in good company 26

in good company 26

VI

 

At what I am now about to say of Edward Whymper, he would himself

either have hooted with cynical ridicule or else would have heard

with a slow and cold smile of amused scorn, but to me his was a sad,

gloomy, if not indeed a pathetic figure. I do not say this because

he was a lonely man--and in all life I have met no one who was

quite as lonely as he--but because he walked always in the shadow

of self. I am not implying that he was selfish, for he was not. In

his business transactions--albeit not an easy man to “best,” and

not above driving a hard bargain with those whom he distrusted--he

was not only as good as his word, but was the soul of integrity and

honour. Prepared as he was to fulfil his share of the contract to

the letter, he expected and required that others should do the same.

Yet when dealing with those who had treated him handsomely he could

be quixotically generous. Even to those to whom he owed nothing, he

did many unselfish kindnesses for which he expected no gratitude, and

was prepared to go unrequited. While the professional mendicant was

sternly and mercilessly shown the door, the deserving poor he was

always, if stealthily and secretly, ready to help.

 

Yet, looking back on him as I knew him all those years, I ask myself

whether there was really one being in the world who really “mattered”

to Edward Whymper, or by whose death his serenity would have been

disturbed. It was Robert Montgomery, I believe, who wrote a poem in

which he pictured the tragic loneliness of “the last man” left alone

in the world.

 

Had it been possible, by some such universal cataclysm as, say, a

world-wide earthquake, for every living creature, with one exception,

to perish off the face of the earth, and had Edward Whymper been that

one exception, I verily believe that, whistling softly to himself at

the wonder of it all, he would, with untrembling fingers, calmly have

filled and lit his pipe, and have sat down, were anything left to sit

upon, to contemplate the ruins of a world, and then, first of all, to

consider how to get his next meal, and, after that, to think out how

to accommodate himself to the unusual and inconvenient circumstances

in which he found himself. Nor would he have forgotten, with such

instruments as happened to be within reach, to take such astronomical

and meteorological bearings as he thought would prove valuable in the

interests of science.

 

It is of course preposterous and inconceivable to suppose any such

situation as I have imagined, and some of my readers may reasonably

suppose that I am either laughing at them or wishing them to laugh

at Whymper or myself. I assure them I am doing nothing of the

sort, for, with no inconsiderable knowledge of the man, I honestly

believe that in such circumstances he would have behaved exactly

as I have said. They are magnificent, those qualities of absolute

self-dependence, self-containment and self-contentment which Whymper

possessed, but to me at least and at times they seemed almost

superhuman. He walked, as I have said, in the shadow of self; was

content so to walk, and apparently had no conception of and no wish

to live a life to the happiness or sorrow of which it was in the

power of others to contribute. A man who can so isolate himself is

possibly to be envied, even if it never occurred to him that he is

also to be pitied. Yet in spite of the fact that he was perfectly

satisfied with his lot in life, and in living that life according to

the cut-and-dried system by which he ordered it, and in spite, too,

of the fact that he would have assured one that he was, and indeed

believed himself to be, a happy man, Edward Whymper was, as I have

said, not only the loneliest but the most pathetic human creature I

have ever known.

 

 

VII

 

Whymper’s comments upon his contemporaries and their work were

always exceedingly penetrative. Of some he spoke very generously but

never effusively, of others critically and of a few sarcastically.

I well remember the cynical smile with which he called my attention

to an inscription in a presentation volume. It had been sent to

him by a well-known writer, of whom I say no more than that he had

once held a very distinguished position in the Society of Authors.

The inscription ran: “To Edward Whymper, Esq. with the author’s

complements,” and as I write, I seem to see Whymper’s squarish finger

stubbed under the guilty “e” in compliments. No one did he seem to

hold in greater respect and regard than Mr. Edward Clodd, of whom

he once spoke to me as “not only a profound thinker and scholar and

brilliant writer, but a loyal and true friend and the intimate

associate of many of the great men of our time.” I remember once

inviting Whymper to be my guest at a dinner in town, and mentioning

that Clodd was to be of the party.

 

“You know,” said he, “how generally I hum and ha when anyone asks me

to a function or a dinner, and that I’d rather at any time dine on

bread and cheese and in pyjamas (which he often wore in the house)

here in Southend than be at the trouble of getting into a black coat

and journeying up to London to eat a ten-course dinner. But, if Clodd

is to be one of your guests, I’m your man.”

 

I had only three guests, Whymper, Mr. Clodd, and Mr. Warwick Deeping,

and the two older men who had not met for a very long time had so

much to say about celebrities who were the friends of both, and

of historic former meetings, that Deeping (always a silent man by

choice) and myself (host though I was) were content for the most part

to listen. Apart from his wish to see an old friend whom he held in

great respect, Whymper had, if I am not mistaken, another and more

personal reason for accepting my invitation to meet Clodd at dinner,

which is why I refer to that otherwise unimportant function.

 

And this brings me to a somewhat painful incident of which, when

Whymper was alive, I was occasionally reminded, always to his

disparagement, by literary friends. If I touch briefly upon it here,

it is not because I wish to rake up an old story, which, inasmuch as

it concerns two distinguished men who are both dead, might very well

be forgotten, but because since Whymper’s death it has again been

going the rounds, and because I have an explanation to put forward in

regard to what happened.

 

Whymper was on a certain occasion--it is no use mincing

matters--unpardonably rude to one whom Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once

described to me as “the most modest, the most unassuming, and at

the same time the most learned man I have ever known”--the late

Grant Allen. It was my privilege to know and to be the guest of

Grant Allen in his home, and I am of opinion that he was not only

the most modest, most unassuming, and most learned, but also the

gentlest, most generous, and most lovable of men. Meeting Whymper at

a dinner--I was not present, but in common, I expect, with some of

my readers I have heard the story often--Allen quite innocently, and

never dreaming that the question could give offence, asked Whymper

concerning the historic accident on the Matterhorn, to be told curtly

that the accident was his own business, and he did not choose to

discuss it.

 

Unpardonably rude, as I have said, as such a reply was, and to such a

man as Allen, that rudeness is, I fancy, capable of explanation. To

those who knew Whymper only slightly and--overlooking the sensitive

breathing nostrils, so wide and circular at the opening--saw only

the cold hardness of his face and eyes, the rat-trap-like snap of

mouth and jaw, he seemed a man of iron; and this impression the story

of his indomitable courage, his dogged determination to succeed

where others had failed, went far to confirm. That such a man, a man

rough-hewn as he seemed out of block granite, and with sinews of

steel, could be cognisant of the fact that he had “nerves,” much

less could suffer from them, would occur to no one. None the less, I

happen to know that the shock of that tragedy in early life among the

Alps, when, powerless to help them, he had to stand inactively by and

see his companions hurled to certain death, left its mark upon him

to the end of his life, and was sometimes re-enacted in his dreams.

In his later years, when his iron constitution began to weaken and

when his nerves were less steady than of old, any sudden reference to

that early tragedy would, in his more irritable moments, annoy and

anger him, and I am convinced that it was in such conditions his rude

and surly rebuff to Grant Allen was spoken. That Whymper afterwards

regretted it I have reason to know. I believe that it was because

Clodd was the close and devoted friend of Allen, and had, moreover,

been present when the rebuff was administered, and had been pained

by it, that Whymper was anxious to meet Clodd, either for the reason

that--indifferent as he generally was to what others thought of

him--he was for once anxious to efface any bad impression that the

incident had created, or because he hoped to have some opportunity of

speaking of Allen (he was too proud a man to have written to Allen

direct) in such a way as to mend matters.

 

That this is not mere surmise on my part I am convinced from what

I have myself heard Whymper say and from the way he afterwards

spoke of Allen. He was, as I say, a proud man, a taciturn man, and

sometimes a rude man, but at heart he was just; and unnecessarily and

undeservedly to have given pain to another troubled him as much, if

not more, than anything _could_ trouble one whom few things outside

himself could affect.

 

Since writing the above I ventured to submit a draft of this paper to

my friend Mr. Clodd, whose very interesting reply I have permission

to quote as written:

 

MY DEAR KERNAHAN,

 

I read the enclosed last night. Like Cromwell, Whymper would say,

“Paint me, warts and wrinkles and all,” and you have done as he

would have wished, producing a faithful and withal sympathetic

portrait.

 

I have just queried an obscure sentence here and there, but

have not touched the punctuation, which I presume has had your

attention in the original.

 

I don’t know whether the Tennyson story has appeared in print.

Edmund Gosse told it to me years back. Of course the son wouldn’t

admit anything conveying an idea of his father’s gruffness. When

I referred to the _Life_ as a Biography, Meredith said to me,

“Don’t call it that: ’tis only a Eulogy.” What I now remember

about the Allen rebuff is that Whymper had been lecturing in

various places, and that Allen--who was thinking of making money

that way--asked him about his fees. And this Whymper wouldn’t

tell him. On the same occasion, Hardy being of the company,

Whymper narrated in detail the Matterhorn catastrophe, which gave

Hardy the impetus to a sonnet. Whymper was the only man Hardy

ever expressed the desire to meet again--hence their coming to me

in the Easter of 1910.

 

You truly assess him as a lonely man, but there was a soft place

under a hard shell, and this comes out in the tenderness towards

children and all helpless things of which you speak. I am glad to

have your witness to his liking for me. His visits to me remain a

cherished memory.

 

Yours sincerely,

EDWARD CLODD.

 

I was under the impression, before receiving Mr. Clodd’s very

interesting letter, and from what Grant Allen told me of the rebuff,

that it was the latter’s question about the Matterhorn which caused

the trouble. But the incident happened under Mr. Clodd’s roof, and

his memory is not likely to fail him. Possibly Allen had already

annoyed Whymper by asking to be told the story of the Matterhorn,

and the inquiry about lecture fees following upon that provoked

Whymper’s ready wrath. That he should thereafter voluntarily have

described the ice accident to Mr. Thomas Hardy (at mention of whose

honoured name I stand respectfully at salute) in no way surprises

me, and in fact confirms what I have said in an earlier section of

this paper to the effect that “the advance must always come from

Whymper himself,” that he was not indisposed to talk when left to

himself, but was quick to suspect any appearance of being “exploited”

or “drawn.” That he resented having questions about the Matterhorn

catastrophe suddenly sprung upon him I have reason to know, for I

have more than once heard him snub, almost savagely, a tactless

inquirer. Allen’s question about fees (he was the last man in the

world to be impertinent) may seem to some readers unwarrantable, but

none of us in Mr. Christy’s list made any secret of the matter, as

Allen--himself a lecturer, but not for Mr. Christy--was aware. On the

contrary, Whymper asked me, soon after I first met him, what fees I

received, telling me in return what his own handsome payments were.