BROWSINGS BOOKLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13996, 31 August 1907, Page 7

BROWSINGS BOOKLAND

Bt Constant • Rjadee,

By invitation I was present tho other night- at the citizens' dinner convened for the purpose of facilitating the collection of a mere trifle of £17,000 to enable the Young Men's Christian Association 'to erect in Duncdin a modern building replete with all those attractions now. deemed essential to the comfort and well-being of oiir youth. The function was well orga-n- - in this somewhat audacious scheme getting an exceedingly satisfactory start. The canvass for subscriptions is now in full swing, and . already there is a deal of speculation as to whether tho specified total will be reached within tho 11 days' limit. Perhaps the most striking statement made at the dinner was the explicit 1 declaration by one of the speakers that the lost of membership in tlw association was pot denominational, not even re*'.{j,;ious, but solely one of character. Given a young man of good character, and ■he was entitled to all the benefits the association could offer,, be he Mohammedan, Roman Catholic, or Jew. Pondering these things, upon ntf return home I pickod up a little book recently included in Rout-ledge's Now Universal Library, a shilling not reprint of J. Hain Friswe-Jl's "Gentle Life." I may remark for the benefit of those not- acquainted with the book that it contains a series of essays " In Aid of the Formation of Character," and in one of these essays, which deals with ''.Religion in the Gentle Life,'' I found a sentence or two which I think explains the reason why tho Y.M.C.A. in Dnnedin has hitherto only appealed to a limited section of the community. For, Shakespeare to the contrary, many a good enterprise has failed by reason of a nomenclature which convcycd the wrong idea to the multitude. Tiie extract roads as follows: —

Excessive meekness and an etlominate mildness having been 'assumed? by many membeis of Christian churches, ot-hera felt that io be called pious was a reproach, and that- tlio name of a " Christian young man" was too often pronounced with a sneer. Goodness, or the doing of good, a very manly tiling, became something to bo ashamed of when perpetually connected with t.liose who were not only .pious, but silly: with clergymen who dared not follow the progress of tie .age, and who associated with men of insnft'erabio conceit and no little degree of ignorance. Our first- novelists had also, with that- persuasive power whioh belongs to genius, cast deserved ridicule oyer the pretenders to goodness. The shepherd, Mr Stiggins,/Mr Chadlwnd, awl other greasy awl knavish professors of religion who quietly sat in the chief places and took not. only the greetings of the market place, but the money of the frequenters of the market, wero" drawn to tho life.

It is said that the essays which go to mako up "The Gentle Life" \vere originally published in the "dear old Family Herald—that source of joy to scores upon scores of iiinoccnt English households," and that the bookwas an osj)ocia-l favourite with the !ate' Princo Leopold,- Duke of Albany. The author, Mr Hnin Friswejl, a lucid and occasionally incisive writer, and who constantly reveals the influence of Thackeray, was originally an engraver gn gokl anj| si Iyer, at .o/ie tu^e

employed' at Messrs Storr and, Mortimer's, in Regent street, London. Possessed o£ a decided capacity for literature, lie gradua% drifted into tliflt uncertain awl delightful profession. But although best known-by'his "Gentle Life," Mr friswell published' a number of other • volumes, amongst them a book willed "Men of .Letters. Honestly Criticised," wherein ho fell, foul of Mr Goorge Augustus Sala. The'..-, sequel ■was a- somewhat famous and wrt'ainlj- amusing action for libel, the chief point-of contention being Mr Sola's nose; Seeing that- the story of that nose is essential-to the understanding ot what follows, If-will let G.A.S. relate the incident in his owni peculiarly racy style: —

'.I'was'making by this time a gocd deal of money, possibly £15 or £16 a Week. . . . My name was now prominently before the public and in no unfavourable light. There was, howa good deal of the old Adam remaining in me, and I was stiU a denizen of although it was a Bohemia where you had plenty of money to spend, instead of one in which you wo often in dire distress for half-a-crown.

The .West End of London was at the time infested by dens of iniquity known as "night- houses," where half (he young members of the' ariiitocracv might be seen 'night after night paying 15s a bottle for gooseberry or rhubarb champagne. Several of the most notorious of these houses were hi Panton street, . off the Havmarket. . . ; One of these houses'was kept by a gentleman wliotii I will cr]l Mr Jchoshapliat. I was 1 in liis Hall of Dazzling Light one. morni ing about, 3; I had a dispute with Mrs Jchoshapliat touching the champagne at 15s a/bottle. MrJehoshaphat interfered; there was a fight, I took the floor, Mr Jelrashaphat kneeling on my chest, and then' by a cleverly-directed blow with his 'left- hand, the "fingers of which were plentifully garnished with diamond rinss, he.split my nose throughout its entire length, Then ho dexterously roKed me into the street. Fortunately for mo the next- house was an establishment of a similar nature, of which tlio proprietor was a certain Mr "Jack" Coney—altogether, - considering the equivocal profession which he followed, not at all a bad fellow. Of course I was bleeding liko a pic. He picked me tip, tied a tablo napkin tightly round my face, put mo -in a cab, and took me to the Charing Cross Hospital, where the house surgeon swiftly sewed up my damaged nasal organ. As a medical gentleman afterwards succinctly observed: "The flesh cm my nose presented (lie aspect of a split mackerel ready for the gridiron." Then Mr " Jack " Conoy took me homo t-o my lodgings in Salisbury street,

Now iu the article in "Men of Letters Honestly Criticised" whioh referred' to Mr George Augustus Sala there were innuendoes that he had squandered very large sums, and, further, that ho had repeatedly, been held up to odium as a sensational, foolish, and nngrammalical writer by the Saturday Review and other influential journals. But the most malevolent of tho aspersions contained in Mr Friswell's book had reference to Mr Sala's unfortunate nose. He suggested by implication that it was a Bacchanalian nose, a dissolute nose, a depraved.'nose, and perhaps a seditious nose. At first- Sala was inclined to treat the thing as a joke, but, psrsuaded by a friend in whose judgment lie roposcd great confidence, he went to see Sir George Lewis, with the result tlsat a writ was issued against Messrs Hoddcr and Stoughton, then, as now, a most Tespectablc linn of publishers, who were not in the habit of issuing libellous productions, tlwir principal staple being theology, Tlie case came on in less than a month, and only occupied half a day. After deliberating for 20 minutes, the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, assessing the damages at £500. "Meanwhile," remarks Mr Sala, " the uphappy Mr Hain Friswoll was tearing his hair in tho adjacent Guildhall library. I say unhappy, because Messrs Hodder and Stoughton were not unnaturally of opinion that as they had not mitten the libel Mr Friswoll and not themselves ornght to pay the damages and costs. They were paid, but by whom I know not. Mr Friswell was afflicted by continuous bad health towards the close of his carcer, and he died in 1878." The full account will be found in "The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala," told by himself and published in Cassel's Colonial Library in 1898. But Sala's moralising on the sequel is too good to be missed: —

Five hundred pounds damages! Confound: them! They never did me the slightest amount of good. First a firm of solicitors discovered that I was in their debt for a bill of costs for £80 contnactod some years previously and not with respect to any matter of litigation, and this I paid with resignation. Then a worthy tradesman who had supplied mc with a large qiuantity of china, earthenware, and glass when I furnished my house in Guildford street remembered t&t I owed him £150, and that the debt was within a few weeks of annihilation by tlie Statute of Limitations. Him also did I pay. On this followed even more irritating, though not pecuniarily afflictive applications from all sorts and conditions of people, imploring and sometimes bullying me to lend them large or small sums of money. Blackmailing had not then reached the dimensions of a fine art, or perhaps I should have been the victim of a little chwitagc. 'Ihese wretchcd damages so preved upon my mind that, to relieve me, the Daily telegraph sc-nt me to Berlin to witness tho opening of the German Parliament.

But if the damages which accrued to j him as lie result of the libel upon liis nose did him more'harm than good, the actual disfigurement, was about the best thing which could have happened to George Augustfiis Sala, as ho himself (low not- teitate to testify in the following words:—"Mr Jehcshaphat- with his welldirected 'facer' administered with tho dwmond-ring-bedizened fist did me un- • consciously as much good as it was possible for. one human .being to do another My wound heeled rapidly. I think that in a fortnight 1 was able to leave the house; hut meanwhile I had been seriously thinking that it was about time to bid goodbye to Bohemia. So, after a few days' holiday with my mother at Brighton,' I went and married the girl of mv heart. • . . It was my good fortune to espouse a pious,, charitable, and compassionate young woman, and she did her best during a union of fivc-and-t-wciity years to weed out. of ms my besetting sin of selfishness and to soften and dulcify a- temper naturally vimilent and unreasoning, and of which the noTm.il brutality was often aggravated' to verbal ferocity." This 'happy union had, however, a somewhat tragic eijding., In 1885 Sala, with his frife, visited Australia ajd New Zealand, and of the sad denouement- of that trip lie writes as follows:—

Returning from New Zealand early in December I ■ lectured four or five times, but wit J t indifferent success, at Hoba-rt-and other towns in the beautiful and .hospitable island of Tasmania—tho sanatorium, the Isle of Wight- of Australia. In. the third week of December my wife left me to go to Melbourne to pack up our things with' the intent of departing for India, and three davs after she loft I crossed to Sydney to draw out some money from a Ixankiiur house there.

. . . Having settled all the money matters, I took llie train, and on the platform at Melbourne I fcumd—not. my wife, but my secretary, who told me that niy dear partner bad caught a chill at ja in Bass's Strait: that she was lying dangerously ill at Menzie's Hotel, where a consultation of three physicians had just beqn held. It was New Year's I'.yc; th? weather was ferociously hot, with a hotter wind, and a "brickfielder" or dust-storm blowing through Melbourne's broad streets. I found my T 'ife inarticulate, in tho agonies of peritonitis. ■ She only spoke once. When pressing my hard she said, " Go to India, dear, and complete your education." That night she died.' At 3 o'clock on tho afternoon of the next day I had to bury her. I had no mournin,g attire, and I wa.s obliged to borrow different articles of sj»blc dress from different - friends.

Now there is. an undoubted moral in all this, which lie who run 6 may Toad. It JBK "iff . acckjqnti happened

to Sala's nose—an accident which happily led him to vacate Bohemia and enter the married state. It was in 1844 that- tiio loung Men's Christian Association, was inaugurated. (Anyone interested in tracill? the rise and. progress of this remarkable movement can scarcely do better than read "The Life of Sir George William," published in Hodder and Stousrhton's Colonial & Library, and written V ■J. K Hodder Williams, curiously enough the head of the wry firm mnlctod bv Sala for £500 m a libel action.) In the 'beginning the object of the association was' explicitly stated to be " tlio improvement of the spiritual condition of young men engaged in the drapery and other trades . Ine introduction of religions services among them," a. programme hardly calculated to attract a rising young journalist of decidedly Bohemian tendencies, such as Sala describes himself as being at that period of time. Happily, the programme of the association has undergone material modification since those early days. For instance, the original rules defining the aims of the association and the lines upon which it was to be continued provided for two tea meetings annually as the sole source for social development, and also made chnroh membership a condition' of membership in the association. At a conference of delegates held in Edinburgh )n July, 1864, there was a Leafed discussion upon the use of amusement 6, and the theory hitherto accepted that " young men should be left to find their amusements for themselves" was vigorously attacked as one of the gravest dangers in the work. It was then that the policy was formulated of making the Y.M.C.A. "a placo of resort for young men," while a number of tlio secretaries bore testimony that the reading room,- the library, and the introduction _of amusements had helped rather than hindered the fundamental purpose for which the association existed! But rt was left for the American associations to develop on their broad lines which has made tie movement amongst the most important factors in the social a 6 well as the religious life of the peopk For, as Mr Hodder Williams points out in the "Life" to which I have already referred: —

The work of the American Young Men's Christian Association for the moraf and physical uplifting of its member's lias been marked by extraordinary sncccss. Its athletic clubs, its gymnasiums, its reading rooms are marvels of efficiency, second to none in all that land of progress; its central and departmental organisations are models of their kind, its buildings on a scale undreamed of in this country (England), its name honoured icven by the most dishonourable, its standing respected- even by the most disreputable.

Now the impression made upon my mind from the fact that four or five of the leading men in the American Afsociation have visited Now Zealand during the prist three or four years, and that the leading spirit in the present effort to raise £17,000 in Dunedin in a fortnight also hails from America, is thai the proposed building is to be up to the best American standard, and the lines upon which the work is to be conducted are the broad ones of rendering tho rooms when - erected attractive to young men of every class ami creed, Therefore tho projcct should appeal strongly to every right-minded citizen. For to follow up my moral, had such an association existed in gala's day that clever journalist would not have needed to spend time and money in Bohemia; he would have been ltap'py in tho reading room or tho gymnasium of the Y.M.C.A. Consequently his nose would have preserved its primal shape, and the author of "The Gentle Life" would not have been betrayed into writing the libel which cost him £500. Besides, Sala's emergence out of single blessedness into the holy state of matrimony would have been free ot.any such sordid circuinstanocs as that which I have narrated. I need not push the moral any further, but content myself with- tho following appgfttyx to the story. Mr Sala writ©:

More than a quarter of a century after that nocturnal or, rathei-, matutinal, affray in PaJiton . street I happened to bo in Melbourne,

in the colony of Victoria, atMamies' Hotel, then one of the few really well-appointed hotels in the Australian colonies. We were waited upon at breakfast by a youth whoso head was adorned with many sable and glossy ringlets, and who told us confidentially that he had but reccntlv arrived in the land of the Golden Fleece, and that his name was Jehcshaphat. "Eh, what!" I exclaimed; "I think I knew somebody of that name many years ago." " Yes, sir, you did," replied" the manyringleted youth, with a courteous bow, "which I am the newy of the gentleman which had the honour to split your conk open at his saloon in Panton street."

For all who care for ohatty reminiscences of many of -the most notable figures in the literary and journalistic world of fifty years ago I know no more delightful book than Sala's autobiography, and tliis, too, may profitably be read together with Edmund Yates's" " Recollections aud Experiences," for Edmund Yates and George Augustus Sala were not only close acquaintances, but inimate friends. A more recently published volume of tire eamc sort is Dick Donovan's "Pages from an Adventurous Life," in which latter hook occurs the Mowing generous e>timate of Sala, and with which I will make my bow for at least another seven days: — One of the most brilliant of the Fleet street Bohemians it was my privilege to know was the late George Augustus Sala, and lie was a .Bohemian—an intel-

lectual giant, -with nil (lie waywardness of genius, and not a few weaknesses, which, begot him enemies, but withal he was a lovable; man. One eouM forgive him much for; the- sake of his cleverness. His money-eafning powers were astonishing, and yeij he seemed to have ■no more knowledge of the value of money than a sucking babe. Ho had led an adventurous and romantic life, and was one of the most entertaining raconteurs I have ever known. To most people of the present generalion Sala is little more than "a name, > but for many years he was a powerful ( ' force in journalism, and did work of a kind which, in my .Opinion, las rarely been equalled and never excelled. To say that it was 'brilliant is to give it no more, than its due, and liis range of subjects was little short of marvellous. He was not only a-walking encyclopedia, but one of the mast methodical men I have ever known, while his memory was, as Dominio Sampson would have said," Prodigious." If he failed to attain to the height to which his genius should have carried him, it was due to certain defects of temperament. He respected no one's feelings -when lie was aroused, awl often the vigour of his language gave offence, though none was intended. Hut when all is urged against, him that csn be urged, the fact remains that Georgo Augustus Henry Sala was a leading light in his time, a man of great intellect., a delightful companioe, and a good friend. "To him'l would' apply the lines of Colton; and say. " He that can enjoy the intimacy of the great, and mi no occasion, disgust them with familiarity or disgrace himself by servility, proves that he is as perfect a gentleman by nature as'his companions are by rank,"