AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

        The age of classical journalism, alas, is dead. Where do we have great and spirited journalists like C P Scott, Kingsley Martin, Walter Lippman and Pothan Joseph today? As indeed in every other sphere of life, even in the world of journalism and mass media, we only have paid mercenaries to do allotted tasks in a routine manner. Most of the journalists today are more bureaucratic, soulless and gutless than most of the bureaucrats. In this enervating and asphyxiating atmosphere, I cannot help recalling a great English journalist like Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) who was also a talented novelist, caricaturist, short story writer, versifier, satirist, parodist, essayist and theatre-critic. Many of his journalistic pieces written between 1895 and 1925 can be read with interest and enthusiasm even today. There is nothing stale about them. They are very humane and contemporary.

        Henry Maximilian Beerbohm was born in London, England, in 1872. He was the younger half-brother of actor and producer Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. He was educated at Charterhouse School and Merton College, Oxford; it was at school that he began writing. Some of his works appeared in 'The Yellow Book' (1894). He toured the United States in 1895 at his young age, as a press agent for his brother's theatrical company.

        His first book 'The Works of Max Beerbohm', was published in 1896. In 1898 he succeeded George Bernard Shaw as drama critic for the 'Saturday Review', where he remained until 1910. On giving up his post as drama critic of the 'Saturday Review' to Max Beerbohm in 1898, George Bernard Shaw wrote, 'The younger generation is knocking at the door; and as I open it there steps spritely in the incomparable Max'. This description of Bernard Shaw stuck. To his admirers, Max Beerbohm was always 'the incomparable Max'. A charming, witty and elegant man, he established his reputation immediately as a brilliant parodist and as the master of a polished prose style.

        His best known works are 'A Christmas Garland' (1912), a parody of literary styles, and 'Seven Men' (1919), which includes 'Enoch Soames', the tale of a poet who makes a deal with the Devil to find out how posterity will remember him, is also well-known. In 1911 he wrote 'Zuleika Dobson', his only novel. Other works include 'The Happy Hypocrite' (1897). He married actress Florence Kahn in 1910. From 1935 onwards, he was an occasional but very popular radio broadcaster. He was knighted in 1939. He died in Rapallo, Italy in 1856 at the age of 84.

        In a long writing career spanning over five decades, Beerbohm became famous as Britain's foremost caricaturist and as one of its most beloved writers. Beerbohm's writing owed much of its charm to his distinct literary persona. Paying her tribute to him, Virginia Woolf wrote, 'He has brought personality into literature, not unconsciously and impurely, but so consciously and purely that we do not know whether there is any relation between Max the essayist and Mr Beerbohm the man'. Beerbohm's unique, individualistic, vital and vibrant personality was discernible in his writing even when he consciously and deliberately imitated another great writer's style like that of Oscar Wilde who was his friend and mentor. Behind his solemn parodies lurked the shadow of Max Beerdohm's inimitable self, making it very clear to all his enthusiastic readers in what estimation each parodied writer was held by Max and mocking at them with a merciful humour. Through his brilliant parodies and caricatures, he brought out in bold relief the mannerisms of them all. This included great writers like Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, D H Lawrence, Ezra Pound, Lytton Strachey and Bernard Shaw. During the early 1890s, Beerbohm's sparkling letters resonated with Oscar Wilde-inspired posing and mock vanity. In a letter to his friend Reggie Turner in 1892 he declared: 'My affectations are dying for want of an audience,'. A similar flash followed in 1893 in one of his letters: 'I am suffering from a plethora of brilliancy'. To be drawn to Beerbohm as a subject, almost automatically insured one against pomposity, humourlessness, or academic pretentiousness. Max often used to say that 'many charming talents have been spoiled by the instilled desire to do 'important' work! Some people are born to lift heavy weights. Some are born to juggle with golden balls.' The golden jugglers are the ones with wit, the ability to pierce pretension, and the calm detachment to mock large ideas and salvationist schemes. They eschew anger and love small perfections. If he had met Albert Einstein Max would have told him: 'I cannot teach you Theory of Relativity but I can teach you the Law of Levity'!

        Max's attitude to his public reputation was complex. It was not a matter of supreme importance to him. On the other hand, he disliked people getting a wrong impression of him; and took pains to avoid this happening. The fact was that he—it was one of the paradoxes of his character—had always been both showman and recluse, desirous to escape from the world, yet enjoying cutting a figure in it. Lytton Strachey said of him: 'He has the most remarkable and seductive genius and I should say about the smallest in the world'. No doubt the Gods had blessed Max with the gift of perpetual humour on all men and matters. Believing that 'only the insane take themselves quite seriously'. Beerbohm was primarily and always an ironist, a comedian, an amused observer standing on the sidelines with a smile and a glass of wine in his hand. G K Chesterton rightly observed that 'he does not indulge in the base idolatry of believing in himself'. Max once wrote a funny essay on the Art of the Soliloquy. In this essay he said that talking to oneself has the advantage over any other form of oratory or gossip: one is assured of a sympathetic audience!

        As a theatre critic of the 'Saturday Review' for 12 years, he himself has said that he never enjoyed it. He used to dread Thursdays, when he would have to sit down and write his reviews. His terrific sense of humour can be seen from his farewell article when he left the 'Saturday Review' in 1910. He did not conceal his feeling of jubilation. He said: 'Is love of my readers as strong in me as my hatred of Thursdays? It is not half so strong. I feel extraordinarily light and gay in writing this farewell'. No one has ever bothered to revise Beerbohm's low opinion of his theatre reviews. Yet reading them today, I am struck how fresh they are. When Sir Henry Irving, the great theatre actor died, Beerbohm paid a heartfelt tribute to him in these words: 'He had that quality of mystery which is not essential to genius, but which is the safest insurance against its oblivion. Irving may sometimes have overdone it but he always overdid it beautifully'. Max's reservations about great English actors like Sarah Bernhardt and Sir Henry Irving contributed to a much fuller portrait of their greatness than all the gush that bore them to their graves. Once at a pantomime performance of Humpty Dumpty, Max deplored the poor quality of the jokes about sausages, mothers-in-law and other few things fixed by usage as being funny. Nauseated by the principal comic man of the pantomime, Max wrote: 'God bless you, babies! Be babies as long as you can. I do not suppose this plea for arrested development makes much impression on normal 'little ones', in whom the unconscious act of growing is always accompanied by a conscious desire to be grown up. As regards the pantomime presentation, I deplore it merely as an example of the maudlin and doddering futility of the modern pose towards children'. Max's reviews and theatre criticism were all full of such fun.

        Here are a few brilliant, funny and comic quotations from the pen of Max Beerbohm:

        'You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men'.

        'Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth'.

        'Good sense about trivialities is better than nonsense about things that matter'.

        'Men of genius are not quick judges of character. Deep thinking and high imagining blunt that trivial instinct by which you and I size people up'.

        'Nobody ever died of laughter.'

        'One might well say that mankind is divisible into two great classes: hosts and guests.'

        'Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best'.

        'The delicate balance between modesty and conceit is popularity.'

        'The Non-Conformist Conscience makes cowards of us all'.

        'I need no dictionary of quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul'

        The life and work of Max Beerbohm gives all the journalists and writers a salutary message. In Max's case his aesthetic sensibility was never divorced, as in the case of many journalists and writers of his time, from his dearly cherished moral feelings. Fashions in what is considered beautiful or interesting may change from time to time and from generation to generation, but the difference between a man of honour and a scoundrel is eternal.