The Adventure of Living | Page 4

COURT, WITH HIS FAVOURITE CAT From a picture by his son Henry Strachey.
JOHN STRACHEY, THE FRIEND OF LOCKE
THE CLOSE, SUTTON COURT, SOMERSET
SUTTON COURT, SOMERSET
SUTTON COURT, SOMERSET
MRS. SALOME LEAKER,--"THE FAMILY NURSE"
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY,--?TAT 16 From a photograph done at Cannes, about 1876.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY AS AN OXFORD FRESHMAN, ?TAT 18 MEREDITH TOWNSEND, EDITOR OF THE "FRIEND OF INDIA," AND HIS MOONSHEE, THE PUNDIT OOMACANTO MUKAJI, DOCTOR OF LOGIC IN THE MUDDEH UNIVERSITY Taken at Serampore, Bengal, in 1849.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY, ?TAT. 32
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY AT NEWLANDS CORNER, ?TAT. 45

THE ADVENTURE OF LIVING

CHAPTER I
HOW I CAME TO "THE SPECTATOR"
Sir Thomas Browne gave his son an admirable piece of literary advice. The young son had been travelling in Hungary and proposed to write an account of what he had seen. His father approved the project, but urged him strongly not to trouble himself about the methods of extracting iron and copper from the ores, or with a multitude of facts and statistics. These were matters in which there was no need to be particular. But, he added, his son must on no account forget to give a full description of the "Roman alabaster tomb in the barber's shop at Pesth."
In writing my recollections I mean to keep always before me the alabaster tomb in the barber's shop rather than a view of life which is based on high politics, or even high literature. At first sight it may seem as if the life of an editor is not likely to contain very much of the alabaster tomb element. In truth, however, every life is an adventure, and if a sense of this adventure cannot be communicated to the reader, one may feel sure that it is the fault of the writer, not of the facts. A dull man might make a dull thing of his autobiography even if he had lived through the French Revolution; whereas a country curate might thrill the world with his story, provided that his mind were cast in the right mould and that he found a quickening interest in its delineation. Barbellion's Diary provides the proof. The interest of that supremely interesting book lies in the way of telling.
But how is one to know what will interest one's readers? That is a difficult question. Clearly it is no use to put up a man of straw, call him the Public, and then try to play down to him or up to him and his alleged and purely hypothetical opinions and tastes. Those who attempt to fawn upon the puppet of their own creation are as likely as not to end by interesting nobody. At any rate, try and please yourself, then at least one person's liking is engaged. That is the autobiographer's simple secret.
All the same there is a better reason than that. Pleasure is contagious. He who writes with zest will infect his readers. The man who argues, "This seems stupid and tedious to me, but I expect it is what the public likes," is certain to make shipwreck of his endeavour.
The pivot of my life has been _The Spectator_, and so The Spectator must be the pivot of my book--the point upon which it and I and all that is mine turn. I therefore make no apology for beginning this book with the story of how I came to The Spectator.
My father, a friend of both the joint editors, Mr. Hutton and Mr. Townsend, was a frequent contributor to the paper. In a sense, therefore, I was brought up in a "Spectator" atmosphere. Indeed, the first contributions ever made by me to the press were two sonnets which appeared in its pages, one in the year 1875 and the other in 1876. I did not, however, begin serious journalistic work in _The Spectator_, but, curiously enough, in its rival, The Saturday Review. While I was at Oxford I sent several middle articles to _The Saturday_, got them accepted, and later, to my great delight, received novels and poems for review. I also wrote occasionally in _The Pall Mall_, in the days in which it was edited by Lord Morley, and in The Academy. It was not until I settled down in London to read for the Bar, a year and a half after I had left Oxford, that I made any attempt to write for The Spectator. In the last few days of 1885 I got my father to give me a formal introduction to the editors, and went to see them in Wellington Street. They told me, as in my turn I have had to tell so many would-be reviewers, what no doubt was perfectly true, namely that they had already got more outside reviewers than they could possibly find work for, and that they were sorry to say I must