ALOYSIUS HORN ITo the . Editor of the SPECTATOR.] .
SIR,—There seems to be still current a belief, based on wholly insufficient evidence, that the late Trader Horn and his editress, Mrs. Ethelreda Lewis, combined to impose a fake on the public, and this although Mrs. Lewis has again and again given a perfectly straightforward and convincing account of the literary relations between them. I happen to know that this attitude of disbelief, expressed or implied, has distressed Mrs. Lewis very much. In this connexion let me quote some words of Mr. John Galsworthy, published in the Rand Daily Mail (Johannesburg) of July 22nd last : " The facts of his (Horn's) coming to Mrs. Lewis and supplying her with the queer sayings and material generally are absolutely authen- ticated. To say nothing of the inherent impossibility of a woman seeing things in that way, she is the last sort of woman
to attempt a take-in of that kind You may tell anyone who advances the silly theory that it [the book] is a fake that they (he or she) are making fools of themselves. Neither Mrs. Lewis or myself have ever vouched for the accuracy of his adventures, but that he has had countless adventures is as true as that there will always be people who love to be clever and discover the falsity of the obviously true."
Horn was something like Borrow. One knows that there is a foundation of truth in Borrow, but one also recognizes and is grateful for the imaginative passages. Anyone who has had first-hand experience (as I have) of derelicts in South Africa would have no difficulty in believing in the adventures of men like Horn. I have in South Africa heard Horace quoted by a white man who had sunk to the level of living in a but with Kafirs. I have known a man of high culture and the wittiest tongue, a kinsman of one of South Africa's leading. statesmen, die miserably of drink and boredom in an up- country dorp. I have sat at a camp-fire and listened to men (broke to the world most of them) talk of Kafir wars, of their gun-running and prospecting, and of big-game shooting in days when those 'callings could only be carried on with diffi- culty and danger in a little-known interior. The Horn type is (or was) common enough, but the individual genius of a Trader Horn, which the clever, tactful handling of Mrs. Lewis per- suaded to yield up its store of philosophic wisdom to the world is naturally most uneetrunon.. Genius always is.
For the somewhat unwise appearance which Horn made in this country, since Mrs.Lewis set him on the road to reason- able fortune, the young reporter is largely responsible, not the old man. Tlie reporter made considerable play with the old fellow's rather extravagant hat. May I on this matter venture a detail which I set down on unimpeachable autho- rity ? As the old adventurer lay a-dying last June, he kept his hand on his hat all the time and would not let the nurses take it from him. He had always slept in a hat—got the habit when quick " getaways " were necessary. A dying man does not play up to the gallery, and this was a characteristic . end and as genuine as the philosophy of his books.—I am, 'Sir, &c.,
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