Sinclair Lewis Remembered

55. Sisley Huddleston

55 / Sisley Huddleston Sisley Huddleston (1883–1952), British journalist, writer, and revisionist histo­ rian, editeda BritishforcesnewspaperduringWorldWarI, then lived and worked in Paris into the 1930s as a writer for The Times (London) and the Christian Science Monitor. More than most of the Ameri­ can expatriates, he tolerated Lewis’s idiosyncrasies. During World War II Huddleston collaborated with the Vichy regime in France until 1944, when the Free French imprisoned him. Source: Sisley Huddleston, Paris Salons, Cafés, Studios (Philadelphia: Lippincott , 1928), 113–15. Now an Ameri­ can: ­ Sinclair Lewis. Red Lewis as we called him in his Paris days. Tall, angular, jerky in his manner, subject to fits of moody silence, and then breaking out into interminable talk, he was a lively person, and he was perpetually the center of lively incidents. Yet I remember on our first meeting, when he had just come from England, he gave me the impression of a country parson who was trying to look as sober as possible. He was dressed in solemn black—severe clothes of the English cut. He actually wore a monocle—or rather he made great play with this eyeglass, twirling it round on its cord. That too was English. Also, he had white spats. Another English touch. He carried a cane. Still more English . At that stage of his career the most Ameri­ can of writers was the most English . [. . .] Certainly ­ Sinclair Lewis shattered my conception of the Ameri­ can. That night he was, presumably, under the influence of his visit to England, solemn, restrained, and silent. His little head he carried aslant over his elongated body. It was crowned by his flaming red hair. By his side sat George Slocombe , an English newspaperman who had taken a tremendous interest in Russia , his pink face decorated by a magnificent red beard. The red beard was the only Bolshevik feature of Slocombe, but it suffi ced to earn him the friendship of Chicherin, Litvinov, Rakowsky, Krassin,14 and the rest. Red hair and red beard. We were in an atmosphere of redness. But Slocombe’s redness, I remarked, is like that of a radish: it is on the surface. Scratch it and you will find that inside he is very white. Part 7. Paris / 147 There sat Red Lewis of whose exploits everybody was talking—of scenes in the conventional haunts of polite society, of unorthodox behavior which had amused London—and he was as demure as a clergyman who does not possess the habits of Elmer Gantry. Slocombe, on the contrary, was singing old sea chanties , of which he had a stock. The spirit was willing if the voice was weak, and we were asked over and over again what we should do with the drunken sailor, and were frequently informed that he had a dark and rolling eye. The next time, however, Red Lewis woke up with a vengeance. We were at dinner . He monopolized the conversation. He spoke of everybody by their Christian name. I was Sisley for him and he spoke much of Gilbert [Chesterton]15 and of Hugh [Walpole]. I had to think hard to put the surnames on his personages. “We are getting fed up with these English novelists who come on lecture tours and get away with good Ameri­ can dollars. I am not saying that for you,­ Sisley, but I told Hugh himself that it was too thick. Last year there was ­ Bertrand [Russell]16 —whom, of course, I like, and he is in a different line. I don’t think Gilbert quite went down. A lot of silly women laughed when he poked fun at America, but he certainly overdid it. I am not going to say anything against Philip [Wylie],17 but perhaps we’ve had enough of him. As for James [Stephens],18 he is a likeable fellow. No, good luck to them! Only we are rather idiotic to stand for it.” So it went on, but he presently drew me aside, and we had a talk about his methods. “People think I write glibly, but I don’t. I make a thorough study of my subject. I live among the people I describe. I have spent a year studying medicine and medical men. Went through everything. I don’t stick down the first thing that comes into my head. [. . .] “It’s terrible how people expect you to remember them. They come up to you wherever you are and say, ‘I’ll bet you don’t know who I...