London Days Part 2

Everybody in pendom had written of "d.i.c.kens' London", and "Thackeray's London", and after "Endymion" had made its loudly trumpeted appearance, it occurred to me that Disraeli had a London which the makers of articles had not seized upon and which would yield "material" for interesting copy. This, if well ill.u.s.trated, might appeal to some magazine editor in America and subsequently become a book. At the same time I was gathering notes and impressions for a series of papers which might be called "Odd Corners of London." For things of this kind America seemed to promise an especially good market, and I believed {32} that I could supply it fairly well. One thing after another delayed this little plan. Vocation was taking up more time and at higher pressure than is compatible with hobby-riding. It has a habit of doing so. Then a visit to America intervened, for the purpose of spending my twenty-first birthday, and the following five or six months, at home. The return to England was followed by a rush of work in the City, and this by an illness of some weeks' duration. All the while the Disraeli subject lay untouched until, one day in 1882, I met a character in a Disraeli novel, who was much more of a character outside it.

It was a day of powerful rain. The Pullman Company were to run their first train in England over the Brighton line from Victoria Station.

They had invited a regiment of celebrities and a few odd sticks. Among the latter I was included by some official of my acquaintance who thought I might write an article for some overseas paper. Taking a place in a smoking car I was solitary for but a minute, when George Augustus Sala entered hurriedly and plumped himself down beside me, saying: "What a beastly, blowy, wet morning!"

"The worst since Noah's time," said I.

"If this train gets to Brighton and returns through the flood, it will be another case not only of pull man, but also of pull devil, pull baker," said Sala.

"There 's copy for you," said I.

"Oh, are you a journalist?" asked Sala.

"I 'm hoping to be. It's an aspiration."

"Desperation, more likely," he said. "Don't do {33} it, young man, not if there 's a good crossing to sweep in your neighbourhood. Journalism is the worst trade in the world."

"Every man says that of his own profession," I replied.

"Profession be hanged! What do we profess? We stain paper, and look as wise as owls, and know a d.a.m.ned sight more than we ever tell. Most of us bleat in our folds like sheep; few of us have the chance to go about the world and see things, and even they work like slaves to entertain the public while their owners take the profits. The worst trade in the world, sir; work harder, know more than any other--about human nature, anyhow--and get less for it than any other; what we write is forgotten the day after it's printed, and when we can't grind out any more, when they 've squeezed our brains dry, we 're thrown on the dust-heap to be buried by a benevolent a.s.sociation. Don't go into journalism unless you own the paper! That's where the profits are--big circulation and advertising revenue, politics and peerages! I 'm too old for aiming at ownership now; besides, I 'm a writer, not a screw!

Journalism be hanged. If I 'd been a _chef_ in a millionaire's palace, or a fashionable hotel, I 'd have done better."

Possibly. At any rate he would have been the prince of _chefs_ as he was "the prince of journalists", or was it the king the public called him? He was supposed to earn fabulous sums with his pen. If he earned them he spent them, for he left nothing when he had "gone west." He was an artist in {34} cookery, had a knowing taste in wines; he had been everywhere, seen everything, knew everybody, and on the shortest possible notice could write an article upon anything or nothing. He had a flaming face, small, glittering eyes, a build and frontage not unlike that of Pierpont Morgan of later fame, and a reputation for wit and story-telling. He had also a reputation for geniality. He was as genial as a thunderstorm. His rumblings and clatters might pa.s.s quite harmless, or sear you with a flash. His familiar signature was "G.A.S."

"I see you don't believe it," said he, "but you will. Don't say I did n't warn you."

"Thanks," said I.

"Not in the least," said he. "Go to your doom! What's your paper?"

I said I had written for two or three papers at home, in America, and I told him the story of the editor who did n't want Rodin. He laughed until his white waistcoat nearly burst its b.u.t.tons. "I had an editor once," said he, "who didn't know the date of the Battle of Waterloo but was certain that Nelson had saved the day. Journalism a 'profession', eh? And editors are the High Board of Examiners. But don't mind me.

I 'm like this on wet mornings."

Just then a wet prelate in a s.h.a.ggy coat shook himself at the door, as if he were a huge dog that had soaked in the rain. His prelacy was revealed by the purple at his throat.

"Monsignor Capel," exclaimed Sala. "How are you? And did you come in a boat?"

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"The voyage from Kensington was rough," said the prelate, "but this seems a snug harbour."

"Make fast to moorings here, and to-morrow the envious will say that G.A.S. is travelling Rome-wards with you on an American train."

"Undreamed-of felicity," said the prelate. "But I think we shall not go far toward Rome to-day. This train has no 'through connection', as they say in America. This is my first experience in an American train, but not, of course, your first, Mr. Sala. Possibly your first, sir,"

he said, turning to me, as he took a seat beside Sala.

"Oh, no, I 'm an American," said I.

"Then I am doubly fortunate," said the Monsignor. "Because I am going to America and you can tell me how to get about, if you will be so good." This was a pleasant way to break the ice, and as the train filled, presently we had a pleasant company and were speedily at Brighton, where the Pullman people entertained their trainload at luncheon. On the return journey Monsignor Capel sat opposite me at a table built for two, and talked about America. That is to say, he asked questions and I answered them, as we smoked the Pullman cigars.

As we parted at Victoria, he invited me to dine at his house, making an appointment for the following week.

He was not only a clever man and "striking", as they say, in appearance, but he had great charm, and being a Jesuit of brilliant and varied accomplishments, could adapt himself easily to any company. As a preacher he was eloquent; as a man of the world he was brilliant and fascinating; as an {36} ecclesiastic distinguished and influential; as a maker of t.i.tled, wealthy, and in the worldly sense "important"

converts to Rome he was famous, but as the administrator of a college or university he proved a failure. He was a prominent figure in London life; he was the Monsignor Catesby of "Lothair", as Manning was the Cardinal Grandison. If his fortunes had begun to ebb at the time I knew him, the glamour of his successes was still about him.

Disraeli had described Catesby as "a fascinating man who talked upon all subjects except high ma.s.s, and knew everything that took place at Court without being present there himself. He led the conversation to the majestic theme, and while he seemed to be busied in breaking an egg with delicate precision, and hardly listening to the frank expression of opinions which he carelessly encouraged, obtained a not insufficient share of Lothair's views and impressions of human beings and affairs in general."

I dined with Monsignor Capel on several occasions at Scarsdale Lodge, in Wright's Lane, Kensington. Scarsdale Lodge has for many years known a succession of celebrated tenants, of whom Dundreary Sothern was one.

Sothern had also lived at Cedar Villa, next door, and Capel had succeeded him there. Now, and for many years, Scarsdale Lodge has been the town home of H. Hughes-Stanton, R.A., whom I have known from almost the beginning of things. Up to the year preceding the Pullman excursion Monsignor Capel had lived in Cedar Villa. Sothern had made that place famous for breakfasts and suppers and practical jokes. {37} Capel's breakfasts had been quite as famous without the practical jokes. Capel had transformed Sothern's billiard room into a chapel.

The dining room in which the actor had "exposed" the "feats" of the Davenport brothers, and where the lights of Bohemia had twinkled, had, under the prelate's tenancy, been noted for its hospitality to pilgrims from the polite world who were on the way to Rome. But the line was not drawn at hungry hearts. Palates that were used to dainty feasts were tickled there, and brilliant table talk of politics and art, of literature and science and society had rippled there. Capel's hospitality was wide; his guests were, as likely as not, non-conformists--if they dared to come--Anglicans who dared anything--and political men of all shades of opinion, especially anti-Gladstonian opinion. But disciples of the G.O.M. were welcome if they were good talkers. They might be converted to other politics; at any rate they would hear them.

Monsignor Capel at home was in purple-edged ca.s.sock, with purple b.u.t.tons and broad purple sash. If in his s.h.a.ggy overcoat he had suggested bulk, in his ca.s.sock and biretta he was a dignified, even an imposing figure. He received me in his study at the twilight hour.

The fire-glow played over the room, while the papal chamberlain submitted to the processes of an interview. But "submitted" is scarcely the right word; it is merely the word that custom applies to the extraction of copy from a willing subject. He had invited the interviewer and did not pretend that the interview {38} was torture.

We sat by the fire and spun. The room was on the ground floor of the house and in the rear, overlooking the garden. His writing desk was in a bay window, and above it a crucifix was suspended. Near it, on the left wall, hung a large photograph of Pope Pius IX and his household.

The Monsignor himself was not inconspicuous in this. About the room were a dozen or more photographs of celebrities. Among these was a photograph of Gladstone. "I keep that here as a penance," said Capel, to whom the name of the "Grand Old Man" was anathema.

Capel alluded to himself as a "lamb" in politics, but his allusion to politicians opposed to his way of thinking were anything but lamblike that early evening. He had published a pamphlet called "Great Britain and Rome, or Ought the Queen to Hold Diplomatic Relations with the Sovereign Pontiff?" Of course he held that she ought, and he said so to the immense disapproval of the majority of his fellow countrymen.

He had also produced a pamphlet on the Irish Question which, then as now, could be counted on for enraging and puzzling half the population.

The solution proposed by him, was, I believe, more Roman Catholicism, but why and how to get more of what was already in excess one did not see then, and sees now even less than before.

But Capel's star was dimming. His Catholic college, or university, or whatever it was, had failed for lack of support and faults of administration, and the financial troubles were soon to drive him to the {39} bankruptcy court, if they had not already done so. And His Eminence Cardinal Manning had thrown his influence against the captivating Monsignor. The Cardinal had his reasons, and, I suppose, they were good reasons. At any rate, like Shylock's, they were sufficient. When the Cardinal was against a man in his flock, that man's chances for preferment, and even for holding his own, were not worth discussing. Capel went to America in 1883. He sailed on the _Arizona_ whose captain was the brother of my friend, Henry Murray.

The Monsignor made a meteoric flash over the American continent. I saw him there. And then the continent swallowed him. He died in California, if not unknown then practically forgotten.

The sequel to my visit at Scarsdale Lodge was an article, and the article was sent, on chance, to the _Boston Herald_, then the leading newspaper in New England and of almost metropolitan importance. I did not know any one connected with the paper, not even the editor's name.

But the article was printed, although I did not know that until some months later, at the end of 1882, when I turned up in Boston, at the _Herald_ office, and asked for the editor, sending him my card with a message of inquiry about the article which I had posted to him from London some months earlier.

I intended to ask him for a job, for I had decided to settle awhile in Boston and turn my London experiences to account if the opportunity could be made.

A boy came to the room where I had waited on the anxious seat for an unhappy quarter of an hour.

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"Mr. Holmes will see you," he said. "Come this way."

Holmes was the man's name, was it! Yes, John H. I had learned that much, and I followed the boy to an inner office. A dark-haired, slender, agreeable-mannered man, who looked rather like the Whitelaw Reid of that time, rose from his desk. As he did so I said:

"Mr. Holmes, I believe."

"Yes," said he, "and you are the writer of that article?" naming it.

"Yes," said I.

He held out his hand, and smiled. We shook hands, and I tried to look as if it were my daily occupation to be welcomed by the editors of powerful journals. Naturally, I did n't feel that way, and was nervously wondering what to say next. That anxiety vanished as the editor asked:

"Are you at liberty to do any more work of that kind, or of any special kind, for us?"

"Yes," said I, concealing, I hoped, my eagerness and delight.

"Then I will take as much as you are willing to write," said he, "and pay you ten dollars a column, and when you go anywhere for us, your expense bill."

This seemed a fair beginning, particularly as I had not been compelled to ask for it, as I had expected to do. When I closed the door behind me and descended the stairs, I felt an elation of spirit that was natural enough in a young chap who was more than five months short of his twenty-third birthday.