I imagine that the years at Boham’s (even the War years), the years prior to May 1920, were among the happiest in Kenneth Grahame’s life. A man lives very close to the heart of England who lives in the Berkshire downs, and a morning’s walk will take him into and along the very green artery of her — the valley of the Thames.
So the master of Boham’s was glad to be there and I will leave him, in a crisp December twilight, his hand on the latch and, while pleasantly anticipating (after ten miles of lonely downland) tea and muffins, yet pausing to hear the voice of some cheerful village chorister who goes home singing, in Christmas mood:
‘Then St. George: ee made rev’rence: in the stable so dim Oo vanquished the Dragon: so fearful and grim So-o grim: and so-o fierce: that now we may say All peaceful is our wakin’: on Chri-istmas Day!’
CHAPTER XIII. A CORRESPONDENCE
IN the introduction to this book I have said that Kenneth Grahame wrote few letters. Nevertheless there exists, exceptionally, his correspondence with Mr. Austin Montgomery Purves, of Philadelphia. Mr. Purves’s letters to Kenneth Grahame have not been preserved but, from 1908 to 1915, letters between the two men were exchanged with regularity.
I am printing a selection of the latter’s contributions to this correspondence for several reasons. Firstly, because there are practically no other letters of his to print. Secondly, because they act as an occasional reflector of matters mentioned elsewhere. Thirdly and chiefly, because they are very readable.
Mr. Purves, ‘a fine, hearty, jolly-looking man of big build and jovial countenance’, seems to have been the only friend with whom Kenneth Grahame kept in epistolary touch. He was an American business man, a lover of books and music and a well-known collector of books and pictures. He was fond of England and the English. ‘Q’, so often referred to in the letters, is Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch the novelist and King Edward VII Professor of Literature at Cambridge. ‘Atky’ is Edward Atkinson, Commodore of the Royal Fowey Yacht Club, scholar, traveller, gourmet and cordon bleu. Mr. Atkinson was drowned as the result of a yachting accident and in spite of a brave, and almost successful, attempt at rescue made by Bevil Quiller-Couch (son of Sir Arthur and sometimes referred to as the Boy), who was Mr. Atkinson’s sole companion when their eighteen-footer foundered. Mr. Quiller-Couch, an Oxford undergraduate, brought Mr. Atkinson, an elderly man and unconscious, ashore through a heavy sea. That is to the black rocks at the spouting base of a Cornish cliff. It was night and a gale blew. At his great personal risk Mr. Quiller-Couch climbed the cliff and knocked up a farmhouse. But, before the rescue party returned, Mr. Atkinson had been washed out to sea. His body was recovered some days later.
Pierre Marot is the fifth, and youngest, son of Mr. Purves and the godson of Kenneth Grahame. Maxfield Parrish is, of course, the American artist. Mr. Saunders is a Berkshire farmer. Jerry is Mr. Purves’s coloured valet and the great hand in a kitchen with a lobster. The book referred to, in the letter dated 24th of January 1914, is Mr. Verdant Green.
‘Mayfield,
‘Cookham Dene,
‘Berkshire,
‘3rd Nov. 1908
‘MY DEAR PURVES, — Your most welcome and amiable letters continue to reproach me daily, as they bulge in my pocket like a visible bad conscience. I must be allowed to dwell on their amiability, because you have every right to be “shirty” to any extent — yet no “shirtability” has appeared up to the present date.
‘The fact is, when one has written letters for many years for one’s daily bread, and suddenly finds oneself free of them, a revulsion sets in which must be allowed to work itself off. You will understand and make allowances.
‘I am most awfully obliged to you for all the solid work you are putting in on behalf of “the W. in the W.” Your review was perfectly charming, and is bound to be helpful. That the book has given you all personal pleasure is, of course, very good for me to think of. I was greatly interested in the book of your Pageant in Philadelphia that you sent me. It is a fine thing to be a citizen of “No mean City”, with a storied past such as yours possesses, and the sight must have been deeply impressive and moving and beautiful. It was well worth doing, and it was evidently done well. I hope that Jack and Ned did not miss it, through being away at their camp. That must have been ripping fun for them — I should imagine that when Pierre Marot heard all about it he simply turned green with jealousy. Our “camp” hasn’t come off yet, because I am hoping to manage it after the New Year — in Switzerland to begin with, and then perhaps a drop into the northern part of Italy, for colour and anemones and Chianti and so on.
‘We had a beautiful summer here, and now we are having an equally beautiful autumn — still and misty and mild and full of colour. I had a jolly day at Oxford a short time ago. Everything in full swing and the river covered with men doing “tubbing” practice. The old place was just as beautiful as ever, and I bought some youthful ties and some “Oxford sausages” in the delightful market — they are a small species without any skins on their poor little persons — and took a walk down Mesopotamia, and explored many old corners.
‘We can’t extract any Fowey news from Q., who is probably mighty busy, and neither Atky nor Miss Marsden have given any sign of life for a long time. I wish we could get down there for a bit before the year closes. Perhaps it may yet be possible.
‘This is not much of a letter, but look on it as a makeshift and I will try and do better next time. Our kindest regards to Mrs. Purves and all the family, and hearty thanks for all you are doing to help a struggling author to get an honest living, and remembrances to Jerry (I eat a cold lobster every Sunday for lunch and mournfully think what might have been if you were all over on this side and lobsters were cheap).
‘Ever yours most sincerely, ‘KENNETH GRAHAME’
‘Mayfield,
‘Cookham Dene,
‘Berkshire, England,
‘17th Dec. 1908
‘DEAR PURVES, — It occurred to us that you might possibly care to have a copy of the English edition of “The W. in the W.”, so I have sent you one, instead of a Christmas card with two robins sitting on a steaming plumpudding with an intoxicated church in the background. I should like to have sent Mrs. Purves a tiara and each of the boys a steam-yacht or a motor-car, but that will have to be some other Christmas. We are just back from Devonshire and miss the sea and the sunshine. My influenza was apparently a slight one at the time, but the after weakness and general grogginess still continues, and I can only walk a mile or two, and then an armchair and slumber till dinner-time, which is a nuisance. We find deep mud everywhere and leaden skies overhead. But my faithful tame robin was waiting on the doorstep next morning and came for his currant as if we had not been away a day.
‘E. is Christmassing for all she’s worth. We have had no Fowey news this long while. Well, this is a dull letter, written like Hon’ble Poet Shelley’s stanzas “in a moment of depression”. But it wishes you all good things, including a Happy New Year, “jointly and severally”, for you and Mrs. Purves, and all the boys, and Jerry.
‘Yours most sincerely,
‘KENNETH GRAHAME’
‘Mayfield,
‘Cookham Dene,
‘Berkshire,
‘England, 27th July 1909
‘DEAR PURVES, — Your letters, welcome as they are, always hit me on a very sore spot on my conscience — and a spot too that has not had time to skin over properly since the last one knocked it raw. And yet, do you know, I do write you any quantity of truly magnificent letters. In my armchair of evenings, with closed eyes, or strolling in the woods of afternoons — or with head on pillow very late on a thoroughly wet and disagreeable morning. I see my pen covering page after page of cream-laid parchment-wove extra antique. Such good stuff too — witty, anecdotical, pensive, pathetic — I feel myself lick the envelope — I see myself running to the post — I hear the flop of the letter in the box. It’s all so real — to me — that I was quite surprised to find that you weren’t ask
ing me to limit them to, say, three a week. Please believe that, if they never reach you, it’s not my fault.
‘We have had two surprise visits from “Atky” this summer. He just dropped from the clouds, without notice, ate a hearty lunch, talked a great deal, and flitted away again into the outer darkness. He seems to have been very poorly all the winter, as the result of influenza, which sapped his strength, but he was distinctly on the mend when he came here, and is probably all right by now. We were deeply disappointed to hear from you that there was no chance of your coming over this summer, but of course we quite understand. After all one’s “affairs” must rank first, and you want, when you come, to bring an easy mind with you. And Fowey and the Thames will wait. Meantime, we are amused to hear of the two boys swaggering about the continent doing the Grand Tour, as it used to be called.
‘Mouse is down at his favourite sea-side resort — Littlehampton, a rather horrid little place, which he adores. I wish our tastes in places were similar, so that we could be together; but in any case E. can’t take her bad eye to the sea just yet, on account of the glare. We are having a miserable summer, so wet and cold. I have not had my boat out of the boat-house yet, and have a fire in the study where I am writing this.
‘I must thank you again for all the “cuttings” you so kindly sent. Most interesting they were, and encouraging. With all regards and remembrances to all of you.
‘Yours truly,
‘KENNETH GRAHAME’
‘Mayfield,
‘Cookham Dene,
‘Berkshire,
‘England, 12th Jan. 1910
‘MY DEAR PURVES, — First and foremost, I beg that you will take an early opportunity of conveying to Master P. M. my respectful but very hearty thanks for the beautiful Christmas present that he was good enough to send me. The book is a delightful one in every respect — matter, form and illustration — and Maxfield Parrish keeps up to his own high standard, which is not easy, though we shall never expect less of him. P. M., of course, remembered my fondness for the classical old stories, which are eternally new; but it was clever of him to choose so well.
‘Next, I wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year, and that all your roseate projects may blossom into full-blown facts — if they do, you will certainly have to be prosperous, and it will be your own fault if you’re not happy.
‘And then, I want to explain the difficulty I found in answering your last letter, of some months ago, sketching your hoped-for programme for the present year. It found us very busy house hunting and hopeful of being settled in a place of our own by Christmas at least; and now Christmas has come and gone, and we are as far as ever from a house. And our time is up here, and the owner wants to come back. And until this point is settled, all plans are in abeyance. As soon as I have found something and “moved in”, I hope to go on my travels with a light heart. We are both somewhat stale and rusty, and I want to smell foreign smells again and drink wine in the country where it grows; but we feel it would be wiser to get our troubles over first. However, I do hope they will be over, long before you begin to get a move on you; and then it would be nice indeed if we could stretch our weary limbs under the same marble table outside some sun-bathed restaurant.
‘I will get E. to write to you about Tyrol, which she knows — I’ve never been there myself, but I should like to go. Though I can’t talk German I can drink beer — and it’s handy for Venice.
‘Q. is frightfully busy over the election, propagating his pernicious doctrines throughout the west country. We had a nice letter from his boy, who goes into residence at Oxford next week. Atky recently made a sudden flight into Sardinia, an island I’ve long wanted to visit. He hints darkly at adventures, but as yet I’ve had no opportunity of pumping him. Your boys must have had a ripping time. I wish some one would take me on a trip like that.
‘Well, until we meet, which I hope will now be soon.
‘Yours most sincerely,
‘KENNETH GRAHAME’
‘Boham’s,
‘Blewbury, Didcot,
‘England, 20th May 1910
‘MY DEAR PURVES, — After exceeding great tribulation we have at last found this little farmhouse, and moved into it a few days ago. Chaos, of course, and we live in a small clearing in a forest of books and furniture, striving vainly to reduce things to some appearance of order. Blewbury is perhaps the most beautiful of a string of pretty and very primitive villages stretched along the northern edge of the Berkshire Downs. It is only about 54 miles from London, but 5,400 years remote from it in every way. This is the heart of King Alfred’s Country, “Alfred the Great” who beat the Danes, close by here, about 860, and nothing has really happened since. True, a tiresome innovator, called William the Conqueror, came along some years later, and established a thing called the Curfew bell, which still rings here during the winter months, to the annoyance of the more conservative inhabitants, who say they used to get on very well before these newfangled notions; but this is all that divides us from Saxon times. We are some twelve miles from Oxford, but its culture does not permeate to us; if we penetrate as far as Abingdon or Wallingford we are mighty travellers and have seen great and distant cities.
‘The village is really a charming one — a mixture of orchards and ancient timbered cottages and clear little streams, and the people are simple and friendly and dignified. The downs lie a mile or two to the south — splendid bare grassy spaces with (so-called) Roman or British “Camps” and “Barrows”. The villages along the edge are all beautiful with fine old churches — ours is a beauty, and not much spoilt. We went to a memorial service for King Edward there to-day and the simplicity and genuineness of it all was very touching. As for this little house, it is a plain Berkshire farmer’s house, “unfaked” and unaltered, with no special architectural features, with its orchard on one side and its farm buildings on the other. We are genuinely hoping that you may be able to come and see it — and us, and if you have to suffer any minor discomforts (if for instance we have to “sleep” you “out”, in some dream of a thatched cottage, owing to exigencies of space), I am sure you will bear in mind that Alfred the Great was no better off. I have honestly no fear that Blewbury itself will disappoint you. The Bohams, I may explain, sleep in a row in the churchyard. Only their name remains, attached to this farm and to a road leading from it up onto the downs.
‘I wonder whether your plans still hold good, as already related to us? If so, you will be here about the time that I have hammered in the last tack into the last carpet, and I shall wearily straighten my back and prepare to take a well-earned holiday with you. I suppose you would hardly have time to walk from here, by way of the downs, to Fowey? Atky says six weeks would do it quite comfortably. That peripatetic personage wrote to me the other day from Corsica. Each year his “St. Anthony’s fever” seems to agitate his lean limbs more violently. Don’t bring any fine clothes or evening frocks to us. We are the only people here who dine late at all and we keep it dark.
‘Yours most truly,
‘KENNETH GRAHAME’
‘Boham’s,
‘Blewbury, Didcot,
‘Berkshire, England,
‘2nd August 1910
‘DEAR PURVES, — The photos are first-rate. They are being gradually shown round the village, and are received with cries of “Law” and “Well I never” and “Fancy now” and careful identification of every paling and bit of thatch. The two I like best, pictorially, are the bit of Leach’s farmyard with a Lady hen and a Master pigling occupying the stage; and the one of the Barley Mow Inn with the little white road in the background, running over the hill to Streatley. But they are all delightful, and breathe the Blewbury spirit.
‘Our great annual social event, the “Fete”, came off last Wednesday and Society with a big S. was convulsed from top to toe; but is gradually simmering down to quietude again for another twelve months. We made £27 for the Church expenses — Mouse as a “costermonger” with a miniature “coster-barrow”
, sold sweets vigorously, and cleared 17s. 6d. Saunders had a weighing-machine and Mrs. S. a bran-tub, and made over £2 between them. Dancing and pyrotechnics closed an event of unexampled brilliance, which the Morning Post, however, has so far failed to chronicle.
‘Yesterday morning we drove over early to East Ilsley (that village we did not go to, the day we were up on the downs together) to see the big annual sheep-fair, I can’t describe it, but it was one of the most intoxicating things I have ever been at. The noise of dogs and sheep and dealers, the procession of sheep and men, the droves of flockmasters and dealers in the most fascinating clothes you can conceive, the pubs all gay and busy, and the beautiful little village glittering with movement and humming with the real Berkshire language, beat any Pageant I have ever seen. And all genuine business too — not an “outsider” present except ourselves. You ought to have been there. Mouse was soon in the thick of it, but when I sought him and discovered him bidding at the auction for pedigree rams, I had to haul him out of action.
Complete Works of Kenneth Grahame Page 94
