ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)
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ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901) |
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LETTERS TO THE PRESS (25)
Buchanan and Jay spent the summer of 1899 in Pevensey Bay, Sussex. During this time Buchanan was contributing pieces to The Sunday Special, one of which was an “An open letter to Earl De La Warr and Buckhurst” concerning the changes which the town of Bexhill-on-Sea was currently undergoing. Buchanan had lived in Bexhill during the mid-1860s and his father was buried there. Judging by the comments in the local newspapers, Buchanan’s ‘open letter’ was published in The Sunday Special of 10th September, 1899, however, I’ve not seen the original (The Sunday Special archives are not online) so I can’t confirm this. Whether such ‘open letters’ should be included here, rather than in the Essays section, is also open to debate. After Buchanan’s death, the Bexhill-on-Sea Observer reprinted the letter (possibly edited) on the same page as an obituary, so it makes sense to begin this section with that reprint and then follow it with the local press comments from September, 1899.
Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (15 June, 1901 - p.2) MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN THE DEAD POET’S REMARKABLE DIRGE. HIS LETTER TO EARL DE LA WARR. Mr. Robert Buchanan, author, playwright, journalist, and poet, who died on Monday morning, was intimately acquainted with Bexhill some forty years ago. He was the first to celebrate in verse the beauties of the then little Sussex village nestling on the hill. Two years ago Mr. Buchanan revisited the pleasant haunts of his youth, and found, to his dismay, that the sylvan beauties of the neighbourhood had been obliterated by bricks and mortar. He expressed his feelings in an open letter to Earl De La Warr, published in one of the London papers, which attracted much attention at the time. It was a remarkable dirge of a poetic mind, portions of which will bear repetition now that the truly great but unfortunate man has gone. Of course, we are not all poets, or there would be no Bexhill at the present time—the choicest and select spots of the earth would be reserved for the few. BEXHILL AS LOVELY AS SWEET AUBURN. “These and sundry other reflections of a similar kind,” wrote Mr. Buchanan to Lord De La Warr, “passed through my mind as I wandered to-day through the streets of Bexhill-on-Sea, and found myself face to face at every turning with the ugly earthworks of the Estate offices which bear your lordly name. My first introduction to the place was made long ago, as far back, indeed, as the early ‘sixties.’ A boy, adrift in Babylon, and eager to find some place of temporary rest far from the madding crowd, I was told by the late Westland Marston of a spot almost as lovely as sweet Auburn, only some seventy miles from the City, and within a stone’s throw of the sea. Thither I went, and there I abode, with occasional flights Londonwards, for several years. I was the very first among poets, I believe, to celebrate in song the beauties and amenities of the little Sussex village, and I am now quite certain that I shall be the last; for you, sir, have thrown over it the disfiguring mantle of your ‘enterprise,’ and have changed it from a green and gentle retreat, full of sunshine and sweet music, into a hideous monstrosity of red brick and mortar, with impudent hotels, bran-new boarding establishments, a genteel esplanade, a priggish Kiosk, and the inevitable Viennese band. ONE VICKERY, A SHOEMAKER, and his plot of land, which he tended himself with wondrous skill, was both hi pleasure and his pride—a little Eden of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine. To sit there in summertime, and to hear the good old gardener, a Radical, of course, like all of his trade, fulminating against the Rector of the parish, and proclaiming to all the world his contempt for the Rector and his worldly ways, was delightful beyond measure; and thither on balmy breezes floated all the gossip of the village, salt and piquant with the breath of the neighbouring sea. One wandered through green fields, and over stiles, and down honeysuckled lanes, to the very fringe of the breakers tumbling on shingle and sand. The skylark sang, and the speckled snakes crawled over fields where oxen were yoked to the plough, and where the windhover hung poised in the warm, still summer air. Away westward stretched the Marshes, up to the very walls of Pevensey Castle, which was a fortified place even in the time of Julius Cæsar; northward was Battle, with its famous Abbey; and at every step one took the solitude was peopled with memories of departed days. O TEMPORA! O MORES! ‘Flats’ in Bexhill! ‘Flats’ in the near vicinity of Chantry-lane, and the old walnut tree, and the Manor House, which was once the summer palace of the Bishops of Chichester. And, as if that were not enough to make day hideous, there stands, in the centre of the doomed village, a Jubilee Clock, exultantly proclaiming that the days of peace and quietness and rural loveliness are fled, so far as poor Bexhill is concerned, for ever! PREPOSTEROUS LONDON SUBURB, and had reaped the results in wondrous ground rents, you beckoned to you the ministering spirits of the age, and instructed that latter-day demon, the jerry builder, to transform sylvan Bexhill into an imitation of New Chelsea—or rather, into a sort of hybrid cross between an American health resort and a Chiswickian Bedford Park; enormous structures, monstr’-inform-ingens-horrendous, rose to heaven; streets of ‘toy box’ villas covered the once green heights above the sea; brick dust and mortar stench filled the air; and, bereft of all greenness and sylvan beauty, Bexhill flaunted in the sunshine its glaring avenues of estate offices, meat emporiums, stores, and chemists’ shops. Cunningly-worded advertisements lured the invalid to this genteel pandemonium. Bexhill was ‘breezy;’ Bexhill was ‘sunny;’ Bexhill was the very spot for the genteel hypochondriac and the valetudinarian in search of rest! And really, sir, compared with swaggering Eastbourne and stucco-covered St. Leonards, Bexhill was restful, is restful. There is grisly dulness about even its gaiety which appeals strongly to the sympathies of the English middle classes. There are no crowds, few trippers, not many organ-grinders. From the Cycle Track on the shore to the Jubilee Clock in the village ennui and gentility reign paramount. The visitors are completely panoplied in respectability, for, to crown all, and to keep all selectly stupid, Bexhill is ‘dear.’ GOOD OLD FARMER BROOKS, the very ideal of an English yeoman, used to ride on his weight-carrying hunter, and survey his many harvest-bearing fields. There were real old-fashioned rustics in smock frocks, and village maidens of the Molly Seagrim type, and young squires who resembled Tom Jones and jolly landlords like Powell of the ‘Bell.’ All these, sir, have vanished, to give place to schoolmistresses on holiday, retired shopkeepers who bring their own carriages, and dyspeptic officers on half-pay. The soul of bricks and mortar is everywhere, even on the very fringe of the sea, where nursemaids wander followerless, and boys and girls bring their pennies to the cinematograph. The very gardens where they exist are trim and suburban. The one inspiration lacking everywhere is that of Nature, who has withdrawn herself as far away as Pevensey, and absolutely declines to hold any communication whatever with the creations of the modern architect. True, the skies and the sea remain, but they are subdued to the prevailing architecture, as the dyer’s hand is subdued to what it works in. A common brickdustiness, red and aggressive, shadows everything. A poet could find as much greenness, and more inspiration, in Sloane-street or Cheyne-row. DESOLATE AND DREARY ENOUGH; the more crowded it is, the more desolate and depressing. The main effort of its local luminaries is to make it as hideous, architecturally, as possible; next, and nearly as important, comes the determination to forbid to its frequenters the faintest gleam of gaiety or rational amusement. To find any seaside resort worthy of the name one has to fly far away from the whistle of the railway train, the novels of Miss Braddon, and the shadow of Smith’s bookstalls. Such resorts there still are, but those who know them forbear to write of them, knowing too well that the announcement of their charms would be the signal for their destruction. I myself know of one, not many miles away from the Arcadia which you have destroyed. It has ugly features, but they are in the way of Nature, not of Art or of your lordship’s architect. There one may still burrow in sand and shingle and go about in gipsy fashion, safe from the music of any German band. Its drainage is defective, its few summer visitors are retired haberdashers and fishmongers on holiday, its houses are built of grey sandstone, and, superficially speaking, it is not beautiful; but then, on the other hand, it is unpretentious, it is open to all the airs of heaven and ocean; it contains no hotel, not one edifice of red brick, not one solitary boarding establishment, but one sees in it real fishermen, and quite old-fashioned rustics. Under the fostering care of the jerry builder it would become another Bexhill, arrogantly genteel, scorbutic of complexion, and generally insufferable—a blot upon the landscape, a mere thing of shoddy ‘villas’ and tenements let out in ‘flats.’ “AMERICANISED.” “I have not addressed this letter to you, sir, merely with the object of saying uncomplimentary things about poor Bexhill. My object, as usual, is to point a moral, and to ask ‘those who know’ whether, if our old nobility is still to be left to us, there should not be some statute of limitations to their financial wrong-doing? So long as they acted indirectly as protectors of sylvan Nature, setting up old-fashioned barriers against the universal advance of bricks and mortar, we were inclined to forgive them their sins in the matters of land-grabbing and game-preserving; but now that they are rushing into the market with their possessions, and handing them over incontinently to the jerry builder, it is time to remind them that they are forfeiting the one claim they ever had to social tolerance and respect. Rapidly, very rapidly, a large portion of our rural England is becoming ‘Americanised,’ and anyone who has ever lived in the States, and come face to face with the prevailing architectural hideousness therein, must be aware what that means. Bexhill, for example, is an American ‘summer resort,’ with scarcely one redeeming English feature. Only a few years ago, as I have explained, it was one of the greenest and sweetest spots on this island. You, sir, and the other owners of the land, have destroyed it; in other words, you have brought discredit on an old name and an old patent of nobility, by disposing of your beautiful birthright for a mess of brick-dust!” ___
Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (16 September, 1899 - p.5) What We Think. A POET’S LAMENTATIONS OVER BEXHILL. MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN is spending his summer holiday at Pevensey, and he has been over to see Bexhill. The two events are certainly not remarkable in themselves, nor do they call for very special notice. Doubtless, the inhabitants of the old village live on in their country dreaminess, just as if no latter end of the nineteenth century poet had honoured them with his company; and Bexhill, in its time, has received visitors quite as distinguished as the author of “The Wandering Jew.” But the poet-journalist-novelist-playwright came to Bexhill in search of copy, or at any rate, he was afflicted with cacoethes scribendi when he returned to his Pevensey lodgings, with the result that we saw in a rather obscure London paper the other day an article from his pen in the form of an open letter to “the Earl De La Warr and Buckhurst.” It is a matter of no great surprise that Mr. Robert Buchanan has not followed the example of scores of other visiting journalists and given Bexhill a brilliant “write up,” for he is nothing if not original—or shall we say eccentric?—and no one ever heard of Robert Buchanan, either in the world of literature or the realms of drama, doing something which somebody had done before him. Therefore, when the famous author sat himself down to write a holiday article about Earl De La Warr and Bexhill, he determined to be uncomplimentary. But the principal contributing cause to the tenour of “Arcadia Up-to-Date” we conceive to be the fact that Mr. Buchanan is a poet. That explains everything. Early in the sixties, when Mr. Robert Buchanan was “a boy, adrift in Babylon, and eager to find some place of temporary rest far from the madding crowd,” he came to Bexhill, and he claims to be the very first among the poets to celebrate in song the beauties of the little Sussex village. Sad to say, he will also be the last. The whole trouble consists in Mr. Buchanan’s antipathy to the growth of Bexhill. He compares the Bexhill of the later nineties with the Bexhill of the early sixties, much to the disparagement of the former. We are sorry for Mr. Buchanan, but, to speak our honest conviction, we are not sorry for Bexhill. Sweet Auburn, says the poet, has been spoiled by the disfiguring mantle which Earl De La Warr has thrown over it, changing it “from a green and gentle retreat, full of sunshine and sweet music, into a hideous Monstrosity of red brick and mortar, with impudent Hotels, brand-new Boarding establishments, a genteel Esplanade, a priggish Kiosk, and the inevitable Viennese Band.” We can sympathise with Mr. Buchanan in his chagrin and disappointment when he visits Bexhill after an interval of some thirty years, and finds it has not stood still; we feel sorry for him when he finds himself “face to face at every turning with the ugly earthworks of the estate offices” (whatever they may be); when he discovers that “the one inspiration lacking everywhere is that of Nature, who absolutely declines to hold any communication whatever with the creations of the modern architect;” and again when he makes the further sensational discovery that “the skies and the seas remain, but they are subdued to the prevailing architecture as the dyer’s hand is subdued to what it works in”—for is not the author of all these sentimental lamentations a poet? That, as we said before, is the keynote of the whole problem. How could a man attempt to write poetry, fit to be read, and fit to live, in an atmosphere of brickdust and mortar? A town of hotels, and kursaals, cycle tracks, and dust carts, triangular plots, and railway subways is certainly not an Arcadia for the sweet songsters of the English language. We must go back to the little village on the hill of the early sixties, back to the garden of Vickery, the shoemaker, “a little Eden of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine, whither there floated on balmy breezes all the gossip of the village, salt and piquant with the breath of the neighbouring sea,” and from whence “one wandered through green fields, and over stiles, and down honeysuckled lanes, to the very fringe of the breakers tumbling on shingle and sand,” and where “the skylark sang, and the speckled snakes crawled over fields where oxen were yoked to the plough, and where the windhover hung poised in the warm, still summer air,” to find suitable environment for the dreamy maker of verses. But the Bexhill of old is almost obliterated. We have “flats” in the vicinity of Chantry Lane, so Mr. Robert Buchanan, ousted by the architect and the bricklayer, has to fly away to his new Arcadia, where the drainage is defective, and the few summer visitors are retired haberdashers and fishmongers on a holiday. What, therefore, is Bexhill’s loss is Pevensey’s gain. We are sorry the poets do not find a congenial atmosphere at Bexhill, but then civilisation, and arts, and industries were not invented for the Robert Buchanans of our race. They are necessarily few, and must give way to the less sentimental and more practical and monied majority of common people, in search of health and happiness by the seaside. It would be rough, indeed, on mankind if the choice spots of the earth had to be reserved for the poets. What would become of the teeming populations of the inland towns were they debarred their annual course of medicinal ozone; what of our trade, if it had to exist on balmy breezes and poppied fields; what of the poets themselves, if they had no seaside holiday makers to buy their works? Man cannot live by bread alone, neither can he exist on poetry—not even Mr. Robert Buchanan’s. Sylvan Nature is all very well in its way, and we want to preserve as much as we can of it in the vicinity of Bexhill, but the less poetic bricks and mortar affect more strongly the well-being of the multitude. After all, Mr. Buchanan has let Bexhill off very lightly, for he is good enough to say that “compared with swaggering Eastbourne and stucco-covered St. Leonards, Bexhill is restful.” Let us be thankful for small mercies. We do not, in the least, feel inclined to rail at Mr. Buchanan because of his funeral dirge over the lost beauties of Bexhill, especially when we remember that in our very midst there is a counterpart of the poet, bearing the name of as great a philosopher as he, and sharing the same poetical sentiments. Only a few weeks ago there appeared in the “Observer” some lamentations over the lost ideal, which might have been written by Mr. Buchanan himself, so closely are the feelings of the two writers allied. “My day dream,” said the Bexhill idealist, “was that it should be something intensely different from Hastings and St. Leonards, on the one hand, or Eastbourne, on the other; simply country by the sea, with no streets, terraces, or crescents, or even blocks of houses. Existing lanes and bye-ways should remain, with their hawthorn hedges and flowering undergrowths; not a tree or a hedgerow should be sacrificed, and all new thoroughfares be laid out in the same natural way—not by rule of set square and tee square in the office, but by careful study on the spot, following the sinuosities and contour of the land, so as to make the most of every rise and fall, the coup d’œil changing at every turn, instead of (as on the drawing board) the only object being to see how many separate building plots can be squeezed into a given square area. In such a way the horrible monotony of our straight open streets would be prevented, and bricks and mortar be induced to add to, instead of tending to destroy, the material beauty of the landscape. And it is only left to us to imagine what Bexhill might have been with long winding boulevards, or avenues of poplar, chestnut, sycamore, elm, and other forest trees, leading away east, west, and north, amid detached and semi-detached country residences, standing in ample grounds; with branch roads of a still more rural character (befitting the less pretentious ‘cottage ornee’ style of dwelling), gradually narrowing into flowery country lanes, between woodlands and hedgerows, left undisturbed, so as to preserve all the picturesque points de vue of the proverbial English landscape. This treatment could have been extended ultimately in every direction, to the broad marshes, where the asten and ashburn, meandering along rank grass and rushes, fringed with reeds and osiers, tempt the sportsman in search of snipe, plover, and wild duck, or, with rod and line, the tench, roach, and trout of these waters and their tributary streams and brooklets.” Such was the ideal of Mr. Sydney Smith, whose luminous imagination must have been inspired by Mr. Robert Buchanan. Certainly a Bexhill after Mr. Smith’s own heart and of his creation, would have approached nearer to the poet’s Arcadia than does the Bexhill of to-day. But then Mr. Smith is one of the architects, the ministering spirits of the age, against whom Mr. Buchanan rails with such eloquent indignation. Oh, the irony of the situation! The poet’s letter may not, after all be altogether in vain. If we cannot with the wand of a fairy transform Bexhill into the sweet Auburn of the sixties, we can at any rate profit by some of Mr. Buchanan’s advice. There is a great deal of truth in his dictum that the fashionable English watering-place is desolate and dreary, and the more crowded it is, the more desolate and depressing. Bexhill to-day is not crowded, and we must do our best to insure its not being desolate or depressing. The sin of architectural hideousness cannot be justly laid at our door; neither does the next item of Mr. Buchanan’s charge, namely, that frequenters of seaside resorts are forbidden the faintest gleam of gaiety or rational amusement, apply to us. At the same time, it is well to remember that in this respect Bexhill has a lot to do ere she can claim superiority to small Continental seaside towns.
Town Talk. . . . MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN has been writing some funny things in the paper about Bexhill. Of course, we poor ordinary mortals cannot aspire to the moral and intellectual level of a poet; that is why we can stand idly by and witness the interesting, but horrifying, process of seeing Bexhill changed “from a green and gentle retreat, full of sunshine and sweet music, into a hideous Monstrosity (with a capital “M,” mind you) of red brick and mortar, with impudent hotels, brand-new boarding establishments, a genteel Esplanade, a priggish Kiosk, and the inevitable Viennese Band.” I must say I admire Mr. Buchanan’s adjectives, but why a Kiosk should be called priggish I cannot for the life of me understand. From the point of view of size and suitability for a seaside front, if a Kiosk is priggish, what is a Marina Court Building? I give it up. Perhaps Mr. Robert Buchanan will oblige. I WILL be the first to acknowledge that the picture which the author of “The Wandering Jew” draws of the Bexhill of the early Sixties is alluring and enchanting. No one but the painter of such grand word-pictures could cast such a halo of sylvan beauty around the old village, and certain unpoetical Bexhillians, when they look on the view depicted for them, will bring back to memory the primitive scenes of bygone years, only the scenes will have added glories now. There are two sides to every picture. We cannot have a modern seaside watering-place, with all its advantages, and retain the rural delights of ye olde village by the sea at the same time. Mr. Robert Buchanan’s letter is a vigorous counterblast to the eulogiums which other writers (perhaps less distinguished) have published on the beauties of well laid out bricks and mortar. His honest and amusing wail will do Bexhill more good, perhaps, than a lot of the “gush” that fills the columns of certain newspapers. We may console ourselves, at any rate, that there are few Robert Buchanans in existence. He doesn’t like Bexhill, but there are a good many people who do. THE distinguished dramatist has found a place almost after his own heart at Pevensey, but even with that ancient village he has many faults to find. I think he might give Kewhurst a trial. It is exactly the place for a poet who wants peace and quietness. The obstructions to the sea view at the present time are one bathing machine and three tents, while the only distraction to his mind would be caused by the Coastguards’ wives hanging out their washing. MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN, it will be remembered, caused some stir in the publishing world a year or two ago, by undertaking the publication of his own writings. Born at Caverswall, Staffordshire, in 1841, he inherited some of his advanced ideas from his father, who was a Socialist, a missionary, and a journalist. The author commenced his education at the Glasgow Academy and High School, and finished it at the University in the same city. He came to London in search of fame in 1860. Like many other literary aspirants, he found the road rather stony, and many are the tales of hardship he has since told. But his talent at length rose to the surface, and as poet, author, and dramatist he has achieved considerable reputation. HIS principal poetical publications are “London Poems” (a866); “Book of Orm” (1868); “Collected Poetical Works” (1880); and “The Wandering Jew” (1890). The latter work prompted the great controversy in one of the London dailies on “Is Christianity a Failure?” Mr. Buchanan also published anonymously “St. Abe and his Seven Wives” and “White Rose and Red.” His first novel was “The Shadow of the Sword,” which came out in 1874, and has been followed by many popular books, among which may be mentioned: “Come, live with me, and be my love,” “Love me for ever,” “The Master of the Mine,” “God and the Man,” and “The Charlatan.” Several plays from his pen have been produced in London, and have proved successful. Mr. Buchanan’s favourite recreations are yachting, shooting, fishing, and horse-racing. ___
The Sussex Express (16 September, 1899 - p.8) BEXHILL NOTES AND JOTTINGS. Mr. Robert Buchanan, the celebrated journalist, is staying at Pevensey. Under the heading, “An open letter to Earl De la Warr and Buckhurst,” he enlarges upon the indiscretion of the nobility, and to a great extent condemns the action of Earl De la Warr in his endeavour to make Bexhill a fashionable resort. This is Ruskinism. The natural picturesqueness of Bexhill was sufficiently known without any eulogiums from the pen of Mr. Buchanan. After alluding to the fact that he had been a resident of Bexhill in the “early sixties,” the writer goes on to talk of the “brick dust,” and the consequent “demoralisation” of the town, owing simply to the fact that Bexhill is growing. Bexhill is not a village, and there is no necessity for it to be so. We want to make a town of it, with 12,000 inhabitants. We have done so, and Earl De la Warr has been the medium. Of course, Mr. Buchanan, whose wide experience in the literary world may be unquestioned in most circles, and your humble servant, giving him pre-eminence in the profession, would not, were he not in the know, reflect on his latest views. He is a gentleman, who has visited Bexhill in “the early sixties,” and therefore knows but little of the growth of the town. He gives a biased view of the town in the “Sunday Special”—in an article which I have no doubt will be re-produced in the local journals—simply because he has seen the transformation of a village into a town. Does he always desire to live in antediluvian times? Or does he believe in progress? When he alludes to the rumour (and perhaps fact) that “our hereditary nobles are transformed into a body of Stock Exchange speculators, company promoters, store keepers, and jerry builders,” I believe he never for one moment meant to refer to any private individual; but, even if he did, the fact remains that the Duke of Devonshire, Earl De la Warr, and other no(ta)bilities have, quite naturally, utilised their estates to the best advantage. If the Earl De la Warr has done so, good luck to him. Mr. Buchanan would have done the same. I enclose a copy of the article referred to for the Editor’s perusal. MILES JUNIOR. ___
Bexhill-on-Sea Observer (23 September, 1899 - p.5) A FRIEND writes to me, suggesting that as the Council have established a precedent by allowing the Dreyfus resolution to be passed and entered on the minutes, they should now follow it up by manifestations on other public questions. He suggests:— Now I think my correspondent has writ this sarcastic, and I have not the least sympathy with him. The Dreyfus resolution reflects the greatest honour on the Council, which I rejoice to see is the first local body in this part of the country to take part in the great national protest against injustice. _____
The Era (7 October, 1899) MR. HERMANN VEZIN’S LUCK. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA. Sir,—I notice that in a friendly paragraph you say “some one has been saying Hermann Vezin is unlucky,” i.e., brings ill-luck. To speak in my native tongue “it made me smile.” “Some one,” indeed! When Yates was manager of the old Adelphi Theatre and the entire audience uttered a tumultuous disapproval of the performance he advanced to the footlights and addressing them with perfect sangfroid said “If that individual is dissatisfied he can have his money back!” But Yates was more fortunate than I. He had his antagonists before him. I should have had to fight an invisible foe, and he was soon not a “some one,” but a multitude more numerous than Yates’s Adelphi audience. And how quickly their numbers grew. It takes centuries to establish a new religion. It takes years to introduce a new invention. A slander, an injurious lie, however incredible, is believed instanter. No one dreams of questioning its truth, or investigating its possibilities, but each one gives it currency in a thoughtless, gossipy way till it spreads with the deadly rapidity of a pestilence. So it did with me. _____ Theatre Royal. People might say this was a passing cloud, and I should live the slander down. But how was that possible when I could get no engagements? Before it was started I had never to seek engagements; managers applied to me; but, after that, I was compelled to seek engagements and sought for them in vain. Piece after piece was produced which contained a part which those who knew my work said was exactly suited to me, but it was always cast elsewhere. The injury followed me even in my humble capacity as a teacher of elocution. In tending pupils were warned against taking lessons of me because I was so unlucky. Lies have been invented of me by enemies as unscrupulous as the persecutors of Dreyfus. It would be too tedious to insist upon all the facts I could bring forward to prove the falsehood of the stigma. Let me simply mention two or three. I must mention no names. Over twenty years ago I played the principal part in a certain play over 100 times, and then migrated to another theatre. The play was continued without me and the receipts fell £20 to £25 per night. Years afterwards the same play was revived at another theatre and was the only piece produced throughout the season that played to a profit! A Shakespearian company played Othello twice during their fortnight’s stay in a provincial town. Upon the second occasion I was the Iago, and the receipts just doubled those of the preceding performance. These facts were given me officially. But this comes too near the praising of myself, and I hate it. I could multiply such instances until boredom would cause my readers to cry out, “Hold! enough!” So I leave the rest to the memory of those who have taken the trouble of following my career. One manager is reported to have given as a reason for not engaging me that I was a perfect Judas. He meant a Jonah, and I am glad of it, for Judas was a naughty man and Jonah was a harmless victim of the baseless superstition of ignorant sailors. However,, this clever manager came to grief without my help. ___
The Era (14 October, 1899) MR. VEZIN’S “LUCK.” TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA. Sir,—Is my old friend Hermann Vezin serious, or is he merely poking fun at the foolish persons who call him “unlucky?” In either case I regret that he has spoken, for he is merely handing stones to the stone-throwers, who would pelt even an angel if they saw him strolling in the street and lamenting his lack of occupation. The fact is that Vezin has made only one mistake in his career—he has elected to remain a salaried player in days when nearly every tyro becomes his own entrepreneur, and when the merest walking gentleman, by exhibiting sharp business qualities, may be hailed as another Garrick. Of Vezin’s fine gifts there has never been any question, but these very gifts have stood in his way, for the crowned Player never likes too strong a rival near the throne. Alas, my old friend has never been either a time-server or a man of business; he has been content to remain a man who loves his art and who altogether despises the tricks of the trade. _____
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA. Sir,—Last week Mr Vezin wrote to you “Intending pupils were warned against taking lessons of me because I was so unlucky.” May I say, as one of these pupils in 1887 (1) Mr Vezin introduced me to the late Henry Herman, which resulted in a first engagement on any stage, and enriched me by £13. (2) All my managers knew I was Mr Vezin’s pupil, so far from thinking that unlucky, they offered me re-engagements —one lasting about two years. (3) The crowning piece of good luck, my marriage to a member of the profession, is also due to my introduction to the stage by Mr Hermann Vezin. I am proud to sign myself, ___
The Era (21 October, 1899) MR. HERMANN VEZIN’S LUCK. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA. Sir,—Will you permit me to endorse the reference in Mr Buchanan’s letter (appearing in your last issue) to the generosity shown by Mr Hermann Vezin towards those authors or actors, or whomsoever, struggling towards some worthy goal, come across his path. I am one of those who have had Mr Vezin to instruct, encourage, and help them, and consider it the best of luck. _____
TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA. Sir,—Someone has been saying that one should not go for lessons to Mr Hermann Vezin, because even to his pupils he is unlucky. Permit me to say, out of gratitude to the best and most helpful of masters, that I have had the advantage of lessons in elocution from Mr Vezin, and that good luck simply pursues me! I had been a few months on the stage when Augustin Daly saw me play and gave me a three years’ contract. Then Mr Comyns Carr saw me and came round after the second act of a piece to engage me for the leading part in one of Mr Pinero’s plays. While I was sustaining that rôle Mr William Greet saw me and engaged me. When I was with him Mr Forbes Robertson wanted me for leading parts. Mr Greet kindly released me, and while with Mr Robertson, Sir Henry Irving sent for and engaged me for the Lyceum. Mr George Alexander, too, has sent for and engaged me for the St. James’s. At the beginning of the spring and autumn seasons I usually have from six to eight offers to play leading parts in the country—hardly what one would call unlucky! I withhold my name, so that this may not be considered an advertisement, but feel that I must in gratitude point out to the superstitiously inclined that it is as absurd to suppose that Mr Vezin’s pupils must be unfortunate as to imagine that a play—if it is a good play—will be a failure because he is in it. ___
The Era (28 October, 1899) HERMANN VEZIN’S LUCK. TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA. Sir,—Your readers are doubtless aware that Mr Hermann Vezin’s lessons in elocution have not been confined to members of the dramatic profession, but have been extended to those who have made use of his sound instruction in giving lectures and elocutionary entertainments. Some years ago I was a pupil of Mr Vezin, and it is a great pleasure to me to testify now to the benefit of his able and conscientious teaching has been to me as an elocutionist and lecturer. Since that time I have had my share of good luck in receiving and retaining engagements, and of late, instead of diminishing in number, they have decidedly increased. ___
The Era (11 November, 1899) THEATRICAL “LUCK.” The recent discussion anent lucky and unlucky actors, if such really do exist, is interesting from the point of view of the onlooker only. To the actor thus branded, that is to say, branded as being unlucky, it is tragical, as Mr Hermann Vezin has convincingly shown. An idle word, a foolish remark, made all unthinkingly, may have a very disastrous effect in a manner little suspected. Many a comedian has lost caste and cast, too, if one may say so, through an unjustified ban—through being carelessly stigmatised as “unlucky” by some responsible, though more often than not, irresponsible person. We all know how a plain, unvarnished tale will grow as it travels the rounds by word of mouth, and we also know that the best way to hang a dog is to give him a bad name without any cause. We cannot give names here, but every professional reader, or almost every reader of The Era, is acquainted with actors who cannot, nay, who do not, get engagements wholly and solely through the “bad name.” “He is unlucky, he is a Jonah, and will wreck the theatrical craft, so don’t have Brown Jones. Such a pity, because he’s a good fellow and a splendid mummer.” Of how many unfortunate actors has this been said? Dozens. At the present time to our knowledge there are several excellent comedians “walking about,” vainly advertising for shops, who have nothing against them except that they are “unlucky.” Why? Simply because they have played in several failures right off. But then surely it was the play, the author, and not the actor who was to blame? How can any one man bring bad luck to a drama or to a theatre? What is this intangible thing called “luck?” Who has it? How is it obtained? Good luck or bad luck? There is just now a clever lady playing in one of the biggest successes of the day who is supposed to be proverbial for her good luck, and there is another, playing in another success, who has been noted for her bad luck. How can this be accounted for? Of course, it is all ridiculous superstition—the superstition with which the stage is permeated. Cross-eyed comedians used to be looked upon as theatrically dangerous individuals, not unrelated to the gentleman whose name is not mentioned in polite society—yet at the present moment there are several very successful actors whose visual orbs gaze not straight ahead, except with difficulty. Madame Bernhardt would not have a certain actor in her company because she declared he had the “evil eye,” whatever that may be, so the management had the pleasure of paying a large salary to an inoffensive gentleman to “walk about.” Prejudice is largely to blame for these foolish charges and statements, and, one is tempted to add, wicked ignorance. For many people, through having the absurd fallacy of being unlucky promulgated against them, have been, and are, deprived of earning their livelihood. Occasionally, wilful spite is the root of the trouble. For instance, here is a true story. A certain actor of high repute was engaged to support a certain actress who had rapidly come to the front. The theatre is still in the Strand. The actress took an unreasonable dislike to the actor, and in the next new production—a Shakespearian revival—she asserted that he spoilt her scenes through being fluffy— through not knowing his lines. The charge itself was childish, as the actor in question knew his Shakespeare backwards, as they say. However, it was persisted in, and one night, through absolute nervousness brought about by the harm that rumour was doing his professional character, he was “fluffy,” and it was noticed by the stage-manager and several of the actress’s friends in front. That was the beginning of the end of that man’s career. He left the theatre at the completion of his engagement somewhat under a cloud. For two years he was out of an engagement. Then he got one at a smaller salary, and then the story went about again that he had dried up with Miss So-and-So, and he had the usual fortnight’s notice. So, in the end, he grew sick of battling against what seemed the inevitable, and had to leave the profession. Luckily, he had saved money, and he still lives in retirement on a modest income. And these things came about through the “hare- brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.” Label an actor “unlucky” or “unreliable,” and you sign his death- warrant. Men and houses are frequently classed alike. In London there have been many theatres ruined through a bad reputation gratuitously bestowed. There was the old Queen’s in Tottenham-street. That has a most adventurous career, and, as the Dust-Bin, seemed doomed to extinction, until the Bancrofts went to the rescue. From the unluckiest, they converted it into the luckiest theatre in the metropolis, and it was only when the Salvation Army tried to “save” the place that it lost all its glory and went back to its bad old ways. Another Queen’s—the one in Long-acre—was an unfortunate house from the beginning. It never made any real mark except, perhaps, when H. J. Byron’s Dearer than Life was played there in 1868, with such people as Henry Irving, Charles Wyndham, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, Henrietta Hodson, and J. L. Toole. That, perhaps, and during the runs of The Lancashire Lass, The Turn of the Tide (revival), and ’Twixt Axe and Crown, by Tom Taylor, with the beautiful Mrs Rousbey, was the only period in the whole of its existence that the theatre was not considered unlucky. Then it fell into decay and the clerical folk stepped in and made the building into a stores. After that a coach builder tried his fortunes, with what “luck” we know not. At one time the Olympic was spoken of with doubt and fear, and yet Mr Henry Neville not only made his reputation there but a very big sum of money too. The Ticket-of-Leave Man had many runs there, and yet the insanes thought opening the house was like flying in the face of Providence. The Globe, too. If any one dared to produce anything but a “crying” piece there, then that creature was honestly believed to be demented. Originality in a playhouse years ago was looked upon as sacrilege. Think, too, of the hard names (and titles) bestowed upon the old Novelty, because, forsooth, the entertainments were not good! Mr Penley is proverbially a “lucky” man, and, no doubt, he will make the Novelty lucky also. Of the Opera Comique one hardly knows what to say. No theatre with so brief a life has had more ups and downs. Days of prosperity—chiefly under John Hollingshead and D’Oyly Carte—it has enjoyed, but think of the unprosperous—think of the weeks and months it has been untenanted through—bad luck? No, prejudice. The house is right enough. The plays and the performances have failed to attract—that is all. Fortune favours the brave, and many brave men have tried the Opera Comique, only they have not been brave enough. If the public don’t know where a playhouse is they can’t be expected to attend and patronise the “show.” Though if the show were good they would soon find that out. It is not the house that is unlucky but the management in the choice of the wares offered. No player, no playhouse can be unlucky—it is nonsense for anyone to say so. There is no such thing as luck unless we are permitted to say that the lucky man is he who is lucky enough to get what he deserves, and the same applies to places. _____
Not a letter as such, but it prompted two replies. ‘’The Widow: A War Song’ was included in the posthumously published Complete Poetical Works.
The Star (13 November, 1899 - p.1) THE WIDOW: “I know that you will always do your duty to your Sovereign and Country, wherever that duty may lead you, and I pray God to protect you and bring you back safely home.”—The Queen to her soldiers. “Stand, Watchman, on the Castle height, “O Watchman, is it well with those “O Watchman, look again and hark, “O Watchman, gaze across the night “O Watchman, seek the night afar “O, look again! doth He not stay “O Watchman, doth He speak no word, “O Watchman, mark my sons once more! “O look and see, more near, more near,” “My curse,” she cried, “for evermore The royal Widow rose her height, ROBERT BUCHANAN. ___
The Star (15 November, 1899 - p.1) THE NEW WAR SONG. TO THE EDITOR OF “THE STAR.” SIR—Perhaps I may be allowed, without impertinence, to thank Mr. Robert Buchanan and you for the noble and glowing “War Song” which was published in The Star to-day. Stirring times, we used to be told, made great themes for great poets, and a war which, whatever its injustice, has been fruitful of gallant and pathetic episodes should find a worthy singer. Hitherto, however, we have only been treated to the vehement rhetoric of Swinburne, the vigorous jingle of Kipling, and the pretentious dulness of the Laureate. At last Mr. Buchanan has given us a fine poem, which will, if I mistake not, long outlive its occasion. I confess that the third verse moved me as no poetry has moved me for years, and I cannot refrain from writing to thank Mr. Buchanan, in the hope that he will not disdain the gratitude of even the humblest of his many admirers. Temple, 13 Nov. A WELSHMAN. _____
TO THE EDITOR OF “THE STAR.” SIR—Accept a word of thanks from a constant reader and, at no time more than now, an admirer of The Star, for the splendid lines, “The Widow; a War Song,” you gave a place of honor in your columns last night. The recent dictum of Mr. William Watson, that never while this world endures shall the assassination of a State and the strangling of a nation evoke one word of noble song, has been abundantly demonstrated by the “poems”—if the recent militant efforts of Messrs. Austin, Kipling and Swinburne can be so designated—at present in vogue. 105, Choumert-rd., Peckham, S.E., 14 Nov. JOHN GRIGOR. _____
“The next morning, Friday, October 19th, his high spirits had not deserted him, for I heard him whistling merrily before he came in to breakfast. I asked him if the muddled vision had troubled him again, and he replied in the negative, assuring me that he felt particularly well in every way. Breakfast over and the morning papers read, we set off on our bicycles together. (Jay, Chapter XXX.) One of the letters Buchanan wrote on 19th October, 1900 has survived. It is to the editor of The Star. |
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The Star (11 June, 1901 - p.1) BUCHANAN’S LAST LETTER. The letter which we give below is probably the last that Mr. Robert Buchanan wrote before the stroke of paralysis incapacitated that brilliant writer for ever. It was elicited, as its text shows, by the late Mr. Buchanan’s request that “The Star” should publish a letter from his pen attacking the “Daily News” before that letter had been submitted to the “Daily News” itself for publication. As this was hardly in accordance with the amenities of journalism—as that master of the crafty, Mr. Buchanan, would have been the first to admit when his feelings were less moved—we declined to publish the letter until we knew that the “Daily News” refused him the right of reply. That brought us the half-angry, half-jesting, protest which follows:— 9, Duchess-st., Portland-place, W., Dear Sir,—I am not surprised. If I wrote to any ordinary Editor that I had been bludgeoned and half killed in a dark lane by one of is brethren, he would reply, as you do, that he must first submit the matter to the discretion of the ruffian who had assaulted me! A wrong is done—a cowardly insult given—but it is all the same to the newspapers, which invariably protect each other, while playing the farce of being belligerents. I had hoped better things of “The Star.”—Truly yours, This letter was written on 19 Oct. Next morning was published the tidings of the stroke of paralysis. ___
This letter is now in the collection of the Charles E. Young Research Library at U.C.L.A. I did wonder what may have caused Buchanan’s anger at the Daily News, but all I came up with from around that period was this review of Archibald Stodart-Walker’s book, Robert Buchanan, the Poet of Mopdern Revolt. The Daily News (17 October, 1900 - p.4) Science, Success, and Grammar. Before a man publishes a book for the instruction of his fallible fellow mortals he ought to know a few simple things, including orthography and grammar. Mr. A. Stodart-Walker, the author of “The Struggle for Success” (Grant Richards), is a didactic and even, in places, an instructive writer, but he lacks either accuracy or literary education. Thus, if he really regards the late Mr. Nisbet as the originator of the phrase “the human machine,” he must have overlooked “L’Homme Machine,” of an earlier philosopher. When he says “the golden line of the ‘Endymion.’ the ‘Essay on Man’ and ‘Virginibus Puerisque’ are not,” something or other, he forgets that a singular noun does not wed legally with a plural verb. “We do not wish to preach the humdrum of mere platitudinal stodge” is a phrase unworthy of a truly serious author. In the following quotation he either attributes excessively bad grammar to Mr. Robert Buchanan erroneously, or he accepts that minstrel’s bad grammar without remonstrance: Far best to be tempest-driven Not even a poet like Mr. Buchanan may lawfully say that one alternative is “best than” another. Without preaching the stodge of platitudinal humdrum, we must remark that success cannot be attained by this kind of writing. That way lies a “pluck” in any examination. “Sweet fallaceous morsels,” we learn, are “glibly rolled by the hydra-headed public under its tongues.” A morsel may possibly be called fallacious”; “fallaceous” it may not be styled. Men are not “gullible to,” but “gullible by,” “plausible possibilities.” “Greasingly” is a rare and novel adverb; “greasily” is all right, and might serve the turn. Mr. Walker denounces, very properly, the unbelieving priest, “whose intellectual evolution has compelled him, sub rosa spiriti, to throw over belief.” The unbelieving parson is a hypocrite, of course; but Mr. Walker, who would have us, apparently, to think that he knows Latin, takes “spiritus” for a word of the second declension! Nobody is bound to know Latin, buy nobody should use the Roman language if it has been by him neglected. He tells us that he has “graduated in medicine”; it was once a learned profession. “It is, of course, a sine qua non that the first elements of grammar be universally observed,” says this teacher. Que messieurs les assassins commencent! What can Hippocrates (or HippoKrates; Mr. Walker’s k’s are inconsistent) mean when he is quoted as saying “in morbis longes solum vertero conducix”? Hippocrates is quoted from Dr. Weber, who possibly wrote “longis.”
And a final note: I feel I should add that the lines from The Outcast are: Far better to be tempest-driven And they also appear that way in Stodart-Walker’s book, so I think the reviewer got that wrong.] _____
Harriett Jay’s “Life of Robert Buchanan’
The Standard (3 March, 1903 - p.7) MR. MAXWELL AND MR. BUCHANAN. TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD. SIR,—I have just read, with no small indignation, an anecdote in Miss Jay’s Memoir of Robert Buchanan concerning that genial Irish gentleman, Mr. John Maxwell. Briefly, the legend runs thus:—Maxwell refused a MS. of Buchanan, having previously accepted a mass of his copy. Buchanan accordingly armed himself with a thick stick, and proceeded to Maxwell’s office, with the design of beating out his benefactor’s brains. So much for gratitude. Now, thirty years ago, as I can testify, two Fleet-street publishers displayed a benevolence towards struggling authors of either sex, which, I regret to say, met with vituperation in lieu of thankfulness. These were Mr. James Henderson and Mr. John Maxwell. The former paid the higher price; but the latter took MSS. without reading them. An author had but to apport a MS. and avow his utter impecuniosity in order to obtain a cheque from the good man, whose hospitality at Lichfield House was as splendid as the conversation of his gentle wife, known to the public as Miss Braddon, brilliant. Your hungry genius, or self-styled genius, not only drew money on copy which might be valueless, but, further, might reckon on an invitation to dine sumptuously, surrounded by guests whose wit and wisdom simply made one feel small. What Buchanan and very many others failed to comprehend in Maxwell was that, inasmuch as with an occasional gem he bought a pile of rubbish, he paid rather below the market price of work which had been passed by the Editor of magazine. In consequence, they got to present MSS. like pistols at his head, and if once, in a blue mood, he said “No,” blasphemed; the plain fact being that, so far from the “publisher” being Barabbas, it was the abstract contributor who played that contemptible rôle. Kenchester, February 28. COMPTON READE. ___
The Standard (6 March, 1903 - p.3) HARRIETT JAY’S “LIFE OF ROBERT BUCHANAN.” TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD. SIR—My attention has just been called to a letter which appeared in The Standard of the 3rd inst., signed “Compton Readc,” in which that gentleman says:—“I have just read with no small indignation an anecdote in Miss Jay’s Memoir of Robert Buchanan concerning that genial Irish gentleman Mr. John Maxwell. Briefly, the legend runs thus: Maxwell refused a MS. of Buchanan, having previously accepted a mass of his copy; Buchanan accordingly armed himself with a thick stick and proceeded to Maxwell’s office with the design of beating out his benefactor’s brains. So much for gratitude!” Ladbroke-grove, W., March 4. HARRIETT JAY. _____
The Referee (15 March, 1908 - p.4) FROM MISS HARRIETT JAY. SIR,—My attention has just been called to the fact that I am described in several journals as “the widow of the late Robert Buchanan.” Will you allow me to correct this error? _____
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