The Adventure of Living : a Subjective Autobiography. John St. Loe Strachey
or to follow "the adventure of living" of a journalist and a public writer whose life, judged superficially, has been quite uneventful. I read with pleasure the lives of American men and women when they were not people of action, and I daresay people across the Atlantic will pay me a similar compliment.
Yet—I should like to give a word or two of explanation as to the way in which I have treated my subject. At first sight I expect that my book will seem chaotic and bewildering, a mighty maze and quite without a plan. As a matter of fact, however, the work was very carefully planned. My sins of omission and of commission were deliberate and, as our forefathers would have said, matters of art.
My first object was a negative one; that is, to avoid the kind of autobiography in which the author waddles painfully, diligently, and conscientiously along an arid path, which he has strewn, not with flowers and fruits of joy, but with the cinders of the commonplace. My readers know such autobiographies only too well. They are usually based upon copious diaries and letters. The author, as soon as he gets to maturity, spares us nothing. We look down endless vistas of dinners and luncheon parties and of stories of how he met the celebrated Mr. Jones at the house of the hardly less celebrated Mr. Smith and how they talked about Mr. Robinson, the most celebrated of all of them. If I have done nothing else worthy of gratitude, I have, at any rate, avoided such predestinated dullness.
What I have made my prime object is the description of the influences that have affected my life and, for good or evil, made me what I am. The interesting thing about a human being is not only what he is, but how he came to be what he is.
The main influence of my life has been The Spectator, and, therefore, as will be seen, I have made The Spectator the pivot of my book, or, shall I say, the centre from which in telling my story I have worked backwards and forwards. But this is not all. Though I pay a certain homage to chronology and let my chapters mainly follow the years, I am in this matter not too strict. Throughout, I obey the instinct of the journalist and take good copy wherever I can find it. I follow the scent while it is hot and do not say to myself or to my readers that this or that would be out-of-place here, and must be deferred to such and such a chapter, or to some portion of the book giving an account of later years, devoted to miscellaneous anecdotes! In a word, I am discursive not by accident, but by design.
If I am asked why I make this apologia, I shall have no difficulty in replying. I desire to leave nothing unsaid which may bring me into intimate touch with the greatest reading public that the world has ever seen-and, to my mind, a public as worthy as it is great.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY.
May 5, 1922
POSTSCRIPT TO AMERICAN PREFACE
_While this book and preface is going through the press, I cannot resist adding a Postscript on a point suggested by my publisher. It is that I should say something which may inform the new generation as to "The Spectator's" position during the Civil War.
"The Spectator" was as strong a friend of America in past years as it is at present, and in those past years its friendship was the more useful because the need for a true understanding between all parts of the English-speaking race was not realised by nearly so many people as it is now. That there was ever any essential bitterness of feeling here or in America I will not admit for a moment, but that there was ignorance, pig-headedness, and want of vision, is beyond all doubt. This want of vision was specially illustrated during the Civil War. "The Spectator," however, I am proud to say, without being unjust to the South, or failing to note its gallantry, and its noble sacrifices even in a wrong cause, was consistently on the side of the North. Moreover, it realised that the North was going to win, and ought to win, and so would abolish slavery. There is a special tradition at the "Spectator" office of which we are very proud. It is that the military critic of "The Spectator," at that time Mr. Hooper, a civilian but with an extraordinary flair for strategy, divined exactly what Sherman was doing when he started on his famous march. Many years afterwards General Sherman, either in a speech or on the written page, for I cannot now verify the fact, though I am perfectly certain of it, said that when he started with the wires cut behind him, there were only two people in the world who knew what his objective was. One was himself and the other, as he said, "an anonymous writer in the London 'Spectator.'" My American readers will understand why I and all connected with "The Spectator" are intensely proud of this fact. The fate, not only of America but of the whole English-speaking race, hung upon the success of Sherman's feat of daring. In turn that success hung upon the fact that Sherman's objective was the sea. To have divined that was a notable achievement in the art of publicity._
J. ST. L. S.
III.—MY PHYSICAL HOME, MY FAMILY, AND MY GOOD FORTUNE THEREIN
IV.—MY FATHER
V.—MY FATHER'S STORIES OF THE STRACHEY FAMILY
VI.—MY CHILDHOOD AND SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL INCIDENTS
VII.—MY CHILDHOOD (Continued)
VIII.—THE FAMILY NURSE
IX.—BOYHOOD: POETRY AND METRE
X.—OXFORD
XI.—A CLASSICAL EDUCATION
XII.—AN OXFORD FRIENDSHIP
XIII.—OXFORD MEMORIES
XIV.—PRESS WORK IN LONDON
XV.—THE "CORNHILL"
XVI.—MEREDITH TOWNSEND
XVII.—MEREDITH TOWNSEND (Continued)
XVIII.—MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE 'NINETIES
XIX.—MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE 'NINETIES (Continued)
XX.—THE ETHICS OF JOURNALISM
XXI.—THE PLACE OF THE JOURNALIST IN MODERN LIFE
XXII.—A WAR EPISODE—MY AMERICAN TEA-PARTIES
XXIII.—IDYLLS OF THE WAR
XXIV.—FIVE GREAT MEN
XXV.—FIVE GREAT MEN (Continued)
XXVI.—MY POLITICAL OPINIONS
XXVII.—MY POLITICAL OPINIONS (Continued)
XXVIII.—UNWRITTEN CHAPTERS
INDEX
ILLUSTRATIONS
ST. LOE STRACHEY [Frontispiece] From a drawing by W. Rothenstein.
VIEW OF NORTH FRONT OF SUTTON COURT, IN THE COUNTY OF SOMERSET, THE FAMILY HOUSE OF THE STRACHEYS
SIR EDWARD STRACHEY IN THE HALL AT SUTTON 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—ÆTAT 16 From a photograph done at Cannes, about 1876.
J. ST. LOE STRACHEY