SIR WALTER BESANT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23512, 28 May 1938, Page 5

SIR WALTER BESANT

By C. R. Allen

The Incorporated Society of Authors, Composers and Dramatists is this year celebrating the centenary of its founder, Sir Walter Besant. Like many another Victorian, Besant enjoyed a tremendous vogue in his day, and this vogue has not lasted into our own times. He will be remembered principally for his joint authorship with Rice of "The Golden Butterfly," a story with a trans-Atlantic setting. One of the ;protagonists in "The Golden Butterfly" was a species of literary Micawber, who was always going to write a masterpiece. Besant, like Dickens, who has so manifestly outshone him, was borne at Portsea in 1838. He wrote extensively of Portsmouth in his autobiography and in "By Celia's Arbour." His autobiography, which he did not live to revise, reveals him as a typical Victorian. It is possible that if he had been able to go over his autobiography again he could have softened down the asperity of his remarks on Puritanism and Sacerdotalism alike. Viewed in the light of recnt thought his strictures on -Ritualism and kindred phenomena appear rather puerile. Still, he was a product of his time—and time that was to have its culmination in the extravagances of the Chelsea School. " Science proclaimed nonentity, and art admired decay," wrote G. K. Chesterton in the dedicatory verses to his friend Bentley, which are to be found in front of "The Man who was Thursday." For all his neubulous philosophy, Sir Walter Besant was a great philanthrogist. The People's Palace in the Mile nd road was a standing testimony to his solicitude for the under-dog. Like Arnold Bennett he could describe scenes of squalor with r.-inuteness, if. not with gusto. He was educated first at a small school in the district, and afterwards in London. He went to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he had as a contemporary the famous humourist Calverley, who was to be immortalised in turn by the tobacconist Bacon, whom he himself immortalised in the famous ode to tobacco. It was in Calverley's rooms that Besant met George du Maurier, whose name was also to be perpetuated by a brand of cigarette. Besant drifted on towards Holy Orders. A fellowship at Cambridge involved ordination in those days, and in most instances it was a necessary preliminary to a scholastic appointment. Besant was rescued from his dilemma by an appointment to a professorial chair in Mauritius. There he remained for some years, broadening his outlook and gaining experience. Disagreements with the principal of the institution in Mauritius led to his ultimate resignation, and he embarked upon the great adventure of earnmg a living by his pen. In this venture he was triumphantly justified. Whatever may be thought of Besant s novels in these days, there can be no doubt as to their popularity in his own epoch. Mortiboy," ■" My Little Girl," "With Harp and Crown," "The Son of Vulcan »_ w hat do these names suggest to the novel reader of to-day? Nothing. "The Chaplain of the Fleet "•■ was the outcome of a hoy a observation while at Portsmouth. After the comparatively - early death of James Rice, Besant wrote "All Sorts and Conditions of Men, which was the moving .cause of "The People's Palace." "Dorothy Foster" was suggested to him oy the story of his wife's ancestress. Bells of St. Paul's" reveals Besant as a master of London topography, and incidentally contains a reference to a New Zealander who sojourned on the Surrey side of London, and knew hardly anything of the West End. • ,„ Mf «„ Besant was a man of encyslopaedic Culture. His first published work was "Studies in French Poetry," and throughout his life he was regarded as an authority on early French literature. Perhaps he will be best remembered as London's greatest topbgrapher, or, at least, one of the greatest. Though his work in this direction may lack the charm of **. V Lucas, who, it will be remembered, drew his inspiration from Charles Lamb. Besant is, nevertheless, a faithful and loving delineator of the great city he loved so well. In the closing chapter of his autobiography he allows that he enjoyed literary success, a happy married life, and other benefits. If Besant was a happy man he.made it his constant aim to ameliorate the lot of others. His work on behalf of the struggling author bears fruit to-day in the organisation and scope of the society which he founded. In brief, Sir Walter Besant belonged to a spacious day. Some might be tempted to stigmatise it as a specious day in the light of afterevents. The fact that he is forgotten while Dickens. Trollope and Thackeray .are read may be explained by a lack on his part to endue his dramatis personam with the breath of life. His eccentrics do not lay hold on the imagination and the memory as do the eccentrics of Dickens. One wonders what Besant would make of London in 1938. To read his description of his method of work when a novel was on the stocks is to envy him for the happiness that he must have known. He will be remembered as long as the Incorporated Society of Authors survives.