Cargoes for Crusoes

i

There is a book called These Charming People. In making this statement I pause for an uncertain time. It is necessary to allow a little interval for readers—quite as necessary as it is for the orator to give his audience its innings. Readers do not create the same interruption for a writer, and that is in itself a pity. That fact defeats much writing; for the writer has rushed on before the reader’s mind has had a chance to seethe a little and settle, passing on to a comparatively calm acceptance of the next assertion.

But you can take anybody’s word for These Charming People—anybody’s, that is, who has read it; and the number of persons who have read it is very large and increases steadily. The truth is, this book and its author have become fashionable; and when a book and an author have become fashionable, some persons will go to any length. Now it is known that Michael Arlen is the author of These Charming People, but who knows who Michael Arlen may be? Is there a View of Michael Arlen? In the favorite adjective of one of Mr. Arlen’s characters, is there a reasonable view of the presumptively charming person?

Yes.

The main perspective is before us. Looking down it, we discern that two years (and less than two years) ago, nobody in America who was anybody in America (or anywhere else) had heard of Michael Arlen. I will not conceal the dark fact that two books of his, entitled A London Venture and The Romantic Lady, had been published in America.

However, two years ago (as I write) there was published in America a novel called “Piracy.” No reason existed why people should buy it and read it, apart from the usual totally inadequate one of the book’s merits. Yet people did buy it and read it. People said: “This is rather nice!” “Piracy” sold. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Spanish Main. If it took life—and perhaps it did take a life or two, socially speaking—it did so, in Mrs. Wharton’s words describing the methods of old New York society, “without effusion of blood.”

And early this year (1924) there was published a book called These Charm—Exactly.

Well, it was so gay, so well-mannered, so witty, so far more than so-so that women of the most varied taste (and even strong prejudices) raved over it, and men of the most invariable taste bought as many as six to a dozen copies to give away to their friends.

The success of Michael Arlen’s new novel, The Green Hat, has thus been rendered a mere matter of dispersing the good news. It will not do to broadcast it; one must be a little particular in matters of this sort. At the most, it is permitted casually to mention the fact that a new novel by Michael Arlen is about. Quite of course, one cannot decently say more than that The Green Hat is a well-polished affair; for still more of course, it isn’t the hat but the head beneath it which counts.

The head belongs to Michael Arlen.

(As far as The Green Hat goes, the woman of the green hat was Iris March, “enchanting, unshakeably true in friendship, incorrigibly loose in love,” as the disturbed reviewer for the London Times puts it. “Everything she does has an unnatural elegance and audacity,” he went on. But what had she done? She had broken a good many hearts before marriage and one afterward; she had turned a lover into a husband and then into a cynic; and what she did to Napier Harpenden and his young wife should have been unpardonable. Should. “It is with a sense of having been cheated that we witness her final whitewashing.” You see how upset he is, though one cannot say he is outraged, can one, when he talks about a lady like that?...)

ii

Londoners apparently know him as a dark, handsome, suave person who circulates in Mayfair. Travellers away from London report his presence at the correct season in Paris, Monte Carlo, and Biskra (not to mention the Riviera). He is outwardly one of the gay rout. He is inwardly—— Well, I don’t know whether he would want me to mention.

Librarians (some librarians) are relentless persons, however charming. They ferret. They discover things, and then they root them out. Or at any rate, they make Records. Among other things of which they make Records are the True Names of Authors. Was Mr. Tarkington, in infancy, Newton Booth Tarkington? Then it goes on the librarian’s card. Was Joseph Conrad born Teodor Jozef Konrad Korzeniowski? Then no well-trained librarian ever completely ignores the fact. An author, in the circumstances, cannot take too much pains to be born and christened aright.

Occasionally the librarians make a grievous mistake—as when they identified Rebecca West as Regina Miriam Bloch. Caught in this astounding error, I believe they have now insisted that she is Cecily Fairfield. Yet they must be aware that both in England and America the law permits anyone to change his name at will. If he be consistent in the change, and if he use the new name and induce those who know him to use it, it becomes his lawful name. The sole purpose of going to court about a change of name is to make it a matter of public record—important when the title to property comes up for search. Rebecca West is—simply Rebecca West.

All this is to a point, for already the librarians have rushed to affix to Michael Arlen the name Dikran Kuyumjian. Not only do they tack this name on him, they give it preference. I have before me a clipping from a periodical which is widely relied upon by librarians in making their records and buying their books. And this periodical begins a notice of These Charming People as follows:

Kuyumjian, Dikran (Michael Arlen, pseud.)

Where they got it, goodness, or rather badness, only knows. I suppose they chanced to learn that Michael Arlen is of Armenian blood. I have nothing to say against Dikran Kuyumjian as an excellent Armenian name. But I imagine Mr. Arlen may have something to say to the founders, editors and reporters of this periodical. I can only hope that, as his English is polite and polished, and as they appear to be versed in a foreign tongue, he will say it in Armenian.

iii

Of course, the fact that he is an Armenian lends a joyous piquancy to one of the tales in These Charming People. You remember the one where Mr. Michael Wagstaffe impersonated greatly? It is called “The Man With the Broken Nose,” and as your copy of the book has been borrowed and never returned, I will quote it for you:

“The dark stranger walked silently but firmly. He was a tall young man of slight but powerful build; his nose, which was of the patrician sort, would have been shapely had it not once been broken in such a way that forever after it must noticeably incline to one side; and, though his appearance was that of a gentleman, he carried himself with an air of determination and assurance which would, I thought, make any conversation with him rather a business. There was any amount of back-chat in his dark eyes. His hat, which was soft and had the elegance of the well-worn, he wore cavalierly. Shoes by Lobb.

“At last a picture rose before our eyes, a large picture, very blue. Now who shall describe that picture which was so blue, blue even to the grass under the soldiers’ feet, the complexions of the soldiers’ faces and the rifles in the soldiers’ hands? Over against a blue tree stood a man, and miserably blue was his face, while the soldiers stood very stiffly with their backs to us, holding their rifles in a position which gave one no room to doubt but that they were about to shoot the solitary man for some misdemeanor. He was the loneliest looking man I have ever seen.

“‘Manet,’ said Tarlyon.

“The dark young stranger was absorbed; he pulled his hat a little lower over his left eye, so that the light should not obtrude on his vision....

“‘Come on,’ I whispered to Tarlyon, for we seemed to be intruding—so that I was quite startled when the stranger suddenly turned from the picture to me.

“‘You see, sir,’ he said gravely, ‘I know all about killing. I have killed many men....’

“‘Army Service Corps?’ inquired Tarlyon.

“‘No, sir,’ snapped the stranger. ‘I know nothing of your Corps. I am a Zeytounli.’

“‘Please have patience with me,’ I begged the stranger. ‘What is a Zeytounli?’

“He regarded me with those smoldering dark eyes; and I realized vividly that his nose had been broken in some argument which had cost the other man more than a broken nose.

“‘Zeytoun,’ he said, ‘is a fortress in Armenia. For five hundred years Zeytoun has not laid down her arms, but now she is burnt stones on the ground. The Zeytounlis, sir, are the hill-men of Armenia. I am an Armenian.’

“‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Tarlyon murmured.

“‘Why?’ snarled the Armenian.

“‘Well, you’ve been treated pretty badly, haven’t you?’ said Tarlyon. ‘All these massacres and things....’

“The stranger glared at him, and then he laughed at him. I shall remember that laugh. So will Tarlyon. Then the stranger raised a finger and, very gently, he tapped Tarlyon’s shoulder.

“‘Listen,’ said he. ‘Your manner of speaking bores me. Turks have slain many Armenians. Wherefore Armenians have slain many Turks. You may take it from me that, by sticking to it year in and year out for five hundred years, Armenians have in a tactful way slain more Turks than Turks have slain Armenians. That is why I am proud of being an Armenian. And you would oblige me, gentlemen, by informing your countrymen that we have no use for their discarded trousers, which are anyway not so good in quality as they were, but would be grateful for some guns.’

“He left us.

“‘I didn’t know,’ I murmured, ‘that Armenians were like that. I have been misled about Armenians. And he speaks English very well....’

“‘Hum,’ said Tarlyon thoughtfully. ‘But no one would say he was Armenian if he wasn’t, would he?’”

iv

One of the six most famous American men novelists wrote about Michael Arlen a year or so ago, as follows:

“He is one of the phenomena of our time. You may or may not like phenomena”—this seems a little gratuitous. “But anyway, you probably like an original story, so in Michael Arlen’s case you can compromise on that. He himself does not compromise on anything, though he did once say that ‘discretion is the better part of literature.’ Since then, however, his novel, ‘Piracy,’ in which half London society figures, has run into many editions. The other half is no doubt wondering what he will say next.

“Michael Arlen is 25 years old; and, having served the usual terms at an English public school and University he is, so he says, entirely self-educated. There was also a war. And yet, though no human eye has ever seen him at work, he has written four successful books.

“The first, which he published at the age of twenty, was his memoirs and confessions, for he thought that he would be done with them at the beginning. Many people thought that the book, A London Venture, was by George Moore under a pseudonym; some papers stated the fact with authority. Since then he has been more frequently compared to Guy de Maupassant.

“Michael Arlen believes in working hard and living hard. He lives in Mayfair. Most of the summer he spends between Deauville and Biarritz, and most of the winter he may be found on the Riviera. The spring he spends in Venice. He also likes dancing and baccarat, and is a tournament tennis player.

“It is his considered opinion that if one had no enemies one would have no time to do any writing at all. So he has collected quite a number, whom he embitters by the amount of good work he does, while he amuses himself and his friends by never appearing to do any at all. That is, of course, a pose; but it is not a pose that everyone has the ability to wear. Try it and see.

“The New Statesman has called him ‘the romantic comedian of our time’; adding that he has no present equal in ‘the dandysme of the soul.’ While the Daily Telegraph has said of him: ‘He concerns himself with people who are bored to death unless they are in some sort of mischief. The ladies carry their frailty as the gentlemen carry their drink—like gentlemen. Michael Arlen writes with the truculence of a Mohawk and the suavity of a Beau Nash....’

“This young man is among the last of those who believe that manners are worth while as manners. The chivalry of daily life is to him the king of indoor sports. And he has written that ‘a gentleman is a man who is never unintentionally rude to anyone.’”[81]

Now who is the famous American novelist who could have written thus and thus of Mr. Arlen? Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in Main Street, Ascalon. We are not allowed to reveal his chaste identity. If he had an Armenian name, perhaps....

As a matter of fact, Michael Arlen was born in a Bulgarian village on the Danube. When he was five years old his parents decided to move to England. After he had been at an English public school the usual term of years he went to Switzerland to learn English. He was then seventeen. After he had been seventeen for some months, his parents called him back to Manchester, where they lived. He got as far as London. His parents then abandoned him with rather less than the customary shilling. He started to write. His first book, A London Venture, was a book of confessions, as at eighteen he had nothing else to write about. His confessions confessed little except poverty and loneliness.

He was foreign, young, careless of literary cliques, stayed up dancing all night and worked all day. London got to hear about him. He got a name in Fleet Street by never going to see an editor in his office. Michael Arlen always asked the editor to come outside and face him over a cocktail.

The Romantic Lady arrived, greatly disappointing the publishers, as she was a book of short stories. Arlen said she would get on and she did, in moderation.

“Piracy” was perhaps the book of a young man who had lived hard and fought hard, with his tailors. It enabled him to pay them; but it was Arlen’s opinion that he had not yet begun to write. In an interview he said that so far he had been playing scales in public. These Charming People came on, but the author was writing his big novel, The Dark Angel, and gave little heed to anything else. The Dark Angel took him a year. He destroyed it. He realized that it was not the advance on “Piracy” which he and the most intelligent part of his public expected. The Green Hat more nearly satisfies him.

v

But already there is a word minted. “These Charming People,” observes Mr. Philip Page, in some nondescript London newspaper cutting, “is very Arlenesque.” Mr. Page preferred it to “Piracy”—and it is indeed better work—although he missed the fun which “Piracy” afforded “of celebrity spotting, and the satisfaction of being able to say to myself, with a glowing feeling of being in the swim: ‘Here is Lady Diana Cooper!’ or ‘Here is Mr. Eddie Marsh!’” It is to be feared that most Americans cannot have Mr. Page’s warm sensation of culture, but in our uncultured way it is quite possible for us to enjoy such a portrait as the following, from “Piracy”—for we have him in America, too:

“The poetry Pretty Leyton discovered was often good, for his was a delicate and conservative taste; but it would have been easier to appreciate the good if one could only have discovered it among the bad, for his was also a delicate and kindly nature. While as for the young poets, of whom many called and all were chosen, he was continually begging his women friends, particularly Lois and Virginia, not to be ‘too cruel’ to them, for they were so sensitive and worthwhile. To see and speak to Pretty Leyton in a crowded room was really very comforting, sometimes—which was just as well, since he was always in every room that happened to be crowded, saying: ‘Isn’t it a marvellous party?’ He gave all his women friends beautifully bound copies of Tristram Shandy, which he said was the only book.”

And now—what shall I say? I could quote the processional of admiring, envious and rapturous adjectives applied to Mr. Arlen’s work. I could quote other notes of his fashionable progress as a person as well as a writer; but it would be repetitious. Besides, you will prefer to form your own adjectives and perfect your own legend; which is right and proper, and ever so charming of you. Kindly note that the correct name and address is Mr. Michael Arlen, 14, Queen Street, Mayfair, London, W. 1. Ask to be put through to Grosvenor 2275. But only in the Season, only in the Season.

BOOKS BY MICHAEL ARLEN

SOURCES ON MICHAEL ARLEN

Review of These Charming People by Arthur Waugh in the Daily Telegraph, London, for 6 July 1923.

Curtis Brown, Curtis Brown Ltd., 6, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London, W. C. 2.