"DICTIONARY" FOWLER

Evening Post, Issue 52, 2 March 1935, Page 24

"DICTIONARY" FOWLER

(By "Ajax.")

AN IDEAL MARRIAGE

"DARBY AND JOAN"

S.P.E. Tract No. 43. H. W. Fowler. By G. G. Coulton. 9 x 51; 60 pp. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. '3s 6d. [Final Notice.] The Sportsmen's Battalion, in which H. W. and F. G. Fowler had enlisted in April, 1915, was towards the end of December considered to be fit for service and sent across to France. But , there they were considered to be too old to fight, and after being detained at the base for about two months they , put in a written plea on February 17, 1916, for real soldier's work or liberty. The material parts of this interesting document were as follows:— Pte. H. W. Fowler (M.A. Oxon., late scholar of Balliol; age 58) and Pte. F. G. Fowler (M.A. Cantab., late scholar of Peterhouse; age 46) have been engaged for some years in Guernsey on literary work v of general public utility for the Oxford University Press (secretary, C. Carman, Esq., Clarendon Press, Oxford). They enlisted in April, 1915, at great inconvenience and with pecuniary loss, in the belief that soldiers were needed for active service, being officially encouraged to misstate their ages as a patriotic act. After nine months' training they -were sent to the front, but almost immediately sent bijek to the base not as having proved tinfit for the work, but merely as being over age—and this though, their real ages had long been known to the authorities of their battalion. They are now held at the base at Etaples, performing only such ■menial and unmilitary duties as dishwashing, coal-heaving, and porterage, for which they arc unfitted by habits and age. ... (Signed) H. W. EOWLER, M.A. F. G. FOWLER, M.A. authors of "Translation of Lucian,"4 vols.; "The King's English"; "The Concise Oxf. Diet/ 3 '# ■ * * ■ On May 6, 1916, H. W. Fowler wrote to his wife from Queen's Canadian Military Hospital, Beachborough Park, Shorncliffe, and he got his discharge a few weeks later. None the worse for his military adventure, he resumed his work for the Clarendon Press, but in 1918 he lost his brother Frank, the victim of a consumption of which he had picked up the seeds in France. Fowler's new home was at Moulin de Haut, about a mile from Vazon Bay on the west side of Guernsey. # * * In that ideal home, says Mr. Coulton, he did much of his best work. The routine differed little from . that of the Frankpartnership and the early days of married life. There was the daily sea-bathe, with run down and back, and the daily round of housework, with only an 'occasional char-woman; and the steady reading or writing, only interrupted on his visitors' account for an afternoon walk, or sometimes even for a whole-day excursion. No bee ever collected or stored its honey more contentedly and regularly than this, ' ' • _♦ * Mrs. Fowler is described by Mr. Coulton as .having "a practical mind, 1 a kindly and equable temper, and as deep a love for quiet country things as her husband." She also shared his ' keen sense of humour. But "in almost everything else they formed a striking contrast, which Fowler once described ' admirably in tha 'Westminster Gazette.'" The two stanzas quoted are as follows:—, , My wife and I we disagree On every mortal matter; The Sprats, 'tis said, were odd; but we ; '.Are infinitely Spratter. ' A crowning discord only can Solve discords so inhuman: •. She,says the world's to her one man, To me it is one -woman. The close of some seven years of happiness at Moulin de Haut was clouded by Mrs. .Fowler's illness, -which ultimately made it desirable that she should be within easier reach of London for advice and treatment: The Fowlers left Guernsey in 1925, but within a few -weeks had found in England what Mr. Coulton calls "something like the same ideal sort of workplace." Twice during my last visit to England, with that unwritten letter in my mind, had my orbit brought me within three or four miles of the last of Fowler's ideal homes, and I did not know it! .■'' * * * Hinton St. George, writes Mr. lies not much more than three miles from Crewkerne, in Somerset; The village stands fairly high, -on the edge of v great park, and is built almost entirely o£ that charming Ham-Hill stone which weathers in'many shades, from fawn colour to coffee, and, with the help of its lichens, to all sorts of tender greys. The buildings are mainly thatched or covered with the local brown slates. The church and tower, though not large, are among the best proportioned even in Somerset; and they stood full in view from Fowler's study window. The slightest turn' of one's head to the left showed the heart of the village: the old George Inn, with an unusually fine medieval cross rising on great steps in front of it, and, just behind, "The Priory," a small monastic grange showing a Jacobean-terraced front to the village, but looking out upon its own farmyard through a window of same date as the church. . . . Two doors off stood a fine house with a pond in which it was just possible to swim, and the tenant generously gave Fowler free use of this for his morning dip. For his run, he had for a year or two the great park itself; and then, when that was closed, a charming two miles to the village of Dinnington and back. # c * .■■■■• Here, as Mr. Coulton says, was practically the Guernsey routine over again, and he illustrates in a striking fashion how close the reproduction was, and how stubbornly Fowler resisted any attempted improvement. On behalf of, the Delegates of the Clarendon Press, the Secretary had written to offer Fowler, who was then in his 68th year, a servant's wages in order to give him more time for his literary work. • A facsimile of the first page of Fowler's reply, In a clear, bold, script-like hand, is given as follows:— 6 Nov. 19281 Dear Chapman,—My half-hour from 7.0 to 7.30 this morning was spent in (1) a two-mile run along the road, (2) a swim in my next-door neighbour's pond—exactly ns some 48 years ago I used to run round the Parks and cool myself in (is there such a place now?) Parson's Pleasure. That I am still in condition for such' freaks I attribute to having had for nearly thirty years no servants to reduce,me to a sedentary and all-literary existence. And now you seem to say: Let us give you a servant, and the means of slow suicide and quick lexicography. Not if I know it; I must go my slow way. However, I am getting a little more pace on with A.0.D., and now # * * Fowler stuck faithfully to his routine even after the nursing of his cancer-stricken wife was added to the housewortand the cooking, "sometimes (

rendered more difficult by special medical prescriptions." Hi There was then no electric light, and she could not bear the smell of a snuffed candle; yet one candle must needs stand in the hall. Therefore, at the end of his long day, Fowler always carried this through the house -to the back kitchen, in order that it might be quite impossible for the least smell to reach the bedroom over the stairs. Some nights he can have got scarcely any sleep at all. # «• * In August, 1930, Fowler had to call in a nurse, who made it her first task to compel him to spare himself. "She made his coffee with pure milk instead of water, and schemed to give him more rest." Mrs. Fowler died two months later, and he honoured her memory by restoring the Hinton church bells which she had greatly admired, but which had been silent for a year or more before her death. A generous subscriber to charities but not to churches, Fowler "without definitely breaking his rule, gave freely as from her to the church." Though Mr. Coulton does not think it necessary to say so the inscription on the memorial tablet must also have been Fowler's work: — JESSIE MARIAN (WILLS) FOWLER b. 31st May, 1801; d. Ist October, 1930. In Memory of Whom The Bells of the Church being Eehung Were Made to Eing again as she heard them And by them she being dead yet speakoth. «• «■ * Fowler gave the title of "Rhymes of Darby and Joan" to a volume of occasipnal verses written from year to year on birthdays and similar occasions, and published in 1931. Four years of silence had followed the first operation, but after Mrs Fowler's death he added this Epilogue:— And Joan is dead —and buried, near The bells she loved and does not hear. Four years have recordless remained Of fears that waxed and hopes that . waned ... She played her brave game to the last: No parting word between them passed. He's lonely left at board and bed, No Darby now —for Joan is dead. » * * But Darby was not beaten yet. After his wife's death Fowler returned to the normal routine of housework and dictionary, but 18 months later it was obvious to his friends that his strength was failing seriously, and that the responsibility for the Quarto Oxford Dictionary which he had recently undertaken would be beyond his powers. Though he still rose and lit the fire at 5.30 or even 5, he did less and less actual work. His sight had become so bad that he needed two candles for the job, one ou each side of the grate/ As the result of influenza and bronchial pneumonia brought on by a chill, Fowler passed away quietly in his sleep on December 26, 1933.