John Forster | Page 8

on a visit to its noble owner, Lord Lytton, and was deputed to receive and marshal the guests at the station, an office of dread importance, and large writ over his rather burly person. His face was momentous as he patrolled the platform. I remember coming up to him in the crowd, but he looked over and beyond me, big with unutterable things. Mentioning this later to Boz, he laughed his cheerful laugh, "Exactly," he cried. "Why, I assure you, Forster would not see me!" He was busy pointing out the vehicles, the proper persons to sit in them, according to their dignity. All through that delightful day, as I roamed through the fine old halls, I would encounter him passing by, still in his lofty dream, still controlling all, with a weight of delegated authority on his broad shoulders. Only at the very close did he vouchsafe a few dignified, encouraging words, and then passed on. He reminded me much of Elia's description of Bensley's Malvolio.
There was nothing ill-natured in Boz's relish of these things; he heartily loved his friend. It was the pure love of fun. Podsnap has many touches of Forster, but the writer dared not let himself go in that character as he would have longed to do. When Podsnap is referred to for his opinion, he delivers it as follows, much flushed and extremely angry: "Don't ask me. I desire to take no part in the discussion of these people's affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an odious subject, an offensive subject that makes me sick, and I"--with his favourite right arm flourish which sweeps away everything and settles it for ever, etc. These very words must Forster have used. It may be thought that Boz would not be so daring as to introduce his friend into his stories, "under his very nose" as it were, submitting the proofs, etc., with the certainty that the portrait would be recognised. But this, as we know, is the last thing that could have occurred, or the last thing that would have occurred to Forster. It was like enough someone else, but not he.
"Mr. Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr. Podsnap's opinion." "He was quite satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things and with himself." "Mr. Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind him he put out of existence." "I don't want to know about it. I don't desire to discover it." "He had, however, acquired a peculiar flourish of his right arm in the clearing the world of its difficulties." "As so eminently respectable a man, Mr. Podsnap was sensible of its being required of him to take Providence under his protection. Consequently he always knew exactly what Providence intended."
These touches any friend of Forster's would recognise. He could be very engaging, and was at his best when enjoying what he called a shoemaker's holiday--that is, when away from town at some watering-place, with friends. He was then really delightful, because happy, having left all his solemnities and ways in London.
Forster was a man of many gifts, an admirable hard-working official, thoroughly business-like and industrious. I recall him through all the stages of his connection with the Lunacy Department, as Secretary and Commissioner and Retired Commissioner, when he would arrive on "melting days" as it were. But it was as a cultured critic that he was unsurpassed. He was ever "correct," and delivered a judgment that commended itself on the instant; it was given with such weight and persuasion. This correctness of judgment extended to most things, politics, character, literature, and was pleasant to listen to. He was one of the old well-read school, and was never without his edition of Shakespeare, the Globe one, which he took with him on his journeys. He had a way of lightly emphasising the beauty of a special passage of the Bard's.
Once, travelling round with Boz, on one of his reading tours, we came to Belfast, where the huge Ulster Hall was filled to the door by ardent and enthusiastic Northerners. I recall how we walked round the rather grim town, with its harsh red streets, the honest workers staring at him hard. We put up at an old-fashioned hotel, the best--the Royal it was called, where there was much curiosity on the part of the ladies to get sly peeps at the eminent man. They generally contrived to be on the stairs when he emerged. Boz always appeared, even in the streets, somewhat carefully "made up." The velvet collar, the blue coat, the heavy gold pin, added to the effect.
It was at this hotel, when the show was over,