He well knew, of course, the
methods of signalling to counterfeit clairvoyance; and in one case, that
of "Little Louie," whose show at the Westminster Aquarium was the best
public marvel of the sort, he was convinced that the performers only
eked out by signalling and other tricks the failures of some genuinely
supernormal power of the "telepathic" kind which they themselves did
not fully understand. We say thus much about legerdemain, as it was long
our friend's quaint and picturesque substitute for the less original
forms of young men's amusement. It gave a good deal of pleasure to other
people, and he needed amusement, for his life was not to be easy.
Johnstone left Radley at the end of the summer term 1878, and for the
next two years worked under Messrs. Wren and Gurney for the Indian Civil
Service, the limit of entrance then being nineteen years. It must be
admitted that he made no serious attempt to succeed, and that here, as
at Oxford later, the prospect of an examination proved to be the reverse
of an incentive to work. Perhaps it was fortunate for him that he
failed, for though he would have found a great interest in the natives
(and extended his _répertoire_ of tricks) he would have been repelled by
the average Anglo-Indian; besides, his abilities did not lie in the
direction of legal and political administration. In October, 1880,
Johnstone came up to Keble College, Oxford, and he quickly had a small
circle round him. Among his friends were R. A. Farrar, son of the
well-known Dean, and G. H. Fowler, the biologist, of his own College;
Winter, of St. John's, the best musician among undergraduates; his
biographers; and, later, Prof. York Powell, who instantly detected his
ability and force of nature. Amongst the dons of Keble, Johnstone cared
for two. One was the Warden, the Rev. E. S. Talbot, now Bishop of
Southwark, who behaved with tact, and encouraged as far as he might a
mind of no pattern type, which would not bring the College any
regulation honours; the other was the Rev. J. R. Illingworth, the best
writer of the school, and since known as a philosophical preacher.
Ascetic, but thoroughly humane, Mr. Illingworth attracted Johnstone by
his honesty and fineness of temper. But these clergymen, after all,
dwelt in their own world, not in his. Until he met York Powell,
Johnstone had found no older man from whom he could learn without
cautions and reservations, and who struck him as a master-mind and a
perfectly free spirit. The two men signally valued each other's
conversation; they had many delicate qualities in common--the kind of
delicacy only found in Bohemians of experience who have kept their
perceptions at the finest edge. Powell materially helped Johnstone more
than once by letting persons of consequence know what he thought of his
younger friend. Even in Powell's record there was hardly any friendship
more completely unruffled.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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