and vile, fluffy paper, is one of the ugliest things (Nonsense, nonsense, you unæsthetic Celt! The unsought, natural beauty and perfection of the page make up for all the inferiority of the material. Never say that again! Your friend Seymour Leslie would scratch and claw you for it.) ever allowed to issue from a printing press, but that may be only insular prejudice....Forgive a boring letter, I beg, but I am in a thoroughly boring mood. (Grawnted.)...

I have studied your exposition of capitals,I continued, with great interest and, I hope, profit, though there is a fundamental difficulty which Ihasten to put before you.... So long as proper names intrude their capitals into mid-sentence you cannot arrive at flat uniformity, and a few capitals more or less do not offend me....

I did not intend to be unfair about High Mass and first thought of suggesting for your consideration either Holy Communion or that hideous, hypocritical, pusillanimous compromise beloved of Anglicans, the “eucharist,” then substituted the name of a ceremonial in your own church. You, I see, write of the Real Presence without capitals.

(Gross knavery and insincerity on my part; rank scoundrelism. I’d have put caps, on any other occasion.)

I should give capitals to this and to such words as Incarnation, Crucifixion and Ascension, when used in a religious connection. Also to the word Hegira and any similar words culled from any other religion. As I told you before, I am without a rule and would let almost any word have its capital, if I could please it thereby. Words used in a special sense also have their capitals from me, as for example Hall, when that means a college dinner served in hall. No, I am afraid that a capital for colonel, major and vicar leaves my teeth unmoved, and I could write postmistresswith a capital light-heartedly. On the other hand I should not use a capital for dustman, as this is not a title or office.

I am, as you see, quite illogical and inconsistent; and, if I try to follow your rules, it will be only in the hope of pleasing you. I cannot rouse myself to any enthusiasm for or against a liberal use of capitals and I do not think that it is a matter of great importance. On considerations of comeliness, I think the French printed page, with its vile type and vile, fluffy paper, is one of the ugliest things (Nonsense, nonsense, you unæsthetic Celt! The unsought, natural beauty and perfection of the page make up for all the inferiority of the material. Never say that again! Your friend Seymour Leslie would scratch and claw you for it.) ever allowed to issue from a printing press, but that may be only insular prejudice....

Forgive a boring letter, I beg, but I am in a thoroughly boring mood. (Grawnted.)...

A postscript to this controversy came on a postcard dated 28.6.20:

... Darwin spells “the king” with a small “k.”He is rather good in spelling, bad in punctuation, execrable in statement, logic, deduction. InThe Descent of Manhe says:“Music arouses in us various emotions, but not the more terrible ones of horror, fear, rage, etc.”He had never heard of me, though I was 17 when he died.Tex.

... Darwin spells “the king” with a small “k.”

He is rather good in spelling, bad in punctuation, execrable in statement, logic, deduction. InThe Descent of Manhe says:

“Music arouses in us various emotions, but not the more terrible ones of horror, fear, rage, etc.”

He had never heard of me, though I was 17 when he died.

Tex.

Crowborough, 30 June (alas, how time flies!) 1920.For your two letters of 28, 29 June, many thanks. I really can’t write and congratulate H. onthat! How awful!And to think that, if Lionel[the recipient of the “blue”]had been “vowed” to the B.V.M. in his infancy, he’d have worn nothing but blue and white, anyhow, till he came of age!...

Crowborough, 30 June (alas, how time flies!) 1920.

For your two letters of 28, 29 June, many thanks. I really can’t write and congratulate H. onthat! How awful!

And to think that, if Lionel[the recipient of the “blue”]had been “vowed” to the B.V.M. in his infancy, he’d have worn nothing but blue and white, anyhow, till he came of age!...

Objecting to my having enclosed the phrase “honest broker” in inverted commas, he continues:

Lady Y., you may remember, said:“Good beobles, we come here for your goots.”“Ay,” they replied, “and for our chattels too!”I don’t want your chattels; but I am convinced that I came to England for your goots and to save you from degenerating into a lady novelist.The worst of it is that Lady D. agreed with you.... Seriously, however: suppose Winston were to use a perfectly commonplace metaphor, to say,e.g., that he had ordered the Gallipoli expedition off his own bat. Would that for all time raise those four words from the commonplace to the exceptional? Could you never employ that phrase except in “quotes”?...Be sensible. Do not fight against your rescuer. Let me, when I receive the Royal Humane Society’s medal, feel that my gallant efforts were not in vain, that I succeeded in saving your life and soul!...P.S. An invitation to the ... Oppenheim wedding has just arrived. Like the man who answered the big-game-hunter’s advertisement, I’m not going.[15]

Lady Y., you may remember, said:

“Good beobles, we come here for your goots.”

“Ay,” they replied, “and for our chattels too!”

I don’t want your chattels; but I am convinced that I came to England for your goots and to save you from degenerating into a lady novelist.The worst of it is that Lady D. agreed with you.... Seriously, however: suppose Winston were to use a perfectly commonplace metaphor, to say,e.g., that he had ordered the Gallipoli expedition off his own bat. Would that for all time raise those four words from the commonplace to the exceptional? Could you never employ that phrase except in “quotes”?...

Be sensible. Do not fight against your rescuer. Let me, when I receive the Royal Humane Society’s medal, feel that my gallant efforts were not in vain, that I succeeded in saving your life and soul!...

P.S. An invitation to the ... Oppenheim wedding has just arrived. Like the man who answered the big-game-hunter’s advertisement, I’m not going.[15]

Trusting that this will find you alive,he writes 7.7.20, I write to thank you for your letter and to return the book.[The Diary of a Nobody]. It amused me, though I am not prepared to go as far as Rosebinger, Birringer or Bellinger. I could certainly furnish a bedroom without it; in fact, I hope to die before I read it again; I don’t rank it with Don Quixote; and I have never seen the statue of St. John the Baptist, so “can’t say.” I think that Mr. Hardfur Huttle, towards the end, does much to cheer the reader.I have bought pahnds and pahnds’ worth of books; I am rou-inned; and yet I never have aught to read. Can you lend me Huxley’s Collected Essays? Can you lend me anything in which somebody “goes for” somebody else? I yearn to read savage attacks; you know what I mean: not attaxi-cabri-au lait, but attacks free from all milk of human kindness.Here is a typical quotation from your favourite “poet”, whom, by the way, Benjamin Beaconsfield disliked as much as I do:“Out of the wreck I rise, past Zeus to the P(sic)otency o’er him.”Nice and typical, isn’t it? But you mustn’t use it, as the first six words form the title of a novel by Beatrice Harraden which I have been driven to read down here by the dearth of books.My last two purchases have just arrived; series i and ii of the New Decameron. Shall I enjoy them?...

I have bought pahnds and pahnds’ worth of books; I am rou-inned; and yet I never have aught to read. Can you lend me Huxley’s Collected Essays? Can you lend me anything in which somebody “goes for” somebody else? I yearn to read savage attacks; you know what I mean: not attaxi-cabri-au lait, but attacks free from all milk of human kindness.

Here is a typical quotation from your favourite “poet”, whom, by the way, Benjamin Beaconsfield disliked as much as I do:

“Out of the wreck I rise, past Zeus to the P(sic)otency o’er him.”

Nice and typical, isn’t it? But you mustn’t use it, as the first six words form the title of a novel by Beatrice Harraden which I have been driven to read down here by the dearth of books.

My last two purchases have just arrived; series i and ii of the New Decameron. Shall I enjoy them?...

You will want something to read in the train,he writes on 10.7.20. Read this Muddiman’sMen of the Nineties. But please return it to me; it will serve to keep the child quiet when she next comes down. And it served to make me feel very young again (seven years younger than you are now) to read of all those remarkable men with whom I foregathered in the nineties.They would probably have accepted Squire and Siegfried Sassoon.[16]None of the other poets; none of the prose-writers, painters, “blasters” or blighters....

They would probably have accepted Squire and Siegfried Sassoon.[16]None of the other poets; none of the prose-writers, painters, “blasters” or blighters....

In acknowledging the book, I objected to what I considered the excessive importancethat is still attached to the men of the nineties and to their work:

I doubt,I wrote, 12.7.20, whether the years 1890 to 1900 have produced more permanent literature of the first order than any other decade of the 19th century—or the twentieth. Paris was discovered anew in those days and seemed a tremendous discovery, though its influence was meretricious, and the imitations from the French were usually of the worst French models. The discovery of art for art’s sake was, I always feel, the most meaningless and pretentious of all other shams. Even Wilde never made clear what he meant by the phrase, though he and his school interpreted it practically by a wholly decadent over-elaboration of decoration. The interest of the period lies in the astounding success achieved by this noisy and self-sufficient coterie in imposing itself on the easily startled, and easily shocked and still more easily impressed middle and upper classes of London society. But that is a thing that so many people can do and a thing that is so seldom worth doing.

In a later letter, I added, 15.6.20:

I believe that the great bubble of the nineties has been pricked for the present generation. Allthe work of Max, most of Beardsley and a little of Wilde have a permanent place; and, if some one would do for the poets and essayists of the nineties what Eddie Marsh has done for the Georgian poets, we might have one volume of moderate size containing the poetry of interest and good craftsmanship though of little power or originality....Whether[the artistic movement of the nineties]effected any great liberation of spirit or manner from the fetters of mid-Victorian literature I cannot say, though I am inclined to doubt it. That liberation was being achieved by individual writers such as Meredith and Kipling, who never had anything to do with the domino-room of the Cheshire Cheese. Never, I am sure, was any artistic group so void of humour as the men of the nineties.Having damned them, their period and work so far, I may surprise you by conceding that they do still arouse great interest.... I have been thinking that it is almost your duty to put on permanent record your own knowledge and opinions about this school. Max Beerbohm is unlikely to do it, and you must now be one of the very few men living who were on terms of intimacy with the leaders of the movement.... Men under thirty have never heard of John Gray,Grackanthorpe or your over advertised American friend Peters. Your annotations to Muddiman’s book go some very little distance towards filling this gap, but I think you should undertake something more substantial. For heaven’s sake do not call itThe History of the Nineties, but is there any reason why you should not—from your memory and without consulting a single work of reference—compile a little book ofNotes on the ’Nineties? Make it an informal dictionary of biography, put down all the names of the men associated with that movement at leisure, record about each everything that has not yet appeared in print and correct the occasionally incorrect accounts of other writers. Such a book would be a valuable addition to literary history, it would be amusing and not difficult for you to write, it could be turned to the profit of your reputation and pocket....

Whether[the artistic movement of the nineties]effected any great liberation of spirit or manner from the fetters of mid-Victorian literature I cannot say, though I am inclined to doubt it. That liberation was being achieved by individual writers such as Meredith and Kipling, who never had anything to do with the domino-room of the Cheshire Cheese. Never, I am sure, was any artistic group so void of humour as the men of the nineties.

Having damned them, their period and work so far, I may surprise you by conceding that they do still arouse great interest.... I have been thinking that it is almost your duty to put on permanent record your own knowledge and opinions about this school. Max Beerbohm is unlikely to do it, and you must now be one of the very few men living who were on terms of intimacy with the leaders of the movement.... Men under thirty have never heard of John Gray,Grackanthorpe or your over advertised American friend Peters. Your annotations to Muddiman’s book go some very little distance towards filling this gap, but I think you should undertake something more substantial. For heaven’s sake do not call itThe History of the Nineties, but is there any reason why you should not—from your memory and without consulting a single work of reference—compile a little book ofNotes on the ’Nineties? Make it an informal dictionary of biography, put down all the names of the men associated with that movement at leisure, record about each everything that has not yet appeared in print and correct the occasionally incorrect accounts of other writers. Such a book would be a valuable addition to literary history, it would be amusing and not difficult for you to write, it could be turned to the profit of your reputation and pocket....

For this criticism Teixeira took me to task in his letter of 14.7.20.

And now, Stephen, tremble. How often have I not called you “the wise youth!” How constantly have I not believed you to be filled with knowledge, either acquired or instinctive and intuitive, of most things! And now your letter ... has disappointed me almost to tears.Your only excuse would be that you took Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw to be and practically alone to be the men of the nineties. That is not so. And, if you agree with me that Oscar was a man of the eighties and that Shaw is a man of the twentieth century, you have no excuse whatever and 98% of the first paragraph in your letter is dead wrong.I presume that you keep copies of your letters to me: you should; they will be useful for yourMemoirs of a Celibate(John Murray: 1950; 105/- net). Anyhow, here goes:There was no question of either a literary revival or revolution in the nineties and there was no sham, colossal or minute.The men engaged were not pretentious, not conceited, not humbugs. They were a group of men, mostly under 30, who just wrote and drew and painted as well as they could, in all sincerity and with no view of financial gain. Dowson, Johnson, Horner, Image, etc., etc., etc., were the humblest, most modest lot of literary men I ever met.Their output was not immense: it was infinitesimal, just because they were so careful to produce only work that was “just so.” Think, Stephen. What did Henry Harland, one of the few to live to over 40, put out?The Cardinal’s Snuff Box,My Friend Prospers,MademoiselleMiss and Other Stories: that is all! Ernest Dowson: two slim volumes of verse, half-a-dozen short stories, a collaborator’s share in two novels. John Gray: one slim volume of verse. Lionel Johnson: God knows how little. And so on. Arthur Symns has worked on steadily, but, though he is getting on for sixty, you cannot say that his output is immense or contains anything that was not worth doing.Immensely advertised! Where? And by whom?Beardsley’s output was immense, for his years. Ought not the world to be grateful for it? He told me once that he had an itch for work; and it looked afterwards as if he knew that he was doomed to die at 24 or 26 and wanted to throw off all he could before. When he worked no one knew: no one ever saw him at work and he was always about and always accessible.He was not conceited.... Rickets and Shannon were a little conceited: they had a way of “coming the Pope” over the rest, as Will Rothenstein once put it to me. (Will always took “a proper pride” in his excellent work, but no more). But, Lord, hadn’t they the right to be? Was ever a book more beautifully designed thanSilverpoints(cover, page, type, typesetting by Ricketts)? Place Ricketts’ cover of thePageantbeside any other book in your library and tell me how it strikes you. Look at anything that Charles Shannon condescends to exhibit in the Academy and see how the quality of it slays everything around it exactly as a picture by Whistler or Rossetti would do.To revert to immensity of output (I have to keep levanting and tacking about), I call immense the output of Belloc (the modern Sterne), Chesterton (the modern Swift), E. V. Lucas (the modern Addison); they themselves would be flattered at the comparisons. These chaps, though they can and sometimes do write as well as the men of the nineties, spoil their average by writing immensely; and they write immensely because they want a good deal of money. Now the men of the nineties hadn’t clubs, homes, wives or children; lunched for a shilling; dined for eighteen pence; and didn’t want a lot of money. They cared neither for money nor fame; they cared for their own esteem and that of what you call their coterie and I their set.And that (to answer a question which you once asked me) is art for art’s sake; and I maintain that it is not right to call this meaningless or pretentious or a sham.This coterie, or set, was not noisy: I never met a quieter; it was self-sufficient only in thebest sense; and it in no way imposed or impressed itself on the middle and upper classes of London society. How could they? I doubt if any number of theSavoyever sold 1,000 copies; certainly no number ever sold 2,000. And they ... were never in society, were never in the outskirts of society and never wanted to be in either.But there! I daresay you were thinking of Oscar all the time....Enter on the lawn a nurse bearing my dinner-tray. After dinner I retire to bed....

Your only excuse would be that you took Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw to be and practically alone to be the men of the nineties. That is not so. And, if you agree with me that Oscar was a man of the eighties and that Shaw is a man of the twentieth century, you have no excuse whatever and 98% of the first paragraph in your letter is dead wrong.

I presume that you keep copies of your letters to me: you should; they will be useful for yourMemoirs of a Celibate(John Murray: 1950; 105/- net). Anyhow, here goes:

There was no question of either a literary revival or revolution in the nineties and there was no sham, colossal or minute.

The men engaged were not pretentious, not conceited, not humbugs. They were a group of men, mostly under 30, who just wrote and drew and painted as well as they could, in all sincerity and with no view of financial gain. Dowson, Johnson, Horner, Image, etc., etc., etc., were the humblest, most modest lot of literary men I ever met.

Their output was not immense: it was infinitesimal, just because they were so careful to produce only work that was “just so.” Think, Stephen. What did Henry Harland, one of the few to live to over 40, put out?The Cardinal’s Snuff Box,My Friend Prospers,MademoiselleMiss and Other Stories: that is all! Ernest Dowson: two slim volumes of verse, half-a-dozen short stories, a collaborator’s share in two novels. John Gray: one slim volume of verse. Lionel Johnson: God knows how little. And so on. Arthur Symns has worked on steadily, but, though he is getting on for sixty, you cannot say that his output is immense or contains anything that was not worth doing.

Immensely advertised! Where? And by whom?

Beardsley’s output was immense, for his years. Ought not the world to be grateful for it? He told me once that he had an itch for work; and it looked afterwards as if he knew that he was doomed to die at 24 or 26 and wanted to throw off all he could before. When he worked no one knew: no one ever saw him at work and he was always about and always accessible.

He was not conceited.... Rickets and Shannon were a little conceited: they had a way of “coming the Pope” over the rest, as Will Rothenstein once put it to me. (Will always took “a proper pride” in his excellent work, but no more). But, Lord, hadn’t they the right to be? Was ever a book more beautifully designed thanSilverpoints(cover, page, type, typesetting by Ricketts)? Place Ricketts’ cover of thePageantbeside any other book in your library and tell me how it strikes you. Look at anything that Charles Shannon condescends to exhibit in the Academy and see how the quality of it slays everything around it exactly as a picture by Whistler or Rossetti would do.

To revert to immensity of output (I have to keep levanting and tacking about), I call immense the output of Belloc (the modern Sterne), Chesterton (the modern Swift), E. V. Lucas (the modern Addison); they themselves would be flattered at the comparisons. These chaps, though they can and sometimes do write as well as the men of the nineties, spoil their average by writing immensely; and they write immensely because they want a good deal of money. Now the men of the nineties hadn’t clubs, homes, wives or children; lunched for a shilling; dined for eighteen pence; and didn’t want a lot of money. They cared neither for money nor fame; they cared for their own esteem and that of what you call their coterie and I their set.

And that (to answer a question which you once asked me) is art for art’s sake; and I maintain that it is not right to call this meaningless or pretentious or a sham.

This coterie, or set, was not noisy: I never met a quieter; it was self-sufficient only in thebest sense; and it in no way imposed or impressed itself on the middle and upper classes of London society. How could they? I doubt if any number of theSavoyever sold 1,000 copies; certainly no number ever sold 2,000. And they ... were never in society, were never in the outskirts of society and never wanted to be in either.

But there! I daresay you were thinking of Oscar all the time....

Enter on the lawn a nurse bearing my dinner-tray. After dinner I retire to bed....

One day,Teixeira added, 17.7.20, I’ll return to those men of the nineties (I will never write a book about them: really I was too much outside them)....I trust that some Leonard Merricks are on the way: I’m nigh starved for books again. Don’t send me Zola or Balzac in English: I couldn’t stomach the translations. And I expect you’re right about Balzac’s French style. Those giants were awful chaps: Balzac, Rubens, the pylon-designing Baines, brrr!...

One day,Teixeira added, 17.7.20, I’ll return to those men of the nineties (I will never write a book about them: really I was too much outside them)....

I trust that some Leonard Merricks are on the way: I’m nigh starved for books again. Don’t send me Zola or Balzac in English: I couldn’t stomach the translations. And I expect you’re right about Balzac’s French style. Those giants were awful chaps: Balzac, Rubens, the pylon-designing Baines, brrr!...

On 22.7.20 he writes:

I beseech you, if you haven’t it, buy yourself a copy ofThe Home Life of Herbert Spencer. By “Two.”It is the book praised by “Rozbury” in his letter to Arrowsmith prefacingThe Diaryof a Nobody. I bought it and began to shake with laughter at Rosebery’s being such an ass. But, after a few pages, I began to see what he meant; and then, time after time, I nearly rolled off my long-chair with laughing not at Rosebery but with him. I’d lend it you, but it’ll only cost you 3/6; and I want you to have it as a companion volume toThe Diary.However, if you will not buy it, I will lend it to you. You’ve “got” to read it, or I will never write you another letter.

However, if you will not buy it, I will lend it to you. You’ve “got” to read it, or I will never write you another letter.

And on 23.7.20:

Some 32 years ago, “Pearl Hobbes” wrote to me that I ought to translate Balzac; and I am sorry it is too late for me to doGoriot. I am rereading it all the same with much enjoyment, though I think that these gala editions should be at least as well translated as my Lutetian set of six Zola novels.Huxley, in his little autobiography, writes:“As Rastignac, in the Père Goriot, says to Paris, I said to London:“‘A nous deux!’”I remembered that this came at the end of the book, turned to it and found:“Rastignac ... saw beneath him Paris, ... The glance he darted on this buzzing hive seemedin advance to drink its honey, while he said proudly:“‘Now for our turn—hers and mine.’”An epigrammatic tag sadly boshed, I think.I find that “leave them nothing but their eyes to weep with” occurs in this book; so we must absolve poor old Bismark at any rate from inventing this bloodthirsty phrase.And I find the Ukraine mentioned! The Ukraine! The dear old Ukraine! A sweet land of which I—and you? be honest! had never heard before the days of the W.T.I.D.I have sent for a complete set of Heine from Heinemann; it just occurred to me that I have read little of this great man’s. And I am told that the translation is good....

Huxley, in his little autobiography, writes:

“As Rastignac, in the Père Goriot, says to Paris, I said to London:

“‘A nous deux!’”

I remembered that this came at the end of the book, turned to it and found:

“Rastignac ... saw beneath him Paris, ... The glance he darted on this buzzing hive seemedin advance to drink its honey, while he said proudly:

“‘Now for our turn—hers and mine.’”

An epigrammatic tag sadly boshed, I think.

I find that “leave them nothing but their eyes to weep with” occurs in this book; so we must absolve poor old Bismark at any rate from inventing this bloodthirsty phrase.

And I find the Ukraine mentioned! The Ukraine! The dear old Ukraine! A sweet land of which I—and you? be honest! had never heard before the days of the W.T.I.D.

I have sent for a complete set of Heine from Heinemann; it just occurred to me that I have read little of this great man’s. And I am told that the translation is good....

Do E. and J.,he asks, 26.7.20, ever perpetrate those plays upon words of which Heine was so fond? They are not exactly puns; I am not sure that quodlibets isn’t the word for them. E.G.: Herr von Schnabelowpski smites the heart of a Dutch hotel-proprietress. Over the real china cups she gazes at him porcela(i)nguidly.That is not a very good example. This one is better: Heine calls on Rothschild at Frankfurt. Rothschild receives him quite famillionairly.Good-bye. It threatens rain; and I proposeto spend the day in bed, with the proofs ofThe Inevitable....

That is not a very good example. This one is better: Heine calls on Rothschild at Frankfurt. Rothschild receives him quite famillionairly.

Good-bye. It threatens rain; and I proposeto spend the day in bed, with the proofs ofThe Inevitable....

A criticism of Plarr’s Life of Dowson leads Teixeira, 27.7.20, to annotate the letter that contained it:

... I was suggesting, I wrote, that the effect ... on the minds of a generation which knew not Dowson would be to make it feel that it did not want to know him....(Your cecession from catholicism, he replies, has done you McKennas a lot of harm. You flout tradition and go in for rational inference and deduction in its place. Horrible, horrible! The apostles are not all dead; many of them are your living contemporaries; you could, if you like, receive at first hand their memories of their dead fellows; and you prefer to make up your own mistaken impressions in the light of your own mistaken intellect. Well, well!And, if you write just that sort of life of me, I’ll wriggle with pleasure in my coffin.)This evening Henry Arthur Jones is giving a dinner ... to James M. Beck.... I have been bidden to attend....(Beck is the finest orator I ever heard; and I’ve heard Gladstoneinter alios.Those Heine quodlibets about which I wrote y’day are, I believe, called “split puns,” though I doubt the happiness of the term. I made one in my sleep this morning: rowdies on the Brighton road indulging in a charabanquet....)

... I was suggesting, I wrote, that the effect ... on the minds of a generation which knew not Dowson would be to make it feel that it did not want to know him....

(Your cecession from catholicism, he replies, has done you McKennas a lot of harm. You flout tradition and go in for rational inference and deduction in its place. Horrible, horrible! The apostles are not all dead; many of them are your living contemporaries; you could, if you like, receive at first hand their memories of their dead fellows; and you prefer to make up your own mistaken impressions in the light of your own mistaken intellect. Well, well!

And, if you write just that sort of life of me, I’ll wriggle with pleasure in my coffin.)

This evening Henry Arthur Jones is giving a dinner ... to James M. Beck.... I have been bidden to attend....

(Beck is the finest orator I ever heard; and I’ve heard Gladstoneinter alios.

Those Heine quodlibets about which I wrote y’day are, I believe, called “split puns,” though I doubt the happiness of the term. I made one in my sleep this morning: rowdies on the Brighton road indulging in a charabanquet....)

I can never have news, as you may imagine,writes Teixeira, 29.7.20; my letters must be always replies to yours....I like your Cave-Brown-Cave story if it was true; it probably was, as a family of that name exists.[17]I never heard John Redmond, I am sorry to say. He was, so to speak, after my time. I heard Parnell and, if I were only a mimic, could give you his curiously contemptuous, high-bred, high-pitched voice to-day. I heard Randolph; and at the time, in the eighties, both he and Arthur Balfour used to lisp. Does A. B. lisp now? Answer this: it interests me; and it has a sort of bearing on that passing-fashion competition which you were starting. So essential to birth and breeding was the lisp in those days that even the English-bred Comte de Paris lisped ... in French! I was at his silver weddingand well remember his reception of me.“Vouth êtes le bienvenu ithi!”Incidentally I remember that good King Edward (“then Prince of Wales,” as the memoir-writers say) glared at me furiously on that occasion, because I was wearing trousers of the identical pattern as his: an Urquhart check with a pink line....

I can never have news, as you may imagine,writes Teixeira, 29.7.20; my letters must be always replies to yours....

I like your Cave-Brown-Cave story if it was true; it probably was, as a family of that name exists.[17]

I never heard John Redmond, I am sorry to say. He was, so to speak, after my time. I heard Parnell and, if I were only a mimic, could give you his curiously contemptuous, high-bred, high-pitched voice to-day. I heard Randolph; and at the time, in the eighties, both he and Arthur Balfour used to lisp. Does A. B. lisp now? Answer this: it interests me; and it has a sort of bearing on that passing-fashion competition which you were starting. So essential to birth and breeding was the lisp in those days that even the English-bred Comte de Paris lisped ... in French! I was at his silver weddingand well remember his reception of me.

“Vouth êtes le bienvenu ithi!”

Incidentally I remember that good King Edward (“then Prince of Wales,” as the memoir-writers say) glared at me furiously on that occasion, because I was wearing trousers of the identical pattern as his: an Urquhart check with a pink line....

In the course of a dinner-party given at this time, the conversation turned on those men and women who had won everlasting renown with the least effort or justification. The United States Ambassador (Mr. Davis) proposed Eutychus, of whom little is known but that he fell asleep during a sermon and tumbled from a window: I suggested the uncaring Gallio, who did less and is better known. Some one else put forward Melchisedec. Agreeing that every name in the Bible has a certain immortality, we turned to secular history. At the subsequent instigation of Mr. Davis, Lord Curzon of Kedleston propounded “the apple-bearing son of William Tell.” I invited Teixeira to give his opinion.

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