poem or story. He was always 'supposing:' 'Suppose you had two
millions what would you do with it?' and 'Suppose you were in
Spain and in love how would you propose?' I recall him one
afternoon at our house at Bedford Park, surrounded by my brother
and sisters and a little group of my father's friends, describing
proposals in half a dozen countries. There your father did it,
dressed in such and such a way with such and such words, and there
a friend must wait for the lady outside the chapel door, sprinkle
her with holy water and say 'My friend Jones is dying for love of
you.' But when it was over, those quaint descriptions, so full of
laughter and sympathy, faded or remained in the memory as
something alien from one's own life like a dance I once saw in a
great house, where beautifully dressed children wound a long
ribbon in and out as they danced. I was not of Stevenson's party
and mainly I think because he had written a book in praise of
Velasquez, praise at that time universal wherever Pre-Raphaelitism
was accurst, and to my mind, that had to pick its symbols where
its ignorance permitted, Velasquez seemed the first bored
celebrant of boredom. I was convinced, from some obscure
meditation, that Stevenson's conversational method had joined him
to my elders and to the indifferent world, as though it were right
for old men, and unambitious men and all women, to be content with
charm and humour. It was the prerogative of youth to take sides
and when Wilde said: 'Mr. Bernard Shaw has no enemies but is
intensely disliked by all his friends,' I knew it to be a phrase I
should never forget, and felt revenged upon a notorious hater of
romance, whose generosity and courage I could not fathom.