Mrs Annie Besant—Marcus Stone—Lloyd George—Bishop Welldon—Dr Walford Davies

Mrs Annie Besant, like her Himalayan Mahatmas, is lofty, remote, and difficult of access. Only once was I admitted to The Presence. What drove me there was, first of all, curiosity, and, secondly, a feeling of great respect for her which I had retained from boyhood. I admired her courage, her independence, her friendship with and loyalty to Bradlaugh; moreover, I have always held in high regard those who, from temperamental or spiritual discord with their fellows, have kicked over the intellectual traces and run a race of their own. Annie Besant, whatever else she may be, is a woman of courage, of vast resource and of indomitable will.

But alas! my hour’s interview with her did much to sap and destroy my devotion. First of all, I must say that, previous to meeting her, I had been for a short time an Associate of the Theosophical Society. I was never admitted to membership of that body because I never claimed the privilege; my associateship originated in my desire to hear Orage lecture and in my anxiety to study some curious and not unintelligent people at first hand. Nothing is at once more distressing and more repellent to me than affectation, and the affectation of most members of the Theosophical Society whom I met was really appalling. The people were also grotesque. The men had dyspepsia and bald heads, and the women wore djibbahs 23and a look of condescending benevolence. They read Madame Blavatsky assiduously and gabbled nonsense to each other.

Mrs Besant made an appointment for me one Saturday afternoon at the Midland Hotel, Manchester. I was shown into a private sitting-room which, upon entering, I took to be empty. But, after a few moments had passed, I observed a snake-like movement in a corner of the room, and a thin, pale lady advanced languidly towards me, holding out a lifeless hand which hung nervelessly at her wrist. I glanced at her in surprise and noticed that she wore a djibbah, a long necklace of yellow stones, a most insincere smile, and vegetarian boots.

“Mrs Besant will be with you shortly,” she said, scrutinising me carefully. Having, as it appeared to me, taken a mental inventory of my clothing, she glided to the door and, smiling at me once more, disappeared. I took her to be a sort of bodyguard.

The entrance of Mrs Besant was brisk and businesslike. She had a firm handshake; she looked a capable business woman—a woman accustomed to issuing commands and having them implicitly obeyed. Of medium height, she was plump and heavily built; her pale face, surmounted by perfectly white hair, was of an intensely serious cast, and I saw no humour in her eye.

Our conversation, a little halting at first, began to flow quite easily when I mentioned her Autobiography and asked her why she had not issued a second volume.

“You see,” I said, “it stops just at the most interesting period of your life. You have never stated fully how you became convinced of the truth of theosophical doctrines. I, for one, cannot understand your position.”

“It isn’t very necessary that you should,” she observed calmly.

“Who am I, you mean, that I should presume to understand you?”

24“Yes; perhaps I meant something like that. People who are intended to understand me will understand me. The rest don’t matter. In any case, this is not a subject that has much interest for me.”

“But, surely, if you think you have discovered the truth, you are anxious to spread it? As a matter of fact, I know, of course, that you are anxious on this point, or you would not lecture and write.”

“You are quite right,” she said, leaning forward a little. “I spread the truth, but, then, the truth is not for everybody. Much of it falls on stony ground.”

“And it will continue to do so,” I half interrupted, “until you have proved that the alleged miracles of Madame Blavatsky are really true. Was Madame Blavatsky a charlatan or was she not?—on the answer to that question all modern theosophy stands or falls.”

She smiled at this attack of mine and at the violence of it.

“It is proved,” she answered; “it is proved up to the hilt. I and thousands of others are entirely satisfied.”

“And Madame Coulomb?—was she a mountebank? And were the mysteries of Adyar frauds?”

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion about those matters. I have my own view; you, no doubt, have yours. And now,” she added, a little wearily, “let us have tea and talk about the weather.”

Such was the substance of our talk. I gathered the impression, right or wrong, that Mrs Besant had brought herself to a state of mind when no evidence, however strong, that was opposed to her beliefs would shake her faith for a moment. She desired most fervently to believe in the bona fides of Madame Blavatsky, and believe she did. The Theosophical Society does not—or it did not in those days—demand from its members the acceptance of any particular doctrine; you could accept as 25little or as much as you wanted and still remain one of the faithful. But Mrs Besant went the whole hog.

Bernard Shaw once told me that, meeting Mrs Besant years after the Bradlaugh days, he said to her, half jokingly:

“You surely don’t believe one quarter of the rubbish you write and talk, do you?”

Her answer was to look at him coldly and turn on her heel. Which, after all, was perhaps the wisest answer she could give.
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A kindly old man took me to his studio and began to talk of Dickens. He spoke of those Victorian days as though they were the greatest that have ever been. He knew Anthony Trollope and all his works and looked askance at me because Barchester Towers was the only Trollope book I had read.

And then he took me to an easel and showed me his latest work—a “pretty-pretty” picture of a girl in a garden; the sort of picture that, according to my mood, either excites my laughter or throws me into a fury of rage.

But Marcus Stone was very old, and his ideals, being those of yesteryear, left me untouched. The young can never understand the old and, as I listened to him talking of art and literature and life, I told myself that we to-day are centuries away from the mid-Victorian days. If he had not been so old and kindly I should have wished to say:

“Do you want to know what all you people were like fifty years ago?—well, read Punch for, say, the year 1870.”

But though my friends tell me that I am brutal, and I know I am ill-mannered, I could not find it in my heart to speak those words.
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The amiable but rather weak Mr P. W. Wilson, who used to do “Lobby” work for The Daily News, having 26declined a whisky, entered into conversation with me at the hotel at Criccieth. He told me that till that morning he had been staying with Mr Lloyd George, but that, Mr Masterman, Sir Rufus Isaacs and other people of importance having turned up, he himself had had to seek refuge in the hotel.

The occasion of the assembly of these wits was the opening of an institute at Llanystumdwy, the little village near Criccieth, where the Prime Minister spent his childhood days. Mr Lloyd George had given the institute to the inhabitants of the village and was himself to open it publicly the following day.

Mr Wilson’s amiability and his self-satisfaction at enjoying the friendship of Mr Lloyd George rather put me out, and I felt a strong desire to disturb his sleek smoothness.

“I hope,” said I, “that the suffragettes will not be brutally treated to-morrow, but I am very much afraid they will.”

“Of course,” observed P. W. W., between draws at his pipe, “if they create a disturbance here, in the very midst of Lloyd George’s worshippers, they must expect a stiff time of it.”

“Yes, and they will get it. The organised gang of roughs from Portmadoc who are coming here to-morrow armed with clubs will see to that. The uneducated Welsh, their passions once aroused, are little better than savages....” I hesitated a moment. Then, as impressively as I could, I added: “We must prepare ourselves for dreadful sights to-morrow. I should not be very surprised if one or two women are not torn limb from limb. And if they are, the responsibility will, in my opinion, rest mainly with Mr Lloyd George himself.”

P. W. Wilson took his pipe from his mouth and looked at me with some concern.

“How do you make that out?” he asked.

27“Well, hitherto he has not done very much to soothe the irritation of meetings he has addressed which have been interrupted by suffragettes. Lloyd George has not very much magnanimity. Moreover, in this particular matter, he evinces but a shallow knowledge of human nature. He would win the approval of all men of generous and chivalrous natures if——”

I allowed my voice to die away to nothing.

Wilson, really disturbed, moved a little uneasily on his chair, rose, scratched his head, sat down again and sighed.

“I must tell him,” said he. “I must warn him that, at the very beginning of his speech, he must appeal to the audience to deal gently with any interrupters.... Torn limb from limb.... You really think that?”

I felt a little sorry to have disturbed him so much, and yet I knew that I very much preferred an anxious, harassed Wilson to a Wilson who was smooth and sleek.

Next morning at breakfast he was again smooth and self-satisfied.

“I have seen him,” he whispered, like a conspirator; “I have seen him. It is arranged. Everything is all right.”

Later on that morning I was myself received by Mr Lloyd George in his house. I went prejudiced against him and determined at all hazards not to allow myself to be won over by that charm of manner of which I had heard so much.

But in five minutes I had succumbed. He has a wonderful gift of making you feel that he thinks you are the most interesting and most intelligent person he has ever met. What he really does think, I suppose, is that you (of course, I don’t mean you; I mean myself) are an unmitigated bore, and while his eyes are smiling at you he is really saying to himself: “Why doesn’t the fellow go?...” Yes, he has charm. He does not fuss and he is not over-emphatic in his manner. And he is a most 28deferential listener. He will even ask you your opinion about matters of which he knows ten times more than yourself, and he will do you the honour of arguing with you.

That afternoon, at the formal ceremony of “opening” the institute, my warning concerning the suffragettes was nearly prophetic. Mr Lloyd George, of course, did all in his power to quell the mob’s anger, but the women were violently assaulted, their breasts beaten, their clothes ripped from their backs, their hair torn by the roots from their heads.... On the edge of the mêlée I saw P. W. Wilson standing deploring it.
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It has always seemed to me an extraordinary thing that, in company with Dr Walford Davies, I should have been asked some years ago to be a guest at the annual dinner of the Church Diocesan Music Society. I am always ready for adventure, of however hazardous a nature, so I accepted the invitation even after I had been told that a speech was expected from me.

Bishop Welldon, arriving late—in fact, I believe he had dined elsewhere—plumped himself on a chair next to me, and immediately began to dominate everything and everybody within a radius of twenty yards. He is one of those distressing people who will be jocular. And his jocularity is rather noisy. He laughed a great deal and rubbed his hands together. And he asked me a question and then asked me another before I had had time to answer the first. And, really, he did talk so awfully loudly.... I had come across him before in trams and shops and places of that kind, and it was always the same; he invariably talked at you.... Even in the Manchester Cathedral, where Dr Kendrick Pyne introduced me to him, he shouted at me and never allowed me to finish a sentence.

But I perceive that I am becoming petulant, and I 29ought not to do so for, as a matter of fact, the dinner was a screamingly funny affair. I had prepared a fierce and warlike speech, a speech attacking the Society whose food I had just eaten and whose wine was still warm in my veins. I am, I suppose, quite the worst speaker in the world; so I had memorised my speech and, so good I thought it that I had vastly enjoyed doing so. But alas! when the minute drew near for me to deliver it, I found myself in an atmosphere of such conviviality, such kindness, such flattering attention, that I could not find it in my heart to deliver the words I had prepared and memorised. Yet an impromptu speech of a different tenor was impossible. I simply hadn’t the talent to do it. My name was called and I rose to my feet.

My speech was offensive: it was meant to be. But offensive though I knew it to be, I did not know how offensive it really was. I mentioned the name of Wagner and, as I did so, I saw Dr Walford Davies shudder most violently. Though I attacked the Church for her unimaginative attitude to music, though I stamped on hymns and hymn tunes, though I slanged the microscopic brains of many organists, though I said that nearly all Cathedral music was to me anathema maranatha, nobody except Bishop Welldon appeared to care in the least, and he did not care half so much as poor, virginal Walford Davies, who, at the name of Wagner, shuddered and put his glass aside.

Davies spoke: earnestly, like St Francis; frenziedly, like Savonarola; passionately, like Venus ... no! no! no! ... passionately, like St Paul. Eschew Wagner! That’s what it all came to.... “Eschew....” Hate the sin, love the sinner, but most certainly “eschew” both. His cheeks were very white, his lips pale. He trembled a little. Wagner, it appeared, was one of the devils. Ab-so-lute-ly pernicious.... Have you ever noticed how accurately you can estimate a man by his 30adjectives? Dr Walford Davies used “pernicious” eleven times, “poisonous” twice, “very-much-to-be-distrusted” once, “naughty” once (“this naughty man!” was the phrase), “unlicensed” thrice, and “immoral” fifteen times.... I must say, en passant, that I am writing from memory and that my memory for figures is atrocious; still, these adjectives, collectively represent the impression his speech left on my mind.

After dinner (well, neither after nor before dinner) one does not ardently desire a speech of that kind. It fell flat. A fat organist from Bolton (or was it Bacup?) winked me a fat wink. The man on my left—a young musical doctor from Cambridge—dug his elbow into my ribs.

And then came Bishop Welldon’s speech. He was extraordinarily clever. He said some of the most cutting things imaginable. He was scathing. He hurt me. Reaching for my glass, I hastily swallowed the large brandy I had been careful to ask for beforehand. He made epigrams, epigrams adapted most skilfully from the writings of his friend, John Oliver Hobbes. And he spoke so well; he had presence; he had a manner; he, like Sir Willoughby Patterne, had a leg ... and a leg that was gaitered. Perhaps it was the gaiters that did it. One has heard a good deal lately about the Hidden Hand, but what about the influence of the Hidden Leg? The leg hidden under the table? The gaitered leg hidden under the table? Most of the diners, remembering that Bishop Welldon was indeed a bishop—though, truly, only, so to speak, an ex-bishop, and an ex-bishop only of Calcutta, and now possessing only the powers of a dean (whatever those powers may be!)—most of the diners, I say, recollecting that Bishop Welldon was indeed a bishop, looked at me with eyes of faint hostility or did not look at me at all.

I was very young, said Bishop Welldon. I was 31enthusiastic; I was inexperienced; I was “artistic”; I was a jumper-at-conclusions.

When he finished and, with one of his good-natured smiles, turned and looked at me, I was crumbling bread very rapidly, rolling the bread into soiled little pills, putting the little pills all in a row.

Later on in the evening Bishop Welldon, a little group of jolly people and I myself sat and smoked and drank very inferior coffee. Dr Walford Davies did not join us. He shot little pointed darts at me from his eyes, but (as, of course, you must have anticipated) when he and I parted he was most studiously polite.

And, on my way to my tram, I hummed Davies’ Hame! Hame! Hame! to myself and pondered over the mystery that enables a man to write such a wonderful, soul-searching melody and yet possess an intellect of quality only ... well, so-so.
Here a little child I stand,
Heaving up my either hand ...

Do you know Walford Davies’ setting of that Grace, the setting he made some years ago for one of the daughters of the late Canon Gorton? If you do, if, as I do, you adore its Blake-like simplicity, its Ariel freshness, you will not mind his hatred of Wagner. Only, it is rather strange, don’t you think, that we outsiders who love Wagner (and I believe, don’t you, that all intense lovers of Wagner must be rather outsiderish?) should be able to love Walford Davies also, though he (most unhappy!) can’t or won’t love us?

But it is being borne in upon me that for the last five minutes I have been writing like the adorable Eve in The Tatler. Let me, for her sake, begin another chapter.