The Illustrious Mr. Maugham
In which a humble man endures the great burden of leisure
After the release of this blog, someone I know said that Dickens could not write a character as pompous as Jolyon Maugham. So I thought I’d have a go.
Maugham was on ‘holiday’: to begin with.
Picture if you will, dear reader, the illustrious Mr. Maugham, having so deservedly ventured on a rare excursion, yet still carrying the Weight of the World upon his shoulders, and his shoulders alone. I ask you, can such a state of affairs truly be deemed a holiday? Is it not more burdensome indeed to be geographically and telegraphically peripheral whilst so very necessary to the moral workings of the wider world? A man whose very humility is as the North Star: for there was no side to history that Mr. Jolyon Maugham was not on the correct and virtuous side of - indeed, no surer sign of the Absolute Rightness of any cause was there, than of its championing by Mr. Maugham. Any array of enemies, of bullies, of callow bigotries, lined up in its brute opposition to Mr. Maugham were the most crystal of confirmations that he walked fully the steps of the martyrs: his keen legal mind and even keener turn of phrase the bluntest of weapons to outfox his foes. Foes that were in truth always those most un-pious and un-loving of Christians from the colonies, but whose unlovely tools were hysterical womenfolk, terribly agitated and most noxious in their malevolent tone.
So when the country quailed as one before this mighty Goliath, what did Mr. Maugham do? He humbly, but with the iron resolve of Righteous Purpose, picked up what meagre resources were to hand, what small moneys freely given, and chose a road for himself towards the hardest of lives, ensuring the good of all.
This, alas, being the regretful necessity of Mr. Maugham’s position: that such battles could not be freely waged, that sentiment alone was as naught. Wars for the soul of mankind could only be won through the generosity of the righteous, a phalanx behind his jolly speartip. And so it was with only the most reluctance - rarely but never as rare as he should dream - his grave public utterings of the encroachments of Wickedness came accompanied by the rattle of the collection tin.
He was, he knew, a lawyer of admittedly great talent but simple means. True, he possessed a windmill, and a second windmill besides, while the popular prejudice runs in favour of none at all - but such vital work, such virtuosity of law came only at a price, and a price those aspirants of righteousness must surely, willingly, gladly pay. A man who strove to bring the rich and powerful to justice, whose successes could not be counted, who only with deepest regret campaigned from the tax-efficient shores of Jersey, whose quest of accountability could not be hamstrung by the public charitable governance of English law. Should any mean-mouthed and morally corrupted bystander cry “Hypocrisy!”, this brought only a self-satisfied smile to that inspirational Mr. Maugham’s beatific countenance. Such, he reasoned, was the heavy price to pay for reluctantly allowing oneself to be a lightning rod of morality - and pay that price he did, unhesitatingly, brimming with humility, and for the good of all.
One sorry day, however, an unfortunate affair threatened momentarily to upset the applecart of Mr. Maugham’s otherwise immaculate crusade.
On this most rare of occasions, a cause that the diligent and respectable Mr. Maugham had embraced with gusto held less promise than first appeared. Mr. Maugham had championed a downtrodden and unfairly maligned scholar - a Cambridge Man, no less! - whose most worthy work was bothersome to those enemies of the good, that Goliath, that amorphous and ever shifting Enemy which staked occupancy upon the politically further-right. As one, these scurrilous birds of plague and carrion descended on the poor fellow, feasting upon his reputation, filling their bellies with raw and ill-gotten meat ripped contextless from his body of work. Moved almost to tears by this grave injustice and with scarce a thought for his own safety, Mr. Maugham organised that most tremendous and effective of acts of political will: an Open Letter so impressive and so stuffed with the approval of the great and the good, no right-thinking man could deny the greatness of this cause.
But misfortune struck most unluckily whilst upon this aforementioned ‘holiday’ - this difficult and afflicted time where Mr. Maugham’s absence left the world without its beacon of humility. The scribblers of the grubby press, through an accident of unscrupulous gnawing, made rare traction in the popular imagination: some small and perfectly unimportant threads in the stitching of the blameless young scholar’s story were pulled free for all to gawk at. Perhaps Mr. Maugham should have seen these threadbare parts of the esteemed professor’s impressive tapestry, but in truth not having seen them was merely a testament to Mr. Maugham’s unending empathy and virtue. Mr. Maugham - whose law was always good - was merely suffering the downfall of Caring Too Much, of being in possession of a kindness too vast and pure for such a callous and unforgiving world.
As the caterwauls of Hate and Division rose in volume and intensity, the wily Mr. Maugham deftly silenced them from the unwilling comfort of his Refugio. With a flick of his pen - that second most deadly of weapons in his considerable arsenal - he scribed a missive so full in equal measure of courage and of kindness, with clauses and sub-clauses woven together with dizzying prowess, a legalistic majesty and an exculpatory wit. And no sooner had the maelstrom appeared on the horizon, than it dissipated, dismantled expertly by the intellect of that most impressive Mr. Maugham, and his adoring flock showered him with unwanted but necessary monies to pursue his worthiest of missions. Deeply satisfied, Mr. Maugham could finally turn his attention to the full, exhausting burden of his ‘holiday’.
“Whensoever, sir,”, a simple-minded but fervent supporter once asked, “did you first realise you were so very clever?”. And such thought had never occurred to Maugham! It would never, could never have occurred, because he remains, above all, the most humble of men.