CHAPTER XVIII

MR. LABOUCHERE AS A JOURNALIST

BY MR. R. BENNETT, EDITOR OF "TRUTH"

Mr. Labouchere went into newspaper work with all the best qualifications that a journalist can have, and with many that no other journalist has ever had a chance of possessing. He had an inborn gift for writing, using his pen by sheer force of natural impulse. He took a lively and unfailing interest in all the doings, sayings, and thoughts of his fellow creatures, while looking at all human affairs with critical but dispassionate detachment. His reflections, if not very profound, were always acute, novel, and humorous; and he had a method of expression, whether in speech or writing, peculiarly his own--pithy, witty, and unconventional. He was a great reader; he was at home in French, German, and Italian; he had acquired a smattering of the classics at Eton and Cambridge; and he had a retentive memory. When he first took up journalism he was nearly forty, and he had had an unrivalled experience of all phases of life, extending from Jerusalem to Mexico. Among other things, he had spent ten years as an attaché in six or eight different capitals; he had gambled in nearly every casino in Europe; he had travelled with a circus in America; he had run a theatre in London; he had sat in the House of Commons; he had dabbled in finance in the city. Add to all this that he had a considerable aptitude for business, as for most other things; lastly that he was never under any {492} obligation to write a line except to please himself; and it is not surprising that he made a distinguished mark in the world of journalism. It is perhaps not too much to say that the best work of his life was done as a journalist.

Yet he seems to have tumbled into this work quite accidentally, and in the most unusual fashion. He began as a newspaper proprietor; he subsequently became an editor; and he ended as a casual unpaid contributor. This strange inversion of the normal career of a successful journalist is in keeping with everything else in his life and character. The story of his proprietorship of the _Daily News_ and of his association with Edmund Yates on the _World_ has been told elsewhere in this book. His work on those papers, extending over seven years, had given Mr. Labouchere a useful and varied experience of very different classes of journalism when he decided, in 1876, to start a journal of his own. There had been no quarrel of any kind between him and Yates, and it was not in any spirit of antagonism to the proprietor of the _World_ that he decided to make his own paper one of the same type. At that date there was rather a reaction against the solidity and stolidity of the older journalism, and out of it had sprung a class of journals animated by a lighter spirit, and handling both men and things in a free and easy style. _Vanity Fair_ and the _World_ had been very successful in this line, and their spirit appealed to Mr. Labouchere, who detested pretentiousness in every shape, and to the end of his days never ceased to regard as a ridiculous object the journalist who takes himself seriously. "What is _Truth_?" asked some successor of jesting Pilate, who had heard of the title proposed for the new paper. "Another and a better _World_," replied Labouchere; and the quip no doubt expressed correctly what he had in his mind. The spirit in which he proposed to endow London with a new journal is perhaps even better shown in the title originally projected for this organ, which was, not "Truth," but "The Lyre." It was in deference to the opinion of {493} Horace Voules that Mr. Labouchere consented to abandon "The Lyre" in favour of "Truth." Voules's business instinct, which was highly developed, warned him that it is better to assume a virtue if you have it not. No doubt he was right. Nobody, so far as I know, has yet had the courage to start a paper called "The Lyre," but Mr. Labouchere would have done it had he been left to himself.

The mention of Voules reminds one that Mr. Labouchere's first step when he had decided upon his new venture was to find a competent practical journalist to undertake the "donkey work." In a lucky moment he fell upon Horace St. George Voules, who eventually became his _alter ego_ in _Truth_ office. Horace Voules himself was a man of very remarkable personality and abilities. He was the son of a well-known solicitor at Windsor, who, by a strange freak of fortune, was the local Tory election agent, and as such had been instrumental in unseating Mr. Labouchere when he was returned for that borough. While still only a boy Voules had formed an ambition to become a journalist, and, by way of beginning at the beginning, had entered the great printing and publishing house of Cassell, Fetter, and Galpin as a printer's apprentice. He made his way upward with extraordinary ability, and the partners formed such a high opinion of him that when, in 1868, they started the _Echo_--the first London halfpenny paper--they put Voules in as business manager. He was then only four-and-twenty. He continued to manage the _Echo_ with remarkable success till the summer of 1876, when it was acquired by the late Mr. Passmore Edwards, and Voules resigned. He went away to take a holiday, and a few weeks later received a letter from Mr. Labouchere asking him to come and see him. This was the beginning of an intimate association which lasted till Voules's death in 1909. An agreement was entered into under which Voules was to be "manager" of _Truth_ at a very modest salary, though with a percentage of the profits which ultimately proved very valuable; and this agreement was the only one {494} ever concluded between the proprietor and his second-in-command, although for the last twenty-five years of Voules's life the whole editorial and financial control of the paper was in his hands alone. Another point of interest is that to meet the expenses of the new paper Mr. Labouchere opened a special account with his bankers and paid into it the sum of £1000. Some time later, when the growth of the business necessitated more capital, this sum was increased to £1500; but for the first few years £1000 was the whole of the capital that Mr. Labouchere invested in his venture, and practically it was never touched; that is to say, the account which he opened in 1876 with that credit remained with at least that amount to its credit until he sold the paper in 1910. From those details it may be gathered that neither the proprietor nor his manager regarded themselves as entering upon an enterprise of any great pith or moment, or imagined that they were founding a journal which would become famous over the whole world. It certainly did not occur to Horace Voules, then an ambitious and remarkably successful young man of thirty-two, that in becoming "manager" of this undertaking at £600 a year he was taking a position that would occupy him for the rest of his days.

In such circumstances the first number of _Truth_ made its appearance in the first week of 1877. It was a decided success, as success in that class of journals was reckoned at that date, though the sale of the first number was only a fraction of the figures reached fifteen or twenty years later. What was of more consequence, and perhaps more surprising, the second and following numbers were equally successful; for the production of a new journal is rather like the production of a new play--a full and enthusiastic house on the first night does not necessarily mean a long run. Horace Voules was fond of boasting that _Truth_ had paid its way from the first, and some of the credit of that result was undoubtedly due to his great business abilities. Mr. Labouchere had not gone into the venture with any idea of making money. {495} He knew the history of the early difficulties of the _World_, which have been referred to in an earlier chapter of this volume, and it was probably an agreeable surprise to him that he was not called upon to meet a loss on the first few months' working of _Truth_. In an interview which appeared in one of the monthly magazines a few years ago, Voules described the scepticism with which his chief received the balance-sheet presented to him at the end of the first six months. It appeared to Labouchere too good to be true, and he exercised his ingenuity in attempts to demolish it. In later years his attitude towards balance-sheets was very different.

The combination of Labouchere and Voules was a very powerful one. Few newspapers have ever had a more remarkable pair of brains and personalities behind them--the one acute, ready-witted, audacious, irresponsible, intent only upon amusing himself and amusing his readers; the other long-headed, business-like, strenuous, and pushful, intent only upon making money. The time came when _Truth_ owed everything to the guidance and inspiration of Horace Voules; but at the start it was Mr. Labouchere who made the paper. This can easily be seen on looking back to the files of the journal during the first two or three years of its existence. There was nothing very striking or sensational in the matter of its contents; in form and substance it did not differ materially from the journals of the same class that had preceded and followed it. But the hand and spirit of Labouchere were all over it, and gave it a character and individuality which were bound to make the fortune of any journal. His literary activity at this period was amazing. As Voules used to say, he was exactly like a child with a new toy; and after playing with many toys he had found the one which exactly suited him, for the handling of a pen was his greatest joy. "He would have written the whole paper if he could," said Voules. In point of fact for a time he did write a considerable part of it every week. He poured out amusing {496} paragraphic commentaries on every subject of the moment that interested him, and flooded the paper with droll reminiscences of his own adventures and the innumerable distinguished people whom he had met in all parts of the world. He "did" the dramatic criticism, and he never did anything better; in this owing much, no doubt, to his personal experience as a theatrical manager. He wrote every week a "City" article--a very unconventional kind of City article, quite unlike any product of financial journalism before or since. It broke out occasionally in the most unexpected directions; for example, one finds an irresistibly comic account of his experiences among brigands in Mexico cropping up in a survey of the financial position of that country. Starting on another occasion to discuss the merits of Greek stocks, he lapses into a disquisition upon the character of the modern Greeks, especially the peasantry, illuminated by reminiscences of his travels in their country. One of the funniest things he ever wrote--a detailed account of his journey through the Holy Land with the Rev. J. M. Bellew--made its appearance as an integral part of a critique of some new play. The connecting link between the two things was that Mr. Bellew's son, the late Mr. Kyrle Bellew, had made his debut on that first night. It is only when a man writes for his own paper that he can do this sort of thing; what would be the emotions of any normal editor on receiving from his dramatic critic a three-column narrative of a journey in Palestine as part of a notice of Mr. Bernard Shaw's last masterpiece! It was the spontaneity, this unexpectedness, the evident absence of all premeditation or effort, as well as a sort of irresponsible indifference to the ostensible business of the moment, that gave such a piquancy to Mr. Labouchere's writing, as it did to his conversation. It was something quite new in journalism, and it remains to this moment absolutely unique.

Another characteristic of Mr. Labouchere's which gave a peculiar flavour to _Truth_ was his frankness and disregard for {497} the _convenances_ in speaking about his contemporaries. He had no taste for mere tittle-tattle and scandal-mongering in print. Prying into the private life of well-known people was rather a weakness of the "society journals" of the day, among which _Truth_ was classed, and Mr. Labouchere never favoured it. But it must be admitted that in private conversation he was an inveterate gossip, always well-posted in whatever talk was current to the discredit of anybody sufficiently known to be talked about; and when he found occasion to speak about any person in print, all that he knew about that person was apt to come out, with precisely the same unconventional frankness that distinguished his own personal confessions. Added to this he was not only contemptuous of pretence, sham, and humbug in every shape, hating "snobbism" in its widest sense as heartily as Thackeray himself, but he was hopelessly devoid of the spirit of reverence, even in regard to matters that usually receive reverence on their merits. Nothing was sacred to him. He seemed to discover instinctively the seamy side of what other people admire, and to find a delight in calling attention to it; and this mischievous habit of mind displayed itself in his handling of men as well as things. Introduced into journalism, and fortified with an extensive knowledge of life picked up in the diplomatic service, the theatrical world and the city, and in the ordinary social intercourse of a man of good family related on all sides to distinguished people, Mr. Labouchere's natural bent of mind and freedom of speech led to the embellishment of _Truth_ almost every week with candid observations upon contemporary personages, which might be open to criticism on the score of taste, but which made extremely entertaining reading.

Inevitably his pen got him into trouble. The only wonder is that the trouble was not more serious, and for this it may be safely assumed that Mr. Labouchere was much indebted to Mr. Horace Voules. After a very few weeks working together, the two men became very intimate friends, {498} and Mr. Labouchere, who rarely erred in his reading of men, acquired a great respect for Voules's judgment, so much so that, in characteristic fashion, he speedily turned over to his friend all sorts of business quite unrelated to _Truth_. Voules himself was essentially a fighting man, as he showed when he obtained control of _Truth_, but he had the mind of a lawyer as well as a man of business, and he had--though it may sound paradoxical--a much greater interest in the profit of the paper than the proprietor himself. From the first, although nominally only concerned with the commercial side of _Truth_, he read in proof every line of the paper, and he was not the man to allow the proprietor or anybody else to tumble accidentally into an indefensible libel action. He used to say that he had often saved his chief from that fate, and no one who knew them both would doubt him. Another thing which often saved Mr. Labouchere was his invariable readiness to apologise to anybody whom he had unintentionally annoyed or injured. He did so on many occasions in the early years of _Truth_, and he would always do it if he was approached in the right way. Not only this, but if he was once persuaded that he had been too hard on a man, or that what he had intended as mere play had seriously wounded the subject of his playfulness, he would often try afterwards to make amends. In more than one instance he became quite friendly with people whom he had more or less insulted before he knew them. For better or worse, it was one of the cardinal traits of Mr. Labouchere's character that he was incapable of strong emotion, and, among others, of personal malice. In one or two instances he conceived rather strong antipathies to individuals--not without reason--but it was entirely foreign to his nature to hurt a man for the sake of hurting him; and a most remarkable thing about him was that while he would strenuously attack a man's conduct or ridicule unmercifully his speech or actions, he was quite capable of meeting the same man in a perfectly friendly spirit, and discussing what had been done on one side and {499} said on the other, not only without heat, but with a sincere sympathy for the victim of his pen. This trait was essential in his character--a result of that philosophic interest in his fellow creatures which caused him to look at all of them alike without any conventional bias in favour of one mode of life or action rather than another. If he had encountered a burglar in his house already loaded with valuables, his first impulse would have been, not to call the police, but to engage the intruder in conversation, and to learn from him something of the habits of burglars, the latest and most scientific methods of burgling, the average profits of the business, and so forth. He would have been delighted to assist his new acquaintance with suggestions for his future guidance in his profession, and to point out to him how he might have avoided the mistake which had on this occasion led to his being caught in the act. In all this he would not by any means have lost sight of his property; on the contrary, the whole force of his intellect would have been surreptitiously occupied with the problem of recovering it with the least amount of inconvenience to his friend and himself. He would have manœuvred to bring off a deal. If by sweet reasonableness he could have persuaded the burglar to give up the "swag," he would have been delighted to hand him a sovereign or two, cheer him with refreshment, shake hands, and wish him better luck next time; and he would have related the whole story in the next week's _Truth_ with infinite humour and profound satisfaction.

This is scarcely an effort of imagination. Something very similar happened in _Truth_ office in the 'nineties long after Mr. Labouchere had ceased to take any active interest in his paper. A money-lender who had been severely, but not unjustly, handled in _Truth_, insisted upon seeing Mr. Labouchere personally. By that time Horace Voules was the only person who ever saw anybody who had business with the editor, but he happened to be away, and Labouchere consented to see the man. The money-lender arrived in a {500} most truculent mood; but he was quickly disarmed by Labouchere's ignorance--perfectly genuine--of the nature of his grievance, and beguiled into telling his story with artless confidence. What threatened at first to be a heated wrangle developed into a friendly interchange of views, in which Mr. Labouchere, showing a keen scientific interest in money-lending operations, explained to his visitor exactly where he was at fault in the management of his business, and gave him a few practical hints which might assist him to make larger profits without exposing himself to unfavourable remark. The man seemed extremely pleased with the valuable advice he received, and it was his own fault if he did not depart very much the wiser for the interview. When Mr. Labouchere was writing at large in the early days of _Truth_, he made a great many people extremely angry, and some never forgave him. But to be angry with him if you met him face to face was only possible for the very stupid. Some few years ago the late Mr. John Kensit made an unsuccessful application to the High Court to commit the proprietor of _Truth_ for contempt. Considering all that had been said about him in the paper, he had considerable ground for not loving its proprietor, even if he had been aware, which he was not, that Mr. Labouchere had never had a hand in what had been said about him. But they sat next to one another in the well of the court during the hearing of the motion, and by the time the case was on they were chatting and laughing together like old friends. "Good-bye, Mr. Labouchere, said the Protestant champion at the end of the proceedings. "This has been quite a pleasant meeting." "I hope you have enjoyed it as much as I have," answered Labby. "I am sorry that you have got to pay for it." And they shook hands affectionately.

On the other hand, Mr. Labouchere had a certain combativeness of disposition, and he was from the first bent upon using _Truth_ for the exposure of abuses and frauds on the public. Consequently, in a certain number of cases he {501} deliberately laid himself out to attack individuals, regardless of the penalties of the law of libel. His journal had not been in existence many months before an action was commenced by Mr. Robertson, the manager of the Royal Aquarium at Westminster. Mr. Labouchere was a director of the company owning that place, and he wrote very fully and frankly about its affairs in _Truth_--in particular a humorous account in his best manner, of an altercation between Robertson and himself in the fair at Boulogne. The circumstances of the action are of no interest now; but the case is memorable as the first of the long series of libel actions that _Truth_ has successfully defended in the course of its existence, and further as the occasion of one of the earliest forensic successes of Charles Russell, afterwards Lord Russell of Killowen, and an intimate friend of Mr. Labouchere's for the rest of his life. Russell had not at that time taken silk, and was little known, but Mr. George Lewis (as he then was) and Mr. Labouchere had sufficient confidences in his abilities to brief him without a leader, and the experiment was fully justified by the result. The next legal proceeding in which Mr. Labouchere involved himself was a _cause célèbre_ of the first dimensions--his prosecution by the proprietor of the _Daily Telegraph_ on account of a series of persistent and, it must be confessed, somewhat vicious attacks upon the management of that journal. Mr. Labouchere elected to defend himself, and he has rarely acquitted himself in public with more address than he did on that occasion, though he had a good deal of useful assistance from the late Lord Justice Bowen, then a stuff gowns-man, who was briefed for the printers of the paper. There is no occasion at this date to revive other circumstances of this personal encounter between two eminent representatives of journalism. The jury disagreed, the case was not brought to trial again, and the hatchet was buried. Mr. Labouchere was released on his own recognisances, and many years later he used to be fond of explaining that he was still in that condition. Apparently he remained in it till his death.

{502}

One other libel case of Mr. Labouchere's early journalistic days may be recalled for the sake of the very characteristic accident out of which it arose. Mr. Labouchere had written something extremely dangerous. Voules noted it on the proof, and after a consultation between them Mr. Labouchere agreed to take the passage out. He accordingly drew his pen through two or three of the incriminating lines, or rather he attempted to do so; but his pen always worked in rather an erratic way, and the marks he made on the proof were as much under the words as through them. The consequence was that the printer misunderstood the intention, and the libellous passage which had alarmed Voules not only appeared in the paper, but appeared with the additional emphasis of italics! This was one of the accidents which had to be repaired with an apology, though this did not prevent the issue of a writ. If any other actions for libel were commenced in the early years of Mr. Labouchere's editorship they did not lead to serious fighting, and there was nothing in them worth recalling now. But he certainly contrived in the course of three or four years to give his paper a great reputation for courageous plain speaking, and to convey the impression that its proprietor was a dangerous man to fall foul of, and a difficult man to tackle successfully.

As for his work as an editor during that time, he seems to have taken it very easily after the first few weeks. "I will give him six months," Edmund Yates was reported to have said when his friend was beginning with such a big splash; and the thought was not begotten of a wish, but of Yates's knowledge of his late contributor. The fatal weakness of Mr. Labouchere's character--certainly during the second forty years of his life, and probably during the first forty--was incapacity for sustained effort. He quickly grew tired of everything he took in hand, and he hated drudgery and routine work. Horace Voules used to relate his amazement at the zest with which his chief, at the first start, threw himself into the work of reading copy and proofs, and criticising {503} and planning improvements in the paper when it was produced; and his equal amazement at the process by which such editorial functions were one by one delegated to the so-called "manager," never again to be resumed. The same story is told by others who were familiar with the inside of _Truth_ office during its early days. From the first Voules's position was that of an assistant-editor, and in the course of a year or two he became very much more of an editor than an assistant, while the editor lapsed into the position of an adviser and an indefatigable contributor. It must have been in 1878 or 1879 that Voules went away for a holiday on the Continent, and received a letter in which Mr. Labouchere informed him that there was very little going on, and added, "I do not think I shall bring the paper out next week." Voules believed him to be perfectly capable of this enormity, and the mere thought of it filled him with such dismay that he came back to London by the next train. "You need not have worried yourself so about it," said Mr. Labouchere when his colleague reached the office. "Probably I should have brought the paper out all right." But, unlike his employer, Voules was very given to worrying himself, and this incident worried him so much that he never left the proprietor in charge of his own paper again. At holiday times he used always to take a house within easy reach of London, and it is a fact that for fourteen or fifteen years, until he had his first bad illness, he never missed seeing _Truth_ to press himself. This little incident, so very characteristic of Mr. Labouchere, at least serves to justify the observation that he soon learned to take his editorial functions lightly; and it shows the waning of the zest with which he had taken up the "new toy" a year or two previously.

Until the general election of 1880, Mr. Labouchere remained regular in his attendance at the office, and actively interested in the affairs of his journal if his principal work for it was purely literary. But after he was returned for Northampton and began to make a figure in Parliament, which {504} he did almost from the first, _Truth_ began to have a secondary place in his affections. In the course of the next year or two he seems to have gradually relinquished the entire editorial control into Voules's hands. He ceased to supply dramatic criticism, and to write with any regularity on city matters. On the other hand, he naturally began to write regularly on politics, which up to that time he had done only now and then and without expressing any strong opinions. At that date the connection between the Press and Parliament was much less intimate than it has since become. The journalistic M.P., so familiar a figure in recent years, was virtually unknown. There were only two or three newspaper proprietors in the House of Commons; none in the House of Lords. The descriptive reporter had not yet made his appearance in the Press Gallery; the gentlemen there were shorthand writers only. The Lobby correspondent had not risen to that public importance for which he was destined. Mr. Labouchere consequently had the field very much to himself as a parliamentary journalist. Perhaps he did not make as much use of the opportunity as he would have done three or four years earlier, when journalism for its own sake had such a hold upon his affections. He was always extremely averse to using his parliamentary position for the advantage of his own paper; indeed, so far did he carry this feeling that in later years when any matter was under ventilation in _Truth_, which naturally furnished matter for the interrogation of a Minister, it was most difficult to obtain his assistance, and quite impossible to persuade him to ask a question himself. If he consented to give his help, he nearly always got a friend to put the question down. From first to last--to the intense annoyance of Horace Voules--his disposition was always to use his own journal as an aid to his schemes and ambitions in Parliament, never his parliamentary position for the advantage of his journal.

Nevertheless, the reputation that he speedily made for himself in the House of Commons, his novel and individual {505} style of handling politics and politicians--friends and foes alike--and the audacity of the opinions which he was always delivering with an air "that was childlike and bland," necessarily had their effect upon the paper that he owned and wrote for. As the organ of a rising M.P., constantly before the public, and a mouthpiece of advanced Radicalism, _Truth_ gained more than it lost by the cessation of Mr. Labouchere's exuberant literary activity. The circulation of the paper, which had not increased to any great extent between 1877 and 1880, now began to display considerable buoyancy. At the same time Horace Voules was beginning to make his hand felt. He enlisted many useful recruits to fill the space left vacant by Mr. Labouchere. In particular he developed the paper on the financial side, having a strong fancy, as well as great aptitude, for that line of journalism. In fact he may be considered a pioneer in it, for at that time there was not a single financial daily paper in London, and the financial articles in the general daily Press were framed in a very bald and perfunctory style. With the assistance of Mr. L. Brousson, who wrote for _Truth_ with most valuable results for nearly twenty years under the pseudonym of "Moses Moss," Voules made the paper as strong in finance as Mr. Labouchere made it in politics, and very much more popular. Voules was a man of great enterprise, courage, and resource, a sound judge of "what the public wants," and at the same time a born fighter. He wrote little himself, but he had a good eye for literary ability in others--at any rate the kind of ability that he needed for his own purpose. Following up the lead which Mr. Labouchere had given in attacking frauds and abuses, he made during the 'eighties several big journalistic coups by the exposure of financial swindles. From this he passed on to the fertile field of charity. By this time he had got together a fairly complete and competent staff for dealing with such matters. He made a thorough investigation of every subject he dealt with. He interviewed witnesses himself; he inspired every line that {506} was written for publication. Thus fortified, he threw down the gauntlet to one swindler after another. Many were routed and driven out of the field by the mere force of the case made against them in _Truth_. Others, who defended themselves by proceedings for libel, were met and overthrown one after another in the Law Courts. The story of all these personal encounters, which lasted almost continuously for ten or twelve years, would fill a volume--and a volume without any parallel in the history of journalism. The work ended only because there was no more to be done. There was no game left worth powder and shot. Horace Voules had simply cleared out this particular field. Nor was his activity confined to any one field. The public services--particularly the Army--the Church, the administration of justice, especially by justices of the peace, and indeed almost every sphere of human activity where there was any wrong or misconduct that required castigation, brought perennial supplies of grist to the journalistic mill over which Horace Voules ruled in Carteret Street.

Thus it came about that towards the end of the last century _Truth_ had become a journal with a unique record, an influence that was felt--mostly for good--all over the English-speaking world, and incidentally a very valuable property. Before the end of the 'eighties it must have begun to yield Mr. Labouchere--a rich man independently of it--a larger income than would have sufficed for all his requirements, which were never extravagant. The attitude of the parent towards his bantling, which had grown in such an unexpected fashion, was very much like his attitude towards everything else that happened to him in life. If he took any pride in his offspring, he did not manifest it openly; in a general way he betrayed no concern in its performances. When he visited the office, which he usually did for an hour or two on Monday and Tuesday mornings on his way to the House of Commons, it was only to correct the proofs of his own contributions--by this time almost entirely confined {507} to politics, except when he went abroad in the autumn--to consume a frugal lunch, and to chat about anything but the business of his paper with anybody whom he could find to talk to.

A personal reminiscence of this period will show how strangely uninterested he was in the affairs of the paper which he was supposed by the public to direct. In the spring of 1893, Horace Voules had a bad illness, the first of many, and as he kept the whole business of the office in his hands the situation was rather serious. I went down to see him at Brighton, where he lived for the last twenty years of his life, and heard from his doctor that if he ever came back at all it could not be for many weeks. On returning to town I went straight to the House of Commons and reported this alarming intelligence to Mr. Labouchere. If I had reported it to the Speaker he could not have manifested less concern. What chiefly interested Mr. Labouchere was the nature and treatment of Voules's ailment; he was always prepared to give advice, publicly or privately, on the preservation of health. "You know Voules eats a great deal too much," he said, which was no doubt true. "His doctor should do so and so. I will write to him at once." I suggested to him that it might be more useful if he would write something for _Truth_, as we had not an editorial article in sight for next week. "You can do very well for once without an article, can't you?" was the staggering reply. I endeavoured to convey to him that there was a great deal of work at the office which somebody would have to do in Voules's absence, among other things about fifty letters a day requiring to be attended to. "I should not bother myself about answering letters if I were you," said my employer. This did not surprise me so much, for I had previously heard from Voules of our proprietor's golden rule for dealing with correspondence: "I never knew a letter yet, Voules, which would not answer itself if you left it alone for two months." It did not take many minutes' conversation to show that the editor was {508} quite the last person from whom any assistance was likely to be obtained in carrying on the paper in the emergency that had arisen; at the same time I remember that we had a very interesting talk about the Home Rule Bill before I left him. I wondered afterwards what he would have said if I had written to him in his own words to Voules, "I don't think I shall bring the paper out next week." Probably it would not have disturbed him seriously. It should be added that he did write to Voules as he had promised--a very kind, sympathetic letter, in which he begged Voules above all things not to hurry back, and assured him that everything would go on all right in his absence. I forget whether he said that he would see to that, but it is quite possible that he did. It is a fact that the following week--the first in which Voules had been absent for about fifteen years--Mr. Labouchere also omitted his customary visit to the office on a Monday morning. I suppose he thought that as Voules was away I should not have much time to talk to him.

To those who were behind the scenes there was something ludicrous and something supremely "Laboucherean" in the contrast between this airy indifference to the fortunes of his journal, and the public conception of the proprietor as an indefatigable editor personally inspiring and directing all its performances. Possibly it amused Mr. Labouchere himself, but far more probably he never gave it a thought, for nothing in his life that appeared to other people abnormal ever presented itself in that light to him. To any one who knows the _laissez-aller_ spirit in which he treated every affair of life, it cannot cause the slightest surprise that he allowed himself to drift into a position which was, on the face of it, somewhat equivocal. The best evidence of the view that he himself took of this anomalous position is afforded by the way it came to an end. Horace Voules chafed for a long time under his own relation to the titular editor, and it is really more difficult to understand his long acceptance of this position than Mr. Labouchere's failure to do anything towards {509} altering it. The explanation in his case, no doubt, is that with the growth of the profits of the business he gradually came into a very handsome income, and he was a man who valued this a good deal more than personal glory. But he certainly felt aggrieved, as most men would, that so much of the credit of his work should go to another, and what perhaps annoyed him more was Mr. Labouchere's characteristic indifference to everything that was done in his name. Out of this there grew up a coolness between them, and at last Voules openly kicked. The moment the question of the editorship was raised in this way, Mr. Labouchere instantly conceded it, as Voules might have known he would. "My dear Voules," he said, in mild surprise. "_I_ don't want to be the editor. You can call yourself the editor if you like." In his own mind he probably said, "If you attach any value to such an absurd trifle, why, in the name of wonder, did you not say so before?" In this characteristic fashion, Mr. Labouchere divested himself of the last rags of editorship. Voules recounted the conversation to me immediately after it took place. I cannot fix the date precisely, but it was probably in 1897 or 1898.

There remains little to be related of Mr. Labouchere's career as a journalist. But it may assist the comprehension of what appears difficult to understand, in his relation to the real editorship of his paper during so many years, to refer to what passed between him and Voules on a lamentable occasion in 1902. At that time certain unfortunate circumstances had come to light which made it impossible that Mr. Brousson should remain on the staff of _Truth_, or that Horace Voules should continue in the formal position of editor; I trust I may be forgiven for referring in mere detail to the indiscretion of an old and dear friend and the sad end of a brilliant career. Mr. Labouchere, to whom the situation must have been as painful as to anybody, took counsel with Sir George Lewis, as a friend of both parties, and between them they excogitated an announcement for publication to {510} the effect that Mr. Voules had resigned the editorship of _Truth_, but would remain associated with the paper. It was the least that could have been announced under the circumstances, but naturally poor Voules fought hard against it, and a warm debate took place at Sir George Lewis's office. Voules wanted to know who was to be appointed editor, and in what capacity he himself was to be "associated with the paper." He declined to submit to the humiliation of having to serve under one of his own subordinates. Mr. Labouchere told him that he did not see the necessity of appointing another editor. "You can't seriously propose that the paper is to be carried on without an editor," said Voules. "My dear Voules," replied the proprietor, "I have now been connected with newspapers over forty years, and I have never yet discovered what an editor is. If you like, I will resume the editorship, but it seems to me quite unnecessary." So little did Voules understand his old friend even at that date that he came to me at the end of the interview in a terrible state of agitation, convinced that Labouchere was playing with him, and that he and I were to change places. Labouchere was, of course, perfectly serious, and for the next seven years _Truth_ remained without an editor. I suppose that in all his life Mr. Labouchere never did a more extraordinary thing than this, judging by what would be considered ordinary conduct for a man in his position in such a case. Yet surely the extraordinary course which he took is an example of the way in which his habit of looking at the essential things in life, and snapping his fingers at conventions and traditions, guided him to the best possible solution of a serious difficulty. He regarded it as essential that Voules should not be formally and officially the man in control of the paper. He regarded it as equally essential--but how few would have done so!--that the man who had served him so well and honourably for five-and-twenty years should not be cast out to end his days in disgrace. So he said: "I will have no editor in future. I see no necessity {511} for it. Manage as best you can without one!" Is not this really a stroke of genius, seeing that it is a solution of the difficulty that no one else would ever have dreamed of, that it is so perfectly simple, and that it effected everything that was really necessary? It also becomes easier, I think, after this to understand how Mr. Labouchere had previously allowed his paper to go on for about seventeen years under the editorship of its business "manager" without suspecting that there was anything anomalous in this arrangement until his manager surprised him by protesting against it.

I feel that I cannot close this narrative of Mr. Labouchere's relations with _Truth_ without a reference to the termination of his sole proprietorship of that journal, for it was very characteristic of him. Slight as was the interest that he evinced in his property in his later years, he never seemed desirous of parting with it, naming a prohibitive price when any one offered to buy it, as many did, including Horace Voules. When, after poor Voules's death in 1909, I myself pressed him to turn his proprietorship into a company, he politely but firmly declined, observing that he distrusted boards, and had always believed in finding a man who can manage your business for you and leaving him to do it. Undoubtedly that was the principle on which he had conducted many of his affairs. But in the end I ventured to suggest to him that it would be a great kindness to me and other members of his staff, who had been connected with the paper for many years, if he could see his way to put the proprietorship on a permanent footing, and save us from the possible results of a sale of the paper to the first bidder in the event of his predeceasing us. His response was instantaneous and most sympathetic. He practically offered me an option on the paper at half the price he had asked Voules a few years previously, and interested himself warmly in explaining to me how I was to turn this opportunity to the best advantage. When the proposed deal did not promise to come off very speedily, he finally said that he would waive {512} his objections to converting himself into a mere shareholder, and leave us to form a company, taking from him or placing with others such shares as we could. So ended Mr. Labouchere's proprietorship of _Truth_--in an act of pure kindness of heart. It is an exact parallel to his easy-going abdication of the editorship at the first hint from Voules that the existing position was rather hard on him.

Mr. Labouchere was a man of most extraordinary character. "He was an extraordinary person!" is the exclamation that one has heard a hundred times rising involuntarily to the lips of those who knew him well. The story of his connection with journalism is an extraordinary one, but as loosely sketched in the foregoing reminiscences it can give but an inadequate impression of what was most remarkable about him. This would be equally true of any mere narrative of the events of his career, or any collection of his disjointed utterances. In writing of him one is always in danger of conveying the impression that he was a mere eccentric or freak. In reality he was something very much more. Among other things he was one of the most prolific and spontaneous writers that ever lived, and everything that he wrote, however trivial the subject, bore some mark of his own unique personality. His love of his pen was perhaps his most vital characteristic; it resembled, indeed, his love of his cigarette, and the two affections always came into play simultaneously. He would take up a pen anywhere, and commit his thoughts to paper without regard to external circumstances--during a debate in the House of Commons, during a children's party in Old Palace Yard, in a public room of an hotel. When abroad on his holidays he used to write contributions to _Truth_ as regularly as if he were under contract to supply so much copy each week--evidently writing purely as a pleasure. Probably Mr. Labouchere is the only man who ever wrote for publication, systematically and voluminously, without ever being paid for what he wrote. Indirectly, of course, as the proprietor of _Truth_, {513} he profited by his contributions to his own paper; but nobody who knew him will suppose that this consideration ever presented itself to him as a motive for exertion. Neither was he actuated by that common weakness, love of seeing himself in print. On the contrary, what became of anything he wrote after he had produced it was a matter of profound indifference to him. "I am the only person, I believe, on the Press," he wrote in his later days, in answer to an apology for consigning to oblivion a rather long-winded article forwarded from Florence, "who does not care in the least whether his lucubrations do or do not appear in print." He wrote to me many times in the same strain, and it was no doubt literally true. Frequently he would write an article and omit to post it; sometimes he mislaid it permanently, sometimes he accidentally destroyed it. Sometimes he would send a second edition of an article already received and printed, explaining that he could not remember whether he had posted the first edition or torn it up by mistake. From long experience of him, I doubt whether he ever looked at anything he had written after it was printed and published, unless some accidental circumstance gave him occasion to refer to it.

No man who ever wrote more strikingly exemplified the aphorism "_le style c'est l'homme_." His style was entirely his own--a pure, spontaneous growth, neither derived from reading, nor formed by conscious effort. It reflected as vividly as his conversation the characteristics of his intellect, his lucidity of thought and expression, his quick apprehension, his distaste for display, his unconventional habit of mind, his dry humour, his naïve wit. A very good judge, and an old acquaintance in Parliament, writing of him in the _Saturday Review_ after his death, said that "Mr. Labouchere's prose was Voltairian." It was Voltairian because his mind was Voltairian, and because he reproduced on paper, instinctively and without effort, exactly what was in his mind. But it is out of place to speak of anything that Mr. Labouchere did {514} in terms of uncritical eulogy. On the technical side Mr. Labouchere's literary work was marred by the failings which beset him in everything he undertook--his repugnance to "taking trouble," and his supreme indifference. Although he would overhaul his proof mercilessly, and go on doing it as often as a proof was submitted to him, the process was generally that of expanding and rewriting, rarely of touching up and improving what he had written. He thought as little about "polishing up" a sentence for the sake of literary effect as of brushing his hat before he went for a walk. The consequence was that the inevitable blemishes in the work of a man who wrote so fluently, but never had the patience to read and correct his own manuscript, constantly made their appearance in print. No one who reads his work, knowing the way it was done, can doubt that he had it in him to enrich English literature with veritable masterpieces. It was the will that he lacked, not the ability, and so it was with nearly everything he undertook.

Mr. Labouchere was a man of genius--genius real, original, and many-sided. The signs of it are evident in almost everything he did, including his mistakes and his eccentricities. But he had the misfortune to be born very rich, and if he was not by nature indolent he acquired an indolent habit of mind through never being under the necessity of exerting his powers to their full capacity. His genius was of the critical, not the creative order, and this also contributed to his forming a view of life inconsistent with strenuous exertion, for it led him to despise nearly everything that men ordinarily prize, success in all its shapes included. During all the time I knew him, his attitude towards life was that of a man playing a game, interested in it certainly, but only for the amusement it afforded him. It is worthy of note that he confesses to having been in youth an inveterate gambler, and having given up play because he found that it was acquiring too much hold over him. To be interested in everything, but too much interested in nothing, was a cardinal {515} principle of his life. Few men have ever incurred more obloquy, and many worthy people regarded him with aversion; but it was only from misunderstanding or lack of knowledge. To this he himself contributed by his perverse habit of self-depreciation, his indifference to the opinions of his fellow-men, and the amusement he found in mystifying them. It is absurd to put him on a pedestal--a position which he never allowed any one else, and which he took good care to show he never desired for himself. But it was impossible to be much in contact with him without appreciating that he was a being of a rare order of intellect, with something in him that placed him above the ordinary failings and foibles of humanity, however much he might try to magnify his own. It was my privilege to know him pretty closely for over thirty years, and very intimately for the last ten. Though he did in that time many things that one would have wished he had not done, and said many that would have been better left unsaid, I can look back to him now only with admiration for his wisdom and his wit, and affection for his drolleries and his indiscretions, no less than for his many virtues.

There comes back to me the last time I sat with him, by the side of the lake at Cadennabia. "Let us get away from this beastly band," he had said, in the hall of the hotel after dinner, "one can't hear oneself speak." So we sat down outside, and he rambled on: "I can't think why people want bands when they come here. Wonderful place this for stars! What I like about it is that you can see them in the lake without craning your neck. I sit here and follow Bacon's advice: look at the stars in the pond instead of in the sky, and you won't tumble into the pond. There was a Greek named Pythagoras--or some ass at any rate--who comforted himself with the notion that in the future state he would be able to hear the music of the spheres. Who wants to hear the music of the spheres? Bother that band! What strikes me most about the stars is that they do their {516} work so quietly. Pythagoras picked up his notions in the East--probably from the Jews. They imagined angels with harps and a perpetual concert in heaven. Good God! Think of having to sit at a concert for all eternity! Wouldn't you pray to be allowed to go to hell? The only reason that I can see for desiring immortality would be the chance of meeting Pythagoras and the other asses, and having a few words with them. Now Socrates was not an ass. He was for banishing musicians from his republic. No doubt he saw that this would get him a lot of republican votes. Gladstone once said to me----"

And then he dropped off to sleep. He was beginning by that time to doze at odd times, though all his life it was characteristic of him not to be able to take his sleep like an ordinary mortal. And not long after I left him sitting there by the lake, sleep finally overcame him, and he passed out into the night, to learn more of the silence of the stars, and to have it out, if possible, with Pythagoras.

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