i met him first at lord’s, the best place, perhaps, in all london for making acquaintances and even friends. even if he had not worn a light suit of clothes that drew the critical eye inevitably to his monstrous girth he would have been conspicuous as occupying with difficulty the space provided for two persons on an afternoon when seats were at a premium. but though i own to no prejudice against flesh in itself, it was not his notable presence that induced me to speak to him, but rather the appealing glances that he threw to right and left of him when he thought to have detected that fine wine of the game which, tasted socially, changes a cricket match to a rare and solemn festival. such an invitation is one that no one for whom cricket is an inspiration can refuse, and it was natural that thereafter we should p. 64praise and criticise in wise and sympathetic chorus.
the acquaintance thus begun warmed to intimacy at the oval and canterbury, and i began to seek his easily recognisable figure on cricket-grounds with eagerness, to feel a pang of disappointment if he was not there. for though to his careless eye his great moonlike face might suggest no more than good-natured stupidity, i had soon discovered that this exuberance of form barely concealed a delicate and engaging personality, that within those vast galleries of flesh there roamed the timid spirit of a little child. i have said that to the uncritical his face might seem wanting in intelligence, but it was rather that the normal placidity of his features suggested a lack of emotional sensitiveness. save with his eyes—and it needed experience to read their message—he had no means of expressing his minor emotions, no compromise between his wonted serenity and the monstrous phenomenon of his laughter, that induced a facial metamorphosis almost too startling to convey an impression of mirth. if normally his face p. 65might be compared with a deep, still pool, laughter may be said to have stirred it up with a stick, and the consequent ripples seemed to roll to the very extremities of his body, growing in force as they went, so that his hands and feet vibrated in humorous ecstasy.
later, when, in one of his quaint interrogative moods, he showed me a photograph of himself as a child, i was able to give form to the charming spirit that nature had burdened with this grievous load. i saw the picture of a strikingly handsome little boy, with dark, wide eyes and slightly parted lips that alike told of a noble sense of wonder. this, i felt, was the man i knew, whose connection with that monstrous shape of flesh had been so difficult to trace. yet strangely i could recognise the features of the boy in the expansive areas of the man. in the light of the photograph he resembled one of those great cabbage-roses that a too lavish season has swollen beyond all flowerlike proportions, yet which are none the less undeniably roses. others might find him clumsy, elephantine, colossal; thenceforward he was for me clearly boyish.
p. 66his voice varied more in tone and quality than that of any other man i have ever met, and over these variations he seemed to have little control; and this, too, made it very difficult for strangers to detect the trippings and hesitancies, gentle, wayward, and infinitely sensitive, of his childlike temperament. within the limits of one simple utterance he would achieve sounds resembling the drumming of sudden rain on galvanised iron and the ecstatic whistlings of dew-drunk birds. it was sometimes difficult to follow the purport of his speech for sheer wonder at the sounds that slid and leaped and burst from his lips. his voice reminded me of a child strumming on some strange musical instrument of extraordinary range and capacity which it had not learned how to play. his laughter was ventriloquial and rarely bore any accountable relationship to the expressions of mirth of ordinary men. it was like an explosive rendering of one of those florid scales dear to piano-tuners, but sometimes it suggested rather an earthquake in his boots.
he dwelt in a little flat that seemed like p. 67the upper floor of a doll’s-house when related to its proprietor, and here it was his delight to dispense a hospitality charmingly individual. his meals recalled nothing so much as the illicit feasts held in school dormitories, and when he peered curiously into his own cupboards he always looked as if he were about to steal jam. he would produce viand after viand with the glee of a successful explorer, and in terms of his eager hospitality the most bizarre cates appeared congruous and even intimately connected, so that at his board grown men would eat like schoolboys, with the great careless appetite of youth.
he had a fine library and a still finer collection of mechanical toys, which were for him a passion and a delight. it was pleasant to see him set some painted piece of clockwork careering on the hearthrug, stooping over it tenderly, with wondering eyes, and hands intent to guard it from disaster. it was pleasant, too, to hear him recite swinburne, of whom he was a passionate admirer; for, though his voice would be as rebellious as ever, his whole p. 68body would thrill and pulse with the music of the poet. he always touched books softly because he loved them. of bonfires he spoke reverently, though a london flat hardly lent itself to their active exploitation; and i remember that he told me once that nothing gave him a keener sense of what he had lost in growing up than the scent of burning twigs and leaves. yet if he felt this loss, what should it have been for us who had come so much farther than he!
himself a child, he was beloved of children and treated by them as an equal; but i never knew another child who was so easily and continuously amused. the hippodrome, the british museum, the tower of london, and the art of messrs. maskelyne and devant alike raised in him the highest enthusiasm, which he expressed with charming but sometimes embarrassing freedom. alone of all men, perhaps, he found the royal academy wholly satisfying, and it could be said of him truly that if he did not admire the picture he would always like the frame. he had a huge admiration for any one who did anything, and he liked riding in lifts.
p. 69though he treated women with elaborate courtesy, their society made him self-conscious, and he, who could direct his body featly enough in a crowded street, was apt to be clumsy in drawing-rooms. perhaps it was for this reason that they had apparently played no marked part in his life, and i may be wrong in attaching any special significance to a phrase he made one quiet evening in his flat. we had been speaking of the latest sensation in our group of mutual acquaintances, of the marriage of phyllis, daintiest and most witty of cricket-lovers, to a man in whom the jealously critical eyes of her friends could perceive no charm; but the conversation had dwindled to silence when he said, “surely his love can make any man lovely!”
then, as if the subject were closed, he fell to speaking of his latest pocket-knife with boyish animation; but the phrase dwelt in my mind, though the image of the brave boy with wide eyes and lips parted in wonder was all that i ever knew of the man who made it.
