London Days: A Book of Reminiscences

The next time I saw him in public was at St. James' Hall, about a week later, when he addressed an audience invited by the Emin Pasha Relief Committee. It was a ribboned and jewelled audience; it was composed of royalties, nobilities, famous commoners and fighting men, diplomats who sparkled and bishops who did not, men of letters, men of science and art, not to mention their radiant ladies, an audience which literally shone, for the affair was an "occasion." The Prince of Wales (afterward King Edward VII) presided; his Princess and the present King sat in the front row. If I were to give a list of "among those present" it would exhaust pages of "Debrett" and "Who's Who", to say nothing of my own pages. The Emin Pasha Relief Committee had done the thing handsomely, as well they might, for this was Stanley's first public appearance since his return from the expedition of which the world babbled long. It was all in the day's work for him. He never turned a hair. He was in command of that audience, he told it what he wished to tell it, quietly, resolutely, and his words went home. They would have thought he addressed such audiences every night. But he had spoken in circumstances far more difficult.

At the proper moment he took his manuscript in hand and walked to the edge of the platform. When the audience had finished its applauding welcome, he looked about for a reading desk, or a table, on which he might put his papers. He seemed puzzled, and I daresay he was, that the committee of the occasion had not provided something of the kind. The Prince of Wales was quick to perceive his need, and picking up a small table that stood in front of his own chair, he carried it to Stanley and placed it in front of him. Then the explorer smiled, bowed, and thanked the Prince, and, turning to his audience, he fitted a pair of gold-bowed spectacles before his eyes and plunged at once into his address.

He told simply, directly, without oratorical flourishes, but as a courageous man to whom dangers were familiar, the story of that awful march into the heart of Africa. It was a famous march then. The world has since forgotten it, I daresay, having had, for years, its fill of deadly suffering. But it is worth remembering as a tale of heroism, and I am able to repeat here some of the passages which I preserved at the time. Stairs, and Parke, and Jephson, and Nelson, the surviving officers of his expedition, were with him on the platform.

The little religion that our Zanzibaris knew, said Stanley, was nothing more than legendary lore, and in their memories floated dimly a story of a land that grew darker and darker as you travelled toward the end of the world, and drew nearer to the place where a great serpent lay supine, coiled round the whole earth. And the ancients must have referred to this, where the light is so ghastly, where the woods are endless, and are so still and solemn and grey, to this oppressive loneliness amid so much life, this loneliness so chilling to the heart! And the horror grows darker with their fancies, the cold of early morning, the comfortless grey of the dawn, the dead white mist, the ever-dripping tears of the dew, the deluging rains, the appalling thunder-bursts. When night comes with its thick, palpable darkness, our Zanzibaris lie cuddled in their little damp huts, they hear the tempest, the growling of the winds, the grinding of the storm-tossed trees, the fall of granite, the shock of the trembling earth, the roaring and rushing as of a mad, overwhelming sea—and then the horror is intensified.

It may be, next morning when they hear the shrill sounds of the whistle, and the officers' voices ring out in the dawn, and the blare of the trumpet stirs them to preparation and action, that the morbid thoughts of the night, and the memories of the terrible dreams, will be effaced for a time. But when the march has begun once again, and the files are slowly moving through the woods, they renew their morbid broodings and ask themselves: "How long is it to last?"

They disappear into the woods by twos and threes and sixes, and, after the caravan has passed, return to the trail, some to reach Yambruja, and upset the young officers with their tales of woe, some to stray in the dark mazes of the forest, hopelessly lost, some to be carved for the cannibal feast.

Those who remain, committed by fears of greater danger, mechanically march on, the prey to dread and weakness, the scratch of a thorn, the puncture of a pointed cane, the bite of an ant, the sting of a wasp. The smallest thing serves to start an ulcer, which becomes virulent and eats its way to the bone, and the man dies.

That self-contained man had been the leader in that march of death. Weeks, months, years of such fighting he had known, fighting not man but nature, a foe he could not strike in return. Sometimes man and his weaknesses aided the enemy, jolly black, or surly black fellows packed with superstitious fears. The voice of the demagogue was loud in England in those days, but not so loud as it is in these days. Stanley had been criticised harshly for his "treatment of the natives"; they were "our black brothers" and all the rest of it; he had even been criticised for making expeditions at all, since "only by black labour could expeditions go forward. What is there in it for the blacks?" There were other mushy-minded objections similar to those employed by pacifists in these days. He had his own way of hitting back at the mollycoddles. They had been asking what he got out of the bold adventure. That is always the way. He turned to Stairs and Parke, Jephson and Nelson, and said quietly to his audience:

These men were volunteers. What did they "get out of it", save the dangers they sought, the sport which perhaps they found, such contribution to general and special knowledge as they might make, and their consciousness of duty performed? They are English gentlemen. Two of them are officers in the British Army. Mr. Jephson paid a thousand pounds for the privilege of accompanying the expedition. Captain Nelson left a comfortable home and the luxuries of civilised life for the sole purpose of joining in the rescue of one of Gordon's governors, whom the great soldier's untimely fate had left in a perilous position in the extreme south of the Soudan. These volunteers pledged themselves to be loyal and devoted, and I must confess, assuming that I am a sufficient judge, being naturally jealous of anything that is not downright and real, that they have redeemed their pledge in the noblest and completest manner.

Darkest Africa has been to them a fiery furnace, a crucible, and a question chamber, which they have tried, each of them to the very depths of their natures. They have borne every trial to which they have been subjected with more than Spartan, with old-English fortitude, the fortitude that existed before mawkishness and mock sentiment had made men maudlin. It is for you who hear me now to do your part toward recognising the merits of these young gentlemen, or causing them to be recognised by those who have the power to dispense awards appropriate to noble and thorough and uncalculating performance of duty.

The gossips used to say, as if they took a peculiar pleasure in saying it, that Stanley did not recognise loyalty in others. But if the remarks just quoted were not recognition, and handsome recognition, given, as they were, before the most influential audience that could have been assembled in London, I do not know what recognition could possibly be.

Of all my memories of Stanley, the most amusing relates to the "American Dinner" given in London in his honour. It was not so amusing at the time, because that was a time of mishap and muddle. Apart from the fact that the name of America should be associated, not allied as Mr. Wilson would insist, with a mismanagement which seemed especially determined to prove false the tradition that Americans have a natural and trained capacity for getting things done, the thing was a roaring farce. There was a "Committee", of course, but the Committee had nothing to do with the arrangements. There were forty "Honorary Stewards", but I can vouch for the fact that the honorary stewards had nothing to do with the arrangements. I was one of the forty. The ebullient zeal of one man who undertook to do everything, and who welcomed the responsibility, because he was a friend of Stanley, was responsible for the general wreckage of the elaborate plans which promised a dinner of ceremony and resulted in an informal collation. I have always supposed that the kindly gentleman who undertook the whole thing, and who was really one of the best fellows going, must have paid a good share of the cost of this entertainment to his friend Stanley, and insisted, therefore, upon having his own way, or the members of the Committee must have shirked their duties, which is n't likely, considering who they were.

Well, here was an American dinner to Stanley. There were sixteen speeches, save the mark! And eleven of the speakers were Englishmen. There must have been at least three hundred and fifty men at the dinner, and fully one half of them, possibly more, were not Americans. Not an American dish was served, and the caterers, whoever they were, did not serve the first course until an hour and a half, or something like that, after the dinner should have begun.

There was no one to receive the company. The chairman was there, but most of the guests arrived before he did. There was no reception committee. The honorary stewards had no badges or other marks to distinguish them from anybody else, and no searcher for a guide or for information knew who they were. There was no table plan, no list of guests. Nobody knew where he was to sit, or who would be his neighbours. We heard that the printer's forms had collapsed into horrible "pi" just at the point of going to press. Although, as an "honorary steward", I arrived a quarter of an hour before the time announced, I could find on the premises none of my companion honoraries, nor was any list of them available. I was talking with two or three arrivals when a familiar voice behind me asked: "Are we alone in Africa?"

"It looks like it, Mr. Stanley," said I. "I can't find the huts, or the bones of the feast, or the chief of the tribe. But you have come to the rescue, as usual."

Stanley looked amused. "Where's our friend –? Have you seen him?" he asked.

I explained what I had heard about the dear fellow's dilemmas, and the little that I understood of them.

"Then we 'll have to work our passage," Stanley said. "Will it be all right if I stand here? I 'll have to meet everybody, I suppose. They won't fear I 'll bite 'em, will they, if there 's no manager to keep me tied up?"

And so it was to Stanley's good sense and his willingness to enter into the spirit of the thing that the affair got under weigh. But it was a long time in arriving anywhere. I saw Whistler put his head in at the door. I went after him and introduced him to Stanley. "I say," said Whistler to me, "are you stewarding? I 'm a steward, too. It's all stew, is n't it? But I don't know what to do, do you? Is there anything to eat?"

"Not yet," said I.

"B-r-r-r-r-h! What's that?" It sounded like a crash of china in an adjoining room.

"The end of all things, I should think," said Stanley. "I say, there's the Duke! No Committee? Well, I 'll receive him."

"The Duke" was the Duke of Teck, the father of the present Queen. In a minute he was followed by another Duke, Sutherland. And there were Stanley's chief officers, who were to share with him the honours of the evening. And very soon the rooms were filled. But nobody in authority appeared, or if appearing, no authority was exercised. For an hour and a half everybody stood about, accumulating hunger and getting very tired. And there was no one to say what was to be done, or when, or how.

At last somebody cried: "Gentlemen, dinner is served. This way, please, and sit where you like!"

We all cheered at this.

And so the royalties, and the guests of honour, and the orators of the evening followed the hungriest men who were nearest the doors, walked rapidly into the dining room, and took the first seats they could find. The affair had become a picnic. But there was a meal. That was the important thing. After famishing so long, we had a dinner of sorts. But there were sixteen speeches to follow! This fact we learned from the souvenir albums which we found at our plates. In the course of time the speeches began.

One of them issued, poured, from a New York lawyer who stood in a far corner, waving his arms and displaying vast expanses of shirt-cuff. He spread-eagled, he made the eagle scream, he Gods-countried till you could hear the corn grow. Nothing could stop him. He ran on till he ran down. And then the Grenadier Guards Band, Dan Godfrey conducting, struck up the "Star Spangled Banner." That was another relief.

The American dinner to Stanley was given in the Portman Rooms in Baker Street. The Portman Rooms had formerly housed Madame Tussaud's Waxworks. Perhaps the hall in which we dined had been the Chamber of Horrors. I suspect it. At any rate, there was a general air of wonderment as to what might happen next. We would have liked the affair more if the Committee, or the Manager of All Things, had given less of his useful attention to souvenir albums and elaborate trophies, and more attention to the details of the evening. Some one had designed a large, costly, and elaborate silver shield, on which were to be depicted events in Stanley's career. It was to be presented with a flourish of trumpets, that is to say, a speech by the Consul-General. But the shield was unfinished, although on the spot, and some of the flourishes had to be omitted. If the table plans were omitted, somebody had managed to get up a list of guests, at the last minute. But that was incomplete, too. In that dim English way which robs men of their first names and puts them down with a single initial, even Cumberland, the mind reader, who was present, could not have guessed, without seeing him, that "H. Hunt" was Holman-Hunt, and not Helen, or Henry; that "H. White" was Henry White, the secretary of our Legation, and later Ambassador at Rome and Paris, still later the unabashed deliverer of a pro-German speech, and in the Wilsonic course of events, a member of the American Delegation to the "Peace Conference" of 1918-1919. But so many names were disguised by the poverty of labour which denied them all connection with their owners that I must now deny them space on this page. I remember that "B. Harte" was Bret Harte, that "E. Gosse" meant Edmund Gosse, and I remember that "Prof. John S. Hopkins of Gilman University", as he appeared in the newspapers of the following morning, was really Professor Gilman of Johns Hopkins University. To this day the Briton persists in printing the name of that university "John S. Hopkins."

We wished to hear the speeches of Stanley and his officers, or, say, the remarks these gentlemen might make. Not a button did any one care for the other speeches, and the less we cared, the more they lapsed into oratory. We knew that Stanley and his men would give us plain talk over our cigars, and that is what they did. Some of Stanley's talk that night I can quote from a report that was made at the time. Did I give the date? It was May 30, 1890.

On a wintry afternoon, in 1867, just twenty-three years ago, I started from America for Africa, at the imperial command of one of the dollar-powers of America. I was as ignorant as a babe of the land I was going to. As I look back upon my stock of resources I am not unmindful that none could be poorer in what was fitting and necessary, but I possessed some natural store of good will, fondness for work, and a wholesome respect for the boss, the employer—the paying power. I learned down south what they mean by the saying "Root hog, or die!" They mean if you don't work, you shan't eat. It's another form of the scriptural saying: "In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread." In the America of my time they understood that.

In Abyssinia I acquired several lessons from English journalists, the most important being what chaff is, and the second—that black trousers in the daytime are not suitable. I learned, also, to distinguish good soldiers from bad, what kind of men made the best officers.... It takes longer to know an Englishman than to know any other Christian, or any pagan, that I ever came across. He does n't walk up to you, as the Yankee does, and pester you with questions about your private business and your conjugal experiences. He looks at you as if he did not care whether you lived or died, starved or rotted. Yet if you do him a little service, he is so grateful that he will remember it. Not effusive, like a Frenchman, nor gushing like a German, he does not regard you superciliously, as a Madrileno would, or look upon you as legitimate prey, as is the custom of the Greeks; but he has the knack of assuming a profound indifference to your existence.

I was sent to Spain to study Spanish war and politics. I discovered a defect, and I doubt greatly whether the Spanish leaders have yet become conscious of that defect. They could not execute the laws. They lacked the courage to do so. Therefore, the Republic, which could be sustained only by justice, was impossible.

It was necessary for me to wander further afield, to view cities and men, great works, great assemblies, many countries—Greece, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Russia, Persia, India, and then, after being well seasoned with experience, I entered Africa as a leader of men. According to the rules I was not ripe, judging by what I now know and what less I knew then. I was still young and very rash, headstrong, I relied too much on force. Fortunately fate was propitious, I was not prematurely cut off.

Marching eighteen hundred miles into Africa, I had time to think. It was reflection I needed. Yet I was a dull pupil, and my blood was like molten lava. I must admit that while with Livingstone I saw no good in the lands I travelled through. The negro was precisely what he ought to be—a born pagan, a most unloving and unlovable savage. Nevertheless, much of what Livingstone expounded was unanswerable. I attempted to parry what he said by lavish abuse of the natives and their country.

In 1873 I was back again in Africa, on the opposite side of Africa, and after the brief Ashantee campaign, returned with a few more experiences.

The beginning of my real African education was in 1875 while sailing along the shores of the greatest lake in Africa. It came like a revelation to me.

Now I have shown you what a dull, slow, student I was. You can well understand how lightly the abuse and chaff of my brother journalists sit on my mind. For there were even duller and slower folk than I. It is not one lecture, or one speech, or even a hundred, that will suffice to infuse a knowledge of the value of Africa into the English mind. It took ten years for people to believe thoroughly that I did find Livingstone!

Only a few days ago one of the most prominent men in England said: "I do not know what you have been doing lately in Africa, Mr. Stanley, but if you are to lecture I will gladly go to hear you." And so I say that although in this assembly we may know what is going on in Africa, we must not suppose that the British public, or the journalism which is its reflection, is any wiser to-day than in the time of Mungo Park.

Rather neat scoring, I think. The world does not change much.

Stanley married and went into Parliament. One day I thought it might be interesting to see him try conclusions with an election crowd in London. He was contesting on the Surrey side of the river. I think it was in Lambeth. He got a new experience. The crowd heckled him, and tried to shout him down, just for the mere joy of living. But they could n't silence him. While they bellowed, he would stand calmly and look at them. After some minutes of this kind of thing, he managed to be heard.

"Is this my meeting or yours?" he asked. They were quite certain the meeting was their own. The interruptions were numerous. I was thinking what he would do with a mutinous lot in Darkest Africa, and presently he told them that the savages compared pretty favourably with "their white brothers in London"! The crowd yelled, but they couldn't disconcert him. He finished his speech; cut it short, no doubt, but did n't appear to do so. Only the persons near him could hear what he said, there was so much noise. As he left the meeting, the gentle souls began to throw things. I saw them trying to overturn his carriage. His wife was in it!

Stones flew. But Stanley lived to fight again. Knowing him, I think I know how angry he really was.

"But," said he when we met again, "I longed for a few seconds of Africa! My education is n't completed yet. I am learning about British electioneering crowds. When they shout: 'Fair play, fair play', they mean 'Fair play for our side.' Come now, that's a fact."

It is unnecessary that I should incriminate myself.

I never could see what satisfaction Stanley got from being a member of Parliament. In his heart he would have been glad, once or twice, to lead them all, Government and Opposition and their followers, into an African jungle—and lose them.

I see I have not mentioned that he became Sir Henry. But I knew him as Mr.

CHAPTER XV

GEORGE MEREDITH

A bright, warm, summer morning. I was working under pressure in my study in Cheyne Walk on an article which had to be finished that afternoon. Saturdays were my busiest days and this was Saturday, and only morning. The maid rapped at the study door and said, "Mr. John Burns to see you, Sir."

In came Burns, preceded by his great voice and hearty laugh, making apology for interruption. "Can you drop the work and come with me?" said he.

"Impossible," said I. "Sorry, but—"

"Well, I 'm off to George Meredith's," said he, laying a post card on my writing table. The post card was from Meredith, who appointed the meeting, and added:

"We 'll have a fine Radical day. Bring your friend."

"You are the friend," said Burns.

"I 'll come," said I. "Give me a quarter of an hour, and I 'll finish this article somehow." And so I made sacrifice to one of my gods, the god that dwelt on the sunny slope of Box Hill. The article was brought to a quicker turn than it had dreamed of, a hansom was called; we rushed to Clapham Junction and took train for Burford Bridge.

It was more than a quarter of a century ago, but it seems like yesterday. And yet, though it was more than a quarter of a century ago, the Great Dock Strike had seemed so long before that it was almost forgotten. In the dock strike, that is to say, in 1889, I had made John Burns' acquaintance. He says I "discovered" him, discovered the real John Burns under the red-hot agitator who was expected to lead a hundred thousand men to incendiarism and the sack of London.

I do not remember the year which brought this Meredith day to our spinning world. But it must have been in the early nineties, and Burns on the London County Council, and perhaps for a session or so a member of Parliament. The date, however, does n't matter. If it were not 1892 it may have been 1893 or '94. Let's get on.

Neither Burns nor I had ever met George Meredith. Burns and he had had some correspondence which resulted in the post card and our expedition to Box Hill that blossomy, fragrant morning when the England of dreams lay all about us, and the stream that ran by Burford Bridge "babbled o' green fields" and played with flowers.

We arrived at the little station in Surrey about noon. Whatever it may be now, it was then a little station. We strode off to Box Hill, and turned a corner, and there, trapping the sunshine, was Flint Cottage, George Meredith's home, at the bottom of a sloping garden running over with roses. Roses, roses everywhere, and higher in the sloping garden, overlooking a valley that the gods had made for poets to dream in, was a little chalet where Meredith wrote, and slept, and had the muses to wait on him. To the chalet a gardener directed us when we asked for his master. We climbed the path. The chalet door stood partly open. Burns knocked on a rose trellis. "Come in!" cried a voice. In we went. There was George Meredith, in a Morris chair, with a rug over his knees, and sheets and sheets and sheets of manuscript over the rug. If he were to rise, the whole mountain of paper would tumble helter-skelter to the floor.

"No! don't move," said my companion. "I'm John Burns." Then he introduced me.