So much for the Old School. As for the New School, I take credit that it is a discovery of my own. It consists of one man only. He is a Scotchman, and his name is William Robertson Nicoll. Dr. Nicoll is the editor of the _British Weekly_. He also edits the _Bookman_, and lounges round letters in a paper called the _Sketch_. Some time ago this great and good Scotchman was accused of indulging in too many literary aliases. We were then informed by a _protégé_ of his that it would be well for us to lift reverent eyes and behold in Dr. William Robertson Nicoll “a force in letters”—“the only force, some of us think,” added the incense-breathing _protégé_. We looked and beheld. Also we read, in _Who’s Who_, that Dr. Nicoll was the author of _The Lamb of God_, _The Key of the Grave_, _The Incarnate Saviour_, _The Return to the Cross_, _The Secret of Christian Experience_, _Songs of Rest_, and _Sunday Afternoon Verses_, all, no doubt, excellent and exciting works, but obviously sealed to a department of letters in which we have not specialised. Therefore, we took “the-force-in-letters” notion for granted. Our own idea of Dr. Robertson Nicoll’s relation to letters will be set forth duly in another chapter. Meanwhile, it is necessary to say that Dr. Nicoll is one of those delightfully irresponsible literary forces who babble of “Mr. S. R. Crockett’s _great_ novel _Joan of the Sword Hand_,” in one breath, and with the next pray to be delivered from “a misuse of words.”
But let us give honour where honour is due. There are white marks even on the editor of the _British Weekly_. For quite two years past his dropsical pennyworth has been our constant solace in times of darkness and difficulty. Each week it contains a lengthy and helpful letter by one “Claudius Clear.” Many young Scotch writers have told us in many a useful paragraph that they do not think they are breaking a confidence when they say that “Claudius Clear” is one of the pen names of Dr. Robertson Nicoll. So that on the whole “Claudius” is a Scotchman, despite the circumstance that he dates his correspondence from Basil Regis, Middlesex, and masquerades in a name which is about as Scotch as “Schiepan.” For that matter, anybody might have guessed it from his syntax. And being a Scotchman, “Claudius” is, of course, omniscient and infallible. That is where the absurd beauty of him comes in. That, Messrs. Hodder and Stoughton, is why one reads the _British Weekly_. Do you wish to know how to run the _Times_? Would you care to be instructed in “the art of conversation”? Are you anxious to learn what is really meant by “good manners”? Would you be advised on “Order and Method,” “Brilliance,” “Overwork,” “Handwriting,” “Publishing as a Profession,” “Editing as a Profession,” “The Keeping of Old Letters,” “How to Remember and how to Forget,” “The Art of Life,” “The Art of Taking things Coolly,” “Turning Out the Fools,” or indeed on any other matter under the sun—from “Vanity” to “Samuel”?—why, you just turn up “Claudius,” and there you are; two columns which settle the question swiftly and for ever. What wonder, then, that in my anxiety to get at the truth about Scotchmen, I should turn up “Claudius”? Nor have I turned him up in vain, as witness the following admirable words: