IN the early thirties of the last century, readers of Fraser’s Magazine were puzzled, startled or irritated by a certain ‘Clothes-Philosophy,’ which was expounded to them month by month by an almost unknown Scotch fire-eater, a lover of brand-new words and riotous syntax. Such readers were privileged to witness the first great eruption of the Carlyle volcano. Doubtless it took most of them nearly twenty years to bring themselves to say that they had enjoyed the spectacle, and even then they were probably lying; but still, it was a privilege. But lest we should be too humble about our own day, I hasten to point out that we too have our ‘Clothes-Philosophy,’ and that it is cast in a simpler, more pleasing mould than the older one. It is, too, much more of a true ‘Clothes-Philosophy’ and is no elaborate mystification, no clumping Teutonic allegory, born in a study, but the real thing, coming newly every week or month from the tailor’s counter. Although he has his place here as a man of letters and may never have handled a needle or a pair of scissors, Mr. H. Dennis Bradley, I am sure, will not object to being called a tailor. It would be absurd of him to do so, for it is this very trade of tailoring, hitherto somewhat slighted, that he is now ennobling with his pen. But it would be equally absurd if we, on our part, set down Mr. Bradley merely as an astute advertiser who simply wants to make us buy his suits, one who is satisfied with clothing our carcases and is ready to leave mind and soul untended.

If Mr. Dennis Bradley is not at heart a man of letters, then I do not know the breed. From the very beginning, I divined the essential quality in him. I see him, in my mind’s eye, turning from the bundles of spring suitings, from the company of cloth merchants and cutters, into his sanctum to be alone with his art, or rather, his second and greater art, that of writing. There, I see him laboriously yet lovingly beating out phrase after phrase until each little essay is worthy of his great public. Lamb once said of a man that he would have been a tailor only he lacked the spirit. But think of how Lamb would have praised Mr. Bradley, who has the spirit to be not only an excellent tailor but a writer as well; and not, mark you, merely a tailor playing at authorship and trying to keep the needle and thread out of our sight, but an author and tailor at one and the same time, giving us, as it were, the literature and philosophy of shopkeeping and suit-making. This is to be a man of note, an originator, a force in letters. I fancy I can hear the unborn professors rustling their papers on ‘Bradley and His Age’ or ‘The Old Bond Street Circle.’

Being an original, Mr. Dennis Bradley cannot be fitted into any of our little pigeon-holes; he is not easily labelled; but as I have already spoken of his essays, we will keep the term and call him an essayist. His work, however, has had, and still has, so many phases that we shall do well to discriminate a little. There has been, for example, a change in his manner; and it has shown us, on the whole, a steady development, that advance towards the perfection of the instrument which marks the true artist. In his early work there was an irregularity, a wildness, a careless profusion, which promised much but hinted that the artist was not yet fully grown. He tried, if I remember rightly, to push his prose as near to poetry as it would go; and it was only later, when the thought became more weighty, that he turned to the quieter yet more impressive manner, the chiselled form and the pregnant phrase. During this early period, one of his favourite themes was Youth and Age; no new thing, it is true, but one to which he gave new significance by his characteristic treatment. When he exalted Youth and covered Age with ridicule, was he not interpreting the spirit of the times? One can discover, in that alone, the born man of letters. The times, disillusioned, were all for Youth, and he, divining it, stepped forth as our spokesman. Just because he happened to be also a tailor, just because young men happen to spend more on clothes than old men do, is no reason why Mr. Bradley should be robbed of his praise as a writer sensitive to our subtle changes of feeling.

Although there are some persons, not unpretending in criticism, who would have us believe that they prefer the earlier, wilder note, happily they are few, and most of us, I imagine, pass with pleasure to the later, more chastened form. Here we can remark his versatility, his admirable method of appealing to one type of mind after another. Now, he will give us a bright little philosophical treatise, and, sweeping away the accumulation of trivialities, he will dig in a brisk sentence or two to the roots of life, as in his essay on ‘The Three Essentials.’ Now, he will frankly appeal to the hard-headed man of affairs, and will annihilate half-a-dozen economic heresies in one paragraph. Sometimes it is the social rather than the purely economic problem that engages him. But his large sweep does not make for easy classification, and I, for one, cannot attempt to discriminate between such things, say, as ‘A Prophet on Profits,’ ‘Comparisons,’ and ‘Economy and Rubbish.’ Now and again, it is true, he seems to lay himself open to the charge of sacrificing everything to the topical appeal; but, after all, these are critical times, when men are looking for light; and, at the worst, the manner, unique in our letters, will remain to beguile us. Moreover, there also will remain the personal note, for like all your true essayists he does not hesitate to reveal his personality, to make the reader his confidant.

But when all is said and done, the most remarkable thing about Mr. Bradley, the thing that makes him unique, is his double rÔle. One would have thought that his author-self would have come to despise and ignore his tailor-self. But no—their allegiance holds, and is, indeed, stronger than ever. In the early days, there was not always a perfect understanding between the two. The author would come forward and have his say, without leaving any opening for the tailor, who had perforce to push his way to the front and shout the louder. In short, the transition from pure literature to commerce was not always well done: one was often uncomfortably aware of a hiatus. But now—to be apt in metaphor—such creases have been ironed out and the whole thing fits together and is apparently seamless. We begin in the outside world, with all its heart-breaking problems, its gloom and strife; we are driven hither and thither, menaced with ruin; and yet when we come to the end, always we find ourselves in the same solemn temple, our one place of refuge, serene as demi-gods among the spring and autumn suitings. We never know at first what terrible problem we shall be asked to face, but always we have but to follow this new Ariel of ours to be led out of the world into the sanctuary in Old Bond Street. There are times, indeed, when the author, the victim of temperament, is so plunged into gloom that it is the tailor alone who saves the situation, who arrives just when we seem altogether lost, so that his inevitable final refrain of ‘Lounge Suits, Dinner Suits, Dress Suits, and Overcoats’ comes to our ears like a benediction.

Surely it is pleasant to reflect that one so unique in our letters is able, week by week and month after month, to appeal to such a large public, to dower his work with such lordly space and noble type, to have his own illustrator, even though this last is somewhat out of key, being a trifle too flippant and sybaritic for such solemn letterpress. I will wager that this ‘Clothes-Philosophy’ of ours has made more friends, not least among editors and others, than ever did the one our grandfathers knew. Which is a fine feather for Mr. Bradley’s cap—if ever he should take to wearing one.