As Berry and I Were Saying (18 page)

“By God, that’s true,” said I.

“I see that I’ve rung some bell.”

“You’ve rung more than one. But one occurs to me. But I’d rather leave it over.”

“As you please,” said Berry. “Oh, I know. McCarthy. That won’t take long. Why did Mr Justice McCarthy take his life?”

“The answer to that is simple, but very sad. Because his brain was affected. His brain had been impaired by overwork. I remember McCarthy well, when he was at the Bar. He had far the biggest practice of any junior of my time. And he always looked worn. This was not surprising, for night after night, you could see his light in his Chambers till ten or eleven o’clock. And that went on for years. He never took silk, though that would have helped him no end. But, of course, taking silk is a gamble. Had he applied for silk, he could have had it at any time. But he may have been afraid – of crossing the Rubicon. For that is what it is. People who wanted McCarthy as a junior, might not have wanted McCarthy as a silk. For his fees would have had to go up. Of course, he should have done it, to spare his health. And, even if it hadn’t come off, he must have made a fortune as a junior, and he wasn’t a married man. And then he was made a Judge – taken straight from the outer Bar, a rather rare thing. But the appointment came too late, for he had impaired his brain. He was the nicest of men. Most charming in every way. And he had a very fine brain. But he had worked it too hard: and not for six months or so, but for year after year. And in the end, it gave way. It’s a very tragic story. The life and death of McCarthy, a dutiful, kindly man.”

“And now, before I forget, I must add a rider to something I said last night. It was said that, because of Arthur Newton, the staff of Marlborough Street Police Station was changed every month. I believe that to be true. But one man was never changed. That was Sub-Divisional Inspector Francis McKay. No finer uniformed officer ever walked his beat. I came to know him quite well, and I would sooner have dealt with Francis McKay than with almost any official I ever met. You knew where you were with him. He personified law and order: his reports were always first-class: and, by God, he knew his world. He was a fine, big fellow, with the heart of a lion: and the malefactor feared him. McKay would walk down courts, which none of his men would have dared to enter alone. But he always stuck to the middle of the court, for he didn’t want a flower-pot to fall on his head. And it was for much the same reason that the stage-manager of a theatre in the old days always wore a top-hat. If he was worth his salt, the stage-hands hated him. And it was just too easy to drop a brick from the flies.”

Berry emptied his glass and crossed his legs.

“‘Let’s talk of’ ramps, of dupes and sophistry, ‘And tell sad stories of the’ state of things.”

“Now we’re off,” said Daphne. “What are you going to expose?”

“No vulgarity, please,” said her husband. “I am about to contribute to this heterogeneous volume a little dissertation of indisputable value. I don’t suppose that, as a result, my remains will be buried in Westminster Abbey: but, though I know my world well enough to realize that it will do no good, I shall at least have set out the honest and considered opinion of many God-fearing men and women, all of whom are impatient of chicanery.

“In my lifetime, I have witnessed two ramps or swindles, neither of which has been confined to the few, neither of which has suffered from exposure, both of which have proved remarkably lucrative to their promoters, both of which are today – such is the credulity of man – firmly established. In each case, with many others, I supposed the ramp or swindle to have attained the ephemeral dignity of the vogue and that, after an indecent interval, those duped would kick themselves – and, possibly also, the promoters – while the ramp or swindle sank into the pit of obloquy. But, with many others, I was mistaken: and I have today the melancholy privilege of witnessing the acceptance of both ramps or swindles as contributions of value to our civilization.

“The first ramp or swindle goes by the high-sounding name of psychology – a word which, I am prepared to wager, not one in a thousand of those who visit and pay a psychologist would be able satisfactorily to define. If my memory is not at fault, the promoter or psychologist really got going between the two wars. (Let me make it quite clear that I am not referring to the true ‘nerve specialist’, for whom I have always had a great respect.) I am sure that it was about 1932 that, as an ordinary, decent British Subject, I became offended by the hold which this ramp or swindle was obtaining upon my more credulous fellows. I was in France at the time and I mentioned the matter to a distinguished French physician, whom I happened to know. He emitted a sound of contempt which no letters can reproduce. Then he added, ‘They tried to start it here: but they didn’t last long.’ The French are realists.

“But now, in England, psychology and its promoters have come to stay. Men make large incomes by receiving patients, listening to their woes, employing terms and phrases which they can neither construe nor understand, issuing precepts, to obey which is entirely beyond their power, prescribing relaxation, and assuring them that, after a course of ‘treatments’ at two or three guineas a time, they will discover that they have been born again. They talk about inhibitions and repression: but never of discipline. That ancient and honourable word does not belong to the psychologist’s vocabulary. And naughty children are brought to them…and the psychologist says, ‘Another problem child.’

“There were no ‘problem children’, when I was young. But there was discipline. The young were disciplined: their elders disciplined themselves. Relations, friends, doctors, clergymen and lawyers gave us advice. This, they were qualified to give, because they had known us from childhood, often enough. And we never offered them money. Their counsel was not for sale. But all that is out of date: and the bare-faced ramp is in.

“It has actually made its way into the British Army… I don’t think ‘The Old Contemptibles’ had known psychology. Something other than that had taught them to fight. The greatest general of his day, Smith-Dorrien – and when I say ‘the greatest’, I mean it: neither French nor Haig was in the same street with him – spoke to his ‘superior’ upon the telephone. ‘My men are too tired to march: but they are not too tired to fight.’ And he fought and won
Le Cateau
upon the following day.
That
was psychology. His ‘superior’, French, was proposing to withdraw all troops from the battle zone: he had actually wired to Kitchener, ‘I think that immediate attention should be directed to the defence of Havre.’
Havre!
The Channel Ports could go.
Havre!
Two hundred miles from
Le Cateau
, where his ‘subordinate’ stood and broke the German rush.
That
was not psychology. He didn’t know his men.

“That’s all psychology means – knowing your man: knowing what you can ask of him, and what you can’t: knowing his virtues and failings, sizing him up: and, if he comes to you, helping him when he’s troubled, and, if he’s playing the fool, making him beat down Satan under his feet. But you can’t buy that sort of service. The psychologist can’t sell it – he hasn’t got it to sell. His wares are pinchbeck wares. And they don’t belong to England, although they’re there.

“The second ramp or swindle is modernist art. From the point of view of a student of human nature, this ramp or swindle is more interesting than the first; and its triumph, which is unhappily undeniable, is very much more important: for no man had heard of psychology, but many had heard of art. In fact, it was a case of a daw among peacocks; and that, we must all admit, is a difficult role to play. After all, art was established. Pheidias flourished five hundred years before Christ – and even more before Epstein: but that is beside the point. And Pheidias is acknowledged to be the greatest sculptor the world has ever seen. And painting goes back a long way – probably, just as far: but the old stuff has gone. Still, Giotto belonged to the thirteenth century. So we can safely say that in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and ten, art was firmly established all over the world. Everyone knew what it meant – the reproduction in marble or on canvas of natural things; of men and women and skies and scenery; of storms and sunsets; of cattle and cities and battles and hunting scenes; as well as the artists’ most humble and reverent conceptions of all we hold most holy in every shape and form. That is what art meant.

“As the centuries passed, the genius of sculptor and painter began to grow less marked. Old names began to stand out – Van Eyck, Claude, Rembrandt, Leonardo, Holbein, Velasquez, and dozens more: they stood out, as mountain peaks, and their followers gazed upon their summits and held their breath. But, though their followers could not attain such magical perfection, they stuck to the great tradition of holding the mirror up to nature, if I may make bold to borrow Shakespeare’s deathless words. And Rodin, Winslow Homer and Sargent rose to tremendous heights. So did Munnings and others: but everyone did his best.

“And then the ramp or swindle lifted its shameless head…

“No one knows how it began, for promoters of ramps or swindles don’t give their secrets away. But it probably began in Montmartre, where some scamp, like François Villon, who hadn’t got Villon’s brain, who could borrow no more money of women, who couldn’t be bothered to do a decent day’s work, determined in desperation to put up a bluff. Perhaps he had seen a cheap-jack, selling his coloured water to country clods. Anyway, he had nothing to lose… So he painted upon a canvas the sort of stuff that a little child would paint – a child who had been given a paint-box to keep it quiet. Before he did it, he probably shut his eyes, for he’d been to drawing-schools and he didn’t want what he remembered to get in his way. And then he signed his production and sat down and thought of a name. I don’t know what he called it: but, so long as it bore no relation to the blotches upon his canvas, any name would do. And then he took it to a dealer and, clapping a finger to his nose, he said, ‘Here’s something new.’ And the dealer laughed like hell. Then he said, ‘One’s no earthly. Bring me some more.’ So the modernist school was started, and pictures, that were not pictures, began to appear.

“Now that is all speculation, although I fancy it’s not very far from the truth. But now I’ll pass to the facts.

“It was, I think, in 1912 that for the first time I visited an exhibition of Modern Art. Be sure that I was offended: what is much more to the point, I was inexpressibly shocked. To describe the impertinent rubbish which was hanging, framed, upon the walls would be superfluous: everyone knows it by now, for it’s always the same – devoid of every element of draughtsmanship and style; and either portraying nothing that any responsible person has ever seen – except when some paint’s been upset or the dog’s been sick – or representing familiar objects as very young children may be expected to do. What shook me was to see educated people of fashion appraising this rubbish with the air of a connoisseur. They put their heads on one side; they stood back, half closing their eyes; they indicated what they called ‘effects’ to one another and they used the word ‘values’ over and over again. I could hardly believe the report of my eyes and ears. It was like a bunch of archaeologists commending the proportions of a dunghill and presaging the rich rewards which its patient excavation would bring. And then it dawned upon me that the old fairy-tale, told, I think, by Hans Andersen, had come to life.

“It is the tale of the king who was to walk in majesty through the streets, clad in a robe of unimaginable splendour, to delight his subjects’ eyes. The robe had been specially woven, and, when the grooms of the bed-chamber laid it upon his shoulders, the King couldn’t see or feel it, so fine was its texture and so rare its style. But his courtiers were overwhelmed by the sheer magnificence of his apparel. So a procession was formed, and the King went forth. And as he strode through the streets, his loving subjects were, one and all, overcome by ecstasy and vied with one another in declaring the splendour of his raiment and the excellent beauty of its style. And then, at last, hoist on his father’s shoulder to see his King, a little child cried out, ‘But he hasn’t got anything on.’ And the King looked round and said, ‘Damn it, that’s what I thought: but I didn’t like to say so, because all these —s about me said that it dazzled their eyes. Give me an overall, someone. Oh, and where are the grooms of the bed-chamber? I’ll deal with them here and now.’

“If a little child had been taken to that exhibition and had cried out, as children will, ‘Oh, Mummy, that’s like I do’, the educated people of fashion would have at once avoided each other’s eyes. And the gallery would soon have been empty, and modernist art would never have been heard of again. But there was no little child, to speak the truth. And because each of the educated people of fashion was terrified of being found guilty of bad taste, they vied with one another in commending stuff which each of them felt in his heart was beneath contempt – to the great and enduring profit of the promoters of the ramp. Of such is moral courage.

“And now let me bear myself out with a report which anyone who has the time to search the files of
The Times
may verify.

“Not very long before the second Great War, an eminent English art critic went to New York. Having an hour or so to spare he visited the Metropolitan Museum. After renewing his acquaintance with some of the Old Masters, he entered a modernist room. He strolled round this. Then he approached an attendant and gave him his card. ‘Take this to the Curator,’ he said. The Curator arrived hot-foot, for the critic was very well known. After courtesies had been exchanged, the critic led him to a picture. ‘This caught my eye,’ he said. ‘I’m not surprised,’ said the Curator, rubbing his hands. ‘We were lucky to secure it. It was in the Salon last fall.’ ‘I know,’ said the critic. ‘I saw it there. I suppose you know that it is now hung sideways.’ The Curator started. ‘Impossible,’ he cried. ‘Clear the room,’ said the critic, ‘and have the picture down.’ The Curator did as he said. The hooks on the picture had been removed for packing: and there, on the back, were their original holes. Either of design or because they were honestly puzzled, the men who had re-hung the picture had ignored these original holes, with the result that this triumph of modernist art had been hanging sideways for months in the Metropolitan Museum.
And no one, not even the Curator, had perceived that it was the wrong way up
.

“That true report can be verified, as I have said, by reference to the files of
The Times
. And if, after that, anyone is going to maintain that Modernist Art is anything but a ramp and a swindle, then, by God, let us pray for his soul.

“I’m afraid I’ve said nothing of sculpture. So let me say one thing. William Henry Hudson, the famous naturalist, who wrote that masterpiece
Green Mansions
, lived and died in England in 1922. To do him honour, a memorial in marble was erected in Hyde Park. On this appeared in marble an illustration of
Rima
, Hudson’s most famous character and one of the most exquisite maidens that any author has ever created. For
Rima
was Amaryllis, the most delicate child of nature that ever was known. The illustration in marble is as revolting as it is indecent, and it was unveiled by a Prime Minister of Great Britain. Surely, on that memorable day, the ramp or swindle of modernist art touched its high-water mark. But one cannot help wondering whether the famous naturalist turned in his grave.

“And now to sum up. It is written, ‘Ye cannot serve God and mammon.’ You cannot admire Pheidias
and
Epstein: for if Epstein is admirable, then Pheidias is not. You cannot admire modernist painting
and
the Old Masters. For if M— is admirable, then Reynolds is not. It is, therefore, for every man to choose. But I cannot help feeling that those men and women of all nationalities who have esteemed Pheidias and the Van Eycks for hundreds and hundreds of years can’t all be wrong.”

“Once again,” said I, “allow me to congratulate you upon your restraint. I know your detestation of chicanery as well as your contempt for lack of moral courage. I am also aware of your command of the more violent expressions which signify disapproval and rebuke. It is, therefore, a great relief to me to feel that a monograph which commands my great admiration will not have to be expurgated before it appears.”

“Allow me,” said Berry, rising, “to pour you a glass of p-port. As you know, I am unhappily very seldom able to commend your outlook. It is, therefore, with a pleasure which is unusual and so the more to be esteemed that I accept a tribute which was never more deserved.”