by Unknown
Barrie did so believe. He says so again and again in these speeches. But he was also a realist. The noble world, the world of heroes, existed, but it had not been his own good luck to live in it. And, because his fate had been other, because from first to last he was an exile and alone, he would not be false to his beliefs. And so he stated them, but clothed his honesty in the fantasy of a child — a child because he always believed that a child was nearer to this noble world of heroes than a grown person. This is not whimsical, nor false, nor cowardly. These are the speeches of a brave man who will not lie to you, nor ask your sympathy, but trusts you to understand that he is gravely affirming the reality of existence as he has found it. And so his speeches are best when he reminisces. Again and again his imagination flies back to the time when it was easier to say that you believe in a heroic world.
I don’t know what he thought about the present one. I fancy that, in the world of literature, he found Meredith, Hardy, Kipling, Stevenson, Swinburne, Henley, greater than any writers of the post-war world. But he uttered no criticism. He never boasted. He must secretly have known that in one thing at least he was superior to every living man — the technique of the theatre. The last act of Dear Brutus, the middle act of Mary Rose, the whole of The Admirable Crichton, the opening of Peter Pan, the second act of The Boy David — what economy and originality and discipline!
But he never said a word. In these speeches he tells you of some of the things that happened to him; of what he himself, in very truth, was, not a word!
Acknowledgments
The Publishers wish to express their sincere thanks and appreciation to the following people for their help and co-operation in compiling M’Connachie and J. M. B. Great help has been afforded to them by everyone concerned.
Dame Marie Tempest; Mr. Denis Mackail; Mr. G. W. Bishop; Mr. H. J. C. Marshall, Secretary to the Royal Literary Fund; and the Editors of The Times, The Scotsman, The Glasgow Herald, The Dumfries Courier and Herald, The Dumfries and Galloway Standard, and Berrow’s Worcester Journal.
Publishers’ Note
We have endeavoured to collect as many of Sir James Barrie’s speeches as possible, but there are doubtless omissions. The speech delivered to the Aldine Club, New York’, to which he alludes in these pages, has not been traced as yet, and we should be grateful, with a view to the possibility of inclusion in future editions, for any suitable material not at present to be found in M’Connachie and J. M. B.
Courage and The Entrancing Life, the two speeches to the students of St. Andrews University and Edinburgh University, are not included, as they are already published separately.
Prize-Giving at Dumfries Academy
DUMFRIES — June 30, 1893
Mr. CHAPMAN 1 has just told you that some adverse criticism has been passed upon the Academy. I remember the time when I was a boy here, there was a good deal of adverse criticism passed upon it. I passed a good deal of it myself. The people that we complained of chiefly in those days — all altered now though — were the masters. The masters were always interfering with the boys in those days. I remember during the cricket and football and skating season, some of — the bigger boys — had to absent ourselves on private business, but the masters treated us with no delicacy in those days. They would insist in knowing where we had been.
1 Convener of the Academy Management Committee.
The other day I came across a curious little book called ‘The Querist’s Album.’ In my day in Dumfries Academy the girls at the school used to have books called ‘Querist’s Albums,’ in which the boys got a whole page to write down their favourite book, their favourite author, whether they believed in love at first sight and other things like that. One of the questions was ‘What is your pet antipathy?’ Looking up one of these books lately, I found my pet antipathy was the Academy bell. Well, I have changed in that now. The Academy bell is not my pet antipathy. I look back upon it with very pleasant feelings, and sad ones too.
When I got up to this platform I was trying to think what my predecessors said before they gave away the prizes. So far as I remember, they always said that the good boys and girls who had got prizes would enjoy their holidays far more than the bad boys who had been idle. These bad boys would be pricked by their consciences for the next six weeks. But they gave these bad boys a word of encouragement. They said ‘Work hard during the next six weeks; make up your mind to get prizes next year; then the next time you’ll enjoy your holidays.’ Now, when I was a boy I never was entirely sure about that being true, and I’m not quite sure now. So I won’t repeat that advice.
The sight of Mr. Neilson standing down there looking at me is rather frightening me. I feel as if at any moment he might ask me to prove something or other about the line A B; probably tell me to remain in during the dinner hour. I don’t suppose he ever does that now. I remember very well my first day in Mr. Neilson’s class. At that time the hour began by two sums being put on the board. We had to solve these sums if we could, and then pass our slate along to the next boy, and the sums were corrected. If they were both right you put two marks right on the slate; if wrong, you had to put nothing on it, and hand it back to the owner, who had to call out whether he had got two, one, or nothing. The boy sitting next me had both wrong. I put nothing on. But in the meantime he had taken my measure. He saw I was a soft, stupid kind of boy, and he thought he would risk it. So when Mr. Neilson called, he sang out ‘Two.’ I remember that very distinctly. Another thing that makes me feel like a boy again is this. Since I came into the room I saw a lady who used to be a girl at the school with me. The last time I saw her we were both running round the Academy in opposite directions. We met at the corner and both fell. I don’t suppose I apologised to her at that time, but I do so now.
When I came to the Academy I meant to work hard, I know, for several days — and I probably would have worked hard and become a shining light if it had not been for another boy who led me astray. I don’t mind telling you his name. You probably know it. It was Stewart Gordon. But that wasn’t the name he was known by at school. He came up and asked me my name. I told him. It didn’t seem to please him. He said, ‘I’ll call you Sixteen String Jack.’ I asked his name, and he said it was Dare Devil Dick. Dare Devil Dick was a boy we used to buy weekly for a penny in continued numbers. He wasn’t much believed in by our relations. We used to take him home unostentatiously under our waistcoats. His school days had been rather trying. That was one of the reasons we sympathised with him. One of his masters — I think it must have been the mathematical master — had a difference with Dare Devil Dick about some matter of scholastic discipline. The master would not give way — we know what masters are — so Dare Devil Dick went away to the Spanish Main and became a pirate. There was one picture I’ll never forget. Dare Devil Dick was standing on the deck with a band of fierce pirates about him, and a lady fair on the one arm, and a lady dark on the other. They are always fair and dark in novels. They had both fainted, and Dare Devil Dick was saying, ‘Advance another step and I’ll blow up the powder magazine and send you all into eternity.’ Well, that Dare Devil Dick was the boy this boy was. He asked me if I would join. I joined the pirate crew — and that was fatal to my prize-taking.
I used to come to the prize distribution to help another boy to take his home. That other boy was the boy the Rector said something about just now, a boy who was buried in St. Michael’s Churchyard. I have been thinking about him all day. My last day at Dumfries Academy I was with him all day — James M’Millan. He was one of the most brilliant boys who ever came out of the school. In fact he might have been the brightest the Academy ever produced. Where M’Millan was the others never had a look in. Anything he wanted he took. The others got his leavings. He was a brilliant scholar, and had also a most original mind; and he would have done something if he had had half a chance. I believe he has left a very considerable mark in Dumfries Academy. He was an influence for good in the school, which not all prize-takers are. That influence, I have
no doubt, has affected those who are men and women now.
I remember one prize I got which had rather disastrous results. It was awarded by the girls of the school by plebiscite, to the boy who had the sweetest smile in school. The tragic thing was that my smile disappeared that day and has never been seen since.
I was glad to hear what Mr. Chapman said about this magnificent idea of building a new school in its own grounds, with play fields all round. When that time comes, I used to think when I was a boy — in fact I used to think a great deal more of it then than I do now — that prizes should be presented to those who make the best averages at cricket, who kick the best ball at football and so on. There were no prizes given for that in those days. I don’t know whether there are now or not. In those days we used to do our best without the help of the people with thousands, those shabby people with thousands. What we used to do was this. We used to write to every boy, to every man who had been a boy at Dumfries Academy, who had a cousin who had been at Dumfries Academy — who had been at the Station — or anything like that, to give a subscription to our cricket and football clubs. It seems to me that’s about the most vivid recollection I have. We used always to be writing for subscriptions to cricket and football clubs. Now, since I left the Academy, no boy has ever written to me for a subscription to a football or cricket club. That’s amazing. I’m sure you’re much better behaved than we were. You behave much better to-day than we did. But in this, you’re below us. It’s your duty to write to all old boys and get subscriptions. I’m sure any of us who came back and found you had neglected your duty in that respect would tell you were almost — duffers.
Stevenson Memorial Meeting
AT THE MUSIC HALL, EDINBURGH
December 10, 1896
(Mr. J. M. Barrie said)
He was so little accustomed to public speaking that he had been watching Lord Rosebery and Mr. Lawson Tait to try to find out what they did with their hands when they were speaking. He asked them as a favour that they would allow him to put his hands in his pockets to keep them at rest. (Mr. Barrie thereupon put his hands in his trousers pockets and kept them there while he was speaking.)
One of the inducements with which Mr. Stevenson used to try to allure his friends to Samoa was a waterfall, which the natives had turned into a very remarkable and fearsome plaything. They sat down on the top of it, and were washed down with the torrent into a pool beneath. The ladies went down as well as the men, and Mr. Stevenson used to say to his friends when he asked them out that they must do so also, just to show the fortitude of the Briton. He always promised that a native lady would go down with them the first time. Now, if Lord Rosebery had given him (Mr. Barrie) a lead down that waterfall, he was quite certain he should have followed his Lordship with a lighter heart, and certainly with less alarm than he felt in following him that afternoon. Nothing would have induced him to face this meeting; nothing would have dragged him into the daylight had the cause been less dear to him, and had he had less love and admiration for Robert Louis Stevenson, who was loved far more than any other writer of his time. Those of them who were his adorers; those of them who were Stevensonians — for it was a form of freemasonry — those of them who made almost an idol of this man, were very willing to admit that he had imperfections, that he had failings, that he was only mortal. But they had all read in novels that a man when he was really in love wanted the lady to know him as he really was, and told her all that was to be told against himself — what all his failings were; and he said to her that now she could not love him so much. Then he turned away from her in passion when she admitted that she did not. That was how they regarded Louis Stevenson. They knew that he had his imperfections, but if they believed it they were all willing to turn themselves into Alan Brecks and to become ‘braw fighters’
There was only one other novelist of modern times who called forth such a -passionate devotion — a woman, a darker spirit than he, one who died at a much younger age even than he did, the author of ‘Wuthering Heights’ Everyone who had come under the spell of Emily Bronte would fight on till the end.
It was no one single class that loved Stevenson. All classes did. There was a beautiful story of a little native boy at Samoa. When Stevenson went there he built a small hut, and afterwards went into a large house. The first night he went into the large house, he was feeling very tired and sorrowful that he had not the forethought to ask his servant to bring him coffee and cigarettes. Just as he was thinking that, the door opened and the native boy came in with a tray carrying cigarettes and coffee. And Mr. Stevenson said to him, in the native language, ‘Great is your forethought’; and the boy corrected him, and said, ‘Great is the love.’
That love which they had for him was just as conspicuous across the Atlantic. He (Mr. Barrie) was in America lately and he found that they adored Robert Louis Stevenson there just as much as they did here. There was a window, as they knew, in San Francisco, where his works only used to be exhibited: and there were always great crowds round that window. He was told that there were women there as well as men, although Stevenson once wrote to him, ‘It is little the ladies fash about Tusitala and all his works. The ungrateful jades!’ But that did not seem to have been so. Stevenson’s chief appeal was to young men; it would be by young men he would be best known, and longest remembered.
It had been said that he cared little about his old University in Edinburgh. But that was not true. The other day he heard of a letter written by Stevenson to one of his oldest friends; it was written from the South Seas, and he said he was lying in a boat, thinking of old days at Edinburgh University, and the dreams he had dreamed in those days, and how little he thought at that time that they would be realised. And now that they had been realised, it had occurred to this friend that out of gratitude he might have put up at the corner of Lothian Street a tablet on which that little story might be inscribed, so that students who had grown down-hearted might perchance look upon it and be cheered. He (Mr. Barrie) did not know whether that tablet would ever be put up, but he dared to say that many would seem to see it there and take courage.
He knew another body of younger men — younger men than Mr. Stevenson, at all events — who took him as their model, who looked up to him as their example — he meant the younger writers of to-day — of all classes, not merely the Romancists, but the Realists, as they were called: the Idealists, as they were called: the Pessimists, as they were called. They all agreed on one thing. They all saw with different eyes, but they were all proud of Stevenson, who, beyond all other writers, was the man who showed them how to put their houses in order before they began to write, in what spirit they should write, with what aim, and with what necessity of toil. They knew from him that, however poor their books might be, they were not disgraced if they had done their best: that however popular they might be, if they were not written with some of his aims, they were only cumberers of the ground. They were only soldiers in the ranks, but they were proud to claim him as their leader, and when he called his muster-roll they would be found answering to their names, ‘Here, here, here.’ Stevenson was dead, but he still carried their flag, and because of him the most unworthy among them were a little more worthy, and the meanest of them a little less mean.
The Royal Literary Fund
AT THE 114TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FUND, AT THE HOTEL METROPOLE, May 9, 1904 1
1 Sir James Barrie’s 42nd birthday.
Mr. Barrie, as Chairman, gave the toast.
My Lord, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have the honour to ask you to drink two great Toasts in one — the health of ‘His Majesty the King,’ and the health of our munificent Patron, who is again the King. The King has done this Society two noble services. As Prince of Wales, he chose it as the occasion of his first appearance in public life in 1864, when he took the Chair; and at our Centenary Dinner he again took the Chair, thus, as I understand, for the only time in his life presiding twice at meetings of the same Society. I ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen, to drink, in all
enthusiasm and loyalty, the King!
The Chairman then gave:—’ Her Majesty Queen Alexandra, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Other Members of the Royal Family.’ We who follow the most romantic and picturesque of callings must be in a special sense the servants of our picturesque, romantic Queen. The Prince of Wales, as Duke of York, has followed the example of his father and grandfather, and taken the Chair at one of the meetings of this Society. I give you ‘The Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Other Members of the Royal Family!’
My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, in rising to propose the toast of ‘The Royal Literary Fund’ — I suppose it comes of following this trade of imagining things, but, indeed, I am not certain whether we are really here or whether this is only a chapter in a book; and if it is a chapter in a book I wonder which of us all is writing it; and whoever is writing it, Heaven knows, I wish him well through the opening sentence. On an occasion such as this, which is no longer for men only — a Chairman’s first thought is naturally how to get round the ladies; indeed, gentlemen, even though you are not a Chairman that may be still the problem. Just think how much time and ability you have devoted to it. Yes, and what a mess you have made of it. That ought to make you sympathise with what is about to happen to me.
Nineteen hundred and four will be known henceforth in the history of this Society as the beginning of ladies. Up to now they stole in after dinner or they came and peered over the gallery, if there was a gallery, the idea being that the men below, growing restive under the speeches, might look Heavenward at times and see the ladies already part of the way up. When this Society came into being 114 years ago there is abundant evidence that authors were considered a very alarming people. It was said that no one would meddle with authors. One crafty suggestion — I think I can give you the exact words — was:—’ That authors should be mixed with artists or any other kind of objects less obnoxious to the general apprehension and terror.’ For my part, I am proud to know that we terrified them, and I hope we terrify them still; but is it not remarkable that, when they were looking for attractive objects to mix us with, they never thought of the ladies? It makes eerie reading of the old records: you begin to wonder whether 114 years ago there were any ladies, or whether they are a modern growth. Be that as it may, we have the ladies at this function at last, and I hope, ladies, you will allow me, in the name of the Society, to welcome you to your first dinner with men.
