‘As for the population: your regular relations, whose mistaken adherence to an indefensible scheme of life brings them so frequently into collision with you, — they are rarely seen there, and then only in distressingly menial positions. Hewers of wood and drawers of water, all of them, if so be as they have even the luck to get a ticket of admission at all. On the other hand, the casual people who have been kind to you and passed, or have won your heart by athletic or other similar gifts — here they walk as princes and familiars, doing wondrous things, sharing with you the ungrudged sweets of empire. And yet, while the kingdom’s chief charm lies in its constancy, in its abiding presence there at your elbow, the smiling gate wide open, whether fortune favour or frown, its inhabitants are sadly apt to vary. Other folk come on the scene, who tip you, and take you to treats, and have to be recognized and considered accordingly; so from time to time, as you revisit the familiar land, fresh guests travel down with you, and fresh heroes make up your house-party. Then there is the Princess — well, honestly I think princesses are more permanent. They change at times, of course, they drop out, they disappear; but it is usually more their fault than yours. They cease to be kind, perhaps they take up with another fellow, or leave your part of the country; and under such circumstances only a novelist would expect you to remain true. Absolute inconstancy, a settled habit of fickleness, belongs, I am sure, to a later period. The Princess, then, often sees out many a guest of real distinction; nay, she is frequently your sole comrade, through storied cities, on desert isles, or helping to handle your cutter where the Southern Cross is reflected in fairy seas. Then it is that you say at your leisure all those fine things that you never can get off through the garden-hedge; while she, for her part, is sympathetic, appreciative, and companionable, to a degree you never would guess from the shy awkwardness that masters her in this narrow little world down here. And yet — an embarrassing person somewhat at times. One has often a surmise that she is not being done full justice — in spite of her capacities for pulling an oar or loading a musket, she is meant for better things.
‘These kingdoms, I have said, are always close at hand, always attainable in case of need. But, of course, there are special periods of vacation, when one resorts thither so habitually that schemes and arrangements can be settled beforehand, to be worked out in detail when the regular hour arrives. The reading aloud of improving matter — something without any story in it — at stated times, may even come to be looked forward to, if you happen to possess a fine, healthy kingdom, in good working order, that requires your attention for a more protracted spell than just between courses at table. A duty-walk with an uninteresting person is simply a return ticket to cloudland. As bed-time arrives you promptly book for the same terminus; hence it comes that you never properly fall asleep in this tangible world, but pass through the stage of your own peculiar country to that droll continent which mixes up your two existences for you with a humour you could never achieve unaided. But the services of the Church afford the most fixed and certain periods of all; for nothing short of a sick bed saves you from the grim compulsion, while, on the other hand, once there, little is asked of you but quiet and conformity to a certain muscular routine. Parents, therefore, should be very modest, when inclined to flatter themselves that the passing thoughts and reflections of their children are quite clear to them, and that they can follow the ripple of every mood on those ingenuous countenances. The mother who notes with delight the rapt, absorbed air of her little son, during the course of a sermon that is stirring her own very vitals, and builds high hopes thereon, is probably egregiously mistaken. Ten to one he is a thousand miles away, safe in his own kingdom; and what is more, he has shut the door behind him. She is left outside, with the parson and the clerk.
‘In the same way, a child who is distraught during the conversational hour of meals, answering at random or not at all; who fails to catch the salient points of an arithmetic or geography lesson — seeming, indeed, to regard these statistics and weary columns from very far off — is not necessarily a fool, nor half-baked as to mental equipment. He has probably got a severer task cut out for him, and has need of all his wits and all his energies. The expedition he is leading, the palace he is exploring, the friends he is entertaining with that abandonment so characteristic of a land without a currency — all these undertakings evoke commendable qualities. Indeed, who shall say he is not educating himself all the time? In his own way, of course, not yours.
‘It should always be remembered that whenever a child is set down in a situation that is distasteful, out of harmony, jarring — and he is very easily jarred — that very moment he begins, without conscious effort, to throw out and to build up an environment really suitable to his soul, and to transport himself thereto. And there he will stay, of a certainty, until you choose to make things pleasanter. Life is so rough to him, so full of pricks and jogs and smartings, that without this blessed faculty of projecting a watertight skin — nay, an armour-plating — his little vessel’s seams would gape and its timbers crack too early. That which flows in his veins is ichor, closing the very wounds through which it issues; and of the herb called self-heal he has always a shred or two in his wallet.
‘This mental aloofness of the child, — this habit of withdrawal into a secret chamber, of which he sternly guards the key, — may have been often a cause of disappointment, of some disheartenment even, to the parent who thinks there can be no point, no path, no situation, where he cannot be an aid and an exposition, a guide, philosopher, and friend; more especially to the one who, by easy but fatal degrees, reaches the point of desiring to walk in the child’s garden as very God, both in the heat and the cool of his day. Let it be some consolation to them that they are the less likely to father a prig. This Bird of Paradise that he carries encaged within him, this Host that he guards within his robe through the jostling mart of shouting commonplaces, may be both germ and nutriment of an individuality which shall at least never suffer him to be a tame replica. The child to despair of is more rightly the one who shall be too receptive, too responsive, too easily a waxy phonograph.
‘Meantime these kingdoms continue, happily, to flourish and abound. Space is filled with their iridescences, and every fresh day bubbles spring up towards the light. We know it — we know it: and yet we get no nearer them. Perhaps we are, unwittingly, even invited and honoured guests; this is not the sort of invitation we would be likely to refuse. Possibly we may be walking, even now, arm-in-arm with some small comrade of real affinity of spirit, sharing in just those particular absurdities we would most like to commit. And all the time we are trundling about here dully in hansom cabs, while the other one of us, the lucky half, is having such a magnificent time! For the current is not yet switched on, the circuit is not yet made complete, by which we shall some day (I trust) have power to respond to these delightful biddings out of town, and get a real change of air. For the present we are helpless. Surely the shouts, the laughter, the banging of guns and the music, make noise enough to reach our ears? Ineffectually we strain and listen: we have lost our key, and are left kicking our heels in the dark and chilly street. And only just the other side of that wall — that wall which we shall never climb — what fun, what revels are going on!’
But for all these fine doings, these secret Saturnalia, Kenneth Grahame, the man built in compartments, was the perfect official. He had a noble presence, he dressed immaculately, he was immaculately groomed and, in his official existence, he seems to have shed some of the reserve which cloaked him in his private life. Sir Gordon Nairne, late a director of the Bank, first remembers him, ‘fifty-one years ago. A winter evening and K.G. just about to leave the Bank in the London Scottish dress into which he had changed after hours. I did not know him at all then nor do I think we ever exchanged more than a word until he came some years later to work in the Chief Cashier’s office where I also was engaged. He did not stay there very long but went to the Secretary’s office where, so far as I can remember, he was at
first occupied in cataloguing the books in the Directors’ Library. As these were mainly on dry-as-dust subjects, I doubt if the task proved very interesting to him. Later he took part in the ordinary work of the Secretary’s office and quickly rose, as his chiefs retired, to the position of Secretary.
‘Although under the same roof our work was entirely different and many a day passed on which we only met at the luncheon table, where I occupied the seat next to him. I well remember an incident in connexion with which he had to write a very brief memorandum concerning the affairs of a pensioner of the Bank who had been under me.
He asked whether I thought the facts were clearly stated and I remember being much struck by the touch of romance with which he had invested the official life of a very ordinary man. I replied that it correctly described the case and that, had I laboured at it for a week, I could not have produced a description half so graphic.
‘You ask about his gift of public speaking. He certainly possessed this in a remarkable degree and in a style peculiarly his own. He was slow and deliberate and seemed to pause frequently for the word which would most accurately describe his meaning, but this was only a prelude to the utterance of some dry and whimsical expression.’
When Sir Gordon Nairne was Chief Cashier Kenneth Grahame was Secretary and Mr. Wallace Governor of the Bank. The Bank’s butler was Tolmie from beyond the Tweed. To him a visitor referred laughingly to the success of the Scot in London. Tolmie replied with all seriousness, ‘Yes, Sir, and the Bank’s an example. The Governor’s Scotch, the Chief Cashier’s Scotch, the Secretary’s Scotch and so am I’.
Mr. Sidney Ward, of Baring Bros., once colleague of Kenneth’s at The Old Lady’s and a fellow toiler in Whitechapel, tells of his friend: ‘He was older than I, and my senior by a few years at the Bank of England. I knew him well by sight some time before we actually met. This must have been in the latter part of the ‘eighties and it was about this time that Kenneth was transferred to the Secretary’s office where I was then working. It was there that I really got to know him. At that time he lived in a tiny little flat at the top of a building near the Chelsea Embankment. I well remember those interminable dingy stairs leading up to the charming little rooms where he lived. I don’t suppose he ever suspected that I stood rather in awe of him in those days and it was only very occasionally that I plucked up the courage, of an evening, to go and call uninvited. Memorable evenings those were. I think the value of Kenneth’s work in the Bank of England lay rather on the literary and advisory side than on the administrative and constructive. He left to others the carrying out of big schemes. He preferred to keep existing customs running smoothly rather than to launch out into new schemes. He will not go down to history as a great reformer, though many reforms were carried out during his regime. He was always helpful and never obstructive, conservative though he was. I can’t imagine any one who, at that time, was better suited for the position which he held as Secretary of the Bank of England. In all the push and bustle of a great institution, the conflicting interests of different departments, and the personal jealousies, sometimes, of their chiefs, Kenneth was just the man to hold the balance — always there, always wise, never too busy to see any one, a sound adviser of the Governor, never rattled and universally respected — he was a far greater force than most men imagined at the time. And, as all those who have lived the best part of our lives know, it is the silent forces, not the noisy ones, which guide the world. Kenneth played a great part in the affairs of the Bank of England and played it well. A delightful memory is a week-end which I once spent with him at Streatley, during a cold, sunny spring. A friend had lent him a fourteenth-century cottage in the main street, and we had a grand twenty-mile walk along the Ridgeway, the subject of his “Romance of the Road”. If we either of us said clever things that day they are forgotten, but we came home happy and tired, bought some chops and fetched a huge jug of beer from the pub. We cooked our dinner over the open wood fire, and how good the chops were! Then great chunks of cheese, new bread, great swills of beer, pipes, bed, and heavenly sleep! On the door of the cottage, done in rusty nails, was the motto, “Nisi dominus frustra.” An inquisitive American who was passing asked the old woman who looked after the cottage what the motto might mean. “I don’t know what language it is,” she said but it means it’s no good calling when the master’s out!”’
The duties of a Secretary of the Bank of England seem to differ a little from those of a secretary to any other great bank. At the Bank of England the Secretary acts as the ambassador of the Governor and his directorate, and is the Old Lady’s official head of affairs which are not purely financial. He opens negotiations in the first instance and he closes them in the last. He must be a diplomat and a courtier. He must be a man of infinite tact and infinite charm. Of infinite firmness too. He must be accessible and sympathetic to every one in his kingdom from the Governor’s self to the youngest member of his staff. He must have all the threads in Threadneedle Street within his hands and when he pulls the one or the other none must know that it is he who is the compeller. And the Bank, a great public institution, has its clubs, its Literary Association (of which Kenneth was president), its Libraries, its Debating Society and a score of similar activities. And, at the last, the responsibilities of all must lie, ex-officio, on the Secretary of the Bank. But Kenneth Grahame was well fitted for the high post of a multitude of duties that he occupied for ten years. The man who sits in his chair to-day adds to the qualities I have outlined that Kenneth had the knack of ‘making men love him’. He says that he personally owes his own position to the sympathy and encouragement he received from his beloved chief, ‘a kind friend and a wise counsellor’. He says that Kenneth’s then growing fame in the world of letters was recognized, and valued by many in the Old Lady’s house. He says that in all her stately story no visitor, whom she desires to honour, has been received so worthily as in the magnificent reign of Kenneth Grahame. But though many at the Bank of England were proud of their ‘literary gent’, some shook their heads. Kenneth’s old friend Dr. Kingdon, the Bank’s official M.D., wrote of the young Secretary thus: ‘Kenneth’s a dear boy, a very dear boy, but he doesn’t think half enough of his position in the Bank and in the City. They tell me that he writes tales.
So did Charles Lamb — but what of that? Maybe Charles Lamb didn’t think much of his position at East India House, but what after all was his position in the City to Kenneth’s? Kenneth should think less of books and more of being what he has come to be in the City.’
Of the many interesting visitors who came sight-seeing to Threadneedle Street when Kenneth was consul came the four young children of King George. They were entertained royally, they were shown all the treasure of their grandfather’s realm. They signed bank-notes, valued at £1,000 each, ‘Edward of Wales, Albert of Wales, Mary of Wales and Henry’. And, surprise visit though it was, they had a tea which only Kenneth Grahame could have ordered and only his Old Lady could have supplied. And the guests went home happy and wrote the joint ‘hospitable roofer’ which appears on the next page.
But not all visitors were so amiable as these. On the 4th of November 1903 a ‘gentlemanly stranger’ (as the old romances say) called at the Bank and said that he wished to see the then Governor (Sir Augustus Prevost) with whom he was acquainted. The visitor was shown into a waiting-room and his name, Mr. George F. Robinson, was taken to the Governor’s apartments. But Sir Augustus was not in the building. Mr. Robinson was so advised, but would he, in the Governor’s absence, care to see the Secretary, Mr. Kenneth Grahame? Mr. Robinson accepted the alternative with every polite anticipation of enjoyment. Presently therefore Kenneth Grahame strode along the corridor to number one waiting-room. He entered with a compliment on his lips, but the visitor, without reply, thrust forth a roll of manuscript and bade the Secretary, ‘Read this.’
‘But,’ said Kenneth, ‘it is, I see, a very lengthy document — please state, briefly, what it amounts to?’— ‘Certainly,’ said the
obliging Mr. Robinson, and, as he spoke, he whipped out a heavy Service revolver, ‘it amounts to—’ Bang! bang!
Twice he let drive and no Harlequin ever jumped quicker through a door than did Kenneth Grahame. He returned to the Secretarial Department and he summoned the police. Mr. Robinson, finding himself alone, presently stepped into the corridor where he fired yet a third shot, just for fun. He then wandered down the Directors’ Corridor, followed, but with a very natural discretion, by the Head Doorkeeper who, presently, marking his man to ground in the Directors’ Library, slammed the door on him and locked it, without stopping to inquire if a stray director or so were even then improving their minds within.
A council of war was forthwith held by the leading athletes of the Bank and a certain middle-weight, as well known at the Pelican Club as he was in the City, volunteered to head an attack upon the strange occupant of the Library. Now the Library was a long, narrow room — its sole entrance being in the corridor. The volunteers entered on tip-toe. At the extreme end of the long room sat Mr. Robinson and his ever-ready revolver covered, in a discouraging manner, the only approach to him. Thereupon the volunteers withdrawing, listened to the saner views of their elders who said that a frontal attack was certain to result in entirely uncalled-for casualties.
At this juncture a Ulysses suggested that the Bank Fire Brigade be called out. He said that the nozzle of the hose could be levelled at Mr. Robinson, around the door’s angle, by an invisible hand. He said that a powerful jet, or stream, of cold water would knock Mr. Robinson off his legs and, this done, that then the main attack could at once be delivered. The idea was put into successful operation immediately. Mr. Robinson, on receiving the full force of the hose, fell, as it had been said that he would fall, though still he repeatedly fired his revolver, eventually hurling the empty weapon at his invisible enemies. He was then, but only after an epic resistance, secured. And he was, in due course, found to be insane and sent to Broadmoor. But when it was discovered that the only ‘live’ cartridges in Mr. Robinson’s possession had been fired at Kenneth Grahame in the waiting-room and that, since then, he had been banging away with ‘blank’ only, those who forbore to attack prior to the inspiration of the fire-hose were full, so I am told, of a manly chagrin. ‘Si jeunesse savait,’ they said and sighed for a lost opportunity and laurels simply thrown away.
Complete Works of Kenneth Grahame Page 83
