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Max Pemberton, by one who knows him

YOU would take him for the novel’s hero rather than the
novelist. Many a great writer sighs in vain for the cap of darkness that will
screen him from his fellows. He is recognized wherever he goes by the anxious expression, the dali, weary eye, the stooping shoulders that betray the overworked literary man. Max Pemberton would pass in any company for a British sportsman, a jovial country squire. This tall, graceful figure, you would nay, has never been bent over desk-work, these brilliant eyes were never strained by the midnight lamp. Meet him in a railway carriage and your talk will drift naturally to cricket, boating, cycling, golf, for not a sign reveals the bookish man. His life-story has been as fascinating as his own romances. He has reached success with strange rapidity and carries no rear from the battlefield.
The ancestry of authors in a subject on which their non-literary friends never tire st dwelling. Stevenson knew this when he wrote his memories of the manse, and speculated on the qualities he had inherited from Dr. Balfour. “ Try as I please I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor and all the while, no doubt seen as t write the phrase, he moves in nsy blend, and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and centre of my being.” How does the brilliant young editor of the twentieth century link himself on with Charles Pemberton, the Liverpool lawyer, whose name was familiar, half a century ago, to every judge in England? He ii proud of thin grandfather, and liken ta tell how, at public dinners, grey-headed lawyer, now at the top of their profession, will turn to him with the query, “Are you any relation of Charles Pemberton?” Once, an a child, he had a glimpse of the aid advocate, who had conic up from Liverpool to attend the Derby, and was setting out for Epsom in a chaise and four with yellow wheels. Like many a legal luminary of the mid-century, he loved the racecourse. Mr. Pemberton’s grandfather on the other
side was a member of the Warwickshire Hunt, and bred racehorses. Their taste survives in the third generation, not in any fondness for the turf, but in a preference for riding
over all forms of exercise.
The name of Charles Pemberton may be found in many legal biographies. He was
a friend of Sergeant Pollock and Lord
Eldon, a great collector of port wine and
pictures, and one of the tallest and handsomest Englishmen of his time. His pictures included some historic Constables which have since fetched large sums at Christie’s; a fine Reynolds, and, most noted of all, the grins representation of Cromwell looking at the body of Charles I. Beach Mount, where the eminent lawyer lived, was not very far from Mr. Gladstone’s birthplace. He was a Liberal in politics, and an Evangelical in his religious views.
Max Pemberton’s birthplace was the Old Vicarage at Edgbaston, the beautiful country home of his maternal grandfather, who had taken the house when a more modern one was built for the clergyman. One of his earliest recollections is of wandering in the maze between high box hedges, and of gathering flowers in the old-world garden. Edgbaston was, at that time, far removed from the smoke and din of Birmingham. Within a hundred yards of the Old Vicarage was a wood in which one might hide for a fortnight undiscovered. Fresh winds blew from the Licky Hills, and the eye wandered over a richly wooded valley to the distant Bromsgrove range.
Mr. Pemberton’s mother was a woman of rare gifts and accomplishments. She inherited a strain of Irish blood, and had the quick imagination and ready intellect of the Celt. Her father was- something of an educational faddist, and encouraged his daughter to proficiency in modern languages. She was able to speak French, German, Italian and Spanish with purity and precision. As a girl she was fortunate enough to win the friendship of Cardinal Newman.
They met for the first time at the Birmingham Festival, in the days when Newman was recently settled at the Oratory. Their mutual love of music drew them together. Newman was invited to the Old Vicarage, and got into the habit of calling there every Thursday, when his girl friend would take him for a walk in the Botanical Gardens. Another of her pastimes which greatly delighted the Cardinal, was archery, for which she won a championship. He would often go to the archery range to match her shoot. Before her marriage Mrs. Pemberton received letters from the great theologian, but these were not preserved. At the age of twenty- one the beautiful young girl married Mr. Thomas Pemberton, and settled with him in London. The health of their son Max in childhood was uncertain, and by the physician’s advice he spent much time with his grandfather, first at Edgbaston and then at the Woodlands, an estate further Out in Staffordshire. The Chamberlain family were amongst the friends of the household. One of the future novelist’s early memories was of a fright caused by. his nurse shutting him up by himself in an empty room. Even in later years he never entered this room without a shiver, and the painful experience of infancy convinced him that a. servant can have hardly any greater fault than the habit f terrifying the little ones committed to her care. “I myself,” says Mr. Pemberton, ‘have never permitted my children to be under such a nurse as my own was, and they art growing up without the knowledge of fear.”
As the grandfather and mother watched their son in the Staffordshire nursery they felt sure that he was destined seine day to shine in the Church. He liked to go by himself into corners and address imaginary audiences. On his walks he would slip away from his attendant and be found soliloquising with only the trees and bushes for audience. At the age of six he was sent to a dame’s school at Edgbaston, where he learned the element of reading, There was a walk of two miles between his home and the school, and he was seldom allowed to go alone, as the roads were solitary and far from safe. The chief sensations of his childhood were a murder and a burglary; the murder took place in the road near the house. Two men driving past in a dogcart had quarrelled, and one was struck on the head and flung Out. For weeks afterwards the child was haunted with the sight of the streaming blood and the motionless figure by the roadside. The robbery was a hardly less terrifying incident. On a snowy December night, as the boy’s uncle sat smoking by the kitchen fire, and the child kept him company, Mrs. Pemberton suddenly called from her bedroom, “Come and look at the lawn I” When they reached the window she said, “When I looked out last the snow was white on the lawn, and now there are footprints all across it.” These words had as eerie a sound in the lonely house as the tapping of John Pew’s stick in Treasure Island. The uncle snatched up a poker as the nearest weapon and rushed out, while the grandfather opened his window and discharged a gun into the air. Three men dashed out of the bushes, and went tumbling over the fence. They were heard shouting to each other in the road, and a minute afterwards a dogcart drove away. It was an appropriate adventure for a novelist’s childhood.
At ten Max Pemberton came to London, and because a pupil at Merchant Taylors’ School in Suffolk Lane. It was a rough and independent life; the boys were turned loose for the dinner hour, and might wander as they pleased about the city. On cold and rainy days they would often seek shelter in St. Paul’s Cathedral. In the playground fights were common, and the football was of a rough kind unknown to our more civilized schoolboys. The teaching at Merchant Taylors’ was excellent; the most distinguished master was Mr. Airey, the well-known mathematician. Mr. Francis Storr gave admirable instruction in modern languages. Mr. Pemberton remembers them with gratitude, as he took prizes in French and mathematics. He was to have gone to Cambridge with a mathematical scholarship, but his health broke down, and for a year he read classics with Dr. May, who about the same time acted as tutor to the present Princess of Wales. Dr. May was Surrogate of London, and signed the marriage licences. Mr. Pemberton used to read with him at his office, and sometimes the study of Homer would be interrupted by the appearance of a youthful couple, neither of whom, judging by their faces, could he more than sixteen years, but who were ready to swear themselves as twenty-one. While Dr. May read out his formula, his pupil noted how it was usually the girl who came to get the licence, and in her eyes might he read a look of satisfaction at having brought her sweetheart “up to the scratch.”
At Caius College, Cambridge, Mr. Pemberton became an expert oarsman, and did a good deal of coaching. About this time he began to turn his thoughts to a literary career. He had felt before his schooldays ended that he had no real vocation fur the Church, arid his father, Mr. Thomas Pemberton—himself an honoured office bearer at Marylebone Presbyterian Church, under Dr. Donald Fraser and Dr. Pentecost
—left him free to follow his own inclinations. Mr. Pemberton was far from an idle undergraduate. His delightful appearance of indolence was then, as now, deceptive. He took his degree in law, and read widely in French and English literature His first original writing was in the form of papers for the Literary Society of his College, of which he was president. The earliest of these essays was on Charles Dickens, of whose novels he wan passionately fond. He considered then, and now, that Pickwick gives more pleasure than any of Dickens’ books, but that Barnaby Rudge is the greatest. David Copperfield is also full of genius, but the latter part is somewhat spoiled by the author’s habit of exaggeration.
Mr. Pemberton was just twenty-two when he began literary work in London. His first article was on the Henley Regatta, and appeared in Vanity Fair, which was then under the editorship of Mr. Gibson Bowles. “Spy’s” cartoon of Mr. Pemberton is one of the best that Vanity Fair ever published. It shows him in characteristic attitude, pipe in mouth and hands in pockets. Amongst papers which accepted his earliest works were the Illustrated London News, 7i1 Bits, and Chambers’ Journal. His first book was the Diary of a Scoundrel. He likes to tell how one summer evening at a little seaside station he overheard a friend ask for a copy of this work. “Ah,” said the book- stall clerk as he handed it over, “that’s the hexperience of the hauthor, I expect.”
Mr. Pemberton had some disappointments with his early stories, partly because he sent them to wrong magazines—a mistake, he says, which more than any other militates against the chance of a clever young writer. He advises beginners to study most carefully the kind of work which is preferred by any editor to whose paper they wish to contribute. During his first year the young novelist’s earnings did not amount to more than £o, but in the second year he made Laso, and from that time his income has gone on increasing until he is now one of the most prosperous fiction writers in the world.
In 1892 Sir Wemyss Reid offered Mr. Pemberton the editorship of a new paper for boys - Chums—which Messrs. Cassell were about to publish. Mr. Pemberton had already placed before this firm some ideas of his own for a young people’s magazine, and he willingly accepted their proposal. The new paper was, from the first, a brilliant success, attaining a circulation of 530,000. 1he editor was accustomed to receive many hundreds of letters from boys, and he discovered that their favourite subjects were soldiers and locomotives. Of war stories and . adventure stories they never weary. Some coloured plates of cavalry called forth a shower of approving letters from all parts of the country. Curious military questions were often asked in letters. Thus, one boy inquired, “Is there any armour in England older than the lion’s mail worn by Richard Coeur de Lion?” Other youthful correspondents were stage. struck, and would write earnest appeals for advice as to how to go on the boards. Now and then a gloomy lad would inquire ‘ how it feels to be hung ? “ Boys, says Mr. Pemberton, have no wish for news, no interest in the events of the time. Topics of the hour are too dull for the boy. His imagination is fascinated by a world far different from the grey, commonplace scenes of everyday life.
Mr. Pemberton’s first important novel, The Iron Pirate, ran through Chums in serial form, and, as many will remember, was a brilliant success. While it was proceeding he received pathetic letters entreating him not to kill Captain Black, and this is no wonder, for a kinder-hearted pirate never hoisted the black flag. The idea was evolved by meditating on the life of the old pirates, aisd considering why it was that their trade had fallen out of fashion, and what would be the hindrance to a would. be imitator. Although published nearly ten years ago, The Iron P/rate is still selling as steadily as ever. It was followed by that ever memorable romance, The Impregnable City, one of the fittest boys’ books in the English language.
In 1894 Mr. Pemberton left Chums, as he found that frequent attendance in the city interfered with his literary work. In i896 he again entered the service of the firui ns editor of Cassel’s Magazine, which he still conducts with conspicuous success. It is easier, he thinks, to edit a magazine for grown-up readers than for boys. The tatter public tends to melt away at one end, for the growing lad leaves behind him his boyish interests. The constituency of a boys’ magazine is like a glacier which is dried by the sun at one end while it may not be sufficiently fed by the snows at the other. There is no more conscientious editor in London than Mr. Pemberton. He faithfully reads manuscripts which are sent him, but confesses mournfully that only a very small proportion are fit to publish. “If 3 were dependent on outside contributions,” he says, “my pages would often be empty. A great deal of matter comes in, but one acceptable story or article is a fair mouth’s average. I constantly receive long papers of ten or twelve thousand words on the most unlikely subjects. An essay arrived the other day on the present state at Mohammedanism in some province of Asia Minor. The writer had probably never looked at Cassel’s Magazine. Some people take a rare delight in sending articles dealing with theological controversy. Religions and controversial subjects should, as a rule, be avoided. I should earnestly advise young writers,” Mr. Pemberton continued, “not to rely on introductions. Editors have a fatal prejudice against them, and at once assume that the young man who comes before them with a friend’s introduction is an amateur. Your work should be your best introduction.”
Any list of Mr. Pemberton’s novels would be entirely superfluous for readers of THE WOMAN AT HOME. The Little Huguenot, which he himself considers the best of his novels, won for him an early popularity in America. The widely varied plots of Kronstadt, Feo, The Footsteps of a Throne, Sea Wolves, and Tales of the Lady Zoe prove the fertility of his genius. He is equally at home in mediaeval Venice, in Constantinople under Byzantine rule, on the Paris boulevards, and by the poplar. shaded streams of rural France. As he talks of his own books there is a complete absence of that tone of portentous solemnity with which some authors discuss their writings. “We adventure novelists,” he sometimes says, “just have a story to tell. We sit in the market place in order to tell it, and people are interested enough to come out and listen. Then they pop home again, and what effect the story has upon them, really don’t know.”
In Dr. Xavier, the powerful romance which opens this month in THE WOMAN AT HOME, Mr. Pemberton deals with a subject of exceptional interest to women. Hare to be Pretty though Plain is the title of a little book over which many girls have pared intently, and this is the art, in a word, which the great Dr. Xavier possesses, He can transform the homely girl into a professional beauty, not by the cheap tricks of paint and powder, but by a wonderful electric treatment. It is like that gipsy lore in search of which the Oxford scholar wandered for so many centuries.
“I, he said, the secret of their art, When fully learned, will to the world impart, But it needs Heaven-sent moments for this skill.”
Dr. Xavier is the great modern magician, and Mr. Pemberton imparts his secret.