Chapter 16

On the other hand, should the story-teller be a poet—one who, like the writer of ‘John Ball,’ has been accustomed to write under the conditions of a form of literary art where the diction is always and necessarily concrete, figurative, and quintessential, and where the movement is metrical—his danger lies in a very different direction. The critic’s interest then lies in watching how the poet will comport himself in another field of imaginative literature—a field where no such conditions as these exist—a field where quintessential and concrete diction, though meritorious, may yet be carried too far, and where those regular and expected bars of the metricist which are the first requisites of verse are not only without function, but are in the way—are fatal, indeed, to that kind of convincement which, and which alone, is the proper quest of prose art. No doubt it is true, as we have before said, that literature being nothing but the reflex of the life of man, or else of the life of nature, the final quest of every form of literature is that special kind of convincement which is inherently suitable to the special form. For the analogy between nature and true art is not a fanciful one, and the relation of function to organism is the same in both. But what is the difference between the convincement achieved by poetic and the convincement achieved by prose art? Is it that the convincement of him who works in poetic forms is, though not necessarily, yet most perfectly achieved by a faithful record of the emotion aroused in his own soul by the impact upon his senses of the external world, while the convincement of the proseman is, though not necessarily, yet most perfectly achieved by a faithful record and picture of the external world itself?

All such generalizations as this are, no doubt, to be taken with many and great qualifications; but, roughly speaking, would not this seem to be the fundamental difference between that kind of imaginative literature which expresses itself in metrical forms and that kind of imaginative literature in which metrical form is replaced by other qualities and other functions? Not but that these two methods may meet in the same work, not but that they may meet and strengthen each other, as we have before said when glancing at the interesting question, How much, or how little, of realism can poetry capture from the world of prose and weave into her magic woof, and how much of music can prose steal from poetry? But in order to do all that can be done in the way of enriching poetry with prose material without missing the convincement of poetic art, the poet must be Homer himself; in order to do all that can be done in the way of vivifying prose fiction with poetic fire without missing the convincement of prose art, the story-teller must be Charlotte Brontë or Emily, her sister, in whose work we find for once the quintessential strength and the concrete and figurative diction of the poet—indeed, all the poetical requisites save metre alone. Had ‘Jane Eyre,’ ‘Villette,’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ existed in Coleridge’s time he would, we may be sure, have taken these three prose poems as illustrations of the truth of his axiom that the true antithesis of poetry is not prose, but science.

What the prose poet has to avoid is metrical movement on the one side and scientific modulation of sentences on the other. And perhaps in no case can it be achieved save in the autobiographic form of fiction, where and where alone the work is so subjective that it may bear even the poetic glow of ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Villette.’ What makes us think this to be so is the fact that in ‘Shirley’—a story written in the epic method—the only passages of the poetic kind which really convince are those uttered by the characters in their own persons. And as to ‘Wuthering Heights,’ a story which could not, of course, be told in one autobiography, the method of telling it by means of a group of autobiographies, though clumsy enough from the constructor’s point, was yet just as effective as a more artistic method. And it was true instinct of genius that led Emily Brontë to adopt the autobiographic method even under these heavy conditions.

Still the general truth remains that the primary function of the poet is to tell his story steeped in his own emotion, while the primary function of the prose fictionist is to tell his story in an objective way. Hence it is that in a general way the difficulty of the poet who turns to prose fiction lies, like that of philosophical or scientific writers, in suppressing certain intellectual functions which he has been in the habit of exercising. And the case of Scott, which at first sight might seem to show against this theory, may be adduced in support of it. For Scott’s versified diction, though concrete, is never more quintessential than that of prose; and his method being always objective rather than subjective, when he turned to prose fiction he seemed at once to be writing with his right hand where formerly he had been writing with his left.

VIII. FRANCIS HINDES GROOME. (THE TARNO RYE.) 1851–1902.

I.

I have been invited to write about my late friend and colleague Francis Hindes Groome, who died on the 24th ult., and was buried among his forefathers at Monk Soham in Suffolk. I find the task extremely difficult. Though he died at fifty, he, with the single exception of Borrow, had lived more than any other friend of mine, and perhaps suffered more. Indeed, his was one of the most remarkable and romantic literary lives that, since Borrow’s, have been lived in my time.

The son of an Archdeacon of Suffolk, he was born in 1851 at Monk Soham Rectory, where, I believe, his father and his grandfather were born, and where they certainly lived; for—as has been recorded in one of the invaluable registry books of my friend Mr. F. A. Crisp—he belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Suffolk. He was sent early to Ipswich School, where he was a very popular boy, but never strong and never fond of athletic exercises. His early taste for literature is shown by the fact that with his boy friend Henry Elliot Maiden he originated a school magazine called the _Elizabethan_. Like many an organ originated in the outer world, the _Elizabethan_ failed because it would not, or could not, bring itself into harmony with the public taste. The boys wanted news of cricket and other games: Groome and his assistant editor gave them literature as far as it was in their power to do so.

[Picture: Francis Hindes Groome]

The Ipswich School was a very good one for those who got into the sixth, as Groome did. The head master, Dr. Holden, was a very fine scholar; and it is no wonder that Groome throughout his life showed a considerable knowledge of and interest in classical literature. That he had a real insight into the structure of Latin verse is seen by a rendering of Tennyson’s ‘Tithonus,’ which Mr. Maiden has been so very good as to show me—a rendering for which he got a prize. In 1869 he got prizes for classical literature, Latin prose, Latin elegiacs, and Latin hexameters. But if Dr. Holden exercised much influence over Groome’s taste, the assistant master, Mr. Sanderson, certainly exercised more, for Mr. Sanderson was an enthusiastic student of Romany. The influence of the assistant master was soon seen after Groome went up to Oxford. He was ploughed for his “Smalls,” and, remaining up for part of the “Long,” he went one night to a fair at Oxford at which many gipsies were present—an incident which forms an important part of his gipsy story ‘Kriegspiel.’ Groome at once struck up an acquaintance with the gipsies at the fair. It occurred also that Mr. Sanderson, after Groome had left Ipswich School, used to go and stay at Monk Soham Rectory every summer for fishing; and this tended to focus Groome’s interest in Romany matters. At Göttingen, where he afterwards went, he found himself in a kind of Romany atmosphere, for, owing perhaps to Benfey’s having been a Göttingen man, Romany matters were still somewhat rife there in certain sets.

The period from his leaving Göttingen to his appearance in Edinburgh in 1876 as a working literary man of amazing activity, intelligence, and knowledge is the period that he spent among the gipsies. And it is this very period of wild adventure and romance that it is impossible for me to dwell upon here. But on some future occasion I hope to write something about his adventures as a Romany Rye. His first work was on the ‘Globe Encyclopædia,’ edited by Dr. John Ross. Even at that time he was very delicate and subject to long wearisome periods of illness. During his work on the ‘Globe’ he fell seriously ill in the middle of the letter _S_. Things were going very badly with him; but they would have gone much worse had it not been for the affection and generosity of his friend and colleague Prof. H. A. Webster, who, in order to get the work out in time, sat up night after night in Groome’s room, writing articles on Sterne, Voltaire, and other subjects.

Webster’s kindness, and afterwards the kindness of Dr. Patrick, endeared Edinburgh and Scotland to the “Tarno Rye.” As Webster was at that time on the staff of ‘The Encyclopædia Britannica,’ I think, but I do not know, that it was through him that Groome got the commission to write his article ‘Gypsies’ in that stupendous work. I do not know whether it is the most important, but I do know that it is one of the most thorough and conscientious articles in the entire encyclopædia. This was followed by his being engaged by Messrs. Jack to edit the ‘Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland,’ a splendid work, which on its completion was made the subject of a long and elaborate article in _The Athenæum_—an article which was a great means of directing attention to him, as he always declared. Anyhow, people now began to inquire about Groome. In 1880 he brought out ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ which I shall describe further on. In 1885 he was chosen to join the staff of Messrs. W. & R. Chambers. It is curious to think of the “Tarno Rye,” perhaps the most variously equipped literary man in Europe, after such adventures as his, sitting from 10 to 4 every day on the sub-editorial stool. He was perfectly content on that stool, however, owing to the genial kindness of his colleague. As sub-editor under Dr. Patrick, and also as a very copious contributor, he took part in the preparation of the new edition of ‘Chambers’s Encyclopædia.’ He took a large part also in preparing ‘Chambers’s Gazetteer’ and ‘Chambers’s Biographical Dictionary.’ Meanwhile he was writing articles in the ‘Dictionary of National Biography,’ articles in _Blackwood’s Magazine_ and _The Bookman_, and also reviews upon special subjects in _The Athenæum_.

This was followed in 1887 by a short Border history, crammed with knowledge. In 1895 his name became really familiar to the general reader by his delightful little volume ‘Two Suffolk Friends’—sketches of his father and his father’s friend Edward FitzGerald—full of humour and admirable character-drawing.

In 1896 he published his Romany novel ‘Kriegspiel,’ which did not meet with anything like the success it deserved, although I must say he was himself in some degree answerable for its comparative failure. The origin of the story was this. Shortly after our intimacy I told him that I had written a gipsy story dealing with the East Anglian gipsies and the Welsh gipsies, but that it had been so dinned into me by Borrow that in England there was no interest in the gipsies that I had never found heart to publish it. Groome urged me to let him read it, and he did read it, as far as it was then complete, and took an extremely kind view of it, and urged me to bring it out. But now came another and a new cause for delay in my bringing out ‘Aylwin’: Groome himself, who at that time knew more about Romany matters than all other Romany students of my acquaintance put together, showed a remarkable gift as a _raconteur_, and I felt quite sure that he could, if he set to work, write a Romany story—_the_ Romany story of the English language. He strongly resisted the idea for a long time—for two or three years at least—and he was only persuaded to undertake the task at last by my telling him that I would never bring out my story until he brought out one himself. At last he yielded, told me of a plot, a capital one, and set to work upon it. When it was finished he sent the manuscript to me, and I read it through with the greatest interest, and also the greatest care. I found, as I expected to find, that the gipsy chapters were simply perfect, and that it was altogether an extremely clever romance; but I felt also that Groome had given no attention whatever to the structure of a story. Incidents of the most striking and original kind were introduced at the wrong places, and this made them interesting no longer. So persuaded was I that the story only needed recasting to prove a real success that I devoted days, and even weeks, to going through the novel, and indicating where the transpositions should take place. Groome, however, had got so entirely sick of his novel before he had completed it that he refused absolutely to put another hour’s work into it; for, as he said, “the writing of it had already been a loss to the pantry.”

He sent it, as it was, to an eminent firm of publishers, who, knowing Groome and his abilities, would have willingly taken it if they had seen their way to do so. But they could not, for the very reasons that had induced me to recast it, and they declined it. The book was then sent round to publisher after publisher with the same result; and yet there was more fine substance in this novel than in five ordinary stories. It was at last through the good offices of Mr. Coulson Kernahan that it was eventually taken by Messrs. Ward & Lock; and, although it won warm eulogies from such great writers as George Meredith, it never made its way. Its failure distressed me far more than it distressed Groome, for I loved the man, and knew what its success would have been to him. Amiable and charming as Groome was, there was in him a singular vein of dogged obstinacy after he had formed an opinion; and he not only refused to recast his story, but refused to abandon the absurd name of ‘Kriegspiel’ for a volume of romantic gipsy adventure. I suspect that a large proportion of people who asked for ‘Kriegspiel’ at Mudie’s and Smith’s consisted of officers who thought that it was a book on the German war game.

I tried to persuade him to begin another gipsy novel, but found it quite impossible to do so. But even then I waited before bringing out my own prose story. I published instead my poem in which was told the story of Rhona Boswell, which, to my own surprise and Groome’s, had a success, notwithstanding its gipsy subject. Then I brought out my gipsy story, and accepted its success rather ungratefully, remembering how the greatest gipsy scholar in the world had failed in this line. In 1899 he published ‘Gypsy Folk-Tales,’ in which he got the aid of the first Romany scholar now living, Mr. John Sampson. And this was followed in 1901 by his edition of ‘Lavengro,’ which, notwithstanding certain unnecessary carpings at Borrow—such, for instance, as the assertion that the word “dook” is never used in Anglo-Romany for “ghost”—is beyond any doubt the best edition of the book ever published. The introduction gives sketches of all the Romany Ryes and students of Romany, from Andrew Boorde (_c._ 1490–1549) down to Mr. G. R. Sims and Mr. David MacRitchie. During this time it was becoming painfully perceptible to me that his physical powers were waning, although for two years that decadence seemed to have no effect upon his mental powers. But at last, while he was working on a book in which he took the deepest interest—the new edition of ‘Chambers’s Cyclopædia of English Literature’—it became manifest that the general physical depression was sapping the forces of the brain.

But it is personal reminiscences of Groome that I have been invited to write, and I have not yet even begun upon these. Our close friendship dated no further back than 1881—the year in which died the great Romany Rye. Indeed, it was owing to Borrow’s death, coupled with Groome’s interest in that same Romany girl Sinfi Lovell, whom the eloquent Romany preacher “Gipsy Smith” has lately been expiating upon to immense audiences, that I first became acquainted with Groome. Although he has himself in some magazine told the story, it seems necessary for me to retell it here, for I know of no better way of giving the readers of _The Athenæum_ a picture of Frank Groome as he lives in my mind.

It was in 1881 that Borrow, who some seven years before went down to Oulton, as he told me, “to die,” achieved death. And it devolved upon me as the chief friend of his latest years to write an obituary notice of him in _The Athenæum_. Among the many interesting letters that it brought me from strangers was one from Groome, whose name was familiar to me as the author of the article ‘Gypsies’ in the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica.’ But besides this I had read ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ a picture of the very kind of gipsies I knew myself, those of East Anglia—a picture whose photographic truth had quite startled me. Howsoever much of matter of fact may be worked into ‘Lavengro’ (and to no one did Borrow talk with so little reticence upon this delicate subject as to me during many a stroll about Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park), I am certain that his first-hand knowledge of gipsy life was quite superficial compared with Groome’s during the nine years or so that he was brought into contact with them in Great Britain and on the Continent. Hence a book like ‘In Gypsy Tents’ has for a student of Romany subjects an interest altogether different from that which Borrow’s books command; for while Borrow, the man of genius, throws by the very necessities of his temperament the colours of romance around his gipsies, the characters of ‘In Gypsy Tents,’ depicted by a man of remarkable talent merely, are as realistic as though painted by Zola, while the wealth of gipsy lore at his command is simply overwhelming.

At that time—with the exception of Borrow and the late Sir Richard Burton—the only man of letters with whom I had been brought into contact who knew anything about the gipsies was Tom Taylor, whose picture of Romany life in an anonymous story called ‘Gypsy Experiences,’ which appeared in _The Illustrated London News_ in 1851, and in his play ‘Sir Roger de Coverley,’ is not only fascinating, but on the whole true. By-the-by, this charming play might be revived now that there is a revived interest in Romany matters. George Meredith’s wonderful ‘Kiomi’ was a picture, I think, of the only Romany chi he knew; but genius such as his needs little straw for the making of bricks. The letter I received from Groome enclosed a ragged and well-worn cutting from a forgotten anonymous _Athenæum_ article of mine, written as far back as 1877, in which I showed acquaintance with gipsydom and described the ascent of Snowdon in the company of Sinfi Lovell, which was afterwards removed bodily to ‘Aylwin.’ Here is the cutting:—

“We had a striking instance of this some years ago, when crossing Snowdon from Capel Curig, one morning, with a friend. She was not what is technically called a lady, yet she was both tall and, in her way, handsome, and was far more clever than many of those who might look down upon her; for her speculative and her practical abilities were equally remarkable: besides being the first palmist of her time, she had the reputation of being able to make more clothes-pegs in an hour, and sell more, than any other woman in England. The splendour of that ‘Snowdon sunrise’ was such as we can say, from much experience, can only be seen about once in a lifetime, and could never be given by any pen or pencil. ‘You don’t seem to enjoy it a bit,’ was the irritated remark we could not help making to our friend, who stood quite silent and apparently deaf to the rhapsodies in which we had been indulging, as we both stood looking at the peaks, or rather at the vast masses of billowy vapours enveloping them, as they sometimes boiled and sometimes blazed, shaking, whenever the sun struck one and then another, from amethyst to vermilion, ‘shot’ now and then with gold. ‘Don’t injiy it, don’t I?’ said she, removing her pipe. ‘_You_ injiy talking about it, _I_ injiy lettin’ it soak in.’”

Groome asked whether the gipsy mentioned in the cutting was not a certain Romany chi whom he named, and said that he had always wondered who the writer of that article was, and that now he wondered no longer, for he knew him to be the writer of the obituary notice of George Borrow. Interested as I was in his letter, it came at a moment when the illness of a very dear friend of mine threw most other things out of my mind, and it was a good while before I answered it, and told him what I had to tell about my Welsh gipsy experiences and the adventure on Snowdon. I got another letter from him, and this was the beginning of a charming correspondence. After a while I discovered that there were, besides Romany matters, other points of attraction between us. Groome was the son of Edward FitzGerald’s intimate friend Robert Hindes Groome, Archdeacon of Suffolk. Now long before the great vogue of Omar Khayyam, and, of course, long before the institution of the Omar Khayyam Club, there was a little group of Omarians of which I was a member. I need not say here who were the others of that group, but it was to them I alluded in the ‘Toast to Omar Khayyam,’ which years afterwards I printed in _The Athenæum_, and have since reprinted in a volume of mine.

After a while it was arranged that he was to come and visit us for a few days at The Pines. When it got wind in the little household here that another Romany Rye, a successor to George Borrow, was to visit us, and when it further became known that he had travelled with Hungarian gipsies, Roumanian gipsies, Roumelian gipsies, &c., I don’t know what kind of wild and dishevelled visitor was not expected. Instead of such a guest there appeared one of the neatest and most quiet young gentlemen who had ever presented themselves at the door. No one could possibly have dared to associate Bohemia with him. As a friend remarked who was afterwards invited to meet him at luncheon, “Clergyman’s son—suckling for the Church, was stamped upon him from head to foot.” I will not deny that so respectable a looking Romany Rye rather disappointed The Pines at first. At that time he was a little over thirty, but owing to his slender, graceful figure, and especially owing to his lithe movements and elastic walk, he seemed to be several years younger.

The subject of Welsh gipsies, and especially of the Romany chi of Swindon, made us intimate friends in half an hour, and then there were East Anglia, Omar Khayyàm, and Edward FitzGerald to talk about!—a delightful new friend for a man who had so lately lost the only other Romany Rye in the world. Owing to his youthful appearance, I christened him there and then the “Tarno Rye,” in remembrance of that other “Tarno Rye” whom Rhona Boswell loved. I soon found that, great as was the physical contrast between the Tarno Rye and the original Romany Rye, the mental contrast was greater still. Both were shy—very shy; but while Borrow’s shyness seemed to be born of wariness, the wariness of a man who felt that he was famous and had a part to play before an inquisitive world, Groome’s shyness arose from a modesty that was unique.