'Arthur Machen & Frank Hudleston'

Paul Jordan Smith was for 25 years the Literary Editor of the Los Angeles Times. He wrote the highly regarded For The Love of Books and an all English edition of Richard Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.

• PJS's Study
• Introduction to Arthur Machen
• Arthur Machen's persona
• Subsequent visits to the Machen's home
• Initial impressions of 'Frank' Hudleston
• "Dog and Duck"
• Penally
• Sylvia Townsend Warner and Heather Angel
• Regrets regarding 'Frank' Hudleston
• Footnote: Franks's book signed by PJS

"... I am reminded of other people as I look around this room. There at the end of the room are five photographs of Arthur Machen and one of his Melina Place home; and there's a drawing of it made by my good friend, Frayne Williams. On the old mantel is a little stone replica of the Tintagel Cross, while on the shelves I see a row of personally inscribed books written by Norman Davey. All these represent memorable meetings with memorable people who for a moment have shared the road I have come.

Though my primary objective in visiting England in 1920 and again in 1923 was to gather material for work on Robert Burton, there were diversions. Burton took me to the British Museum and to Oxford's Bodleian and Christ Church libraries, and he guided me to Leicestershire; but I was happy to take time out for Max Gate, Stratford, Boscastle, Norwich (which was the home of the Willetts) -- and my many visits to Machen's Melina Place and to his haunts in Wales were happy indulgences.

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I had begun reading Arthur Machen some two years before my first visit to England. And because it was difficult to get a listing of his writings at that time, I had written to Mr. Machen asking for a list of his earlier books, a request he was kind enough to grant at some length. And I gathered from a letter or so that he wrote during those years that he might welcome an American visitor interested in his writings, for he expressed great distaste for his work as a journalist and told me that very few people wanted to read his books.

Thus it came about that after I was settled at the Hotel Great Central, in Marylebone, London, on July 23, 1920, I found his home, 12 Melina Place, St. John's Wood, was within easy walking distance. I called on the Machens, on my second night in London. There I met the author of that exquisite novel, The Hill of Dreams, the creator of The Great God Pan, and that rather singular essay on literature called Hieroglyphics. And besides Machen I met his wife, formerly a Miss Hudleston, and Machen's two little children, Hillary and Janet. There also I met Mrs. Machen's brother, F. J. Hudleston.

Of the many writers I have met during the past half century Arthur Machen was far and away the most impressive in person, and one of three who stand out in my memory as singularly handsome.

In order of looks those were and are, Max Eastman, Vincent Starrett, and Arthur Machen. But in order of personal impressiveness, Machen ranked first. A man of just a bit above average height, and a little over average weight, he was a striking figure. Up there on the wall, to the right of where I am sitting, are the photographs which show him as he was from the age of forty to well along in his seventies. When I met him his hair was already silver.

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The first thing that impressed one about him was his voice, organ toned and deep. And as his words flowed, they were clearly enunciated. To be sure he was dogmatic and Johnsonian in manner: a man packed with prejudices. But though many of his utterances about religion, politics, literature and Greek accents seemed oracular and even pompous, there was always a twinkle in his eye which kept them clear of offense. Machen had been an actor during his early years, traveling over England with the Benson Players for several seasons. Garnett Home, who had been a member of that company, told me that on stage Machen was never anything but Arthur Machen. He always spoke his lines easily and eloquently, too eloquently for small parts. Whether he was a page or common soldier, whether he spoke from backstage or out in front, his fine resonant voice dominated for the moment even the slightest part. He became the overpowering central figure on the stage, therefore, naturally unpopular with the star. Off stage the company loved him, but when on they frequently wished that he was far away where that great voice might be reduced to a whisper.

As a matter of fact there were only a few roles fitted for Machen. When the Johnson Society put on a benefit show at Dr. Johnson's Gough Square house they cast Arthur Machen in his one proper role. Dressed out in correct eighteenth century Johnsonian costume, complete with wig, Machen sat in the Johnson chair through several days of the Festival, answering questions in pure Johnsonese. He obviously belonged to the eighteenth century. A picture of him in this role, taken at the time for the London Evening News, now hangs there on the wall among the other pictures. True, when posing for the Reynolds portrait he forgot which hand to show. But that's a small matter.

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I was at Machen's home five or six times during my first London summer and on several occasions I had the pleasure of taking them out to dinner in Soho or at the Cafe Royale, where I learned a great deal about the choice of wines and of French cooking, for Machen had had his years in Paris and was something of an epicure. About once a week the Machen home was open house to friends, and there one would be apt to meet Bohun Lynch or Hilaire Belloc, and many old actor friends from the Benson days, even quite a number of visiting Americans such as Hunter Stagg of the Richmond, Virginia, Reviewer, or Montgomery Evans, New York book collector whose fine library went down with the Athenia early in World War 11.

I might have been able to list a good many more people seen at the Machen home, except for the casual English way with guests. If the host thinks of it he may introduce you to the guests who are nearest at hand, but even so he merely mutters the names and tells you nothing of occupation or interest. In America you might be told that so and so was an author of this or that, or that his pictures had just been shown at such and such a gallery, or that he had just come back from the wars. I had but one glimpse of Hilaire Belloc, who happened one evening to be talking with Machen about some current play. Machen did tell me that the very clever cartoonist Bohun Lynch, who was there frequently, wrote rather dullish books. A few years later I was to find that Lynch's novel A Perfect Day is a little gem of minor fiction.

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And as for F. J. Hudleston, he remained merely "my brother-in-law." I will say that Hudleston did not look the part of an author, or a librarian, with his rather worn and faded brocaded vest, a vast watch chain swinging like a pendulum across it, his elbows a bit out, his shoes rather run down, most of his teeth partially gone. I thought of him as an idle brother-in-law who perhaps tended to the garden, and certainly not as a book man. Nothing was said about books, he merely said "good evening" and "good-by." Hudleston and I sat together on park benches, we were together in Machen's front room, and together we sipped Machen's favorite concoction called "Dog and Duck," a mixture of sauterne and gin, much more potent than it seemed as it was poured out from a huge white water pitcher into what we called in America a tall ice tea glass.

But though I was working at the British Museum and elsewhere looking for or Burton sources, I never learned until after Hudleston's death that he was a noted librarian at the War Office and a man who might have helped me almost as much as the late Edward Bensly. And so, since he was a silent man, I never ventured to speak to him about anything but weather, or the local news of the day.

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"Dog and Duck" was a potent drink, and as Mr. Machen walked about the room replenishing these tall glasses, the spirits of the company did inevitably rise. And when the talk became a little confused, Mrs. Machen would go to the battered piano in the corner and begin playing old English tunes and sometimes she and others would sing folk songs. I remember on one such evening in 1923, after listening to several English songs, Hunter Stagg proposed that he and I render some American spirituals. The drink had inspired me to accept the challenge and we butchered several old songs before the evening came to a close.

And there on the wall among the other Machen photographs is a sketch that Sarah Bixby made of Machen, as, slightly amused, he endured our attempts to bring American culture across the sea.

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The Machens had long been accustomed to spend their late summer vacations in Wales, making headquarters at the home of the stationmaster in the Village of Penally, near Tenby, and since we desired to see a part of Wales and particularly the region about St. David's we arranged, after a trip to Scotland and a tour through the Lake District, to come down South and have a week at Tenby, where we proposed to pick up the Machens and motor up to St. David's, which he too was keen about visiting. One of my own interests in Wales was to hear Machen's notions about Welsh Arthurian legends. St. Gowan's Head, for example, is identified with Sir Gawain, according to some Welsh writers.

Not only did we see St. David's great old Cathedral, guided by no less than the Dean, on a day when the rain poured down with greater ferocity than at any time that I have ever seen in my life, but we explored St. Gowan's Head, went down and entered the little chapel on the cliff, and had at least two picnics with Machen and his fellow vacationists at Manorbier Castle and again on the shore near Penally. On these occasions I always had my eyes on Machen, and my ears attuned to him and his oracular utterances about Wales. And though I walked along the shore at other times with Mr. Hudleston, never once did he mention books.

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Among the friends with whom we sat around the lunch baskets on the shore, and around the castle, were Mr. and Mrs. Warner and their daughter Sylvia; a Mr. and Mrs. Angel and their little girl, Heather. They were simply introduced as old friends and we were there as American visitors.

At Sylvia Townsend Warner, I did not look twice, little knowing that within three years I would be enjoying her novel Lolly Willowes, and then her Mr. Fortune's Maggot, and after that her poems. For at that time she seemed to be just a homely, bespectacled old maid, possibly a teacher, who could talk rather interestingly about music with Mrs. Machen. As for Heather Angel, of course, she was a pretty little girl dancing about on the shore. Years later I was to meet her and her mother again in Hollywood, and as we recalled the picnic in Wales and her old friends tears came into Mrs. Angel's eyes. She was experiencing prosperity quite new to her, but it was not one she thoroughly enjoyed. She remembered her good friends of simpler and happier days. Heather Angel, of course, had no more recollection of meeting me than I had of having met her.

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But of all the people who gathered about Machen's home and who went with him on his regular vacations to Wales, the one I most regret not knowing better was that brother-in-law, F. J. Hudleston, author of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, librarian to the War Office of Great Britain, and one of the most helpful librarians alive. We never really met, and I'm sorry.

Because I seem to have a one-track mind and go single minded, on my two trips abroad I missed so many things I should have seen, and some interesting people I'd like to have met. When I went to the National Art Gallery or the National Portrait Gallery, or to Tate's in London, I always went with a plan to see certain things, and look long at them, take notes about them, and I refused to turn my head and see even better things along the way..."

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By chance, I bought a copy of my grandfather's book, Warriors in Undress, before I was aware of who Paul Jordan Smith was. Obviously I was delighted when I became aware of the connection.

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