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At the beginning of our sojourn in Polruan I looked with longing interest upon this pleasant 'Haven'. It was not long before we were introduced to Sir Arthur by Sir Humphrey Milford, the Oxford University Press Publishers. For a considerable time I had been writing a book in the form of a novel, but to a large extent autobiographical. Harold Monro had seen it and advised me to get Q's opinion about it. He wrote him a letter to introduce this matter to him.
Sir Arthur, in his very small and neat script wrote to me from Cambridge in consequence of receiving Harold Monro's letter, saying
'I return to Fowey at the end of the week, and, in accordance
with Mr. Monro's request will see you, and will with pleasure
read your M.S, and give you my opinion. Why not bring it across
to the 'Haven'? - any time after next Sunday. Forgive the curtness
of this note, (I am working very hard here during Term) and believe
me.
Very faithfully yours,
Arthur Quiller-Couch'
So in the week after Sunday I called and was hospitably received. holding fast my bulky M.S. the precious book I had so carefully produced, I was led into a large book-lined room from the windows of which I gained splendid views of the harbour looking straight up the beautiful Pont Creek and, to the right, at the grey old houses of the 'ancient township of Polruan' as legal documents style the village. From this room I was ushered into the small study at the south-eastern corner of the house. It had two windows, one showing Polruan and the harbour; the view from the other was far less extensive. Little more than the garden could be seen from there, a green, refreshing prospect, shaded by the elms and beautified by many flowers. I remembered that in one of his books Q had bidden his readers "Admire my View!" Well, here was his view! He was wont to sit and write at the table under the window with its piles of papers and books and, for ornament I suppose and not for use, a pair of tall silver candlesticks. He always used a steel-nibbed pen of the old- fashioned kind and, in the intervals of composition that was his view, and I certainly admired the quiet beauty of the garden almost as much as the wider more romantic prospect from the other window. In those days there was always the chance of seeing with delight a sailing vessel, barque or schooner tacking its way through the narrows of the harbour entrance, or shepherded by a fussy little tug. Then, too, there used to come the larger steamships of anything up to 10,000 tons from all parts of the world to little Fowey to load with Cornish China-Clay, to take to America and other countries, often to Japan and even China itself. This used to strike me as good illustration, or variation of the proverb about taking coals to Newcastle. Taking China-Clay to China! Well, what was I doing on my first visit to Q.? What but taking a story to a master story-teller! I had better get back to that sunny afternoon when I first talked with Sir Arthur.
He gave me a cordial welcome when he entered the study a few minutes after my arrival. "I have been admiring your views" I said, and he laughed and replied, "Nothing lovelier in England!"
I will not enlarge upon his kind acceptance of the task of reading
my M.S., nor of his few sentences about Harold Monro whose letter
he read to me, and about whose work he did not seem to have a
very high opinion. I will try to recall a few things he said to
me about his beloved Fowey.
"It was as much the character of the town itself" - he said -
"as the beauty of the surrounding country that led me to settle
here,"
I said, "Fowey certainly must have been more interesting and picturesque
before the ugly terraces and modern villas sprang up at its sea-ward
end."
"Yes, indeed!" Q answered. "In the eighties and nineties there
were many charming odd corners in the old town, crookednesses
which have been straightened out, and, as they say, 'improved'
away. "'The King of Prussia Inn', - Ah, yes! they stupidly renamed
it when they modernised it during the late war - 'The King's Hotel'.
Before that it was really a beautiful subject for a sketch, and
it was frequently being sketched as I passed in those days. 'The
Albert Quay', as they call it now, because, forsooth, for five
minutes once it was trodden by the by the feet of the Prince Consort
- was then called "Hocken's Slip'. There were quite a number of
fine old houses near there, one of which is being talked about
as most suitable for the Post Office, when the present one has
to be given up. And all along here, right and left, went the Rope
Walk. They now call it the 'Esplanade', or something silly of
that sort."
"But it was the people you found and made so interesting!" exclaimed
I.
"Yes"; he said. "In those days it was a narrow, conventional and
stuffy but very amusing society that, of course, we made part
of here. Yet I loved the queer folk, most of them, at any rate,
and though I laughed at them I certainly never despised them,
or held them up to ridicule. It was altogether a less hurried
more primitive and pleasanter world than we have to put up with
now."
Q's Forbears and his Last Days
Though Q was born in Bodmin, the country-town, his family were seafaring folk, some were fishermen, some sailors, living during several centuries at Polperro and its neighbourhood. His father Jonathon Couch, was a doctor and became, in a way, famous, a scientific authority on fishes, regarding the strange silent inhabitants of the Channel form a different point of view from that of his ancestors and relatives, the fishermen.
Even before the time when I was meeting with Q about my book I sometimes visited Polperro for preaching and other reasons. In those days I rode a bicycle, 'a push-bike', on my journeys to the quaint fishing village. It is about six miles from Polruan where I lived, and after passing the semi-circular blue and very beautiful Lantic Bay and its eastern promontory of Pencarrow, I came to the fair village of Lansallos, and generally rested for a few minutes a little farther on, near a small chapel bearing the curious name of Mabel Burrow. On one occasion, while looking at my notes seated on the bank by the road-side there, a farmer of the locality came along, greeting me as a fellow-preacher. I had met him before in that capacity. I got him to show me the grave of Dr. Jonathon Couch, and those of other of Q's ancestors which I knew were to be found in the quite large burial-ground of the little Chapel.
We walked to a weather-stained obelisk surrounded by a stone curb and a little patch of soil that might once have grown flowers. I thought that it all looked somewhat neglected.
"Old Jonathon had a son of the same name", said my friend, "and my father remembered how, this son of the Doctor's, not being quite as bright as his brothers, who were cute enough, - a little 'touched', people said, and not quite responsible for his actions, - going one day to visit his father's grave, was shocked to find how neglected and bare it was. Angrily he tore up shrubs and plants from other graves near, and transplanted them to that of his beloved father. He got into some trouble for this, but the difficulty was soon smoothed away, and all was well."
I saw that this high-lying graveyard is, indeed a wild, bleak spot, and thought that plants must find it difficult to live there. Even the few pine trees that show up so prominently miles away, standing among the graves, are torn and distorted by the wintry gales from the sea near at hand.
Other members of the Couch and kindred families, the farmer told me, lie buried in Talland Churchyard. He advised me to go there and see them. I recalled the old Church of Talland with its carved pew-ends. It stands on the other side of Polperro in a quiet, beautiful valley that opens upon the shore of Talland Bay. This church is almost unique in England on account of its bell-tower standing isolated from the church. Once I had seen in the graveyard, I remembered, a stone proclaiming the virtue of a brave smuggler of olden days, who was killed, as the inscription has it, "by wicked Preventive men."
Some of Q's own verses written about this Church and graveyard I have since met with. Here they are,
"By Talland Church I did go
I passed my kindred all in a row,
Straight and silent there by the spade
Each in his narrow chamber laid.
While I passed, each kinsman's clay,
Stole some virtue of mine away;
Till my shoes on the muddy road
Left not a print, so light they trod."
But I must return to Mabel Burrow. My farmer friend told me of
what his father had told him about old Jonathon's preaching, which
he said was fine and clever. "But of course," he said "we should
now consider him far too long-winded."
"As we are on the subject of preaching," my friend went on, "let
me tell you of a service I myself conducted a few years ago, in
this very chapel. It was harvest-time, and blazing hot it was.
The dozen or so that made up the congregation had been harvesting
all the previous week and were all too ready to succomb to the
drowsiness induced by the heat. One by one they dropped asleep
and before I had passed from 'secondly' to 'thirdly' every man,
woman and even child were sitting with closed eyes, nodding and
evidently happily asleep. It occurred to me to give them a shock
when they should presently wake up. I know it was very wicked
on my part, but there! I felt I must do it. So, keeping up a monotonous
drone of talk, I descended from the rostrum and slowing and quietly
passed down the aisle, and out of the open door into the August
afternoon sunshine."
The sequel of this story he never learnt, and so could not tell me, but left it to my imagination. Bidding each other 'farewell', we parted and I resumed my cycling to Polperro.
When that romantic village was still about a mile away I passed through a green tunnel made by rows of wayside trees in full leaf and came to the brow of a steep decline. Here I dismounted and looked around. Several deep valleys just ahead I marked radiating from a hamlet consisting of a few houses and a watermill. This hamlet bears the curious name of Crumplehorn. Polperro snugly lies in the valley to the right and, from where I was resting, is hidden by a big hill. These large steep hills are a feature of this neighbourhood. In his celebrated Journals Wesley tells of a visit he paid to Polperro nearly two hundred years ago. He writes with awe of what he calls "the horrid mountains", surrounding the little town. These hills hardly deserve the dignified name of 'Mountains' and certainly would not in these days be styled 'horrid.'
Resuming my journey and descending with care the steep hill, I soon passed a fine horse-chestnut tree which evokes the admiration of all who see it, on account of its beautiful shape, and especially when its boughs are a-bloom, or, may I say, alight with innumerable flower-candles? Beneath the tree is a spring of water and a well. The drip and splash of this fountain after rain is very refreshing. Q himself has told us in his latest book - alas, unfinished! - that the well was made and given to the people of the neighbourhood by his grandfather, the famous doctor, who also planted the chestnut tree to shade the water and the water-fetchers from the sun.
Crumplehorn was soon passed and the long village of Polperro entered. How greatly changed in the top end of the place from what it must have been in Dr. Jonathon Couch's day! Modern houses and bungalows obtrude themselves where only rocks and green hills met his eyes as he trotted by on his horse to visit his country patients. The little murmuring river still flows alongside the road, noisy after heavy rain. Presently the stream diverges to the right and goes under the road, and soon it divides the crowded old village into two, washing the grey houses on either side, and finally losing itself in the fishy-smelling harbour. Some of the houses actually overhang the water, and one of them bears the curious name of 'The House on the Props."
Near this strange house is the ugly little Methodist Chapel that Dr. Couch attended and within which he often ministered to the simple-minded fisherfolk. On the left as you enter there is a mural tablet to commemorate the services of the Doctor and the affection felt for him by his 'class-mates'. This Memorial tablet was unveiled a few years ago by Jonathon's famous grandson, on which occasion he made a pleasant little address, overflowing with characteristic humour.
An old lady, sister of the still older retired village postman, was one of the most faithful of the congregation when I occasionally took the pulpit there myself. Though she was nearly eighty years of age, frequently she 'gave hospitality' to the preacher from a distance. On one occasion when I was her guest she discoursed about her childhood and told me some things that she still remembered about the Doctor. The children of the congregation rather dreaded his turn to preach, she said, as his ministrations were unusually lengthy. So her mother - wise woman! - filled her pocket with sweets to help the lively youngsters pass quietly the long time; it might be more than two hours. This happy custom of her mother's, smilingly said my hostess, "quite reconciled us to the over-long discourse." The sermon alone, in those days, might have been anything from an hour to an hour and a half in length. How should we like such ponderous sermonising in these days of quarter of an hour addresses?. I myself seventy years ago heard Dr. Dale of Birmingham preach for an hour and twenty minutes, but had I been a little older I should have agreed with my parents that it was well worth listening so long to such fine preaching. Some of his hearers actually would have liked him to continue much longer!
A minute's stroll from the Chapel brings one to the stream and a bridge called for some reason unknown to me 'the Saxon Bridge'. At its farther end is "Couch's House." Sir Arthur describes it as 'a huddled house of all contrariwise roofs and chimneys." It is now used as a Museum.
Another memory of the celebrated Doctor, and he well deserved his fame, is attached to the short pier on the east side of the pretty little harbour. This pier is sometimes called 'The Duke of Cornwall's Pier", but it is owing to Dr. Jonathon Couch's initiation, perseverance and labour that the harbour is made safer by the barriers this pier presents to the "league-long rollers" of the Atlantic during and after the Equinoctial gales. His visit to London to try to convince the authorities of its need was successful, and he laid the foundation in 1861.
The doctor, learned in many sciences, was given medals and honours by various learned societies, and visitors from other parts of England and from foreign lands often came to see him. Among these visitors was the poet whom, in his journal, he writes of as "Mr. Alfred Tennyson", who happened then to be staying at Fowey, and came over to Polperro in a boat. He had tea with the doctor and some interesting talk about the wildness of the local scenery and the Arthurean stories which the poet was then turning into some of his better verse. "Tennyson", he says, "was well-informed and communicative." He noticed that the writer had "a slouch in his gait and was rather slovenly in his dress." Had he not written -
"Ah what avails to understand
The merits of a spotless shirt,
A dapper foot, a little hand,
If half the little soul be dirt!"
As to the "slouch", I personally remember that when he was an old man of about eighty the slouch had developed into a stoop, and people used to say, with some exaggeration of course, that he was "bent almost double"!
In many ways I expect the Doctor found himself the Poet's equal. Q describes his grandfather as "A proud man, stiff in his Methodist ancestry".
Polperro has other, but very minor literary associations. In the narrow, cobbled way called "The Warren", that goes along the harbour and up the cliff eastwards, towards Talland, among its quaint cottages is a prim little house where Hugh Walpole lived for a time and wrote some of his tales. At the other side of the harbour, on the west cliff which is named 'Chapel', or 'Chappo', - does this word mean headland? - is the home of Angela Brazil, author of many stories for girls. But as I have said, these are of small significance compared with the many Couch associations.
Q
Conclusion and Consummation.
For years off and on I visited "The Haven" at Fowey, and there met Q, and I frequently exchanged a few words with him in the streets of Fowey. On one occasion he confessed that he thought that his work as Editor of 'The Oxford Book of English Verse.' was the most important, and likely to live the longest of all his literary labours. By no means was he exclusively a teller of stories. Poems, lectures, essays, criticism and editing formed part of the multifarious activities of this all round man of letters.
One day, nearly a year before the end, I ran across him in the street and showed him a little volume I happened to have in my pocket. Sir Thomas Brownes' "Religio Medici". It was the first edition, or rather, the pre-first edition, dated 1642, the book brought out by his friends without his consent or knowledge which so angered him that the following year he himself revised and published the genuine first edition. His chagrin at having his work given to the world without his consent and in an unrevisied form stung him into this act of defence.
Sir Arthur was delighted to see the little volume and pointed out differences between it and the revised work, and also remarked on the varieties of type and other distinctions. He said, "it is lucky for us that Sir Thomas had such officious friends, though I expect he himself was ready to pray, "save me from my friends!"
Sir Arthur was greatly annoyed when the houses near the Haven were turned into Headquarters of the Americans over here to help carry on the War in Europe. All day and all night they were arriving and departing in recklessly driven 'jeeps' and in countless other ways these folk upset the calm beauty of the neighbourhood. I believe Q died earlier than he otherwise would have done in consequence of this annoyance, and the desecration of his beloved home, no more a peaceful 'Haven' for him.
I met him one morning while he was gloomily surveying the wreck of masonry at the corner of his garden wall, the result of the careless driving of some American. While he gazed at the scattered fragments, dozens of 'jeeps' were stationary close by, or noisily passing, swarms of men were shouting and frightening away the peaceful guardian spirits of the place. I asked him what he thought of it all. Very wrathfully he exclaimed "It's just Hell!"
Soon after this he was nearly run into by a fast-driving car, and had to step back quickly falling over the pavement kerb and being shaken up, some said, fatally. But in reality it was from quite a different cause that he died not long after his eightieth birthday. I last saw him and exchanged a few words with him one day when he was on his way to be shaved at his customary barbers. He was looking very ill and I mentally remarked "Not long for this World!"
We attended the funeral service at the Parish Church, crowded by friends and acquaintances. Among the mourners was the old man who helped the Quiller-Couch's in their gardens and with the boats, far more a friend than a servant. He was dressed in his blue and white working clothes, and carried a bunch of red valerian.
We are told that the last poem in the beloved Oxford Book of English Verse which Q edited, was really written by himself though he chose to style it 'Anonymous'. The Bishop of Truro who praised the famous man in the Church boldly said that the poem was Q's. These are the verses, so appropriate to our dear friend Sir Arthur, whoever was their author.
Dominus Illuminato Mea
In the hour of death, after life's whim,
When the heart beats low, and the eyes are dim
And pain has exhausted every limb -
The lover of the Lord shall trust in him.
When the will has forgotten the lifelong aim,
And the mind can only disgrace its fame,
And man is uncertain of his own name -
The power of the Lord shall fill this frame.
When the last sigh is heaved, and the last tear shed,
And the coffin is waiting, beside the bed
And the widow and child forsake the dead -
The angel of the Lord shall lift this head.
For even the purest delight may pall,
And power must fail, and the pride must fall.
And the love of the dearest friends grow small -
But the glory of the Lord is all in all
And on that note I suppose I ought to close this section on my reminiscences. But first I must state how delightful has been my time sojouring in the neighbourhood of Q, and the writing of these cherished recollections of my dear friend. The memories of my frequent meetings with him, and our exchanges of talk and all sorts of things are among the most precious treasures gathered in my pilgrimage of four score years.Of the many who have written or spoken about Sir Arthur nearly all have told of, and emphasised his knightly and courtly spirit. Indeed, the term 'courteous' comes naturally to one's mind when one thinks of this "Verray, perfight gentil knight", as Chaucer put it. I feel sure that however long I remain here on Earth, I shall think of 'Q' for his kind and friendly and courteous character, even more than for his love of well-chosen words and his skill in writing beautiful English. He loved our language and its literature, and ever sought to kindle similar love in other men and women. Yet more he loved the men and women themselves, really believing in the fundamental decency of the race as a whole, spite of the terrible lapses into brutishness that often staggers the ordinary man's faith. He practised Paul's fine precept, that of thinking of the beautiful and honourable traits of human character, instead of dwelling on its faults and littleness. He would have none of those have of later years been called, in a horrible Americanism, 'debunkers'. Of these he wrote in 1939 "I am at a loss what to do with a fashion of morose disparagment; of sneering at things long by catholic consent accounted beautiful, of scorning at man's unconquerable mind and hanging up (without benefit of laundry) our common humanity as a rag on a clothes-line."
His gentle charity was the sort of love that "thinketh no evil" but rejoices in the good, the beautiful and the true. The radience of such a life, to quote his own words in Sir John Constantine, "is the Light of God upon earth and its warmth is God's charity."
These words I am writing by the side of the sea he loved and wrote so much about. Not far away, just beyond the hill, sleeps the little old-world town Q made so famous. I remember reading some time ago the report of a speech of his which told his hearers how long ago it was that he went to Fowey for a holiday, and fell in love the place from that moment. It was a life-long love which never cooled for a moment, even when the pleasant, unhurried community became the unhappy victim of the ugly, noisy destructive demons of war. Fowey is beginning to recover from and leave behind, those dark mad days and nights. Soon it may become its old dear self again. But how can that be without Q's presence there? Alas! he has left it, and "gone into the world of light."
"But the glory of the Lord is all in all."