Henley-in-Arden

“ The time was ripe for work in the highways and byways—the sowing of seed in out-of-the-way places, and the preacher was to "take the road" with one or two good singers, a cornet-player, and a cottage-organ, and give people in isolated mountain-nooks a chance to hear the Word and profit thereby for their eternal weal.
He had just seated himself and was mopping his perspiring brow when Henley rose and stood hemming and hawing and clearing his throat. ”

“ As somebody says, truth never goes without a scratched face.
But, like all men hated by the many, Henley inspired devotion in the few who, in his case, were not only devoted themselves but eager to make their friends devoted too. When he got back to London one of his Young Men, whom I do not see why I should not call Charles Whibley, insisted that J. and I must meet Henley first in the right way, that all our future relations with him depended upon it, and that this right way would be for him to ask Henley and ourselves, and nobody else, to dinner in his rooms. ”

“ I think that American moment was more thrilling than any given moment at Henley; and though there is more comfort in a college barge, and more gentle seclusion for the favored spectator, I am not going to own that it equals as a view-point the observation-train, with its successive banks of shouting and glowing girls, all a flutter of handkerchiefs and parasols, which used to keep abreast of the racing crews beside the stately course of the Connecticut Thames. Otherwise I think it best to withhold comparisons, lest the impartial judge should decide in favor of Henley. ”

“ In London, on his journeys to and fro, they surrounded him as a bodyguard. If on those old Thursday nights, his was the loudest voice, theirs played up to it untiringly. There were no half measures about them. As warriors in the cause of art and literature, they reserved nothing from their devotion to their leader, they exhausted every possibility of that form of flattery usually considered the greatest. They fought Henley's battles with hardly less valour, hardly milder roaring. ”

“ Henley remarked, insincerely. "If you can't hold in and take things as they come you'd better call the deal off. I started you; I can't lay down everything and keep—keep telling you what to do and say. Life's too short and makes too many claims on a fellow."
"I want you to say a good word for me, Alf." Long wiped his anxious mouth with his bare hand and tugged at his mustache. "She believes the sun rises and sets in you. Looks to me like it's Alfred did this, an' Alfred said that, an' Alfred thinks so and so and does so and so, with every breath she draws. ”

“ Cust, to do him justice, agreed with Fleet Street, and, knowing that he was without experience, had the sense to appeal for help to those with it. By good luck he went to Henley, [Pg 154] who was not free to do much for the paper save give it his advice, offer it those of his Young Men whom he could spare, and take under his wing the new Young Men it invented for itself. When new enthusiasts fell into Henley's train, it was never long before they followed him to Buckingham Street on Thursday nights. ”

“ The contemptible buzzard, Sir Arthur, is now completely veered about. But in vain! It shall not be! By hell it shall not!
This fellow, this Henley must some how or other be disposed of. The contempt of the arrogant peer, her uncle, will harm him but little; for the lord, with all his dignity, is no match for the plebeian!
Neither will his lordship hastily seek another combat with his niece. The only advantage I have, in so insignificant an ally, is that of hereafter making suspicion alight on Henley, and not on me; for I mean to carry them both off, Henley and Anna. ”

“ Nor did she guess that Al Gepper stood at the darkened window of his room, watching her.
Penny drove as fast as she could to the Henley home in the southern section of Riverview. Lights blazed from the downstairs windows.
Abandoning her car in the driveway, she rang the doorbell. After a long wait, a maid appeared.
[176]
“Is Mr. Henley here?” Penny asked breathlessly. “Or Mrs. Henley? It’s most important that I talk with them at once.”
“Mrs. Henley has been at the seashore for a month,” the maid replied in an agitated voice. “Mr. Henley is somewhere downtown. ”

“ In 1889 he returned to Edinburgh to become editor of a weekly paper, the 'Scots Observer,' the headquarters of which were in 1891 removed to London, the title having been changed to the 'National Observer.' Patriotic imperialism, or anti-Gladstonianism, was the dominating note of the paper's politics; but Henley's main purpose was the promotion of what he deemed the higher interests of literature and art. ”

“ It required a big man like Henley to confess that he was envious, and perhaps there was good reason why he should be, for considering the way their careers began, and Henley’s magnificent intellect and gift of expression, one would not have prophesied in the beginning that Henley would only be appreciated by the critical few, and Stevenson by all the world, gentle and simple. ”

“ Alf! have you plumb lost your senses?" Long gasped. "Why, why, good Lord, man! Why, Alf—"
"Don't Alf me!" Henley cried. "Get out of my sight or me 'n you'll mix right here! I didn't introduce you to that gentle girl to have you pull her around like a housemaid and force your foul lips to hers. I introduced you [Pg 225] as a man, not a bar-room roustabout. No wonder she hain't took to you—no wonder she don't want to tie herself down for life to you!"
Henley had sprung into his buggy and taken up the whip and reins. "Stand out of the way!" he cried. ”

“ Yes, madam, indeed; In these distinguished circles, life is but a slavery. None of the best set would relish Tunbridge without Mr. George; Tunbridge and Mr. George (if you’ll excuse my plainness, madam) are in a manner of speaking identified; and indeed it was the Dook’s desire alone that brought us here.
Barbara. What? the Duke? O dear! was it for that?
Menteith. Though, to be sure, madam, Mr. George would always be charmed to find himself (bowing) among so many admired members of his own set.
Miss Foster. Upon my word, Menteith, Mr. Austin is as fortunate in his servant as his reputation. ”

“ Henley succeeded in his speculation, by lecturing, in the most important manner, on all sorts of subjects, from the origin of evil down to a shoe. He also published a variety of pamphlets, and a periodical farrago called the 'Hyp Doctor,' for which he is said to have had pay from Sir 250 Robert Walpole; and as his popularity rapidly increased in consequence of his addressing himself to uneducated understandings, he removed from his Oratory in Newport Market to the more capacious room in Clare Market ”

“ There are still popular preachers in London as greedy of praise and as basely eager for applause as Orator Henley. Equally great buffoons, and men equally low in moral tone, still fill some pulpits, and point the way to a path they may never themselves take. To such unhappy self-deceivers we can advise no better cure than a moonlight walk in Clare Market in search of the ghost of Orator Henley. ”

“ When Henley founded his weekly newspaper, first The Scots, afterwards The National Observer, this young man wrote articles and reviews notorious for savage wit; and years afterwards when The National Observer was dead, Henley dying, and our cavern of outlaws empty, I met him in Paris very sad and I think very poor. “Nobody will employ me now,” he said. “Your master is gone,” I answered, “and you are like the spear in an old Irish story that had to be kept dipped in poppy-juice that it might not go about killing people on its own account.” ”

“ He who divines it will have gone far to solving the tedious problem of sex.
Of Henley the talker, at least, one portrait remains. He was the original of Stevenson's Burly—the talker who would roar you down, bury his face in his hands, undergo passions of revolt and agony, letting loose a spring torrent of words. There was always a wild flood and storm of talk wherever Henley might be. He and his Young Men were the most clamorous group of the clamorous Nineties, though curiously their clamour seems faint in the ears of the present authorities on that noisy period. ”

“ It is said that members for Henley sat in parliaments of Edward I. and Edward III., but no writs have been found. Henry VIII. having granted the use of the titles “mayor” and “burgess,” the town was incorporated in 1570–1571 by the name of the warden, portreeves, burgesses and commonalty. Henley suffered from both parties in the Civil War. William III. on his march to London (1688) rested here and received a deputation from the Lords. The period of prosperity in the 17th and 18th centuries was due to manufactures of glass and malt, and to trade in corn and wool. ”

“ Henley’s healthy, if sometimes misapplied, confidence in the myriad suggestions of life gives him his charm. He is made to sing along the highways, not to sit down and write. If he took himself more seriously, his work would become trivial. ”

“ Wrinkle made answer. "He looks well enough for every day; he'd look odd with a long, jimswinger coat on in that dusty store with all them one-gallus mossbacks he makes his livin' out of. Them fellers 'u'd laugh at 'im an' say he was gittin' rich too fast at the'r expense."
As red as the flower with which she was trying to adorn him, Henley pushed the bud away. ”

“ I cannot think of Henley as he was in his prime, to borrow a word that was a favourite with him, without hearing his laugh and seeing his face illuminated by it. Rarely has a man so hampered by his body kept his spirit so gay. ”

“ Mr Henley may not have an equal affection for the looking-glass, but he is a very poor and unimaginative reader who does not see him gloating over the god-like proportions of the shadow he sends sprawling over his own page. I make free to say that a more self-conscious person than Mr Henley does not live. ‘The best and most interesting part of Stevenson’s life will never get written—even by me,’ says Mr Henley. ”

“ She was forever finding an excuse to [Pg 55] come into any room where he might be. Altogether, it was as complete a case of fascination as if she had known him to be the great master he was; and she was his slave long before he gave her the ten shillings, which was valued sentimentally as I really believe a tip never was before or since by a British servant.
Henley was hardly second in her esteem, and this was the more inexplicable because he provided her with so many more chances to prove it. Whistler then lived in Paris, and appeared only now and then. ”

“ Anthony. O come, sir! but your time cannot be said to be over.
Austin. Menteith, you hear?
Menteith. Yes, Mr. George.
Anthony. The Colonel told me that you liked to shake an elbow. Your big main, sir, with Lord Wensleydale, is often talked about. I hope I may have the occasion to sit down with you. I shall count it an honour, I assure you.
Austin. But would your aunt, my very good friend, approve?
Anthony. Why, sir, you do not suppose I am in leading-strings?
Austin. You forget, child: a family must hang together. When I was young—in my time—I was alone ”

“ True human beings—what I call
Human—the deuce a cipher more.
Stevenson may even then have learned it from Henley. But however that may have been, "bleat" and "human" were the two words ever recurring like a refrain in the columns of the National Observer, ever the beginning and end [Pg 137] of argument in the heated atmosphere of Buckingham Street.
In my memory, every Thursday night stands for a battle. Henley was then always at his best. ”

“ That man"—Wrinkle swallowed as he pointed the prongs of his fork at the crayon portrait of Henley's predecessor, which, with shaggy mustache and partially bald pate, in a new oaken frame, hung near the clock—"that man was a Bryant supporter from the minute the sixteen-to-one proposition electrocuted the world to the day of his death."
"Electrofied," corrected Mrs. Henley. "You oughtn't to use words out of the common. People don't understand them hereabouts." ”

“ Henley standing by the roadside listening to the retreating wheels of the coach. The forest was dense, and the moonlight, struggling through the tree-tops, fell upon the ground in patches, adding to the obscurity. Henley seated himself upon a fallen tree, to await the arrival of the cart. Although quite as courageous as the average of men, he could not help a slight feeling of apprehension concerning the outcome of his enterprise. Of course, he knew nothing about these people; but the girl was prepossessing and refined to an unusual degree. ”

“ Death stilled voices that had been loudest. The National Observer passed out of Henley's hands and Henley himself into the Valley of the Shadow. Bob Stevenson said his last good-night to us. Beardsley, Harland, Arthur Tomson, George Steevens, Phil May, Furse, Iwan-Müller—one after another of our old friends, one after another of those old masters of talk set out on the journey into the Great Silence. It is hard to believe they have gone. ”

“ Henley relieved. When he was asked to justify his conduct, he said: "I have a sympathy with bad characters—-I am one of them myself."
With the arrival of the dinner hour the doctor appeared, in no very amiable humour, at the inn.
"Another hard day's work," he said; "I should sink under it, if I hadn't a prospect of getting rid of my practice here. London—or the neighbourhood of London—there's the right place for a man like Me. Well? Where's the wonderful wine? Mind! I'm Tom-Tell-Truth; if I don't like your French tipple, I shall say so."
The inn possessed no claret glasses ”