IN GOOD COMPANY
SOME PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF
SWINBURNE, LORD ROBERTS
WATTS-DUNTON, OSCAR WILDE
EDWARD WHYMPER, S. J. STONE
STEPHEN PHILLIPS
BY COULSON KERNAHAN
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXVII
SECOND EDITION
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND
TO
THE HON. MRS. ARTHUR HENNIKER
My Dear Mrs. Henniker,
It is many years since we first met at thehouse of one whom we both loved, whose memory weboth cherish. It was that friend’s hope that youand I should become, and should remain friends; andthat the hope has been realised has given me manyhappy hours—sometimes in your company as mygracious hostess, sometimes, scarcely less closely inyour company, as a reader of your delightful andbeautiful stories. Were your gallant General—Iremember how proud he was of those stories—aliveto-day, I should have asked to be allowed to dedicatethis book to the two of you. Now that—alas for theEngland that he so faithfully loved, so nobly served—heis with us no more, may I inscribe it to yourselfand to his honoured memory?
Yours ever sincerely,
Coulson Kernahan.
One of the subjects of these studies said inmy hearing, that “Recollections” aregenerally written by people who haveeither entirely lost their memory, or have never,themselves, done anything in life worth remembering.
To the second indictment I plead guilty, but mybest excuse for the publication of this volume is thatI write while the first indictment fails. My memoryis still good, and the one thing which seems mostworth remembering in my life is my undeservedlyfortunate friendships.
In writing of my friends and of those with whomI was associated, I am, therefore, I believe, givingof my best. I ought to add that these papers werepenned for inclusion in a volume of frankly personaland intimate “Recollections.” A work of that sortis the one book of his life in which an author isallowed some freedom from convention. That iswhy I hope to be pardoned should any passage,viiiletter, or incident in these pages seem too intimateor too personal.
The reason why the studies are printed separatelyis that the ship in which I hope to carry thebulk of my threatened “Recollections” (if everthat ship come to port) will be so heavily weighteda vessel, that I am lightening it by unloading aportion of the cargo at the friendly harbour of TheBodley Head.
To drop figurative language and to speakplainly, I may add that, though there is someattempt at a more or less finished portrait in someof my pen-pictures, that of Lord Roberts is noportrait, but merely a chronicle. His personality, atleast, is too well kno