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i'vs Richards
^Blatchford
The Sketch of a 'Personality : An
Estimate of Some ^Achievements .
By <A.
H
.- THE
44, Worship Street, S.C.
Contents.
Chapter Page
Preamble i
I. Childhood .... 7
II. Boyhood . . . .15
III. The Great Adventure . . 25
IV. The Army . . . .37
V. More Army . . . 45
VI. Waiting . . . . -55
VII. Journalism and Journalists . 65
VIII. "The Bounder" ... 77
IX. Success and Socialism . . 85
X. The "Clarion" ... 93
XI. Practice and Fellowship . 107
XII. As Novelist . . . .115
XIII. "A Son of the Forge". . 125
XIV. Chapter and Verse . . . 139
XV. More Quotes . . . . 151
XVI. The " Thunder Books " . .163
XVII. Personalities . . .179
List of Illustrations.
" R.B." Aged Six . . opposite page 8
"R.B.V MOTHER . . 16
" R.B." Aged Twenty-two . 26
AS A "ROOKY" ... . 38
AN ARMY AWARD '. 50
SERGEANT ROBERT BLATCHFORD 56
EARLY JOURNALISTIC DAYS 66
E. F. FAY ("THE BOUNDER") 78
" R.B." AT PRESENT TIME . 164
Robert T^latchford :
The Sketch of a Personality
Authoritative Preamble.
*Jl/fEMBERS of the " Clarion" Staff always
VrA think and speak of him as" R.B" The
readers of the paper and persons who capture
him at railway stations usually call him "Bob."
1 suppose that some psychological significance at-
taches t'o this fact ; but I shall content my self with
placing the fact on record^ leaving to my readers
themselves the task of supplying philosophic com-
ment. I owe it, however, to my colleagues to an-
ticipate and repudiate the obvious suggestion that
we are awed by the Presence. It is not like that.
We know " R.B." himself- the man behind the
man who writes the books and I suppose that^
li^e our readers^ we are snobs y and feel that a
familiarity practised by the multitude is too gross
for us.
This is a genial sort of beginning / dont
B
Robert 'Blatchford
thinly But the fact is that the writer of these
lines is feeling rather sic^. He has to do a "^ery
difficult thing : to 'write honestly about an intimate
friend.
Ton will have guessed instinctively that I
undertake this task with many misgivings. Of
course. I should not, in any case, have omitted
to place on record such a gentlemanly sentiment.
But I have reasons enough for misgiving e*ben
for abject funk. It is not merely that I am al-
most the youngest of Mr. Blatchford's colleagues
and the newest of his friends, but that I am also
faced by this discomforting thought more than
half the people who will read this production
haVe tyiown Mr. Blatchford and worshipped him,
either in a vicarious or a personal sense, for
nearly as many years as I have lft>ed. T'hese
people will naturally view, if not with hostile
feelings, at least with Very critical ones, this
effort, as it were, of a newly joined midshipman
to explain his captain to old messmates. But
a monograph concerning Mr. TZlatchford had
obviously to be written, pending the full-dress
biography which some hand will some day cer-
tainly write. W^e had much argument about it,
and we ultimately decided that the only "Clarion"
Authoritative Preamble
writer possessing the impudence essential to the
performance of this feat was myself. That
is my simple explanation.
It is clear, of course, that the man best qualified
to write about " R. S." was " R. S.V oldest
colleague and convive Mr. A. M. 'Thompson.
'But ^Mr. Thompson asserted that his great
friendship for ^Mr. IHatchford was in itself a
bar to the undertaking. "/ could as easily ', " he
saidy "write an honest book about my wife."
It suits m>e ^ery well to seize upon this argument.
The converse of ^Mr. Thompsons plea shall be
my plea : I know Mr. Blatcbford so compara-
tively little that I may, perhaps, succeed in writing
honestly about him.
But it is an ill business ah the same. ^My
mind is surging with confused ideas about the
apologies which I ought to offer, the explanations
which I ought to make.
There is, for instance, the question of my own
attitude towards ^Mr. Blatcbford. I feel bound
to make a plain statement in this connection, so
that those readers who, on the one hand, are look-
ing for gush, and those, on the other hand, who
expect impertinences^ may be induced to refrain
from reading these pages, supposing such an
Robert 'Blatchford
action to be possible. It was stated, in a hastily-
written announcement respecting this sketch^ that
I "view the opinions and temperament of \A4r.
Blatchford very critically." This is at once an
over-statement and an under-statement of my
position. 'To say that I view certain of ^Mr.
'Blatchford 's opinions ^ery critically is grossly to
understate the passionate scorn with 'Vshich I view
bis complacent belief in human goodness and his
demotion to certain puritan ideals. 'To state that I
view " Ipery critically " his opinion of my favourite
authors is to be guilty of childish satire at the ex-
pense of the blind fury which possesses me in respect
of what I call " c R. B.'s' intolerance" But how
could one "view critically" ^Mr. Blatchfora"s
temperament ? It is a benign, understanding,
steadfast temperament. A dancing temperament.
A wise, a hopeful, heartening temperament. It
is a temperament which draws out music from it-
self like a harp which is touched by breath. It
is a temperament which loves lame dogs. It is a
temperament which gave me help and encourage-
ment when I sorely needed them. It is the tem-
perament of my friend. It is my friend.
Tou will see that so far as Mr. Blatchford' s
personality is concerned I approach him in a spirit
Authoritative Preamble
of strong and reverent partisanship. <^fnd I am
glad to say that the work which lies before me
will be chiefly concerned with his personality.
When I have finished with the story of"R. 5.V
life, I shall have something not much to say about
his work, and, consequently, about his opinions ;
and I shall say some things which I have often
said to him before, and shall often say again, on
many a jolly ramble and in many a pleasant inn.
But all that will be mere trimming. I feel con-
vinced that that which you chiefly want to hear is
the story of fMr. Blatchford's life : the fairy story
of an ill-taught, ill-fed child, a colour-printer s
deYil, who grew up to be a man a Great Man.
I say that Robert Blatchford is a great man. It
is a great thing to have taken in hand a forlorn,
discredited cause like the Socialism which was,
and to make of it, in fifteen years, a living, vital,
pregnant thing like the Socialism which is. No
honest man will deny that Blatchford' s pen alone
has produced has invented if you like "the
rank and file " of Socialism. I say that it is a
big thing to ha^e done this. It is also a big thing
and here I speak with the heartfelt veneration
of a craftsman to write the cleanest, straightest
English which has been written in our time.
Robert Watchford
In writing this sketch, therefore, I shall be
erned by the following preconceptions :
(1) That fMr. Elatchford is a very close and
intimate friend.
(2) That I regard him as a great man a
genius.
(3) That I disagree with quite half of his
opinions.
Within the limitations imposed upon me by
these premises, I hope to produce an honest book.
a. L Childhood
THERE used to live in Halifax a little
old lady who was great friends with
the milkman's horse. One day, when
this old lady was examining a shop-window in
a crowded thoroughfare, the milkman's horse
(a tall, white animal) recognised her back, and
ascending the pavement, accompanied by his
cart and milk-cans, placed a familiar nose upon
her shoulder. The little old lady, turning
round, remarked, merely, " Hullo, here's
Pete," and at once entered into a long and
affectionate conversation with the milkman's
horse, much to the interest of passers-by.
This story is told by the old lady's own
son's wife, who witnessed the incident. That
son is the subject of this sketch; and so,
perhaps, the story will not be considered
irrelevant.
And, indeed, this story and all stories con-
cerning Louisa Blatchford have a special
relevance in this place, for it is impossible to
consider the complex character of Robert
Blatchford without reference to the tempera-
ment and influence of his mother.
Louisa Blatchford was, for all psychological
8 Robert Watch ford
purposes, Robert's only parent. Mr. Blatch-
ford himself knows little of his father. He
was a strolling actor and an ardent Tory, who
christened his second and last-born son Robert
Peel Glanville, doubtless believing that names
like these would form an attractive substitute
for a patrimony. There is a story current in
the B latch ford family concerning little
Robert's christening (John Blatchford was a
great Churchman). When the baptismal party
had arrived at the font and the officiating
clergyman had learnt that the infant in his
arms was to be christened Robert Peel, he said,
to the father: "After the great statesman?"
and on receiving an affirmative reply, he
expressed the hope that little Robert would
grow up to be as clever a man. "Ah," said
John Blatchford, " I hope he will be half as
clever." It is to be hoped that the shade of
John Blatchford, supposing that the long-spent
spirit concerns itself with earthly or democratic
matters, is satisfied with the answer which has
been vouchsafed to his pious wish.
John Blatchford was not able to witness the
fulfilment of his hope; for he died in 1853,
when Robert was two years old. Thence-
forward, Louisa Blatchford became the sole
guardian of her two sons (Montagu, the elder,
was born in 1848, three years before Robert),
and how, a frightened, friendless, lonely
woman, faced with the most terrible poverty,
Six.
Childhood
she bravely discharged this guardianship will
presently be seen.
Mr. Blatchford says that his mother was a
"queer customer," and difficult to describe.
But, yielding to the importunities of the pre-
sent writer, he has written a little sketch of his
mother, as she appeared to him. This charming
document will appear in due place.
It is quite evident that Mr. Blatchford has
to thank his mother, not merely for his
preliminary appearance upon the stage of life,
her care and love, but for his own originality
of thought and feeling. If he derives from
his father any characteristics at all, it is
probably that streak of simplicity, of naivete,
in faith and outlook (such, for instance, as his
simple, intense, straightforward patriotism)
which is at once a puzzle and a charm to those
who know him. If it is the paternal fount
from which " R. B." derives his unaffected
belief in simple human goodness, it may cer-
tainly be said that the paternal legacy was,
after all, no mean one.
Most clever men nearly all clever men are
by nature cynical. " R. B.'s " utter absence of
cynicism, of the cynic's doubt and bitterness,
while apt to be a trying quality in argument, is
obviously in itself a thing to be envied.
" R. B." has a hopeful, benignant attitude
towards life, an attitude of calm affection
which is different in itself, as it is different in
io Robert 'Blatchford
its source, from the contemptuous calm of the
cynic. The cynic may marvel at this attitude,
but he cannot help but envy it. If he happen
to subject the matter to speculation and if
he had swopped tobacco and secrets with
"R. B.," he will probably conclude that John
B latch ford is at the bottom of the matter.
It will presently be necessary to put forward
the proposition that " R. B." is, in essential
matters of the spirit, an ardent and irrevocable
Tory that which is called " a Tory of the old
school." But this proposition, together with
the considerations upon which it is based, will
be presented in subsequent and more critical
chapters. It is mentioned here in order that the
reader may be asked not to confuse this in-
tellectual, emotional, perfectly sane Toryism
of Robert with the flat-footed, latter-day,
obvious Toryism of his father. In so far as
the father's blood has given any political
colour to that of the son, it is in matters of
mere family prejudice and sentiment. " R. B.'s"
mother's father had served as a middy
under Nelson, and had been wounded at the
Battle of the Nile. When, during the Boer
War, his grandson scandalised Small Heath
or was it Bootle ? by instructing his daughter
to play " God Save the Queen " once a day to
the glory of British , arms, he was doubtless
actuated by the direct and obvious influence of
heredity.
Childhood n
And then, again, his Christian name was
Peel. And then, again, he had served for
seven years as an English soldier. And then,
again, he had the fortune to be born in
England, and Englishmen were being killed
for an idea or for money. He believed the
idea to be mistaken and the money to be dearly
earned, but not being cynical like his critics, he
overlooked the absurdity of Tommy Atkins'
performance and fastened his mind upon the
fact that Tommy Atkins was being made all
dead and bloody by bullets. So he commanded
his daughter to play "God Save the Queen,"
and a congress of six north-country intellec-
tuals sternly turned his picture to the wall.
His recovery was slow but sure.
Let us now pursue our narrative.
Before Robert Blatchford was ten years old,
he had travelled in Scotland; in the North of
England; in the Eastern Counties, and in the
Isle of Wight. Portsmouth, Leicester, and Lon-
don were among the cities which he had visited.
Mr. Blatchford tells some perfectly horrible
tales about that time. His mother was an
actress, and at the age of 32 she was left with
two little boys and no money. She had never
acted in any but the poorest theatres or earned
but the poorest wage ; and it was not to be sup-
posed that the widow, alone and friendless,
could make a better trade of it than husband
and wife together had done. For years she
12 Robert 'Blatchford
struggled on, working sometimes with small
touring companies, more often travelling alone
with the two children (often on foot) seeking
an engagement in one small town after another,
and not always finding it. The little family
tasted of poverty in all its forms; mother and
children alike were always cold, and often
hungry, but sometimes they were literally
starving. " R. B." says that his strongest and
most poignant recollection of that period is
of the agonies of cold which they endured.
Nothing, he says, is so precious to poor people
or so hardly to be won as warmth. As a little
boy he learned to hate and dread the winter
months ; and cold weather makes him depressed
and broody even now. When he was a very
young child he used to get up early and grub
in other people's dustbins for old bottles, which
he would barter for coals.
It was an awful time, and does not call for
emphasis.
In 1862, when Robert was eleven years old,
the family went to Halifax. They tramped
there from Bradford. Louisa Blatchford
possessed relations, of a distant kind, in the
former town, and they had promised to help
her in finding work of a less ebullient and
spasmodic nature than that afforded by the
stage. The joint efforts were successful, and
Mrs. Blatchford, with needles, and thread, and
a dressmaker's measure, took up life anew,
Childhood 13
discharging the stage for ever with a thankful
heart. Mr. Blatchford says that his mother
hated the stage. As a matter of fact, this
hatred had its basis in a very practical dread.
The stage life had won her nothing but hard-
ship ; and the people with whom it brought her
into contact were probably small-minded, and
unhappy, and selish, and unkind. Her whole
life, in its relation to her sons, expresses the
fear which she felt lest either of the boys
should ever be thrown back again into that
dreadful life of penury and vagabondage.
After they all had settled down in Halifax,
both the boys went out to work. Robert, child
as he was, took employment as an errand boy
(i.e., beer f etcher) in a colour printing works
He worked in this capacity for twelve hours
every day, and received a weekly wage of
eighteen-pence.
Chap. II. Boyhood
TTJ 1TJ " WAS a very delicate child. The
Jj^Y, Jj . doctors many and various
doctors, met with in divers
places during the pilgrimage of want
said that he would never live to be seven;
then that he would die before he was ten, then
before twelve, then before fourteen. They
meant well, but, as " R. B." says, the luck
was against them. The doctors, all the same,
were justified of their wisdom to the extent that
Robert remained a very sickly boy. He was
still a sickly boy sicklier than ever when
he joined the Army, but there, he says, they
made a man of him in six months.
Well, at the useful age of eleven this frail
child, as has already been recorded, was toiling
and sweating and bleeding at a colour
printer's. In what may perhaps be termed his
leisure hours he was given all which the weary,
eager, persistent mother had to give him in the
way of knowledge. He had actually learned
to read when he was eight years old. When
the juvenile tasks which he was put to do each
day at the colour printer's had been quite com-
pleted; when he had reached home and had
run upon the ordinary errands for his mother;
16 Robert 'Blatchford
when he had had his lessons in Scripture and
arithmetic, and his lecture upon filial deport-
ment, and had washed up the tea-things and
helped with the supper (presuming that it ran
to supper), he was at leisure to follow literary
pursuits. These at this time consisted in read-
ing "The Pilgrim's Progress " reading it and
re-reading it, and then reading it over again.
He also read, when he could get hold of them,
stories about battles and about Nelson and
Wellington. But all his juvenile reading put
together did not amount to much not, at least,
in respect of variety.
This is not to be wondered at when you
consider how his life was crowded with what
we will describe as "other interests." It is
difficult to be a good son and a hard-working
lad and a schoolboy and a voracious reader all
at once, at eleven years of age and on eighteen-
pence a week. Young Robert differed from
any other grimy little toiler of his age and
status not in respect of the number and class
of books which he read, but in the fact that he
was minded to read at all. His opportunities,
whatever they were, did not carry him far in
these days : for he has placed it on record that
at sixteen he was just able to read and write.
I do not want you to get hold of the idea
that the boy was neglected or " put upon ' ' at
home. It was not the poor mother's fault that
her son went out to work before he had reached
'Boyhood 17
even the age at which other boys begin to
learn to play : it was not her fault that he had
few books to read and few spare minutes in
which to read them, or that she could tell him
so little concerning the things and ideas which
are written about in books. His mother was
a plucky, irritable, intelligent, penniless, half-
Italian woman faced with an awful problem.
She worked hard all day long, and during
the nights as well, but all the money which her
ten sore fingers could secure would not keep
a woman and two boys in food and lodging.
Louisa Blatchford's actual weekly wage was
eight shillings. To this sum Montagu, who
worked as an errand boy, contributed two
shillings, and Robert, as we have seen, added
another eighteenpence. Thus the family
possessed a combined weekly income of eleven
shillings and sixpence, out of which stipend
five shillings had to be deducted by way of
rent for two furnished rooms. A sum of six
shillings and sixpence thus remained in hand,
with which to cover the week's expenditure in
respect of food, light, warmth, clothing, recrea-
tion, and culture for three people. Are we to
blame the little dressmaker for sending her
children out to work ?
Robert was not her favourite child. He
was looked upon as being rather "slow"; as
being unworthy of the family reputation for
mental alertness. But he was her very son, and
C
i8 Robert Elatchford
she fought and struggled for him and argued
with him and corrected him and watched him
and tried to instil things into him religion,
politics, and a fierce loathing for plays and
players above all that. Surely my readers
can understand and like this woman? A
woman with fifty little talents, fifty little
graces, fifty little "corners/ 1 fifty little pre-
judices, and with stupendous courage, resource,
and vitality. But one need not labour to
explain her, for here is " R. B.'s " own picture
of his mother :
" She was a little woman, with square
shoulders : slim, and light on her feet. You
may see the picture of her, face and figure, at
any Italian fruit stall, as you may see mine
behind many an Italian organ. She had
abundant black hair, hazel eyes, black eye-
brows, like smears; large, white, even teeth, a
heavy mouth and jaw. She had a good mezzo
voice, and as a young woman sang well. In
temperament she was very, very mixed and
elusive in fact, Italian. She had high spirits
(when not in the dumps) ; was witty and bright,
and had a ringing, voluminous laugh that hung
on the hair trigger. She was not a good-
tempered woman. Her temper was most uncer-
tain. She would be angelic for weeks, and
then the nether fires would burn up, and she
was impossible for a day or so. She was
'odd, 1 too had an odd, abrupt, and
'Boyhood 19
whimsical way distinctly suggestive of Betsy
Trotwood. Her religion and politics seem to
me at this day to have been weird. But I think
she got them from my father, who was a
Churchman and an admirer of Sir Robert
Peel.
" Well, my mother was not quite an educated
woman. But she was the daughter of a com-
poser, and she had been brought up in
Bohemian circles and on the stage; and she
talked well, and her English was correct; and
she read a good deal (mostly fiction).
" She was not a Bohemian at all, but very
respectable and strict, and she did not like the
stage. Her aversion to the idea of her sons
being actors was very strong, and she made
great sacrifices and worked very hard to keep
us out of the Bohemian environment.
" She taught us her religion and her ideas
of politics, and used to read and sing to us,
and tell us stories. She hated humbug and
snobbery, and she was rather satirical and not
at all romantic. She was compassionate and
generous, and loved children and animals.
She was almost like a witch with animals. Her
cats followed her to church : her chickens slept
on the hearthrug, and the milkman's horse
would stop her in the street and ask for cakes.
" She was brave and obstinate and per-
severing and practical, and she wore the oddest
bonnets.
20 Robert Elatchford
" Now can you see her ? She could be
delightful ; but she was hard to live with, and
she had a most ruthless and wounding tongue.
" I think she was a clever woman, but was
wasted never had a chance. She had an
original gift for drawing, and had a fertile
mind and a fluent flow of language. Just an
impulsive, unreasonable, clever, wilful, bad-
tempered, affectionate, pleasing, exasperating,
funny little Italian woman. But it would take
a book and a Thackeray to paint her portrait."
This is not merely splendid writing : it is
splendid biography. It presents the whole
drama of " R. B.'s " childhood; it explains
what one means by saying that, psychologi-
cally, " R. B." was born an orphan.
At fourteen years of age our now mature
young labourer was taken from the colour-
printing works and apprenticed to brush-
making. Louisa Blatchford had a very sound
belief in the value to her sons of "a trade."
She could not give them any money orTnuch
education, but she would give them a "trade."
This, she argued, was the surest obtainable
charm against hardships, and against that
which she held to be the basis of all want and
unhappiness the damnable spell of the foot-
lights.
" R. B." worked at brush-making for twelve
hours every day : from six in the morning until
six at night. He says that it was hard, dirty
'Boyhood 21
work in a dusty, smoky shop, conducted by
ordinarily objectionable bosses. "But/' he
also says, " many of the men and boys and
girls were very good and intelligent."
That is a queer statement. A man is bound
to wonder what those men and boys and girls
did with their intelligence while they went out
making brushes from six to six.
"What did ' R. B.' do with his? " you ask.
Dear brethren, " R. B." took it with him to the
brush works and" R. B." " did a guy."
But we have not yet arrived at that point.
You must first of all be told that about this
time " R. B." began to visit chapel. This was
a very natural proceeding; for " R. B." was
obviously and necessarily a lad with stuff in
him, and the chapel would offer the society of
other young men having stuff in them : young
men with minds in embryo, with vague internal
cravings for fare other than pork : young men
with a vague perception of the Problem.
" R. B." kept up his chapel-going until he was
twenty, at which age Fate intervened; and he
says that the chapel did him lots of good, and
taught him to think to criticise. The chapel
planted a seed, and the seed has grown into
a tree a tree which is rather by way of being a
nuisance to the chapel. " R. B." does not
think that at any time of his life he possessed
what is called the religious instinct; he was
attracted to the chapel because it was a resort
22 Robert 'Blatchford
of quiet and thoughtful people. It offered a
change, too, from the environment of the old
strolling life, which experience and his
mother's constant voice had taught him to hate.
It was a change to be " respectable.'*
There may have been another inducement to
regular attendance at chapel. Amongst the
workpeople at the brush factory there was a
" little proud, pretty thing with flaxen hair
and sharp, dark eyes." She was a chapel-goer.
" R. B." fell in love with her or became fond
of her when he was sixteen years old. When
he was twenty-nine he married her.
It seems a silly thing solemnly to announce
the existence of Mrs. Blatchford and the
Blatchford children to an audience largely
composed of Clarion readers ; but a biography
is a biography, and one must state facts.
I have, therefore, the honour to announce that
Mrs. Blatchford is living (and likely to remain
so, so long as there is a bargain to be had at
Liberty's or a stair-rod to criticise in her
house), and that Mr. and Mrs. Blatchford have
three children Winnie and Dolly and Corri.
Corri is a boy, and bears the maiden name of
his grandmother.
" R. B." led a hard but not unhappy life, of
the vegetable kind, in Halifax until he was
twenty. He worked steadily at the brush
factory for six years and a few odd months
and weeks and days. Then, of a sudden, on
'Boyhood
the oddest day of all, the steadiness suddenly
went out of him.
This brings us to the story of the Great
Adventure.
Chap. III. The Qreat
^Adventure
ONE morning a bright spring morning
"R. B.," aged twenty, walked to
the brush factory. When he got
there the gates were shut. He had been
guilty of a chronological inexactitude, and
had arrived five minutes after six o'clock. By
the rules of the factory he was shut out for a
"quarter " that is to say, he could not enter
and take up his work until after the breakfast
interval at nine.
Being a philosophical young gentleman, Mr.
Blatchford resolved to devote the period of his
forced abstention from labour to the enjoyment
of natural beauties. These, he assured me,
existed in the neighbourhood of Halifax thirty
years ago. Perhaps he speaks comparatively.
At any rate, he walked and walked until he
found some water and a bridge, where he rested
and ate his breakfast After which he leaned
upon the parapet of the bridge and gazed upon
the chimneys and the smoke of Halifax, which
lay below him. Then, shifting his view-point,
he gazed upon a different scene a scene of
26 Robert 'Blatchford
rustic beauty. And being a philosopher, he
philosophised.
"Why," he mused, "when there are trees
and fields and birds and a blue sky like yon,
should one be compelled to spend one's life in a
stinking factory in a stinking town beneath a
dirty pall like yon? " And, being a philoso-
pher, he again said, "Why?" And, being
a philosopher, he found the proper answer,
which was: "Why?"
Having been thus prosperously delivered of
an entirely sound idea, Mr. Robert Blatchford
promptly acted on it. He threw away the
paper which had contained his morning's
stodge, waved a long farewell to Halifax, and
walked to Hull.
Thus began the great adventure.
I do not know how far Hull may be from
Halifax, or what the road is like, or whether
" R. B." found it pebbly, or at what time he
got to Hull. I only know that he got there.
And found a friend a brushmaker like him-
self, who worked at a brush factory in Hull.
And now there falls to be related a fact
wnich will give great pain to the True and
Faithful : a fact which will greatly surprise
the student of " R. B.'s " psychology. At Hull,
" R. B." did a thing which is obviously at
variance with his true character. He did an
unconstitutional, unpremeditated, irregular,
eccentric thing. In defiance of all the rules and
Aged Twenty-two.
The Great Adventure 27
customs and regulations affecting the rights of
man, he went to a brush factory and secured
work as a skilled hand he being still an
apprentice. (A voice : " There ye are Bill !
There's yer jolly Socialist! ")
It is true that he was penniless and had a
young man's appetite; but he knows that that
is no excuse, and so do I ; and we are both
sorry. He earned enough at the factory to
keep himself and to save a few shillings. And
he wrote home to Halifax, and was duly
reproached and forgiven.
When he had worked in the factory for two
or three weeks a gentle instinct urged him to
depart. He was doing a risky thing. The
consequences arising from its discovery would
be rather grave. He had not been found out,
but the danger of being found out would be
lessened by his departure, and, as he had saved
a little money, he packed up a little bundle and
boarded a little ship and sailed to Yarmouth.
From Yarmouth onwards his adventures ceased
to support an air of comedy.
He had but little money, and he wanted to
go to London. So he walked to London. The
distance from London to Yarmouth is 124
miles : he walked it in about a week, sleeping
in mean inns or hiring his bed at a cottage.
And at last he got to London : to the city of
Desire.
That which followed is an exceedingly
28 Robert 'Blatchford
antiquated story : a story of disillusionment,
disappointment, and despair.
I could describe "R. B.'s " adventures in
London at this time in my own fashion, but I
am relieved from that gloomy task by the fact
that they are all set forth by " R. B." himself
in A Son of the Forge that spirited story of
Army life which Mr. Blatchford began as a
sketch in the Clarion , and which, to his own
surprise and wonder, insisted upon growing
and growing and growing until it finished
as a full-blown novel. I am not going to
discuss the book at this stage, but I am going
to quote from it from Chapter VI., which is
almost pure biography.
" R. B." tells in this chapter how, sitting one
night in a dismal coffee-house, he was touched
by the misery of a little starveling boy who was
in despair for want of a halfpenny to make up
the price of his "doss." " R. B." befriended
the boy whom, in the book, he calls Harry
Fielding and it was this lad who first put into
his head the notion of enlisting. This is how
" R. B." tells the story :
" . . . . The idea that he might have given
the boy the halfpenny did not seem to have
occurred to the waiter at all. I asked him to
call the boy back and send him to me.
" Then I counted my money. I had two
shillings and a penny. Unless I found work
to-morrow, I should be soon destitute. But
The Great Adventure 29
this was a cheap house, and the beds only six-
pence, so that I was still rich enough to enter-
tain a guest
" The boy came back in a minute with the
waiter. His name was Harry Fielding, and
he appeared to be about fourteen years of age.
He was very thin and pale, and his clothes were
covered with white dust. I asked him to sit
down, ordered him some tea, and waited for
him to tell his story.
" He had no parents. His mother had been
dead five years. His father, a soldier,
discharged as unfit for service, had died in
Dover workhouse a month ago. The boy,
after trying to enlist for a drummer, and being
rejected owing to a defect in his left hand,
had lived upon the charity of the soldiers in the
Shorncliffe Camp until the provost had expelled
him, when he set off and tramped to London.
" He had walked twenty-five miles that day
along the dusty roads without food, and had
sold his waistcoat and neckerchief for fivepence
to a Jew clothes-dealer. He told me, with the
ghost of a smile, how he had spent an hour in
fruitless efforts to persuade the Jewjo give him
another penny, and how the waiter in the coffee-
room had sent him out to beg for the same
amount. ' But/ said he, with a sigh, ' I could
only get a halfpenny, and he wouldn't let me
in until I had sixpence. 1
" He was a quiet little fellow, and I was glad
30 Robert *Blatchford
of his company. We shared our coppers while
they lasted, and when they were spent we
foraged for food by day and slept in the
streets by night. Sometimes we got a box to
carry, or a horse to hold, and earned a few
pence by that. But bread was dear and times
were hard, and we could barely keep body and
soul together.
" I could get no work. Trade was slack,
many men were out of employment, and my
ignorance of the city, as well as my provincial
dialect, were against me. I sold my spare
shirt, then my waistcoat; then I sold my new
boots and bought some old ones, netting a
shilling on the exchange, but at the end of a
week we were at the end of our tether, and
starvation stared us in the face.
" It was Friday night, wet and dismal, and
after many fruitless efforts to earn the price
of a crust, we stole into a court off Drury Lane,
and went to sleep in a doorway, which afforded
some shelter from the rain.
" When I awoke in the morning I found
myself alone. Harry had gone, and had
pinned to my coat his note of farewell, written
on a bit of the margin of a newspaper. The
note said simply :
" Good-bye ; I'm off. Thank you for being so good to me.
Look to yourself. I will try the road. Keep up your
spirits. Yours, HARRY.
"P.S.If you can't hold out, try the soldiers.
The Great Adventure 31
" It was useless to look for him. He might
be miles away by this. I walked down to the
dock gates and tried for a job; but there was
a crowd, and the men shouldered me out of
their way, each one trying to get first, and
I was too miserable to fight. Why should
I? What did it matter? I left the docks
and wandered about the streets till nightfall,
when I made my way to the police office
to ask for a ticket for the casual ward at
Clerkenwell Workhouse; for it was raining,
and the wind was cold, and I was wearied
out."
" R. B." goes on to relate a strange
adventure which befel him outside the gates
of the police-station where he waited, in com-
pany with a host of other vagrants, for the
gates to open. He sat down on the pavement,
close beside a miserable woman :
" . . . . She was a swarthy woman, her skin
tanned by long exposure to the weather. She
wore no bonnet, and was smoking a short black
pipe. I watched her for some time, and thought
what a bold, hard, wicked face she had, and at
length, more from curiosity to hear her speak
than from any desire for information, I
ventured to ask her a question about the
tickets.
" She turned upon me with a scowl which
gradually melted away as she looked at me,
and at last said, not unkindly, * What do you
32 Robert Elatchford
want to know for, boy ? You're not going to
Clerkenwell, are you? '
" I said I was. She sat smoking for a few
minutes, then took her pipe from her lips, and,
stroking her chin with her great brown hand,
said, very much to my surprise, ' You mustn't ;
no, you mustn't. You're only a boy, and not
used to no kind o' wickedness, I can see. Don't
you go, boy ; don't you go.'
"I have no other place to sleep,' I said.
" She shook her head. ' Sleep in the streets ;
boy, sleep on the bridges; anywhere but there.
It's the worst workhouse in all London. No,
you mustn't go.'
"'But you are going,' I hinted.
" The woman laughed. ' Oh, me,' she said.
' It's good enough for me. But you are
different. Ah, don't be stubborn. Take an
old woman's advice. It's a cruel place. Don't
go, don't go/
" ' I'm not a child,' I said
" She laughed again, not pleasantly, and
answered, ' You know nothin', nothin*. I know
all. Been through it all.'
" Then, very earnestly, she continued,
leaning closer to me : ' Be advised, now. Be
told. I know these places; and I've had sons
of me own. Don't go, don't go. D'ye hear? '
" I rose up wearily from the pavement. ' I
will take your advice,' I said.
" She nodded, and put the pipe back in her
The Great Adventure 33
mouth. 'Good/ she said, 'good boy. Now
you're talkin',' and turned her attention
another way."
But of all the queer doings of that queer
time, the queerest was the final doing : that
which " did " " R. B." into the Army for seven
years. He relates in this chapter how he fell in
with a poor girl who asked him for some bread,
and who, on hearing that he was as breadless
as herself, said: "Well, blood's warm,
chummy; come and sit aside o' me." " R. B."
sat down beside her and watched her through
the night. Then :
" Very early in the morning the market carts
began to rumble over the bridge. The child-
woman awoke, and looked at me with a smile.
"'We must go,' she said. 'Early risin' an'
late breakfasts is the rule in this hotel.' She
got up shivering, and tried to straighten her
hair with her fingers.
" ' Where are you going ? ' I asked.
" ' With you, if you like,' she said. ' Neither
of us has nothin', and we might as well share.'
" I shook my head. ' No,' said I, 'not that.
Let me see if I can get a few coppers for you.'
"'You're not going to give me the slip?'
she said.
" ' No.'
"I'm nothing to nobody, I ain't,' she said,
her eyes filling with tears ; ' but you won't leave
a poor girl all alone, will you, chummy ? '
D
34 Robert Elatchford
" I said I would come back if I was
alive."
" R. B." lived and did come back. He came
back with a shilling, the "Queen's Shilling,"
which he gave to her. He had enlisted at
Tower Gates as a soldier.
We show a picture of him as he appeared
in uniform when he had barely passed the
recruit stage of his service. At the time when
this portrait was taken he had just celebrated
his twenty-first birthday.
"R. B." has often told me about that poor
girl who slept beneath the same bridge with
him, and about young Fielding. I remember
that we talked about them once while sheltering
from the rain under a hideous arch near Black-
friars Station. " R. B." described the boy to
me, and, of a sudden, it struck him with all the
force of a wholly new idea that if that youth
should stand before him then it would not be as
a boy, but as a decidedly middle-aged man.
"R. B." had often thought and wondered
about the boy he does still but in all his
speculation it had never occurred to him that
the boy would grow up and smoke tobacco and
drink beer. We amused ourselves for half an
hour by trying to imagine the present aspect
and fortune of the boy. . . . We settled, at
last, on neck-protector whiskers and wide
trousers, and we put him into possession of a
comfortable marine store in Shad well. ,
The Great Adventure
35
We have brought " R. B." at last to the point
of enlistment. It is now that the story of his
psychological development begins. The Army
made a physical man of him : it sowed also
the seeds of his moral and mental manhood.
Chap. IV. The
UPON enlistment (1871), " R. B." was
drafted to the iO3rd Regiment, which
has since been reconstituted as a
battalion of the Dublin Fusiliers.
The iO3rd had been a John Company's
Regiment All the old soldiers within its ranks
had spent years of their lives in India. Mr.
Blatchford's military novels (Tommy Atkins
and A Son of the Forge], and his collection of
short soldier stories called Tales for the
Marines, present a delightful gallery of
military portraits. It takes all sorts of men
to make up regiments and worlds : it took a
particularly varied and startling lot of gentle-
men to make up "the Ramchunders " by
which name " R. B." distinguishes his regiment
in print. The most startling thing in connection
with the Ramchunders is the change which they
wrought in " R. B." He joined them as a
solemn, sullen, sickly, awkward lad. He left
them a high-spirited, quick-witted, cultured,
observant man.
It is worth while, I think, to interrupt here
tiie strictly biographical course of this under-
taking, while we consider that phenomenon.
In discussing the influence upon " R. B." of
38 Robert Elatchford
his life in the Army, we must divide him into
his two proper parts :
(1) Writer, poet;
(2) Reformer and politician.
Viewing him in either capacity, one perceives
that we are reaping now what the men of the
Ramchunders sowed.
You have only to talk with " R. B." for half
an hour in order to discover that the whole man
hinges upon those six years of rough-and-
tumble in the Army. He lived those years with
the naked souls of a thousand other men, and
that experience afforded him a better education
in the science of Souls and Things and Causes
than he could have gained from six Universities
or ten Grand Tours.
At a University boys are associated with
boys in a certain community of interests and
enthusiasms. They meet, broadly speaking,
on common ground in respect of worldly
experience, worldly knowledge, spiritual
ideals, social ideals, wit, common sense,
insolence, the things which they do not know,
the things which they want to know, and
the things which they will never know; and in
respect of manners, prejudices, and affectations.
This community of interest can be limited or
extended at the will of the individual. He has
(assuming him not to possess an intellect or any
other ungentlemanly attribute) a recognised
. <2." AS A "
The Army 39
right of privacy and the material means for
securing it.
But a boy who goes for a soldier goes
directly into action. He " sweats with a
tumult." He will find some other boys in the
same place; but there is no guarantee as to a
community of anything except poverty, youth,
and an interest in evading "Red Caps." If
there are a hundred of these boys, then there
will be nearly a hundred distinctions of per-
sonality genuine differences produced by
genuine diversity of training, experience, and
example. Recruits in a barrack-room will not,
from their childhood upwards, have been
folded in the same way and creased in tlv
same place like the highly-standardised young
gentlemen who emerge from Oxford to throw
the weight of their shining individualities
against the levelling-down proposals of
Socialism.
But the boy who goes for a soldier will not
only have to take the mear.ure of other and
really different boys ; he will have also to keep
his foothold amongst men, all sorts of men :
old men, young men, laughing men, careful
men, clean men, greasy men, clever men, and
nice men; men who have met things, men who
have seen things, men who walked there, men
who got there, men who were carried .there,
men who like women, men who have
killed women, men who, one and all,
40 Robert 'Blatchford
have lived and are alive; silent men also and
seers and fools and rogues and pimps and
bullies and common grocers. These are the
men whom a boy will meet with in a barrack-
room, and these are the men whom " R. B." met.
And he did not meet them just when and how
he chose. He lived with them always, day and
night. He mixed with them upon terms of
continuous, unlimited, and illimitable
familiarity for six years. Do you think it
possible, bearing in mind the fact that he has
experienced this ordeal, bearing in mind the
fierceness of the ordeal do you think it
possible that " R. B." can have any use at all
for the ordinary theories which are held by men
concerning men ? Do you think that he can
hear without smiling your talk about good
chaps, and bad chaps, and moral chaps, and
silly chaps?
"R. B." has "learned" men. He learned
them in the Army.
He learned his Socialism in the Army, too.
One knows, of course, that " R. B." did not
actually think about Socialism until years after
he had left the Army. But I am nevertheless
sure that his Army experiences did much, if
merely in retrospect, to provoke and stimulate
and fashion the faith which is in him.
See how perfect, how concise a reproduction
of the Problem was before him. It was a
working model of the whole thing. Upon the
The Army 4 1
one hand he had a shining example of the
virtues of combination, of discipline, of the
common working for a common end and of
what wonders the application of this principle
may produce. Upon the other hand, he was
continually witnessing and acting in a highly-
compressed but very lively version of the drama
called " Every man for himself and devil
take the hindmost." That is not the motto
of the Army; but it is the motto of the
soldier. " Concentrated Effort " is the strong
suit of the Army. "Individual Merit" (meaning
Individual Shove) is the principle on which
soldiers work and are worked.
" R. B." soon learnt how to shove. But he
shoved fair so fairly as might be.
"So fairly as might be." Let me explain
this qualification. One knows, apart altogether
from the testimony of his old comrades, one
knows, because one knows " R. B.," that he
was kind to all his military inferiors and a
friend to all his friends. But men who sought
to take advantage of him; men who grudged
him his promotion; men who envied him; men
who merely hated him (and " R. B.," not being
a character in fiction, encountered all these
men), found out that he could push. " R. B."
was not a Prophet then. He was a heavy-jawed
young man of twenty, faced with the alterna-
tives of shoving or being shoved. As I say, he
shoved so fairly as might be.
42 Robert Elatchford
What a perfect little miniature of the whole
wild scheme was this barrack life! " R. B."
has often told me how the soldiers hate a thief
a mean thief, a sneak thief. If a
soldier sneaked another soldier's button
stick, the whole society of the barrack-room at
once combined to make things lively for the
thief just as our society contrives to apply
correctives to the pickpocket. But when it
came to high-class, intellectual thieving the
faking of accounts, the intelligent manipula-
tion of canteen finance, the science of short
reckoning, and so forth then the soldiers
shrugged their shoulders. This was merely
" business/* merely " life " the economic basis
of their little world.
"R. B." himself has pocketed the people's
money. (Sensation!) This was when, by
Individual Merit, he had climbed the social
ladder to such a height that criticism became
impertinence; when he was a Sergeant I need
not describe the process by which he conducted
this operation. The matter was connected with
beer and his spell of duty as caterer to the mess
a duty which every sergeant performed and
abused in turn. Here the principle of noblesse
oblige came in. Your turn to be "It" came
round. You were told how to do it by one
sergeant; you were helped to do it by another
sergeant; you were watched doing it by all the
other sergeants; you were obligingly relieved
The A rmy 43
of a small commission on it by the sergeant-
major. And if you did not ; if you would not ?
Ah ! that was where the principle of "shove "
came in.
They say that " R. B." is not a practical
man. God's truth, he knows it all as well as
Mr. Rockefeller. That solemn, impossible
monomaniac, the good God's warning to those
who court dyspepsia, stands now, at seventy-
something, where Blatchford stood at 24.
" R. B.," the unpractical, has climbed up a
ladder of common sense and logic and honesty
to a point which Mr. Rockefeller could not even
see through a telescope. " R. B." has repaid
his debt to the people a thousand times over.
Rockefeller teaches in a Sunday school and
has allowed the Devil, God be praised, to take
his stomach. This fellow is really no more
practical than the righteous are.
This sort of thing which was perpetrated by
the "upper and middle classes " in " R. B.'s "
regiment is done to-day in every regiment, so
sure as there is an England. What else can
you expect ? The people, and things, and ideas
which have made our England what she is have
invented and inspired her Army.
Because I cannot be sure that this book will
not be read by pudding-heads, I have to
point out the obvious fact that in doing (at
24) what all his peers and equals did what all
his fellow-sergeants taught him to do and
44 Robert TMatchford
expected him to do " R. B." was merely being
a gentleman; was merely " playii g the game,"
just as our bishops, and dukes, and brewers,
and stockbrokers play the game.
He played the game quite fairly, according
to its rules. But when he had grown older and
had read books and had seen facts and had
found his mind, he perceived that the rules of
the game were lopsided and impossible and
altogether wrong. And he has devoted his life
to proclaiming this wrong. But do not, there-
fore, hug to your souls the belief that he is
" unpractical."
When excited jute merchants tell you that
" R. B." is a dreamer, a visionary, tell them
this story of his youth; how he "played the
game " and made a profit on other people's
beer. The jute merchant will then respect
"R. B."
And so we see that the " Ramchunders " had
to teach Mr. Blatchford in the matter of Men
and Life. But the regiment performed for him
other services. It drilled him out of sickness
into health; it "shoved " him into strength of
purpose; it chaffed him into geniality ; it offered
him friends and the leisure to read books.
ap- IP* More Army
I SAID in the last chapter that when Mr.
Blatchford entered the Army he was a
solemn, sullen, awkward lad. This de-
scription may not be literally exact; it is
always difficult to describe exactly a landscape
which one has not seen.
But " R. B." tells me, and his wife tells me
also, that he was a solemn, serious, silent lad.
The sullenness I have ventured to add, because
it seems to me that any young gentleman
having lived through the bitter experiences
which led up to " R. B.'s " enlistment and who
had found no better way out of them than
that afforded by a bottle-nosed recruiting
sergeant would not, as he practised the techni-
calities of the goose-step, be feeling altogether
sunny.
But regular food and the nonsense of the
other chaps soon began to improve the temper
and constitution of our friend. Also, he liked
soldiering : he liked the drills, he liked his
fine tunic; above all, he liked the shooting.
He was a puritan young gentleman ; he was
a little dour; a little moody and mysterious;
but he could " shoot." He " could shoot like
an angel," as his cot-mates said, and that fact,
46 Robert Elatchford
combined with a recognition of the circum-
stance that he always " played fair," moved
his comrades to forgive him for his virtues.
" R. B." has often told me how the grim old
buff-sticks, the "long-service" soldiers, deeply
learned in iniquity, would collect around his
cot and pay him mock-worship mock-worship
which possessed more than a touch of sincerity.
" Look at 'im ! " they would say. " 'E don't
drink, 'e don't fight, 'e don't swear, 'e don't
collect no sweet'earts, and yit 'e can shoot
like a angel ! "
Quite early in his service he found a friend
one Joe Norris, a lively young gentleman,
the tale of whose impertinences would fill a
book. Mr. Joseph Norris, whom I have had
the pleasure of meeting, is now a successful
man of business and the father of a family.
There is, however, a Ramchunder gleam in
the white of his eye which makes me believe
the incredible stories that " R. B." tells:
those wonderful stories which bubble out of
" R. B." all day long, and which always begin
and end with what Joe Norris said.
Most of these tales, but not quite all of
them, you will find in " R. B.'s " story-books.
Many of you know these tales by heart; the
others must get and read them. These books
will naturally be reviewed by me in due place,
but I wish that considerations of form and
unity and expense did not prevent me from
More Army 47
printing half-a-dozen of them here. With the
exception of that which is the best tale of them
all (I refer to the unforgettable romance of
" The Scrumptious Girl "), the most important
of these stories are biography, pure and simple.
The one I should most like to set out here is
the story of " The Black M.P.'s." It describes
how " R. B.," when in charge of a picket,
arrested and ran in four military police-
men. It is a touching, simple story, and any-
body who has read it once will re-read it
twenty times. I have heard Mr. Blatchford
tell it.
Mr. Blatchford has written most of his
soldier stories in the form of "cuffers," which
is Tommy Atkins' name for a story. The
stories are set out in dialogue form, and the
word " Boots ! " followed by the word
" Spurs ! " recurs often throughout the tale.
This is a piece of realism. The soldiers' time
for telling cuffers is after lights out, when the
barrack-room is in darkness and the men are
in bed. " The form of procedure," says
Mr. Blatchford, in a foreword to Tales for the
Marines, " is much the same in all regiments.
Private Noaks requests Private Stokes to ' spin
us a cuffer.' Stokes calls ' Attention ! ' and
then says ' Boots ! ' to which the men reply in
chorus ' Spurs ! ' The ' cuffer ' then begins, the
'spinner' testing the interest and wakefulness
of his audience by interjecting the word
48 Robert Blotch ford
' Boots ! ' at such intervals as may seem
advisable."
" Boots ! " with its countersign " Spurs ! " has
been adopted by Clarion readers as a special
form of greeting by which they make their
presence known one to the other in public
places.
When he performed the devil's prank which
is recorded in " The Black M.P.'s," " R. B." had
long grown out of his "solemn" stage. I do
not know how long his solemnity lasted, but
I suspect its disappearance to have been
coincidental with the advent of Joe Norris.
Mr. A. M. Thompson once told me a story
about Joe Norris. Thompson then a boy
was invited by a gentleman to play at cards.
He did so, and the gentleman cheated him.
Shortly afterwards, A. M. T. related this
circumstance to Mr. Norris. " Lead me to your
friend," said Mr. Norris; "7 will play cards
with him," adding, explanatorily, " I've served
seven years in the Army." Mr. Thompson
produced his friend, and Mr. Norris adminis-
tered a life-long cure.
This anecdote points the moral that soldier-
ing is soldiering; and even at the risk of
being mistaken for a parrot, I will ask you once
again to remember that " R. B." has " soldiered."
Get out of your minds at once, you who do
not know him, the notion that " R. B." in any
way resembles a Nonconformist minister. He
More Army 49
is a thoroughly human being, who, as the
vulgar expression goes, " has been through the
mill." He is as much now as he ever was a
cheerful, impudent, careless, jolly, you-be-
damned sort of a soldier. At the same time
he possesses knowledge, culture, sympathy,
logic, and abundant tenderness and humour.
Mix all these qualities together and employ
your imaginations, and you will know " R. B."
But do not think of him as a " goody " man.
During the whole of his military service
" R. B." was a teetotaler. He tells me that
while in the Army he " did not read much."
Cricket, shooting, and performing the Un-
expected were his chief amusements then. But
he did read Chaucer, Leigh Hunt, Cowper,
Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bronte, and
Fielding. Dickens he already knew, and
Bunyan and Defoe, and De Quincey and
Thackeray and Ruskin. This list of books
may not represent " much " to " R. B." now,
but many persons would consider that an
infantry sergeant who carried such things in
his head had not ill-treated himself in the
matter of culture.
The military authorities evidently thought
well of his attainments, for when he was
promoted to be a sergeant in 1874, tne y
granted him a Second-class Certificate of
Education. The front page of this document
we reproduce with a view to creating mirth.
E
50 Robert Watchford
Upon the inner sheet of this document it is
stated that No. 4,231 possesses the capacity to
read and write; also that he possesses "the
requisite proficiency in numeration and no
more" The italics are mine.
That which helped him most in the develop-
ment of his literary instinct was, in " R. B.'s"
opinion, the fact that, while soldiering, he
wrote a great number of letters. I have tried
in vain to trace some of these letters. The
following fragment has, however, been handed
to me by " R. B." himself, who says that it is
copied, word for word, from a letter which he
wrote at this time :
". . . . A very old house, and a very big
one, with a score or two of rooms dotted about
in a labyrinth of crooked passages, and tacked
together with crazy flights of stairs. A great,
solemn, solid stone house that had seen better
days. A house with a wilderness of garden
overgrown with weeds behind, and a row of
gaunt, uncanny-looking poplars ranged along
in front like a gigantic guard that had turned
out to present arms, and had forgotten to turn
in again. A house infested with rats and bats
and crickets and mice and cockroaches. A house
of the draughtiest, creakiest, dustiest kind, all
full of corners and recesses hid in gloomy
shadow. A house that had been a mansion and
a ladies' school and a smugglers' haunt, and
was come down to be a barracks. Often have
W. 0. Form 1164,
V- R.
SECOND GLASS
CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATION.
AWARDED TO
On thf; recommendation of the Inspector of Army
Schools
by
Commanding /.
More Army 5 1
I sat alone in the topmost room, with one
rushlight making darkness visible, and listened
to the creaking of the stairs and racing of the
rats and sighing of the wind till I could have
found in my heart to see ghosts by the double
company.
" But I never saw any. There had, we were
told, been a violent death in every room in
the house save one, and in that room one of
our men shot himself. But I never saw a ghost.
Only one night I was on guard, and the dead
man was lying in the guard-room, and I fell
asleep. And when I woke the candle had
burned down into the socket, the fire was out,
and the moon shone through the window. The
first thing that met my eyes was the stark
figure under its white sheet. I sat up ; I looked
round; there was no one in the room but
myself and it.
" I didn't see a ghost I didn't wait. I just
jammed my busby on, and left the guard-room
in three hops and a skip; and I never went
back that night. It was warm weather, and
sitting in the garden smoking a pipe and talk-
ing to the sentry was good enough for me.
But I saw no ghost."
This document makes it clear, of course, that
" R. B." knew all the elements of the trade
while he was still a soldier. This is writer's
writing. It also tells us plainly what writer
most influenced " R. B." at this time. The
52 Robert 'Blotch ford
fragment is pure Dickens from top to bottom.
But then, " R. B." himself says that even now,
looking back over all the many literary
enthusiasms to which he has thrilled, he would
still place Dickens first on the list of writers
who have influenced him.
" R. B.'s " literary gifts were known and
admired in the regiment. An old comrade of
his described to me recently a burlesque which
" R. B." wrote to amuse the detachment then
stationed at Popton Fort " R. B. " not only
wrote the words of this stage-play (not one
fragment of which remains to make him blush),
but he designed and painted the scenery for its
production. The gentleman to whom I have
referred told me that the officers came in to see
the performance, and that one of them remarked
to him that it was very clever. " Yes," said
my informant, " Sergeant Blatchford is a very
clever man." " I suppose he is," said the officer,
yawning.
One cannot help wondering what would have
happened to " R. B." if he had remained in the
Army. " Spotting " cleverness is obviously
not a strong point with our officers. One cannot
imagine a civilian employer of brains allowing
" R. B." to walk out of his employment as
" R. B/' was allowed to walk out of the Army.
Those who know him will, I think, agree with
me in saying that he has all the qualities neces-
sary to successful military command. He has
More Army 53
great presence of mind, great resourcefulness,
great personal courage; he has quickness of
perception, unlimited self-control, a fine bump
of strategy, and a magnetic personality. He
has the finest moustache in England. For all
that, he would have made, perhaps, but an
indifferent butcher. It is remarkable, however,
that nobody thought of trying him.
And anyhow, why not the Stores depart-
ment? "Superior" men in the lower ranks of
our Army are nearly always rewarded with
an honorary lieutenancy and a quartermaster-
ship, and sometimes the governorship of a gaol
to follow. If things had followed their proper
and accustomed course, " R. B." might now
be worrying Suffragettes in Holloway.
But they let him go.
Once, when he had completed about five
years' service, they nearly promoted him to
the important post of regimental sergeant-
instructor in musketry. But one of his innocent
little pranks (this time unconnected with Joe
Norris) had stuck in somebody's memory. The
coveted post was awarded to another.
And, anyhow, " R. B." wanted to get married.
And he knew enough about soldiering not to
be desirous of introducing his young wife into
barracks. Fortunately for us and for the
Socialist movement, the Short Service Act had
been put into force a few months before the
date of "R, B,'s" enlistment. So that at the
54 Robert 'Blotch ford
end of six years and some odd months of
service he was free to go. And he went.
Soon after leaving the Army he happened
on the works of Mr. Thomas Carlyle.
Chap. PL Waiting
MR. BLATCHFORD left the Army in 1 877,
but he returned to it for a brief
period in 1878, when there was talk
of war with Russia, and " R. B.," in common
with other soldiers of the reserve, was recalled
to the colours. This second spell of service
was brief in duration and unproductive of
adventure, and it is sufficient for our present
purposes merely to mention it.
I may refer to one incident which " R. B.'*
has related in connection with his brief
experience as a Reservist. Amongst the
soldiers who had been "called up" were a
number of Militiamen members of the Militia
reserve. These irregular soldiers were very
irregular indeed, and one evening about thirty
of them gave trouble by persistently lighting
candles in their barrack-room after " lights
out " had been sounded. The orderly-sergeant
happened to be " R. B.," and when that young
gentleman went upstairs to talk wise words
unto the mutineers, he was received with con-
tumely and epithets, the latter conceived in a
spirit of imagery peculiar to the New Cut, from
which village the Militiamen had been re-
cruited. Whereupon " R. B.," knocking up
56 Robert 'Blotch ford
some regular soldiers from another room,
marched them in on the Militiamen and placed
the whole roomful under arrest. Three-and-
thirty crestfallen irregulars found themselves
suddenly transported to the "clink," where
they had leisure to rehearse their parts of
speech. " R. B." is essentially a quick thinker
and possesses a useful gift of repartee, as this
anecdote suggests.
After leaving the Army, " R. B.," having
first indulged himself in a pleasure-tramp
through Wales, obtained work as a time-
keeper with the Weaver Navigation Company
at Northwich. Here he remained for some
years. Nothing happened in particular until
1880, when Mr. Blatchford got married.
For the first two years of his married life he
worked hard at grammar and shorthand ; vary-
ing these amusements with cricket and rifle
shooting. He had joined the Volunteers and
won all sorts of prizes at the butts. It may be
mentioned here that " R. B." has been in his
time a very fine marksman quite up to what is
now called " Bisley form." And even in these
days at 57 years of age he can do things
with a gun which are calculated to open the
eyes of self-confident and vain-glorious Youth.
Thus, for five years, " R. B." lived at North-
wich a smooth, industrious, rather vegetable
life; "vegetable" as to its outward seeming,
that is to say. The inward parts of him were
Waiting 57
living rapidly all the time. He was reading
much and learning and thinking. But it is
hardly reasonable to expect that the aspect and
growth of his spiritual being attracted much
public notice in Northwich. He was, I
suppose, to all outward appearance as
"honest," "stalwart," "industrious," "civil,"
"obliging," "thrifty," and generally foolish
as his fellows. Just a respectable working man,
teetotal, it is true, and silent, and having a
rather remarkable habit of laughing "inside"
at all sorts of ordinary things, but at the same
time quite "decent," even to the extent of
wearing black clothes on Sunday and drinking
cocoa.
When this chapter appeared in serial form, I
ventured to wonder how " R. B." "got on"
with his fellow workmen at this period. How-
did he behave to them ? What did he think of
them ? What did he say to them ? And what
was their opinion of him.
This paragraph called forth a most interest-
ing letter from one of " R. B.'s " old " mates "
Mr. Thomas Palin, who now lives near Man-
chester.
Mr. Palin wrote me at great length and I
am going to reprint nearly all of his letter; for
I am sure that those people who read this
sketch with understanding will agree with me
that that simple document is quite the most
valuable piece of testimony which it contains.
Robert 'Blatchford
Mr. Palin, I think, may be regarded as the
spokesman of all his mates, and his letter
makes it clear that the name of Robert Blatch-
ford is now venerated amongst them, not
merely in respect of his work as a writer and
politician, but in remembrance of countless
little acts of generosity and simple kindliness,
such as those which Mr. Palin here describes.
This is what Mr. Palin says :
" I may say that I was a youth serving my
apprenticeship as a boiler maker under the
Trustees of the Weaver Navigation, at which
Robert B latch ford was my timekeeper. He
was also storekeeper.
" I may say that we all looked up to Robert
as one that was gifted; for if you went into his
office he could do your photograph with his
blacklead in a jiffy. He could also make
verses, too. I remember something about the
voyage of the ship, Soap Bubble (or some such
title), and the consequent wreck on Frodsham
Marsh.
" I well remember we formed a cricket club,
of which Robert was our captain ; and we work-
ing men got a boat-load of green sods brought
up the river, and we all went at nights and
laid a large patch at a brick field with the
sods, Robert Blatchford working as hard as
any of us.
" I also remember our having a match,
Married v. Single, for a knife-and-fork tea
Waiting 59
the winners to pay is. 3d., losers is. gd, when
we vanquished the said Robert and his host.
My word, we did swipe them ! And they had
to pay the piper.
" I remember also that he had no swank, to
use a modern phrase. He was a nice, sociable
man ; not one of those upstarts that think a man
working with his hands is inferior to him. Oh,
no; a man's a man for a' that
" I remember, also, my father was a captain
of a vessel a lifting vessel ; and one time the
vessel was doing nothing ; so father was told to
stack some coal up in a field. Some men were
emptying a coal boat lying in the river and
they did it piece work, and when father's
wages came down the river, he was this time
short about IDS. The cashier said he must see
these coal men for his money, but they dis-
claimed any responsibility for it, as they had
to empty the boat and not stack the coal. So
it went on for about three months, I think,
father seeing first one and then another
My father was only getting 1 a week, and
there were five youths and one girl at our house,
and we could shift something. So in despair
father went to Robert Blatchford. He was
not his timekeeper, but he had dealings with
him sometimes and he knew his man. So
father went to him, and I fancy I can hear him
saying it now : ' Well, John ? ' So father told
his story and Robert said, when he had done :
60 Robert 'Blatchford
" ' The old devil ! I'll get it for you, John;
leave it to me.' And it goes without saying
that he got it.
" We all knew if we were short of our time,
if it was possible, Robert would put it right.
Robert was a strong Liberal in those days, and
he didn't half crow over a strong Tory, a fitter
named Elliott. . . .
" When he went to London to be a reporter
on Bell's Life, I think it was at $ a week,
we got up a presentation and had a tea at an
hotel in the town, and presented Robert with
a large album full of views of the river and
district.
" Robert was a good shot . . . and he had
won the Volunteer's silver medal twice in suc-
cession, and if he had won it that year it would
have been his own."
At this stage of his letter, Mr. Palin, who
is a strong "believer," takes Mr. Blatchford to
task for his agnostic sentiments. No useful
purpose would be served by reproducing that
portion of the letter here; but the fact that Mr.
Palin so strongly differs from " R. B." in this
respect may be noted, as giving emphasis to
that which follows :
" I remember one Whitsuntide, the men in the
boiler shop got up a bit of a collection to re-
ward me for being a good lad (I suppose).
And I well remember that Robert Blatchford
gave me 3d. . . ..,
Waiting 61
"... Since writing the above I have seen my
father and he said that Mr. Blatchford gave
him the IDS. out of his own pocket, and he
said : ' I will have it back before the cashier
leaves the yard in the morning,' and he said:
' Here you are, John ; go home and don't say
anything to anybody.' He was full of
righteous indignation at my father being
treated so.
" Another time Robert sent father with a bag
to their house arid he said : ' Tell Mrs. Blatch-
ford to give you 6d.' Father said, ' No, thank
you,' but he had to have it whether or not. Mrs.
Blatchford made him have it.
" Father said if Robert saw one man trying
to best another he would put his foot on it
at once. In short, he was a working man's
friend then as now, and a gentleman to boot;
one of Nature's gentlemen. Long may he
wave !
" He is doing far more good in my opinion
that three parts of the parsons, notwithstand-
ing his opinion regarding religion."
I think that Mr. Palin's concluding sentiment
will find an echo in the hearts of all Mr. Blatch-
ford 's readers, whether they be Christian men
or infidels.
Arid if any cross-grained person should tell
me that some of the facts for which I am
indebted to Mr. Palin are trivial in character,
I would point out to him that it is just such
62 Robert Elatchford
trivial facts by which we may judge of bigger
things.
I have often asked " R. B." to talk
about his " mates " at Northwich, and he
has talked about them by the hour. He
has told me about the amazing carpenter
who had an amazing story about Admiral Sir
Cloudsley Shovel, and would narrate wild
stones concerning the prowess and genius of
that gallant person. He has told me about all
sorts of queer and interesting men whom he
got to know in Northwich. But he has
never told me that which I wanted him
to tell me. He has never told me what Mr.
Palin tells me.
When " R. B." had been living in a respect-
able manner for five years he suddenly broke
out and wrote a story. This was accepted
and published by a paper called the 'Yorkshire-
man, and "R. B.'s " life-long friend, Mr.
Joseph Norris, has recorded the circumstance
that "R. B." "walked on his heels." This
story was called " The Militiaman," and it has
been republished in a summer number of thf
Clarion. It has all the qualities and all the
faults which are common to first efforts 01
clever writers.
Thus encouraged, " R. B." wrote a few more
stories, which were published here and there.
He tried his hand at other things as well, and
in 1884 was writing a weekly column of
Waiting 63
notes for a semi-comic paper called the Leeds
Toby.
In this year, also, he met with Mr. A. M.
Thompson, a young gentleman who was
destined to mingle his fortune rather intimately
with that of " R. B." Mr. Thompson was one
of the original founders of the Clarion; he has
written for it regularly since its first number
was published. He is " Dangle," and is known,
and liked, and respected (in a peculiarly actual
sense which only people who have been
fortunate enough to work for the Clarion can
understand) by a literally world-wide host of
readers. Mr. Thompson is " R. B.'s " most
intimate friend, and of all that gentle-
man's admirers the most single-hearted and
sincere.
Mr. Thompson and " R. B." became
acquainted through that same Joe Norris who
has hereinbefore been mentioned. Mr. Norris
stayed on in the Army after " R. B." had left
it, but finding that the " Ramchunders " had
lost much of their flavour since being deprived
of the membership of his "pal," he bought
his discharge and came to Northwich and
found work there and saw much of his friend.
But work of a more attractive kind being
offered to Mr. Norris in Manchester, he
deserted Northwich. In Manchester he became
acquainted with young Thompson, who had
just stepped into journalism, and was full of
64 Robert JMatchford
opulence and pride. It was Mr. Morris's happy
custom to keep down young Thompson's tem-
perature by a constant application of Blatch-
ford. "You think you know" was (in effect)
the daily refrain of Mr. Norris " but wait till
you meet Bob Blatchford."
At last young Thompson did meet this much-
vaunted person. " R. B." has described the
meeting in a paper contributed to the Clarion.
He tells there how that when first he saw the
solemn Dangle, the solemn Dangle was in bed ;
six foot of lanky youth established firmly in
"the pleasant land of counterpane," and
reading the Koran.
Mr. Thompson, so far, has refused to publish
his own impressions of that meeting. But
having been worried by the present writer, he
has broken the silence of a lifetime. He has
produced a charming little record, very vivid,
very suggestive, of his first meeting with
" R. B."
Qhap. J^II. Journalism
and Journalists
IN an old summer number of the Clarion
" R. B." published the following reflections
on his first meeting with A. M. Thompson :
" The first time I saw Dangle he was in his
chamber reading the Koran. He reminded me
of the song, ' My Sweetheart When a Boy/ so
young, so innocent did he appear. And on his
bed-quilt was embroidered the motto : ' Early
to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy,
wealthy, and wise/ Pathetic indication of an
early moral training. And this man, so young,
was already a dramatic critic."
This constitutes the sum of " R. B.'s " utter-
ances concerning that historic meeting. Dangle
is less reticent. Having been prevailed upon to
break a silence which has lasted more than
twenty years, he has broken it to some purpose
and sends me the following vivacious and
really helpful account of a meeting which was
destined to exercise a very powerful influence
upon the fortunes of both the men concerned.
With characteristic bash fulness Mr.Thompson
begins his letter by assuring me that he really
has nothing to say. With a playfulness and
F
66 Robert 'Blatchford
simplicity, equally characteristic, he goes on
to say a lot :
"We met in 1882, nearly twenty-seven years
ago, at my mother's house in Boston Street,
Manchester. A mutual friend, Norris, who had
been a sergeant in the same regiment as
Blatchford, had previously made us aware of
each other, had incited us to some exchange
of letters, had finally brought him over from
Northwich, where Blatchford had, on leaving
the Army, found a place as store-keeper.
"To make you understand the humour of
that interview as I see it now, I must begin with
a personal preface. ' R. B.' was then thirty.
I was an unfledged puppy of twenty. This
figure is mixed, but it has to be double-
barrelled to cover the ground. In extenuation
of my U.P.'ishness, I may plead that I was very
young, that I had been egregiously flattered by
a large and congenial acquaintance of fools,
and that I was earning more money as a writer
of 'smart' paragraphs than I have yet attained
to on the Clarion.
" Conceive me, then, in these pre-Blatch-
fordian times, an Unfledged Puppy spreading
his peacock's tail to the gaze and secret
mortification of all the other bantams on the
walk. Conceive the wily Norris diligently
nipping the U.P.'s blossoming cheek by
dropping the insidious poison of his friend
Rlatch ford's superior attainments into the
During his Early Days as a yournalist.
Journalism and Journalists 67
swelling ear of the U.P.'s insufferable conceit.
For example: If I quoted Mark Twain or
Artemus Ward, Norris casually mentioned that
his friend mostly read Emerson to breakfast,
Plato to dinner, and Carlyle for supper. If
I told of my afternoon's practice with Briggs
and Watson at cricket, Norris would inspissate
the night with fabulous tales of his friend's
(Wilhelm) Telling marksmanship at Wimble-
don. Even if I fell asleep he would try to
rouse me with accounts of his friend's
amazing wakefulness. It is a wonder I did
not loathe his admirable friend. At any rate,
I was fully fed up with him. And yet my
disgust was tempered with a wholesome touch
of awe.
" Behold us now assembled, Norris glib and
easy as ever, his friend very morose, the
Unfledged Puppy chastened by nervousness.
'R. B.' has recorded in another place that he
found me reading the Koran. If so, I must
have done it to give myself an air. One had
to resort to desperate measures to encounter
a man who read Emerson for breakfast. Be
that as it may, I perceive dimly that I was
disappointed and relieved. Norris's friend
did not look formidable at all. He was not so
tall as a Colossus, nor so bright as the wits at
the Mermaid. Between ourselves, he looked
countrified, chapelified, Northwichy. There
was no military swagger about him. His
68 Robert 'Blatchford
clothes rather suggested the Nonconformist
conscience than the soldier.
" I have no more memory than a straw
mattress, and I find it difficult to detach that
day's impression clearly from later growths.
But I picture him as a sort of brown man, a
man of brown study, brown clothes, and brown
eyes. They were more gentle and dreamy
then the eyes, I mean, not the clothes they
had not the fierce, quick, steely glint of later
years. The face, too, was softer, lacking the
aquiline fighting edge of these Berserker times.
Something distinctly womanly about it, despite
the swarthy, thick moustache. A gentle, firm-
looking beggar, not at all truculent.
" He was very quiet. Of course, I talked
Carlyle had crammed a chapter or two for
the occasion. He retorted with allusions
to the last pantomime ! Then I breathed
again.
"As my bash fulness wore off, I probably
became patronising : condescendingly encour-
aged him to write, assured him kindly that my
practised eye discerned merit in him, thought
I could promise, with pains, to make a little
man of him. It must have been funny. He
was my senior, remember, by ten years. But
I had lived in foreign parts, spoke tongues, had
achieved a sort of twopenny celebrity, was
already very middle-class-conscious and very
young.
Journalism and Journalists 69
" He was grateful for my kind patronage,
but not effusively so. And then, by degrees,
imperceptibly, though he did not say much,
he began to 'pervade.' He did not explicitly
express scorn of the prospects I had unfolded
to his ambition, but it was subtly borne in
upon me that my glowing glories did not
appeal to him. He did not overtly disparage
my Economic Basis, but tacitly conveyed that
a Philosophic Basis, as a foundation of
conduct, might be more useful.
"I had never thought of that before, and
yet in my fine sufficiency I seemed to have
thought of most things. A reasoned code of
principles, he suggested, should be the first
essential to any writer. None of the writers
I had met had appeared to feel their want of
it. But the idea struck me, as the Americans
say, 'where I lived.' I mentally filed it for
future reference. And there, or thereabouts,
ended the first lesson.
"Of course, I had no conception then of the
number of lessons that were to follow, but
I clearly remember that even then I regarded
the meeting as an Event. I clearly remember
that even in this first fumbling at acquaintance
I was conscious that here was a character
different from any I had met. He was cleaner
than any man, except one, that I had met.
There was more meaning in him, more strength,
more determination, and, above all, more
70 Robert 'Blatchford
gentleness than in any man I had met. Even
then I realised that here was a man utterly
incapable of littleness in any sort. Even then
I realised that here was a man whose friend-
ship was a thing worth winning. In short,
I knew, even at that first meeting, that I had
met a Man."
I think that this tells us all there is to tell
about the " R. B." of that period : chapelified,
Northwichy, cultured, self-confident, calm, dis-
dainful, proud, right-minded, quick-witted, and
possessed already of an entirely individual
standpoint of faith.
The "kind patronage" of which Mr. Thompson
makes so light did actually provide "R. B."
with the means of escape from his penal
servitude at Northwich.
The proprietors of the Sporting Chronicle
at Manchester, which journal was the scene of
Mr. Thompson's early triumphs, became
interested in Bell's Life, of London. This
"new interest" decided, after the manner of
"new interests," to do all sorts of novel and
surprising things with the old paper, not the
least important of their decisions being to trans-
form it from a weekly into a daily journal.
" New blood," as the saying goes, became
necessary to the proper conduct of this under-
taking, and Mr. Thompson made bold to speak
up for the rich, untapped corpuscles of his
friend " R. B."
Journalism and Journalists 71
By this time " R. B." was the father of two
children a girl and a boy and he has placed
it on record that the weekly stipend accruing
from his "billet" at Northwich amounted to
twenty-seven shillings. " Domestic life on
twenty-seven shillings a week," he said,
" resembles the ready-made suit at one-and-
a-half guineas; it is apt to prove a tight fit"
His association with the Leeds Toby (before
referred to) had eased the pinch a little, but
this process was effected at a cost of some
discomfort to the man inside the suit. The
" copy " for this Leeds paper had, perforce, to
be written all on one day and that day the
Sabbath. The copy ran to five thousand words
say twenty pages of this book and for this
very solid contribution " R. B." received the
staggering reward of a guinea. In these days
he could readily command fifty guineas for the
same quantity of work contributed to the
capitalist Press.
When the offer of a job on Bell's Life was
submitted to " R. B.," you may well suppose
that he quickly decided to doff his ready-made
suit and face the unknown perils of profes-
sional journalism.
On March 24, 1885, he went to London. On
the day following he became a journalist, and,
to quote his own words, he "has never got an
honest living since."
He tells us that the reception which he met
72 Robert Watchford
with on Bell's Life was not a very hearty one.
" The editor and resident proprietor were
frosty, but not kindly. The former confided
to the latter that I was el ' rank outsider ' ; the
latter confided to the former that I had ' no
more style than a cochin-china hen.' Six
months later they quarrelled, and each told
me what the other had said."
But they found him plenty of work to do.
He was engaged to write the " Echoes " and
make himself generally useful. He thinks
he did it.
" I was often at work from ten o'clock one
morning until one o'clock the morning follow-
ing. I was sent to all kinds of places to do
special articles on all kinds of subjects.
I attended cricket matches, football matches,
boat races, horse races, boxing contests, swim-
ming contests, theatres, coach meets, sailing
matches, military tournaments, picture exhibi-
tions, brewers' exhibitions, sporting exhibitions,
Imperial exhibitions, Lord Mayors' shows,
pigeon shooting contests, dairy shows, cattle
shows, and committee meetings of all kinds,
including one committee meeting of sporting
noblemen real live dukes, earls, and baronets."
When " R. B " first joined the staff of Bell's
Life that paper was conducted in a frigid a.nd
respectable manner. But, subsequently, the
editor was deposed and a new editor appointed.
Then ah! then Bell's Life Office became
Journalism and Journalists 73
a strange and wonderful and delightful
place.
Under the benign reign of Pontifex II., as
he was called in the office, Bell's Life was given
over to mirth, good-fellowship, old port, and
the scrap-heap.
He seems to have been a live person, this
Pontifex II.: a man and a brother; a gentle-
man; an Admirable Crichton among editors.
" R. B." wrote his portrait some years ago, and
I cannot resist the temptation to quote some
portion of that vivid sketch.
Pontifex II., coming into the office within
half-an-hour of the time appointed for "closing
down," learns that the paper is three or four
columns short; that the printers are standing
for copy ; that several of the editorial gentle-
men have failed to produce that which they
have been instructed to produce.
Says the master printer :
" Miss our trains, as sure as eggs. For
heaven's sake, sir "
" Ha ! ha ! ha ! For heaven's sake, eh ?
Didn't know they read BelVs Life up there !
Ha ! ha ! ha ! Eh ? Wish to Ged they'd buy
it down here. Ha ! ha ! ha ! Well, gentlemen,
to work, eh ? Phew ! "
And this, according to " R. B.," is how
Pontifex would get to work :
" Phew ! Mr. Bounder, your pen of the
ready writer, eh ? Phew ! I'll dictate ah
74 Robert 'Blatchford
Bleys eh ? Mr. Tucker, be so good as to ah
get me Truth, World, Echo, Pink 'Un, and
ah Phew ! scissors and paste. And ah
Mr. Nunquam will, I'm sure ah facile pen
ah special descriptive, crews at practice ah
from tow-path ah facts from Evening
Standard. Phew !
"Now, Mr. Bounder, although the Kings-
clere colt shows rather more daylight under
him than a strict connoisseur might wish
damn this paste all lumps where's the Echo ?
(snip, snap; dab, dab, dab) ah still, being
sweet about the hocks and filled with the
Pink 'Un, please blood of mighty sires
here, Mr. Hall, are the first three pars general
sport (snip, snap; dab, dab, dab) he may
be expected to show a clean pair of heels to
more than one crack if, indeed, does not
prove himself (snip, snip, snap) finest horse
Victorian Era Phew ! (dab, dab). Ask Mr.
Hall how much general sport."
" Thus," says " R. B." "... Would this truly
great man steer, work, and captain his
ship off the rocks, night after night, in
less than thirty minutes. Pontifex II. ... was
a man."
You see what a queer, new world " R. B." was
bundled into when he was bundled into his
post on Bell's Life. The jolly, careless, " Irish "
atmosphere of this place, the breezy methods
of King Pontifex, must have taught much to
Journalism and Journalists 75
"R. B.," who had been schooled and nurtured
in the stuffy air of chapel and amid the cast-
iron laws of the barrack-room and the soul-
mangling devices of mill and workshop.
But on Bell's Life also he met with another
influence, more powerful than all the rest com-
bined. He met with E. F. Fay "The
Bounder."
This incident in "R. B.'s" life is so important
that I must deal with it in a separate chapter.
Chap. Fill. " The
'Bounder"
EVERYBODY who reads this sketch is not
necessarily old enough in years or
Socialism to remember " The Bounder "
or to remember the Clarion when Fay wrote
for it.
For these reasons it is necessary that I should
state facts which to many may seem rather
commonplace.
E. F. Fay, whose pen name was " The
Bounder,'* wrote for the Clarion from the time
of its foundation until his death in 1896. I
have read much of his work and heard much
about himself and his doings.
" The Bounder " was a curious man, and he
wrote curiously. Those who can appreciate the
things which really matter in literature an
individual standpoint, an individual faith, an
individual touch, and an individual man
behind all these will know how to appreciate
" The Bounder's " work. It was curious, I say
curious in its strength and sanity, and in its
fine broad humour and perfect tolerance. It
resembled in certain aspects the work of Sterne
(a writer, I believe, who was much esteemed by
78 Robert Elatchford
Fay), but "The Bounder's*' work was free
from those dabs of false sentiment and
niggling artifice which disfigure the writings of
Sterne. By the same token, therefore, Fay
lacked something of the refinement and
" polish ' ' which distinguished Sterne. Some
of us may think that he was as well without it.
Fay himself, Fay the man, has been
described to me in a hundred different
languages by a hundred different people. I
need not attempt the almost impossible feat of
re-describing these descriptions, for I propose
in a little while to quote the words of " R. B."
This man Fay was " R. B.'s " best and
closest friend : the friend who has exercised
most influence upon " R. B.'s" character,
temper, and opinions. The Fay influence is
even to be traced, at certain moments, in Mr.
Blatchford's speech and looks.
" R. B." has expressed in unmistakable terms
his sense of the debt which he owes to the
genial, stimulating comradeship of this big-
hearted Irishman. "'The Bounder/" says
"R. B.," "was a revelation The
Chronicle boys told Fay that I did not know
how to laugh. Laugh ? I was growing mouldy
for something to laugh at, and I got it. ' The
Bounder ' was funnier than his writing He
was funny in character, in manner, in appear-
ance. He was a new type. We went all over
London together. We went to exhibitions and
e. F. pjr ("THE
"The 'Bounder" 79
theatres together. We discussed all manner of
experiences and life problems together. We
swapped ideas about men and women and
books. And I laughed all the time. It was a
great time, and I laughed more in the first six
months than in all the previous five-and-thirty
years of my life.'*
In an old Clarion Mr. Blatchford described
the manner of Fay's first entry into the Bell's
Life arena :
"The advent of 'The Bounder 1 on his
appointment to the Staff was striking. It was
a foggy, miserable evening, and the streets
were like open sewers. The Cackler (a
colleague), breathless, splashed to the hair,
rushed through the outer office crying, ' Here he
is ! ' The Staff were all agog. The Cackler
blocked the doorway with his angular figure.
' The Bounder ' appeared, clothed in an acre
of streaming ulster, looming like a mighty
cloud. The Cackler wriggled, giggled, and
looked more Japanese than ever; and then
came a calm voice from the cloud : ' Ah ! Mr.
Tucker, will you have the goodness to remove
this bally old umbrella-stand from the door-
way?"'
This is what "The Bounder " looked like
when he and " R. B." first met :
"A huge fellow, six feet two, and eighteen
stone, with a florid, rather stolid face, sleepy
eyes, and a habit of pursing his lips and draw-
8o Robert Watchford
ing down his nose sarcastically. He was
shabbily dressed, untidy.". ... "I can see
him now as he strode across to the Cheshire
Cheese, with his shoulders squared, his hat on
the back of his head, and a big, heavy-headed
bamboo stick under his arm.
"'The Bounder' of 1885 was difficult to
follow in conversation. His utterance was
rapid, and quite half he said was in the manner
of soliloquy, indistinct, half audible; added to
which his strange jumbling of slang with
quotations from authors ancient and modern,
and his use of words and phrases of his own
coinage, kept one guessing at his meaning.* '
Mr. B latch ford gives this as sample speech
in the Fay language :
" Haw ! You behold in me one out of suits
with fortune. Pestilential person with the
scythe hovers o'er domestic oasis with lethal
O.P. optic fixed on the firstborn. Ha! Fate
hath dealt the knock like Sullivan at twelve-
stone-six. Poor blooming gentleman has
copped the auctioneer. Very snide the poor
sportsman is. Haw ! like old Billy Barley ' on
the broad of his back, bless your eyes. J The
poor blooming gentleman. Is there no hand on
high to shield the brave ? And I that sucked
the honey of his musie fizz must feel the deep
damnation of his taking off. Grassed, my
friend, the poor old sportsman's grassed ! And
shall Trelawney die ? Haw ! You see how it
The "Bounder " 81
is. I am indifferent honest. One must back
his friends. Who else shall nil the cruse and
sponge his features frail ? I will never desert
Mr. Micawber. The poor gentleman, the poor
old sportsman, haw ! Kismet, scrape thyself !
I say ' he shall march, by God.' '
"Which," says Mr. Blatchford, "being
rightly heard and shrewdly translated, meant
1 My brother is nearly dead of typhus fever,
and I must go home and attend to him.' 5
I never saw Fay; but I know him well. He
was the friend of all my friends, and lives in
their fireside talk and jokes and metaphors.
But nobody knew him as " R. B." knew him,
and nobody talks of him as " R, B." does.
Here is Fay's own description of his first
encounter with " R. B." in Bell's Life Office:
" The non-managing partner led me into a
dark, disagreeable room, in the corner of which
was a little, dark, disagreeable-looking person,
writing at a little, dark, disagreeable desk. I
couldn't see his face, as he was bent over the
desk ; but his back was visible, and it occurred
to me that in the whole course of my mundane
experience which had been pretty peculiar and
fairly extensive I had never sampled such a
distinctly ' humpsome ' dorsal development.
'You have there,' said the non-managing
partner, loftily waving his hand, in the direc-
tion of the files, ' all the numbers of Bell's Life
since the first issue in 1826. If you look
G
82 Robert 'Blatchford
through them you will find that you have had
not unworthy predecessors. You will find,*
he said, still more loudly and loftily, 'that
Dickens, Thackeray, Jerrold, and other
eminent men of letters have written for Bell's
Life in London. This, I hope, will be an
example and incentive to you.*
" With this, like a nineteenth century Brutus,
he departed, leaving me alone with the
back.
" Something seemed to have gone wrong with
that back. It seemed to be trying to tie itself
into a knot, and anon curling itself into a hoop,
and seemed to be troubled with a curious, gulpy
gurgling. A most offensive back. And when,
eventually, it got up and walked out on its
heels, I was much relieved."
A few days later, Fay saw what he called
"R. B.*s'* "front elevation,** and his mental
note thereon was : " Morose and truculent to a
degree. William of Orange with a dash of
Black Ruthven.**
But this, as " R. B.*' has said, was not
" meeting ** : it was only " seeing.'*
The two men met a little later. " R. B.'* was
a sort of general handyman on Bell's Life.
Fay was dramatic critic. A whisper went forth
that "R. B.** would be required to deal with
certain theatres, so as to save " Fay's fee"
when possible. Instinct told " R. B.*' that
Fay*s fee meant a good deal to Fay. There-
"The Bounder" 83
fore " R. B." sent Fay a little invitation, and
the two men met and . . . became friends.
"R. B.," the morose, the sullen, the North-
wichy, woke up. He had found a fellow-man.
The two friends entered into a partnership
of ideas and pleasures. They went all over
London together. " He kept me laughing most
of the time." says " R. B.," " for he had a
wonderfully keen eye for the ridiculous, and
saw humours, as I saw pain, in the most un-
expected places. His wit was very nimble, and
he had a queer, whimsical fancy. Add to these
qualifications the picturesqueness of his own
character, his habit of mixing slang and
poetry, profanity and ethics, racing talk and
shrewd criticisms of Shelley, Dickens, Milton,
and Bret Harte, and it may be well seen that
' The Bounder ' was a fascinating and interest-
ing study.'* . . . The two men, superficially
so different, had much in common spiritually :
they were qualified to help and enlighten and
stimulate each other; they were "born to be
friends,' 1 as the saying goes. Let me quote
"R. B." again:
". . . . I was rather strait-laced and, per-
haps, in a way, inclined to a certain unfor-
giving and self-righteous puritanism. ' The
Bounder,' again, bore some resemblance to the
unflattering portrait painted for me by the
Manchester men. He certainly swore and
drank too much. He was not free from in-
84 Robert Watch ford
tellectual pride, had even imbibed a little
Cambridge caste prejudice, and, through many
years of wild bachelor life and a close intimacy
with the racecourse, had not grown in grace.
He was almost a cynic; I was almost an
idealist. He was a patriotic Irishman, with
bitter anti-Saxon feelings. I was a patriotic
Englishman, with the Saxon's stupid ignorance
of Irish affairs and prejudice against Irish
people. He was superficially anti-democratic.
I was a democrat by nature and reflection.
.... And, really, I believe we did each other
good. ' The Bounder ' made me a Home
Ruler, and taught me patience, good-humour,
and a wider human charity. I converted him
to Socialism, put him in the way of becoming
an ardent and uncompromising democrat,
revived his fainting faith in men, and
gradually drew him into a cause and a work
that brought out the best of his native good-
ness."
Two big-souled men thus "struck the
bargain."
Personally, I never feel that Fay is quite
dead. He talks to me and laughs at me with
the mouth of my friend.
Chap. IX. Success &
Socialism
TOWARDS the end of 1886 the Sunday
Chronicle in Manchester was started.
Some of the proprietors of Bell's Life
were interested in this new venture, and
" R. B." was put to write its " leaders."
He remained in the South of England for
a while. In 1887, bad times arrived for him
and Mrs. Blatchford. They lost two children,
and nearly lost Winnie. They moved to the
Isle of Wight for a few months in search of
rest, and change, and healing; but after a brief
stay, and in response to urgent calls, they
packed up once again and trekked to Man*
Chester.
Here " R. B." was able to resume intimate
relations with his old friend A. M. Thompson,
while at the same time he was not wholly cut
off from Fay; for that rare gentleman was
appointed London correspondent to the
Chronicle and often came to Manchester.
"R. B.'s" work in Manchester met with
much success and appreciation. He says that
he does not know why. But we know why, of
86 Robert Elatchford
course. It was honest, first-hand work,
observed from life and not from grammar-
books. It was humorous, vivid, human. These
things were obvious to all; but the lettered
reader was able to observe a finer, more elusive
merit in " R. B.'s " work; he perceived that
" R. B." was master of a singularly simple style
or manner in writing. He knew that the
straight, clean, logical Saxon in which this
new-comer expressed his ideas or impressions
was rare and wonderful.
It was a series of sketches called " The
Chronicles of the Drum " which first brought
" R. B." into prominence These were followed
by other tales and devices, many of which are
to be found in Fantasias " R. B.'s" first
published book ; a book of fine poetry. A little
later " R. B." added to his fame by "doing"
the Manchester slums. Those who know and
appreciate his later writings and who are con-
scious of his fine and genuine passion for
justice and his love for dirty and cold and
hungry people can imagine with what white
heat he threw himself into the task of exposing
the Manchester tribe of rack-renters. One can
imagine also, as the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford
would remark, that he made things hum. He
was merely a "Radical" by expressed con-
viction even in those eye-opening days; and in
1889 ne went to Ireland and wrote articles on
the conventional Home Rule ticket. But a
Success and Socialism 87
little later in 1889 the inevitable occurred:
he became a Socialist.
In a brief memoir contributed to Justice
some few years ago, " R. B." explained just
how he became a Socialist. It is a simple ex-
planation.
". . . . Socialists are born as well as made,"
he says. " I was born with a nature which was
certain to get me into some kind of mischief
sooner or later. I have had, from my earliest
recollection, a keen sympathy for all kinds of
'bottom dogs/ and a rather pugnacious resent-
ment against all kinds of bullies. I learnt the
meaning of poverty in a lean and sharp school,
and the blessings and indignities of labour
were made manifest to me at an early age.
" Then, again, my natural bent was inten-
sified by the literature I so freely indulged in
the books of Dickens, Ruskin, Thackeray,
Carlyle, Emerson, Whitman, Thoreau, and
other such plain-spoken authors were not
calculated to check my progress towards
democracy.
" Indeed, I was a thorough democrat and an
out-and-out Radical before I was out of my
teens, and when I joined the Sunday Chronicle
I was something more than a Radical, for
having perceived that competition was a failure,
and being convinced that the doctrines of the
Manchester school were hopeless, I had, with
considerable labour, devised an economic
Robert 'Btatchford
scheme of my own, somewhat resembling the
single-tax by virtue of which the unequal and
unjust distribution of wealth could be periodi-
cally rectified. The details of the scheme have
long since passed out of my mind.
"Some time in 1888 or 1889 I was writing
upon some social question in the Chronicle when
a Manchester workman wrote to say that the
only remedy was Socialism. I replied by con-
demning Socialism. Then a Liverpool work-
man wrote to say that I evidently did not know
what Socialism was, and that I was an ass
for writing about things I did not under-
stand.
" This caused me to think about the position,
and I readily perceived that I really did know
nothing about Socialism, that I had written
about it, and that I was an ass.
" Therefore I wrote to my Liverpool friend
and asked for some books on Socialism, at the
same time saying that I would study the
question, and that if Socialism seemed to be
just and wise I would not be ashamed nor
afraid to say so.
ft The man I forget his name sent me a
pamphlet by Hyndman and Morris. I read it
I saw directly that this collectivist idea was the
very thing I had been looking for, that it was
juster, simpler, and more perfect than my own
scheme, and that it was very different from
what I had believed Socialism to be.
Success and Socialism 89
" Therefore I was a Socialist, and said
so.
"I do not know," is " R. B.'s " final reflec-
tion, "that I have anything to add . . . .
except that I am a Socialist still and always
shall be, and that I cannot understand why
other people are not Socialists also when
Socialism is so wise, so just, and so easy to
understand. But all progress is slow.
" The British are a level-headed and practical
people, but they cannot help it, and we have
got to make the best of them, consoling our-
selves with the reflection that as our beloved
fellow-countrymen are too stupid to turn round
very quickly, it is probable that if they ever
do become Socialists they will ' stay put ' for a
long while. "
" R. B.'s" connection with the Sunday
Chronicle lasted until 1891, in which year three
important happenings befell him: (i) He
" stood " for Parliament; (2) he wrote and
financed a comic opera; (3) he started or
helped to start the Clarion.
Dealing with these events in the order
mentioned, it may be said of the Parliamentary
candidature (he stood for East Bradford, as
a Socialist) that it did not succeed and did
not matter. All that it did for " R. B."
was to diminish his banking account and to
instil in him a distaste for practical politics
and practical politicians which has endured
90 Robert 'Blatchford
to this hour. If you mention the matter
to him, he merely snorts and talks about
George Hirst. To one like myself who knows
" R. B." and has visited the House of Com-
mons, there is much humour in the thought
of my friend having competed for legislative
" dignity."
The comic opera completed the financial
process inaugurated by the comic candidature.
It was a good opera; everybody says so who
ever saw it. " R. B." wrote the libretto, which
was dainty and whimsical, and " R. B.'s "
cousin, Mr. Clarence Corri, supplied the music.
The playgoer, however, refused to appreciate
this work. It " petered out/' So did " R. B.'s "
savings.
Then it was that pressure was applied to
" R. B." in reference to the political colour of
his writings. It is not necessary to record here
the details of the dispute which ensued between
Mr. Blatchford and the proprietor of the
Sunday Chronicle. I will content myself with
stating that " R. B.'s" Socialism formed the
chief subject of contention.
"R. B.," having squandered his savings in
pursuit of Parliamentary and dramatic fame,
was placed in a weak position from which to
conduct disputes with his employer.
He possessed on the one hand a wife and
family and a distinguished and lucrative post,
the revenue from which amounted to 1,000 per
Success and Socialism 9*
annum. On the other hand there was his
Socialism.
He stuck to the Socialism and threw over
his "post."
The "Clarion
ENGLAND was born again, as it were, on
December 12, 1891, upon which day
the first number of the Clarion was
published.
The founders, inventors, and proprietors of
the new paper were the following four gentle-
men, all of whom had worked for the Sunday
Chronicle :
"R. B."
A. M. THOMPSON.
E. F. FAY.
MONT BLONG (Montagu Blatchford).
These four revolutionaries did not all " come
out " together. They left their old haunts one
by one, as occasion offered and in the above
order.
When it became known in Manchester that
" R. B." had resigned his post on the Sunday
Chronicle^ the well-wishers came round in their
hundreds, proffering praise, and comfort, and
advice. " R. B." was greatly cheered thereby.
It was, indeed, the flattering whispers of the
well-wishers which first put into his head the
idea of starting a new and independent journal.
The idea was received with general acclama-
94 Robert 'Blatchford
tion, and promises of support reached "R. B."
and his conspirators from all quarters.
But when the project began to take a prac-
tical shape ; when the moment came for signing
cheques, then the professed admirers displayed
that caution which is so generally practised by
such people at such moments.
" R. B." and his fellow-adventurers per-
ceived that this was going to be an exclusively
self -aided enterprise.
None of the bold quartette had any money
to speak of. But somebody had some shares
in something and somebody else a life in-
surance policy, and somebody else an uncle in
oil and tallow. So that By dint of thrift and
prayer and fasting a capital of 400 was
collected, and on this sum of money the paper
was organised, advertised, and inaugurated.
The inauguration did not take place
under exactly cheerful conditions. In
the first instance difficulties were encountered in
respect of the paper supply. Capitalists looked
askance at this queer new venture, and the
usual trade credit was difficult to obtain. But
at last a paper-maker was found at Blankney,
having within his breast the tiny seed of
love and charity. He offered to supply the
Clarion Board with paper. Everybody was
surprised, particularly "The Bounder," who
promptly dubbed the paper-maker a "Breezy
Fellow." He was ever afterwards spoken
The "Clarion" 95
of in the Clarion office as " the B. F. of
Blankney."
The justification for this epithet, however,
became subsequently less obvious. While the
first number of the Clarion was being printed,
its four parents were hurriedly and excitedly
summoned to the place of printing, where it
was found that the printing machine had gone
wrong by reason of certain abnormalities (china
clay was one of them) having been introduced
into the texture of the paper supplied by the
gentleman at Blankney.
As a consequence of this fact, the first
number of the Clarion was almost wholly
illegible. When lumps of china clay did not
come off and stick to the cylinders, lumps of
cylinder came off and stuck to the china clay.
Hence the now common expression : " A patchy
paper. "
This was not the only disastrous incident
which marked the birth of the Clarion. While
the china clay and the printing press were
worrying out their differences, a terrific rain-
storm burst over Manchester and peeled every
hoarding in the city. At daybreak there
was not a single Clarion poster to be seen.
The appearance of the new paper was there-
fore kept a profound secret from the public.
And those members of the public who could
not be fooled, who guessed that the new paper
had been published and rushed to buy it, were
96 Robert 'Blotch ford
foiled again ! For when they got it they
could not read it. In these circumstances it
must be regarded as a surprising fact that the
first number of the Clarion was bought by
nearly 40,000 people.
The subsequent sales of the paper averaged
about 34,000 copies weekly, at which figure
they stuck for three or four years. Those were
hard years for the plucky little band of Clarion
writers. Years of tough work and tender pay.
When the fortunes of the paper and of its
devoted foster-parents were at their lowest ebb,
a syndicate offered " R. B." 1,500 a year if
he would leave the Clarion. " R. B. 5> declined.
This spirit of pluck, and endurance, and
sacrifice ran right through the regiment. Every
man on the muster-roll lived on half rations
for years. These hard times had passed away
before I got to know the Clarion and the
Clarion men. I am one of those who batten,
as it were, upon the blood of the pioneers.
In 1894 Mr. Blatchford engaged in his first
real encounter with the influenza fiend. It
nearly killed him. He did not fully recover
for nearly two years afterwards, and he is now
peculiarly subject to the same disease and
surfers badly under it. " R. B." under influenza
suggests always to my mind the simile of a
viking with the mumps.
In 1895 the Clarion people made a bold and,
as it proved, a useful move; they transferred
The "Clarion" 97
the head offices of the paper from Manchester
to London. This brought them into touch with
advanced opinion in the South of England
whilst sacrificing no portion of their following
in the North.
And shortly afterwards " R. B." wrote
Merrie England, and published it as a book.
Then the tide swung round.
The publication of Merrie England added
10,000 to the weekly circulation of the Clarion.
God and My "Neighbour, published about ten
years later, moved the circulation up another
15,000, and during the last three years 20,000
more copies have been added to the weekly
sales of the paper, so that the Clarion can now
boast of a bona-fide circulation of 83,000
copies. Mr. Blatchford and Mr. Thompson
must view with some pride the present sturdy
growth of the tree which they planted so
haphazard in such inclement weather.
It scarcely behoves a Clarion writer to brag
about the influence and prosperity and power of
the journal with which he is associated. But
I would like to point to the record of the
Clarion Cinderella Clubs one of the many
recreative and social enterprises which are
carried on by Clarion readers all over the world.
The object of the Cinderella Clubs (of which
there are many, all affiliated to the central
organisation) is to feed and amuse poor
children and to provide them with toys and
H
98 Robert Blatchford
boots and clothing. One club, that of Hull,
fed and entertained in its first year 300,000
children. It is the entertainment feature of
these clubs which chiefly distinguishes them
from ordinary charities of the capitalist kind.
The children are not merely provided with
boots and food : they are entertained petted
and played with and made much of. It was the
experience gained by Clarion Cinderella Club
officials in Bradford which enabled the school
authorities of that city to take the lead in the
public feeding of school children. The said
authorities have called upon the Clarion men to
show them how. The affiliated clubs, since
their institution, have given happiness and
comfort to millions upon millions of poor
children.
It was "R. B." who thought out the
Cinderella Club idea, and who (while still
associated with the Sunday Chronicle] insti-
tuted the first Cinderella Club that of Man-
chester which has very properly continued
its allegiance to the Chronicle. The income of
the Chronicle Cinderella Club last year
amounted to "2,500.
It is certain that that which is called in the
Office " the Merrie England boom " established
the fortunes of the paper. Mr. Blatchford had
written for the Clarion a series of letters
addressed to an imaginary working man, the
purpose of which was to present the case for
The "Clarion" 99
Socialism in plain language. After this series
of articles had run its course, it occurred . to
somebody inside the Clarion Office to make a
book of them. Nobody had any serious
criticism to offer respecting this proposition,
though, at the same time, nobody expected or
prophesied that any startling results would
follow on the publication of the book. But
while the Thinking Branch of the Office was
discussing within itself whether to print 50,000
or 100,000 copies of the book, orders came in
for 200,000 copies, which set the Thinkers
thinking overtime, with the result that a decision
to "let her out " was arrived at. The little
book was issued in various forms, at prices
ranging from five shillings down to a penny.
Seven hundred and fifty thousand (750,000)
copies of the penny edition were sold at the
first rush. Its sale in this country and America
has since exceeded two million copies. If one
states that this book alone has made more
converts to English Socialism than all other
Socialist publications combined, one is putting
the case conservatively. Merrie England has
been translated into the Welsh, Dutch,
German, Swedish, French, Spanish, Hebrew,
Danish, and Norwegian languages. And
through this book, of course, " R. B." achieved
an international reputation.
It is worth while to consider now what sort
of book this Merrie England is; why it is the
ioo Robert Ulatchfard
best-known and best-remembered of all
"R. B.'s " writings; and why it has proved so
valuable as a work of propaganda.
The book, as I have said, is written in the
form of letters addressed to a Mr. John Smith,
practical working man, of Oldham. It was the
first book by " R. B." which I ever read, and
I do not think that any other book of his (and
I have read them all) has so impressed me with
its sense of logic, lucidity, and vitality
though logic, lucidity, and vitality are the
outstanding features of all Mr. Blatchford's
work.
Take the opening paragraphs of Merrie
England :
" Dear Mr. Smith, I am sorry to hear that
you look upon Socialism as a base or foolish
thing, and upon Socialists as foolish or base
men.
"Nevertheless, since in you lies the hope
of the world, I shall try to change your
opinion.
". . . . Now, Mr. Smith, if you are really
a man of hard, shrewd sense, we ought to get
on very well. I am myself a plain, practical
man. I build my beliefs upon that which I
see and know, and I respect a ' fact ' more than
a Lord Mayor.
" In these letters I shall stick to hard facts
and cold reason; and I shall appeal to that
robust common sense and English love of fair
The "Clarion" 101
play for which, I understand, you are more
famous than for your ability to see beyond the
end of your free and independent nose at
election times."
What could be more irresistible than this
'* approach " ? Nothing could be more plainly
stated from the standpoint of Mr. Smith, or
more quietly, honestly, and sensibly expressed
from the standpoint of Mr. Smythe. Here we
do, in sooth, possess a book which (putting its
politics on one side) is calculated to appeal to
those who do not know about the art of writing
equally with those who do.
What other man in England could have
covered all the preliminaries in those few lines
as Mr. Blatchford does ?
Mr. G. R. S. Taylor has recently published,
through the New Age Press, a book of very
brilliant character-studies dealing with the
leaders of Socialism. In the last of these
papers Mr. Taylor considers the work of
"R. B.,' 1 and I am going to take the liberty
of quoting the major portion of his very
striking essay. It seems to me that in con-
sidering the question of Mr. Blatch ford's claim
to public esteem, Mr. Taylor has arrived at very
exact conclusions. If I attempted to write an
essay on Merrie England I should say so much
which Mr. Taylor has already said that my
performance would read like a very stupid
plagiarism. Furthermore, I do not possess Mr.
102 Robert Blatchford
Taylor's talent for saying these things so
brightly and gracefully.
"We have tried," says Mr. Taylor, "to weigh
the merits and the faults of the twelve men who
have, perhaps, the best right to be called the
leaders of Socialism. But you cannot have an
army of leaders. There must be someone to
follow behind.
" It occurred to one clear-headed man, who
thought in short paragraphs, that it was time
somebody set to work to create an army to go
after the great men who were on in front. That
man was Robert B latch ford, who can manu-
facture Socialists more quickly than anyone
else. Tipton, Limited, sells more packets of
tea than any other firm ; Bever sells more soap ;
one factory makes most boots; another most
chairs. Mr. Blatchford and the Clarion make
more Socialists than any rival establishment.
When you come to think it over carefully, this
business of making Socialists is the only real
work to be done. Whilst those brilliant leaders
are waving their swords and doing the heroic
generally, Mr. Blatchford attends to business
and makes converts. When everyone is a
Socialist that is, when everyone is intelligent
there will be no need for leaders. It is only
sheep who need shepherds and dogs to herd them
properly. Intelligent people will do what is
right out of sheer intelligence. (There is really
much saving of trouble by being intelligent.)
The " Clarion " 103
" Mr. Blatchford's great qualification for the
post of missionary-in-chief is the fact that he
can say in one sentence what the gentlemen
who write for the Times and other classical
works take half a column to put down. If the
best literary style is the style that is clearest,
beyond all possibility of misunderstanding its
meaning (which is not a bad test for people
who set out to say something), then Mr. Blatch-
ford writes better English than any other
master except Shakespeare and the author of
the Bab Ballads. Whether you agree with him
or not, you certainly cannot misunderstand him.
He is the only man who would make a suitable
editor for the Book of Life, wherein, we are
given to understand, everything will be put
down with perfect precision and with intoler-
able clearness. One meditates on the editor of
the Clarion sitting within the Golden Gates,
writing up the biography of Jay Gould or the
Duke of Slumdom, or Messrs. X., sweaters;
probably the brief paragraphs on ordinary pro-
fessional men and manufacturers and trades-
men will not read more soothingly; or on the
wage-earner who voted against the Labour
candidate. Their doings will be put down so
that there cannot be the slightest mistake.
There will be nothing unkind : it will only be
clear truth. Mr. Blatchford is never unkind to
an opponent. Why should he be unkind?
When he can merely tell the truth about him.
Robert ^Blatchford
If I were a Liberal or a Tory politician I would
pray that Robert Blatchford might lose his
matchless skill of telling the plain truth (so
that it stands out like gold in the sun), and
that he would take to writing fierce invective
and flowing periods.
" Mr. Blatchford wrote two books, one named
Merrie England and the other Britain for the
British. When he had finished them it was no
longer possible to plead that you could not
understand what Socialism is; for these books
tell you so precisely and clearly that there is
no possibility of misunderstanding. Further,
they are so convincing that everyone who reads
them becomes a Socialist except the mentally
deficient. There are about a million people in
England who would vote for a Socialist candi-
date at the next election. There are perhaps
five million more who have read Mr. Blatch-
ford's writings and are not convinced. This
fact confirms the statistical summary of
Thomas Carlyle, who estimated the population
of the British Isles as ' thirty millions, mostly
fools.' This is how Mr. Blatchford states his
aim: 'If I can make my meaning plain to
members of Parliament, bishops, editors, and
other half -educated persons, and to labouring
men and women who have had but little school-
ing, and have never been used to think or care
about Socialism, or economics, or politics, or
" any such dry rot "-as they would call them
The "Clarion" 105
if I can catch the ear of the heedless and the
untaught, the rest of you cannot fail to follow.'
These two books are a kind of test of sanity;
if you cannot understand them, if you are not
convinced by them, then you are ripe for a
lunatic asylum.'*
Chap. XL "Practice
and Fellowship
WE discussed in the last chapter certain
aspects of Mr. Blatchford's work
for practical Socialism. I quoted the
entirely impartial evidence of Mr. G. R. S.
Taylor in support of my statement that
Merrie England alone has attracted more
followers to the standard of English Socialism
than all or any of the other books contained in
the library of the London School of Economics.
This result has been achieved by the simplicity,
and logic, and the obvious sincerity of the
work in question.
But there is a side to Socialism, thank good-
ness, which does not entirely consist of
economics. Practical Socialism, the reality
and importance of which cannot be too strongly
insisted upon at election times, is, after all, but
one aspect of Socialism. Socialism possesses
also an idealistic or let us be frank and say
it plainly a religious element. Indeed, one
may with greater truth reverse the proposition
and say that Socialism is a profound and noble
religion possessing a definitely practical and
economic aspect. Socialism is neither proud
io8 Robert Watchford
nor terrible, and yet it is the proudest, most
terrible, most humble of all religions. It
is proud in its standard of an absolute com-
munal integrity; terrible in its avenging hate
of tyranny and grocer dom; humble in its
familiarity with babies and in its care for dirty
people. No other religion not even
Christianity itself has dared to stoop so low
as Socialism; has dared, like Socialism, to
preach sermons upon pinafores and boots.
And no other religion has dared, like
Socialism, to argue with police-inspectors and
to laugh at kings.
This capacity for laughter is, when you come
to think about it, the greatest and most
wonderful thing about true Socialism ; the
thing which distinguishes it from all other
faiths and from a.11 mere shibboleths. The
priests say: "Order yourself humbly and
reverently towards your betters; be contented;
be sober; be industrious; never hit back/'
Socialism says : " Work, laugh, love, and
don't forget the sparrows."
But all this is not contained in the message
of practical Socialism, which concerns itself
exclusively with immediate, earthy, and
obvious things. I say this without disparage-
ment to practical Socialism, or to the hundreds
of staunch spirits who are fighting the battle of
practical Socialism. But, at the same time, it
is well that the wider and loftier doctrines of
Practice and Fellowship 109
Socialism should be preached and practised.
Who has preached them more sweetly or more
fruitfully than " R. B." ? Who have practised
them more freely than his followers?
This is the remarkable fact about " R. B.'s "
achievement. He has succeeded in capturing
not merely the political support of his
adherents, but their spiritual sympathy also.
He has won men over not merely to practical
Socialism, but to Socialism also. He has
charmed the ears of paper merchants by the
logic and sound business acumen of his pro-
posals ; he has charmed the souls of poets by
by his poetry. In order to secure this dual
victory, Mr. Blatchford has had to perform an
unprecedented feat of spiritual vivisection; he
has had to divide himself into two parts
into : (a) Robert Blatchford, the practical
politician, simple arithmetician, and plain
economist; (b; Nunquam, the poet, visionary
and jolly good fellow.
Other revolutionary writers have been con-
tent to cut a figure in one or other of these
capacities. " R. B." is not even content with
playing the dual role; he has a third and even
more popular personality that of pater-
familias and domestic sage. And he paints
pictures sea-scapes, by which he sets no store,
but which have at least the merit, rare in these
impressionist days, of not being painted brown!
There have been practical Socialists before
no Robert Watch ford
"R. B." There was Karl Marx, the father of
practical Socialism, and the author of works
more often quoted and less often read than any
other works on practical Socialism which have
ever been produced. Marx, I am sure, was a
far sounder economist than " R. B.," and
theoretically, I daresay, more awfully destruc-
tive. But Mr. Blatchford has succeeded in
making himself more generally understood.
The feeling of the two million working men
who have read Merrie England is that Marx is
good to venerate and Blatchford good to quote.
There have been visionary Socialists, revolu-
tionary poets, before " R. B." There was
William Morris. He was a greater poet than
Mr. Blatchford who, technically speaking,
has never set up for a poet at all and he
dreamed dreams which " R. B.," or any other
man, can never surpass in splendour. But
Morris was a literary exquisite. His appeal,
in any true sense, was only to the few the
comparative few. " R. B." has put poetry and
desire into the souls of thousands upon
thousands of working people.
It would be easy to cut a long story short
by saying : " Mr. Blatchford has interpreted
Marx and Morris to the million." But this
would be to speak that which is untrue. Blatch-
ford has interpreted Blatchford to the million.
His view of Socialism, it is true of Socialism
in the broad is largely Morris's view of
Practice and Fellowship in
Socialism. But all people who are sane and
love flowers take that view. As for the Marx
tradition well : I may be telling State secrets
I may even be telling fibs but I believe it
to be a fact that " R. B." has not read Das
Kapitaly either in German or in any of the un-
known tongues into which it has been trans-
lated.
" R. B." has read what he pleased about
Socialism and thought what he pleased. He
has written books of practical logic and he has
written books of poetry and love and laughter.
He has persuaded working men to think, and
he has taught them to feel. He has manufac-
tured thousands of hard-headed, clear-cut,
class-conscious electors, and he has manufac-
tured the Clarion Fellowship.
What is the Clarion Fellowship ? It is an
unorganised body, or disembodied organisa-
tion of persons and people who read the
Clarion^ and live or die at its bidding.
(Strangers please note : This is metaphor.) I
experience a difficulty in trying to explain the
Clarion Fellowship by reason of the fact that it
is a thing essentially, and of its nature, in-
explicable. We know the rules and processes
which entitle one to membership of the Fellow-
ship (which has no membership), but we do not
know and cannot explain how the conditions,
such as they are, antecedent to these rules, ever
come to be fulfilled. The conditions, rules,
Robert 'Blatchford
and processes are as follows : You read the
Clarion. That is all. That seems simple. But
why do you read the Clarion? It is an absurd
paper, absurdly edited. Nobody writes for it
except at the last minute, and nobody ever
writes what he meant to write a minute before
he sat down to write. And nobody agrees with
anybody else, and seldom with himself. And
nobody has read Karl Marx. But more than
eighty thousand practical Socialists buy this
paper every week and read it every word and
like each other just for reading it, and help
each other just for reading it, and marry
each other just for reading it. And buy their
boots, and bicycles, and soap, and 'cyclopae-
dias exclusively from those makers who are of
the Fellowship, having joined it (by advertis-
ing in the Clarion) from purely altruistic
motives.
Such is the Fellowship. I hope I have ex-
plained it. I am the first person who has ever
properly explained it.
The Clarion Fellowship is absurd and in-
explicable, and wholly charming. It is
Socialism real Socialism this bond of
genuine sympathy and kindness which exists
between the readers of the paper which Mr.
Blatchford edits. A stranger entering almost
any town in England has but to proclaim him-
self a Clarion reader (" Clarionette " is the
popular phrase) to be assured of welcome and
Practice and Fellowship "3
hospitality in the houses of friends whom he
has never seen before. This is not practical ;
but it is Socialism.
There is obviously but one sane and certain
method of promoting Socialism, and that is to
promote the circulation of the Clarion. If Mr.
Blatchford will only accede to our impor-
tunities and consent to live for another hundred
years, there will not be any need for a " move-
ment." We shall all have moved.
How has " R. B." managed to instil this
spirit of brotherhood into the practical converts
to his practical Socialism ? Primarily, because
he is a brother himself and cannot help showing
it, and that sort of thing is catching; secondly,
because he has balanced his "practical " books
and articles by a number of very unpractical,
human, jolly books and articles.
. ^4s Novelist
cc y^ -r-% "HAS to his credit a list of twenty
1^ j books, nearly all of which have
been republished from the
Clarion. These books may be classified as
follows :
PRACTICAL SOCIALISM.
(1) Merrie England.
(2) Britain for the British.
ETHICS AND IDEALISM.
(3) God and My Neighbour.
(4) Not Guilty.
(5) Dismal England.
STORIES AND TALES.
(6) The Sorcery Shop. r
(7) Tommy Atkins.
(8) A Son of the Forge.
(9) Tales for the Marines.
(10) A Bohemian Girl.
(11) Pink Diamonds.
(12) Julie.
BELLES LETTRES.
(13) The Bounder.
(14) My Favourite Books.
(15) A Book Abotit Books.
(16) The Nunquam Papers.
Robert Watch ford
(17) Fantasias.
(18) Impressions.
j (19) The Dolly Ballads.
DRAMA.
(20) The Mingled Yam.
I propose in the next and succeeding chapters
to consider some of these books, both from
the standpoint of intrinsic merit and in respect
to their influence upon that true spirit of
Socialism which flourishes so bravely amongst
Clarion readers.
Those of Mr. Blatchford's stories which
relate to soldiers and army life are, I think,
incontestably the best which he has written.
His other works of fiction are full of good
things, of fine literary feeling, and genuine
sense of character, but he writes of soldiers
with a firmer, more convincing touch. A
Bohemian Girl is, I think, out and away the
best of Mr. Blatchford's general novels if
novel it can be called, being rather a loosely-
strung series of sketches and incidents
surrounding the personality of a jolly girl. A
volume full of prettiness and nonsense, and
containing, incidentally, a very taking lyric
relating to the subject of grey eyes. But
(there is a "but 1 ' in my mind where all the
non-military novels of " R. B." are concerned)
I am pained about Miss Calliope Calliper. I
think that we are expected to laugh at her, and
As Novelist 117
I cannot laugh at her. She strikes me as being
so perfectly sane and just.
The least successful of all Mr. Blatchford's
novels is, I think, The Sorcery Sho-p. No man
has yet succeeded in inventing a satisfactory
Utopia, and Mr. Blatchford, perhaps, has come
as near to doing so as anybody else. But
John's Utopia never fits Jim. Mr. Blatchford,
in this picture of the Ideal State, has seen fit
to deprive us of our wine and tobacco. Mr.
Blatchford expects too much from his fellow-
man especially from his fellow-craftsman
when he asks him to consider seriously ideals
which eliminate wine and tobacco.
Pink Diamonds is a most attractive book;
but I think that only persons with a specialist
interest in literature can appreciate it at its true
worth. Mr. Blatchford tells me that it was
written for the Clarion "as a joke.'* It trans-
formed itself somehow into a literary tour de
force; a perfect imitation of Dumas, half
respectful, half mocking in tone, and wholly
charming.
The list of Mr. Blatchford's general novels
as distinct, that is to say, from his military
romances and tales is completed by Julie
The Story of a Girl. This is in many ways a
convincing and effective book; it contains one
character Chigwin, the labour agitator the
presentation of which is a fine piece of cynical
realism. It contains bits and passages; whole
n8 Robert 'Blatchford
pages, indeed, of tenderness, and prettiness,
and humour. But in so far as it is a
study of a slum child and of slum people, it
loses a certain degree of vitality by approach-
ing its subject from a rather sentimental stand-
point.
Mr. Blatchford is, of course, an open and
unashamed sentimentalist. It is this character-
istic which constitutes his greatest charm in the
eyes of all classes of his admirers. Admitting
this fact it may, therefore, seem a little strange
that one should blame a sentimentalist a pro-
fessed, deliberate sentimentalist for writing
sentiment. Well, I am not blaming Mr.
Blatchford for anything he has taught me to
recognise the futility of blame; but I say that
in Julie Mr. Blatchford has given one reader,
at least, rather too much sentiment. It is not a
serious charge, even if proven. Dickens occa-
sionally gave us too much sentiment, whilst
Thackeray, even more often, gave us more than
we wanted of the opposite thing. In this
respect, however, Mr. Blatchford's work affords
a curious contrast. The strain of sentimenta-
lity which, as I think, appears too conspicu-
ously in Julie and in some of his shorter stories
of a like character, is altogether absent from
his military novels.
Now, I can't help thinking that the reason
why the soldier stories strike me as being more
true and natural and as being upon an alto-
As Novelist 119
gether higher plane of art than those of
" R. B.'s " inventions which are more general in
theme is that Mr. Blatchford, from the very
nature of his own experience, has taken his
soldiers at first hand. Whereas Julie, and Mr.
Jorkle, and Daisy Spanker wear somewhat the
air of having been copied from traditional
models. Mr. Jorkle, the financier, who is " quite
out of his element," and steals away, when
other gentlemen (not financiers) talk about the
fragrance of a woman's skin, is a weird and
impossible monstrosity who could only have
been conjured up by a high-minded philosopher
who does not know financiers. Now, I could
tell some stories about financiers which. . .
But, then, " R. B." would blush.
We are indebted (I think) to Sir A. W.
Pinero for the definition of a financier as "A
pawnbroker with imagination''
Accuracy of observation is a trait of art
which does not often exhibit itself in English
fiction. Nine English novelists out of ten (in-
cluding those whose books are most successful
in the commercial sense) build up their
characters upon accepted lines. English novels
are full of "shrewd lawyers," "sour
spinsters/' "stern and bluff old warriors'*
(watch them crawling up Pall Mall), titled,
high-minded hospital nurses (who never served
a gross novitiate as ward maids), "jolly
sailors," and "honest farmers." If "R. B.,"
120 Robert JMatchford
whose boundless literary activity has touched
almost every branch of his calling, has been
content to take it easy sometimes and to
work occasionally from lay figures, he has
an excuse which his purely professional rivals
cannot offer the excuse of the extreme
urgency and multiplicity in his affairs.
Also, "R. B." has written soldier stories.
The "Black M.P.'s," and Sergeant Bonass,
and the Scrumptious Girl they are real and
true, beyond all shadow of doubt or criticism.
Those who would read a very just and
finely-tempered eulogy of "R. B.'s " work in
his capacity as a soldier-novelist will be
privileged to do so in the next chapter, wherein
I reproduce some quotations from two essays
by Mr. A. M. Thompson.
In the meantime, I will ask you to examine
this account, as offered by Private Stumpit, of
a curious game which was played for a wager
between an Indian rajah and the officers of an
English regiment.
Private Stum-pit. Where for they played 'igh
an* they played low, an' they played 'ell gener-
ally; but the rajah 'e always seemed bored, an'
the 'igher the stakes the boreder 'e got, until at
last 'e ups an' says as European games were too
slow, an' 'e'd be glad if the officers would pass
their words for to take 'im on at a country
game, for a stake worth 'avin. . . .
So, to make a long story short, the
As Novelist 121
game was to set an English soldier on
sentry in the coort-yard o' the rajah's pallis,
the rajah an* the colonel seein' fair through
keyholes, an* then to send in a pretty girl to
coax the soldier's musket off him. The gel to
use no weepons, nor drugs ; nothin' but female
bedevilments, fair an* square. An* if the gel
got the arms off him within the hour, the man
was forfeit; but if not, the colonel took the
gel. Of course, the sentry was to know
nothin' of the game, much less as 'is com-
mandin' officer's eye was on 'im : so that 'e'd
nothin' to stand on but 'is soldierin'. Boots!
CHORUS: Sfurs!
Stum-pit. Well, when old Strapper an' the
officers tumbled to the game, they looked
seven ways at once, for they knew the Old
Scuts pretty well, an' devil a man of 'em was
fit to stand his corner. But at last they picked
out a raw-boned, hard-faced, canny Scotch-
man, named Angus M'Allister ; an' they put
up a prayer, an' sent 'im into action. Boots!
CHORUS : Spurs!
Stum-pit. Angus was posted at twelve mid-
night, an' there was the colonel an' the rajah,
with their eyes glued to a brace o' keyholes;
an' there was Angus p'radin' up an* down, an'
never a move out of the enemy till the ghurry
struck the half-hour. Boots!
CHORUS: Spurs!
Stumpit. Soon as the ghurry struck the
122 Robert Elatchford
half -hour, the curtains opens, an* out conies
that Scrumshus Gel! . . .
She 'ad an 'ed of 'air like a mer-
maid; long an' black an' curly. She 'ad flesh
like strawberries an' cream, eyes like flash-
lights, a figure like a hangel, and a mouth
like a cut cherry. ...
She stood still long enough to let the sigh
melt away as a sportsman does the smoke of
'is rifle an' then she come forard, movin* as
if she'd been steppin' to a slow waltz; an' 'er
splendiferous eyes on Scotty's face, an' 'er
whole self seemin' to shine an' ripple all over,
as a graylin' does swimmin' slow up stream;
an* at last she halts, right opposite to him
where 'e'd stood like a moonstruck Lascar, an'
there she stops with 'er arms 'anging down,
an' 'er long eyelashes a-lyin' on 'er cheeks like
black silk fringe on a peach; an* 'er breast
heaves, same as two little smooth waves a-risin'
outer deep water when the sea's calm, an' she
gives another sigh. Angus said one o' them
sighs an' a slice o' brown bread would feed a
soldier for a day. . .
Now, observe what Angus says : " One o'
them sighs an' a slice o' brown bread would
feed a soldier for a day."
The poetic realism of that playful passage
lives in the memory. Mr. Blatchford's soldier
stories are crowded with such touches. For
what happens to Angus and to Angus's
As Novelist 123
numerous successors I must refer the reader to
the original story (which is that of "The
Scrumptious Girl "). There he will read how
the honour of the regiment is ultimately saved
by Kate O' Flaherty, who is prevailed upon to
" ambush 'er charms in the uniform of the
Scuts/' and to perform sentry-go. I do not
think that a more delightful piece of comedy
has been written in our time than the account
of the interview between the Scrumptious Girl
and "Private" Kate O'Flaherty. But I do
not propose to reproduce that passage here. I
have already quoted enough, I hope, to
suggest the rare, vintage flavour of the story.
It appears with many others in a volume called
Tales for the Marines.
" 'Tis a good lie, Peter," says Corporal
Ryan, " an* wan that improves wid the tellinV
The same volume contains a fine story called
"The Mousetrap." It is a grim story written
in a vein of terrible reality which Mr. Blatch-
f ord does not o f ten adopt.
Tommy Atkins is a continuous novel of
Army life, and it introduces many of the
scenes and characters which appear in these
short stories. It is a good book, but surfers
by comparison with A Son of the Forge. Let
us proceed to discuss that interesting and, in
some respects, curious, work.
Chap. XIII "A Son of
the Forged
THE book whose title heads this chapter
is perhaps the most interesting of all
Mr. Blatchford's novels.
Its interest consists not merely in its own
intrinsic excellence, but in the fact, which has
been readily perceived by Mr. Blatchford's
public, that it is, in several important respects,
an autobiography. It is "R. B.'s" David
Copper-field.
It is also a rather queer book a mixture of
genuine art and obvious journalism; of pas-
sionate rapture and slap-dash impressionism; of
careful and conscientious craftsmanship and
careless scribbling.
"It is a very fine book," says Mr. Thompson,
but ". . . . Had he bestowed upon it even
a small fraction of the characterisation so
extravagantly lavished upon his military
sketches in Tommy Atkins and Tales for the
Marines, it might have been a popular, and
possibly a famous, book."
Mr. Thompson, referring to " R. B.'s " state-
ment that A Son of the Forge was not designed
126 Robert 'Blatchford
as a novel, but only became one by accident,
has described the process by which it hap-
pened : With a view to variety of contents in
the Clarion^ the author had set himself to
expand into two columns an early tale,
entitled, "No. 66," the story of a dramatic
incident in battle, where a soldier, having
wrested a rifle from a dead comrade's grasp
in the fury of the fray, finds, on examining
the weapon after the fight, that it is marked
No. 66 the rifle number of his nearest and
best friend ! As originally written, the story
did not contain above 1,500 words; but find-
ing the story unfinished at the end of his two
columns, and being pressed by a friend to
continue it as a serial, he went on with it week
by week, " just splashing the colour about," he
told Mr. Thompson, "as a kind of artistic
showing off among friends, and by way of a
vanity which never took itself seriously."
A reviewer on one of the dailies told us,
when the novel appeared, that " the conceptions
of character resemble those of Walter Scott
and Dickens." But Mr. Thompson points out
as the most curious fact about the whole thing
that, despite its undoubted success (artistically)
as a story and as a sermon, the novel presents,
strictly speaking, no "character" at all.
" There is," says Mr. Thompson, " one central
figure the Son of the Forge who tells his
own story, and tells it in fastidiously-chosen,
"A Son of the Forge " 127
felicitous, and fluent literary terms which
nowise fit his self -description as an unculti-
vated, uncouth, and naturally sullen churl. He
calls himself 'a savage/ 'coarse and ignorant/
and ' a victim of brutish slavery ' ; but when
he goes on tramp he observes that ' the cottages
along the highway were clean and bright, with
flowers trained over their lattices, and pigeons
fluttering above their thatched roofs; and in
the trim gardens before them the broad-faced
sunflowers and flaunting hollyhocks made a
brave show. Better to die here of hunger/ he
thinks, this dainty boor, ' with the scented elder
flowers above, and the daisied grass below,
than to live for a century of brutish slavery
in the smoke and sulphur of the chain sheds.'
"A passing lady gives him a lily, and the
look which accompanies the gift makes him
feel 'ashamed to be seen/ But a few days
later the ' coarse and ignorant * Orson perfectly
understands the meaning of that look, and of
its effect upon him. 'It was the light of love
that had shone in on my dark soul from those
great, sweet eyes. The light of the love that is
of no sex, no nation, and no creed, of the love
that is Christ-like in its humanity and divinity,
the love that hopes all, believes all, pardons all,
and glorifies all, cries the lumpish and trucu-
lent boor, in very unchurlish ecstasy, and 'so
I blessed the lady of the lily, and fared on!
The reviewer who found Blatchford's charac-
128 Robert Elatchford
terisation like that of Dickens evidently remem-
bered the elder novelist's habit of making his
'creations' talk like their author.
" The hero's accidentalness has not only been
very damaging to his character : it has almost
robbed him of his good name. Two admirers
of the book, whom I asked what the hero was
called, scratched their heads, smiled shame-
facedly, and confessed they could not tell.
When I put the question to the illustrious
author himself, he puckered his eyebrows for a
moment, then chuckled as though he had found
a new joke, and said : ' Blest if I know !
Hasn't he got a name?' The fact is that
neglect of pre-natal preparation has left
William Homer almost as marrowless and pale
as David Copperneld himself; but the latter
has a notable advantage in that his name
appears on the cover of the book and in the
library catalogues.
"The persons who more or less fortuitously
tumble into the hero's life are equally vague
and casual. Philip Joyce, ' his friend,' as the
old dramatists would have described him, is a
miscellaneous sort of lovesick swain, who sud-
denly breaks out from the author's brain like
the beamish Distinguished Person on the
Cinematograph, and lo, behold ! in a brace of
filmy twitters, whiz ! he is off the screen, leaving
no trace behind except a fidgetting impression
of wobbliness.
"A Son of the Forge" 129
" Conversationally, Mr. Joyce, like Mr. Homer,
is constituted so as in many respects to resemble
the conceptions of character of Dickens. When
his friend asks him what there is to live for,
he answers : ' Why, plenty of things. Doing
your drill, and cleaning your traps, and reading
books, and looking at the fields and flowers,
and laughing at people, and being sorry for
them, and helping them, and falling out with
them, and going to bed and getting up again,
and eating your meals, and cursing the commis-
sariat, and falling in love, and getting married,
and having children, and growing old, and
being a man, in short. That's how I look at
it.' It is my secret belief that it was Mr. Philip
Joyce who wrote Robert Blatchford's famous
' Not Out, 50.' "
So much for the "curious" side of the book.
Now let us begin to test its actual quality.
Philip Joyce does not make his appearance
until the iiith page of the book, and the love
interest, only begins at 230, while the book ends
at page 248.
" Yet," says Mr. Thompson, "if I were
asked what were the dominant note of the book,
I should answer, Love.
" It is a tale of War and Battle," says Mr.
Thompson, in explanation of this seeming
paradox, " . . . . but the permeating influence
is that of Woman, and the dominant effect is
one of feminine tenderness !
K
130 Robert Elatchford
"That is the phenomenon which makes A Son
of the Forge a wonderful book : the visible,
stage-monopolising Hamlet is here the shadow,
and the transcient Ghost behind the scenes, the
Spirit of the Eternal Feminine, is the reality
which gives the play all its character, colour,
and glow.
" Except as a reflex of feminine influences,
the hero is nothing. In the first and finest chap-
ters of the book he is a mere lay figure used
for the display of Alice Homer's beautiful
sisterly love and solicitude. Though she speaks
only one word in the whole book, and that
word is ' yes ' though there is no other
description of her aspect than that she had a
homely face, big, misshapen hands, and an
ugly frock, the rough Rembrandtesque outline
of Alice Homer has more flesh and blood 'to'
it than Balzac's Nanon derives from fifty well-
fed pages of Leonardesque detail.
" She worked as a chainmaker, and was
thrashed by a drunken father. When her
brother was waled with the buckle-end of the
father's strap, she crept upstairs to take him in
her arms and cry over him ; ' and if she could
find a crust of bread or a cold potato, she
would bring it to me, pressing me to eat it,
while she whispered such words of hope as her
simple heart could prompt.'
" On one occasion she took off her only petti-
coat, and sold it to buy bread for her brother's
"A Son of the Forge" 131
supper. To procure him warmth she walked a
mile in the winter night to sell a basket of
empty whisky bottles for a piece of coal. When
he was down with low fever, she forced her
way into the reeking taproom where her father
sat among other brutes, and, despite his
ruffianism, she brought home grapes and white
bread for her fevered and starving brother.
' And the great God, who made the west wind
and the briar rose, never made anything more
worthy or more sweet than she.' The portrait
is the perfect condensed essence of reality
idealism achieved by a few simple strokes of
realism."
But here again the critic finds himself con-
fronted by a paradox.
" There never was a story with so strong a
' feminine interest/ and yet there never was a
story with so little space devoted to the frocks,
the chatter, and the personal beauty of indivi-
dual women."
The truth is that, as Mr. Thompson puts it,
the characters who speak and act the story " are
mere shadows : they are only illumined and
warmed into life when they come under the
glowing, but uncertain, rays of Woman's ten-
derness."
The critic quotes a passage from what he
describes as " the sunniest of all the woman
chapters," in illustration of this quality. This
is it a delicious morsel :
132 Robert 'Blatchford
Carrie came and sat on a stool at my
feet. I began to talk business.
" Carrie," I said, " how old are you ? "
She smiled, and rubbed her chin with her
thimble, thoughtfully. "About eighteen,"
she said, " I think."
" Would you ? " said I, very diffi-
dently. " Don't you want me to go away ? "
" God forbid," she exclaimed, looking up
with pained anxiety.
" Have you no friends ? "
" Not a soul in the world but you,
chummie."
"Would you like to live with me?"
She looked at me with quiet, serious direct-
ness, and nodded.
" Always ? "
" Ever and ever, amen ! " She showed her
white teeth in a smile. She smiled as frankly
and sweetly as a child.
" Would you like to go to America ? "
" With you ? "
" Certainly."
"Yes."
" I'm very poor, Carrie."
"Well?"
" We might have hard times."
"Of course"
" You expect that, then. But yet you'd
come ? "
Carrie glanced at the bed.
"A Son of the Forge" 133
" Nan would go with us," I said.
Carrie held out her hand. " It's agreed,"
she said.
" Well, Carrie," I continued, " you are
alone, and I am alone. And you want a
friend, and I cannot spare you. So we will
take our chance together. If I can get the
money, we will emigrate. If not, we will
fight it out in England."
Carrie nodded and smiled. "Anywhere,"
she said. " What does it matter to chums ? "
" Then " said I, making a dash for it,
" when shall we get married ? "
" Married ? "
" Yes, dear. You will marry me ? "
" Marry ? Do you mean to many me ?
Really ? "
" Carrie, Carrie," I said, perfectly startled.
" What did you think I meant ? What do
you think I am ? "
But Carrie did not answer my question.
She knelt upon the floor, hid her face against
my knee, and, gripping my hand in hers,
began to cry.
" Carrie ! " I said, for I was alarmed by
this strange conduct. " What is it ? What
do you mean ? "
The girl clung to me, sobbing and laugh-
ing wildly. "Marry me? Marry me? Oh,
Willie ! Oh ! chummie ! Shall I be your
wife ? "
134 Robert 'Blotch ford
I began to understand her now. I drew
her into my arms, and kissed her. " My
dear," I said, " you are too good for me.
But I love you, and I will take care of you.
Will you promise ? "
But at that moment Nan awoke, and, start-
ing up in bed, called out, " Carrie, what's
the matter ? He isn't going to leave us ?
Carrie, don't ! You frighten me."
Poor Carrie ran to her sister, laughing and
crying, took her in her arms, hugged her,
kissed her, and repeated a dozen times,
" Nan, Nan, Nannie ! We are going to
get married. We are going to live with
Willie. You shall be his sister, and me his
wife."
But although the love interest, apparently
adventitious, dominates the whole story, there
is more than that in the book. " R. B." never
writes anything without betraying his hatred
for cruelty and oppression, and Mr. Thompson
declares that :
" A Son of the Forge takes its place, too,
amongst the instruments of his fierce indict-
ment of Society.
" With the entrance of the soldiers, the tune
changes to a swinging martial march and a
roar; but even in the loudest blare of the
trumpets, the indictment of Society is not for-
gotten.
"A Son of the Forge " 135
" After the miseries of the workers comes the
exposure of the agonies of war. There is no
special pleading, no declamation, no ' fire-
works,' no embroidery. Precision, not preci-
osity, is the author's aim. He tells his tale in a
strict and succinct, but always vividly pic-
turesque, style ; and though the narrative seems
more like a report than a story, the under-
lying indignation attains contagiousness which
is often missing from the violent declamations
of the avowed humanitarian preacher.
" There is no sign in the book that the author
has consciously set himself any theory to prove
or any doctrine to preach. He is too artistic
to be didactic. He impresses his readers with
the absolute reality of certain characters and
certain incidents, and, without seeming to point
a moral, he makes his very reticence stamp it
upon the mind with the force of a sledge-
hammer.
"The impact of the lesson is all the greater
because in his wide catholicity of human
sympathy, the author actually betrays us into
momentary admiration of the wild-beast attri-
butes whose survival in the civilised human
animal continues to make war possible.
" In one of the most marvellous pieces of
word-painting ever accomplished his stirring
description of the march of the Highland and
Devonshire regiments through Portsmouth-
he makes every nerve and muscle throb respon-
136 Robert Watch ford
sive to that magnetism of numbers, of sound,
and of colour which is the mainstay of mili-
tarism. No Jingo ever made this amazing
thrill of elementary passions more real or more
infectious.
" The waiting soldiers' lust of blood, their
delirious reception of 'the tidings of great joy'
(that they are to go out to slash and slay, and
be slashed and slain), the madness of their
disappointment when they learn that the
opportunity of killing is postponed all these
incredible brutalities and ferocities of the
trained fighting animal Blatchford makes for
the moment comprehensible, and almost sym-
pathetic, to all. The reason is that he knows
the feeling which he so convincingly describes.
He has told us, in his articles on " Heredity "
in the Clarion :
" When I went soldiering, and got out into
the skirmishing line at a field day, and when
the smell of the powder was acrid in the air,
and the rattle of musketry drummed on the
brain, and the men got excited and ran and
cheered, I was startled to find a grim change
in rny nature. I felt like a prowling savage.
A strong instinct took hold of me: the
instinct to hide, to crouch, to steal forward
stealthily, and to shoot straight, and with
deadly intent. I did not like this feeling,
and could not account for it. But I suppose
"A Son of the Forge" 13?
I got it where I got my back hair : from
India. Or maybe it was the genius of the
Dutch Boer.
" That is the reason which makes the war
fever and the blood lust so real a thing in
A Son of the Forge. Blatchford has felt
them himself. He has the memory of, and
sympathy for, them. Under the influence of that
exaltation, he himself becomes, despite his
almost feminine tenderness, a fighter eager for
the cut and thrust and drunkenness of battle.
"But, like his hero, he soon becomes 'ashamed
of it/ and then proceeds with his right business
of exposing the emptiness, the fraud, and the
horror of war. After tricking us into under-
standing Philip drunk, he opens our eyes wide
to the awful sadness of Philip's return to
sobriety. No writer who had not sympathised
with the first feeling could have so stirred
us with the horror of the reality. The
mere preacher, the doctrinaire, the deliberate
denouncer, could never have got the effect. We
should have ' seen him coming.' But Blatchford
makes us partakers of the intoxication that we
may ' feel ' for ourselves the humiliation and
sickness and pain of the recovery.
" He does not give us much breathing-time
between the debauch and the beginning of the
cure. Nor does he spare any ignoble details.
First, the agony of the women and children.
138 Robert 'Blotch ford
The physical ' seediness ' of his pot-valiant
brawlers the morning after the truculent orgie.
Still more grimly sardonic though he writes
it with his usual compassion the chapter of
seasickness, where the heroes are represented
lying ' in heaps upon the bare boards, grovel-
ling and helpless, the sailors striding over
them, stepping on them, kicking them, and
cursing them for lubbery swabs and land crabs,
and the vessel all the while rolling and pitch-
ing horribly/ What an awakening ! what a
disillusion ! what a satire ! This contrasting
of nauseous impotence with bellicose vainglory
was a masterstroke.
" It is more effective than the picture of the
heap of amputated legs and arms in Erckmann-
Chatrian, or Zola's gruesome picture of the
wounded at Sedan lying face downwards in
pools of their own blood."
Chap. XIV. Chapter
and Verse
Eus now direct our attention to that
section of Mr. Blatchford's writings
upon which (as I think) rests most
securely his claim to be regarded as a great
craftsman. I refer to the series of books which
I have grouped under the heading of Belles
Lettres.
During his Sunday Chronicle days, Mr.
B latch ford was seized with an ambition to
" improve his shorthand." The method which
he adopted may not be original, but it was
carried out with a thoroughness probably un-
paralleled.
For two solid years he devoted all his spare
time to reading and re-reading the following
books : Job, Isaiah, The Psalms, The Song
of Solomon, Pilgrim' s Progress, and White's
Selborne. Line upon line, page after page, he
searched these books for rare, or archaic, or
beautiful words. These he wrote down upon
slips of paper, and against each word he wrote
its synonym or synonyms. Also the short-
hand forms of both word and synonym.
These shorthand "outlines" he subsequently
140 Robert 'Blatchford
compared with the shorthand dictionary. The
primary object of all this was, as I have said,
to improve his shorthand. Mr. Blatchford
has no doubt that the exercises did improve his
shorthand, which has been of little or no use
to him since. But the exercises did more than
this : they helped Mr. Blatchford to form and
develop that remarkable gift for writing plain
English, which is not only the most remark-
able of all his gifts, but is a gift so remarkable
in itself as to mark out its possessor from
among all other modern writers. I can justify
this statement by quotation and example. Be
so kind, please, as to examine the following
specimen of prose :
" This fitful fever, this yoke-bearing
drudgery under goad which all of us endure
we call it real life. We think of it as
actuality ! As fact ! As the practical and
true. Sweating under our burdens, writhing
under our affliction, we struggle on ; but we
don't like it. The demons of pride, hate,
greed, ambition, shame, want, and terror pinch
and wound and revile us in our Valley of the
Shadow, and we stumble forward amongst the
gins and pitfalls. But we don't enjoy it.
Always the soul struggles in its bonds, and
turns its eyes for ever upwards. From prince
to pauper, from infancy to senility, we hunger
and thirst for something better, brighter,
purer we know not what. It would seem as
Chapter and Verse I4 1
though we are fallen spirits cast out from
some higher sphere, and can never wholly
accept or reconcile ourselves to the degrada-
tion of this world. It would seem as if the
old Platonic notions were right that we get
our souls from a perfect state, and with them
an inarticulate memory of what is true or
false, of what is base or noble. The greatest
sinner hates and despises sin. The biggest
rascal knows honour to be better than villainy.
The soul of man revolts from moral iniquity;
his nature shudders at what is base as his body
does in the presence of impurity. Men work
in grime and dirt. But every man loves to
have his body clean. They live in dull and
sordid ways, but they never lose the yearning
for that which is beautiful and pure. Captives
by the waters of Babylon, we thrill with rage
and pleasure at the sound of the songs of
Zion. Fallen, degraded, blunted, and given
over to the service of Baal we may be; but if
amid the din and clatter of the devil's work-
shop one true note is sounded, our besotted
memory stirs itself our dull wits wake to
listen."
Fantasias the book is called from which I
take this cutting. I am not asking you to
appraise the philosophy which it preaches. I
allow people not to argue about philosophy.
I am asking you to view the extract merely as
a specimen of prose writing. Is it not splendid
142 Robert Watchford
writing ? Does it not thrill you ? Does it not
sing to you ? And yet observe how simple are
the words and thoughts which compose it.
This book, Fantasias, is out of print, by
the way. The writer of these lines only suc-
ceeded in getting hold of a copy a few hours
before the lines were written. He has read it
through with delight and amazement, for it
contains a varied assortment of the very best
of Mr. Blatchford's imaginative writings. The
book must certainly be reprinted.
Amongst the pieces contained in Fantasias
there is a character sketch of a wild-beast
soldier, who belonged to " R. B/s " regiment.
It is a terrible little story, related with terrible
effect. I desire to direct the particular notice
of the reader to this story, because it again
offers testimony to Mr. Blatchford's remarkable
versatility a versatility which on this occasion
he displays not so much in his subject as in
his treatment of that subject. Mr. Blatchford
is not, by habit, a " realistic " writer that is to
say, his literary tendency is to make the best
of things, whether good or bad : to represent
both goodness and badness with just that touch
of exaggeration which moves the reader to
emotion. What is called the " nervous
restraint" of the modern school (a trick or
manner of literary expression borrowed from
France) is not much in " R. B.'s " line. And
yet when he chooses as the particular sketch
Chapter and Verse 143
to which I refer makes evident, our war-worn
veteran can perform grim realistics with any
of the youngest and most nervous of his con-
temporaries. Let me quote an illustrative
passage :
"That night Buffalo got out of bed after
tattoo, climbed the down-spout of the officers'
messhouse, walked along the eave spout to the
barrack wall, dropped twenty feet into the
field, went to the nearest tavern and bought a
bottle of rum, forced a window of the artillery
stables, wrenched off the lock of the hatch
door, dodged the artillery sentry, and got
back to bed. Here he drank up all the rum,
and then disturbed the room by yelling his
favourite ditty :
Drunk and sober again,
Sober and drunk again ;
Oh, if I do live to get drunk,
I shall live to get sober again.
" Pat Daley then rose up in bed and threw
a canteen at Buffalo in the darkness. It
caught him on the nose, but made no mark.
Buffalo hurled the rum-bottle at random. The
sergeant got up and ordered Buffalo to the
guardroom.
" This was too much. Buffalo went to
prison for forty-two days.
" He returned but little changed, except that
having his hair and moustache close cropped
144 Robert 'Blatchford
made him look, if possible, more base and
villainous than ever. He was still sullen, still
silent, and drank with the steady perseverance
of a man to whom stomach and conscience are
words without meaning.
" s You were the worse for liquor at drill
this afternoon/ said the drill-corporal. 'Don't
turn out like that again. You've had rough
times, but I'll have to run you in if you don't
keep sober.'
"Buffalo said 'All right,' and went to the
canteen and drank till he could hardly see.
" ' Where's the colonel gone to ? ' asked
Buffalo of his cot-mate.
"'Gone on leave,' said Jack Smith; 'back
next Monday,' and he went on reading. None
of the men would waste words on Buffalo.
" Buffalo said no more. He went to his
cot and sat down. He had in his valise a new
Belgian revolver and fifty cartridges. He had
bought them since he returned to the regiment.
He kept his own counsel, though he drank
harder than ever. The colonel would be back
on Monday. Then something was going to
happen.
" But something happened on Sunday night.
A new recruit had joined while Buffalo was at
Millbank. His name was Evan Evans ; and he
came from the Rhondda Valley. On the
Sunday night he strolled into F Company,
and saw Buffalo Adams sitting on his cot,
Chapter and Verse H5
smoking a filthy black pipe. As he came in,
Adams laid down the pipe, and rose up, his
small grey eyes almost starting out of his
head. Evans stopped half-way down the
room. He put his arms akimbo, and looked at
Adams in astonishment. The other men
noticed this, and gave their attention to the
two Welshmen. Adams spoke first He
said :
' You black beast. What are you doin'
here?'"
Any writer who has ever tried to tell a story
will appreciate the art of that passage, with
its grim and deadly geniality, its deliberate
and calculated reticence.
This same remarkable little volume of
Fantasias contains a poem a sort of nursery
rhyme called " The Three Baby Buntings."
This again enables me to offer evidence of
Mr. Blatchford's really astounding versatility.
Here are three verses :
There were three baby buntings,
And a rambling they did go ;
They toddled and they waddled,
And they tumbled down also,
Look ye there !
They toddled and they waddled,
And the first thing caught their een
Was a bonny yellow butterfly
That fluttered o'er the green.
Bert said it was a butterfly,
But Jennie she said " Nay,
L
146 Robert 'Blatchford
It's just a pansy flower that's spread
Its wings and flown away,"
Look ye there !
They rattled and they prattled
Till they heard a merry sound
Like the chirping of a grasshopper
From out the daisied ground,
Look ye there !
Dick said it was a grasshopper,
But Jennie laughed so blithe,
And said a fairy mower was
A-whetting of his scythe,
Look ye there !
They toddled and they waddled,
And the next thing they did find
Was a bed of dainty jonquils,
And that they left behind,
Look ye there !
Dick said they were sweet Nancies,
But Jennie said she thought
They were little baby sisters which
The doctor hadn't brought,
Look ye there !
There are more verses of similar grace and
prettiness which I have not room to quote; but
here is the ninth and last verse :
She took them in and washed them
Cleaner than a silver pin,
And then she told their dada
Of the mischief they'd been in,
Look ye there !
She called them naughty children, but
Their dada answered, " Nay,
Pinafores were made to wash, my lass,
And lambs were made to play."
Look ye there !
Chapter and Verse H7
Superior intellects will probably tell you
that these verses are homely. But do not
allow that epithet to spoil your dinner. This
is a lyric poem, you see, and all lyrics worth
talking about are homely in sentiment.
Revolutionary ideas have been expressed in
lyric form before to-day ; but that is a method
of adopting means to an end which is not
recommended by the best authorities. Messrs.
Thrush and Blackbird are the two models
which all good lyrists set before them; and
judged by the standards of these eminent per-
formers, this little song about the Baby Bunt-
ings really seems almost to touch perfection.
Read it over again, and then see if bits and
snatches of it do not keep reciting themselves
to you all day long. This is the test of a good
lyric. I offer that information without charge.
While we are talking about Mr. Blatchford's
verse we may as well talk about the Dolly
Ballads the only book consisting entirely
of verse which " R. B." has published.
I have a great affection for the Dolly
Ballads. A lady, to whose children Mr.
B latch ford sent a copy of the book when it
was first published, two years ago, wrote him,
in that spirit of kindly candour which highly-
educated people sometimes exhibit, to say that
she had taken the book away from her children
because the verses were written in ungrammati-
cal language. They are written in child
148 Robert Elatchford
language : the language of Mr. Blatchford's
child. This is the sort of thing to which the
lady objected :
I wish it didn't blow, Ma,
Acos Ps cold as lead ;
An I wish if you would rock me
Before I go to bed.
If I was on your knee, Ma,
I fink I'd be all right,
As then I's tell a story
What Mary telled last night.
Onct there was upon a time, Ma
Let me kneel up on your knees.
How can a robin sleep, Ma,
When the wind shakes all his trees?
Onct there was upon a time, Ma,
A naughty Turkiss Jew;
An' he lived into a comtry,
An' his whiskums all came blue.
My Dada's face is blue, Ma,
Acos he s'aves, you know.
Would my Dada have blue whiskums
If he let his whiskums grow?
Thus Dolly goes on to tell in her own
language and in her own way the story of
Blue Beard. One trusts that the children of
that austere lady whom I have mentioned will
grow up to talk extremely careful English and
to part their hair exactly.
You cannot quote effectively from the Dolly
Ballads. The verses hang so closely together
that any individual poem would be bound to
Chapter and Verse 149
come badly through the ordeal of detached
representation. One might just as sensibly cut
one square inch out of a picture and present
it for judgment to the discerning critic.
This book is not exactly written for
children : though children, I am sure, are
bound to like it. There is no living child
who will not listen open-mouthed, with a
delicious mingling of horror and happiness, to
the highly-sensational romance of the
" Grumblin' Grisly Bear," or to the stirring
adventures of the " Bishump and the Crocum-
dile." But for all that, I think that I am right
in saying that the verses were not written for
children; for behind the mere mechanism of
the stories which they tell there is a flavour
a thrill which only the grown-ups will notice,
which only the grown-ups can enjoy. What is
the quality of this flavour ? It is anything of
many qualities, chief among them being a sort
of a something which I will permit myself to
describe as child-hunger.
Mr. Blatchford himself thus describes the
origin of the Dolly Ballads : " I wrote those
ballads for the pleasure of writing them. They
are, as nearly as possible, a true report of
certain stories told by Dolly (" R. B.'s "
daughter) at the age of four. I have cast them
into verses, but have kept as closely as I could
to the actual words of the child. The sayings
are Dolly's sayings; the language is Dolly's
150 Robert 'Blatchford
language; the interpolated questions and
irrelevances are Dolly's own. I wrote the
ballads about twelve years ago, and I cannot
write any more unless some good friend will
lend me a baby. Dolly has disregarded the
advice given to her in a letter by Mark Twain,
and has grown up."
My own reasons for liking the Dolly
Ballads are these : I like them because they
are fresh and tender and whimsical, full of
insight into the hearts of children; full of love
for children, full of honest fun. Also (and of
what other similar verses published within the
last ten years can this be said ?) they are
wholly underivative really and truly new.
There are other stray verses scattered
through Mr. Blatch ford's books of which I
should like to speak. I will say my "per-
mitted say" in the next chapter.
Chap. X/ 7 ". More Quotes
A CHAPTER of quotations may as well
begin with quotations. To begin with,
therefore, I shall quote some verses
from Dismal England. They appear in a
paper called Linen and Lives, and form, as it
were, a new "Song of the Shirt" I quote at
random :
A woman weak with years,
Cowed down by sickly dread,
In the shadow of my fears
I slave for bitter bread.
Spin, spin, thou cruel wheel !
So my sick brain doth spin ;
Stab, stab, thou leaping steel .'
So hunger stabs within.
"Whir, whirr," the hoarse wheel sings,
Like man it hath no ruth;
Sharp, sharp, the needle stings,
Like some damned serpent's tooth.
A woman grey with years,
I bow my stricken head ;
In the shadow of my fears
I slave for bitter bread.
152 Robert Watchford
God knoweth what I feel,
Though man doth nothing heed ;
Oh ! broken on the wheel,
Internal tears I bleed.
Who would, these fardels bear ?
God knoweth what I feel,
But I've no time for prayer
Round goes the giddy wheel.
Swift, swift the needle flies :
God seeth my sad heart ;
He bends His awful eyes
Upon the "Labour Mart."
Some bring fair flesh for sale,
And others bring fair fame ;
Some cheeks with want are pale,
And others red with shame.
I have no time to weep,
God knoweth what I feel ;
I .have no time to sleep
Round goes the giddy wheel.
Round goes the giddy wheel,
I lift my palsied hand ;
God knoweth what I feel
I curse my native land.
My wrath is as a flame ;
I curse this devil's mart :
I curse this land of shame '
I curse it in my heart.
Where legislators try
The false and true to fit,
And lie, and lie, and lie,
And are well paid for it.
More Quotes i53
Where cultured rantipoles
Of " ladies'" virtues tell,
What time their sisters' souls
Creep shuddering to hell.
I curse this swinish rout
God knoweth what I feel :
Their sins shall find them cut
Round goes the giddy wheel.
I have quoted less than half of this fine
poem, and some of its best verses I have,
perforce, omitted. But the scope and purpose
of it may be judged from these extracts.
Now, I think that this is a very remarkable
poem. Nothing more successful in the simple
ballad form has been written in our language.
The suggestion of bitterness and tragedy is
conveyed with terrible power. You can find
lapses, of course. "Internal tears" I do not
like, nor such trite colloquialisms as " labour
mart." But, taking the poem as a whole, and
excluding Hood's " Song of the Shirt " (which
must in part have suggested it), I will con-
fidently challenge anybody to produce a plain
ballad more absolutely effective in the sugges-
tion of horror and want and injustice. Even
Hood's great poem, I think, is no more than
its equal. "Round goes the giddy wheel! "
That recurrent phrase is introduced with fine
restraint and effectiveness.
Dismal England, the book in which this
154 Robert 'Blotch ford
ballad occurs, is a collection of sketches and
impressions in which the note of cheerfulness
is rather obviously subdued. It contains one
comic sketch, however about a lion-tamer.
"R. B." talked with the lion-tamer, who
divulged the secrets of his craft and explained
how extraordinarily simple it all was ! " There
was really no danger," he said, stroking a
lion's nose.
"I am more sorry than I can say," states
" R. B.," in conclusion, "to have to add a
sad postscript to this article.
" Our gentle lion-tamer was killed less than
a year after our interview with him. He
slipped in the cage, and, falling, was seized
upon by the bears and hyenas, and so badly
hurt that he died.
" And another lion-tamer, with whom I had
a talk some time afterwards, told me it was
mainly our poor friend's own fault that he was
killed. 'He was careless,' said the second
tamer, ' and went into the cage with wet clay
on his boots. That caused him to fall, and a
blind bear, prowling round, came upon him,
and naturally seized him in a hug. Then the
hyenas and the wolves attacked him, and the
man was helpless. But there is really no
danger if you are careful '/ "
It is a good book, this Dismal England, but
I will restrain my passion for quotation. My
favourite pieces in it are the sketches called
More Quotes i55
"A Gay Life," "The Poor in Ireland," and
this lion-taming yarn.
Now as to the books about books. There
are two of them My Favourite Books,
published in 1901, and A Book About Books,
published two years later.
" R. B." has publicly confessed that writing
about books is his very favourite form of work.
And the resulting essays read like it. They
are the spontaneous, friendly discourses of a
bookman. Take the article (from My
Favourite Books} on " Bed Books :
"If the reading of good books is ever sinful,
it is at meal-times. He who reads at meal-
times treats his meal and his digestion with
discourtesy, and puts upon his author the
affront of a divided allegiance. But to read
in bed ! That is a good man's virtue, the
innocent indulgence of the well-deserving.
Therefore gossip about bed books will ever
be acceptable to the just. And the wise man
will show a nice discrimination in the choice
of his literary nightcap. It is a case of means
and ends. A man might write about bed
books until he sent his readers to sleep, yet
would get no ' forrader ' unless he followed
some logical plan.
" Do you want to go to sleep or to keep
awake ? That is the question. Are you a
reader, or only one who reads ? Do you love
books, or would you e'en be snoring ?
156 Robert 'Blatchford
" A gentleman, look you, would fain go to
sleep like a gentleman. That is leisurely,
kindly, with a grateful smile to Goodman
Day, his host that is, and a graceful greeting
to Mistress Night, his hostess that is to be.
None but a boor would turn his back upon the
sun in churlish haste, and jump into the arms
of Morpheus neck and crop, like a seal rolling
off an ice-floe. Therefore, a gentleman reads
before he goes to sleep.
" The ideal bed book should be small,
printed in good type, not too boisterous, not
too sad ; an old friend. Then, with a mild,
clear light, a pipe, and something in a tumbler,
a man may court happiness and win her; and
the malice of the gods and follies of the flesh
shall fret his soul no more.
" The best bed book I know is Spenser's
poems. That is a book you cannot fully
appreciate in the workaday hours. Only in the
silence of the night can one hear the murmur
of its song, like the regular irregularity, the
ordered wildness, and charming cadence of a
brook." After which, " R. B. " quotes some lines
from the Prothalamian to uphold his claim for
Spenser.
It is remarkable, when you consider the
facts of Mr. Blatchford's life and training,
how strongly the Greeks and Latins are repre-
sented in the counsels of his book-room.
I have said elsewhere that " R. B.'s " real
More Quotes 157
interest in books began when he left the Army
and got hold of Carlyle. He followed up
Carlyle with Emerson, Sterne, and Rabelais.
When he was about thirty he met with Sir
Thomas Browne, Morte d* Arthur, Keats,
Shelley, Montaigne, Plutarch, Whitman, The
Conscript, Browning, Smiles 's Selp Help (for
which book he has always entertained a serious
veneration), and Swinburne.
He had begun to read Shakespeare at
twenty-six.
"I discovered Walter Scott at forty-five,"
" R. B." once told me. He began to read the
Greeks and Latins at forty, and they have
formed the staple of his literary diet ever since.
He had never happened on the Odyssey
until about two years ago, and he was a happy
man for weeks when he had found it. Darwin,
who is one of " R. B.'s " great literary heroes,
ca.me to him at forty.
As to the authors who have most influenced
him, he gives this list :
Dickens, Plato, Carlyle, Darwin, Ruskin,
Sterne, Emerson, Smiles.
Authors who have influenced him in a lesser
degree are
Gilbert White, Defoe, Bunyan, Thackeray,
Sir T. Browne, Milton, Shakespeare, Lamb,
Leigh Hunt, "The Poets," and " The
Greeks."
All these friends, or nearly all of them, find
158 Robert 'Blatchford
a niche in the books about books, together with
a mixed company of moderns, varying in
character from Stevenson to Mrs. Meynell. If
you want to gather an idea of the remarkable
variety of Mr. Blatchford's book-lore, read
the paper in A Book About Books called " The
Little People."
Here is a long quotation (yes, I must do it)
from an essay in defence of books about books.
It exhibits, I think, very clearly the peculiar
charm, the grave good-humour, real learn-
ing, and fine discrimination which Mr. Blatch-
ford brings to this sort of writing :
" What literary pope is responsible for the
bull by whose authority ' books about books '
are excommunicated ?
" Is the damnatory edict older than
Montaigne? It is, at any rate, as old, for in
his essay, 'Of Experience,' Montaigne says:
' There is more ado to interpret interpreta-
tions than to interpret things; and more books
upon books than upon any other subject; we
do nothing but comment upon one another.
Every place swarms with commentaries; of
authors there is great scarcity.'
" The evil that men write lives after them.
This, which Montaigne said in his haste, many
a callow ready-writer repeats glibly at his
leisure, and a commodity of yea-forsooth
cynics, fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils,
now scrawl flagrantly ?bove the portals of one
More Quotes 159
of the most tranquil and leafy by-ways of
belles lettres the sour legend, ' Abandon hope,
all ye who enter here.'
" Nevertheless, fear not, gentle reader. Let
our latter-day Zal and Rustum bluster as they
will, but heed not thou.
With us along the strip of herbage strown,
That just divides the desert from the sown,
Where name of pope and pressman is forgot,
And peace to Montaigne on his purple throne.
" To return to the knight of Bordeaux.
That is a quaint distinction which he implies.
Of commentators there are swarms; of authors
great scarcity ! A commentator, then, is not
an author. He who interprets placket holes,
devil worship, the Scandinavian mythus, or
the reasons why monks love to be in kitchens,
is free of the literary guild; he who interprets
books is outside benefit of clergy; even the
hospitable Montaigne has slammed the door
in his face, and the literary whippersnapper,
who retails the wooden nutmegs of his
imagination as the delectable spice of fiction,
or ekes out a harmful unnecessary existence by
scribbling impertinences about society big-
wigs, has stabbed the poor outcast with the
leathern dagger of his wit, or shot him flying
with a paper bullet of the brain.
" You may rip your quill to a feather over
small-beer chronicles, write sonnets to your
mistress's eyebrow, babble of green fields,
160 Robert ftlatchford
extract metaphysical moonshine from green
cucumbers, split the ears of the groundlings
with windy passions, wash out human nature's
dirty linen in the market-place, or clog Fleet
Ditch with ' the spawn of the press on the
follies of the hour,' and be the classic of a
season; ay, and have your foibles chronicled
in M.A.P., and your seven ages of portraiture
blazoned in the sixpenny magazines. But,
though you speak in books about books with
the tongues of men and angels, it shall avail
you nothing. An angel you may be, but you
shall be written down, as Shelley was by
Matthew Arnold, as ' an ineffectual angel,
beating in the void your luminous wings in
vain.' Nay, is it not possible that Solomon
in all his glory has been misreported, and that
what he actually said was, ' Of making books
about books there is no end ' ?
" But, what the good year ! Are we men, or
mice ? Shall we, being free-born British book-
makers, writers of books about books, allow
a dead Frenchman to come betwixt the wind
and our nobility? Shall the excellent Sieur
de Montaigne, who wrote of books himself,
and, to speak brotherly of him, sometimes
wrote of them but dully, stand, like an awful
constable on point duty, and with the raised
arm of authority invidiously halt our chariot
only, under plea of regulating public traffic ?
I say no. I will, like the eloquent counsel of
More Quotes 161
Mrs. Bardell, 'appeal to an enlightened, a
high-minded, a right-feeling, a conscientious,
a dispassionate, a sympathising, a contempla-
tive jury of my fellow-countrymen.'
" There can be but one sound reason for
avoiding a book about books, and that is
because the book is not a good one a reason
that will serve equally well for avoiding what
Oliver Wendell Holmes calls 'broken-winded
novels, and spavined verses.' If Montaigne
disliked the commentators of his time, we may
be sure they deserved it, and it is no part of
my case to defend every fusty pedant and
prosy bore who may, in past times, have mis-
used some honest author by thumping him like
a 'drum ecclesiastic/ or have wearied an un-
willing congregation with his tedious homilies.
There are, I admit, amongst the higher ranks
of English literature, several captains of
renown whose solemn and authoritative
utterances on books might be lost or burned
without serious check to the gaiety of nations.
That delightful old humbug, Fadladeen, who
serves as comic interlude between the scenes in
Lalla Rookh y is the very type of the literary
bore in a full-bottomed wig who trampled with
elephantine feet all over some poet's garden,
measuring dimensions with his land-surveyor's
chain, pompously declaring that Shakespeare
was longer, Spenser broader, this more oval,
that more square, and neither conformable to
M
162 Robert 'Blatchford
the classic pattern of Horace or of Virgil. No
reader, no writer, will trouble about the men-
suration of these robustious, periwig-pated,
queer old fogies. It is not the dimensions of
the garden, but the colour and perfume of the
flowers that we prize. And why may not you,
or I, or he, or she, loiter awhile in some shady
walk, or rest a little in some musky arbour, or,
plucking a rose for our own pleasure, call to
a friend to mark its beauty ? ' '
Is it not worth while to have called for an
"encore" to that pretty piece of writing?
There will not be anything much better to read
in to-day's paper, 7 know.
Chapter XVI. The
" Thunder <Books"
NOW let us consider, so briefly as may
be, the thunder-books God and My
Neighbour and Not Guilty.
Mr. Blatchford's reputation with the outside
public with the "Socialists? I'd like to shoot
'em!" type of person is based almost
entirely upon these contributions to rationalist
and determinist literature. I knew Mr. Blatch-
ford when he was writing the two books I have
named I watched him writing them, you may
say; and therefore I know with what deep
earnestness and with how high a purpose he set
himself to the task. But I also know that he
did not enjoy the task not one little bit. He
did enjoy writing the books about books and
Tales for the Marines, and Fantasias, and the
Dolly Ballads. These the "outside public"
has never read. Which is a great pity, because
you cannot properly estimate the worth of a
man's arguments without some grasp of his
premises.
But it is no use arguing about it. Our
people have no use for dulcimers, and they
love the big drum, and that is all about it.
164 Robert IMatchford
In God and My 'Neighbour, " R. B." rolled
them a roll which kept them quick marching
atheists, priests, scientists, divines, and
common scoffers for more than two years.
God and My Neighbour woke them up.
When Mr. Blatchford's first article in con-
demnation of certain Christian dogmas
appeared in the Clarion, many readers of the
paper became highly agitated. When the
second article was printed, this agitation
turned to horror. Then came the final and
most crushing blow. Mr. Blatchford caused
it to be known that his little " baggage action "
was not really a baggage action at all, being,
in fact, a full-blown, double-breasted cam-
paign, "to be continued'* in the paper week
by week for an indefinite period.
The feeling which now agitated the bosoms
of the afflicted was one of blank dismay.
Socialists all over England went into mourn-
ing, and told each other that Socialism would
die was dead; Nunquam had killed it.
And how had Nunquam killed Socialism?
Had he recanted aught of his opinions ? Had
he eaten, so to speak, of swine flesh ? Had he
joined the Liberty and Property Defence
League, or accepted a knighthood ? Not then,
at all events. Perhaps he had been seen to
enter a first-class railway compartment, wear-
ing c tall hat ? Perhaps there was truth in the
rumour that he truckled to class prejudice by
T THS
TIMS.
The " Thunder 'Books " 165
adorning his extremities with spats? No;
these charges were not under consideration.
They might be true, and, if so, every earnest
democrat would doubtless give them the
serious attention which they merited. But
they were not present in our minds when we
asserted that Nunquam had killed Socialism.
What had Nunquam done, then, to warrant
our despair ? Friends, he had .... told the
truth!
Sensible people, therefore, did not allow
themselves to be worried with fears for
Socialism. How can the truth any sort of
truth kill Socialism? You cannot quench
fire with fire nor mop up water with water. You
cannot kill truth with truth.
But there was another and more personal
danger in the situation which I, at any rate,
viewed with some apprehension. This was the
danger that Mr. Blatchford's latest frontal
attack on the Citadel of Lies should damage
his reputation, in the worldly sense, and inflict
a monetary loss upon the Clarion. All adver-
tisers are not Socialists, and all persons who
profess Socialism are not necessarily wise and
just. And so, while one did not fear for
Socialism, one did fear that the fortunes of
the Clarion, regarded as a journalistic venture,
might be seriously affected by the courage and
candour of its Editor. And, like many other
people, I discussed the matter with him. It is
166 Robert 'Blatchford
only honest to mention that my interest in the
Clarion's finances was not purely platonic.
The paper then owed me three guineas.
But we need not have worried. Before half-
a-dozen of the articles had appeared people
came joyfully to realise that their fears had
been baseless. Whilst admiring Mr. Blatch-
ford's qualities as a. thinker and a writer, one
is sometimes apt to forget that he is also a
journalist. He is also the possessor of a rare
form of sensitiveness that which is sensitive
to the sensitiveness of others. And so it
happened that the articles were characterised
by a wonderful restraint in the writing of them
born of a keen sense of the journalistic fit-
ness of things, and a most graceful and
goodly restraint in the spirit, and form, and
" feel " of them. The journalistic instinct
was not responsible for that.
God and My Neighbour is, as it were, the
rarified extract, the chemical resultant, of
these brilliant Clarion articles. It is, I think,
the sanest, gentlest, most honest and con-
vincing book on its subject which I have ever
read. Its opposition to conventional
Christianity is so logically founded and so
logically expressed.
The literary qualities of the book its
craftsmanship must be admired even by
Christians. These same qualities, I think, will
also appeal strongly to those readers whose
The " Thunder "Books " 167
acquaintance with the literature of Agnos-
ticism is most wide. My own reading in that
line has been lamentably restricted; but the
mere fact that God and My Neighbour at once
imbued me with an unquenchable thirst for
further knowledge on the same subject is, I
think, a sufficient proof of its propagandist
value.
You see, I did not approach God and My
Neighbour wkh any preconception of awe and
reverence. I did not say to myself : " This is
the Gospel according to Blatchford; let us,
therefore, believe on it." I took the book for
what it set out to be an exposition of the
arguments and facts which have led Mr.
Blatchford, together with a vast number of
other intelligent men, to form the opinion that
" Christianity is not true." I delivered the
volume into the hands of all the scholarly
and earnest Christians of my acquaintance,
and requested them to pick holes in it. You
may be sure that they did not fail to attempt
this feat, but with an assurance none too
marked. The book impressed them with a
sense of its power. They saw that this was no
case of the eager apostate blaspheming in his
wrath. Here was something lucid, and
definite, and complete, and strong. The calm,
deliberate masterfulness of the whole perform-
ance gave them pause. This book did not
content itself with appealing to their reason.
1 68 Robert Watch ford
It appealed to their reason in terms which their
reason could comprehend in a manner, more-
over, so simple and direct that it offered no
man a loophole for believing that he did not
comprehend. This book was powerful. This
book was interesting. This book was new.
When you say that a book is powerful, and
interesting, and new, you say that it is litera-
ture. To interest and refresh and command
the mind is the mission of literature. Mr.
Blatchford's book does these things most
excellently well, and that is why I say that it
is the literary qualities of the work which
fascinate me most. I am not referring particu-
larly to Mr. Blatchford's style I shall have a
word or two to say about that later. I look
at this book as a book, and I am filled with
admiration at the wonderful craftsmanship
which has gone to its making.
I say quite frankly that many of the argu-
ments in this book, much of the science and
philosophy, have been borrowed from other
writers. But I will tell you what has not
been borrowed, and that is the art which
has set these old truths forth in such wise
that a child might read them with under-
standing, and a grown man with pleasure
and profit. I will tell you of another thing
which has not been borrowed, and that is the
art which has pieced, and separated, and
joined, and re-joined these truths in such wise
The " Thunder 'Books " 169
as to form a whole which is almost perfect in
logic and completeness, and that arrestive
faculty which we call "power." There are
yet other qualities which have not been
borrowed. These are humanity, great
simplicity, abiding honesty; and there re-
mains, finally, the most intangible, and yet
the most important, feature of all the per-
sonality, the mysterious "ego," of the thing.
Only Mr. Blatchford might explain that
mystery. I am quite certain that he will not,
however, and I am not sure that he could.
Have I made clear my meaning that this
book fascinates one, not by reason of the
originality of its purpose and material, but by
virtue of its wonderful construction and per-
fect design and its simple strength ?
My favourite chapter in this book is called
"The Parting of the Ways." There are two
paragraphs in it which, I think, convey the
whole spirit and purpose of the book. In-
cidentally, I think, also, they show us some-
thing of the author :
(1) ". . . . If there is a Father in Heaven,
He is likely to be better pleased by our loving
and serving our fellow creatures (His children)
than by our singing and praying to Him, while
our brothers and sisters (His children) are
ignorant, or brutalised, or hungry, or in
trouble.
(2) "I speak as a father myself when I say
170 Robert 'Blatchford
that I should not like to think that one of my
children would be so foolish and so unfeeling
as to erect a marble tomb to my memory while
the others needed a friend or a meal. And I
speak in the same spirit when I add that to
build a cathedral, and to spend our tears and
pity upon a Saviour who was crucified nearly
two thousand years ago, while women and men
and little children are being crucified in our
midst, without pity and without help, is cant,
and sentimentality, and a mockery of God."
You will observe that the second of the
paragraphs which I quote contains more than
one hundred words. You will also observe
that this number includes but eight words of
Latin origin, and four of those ("crucified,"
"cathedral," etc.) are essential to the text.
This leaves us four words to divide among
a hundred one Latinism to twenty-five words.
I have not specially selected that paragraph.
You will find the same amazing store of good
Saxon in any other sentence or paragraph in
the book. This feature of his writing alone is
sufficient to single out Mr. B latch ford as a
stylist of rare worth. But Mr. Blatchford's
method of writing has many other virtues
crispness, lucidity, "bite," "grip," and the
much-worshipped and much-wooed " short
sentence." Mr. Blatchford's style is all style.
All that I have written about God and My
Neighbour applies in a general sense to Not
The\ " Thunder Books " 171
Guilty which is, in a sense, a continuation of
the first book. In Not Guilty the arguments upon
which Mr. B latch ford builds up the case for
his neighbour are carried to their logical con-
clusion. Not Guilty is Determinism reduced
to Anglo-Saxon. Mr. Blatchford calls his
book "The Case for the Bottom Dog." He
tells us things which have been familiar
commonplaces to philosophers throughout the
ages, but which most of us are ignorant about
because we cannot read the language which
philosophers will talk. In an " apology ' '
which prefaces Not Guilty, " R. B." states the
whole Determinist position in two or three
hundred words. The rest of his book is
devoted to establishing and defending that
position.
"Knowing," he says, "as I do, how the
hard-working and hard-playing public shun
laborious thinking and serious writing, and
how they hate to have their ease disturbed or
their prejudices handled rudely, I still make
bold to undertake this task, because of the
vital nature of the problems I shall probe.
" Much golden eloquence has been
squandered in praise of the successful and the
good; much stern condemnation has been
vented upon the wicked. I venture now to
plead for those of our poor brothers and sisters
who are accursed of Christ and rejected of
men.
172 Robert Watchford
" Hitherto all the love, all the honours, all
the applause of this world, and all the rewards
of heaven, have been lavished on the fortunate
and the strong; and the portion of the un-
friended Bottom Dog, in his adversity and
weakness, has been curses, blows, chains, the
gallows, and everlasting damnation.
" I shall plead, then, for those who are
loathed and tortured and branded as the sin-
ful and unclean; for those who have hated us
and wronged us, and have been wronged and
hated by us. I shall defend them for right's
sake, for pity's sake, and for the benefit of
society and the race. For these also are of
our flesh, these also have erred and gone
astray, these also are victims of an inscrutable
and relentless Fate.
"If it concerns us that the religions of the
world are childish dreams, or nightmares; if
it concerns us that our penal laws and moral
codes are survivals of barbarism and fear; if it
concerns us that our most cherished and
venerable ideas of our relations to God and
to each other are illogical and savage,
then the case for the Bottom Dog concerns
us nearly.
" Rightly or wrongly, happily or unhappily,
but with all the sincerity of my soul, I shall
here deny the justice and reason of every kind
The "Thunder Books" 173
of blame and praise, of punishment and
reward human or divine.
" Divine law the law made by priests and
attributed to God consists of a code of
rewards and punishments for acts called good
or bad. Human law the law made by Kings
and Parliaments consists of a code of punish-
ments for acts called criminal, or unlawful.
" I claim that men should not be classified
as good and bad, but as fortunate and un-
fortunate; that they should be pitied, and not
blamed; helped instead of being punished.
" I claim that since we do not hold a man
worthy of praise for being born beautiful, nor
of blame for being born ugly, neither should
we hold him worthy of praise for being born
virtuous, nor of blame for being born vicious.
"I base this claim upon the self-evident
and undeniable fact that man has no part in
the creation of his own nature.
"I shall be told this means that no man is
answerable for his own acts.
" That is exactly what it does mean.
" But, it will be urged, every man has a free
will to act as he chooses; and to deny that is
to imperil all law and order, all morality and
discipline.
"I deny both these inferences, and I ask
the reader to hear my case patiently, and to
judge it on its merits.
"Let us first test the justice of our laws,
174 Robert 'Blatchford
divine and human : the question of their use-
fulness we will deal with later.* '
As for that which follows, I think that it is
a complete and absolutely unanswerable pre-
sentation of the Determinist case. All sorts of
people, ranging in degrees of knowledge and
attainment from Nonconformist ministers to
Mr. G. K. Chesterton, took up the challenge
and upheld the theory of free will according
to their several abilities. But Mr. Blatchford's
case, I think, remains unshaken.
Don't you think it curious that Mr. Blatch-
ford should have written Not Guilty? It
seems so absurd and improbable a performance
to come from a man who has written Tales for
the Marines and the Dolly Ballads and
articles about Dreadnoughts. Well, my friends,
the truth of the matter is that "R. B." is an
improbable sort of man.
Some of "R. B.'s" actions, however, are not
nearly so improbable as it suits his kind critics
to pretend. Just as this book proceeds to press
a sudden noise arises, emanating from some
articles which "R. B?' has written "in the
Capitalist Press." These articles relate to the
very important question of Anglo-German
relations and to the danger which all intelli-
gent persons know to be actual, and which
many people believe to be imminent, of a con-
flict between this country and Germany.
Most of the noise is being produced by
The " Thunder 'Books " 175
"critics" who share Mr. Blatchford's own
economic views. These gentlemen, with many
thumps on the tablecloth, are denouncing
" R. B." as a traitor and impostor, and are
charging him (as is their critical way) with
having sold the movement and himself to "the
Capitalists."
Now, all this affretation of surprise and
indignation is surely somewhat uncalled for.
My friend has for years made no secret of his
Imperialist sympathies : he has for years pro-
claimed quite openly his deep conviction that
aggressive designs against this country are
cherished in Berlin. He has written on these
matters in the Clarion for so long, at any rate,
as I have known him. But now that he has
chosen to say the same things to another and
a wider audience, he is charged with incon-
sistency, with treachery, with malice nay,
more: with being actuated by the basest of
motives.
The people who do this to Mr. Blatchford
are dishonest. He has never hesitated in the
past to make use of " the Capitalist Press " for
such propagandist purposes as seemed useful
to him. When those purposes have been agree-
able to the prejudices of Mr. Blatchford's
" friends " it has been very well ; but when, as
now, they happen to conflict with the placid
beliefs of these gentlemen, my friend is accused
of inconsistency, of worse. Why? If he
176 Robert 'Blatchford
may write about the obvious significance of
German military preparations in the Clarion,
he may write on the same subject in the Daily
Mail. If (as he has done) he may write about
Socialism in the Daily Mail, why is he not to
write about militarism, or any other "ism," in
the Daily Mail?
The bitter opposition which these articles
have provoked from Mr. Blatchford's erstwhile
friends is compensated for by the appreciation
which they have wrung from his erstwhile
enemies. This fact again gives rise to curious
reflections.
When "R. B" published God and My
Neighbour and Not Guilty, those books were
ignored or pooh-poohed by the "respectable"
papers. It was carefully explained to the
readers of such journals that Mr. Blatchford
was a "demagogue": a shallow, catch-penny
sensationalist, whose writings were addressed
to the vulgar and credulous mob. " Cultured "
people were not to be troubled by them.
But directly Mr. Blatchford concerns him-
self with matters which do not affect the selfish
interests of " cultured people," we learn that he
is a deep thinker and a trenchant writer. His
"German" articles have elicited letters of
praise and congratulation from half the social
and intellectual "swells" in England. From
judges, lawyers, generals, admirals and
savants. Yea, even from the clergy.
The " Thunder 'Books " i77
It is the revolutionaries, the " unrespectables,"
who now find Mr. Blatchford a demagogue
and a sensationalist.
Well, it is clear that a man who is capable of
commanding applause or censure at will from
the extremes of Society is a remarkable man.
In my next and concluding chapter I shall
try to tell you just what sort of man he is.
N
Chapter XVIL 'Per-
sonalities
WHEN I first set eyes on Mr. Blatchford
only the top of him was visible. He
stood behind a mahogany counter
and looked me up and down with eyes which
were very big and very black and very
calm. He wore (and wears) a heavy black
moustache, of the type which was once in
fashion amongst Oriental despots. This
ornament entirely screens his mouth, and on
meeting him for the first time and arguing
from the particular to the general, you
naturally imagine that he has a despotic mouth
to match : which is not the case. He has a
chin, mind you, and a jaw not at all the sort
of jaw which it is useful to fall over but his
mouth, as may be seen in the youthful photo-
graphs we have printed, is not terrible.
I stood, as it were, on the safe side of the
counter, and returned the gaze. I tried to tell
myself that I did not falter; that boldly and
deliberately, according to the arrangement
which I had come to with myself, I scrutinised
this man and took his measure in guineas. You
i8o Robert 'Blatchford
must understand that at this time I knew but
this much of " R. B." : that he was "one of
these Socialist beggars," and had written me a
letter respecting a book which I had published,
and offering to print some of my stories in the
Clarion. Therefore did it behove me to view
him with a bold and mathematical eye; but
when he actually appeared and faced me, like
that, with those eyes, his shoulders square, and
his fist on the counter, I do not believe that I
thought about guineas at all.
Suddenly the man's jaw dropped, after a
manner peculiarly its own, and the noble
moustachio cocked itself sideways and
behold ! the man behind the counter was
smiling. He also spoke.
*' So you wrote so-and-so," he said. " Ha ! >:
I also said " Ha ! " It seemed to be the
jolly and appropriate thing to say. Then
"R. B." said: "Let's go out and have a
drink."
We went out, and stopped out, and talked
about Karl Marx and Love and Rudyard
Kipling, and the pianola, and marriage, and
tobacco, and Sir Thomas Browne, and Mr.
Chamberlain. We walked about Fleet Street
and beheld the aristocracy of intellect, and
wondered what it felt like to wear that sort of
tie. When Mr. Blatchford had missed a
respectable number of trains, we separated. I
saw him off by the train which he did not miss,
Personalities 181
and as it drew out of the station he put his
head through the window-opening and called
out :
" By the way forgot to mention it send us
in some stories; don't forget."
That, I think, is a full and verbatim report
of the business portion of our conversation
that afternoon.
You may suppose that I thought a good deal
about " R. B." that evening, and so far as I am
now able to remember, the personal feature
which most impressed me was his remarkable
gift of phraseology. (I had been touched, of
course, by the kindness and sympathy which
he had shown to me that day. But that is the
sort of reminiscence which one does not put
into books.) I had been invigorated by his
rich and spontaneous humour, and I had not
failed to observe how honest, determined, and
altogether definite a person he was. But the
characteristic which, as I say, most impressed
itself upon my youthful fancy was " R. B.'s "
remarkable way of talking.
Men who write well do not always talk well.
Good writing is normally the result of infinite
care and labour, and, therefore, produces
itself slowly. But in conversation it is not
possible, or at any rate desirable, to make long
pauses between words while you look about
for exactitudes of expression. The writer
has been trained to work in this leisurely
182 Robert Blatchford
fashion, and his verbal utterances, therefore,
are often either halting or imperfect. But
" R. B." alone among all the authors I have
ever known talks exactly as he writes plain,
Saxon words, which exactly convey his mean-
ing, and which he forms without effort into
perfectly-modelled sentences. I have never
heard him tell a story or utter an opinion
which was not expressed naturally and without
effort in what is called literary form. To
speak of " R. B." as a "born writer," then, is
to utter more than an empty phrase; for
"R. B.'s " literary gifts are to a remarkable
degree instinctive.
Mr. B latch ford is obviously a desirable com-
panion. He is a man of very wide and
genuine culture, and he is "very noticing/* as
they say of the children. His sincerity and
earnestness, his hatred of sham, his strong
logical faculty, his irrepressible humour, com-
bine to make him an irresistible " talker ' ' even
from the academic standpoint. But he shines
forth even more brilliantly as a gossip and
playfellow. No subject is too simple or
ordinary too beastly human for " R. B.'s "
consideration; no pastime too useless for his
amusement. I have sat for hours by his side
on the sea-shore shying stones at a bottle (and
hitting it once to his twenties, be it said); I
have lain on my chest throughout a summer's
day and shot at postcards and clay pipes with
Personalities 183
an air-gun in strenuous competition with the
author of Not Guilty. I have helped to dress
and burnt-cork that gentleman for the delecta-
tion of his trembling family into a terrible
representation of the Terrible Turk. I have
taught him how to play word-diamonds. On
the other hand, I have discussed with him not
merely Free Trade, Free Love, the Nebular
theory, and Progressive Revelation, but also
sea-sickness, Bath buns, the Tam-o'-Shanter
Girl, and Surrey versus Yorkshire.
It is a curious fact and one which gives rise
to all sorts of considerations respecting the
nuances of friendship that " R. B." entertains
one more, if anything, during his occasional
fits of depression and boredom than when he is
well and wicked. This is not because it
amuses one to see " R. B." unhappy, but
because he takes his unhappiness so happily.
His humour is never so keen, so whimsical,
and, withal, so wistful as upon those occasions
when he is out of conceit with the universe.
When Mr. Blatchford "humps himself," as
he calls it, his hair turns two degrees more
grey a temporary phenomenon his counten-
ance assumes a vivid blueness; he sits very
close to the fire, with rounded shoulders, and
he maketh sport. I remember finding him
in the fender, as it were, on one of his
moody 'days two years ago. He looked
up as I entered the room, nodded grimly,
184 Robert 'Blatchford
pulled at his pipe, and resumed his close
inspection of the hob. After some moments
of silent meditation he spoke. "How long
is it to April ? " he inquired, with extreme
gravity.
"Nine weeks/* I answered, after rapid
calculation.
" Oh ! " said " R. B." " I shall go out for a
short walk in April."
I do not want anybody to suppose that Mr.
Blatchford is in any way a "nervous subject."
He is a very healthy and vital person of
middle age. But he has fallen into an un-
fortunate habit of catching the influenza. You
know what that means. We have suggested
to him that he should ask permission from the
democracy to spend his winters in Italy or
Egypt ; but he scorns our suggestions. He has
never condescended to support this attitude by
argument, but it is generally supposed
amongst his convives that the snow-capped
hills and tinkling bells of Norwood have
captured his heart. My God, how they tinkle,
those bells ! There is a half -minute tram
service in constant operation exactly opposite
the editorial front door, and the bells thereof
form a subject of constant editorial profanity.
But the Old Man will not leave them.
Thus are we the creatures of our environ-
ment.
Although he cannot be persuaded to seek
Personalities 185
relief from bells and bacteria upon the shores
of the Mediterranean, that ocean is, neverthe-
less, the constant subject of Mr. Blatchford's
dreams. Water-colour painting is a favourite
pastime of his solitudes, and when the hump is
at its worst and the bells most loud and fre-
quent and the beauties of Norwood most
evident, he sends to the office for vast supplies
of cobalt blue, and you may imagine him, as I
have seen him, seated at his desk with tubes
of colour and stacks of brushes upon his either
flank, and Mediterraneans in various stages of
preparation opposing him. These paintings,
by the way, are characteristic of the man. I
have observed that all writers play at making
pictures just (I suppose) as artists play at
making poems. I have observed, also, that a
writer's pictures, even though they be crude or
merely grotesque, reflect in some queer, in-
definable way the literary qualities of him who
has produced them. Now, " R. B.'s " paint-
ings are not crude. I am more than usually
ignorant where pictures are concerned, and
therefore speak with diffidence; but, having
expressed that reservation, I make bold to say
that " R. B.'s " seascapes are pretty and grace-
ful and accomplished, and that they exhibit a
rich sense of colour. But whatever their
technical merits may be, there can, I think, be
no doubt that they possess qualities exactly
similar to those which distinguish his best
186 Robert 'Blatchford
literary work extreme simplicity and rigid
economy. All his pictures contain simply sea
and sky, and sometimes very rarely a sail.
You can take it or leave it at that. If you are
lucky, you take it.
I suppose, now, that it is up to one to write
about " R. B.'s " political temperament.
I have said somewhere that, in my view, he
is essentially that is to say, spiritually a
Tory. I stand by that declaration even at the
risk of having to convince Mr. Blatchford him-
self, by banging a table, of the truth of it.
It has always seemed to me that Toryism is
not so much a political condition of mind as
it is an emotional state. There is always this
difference between the Tory and the so-called
Liberal : the Tory is a spiritualist, seeking,
sometimes consciously, sometimes as the result
of sheer instinct, to defend and preserve those
things which are familiar to him and which he
reveres by virtue of association, tradition, and
sentiment. Your "Liberal/* upon the other
hand, trades in flour, and cannot for the life
of him understand why sentiment should be
mixed up with questions of business i.e.,
government. That those beliefs and customs
which the emotional Tory bleeds for at the
ballot-box are often barbarous and disgusting
is outside the scope of this inquiry, as is also
the fact that flour-dealers are often in the right
about water rates. The important thing is
Personalities 187
that one deals in sentiment and the other in
flour.
It is pure sentiment class sentiment which
inspires the squire of my parish (a retiring,
gentlemanly, ignorant man) to stand up in
schoolrooms and get very red and awkward in
defence of Christianity, the rights of property,
beer, etc. And I contend that it is an exactly
similar sentiment which is voiced by Mr.
Blatchford. The two men think along identi-
cal lines to opposite ends with the difference,
of course, that Mr. Blatchford thinks briskly
and definitely, whilst the squire's little brain
can scarcely hobble. Both men are passion-
ately in earnest; both men are sentimentalists,
devotedly attached to the traditions of their
class. Both men, as it were, are fighting about
poems. One man's poem is Tennyson's
Princess; the other man stands for The
Cottar's Saturday Night. There is persistent
divergence about the poems, but none at all
concerning poetry. Neither man cares tup-
pence for the flour trade.
Between these men there stand two other
men the flour-dealer, already introduced to
your notice, and the Revolutionary, the
rebel : he who has revolted with sword and
Blue Book ; he whose quarrel is not with a class
or with a system, but with all classes and all
systems; he whose mission is not so much to
despoil the squire and exalt that gentleman's
i88 Robert Elatchford
shepherd as to gently eliminate all squires and
all shepherds, and set gods in their places.
It is not for me (thank you) to judge
between these men and the impulses which
they represent. I desire merely to present
them as I see them, and incidentally to present
my reasons for calling " R. B." a "Tory."
But it is for me to point out that sentiment
is a far stronger thing than reason. When
Mr. Blatchford and the squire have arrived
at the respective ends of their single line, there
will be nothing for either gentleman to do but
walk back till he bumps the other unless you
conceive the line as being centrally pivoted, in
which case the voyager who first gets home
and I am putting my money on " R. B." will
only have to hold on tight till the other comes
after him by force, as it were, of natural
attrition. Whatever happens, there will be
either a sudden collision or gradual fusion of
all impulses collected on the line of sentiment.
The revolutionary and the flour-dealer will
have to do gymnastics on their own line. But
it is a short line, and carries a light weight
as compared to the other. It seems to me
that "R. B." and the squire, when they do
join up and have agreed to sing in a common
metre, will have it all their own way.
I leave my friend with confidence at his end
of the line. I wish him continued power,
determination, and endurance.
Personalities 189
I can wish him nothing else; for he has
already all things which are worth the wishing
of mortals. He has a woman and children of
his own; he has his sticks of cobalt blue; he
has the respect of all thinking men and the
affection of all gentlemen; he has the love of
all his friends; he has his piano and his tram
bells and his John Sebastien Bach. He has
the confidence and fellowship of a hundred
thousand disciples, and the songs of the
thrushes which he feeds each morning in his
garden.
THE END.
BOOKS BY THE CLARION PRESS,
44, WORSHIP STREET, LONDON, B.C.
By ROBERT BLATCHFORD.
MERRIE ENGLAND. By ROBERT BLATCHFORD. A New Edition.
Paper cover, 3d. ; by post 4d. Cloth, i/- ; by post 1/2.
" Metric England " first appeared as a series of articles in the CLARION in
1892-3. These articles, with some revisions and additions, were afterwards
produced in volume form at a shilling. The book met with immediate success,
some 25,000 copies being sold.
Iii October, 1894, the CLARION published the same book, uniform in size and
type with the shilling edition, at the low price of ONE PENNY. As the book
contained 206 pages, and was printed by trade-union labour, and on British-made
paper, it could only be produced at a loss. This loss was borne by the proprietors
of the CLARION.
The sale of the penny edition outran all expectations. No one supposed that
more than 100,000 would be called for, but in a few months over 700,000 had been
sold, without a penny being spent in advertisement, and in face of the tremendous
opposition excited by Socialistic publications in those days.
Later on an edition was published at 3d., and the total sale reached nearly a
million copies.
BRITAIN FOR THE BRITISH. A further exposition of Socialism.
Price 2/6 net ; by post, 2/9. Paper cover, 3d. ; by post, 4jd.
This book was written to take the place of " Merrie England," and has had a
sale of 300,000 copies. It deals with the problem of Socialism from a practical,
present day standpoint.
THE SORCERY SHOP: AN IMPOSSIBLE ROMANCE. Cloth,
1/6 net. ; by post, 1/9. Paper cover, 6d. net ; by post, 8d.
A BOOK ABOUT BOOKS. Cloth and gold, /6 net ; by post, 2/9.
MY FAVOURITE BOOKS. Cloth and gold, 2/6 net ; by post, 2/9.
DISMAL ENGLAND. Price, cloth and gold, 2/6 net ; by post, 2/9.
Vivid sketches of the life of the people at work and at play. Contains articles
on The Chemical Workers, The Chain Makers, The Song of the Shirt, Life on the
Canals, The Police Court, The Signalman, The Lion Tamer, etc., etc.
TOMMY ATKINS. A Military Novel. Price, cloth, 1/6 net ; post
free, 1/9. Paper, I/- net ; by post, 1/3.
Robert Blatchford served seven years in the Army, and rose to the rank ot
Sergeant. This experience furnished him with the material for a budget of soldier
stories, which are, by good judges, reckoned to be the best pictures of soldier life
yet drawn. "Sir Evelyn Wood sat up all night to read 'Tommy Atkins,' and
praised it highly."
TALES FOR THE MARINES. A New Book of Soldier Stories.
Price, cloth, 2/6 net ; by post, 2/9. Paper, I/- net ; by post, 1/2.
JULIE A Study of a Girl by a Man. A Story of Slum Life. Price,
cloth, 2/6 net ; by post, 2/9.
A SON OF THE FORGE. Price, cloth, 1/6 net ; by post, 1/8.
Paper, i/- net ; by post, 1/2.
Robert Blatchford's Crimean War Story. Some of the earlier incidents are
based on the author's own experiences.
GOD AND MY NEIGHBOUR. Price 2/6 cloth, net ; by post, 2/9.
Paper, 3d. ; by post, 4$d.
This is an examination of the claims of Christianity to be the one true religion.
It has created more controversy in the religious world than any book published
the last ten years. The author considers it still unanswered.
NOT GUILTY. A Defence of the Bottom Dog. Price, cloth, 2/6
net ; by post, 2/9. Paper covers, 6d. ; by post, 7id.
A BOHEMIAN GIRL. An Up-to-Date Love Story. Cloth and
gold, 2/6 net ; by post, 2/9.
DOLLY BALLADS. With 280 Illustrations by the late Frank
Chesworth. Price, cloth, 3/6 ; by post, 3/10.
By R. B. SUTHERS.
COMMON OBJECTIONS TO SOCIALISM ANSWERED. Price,
cloth, i/- net ; by post, 1/2. Paper, 3d. ; by post, 4id.
This deals with the common arguments met with in the press and on the plat-
form, e.g., That Socialism is based on the fallacy that Labour is the only source
of Wealth, That Socialism means Confiscation, That Socialism would destroy
Home Life, etc., etc. Full of facts, figures, and arguments. An invaluable hand-
book for students and speakers.
MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. The Case for Municipal Manage-
ment. Price, cloth, i/- net ; by post, 1/2. Paper covers, 6d. ;
by post, 7d.
Answers the arguments against municipal trading, explains why municipal
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J^AVE YOU SEEN
Women Folk
(Edited by W1N1FRID BLATCHFORD)
AND
The Clarion
(Edited by ROBERT BLATCHFORD)?
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