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Title: The Days Before Yesterday
Author: Lord Frederic Hamilton
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THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY
FOREWORD
The Public has given so kindly a reception to The Varnished Pomps
of Yesterday (a reception which took its author wholly by
surprise), that I have extracted some further reminiscences from
the lumber-room of recollections. Those who expect startling
revelations, or stale whiffs of forgotten scandals in these pages,
will, I fear, be disappointed, for the book contains neither. It
is merely a record of everyday events, covering different ground
to those recounted in the former book, which may, or may not,
prove of interest. I must tender my apologies for the insistent
recurrence of the first person singular; in a book of this
description this is difficult to avoid.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and
hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous
spring in South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story
of Mrs. Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John
Russell--A child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen--
"Old Brown Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A
live lion at a tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his
vagaries--His frescoes at Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted
friend--His last Academy picture
CHAPTER II
The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My first
presentation to Queen Victoria--Scandalous behaviour of a
brother--Queen Victoria's letters--Her character and strong common
sense--My mother's recollections of George III. and George IV.--
Carlton House, and the Brighton Pavilion--Queen Alexandra--The
Fairchild Family--Dr. Cumming and his church--A clerical Jazz--
First visit to Paris--General de Flahault's account of Napoleon's
campaign of 1812--Another curious link with the past--"Something
French"--Attraction of Paris--Cinderella's glass slipper--A
glimpse of Napoleon III.--The Rue de Rivoli--The Riviera in 1865--
A novel Tricolour flag--Jenny Lind--The championship of the
Mediterranean--My father's boat and crew--The race--The Abercorn
wins the championship
CHAPTER III
A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail
service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial
waiters of the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge--Indians and pirates--
The imagination of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death-
warrants; imaginary and real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The
Abergele railway accident--A Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private
ceremonials--Some of the amenities of the Chapel Royal--An
unbidden spectator of the State dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh--
Father Healy--Happy Dublin knack of nomenclature--An unexpected
honour and its cause--Incidents of the Fenian rising--Dr.
Hatchell--A novel prescription--Visit of King Edward--Gorgeous
ceremonial, but a chilly drive--An anecdote of Queen Alexandra
CHAPTER IV
Chittenden's--A wonderful teacher--My personal experiences as a
schoolmaster--My "boys in blue"--My unfortunate garments--A "brave
Belge"--The model boy, and his name--A Spartan regime--"The Three
Sundays"--Novel religious observances--Harrow--"John Smith of
Harrow"--"Tommy"--Steele--"Tosher"--An ingenious punishment--John
Farmer--His methods--The birth of a famous song--Harrow school
songs--"Ducker"--The "Curse of Versatility"--Advancing old age--
The race between three brothers--A family failing--My father's
race at sixty-four--My own--A most acrimonious dispute at Rome--
Harrow after fifty years
CHAPTER V
Mme. Ducros--A Southern French country town--"Tartarin de
Tarascon"--His prototypes at Nyons--M. Sisteron the roysterer--The
Southern French--An octogenarian pasteur--French industry--"Bone-
shakers"--A wonderful "Cordon-bleu"--"Slop-basin"--French legal
procedure--The bons-vivants--The merry French judges--La gaiete
francaise--Delightful excursions--Some sleepy old towns--Oronge
and Avignon--M. Thiers' ingenious cousin--Possibilities--French
political situation in 1874--The Comte de Chambord--Some French
characteristics--High intellectual level--Three days in a
Trappist Monastery--Details of life there--The Arian heresy--
Silkworm culture--Tendencies of French to complicate details--Some
examples--Cicadas in London.
CHAPTER VI
Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick
Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. Electricity--Primitive theatre
toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in
London--Dramatic incidents in them--Levasseur's parody of
"Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old pan-
Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany--
The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English Club"
Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign
tongues--Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning
various beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving
youth--The Harz Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of
German--The odious "Kaffee-Klatch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg's
overpowering hospitality--Hamburg's attitude towards Britain--The
city itself--Trip to British Heligoland--The island--Some
peculiarities--Migrating birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady
Maxse--The Heligoland Theatre--Winter in Heligoland
CHAPTER VII
Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The
Victorian girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre Two witty ladies--
Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked
Johnsonian English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--
Practical jokes--Lord Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--
The shoeless legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted
wine--Ceylon's spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public
interest in Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John
Bright, and Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation--
W.H. Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary
hours at Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay
CHAPTER VIII
The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet key--
Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into
everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family
from Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the
oath--Secret Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of
information--The Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The
innocent victim--The execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--
The jarring military band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some
of his experiences--The seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles'
experiments on myself--The Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the
Philosopher's Stone--Lucid directions for their manufacture--
Glamis Castle and its inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr.
Gladstone at Glamis--He sings in the glees--The castle and its
treasures--Recollections of Glamis
CHAPTER IX
Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Attitude of British
Columbia--The C.P.R. completed--Quebec--A swim at Niagara--Other
mighty waterfalls--Ottawa and Rideau Hall--Effects of dry
climate--Personal electricity--Every man his own dynamo--
Attraction of Ottawa--The "roaring game"--Skating--An ice-palace--
A ball on skates--Difficulties of translating the Bible into
Eskimo--The building of the snow hut--The snow hut in use--Sir
John Macdonald--Some personal traits--The Canadian Parliament
buildings--Monsieur l'Orateur--A quaint oration--The "Pages'
Parliament"--An all-night sitting--The "Arctic Cremorne"--A
curious Lisbon custom--The Balkan "souvenir-hunters"--Personal
inspection of Canadian convents--Some incidents--The unwelcome
novice--The Montreal Carnival--The Ice-castle--The Skating
Carnival--A stupendous toboggan slide--The pioneer of "ski" in
Canada--The old-fashioned raquettes--A Canadian Spring--Wonders
of the Dominion
CHAPTER X
Calcutta--Hooghly pilots--Government House--A Durbar--The sulky
Rajah--The customary formalities--An ingenious interpreter--The
sailing clippers in the Hooghly--Calcutta Cathedral--A succulent
banquet--The mistaken Minister--The "Gordons"--Barrackpore--A
Swiss Family Robinson aerial house--The child and the elephants--
The merry midshipmen--Some of their escapades--A huge haul of
fishes--Queen Victoria and Hindustani--The Hills--The Manipur
outbreak--A riding tour--A wise old Anglo-Indian--Incidents--The
fidelity of native servants--A novel printing-press--Lucknow--The
loss of an illusion
CHAPTER XI
Matters left untold--The results of improved communications--My
father's journey to Naples--Modern stereotyped uniformity--Changes
in customs--The faithful family retainer--Some details--Samuel
Pepys' stupendous banquets--Persistence of idea--Ceremonial
incense--Patriarchal family life--The barn dances--My father's
habits--My mother--A son's tribute--Autumn days--Conclusion
THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY
CHAPTER I
Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and
hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous
spring in South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story
of Mrs. Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John
Russell--A child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen--
"Old Brown Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A
live lion at a tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his
vagaries--His frescoes at Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted
friend--His last Academy picture.
I was born the thirteenth child of a family of fourteen, on the
thirteenth day of the month, and I have for many years resided at
No. 13 in a certain street in Westminster. In spite of the popular
prejudice attached to this numeral, I am not conscious of having
derived any particular ill-fortune from my accidental association
with it.
Owing to my sequence in the family procession, I found myself on
my entry into the world already equipped with seven sisters and
four surviving brothers. I was also in the unusual position of
being born an uncle, finding myself furnished with four ready-
made nephews--the present Lord Durham, his two brothers, Mr.
Frederick Lambton and Admiral-of-the-Fleet Sir Hedworth Meux, and
the late Lord Lichfield.
Looking down the long vista of sixty years with eyes that have
already lost their keen vision, the most vivid impression that
remains of my early childhood is the nightly ordeal of the journey
down "The Passage of Many Terrors" in our Irish home. It had been
decreed that, as I had reached the mature age of six, I was quite
old enough to come downstairs in the evening by myself without the
escort of a maid, but no one seemed to realise what this entailed
on the small boy immediately concerned. The house had evidently
been built by some malevolent architect with the sole object of
terrifying little boys. Never, surely, had such a prodigious
length of twisting, winding passages and such a superfluity of
staircases been crammed into one building, and as in the early
"sixties" electric light had not been thought of, and there was no
gas in the house, these endless passages were only sparingly lit
with dim colza-oil lamps. From his nursery the little boy had to
make his way alone through a passage and up some steps. These were
brightly lit, and concealed no terrors. The staircase that had to
be negotiated was also reassuringly bright, but at its base came
the "Terrible Passage." It was interminably long, and only lit by
an oil lamp at its far end. Almost at once a long corridor running
at right angles to the main one, and plunged in total darkness,
had to be crossed. This was an awful place, for under a marble
slab in its dim recesses a stuffed crocodile reposed. Of course in
the daytime the crocodile PRETENDED to be very dead, but every one
knew that as soon as it grew dark, the crocodile came to life
again, and padded noiselessly about the passage on its scaly paws
seeking for its prey, with its great cruel jaws snapping, its
fierce teeth gleaming, and its horny tail lashing savagely from
side to side. It was also a matter of common knowledge that the
favourite article of diet of crocodiles was a little boy with bare
legs in a white suit. Even should one be fortunate enough to
escape the crocodile's jaws, there were countless other terrors
awaiting the traveller down this awe-inspiring passage. A little
farther on there was a dark lobby, with cupboards surrounding it.
Any one examining these cupboards by daylight would have found
that they contained innocuous cricket-bats and stumps, croquet-
mallets and balls, and sets of bowls. But as soon as the shades of
night fell, these harmless sporting accessories were changed by
some mysterious and malign agency into grizzly bears, and grizzly
bears are notoriously the fiercest of their species. It was
advisable to walk very quickly, but quietly, past the lair of the
grizzlies, for they would have gobbled up a little boy in one
second. Immediately after the bears' den came the culminating
terror of all--the haunt of the wicked little hunchbacks. These
malignant little beings inhabited an arched and recessed cross-
passage. It was their horrible habit to creep noiselessly behind
their victims, tip...tip...tip-toeing silently but swiftly behind
their prey, and then ... with a sudden spring they threw
themselves on to little boys' backs, and getting their arms round
their necks, they remorselessly throttled the life out of them. In
the early "sixties" there was a perfect epidemic of so-called
"garrotting" in London. Harmless citizens proceeding peaceably
homeward through unfrequented streets or down suburban roads at
night were suddenly seized from behind by nefarious hands, and
found arms pressed under their chins against their windpipe, with
a second hand drawing their heads back until they collapsed
insensible, and could be despoiled leisurely of any valuables they
might happen to have about them. Those familiar with John Leech's
Punch Albums will recollect how many of his drawings turned on
this outbreak of garrotting. The little boy had heard his elders
talking about this garrotting, and had somehow mixed it up with a
story about hunchbacks and the fascinating local tales about "the
wee people," but the terror was a very real one for all that. The
hunchbacks baffled, there only remained a dark archway to pass,
but this archway led to the "Robbers' Passage." A peculiarly
bloodthirsty gang of malefactors had their fastnesses along this
passage, but the dread of being in the immediate neighbourhood of
such a band of desperadoes was considerably modified by the
increasing light, as the solitary oil-lamp of the passage was
approached. Under the comforting beams of this lamp the little boy
would pause until his heart began to thump less wildly after his
deadly perils, and he would turn the handle of the door and walk
into the great hall as demurely as though he had merely traversed
an ordinary everyday passage in broad daylight. It was very
reassuring to see the big hall blazing with light, with the logs
roaring on the open hearth, and grown-ups writing, reading, and
talking unconcernedly, as though unconscious of the awful dangers
lurking within a few yards of them. In that friendly atmosphere,
what with toys and picture-books, the fearful experiences of the
"Passage of Many Terrors" soon faded away, and the return journey
upstairs would be free from alarms, for Catherine, the nursery-
maid, would come to fetch the little boy when his bedtime arrived.
Catherine was fat, freckled, and French. She was also of a very
stolid disposition. She stumped unconcernedly along the "Passage
of Terrors," and any reference to its hidden dangers of robbers,
hunchbacks, bears, and crocodiles only provoked the remark, "Quel
tas de betises!" In order to reassure the little boy, Catherine
took him to view the stuffed crocodile reposing inertly under its
marble slab. Of course, before a grown-up the crocodile would
pretend to be dead and stuffed, but ... the little boy knew
better. It occurred gleefully to him, too, that the plump French
damsel might prove more satisfactory as a repast to a hungry
saurian than a skinny little boy with thin legs. In the cheerful
nursery, with its fragrant peat fire (we called it "turf"), the
terrors of the evening were quickly forgotten, only to be renewed
with tenfold activity next evening, as the moment for making the
dreaded journey again approached.
The little boy had had the Pilgrim's Progress read to him on
Sundays. He envied "Christian," who not only usually enjoyed the
benefit of some reassuring companion, such as "Mr. Interpreter,"
or "Mr. Greatheart," to help him on his road, but had also been
expressly told, "Keep in the midst of the path, and no harm shall
come to thee." This was distinctly comforting, and Christian
enjoyed another conspicuous advantage. All the lions he
encountered in the course of his journey were chained up, and
could not reach him provided he adhered to the Narrow Way. The
little boy thought seriously of tying a rolled-up tablecloth to
his back to represent Christian's pack; in his white suit, he
might perhaps then pass for a pilgrim, and the strip of carpet
down the centre of the passage would make an admirable Narrow Way,
but it all depended on whether the crocodile, bears, and
hunchbacks knew, and would observe the rules of the game. It was
most improbable that the crocodile had ever had the Pilgrim's
Progress read to him in his youth, and he might not understand
that the carpet representing the Narrow Way was inviolable
territory. Again, the bears might make their spring before they
realised that, strictly speaking, they ought to consider
themselves chained up. The ferocious little hunchbacks were
clearly past praying for; nothing would give them a sense of the
most elementary decency. On the whole, the safest plan seemed to
be, on reaching the foot of the stairs, to keep an eye on the
distant lamp and to run to it as fast as short legs and small feet
could carry one. Once safe under its friendly beams, panting
breath could be recovered, and the necessary stolid look assumed
before entering the hall.
There was another voyage, rich in its promise of ultimate rewards,
but so perilous that it would only be undertaken under escort.
That was to the housekeeper's room through a maze of basement
passages. On the road two fiercely-gleaming roaring pits of fire
had to be encountered. Grown-ups said this was the furnace that
heated the house, but the little boy had his own ideas on the
subject. Every Sunday his nurse used to read to him out of a
little devotional book, much in vogue in the "sixties," called The
Peep of Day, a book with the most terrifying pictures. One Sunday
evening, so it is said, the little boy's mother came into the
nursery to find him listening in rapt attention to what his nurse
was reading him.
"Emery is reading to me out of a good book," explained the small
boy quite superfluously.
"And do you like it, dear?"
"Very much indeed."
"What is Emery reading to you about? Is it about Heaven?"
"No, it's about 'ell," gleefully responded the little boy, who had
not yet found all his "h's."
Those glowing furnace-bars; those roaring flames ... there could
be no doubt whatever about it. A hymn spoke of "Gates of Hell" ...
of course they just called it the heating furnace to avoid
frightening him. The little boy became acutely conscious of his
misdeeds. He had taken ... no, stolen an apple from the nursery
pantry and had eaten it. Against all orders he had played with the
taps in the sink. The burden of his iniquities pressed heavily on
him; remembering the encouraging warnings Mrs. Fairchild, of The
Fairchild Family, gave her offspring as to their certain ultimate
destiny when they happened to break any domestic rule, he simply
dared not pass those fiery apertures alone. With his hand in that
of his friend Joseph, the footman, it was quite another matter.
Out of gratitude, he addressed Joseph as "Mr. Greatheart," but
Joseph, probably unfamiliar with the Pilgrim's Progress, replied
that his name was Smith.
The interminable labyrinth of passages threaded, the warm,
comfortable housekeeper's room, with its red curtains, oak presses
and a delicious smell of spice pervading it, was a real haven of
rest. To this very day, nearly sixty years afterwards, it still
looks just the same, and keeps its old fragrant spicy odour.
Common politeness dictated a brief period of conversation, until
Mrs. Pithers, the housekeeper, should take up her wicker key-
basket and select a key (the second press on the left). From that
inexhaustible treasure-house dates and figs would appear, also
dried apricots and those little discs of crystallised apple-paste
which, impaled upon straws, and coloured green, red and yellow,
were in those days manufactured for the special delectation of
greedy little boys. What a happy woman Mrs. Pithers must have been
with such a prodigal wealth of delicious products always at her
command! It was comforting, too, to converse with Mrs. Pithers,
for though this intrepid woman was alarmed neither by bears,
hunchbacks nor crocodiles, she was terribly frightened by what she
termed "cows," and regulated her daily walks so as to avoid any
portion of the park where cattle were grazing. Here the little boy
experienced a delightful sense of masculine superiority. He was
not the least afraid of cattle, or of other things in daylight and
the open air; of course at night in dark passages infested with
bears and little hunchbacks ... Well, it was obviously different.
And yet that woman who was afraid of "cows" could walk without a
tremor, or a little shiver down the spine, past the very "Gates of
Hell," where they roared and blazed in the dark passage.
Our English home had brightly-lit passages, and was consequently
practically free from bears and robbers. Still, we all preferred
the Ulster home in spite of its obvious perils. Here were a chain
of lakes, wide, silvery expanses of gleaming water reflecting the
woods and hills. Here were great tracts of woodlands where
countless little burns chattered and tinkled in their rocky beds
as they hurried down to the lakes, laughing as they tumbled in
miniature cascades over rocky ledges into swirling pools, in their
mad haste to reach the placid waters below. Here were purple
heather-clad hills, with their bigger brethren rising mistily blue
in the distance, and great wine-coloured tracts of bog (we called
them "flows") interspersed with glistening bands of water, where
the turf had been cut which hung over the village in a thin haze
of fragrant blue smoke.
The woods in the English place were beautifully kept, but they
were uninteresting, for there were no rocks or great stones in
them. An English brook was a dull, prosaic, lifeless stream,
rolling its clay-stained waters stolidly along, with never a
dimple of laughter on its surface, or a joyous little gurgle of
surprise at finding that it was suddenly called upon to take a
headlong leap of ten feet. The English brooks were so silent, too,
compared to our noisy Ulster burns, whose short lives were one
clamorous turmoil of protest against the many obstacles with which
nature had barred their progress to the sea; here swirling over a
miniature crag, there babbling noisily among a labyrinth of
stones. They ultimately became merged in a foaming, roaring salmon
river, expanding into amber-coloured pools, or breaking into white
rapids; a river which retained to the last its lordly independence
and reached the sea still free, refusing to be harnessed or
confined by man. Our English brook, after its uneventful
childhood, made its stolid matter-of-fact way into an equally dull
little river which crawled inertly along to its destiny somewhere
down by the docks. I know so many people whose whole lives are
like that of that particular English brook.
We lived then in London at Chesterfield House, South Audley
Street, which covered three times the amount of ground it does at
present, for at the back it had a very large garden, on which
Chesterfield Gardens are now built. In addition to this it had two
wings at right angles to it, one now occupied by Lord Leconfield's
house, the other by Nos. 1 and 2, South Audley Street. The left-
hand wing was used as our stables and contained a well which
enjoyed an immense local reputation in Mayfair. Never was such
drinking-water! My father allowed any one in the neighbourhood to
fetch their drinking-water from our well, and one of my earliest
recollections is watching the long daily procession of men-
servants in the curious yellow-jean jackets of the "sixties," each
with two large cans in his hands, fetching the day's supply of our
matchless water. No inhabitants of Curzon Street, Great Stanhope
Street, or South Audley Street would dream of touching any water
but that from the famous Chesterfield House spring. In 1867 there
was a serious outbreak of Asiatic cholera in London, and my father
determined to have the water of the celebrated spring analysed.
There were loud protests at this:--what, analyse the finest
drinking-water in England! My father, however, persisted, and the
result of the analysis was that our incomparable drinking-water
was found to contain thirty per cent. of organic matter. The
analyst reported that fifteen per cent. of the water must be pure
sewage. My father had the spring sealed and bricked up at once,
but it is a marvel that we had not poisoned every single
inhabitant of the Mayfair district years before.
In the early "sixties" the barbarous practice of sending wretched
little "climbing boys" up chimneys to sweep them still prevailed.
In common with most other children of that day, I was perfectly
terrified when the chimney-sweep arrived with his attendant coal-
black imps, for the usual threat of foolish nurses to their
charges when they proved refractory was, "If you are not good I
shall give you to the sweep, and then you will have to climb up
the chimney." When the dust-sheets laid on the floors announced
the advent of the sweeps, I used, if possible, to hide until they
had left the house. I cannot understand how public opinion
tolerated for so long the abominable cruelty of forcing little
boys to clamber up flues. These unhappy brats were made to creep
into the chimneys from the grates, and then to wriggle their way
up by digging their toes into the interstices of the bricks, and
by working their elbows and knees alternately; stifled in the
pitch-darkness of the narrow flue by foul air, suffocated by the
showers of soot that fell on them, perhaps losing their way in the
black maze of chimneys, and liable at any moment, should they lose
their footing, to come crashing down twenty feet, either to be
killed outright in the dark or to lie with a broken limb until
they were extricated--should, indeed, it be possible to rescue
them at all. These unfortunate children, too, were certain to get
abrasions on their bare feet and on their elbows and knees from
the rough edges of the bricks. The soot working into these
abrasions gave them a peculiar form of sore. Think of the terrible
brutality to which a nervous child must have been subjected before
he could be induced to undertake so hateful a journey for the
first time. Should the boy hesitate to ascend, many of the master-
sweeps had no compunction in giving him what was termed a
"tickler"--that is, in lighting some straw in the grate below him.
The poor little urchin had perforce to scramble up his chimney
then, to avoid being roasted alive.
All honour to the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, the philanthropist,
who as Lord Ashley never rested in the House of Commons until he
got a measure placed on the Statute Book making the employment of
climbing-boys illegal.
It will be remembered that little Tom, the hero of Charles
Kingsley's delightful Water-Babies, was a climbing-sweep. In spite
of all my care, I occasionally met some of these little fellows in
the passages, inky-black with soot from the soles of their bare
feet to the crowns of their heads, except for the whites of their
eyes. They could not have been above eight or nine years old. I
looked on them as awful warnings, for of course they would not
have occupied their present position had they not been little boys
who had habitually disobeyed the orders of their nurses.
Even the wretched little climbing-boys had their gala-day on the
1st of May, when they had a holiday and a feast under the terms of
Mrs. Montagu's will.
The story of Mrs. Montagu is well known. The large house standing
in a garden at the corner of Portman Square and Gloucester Place,
now owned by Lord Portman, was built for Mrs. Montagu by James
Wyatt at the end of the eighteenth century, and the adjoining
Montagu Street and Montagu Square derive their names from her.
Somehow Mrs. Montagu's only son got kidnapped, and all attempts to
recover the child failed. Time went on, and he was regarded as
dead. On a certain 1st of May the sweeps arrived to clean Mrs.
Montagu's chimneys, and a climbing-boy was sent up to his horrible
task. Like Tom in the Water-Babies, he lost his way in the network
of flues and emerged in a different room to the one he had started
from. Something in the aspect of the room struck a half-familiar,
half-forgotten chord in his brain. He turned the handle of the
door of the next room and found a lady seated there. Then he
remembered. Filthy and soot-stained as he was, the little sweep
flung himself into the arms of the beautiful lady with a cry of
"Mother!" Mrs. Montagu had found her lost son.
In gratitude for the recovery of her son, Mrs. Montagu entertained
every climbing-boy in London at dinner on the anniversary of her
son's return, and arranged that they should all have a holiday on
that day. At her death she left a legacy to continue the treat.
Such, at least, is the story as I have always heard it.
At the Sweeps' Carnival, there was always a grown-up man figuring
as "Jack-in-the-green." Encased in an immense frame of wicker-work
covered with laurels and artificial flowers, from the midst of
which his face and arms protruded with a comical effect, "Jack-in-
the-green" capered slowly about in the midst of the street,
surrounded by some twenty little climbing-boys, who danced
joyously round him with black faces, their soot-stained clothes
decorated with tags of bright ribbon, and making a deafening
clamour with their dustpans and brushes as they sang some popular
ditty. They then collected money from the passers-by, making
usually quite a good haul. There were dozens of these "Jacks-in-
the-green" to be seen then on Mayday in the London streets, each
one with his attendant band of little black familiars. I summoned
up enough courage once to ask a small inky-black urchin whether he
had disobeyed his nurse very often in order to be condemned to
sweep chimneys. He gaped at me uncomprehendingly, with a grin; but
being a cheerful little soul, assured me that, on the whole, he
rather enjoyed climbing up chimneys.
It was my father and mother's custom in London to receive any of
their friends at luncheon without a formal invitation, and a
constant procession of people availed themselves of this
privilege. At six years of age I was promoted to lunch in the
dining-room with my parents, and I always kept my ears open. I had
then one brother in the House of Commons, and we being a
politically inclined family, most of the notabilities of the Tory
party put in occasional appearances at Chesterfield House at
luncheon-time. There was Mr. Disraeli, for whom my father had an
immense admiration, although he had not yet occupied the post of
Prime Minister. Mr. Disraeli's curiously impassive face, with its
entire absence of colouring, rather frightened me. It looked like
a mask. He had, too, a most singular voice, with a very impressive
style of utterance. After 1868, by which time my three elder
brothers were all in the House of Commons, and Disraeli himself
was Prime Minister, he was a more frequent visitor at our house.
In 1865 my uncle, Lord John Russell, my mother's brother, was
Prime Minister. My uncle, who had been born as far back as 1792,
was a very tiny man, who always wore one of the old-fashioned,
high black-satin stocks right up to his chin. I liked him, for he
was always full of fun and small jokes, but in that rigorously
Tory household he was looked on with scant favour. It was his
second term of office as Prime Minister, for he had been First
Lord of the Treasury from 1846 to 1852; he had also sat in the
House of Commons for forty-seven years. My father was rather
inclined to ridicule his brother-in-law's small stature, and
absolutely detested his political opinions, declaring that he
united all the ineradicable faults of the Whigs in his diminutive
person. Listening, as a child will do, to the conversation of his
elders, I derived the most grotesquely false ideas as to the Whigs
and their traditional policy. I gathered that, with their tongues
in their cheeks, they advocated measures in which they did not
themselves believe, should they think that by so doing they would
be able to enhance their popularity and maintain themselves in
office: that, in order to extricate themselves from some present
difficulty, they were always prepared to mortgage the future
recklessly, quite regardless of the ultimate consequences: that
whilst professing the most liberal principles, they were absurdly
exclusive in their private lives, not consorting with all and
sundry as we poor Tories did: that convictions mattered less than
office: that in fact nothing much mattered, provided that the
government of the country remained permanently in the hands of a
little oligarchy of Whig families, and that every office of profit
under the Crown was, as a matter of course, allotted to some
member of those favoured families. In proof of the latter
statement, I learnt that the first act of my uncle Lord John, as
Prime Minister, had been to appoint one of his brothers Sergeant-
at-Arms of the House of Commons, and to offer to another of his
brothers, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell, the vacant Bishopric
of Oxford. Much to the credit of my clergyman-uncle, he declined
the Bishopric, saying that he had neither the eloquence nor the
administrative ability necessary for so high an office in the
Church, and that he preferred to remain a plain country parson in
his little parish, of which, at the time of his death, he had been
Rector for fifty-six years. All of which only goes to show what
absurdly erroneous ideas a child, anxious to learn, may pick up
from listening to the conversation of his elders, even when one of
those elders happened to be Mr. Disraeli himself.
Another ex-Prime Minister who was often at our house was the
fourth Earl of Aberdeen, who had held office many times, and had
been Prime Minister during the Crimean War. He must have been a
very old man then, for he was born in 1784. I have no very
distinct recollection of him. Oddly enough, Lord Aberdeen was both
my great-uncle and my step-grandfather, for his first wife had
been my grandfather's sister, and after her death, he married my
grandfather's widow, his two wives thus being sisters-in-law.
Judging by their portraits by Lawrence, which hung round our
dining-room, my great-grandfather, old Lord Abercorn's sons and
daughters must have been of singular and quite unusual personal
beauty. Not one of the five attained the age of twenty-nine, all
of them succumbing early to consumption. Lord Aberdeen had a most
unfortunate skin and complexion, and in addition he was deeply
pitted with small-pox. As a result his face looked exactly like a
slice of brown bread, and "Old Brown Bread" he was always called
by my elder brothers and sisters, who had but little love for him,
for he disliked young people, and always made the most
disagreeable remarks he could think of to them. I remember once
being taken to see him at Argyll House, Regent Street, on the site
of which the "Palladium" now stands. I recollect perfectly the
ugly, gloomy house, and its uglier and gloomier garden, but I have
no remembrance of "Old Brown Bread" himself, or of what he said to
me, which, considering his notorious dislike to children, is
perhaps quite as well.
Of a very different type was another constant and always welcome
visitor to our house, Sir Edwin Landseer, the painter. He was one
of my father and mother's oldest friends, and had been an equally
close friend of my grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford.
He had painted three portraits of my father, and five of my
mother. Two of the latter had been engraved, and, under the titles
of "Cottage Industry" and "The Mask," had a very large sale in
mid-Victorian days. His large picture of my two eldest sisters,
which hung over our dining-room chimney-piece, had also been
engraved, and was a great favourite, under the title of "The
Abercorn Children." Landseer was a most delightful person, and the
best company that can be imagined. My father and mother were quite
devoted to him, and both of them always addressed him as "Lanny."
My mother going to call on him at his St. John's Wood house, found
"Lanny" in the garden, working from a ladder on a gigantic mass of
clay. Turning the corner, she was somewhat alarmed at finding a
full-grown lion stretched out on the lawn. Landseer had been
commissioned by the Government to model the four lions for the
base of Nelson's pillar in Trafalgar Square. He had made some
studies in the Zoological Gardens, but as he always preferred
working from the live model, he arranged that an elderly and
peculiarly docile lion should be brought to his house from the Zoo
in a furniture van attended by two keepers. Should any one wish to
know what that particular lion looked like, they have only to
glance at the base of the Nelson pillar. On paying an afternoon
call, it is so unusual to find a live lion included amongst the
guests, that my mother's perturbation at finding herself in such
close proximity to a huge loose carnivore is, perhaps, pardonable.
Landseer is, of course, no longer in fashion as a painter. I quite
own that at times his colour is unpleasing, owing to the bluish
tint overlaying it; but surely no one will question his
draughtsmanship? And has there ever been a finer animal-painter?
Perhaps he was really a black-and-white man. My family possess
some three hundred drawings of his: some in pen and ink, some in
wash, some in pencil. I personally prefer his very delicate pencil
work, over which he sometimes threw a light wash of colour. No
one, seeing some of his pen and ink work, can deny that he was a
master of line. A dozen scratches, and the whole picture is there!
There is a charming little Landseer portrait of my mother with my
eldest sister, in Room III of the Tate Gallery. Landseer preferred
painting on panel, and he never would allow his pictures to be
varnished. His wishes have been obeyed in that respect; none of
the Landseers my family possess have ever been varnished.
He was certainly an unconventional guest in a country house. My
father had rented a deer-forest on a long lease from Cluny
Macpherson, and had built a large house there, on Loch Laggan. As
that was before the days of railways, the interior of the house at
Ardverikie was necessarily very plain, and the rooms were merely
whitewashed. Landseer complained that the glare of the whitewash
in the dining-room hurt his eyes, and without saying a word to any
one, he one day produced his colours, mounted a pair of steps, and
proceeded to rough-in a design in charcoal on the white walls. He
worked away until he had completely covered the walls with
frescoes in colour. The originals of some of his best-known
engravings, "The Sanctuary," "The Challenge," "The Monarch of the
Glen," made their first appearance on the walls of the dining-room
at Ardverikie. The house was unfortunately destroyed by fire some
years later, and Landseer's frescoes perished with it.
At another time, my father leased for two years a large house in
the Midlands. The dining-hall of this house was hung with
hideously wooden full-length portraits of the family owning it.
Landseer declared that these monstrous pictures took away his
appetite, so without any permission he one day mounted a ladder,
put in high-lights with white chalk over the oils, made the dull
eyes sparkle, and gave some semblance of life to these forlorn
effigies. Pleased with his success, he then brightened up the
flesh tints with red chalk, and put some drawing into the faces.
To complete his work, he rubbed blacks into the backgrounds with
charcoal. The result was so excellent that we let it remain. At
the conclusion of my father's tenancy, the family to whom the
place belonged were perfectly furious at the disrespect with which
their cherished portraits had been treated, for it was a
traditional article of faith with them that they were priceless
works of art.
Towards the end of his life Landseer became hopelessly insane and,
during his periods of violence a dangerous homicidal maniac. Such
an affection, however, had my father and mother for the friend of
their younger days, that they still had him to stay with us in
Kent for long periods. He had necessarily to bring a large retinue
with him: his own trained mental attendant; Dr. Tuke, a very
celebrated alienist in his day; and, above all, Mrs. Pritchard.
The case of Mrs. Pritchard is such an instance of devoted
friendship as to be worth recording. She was an elderly widow of
small means, Landseer's neighbour in St. John's Wood; a little
dried-up, shrivelled old woman. The two became firm allies, and
when Landseer's reason became hopelessly deranged, Mrs. Pritchard
devoted her whole life to looking after her afflicted friend. In
spite of her scanty means, she refused to accept any salary, and
Landseer was like wax in her hands. In his most violent moods when
the keeper and Dr. Tuke both failed to quiet him, Mrs. Pritchard
had only to hold up her finger and he became calm at once. Either
his clouded reason or some remnant of his old sense of fun led him
to talk of Mrs. Pritchard as his "pocket Venus." To people staying
with us (who, I think, were a little alarmed at finding themselves
in the company of a lunatic, however closely watched he might be),
he would say, "In two minutes you will see the loveliest of her
sex. A little dainty creature, perfect in feature, perfect in
shape, who might have stepped bodily out of the frame of a Greuze.
A perfect dream of loveliness." They were considerably astonished
when a little wizened woman, with a face like a withered apple,
entered the room. He was fond, too, of descanting on Mrs.
Pritchard's wonderfully virtuous temperament, notwithstanding her
amazing charms. Visitors probably reflected that, given her
appearance, the path of duty must have been rendered very easy to
her.
Landseer painted his last Academy picture, "The Baptismal Font,"
whilst staying with us. It is a perfectly meaningless composition,
representing a number of sheep huddled round a font, for whatever
allegorical significance he originally meant to give it eluded the
poor clouded brain. As he always painted from the live model, he
sent down to the Home Farm for two sheep, which he wanted driven
upstairs into his bedroom, to the furious indignation of the
housekeeper, who declared, with a certain amount of reason, that
it was impossible to keep a house well if live sheep were to be
allowed in the best bedrooms. So Landseer, his easel and colours
and his sheep were all transferred to the garden.
On another occasion there was some talk about a savage bull.
Landseer, muttering, "Bulls! bulls! bulls!" snatched up an album
of my sister's, and finding a blank page in it, made an exquisite
little drawing of a charging bull. The disordered brain repeating
"Bulls! bulls! bulls!" he then drew a bulldog, a pair of
bullfinches surrounded by bulrushes, and a hooked bull trout
fighting furiously for freedom. That page has been cut out and
framed for fifty years.
CHAPTER II
The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My first
presentation to Queen Victoria--Scandalous behaviour of a brother--
Queen Victoria's letters--Her character and strong common sense--
My mother's recollections of George III. and George IV.--Carlton
House, and the Brighton Pavilion--Queen Alexandra--The Fairchild
Family--Dr. Cumming and his church--A clerical Jazz--First visit
to Paris--General de Flahault's account of Napoleon's campaign of
1812--Another curious link with the past--"Something French"--
Attraction of Paris--Cinderella's glass slipper--A glimpse of
Napoleon III.--The Rue de Rivoli The Riviera in 1865--A novel
Tricolor flag--Jenny Lind--The championship of the Mediterranean--
My father's boat and crew--The race--The Abercorn wins the
championship.
Every one familiar with John Leech's Pictures from Punch must
have an excellent idea of the outward appearance of "swells" of
the "sixties."
As a child I had an immense admiration for these gorgeous beings,
though, between ourselves, they must have been abominably loud
dressers. They affected rather vulgar sealskin waistcoats, with
the festoons of a long watch-chain meandering over them, above
which they exhibited a huge expanse of black or blue satin,
secured by two scarf-pins of the same design, linked together,
like Siamese twins, by a little chain.
A reference to Leech's drawings will show the flamboyant checked
"pegtop" trousers in which they delighted. Their principal
adornment lay in their immense "Dundreary" whiskers, usually at
least eight inches long. In a high wind these immensely long
whiskers blew back over their owners' shoulders in the most
comical fashion, and they must have been horribly inconvenient. I
determined early in life to affect, when grown-up, longer whiskers
than any one else--if possible down to my waist; but alas for
human aspirations! By the time that I had emerged from my
chrysalis stage, Dundreary whiskers had ceased to be the fashion;
added to which unkind Nature had given me a hairless face.
My uncle, old Lord Claud Hamilton, known in our family as "The
Dowager," adhered, to the day of his death, to the William IV.
style of dress. He wore an old-fashioned black-satin stock right
up to his chin, with white "gills" above, and was invariably seen
in a blue coat with brass buttons, and a buff waistcoat. My uncle
was one of the handsomest men in England, and had sat for nearly
forty years in Parliament. He had one curious faculty. He could
talk fluently and well on almost any topic at indefinite length, a
very useful gift in the House of Commons of those days. On one
occasion when it was necessary "to talk a Bill out," he got up
without any preparation whatever, and addressed the House in
flowing periods for four hours and twenty minutes. His speech held
the record for length for many years, but it was completely
eclipsed in the early "eighties" by the late Mr. Biggar, who spoke
(if my memory serves me right) for nearly six hours on one
occasion. Biggar, however, merely read interminable extracts from
Blue Books, whereas my uncle indulged in four hours of genuine
rhetorical declamation. My uncle derived his nickname from the
fact that in our family the second son is invariably christened
Claud, so I had already a brother of that name. There happen to be
three Lord Claud Hamiltons living now, of three successive
generations.
I shall never forget my bitter disappointment the first time I was
taken, at a very early age, to see Queen Victoria. I had pictured
to myself a dazzling apparition arrayed in sumptuous robes, seated
on a golden throne; a glittering crown on her head, a sceptre in
one hand, an orb grasped in the other. I had fancied Her Majesty
seated thus, motionless during the greater part of the twenty-four
hours, simply "reigning." I could have cried with disappointment
when a middle-aged lady, simply dressed in widow's "weeds" and
wearing a widow's cap, rose from an ordinary arm-chair to receive
us. I duly made my bow, but having a sort of idea that it had to
be indefinitely repeated, went on nodding like a porcelain Chinese
mandarin, until ordered to stop.
Between ourselves, I behaved far better than a brother of mine
once did under similar circumstances. Many years before I was
born, my father lent his Scotch house to Queen Victoria and the
Prince Consort for ten days. This entailed my two eldest sisters
and two eldest brothers vacating their nurseries in favour of the
Royal children, and their being transferred to the farm, where
they had very cramped quarters indeed. My second brother deeply
resented being turned out of his comfortable nursery, and refused
to be placated. On the day after the Queen's arrival, my mother
took her four eldest children to present them to Her Majesty, my
sisters dressed in their best clothes, my brothers being in kilts.
They were duly instructed as to how they were to behave, and upon
being presented, my two sisters made their curtsies, and my eldest
brother made his best bow. "And this, your Majesty, is my second
boy. Make your bow, dear," said my mother; but my brother, his
heart still hot within him at being expelled from his nursery,
instead of bowing, STOOD ON HIS HEAD IN HIS KILT, and remained
like that, an accomplishment of which he was very proud. The Queen
was exceedingly angry, so later in the day, upon my brother
professing deep penitence, he was taken back to make his
apologies, when he did precisely the same thing over again, and
was consequently in disgrace during the whole of the Royal visit.
In strict confidence, I believe that he would still do it to-day,
more than seventy-two years later.
During her stay in my father's house the Queen quite unexpectedly
announced that she meant to give a dance. This put my mother in a
great difficulty, for my sisters had no proper clothes for a ball,
and in those pre-railway days it would have taken at least ten
days to get anything from Edinburgh or Glasgow. My mother had a
sudden inspiration. The muslin curtains in the drawing-room! The
drawing-room curtains were at once commandeered; the ladies'-
maids set to work with a will, and I believe that my sisters
looked extremely well dressed in the curtains, looped up with
bunches of rowan or mountain-ash berries.
My mother was honoured with Queen Victoria's close friendship and
confidence for over fifty years. At the time of her death she had
in her possession a numerous collection of letters from the Queen,
many of them very long ones. By the express terms of my mother's
will, those letters will never be published. Many of them touch on
exceedingly private matters relating to the Royal family, others
refer to various political problems of the day. I have read all
those letters carefully, and I fully endorse my mother's views.
She was honoured with the confidence of her Sovereign, and that
confidence cannot be betrayed. The letters are in safe custody,
and there they will remain. On reading them it is impossible not
to be struck with Queen Victoria's amazing shrewdness, and with
her unfailing common sense. It so happens that both a brother and
a sister of mine, the late Duchess of Buccleuch, were brought into
very close contact with Queen Victoria. It was this quality of
strong common sense in the Queen which continually impressed them,
as well as her very high standard of duty.
My brother George was twice Secretary of State for India. The
Queen was fond of suggesting amendments in the wording of
dispatches relating to India, whilst not altering their sense. My
brother tells me that the alterations suggested by the Queen were
invariably in the direction of simplification. The Queen had a
knack of stripping away unnecessary verbiage and reducing a
sentence to its simplest form, in which its meaning was
unmistakably clear.
All Queen Victoria's tastes were simple. She liked simplicity in
dress, in food, and in her surroundings. If I may say so without
disrespect, I think that Queen Victoria's great hold on her people
came from the fact that, in spite of her high station, she had the
ideals, the tastes, the likes and dislikes of the average clean-
living, clean-minded wife of the average British professional man,
together with the strict ideals as to the sanctity of the
marriage-tie, the strong sense of duty, and the high moral
standard such wives usually possess.
It is, of course, the easy fashion now to sneer at Victorian
standards. To my mind they embody all that is clean and sound in
the nation. It does not follow that because Victorians revelled in
hideous wall-papers and loved ugly furniture, that therefore their
points-of-view were mistaken ones. There are things more important
than wall-papers. They certainly liked the obvious in painting, in
music, and perhaps in literature, but it hardly seems to follow
logically from that, that their conceptions of a man's duty to his
wife, family, and country were necessarily false ones. They were
not afflicted with the perpetual modern restlessness, nor did they
spend "their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear
some new thing"; still, all their ideas seem to me eminently sweet
and wholesome.
In her old age my mother was the last person living who had seen
George III. She remembered perfectly seeing the old King, in one
of his rare lucid intervals, driving through London, when he was
enthusiastically cheered.
She was also the last person alive who had been at Carlton House
which was pulled down in 1826. My mother at the age of twelve
danced as a solo "The Spanish Shawl dance" before George IV. at
the Pavilion, Brighton. The King was so delighted with her dancing
that he went up to her and said, "You are a very pretty little
girl, and you dance charmingly. Now is there anything I can do for
you?" The child answered, "Yes, there is. Your Majesty can bring
me some ham sandwiches and a glass of port-wine negus, for I am
very hungry," and to do George IV. justice, he promptly brought
them. My mother was painted by a French artist doing her "shawl
dance," and if it is a faithful likeness, she must have been an
extraordinarily pretty child. On another occasion at a children's
party at Carlton House, my uncle, General Lord Alexander Russell,
a very outspoken little boy, had been warned by his mother, the
Duchess of Bedford, that though the King wore a palpable wig, he
was to take no notice whatever of it. To my mother's dismay, she
heard her little brother go up to the King and say, "I know that
your Majesty wears a wig, but I've been told not to say anything
about it, so I promised not to tell any one."
Carlton House stood, from all I can learn, at the top of the Duke
of York's steps. Several engravings of its beautiful gardens are
still to be found. These gardens extended from the present Carlton
House Terrace to Pall Mall. Not only the Terrace, but the Carlton,
Reform, Travellers', Athenaeum, and United Service Clubs now stand
on their site. They were separated from Pall Mall by an open
colonnade, and the Corinthian pillars from the front of Carlton
House were re-erected in 1834 as the portico of the National
Gallery in Trafalgar Square.
As a child I had a wild adoration for Queen Alexandra (then, of
course, Princess of Wales), whom I thought the most beautiful
person I had ever seen in my life, and I dare say that I was not
far wrong. When I was taken to Marlborough House, I remembered and
treasured up every single word she said to me. I was not present
at the child's tea-party at Marlborough House given by the little
Princess, including his present Majesty, when SOME ONE (my loyalty
absolutely refuses to let me say who) suggested that as the woven
flowers on the carpet looked rather faded, it might be as well to
water them. The boys present, including the little Princes,
gleefully emptied can after can of water on to the floor in their
attempts to revive the carpet, to the immense improvement of the
ceiling and furniture of the room underneath.
In the "sixties" Sunday was very strictly observed. In our own
Sabbatarian family, our toys and books all disappeared on Saturday
night. On Sundays we were only allowed to read Line upon Line, The
Peep of Day, and The Fairchild Family. I wonder if any one ever
reads this book now. If they haven't, they should. Mr. and Mrs.
Fairchild were, I regret to say it, self-righteous prigs of the
deepest dye, whilst Lucy, Emily, and Henry, their children, were
all little prodigies of precocious piety. It was a curious menage;
Mr. Fairchild having no apparent means of livelihood, and no
recreations beyond perpetually reading the Bible under a tree in
the garden. Mrs. Fairchild had the peculiar gift of being able to
recite a different prayer off by heart applicable to every
conceivable emergency; whilst John, their man-servant, was a real
"handy-man," for he was not only gardener, but looked after the
horse and trap, cleaned out the pigsties, and waited at table. One
wonders in what sequence he performed his various duties, but
perhaps the Fairchilds had not sensitive noses. Even the possibly
odoriferous John had a marvellous collection of texts at his
command. It was refreshing after all this to learn that on one
occasion all three of the little Fairchilds got very drunk, which,
as the eldest of them was only ten, would seem to indicate that,
in spite of their aggressive piety, they had their fair dose of
original sin still left in them. I liked the book notwithstanding.
There was plenty about eating and drinking; one could always skip
the prayers, and there were three or four very brightly written
accounts of funerals in it. I was present at a "Fairchild Family"
dinner given some twenty years ago in London by Lady Buxton, wife
of the present Governor-General of South Africa, at which every
one of the guests had to enact one of the characters of the book.
My youngest brother had a great taste for drawing, and was
perpetually depicting terrific steeplechases. From a confusion of
ideas natural to a child, he always introduced a church steeple
into the corner of his drawings. One Sunday he had drawn a most
spirited and hotly-contested "finish" to a steeplechase. When
remonstrated with on the ground that it was not a "Sunday"
subject, he pointed to the church steeple and said, "You don't
understand. This is Sunday, and those jockeys are all racing to
see which of them can get to church first," which strikes me as a
peculiarly ready and ingenious explanation for a child of six.
In London we all went on Sundays to the Scottish Presbyterian
Church in Crown Court, just opposite Drury Lane Theatre. Dr.
Cumming, the minister of the church at that time, enjoyed an
immense reputation amongst his congregation. He was a very
eloquent man, but was principally known as always prophesying the
imminent end of the world. He had been a little unfortunate in
some of the dates he had predicted for the final cataclysm, these
dates having slipped by uneventfully without anything whatever
happening, but finally definitely fixed on a date in 1867 as the
exact date of the Great Catastrophe. His influence with his flock
rather diminished when it was found that Dr. Cumming had renewed
the lease of his house for twenty-one years, only two months
before the date he had fixed with absolute certainty as being the
end of all things. All the same, I am certain that he was
thoroughly in earnest and perfectly genuine in his convictions. As
a child I thought the church--since rebuilt--absolutely beautiful,
but it was in reality a great, gaunt, barn-like structure. It was
always crammed. We were very old-fashioned, for we sat down to
sing, and we stood to pray, and there was no instrument of any
sort. The pew in front of us belonged to Lord Aberdeen, and his
brother Admiral Gordon, one of the Elders, always sat in it with
his high hat on, conversing at the top of his voice until the
minister entered, when he removed his hat and kept silence. This
was, I believe, intended as a protest against the idea of there
being any special sanctity attached to the building itself qua
building. Dr. Cumming had recently introduced an anthem, a new
departure rather dubiously welcomed by his flock. It was the
singular custom of his congregation to leave their pews during the
singing of this anthem and to move about in the aisles; whether as
a protest against a daring innovation, or merely to stretch their
limbs, or to seek better places, I could never make out.
Dr. Cumming invariably preached for over an hour, sometimes for an
hour and a half, and yet I never felt bored or wearied by his long
discourses, but really looked forward to them. This was because
his sermons, instead of consisting of a string of pious
platitudes, interspersed with trite ejaculations and irrelevant
quotations, were one long chain of closely-reasoned argument.
Granted his first premiss, his second point followed logically
from it, and so he led his hearers on point by point, all closely
argued, to an indisputable conclusion. I suppose that the
inexorable logic of it all appealed to the Scottish side of me.
His preaching had the same fascination for me that Euclid's
propositions exercised later, even on my hopelessly unmathematical
mind.
Whatever the weather, we invariably walked home from Drury Lane to
South Audley Street, a long trudge for young feet, as my mother
had scruples about using the carriages on Sundays.
Neither my father nor my mother ever dined out on a Sunday, nor
did they invite people to dinner on that day, for they wished as
far as possible to give those in their employment a day of rest.
All quite hopelessly Victorian! for, after all, why should people
ever think of anybody but themselves?
Dr. Cumming was a great bee-fancier, and a recognised authority on
bees. Calling one day on my mother, he brought with him four
queen-bees of a new breed, each one encased in a little paper bag.
He prided himself on his skill in handling bees, and proudly
exhibited those treasures to my mother. He replaced them in their
paper bags, and being a very absent-minded man, he slipped the
bags into the tail pocket of his clerical frock-coat. Soon after
he began one of his long arguments (probably fixing the exact date
of the end of the world), and, totally oblivious of the presence
of the bees in his tail pocket, he leant against the mantelpiece.
The queen-bees, naturally resenting the pressure, stung him
through the cloth on that portion of his anatomy immediately
nearest to their temporary prison. Dr. Cumming yelled with pain,
and began skipping all round the room. It so tickled my fancy to
see the grim and austere minister, who towered above me in the
pulpit every Sunday, executing a sort of solo-Jazz dance up and
down the big room, punctuated with loud cries, that I rolled about
on the floor with laughter.
The London of the "sixties" was a very dark and dingy place. The
streets were sparingly lit with the dimmest of gas-jets set very
far apart: the shop-windows made no display of lights, and the
general effect was one of intense gloom.
Until I was seven years old, I had never left the United Kingdom.
We then all went to Paris for a fortnight, on our way to the
Riviera. I well remember leaving London at 7 a.m. on a January
morning, in the densest of fogs. So thick was the fog that the
footman had to lead the horses all the way to Charing Cross
Station. Ten hours later I found myself in a fairy city of clean
white stone houses, literally blazing with light. I had never
imagined such a beautiful, attractive place, and indeed the
contrast between the dismal London of the "sixties" and this
brilliant, glittering town was unbelievable. Paris certainly
deserved the title of "La Ville Lumiere" in a literal sense. I
like the French expression, "une ville ruisselante de lumiere," "a
city dripping with light." That is an apt description of the Paris
of the Second Empire, for it was hardly a manufacturing city then,
and the great rim of outlying factories that now besmirch the
white stone of its house fronts had not come into existence, the
atmosphere being as clear as in the country. A naturally retentive
memory is apt to store up perfectly useless items of information.
What possible object can there be to my remembering that the
engine which hauled us from Calais to Paris in 1865 was built by
J. Cail of Paris, on the "Crampton" system; that is, that the axle
of the big single driving-wheels did not run under the frame of
the engine, but passed through the "cab" immediately under the
pressure-gauge?--nor can any useful purpose be served in
recalling that we crossed the Channel in the little steamer La
France.
In those days people of a certain class in England maintained far
closer social relations with people of the corresponding class in
France than is the custom now, and this was mutual. Society in
both capitals was far smaller. My father and mother had many
friends in Paris, and amongst the oldest of them were the Comte
and Comtesse de Flahault. General de Flahault had been the
personal aide-de-camp and trusted friend of Napoleon I. Some
people, indeed, declared that his connection with Napoleon III.
was of a far closer nature, for his great friendship with Queen
Hortense was a matter of common knowledge. For some reason or
another the old General took a fancy to me, and finding that I
could talk French fluently, he used to take me to his room, stuff
me with chocolate, and tell me about Napoleon's Russian campaign
in 1812, in which he had taken part, I was then seven years old,
and the old Comte must have been seventy-eight or so, but it is
curious that I should have heard from the actual lips of a man who
had taken part in it, the account of the battle of Borodino, of
the entry of the French troops into Moscow, of the burning of
Moscow, and of the awful sufferings the French underwent during
their disastrous retreat from Moscow. General de Flahault had been
present at the terrible carnage of the crossing of the Beresina on
November 26, 1812, and had got both his feet frost-bitten there,
whilst his faithful servant David had died from the effects of the
cold. I wish that I could have been older then, or have had more
historical knowledge, for it was a unique opportunity for
acquiring information. I wish, too, that I could recall more of
what M. de Flahault told me. I have quite vivid recollections of
the old General himself, of the room in which we sat, and
especially of the chocolates which formed so agreeable an
accompaniment to our conversations. Still it remains an
interesting link with the Napoleonic era. This is 1920; that was
1812!
I can never hear Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" without thinking of
General de Flahault. The present Lord Lansdowne is the Comte de
Flahault's grandson.
Nearly fifty years later another interesting link with the past
was forged. I was dining with Prince and Princess Christian of
Schleswig-Holstein at Schomberg House. When the ladies left the
room after dinner, H. R. H. was good enough to ask me to sit next
him. Some train of thought was at work in the Prince's mind, for
he suddenly said, "Do you know that you are sitting next a man who
once took Napoleon I.'s widow, the Empress Marie Louise, in to
dinner?" and the Prince went on to say that as a youth of
seventeen he had accompanied his father on a visit to the Emperor
of Austria at Schonbrunn. On the occasion of a state dinner, one
of the Austrian Archdukes became suddenly indisposed. Sooner than
upset all the arrangements, the young Prince of Schleswig-Holstein
was given the ex-Empress to lead in to dinner.
I must again repeat that this is 1920. Napoleon married Marie
Louise in 1810.
Both my younger brother and I were absolutely fascinated by Paris,
its streets and public gardens. As regards myself, something of
the glamour of those days still remains; Paris is not quite to me
as other towns, and I love its peculiar smell, which a
discriminating nose would analyse as one-half wood-smoke, one-
quarter roasting coffee, and one-quarter drains. During the
eighteen years of the Second Empire, Paris reached a height of
material prosperity and of dazzling brilliance which she has never
known before nor since. The undisputed social capital of Europe,
the equally undisputed capital of literature and art, the great
pleasure-city of the world, she stood alone and without a rival.
"La Ville Lumiere!" My mother remembered the Paris of her youth as
a place of tortuous, abominably paved, dimly lit streets, poisoned
with atrocious smells; this glittering town of palaces and broad
white avenues was mainly the creation of Napoleon III. himself,
aided by Baron Georges Haussmann and the engineer Adolphe Alphand,
who between them evolved and made the splendid Paris that we know.
We loved the Tuileries gardens, a most attractive place for
children in those days. There were swings and merry-go-rounds;
there were stalls where hot brioches and gaufres were to be
bought; there were, above all, little marionette theatres where
the most fascinating dramas were enacted. Our enjoyment of these
performances was rather marred by our anxious nurse, who was
always terrified lest there should be "something French" in the
little plays; something quite unfitted for the eyes and ears of
two staid little Britons. As the worthy woman was a most
indifferent French scholar, we were often hurried away quite
unnecessarily from the most innocuous performances when our
faithful watch-dog scented the approach of "something French." All
the shops attracted us, but especially the delightful toy-shops.
Here, again, we were seldom allowed to linger, our trusty guardian
being obsessed with the idea that the toy-shops might include
amongst their wares "something French." She was perfectly right;
there WAS often something "very French," but my brother and I had
always seen it and noted it before we were moved off from the
windows.
I wonder if any "marchands de coco" still survive in Paris. "Coco"
had nothing to do with cocoa, but was a most mawkish beverage
compounded principally of liquorice and water. The attraction
about it lay in the great tank the vendor carried strapped to his
back. This tank was covered with red velvet and gold tinsel, and
was surmounted with a number of little tinkling silver bells. In
addition to that, the "marchand de coco" carried all over him
dozens of silver goblets, or, at all events, goblets that looked
like silver, in which he handed out his insipid brew. Who would
not long to drink out of a silver cup a beverage that flowed out
of a red and gold tank, covered with little silver bells, be it
never so mawkish?
The gardens of the Luxembourg were, if anything, even more
attractive than the Tuileries gardens.
Another delightful place for children was the Hippodrome, long
since demolished and built over. It was a huge open-air stadium,
where, in addition to ordinary circus performances, there were
chariot-races and gladiatorial combats. The great attraction of
the Hippodrome was that all the performers were driven into the
arena in a real little Cinderella gilt coach, complete with four
little ponies, a diminutive coachman, and two tiny little footmen.
Talking of Cinderella, I always wonder that no one has pointed out
the curious mistake the original translator of this story fell
into. If any one will take the trouble to consult Perrault's
Cendrillon in the original French, he or she will find that
Cinderella went to the ball with her feet encased in "des
pantoufles de vair." Now, vair means grey or white fur, ermine or
miniver. The word is now obsolete, though it still survives in
heraldry. The translator, misled by the similarity of sound
between "vair" and "verre," rendered it "glass" instead of
"ermine," and Cinderella's glass slippers have become a British
tradition. What would "Cinderella" be as a pantomime without the
scene where she triumphantly puts on her glass slipper? And yet, a
little reflection would show that it would be about as easy to
dance in a pair of glass slippers as it would in a pair of
fisherman's waders.
I remember well seeing Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie
driving down the Rue de Rivoli on their return from the races at
Longchamp. I and my brother were standing close to the edge of the
pavement, and they passed within a few feet of us. They were
driving in a char-a-banes--in French parlance, "attele a la
Daumont"--that is, with four horses, of which the wheelers are
driven from the box by a coachman, and the leaders ridden by a
postilion. The Emperor and Empress were attended by an escort of
mounted Cent-Gardes, and over the carriage there was a curious
awning of light blue silk, with a heavy gold fringe, probably to
shield the occupants from the sun at the races. I thought the
Emperor looked very old and tired, but the Empress was still
radiantly beautiful. My young brother, even then a bigoted little
patriot, obstinately refused to take off his cap. "He isn't MY
Emperor," he kept repeating, "and I won't do it." The shrill cries
of "Vive l'Empereur!" seemed to me a very inadequate substitute
for the full-throated cheers with which our own Queen was received
when she drove through London. I used to hear the Emperor alluded
to as "Badinguet" by the hall-porter of our hotel, who was a
Royalist, and consequently detested the Bonapartes.
My father had been on very friendly terms with Napoleon III., then
Prince Louis Napoleon, during the period of his exile in London in
1838, when he lived in King Street, St. James'. Prince Louis
Napoleon acted as my father's "Esquire" at the famous Eglinton
Tournament in August, 1839. The tournament, over which such a vast
amount of trouble and expense had been lavished, was ruined by an
incessant downpour of rain, which lasted four days. My father gave
me as a boy the "Challenge Shield" with coat of arms, which hung
outside his tent at the tournament, and that shield has always
accompanied me in my wanderings. It hangs within a few feet of me
as I write, as it hung forty-three years ago in my room in Berlin,
and later in Petrograd, Lisbon, and Buenos Ayres.
One of the great sights of Paris in the "sixties," whilst it was
still gas-lighted, was the "cordon de lumiere de la Rue de
Rivoli." As every one knows, the Rue de Rivoli is nearly two miles
long, and runs perfectly straight, being arcaded throughout its
length. In every arch of the arcades there hung then a gas lamp.
At night the continuous ribbon of flame from these lamps,
stretching in endless vista down the street, was a fascinatingly
beautiful sight. Every French provincial who visited Paris was
expected to admire the "cordon de lumiere de la Rue de Rivoli."
Now that electricity has replaced gas, I fancy that the lamps are
placed further apart, and so the effect of a continuous quivering
band of yellow flame is lost. Equally every French provincial had
to admire the "luxe de gaz" of the Place de la Concorde. It
certainly blazed with gas, but now with electric arc-lamps there
is double the light with less than a tenth of the number of old
flickering gas-lamps; another example of quality vs. quantity.
Most of my father and mother's French friends lived in the
Faubourg Saint Germain. Their houses, though no doubt very fine
for entertaining, were dark and gloomy in the daytime. Our little
friends of my own age seemed all to inhabit dim rooms looking into
courtyards, where, however, we were bidden to unbelievably
succulent repasts, very different to the plain fare to which we
were accustomed at home. Both my brother and myself were, I think,
unconscious as to whether we were speaking English or French; we
could express ourselves with equal facility in either language.
When I first went to school, I could speak French as well as
English, and it is a wonderful tribute to the efficient methods of
teaching foreign languages practised in our English schools, that
at the end of nine years of French lessons, both at a preparatory
school and at Harrow, I had not forgotten much more than seventy-
five per cent. of the French I knew when I went there. In the same
way, after learning German at Harrow for two-and-a-half years, my
linguistic attainments in that language were limited to two words,
ja and nein. It is true that, for some mysterious reason, German
was taught us at Harrow by a Frenchman who had merely a bowing
acquaintanceship with the tongue.
In 1865 the fastest train from Paris to the Riviera took twenty-
six hours to accomplish the journey, and then was limited to
first-class passengers. There were, of course, neither dining-cars
nor sleeping cars, no heating, and no toilet accommodation. Eight
people were jammed into a first-class compartment, faintly lit by
the dim flicker of an oil-lamp, and there they remained. I
remember that all the French ladies took off their bonnets or
hats, and replaced them with thick knitted woollen hoods and capes
combined, which they fastened tightly round their heads. They also
drew on knitted woollen over-boots; these, I suppose, were
remnants of the times, not very far distant then, when all-night
journeys had frequently to be made in the diligence.
The Riviera of 1865 was not the garish, flamboyant rendezvous of
cosmopolitan finance, of ostentatious newly acquired wealth, and
of highly decorative ladies which it has since become. Cannes, in
particular, was a quiet little place of surpassing beauty,
frequented by a few French and English people, most of whom were
there on account of some delicate member of their families. We
went there solely because my sister, Lady Mount Edgcumbe, had
already been attacked by lung-disease, and to prolong her life it
was absolutely necessary for her to winter in a warm climate. Lord
Brougham, the ex-Lord Chancellor, had virtually created Cannes, as
far as English people were concerned, and the few hotels there
were still unpretentious and comfortable.
Amongst the French boys of our own age with whom we played daily
was Antoine de Mores, eldest son of the Duc de Vallombrosa. Later
on in life the Marquis de Mores became a fanatical Anglophobe, and
he lost his life leading an army of irregular Arab cavalry against
the British forces in the Sudan; murdered, if I remember rightly,
by his own men. Most regretfully do I attribute Antoine de Mores'
violent Anglophobia to the very rude things I and my brother were
in the habit of saying to him when we quarrelled, which happened
on an average about four times a day.
The favourite game of these French boys was something like our
"King of the Castle," only that the victor had to plant his flag
on the summit of the "Castle." Amongst our young friends were the
two sons of the Duc Des Cars, a strong Legitimist, the Vallombrosa
boy's family being Bonapartists. So whilst my brother and I
naturally carried "Union Jacks," young Antoine de Mores had a
tricolour, but the two Des Cars boys carried white silk flags,
with a microscopic border of blue and red ribbon running down
either side. One day, as boys will do, we marched through the town
in procession with our flags, when the police stopped us and
seized the young Des Cars' white banners, the display of the white
flag of the Bourbons being then strictly forbidden in France. The
Des Cars boys' abbe, or priest-tutor, pointed out to the police
the narrow edging of red and blue on either side, and insisted on
it that the flags were really tricolours, though the proportion in
which the colours were displayed might be an unusual one. The
three colours were undoubtedly there, so the police released the
flags, though I feel sure that that abbe must have been a Jesuit.
The Comte de Chambord (the Henri V. of the Legitimists) was
virtually offered the throne of France in either 1874 or 1875, but
all the negotiations failed because he obstinately refused to
recognise the Tricolour, and insisted upon retaining the white
flag of his ancestors. Any one with the smallest knowledge of the
psychology of the French nation must have known that under no
circumstances whatever would they consent to abandon their adored
Tricolour. The Tricolour is part of themselves: it is a part of
their very souls; it is more than a flag, it is almost a religion.
I wonder that in 1875 it never occurred to any one to suggest to
the Comte de Chambord the ingenious expedient of the Des Cars
boys. The Tricolour would be retained as the national flag, but
the King could have as his personal standard a white flag bordered
with almost invisible bands of blue and red. Technically, it would
still be a tricolour, and on the white expanse the golden fleur-
de-lys of the Bourbons could be embroidered, or any other device.
Even had the Comte de Chambord ascended the throne, I am convinced
that his tenure of it as Henri V. would have been a very brief
one, given the temperament of the French nation.
My youngest brother managed to contract typhoid fever at Cannes
about this time, and during his convalescence he was moved to an
hotel standing on much higher ground than our villa, on account of
the fresher air there. A Madame Goldschmidt was staying at this
hotel, and she took a great fancy to the little fellow, then about
six years old. On two occasions I found Madame Goldschmidt in my
brother's room, singing to him in a voice as sweet and spontaneous
as a bird's. My brother was a very highly favoured little mortal,
for Madame Goldschmidt was no other than the world-famous Jenny
Lind, the incomparable songstress who had had all Europe at her
feet. She had then retired from the stage for some years, but her
voice was as sweet as ever. The nineteenth century was fortunate
in having produced two such peerless singers as Adelina Patti and
Jenny Lind, "the Swedish Nightingale." The present generation are
not likely to hear their equals. Both these great singers had that
same curious bird-like quality in their voices; they sang without
any effort in crystal-clear tones, as larks sing.
In 1865 it was announced that there would be a great regatta at
Cannes in the spring of 1866, and that the Emperor Napoleon would
give a special prize for the open rowing (not sculling)
championship of the Mediterranean. We further learnt that the
whole of the French Mediterranean fleet would be at Villefranche
at the time, and that picked oarsmen from the fleet would compete
for the championship. My father at once determined to win this
prize; the idea became a perfect obsession with him, and he
determined to have a special boat built. When we returned to
England, he went to Oxford and entered into long consultations
with a famous boat-builder there. The boat, a four-oar, had to be
built on special lines. She must be light and fast, yet capable of
withstanding a heavy sea, for off Cannes the Mediterranean can be
very lumpy indeed, and it would be obviously inconvenient to have
the boat swamped, and her crew all drowned. The boat-builder
having mastered the conditions, felt certain that he could turn
out the craft required, which my father proposed to stroke
himself.
When we returned to Cannes in 1866, the completed boat was sent
out by sea, and we saw her released from her casing with immense
interest. She was christened in due form, with a bottle of
champagne, by our first cousin, the venerable Lady de Ros, and
named the Abercorn. Lady de Ros was a daughter of the Duke of
Richmond, and had been present at the famous ball in Brussels on
the eve of Waterloo in 1815; a ball given by her father in honour
of her youngest sister.
The crew then went into serious training. Bow was Sir David
Erskine, for many years Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons;
No. 2, my brother-in-law, Lord Mount Edgcumbe; No. 3, General Sir
George Higginson, with my father as stroke. Lord Elphinstone, who
had been in the Navy early in life, officiated as coxswain. But my
father was then fifty-five years old, and he soon found out that
his heart was no longer equal to the strain to which so long and
so very arduous a course (three miles), in rough water, would
subject it. As soon as he realised that his age might militate
against the chance of his crew winning, he resigned his place in
the boat in favour of Sir George Higginson, who was replaced as
No. 3 by Mr. Meysey-Clive. My father took Lord Elphinstone's place
as coxswain, but here, again, his weight told against him. He was
over six feet high and proportionately broad, and he brought the
boat's stern too low down in the water, so Lord Elphinstone was
re-installed, and my father most reluctantly had to content
himself with the role of a spectator, in view of his age. The crew
dieted strictly, ran in the mornings, and went to bed early. They
were none of them in their first youth, for Sir George Higginson
was then forty; Sir David Erskine was twenty-eight; my brother-in-
law, Lord Mount Edgcumbe, thirty-four; and Lord Elphinstone
thirty-eight.
The great day of the race arrived. We met with one signal piece of
ill-luck. Our No. 3, Mr. Meysey-Clive, had gone on board the
French flagship, and was unable to get ashore again in time, so at
the very last minute a young Oxford rowing-man, the late Mr.
Philip Green, volunteered to replace him, though he was not then
in training. The French men-of-war produced huge thirty-oared
galleys, with two men at each oar. There were also smaller twenty
and twelve-oared boats, but not a single "four" but ours. The sea
was heavy and lumpy, the course was five kilometres (three miles),
and there was a fresh breeze blowing off the land. Our little
mahogany Oxford-built boat, lying very low in the water, looked
pitiably small beside the great French galleys. It wasn't even
David and Goliath, it was as though "Little Tich" stood up to
Georges Carpentier. We saw the race from a sailing yacht; my
father absolutely beside himself with excitement.
Off they went! The French galleys lumbering along at a great pace,
their crews pulling a curiously short stroke, and their coxswains
yelling "En avant, mes braves!" with all the strength of their
lungs. It must have been very like the boat-race Virgil describes
in the fifth book of the Aeneid. There was the "huge Chimaera" the
"mighty Centaur" and possibly even the "dark-blue Scylla" with
their modern counterparts of Gyas, Sergestus, and Cloanthus,
bawling just as lustily as doubtless those coxswains of old
shouted; no one, however, struck on the rocks, as we are told the
unfortunate "Centaur" did. Still the little mahogany-built
Abercorn continued to forge ahead of her unwieldy French
competitors. The Frenchmen splashed and spurted nobly, but the
little Oxford-built boat increased her lead, her silken "Union
Jack" trailing in the water. All the muscles of the French fleet
came into play; the admiral's barge churned the water into
creaming foam; "mes braves" were incited to superhuman exertions;
in spite of it all, the Abercorn shot past the mark-boat, a winner
by a length and a half.
My father was absolutely frantic with delight. We reached the
shore long before our crew did, for they had to return to receive
the judge's formal award. He ceremoniously decorated our boat's
bows with a large laurel-wreath, and so--her stem adorned with
laurels, and the large silk "Union Jack" trailing over her stern--
the little mahogany Oxford-built boat paddled through the lines of
her French competitors. I am sorry to have to record that the
French took their defeat in a most unsportsmanlike fashion; the
little Abercorn was received all down the line with storms of
hoots and hisses. Possibly we, too, might feel annoyed if, say at
Portsmouth, in a regatta in which all the crack oarsmen of the
British Home Fleet were competing, a French four should suddenly
appear from nowhere, and walk off with the big prize of the day.
Still, the conditions of the Cannes regatta were clear; this was
an open race, open to any nationality, and to any rowing craft of
any size or build, though the result was thought a foregone
certainty for the French naval crews.
Our crew were terribly exhausted when they landed. They had had a
very very severe pull, in a heavy sea, and with a strong head-wind
against them, and most of them were no longer young; still, after
a bath and a change of clothing, and, quite possibly, a brandy-
and-soda or two (nobody ever drank whisky in the "sixties"), they
pulled themselves together again. It was Lord Mount Edgcumbe who
first suggested that as there was an afternoon dance that day at
the Cercle Nautique de la Mediterranee, they should all adjourn to
the club and dance vigorously, just to show what sturdy, hard-
bitten dogs they were, to whom a strenuous three-mile pull in a
heavy sea was a mere trifle, even though some of them were forty
years old. So off we all went to the Cercle, and I well remember
seeing my brother-in-law and Sir George Higginson gyrating wildly
and ceaselessly round the ball-room, tired out though they were.
Between ourselves, our French friends were immensely impressed
with this exhibition of British vigour, and almost forgave our
boat for having won the rowing championship of the Mediterranean.
At the Villa Beaulieu where we lived, there were immense
rejoicings that night. Of course all our crew dined there, and I
was allowed to come down to dinner myself. Toasts were proposed;
healths were drunk again and again. Speeches were made, and the
terrific cheering must have seriously weakened the rafters and
roof of the house. No one grudged my father his immense
satisfaction, for after all he had originated the idea of winning
the championship of the Mediterranean, and had had the boat built
at his sole expense, and it was not his defects as an oarsman but
his fifty-five years which had prevented him from stroking his own
boat.
Long after I had been sent to bed, I heard the uproar from below
continuing, and, in the strictest confidence, I have every reason
to believe that they made a real night of it.
Two of that crew are still alive. Gallant old Sir George Higginson
was born in 1826, consequently the General is now ninety-four
years of age. The splendid old veteran's mental faculties are as
acute as ever; he is not afflicted with deafness and he is still
upright as a dart, though his eyesight has failed him. It is to
Sir George and to Sir David Erskine that I am indebted for the
greater portion of the details concerning this boat-race of 1866,
and of its preliminaries, for many of these would not have come
within the scope of my knowledge at nine years of age.
Sir David Erskine, the other member of the crew still surviving,
ex-Sergeant-at-Arms, was a most familiar, respected, and greatly
esteemed personality to all those who have sat in the House of
Commons during the last forty years. I might perhaps have put it
more strongly; for he was invariably courteous, and such a great
gentleman. Sir David was born in 1838, consequently he is now
eighty-two years old.
One of my brothers has still in his keeping a very large gold
medal. One side of it bears the effigy of "Napoleon III., Empereur
des Francais." The other side testifies that it is the "Premier
Prix d'Avirons de la Mediterrannee, 1866." The ugly hybrid word
"Championnat" for "Championship" had not then been acclimatised in
France.
Shortly after the boat-race, being now nine years old, I went home
to England to go to school.
CHAPTER III
A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail
service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial
waiters of the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge-Indians and pirates--
The imagination of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death-
warrants; imaginary and real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The
Abergele railway accident--A Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private
ceremonials--Some of the amenities of the Chapel Royal--An
unbidden spectator of the State dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh--
Father Healy--Happy Dublin knack of nomenclature--An unexpected
honour and its cause--Incidents of the Fenian rising--Dr.
Hatchell--A novel prescription--Visit of King Edward--Gorgeous
ceremonial but a chilly drive--An anecdote of Queen Alexandra.
Upon returning from school for my first holidays, I learnt that
my father had been appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, and that
we were in consequence to live now for the greater portion of the
year in Dublin.
We were all a little doubtful as to how we should like this new
departure. Dublin was, of course, fairly familiar to us from our
stays there, when we travelled to and from the north of Ireland.
Some of the minor customs of the "sixties" seem so remote now that
it may be worth while recalling them. In common with most Ulster
people, we always stayed at the Bilton Hotel in Dublin, a fine old
Georgian house in Sackville Street. Everything at the Bilton was
old, solid, heavy, and eminently respectable. All the plate was of
real Georgian silver, and all the furniture in the big gloomy
bedrooms was of solid, not veneered, mahogany. Quite invariably my
father was received in the hall, on arrival, by the landlord, with
a silver candlestick in his hand. The landlord then proceeded
ceremoniously to "light us upstairs" to a sitting-room on the
first floor, although the staircase was bright with gas. This was
a survival from the eighteenth century, when staircases and
passages in inns were but dimly lit; but it was an attention that
was expected. In the same way, when dinner was ready in our
sitting-room, the landlord always brought in the silver soup-
tureen with his own hands, placed it ceremoniously before my
father, and removed the cover with a great flourish; after which
he retired, and left the rest to the waiter. This was another
traditional attention.
Towards the end of dinner it became my father's turn to repay
these civilities. Though he himself very rarely touched wine, he
would look down the wine-list until he found a peculiarly
expensive port. This he would order for what was then termed "the
good of the house." When this choice product of the Bilton bins
made its appearance, wreathed in cobwebs, in a wicker cradle, my
father would send the waiter with a message to the landlord, "My
compliments to Mr. Massingberg, and will he do me the favour of
drinking a glass of wine with me." So the landlord would reappear,
and, sitting down opposite my father, they would solemnly dispose
of the port, and let us trust that it never gave either of them
the faintest twinge of gout. These little mutual attentions were
then expected on both sides. Neither my father nor mother ever
used the word "hotel" in speaking of any hostelry in the United
Kingdom. Like all their contemporaries, they always spoke of an
"inn."
In 1860 a new contract had been signed with the Post Office by the
London and North-Western Railway and the City of Dublin Steam-
Packet Co., by which they jointly undertook to convey the mails
between London and Dublin in eleven hours. Up to 1860, the time
occupied by the journey was from fourteen to sixteen hours.
Everything in this world being relative, this was rapidity itself
compared to the five days my uncle, Lord John Russell, the future
Prime Minister, spent on the journey in 1806. He was then a
schoolboy at Westminster, his father, the sixth Duke of Bedford,
being Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. My uncle, who kept a diary from
his earliest days, gives an account of this journey in it. He
spent three days going by stage-coach to Holyhead, sleeping on the
way at Coventry and Chester, and thirty-eight hours crossing the
Channel in a sailing-packet. The wind shifting, the packet had to
land her passengers at Balbriggan, twenty-one miles north of
Dublin, from which my uncle took a special post-chaise to Dublin,
presenting his glad parents, on his arrival, with a bill for L31
16s., a nice fare for a boy of fourteen to pay for going home for
his holidays!
In order to fulfil the terms of the 1860 contract, the mail-trains
had to cover the 264 miles between London and Holyhead at an
average rate of 42 miles per hour; an unprecedented speed in those
days. People then thought themselves most heroic in entrusting
their lives to a train that travelled with such terrific velocity
as the "Wild Irishman." It was to meet this acceleration that Mr.
Ramsbottom, the Locomotive Superintendent of the London and North-
Western Railway, devised a scheme for laying water-troughs between
the rails, by which the engine could pick up water through a scoop
whilst running. I have somewhere seen this claimed as an American
innovation, but the North-Western engines have been picking up
water daily now ever since 1861; nearly sixty years ago.
The greatest improvement, however, was effected in the cross-
Channel passage. To accomplish the sixty-five miles between
Holyhead and Kingstown in the contract time of four hours, the
City of Dublin Co. built four paddle-vessels, far exceeding any
cross-Channel steamer then afloat in tonnage, speed and
accommodation. They were over three hundred feet in length, of two
thousand tons burden, and had a speed of fifteen knots. Of these
the Munster, Connaught, and Ulster were built by Laird of
Birkenhead, while the Leinster was built in London by Samuda.
These boats were most elaborately and comfortably fitted up, and
many people of my age, who were in the habit of travelling
constantly to Ireland, retain a feeling of almost personal
affection for those old paddle-wheel mailboats which carried them
so often in safety across St. George's Channel. It is possible
that this feeling may be stronger in those who, like myself, are
unaffected by sea-sickness. I think that we all took a pride in
the finest Channel steamers then afloat, and, as a child, I was
always conscious of a little added dignity and an extra ray of
reflected glory when crossing in the Leinster or the Connaught,
for they had four funnels each. I think that I am correct in
saying that these splendid seaboats never missed one single
passage, whatever the weather, for nearly forty years, until they
were superseded by the present three thousand tons, twenty-four
knot twin-screw boats. The old paddle-wheelers were rejuvenated in
1883, when they were fitted with forced draught, and their paddles
were submerged deeper, giving them an extra speed of two knots.
Their engines being "simple," they consumed a perfectly ruinous
amount of coal, sixty-four tons for the round trip; considerably
more than the coal consumption of the present twenty-four
knotters.
In the "sixties" a new Lord-Lieutenant crossed in a special mail-
steamer, for which he had the privilege of paying.
When my father went over to be sworn-in, we arrived at Holyhead in
the evening, and on going on board the special steamer Munster, we
found a sumptuous supper awaiting us.
There is an incident connected with that supper of which, of
course, I knew nothing at the time, but which was told me more
than thirty years after by Mrs. Campbell, the comely
septuagenarian head-stewardess of the Munster, who had been in the
ship for forty-four years. Most habitual travelers to Ireland will
cherish very kindly recollections of genial old Mrs. Campbell,
with her wonderfully fresh complexion and her inexhaustible fund
of stories.
It appears that the supper had been supplied by a firm of Dublin
caterers, who sent four of their own waiters with it, much to the
indignation of the steward's staff, who resented this as a slight
on their professional abilities.
Mrs. Campbell told me the story in some such words as these:
"About ten minutes before your father, the new Lord-Lieutenant,
was expected, the chiefs-steward put his head into the ladies'
cabin and called out to me, 'Mrs. Campbell, ma'am! For the love of
God come into the saloon this minute.' 'What is it, then, Mr.
Murphy?' says I. 'Wait till ye see,' says he. So I go into the
saloon where there was the table set out for supper, so grand that
ye wouldn't believe it, and them four Dublin waiters was all lying
dead-drunk on the saloon floor.
"'I put out the spirit decanters on the supper-table,' says Mr.
Murphy, 'and see! Them Dublin waiters have every drop of it drunk
on me,' he goes on, showing me the empty decanters. 'They have
three bottles of champagne drunk on me besides. What will we do
with them now? The new Lord Lieutenant may be arriving this
minute, and we have no time to move the drunk waiters for'ard.
Will we put them in the little side-cabins here?' 'Ah then!' says
I, 'and have them roaring and shouting, and knocking the place
down maybe in half an hour or so? I'm surprised at ye, Mr. Murphy.
We'll put the drunk waiters under the saloon table, and you must
get another table-cloth. We'll pull it down on both sides, the way
the feet of them will not show." So I call up two stewards and the
boys from the pantry, and we get the drunk waiters arranged as
neat as herrings in a barrel under the saloon table. Mr. Murphy
and I put on the second cloth, pulling it right down to the floor,
and ye wouldn't believe the way we worked, setting out the dishes,
and the flowers and the swatemates on the table. 'Now,' says I,
'for the love of God let none of them sit down at the table, or
they'll feel the waiters with their feet. Lave it to me to get His
Excellency out of this, and then hurry the drunk waiters away!'
And I spoke a word to the boys in the pantry. 'Boys,' says I, 'as
ye value your salvation, keep up a great clatteration here by
dropping the spoons and forks about, the way they'll not hear it
if the drunk waiters get snoring,' and then the thrain arrives,
and we run up to meet His Excellency your father.
"We went down to the saloon for a moment, and every one says that
they never saw the like of that for a supper, the boys in the
pantry keeping up such a clatteration by tumbling the spoons and
forks about, that ye'd think the bottom of the ship would drop out
with the noise of it all. Then I said, 'Supper will not be ready
for ten minutes, your Excellency'--though God forgive me if every
bit of it was not on the table that minute. 'Would you kindly see
if the sleeping accommodation is commodious enough, for we'll
alter it if it isn't?' and so I get them all out of that, and I
kept talking of this, and of that, the Lord only knows what, till
Mr. Murphy comes up and says, 'Supper is ready, your Excellency,'
giving me a look out of the tail of his eye as much as to say,
'Glory be! We have them drunk waiters safely out of that.'"
Of course I knew nothing of the convivial waiters, but I retain
vivid recollections of the splendours of the supper-table, and of
the "swatemates," for I managed to purloin a whole pocketful of
preserved ginger and other good things from it, without being
noticed.
We arrived at Kingstown in the early morning, and anchored in the
harbour, but, by a polite fiction, the Munster was supposed to be
absolutely invisible to ordinary eyes, for the new Lord-
Lieutenant's official time of arrival from England was 11 a.m.
Accordingly, every one being arrayed in their very best for the
State entry into Dublin, the Munster got up steam and crept out of
the harbour (still, of course, completely invisible), to cruise
about a little, and to re-enter the harbour (obviously direct from
England) amidst the booming of twenty-one guns from the guardship,
a vast display of bunting, and a tornado of cheering.
Unfortunately, it had come on to blow; there was a very heavy sea
outside, and the Munster had an unrivalled opportunity for showing
off her agility, and of exhibiting her unusual capacity for
pitching and rolling. My youngest brother and I have never been
affected by sea-sickness; the ladies, however, had a very
unpleasing half-hour, though it must be rather a novel and amusing
experience to succumb to this malady when arrayed in the very
latest creations of a Paris dressmaker and milliner; still I fear
that neither my mother nor my sisters can have been looking quite
their best when we landed amidst an incredible din of guns,
whistles and cheering.
My father, as was the custom then, made his entry into Dublin on
horseback. Since he had to keep his right hand free to remove his
hat every minute or so, in acknowledgment of his welcome, and as
his horse got alarmed by the noise, the cheering, and the waving
of flags, he managed to give a very pretty exhibition of
horsemanship.
By the way, Irish cheering is a thing sui generis. In place of the
deep-throated, reverberating English cheer, it is a long, shrill,
sustained note, usually very high-pitched.
The State entry into Dublin was naturally the first occasion on
which I had ever driven through streets lined with soldiers and
gay with bunting. If I remember right, I accepted most of it as a
tribute to my own small person.
On arriving at the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, my brother
and I were much relieved at finding that we were not expected to
live perpetually surrounded by men in full uniform and by ladies
in smart dresses, as we had gathered that we were fated to do
during the morning's ceremonies at Dublin Castle.
The Viceregal Lodge is a large, unpretentious, but most
comfortable house, standing in really beautiful grounds. The 160
acres of its enclosure have been laid out with such skill as to
appear to the eye double or treble the extent they actually are.
The great attraction to my brother and me lay in a tract of some
ten acres of woodland which had been allowed to run entirely wild.
We soon peopled this very satisfactorily with two tribes of Red
Indians, two bands of peculiarly bloodthirsty robbers, a
sufficiency of bears, lions and tigers, and an appalling man-
eating dragon. I fear that in view of the size of the little wood,
these imported inhabitants must have had rather cramped quarters.
The enacting of the role of a Red Indian "brave" was necessarily a
little fatiguing, for according to Fenimore Cooper, our guide in
these matters, it was essential to keep up an uninterrupted series
of guttural grunts of "Ug! Ug!" the invariable manner in which his
"braves" prefaced their remarks.
There was perhaps little need for the imaginary menagerie, for the
Dublin Zoological Gardens adjoined the "Lodge" grounds, and were
accessible to us at any time with a private key. The Dublin Zoo
had always been very successful in breeding lions, and derived a
large amount of their income from the sale of the cubs. They
consequently kept a number of lions, and the roaring of these
lions at night was very audible at the Viceregal Lodge, only a
quarter of a mile away. When I told the boys at school, with
perfect truth, that in Dublin I was nightly lulled to sleep by the
gentle roaring of lions round my couch, I was called a young liar.
There is a pretty lake inside the Viceregal grounds. My two elder
brothers were certain that they had seen wild duck on this lake in
the early morning, so getting up in the dusk of a December
morning, they crept down to the lake with their guns. With the
first gleam of dawn, they saw that there were plenty of wild fowl
on the water, and they succeeded in shooting three or four of
them. When daylight came, they retrieved them with a boat, but
were dismayed at finding that these birds were neither mallards,
nor porchards, nor any known form of British duck; their
colouring, too, seemed strangely brilliant. Then they remembered
the neighbouring Zoo, with its ornamental ponds covered with rare
imported and exotic waterfowl, and they realised what they had
done. It is quite possible that they had killed some unique
specimens, imported at fabulous cost from Central Africa, or from
the heart of the Australian continent, some priceless bird that
was the apple of the eye of the Curator of the Gardens, so we
buried the episode and the birds, in profound secrecy.
For my younger brother and myself, this lake had a different
attraction, for, improbable as it may seem, it was the haunt of a
gang of most abandoned pirates. Behind a wooded island, but quite
invisible to the adult eye, the pirate craft lay, conforming in
the most orthodox fashion to the descriptions in Ballantyne's
books: "a schooner with a long, low black hull, and a suspicious
rake to her masts. The copper on her bottom had been burnished
till it looked like gold, and the black flag, with the skull and
cross-bones, drooped lazily from her peak."
The presence of this band of desperadoes entailed the utmost
caution and watchfulness in the neighbourhood of the lake.
Unfortunately, we nearly succeeded in drowning some young friends
of ours, whom we persuaded to accompany us in an attack on the
pirates' stronghold. We embarked on a raft used for cutting weeds,
but no sooner had we shoved off than the raft at once, most
inconsiderately, sank to the bottom of the lake with us. Being
Christmas time, the water was not over-warm, and we had some
difficulty in extricating our young friends. Their parents made
the most absurd fuss about their sons having been forced to take a
cold bath in mid-December in their best clothes. Clearly we could
not be held responsible for the raft failing to prove sea-worthy,
though my youngest brother, even then a nice stickler for correct
English, declared, that, given the circumstances, the proper
epithet was "lake-worthy."
What a wonderful dream-world the child can create for himself, and
having fashioned it and peopled it, he can inhabit his creation in
perfect content quite regardless of his material surroundings,
unless some grown-up, with his matter-of-fact bluntness, happens
to break the spell.
I have endeavoured to express this peculiar faculty of the child's
in rather halting blank verse. I apologise for giving it here, as
I make no claim to be able to write verse. My only excuse must be
that my lines attempt to convey what every man and woman must have
felt, though probably the average person would express himself in
far better language than I am able to command.
"Eheu fugaces Postume! Postume!
Labuntur anni.
"The memories of childhood are a web
Of gossamer, most infinitely frail
And tender, shot with gleaming threads of gold
And silver, through the iridescent weft
Of subtlest tints of azure and of rose;
Woven of fragile nothings, yet most dear,
As binding us to that dim, far-off time,
When first our lungs inhaled the fragrance sweet
Of a new world, where all was bright and fair.
As we approach the end of mortal things,
The band of comrades ever smaller grows;
For those who have not shared our trivial round,
Nor helped with us to forge its many links,
Can only listen with dull, wearied mind.
Some few there are on whom the gods bestowed
The priceless gift of sympathy, and they,
Though knowing not themselves, yet understand.
So guard the fragile fabric rolled away
In the sweet-scented chests of memory,
Careful lest one uncomprehending soul
Should, thoughtless, rend the filmy texture frail
Into a thousand fragments, and destroy
The precious relic of the golden dawn
Of life, when all the unknown future lay
Bathed in unending sunlight, and the heights
Of manhood, veiled in distant purple haze,
Offered ten thousand chances of success.
But why the future, when the present seemed
A flower-decked meadow in eternal spring?
When every woodland glade its secrets told
To us, and us alone. The grown-up eye
Saw sun-flecked oaks, and tinkling, fern-fringed stream,
Nor knew that 'neath their shade most doughty Knights
Daily rode forth to deeds of chivalry;
And ruthless ruffians waged relentless war
On those who strayed (without the Talisman
Which turned their fury into impotence)
Into those leafy depths nor dreamed there lurked
Concealed amidst the bosky dells unseen,
Grim dragons spouting instant death; nor feared
The placid lake, along whose reed-fringed shore
Bold Buccaneers swooped down upon their prey.
Which things were hidden from maturer eyes.
To those who breathed the freshness of the morn,
Endless romance; to others, common things.
For to the Child is given to spin a web
Of golden glamour o'er the everyday.
Happy is he who can, in spite of years,
Retain at times the spirit of the Child."
My own personal ambition at that period was a modest one. My
mother always drove out in Dublin in a carriage-and-four, with
postilions and two out-riders. We had always used black carriage-
horses, and East, the well-known job-master, had provided us for
Dublin with twenty-two splendid blacks, all perfect matches. Our
family colour being crimson, the crimson barouche, with the six
blacks and our own black and crimson liveries, made a very smart
turn-out indeed. O'Connor, the wheeler-postilion, a tiny little
wizened elderly man, took charge of the carriage, and directed the
outriders at turnings by a code of sharp whistles. It was my
consuming ambition to ride leader-postilion to my mother's
carriage, and above all to wear the big silver coat-of-arms our
postilions had strapped to the left sleeves of their short jackets
on a broad crimson band. I went to O'Connor in the stable-yard,
and consulted him as to my chance of obtaining the coveted berth.
O'Connor was distinctly encouraging. He thought nine rather young
for a postilion, but when I had grown a little, and had gained
more experience, he saw no insuperable objections to my obtaining
the post. The leader-postilion was O'Connor's nephew, a smart-
looking, light-built boy of seventeen, named Byrne. Byrne was less
hopeful about my chance. He assured me that such a rare
combination of physical and intellectual qualities were required
for a successful leader-rider, that it was but seldom that they
were found, as in his case, united in the same person. That my
mother had met with no accident whilst driving was solely due to
his own consummate skill, and his wonderful presence of mind.
Little Byrne, however, was quite affable, and allowed me to try on
his livery, including the coveted big silver arm-badge and his
top-boots. In my borrowed plumes I gave the stablemen to
understand that I was as good as engaged already as postilion.
Byrne informed me of some of the disadvantages of the position.
"The heart in ye would be broke at all the claning them leathers
requires." I was also told that after an extra long drive, "ye'd
come home that tired that ye'd be thinking ye were losing your
life, and not knowing if ye had a leg left to ye at all."
I often drove with my mother, and when we had covered more ground
than usual, upon arriving home, I always ran round to the leaders
to inquire anxiously if my friend little Byrne "had a leg left to
him, or if he had lost his life," and was much relieved at finding
him sitting on his horse in perfect health, with his normal
complement of limbs encased in white leathers. I believe that I
expected his legs to drop off on the road from sheer fatigue.
I knew, of course, that the Lord-Lieutenant had to confirm all
death-sentences in Ireland. From much reading of Harrison
Ainsworth, I insisted on calling the documents connected with
this, "death-warrants." I begged and implored my father to let me
see a "death-warrant." He told me that there was nothing to see,
but I went on insisting, until one day he told me that I might see
one of these gruesome documents. To avoid any misplaced sympathy
with the condemned man, I may say that it was a peculiarly brutal
murder. A man at Cork had kicked his wife to death, and had then
battered her into a shapeless mass with the poker. I went into my
father's study on the tip-toe of expectation. I pictured the
Private Secretary coming in slowly, probably draped for the
occasion in a long black cloak, and holding a white handkerchief
to his eyes. In his hand he would bear an immense sheet of paper
surrounded by a three-inch black border. It would be headed DEATH
in large letters, with perhaps a skull-and-crossbones below it,
and from it would depend three ominous black seals attached by
black ribbons. The Secretary would naturally hesitate before
presenting so awful a document to my father, who, in his turn,
would exhibit a little natural emotion when receiving it. At that
moment my mother, specially dressed in black for the occasion,
would burst into the room, and falling on her knees, with
streaming eyes and outstretched arms, she would plead passionately
for the condemned man's life. My father, at first obdurate, would
gradually be melted by my mother's entreaties. Turning aside to
brush away a furtive and not unmanly tear, he would suddenly tear
the death-warrant to shreds, and taking up another huge placard
headed REPRIEVE, he would quickly fill it in and sign it. He would
then hand it to the Private Secretary, who would instantly start
post-haste for Cork. As the condemned man was being actually
conducted to the scaffold, the Private Secretary would appear,
brandishing the liberating document. All then would be joy, except
for the executioner, who would grind his teeth at being baulked of
his prey at the last minute.
That is, at all events, the way it would have happened in a book.
As it was, the Private Secretary came in just as usual, carrying
an ordinary official paper, precisely similar to dozens of other
official papers lying about the room.
"It is the Cork murder case, sir," he said in his everyday voice.
"The sentence has to be confirmed by you."
"A bad business, Dillon," said my father. "I have seen the Chief
Justice about it twice, and I have consulted the Judge who tried
the case, and the Solicitor and the Attorney-General. I am afraid
that there are no mitigating circumstances whatever. I shall
certainly confirm it," and he wrote across the official paper,
"Let the law take its course," and appended his signature, and
that was all!
Could anything be more prosaic? What a waste of an unrivalled
dramatic situation.
When I returned home for the Christmas holidays in 1866, the
Fenian rebellion had already broken out. The authorities had
reason to believe that the Vice-regal Lodge would be attacked,
and various precautions had been taken. Both guards and sentries
were doubled; four light field-guns stood in the garden, and a row
of gas-lamps had been installed there. Stands of arms made their
appearance in the passages upstairs, which were patrolled all
night by constables in rubber-soled boots, but the culminating joy
to my brother and me lay in the four loopholes with which the
walls of the bed-room we jointly occupied were pierced. The room
projected beyond the front of the main building, and was
accordingly a strategic point, but to have four real loopholes,
closed with wooden shutters, in the walls of our own bedroom was
to the two small urchins a source of immense pride. The boys at
school were hideously jealous of our loopholes when they heard of
them, though they affected to despise any one who, enjoying such
undreamed-of opportunities, had, on his own confession, failed to
take advantage of them, and had never even fired through the
loopholes, nor attempted to kill any one through them.
The Fenians were supposed to have the secret of a mysterious
combustible known as "Greek Fire" which was unquenchable by water.
I think that "Greek Fire" was nothing more or less than ordinary
petroleum, which was practically unknown in Europe in 1866, though
from personal experience I can say that it was well known in 1868,
in which year my mother, three sisters, two brothers and myself
narrowly escaped being burnt to death, when the Irish mail, in
which we were travelling, collided with a goods train loaded with
petroleum at Abergele, North Wales, an accident which resulted in
thirty-four deaths.
Terrible as were the results of the Abergele accident, they might
have been more disastrous still, for both lines were torn up, and
the up Irish mail from Holyhead, which would be travelling at a
great pace down the steep bank from Llandulas, was due at any
moment. The front guard of our train had been killed by the
collision, and the rear guard was seriously hurt, so there was no
one to give orders. It occurred at once to my eldest brother, the
late Duke, that as the train was standing on a sharp incline, the
uninjured carriages would, if uncoupled, roll down the hill of
their own accord. He and some other passengers accordingly managed
to undo the couplings, and the uninjured coaches, detached from
the burning ones, glided down the incline into safety. From the
half-stunned guard my brother learned that the nearest signal-box
was at Llandulas, a mile away. He ran there at the top of his
speed, and arrived in time to get the up Irish mail and all other
traffic stopped. On his return my brother had a prolonged
fainting fit, as the strain on his heart had been very great. It
took the doctors over an hour to bring him round, and we all
thought that he had died.
I was eleven years old at the time, and the shock of the
collision, the sight of the burning coaches, the screams of the
women, the wreckage, and my brother's narrow escape from death,
affected me for some little while afterwards.
It was the custom then for the Lord-Lieutenant to live for three
months of the winter at the Castle, where a ceaseless round of
entertainments went on. The Castle was in the heart of Dublin, and
only boasted a dull little smoke-blackened garden in the place of
the charming grounds of the Lodge, still there was plenty going on
there. A band played daily in the Castle Yard for an hour, there
was the daily guard-mounting, and the air was thick with bugle
calls and rattling kettle-drums.
At "Drawing Rooms" it was still the habit for all ladies to be
kissed by the Lord-Lieutenant on being presented to him, and every
lady had to be re-presented to every fresh Viceroy. This imposed
an absolute orgy of compulsory osculation on the unfortunate Lord-
Lieutenant, for if many of the ladies were fresh, young and
pretty, the larger proportion of them were very distinctly the
reverse.
There is a very fine white-and-gold throne-room in Dublin,
decorated in the heavy but effective style of George IV., and it
certainly compares very favourably with the one at Buckingham
Palace. St. Patrick's Hall, too, with its elaborate painted
ceiling, is an exceedingly handsome room, as is the Long Gallery.
At my father's first Drawing-Room, when I officiated as page, the
perpetual kissing tickled my fancy so, that, forgetting that to
live up to my new white-satin breeches and lace ruffles I ought to
wear an impassive countenance, I absolutely shook, spluttered and
wriggled with laughter. The ceremony appeared to me interminable,
for ten-year-old legs soon get tired, and ten-year-old eyelids
grow very heavy as midnight approaches. When at length it ended,
and my fellow-page was curled up fast asleep on the steps of the
throne in his official finery, in glancing at my father I was
amazed to find him prematurely aged. The powder from eight hundred
cheeks and necks had turned his moustache and beard white; he had
to retire to his room and spend a quarter of an hour washing and
brushing the powder out, before he could take part in the
procession through all the staterooms which in those days preceded
supper. My father was still a remarkably handsome man even at
fifty-six years of age, with his great height and his full curly
beard, and I thought my mother, with all her jewels on, most
beautiful, as I am quite sure she was, though only a year younger
than my father.
The great white-and-gold throne-room brilliant with light, the
glitter of the uniforms, and the sparkle of the jewels were
attractive from their very novelty to a ten-year-old schoolboy,
perhaps a little overwhelmed by his own gorgeous and unfamiliar
trappings. We two pages had been ordered to stand quite
motionless, one on either side of the throne, but as the evening
wore on and we began to feel sleepy, it was difficult to carry our
instructions into effect, for there were no facilities for playing
even a game of "oughts and crosses" in order to keep awake. The
position had its drawbacks, as we were so very conspicuous in our
new uniforms. A detail which sticks in my memory is that the
guests at that Drawing-Room drank over three hundred bottles of my
father's sherry, in addition to other wines.
My brother and I were not allowed in the throne-room on ordinary
days, but it offered such wonderful opportunities for processions
and investitures, with the sword of state and the mace lying ready
to one's hand in their red velvet cradles, that we soon discovered
a back way into it. Should any of the staff of Lord French, the
present Viceroy, care to examine the sword of state and the mace,
they will find them both heavily dented. This is due to two small
boys having frequently dropped them when they proved too heavy for
their strength, during strictly private processions fifty-five
years ago. I often wonder what a deputation from the Corporation
of Belfast must have thought when they were ushered into the
throne-room, and found it already in the occupation of two small
brats, one of whom, with a star cut out of silver paper pinned to
his packet to counterfeit an order, was lolling back on the throne
in a lordly manner, while the other was feigning to read a long
statement from a piece of paper. The small boys, after the manner
of their kind, quickly vanished through a bolt-hole.
The Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle was built by my grandfather, the
Duke of Bedford, who was Viceroy in 1806, and it bears the stamp
of the unfortunate period of its birth on every detail of its
"carpenter-Gothic" interior. It is, however, very ornate, with a
profusion of gilding, stained glass and elaborate oak carving. My
father and mother sat by themselves on two red velvet arm-chairs
in a sort of pew-throne that projected into the Chapel. The Aide-
de-Camp in waiting, an extremely youthful warrior as a rule, had
to stand until the door of the pew was shut, when a folding wooden
flap was lowered across the aperture, on which he seated himself,
with his back resting against the pew door. At the conclusion of
the service the Verger always opened the pew door with a sudden
"click." Should the Aide-de-Camp be unprepared for this and happen
to be leaning against the door, with any reasonable luck he was
almost certain to tumble backwards into the aisle, "taking a
regular toss," as hunting-men would say, and to our unspeakable
delight we would see a pair of slim legs in overalls and a pair of
spurred heels describing a graceful parabola as they followed
their youthful owner into the aisle. This particular form of
religious relaxation appealed to me enormously, and I looked
forward to it every Sunday.
It was an episode that could only occur once with each person, for
forewarned was forearmed; still, as we had twelve Aides-de-Camp,
and they were constantly changing, the pew door played its
practical joke quite often enough to render the Services in the
Chapel Royal very attractive and engrossing, and I noticed that no
Aide-de-Camp was ever warned of his possible peril. I think, too,
that the Verger enjoyed his little joke.
In that same Chapel Royal I listened to the most eloquent and
beautiful sermon I have ever heard in my life, preached by Dean
Magee (afterwards Archbishop of York) on Christmas Day, 1866. His
text was: "There were shepherds abiding in the fields." That
marvellous orator must have had some peculiar gift of sympathy to
captivate the attention of a child of ten so completely that he
remembers portions of that sermon to this very day, fifty-four
years afterwards.
To my great delight I discovered a little door near our joint
bedroom which led directly into the gallery of St. Patrick's Hall.
Here the big dinners of from seventy to ninety people were held,
and it was my delight to creep into the gallery in my dressing-
gown and slippers and watch the brilliant scene below. The stately
white-and-gold hall with its fine painted ceiling, the long tables
blazing with plate and lights, the display of flowers, the jewels
of the ladies and the uniforms of the men, made a picture very
attractive to a child. After the ladies had left, the uproar
became deafening. In 1866 the old drinking habits had not yet died
out, and though my father very seldom touched wine himself, he of
course saw that his guests had sufficient; indeed, sufficient
seems rather an elastic term, judging by what I saw and what I was
told. It must have been rather like one of the scenes described by
Charles Lever in his books. In 1866 political, religious, and
racial animosities had not yet assumed the intensely bitter
character they have since reached in Ireland, and the traditional
Irish wit, at present apparently dormant, still flashed, sparkled
and scintillated. From my hiding-place in the gallery I could only
hear the roars of laughter the good stories provoked, I could not
hear the stories themselves, possibly to my own advantage.
Judge Keogh had a great reputation as a wit. The then Chief
Justice was a remarkable-looking man on account of his great snow-
white whiskers and his jet-black head of hair. My mother,
commenting on this, said to Judge Keogh, "Surely Chief Justice
Monaghan must dye his hair." "To my certain knowledge he does
not," answered Keogh. "How, then, do you account for the
difference in colour between his whiskers and his hair?" asked my
mother. "To the fact that, throughout his life, he has used his
jaw a great deal more than he ever has his brain," retorted Keogh.
Father Healy, most genial and delightful of men, belongs, of
course, to a much later period. I was at the Castle in Lord
Zetland's time, when Father Healy had just returned from a
fortnight's visit to Monte Carlo, where he had been the guest (of
all people in the world!) of Lord Randolph Churchill. "May I ask
how you explained your absence to your flock, Father Healy?" asked
Lady Zetland. "I merely told them that I had been for a
fortnight's retreat to Carlow; I thought it superfluous prefixing
the Monte," answered the priest. Again at a wedding, the late Lord
Morris, the possessor of the hugest brogue ever heard, observed as
the young couple drove off, "I wish that I had an old shoe to
throw after them for luck." "Throw your brogue after them, my dear
fellow; it will do just as well," flashed out Father Healy. It was
Father Healy, too, who, in posting a newly arrived lady as to
Dublin notabilities, said, "You will find that there are only two
people who count in Dublin, the Lady-Lieutenant and Lady Iveagh,
her Ex. and her double X," for the marks on the barrels of the
delicious beverage brewed by the Guinness family must be familiar
to most people.
I myself heard Father Healy, in criticising a political
appointment which lay between a Welsh and a Scotch M.P., say,
"Well, if we get the Welshman he'll pray on his knees all Sunday,
and then prey on his neighbours the other six days of the week;
whilst if we get the Scotchman hell keep the Sabbath and any other
little trifles he can lay his hand on." Healy, who was parish
priest of Little Bray, used to entertain sick priests from the
interior of Ireland who were ordered sea-bathing. One day he saw
one of his guests, a young priest, rush into the sea, glass in
hand, and begin drinking the sea water. "You mustn't do that, my
dear fellow," cried Father Healy, aghast. "I didn't know that
there was any harm in it, Father Healy," said the young priest.
"Whist! we'll not say one word about it, and maybe then they'll
never miss the little drop you have taken."
Some of these stories may be old, in which case I can only
apologise for giving them here.
Dublin people have always had the gift of coining extremely
felicitous nicknames. I refrain from quoting those bestowed on two
recent Viceroys, for they are mordant and uncomplimentary, though
possibly not wholly undeserved. My father was at once christened
"Old Splendid," an appellation less scarifying than some of those
conferred on his successors. My father had some old friends living
in the west of Ireland, a Colonel Tenison, and his wife, Lady
Louisa Tenison. Colonel Tenison had one of the most gigantic noses
I have ever seen, a vast, hooked eagle's beak. He was so blind
that he had to feel his way about. Lady Louisa Tenison allowed
herself an unusual freedom of speech, and her comments on persons
and things were unconventionally outspoken. They came to stay with
us at the Castle in 1867, and before they had been there twenty-
four hours they were christened "Blind Hookey" and "Unlimited
Loo."
In February 1867 my sister, brother and I contracted measles, and
were sent out to the "Lodge" to avoid spreading infection.
We were already convalescent, when one evening a mysterious
stranger arrived from the Castle, and had an interview with the
governess. As a result of that interview, the kindly old lady
began clucking like a scared hen, fussed quite prodigiously, and
told us to collect our things at once, as we were to start for the
Castle in a quarter of an hour. After a frantically hurried
packing, we were bustled into the carriage, the mysterious
stranger taking his seat on the box. To our surprise we saw some
thirty mounted Hussars at the door. As we moved off, to our
unspeakable delight, the Hussars drew their swords and closed in
on the carriage, one riding at either window. And so we drove
through Dublin. We had never had an escort before, and felt
immensely elated and dignified. At the Castle there seemed to be
some confusion. I heard doors banging and people moving about all
through the night.
Long afterwards I learnt that the great Fenian rising was fixed
for that night. The authorities had heard that part of the Fenian
plan was to capture the Viceregal Lodge, and to hold the Lord-
Lieutenant's children as hostages, which explains the arrival at
the Lodge of Chief Inspector Dunn, the frantic haste, and the
escort of Hussars with drawn swords.
That night an engagement, or it might more justly be termed a
skirmish, did take place between the Fenians and the troops at
Tallagh, some twenty miles from Dublin. My brothers and most of my
father's staff had been present, which explained the mysterious
noises during the night. As a result of this fight, some three
hundred prisoners were taken, and Lord Strathnairn, then
Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, was very hard put to it to find
sufficient men (who, of course, would have to be detached from his
force) to escort the prisoners into Dublin. Lord Strathnairn
suddenly got an inspiration. He had every single button, brace
buttons and all, cut off the prisoners' trousers. Then the men had
perforce, for decency's sake, to hold their trousers together with
their hands, and I defy any one similarly situated to run more
than a yard or two. The prisoners were all paraded in the Castle
yard next day, and I walked out amongst them. As they had been up
all night in very heavy rain, they all looked very forlorn and
miserable. The Castle gates were shut that day, for the first time
in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and they remained shut for
four days. I cannot remember the date when the prisoners were
paraded, but I am absolutely certain as to one point: it was
Shrove Tuesday, 1867, the day on which so many marriages are
celebrated amongst country-folk in Ireland. Dublin was seething
with unrest, so on that very afternoon my father and mother drove
very slowly, quite alone, without an Aide-de-Camp or escort, in a
carriage-and-four with outriders, through all the poorest quarters
in Dublin. They were well received, and there was no hostile
demonstration whatever. The idea of the slow drive through the
slums was my mother's. She wished to show that though the Castle
gates were closed, she and my father were not afraid. I saw her on
her return, when she was looking very pale and drawn, but I was
too young to realise what the strain must have been. My mother's
courage was loudly praised, but I think that my friends O'Connor
and little Byrne, the postilions, also deserve quite a good mark,
for they ran the same amount of risk, and they were no entirely
free agents in the matter, as my father and mother were.
Dr. Hatchell, who attended us all, had been physician to countless
Viceroys and their families, and was a very well-known figure in
Dublin. He was a jolly little red-faced man with a terrific
brogue. There was a great epidemic of lawlessness in Dublin at
that time. Many people were waylaid and stripped of their
valuables in dark suburban streets. Dr. Hatchell was returning
from a round of professional visits in the suburbs one evening,
when his carriage was stopped by two men, who seized the horses'
heads. One of the men came round to the carriage door.
"We know you, Dr. Hatchell, so you had better hand over your watch
and money quietly." "You know me," answered the merry little
doctor, with his tremendous brogue, "so no doubt you would like me
to prescribe for you. I'll do it with all the pleasure in life.
Saltpetre is a grand drug, and I often order it for my patients.
Sulphur is the finest thing in the world for the blood, and
charcoal is an elegant disinfectant. By a great piece of luck, I
have all these drugs with me in the carriage, but"--and he
suddenly covered the man with his revolver--"they are all mixed up
together, and there is the least taste in life of lead in front of
them, and by God! you'll get it through you if you don't clear out
of that." The men decamped immediately. I have heard Dr. Hatchell
tell that story at least twenty times. Dr. Hatchell, who was
invited to every single entertainment, both at the Lodge and at
the Castle, was a widower. A peculiarly stupid young Aide-de-Camp
once asked him why he had not brought Mrs. Hatchell with him.
"Sorr," answered the doctor in his most impressive tones, "Mrs.
Hatchell is an angel in heaven." A fortnight later the same
foolish youth asked again why Dr. Hatchell had come alone. "Mrs.
Hatchell, sorr, is still an angel in heaven," answered the
indignant doctor.
It was said that no mortal eye had ever seen Dr. Hatchell in the
daytime out of his professional frock-coat and high hat. I know
that when he stayed with us in Scotland some years later, he went
out salmon-fishing in a frock-coat and high hat (with a
stethescope clipped into the crown of it), an unusual garb for an
angler.
In the spring of 1868, King Edward and Queen Alexandra (then, of
course, Prince and Princess of Wales) paid us a long visit at the
Castle. My father had heard a rumour that recently the Prince of
Wales had introduced the custom of smoking in the dining-room
after dinner. He was in a difficult position; nothing would induce
him to tolerate such a practice, but how was he to avoid
discourtesy to his Royal guest? My mother rose to the occasion. A
little waiting-room near the dining-room was furnished and fitted
up in the most attractive manner, and before the Prince had been
an hour in the Castle, my mother showed him the charming little
room, and told H. R. H. that it had been specially fitted up for
him to enjoy his after-dinner cigar in. That saved the situation.
Young men of to-day will be surprised to learn that in my time no
one dreamed of smoking before they went to a ball, as to smell of
smoke was considered an affront to one's partners. I myself,
though a heavy smoker from an early age, never touched tobacco in
any form before going to a dance, out of respect for my partners.
Incredible as it may sound, in those days all gentlemen had a very
high respect for ladies and young ladies, and observed a certain
amount of deference in their intercourse with them. Never, to the
best of my recollection, did either we or our partners address
each other as "old thing," or "old bean." This, of course, now is
hopelessly Victorian, and as defunct as the dodo. Present-day
hostesses tell me that all young men, and most girls, are kind
enough to flick cigarette-ash all over their drawing-rooms, and
considerately throw lighted cigarette-ends on to fine old Persian
carpets, and burn holes in pieces of valuable old French
furniture. Of course it would be too much trouble to fetch an ash-
tray, or to rise to throw lighted cigarette-ends into the grate.
The young generation have never been brought up to take trouble,
nor to consider other people; we might perhaps put it that they
never think of any one in the world but their own sweet selves. I
am inclined to think that there are distinct advantages in being a
confirmed, unrepentant Victorian.
During the stay of the Prince and Princess there was one unending
round of festivities. The Princess was then at the height of her
great beauty, and seeing H. R. H. every day, my youthful adoration
of her increased tenfold. The culminating incident of the visit
was to be the installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of
St. Patrick in St. Patrick's Cathedral, with immense pomp and
ceremonial. The Cathedral had undergone a complete transformation
for the ceremony, and all its ordinary fittings had disappeared.
The number of pages had now increased to five, and we were
constantly being drilled in the Cathedral. We had all five of us
to walk backwards down some steps, keeping in line and keeping
step. For five small boys to do this neatly, without awkwardness,
requires a great deal of practice. The procession to the Cathedral
was made in full state, the streets being lined with troops, and
the carriages, with their escorts of cavalry, going at a foot's
pace through the principal thoroughfares of Dublin. I remember it
chiefly on account of the bitter northeast wind blowing. The five
pages drove together in an open carriage, and received quite an
ovation from the crowd, but no one had thought of providing them
with overcoats. Silk stockings, satin knee-breeches and lace
ruffles are very inadequate protection against an Arctic blast,
and we arrived at the Cathedral stiff and torpid with cold. From
the colour of our faces, we might have been five little "Blue
Noses" from Nova Scotia. The ceremony was very gorgeous and
imposing, and I trust that the pages were not unduly clumsy. Every
one was amazed at the beauty of the music, sung from the triforium
by the combined choirs of St. Patrick's and Christ Church
Cathedrals, and of the Chapel Royal, with that wonderful musician,
Sir Robert Stewart, at the organ. I remember well Sir Robert
Stewart's novel setting of "God save the Queen." The men sang it
first in unison to the music of the massed military bands outside
the Cathedral, the boys singing a "Faux Bourdon" above it. Then
the organ took it up, the full choir joining in with quite
original harmonies.
In honour of the Prince's visit, nearly all the Fenian prisoners
who were still detained in jail were released.
Many years after, in 1885, King Edward and Queen Alexandra paid us
a visit at Barons' Court. During that visit a little episode
occurred which is worth recording. On the Sunday, the Princess of
Wales, as she still was, inspected the Sunday School children
before Morning Service. At luncheon the Rector of the parish told
us that one of the Sunday scholars, a little girl, had been taken
ill with congestion of the lungs a few days earlier. The child's
disappointment at having missed seeing the Princess was terrible.
Desperately ill as she was, she kept on harping on her lost
opportunity. After luncheon the Princess drew my sister-in-law,
the present Dowager Duchess of Abercorn, on one side, and inquired
where the sick child lived. Upon being told that it was about four
miles off, the Princess asked whether it would not be possible to
get a pony-cart from the stables and drive there, as she would
like to see the little girl. I myself brought a pony-cart around
to the door, and the Princess and my sister-in-law having got in,
we three started off alone, the Princess driving. When we reached
the cottage where the child lived, H. R. H. went straight up to
the little girl's room, and stayed talking to her for an hour, to
the child's immense joy. Two days later the little girl died, but
she had been made very happy meanwhile.
A little thing perhaps; but there are not many people in Queen
Alexandra's position who would have taken an eight-mile drive in
an open cart on a stormy and rainy April afternoon in order to
avoid disappointing a dying child, of whose very existence she had
been unaware that morning.
It is the kind heart which inspires acts like these which has
drawn the British people so irresistibly to Queen Alexandra.
CHAPTER IV
Chittenden's--A wonderful teacher--My personal experiences as a
schoolmaster--My "boys in blue"--My unfortunate garments--A "brave
Belge"--The model boy, and his name--A Spartan regime--"The Three
Sundays"--Novel religious observances--Harrow--"John Smith of
Harrow"--"Tommy" Steele--"Tosher"--An ingenious punishment--John
Farmer--His methods--The birth of a famous song--Harrow school
songs--"Ducker"--The "Curse of Versatility"--Advancing old age--
The race between three brothers--A family failing--My father's
race at sixty-four--My own--A most acrimonious dispute at Rome--
Harrow after fifty years.
I was sent to school as soon as I was nine, to Mr. Chittenden's,
at Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire. This remarkable man had a very
rare gift: he was a born teacher, or, perhaps, more accurately, a
born mind-trainer. Of the very small stock of knowledge which I
have been able to accumulate during my life, I certainly owe at
least one-half to Mr. Chittenden. There is a certain profusely
advertised system for acquiring concentration, and for cultivating
an artificial memory, the name of which will be familiar to every
one. Instead of the title it actually bears, that system should be
known as "Chittendism," for it is precisely the method adopted by
him with his pupils fifty-four years ago. Mr. Chittenden, probably
recognising that peculiar quality of mental laziness which is such
a marked characteristic of the average English man or woman, set
himself to combat and conquer it the moment he got a pupil into
his hands. Think of the extraordinary number of persons you know
who never do more than half-listen, half-understand, half-attend,
and who only read with their eyes, not with their brains. The
other half of their brain is off wool-gathering somewhere, so
naturally they forget everything they read, and the little they do
remember with half their brain is usually incorrect. It seems to
me that this sort of mental limitation is far more marked in the
young generation, probably because foolish parents seem to think
it rather an amusing trait in their offspring. Now, the boy at
Chittenden's who allowed his mind to wander, and did not
concentrate, promptly made the acquaintance of the "spatter," a
broad leathern strap; and the spatter hurt exceedingly, as I can
testify from many personal experiences of it. On the whole, then,
even the most careless boy found it to his advantage to
concentrate. This clever teacher knew how quickly young brains
tire, so he never devoted more than a quarter of an hour to each
subject, but during that quarter of an hour he demanded, and got,
the full attention of his pupils. The result was that everything
absorbed remained permanently. If I enlarge at some length on Mr.
Chittenden's methods, it is because the subject of education is of
such vital importance, and the mere fact that the much-advertised
system to which I have alluded has attained such success, would
seem to indicate that many people are aware that they share that
curious disability in the intellectual equipment of the average
Englishman to which I have referred; for unless they had
habitually only half-listened, half-read, half-understood, there
could be no need for their undergoing a course of instruction late
in life. Surely it is more sensible to check this peculiarly
English tendency to mental laziness quite early in life, as Mr.
Chittenden did with his boys. To my mind another striking
characteristic of the average English man and woman is their want
of observation. They don't notice: it is far too much trouble;
besides, they are probably thinking of something else. All
Chittenden's boys were taught to observe; otherwise they got into
trouble. He insisted, too, on his pupils expressing themselves in
correct English, with the result that Chittenden's boys were more
intellectually advanced at twelve than the average Public School
boy is at sixteen or seventeen. It is unusual to place such books
as Paley's Christian Evidences, or Archbishop Whately's Historic
Doubts as to Napoleon Bonaparte, in the hands of little boys of
twelve, with any expectation of a satisfactory result; yet we read
them on Sundays, understood the point of them, and could explain
the why and wherefore of them. Chittenden's one fault was his
tendency to "force" a receptive boy, and to develop his intellect
too quickly. As in the Pelm--(I had very nearly written it)
system, he made great use of memoria technica, and always taught
us to link one idea with another. At the age of ten I got puzzled
over Marlborough's campaigns. "'Brom,' my boy, remember 'Brom,'"
said Mr. Chittenden. "That will give you Marlborough's victories
in their proper sequence--Blenheim, Ramillies, Oudenarde,
Malplaquet, 'Brom'"; and "Brom" I have remembered from that day to
this.
Though it is now many years since Mr. Chittenden passed away, I
must pay this belated tribute to the memory of a very skilful
teacher, and an exceedingly kind friend, to whom I owe an immense
debt of gratitude.
My own experiences as a pedagogue are limited. During the War, I
was asked to give some lessons in elementary history and
rudimentary French to convalescent soldiers in a big hospital. No
one ever had a more cheery and good-tempered lot of pupils than I
had in my blue-clad, red-tied disciples. For remembering the order
of the Kings of England, we used Mr. Chittenden's jingle,
beginning:
"Billy, Billy, Harry, Ste,
Harry, Dick, Jack, Harry Three."
By repeating it all together, over and over again, the very jangle
of it made it stick in my pupils' memory. Dates proved a great
difficulty, yet a few dates, such as that of the Norman Conquest
and of the Battle of Waterloo, were essential. "Clarke, can you
remember the date of the Norman Conquest?" "Very sorry, sir; clean
gone out of my 'ead." "Now, Daniels, how about the date of
Waterloo?" "You've got me this time, sir." Then I had an
inspiration. Feigning to take up a telephone-receiver, and to
speak down it, I begged for "Willconk, One, O, double-six,
please." Twenty blithesome wounded Tommies at once went through an
elaborate pantomime of unhooking receivers, and asked anxiously
for "Willconk--One, O, double-six, miss, please. No, miss, I
didn't say, 'City, six, eight, five, four'; I said 'Willconk, One,
O, double-six.' Thank you, miss; now I can let mother know I'm
coming to tea." This, accompanied by much playful badinage with
the imaginary operator, proved immensely popular, but "Willconk,
One, O, double-six" stuck in the brains of my blue-clothed flock.
In the same way the Battle of Waterloo became "Batterloo--One,
eight, one, five, please, miss," so both those dates remained in
their heads.
We experienced some little trouble in mastering the French
numerals, until I tried a new scheme, and called out, "From the
right, number, in French!" Then my merry convalescents began
shouting gleefully, "Oon," "Doo," "Troy," "Catta," "Sink," etc.;
but the French numerals stuck in their heads. Never did any one, I
imagine, have such a set of jolly, cheery boys in blue as pupils,
and the strong remnant of the child left in many of them made them
the more attractive.
When I first went to school, the selection and purchase of my
outfit was, for some inscrutable reason, left to my sisters'
governess, an elderly lady to whom I was quite devoted. This
excellent person, though, knew very little about boys, and nothing
whatever as to their requirements. Her mind harked back to the
"thirties" and "forties," and she endeavoured to reconstitute the
dress of little boys at that period. She ordered for me a velvet
tunic for Sunday wear, of the sort seen in old prints, and a
velvet cap with a peak and tassel, such as young England wore in
William IV.'s days. She had large, floppy, limp collars specially
made for me, of the pattern worn by boys in her youth; every
single article of my unfortunate equipment had been obsolete for
at least thirty years. In my ignorance, and luckily not knowing
what was in store for me, I felt immensely proud of my new kit.
On the first Sunday after my arrival at school, I arrayed myself
with great satisfaction in a big, floppy collar, and my new velvet
tunic, amidst the loud jeers of all the other boys in the
dormitory. I was, however, hardly prepared for the yells and howls
of derision with which my appearance in the school-room was
greeted; my unfortunate garments were held to be so unspeakably
grotesque that boys laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks.
As church-time approached the boys produced their high hats, which
I found were worn even by little fellows of eight; I had nothing
but my terrible tasselled velvet cap, the sight of which provoked
even louder jeers than the tunic had done. We marched to church
two and two, in old-fashioned style in a "crocodile," but not a
boy in the school would walk beside me in my absurd garments, so a
very forlorn little fellow trotted to church alone behind the
usher, acutely conscious of the very grotesque figure he was
presenting. I must have been dressed very much as Henry Fairchild
was when he went to visit his little friend Master Noble. On
returning from church, I threw my velvet cap into the water-butt,
where, for all I know, it probably is still, and nothing would
induce me to put on the velvet tunic or the floppy collars a
second time. I bombarded my family with letters until I found
myself equipped with a high hat and Eton jackets and collars such
as the other boys wore.
We were taught French at Chittenden's by a very pleasant old
Belgian, M. Vansittart. I could talk French then as easily as
English, and after exchanging a few sentences with M. Vansittart,
he cried, "Tiens! mais c'est un petit Francais;" but the other
boys laughed so unmercifully at what they termed my affected
accent, that in self-defence I adopted an ultra-British
pronunciation, made intentional mistakes, and, in order to conform
to type, punctiliously addressed our venerable instructor as
"Moosoo," just as the other boys did. M. Vansittart must have been
a very old man, for he had fought as a private in the Belgian army
at the Battle of Waterloo. He had once been imprudent enough to
admit that he and some Belgian friends of his had...how shall we
put it?...absented themselves from the battlefield without the
permission of their superiors, and had hurriedly returned to
Brussels, being doubtless fatigued by their exertions. His little
tormentors never let him forget this. When we thought that we had
done enough French for the day, a shrill young voice would pipe
out, "Now, Moosoo, please tell us how you and all the Belgians ran
away from the Battle of Waterloo." It never failed to achieve the
desired end. "Ah! tas de petits sacripants! 'Ow dare you say dat?"
thundered the poor old gentleman, and he would go on to explain
that his and his friends' retirement was only actuated by the
desire to be the first bearers to Brussels of the news of
Wellington's great victory, and to assuage their families' very
natural anxiety as to their safety. He added, truthfully enough,
"Nos jambes courraient malgres nous." Poor M. Vansittart! He was a
gentle and a kindly old man, with traces of the eighteenth-century
courtliness of manner, and smothered in snuff.
Mr. Chittenden was never tired of dinning into us the astonishing
merits of a pupil who had been at the school eleven or twelve
years before us. This model boy apparently had the most
extraordinary mental gifts, and had never broken any of the rules.
Mr. Chittenden predicted a brilliant future for him, and would not
be surprised should he eventually become Prime Minister. The
paragon had had a distinguished career at Eton, and was at present
at Cambridge, where he was certain to do equally well. From having
this Admirable Crichton perpetually held up to us as an example,
we grew rather tired of his name, much as the Athenians wearied at
constantly hearing Aristides described as "the just." At length we
heard that the pattern-boy would spend two days at Hoddesdon on
his way back to Cambridge. We were all very anxious to see him. As
Mr. Chittenden confidently predicted that he would one day become
Prime Minister, I formed a mental picture of him as being like my
uncle, Lord John Russell, the only Prime Minister I knew. He would
be very short, and would have his neck swathed in a high black-
satin stock. When the Cambridge undergraduate appeared, he was, on
the contrary, very tall and thin, with a slight stoop, and so far
from wearing a high stock, he had an exceedingly long neck
emerging from a very low collar. His name was Arthur James
Balfour.
I think Mr. Balfour and the late Mr. George Wyndham were the only
pupils of Chittenden's who made names for themselves. The rest of
us were content to plod along in the rut, though we had been
taught to concentrate, to remember, and to observe.
Compared with the manner in which little boys are now pampered at
preparatory schools, our method of life appears very Spartan. We
never had fires or any heating whatever in our dormitories, and
the windows were always open. We were never given warm water to
wash in, and in frosty weather our jugs were frequently frozen
over. Truth compels me to admit that this freak of Nature's was
rather welcomed, for little boys are not as a rule over-enamoured
of soap and water, and it was an excellent excuse for avoiding any
ablutions whatever. We rose at six, winter and summer, and were in
school by half-past six. The windows of the school-room were kept
open, whilst the only heating came from a microscopic stove
jealously guarded by a huge iron stockade to prevent the boys from
approaching it. For breakfast we were never given anything but
porridge and bread and butter. We had an excellent dinner at one
o'clock, but nothing for tea but bread and butter again, never
cake or jam. It will horrify modern mothers to learn that all the
boys, even little fellows of eight, were given two glasses of beer
at dinner. And yet none of us were ever ill. I was nearly five
years at Chittenden's, and I do not remember one single case of
illness. We were all of us in perfect health, nor were we ever
afflicted with those epidemics which seem to play such havoc with
modern schools, from all of which I can only conclude that a
regime of beer and cold rooms is exceedingly good for little boys.
The Grange, Mr. Chittenden's house, was one of the most perfect
examples of a real Queen Anne house that I ever saw. Every room in
the house was wood-panelled, and there was some fine carving on
the staircase. The house, with a splendid avenue of limes leading
up to it, stood in a large old-world garden, where vast cedar
trees spread themselves duskily over shaven lawns round a
splashing fountain, and where scarlet geraniums blazed. Such a
beautiful old place was quite wasted as a school.
We were very well treated by both Mr. and Mrs. Chittenden, and we
were all very happy at the Grange. During my first year there one
of my elder brothers died. A child of ten, should death never have
touched his family, looks upon it as something infinitely remote,
affecting other people but not himself. Then when the first gap in
the home occurs, all the child's little world tumbles to pieces,
and he wonders how the birds have the heart to go on singing as
usual, and how the sun can keep on shining. A child's grief is
very poignant and real. I can never forget Mr. and Mrs.
Chittenden's extreme kindness to a very sorrowful little boy at
that time.
There was one curious custom at Chittenden's, and I do not know
whether it obtained in other schools in those days. Some time in
the summer term the head-boy would announce that "The Three
Sundays" had arrived, and must be duly observed according to
ancient custom. We all obeyed him implicity. The first Sunday was
"Cock-hat Sunday," the second "Rag Sunday," and the third (if I
may be pardoned) "Spit-in-the-pew Sunday." On the first Sunday we
all marched to church with our high hats at an extreme angle over
our left ears; on the second Sunday every boy had his handkerchief
trailing out of his pocket; on the third, I am sorry to say,
thirty-one little boys expectorated surreptitiously but
simultaneously in the pews, as the first words of the Litany were
repeated. I think that we were all convinced that these were
regularly appointed festivals of the Church of England. I know
that I was, and I spent hours hunting fruitlessly through my
Prayer Book to find some allusion to them. I found Sundays after
Epiphany, Sundays in Lent, and Sundays after Trinity, but not one
word could I discover, to my amazement, either about "Cock-hat
Sunday" or "Spit-in-the-pew Sunday." What can have been the origin
of this singular custom I cannot say. When I, in my turn, became
head-boy, I fixed "The Three Sundays" early in May. It so happened
that year that the Thursday after "Cock-hat Sunday" was Ascension
Day, when we also went to church, but, it being a week-day, we
wore our school caps in the place of high hats. Ascension Day thus
falling, if I may so express myself, within the Octave of "Cock-
hat Sunday," I decreed that the customary ritual must be observed
with the school caps, and my little flock obeyed me implicitly. So
eager were some of the boys to do honour to this religious
festival, that their caps were worn at such an impossible angle
that they kept tumbling off all the way to church. It is the only
time in my life that I have ever wielded even a semblance of
ecclesiastical authority, and I cannot help thinking that the
Archbishop of Canterbury would have envied the unquestioning
obedience with which all my directions were received, for I gather
that his own experience has not invariably been equally fortunate.
At thirteen I said good-bye to the pleasant Grange, and went, as
my elder brothers, my father, and my grandfather had done before
me, to Harrow.
In the Harrow of the "seventies" there was one unique personality,
that of the Rev. John Smith, best-loved of men. This saintly man
was certainly very eccentric. We never knew then that his whole
life had been one long fight against the hereditary insanity which
finally conquered him. In appearance he was very tall and gaunt,
with snow-white whiskers and hair, and the kindest eyes I have
ever seen in a human face; he was meticulously clean and neat in
his dress. "John," as he was invariably called, on one occasion
met a poorly clad beggar shivering in the street on a cold day,
and at once stripped off his own overcoat and insisted on the
beggar taking it. John never bought another overcoat, but wrapped
himself in a plaid in winter-time. He addressed all boys
indiscriminately as "laddie," though he usually alluded to the
younger ones as "smallest of created things," "infinitesimal scrap
of humanity," or "most diminutive of men"; but, wildly eccentric
as he was, no one ever thought of laughing at him. It was just
"old John," and that explained everything.
I was never "up" to John, for he taught a low Form, and I had come
from Chittenden's, and all Chittenden's boys took high places; but
he took "pupil-room" in my house, and helped my tutor generally,
so I saw John daily, and, like every one else, I grew very much
attached to this simple, saint-like old clergyman.
He went round every room in the house on Sunday evenings, always
first scrupulously knocking at the door. An untidy room gave him
positive pain, and the most slovenly boys would endeavour to get
their filthy rooms into some sort of order, "just to please old
John." John was passionately fond of flowers, and one would meet
the most unlikely boys with bunches of roses in their hands. If
one inquired what they were for, they would say half-sheepishly,
"Oh, just a few roses I've bought. I thought they would please old
John; you know how keen the old chap is on flowers." Now English
schoolboys are not as a rule in the habit of presenting flowers to
their masters. For all his apparent simplicity, John was not easy
to "score off." I have known Fifth-form boys bring a particularly
difficult passage of Herodotus to John in "pupil-room," knowing
that he was not a great Greek scholar. John, after glancing at the
passage, would say, "Laddie, you splendid fellows in the Upper
Fifth know so much; I am but a humble and very ignorant old man.
This passage is beyond my attainments. Go to your tutor, my child.
He will doubtless make it all clear to you; and pray accept my
apologies for being unable to help you," and the Fifth-form boy
would go away feeling thoroughly ashamed of himself. After his
death, it was discovered from his diary that John had been in the
habit of praying for twenty boys by name, every night of his life.
He went right down the school list, and then he began again. Any
lack of personal cleanliness drove him frantic. I myself have
heard him order a boy with dirty nails and hands out of the room,
crying, "Out of my sight, unclean wretch! Go and cleanse the hands
God gave you, before I allow you to associate with clean
gentlemen, and write out for me two hundred times, 'Cleanliness is
next to godliness.'"
John took the First Fourth, and his little boys could always be
detected by their neatness and extreme cleanliness. Neither of
these can be called a characteristic of little boys in general,
but the little fellows made an effort to overcome their natural
tendencies "to please old John." When his hereditary enemy
triumphed, and his reason left him, hundreds of his old pupils
wished to subscribe, and to surround John for the remainder of his
life with all the comforts that could be given him in his
afflicted condition. It was very characteristic of John to refuse
this offer, and to go of his own accord into a pauper asylum,
where he combined the duties of chaplain and butler until his
death. John was buried at Harrow, and by his own wish no bell was
tolled, and his coffin was covered with scarlet geraniums, as a
sign of rejoicing. I know how I should describe John, were I
preaching a sermon.
Another mildly eccentric Harrow master was the Rev. T. Steele,
invariably known as "Tommy." His peculiarities were limited to his
use of the pronoun "we" instead of "I," as though he had been a
crowned head, and to his habit of perpetually carrying, winter and
summer, rain or sunshine, a gigantic bright blue umbrella. He had
these umbrellas specially made for him; they were enormous, the
sort of umbrellas Mrs. Gamp must have brought with her when her
professional services were requisitioned, and they were of the
most blatant blue I have ever beheld. Old Mr. Steele, with his
jovial rubicund face, his flowing white beard, and his bright blue
umbrella, was a species of walking tricolour flag.
Schoolboys worship a successful athlete. There was a very pleasant
mathematical master named Tosswill, always known as "Tosher," who
at that time held the record for a broad jump, he having cleared,
when jumping for Oxford, twenty-two and a half feet. That record
has long since been beaten. Should one be walking with another boy
when passing "Tosher," he was almost certain to say, "You know
that Tosher holds the record for broad jumps. Twenty-two and a
half feet; he must be an awfully decent chap!" Tosswill had the
knack of devising ingenious punishments. I was "up" to him for
mathematics, and, with my hopelessly non-mathematical mind, I must
have been a great trial to him. At that time I was playing the
euphonium in the school brass band, an instrument which afforded
great joy to its exponents, for in most military marches the solo
in the "trio" falls to the euphonium, though I fancy that I evoked
the most horrible sounds from my big brass instrument. To play a
brass instrument with any degree of precision, it is first
necessary to acquire a "lip"--that is to say, the centre of the
lip covered by the mouthpiece must harden and thicken before "open
notes" can be sounded accurately. To "get a lip" quickly, I always
carried my mouthpiece in my pocket, and blew noiselessly into it
perpetually, even in school. Tosher had noticed this. One day my
algebra paper was even worse than usual. With the best intentions
in the world to master this intricate branch of knowledge, algebra
conveyed nothing whatever to my brain. To state that A + b = xy,
seemed to me the assertion of a palpable and self-evident
falsehood. After looking through my paper, Tosher called me up.
"Your algebra is quite hopeless, Hamilton. You will write me out a
Georgic. No; on second thoughts, as you seem to like your brass
instrument, you shall bring it up to my house every morning for
ten days, and as the clock strikes seven, you shall play me "Home,
Sweet Home" under my window." Accordingly every morning for ten
days I trudged through the High Street of Harrow with my big brass
instrument under my arm, and as seven rang out from the school
clock, I commenced my extremely lugubrious rendering of "Home,
Sweet Home," on the euphonium, to a scoffing and entirely
unsympathetic audience of errand-boys and early loafers, until
Tosher's soap-lathered face nodded dismissal from the window.
The school songs play a great part in Harrow life. Generation
after generation of boys have sung these songs, and they form a
most potent bond of union between Harrovians of all ages, for
their words and music are as familiar to the old Harrovian of
sixty as to the present Harrovian of sixteen.
Most of these songs are due to the genius of two men, Edward Bowen
and John Farmer. Like Gilbert and Sullivan, neither of these
would, I think, have risen to his full height without the aid of
the other. Farmer had an inexhaustible flow of facile melody at
his command, always tuneful, sometimes almost inspired. In
addition to the published songs, he was continually throwing off
musical settings to topical verse, written for some special
occasion. These were invariably bright and catchy, and I am sorry
that Farmer considered them of too ephemeral a nature to be worth
preserving. "Racquets," in particular, had a delightfully ear-
tickling refrain. Bowen's words are a little unequal at times, but
at his best he is very hard to beat.
I had organ lessons from Farmer, and as I liked him extremely, I
was continually at his house. I enjoyed seeing him covering sheets
of music paper with rapid notation, and then humming the newly
born product of his musical imagination. As I had a fairly good
treble voice, and could read a part easily, Farmer often selected
me to try one of his new compositions at "house-singing," where
the boys formed an exceedingly critical audience. Either the new
song was approved of, or it was received in chilling silence.
Farmer in moments of excitement perspired more than any human
being I have ever seen. Going to his house one afternoon, I found
him bathed in perspiration, writing away for dear life. He
motioned me to remain silent, and went on writing. Presently he
jumped up, and exclaimed triumphantly, "I have got it! I have got
it at last!" He then showed me the words he was setting to music.
They began:
"Forty years on, when afar and asunder,
Parted are those who are singing to-day."
"I wrote another tune to it first," explained Farmer, "a bright
tune, a regular bell-tinkle" (his invariable expression for a
catchy tune), "but Bowen's words are too fine for that. They want
something hymn-like, something grand, and now I've found it.
Listen!" and Farmer played me that majestic, stately melody which
has since been heard in every country and in every corner of the
globe, wherever two old Harrovians have come together. Some people
may recall how, during the Boer War, "Forty years on" was sung by
two mortally wounded Harrovians on the top of Spion Kop just
before they died.
To my great regret my voice had broken then, else it is quite
possible that Farmer might have selected me to sing "Forty years
on" for the very first time. As it was, that honour fell to a boy
named A.M. Wilkinson, who had a remarkably sweet voice.
John Farmer's eccentricities were, I think, all assumed. He
thought they helped him to manage the boys. I sang in the chapel
choir, and he circulated the quaintest little notes amongst us,
telling us how he wished the Psalms sung. "Psalm 136, quite gaily
and cheerfully; Psalm 137, very slowly and sorrowfully; Psalm 138,
real merry bell-tinkle, with plenty of organ.--J. F."
Long after I had left, Farmer continued to pour out a ceaseless
flow of school songs. Of course they varied in merit, but in some,
such as "Raleigh," and "Five Hundred Faces," he managed to touch
some subtle chord of sympathy that makes them very dear to those
who heard them in their youth. After Farmer left Harrow for
Oxford, his successor, Eaton Faning, worthily continued the
traditions. All Eaton Failing's songs are melodious, but in two of
them, "Here, sir!" and "Pray, charge your glasses, gentlemen," he
reaches far higher levels.
The late E.W. Howson's words to "Here, sir!" seem to strike
exactly the right note for boys. They are fine and virile, with
underlying sentiment, yet free from the faintest suspicion of
mawkish sentimentality. Two of the verses are worth quoting:
"Is it nought--our long procession,
Father, brother, friend, and son,
As we step in quick succession,
Cap and pass and hurry on?
One and all,
At the call,
Cap and pass and hurry on?
Here, sir! Here, sir!" etc.
"So to-day--and oh! if ever
Duty's voice is ringing clear,
Bidding men to brave endeavour,
Be our answer, 'We are here!'
Come what will,
Good or ill,
We will answer, 'We are here!'
Here, sir! Here, sir!" etc.
The allusion is, of course, to "Bill," the Harrow term for the
roll-call. These lines, for me, embody all that is best in the so-
called "Public School spirit."
In my time the distant view from the chapel terrace was
exceedingly beautiful, whilst the immediate foreground was
uncompromisingly ugly. A vegetable garden then covered the space
where now the steps of the "Slopes" run down through lawns and
shrubberies, and rows of utilitarian cabbages and potatoes
extended right up to the terrace wall. But beyond this prosaic
display of kitchen-stuff, in summer-time an unbroken sea of green
extended to the horizon, dotted with such splendid oaks as only a
heavy clay soil can produce. London, instead of being ten miles
off, might have been a hundred miles distant. Now, for fifty years
London, Cobbett's "monstrous wen," has been throwing her tentative
feelers into the green Harrow country. Already pioneer tentacles
of red-brick houses are creeping over the fields, and before long
the rural surroundings will have vanished beyond repair.
"Ducker," the Harrow bathing-place, has had scant justice done to
it. It is a most attractive spot, standing demurely isolated
amidst its encircling fringe of fine elms, and jealously guarded
by a high wooden palisade, No unauthorised person can penetrate
into "Ducker"; in summer-time it is the boys' own domain. The long
tiled pool stretches in sweeping curves for 250 feet under the
great elms, a splashing fountain at one end, its far extremity gay
with lawns and flower-beds. I can conceive of nothing more typical
of the exuberant joie-de-vivre of youth than the sight of Ducker
on a warm summer evening when the place is ringing with the shouts
and laughter of some four hundred boys, all naked as when they
were born, swimming, diving, ducking each other, splashing and
rollicking in the water, whilst others stretched out on the grass,
puris naturalibus, are basking in the sun, or regaling themselves
on buns and cocoa. The whole place is vibrant with the intense
zest the young feel in life, and with the whole-hearted powers of
enjoyment of boyhood. A school-song set to a captivating waltz-
lilt record the charms of Ducker. One verse of it,
"Oh! the effervescing tingle,
How it rushes in the veins!
Till the water seems to mingle
With the pulses and the brains,"
exactly expresses the reason why, as a boy, I loved Ducker so.
Unfortunately, I never played cricket for Harrow at "Lords," as my
two brothers George and Ernest did. My youngest brother would, I
think, have made a great name for himself as a cricketer, had not
the fairies endowed him at his birth with a fatal facility for
doing everything easily. As the result of this versatility, his
ambitions were continually changing. He accordingly abandoned
cricket for steeplechase riding, at which he distinguished himself
until politics ousted steeplechase riding. After some years,
politics gave place to golf and music, which were in their turn
supplanted by photography. He then tried writing a few novels, and
very successful some of them were, until it finally dawned on him
that his real vocation in life was that of a historian. My brother
was naturally frequently rallied by his family on his inconstancy
of purpose, but he pleaded in extenuation that versatility had
very marked charms of its own. He produced one day a copy of
verses, written in the Gilbertian metre, to illustrate his mental
attitude, and they strike me as so neatly worded, that I will
reproduce them in full.
"THE CURSE OF VERSATILITY"
"It is possible the student of Political Economy
Might otherwise have cultivated Fame,
And the Scientist whose energies are given to Astronomy
May sacrifice a literary name.
In the Royal Academician may be buried a facility
For prosecuting Chemical Research,
But he knows that if he truckles to the Curse of Versatility,
Competitors will leave him in the lurch.
"If an eminent physician should develop a proclivity
For singing on the operatic stage,
He will find that though his patients may apparently forgive
it, he
Will temporal'ly cease to be the rage,
And the lawyer who depreciates his logical ability
And covets a poetical renown,
Will discover on his Circuit that the Curse of Versatility
Has limited the office of his gown.
"The costermonger yonder, if he had the opportunity,
Might rival the political career
Of the orator who poses as the pride of the community,
The Radical Hereditary Peer.
And the genius who fattens on a chronic inability
To widen the horizon of his brain,
May be stupider than others whom the Curse of Versatility
Has fettered with a mediocre chain.
"Should a Civil Servant woo the panegyrics of Society,
And hanker after posthumous applause,
It MAY happen that possession of a prodigal variety
Of talents will invalidate his cause.
He must learn to put a tether on his cerebral agility,
And focus all his energies of aim
On ONE isolated idol, or the Curse of Versatility
Will drag him from the pinnacle of Fame.
"Though the Curse may be upon ns, and condemn us for Eternity
To jostle with the ordinary horde;
Though we grovel at the shrine of the professional fraternity
Who harp upon one solitary chord;
Still...we face the situation with an imperturbability
Of spirit, from the knowledge that we owe
To the witchery that lingers in the Curse of Versatility
The balance of our happiness below."
Of course, to some temperaments variety will appeal; whilst others
revel in monotony. The latter are like a District Railway train,
going perpetually round and round the same Inner Circle. As far as
my experience goes, the former are the more interesting people to
meet.
To persons of my time of life, the last verse of "Forty years on"
has a tendency to linger in the memory. It runs--
"Forty years on, growing older and older,
Shorter in wind, as in memory long,
Feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
What will it help you that once you were strong?"
Although it is now fifty, instead of "forty years on," I
indignantly disclaim the "feeble of foot," whilst reluctantly
pleading guilty to "rheumatic of shoulder." It is common to most
people, as they advance in life, to note with a sorrowful
satisfaction the gradual decay of the physical powers of their
contemporaries, though they always seem to imagine that they
themselves have retained all their pristine vigour, and have
successfully resisted every assault of Time's battering-ram. The
particular sentiment described in German as "Schadenfreude,"
"pleasure over another's troubles" (how characteristic it is that
there should be no equivalent in any other language for this
peculiarly Teutonic emotion!), makes but little appeal to the
average Briton except where questions of age and of failing powers
come into play, and obviously this only applies to men: no lady
ever grows old for those who are really fond of her; one always
sees her as one likes best to think of her.
I have already divulged one family secret, so I will reveal
another. Some few years ago my three eldest brothers were dining
together. Each of them professed deep concern at the palpable
signs of physical decay which he detected in his brethren, whilst
congratulating himself on remaining untouched by advancing years.
The dispute became acrimonious to a degree; the grossest
personalities were freely bandied about. At length it was decided
to put the matter to a practical test, and it was agreed (I tell
this in the strictest confidence) that the three brothers should
run a hundred yards race in the street then and there.
Accordingly, a nephew of mine paced one hundred yards in Montagu
Street, Portman Square, and stood immovable as winning-post. The
Chairman of the British South African Chartered Company, the
Chairman of the Great Eastern Railway Company, and the Secretary
of State for India took up their positions in the street and
started. The Chairman of the Great Eastern romped home. We are all
of us creatures of our environment, and we may become
unconsciously coloured by that environment; as the Great Eastern
Railway has always adopted a go-ahead policy, it is possible that
some particle of the momentum which would naturally result from
this may have been subconsciously absorbed by the Chairman, thus
giving him an unfair advantage over his brothers. It is unusual
for a Duke, a Chairman of an important Railway Company, and a
Secretary of State to run races in a London street at ten o'clock
at night, especially when the three of them were long past their
sixtieth year, but I feel certain that my confidence about this
little episode will be respected.
I fear that this habit of running races late in life may be a
family failing. During my father's second tenure of office as
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, he was still an enthusiastic
cricketer, and played regularly in the Viceregal team in spite of
his sixty-four years. The Rev. Dr. Mahaffy, Professor of Ancient
History at Trinity College, Dublin, also played for the Viceregal
Lodge in his capacity of Chaplain to the Viceroy. Dr. Mahaffy,
though a fine bowler, was the worst runner I have ever seen. He
waddled and paddled slowly over the ground like a duck, with his
feet turned outwards, exactly as that uninteresting fowl moves. My
father frequently rallied Dr. Mahaffy on his defective locomotive
powers, and finally challenged him to a two hundred yards race. My
father being sixty-four years old, and Dr. Mahaffy only thirty-
six, it was agreed that the Professor should be handicapped by
wearing cricket-pads, and by carrying a cricket bat. I was present
at the race, which came off in the gardens of the Viceregal Lodge,
before quite a number of people. My father won with the utmost
ease, to the delirious joy of the two policemen on duty, who had
never before seen a Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland racing a Professor
of Trinity College.
I myself must plead guilty to having entered for a "Veterans'
Race" two years ago, at the age of sixty-one, at some Sunday
School sports in Ireland. I ran against a butler, a gardener, two
foremen-mechanics, and four farmers, but only achieved second
place, and that at the price of a sprained tendon, so possibly the
"feeble of foot" of the song really is applicable to me after all.
The butler, who won, started off with the lead and kept it, though
one would naturally have expected a butler to run a "waiting"
race.
I was at Harrow with the Duke of Aosta, brother of the beautiful
Queen Margherita of Italy. H. R. H. sported a full curly yellow
beard at the age of sixteen, a somewhat unusual adornment for an
English schoolboy. When I accompanied my father's special Mission
to Rome in 1878, at a luncheon at the Quirinal Palace, Queen
Margherita alluded to her brother having been at Harrow, and
added, "I am told that Harrow is the best school in England." The
Harrovians present, including my father, my brother Claud, myself,
the late Lord Bradford, and my brother-in-law the late Lord Mount
Edgcumbe, welcomed this indisputable proposition warmly--nay,
enthusiastically. The Etonians who were there, Sir Augustus Paget,
then British Ambassador in Rome, the late Lord Northampton, and
others, contravened her Majesty's obviously true statement with
great heat, quite oblivious of the fact that it is opposed to all
etiquette to contradict a Crowned Head. The dispute engendered
considerable heat on either side; the walls of that hall in the
Quirinal rang with our angered protests, until the Italians
present became quite alarmed. Our discussion having taken place in
English, they had been unable to follow it, and they felt the
gravest apprehensions as to the plot the foreigners were evidently
hatching. When told that we were merely discussing the rival
merits of two schools in England, they were more than ever
confirmed in their opinion that all English people were hopelessly
mad.
To one like myself, to whom it has fallen to visit almost every
country on the face of the globe, there is always a tinge of
melancholy in revisiting the familiar High Street of Harrow. It is
like returning to the starting-point at the conclusion of a long
race. The externals remain unchanged. Outwardly, the New Schools,
the Chapel, the Vaughan Library, and the Head-Master's House all
wear exactly the same aspect that they bore half a century ago.
They have not changed, and the ever-renewed stream of young life
flows through the place as joyously as it did fifty years ago.
But....
"Oh, the great days in the distance enchanted,
Days of fresh air, in the rain and the sun."
At times the imagination is apt to play tricks and to set back the
hands of the clock, until one pictures oneself again in a short
jacket and Eton collar, going up to school, with a pile of books
hugged under the left arm, and the intervening half-century wiped
out. But, as they would put it in Ireland, these lucky, fresh-
faced youngsters of to-day have their futures in front of them,
not behind them. Then it is that Howson's words, wedded to John
Farmer's haunting refrain, come back to the mind--
"Yet the time may come as the years go by,
When your heart will thrill
At the thought of 'The Hill'
And the day that you came, so strange and shy."
CHAPTER V
Mme. Ducros--A Southern French country town--"Tartarin de
Tarascon"--His prototypes at Nyons--M. Sisteron the roysterer--The
Southern French--An octogenarian pesteur--French industry--"Bone-
shakers"--A wonderful "Cordon-bleu"--"Slop-basin"--French legal
procedure--The bons-vivants--The merry French judges--La gaiete
francaise--Delightful excursions--Some sleepy old towns--Orange
and Avignon--M. Thiers' ingenious cousin--Possibilities--French
political situation in 1874--The Comte de Chambord--Some French
characteristics--High intellectual level--Three days in a Trappist
Monastery--Details of life there--The Arian heresy--Silkworm
culture--Tendencies of French to complicate details--Some
examples--Cicadas in London.
As it had already been settled that I was to enter the Diplomatic
Service, my father very wisely determined that I should leave
Harrow as soon as I was seventeen to go to France, in order to
learn French thoroughly. As he pointed out, it would take three
years at least to become proficient in French and German, and it
would be as well to begin at once.
The French tutor selected for me enjoyed a great reputation at
that time. Oddly enough, she was a woman, but it will be gathered
that she was quite an exceptional woman, when I say that she had
for years ruled four unruly British cubs, varying in age from
seventeen to twenty, with an absolute rod of iron. Mme. Ducros was
the wife of a French judge, she spoke English perfectly, and must
have been in her youth a wonderfully good-looking woman. She was
very tall, and still adhered to the dress and headdress of the
"sixties," wearing little bunches of curls over each ear--a
becoming fashion, even if rather reminiscent of a spaniel.
The Ducros lived at Nyons in the south of France. Nyons lay
twenty-five miles east of the main line from Paris to Marseilles,
and could only be reached by diligence. I think that I can safely
say that no foreigner (with the exception of the Ducros' pupils)
had ever set foot in Nyons, for the place was quite unknown, and
there was nothing to draw strangers there. It was an
extraordinarily attractive spot, lying in a little circular cup of
a valley of the Dauphine Alps, through which a brawling river had
bored its way. Nyons was celebrated for its wine, its olive oil,
its silk, and its truffles, all of them superlatively good. The
ancient little walled town, basking in this sun-trap of a valley,
stood out ochre-coloured against the silver-grey background of
olive trees, whilst the jagged profiles of the encircling hills
were always mistily blue, with that intense blue of which the
Provence hills seem alone to have the secret. So few English
people knew anything about the conditions of life in a little out-
of-the-way French provincial town, where no foreigners have ever
set foot, that it may be worth while saying something about them.
In the first place, it must have been deadly dull for the
inhabitants, for nothing whatever happened there. Even the
familiar "tea and tennis," the stereotyped mild dissipation of
little English towns, was quite unknown. There was no entertaining
of any sort, beyond the formal visits the ladies were perpetually
paying each other. The Ducros alone, occasionally, asking their
legal friends to dinner, invitations accepted with the utmost
enthusiasm, for the culinary genius who presided over the Ducros'
kitchen (M. Dueros' own sister) deservedly enjoyed an enormous
local reputation.
Most people must be familiar with Alphonse Daudet's immortal work,
Tartarin de Tarascon, in which the typical "Meridional" of
Southern France is portrayed with such unerring exactitude that
Daudet himself, after writing the book, was never able to set foot
in Tarascon again.
We had a cercle in Nyons, in the Place Napoleon (re-christened
Place de la Republique after September 4, 1870), housed in three
rather stately, sparsely furnished, eighteenth-century rooms.
Here, with the exception of Tartarin himself, the counterparts of
all Daudet's characters were to be found. "Le Capitaine Bravida"
was represented by Colonel Olivier, a fiercely moustached and
imperialled Crimean veteran, who perpetually breathed fire and
swords on any potential enemy of France. "Costecalde" found his
prototype in M. Sichap, who, although he had in all probability
never fired off a gun in his life, could never see a tame pigeon,
or even a sparrow flying over him, without instantly putting his
walking-stick to his shoulder and loudly ejaculating, "Pan, pan,"
which was intended to counterfeit the firing of both barrels of a
gun. I once asked M. Sichap why so excellent a shot as he (with a
walking-stick) invariably missed his bird with his first barrel,
and only brought him down with his second. This was quite a new
light to M. Sichap, who had hithered considered the double "Pan,
pan," an indispensable adjunct to the pantomime of firing a gun;
much as my young brother and I had once imagined "Ug, ug," an
obligatory commencement to any remark made by a Red Indian
"brave."
In so remote a place as Nyons, over four hundred miles from the
capital, the glamour of Paris exercised a magical attraction. The
few inhabitants of Nyons who had ever visited Paris, or even
merely passed through it, were never quite as other people, some
little remnant of an aureole encircled them. The dowdy little wife
of M. Pelissier, who had first seen the light in some grubby
suburb of Paris, either Levallois-Perret or Clichy, held an
immense position in Nyons on the strength of being "une vraie
Parisienne," and most questions of taste were referred to her. M.
Sisteron, the collector of taxes, himself a native of Nyons, had
twenty years before gone to Paris on business, and spent four days
there. There were the darkest rumours current in Nyons, to the
effect that M. Sisteron had spent these four days in a whirl of
the most frantic and abandoned dissipation. It was popularly
supposed that these four days in Paris, twenty years ago, had so
completely unsettled M. Sisteron that life in Nyons had lost all
zest for him. He was perpetually hungering for the delirious joys
of the metropolis; even the collection of taxes no longer afforded
him the faintest gratification. Every inhabitant of Nyons was
secretly proud of being able to claim so dare-devil a roysterer as
a fellow-townsman. The memory of those rumored four hectic days in
Paris clung round him like a halo; it became almost a pleasure to
pay taxes to so celebrated a character. M. Sisteron was short,
paunchy, bald, and bearded. He was a model husband and a pattern
as a father. I am persuaded that he had spent those four days in
Paris in the most blameless and innocuous fashion, living in the
cheapest hotel he could find, and, after the manner of the people
of Nyons, never spending one unnecessary franc. Still, the legend
of his lurid four days, and of the amount of champagne he had
consumed during them, persisted. In moments of expansion, his
intimate friends would dig him in the ribs, remembering those four
feverish days, with a facetious, "Ah! vieux polisson de Sisteron,
va! Nous autres, nous n'avons pas fait des farces a Paris dans
notre jeunesse!" to M. Sisteron's unbounded delight. It was in the
genuine spirit of Tartarin de Tarascon, with all the mutual make-
believe on both sides. His wife, Mme. Sisteron, was fond of
assuring her friends that she owed her excellent health to the
fact that she invariably took a bath twice a year, whether she
required it or not.
The other members of the cercle were also mostly short, tubby,
black-bearded, and olive-complexioned. When not engaged in playing
"manille" for infinitesimal points, they would all shout and
gesticulate violently, as only Southern Frenchmen can, relapsing
as the discussion grew more heated into their native Provencal,
for though Nyons is geographically in Dauphine, climatically and
racially it is in Provence. In Southern France the "Langue d'Oil,"
the literary language of Paris and Northern France, has never
succeeded in ousting the "Langue d'Oc," the language of the
Troubadours. From hearing so much Provencal talked round me, I
could not help picking up some of it. It was years before I could
rid myself of the habit of inquiring quezaco? instead of "qu'est
ce que c'est?" and of substituting for "Comment cela va-t-il?" the
Provencal Commoun as? I found, too, that it was unusual elsewhere
to address people in our Nyons fashion as "Te, mon bon!"
Those swarthy, amply waistcoated, voluble little men were really
very good fellows in spite of their excitability and torrents of
talk.
The Southern Frenchmen divide Europe into the "Nord" and the
"Midi." The "Nord" is hardly worth talking about, the sun never
really shines there, and no garlic or oil is used in cookery in
those benighted regions. The town of Lyons is considered to be in
the "Nord," although we should consider it well in the south of
France. To the curious in such matters, it may be pointed out that
the line of demarcation between "Nord" and "Midi" is perfectly
well defined. In travelling from Paris to Marseilles, between
Valence and Montelimar, the observer will note that quite abruptly
the type of house changes. In place of the high-pitched roof of
Northern Europe the farm-houses suddenly assume flat roofs of
fluted tiles, with projecting eaves, after the Italian fashion; at
the same time the grey-green olive trees put in a first
appearance. Then you are in the "Midi," and any black-bearded,
olive-complexioned, stumpy little men in the carriage will give a
sigh of relief, for now, at last, the sun will begin to shine.
Nyons had been for two hundred years a Huguenot stronghold, so for
a French town an unusual proportion of its inhabitants were
Protestants, and there was, oddly enough, a colony of French
Wesleyans there.
M. Ducros' father had been the Protestant pasteur of Nyons for
forty-four years. He was eighty-six years old, and on week-days
the old gentleman dozed in the sun all day, and was quite senile
and gaga. On Sundays, no sooner had he ascended the pulpit than
his faculties seemed to return to him, and he would preach
interminable but perfectly coherent sermons with a vigour
astonishing in so old a man, only to relapse into childishness
again on returning home, and to remain senile till the following
Sunday.
The Ducros lived in a large farm-house on the outskirts of the
town. It was a farm without any livestock, for there is no grass
whatever in that part of France, and consequently no pasture for
cattle or sheep. Every one in Nyons kept goats for milk, and,
quaintly enough, they fed them on the dried mulberry leaves the
silkworms had left over. For every one reared silkworms too, a
most lucrative industry. The French speak of "making" silkworms
(faire des vers-a-soie). Lucrative as it is, it would never
succeed in England even if the white mulberry could be induced to
grow, for successful silkworm rearing demands such continual
watchfulness and meticulous attention as only French people can
give; English people "couldn't be bothered" to expend such minute
care on anything they were doing.
Every foot of the Ducros' property was carefully cultivated, with
vineyards above on the terraced hillside, olive-yards below, and
mulberry trees on the lower levels. Our black mulberry, with its
cloying, luscious fruit, is not the sort used for silkworms; it is
the white mulberry, which does not fruit, that these clever little
alchemists transmute into glossy, profitable cocoons of silk. The
Ducros made their own olive-oil, and their own admirable wine.
In that sun-drenched cup amongst the hills, roses bloomed all the
year round. I always see Nyons with my inner eyes from the terrace
in front of the house, the air fragrant with roses, and the
soothing gurgle of the fountain below in my ears as it splashed
melodiously into its stone reservoir, the little town standing out
a vivid yellow against the silver background of olive trees, and
the fantastic outlines of the surrounding hills steeped in that
wonderful deep Provencal blue. In spite of its dullness, I and the
three other pupils liked the place. We all grew very fond of the
charming Ducros family, we appreciated the wonderful beauty of the
little spot, we climbed all the hills, and, above all, we had each
hired a velocipede. Not a bicycle (except that it certainly had
two wheels); not a so-called "ordinary," as those machines with
one immensely high, shining, nickel-plated wheel and a little
dwarf brother following it, were for some inexplicable reason
termed; but an original antediluvian velocipede, a genuine "bone-
shaker": a clumsy contrivance with two high wooden wheels of equal
height, and direct action. Even on the level they required an
immense amount of muscle to drive them along, and up the smallest
hill every ounce of available strength had to be brought into
play. They did not steer well, were very difficult to get on and
off, and gave us some awful falls; still we got an immense amount
of fun out of them, and we scoured all the surrounding country on
them, until all four of us developed gigantic calves which would
have done credit to any coal-heaver.
M. Ducros' sister was a brilliant culinary genius such as is only
found in France. We were given truffled omelets, wonderful salads
of eggs, anchovies, and tunny-fish, ducks with oranges and olives,
and other delicacies of the Provencal cuisine prepared by a
consummate artist, and those four English cubs termed them all
"muck," and clamoured for plain roast mutton and boiled potatoes.
It really was a case of casting pearls before swine! Those
ignorant hobbledehoys actually turned up their noses at the
admirable "Cotes du Rhone" wine, and begged for beer. In justice I
must add that we were none of us used to truffles or olives, nor
to the oil which replaces butter in Provencal cookery. Mlle.
Louise, the sister, was pained, but not surprised. She had never
left Nyons, and, from her experience of a long string of English
pupils, was convinced that all Englishmen were savages. They
inhabited an island enveloped in dense fog from year's end to
year's end. They had never seen the sun, and habitually lived on
half-raw "rosbif." It was only natural that such young barbarians
should fail to appreciate the cookery of so celebrated a cordon-
bleu, which term, I may add, is only applicable to a woman-cook,
and can never be used of a man. This truly admirable woman made us
terrines of truffled foie-gras such as even Strasburg could not
surpass, and gave them to us for breakfast. I blush to own that
those four benighted boys asked for eggs and bacon instead.
Although M. Ducros had heard English talked around him for so many
years, he had all the average Frenchman's difficulty in
assimilating any foreign language. His knowledge of our tongue was
confined to one word only, and that a most curiously chosen word.
"Slop-basin" was the beginning and end of his knowledge of the
English language. M. Ducros used his one word of English only in
moments of great elation. Should, for instance, his sister Mlle.
Louise have surpassed herself in the kitchen, M. Ducros, after
tasting her chef d'oeuvre, would joyously ejaculate, "Slop-basin!"
several times over. It was understood in his family that "slop-
basin" always indicated that the master of the house was in an
extremely contented frame of mind.
The judicial system of France is not as concentrated as ours.
Every Sous-prefecture in France has its local Civil Court with a
Presiding Judge, an Assistant Judge, and a "Substitut." The
latter, in small towns, is the substitute for the Procureur de la
Republique, or Public Prosecutor. The legal profession in France
is far more "clannish" than with us, for lawyers have always
played a great part in the history of France. The so-called
"Parlements" (not to be confounded with our Parliament) had had,
up to the time of the French Revolution, very large powers indeed.
They were originally Supreme Courts of Justice, but by the
fifteenth century they could not only make, on their own account,
regulations having the force of laws, but had acquired independent
administrative powers. Originally the "Parlement de Paris" stood
alone, but as time went on, in addition to this, thirteen or
fourteen local "Parlements" administered France. After the
Revolution, the term was only applied to Supreme Courts, without
administrative powers. M. Ducros was Assistant Judge of the Nyons
Tribunal, and the Ducros were rather fond of insisting that they
belonged to the old noblesse de robe.
As a child I could speak French as easily as English, and even
after eight years of French lessons at school, my French was still
tucked away in some corner of my head; but I had, of course, only
a child's vocabulary, sufficient for a child's simple wants. Under
Madame Ducros' skilful tuition I soon began to acquire an adult
vocabulary, and it became no effort to me whatever to talk.
The French judicial system seems to demand perpetual judicial
inquiries (enquetes) in little country places. M. Ducros invited
me to accompany him, the President, and the "Substitut" on one of
these enquetes, and these three, with their tremendous spirits,
their perpetual jokes, and above all with their delightful gaiete
francaise, amused me so enormously, that I jumped at a second
invitation. So it came about in time, that I invariably
accompanied them, and when we started in the shabby old one-horse
cabriolet soon after 7 a.m., "notre ami le petit Angliche" was
always perched on the box. My suspicions may be unfounded, but I
somehow think that these enquetes were conducted not so much on
account of legal exigencies as for the gastronomic possibilities
at the end of the journey, for all our inquiries were made in
little towns celebrated for some local chef. These three merry
bons-vivants revelled in the pleasures of the table, and on our
arrival at our destinations, before the day's work was entered
upon, there were anxious and even heated discussions with "Papa
Charron," "Pere Vinay," or whatever the name of the local artist
might be, as to the comparative merits of truffles or olives as an
accompaniment to a filet, or the rival claims of mushrooms or
tunny-fish as a worthy lining of an omelet. The legal business
being all disposed of by two o'clock, we four would approach the
great ceremony of the day, the midday dinner, with tense
expectancy. The President could never keep out of the kitchen,
from which he returned with most assuring reports: "Cette fois ca
y est, mes amis," he would jubilantly exclaim, rubbing his hands,
and even "Papa Charron" himself bearing in the first dish, his
face scorched scarlet from his cooking-stove, would confidently
aver that "MM. les juges seront contents aujourd'hui."
The crowning seal of approbation was always put on by M. Ducros,
who, after tasting the masterpiece, would cry exultantly, "Bravo!
Slop-basin! Slop-basin!" should it fulfil his expectations. I have
previously explained that M. Ducros' solitary word of English
expressed supreme satisfaction, whilst his friends looked on, with
unconcealed admiration at their colleague's linguistic powers. It
sounds like a record of three gormandising middle-aged men; but it
was not quite that, though, like most French people, they
appreciated artistic cookery. It is impossible for me to convey in
words the charm of that delightful gaiete francaise, especially
amongst southern Frenchmen. It bubbles up as spontaneously as the
sparkle of champagne; they were all as merry as children, full of
little quips and jokes, and plays upon words. Our English "pun" is
a clumsy thing compared to the finesse of a neatly-turned French
calembour. They all three, too, had an inexhaustible supply of
those peculiarly French pleasantries known as petites
gauloiseries. I know that I have never laughed so much in my life.
It is only southern Frenchmen who can preserve this unquenchable
torrent of animal spirits into middle life. I was only seventeen;
they were from twenty to thirty years my seniors, yet I do not
think that we mutually bored each other the least. They did not
need the stimulus of alcohol to aid this flow of spirits, for,
like most Frenchmen of that class, they were very abstemious,
although the "Patron" always produced for us "un bon vieux vin de
derriere les fagots," or "un joli petit vin qui fait rire." It was
sheer "joie de-vivre" stimulated by the good food and that
spontaneous gaiete francaise which appeals so irresistibly to me.
The "Substitut" always preserved a rather deferential attitude
before the President and M. Ducros, for they belonged to the
magistrature assise, whilst he merely formed part of the
magistrature debout The French word magistrat is not the
equivalent of our magistrate, the French term for which is "Juge
de Paix." A magistrat means a Judge or a Public Prosecutor.
From being so much with the judges, I grew quite learned in French
legal terms, talked of the parquet (which means the Bar), and
invariably termed the grubby little Nyons law-court the Palais. I
rather fancy that I considered myself a sort of honorary member of
the French Bar. Strictly speaking, Palais only applies to a Court
of Law; old-fashioned Frenchmen always speak of the Chateau de
Versailles, or the Chateau de Fontainbleau, never of the Palais.
There was always plenty to see in these little southern towns
whilst the judges were at work. In one village there was a perfume
factory, where essential oils of sweet-scented geranium, verbena,
lavender, and thyme were distilled for the wholesale Paris
perfumers; a fragrant place, where every operation was carried on
with that minute attention to detail which the French carry into
most things that they do, for, unlike the inhabitants of an
adjacent island, they consider that if a thing is worth doing at
all, it is worth taking trouble over.
In another village there was a wholesale dealer in silkworms'
eggs, imported direct from China. Besides the eggs, he had a host
of Chinese curios to dispose of, besides quaint little objects in
everyday use in China.
Above all there was Grignan, with its huge and woefully
dilapidated chateau, the home of Mme. de Sevigne's daughter, the
Comtesse de Grignan. It was to Grignan that this queen of letter-
writers addressed much of her correspondence to her adored
daughter, between 1670 and 1695, and Mme. de Sevigne herself was
frequently a visitor there.
Occasionally the judges, the Substitut, and I made excursions
further afield by diligence to Orange, Vaucluse, and Avignon,
quite outside our judicial orbit. Orange, a drowsy little spot,
has still a splendid Roman triumphal arch and a Roman theatre in
the most perfect state of preservation. Orange was once a little
independent principality, and gives its name to the Royal Family
of Holland, the sister of the last of the Princes of Orange having
married the Count of Nassau, whence the House of Orange-Nassau.
Indirectly, sleepy little Orange has also given its name to a
widely-spread political and religious organisation of some
influence.
Vaucluse, most charming of places, in its narrow leafy valley,
surrounded by towering cliffs, is celebrated as having been the
home of Petrarch for sixteen years during the thirteen hundreds.
We may hope that his worshipped Laura sometimes brightened his
home there with her presence. The famous Fountain of Vaucluse
rushes out from its cave a full-grown river. It wastes no time in
infant frivolities, but settles down to work at once, turning a
mill within two hundred yards of its birthplace.
Avignon is another somnolent spot. The gigantic and gloomy Palace
of the Popes dominates the place, though it is far more like a
fortress than a palace. Here the Popes lived from 1309 to 1377
during their enforced abandonment of Rome, and Avignon remained
part of the Papal dominions until the French Revolution. The
President took less interest in the Palace of the Popes than he
did in a famous cook at one of the Avignon hotels. He could hardly
recall some of the plats of this noted artist without displaying
signs of deep emotion. These ancient towns on the banks of the
swift-rushing green Rhone seemed to me to be perpetually dozing in
the warm sun, like old men, dreaming of their historic and varied
past since the days of the Romans.
My French legal friends were much exercised by a recent decision
of the High Court. M. Thiers had been President of the Republic
from 1870 to 1873. A distant cousin of his living in Marseilles,
being in pecuniary difficulties, had applied ineffectually to M.
Thiers for assistance. Whereupon the resourceful lady had opened a
restaurant in Marseilles, and had had painted over the house-front
in gigantic letters, "Restaurant tenu par la cousine de Monsieur
Thiers." She was proceeded against for bringing the Head of the
State into contempt, was fined heavily, and made to remove the
offending inscription. My French friends hotly contested the
legality of this decision. They declared that it was straining the
sense of the particular Article of the Code to make it applicable
in such a case, and that it was illogical to apply the law of
Lese-majeste to the Head of a Republican State. The President
pertinently added that no evidence as to the quality of food
supplied in the restaurant had been taken. If bad, it might
unquestionably reflect injuriously on the Head of the State; if
good, on the other hand, in view of the admitted relationship of
the proprietress of the restaurant to him, it could only redound
to M. Thiers' credit. This opens up interesting possibilities. If
relationship to a prominent politician may be utilised for
business purposes, we may yet see in English watering-places the
facades of houses blazoned with huge inscriptions: "This Private
Hotel is kept by a fourth cousin of Lord Rose--," whilst facing
it, gold lettering proudly proclaims that "The Proprietress of
this Establishment is a distant relative of Mr. Ar--Bal--"; or,
to impart variety, at the next turning the public might perhaps be
informed in gleaming capitals that "The Cashier in this Hotel is
connected by marriage with Mr. As---." The idea really offers an
unlimited field for private enterprise.
The political situation in France was very strained at the
beginning of 1874. Marshal MacMahon had succeeded M. Thiers as
President of the Republic, and it was well known that the Marshal,
as well as the Royalist majority in the French Chamber, favoured
the restoration of the Bourbon Monarchy, represented by the Comte
de Chambord, as head of the elder branch. People of the type of M.
Ducros, and of the President of the Nyons Tribunal, viewed the
possible return of a Legitimist Bourbon Monarchy with the gravest
apprehension. Given the character of the Comte de Chambord, they
felt it would be a purely reactionary regime. Traditionally, the
elder branch of the Bourbons were incapable of learning anything,
and equally incapable of forgetting anything. These two shrewd
lawyers had both been vigorous opponents of the Bonapartist
regime, but they pinned their faith on the Orleans branch,
inexplicably enough to me, considering the treacherous record of
that family. They never could mention the name of a member of the
Orleans family without adding, "Ah! les braves gens!" the very
last epithet in the world I should have dreamed of applying to
them. All the negotiations with the Comte de Chambord fell
through, owing to his obstinacy (to which I have referred earlier)
in refusing to accept the Tricolor as the national flag. Possibly
pig-headed obstinacy; but in these days of undisguised
opportunism, it is rare to find a man who deliberately refuses a
throne on account of his convictions. I do not think that the
Comte de Chambord would have been a success in present-day British
politics. A crisis was averted by extending Marshal MacMahon's
tenure of the Presidency to seven years, the "Septennat," as it
was called. Before two years the Orleanists, who had always a keen
appreciation of the side on which their bread was buttered,
"rallied" to the Republic. I rather fancy that some question
connected with the return of the confiscated Orleans fortunes came
into play here. The adherents of the Comte de Chambord always
spoke of him as Henri V. For some reason (perhaps euphony) they
were invariably known as "Henri Quinquists." In the same way, the
French people speak of the Emperor Charles V. as "Charles Quint,"
never as "Charles Cinq."
My friends the Nyons lawyers were fond of alluding to themselves
as forming part of the bonne bourgeoisie. It is this bonne
bourgeoisie who form the backbone of France. Frugal, immensely
industrious, cultured, and with a very high standard of honour,
they are far removed from the frivolous, irresponsible types of
French people to be seen at smart watering-places, and they are
less dominated by that inordinate love of money which is an
unpleasant element in the national character, and obscures the
good qualities of the hard-working French peasants, making them
grasping and avaricious.
It must be admitted that this class of the French bourgeoisie
surveys the world from rather a Chinese standpoint. The Celestial,
as is well known, considers all real civilisation confined to
China. Every one outside the bounds of the Middle Kingdom is a
barbarian. This is rather the view of the French bourgeois. He is
convinced that all true civilisation is centred in France, and
that other countries are only civilised in proportion as French
influence has filtered through to them. He will hardly admit that
other countries can have an art and literature of their own,
especially should neither of them conform to French standards.
This is easily understood, for the average Frenchman knows no
language but his own, has never travelled, and has no curiosity
whatever about countries outside France. When, in addition, it is
remembered how paramount French literary and artistic influence
was during the greater portion of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and how universal the use of the French language was in
Northern Continental Europe amongst educated people, the point of
view becomes quite intelligible.
In spite of this, I enjoyed my excursions with these delightful
French lawyers quite enormously. The other pupils never
accompanied us, for they found it difficult to keep up a
conversation in French.
The average intellectual level is unquestionably far higher in
France than in England, nor is it necessary to give, to a people
accustomed for generations to understand a demi-mot, the elaborate
explanations usually necessary in England when the conversation
has got beyond the mental standards of a child six years old. The
French, too, are not addicted to perpetual wool-gathering. Nor can
I conceive of a Frenchwoman endeavouring to make herself
attractive by representing herself as so hopelessly "vague" that
she can never be trusted to remember anything, or to avoid losing
all her personal possessions. Idiocy, whether genuine or feigned,
does not appeal to the French temperament. The would-be
fascinating lady would most certainly be referred to as "une dinde
de premiere classe."
The French are the only thoroughly logical people in the world,
and their excessive development of the logical faculty leads them
at times into pitfalls. "Ils ont lesdefauts de leurs qualites." In
this country we have found out that systems, absolutely
indefensible in theory, at times work admirably well in practice,
and give excellent results. No Frenchman would ever admit that
anything unjustifiable in theory could possibly succeed in
practice--"Ce n'est pas logique," he would object, and there would
be the end of it.
The Substitut informed me one day that he was making a "retreat"
for three days at the Monastery of La Trappe d'Aiguebelle, and
asked me if I would care to accompany him. To pass three days in a
Trappist Monastery certainly promised a novel experience, but I
pointed out that I was a Protestant, and that I could hardly
expect the monks to welcome me with open arms. He answered that he
would explain matters, and that the difference of religion would
be overlooked. So off we started, and after an interminable drive
reached a huge, gaunt pile of buildings in very arid surroundings.
The "Hospice" where visitors were lodged stood apart from the
Monastery proper, the Chapel lying in between. It was explained to
me that I must observe the rule of absolute silence within the
building, and that I would be expected to be in bed by 8.15 p.m.
and to rise at 5 a.m. like the rest of the guests. It was further
conveyed to me that they hoped that I would see my way to attend
Chapel at 5.30 a.m., afterwards I should be free for the remainder
of the day. Talking and smoking were both permitted in the garden.
I was given a microscopic whitewashed cell, most beautifully
clean, containing a very small bed, one chair, a gas-jet, a prie-
Dieu, a real human skull, and nothing else whatever. We went to
dinner in a great arched refectory, where a monk, perched up in a
high pulpit, read us Thomas a Kempis in a droning monotone.
Complete silence was observed. At La Trappe no meat or butter is
ever used, but we were given a most excellent dinner of vegetable
soup, fish, omelets, and artichokes dressed with oil, accompanied
by the monks' admirable home-grown wine. There were quite a number
of visitors making "retreats," and I had hard work keeping the
muscles of my face steady, as they made pantomimic signs to the
lay-brothers who waited on us, for more omelet or more wine. After
dinner the "Frere Hospitalier," a jolly, rotund little lay-
brother, who wore a black stole over his brown habit as a sign
that he was allowed to talk, drew me on one side in the garden. As
I was a heretic (he put it more politely) and had the day to
myself, would I do him a favour? He was hard put to it to find
enough fish for all these guests; would I catch him some trout in
the streams in the forest? I asked for nothing better, but I had
no trout-rod with me. He produced a rod, SUCH a trout-rod! A long
bamboo with a piece of string tied to it! To fish for trout with a
worm was contrary to every tradition in which I had been reared,
but adaptability is a great thing, so with two turns of a spade I
got enough worms for the afternoon, and started off. The Foret
d'Aiguebelle is not a forest in our acceptation of the term, but
an endless series of little bare rocky hills, dotted with pines,
and fragrant with tufts of wild lavender, thyme and rosemary. It
was intersected with two rushing, beautifully clear streams. I
cannot conceive where all the water comes from in that arid land.
In sun-baked Nyons, water could be got anywhere by driving a
tunnel into the parched hillsides, when sooner or later an
abundant spring would be tapped. These French trout were either
ridiculously unsophisticated, or else very weary of life: they
simply asked to be caught. I got quite a heavy basket, to the
great joy of the "Frere Hospitalier," and I got far more next day.
Though we had to rise at five, we got no breakfast till eight, and
a very curious breakfast it was. Every guest had a yard of bread,
and two saucers placed in front of him; one containing honey, the
other shelled walnuts. We dipped the walnuts in the honey, and ate
them with the bread, and excellent they were. In the place of
coffee, which was forbidden, we had hot milk boiled with borage to
flavour it, quite a pleasant beverage. The washing arrangements
being primitive, I waited until every one was safely occupied in
Chapel for an hour and a half, and then had a swim in the
reservoir which supplied the monastery with water, and can only
trust that I did not dirty it much. I was greatly disappointed
with the singing in the severe, unadorned Chapel; it was
plainsong, without any organ or instrument. The effect of so great
a body of voices might have been imposing had not the intonation
(as kindly critics say at times of a debutante) been a little
uncertain. As Trappists never speak, one could understand their
losing their voices, but it seems curious that they should have
lost their ears as well, though possibly it was only the visitors
who sang so terribly out of tune.
I was taken all over the Monastery next day by the "Pere
Hospitalier," who, like his brown-frocked lay-brother, wore a
black stole over his white habit, as a badge of office. With the
exception of the fine cloisters, there were no architectural
features whatever about the squat, massive pile of buildings. The
modern chapel, studiously severe in its details, bore the
unmistakable imprint of Viollet-le-Duc's soulless, mathematically
correct Gothic. Personally, I think that Viollet-le-Duc spoiled
every ancient building in France which he "restored." I was taken
into the refectory to see the monks' dinners already laid out for
them. They consisted of nothing but bread and salad, but with such
vast quantities of each! Each monk had a yard-long loaf of bread,
a bottle of wine and an absolute stable-bucket of salad, liberally
dressed with oil and vinegar. The oil supplied the fat necessary
for nutrition, still it was a meagre enough dinner for men who had
been up since 3 a.m. and had done two hours' hard work in the
vegetable gardens. The "Pere Hospitalier" told me that not one
scrap of bread or lettuce would be left at the conclusion of the
repast. The immense austerity of the place impressed me very much.
The monks all slept on plank-beds, but they were not allowed to
remain on these hard resting-places after 3 a.m. Their "Rule" was
certainly a very severe one. I was told that the monks prepared
Tincture of Arnica for medicinal purposes in an adjoining factory,
arnica growing wild everywhere in the Forest, and that the sums
realised by the sale of this drug added materially to their
revenues.
Next day both the Substitut and I were to be received by the
Abbot. It struck me as desirable that we should have our
interviews separately, for as the Substitut was making a
"retreat," he might wish to say many private things to the Abbot
which he would not like me, a heretic, to overhear. As soon as he
had finished, I was ushered in alone to the Abbot's parlour. I
found the Abbot very dignified and very friendly, but what
possible subject of conversation could a Protestant youth of
seventeen find which would interest the Father Superior of a
French Monastery, presumably indifferent to everything that passed
outside its walls? Suddenly I had an inspiration: the Arian
Heresy! We had had four lessons on this interesting topic at
Chittenden's five years earlier (surely rather an advanced subject
for little boys of twelve!), and some of the details still stuck
in my head. A brilliant idea! Soon we were at it hammer and tongs;
discussing Arius, Alexander, and Athanasius; the Council of
Nicaea, Hosius of Cordova, homo-ousion and homoi-ousion; Eusebius
of Nicomedia, and his namesake of Caesarea.
Without intending any disrespect to these two eminent Fathers of
the Church, the two Eusebius' always reminded me irresistibly of
the two Ajaxes of Offenbach's opera-bouffe. La Belle Helene, or,
later on, of the "Two Macs" of the music-hall stage of the
"nineties." I blessed Mr. Chittenden for having so thoughtfully
provided me with conversational small-change suitable for Abbots.
The Abbot was, I think, a little surprised at my theological lore.
He asked me where I had acquired it, and when I told him that it
was at school, he presumed that I had been at a seminary for
youths destined for the priesthood, an idea which would have
greatly shocked the ultra-Evangelical Mr. Chittenden.
I was very glad that I had passed those three days at La Trappe,
for it gave one a glimpse into a wholly unsuspected world. The
impression of the tremendous severity with which the lives of the
monks were regulated, remained with me. The excellent monks made
the most absurdly small charges for our board and lodging. Years
afterwards I spent a night in an Orthodox Monastery in Russia,
when I regretfully recalled the scrupulous cleanliness of La
Trappe. Never have I shared a couch with so many uninvited guests,
and never have I been so ruthlessly devoured as in that Russian
Monastery.
With June at Nyons, silkworm time arrived. Three old women,
celebrated for their skill in rearing silkworms, came down from
the mountains, and the magnanerie, as lofts devoted to silkworm
culture are called, was filled with huge trays fashioned with
reeds. The old women had a very strenuous fortnight or so, for
silkworms demand immense care and attention. The trays have to be
perpetually cleaned out, and all stale mulberry leaves removed,
for the quality and quantity of the silk depend on the most
scrupulous cleanliness. To preserve an even temperature, charcoal
fires were lighted in the magnanerie, until the little black
caterpillars, having transformed themselves into repulsive flabby
white worms, these worms became obsessed with the desire to
increase the world's supply of silk, and to gratify them, twigs
were placed in the trays for them to spin their cocoons on. The
cocoons spun, they were all picked off, and baked in the public
ovens of the town, in order to kill the chrysalis inside. Nothing
prettier can be imagined than the streets of Nyons, with white
sheets laid in front of every house, each sheet heaped high with
glittering, shimmering, gleaming piles of silk-cocoons, varying
in shade from palest straw-colour to deep orange. If pleasant to
the eye, they were less grateful to the nose, for freshly baked
cocoons have the most offensive odour. The silk-buyers from Lyons
then made their appearance, and these shining heaps of gold thread
were transformed into a more portable form of gold, which found
its way into the pockets of the inhabitants.
The peculiarly French capacity for taking infinite pains, of which
a good example is this silkworm culture, has its drawbacks, when
carried into administrative work. My friend M. David, the post-
master of Nyons, showed me his official instructions. They formed
a volume as big as a family Bible. It would have taken years to
learn all these regulations. The simplest operations were made
enormously complicated. Let any one compare the time required for
registering a letter or a parcel in England, with the time a
similar operation in France will demand. M. David showed me the
lithographed sheet giving the special forms of numerals, 1, 2, 3,
and so on, which French postal officials are required to make.
These differ widely from the forms in general use.
I have my own suspicions that similar sheets are issued to the
cashiers in French restaurants. Personally, I can never read one
single item in the bill, much less the cost, and I can only gaze
in hopeless bewilderment at the long-tailed hieroglyphics,
recalling a backward child's first attempts at "pot-hooks."
The infinite capacity of the French for taking trouble, and their
minute attention to detail, tend towards unnecessary complications
of simple matters. Thus, on English railways we find two main
types of signals sufficient for our wants, whereas on French lines
there are five different main types of signal. On English lines we
have two secondary signals, against eight in France, all differing
widely in shape and appearance. Again, on a French locomotive the
driver has far more combinations at his command for efficient
working under varying conditions, than is the case in England. The
trend of the national mind is towards complicating details rather
than simplifying them.
Delightful as was the winter climate of Nyons, that sun-scorched
little cup amongst the hills became a place of positive torment as
the summer advanced. The heat was absolutely unendurable. Day and
night, thousands of cicades (the cigales of the French) kept up
their incessant "dzig, dzig, dzig," a sound very familiar to those
who have sojourned in the tropics. Has Nature given this singular
insect the power of dispensing with sleep? What possible object
can it hope to attain by keeping up this incessant din? If a love-
song, surely the most optimistic cicada must realise that his
amorous strains can never reach the ears of his lady-love, since
hundreds of his brethren are all keeping up the same perpetual
purposeless chirping, which must obviously drown any individual
effort. Have the cicadas a double dose of gaiete francaise in
their composition, and is this their manner of expressing it? Are
they, like some young men we know, always yearning to turn night
into day? All these are, and will remain, unsolved problems?
As I found the summer heat of Nyons unbearable, I went back to
England for a holiday, and, on the morning of my departure,
climbed some olive trees and captured fourteen live cicadas, whom
I imprisoned in a perforated cardboard box, and took back to
London with me. Twelve of them survived the journey, and as soon
as I had arrived, I carefully placed the cicadas on the boughs of
the trees in our garden in Green Street, Grosvenor Square.
Conceive the surprise of these travelled insects at finding
themselves on the soot-laden branches of a grimy London tree! The
dauntless little creatures at once recommenced their "dzig, dzig,
dzig," in their novel environment, and kept it up uninterruptedly
for twenty-four hours, in spite of the lack of appreciation of my
family, who complained that their night's rest had been seriously
interfered with by the unaccustomed noise. Next evening the
cicadas were silent. Possibly they had been choked with soot, or
had fallen a prey to London cats; but my own theory is that they
succumbed to the after-effects of a rough Channel passage, to
which, of course, they would not have been accustomed. Anyhow, for
the first time in the history of the world, the purlieus of
Grosvenor Square rang with the shrill chirping of cicadas for
twenty-four hours on end.
Six months later I regretfully bid farewell to Nyons, and went
direct from there to Germany. After studying the Teutonic tongue
for two and a half years at Harrow I was master of just two words
in it, ja and nein, so unquestionably there were gaps to fill up.
I was excedingly sorry to leave the delightful Ducros family who
had treated me so kindly, and I owe a deep debt of gratitude to
comely Mme. Ducros for the careful way in which she taught me
history. In teaching history she used what I may call the synoptic
method, taking periods of fifty years, and explaining
contemporaneous events in France, Italy, Germany, and England
during that period.
With the exception of one friendly visit to the Ducros, I have
never seen pleasant Nyons again. Of late years I have often
meditated a pilgrimage to that sunny little cup in the Dauphine
hills, but have hesitated owing to one of the sad penalties
advancing years bring with them; every single one of my friends,
man or woman, must have passed away long since. I can see Nyons,
with its encircling fringe of blue hills, just as vividly,
perhaps, with my inner eyes as I could if it lay actually before
me, and now I can still people it with the noisy, gesticulating
inhabitants whom I knew and liked so much.
I may add that in Southern French style Nyons is pronounced
"Nyonsse," just as Carpentras is termed "Carpentrasse."
CHAPTER VI
Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick
Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. electricity--Primitive theatre
toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in
London--Dramatic incidents in them--Levasseur's parody of
"Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old Pan-
Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany--
The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English Club"--
Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign tongues
--Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning various
beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving youth--The
Harz Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of German--
The odious "Kaffee-Klatsch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg's
overpowering hospitality--Hamburg's attitude towards Britain--The
city itself--Trip to British Heligoland--The island--Some
peculiarities--Migrating birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady
Maxse--The Heligoland Theatre--Winter in Heligoland.
BRUNSWICK had been selected for me as a suitable spot in which to
learn German, and to Brunswick I accordingly went. As I was then
eighteen years old, I did not care to go to a regular tutor's, but
wished to live in a German family, where I was convinced I could
pick up the language in far shorter time. I was exceedingly
fortunate in this respect. A well-to-do Managing Director of some
jute-spinning mills had recently built himself a large house. Mr.
Spiegelberg found not only that his new house was unnecessarily
big for his family, but he also discovered that it had cost him a
great deal more than he had anticipated. He was quite willing,
therefore, to enter into an arrangement for our mutual benefit.
Brunswick is one of the most beautiful old towns in Europe, Its
narrow, winding streets are (or, perhaps, were) lined with
fifteenth and sixteenth century timbered houses, each storey
projecting some two feet further over the street than the one
immediately below it, and these wooden house-fronts were one mass
of the most beautiful and elaborate carving. Imagine Staples Inn
in Holborn double its present height, and with every structural
detail chiselled with patient care into intricate patterns of
fruit and foliage, and you will get some idea of a Brunswick
street. The town contained four or five splendid old churches, and
their mediaeval builders had taken advantage of the dead-flat,
featureless plain in which Brunswick stands, to erect such lofty
towers as only the architects in the Low Countries ever devised;
towers which served as landmarks for miles around, their soaring
height silhouetted against the pale northern sky. The irregular
streets and open places contained one or two gems of Renaissance
architecture, such as the stone-built Town Hall and "Guild House,"
both very similar in character to buildings of the same date in
sleepy old Flemish towns. The many gushing fountains of mediaeval
bronze and iron-work in the streets added to the extraordinary
picturesqueness of the place. It was like a scene from an opera in
real life. It always puzzled me to think how the water for these
fountains can have been provided on that dead-flat plain in pre-
steam days. There must have been pumps of some sort. Before 1914,
tens of thousands of tourists visited Nuremberg annually, but the
guide-books are almost silent about Brunswick, which is fully as
picturesque.
The standard of material comfort appeared far higher in Brunswick
than in a French provincial town. The manner in which the
Spiegelbergs' house was fitted up seemed very elaborate after the
simple appointments of the Ducros' farm-house, though nothing in
the world would have induced me to own one single object that this
Teutonic residence contained. The Spiegelbergs treated me
extremely kindly, and I was fortunate in being quartered on such
agreeable people.
At Nyons there was not one single bookseller, but Brunswick
bristled with book-shops, and, in addition, there were two of
those most excellent lending libraries to be found in every German
town. Here almost every book ever published in German or English
was to be found, as well as a few very cautiously selected French
ones, for German parents were careful then as to what their
daughters read.
The great resource of Brunswick was the theatre, such a theatre as
does not exist in any French provincial town, and such a theatre
as has never even been dreamed of in any British town. It was
fully as large as Drury Lane, and was subsidised by the State. I
really believe that every opera ever written was given here, and
given quite admirably. In this town of 60,000 inhabitants, in
addition to the opera company, there was a fine dramatic company,
as well as a light opera company, and a corps de ballet. Sunday,
Tuesday and Saturday were devoted to grand opera, Monday to
classical drama (Schiller or Shakespeare), Wednesday to modern
comedy, Friday to light opera or farce. The bill was constantly
changing, and every new piece produced in Berlin or Vienna was
duly presented to the Brunswick public. There are certainly some
things we can learn from Germany! The mounting of the operas was
most excellent, and I have never seen better lighting effects than
on the Brunswick stage, and this, too, was all done by gas,
incandescent electric light not then being dreamed of even. I had
imagined in my simplicity that effects were far easier to produce
on the modern stage since the introduction of electric light. Sir
Johnston Forbes-Robertson, than whom there can be no greater
authority, tells me that this is not so. To my surprise, he
declares that electric light is too crude and white, and that it
destroys all illusion. He informs me that it is impossible to
obtain a convincing moonlight effect with electricity, or to give
a sense of atmosphere. Gas-light was yellow, and colour-effects
were obtained by dropping thin screens of coloured silk over the
gas-battens in the flies. This diffused the light, which a crude
blue or red electric bulb does not do. Sir Johnston Forbes-
Robertson astonished me by telling me that Henry Irving always
refused to have electric light on the stage at the Lyceum, though
he had it in the auditorium. All those marvellous and complicated
effects, which old playgoers must well recollect in Irving's
Lyceum productions, were obtained with gas. I remember the lovely
sunset, with its after-glow fading slowly into night, in the
garden scene of the Lyceum version of Faust, and this was all done
with gas. The factor of safety is another matter. With rows of
flaming gas-battens in the flies, however carefully screened off,
and another row of "gas lengths" in the wings, and flaring
"ground-rows" in close proximity to highly inflammable painted
canvas, the inevitable destiny of a gas-lit theatre is only a
question of time. The London theatres of the "sixties" all had a
smell of mingled gas and orange-peel, which I thought delicious.
Mr. Spiegelberg most sensibly suggested that as I was absolutely
ignorant of German, the easiest manner in which I could accustom
my ears to the sound of the language would be to take an
abonnement at the theatre, and to go there nightly. So for the
modest sum of thirty shillings per month, I found myself entitled
to a stall in the second row, with the right of seeing thirty
performances a month. I went every night to the theatre, and there
was no monotony about it, for the same performance was never
repeated twice in one month. I have seen, I think, every opera
ever written, and every single one of Shakespeare's tragedies. A
curious trait in the German character is petty vindictiveness. A
certain Herr Behrens had signed a contract as principal bass with
the Brunswick management. Getting a far more lucrative offer from
Vienna, the prudent Behrens had paid a fine, and thrown over the
Brunswick theatre. For eighteen months the unfortunate man was
pilloried every night on the theatre programmes. Every play-bill
had printed on it in large letters, "Kontrakt-bruchig Herr
Behrens," never allowing the audience to forget that poor Behrens
was a convicted "contract-breaker."
Half Brunswick went to the theatre every night of its life. The
ladies made no pretence of elaborate toilets, but contented
themselves with putting two tacks into the necks of their day
gowns so as to make a V-shaped opening. (With present fashions
this would not be necessary.) Over this they placed one of those
appalling little arrangements of imitation lace and blue or pink
bows, to be seen in the shop windows of every German town, and
known, I think, as Theater-Garnitures. They then drew on a pair of
dark plum-coloured gloves, and their toilet was complete. The
contrast between the handsome white-and-gold theatre and the rows
of portly, dowdy matrons, each one with her ample bosom swathed in
a piece of antimacassar, was very comical. Every abonne had his
own peg for hanging his coat and hat on, and this, and the fact
that one's neighbours in the stalls were invariably the same, gave
quite a family atmosphere to the Brunswick theatre.
The conductor was Franz Abt the composer, and the musical standard
of the operatic performances was very high indeed. The mounting
was always excellent, but going to the theatre night after night,
some of the scenery became very familiar. There was a certain
Gothic hall which seemed to share the mobile facilities of
Aladdin's palace. This hall was ubiquitous, whether the action of
the piece lay in Germany, Italy, France, or England, Mary Queen of
Scots sobbed in this hall; Wallenstein in Schiller's tragedy
ranted in it; Rigoletto reproved his flighty daughter in it. It
seemed curious that personages so widely different should all have
selected the same firm of upholsterers to fit up their sanctums.
The Spiegelbergs had many friends in the theatrical world, and I
was immensely thrilled one evening at learning that after the
performance of Lohengrin, Elsa and the Knight of the Swan were
coming home to supper with us. When Elsa appeared on the balcony
in the second act, and the moon most obligingly immediately
appeared to light up her ethereal white draperies, I was much
excited at reflecting that in two hours' time I might be handing
this lovely maiden the mustard, and it seemed hardly credible that
the resplendent Lohengrin would so soon abandon his swan in favour
of the homely goose that was awaiting him at the Spiegelbergs',
although the latter would enjoy the advantage of being roasted.
I was on the tip-toe of expectation until the singers arrived.
Fraulein Scheuerlein, the soprano, was fat, fair, and forty, all
of them perhaps on the liberal side. As she burst into the room,
the first words I heard from the romantic Elsa, whom I had last
seen sobbing over her matrimonial difficulties, were: "Dear Frau
Spiegelberg, my..." (Elsa here used a blunt dissyllable to
indicate her receptacle for food) "is hanging positively crooked
with hunger. Quick! For the love of Heaven, some bread and butter
and sausage, or I shall faint;" so the first words the heroine of
the evening addressed to me were somewhat blurred owing to her
mouth being full of sausage, which destroyed most of the glamour
of the situation. Hedwig Scheuerlein was a big, jolly, cheery
South-German, and she was a consummate artist in spite of her
large appetite, as was the tenor Schrotter too. Schrotter was a
fair-bearded giant, who was certainly well equipped physically for
playing "heroic" parts. He had one of those penetrating virile
German tenor voices that appeal to me. These good-natured artists
would sing us anything we wanted, but it was from them that I
first got an inkling of those petty jealousies that are such a
disagreeable feature of the theatrical world in every country.
Buxom Scheuerlein was a very good sort, and I used to feel
immensely elated at receiving in my stall a friendly nod over the
footlights from Isolde, Aida, Marguerite, or Lucia, as the case
might be.
I wonder why none of Meyerbeer's operas are ever given in London.
The "books," being by Scribe, are all very dramatic, and lend
themselves to great spectacular display; Meyerbeer's music is
always melodious, and has a certain obvious character about it
that would appeal to an average London audience. This is
particularly true with regard to the Prophete. The Coronation
scene can be made as gorgeous as a Drury Lane pantomime, and the
finale of the opera is thrilling, though the three Anabaptists are
frankly terrible bores. As given at Brunswick, in the last scene
the Prophet, John of Leyden, is discovered at supper with some
boon companions in rather doubtful female society. In the middle
of his drinking-song the palace is blown up. There is a loud
crash; the stage grows dark; hall, supper-table, and revellers all
disappear; and the curtain comes down slowly on moonlight shining
over some ruins, and the open country beyond. A splendid climax!
Again, the third act of Robert le Diable is magnificently
dramatic. Bertram, the Evil One in person, leads Robert to a
deserted convent whose nuns, having broken the most important of
their vows, have all been put to death. The curtain goes up on the
dim cloisters of the convent, the cloister-garth, visible through
the Gothic arches of the arcade, bathed in bright moonlight
beyond. Bertram begins his incantations, recalling the erring nuns
from the dead. Very slowly the tombs in the cloister open, and dim
grey figures, barely visible in the darkness, creep silently out
from the graves. Bertram waves his arms over the cloister-garth,
and there, too, the tombs gape apart, and more shadowy spectres
emerge. Soon the stage is full of these faint grey spectral forms.
Bertram lifts his arms. The wicked nuns throw off their grey
wrappers, and appear glittering in scarlet and gold; the stage
blazes with light, and the ballet, the famous "Pas de
Fascination," begins. When really well done, this scene is
tremendously impressive.
I once heard in Paris, Levasseur, the French counterpart of our
own Corney Grain, giving a skit on Robert le Diable, illustrating
various stage conventions. Levasseur, seated at his piano, and
keeping up an incessant ripple of melody, talked something like
this, in French, of course:--
"The stage represents Isabelle's bedroom. As is usual with stage
bedrooms, Isabelle's bower is about the size of an average
cathedral. It is very sparsely furnished, but near the footlights
is a large gilt couch, on which Isabelle is lying fast asleep.
Robert enters on tip-toe very very gently, so as not to disturb
his beloved, and sings in a voice that you could hear two miles
off, 'Isa-belle!' dropping a full octave on the last note.
Isabelle half awakes, and murmurs, 'I do believe I heard
something. I feel so nervous!' Robert advances a yard, and sings
again, if anything rather louder, 'Isa-belle!' Isabelle says:
'Really, my nerves do play me such tricks! I can't help fancying
that there is some one in the room, and I am so terribly afraid of
burglars. Perhaps it is only a mouse.' Robert advances right up to
Isabelle's bed, and shouts for the third time in a voice that
makes the chandelier ring again, 'Isa-belle!' Isabelle says, 'I
don't think that I can have imagined that. There really is some
one in the room. I'm terribly frightened, and don't quite know
what to do,' so she gets out of bed, and anxiously scans the
stalls and boxes over the footlights for signs of an intruder.
Finding no one there but the audience, she then searches the
gallery fruitlessly, and getting a sudden inspiration, she looks
behind her, and, to her immense astonishment, finds her lover
standing within a foot of her." This, as told with Levasseur's
inimitable drollery, was excruciatingly funny.
Robert is an expensive opera to put on, for, owing to hideous
jealousies at the Paris Opera, Meyerbeer was compelled to write
two prima-donna parts which afforded the rival ladies exactly
equal opportunities. In the same way Halevy, the composer of La
Juive, had to re-arrange and transpose his score, for Adolphe
Nourrit, the great Paris tenor, in 1835, when the opera was first
produced, was jealous of the splendid part the bass had been
given, the tenor's role being quite insignificant. So it came
about that La Juive is the only opera in which the grey-bearded
old father is played by the principal tenor, whilst the lover is
the light tenor. Mehul's Biblical Joseph and his Brethren is the
one opera in which there are no female characters, though
"Benjamin" is played by the leading soprano. In both the Prophete
and Favorita the contralto plays the principal part, the soprano
having a very subsidiary role. Meyerbeer wrote the part of the
Prophet himself specially for Roger, the great tenor, and that of
"Fides" for Mme. Viardot. By the way, the famous skating scene in
the Prophete was part of the original production in Paris of 1849,
and yet we think roller-skating an invention of yesterday.
I had German lessons from a Professor Hentze. This old man was the
first example of a militant German that I had come across. He was
always talking of Germany's inevitable and splendid destiny.
Although a Hanoverian by birth, he was a passionate admirer of
Bismarck and Bismarck's policy, and was a furious Pan-German in
sentiment. "Where the German tongue is heard, there will be the
German Fatherland," he was fond of quoting in the original. As he
declared that both Dutch and Flemish were but variants of Low
German, he included Holland and Belgium in the Greater Germany of
the future, as well as the German-speaking Cantons of Switzerland,
and Upper and Lower Austria. Mentally, he possibly included a
certain island lying between the North Sea and the Atlantic as
well, though, out of regard for my feelings, he never mentioned
it. Hentze taught English and French in half a dozen boys' and
girls' schools in Brunswick, and his brother taught history in the
"Gymnasium." These two mild-mannered be-spectacled old bachelors,
who in their leisure moments took snuff and played with their
poodle, were tremendous fire-eaters. They were both enormously
proud of the exploits of a cousin of theirs who, under the guise
of a harmless commercial traveller in wines, had been engaged in
spying and map-making for five years in Eastern France prior to
1870. It was, they averred (no doubt truthfully enough), owing to
the labours of their cousin and of countless others like him, that
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 had been such an overwhelming
success for Germany. Where German interests were concerned, these
two old brothers could see nothing under a white light. And
remember that they were teachers and trainers of youth; it was
they who had the moulding of the minds of the young generation. I
think that any one who knows Germany well will agree with me that
it is the influence of the teaching class, whether in school or
university, that has transformed the German mentality so greatly
during the last forty years. These two mild-mannered old Hentzes
must have infected scores and hundreds of lads with their own
aggressively militant views. By perpetually holding up to them
their own dream of a Germany covering half Europe, they must have
transmitted some of their own enthusiasm to their pupils, and
underlying that enthusiasm was a tacit assumption that the end
justified any means; that provided the goal were attained, the
manner in which it had been arrived at was a matter of quite
secondary importance. I maintain that the damnable spirit of modern
Germany is mainly due to the teaching profession, and to the
doctrines it consistently instilled into German youth.
The Hentzes took in eight resident German pupils who attended the
various schools in the town, mostly sons of wealthy Hamburg
business-people. Hentze was always urging me to associate more
with these lads, three of whom were of my own age, but I could
discover no common ground whatever on which to meet them. The
things that interested me did not appeal to them, and vice versa.
They seemed to me dull youths, heavy alike in mind and body. From
lack of sufficient fresh air and exercise they had all dull eyes,
and flabby, white faces that quivered like blancmanges when they
walked. In addition, they obstinately refused to talk German with
me, looking on me as affording an excellent opportunity for
obtaining a gratuitous lesson in English. One of Hentze's pupils
was a great contrast, physically, to the rest, for he was very
spare and thin, and seldom opened his mouth. I was to see a great
deal of this silent, slim lad later on.
Mr. Spiegelberg was a prominent member of the so-called English
and French Club in Brunswick. This was not in the least what its
name would seem to indicate; the members of the Club were not
bursting with overwhelming love for our language and institutions,
nor were they consumed with enthusiastic admiration for French art
and literature. They were merely some fifteen very practical
Brunswick commercial men, who, realising that a good working
knowledge of English and French would prove extremely useful to
them in their business relations, met at each other's houses in
rotation on one night a week during the winter months, when the
host of the evening provided copious supplies of wine, beer and
cigars. For one hour and a half the members of the Club had to
talk English or French as the case might be, under a penalty of a
fine of one thaler (three shillings) for every lapse into their
native German. Mr. Spiegelberg informed me that I had been elected
an honorary member of the English and French Club, which flattered
my vanity enormously at the time. In the light of more mature
experience I quite understand that the presence of a youth to whom
knotty points in both languages could be submitted would be a
considerable asset to the Club, but I then attributed my election
solely to my engaging personality. These Club evenings amused me
enormously, though incidentally they resulted in my acquiring a
precocious love of strong, rank Hamburg cigars. Let us imagine
fifteen portly, be-spectacled, middle-aged or elderly men seated
around a table groaning under a collection of bottles of all
shapes and sizes, addressing each other in laboured inverted
English. The German love of titles is a matter of common
knowledge. All these business men had honorific appellations which
they translated into English and introduced scrupulously into
every sentence. The conversation was something like this:
"But, Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways, I do not think that you
understand rightly what Mr. Factory Director Spiegelberg says. Mr.
Factory Director also spins jute. To make concurrenz with Dundee
in Schottland, he must produce cheaply. To produce cheaply he must
become...no, obtain new machinery from Leeds in England. If that
machinery is duty-payable, Mr. Factory Director cannot produce so
cheaply. That seems to me clear. Once our German industries
established are, then we will see. That is another matter."
"I take the liberty to differ, Mr. Councillor of Commerce. How
then shall our German industries flourish, if they not protected
be? What for a doctrine is that? Mr. Factory Director Spiegelberg
thinks only of jute. Outside jute, the German world of commerce is
greater, and with in-the-near-future-to-be-given railways
facilities, vast and imposing shortly shall be."
"What Mr. Councillor of Commerce just has said, is true. You, Mr.
Over-Inspector of Railways, and also you, Mr. Ducal Supervisor of
Forests, are not merchants like us, but much-skilled specialists;
so is the point of view different, Mr. Town Councillor Balhorn,
you have given us most brilliant beer to-night. This is no beer of
here, it must be real Munich. It tastes famous. Prosit!"
"I thank you, Mr. Court Councillor. In the place, gentlemen, of
with-anger-discussing Free Trade, let us all drink some Munich
beer. Discussion is good, but beer with content is better."
Now I put it to you--could any one picture fifteen English
business men in Manchester, Liverpool, or Leeds doing anything so
sensible as to meet once a week amongst themselves, to acquire
proficiency and fluency in French, Spanish, or German, all of
which languages they must presumably require at times for the
purposes of their business. Every one knows that it is
unthinkable. No Englishman could be bothered to take the trouble.
Why is it that English people have this extraordinary reluctance
to learn any foreign language? It is certainly not from want of
natural ability to do so, though this natural aptitude may be
discounted by the difficulty most English people experience in
keeping their minds concentrated. I venture to assert
unhesitatingly that, with the exception of Dutch and Russian
people, English folk learn foreign languages with greater ease
than any other nationality. This is notably true with regard to
Russian and Spanish. The English throat is more flexible than that
of the Frenchman or German, and, with the one exception of French,
there are no unwonted sounds in any European language that an
Englishman cannot reproduce fairly accurately. We have something
like the hard Russian "l" in the last syllable of "impossible,"
and to the Scottish or Irish throat the Dutch hard initial
guttural, and the Spanish soft guttural offer but little
difficulty. "Jorje," which looks like "George" spelt phonetically,
but is pronounced so very differently, can easily be mastered, and
that real teaser "gracht," the Dutch for "canal," with a strong
guttural at either end of it, eomes easily out of a Scottish
throat. The power to acquire these tongues is there, but the
inclination is woefully lacking.
Some ten years ago I went out to Panama to have a look at the
canal works. On board the mail-steamer there were twelve
commercial travellers representing British firms, bound for the
West Coast of South America. Ten of these twelve were Germans, all
speaking English and Spanish fluently in addition to their native
German. The other two were English, not knowing one word of any
language but their own. I had a long talk with these two
Englishmen, and asked them whether they were familiar with the
varying monetary standards of the countries they were going to
visit; for the nominal dollar represents a widely different value
in each South American State. No, they knew nothing whatever about
this, and were quite ignorant of Spanish-American weights and
measures. Now what possible object did the firms sending out these
ill-equipped representatives hope to attain? Could they in their
wildest moments have supposed that they would get one single order
through their agency? And how came it about that these young men
were so ignorant of the language and customs of the countries they
were proposing to travel? During the voyage I noticed the German
travellers constantly conversing with South Americans from the
Pacific Coast, in an endeavour to improve their working knowledge
of Spanish; meanwhile the young Englishmen played deck-quoits and
talked English. That in itself is quite sufficiently
characteristic. In Manchester there is a firm who do a large
business in manufacturing brightly coloured horse-trappings for
the South American market. I speak with some confidence about
this, for I have myself watched those trappings being made. Most
of the "ponchos" used in the Argentine are woven in Glasgow. Why
is it that in these two great industrial centres no one seems to
have thought of establishing a special class in any of the
numerous schools and colleges for training youths as commercial
travellers in foreign countries? They would have, in addition to
learning two or three languages, to get used to making quick
calculations in dollars and cents, and in dollars of very varying
values; they would also have to learn to THINK quickly in weights
and measures different to those to which they had been accustomed.
Why should British firms be compelled to use German travellers,
owing to the ineptitude of their own countrymen? The power to
learn is there; it is only the will that is lacking, and in
justice I must add, perhaps the necessary facilities. People who
do not mind taking trouble will always in the end get a pull over
people who hate all trouble. I think that our present King once
cried, "Buck up, England!" and his Majesty spoke true; very few
things can be done in this world without taking a little trouble.
To return, after this long digression, to the portly German
middle-aged business men who met weekly in Brunswick to improve
their working knowledge of French and English, I must candidly say
that I never detected the faintest shadow of animosity to Great
Britain in them. They were not Prussians--they were Hanoverians
and Brunswickers. They felt proud, I think, that the throne of
Britain was then occupied by a branch of their own ancient House
of Guelph; they remembered the hundred years' connection between
Britain and Hanover; as business men they acknowledged Britain's
then unquestioned industrial supremacy, and they recognised that
men of their class enjoyed in England a position and a power which
was not accorded to them in Germany. Certainly they never lost an
opportunity of pointing out that Britain was neither a military
nor a fighting nation, and would never venture again to conduct a
campaign on the Continent. Recent events will show how correct
they were in their forecasts.
I liked the society of these shrewd, practical men, for from being
so much with the French judges, I had become accustomed to
associating with men double or treble my own age. There was
nothing corresponding to the gaiete francaise about them, though
at times a ponderous playfulness marked their lighter moments, and
flashes of elephantine jocularity enlivened the proceedings of the
Club. I picked up some useful items of knowledge from them, for I
regret to admit that up to that time I had no idea what a bill of
lading was, or a ship's manifest; after a while, even such cryptic
expressions, too, as f.o.b. and c.i.f. ceased to have any
mysteries for me. Let the inexperienced beware of "Swedish Punch,"
a sickly, highly-scented preparation of arrack. I do not speak
from personal experience, for I detest the sweet, cloying stuff;
but it occasionally fell to my lot to guide down-stairs the
uncertain footsteps of some ventripotent Kommerzien-Rath, or even
of Mr. Over-Inspector of Railways himself, both temporarily
incapacitated by injudicious indulgence in Swedish Punch. "So,
Herr Ober-Inspector, endlich sind wir glucklich herunter gekommen.
Jetz konnen Sie nach Hause immer aug gleichem Fusse gehen.
Naturlich! Jedermann weisst wie abscheulich kraftig Schwedischer
Punsch ist. Die Strasse ist ganz leer. Gluckliche Heimkehr, Herr
Ober-Inspector!"
It was difficult to attend the Club without becoming a connoisseur
in various kinds of German beer. Brunswick boasts a special local
sweet black beer, brewed from malted wheat instead of barley,
known as "Mumme"--heavy, unpalatable stuff. If any one will take
the trouble to consult Whitaker's Almanac, and turn to "Customs
Tariff of the United Kingdom," they will find the very first
article on the list is "Mum." "Berlin white beer" follows this.
One of the few occasions when I have ever known Mr. Gladstone
nonplussed for an answer, was in a debate on the Budget (I think
in 1886) on a proposed increase of excise duties. Mr. Gladstone
was asked what "Mum" was, and confessed that he had not the
smallest idea. The opportunity for instructing the omniscient Mr.
Gladstone seemed such a unique one, that I nearly jumped up in my
place to tell him that it was a sweet black beer brewed from
wheat, and peculiar to Brunswick; but being a very young Member of
the House then, I refrained, as it looked too much like self-
advertisement; besides, "Mum" was so obviously the word. "White
beer" is only made in Berlin; it is not unlike our ginger-beer,
and is pleasant enough. The orthodox way of ordering it in Berlin
is to ask the waiter for "eine kuhle Blonde." I do not suppose
that one drop of either of these beverages has been imported into
the United Kingdom for a hundred years; equally I imagine that the
first two Georges loved them as recalling their beloved Hanover,
and indulged freely in them; whence their place in our Customs
tariff.
One of the members of the English and French Club was a Mr.
Vieweg, at that time, I believe, the largest manufacturer of
sulphate of quinine in Europe. Mr. Vieweg was that rara avis
amongst middle-class German business-men, a born sportsman. He had
already made two sporting trips to Central Africa after big game,
and rented a large shooting estate near Brunswick. In common with
the other members of the Club, he treated me very kindly and
hospitably, and I often had quaint repasts at his house, beginning
with sweet chocolate soup, and continuing with eels stewed in
beer, carp with horseradish, "sour-goose," and other Teutonic
delicacies. Mr. Vieweg's son was one of Hentze's pupils, and was
the thin, silent boy I have already noticed. I remember well how
young Vieweg introduced himself to me in laboured English, "Are
you a friend to fishing with the fly?" he asked. "I also fish most
gladly, and if you wish, we will together to the Harz Mountains
go, and there many trout catch." As the Harz Mountains are within
an hour of Brunswick by train, off we went, and young Vieweg was
certainly a most expert fisherman. My respect for him was
increased enormously when I found that he did not mind in the
least how wet he got whilst fishing. Most German boys of his age
would have thought standing in cold water up to their knees a
certain forerunner of immediate death.
Vieweg told me, with perfect justice, that he knew every path and
every track in the Northern Harz, and that he had climbed every
single hill. He complained that none of his German friends cared
for climbing or walking, and asked whether I would accompany him
on one of his expeditions. So a week later we went again to the
Harz, and Vieweg led me an interminable and very rough walk up-
hill and down-dale. He afterwards confessed that he was trying to
tire me out, in which he failed signally, for I have always been,
and am still, able to walk very long distances without fatigue. He
had taken four of his fellow-pupils from Hentze's over the same
road, and they had all collapsed, and had to be driven back to the
railway in a hay-cart, in the last stages of exhaustion. Finding
that he could not walk me down, Vieweg developed an odd sort of
liking for me, just as I had admired him for standing up to his
knees in very cold water for a couple of hours on end whilst
fishing. So a queer sort of friendship sprang up between me and
this taciturn youth. The only subject which moved Vieweg to
eloquence was quinine, out of which his father had made his
fortune. I confess that at that time I knew no more about that
admirable prophylactic than the Queen of Sheba knew about dry-fly
fishing, and had not the faintest idea of how quinine was made.
Vieweg, warming to his subject, explained to me that the cinchona
bark was treated with lime and alcohol, and informed me that his
father now obtained the bark from Java instead of from South
America as formerly. He did his utmost to endeavour to kindle a
little enthusiasm in me on the subject of this valuable febrifuge.
When not talking of quinine, he kept silence. This singular youth
was obsessed with a passionate devotion to the lucrative drug.
The Harz Mountains are pretty without being grand. The far-famed
Brocken is not 4000 ft. high, but rising as these hills do out of
the dead-flat North German plain, the Harz have been glorified and
magnified by a people accustomed to monotonous levels, and are the
setting for innumerable German legends. The Brocken is, of course,
the traditional scene of the "Witches Sabbath" on Walpurgis-Nacht,
and many of the rock-strewn valleys seem to have pleasant
traditions of bloodthirsty ogres and gnomes associated with them.
There is no real climbing in the Harz, easy tracks lead to all the
local lions. As is customary in methodical Germany, signposts
direct the pedestrian to every view and every waterfall, and I
need hardly add that if one post indicates the Aussichtspunkt, a
corresponding one will show the way to the restaurant without
which no view in Germany would be complete. Through rocky defiles
and pine-woods, over swelling hills and past waterfalls, Vieweg
and I trudged once a week in sociable silence, broken only by a
few scraps of information from my companion as to the prospects of
that year's crop of cinchona bark, and the varying wholesale price
of that interesting commodity. At times, before a fine view,
Vieweg would make quite a long speech for him: "Du Fritz! Schon
was?" using, of course, the German diminutive to my Christian
name, after which he would gaze on the prospect and relapse into
silence, and dreamy meditations on sulphate of quinine and its
possibilities.
I think Vieweg enjoyed these excursions, for on returning to
Brunswick after about four hours' un-broken silence, he would
always say on parting, "Du Fritz! War nicht so ubel;" or, "Fritz,
it wasn't so bad," very high praise from so sparing a talker.
Mr. Vieweg senior invited me to shoot with him on several
occasions during the winter months. The "Kettle-drive" (Kessel-
Treib) is the local manner of shooting hares. Guns and beaters
form themselves into an immense circle, a mile in diameter, over
the treeless, hedgeless flats, and all advance slowly towards the
centre of the circle. At first, it is perfectly safe to fire into
the circle, but as it diminishes in size, a horn is sounded, the
guns face round, back to back, and as the beaters advance alone,
hares are only killed as they run out of the ring. Hares are very
plentiful in North Germany, and "Kettle-drives" usually resulted
in a bag of from thirty to forty of them. To my surprise, in the
patches of oak-scrub on the moor-lands, there were usually some
woodcock, a bird which I had hitherto associated only with
Ireland. Young Vieweg was an excellent shot; in common with all
his father's other guests, he was arrayed in high boots, and in
one of those grey-green suits faced with dark green, dear to the
heart of the German sportsman. The guns all looked like the chorus
in the Freischutz, and I expected them to break at any moment into
the "Huntsmen's Chorus." Young Vieweg was greatly pained at my
unorthodox costume, for I wore ordinary homespun knickerbockers,
and sported neither a green Tyrolese hat with a blackcock's tail
in it, nor high boots; my gun had no green sling attached to it,
nor did I carry a game-bag covered with green tassels, all of
which, it appeared, were absolutely essential concomitants to a
Jagd-Partie.
In these country districts round Brunswick nothing but Low German
("Platt-Deutsch") was talked. Low German is curiously like English
at times. The sentence, "the water is deep," is identical in both
tongues. "Mudder," "brudder," and "sister" have all a familiar
ring about them, too. The word "watershed," as applied to the
ridge separating two river systems, had always puzzled me. In High
German it is "Wasser-scheide," i.e. water-parting; in Low German
it is "Water-shed," with the same meaning, thus making our own
term perfectly clear. "Low" German, of course, only means the
dialect spoken in the low-lying North German plains: "High"
German, the language spoken in the hilly country south of the Harz
Mountains. High German only became the literary language of the
country owing to Luther having deliberately chosen that dialect
for the translation of the Bible. The Nibelungen-Lied and the
poems of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were all in Middle-
High German (Mittel-Hoch Deutsch).
I remember being told as a boy, when standing on the terrace of
Windsor Castle, that in a straight line due east of us there was
no such corresponding an elevation until the Ural Mountains were
reached, on the boundary between Europe and Asia. This will give
some idea of the extreme flatness of Northern Europe, for the
terrace at Windsor can hardly be called a commanding eminence.
I am sorry to say that for over forty years I have quite lost
sight of Vieweg. My connection with quinine, too, has been usually
quite involuntary. I have had two very serious bouts of malarial
fever, one in South America, the other in the West Indies, and on
both occasions I owed my life to quinine. Whilst taking this
bitter, if beneficent drug, I sometimes wondered whether it had
been prepared under the auspices of the friend of my youth. So
ignorant am I of the quinine world, that I do not know whether the
firm of Buchler & Vieweg still exists. One thing I do know: Vieweg
must be now sixty-three years old, should he be still alive, and I
am convinced that he remains an upright and honourable gentleman.
I would also venture a surmise that business competitors find it
very hard to overreach him, and that he has escaped the garrulous
tendencies of old age.
One of the curses of German towns is the prevalence of malicious
and venomous gossip. This is almost entirely due to that pestilent
institution the "Coffee Circle," or Kaffee Klatsch, that standing
feature of German provincial life. Amongst the bourgeoisie, the
ladies form associations, and meet once a week in turn at each
others' houses. They bring their work with them, and sit for two
hours, eating sweet cakes, drinking coffee, and tearing every
reputation in the towns to tatters. All males are jealously
excluded from these gatherings. Mrs. Spiegelberg was a pretty,
fluffy little English woman, without one ounce of malice in her
composition. She had lived long enough in Germany, though, to know
that she would not be welcomed at her "Coffee Circle" unless she
brought her budget of pungent gossip with her, so she collected it
in the usual way. The instant the cook returned from market, Mrs.
Spiegelberg would rush into the kitchen with a breathless, "Na,
Minna, was gibt's neues?" or "Now, Minna, what is the news?"
Minna, the cook, knowing what was expected of her, proceeded to
unfold her items of carefully gathered gossip: Lieutenant von
Trinksekt had lost three hundred marks at cards, and had been
unable to pay; it was rumored that Fraulein Unsittlich's six
weeks' retirement from the world was not due to an attack of
scarlet fever, as was alleged, but to a more interesting cause,
and so on, and so on. The same thing was happening,
simultaneously, in every kitchen in Brunswick, and at the next
"Coffee Circle" all these rumours would be put into circulation
and magnified, and the worst possible interpretation would be
given them. All German women love spying, as is testified by those
little external mirrors fixed outside almost every German window,
by which the mistress of the house can herself remain unseen,
whilst noting every one who passes down the street, or goes into
the houses on either side. I speak with some bitterness of the
poisonous tongues of these women, for I cannot forget how a
harmless episode, when I happened to meet a charming friend of
mine, and volunteered to carry her parcels home, was distorted and
perverted.
One of Hentze's pupils, a heavy, bovine youth, invited me to
Hamburg to his parents' silver wedding festivities. I was anxious
to see Hamburg, so I accepted. Moser's parents inhabited an
opulent and unimaginably hideous villa on the outskirts of
Hamburg. They treated me most hospitably and kindly, but never had
I pictured such vast eatings and drinkings as took place in their
house. Moser's other relations were equally hospitable, until I
became stupid and comatose from excessive nourishment. I could not
discover the faintest trace of hostility to England amongst these
wealthy Hamburg merchants. They had nearly all traditional
business connections with England, and most of them had commenced
their commercial careers in London. They resented, on the other
hand, the manner in which they were looked down on by the Prussian
Junkers, who, on the ground of their having no "von" before their
names, tried to exclude them from every branch of the public
service. The whole of Germany had not yet become Prussianised.
These Hamburg men were intensely proud of their city. They
boasted, and I believe with perfect reason, that the dock and
harbour facilities of Hamburg far exceeded anything to be found in
the United Kingdom. I was taken all over the docks, and treated
indeed with such lavish hospitality that every seam of my garments
strained under the unwonted pressure of these enormous repasts.
Hamburg being a Free Port, travellers leaving for any other part
of Germany had to undergo a regular Customs examination at the
railway station, as though it were a frontier post. Hamburg
impressed me as a vastly prosperous, handsome, well-kept town. The
attractive feature of the place is the "Alster Bassin," the clear,
fresh-water lake running into the very heart of the town. All the
best houses and hotels were built on the stone quays of the Alster
facing the lake. Geneva, Stockholm, and Copenhagen are the only
other European towns I know of with clear lakes running into the
middle of the city. The Moser family's silver wedding festivities
did not err on the side of niggardliness. The guests all assembled
in full evening dress at three in the afternoon, when there was a
conjuring and magic-lantern performance for the children. This was
followed by an excellent concert, which in its turn was succeeded
by a vast and Gargantuan dinner. Then came an elaborate display of
fireworks, after which dancing continued till 4 a.m., only
interrupted by a second colossal meal, thus affording, as young
Moser proudly pointed out, thirteen hours' uninterrupted
amusement.
As I felt certain that I should promptly succumb to apoplexy, had
I to devour any more food, I left next day for Heligoland, then,
of course, still a British Colony, an island I had always had the
greatest curiosity to see. A longer stay in Hamburg might have
broadened my mind, but it would also unquestionably have broadened
my waist-belt as well.
The steamer accomplished the journey from Hamburg in seven hours,
the last three over the angry waters of the open North Sea. To my
surprise the steamer, though island-owned, did not fly the British
red ensign, but the Heligoland flag of horizontal bars of white,
green, and red. There is a local quatrain explaining these
colours, which may be roughly Englished as--
"White is the strand,
But green the land,
Red the rocks stand
Round Heligoland."
Heligoland is the quaintest little spot imaginable, shaped like an
isosceles triangle with the apex pointing northwards. The area of
the whole island is only three-fourths of a square mile; it is
barely a mile long, and at its widest only 500 yards broad. It is
divided into Underland and Overland; the former a patch of shore
on the sheltered side of the island, covered with the neatest
little toy streets and houses. In its neatness and smallness it is
rather like a Japanese town, and has its little theatre and its
little Kurhaus complete. There are actually a few trees in the
Underland. Above it, the red ramparts of rock rise like a wall to
the Overland, only to be reached by an endless flight of steps. On
the green tableland of the Overland, the houses nestle and huddle
together for shelter on the leeward side of the island, the
prevailing winds being westerly. The whole population let
lodgings, simply appointed, but beautifully neat and clean, as one
would expect amongst a seafaring population. There are a few
patches of cabbages and potatoes trying to grow in spite of the
gales, and all the rest is green turf. There is not one tree on
the wind-swept Overland. I heard nothing but German and Frisian
talked around me, and the only signs of British occupation were
the Union Jack flying in front of Government House (surely the
most modest edifice ever dignified with that title), and a notice-
board in front of the powder-magazine on the northern point of the
island. This notice-board was inscribed, "V.R. Trespassers will be
prosecuted," which at once gave a homelike feeling, and made one
realise that it was British soil on which one was standing.
The island had only been ceded to us in 1814, and we handed it
over to Germany in 1890, so our tenure was too brief for us to
have struck root deeply into the soil. Heligoland was a splendid
recruiting ground for the Royal Navy, for the islanders were a
hardy race of seafarers, and made ideal material for bluejackets.
There was not a horse or cow on the island, ewes supplying all the
milk. As sheep's milk has an unappetising green tinge about it, it
took a day or two to get used to this unfamiliar-looking fluid.
There being no fresh water on Heligoland, the rain water from the
roofs was all caught and stored in tanks. On that rainswept rock I
cannot conceive it likely that the water supply would ever fail.
Some-how the idea was prevalent in England that Heligoland was
undermined by rabbits. There was not one single rabbit on the
island, for even rabbits find it hard to burrow into solid rock.
Professor Gatke's books on the migrations of birds are well known.
Heligoland lies in the track of migrating birds, and Dr. Gatke had
established himself there for some years to observe them, and
there was a really wonderful ornithological museum close to the
lighthouse. The Heligoland lighthouse is a very powerful one, and
every single one of these stuffed birds had committed suicide
against the thick glass of the lantern. The lighthouse keepers
told me that during the migratory periods, they sometimes found as
many as a hundred dead birds on the external gallery of the light
in the morning, all of whom had killed themselves against the
light.
From 1830 to 1871 there were public gaming-tables in Heligoland,
and the Concessionaire paid such a high price for his permit that
the colonial finances were in the most flourishing condition. In
1871, Downing Street stopped this, with disastrous effect on the
island budget. Fortunately, Germans took to coming over in vast
numbers for the excellent sea-bathing, and so money began to flow
in again. The place attracted them with its glorious sea air; it
had all the advantages of a ship, without the ship's motion.
I paid a second visit to Heligoland three years later, when I was
Attache at our Berlin Embassy. Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse, the uncle
of Mr. Leo Maxse of the National Review, was Governor then. Sir
Fitzhardinge had done his utmost to anglicise the island, and the
"Konigstrasse" and "Oststrasse" had now become "King Street" and
"East Street." He had induced, too, some of the shop-keepers to
write the signs over their shops in English, at times with
somewhat eccentric spelling; for one individual proclaimed himself
a "Familie Grozer." How astonished the Governor and I would have
been to know that in twenty years' time his much-loved island
would be transformed into one solid concreted German fortress! Sir
Fitzhardinge had a great love for the theatre. He was, I believe,
the only person who had ever tried to write plays in two
languages. His German plays had been very successful, and two one-
act plays he wrote in English had been produced on the London
stage. He always managed to engage a good German company to play
in the little Heligoland theatre during the summer months, and
having married the leading tragic actress of the Austrian stage,
both he and Lady Maxse occasionally appeared on the boards
themselves, playing, of course, in German. It looked curious
seeing a bill of the "Theatre Royal on Heligoland," announcing
Shakespeare's tragedy of Macbeth, with "His Excellency the
Governor as Macbeth, and Lady Maxse as Lady Macbeth."
There is a fine old Lutheran Church on Heligoland. It is the only
Protestant church in which I have ever seen ex votos. When the
island fishermen had weathered an unusually severe gale, it was
their custom to make a model of their craft, and to present it as
a thank-offering to the church. There were dozens of these models,
all beautifully finished, suspended from the roof of the church by
wires, and the fronts of the galleries were all hung with fishing
nets. The singing in that church was remarkably good.
It was a pleasant, unsophisticated little island; a place of fresh
breezes, and red cliffs with great sweeping surges breaking
against them; a place of sunshine, and huge expanses of pale
dappled sky.
Lady Maxse told me that it was impossible for any one to picture
the unutterable dreariness of Heligoland in winter; when little
Government House rocked ceaselessly under the fierce gales, and
the whole island was drenched in clouds of spindrift; the rain
pounding on the window-panes like small-shot, and the howling of
the wind drowning all other sounds. She said that they were
frequently cut off from the mainland for three weeks on end,
without either letters, newspapers, or fresh meat, as the steamers
were unable to make the passage. There was nothing to do, nowhere
to go, and no one to speak to. It must have been a considerable
change for any one accustomed to the life of careless, easy-going,
glittering Vienna in the old days. Even Sir Fitzhardinge confessed
that during the winter gales he had frequently to make his way on
all fours from the stairs from the Underland to Government House,
to avoid being blown over the cliffs. Lady Maxse hung an extra
pair of pink muslin curtains over every window in Government
House, to shut out the sight of the wintry sea, but the angry,
grey and white rollers of the restless North Sea asserted
themselves even through the pink muslin.
I am glad that I saw this wind-swept little rock whilst it was
still a scrap of British territory. When my time came for leaving
Brunswick, I was genuinely sorry to go. I confess that I liked
Germany and the Germans; I had been extremely well treated, and
had got used to German ways.
The teaching profession were only then sowing broadcast the seed
which was to come to maturity thirty years later. They were
moulding the minds of the rising generation to the ideals which
find their most candid exponent in Nietzsche. The seed was sown,
but had not yet germinated; the greater portion of Germany in 1875
was still un-Prussianised, but effect followed cause, and we all
know the rest.
CHAPTER VII
Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The
Victorian girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre--Two witty ladies--
Two clever girls and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked
Johnsonian English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation--
Practical jokes--Lord Charles Beresford and the old Club-member--
The shoe-less legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted
wine--Celyon's spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public
interest in Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John
Bright, and Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation
--W.H. Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary
hours at Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay.
The London of 1876 boasted an extraordinary constellation of
lovely women. First and foremost came the two peerless Moncreiffe
sisters, Georgiana Lady Dudley, and Helen Lady Forbes. Lady Dudley
was then a radiant apparition, and her sister, the most perfect
example of classical beauty I have ever seen, had features as
clean-cut as those of a cameo. Lady Forbes always wore her hair
simply parted in the middle, a thing that not one woman in a
thousand can afford to do, and glorious auburn hair it was, with a
natural ripple in it. I have seldom seen a head so perfectly
placed on the shoulders as that of Lady Forbes. The Dowager Lady
Ormonde and the late Lady Ripon were then still unmarried; the
first, Lady Leila Grosvenor, with the face of a Raphael Madonna,
the other, Lady Gladys Herbert, a splendid, slender, Juno-like
young goddess. The rather cruelly named "professional beauties"
had just come into prominence, the three great rivals being Mrs.
Langtry, then fresh from Jersey, Mrs. Cornwallis West, and Mrs.
Wheeler. Unlike most people, I should myself have given the prize
to the second of these ladies. I do not think that any one now
could occupy the commanding position in London which Constance
Duchess of Westminster and the Duchess of Manchester (afterwards
Duchess of Devonshire) then held. In fact, with skirts to the
knee, and an unending expanse of stocking below them, it would be
difficult to assume the dignity with which these great ladies, in
their flowing Victorian draperies, swept into a room. The stately
Dutchess of Westminster, in spite of her massive outline, had
still a fine classical head, and the Duchess of Manchester was one
of the handsomest women in Europe. London society was so much
smaller then, that it was a sort of enlarged family party, and I,
having six married sisters, found myself with unnumbered hosts of
relations and connections. I retain delightful recollections of
the mid-Victorian girl. These maidens, in their airy clouds of
white, pink, or green tulle, and their untouched faces, had a
deliciously fresh, flower-like look which is wholly lacking in
their sisters of to-day. A young girl's charm is her freshness,
and if she persists in coating her face with powder and rouge that
freshness vanishes, and one sees merely rows of vapid little doll-
like faces, all absolutely alike, and all equally artificial and
devoid of expression. These present skimpy draperies cause one to
reflect that Nature has not lavished broadcast the gift of good
feet and neat ankles; possibly some girls might lengthen their
skirts if they realised this truth.
In the "seventies" there was a wonderful galaxy of talent at the
old Gaiety Theatre, Nellie Farren, Kate Vaughan, Edward Terry, and
Royce forming a matchless quartette. Young men, of course, will
always be foolish, up to the end of time. Nellie Farren, Kate
Vaughan and Emily Duncan all had their "colours." Nellie Farren's
were dark blue, light blue, and white; Kate Vaughan's were pink
and grey; Emily Duncan's black and white; the leading hosiers
"stocked" silk scarves of these colours, and we foolish young men
bought the colours of the lady we especially admired, and sat in
the stalls of the Gaiety flaunting the scarves of our favourite
round our necks. As I then thought, and still think, that Nellie
Farren was one of the daintiest and most graceful little creatures
ever seen on the stage, with a gaminerie all her own, I, in common
with many other youths, sat in the stalls of the Gaiety wrapped in
a blue-and-white scarf. Each lady showered smiles over the
footlights at her avowed admirers, whilst contemptuously ignoring
those who sported her rival's colours. One silly youth, to testify
to his admiration for Emily Duncan, actually had white kid gloves
with black fingers, specially manufactured for him. He was, we
hope, repaid for his outlay by extra smiles from his enchantress.
Traces of the witty early nineteenth century still lingered into
the "seventies," "eighties," and "nineties." Lady Constance
Leslie, who is still living, and the late Lady Cork were almost
the last descendants of the brilliant wits of Sydney Smith and
Theodore Hook's days. The hurry of modern life, and the tendency
of the age to scratch the surface of things only, are not
favourable to the development of this type of keen intellect,
which was based on a thorough knowledge of the English classics,
and on such a high level of culture as modern trouble-hating women
could but seldom hope to attain. Time and time again I have asked
Lady Cork for the origin of some quotation. She invariably gave it
me at once, usually quoting some lines of the context at the same
time. When I complimented her on her wonderful knowledge of
English literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
she answered, "In my young days we studied the 'Belles Lettres';
modern women only study 'Belle's Letters,'" an allusion to a
weekly summary of social events then appearing in the World under
that title, a chronicle voraciously devoured by thousands of
women. When the early prejudice against railways was alluded to by
some one who recalled the storms of protest that the conveyance of
the Duke of Sussex's body by train to Windsor for burial provoked,
as being derogatory to the dignity of a Royal Duke, it was Lady
Cork who rapped out, "I presume in those days, a novel apposition
of the quick and the dead." A certain peer was remarkable alike
for his extreme parsimony and his unusual plainness of face. His
wife shared these characteristics, both facial and temperamental,
to the full, and yet this childless, unprepossessing and eminently
economical couple were absolutely wrapped up in one another; after
his death she only lingered on for three months. Some one
commenting on this, said, "They were certainly the stingiest and
probably the ugliest couple in England, yet their devotion to each
other was very beautiful. They could neither of them bear to part
with anything, not even with each other. After his death she was
like a watch that had lost its mainspring." "Surely," flashed Lady
Constance Leslie, "more like a vessel which had lost her auxiliary
screw." The main characteristic of both Lady Cork and Lady
Constance Leslie's humour was its lightning speed. It is
superfluous to add, with these quick-witted ladies it was never
necessary to EXPLAIN anything, as it is to the majority of English
people; they understood before you had finished saying it.
Many years after, in the late "eighties," Lady Constance Leslie's
two elder daughters, now Mrs. Crawshay and Lady Hope, developed a
singular gift. They could improvise blank verse indefinitely, and
with their father, Sir John Leslie, they acted little mock
Shakespearean dramas in their ordinary clothes, and without any
scenery or accessories. Every word was impromptu, and yet the even
flow of blank verse never ceased. I always thought it a singularly
clever performance, for Mrs. Crawshay can only have been nineteen
then, and her sister eighteen. Mrs. Crawshay invariably played the
heroine, Lady Hope the confidante, and Sir John Leslie any male
part requisite. No matter what the subject given them might be,
they would start in blank verse at once. Let us suppose so
unpromising a subject as the collection of railway tickets outside
a London terminus had been selected. Lady Hope, with pleading
eyes, and all the conventional gestures of sympathy of a stage
confidante, would at once start apostrophising her sister in some
such fashion as this:--
"Fair Semolina, dry those radiant orbs; Thy swain doth beg thee
but a token small Of that great love which thou dost bear to him.
Prithee, sweet mistress, take now heart of grace, At times we all
credentials have to show, Eftsoons at Willesden halts the panting
train, Each traveller knows inexorable fate Hath trapped him in
her toils; loud rings the tread Of brass-bound despot as he wends
his way From door to door, claiming with gesture rude His pound of
flesh, or eke the pasteboard slip, Punched with much care, all
travel-worn and stained, For which perchance ten ducats have been
paid, Granting full access from some distant spot. Then trembles
he, who reckless loves to sip The joys of travel free of all
expense; Knowing the fate that will pursue him, when To stern
collector he hath naught to show."
To which her sister, Mrs. Crawshay, would reply, without one
instant's hesitation, somewhat after this style:--
"Sweet Tapioca, firm and faithful friend,
Thy words have kindled in my guilty breast
Pangs of remorse; to thee I will confess.
Craving a journey to the salt sea waves
Before this moon had waxed her full, I stood
Crouching, and feigning infant's stature small
Before the wicket, whence the precious slips
Are issued, and declared my years but ten.
Thus did I falsely pretext tender age,
And claimed but half the wonted price, and now
Bitter remorse my stricken conscience sears,
And hot tears flow at my duplicity."
The lines would probably have been more neatly worded than this,
but the flow of improvised blank verse from both sisters was
inexhaustible. The somewhat unusual names of Semolina and Tapioca
had been adopted for the heroine and confidante on account of
their rhythmical advantages, and a certain pleasant Shakespearean
ring about them.
I know another family who from long practice have acquired the
habit of addressing each other in flowing periods of Johnsonian
English. They never hesitate for an epithet, and manage to round
off all their sentences in Dr. Johnson's best manner. I was
following the hounds on foot one day, with the eldest daughter of
this family, when, as we struggled through a particularly sticky
and heavy ploughed field, she panted out, "Pray let us hasten to
the summit of yonder commanding eminence, whence we can with
greater comfort to ourselves witness the further progress of the
chase," and all this without the tiniest hesitation; a most
enviable gift! A son of this family was once riding in the same
steeplechase as a nephew of mine. The youth had lost his cap, and
turning round in his saddle, he shouted to my nephew in the middle
of the race, between two fences, "You will perceive that I have
already sacrificed my cap, and laid it as a votive offering on the
altar of Diana." One would hardly have anticipated that a youthful
cavalry subaltern, in the middle of a steeplechase, would have
been able to lay his hands on such choice flowers of speech.
Unfortunately, owing to the time lost by these well-turned
periods, both the speaker and my nephew merely figured as "also
ran."
In the "seventies" some of the curious tricks of pronunciation of
the eighteenth century still survived. My aunts, who had been born
with, or before the nineteenth century, invariably pronounced
"yellow" as "yaller." "Lilac" and "cucumber" became "laylock" and
"cowcumber," and a gold bracelet was referred to as a "goold
brasslet." They always spoke of "Proosia" and "Roosia," drank tea
out of a "chaney" cup, and the eldest of them was still "much
obleeged" for any little service rendered to her, played at
"cyards," and took a stroll in the "gyarden." My grandfather, who
was born in 1766, insisted to the end of his life on terming the
capital of these islands "Lunnon," in eighteenth-century fashion.
Possibly people were more cultured in those days, or, at all
events, more in the habit of using their brains. Imbecility,
whether real or simulated, had not come into fashion. My mother
told me that in her young days a very favourite amusement in
country houses was to write imitations or parodies of some well-
known poet, and every one took part in this. Nowadays no one would
have read the originals, much less be able to imitate them. My
mother had a commonplace book into which she had copied the
cleverest of these skits, and Landseer illustrated it charmingly
in pen-and-ink for her.
Any one reading the novels of the commencement of the nineteenth
century must have noticed how wonderfully popular practical jokes,
often of the crudest nature, then were. A brutal practical joke
always seems to me to indicate a very rudimentary and undeveloped
sense of humour in its perpetrator. Some people with paleolithic
intellects seem to think it exquisitely humorous to see a man fall
down and hurt himself. A practical joke which hurts no one is
another matter. All those privileged to enjoy the friendship of
the late Admiral Lord Charles Beresford will always treasure the
memory of that genial and delightful personality. About thirty
years ago an elderly gentleman named Bankes-Stanhope seemed to
imagine that he had some proprietary rights in the Carlton Club.
Mr. Bankes-Stanhope had his own chair, lamp, and table there, and
was exceedingly zealous in reminding members of the various rules
of the club. Smoking was strictly forbidden in the hall of the
Carlton at that time. I was standing in the hall one night when
Lord Charles came out of the writing-room, a big bundle of newly
written letters in his hand, and a large cigar in his mouth. He
had just received a shilling's-worth of stamps from the waiter,
when old Mr. Bankes-Stanhope, who habitually puffed and blew like
Mr. Jogglebury-Crowdey of "Sponge's Sporting Tour," noticed the
forbidden cigar through a glass door, and came puffing and blowing
into the hall in hot indignation. He reproved Lord Charles
Beresford for his breach of the club rules in, as I thought, quite
unnecessarily severe tones. The genial Admiral kept his temper,
but detached one penny stamp from his roll, licked it, and placed
it on his forefinger. "My dear Mr. Stanhope," he began, "it was a
little oversight of mine. I was writing in there, do you see?" (a
friendly little tap on Mr. Bankes-Stanhope's shirt-front, and on
went a penny stamp), "and I moved in here, you see" (another
friendly tap, and on went a second stamp), "and forgot about my
cigar, you see" (a third tap, and a third stamp left adhering).
The breezy Admiral kept up this conversation, punctuated with
little taps, each one of which left its crimson trace on the old
gentleman's white shirt-front, until the whole shilling's-worth
was placed in position. Mr. Bankes-Stanhope was too irate to
notice these little manoeuvres; he maintained his hectoring tone,
and never glanced down at his shirt-front. Finally Lord Charles
left, and the old gentleman, still puffing and blowing with wrath,
struggled into his overcoat, and went off to an official party at
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach's, where his appearance with twelve red
penny stamps adhering to his shirt-front must have created some
little astonishment.
In the '86 Parliament there was a certain Member, sitting on the
Conservative side, who had the objectionable habit of removing his
boots (spring-sided ones, too!) in the House, and of sitting in a
pair of very dubious-coloured grey woollen socks, apparently much
in want of the laundress's attentions. Many Members strongly
objected to this practice, but the delinquent persisted in it, in
spite of protests. One night a brother of mine, knowing that there
would shortly be a Division, succeeded in purloining the offending
boots by covering them with his "Order paper," and got them safely
out of the House. He hid them behind some books in the Division
Lobby, and soon after the Division was called. The House emptied,
but the discalced legislator retained his seat. "A Division having
been called, the honourable Member will now withdraw," ordered Mr.
Speaker Peel, most awe-inspiring of men. "Mr. Speaker, I have lost
my boots," protested the shoeless one. "The honourable Member will
at once withdraw," ordered the Speaker for the second time, in his
sternest tones; so down the floor of the House came the
unfortunate man--hop, hop, hop, like the "little hare" in Shock-
headed Peter. The iron ventilating gratings were apparently
uncomfortable to shoeless feet, so he went hopping and limping
through the Division Lobby, affording ample glimpses of his
deplorably discoloured woollen footwear. Later in the evening an
attendant handed him a paper parcel containing his boots, the
attendant having, of course, no idea where the parcel had come
from. This incident effectually cured the offender of his
unpleasant habit. The accusation of neglecting his laundress may
have been an unfounded one. In my early youth I was given a book
to read about a tiresome little girl named Ellen Montgomery, who
apparently divided her time between reading her pocket-Bible and
indulging in paroxysms of tears. The only incident in the book I
remember is that this lachrymose child had an aunt, a Miss
Fortune, who objected on principle to clean stockings. She
accordingly dyed all Ellen's stockings dirt-colour, to save the
washing. It would be charitable to assume that this particular
Member of Parliament had an aunt with the same economical
instincts.
I must plead guilty to two episodes where my sole desire was to
avoid disappointment to others, and to prevent the reality falling
short of the expectation. One was in India. Barrackpore, the
Viceroy of India's official country house, is justly celebrated
for its beautiful gardens. In these gardens every description of
tropical tree, shrub and flower grows luxuriantly. In a far-off
corner there is a splendid group of fan-bananas, otherwise known.
as the "Traveller's Palm." Owing to the habit of growth of this
tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on its broad, fan-
shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs down the grooved stalks
of the plant into receptacles that cunning Nature has fashioned
just where the stalk meets the trunk. Even in the driest weather,
these little natural tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield
nearly a tumblerful of pure sweet water, whence the popular name
for the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come down
to Barrackpore for Sunday, and inquired eagerly whether there were
any Travellers' Trees either in the park or the gardens there, as
he had heard of them, but had never yet seen one. We assured him
that in the cool of the evening we would show him quite a thicket
of Travellers' Trees. It occurred to the Viceroy's son and myself
that it would be a pity should the globe-trotting M.P.'s
expectations not be realised, after the long spell of drought we
had had. So the two of us went off and carefully filled up the
natural reservoirs of some six fan-bananas with fresh spring-water
till they were brimful. Suddenly we had a simultaneous
inspiration, and returning to the house we fetched two bottles of
light claret, which we poured carefully into the natural cisterns
of two more trees, which we marked. Late in the afternoon we
conducted the M.P. to the grove of Travellers' Trees, handed him a
glass, and made him gash the stem of one of them with his pen
knife. Thanks to our preparation, it gushed water like one of the
Trafalgar Square fountains, and the touring legislator was able to
satisfy himself that it was good drinking-water. He had previously
been making some inquiries about so-called "Palm-wine," which is
merely the fermented juice of the toddy-palm. We told him that
some Travellers' Palms produced this wine, and with a slight
exercise of ingenuity we induced him to tap one of the trees we
had doctored with claret. Naturally, a crimson liquid spouted into
his glass in response to the thrust of his pen-knife, and after
tasting it two or three times, he reluctantly admitted that its
flavour was not unlike that of red wine. It ought to have been,
considering that we had poured an entire bottle of good sound
claret into that tree. The ex-M.P. possibly reflects now on the
difficulties with which any attempts to introduce "Pussyfoot"
legislation into India would be confronted in a land where some
trees produce red wine spontaneously.
On another occasion I was going by sea from Calcutta to Ceylon. On
board the steamer there were a number of Americans, principally
ladies, connected, I think, with some missionary undertaking. When
we got within about a hundred miles of Ceylon, these American
ladies all began repeating to each other the verse of the well-
known hymn:
"What though the spicy breezes
Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle,"
over and over again, until I loathed Bishop Heber for having
written the lines. They even asked the captain how far out to sea
the spicy breezes would be perceptible. I suddenly got an idea,
and, going below, I obtained from the steward half a dozen nutmegs
and a handful of cinnamon. I grated the nutmegs and pounded the
cinnamon up, and then, with one hand full of each, I went on deck,
and walked slowly up and down in front of the American tourists.
Soon I heard an ecstatic cry, "My dear, I distinctly smelt spice
then!" Another turn, and another jubilant exclamation: "It's quite
true about the spicy breezes. I got a delicious whiff just then.
Who would have thought that they would have carried so far out to
sea?" A sceptical elderly gentleman was summoned from below, and
he, after a while, was reluctantly forced to avow that he, too,
had noticed the spicy fragrance. No wonder! when I had about a
quarter of a pound of grated nutmeg in one hand, and as much
pounded cinnamon in the other. Now these people will go on
declaring to the end of their lives that they smelt the spicy
odours of Ceylon a full hundred miles out at sea, just as the
travelling M.P. will assert that a tree in India produces a very
good imitation of red wine. It is a nice point determining how far
one is morally responsible oneself for the unconscious falsehoods
into which these people have been betrayed. I should like to have
had the advice of Mrs. Fairchild, of the Fairchild Family upon
this delicate question. I feel convinced that that estimable lady,
with her inexhaustible repertory of supplications, would instantly
have recited by heart "a prayer against the temptation to lead
others into uttering untruths unconsciously," which would have met
the situation adequately, for not once in the book, when appealed
to, did she fail to produce a lengthy and elaborately worded
petition, adapted to the most unexpected emergencies, and I feel
confident that her moral armoury would have included a prayer
against tendencies to "leg-pulling."
To return to the London of the "seventies" and "eighties" after
this brief journey to the East, nothing is more noticeable than
the way public interest in Parliamentary proceedings has vanished.
When I was a boy, all five of the great London dailies, The Times,
Morning Post, Standard, Daily Telegraph, and Daily News, published
the fullest reports of Parliamentary news, and the big provincial
dailies followed their example. Every one then seemed to follow
the proceedings of Parliament with the utmost interest; even at
Harrow the elder boys read the Parliamentary news and discussed
it, and I have heard keen-witted Lancashire artisans eagerly
debating the previous night's Parliamentary encounters. Now the
most popular newspapers give the scantiest and baldest summaries
of proceedings in the House of Commons. It is an editor's business
to know the tastes of his readers; if Parliamentary reports are
reduced to a minimum, it must be because they no longer interest
the public. This, again, is quite intelligible. When I first
entered Parliament in 1885 (to which Parliament, by the way, all
four Hamilton brothers had been elected), there were commanding
personalities and great orators in the House: Mr. Gladstone, John
Bright, Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Hartington, Henry James and
Randolph Churchill. When any of these rose to speak, the House
filled at once, they were listened to with eager attention, and
every word they uttered would be read by hundreds of thousands of
people next day. Nowadays proceedings in Parliament seem to be
limited to a very occasional solo from the one star-performer, the
rest of the time being occupied by uninteresting interludes by his
understudies, all of which may serve to explain the decline in
public interest. At the time of the Peace of Paris in 1856, on the
termination of the Crimean War, there were in the House of Commons
such outstanding figures as Gladstone, Disraeli, Lord John
Russell, John Bright, and Palmerston; the statesman had not yet
dwindled into the lawyer-politician.
I only heard Mr. Gladstone speak in his old age, when his voice
had acquired a slight roughness which detracted, I thought, from
his wonderful gift of oratory. Mr. Gladstone, too, had certain
peculiarities of pronunciation; he always spoke of
"constitootional" and of "noos." John Bright was a most impressive
speaker; he obtained his effects by the simplest means, for he
seldom used long words; indeed he was supposed to limit himself to
words of Saxon origin, with all their condensed vigour. Is not
Newman's hymn, "Lead, Kindly Light," considered to be a model of
English, as it is composed almost entirely of monosyllables, and,
with six exceptions, of words of Saxon origin? John Bright's
speaking had the same quality as Cardinal Newman's hymn. In spite
of his eloquence, John Bright's prophecies were invariably
falsified by subsequent events. I have never heard any one speak
with such facility as Joseph Chamberlain. His utterance was so
singularly clear that, though he habitually spoke in a very low
voice, every syllable penetrated to all parts of the House. When
Chamberlain was really in a dangerous mood, his voice became
ominously bland, and his manner quieter than ever. Then was the
time for his enemies to tremble. I heard him once roll out and
demolish a poor facile-tongued professional spouter so completely
and remorsely that the unfortunate man never dared to open his
mouth in the House of Commons again. I think that any old Member
of Parliament will agree with me when I place David Plunkett,
afterwards Lorth Rathmore, who represented for many years Trinity
College, Dublin, in the very front rank as an orator. Plunkett was
an indolent man, and spoke very rarely indeed. When really roused,
and on a subject which he had genuinely at heart, he could rise to
heights of splendid eloquence. Plunkett had a slight impediment in
his speech; when wound up, this impediment, so far from detracting
from, added to the effect he produced. I heard Mr. Gladstone's
last speech in Parliament, on March 1, 1894. It was frankly a
great disappointment. I sat then on the Opposition side, but we
Unionists had all assembled to cheer the old man who was to make
his farewell speech to the Assembly in which he had sat for sixty
years, and of which he had been so dominating and so unique a
personality, although we were bitterly opposed to him politically.
The tone of his speech made this difficult for us. Instead of
being a dignified farewell to the House, as we had anticipated, it
was querulous and personal, with a peevish and minatory note in it
that made anything but perfunctory applause from the Opposition
side very hard to produce. Two days afterwards, on March 3, 1894,
Mr. Gladstone resigned. In the light of recent revelations, we
know now that his failing eyesight was but a pretext. Lord
Spencer, then First Lord of the Admiralty, had framed his Naval
Estimates, and declared that the shipbuilding programme outlined
in those Estimates was absolutely necessary for the national
safety. Mr. Gladstone, supported by some of his colleagues,
refused to sanction these Estimates. Some long-headed Members of
the Cabinet saw clearly that if Lord Spencer insisted on his
Estimates, in the then temper of the country, the Liberal party
would go to certain defeat. Accordingly, Mr. Gladstone was induced
to resign, as the easiest way out of the difficulty. I do not
gather, though, that those of his colleagues who, with him,
disapproved of the Naval Estimates, thought it their duty to
follow their chief into retirement.
I am amused on seeing on contents bills of news-papers, as a rare
item of news, "All-night sitting of Commons."
In the 1886 Parliament practically every night was an all-night
sitting. Under the old rules of Procedure, as the Session
advanced, we were kept up night after night till 5 a.m. Some
Members, notably the late Henry Labouchere, took a sort of impish
delight in keeping the House sitting late. Many Front-Bench men
had their lives shortened by the strain these late hours imposed
on them, notably Edward Stanhope and Mr. W. H. Smith. Mr. W. H.
Smith occupied a very extraordinary position. This plain-faced
man, who could hardly string two words together, was regarded by
all his friends with deep respect, almost with affection. My
brother George has told me that, were there any disputes in the
Cabinet of which he was a member, the invariable advice of the
older men was to "go and take Smith's advice about it." Men
carried their private, domestic, and even financial troubles to
this wise counsellor, confident that the advice given would be
sound. Mr. Smith had none of the more ornamental qualities, but
his fund of common sense was inexhaustible, he never spared
himself in his friends' service, and his high sense of honour and
strength of character earned him the genuine regard of all those
who really knew him. He was a very fine specimen of the
unassuming, honourable, high-minded English gentleman.
In the 1886 Parliament, Mr. Akers-Douglas, now Lord Chilston, was
Chief Conservative Whip and he was singularly fortunate in his
Assistant Whips. Sir William Walrond, now Lord Waleran, Sir
Herbert Maxwell, and the late Sidney Herbert, afterwards
fourteenth Earl of Pembroke, formed a wonderful trio, for Nature
had bestowed on each of them a singularly engaging personality. The
strain put on Members of the Opposition was very severe; our
constant attendance was demanded, and we spent practically our
whole lives in the precincts of the House. However much we longed
for a little relaxation and a little change, it was really
impossible to resist the blandishments of the Assistant Whips.
They made it a sort of personal appeal, and a test of personal
friendship to themselves, so grudgingly the contemplated visit to
the theatre was abandoned, and we resigned ourselves to six more
hours inside the over-familiar building.
Sir William Hart-Dyke had been Chief Conservative Whip in the
1868-1873 Parliament. He married in May 1870, in the middle of the
session at a very critical political period. He most unselfishly
consented to forego his honeymoon, or to postpone it, and there
were rumours that on the very evening of his wedding-day, his
sense of duty had been so strong that he had appeared in the House
of Commons to "tell" in an important Division. When Disraeli was
asked if this were true, he shook his head, and said, "I hardly
think so. Hart-Dyke was married that day. Hart-Dyke is a
gentleman; he would never kiss AND 'tell.'" As a pendant to this,
there was another Sir William, a baronet whose name I will
suppress. With execrable taste, he was fond of boasting by name of
his amatory successes. He was always known as "William Tell."
In 1886 the long hours in the House of Commons hung very heavily
on our hands, once the always voluminous daily correspondence of
an M.P. had been disposed of. My youngest brother and I, both then
well under thirty, used to hire tricycles from the dining-room
attendants, and have races up and down the long river terrace,
much to the interest of passers-by on Westminster Bridge. We
projected, to pass the time, a "Soulful Song-Cycle," which was
frankly to be an attempt at pulling the public's leg. Our Song-
Cycle never matured, though I did write the first one of the
series, an imaginative effort entitled "In Listless Frenzy." It
was, and was intended to be, utter nonsense, devoid alike of
grammar and meaning. I quoted my "Listless Frenzy" one night to an
"intense" and gushing lady, as an example of the pitiable rubbish
decadent minor poets were then turning out. It began--
"Crimson wreaths of passionless flowers
Down in the golden glen;
Silvery sheen of autumnal showers;
When, my beloved one, when?"
She assured me that the fault lay in myself, not in the lines;
that I was of too material a temperament to appreciate the subtle
beauty of so-and-so's work. I forget to whom I had attributed the
verses, but I felt quite depressed at reflecting that I was too
material to understand the lines I had myself written.
My brother was a great admirer of the Ingoldsby Legends, and could
himself handle Richard Barham's fascinating metre very
effectively. He was meditating "A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay," dealing
with leading personalities in the then House of Commons. The idea
came to nothing, as an "Ingoldsby Legend" must, from its very
essence, be cast in a narrative form, and the subject did not lend
itself to narrative. Although it has nothing to do with the
subject in hand, I must quote some lines from "The Raid of
Carlisle," another "Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay" of my brother's, to
show how easily he could use Barham's metre, with its ear-tickling
double rhyme, and how thoroughly he had assimilated the spirit of
the Ingoldsby Legends. The extracts are from an account of an
incident which occurred in 1596 when Lord Scroop was Warden of the
Western or English Marches on behalf of Elizabeth, while
Buccleuch, on the Scottish side, was Warden of the Middle Marches
on behalf of James VI.
"Now, I'd better explain, while I'm still in the vein,
That towards the close of Elizabeth's reign,
Though the 'thistle and rose' were no longer at blows,
They'd a way of disturbing each other's repose.
A mode of proceeding most clearly exceeding
The rules of decorum, and palpably needing
Some clear understanding between the two nations,
By which to adjust their unhappy relations.
With this object in view, it occurred to Buccleuch
That a great deal of mutual good would accrue
If they settled that he and Lord Scroop's nominee
Should meet once a year, and between them agree
To arbitrate all controversial cases
And grant an award on an equable basis.
A brilliant idea that promised to be a
Corrective, if not a complete panacea--
For it really appears that for several years,
These fines of 'poll'd Angus' and Galloway steers
Did greatly conduce, during seasons of truce,
To abating traditional forms of abuse,
And to giving the roues of Border society
Some little sense of domestic propriety.
So finding himself, so to speak, up a tree,
And unable to think of a neat repartee,
He wisely concluded (as Brian Boru did,
On seeing his 'illigant counthry' denuded
Of cattle and grain that were swept from the plain
By the barbarous hand of the pillaging Dane)
To bandy no words with a dominant foe,
But to wait for a chance of returning the blow,
And then let him have it in more suo."
These extracts make me regret that the leading personalities in
the Parliament of 1886 were not commemorated in the same pleasant,
jingling metre.
CHAPTER VIII
The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet key--
Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into
everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family
from Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the oath--
Secret Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of
information--The Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The
innocent victim--The execution of the murderers of Alexander II.--
The jarring military band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some of
his experiences--The seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles'
experiment on myself--The Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the
Philosopher's Stone--Lucid directions for their manufacture--
Glamis Castle and its inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr.
Gladstone at Glamis--He sings in the glees--The castle and its
treasures--Recollections of Glamis.
Having successfully defeated the Civil Service Examiners, I
entered the Foreign Office in 1876, for the six or eight months'
training which all Attaches had to undergo before being sent
abroad. The typewriter had not then been invented, so everything
was copied by hand--a wearisome and deadening occupation where
very lengthy documents were concerned.
The older men in the Foreign Office were great sticklers for
observing all the traditional forms. Lord Granville, in obedience
to political pressure, had appointed the son of a leading
politician as one of his unpaid private secretaries. The youth had
been previously in his father's office in Leeds. On the day on
which he started work in the Foreign Office he was given a bundle
of letters to acknowledge. "You know, of course, the ordinary form
of acknowledgment," said his chief. "Just acknowledge all these,
and say that the matter will be attended to." When the young man
from Leeds brought the letters he had written, for signature that
evening, it was currently reported that they were all worded in
the same way: "Dear Sirs:--Your esteemed favour of yesterday's
date duly to hand, and contents noted. Our Lord Granville has your
matter in hand." The horror-stricken official gasped at such a
departure from established routine.
As was the custom then, after one month in the Foreign Office, my
immediate chief gave me a little lecture on the traditional high
standard of honour of the Foreign Office, which he was sure I
would observe, and then handed me a Cabinet key which he made me
attach to my watch-chain in his presence. This Cabinet key
unlocked all the boxes in which the most confidential papers of
the Cabinet were circulated. As things were then arranged, this
key was essential to our work, but a boy just turned twenty
naturally felt immensely proud of such a proof of the confidence
reposed in him. I think, too, that the Foreign Office can feel
justifiably proud of the fact that the trust reposed in its most
junior members was never once betrayed, and that the most weighty
secrets were absolutely safe in their keeping.
I have narrated elsewhere my early experiences at Berlin and
Petrograd. In every capital the Diplomatists must always be, in a
sense, sojourners in a strange land, and many of them who find a
difficulty in amalgamating with the people of the country must
always be thrown to a great extent on their own resources. It is
probably for this reason that theatricals were so popular amongst
the Diplomats in Petrograd, the plays being naturally always acted
in French.
Here I felt more or less at home. My grandmother, the Duchess of
Bedford, was passionately fond of acting, and in my grandfather's
time, one room at Woburn Abbey was permanently fitted up as a
theatre. Here, every winter during my mother's girlhood, there was
a succession of performances in which she, her mother and brothers
and sisters all took part, the Russell family having a natural
gift for acting. Probably the very name of Charles Matthews is
unfamiliar to the present generations, so it is sufficient to say
that he was THE light comedian of the early nineteenth century.
The Garrick Club possesses a fine collection of portraits of
Charles Matthews in some of his most popular parts. Charles
Matthews acted regularly with the Russell family at Woburn, my
mother playing the lead. I have a large collection of Woburn Abbey
play-bills, from 1831-1839, all printed on white satin, and some
of the pieces they put on were quite ambitious ones. My mother had
a very sweet singing voice, which she retained till late in life;
indeed a tiny thread of voice remained until her ninety-third
year, with a faint remnant of its old sweetness still clinging to
it. After her marriage, her love of theatricals still persisted,
so we were often having performances at home, as my brothers and
sisters shared her tastes. I made my first appearance on the stage
at the age of seven, and I can still remember most of my lines.
At Petrograd, in the French theatricals, I was always cast for old
men, and I must have played countless fathers, uncles, generals,
and family lawyers. As unmarried girls took part in these
performances, the French pieces had to be considerably
"bowdlerized," but they still remained as excruciatingly funny as
only French pieces can be.
If I may be permitted a rather lengthy digression, "bowdlerised"
derives its name from Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an
expurgated edition of Shakespeare. It would be rather interesting
to make a list of words which have passed into common parlance but
which were originally derived from some peculiarity of the person
whose surname they perpetuate. A few occur to me. In addition to
"bowdlerise," there is "sandwich." As is well known, this compact
form of nourishment derives its name from John, fourth Earl of
Sandwich, who lived between 1718-1792. Lord Sandwich was a
confirmed gambler, and such was his anxiety to lose still more
money, and to impoverish further himself, his family, and his
descendants, that he grudged the time necessary for meals, and had
slices of bread and slices of meat placed by his side. The
inventive faculty being apparently but little developed during the
eighteenth century, he was the first person who thought of placing
meat between two slices of bread. Owing to the economy of time
thus effected, he was able to ruin himself very satisfactorily,
and his name is now familiar all over the world, thanks to the
condensed form of food he introduced.
Again, Admiral Edward Vernon was Naval Commander-in-Chief in the
West Indies in 1740. The Admiral was known as "Old Grog," from his
habit of always having his breeches and the linings of his boat-
cloaks made of grogram, a species of coarse white poplin (from the
French grosgrain). It occurred to "Old Grog" that, in view of the
ravages of yellow fever amongst the men of the Fleet, it would be
advisable, in the burning climate of the West Indies, to dilute
the blue-jackets' rations of rum with water before serving them
out. This was accordingly done, to the immense dissatisfaction of
the men, who probably regarded it as a forerunner of "Pussyfoot"
legislation. They at once christened the mixture "grog," after the
Admiral's nickname, and "grog" as a term for spirits and water has
spread all over the world, and is used just as much in French as
in English.
The origin of the expression "to burke an inquiry," in the sense
of suppressing or stifling it, is due to Burke and Hare, two
enterprising malefactors who supplied the medical schools of
Edinburgh with "subjects" for anatomical research, early in the
nineteenth century. Their procedure was simple. Creeping behind
unsuspecting citizens in lonely streets, they stifled them to
death by placing pitch-plasters over their mouths and noses. Burke
was hanged for this in Edinburgh in 1829.
In our own time, an almost unknown man has enriched the language
with a new verb. A Captain Boycott of Lough Mask House, Co. Mayo,
was a small Irish land-agent in 1880. The means that were adopted
to try and drive him out of the country are well known. Since that
time the expression to "boycott" a person, in the sense of
combining with others to refuse to have any dealings with him, has
become a recognised English term, and is just as widely used in
France as with us.
A less familiar term is a "Collins," for the usual letter of
thanks which a grateful visitor addresses to his recent host.
This, of course, is derived from the Rev. Mr. Collins of Jane
Austen's Pride and Prejudice, who prided himself on the dexterity
with which he worded these acknowledgments of favours received. As
another example, most bridge-players are but too familiar with the
name of a certain defunct Earl of Yarborough, who, whatever his
other good qualities may have been, scarcely seems to have been a
consistently good card-holder.
There must be quite a long list of similar words, and they would
make an interesting study.
To return to the Diplomatic Theatricals at Petrograd, Labiche's
piece, La Cagnotte, is extraordinarily funny, though written over
sixty years ago. We gave a very successful performance of this, in
which I played the restaurant waiter--a capital part. La Lettre
Chargee and Le Sous-Prefet are both most amusing pieces, which can
be played, with very slight "cuts," before any audience, and they
both bubble over with that gaiete francaise which appeals so to
me. We were coached at Petrograd by Andrieux, the jeune premier of
the Theatre Michel, and we all became very professional indeed,
never talking of Au Seconde Acte, but saying Au Deux, in proper
French stage style. We also endeavoured to cultivate the long-
drawn-out "a's" of the Comedie Francaise, and pronounced
"adorahtion" and "imaginahtion" in the traditional manner of the
"Maison de Moliere."
The British business community in Petrograd were also extremely
fond of getting up theatricals, in this case, of course, in
English. If in the French plays I was invariably cast for old men,
in the English ones I was always allotted the extremely juvenile
parts, being still very slim and able to "make up" young. I must
confess to having appeared on the stage in an Eton jacket and
collar at the age of twenty-four, as the schoolboy in Peril.
Russians are extremely clever at parody. Two brothers Narishkin
wrote an intensely amusing mock serious opera, entitled
Gargouillada, ou la Belle de Venise. It was written half in French
and mock-Italian, and half in Russian, and was an excellent skit
on an old-fashioned Italian opera. All the ladies fought shy of
the part of "Countess Gorganzola," the heroine's grandmother. This
was partly due to the boldness of some of "Gorganzola's" lines,
and also to the fact that whoever played the role would have to
make-up frankly as an old woman. I was asked to take "Countess
Gorganzola" instead of the villain of the piece, which I had
rehearsed, and I did so, turning it into a sort of Charley's Aunt
part. Garouillada went with a roar from the opening chorus to the
final tableau, and so persistently enthusiastic were the audience
that we agreed to give the opera again four nights in succession.
I was at work in the Chancery of the Embassy next morning when
three people were ushered in to me. They were a family from either
St. Helens, Runcorn, or Widnes, I forget which, all speaking the
broadest Lancashire. The navigation of the Neva being again
opened, they had come on a little trip to Russia on a tramp-
steamer belonging to a friend of theirs. There was the father, a
short, thickset man in shiny black broadcloth, with a shaven upper
lip, and a voluminous red "Newgate-frill" framing his face--
exactly the type of face one associates with the Deacon of a
Calvinistic-Methodist Chapel; there was the mother, a very grim-
looking female; and the son, a nondescript hobbledehoy with
goggle-eyes. It appeared that after their passports had been
inspected on landing, the goggle-eyed boy had laid his down
somewhere and had lost it. No hotel would take him in without a
passport, but these people were so obviously genuine, that I had
no hesitation in issuing a fresh passport to the lad, after
swearing the father to an affidavit that the protuberant-eyed
youth was his lawful son. After a few kind words as to the grave
effects of any carelessness with passports in a country like
Russia, I let the trio from Runcorn (or St. Helens) depart.
That evening I had just finished dressing and making-up as
Countess Gorganzola, when I was told that three English people who
had come on from the Embassy wished to see me. The curtain would
be going up in ten minutes, so I got an obliging Russian friend
who spoke English to go down and interview them. The strong
Lancashire accent defeated him. All he could tell me was that it
was something about a passport, and that it was important. I was
in a difficulty. It would have taken at least half an hour to
change and make-up again, and the curtain was going up almost at
once, so after some little hesitation I decided to go down as I
was. I was wearing a white wig with a large black lace cap, and a
gown of black moire-antique trimmed with flounces and hanging
sleeves of an abominable material known as black Chantilly lace.
Any one who has ever had to wear this hateful fabric knows how it
catches in every possible thing it can do. Down I went, and the
trio from Widnes (or Runcorn) seemed surprised at seeing an old
lady enter the room. But when I spoke, and they recognised in the
old lady the frock-coated (and I trust sympathetic) official they
had interviewed earlier in the day, their astonishment knew no
bounds. The father gazed at me horror-stricken, as though I were a
madman; the mother kept on swallowing, as ladies of her type do
when they wish to convey strong disapprobation; and the prominent-
orbed boy's eyes nearly fell out of his head. I explained that
some theatricals were in progress, but that did not mend matters;
evidently in the serious circles in which they moved in St. Helens
(or Widnes), theatricals were regarded as one of the snares of the
Evil One. To make matters worse, one of my Chantilly lace sleeves
caught in the handle of a drawer, and perhaps excusably, but quite
audibly, I condemned all Chantilly lace to eternal punishment, but
in a much shorter form. After that they looked on me as clearly
beyond the pale. The difficulty about the passport was easily
adjusted. The police had threatened to arrest the young man, as
his new passport was clearly not the one with which he had entered
Russia. The Russian Minister of the Interior happened to be in the
green-room, and on my personal guarantee as to the identity of the
Widnes youth, he wrote an order to the police on his visiting-
card, bidding them to leave the goggle-eyed boy in peace. I really
tremble to think of the reports this family must have circulated
upon their return to Widnes (or Runcorn) as to the frivolity of
junior members of the British Diplomatic Service, who dressed up
as old women, and used bad language about Chantilly lace.
There is a wearisome formality known as "legalising" which took up
much time at the Berlin Embassy. Commercial agreements, if they
are to be binding in two countries, say Germany and England, have
to be "legalised," and this must be done at the Embassy, not at
the Consulate. The individual bringing the document has to make a
sworn affidavit that the contents of his papers are true; he then
signs it, the dry-seal of the Embassy is embossed on it, and a
rubber stamp impressed, declaring that the affidavit has been duly
sworn to before a member of the Embassy staff. This is then signed
and dated, and the process is complete. There were strings of
people daily in Berlin with documents to be legalised, and on a
little shelf in the Chancery reposed an Authorized Version of the
Bible, a German Bible, a Vulgate version of the Gospels in Latin,
and a Pentateuch in Hebrew, for the purpose of administering the
oath, according to the religion professed by the individual. I was
duly instructed how to administer the oath in German, and was told
that my first question must be as to the religion the applicant
professed, and that I was then to choose my Book accordingly. My
great friend at Berlin was my fellow-attache Maude, a most
delightful little fellow, who was universally popular. Poor Maude,
who was a near relation of Mr. Cyril Maude the actor's, died four
years afterwards in China. Most of the applicants for legalisation
were of one particular faith. I admired the way in which little
Maude, without putting the usual question as to religion, would
scan the features of the applicant closely and then hand him the
Hebrew Pentateuch, and request him to put on his hat. (Jews are
always sworn covered.) About a month after my arrival in Berlin, I
was alone in the Chancery when a man arrived with a document for
legalisation. I was only twenty at the time, and felt rather
"bucked" at administering my first oath. I thought that I would
copy little Maude's methods, and after a good look at my visitor's
prominent features, I handed him the Pentateuch and requested him
to put on his hat. He was perfectly furious, and declared that
both he and his father had been pillars of the Lutheran Church all
their lives. I apologised profusely, but all the same I am
convinced that the original family seat had been situated in the
valley of the Jordan. I avoided, however, guesses as to religions
for the future.
Both at Berlin and at Petrograd I kept what are known as the
"Extraordinary Accounts" of the Embassies. I am therefore in a
position to give the exact amount spent on Secret Service, but I
have not the faintest intention of doing anything of the sort.
Suffice it to say that it is less than one-twentieth of the sum
the average person would imagine. Bought information is nearly
always unreliable information. A moment's consideration will show
that, should a man be base enough to sell his country's secrets to
his country's possible enemy, he would also unhesitatingly cheat,
if he could, the man who purchases that information, which, from
the very nature of the case, it is almost impossible to verify. In
all probability the so-called information would have been
carefully prepared at the General Staff for the express purpose of
fooling the briber. There is a different class of information
which, it seems to me, is more legitimate to acquire. The Russian
Ministries of Commerce and Finance always imagined that they could
overrule economic laws by decrees and stratagems. For instance,
they were perpetually endeavouring to divert the flow of trade
from its accustomed channels to some port they wished to stimulate
artificially into prosperity, by granting rebates, and by
exceptionally favourable railway rates. Large quantities of jute
sacking were imported from Dundee to be made into bags for the
shipment of Russian wheat. One Minister of Commerce elaborated an
intricate scheme for supplanting the jute sacking by coarse linen
sacking of Russian manufacture, by granting a bonus to the makers
of the latter, and by doubling the import duties on the Scottish-
woven material. I could multiply these economic schemes
indefinitely. Now let us suppose that we had some source of
information in the Ministry of Commerce, it was obviously of
advantage to the British Government and to British traders to be
warned of the pending economic changes some two years in advance,
for nothing is ever done quickly in Russia. People in England then
knew what to expect, and could make their arrangements
accordingly. I can see nothing repugnant to the most rigid code of
honour in obtaining information of this kind.
On May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the newly appointed
Irish Secretary, and Mr. Burke, the Permanent Under-Secretary for
Ireland, were assassinated in the Phoenix Park, Dublin. I knew Tom
Burke very well indeed. The British Government offered a reward of
ten thousand pounds for the apprehension of the murderers, and
every policeman in Europe had rosy dreams of securing this great
prize, and was constantly on the alert for the criminals and the
reward.
In July 1882, the Ambassador and half the Embassy staff were on
leave in England. As matters were very slack just then, the Charge
d'Affaires and the Second Secretary had gone to Finland for four
days' fishing, leaving me in charge of the Embassy, with an
Attache to help me. My servant came to me early one morning as I
was in bed, and told me that an official of the Higher Police was
outside my front door, and begged for permission to come into my
flat. I have explained elsewhere that Ambassadors, their families,
their staffs, and even all the Embassy servants enjoy what is
called exterritoriality; that is, that by a polite fiction the
Embassy and the houses or apartments of the Secretaries are
supposed to be on the actual soil of the country they represent.
Consequently, the police of the country cannot enter them except
by special permission, and both the Secretaries and their servants
are immune from arrest, and are not subject to the laws of the
country, though they can, of course, be expelled from it. I gave
the policeman leave to enter, and he came into my bedroom. "I have
caught one of the Phoenix Park murderers," he told me triumphantly
in Russian, visions of the possible ten thousand pounds wreathing
his face in smiles. I jumped up incredulously. He went on to
inform me that a man had landed from the Stockholm steamer early
that morning. Though he declared that he had no arms with him, a
revolver and a dagger had been found in his trunk. His passport
had only been issued at the British Legation in Stockholm, and his
description tallied exactly with the signalment issued by Scotland
Yard in eight languages. The policier showed me the description:
"height about five feet nine; complexion sallow, with dark eyes.
Thickset build; probably with some recent cuts on face and hands."
The policeman declared that the cuts were there, and that it was
unquestionably the man wanted. Then he put the question point-
blank, would the Embassy sanction this man's arrest? I was only
twenty-five at the time. I had to act on "my own," and I had to
decide quickly. "Yes, arrest him," I said, "but you are not to
take him to prison. Confine him to his room at his hotel, with two
or three of your men to watch him. I will dress and come there as
quickly as I can."
Half an hour later I was in a grubby room of a grubby hotel, where
a short, sallow, thickset man, with three recent cuts on his face,
was walking up and down, smoking cigarettes feverishly, and
throwing frightened glances at three sinister-looking plain-
clothes men, who pretended to be quite at ease. I looked again at
the description and at the man. There could be no doubt about it.
I asked him for his own account of himself. He told me that he was
the Manager of the Gothenburg Tramway Company in Sweden, an
English concern, and that he had come to Russia for a little
holiday. He accounted for the cuts on his face and hands by saying
that he had slipped and fallen on his face whilst alighting from a
moving tram-car. He declared that he was well known in Stockholm,
and that his wife, when packing his things, must have put in the
revolver and dagger without his knowledge. It all sounded
grotesquely improbable, but I promised to telegraph both to
Stockholm and Gothenburg, and to return to him as soon as I had
received the answers. In the meanwhile I feared that he must
consider himself as under close arrest. He himself was under the
impression that all the trouble was due to the concealed arms; the
Phoenix Park murders had never once been mentioned. I sent off a
long telegram in cypher to the Stockholm Legation, making certain
inquiries, and a longer one en clair to the British Consul at
Gothenburg. By nagging at the Attache, and by keeping that dapper
young gentleman's nose pretty close to the grindstone, I got the
first telegram cyphered and dispatched by 10 a.m.; the answers
arrived about 4 p.m. The man's story was true in every particular.
He HAD fallen off a moving tram and cut his face; his wife,
terrified at the idea of unknown dangers in Russia, HAD borrowed a
revolver and dagger from a friend, and had packed them in her
husband's trunk without his knowledge. Mr. D---(I remember his
name perfectly) was well known in Stockholm, and was a man of the
highest respectability. I drove as fast as I could to the grubby
hotel, where I found the poor fellow still restlessly pacing the
room, and still smoking cigarette after cigarette. There was a
perfect Mont Blanc of cigarette stumps on a plate, and the shifty-
looking plain-clothes men were still watching their man like
hawks. I told the police that they had got hold of the wrong man,
that the Embassy was quite satisfied about him, and that they must
release the gentleman at once. They accordingly did so, and the
alluring vision of the ten thousand pounds vanished into thin air!
The poor man was quite touchingly grateful to me; he had formed
the most terrible ideas about a Russian State prison, and seemed
to think that he owed his escape entirely to me. I had not the
moral courage to tell him that I had myself ordered his arrest
that morning, still less of the awful crime of which he had been
suspected. Looking back, I do not see how I could have acted
otherwise; the prima facie case against him was so strong; never
was circumstantial evidence apparently clearer. Mr. D---went back
to Sweden next day, as he had had enough of Russia. Should Mr. D--
still be alive, and should he by any chance read these lines,
may I beg of him to accept my humblest apologies for the way I
behaved to him thirty-eight years ago.
I happened to see the four assassins of Alexander II. driven
through the streets of Petrograd on their way to execution. They
were seated in chairs on large tumbrils, with their backs to the
horses. Each one had a placard on his, or her breast, inscribed
"Regicide" ("Tsaryubeeyetz" in Russian). Two military brass bands,
playing loudly, followed the tumbrils. This was to make it
impossible for the condemned persons to address the crowd, but the
music might have been selected more carefully. One band played the
well-known march from Fatinitza. There was a ghastly incongruity
between the merry strains of this captivating march and the
terrible fate that awaited the people escorted by the band at the
end of their last drive on earth. When the first band rested, the
second replaced it instantly to avoid any possibilities of a
speech. The second band seemed to me to have made an equally
unhappy selection of music. "Kaiser Alexander," written as a
complimentary tribute to the murdered Emperor by a German
composer, is a spirited and tuneful march, but as "Kaiser
Alexander" was dead, and had been killed by the very people who
were now going to expiate their crime, the familiar tune jarred
horribly. A jaunty, lively march tune, and death at the end of it,
and in a sense at the beginning of it too. At times even now I can
conjure up a vision of the broad, sombre Petrograd streets, with
the dull cotton-wool sky pressing down almost on to the house-
tops; the vast silent crowds thronging the thoroughfares, and the
tumbrils rolling slowly forward through the crowded streets to the
place of execution, accompanied by the gay strains of the march
from Fatinitza. The hideous incongruity between the tune and the
occasion made one positively shudder.
There is in the Russian temperament a peculiar unbalanced
hysterical element. This, joined to a distinct bent towards the
mystic, and to a large amount of credulity, has made Russia for
two hundred years the happy hunting-ground of charlatans and
impostors of various sorts claiming supernatural powers:
clairvoyants, mediums, yogis, and all the rest of the tribe who
batten on human weaknesses, and the perpetual desire to tear away
the veil from the Unseen. It so happened that my chief at Lisbon
had in his youth dabbled in the Black Art. Sir Charles Wyke was a
dear old man, who had spent most of his Diplomatic career in
Mexico and the South American Republics. He spoke Spanish better
than any other Englishman I ever knew, with the one exception of
Sir William Barrington. He was unmarried, and was a most
distinguished-looking old gentleman with his snow-white imperial
and moustache. He was unquestionably a little eccentric in his
habits. He had rendered some signal service to the Mexican
Government while British Minister there, by settling a dispute
between them and the French authorities. The Mexican Government
had out of gratitude presented him with a splendid Mexican saddle,
with pommel, stirrups and bit of solid silver, and with the
leather of the saddle most elaborately embroidered in silver. Sir
Charles kept this trophy on a saddle-tree in his study at Lisbon,
and it was his custom to sit on it daily for an hour or so. He
said that as he was too old to ride, the feel of a saddle under
him reminded him of his youth. When every morning I brought the
old gentleman the day's dispatches, I always found him seated on
his saddle, a cigar in his mouth, a skull-cap on his head, and his
feet in the silver shoe-stirrups. Sir Charles had been a great
friend of the first Lord Lytton, the novelist, and they had
together dabbled in Black Magic. Sir Charles declared that the
last chapters in Bulwer-Lytton's wonderful imaginative work, A
STRANGE STORY, describing the preparation of the Elixir of Life in
the heart of the Australian Bush, were all founded on actual
experience, with the notable reservation that all the recorded
attempts made to produce this magic fluid had failed from their
very start. He had in his younger days joined a society of
Rosicrucians, by which I do not mean the Masonic Order of that
name, but persons who sought to penetrate into the Forbidden
Domain. Some forty years ago a very interesting series of articles
appeared in Vanity Fair (the weekly newspaper, not Thackeray's
masterpiece), under the title of "The Black Art." In one of these
there was an account of a seance which took place at the Pantheon
in Oxford Street, in either the "forties" or the "fifties." A
number of people had hired the hall, and the Devil was invoked in
due traditional form, Then something happened, and the entire
assemblage rushed terror-stricken into Oxford Street, and nothing
would induce a single one of them to re-enter the building. Sir
Charles owned that he had been present at the seance, but he would
never tell me what it was that frightened them all so; he said
that he preferred to forget the whole episode. Sir Charles had an
idea that I was a "sensitive," so, after getting my leave to try
his experiment, he poured into the palm of my hand a little pool
of quicksilver, and placing me under a powerful shaded lamp, so
that a ray of light caught the mercury pool, he told me to look at
the bright spot for a quarter of an hour, remaining motionless
meanwhile. Any one who has shared this experience with me, knows
how the speck of light flashes and grows until that little pool of
quicksilver seems to fill the entire horizon, darting out gleaming
rays like an Aurora Borealis. I felt myself growing dazed and
hypnotised, when Sir Charles emptied the mercury from my hand, and
commenced making passes over me, looking, with his slender build
and his white hair and beard, like a real mediaeval magician. "Now
you can neither speak nor move," he cried at length. "I think I
can do both, Sir Charles," I answered, as I got out of the chair.
He tried me on another occasion, and then gave me up. I was
clearly not a "sensitive."
Sir Charles had quite a library of occult books, from which I
endeavoured to glean a little knowledge, and great rubbish most of
them were. Raymond Lully, Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, and Van
Helmont; they were all there, in French, German, Latin, and
English. The Alchemists had two obsessions: one was the discovery
of the Elixir of Life, by the aid of which you could live forever;
the other that of the Philosopher's Stone, which had the property
of transmuting everything it touched into gold. Like practical
men, they seemed to have concentrated their energies more
especially on the latter, for a moment's consideration will show
the exceedingly awkward predicament in which any one would be
placed with only the first of these conveniences at his command.
Should he by the aid of the Elixir of Life have managed to attain
the age of, say, 300 years, he might find it excessively hard to
obtain any remunerative employment at that time of life; whereas
with the Philosopher's Stone in his pocket, he would only have to
touch the door-scraper outside his house to find it immediately
transmuted into the purest gold. In case of pressing need, he
could extend the process with like result to his area railings,
which ought to be enough to keep the wolf from the door for some
little while even at the present-day scale of prices.
Basil Valentine, the German Benedictine monk and alchemist, who
wrote a book which he quaintly termed The Triumphant Wagon, in
praise of the healing properties of antimony, actually thought
that he had discovered the Elixir of Life in tartrate of antimony,
more generally known as tartar emetic. He administered large doses
of this turbulent remedy to some ailing monks of his community,
who promptly all died of it.
The main characteristics of the Alchemists is their wonderful
clarity. For instance, when they wish to refer to mercury, they
call it "the green lion," and the "Pontic Sea," which makes it
quite obvious to every one. They attached immense importance to
the herb "Lunary," which no one as yet has ever been able to
discover. Should any one happen to see during their daily walks "a
herb with a black root, and a red and violet stalk, whose leaves
wax and wane with the moon," they will at once know that they have
found a specimen of the rare herb "Lunary." The juice of this
plant, if boiled with quicksilver, has only to be thrown over one
hundred ounces of copper, to change them instantly into fine gold.
Paracelsus' directions for making the Philosopher's Stone are very
simple: "Take the rosy-coloured blood of the lion, and gluten from
the eagle. Mix them together, and the Philosopher's Stone is
thine. Seek the lion in the west, and the eagle in the south."
What could be clearer? Any child could make sufficient
Philosopher's Stones from this simple recipe to pave a street
with--a most useful asset, by the way, to the Chancellor of the
Exchequer at the present time, for every bicycle, omnibus and
motor-lorry driving over the Philosopher Stone-paved street would
instantly be changed automatically into pure gold, and the
National Debt could be satisfactorily liquidated in this fashion
in no time.
Whenever I returned home on leave, whether from Berlin, Petrograd,
Lisbon, or Buenos Ayres, I invariably spent a portion of my leave
at Glamis Castle. This venerable pile, "whose birth tradition
notes not," though the lower portions were undoubtedly standing in
1016, rears its forest of conical turrets in the broad valley
lying between the Grampians and the Sidlaws, in the fertile plains
of Forfarshire. Apart from the prestige of its immense age, Glamis
is one of the most beautiful buildings in the Three Kingdoms. The
exquisitely weathered tints of grey-pink and orange that its
ancient red sandstone walls have taken on with the centuries, its
many gables and towers rising in summer-time out of a sea of
greenery, the richness of its architectural details, make Glamis a
thing apart. There is nothing else quite like it. No more charming
family can possibly be imagined than that of the late Lord
Strathmore, forty years ago. The seven sons and three daughters of
the family were all born musicians. I have never heard such
perfect and finished part-singing as that of the Lyon family, and
they were always singing: on the way to a cricket-match; on the
road home from shooting; in the middle of dinner, even, this
irrepressible family could not help bursting into harmony, and
such exquisite harmony, too! Until their sisters grew up, the
younger boys sang the treble and alto parts, but finally they were
able to manage a male-voice quartet, a trio of ladies' voices, and
a combined family octette. The dining-room at Glamis is a very
lofty hall, oak-panelled, with a great Jacobean chimney-piece
rising to the roof. After dinner it was the custom for the two
family pipers to make the circuit of the table three times, and
then to walk slowly off, still playing, through the tortuous stone
passages of the ancient building until the last faint echoes of
the music had died away. Then all the lights in the dining-room
were extinguished except the candles on the table, and out came a
tuning-fork, and one note was sounded--"Madrigal," "Spring is
Come, third beat," said the conducting brother, and off they went,
singing exquisitely; glees, madrigals, part-songs, anything and
everything, the acoustic properties of the lofty room adding to
the effect. All visitors to Glamis were charmed with this most
finished singing--always, of course, without accompaniment. They
sang equally well in the private chapel, giving admirable
renderings of the most intricate "Services," and, from long
practice together, their voices blended perfectly. This gifted
family were equally good at acting. They had a permanent stage
during the winter months at Glamis, and as every new Gilbert and
Sullivan opera was produced in London, the concerted portions were
all duly repeated at Glamis, and given most excellently. I have
never heard the duet and minuet between "Sir Marmaduke" and "Lady
Sangazure" from The Sorcerer better done than at Glamis, although
Sir Marmaduke was only nineteen, and Lady Sangazure, under her
white wig, was a boy of twelve. The same boy sang "Mabel" in the
Pirates of Penzance most admirably.
In 1884 it was conveyed to Lord Strathmore that Mr. and Mrs.
Gladstone, whom he did not know personally, were most anxious to
see Glamis. Of course an invitation was at once dispatched, and in
spite of the rigorously Tory atmosphere of the house, we were all
quite charmed with Mr. Gladstone's personality. Lord Strathmore
wished to stop the part-singing after dinner, but I felt sure that
Mr. Gladstone would like it, so it took place as usual. The old
gentleman was perfectly enchanted with it, and complimented this
tuneful family enthusiastically on the perfect finish of their
singing. Next evening Mr. Gladstone asked for a part-song in the
middle of dinner, and as the singing was continued in the drawing-
room afterwards, he went and, with a deferential courtesy charming
to see in a man of his age and position, asked whether the young
people would allow an old man to sing bass in the glees with them.
Mr. Gladstone still had a very fine resonant bass, and he read
quite admirably. It was curious to see the Prime Minister reading
off the same copy as an Eton boy of sixteen, who was singing alto.
Being Sunday night, they went on singing hymns and anthems till
nearly midnight; there was no getting Mr. Gladstone away. Mrs.
Gladstone told me next day that he had not enjoyed himself so much
for many months.
There was a blend of simplicity, dignity, and kindliness in Mrs.
Gladstone's character that made her very attractive. My family
were exceedingly fond of her, and though two of my brothers were
always attacking Mr. Gladstone in the most violent terms, this
never strained their friendly relations with Mrs. Gladstone
herself. I always conjure up visions of Mrs. Gladstone in her
sapphire-blue velvet, her invariable dress of ceremony. Though a
little careless as to her appearance, she always looked a "great
lady," and her tall figure, and the kindly old face with its crown
of silvery hair, were always welcomed in the houses of those
privileged to know her.
The Lyon family could do other things besides singing and acting.
The sons were all excellent shots, and were very good at games.
One brother was lawn-tennis champion of Scotland, whilst another,
with his partner, won the Doubles Championship of England.
Glamis is the oldest inhabited house in Great Britain. As
Shakespeare tells us in Macbeth,
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air Nimbly and sweetly
recommends itself Unto our gentle senses."
The vaulted crypt was built before 1016, and another ancient
stone-flagged, stone-vaulted hall leading out of it is the
traditional scene of the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, the "Thane
of Glamis." In a room above it King Malcolm II. of Scotland was
murdered in 1034. The castle positively teems with these agreeable
traditions. The staircases and their passages are stone-walled,
stone-roofed, and stone-floored, and their flags are worn into
hollows by the feet which have trodden them for so many centuries.
Unusual features are the secret winding staircases debouching in
the most unexpected places, and a well in the front hall, which
doubtless played a very useful part during the many sieges the
castle sustained in the old days. The private chapel is a
beautiful little place of worship, with eighty painted panels of
Scriptural subjects by De Witt, the seventeenth-century Dutch
artist, and admirable stained glass. The Castle, too, is full of
interesting historical relics. It boasts the only remaining Fool's
dress of motley in the kingdom; Prince Charlie's watch and clothes
are still preserved there, for the Prince, surprised by the
Hanoverian troops at Glamis, had only time to jump on a horse and
escape, leaving all his belongings behind him. There is a
wonderful collection of old family dresses of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, and above all there is the very ancient
silver-gilt cup, "The Lion of Glamis," which holds an entire
bottle of wine, and on great family occasions is still produced
and used as a loving-cup, circulating from hand to hand round the
table. Walter Scott in a note to Waverly states that it was the
"Lion of Glamis" cup which gave him the idea of the "Blessed Bear
of Bradwardine." In fact, there is no end to the objects of
interest this wonderful old castle contains, and the Lyon family
have inhabited it for six hundred years in direct line from father
to son.
It is difficult for me to write impartially about Glamis, for it
is as familiar to me as my own home. I have been so much there,
and have received such kindness within its venerable walls, that
it can never be to me quite as other places are. I can see vast
swelling stretches of purple heather, with the dainty little
harebells all a-quiver in the strong breeze sweeping over the
grouse-butts, as a brown mass of whirling wings rushes past at the
pace of an express train, causing one probably to reflect how
well-nigh impossible it is to "allow" too much for driven grouse
flying down-wind. I can picture equally vividly the curling-pond
in winter-time, tuneful with the merry chirrup of the curling-
stones as they skim over the ice, whilst cries of "Soop her up,
man, soop! Soop!" from the anxious "skip" fill the keen air. I
like best, though, to think of the Glamis of my young days, when
the ancient stone-built passages and halls, that have seen so many
generations pass through them and disappear, rang with perpetual
youthful laughter, or echoed beautifully finished part-singing;
when nimble young feet twinkled, and kilts whirled to the skirl of
the pipes under the vaulted roof of the nine-hundred-year-old
crypt; when the whole place was vibrant with joyous young life,
and the stately, grey-bearded owner of the historic castle, and of
many broad acres in Strathmore besides, found his greatest
pleasure in seeing how happy his children and his guests could be
under his roof.
CHAPTER IX
Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Attitude of British
Columbia--The C.P.R. completed--Quebec--A swim at Niagara--Other
mighty waterfalls--Ottawa and Rideau Hall--Effects of dry climate--
Personal electricity--Every man his own dynamo--Attraction of
Ottawa--Curling--The "roaring game"--Skating--An ice-palace--A
ball on skates--Difficulties of translating the Bible into Eskimo--
The building of the snow hut--The snow hut in use--Sir John
Macdonald--Some personal traits--The Canadian Parliament
buildings--Monsieur l'Orateur--A quaint oration--The "Pages'
Parliament"--An all-night sitting--The "Arctic Cremorne"--A
curious Lisbon custom--The Balkan "souvenir-hunters"--Personal
inspection of Canadian convents--Some incidents--The unwelcome
novice--The Montreal Carnival--The Ice-castle--The Skating
Carnival--A stupendous toboggan slide--The pioneer of "ski" in
Canada--The old-fashioned raquettes--A Canadian Spring--Wonder of
the Dominion.
When I was in Canada for the first time in 1884, the Canadian
Pacific Railway was not completed, and there was no through
railway connection between the Maritime Provinces, "Upper" and
"Lower" Canada, and the Pacific Coast, though, of course, in 1884
those old-fashioned terms for the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec
had been obsolete for some time. Since the Federation of the
Dominion in 1867, the opening of the Trans-Continental railway has
been the most potent factor in the knitting together of Canada,
and has developed the resources of the Dominion to an extent which
even the most enthusiastic of the original promoters of the C.P.R.
never anticipated. When British Columbia threw in its lot with the
Dominion in 1871, one of the terms upon which the Pacific Province
insisted was a guarantee that the Trans-Continental railway should
be completed in ten years--that is, in 1881. Two rival Companies
received in 1872 charters for building the railway; the result was
continual political intrigue, and very little construction work.
British Columbia grew extremely restive under the continual
delays, and threatened to retire from the Dominion. Lord Dufferin
told me himself, when I was his Private Secretary in Petrograd,
that on the occasion of his official visit to British Columbia (of
course by sea), in either 1876 or 1877, as Governor-General, he
was expected to drive under a triumphal arch which had been
erected at Victoria, Vancouver Island. This arch was inscribed on
both sides with the word "Separation." I remember perfectly Lord
Dufferin's actual words in describing the incident: "I sent for
the Mayor of Victoria, and told him that I must have a small--a
very small--alteration made in the inscription, before I could
consent to drive under it; an alteration of one letter only. The
initial 'S' must be replaced with an 'R' and then I would pledge
my word that I would do my best to see that 'Reparation' was made
to the Province." This is so eminently characteristic of Lord
Dufferin's methods that it is worth recording. The suggested
alteration in the inscription was duly made, and Lord Dufferin
drove under the arch. In spite of continued efforts the Governor-
General was unable to expedite the construction of the railway
under the Mackenzie Administration, and it needed all his
consummate tact to quiet the ever-growing demand for separation
from the Dominion on the part of British Columbia, owing to the
non-fulfilment of the terms of union. It was not until 1881, under
Sir John Macdonald's Premiership, that a contract was signed with
a new Company to complete the Canadian Pacific within ten years,
but so rapid was the progress made, that the last spike was
actually driven on November 7, 1886, five years before the
stipulated time. The names of three Scotsmen will always be
associated with this gigantic undertaking: those of the late
Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona; George Stephen, now Lord
Mount-stephen; and Mr. R. B. Angus of Montreal. The last spike,
which was driven in at a place called Craigellachie, by Mrs.
Mackenzie, widow of the Premier under whom the C.P.R. had been
commenced, was of an unusual character, for it was of eighteen-
carat gold. In the course of an hour it was replaced by a more
serviceable spike of steel. I have often seen Mrs. Mackenzie
wearing the original gold spike, with "Craigellachie" on it in
diamonds.
There are few finer views in the world than that from the terrace
of the Citadel of Quebec over the mighty expanse of the St.
Lawrence, with ocean-going steamers lying so close below that it
would be possible to drop a stone from the Citadel on to their
decks; and the view from the Dufferin Terrace, two hundred feet
lower down, is just as fine. My brother-in-law, Lord Lansdowne,
had been appointed Governor-General in 1883, and I well remember
my first arrival in Quebec. We had been living for five weeks in
the backwoods of the Cascapedia, the famous salmon-river, under
the most primitive conditions imaginable. I had come there
straight from the Argentine Republic on a tramp steamer, and we
lived on the Cascapedia coatless and flannel-shirted, with our
legs encased in "beef moccasins" as a protection against the
hordes of voracious flies that battened ravenously on us from
morning to night. It was a considerable change from a tent on the
banks of the rushing, foaming Cascapedia to the Citadel of Quebec,
which was then appointed like a comfortable English country house,
and gave one a thoroughly home-like feeling at once. After my
prolonged stay in South America I was pleased, too, to recognise
familiar pictures, furniture and china which I had last met in
their English Wiltshire home, all of them with the stolid
impassiveness of inanimate objects unaware that they had been
spirited across the Atlantic, three thousand miles from their
accustomed abiding-place.
In September 1884, at a point immediately below the Falls, I swam
Niagara with Mr. Cecil Baring, now a partner in Baring Brothers,
then an Oxford undergraduate. We were standing at the foot of the
American Falls, when we noticed a little board inscribed, "William
Grenfell of Taplow Court, England" (the present Lord Desborough),
"swam Niagara at this spot." I looked at Baring, Baring looked at
me. "I don't see why we shouldn't do it too," he observed, to
which I replied, "We might have a try," so we stripped, sent our
clothes over to the Canadian side, and entered the water. It was a
far longer swim than either of us had anticipated, the current was
very strong, and the eddies bothered us. When we landed on the
Canadian shore, I was utterly exhausted, though Baring, being
eight years younger than me, did not feel the effects of the
exertion so much. I remember that the Falls, seen from only six
inches above the surface of the water, looked like a splendid
range of snow-clad hills tumbling about in mad confusion, and that
the roar of waters was deafening. As we both lay panting and
gasping, puris naturalibus, on the Canadian bank, I need hardly
say, as we were on the American continent, that a reporter made
his appearance from nowhere, armed with notebook and pencil. This
young newspaper-man was not troubled with false delicacy. He asked
us point-blank what we had made out of our swim. On learning that
we had had no money on it, but had merely done it for the fun of
the thing, he mentioned the name of a place of eternal punishment,
shut up his notebook in disgust, and walked off: there was
evidently no "story" to be made out of us. After some luncheon and
a bottle of Burgundy, neither Baring nor I felt any the worse for
our swim, nor were we the least tired during the remainder of the
day. I have seen Niagara in summer, spring and in mid-winter, and
each time the fascination of these vast masses of tumbling waters
has grown on me. I have never, to my regret, seen the Victoria
Falls of the Zambesi, as on two separate occasions when starting
for them unforeseen circumstances detained me in Cape Town. The
Victoria Falls are more than double the height of Niagara, Niagara
falling 160 feet, and the Zambesi 330 feet, and the Falls are over
one mile broad, but I fancy that except in March and April, the
volume of water hurling itself over them into the great chasm
below is smaller than at Niagara. I have heard that the width of
the Victoria Falls is to within a few yards exactly the distance
between the Marble Arch and Oxford Circus. When I was in the
Argentine Republic, the great Falls of the River Iguazu, a
tributary of the Parana, were absolutely inaccessible. To reach
them vast tracts of dense primeval forest had to be traversed,
where every inch of the track would have to be laboriously hacked
through the jungle. Their very existence was questioned, for it
depended on the testimony of wandering Indians, and of one
solitary white man, a Jesuit missionary. Now, since the railway to
Paraguay has been completed, the Iguazu Falls can be reached,
though the journey is still a difficult one. The Falls are 200
feet high, and nearly a mile wide. In the very heart of the City
of Ottawa there are the fine Chaudiere Falls, where the entire
River Ottawa drops fifty feet over a rocky ledge. The boiling
whirl of angry waters has well earned its name of cauldron, or
"Chaudiere," but so much of the water has now been drawn off to
supply electricity and power to the city, that the volume of the
falls has become sensibly diminished. I know of no place in Europe
where the irresistible might of falling waters is more fully
brought home to one than at Trollhattan in Sweden. Here the Gotha
River whirls itself down 120 feet in seven cataracts. They are
rapids rather than falls, but it is the immense volume of water
which makes them so impressive. Every year Trolhattan grows more
and more disfigured by saw-mills, carbide of calcium works, and
other industrial buildings sprouting up like unsightly mushrooms
along the river-banks. The last time that I was there it was
almost impossible to see the falls in their entirety from any
point, owing to this congestion of squalid factories.
Rideau Hall, the Government House at Ottawa, stands about two
miles out of the town, and is a long, low, unpretentious building,
exceedingly comfortable as a dwelling-house, if somewhat
inadequate as an official residence for the Governor-General of
Canada. Lord Dufferin added a large and very handsome ball-room,
fitted with a stage at one end of it, and a full-sized tennis-
court. This tennis-court, by an ingenious arrangement, can be
converted in a few hours into a splendid supper-room. A red and
white tent is lowered bodily from the roof; a carpet is spread
over the floor; great white-and-gold electric standards bearing
the arms of the different Provinces are placed in position, and
the thing is done. The intense dryness of the Canadian winter
climate, especially in houses where furnace-heat intensifies the
dryness, produces some unexpected results. My brother-in-law had
brought out a number of old pieces of French inlaid furniture. The
excessive dryness forced out some of the inlaid marqueterie of
these pieces, and upon their return to Europe they had to undergo
a long and expensive course of treatment. Some fine Romneys and
Gainesboroughs also required the picture-restorer's attentions
before they could return to their Wiltshire home after a five
years' sojourn in the dry air of Canada. The ivory handles of
razors shrink in the dry atmosphere; as the steel frame cannot
shrink correspondingly the ivory splits in two. The thing most
surprising to strangers was that it was possible in winter-time to
light the gas with one's finger. All that was necessary was to
shuffle over the carpet in thin shoes, and then on touching any
metal object, an electric spark half an inch long would crack out
of your finger. The size and power of the spark depended a great
deal on the temperament of the experimenter. A high-strung person
could produce quite a large spark; a stolid, bovine individual
could not obtain a glimmer of one. The late Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain, whilst staying at Government House, was told of this,
but was inclined to be sceptical. My sister, Lady Lansdowne, made
him shuffle over the carpet, and then and there touch a gas-burner
from which she had removed the globe. Mr. Chamberlain, with his
nervous temperament, produced a spark an inch long out of himself,
and of course the gas flared up immediately. I do not think that I
had ever seen any one more surprised. This power of generating
static electricity from their own bodies was naturally a source of
immense delight to the Lansdowne children. They loved, after
shuffling their feet on the carpet, to creep up to any adult
relation and touch them lightly on the ear, a most sensitive spot.
There would be a little spark, a little shock, and a little
exclamation of surprise. Outside the children's schoolroom there
was a lobby warmed by a stove, and the air there was peculiarly
dry. The young people, with a dozen or so of their youthful
friends, would join hands, taking, however, care not to complete
the circle, and then shuffle their feet vigorously. On completing
the circuit, they could produce a combined spark over two inches
long, with a correspondingly sharp shock. In my bedroom at Ottawa
there was an old-fashioned high brass fender. Had I put on
slippers, and have attempted to warm myself at the fire previous
to turning-in. I should be reminded, by a sharp discharge from my
protesting calves into the metal fender, that I was in dry Canada.
(At that date the dryness of Canada was atmospherical only.)
Curiously enough, a spark leaving the body produces the same shock
as one entering it, and no electricity whatever can be generated
with bare feet. One of the footmen at Ottawa must have been an
abnormally high-strung young man, for should one inadvertently
touch silver dinner-plate he handed one, a sharp electric shock
resulted. The children delighted in one very pretty experiment.
Many books for the young have their bindings plentifully adorned
with gold, notably the French series, the "Bibliotheque Rose."
Should one of these highly-gilt volumes be taken into a warm and
dry place, and the lights extinguished, the INNER side of the
binding had only to be rubbed briskly with a fur-cap for all the
gilding to begin to sparkle and coruscate, and to send out little
flashes of light. The children took the utmost pleasure in this
example of the curious properties of electricity.
The Ottawa of the "eighties" was an attractive little place, and
Ottawa Society was very pleasant. There was then a note of
unaffected simplicity about everything that was most engaging, and
the people were perfectly natural and free from pretence. The
majority of them were Civil servants of limited means, and as
everybody knew what their neighbours' incomes were, there was no
occasion for make-believe. The same note of simplicity ran through
all amusements and entertaining, and I think that it constituted
the charm of the place. I called one afternoon on the very
agreeable wife of a high official, and was told at the door that
Lady R--was not at home. Recognizing my voice, a cry came up
from the kitchen-stairs. "Oh, yes! I am at home to you. Come right
down into the kitchen," where I found my friend, with her sleeves
rolled up, making with her own hands the sweets for the dinner-
party she was giving that night, as she mistrusted her cook's
capabilities. The Ottawa people had then that gift of being
absolutely unaffected, which makes the majority of Australians so
attractive. Now everything has changed; Ottawa has trebled in size
since I first knew it, and on revisiting it twenty-five years
later, I found that it had become very "smart" indeed, with
elaborate houses and gorgeous raiment.
Rideau Hall had two open-air skating-rinks in its own grounds, two
imposing toboggan-slides, and a covered curling-rink. The "roaring
game" is played in Canada with very heavy straight-sided iron
"stones," weighing from 50 to 60 lbs. As the ice in a covered rink
can be constantly flooded, it can be kept in the most perfect
order, and with the heavy stones far greater accuracy can be
attained than with the granite stones used in Scotland. The game
becomes a sort of billiards on ice. The Rideau Hall team consisted
of Lord Lansdowne himself, General Sir Henry Streatfield, a nephew
of mine, and one of the footmen, who seemed to have a natural gift
as a curler. Our team were invincible in 1888. At a curling-match
against Montreal in 1887, a long-distance telephone was used for
the first time in Canada. Ottawa is 120 miles distant from
Montreal, and a telephone was specially installed, and each "end"
telephoned from Rideau Hall to Montreal, where the result was
shown on a board, excitement over the match running high. Montreal
proved the victors. On great occasions such as this, the ice of
the curling-rink was elaborately decorated in colours. It was very
easily done. Ready-prepared stencils, such as are used for wall-
decoration, were laid on the ice, and various coloured inks mixed
with water were poured through the stencil holes, and froze almost
immediately on to the ice below. In this fashion complicated
designs of roses, thistles and maple-leaves, all in their proper
colours, could be made in a very short time, and most effective
they were until destroyed by the first six "ends." When the
Governor-General's time in Canada expired and he was transferred
to India, the curlers of Canada presented him with a farewell
address. Lord Lansdowne made, I thought, a very happy reply.
Speaking of the regret he felt at leaving Ottawa, and at severing
his many links of connection with Canada, he added that, bearing
in view the climate of Bengal, he did not anticipate much curling
in India, and that he would miss the "roaring game"; in fact, the
only "roaring game" he was likely to come in contact with would
probably take the unpleasant form of a Bengal tiger springing out
at him. Lord Lansdowne went on to say, "Let us hope that it will
not happen that your ex-Governor-General will be found, not
pursuing the roaring game, but being pursued by it."
From skating daily, most of the Government House party became very
expert, and could perform every kind of trick upon skates. Lord
and Lady Lansdowne and their two daughters, now Duchess of
Devonshire and Lady Osborne Beauclerk, could execute the most
complicated Quadrilles and Lancers on skates, and could do the
most elaborate figures.
Once a week all Ottawa turned up at Rideau Hall to skate to the
music of a good military band. Every year in December a so-called
ice-palace was built for the band, of clear blocks of ice. Once
given a design, ice-architecture is most fascinating and very
easy. Instead of mortar, all that is required is a stream of water
from a hose to freeze the ice-blocks together, and as ice can be
easily chipped into any shape, the most fantastic pinnacles and
ornaments can be contrived. Our ice-palace was usually built in
what I may call a free adaptation of the Canado-Moresque style. A
very necessary feature in the ice-palace was the large stove for
thawing the brass instruments of the band. A moment's
consideration will show that in the intense cold of a Canadian
winter, the moisture that accumulates in a brass instrument would
freeze solid, rendering the instrument useless. The bandsmen had
always to handle the brass with woollen gloves on, to prevent
getting burnt. How curious it is that the sensation of touching
very hot or very cold metal is identical, and that it produces the
same effect on the human skin! With thirty or more degrees of
frost, great caution must be used in handling skate-blades with
bare fingers if burns are to be avoided. The coldest day I have
ever known was New Year's Day 1888, when the thermometer at Ottawa
registered 41 degrees below, or 73 degrees of frost. The air was
quite still, as it invariably is with great cold, but every breath
taken gave one a sensation of being pinched on the nose, as the
moisture in the nostrils froze together.
The weekly club-dances of the Ottawa Skating Club were a pretty
sight. They were held in a covered public rink, gay with many
flags, with garlands of artificial flowers and foliage, and
blazing with sizzling arc-lights. These people, accustomed to
skates from their earliest childhood, could dance as easily and as
gracefully on them as on their feet, whilst fur-muffled mothers
sat on benches round the rink, drinking tea and coffee as
unconcernedly as though they were at a garden-party in mid-July
instead of in a temperature of zero. An "Ottawa March" was a great
institution. Couples formed up as though for a country dance, the
band struck up some rollicking tune, the leader shouted his
directions, and fifty couples whirled and twirled, and skated
backwards or forwards as he ordered, going through the most
complicated evolutions, in pairs or fours or singly, joining here,
parting there, but all in perfect time. Woe betide the leader
should he lose his head! A hundred people would get tangled up in
a hideous confusion, and there was nothing for it but to begin all
over again.
It is curious that in countries like England and Prance, where
from the climatic conditions skating must be a very occasional
amusement, there is a special word for the pastime, and that in
Germany and Russia, where every winter brings its skating as a
matter of course, there should be no word for it. "Skate" in
English, and patiner in French, mean propelling oneself on iron
runners over ice, and nothing else; whereas in German there is
only the clumsy compound-word Schlittschuh-laufen, which means "to
run on sledge shoes," and in Russian it is called in equally
roundabout fashion Katatsa-na-konkach, or literally "to roll on
little horses," hardly a felicitous expression. As a rule people
have no word for expressing a thing which does not come within
their own range of experience; for instance, no one would expect
that Arabs, or Somalis, or the inhabitants of the Sahara would
have any equivalent for either skating or tobogganing, nor do I
imagine that the Eskimo have any expression for "sunstroke" or
"heat-apoplexy," but one would have thought that Russians and
Germans might have evolved a word for skating.
Apropos of Eskimo, I once heard a missionary describe the
extraordinary difficulty he had found in translating the Bible
into Eskimo. It was useless to talk of corn or wine to a people
who did not know even what they meant, so he had to use
equivalents within their powers of comprehension. Thus in the
Eskimo version of the Scriptures the miracle of Cana of Galilee is
described as turning the water into BLUBBER; the 8th verse of the
5th chapter of the First Epistle of St. Peter ran: "Your adversary
the devil, as a roaring Polar BEAR walketh about, seeking whom he
may devour." In the same way "A land flowing with milk and honey"
became "A land flowing with whale's blubber," and throughout the
New Testament the words "Lamb of God" had to be translated "little
Seal of God," as the nearest possible equivalent. The missionary
added that his converts had the lowest opinion of Jonah for not
having utilised his exceptional opportunities by killing and
eating the whale.
Fired by the example of the builders of the ice-palace on the rink
at Rideau Hall, I offered to build for the Lansdowne children an
ice-hut for their very own, a chilly domicile which they had
ardently longed for. As it is my solitary achievement as an
architect, I must dwell rather lovingly on the building of this
hut. The professional ice-cutters were bringing up daily a large
supply of great gleaming transparent blocks from the river, both
for the building of the band-house and for the summer supply of
Rideau Hall, so there was no lack of material. On the American
continent one is being told so constantly that this-and-that "will
cut no ice," that it is satisfactory to be able to report that
those French-Canadians cut ice in the most efficient fashion. My
sole building implement was a kettle of boiling water. I placed
ice-blocks in a circle, pouring boiling water between each two
blocks to melt the points of contact, and in half an hour they had
frozen into one solid lump. I and a friend proceeded like this
till the ice-walls were about four feet high, spaces being left
for the door and windows. As the blocks became too heavy to lift,
we used great wads of snow in their stead, melting them with cold
water and kneading them into shape with thick woollen gloves, and
so the walls rose. I wanted a snow roof; had we been mediaeval
cathedral builders we might possibly have fashioned a groined and
vaulted snow roof, with ice ribs, but being amateurs, our roof
perpetually collapsed, so we finally roofed the hut with grooved-
and-tongued boards, cutting a hole through them for the chimney.
We then built a brick fire-place, with mantelpiece complete,
ending in an iron chimney. The windows were our great triumph. I
filled large japanned tea-trays two inches deep with water and
left them out to freeze. Then we placed the trays in a hot bath
and floated the sheets of ice off. They broke time and time again,
but after about the twentieth try we succeeded in producing two
great sheets of transparent ice which were fitted into the window-
spaces, and firmly cemented in place with wet snow. Then the
completed hut had to be furnished. A carpenter in Ottawa made me a
little dresser, a little table, and little chairs of plain deal; I
bought some cooking utensils, some enamelled-iron tea-things and
plates, and found in Ottawa some crude oleographs printed on oil-
cloth and impervious to damp. These were duly hung on the snow
walls of the hut, and the little girls worked some red Turkey-
twill curtains for the ice windows, and a frill for the
mantelpiece in orthodox south of England cottage style. The boys
made a winding tunnel through the snow-drifts up to the door of
the hut, and Nature did the rest, burying the hut in snow until
its very existence was unsuspected by strangers, though it may be
unusual to see clouds of wood-smoke issuing from an apparent snow-
drift. That little house stood for over three months; it afforded
the utmost joy to its youthful occupiers, and I confess that I
took a great paternal pride in it myself. Really at night, with
the red curtains drawn over the ice windows, with the pictures on
its snow walls, a lamp alight and a roaring log fire blazing on
the brick hearth, it was the most invitingly cosy little place. It
is true that with the heat the snow walls perspired freely, and
the roof was apt to drip like a fat man in August, but it was
considered tactful to ignore these details. Here the children
entertained their friends at tea-parties, and made hideous
juvenile experiments in cookery; here, too, "Jerusalem the Golden"
was prepared. It was a simple operation; milk and honey were
thoroughly mixed in a bowl, the bowl was put out to freeze, and
the frozen mass dipped into hot water to loosen it; "Jerusalem the
Golden" was then broken up small, and the toothsome chips eagerly
devoured. Those familiar with the hymn will at once understand the
allusion.
Sir John Macdonald, the Prime Minister, was very often at
Government House, and dined there perpetually. When at the
Petrograd Embassy, I was constantly hearing of Sir John from my
chief, Lord Dufferin, who had an immense admiration for him, and
considered him the maker of the Dominion, and a really great
statesman. I was naturally anxious to meet a man of whom I had
heard so much. "John A.," as he was universally known in Canada,
had a very engaging personality, and conveyed an impression of
having an enormous reserve of latent force behind his genial
manner. Facially he was reminiscent of Lord Beaconsfield, but
there was nothing very striking about him as an orator: his style
was direct and straightforward.
The Houses of Parliament at Ottawa are a splendid pile of
buildings, and though they may owe a great deal to the wonderful
site they occupy on a semicircular wooded bluff projecting into
the river, I should consider them one of the most successful group
of buildings erected anywhere during the nineteenth century. All
the details might not bear close examination, but the general
effect was admirable, especially that of the great circular
library, with its conical roof. In addition to the Legislative
Chambers proper, two flanking buildings in the same style housed
various Administrative departments. Seen from Rideau Hall in dark
silhouette against the sunset sky, the bold outline of the conical
roof of the library and the three tall towers flanking it gave a
sort of picturesque Nuremberg effect to the distant view of
Ottawa, The Parliament buildings proper were destroyed by an
incendiary during the war, but the library and wings escaped.
Everything in the House of Commons was modelled accurately on
Westminster. The Canadian Parliament being bi-lingual, French
members addressed the Speaker as "Monsieur l'Orateur," and the
Usher of the Black Rod of the Senate became "l'Huissier de la
Verge Noire." To my mind there was something intensely comical in
addressing a man who seldom opened his mouth except to cry,
"Order, order," as "Monsieur l'Orateur." A Frenchman from the
Province of Quebec seems always to be chosen as Canadian Speaker.
In my time he was a M. Ouiment, the TWENTY-FIRST child of the same
parents, so French Canadians are apparently not threatened with
extinction. I heard in the House of Commons at Ottawa the most
curious peroration I have ever listened to. It came from the late
Nicholas Flood Davin, a member of Irish extraction who sat for a
Far-Western constituency. The House was debating a dull Bill
relating to the lumber industry, when Davin, who may possibly have
been under the influence of temporary excitement, insisted on
speaking. He made a long and absolutely irrelevant speech in a
voice of thunder, and finished with these words, every one of
which I remember: "There are some who declare that Canada's trade
is declining; there are some who maintain that the rich glow of
health which at present mantles o'er Canada's virgin cheek will
soon be replaced by the pallid hues of the corpse. To such
pusillanimous propagandists of a preposterous pessimism, I answer,
Mr. Speaker with all confidence, never! never!" As a rhetorical
effort this is striking, though there seems a lack of lucidity
about it.
In the Canadian House of Commons there are a number of little
pages who run errands for members, and fetch them books and
papers. These boys sit on the steps of the Speaker's chair, and
when the House adjourns for dinner the pages hold a "Pages'
Parliament." One boy, elected by the others as Speaker, puts on a
gown and seats himself in the Speaker's chair; the "Prime
Minister" and the members of the Government sit on the Government
benches, the Leader of the Opposition with his supporters take
their places opposite and the boys hold regular debates. Many of
the members took great interest in the "Pages' Parliament," and
coached the boys for their debates. I have seen Sir John Macdonald
giving the fourteen-year-old "Premier" points for his speech that
evening.
All-night sittings were far rarer at Ottawa than with us, and
constituted quite an event. Some of us went into the gallery at 5
a.m. after a dance, to see the end of a long and stormy sitting.
The House was very uproarious. Some member had brought in a
cricket-ball, and they were throwing each other catches across the
House. To the credit of Canadian M.P.'s, I must say that we never
saw a single catch missed. When Sir John rose to close the debate,
there were loud cries of, "You have talked enough, John A. Give us
a song instead." "All right," cried Sir John, "I will give you
'God save the Queen.'" And he forthwith started it in a lusty
voice, all the members joining in. The introduction of a cricket-
ball might brighten all-night sittings in our own Parliament,
though somehow I cannot quite picture to myself Mr. Asquith
throwing catches to Sir Frederick Banbury across the floor of the
House of Commons.
I was once in the gallery of the South African Parliament at
Capetown, after the House had been sitting continuously for twenty
hours. The Speaker had had a stool brought him to rest his legs
on, and was fast asleep in his chair, with his wig all awry. Dutch
farmer members from the Back-Veld were stretched out at full
length on the benches in the lobbies, snoring loudly; in fact, the
whole place was a sort of Parliamentary Pullman Sleeping-car.
That splendid man, the late General Botha, told me that late hours
in Parliament upset him terribly, as he had been used all his life
to going early to bed. Though the exterior of the Capetown
Parliament buildings is nothing very wonderful architecturally,
the interior is very handsome, and quite surprisingly spacious.
The Governor-General gave two evening skating and tobaggoning
parties at Rideau Hall every winter. He termed these gatherings
his "Arctic Cremornes," after the then recently defunct gardens in
London, and the parties were wonderfully picturesque. In those
days, though the fashion now has quite disappeared, all members of
snow-shoe and tobogganing clubs, men and women alike, wore
coloured blanket-suits consisting of knickerbockers and long
coats, with bright-coloured stockings, sash, and knitted toque
(invariably pronounced "tuke"). The club colours of course varied.
Rideau Hall was white with purple stockings and "tuke," and red
sash. Others were sky-blue, with scarlet stockings and "tuke," or
crimson and black, or brown and green. A collection of three
hundred people in blanket-suits gave the effect of a peripatetic
rainbow against the white snow. For the "Arctic Cremorne" the
rinks were all fringed with coloured fairy-lamps; the curling-rink
and the tea-room above it were also outlined with innumerable
coloured electric bulbs, and festoons of Japanese lanterns were
stretched between the fir trees in all directions. At the top of
the toboggan slides powerful arc-lamps blazed, and a stupendous
bonfire roared on a little eminence. The effect was indescribably
pretty, and it was pleasant to reflect how man had triumphed over
Nature in being able to give an outdoor evening party in mid-
winter with the thermometer below zero. The gleaming crystals of
snow reflecting the coloured lamps; the Bengal lights staining the
white expanse crimson and green, and silhouetting the outlines of
the fir trees in dead black against the burnished steel of the
sky; the crowd of guests in their many-coloured blanket-suits,
made a singularly attractive picture, with a note of absolute
novelty in it; and the crash of the military band, the merry whirr
of the skates, and the roar of the descending toboggans had
something extraordinarily exhilarating about them in the keen,
pure air. The supper-room always struck me as being pleasingly
unconventional. Supper was served in the long, covered curling-
rink, where the temperature was the same as that of the open air
outside, so there was a long table elaborately set out with
silver-branched candlesticks and all the Governor-General's fine
collection of plate, but the servants waited in heavy fur-coats
and caps. Of course no flowers could be used in that temperature,
so the silver vases held branches of spruce, hemlock, and other
Canadian firs. The French cook had to be very careful as to what
dishes he prepared, for anything with moisture in it would freeze
at once; meringues, for instance, would be frozen into uneatable
cricket-balls, and tea, coffee, and soup had to simmer perpetually
over lamps. One so seldom has a ball-supper with North Pole
surroundings. We had a serious toboggan accident one night owing
to the stupidity of an old Senator, who insisted on standing in
the middle of the track, and the Aides-de-Camps' room was
converted into an operating theatre, and reeked with the fumes of
chloroform. The young man had bad concussion, and was obliged to
remain a week at Rideau Hall, whilst the poor girl was disfigured
for life.
Whilst on the subject of ball-suppers, there was a curious custom
prevailing in Lisbon. Most Portuguese having very limited means,
it was not usual to offer any refreshments whatever to guests at
dances; but when it was done, it took the form of a "tooth-pick-
supper" (souper aux curedents). Small pieces of chicken, tongue,
or beef were piled on plates, each piece skewered with a wooden
toothpick. The guests picked these off the plate by the toothpick,
and nibbled the meat away from it, eating it with slices of bread.
This obviated the use of plates, knives and forks, most Portuguese
families having neither sufficient silver table-plate for an
entertainment nor the means to hire any. There was another reason
for this quaint custom. Some Portuguese are--how shall we put it?--
inveterate souvenir-hunters. The Duke of Palmella, one of the
few rich men in Portugal, gave a ball whilst I was in Lisbon at
which the supper was served in the ordinary fashion, with plates,
spoons, knives and forks. It was a matter of common knowledge in
Lisbon that 50 per cent. of the ducal silver spoons and forks had
left the house in the pockets of his Grace's guests, who doubtless
wished to preserve a slight memento of so pleasant an evening.
In a certain Balkan State which I will refrain from naming, the
inhabitants are also confirmed souvenir-hunters. At a dinner-party
at the British Legation in this nameless State, one of the
Diplomatic ladies was wearing a very fine necklace of pearls and
enamel. A native of the State admired this necklace immensely, and
begged for permission to examine it closer. The Diplomat's wife
very unwisely unfastened her pearl necklace, and it was passed
around from hand to hand, amidst loud expressions of admiration at
its beautiful workmanship. At the end of dinner the Diplomatic
lady requested that her necklace might be returned to her, but it
was not forthcoming; no one knew anything about it. The British
Minister, who thought that he understood the people of the
country, rose to the occasion. Getting up from his chair, he said
with a smile, "We have just witnessed a very clever and very
amusing piece of legerdemain. Now we are going to see another
little piece of conjuring." The Minister walked quietly to both
doors of the room, locked them, and put the keys in his pocket. He
then placed a small silver bowl from the side-board in the centre
of the dinner-table, and continued: "I am now going to switch off
all the lights, and to count ten slowly. When I have reached ten,
I shall turn on the lights again, and hey presto! Madame de--'s
necklace will be found lying in that silver bowl!" The room became
plunged in darkness, and the Minister counted slowly up to ten.
The electric light blazed out again, there was no necklace, but
the silver bowl had vanished!
I have enjoyed the exceptional experience of having inspected many
convents in Canada, even those of the most strictly cloistered
Orders. By long-established custom, the Governor-General's wife
has the right to inspect any convent in Canada on giving twenty-
four hours' notice, and she may take with her any two persons she
chooses, of either sex. My sister was fond of visiting convents,
and she often took me with her as I could speak French. We have
thus been in convents of Ursulines, Poor Clares, Grey Sisters, and
in some of those of the more strictly cloistered Orders. The
procedure was always the same. We were ushered into a beautifully
clean, bare, whitewashed parloir, with a highly polished floor
redolent of beeswax. There would be hard benches running round the
parloir, raised on a platform, much after the fashion of raised
benches in a billiard-room. In the centre would be a chair for the
Reverend Mother. We then made polite conversation for a few
minutes, after which coffee (usually compounded of scorched beans,
with no relation whatever to "Coffea Arabica") was handed to us,
and we went over the convent. It was extremely difficult for two
Protestants to find any subject of conversation which could
interest a Mother Superior who knew nothing of the world outside
her convent walls, nor was it easy to find any common ground on
which to meet her, all religious topics being necessarily
excluded, I had noticed that the nuns made frequent allusions to a
certain Marie Alacoque. Misled by the similarity of the sound in
French, I, in my ignorance, thought that this referred to a method
of cooking eggs. I learnt later that Marie Alacoque was a French
nun who lived in the seventeenth century, and I discovered why her
memory was so revered by her co-religionists. It was easy to get a
book from the Ottawa Library and to read her up, and after that
conversation became less difficult, for a few remarks about Marie
Alacoque were always appreciated in conventual circles. The
convents were invariably neat and clean, but I was perpetually
struck by the wax-like pallor of the inmates. The elder nuns in
the strictly cloistered Orders were as excited as children over
this unexpected irruption into their convent of two strangers from
the world outside, which they had left for so long. They struck me
as most excellent, earnest women, and they delighted in exhibiting
all their treasures, including the ecclesiastical vestments and
their Church plate. They always made a point of showing us, as an
object of great interest, the flat candlestick of bougie that the
Cardinal-Archbishop had used when he had last celebrated
Pontifical High Mass in their chapel. In one strictly cloistered
convent there was a high wooden trellis across the chapel, so that
though the nuns could see the priest at the altar through the
trellis-work, he was unable to see them. In the Convent of the
Grey Sisters at Ottawa we found an old English nun who, in spite
of having spent thirty-five years in a French-Canadian convent,
still retained the strong Cockney accent of her native London. She
was a cheery old soul, and, with another old English nun, had
charge of the wardrobe, which they insisted on showing me. I was
gazing at piles of clothing neatly arranged on shelves, when the
old Cockney nun clapped her hands. "We will dress you up as a
Sister," she cried, and they promptly proceeded to do so. They put
me on a habit (largest size) over my other clothes, chuckling with
glee meanwhile, and I was duly draped in the guimpe, the piece of
linen which covers a nun's head and shoulders and frames her face,
called, I believe, in English a "wimple," and my toilet was
complete except for my veil, when, by a piece of real bad luck,
the Reverend Mother and my sister came into the room. We had no
time to hide, so we were caught. Having no moustache, I flattered
myself that I made rather a saintly-looking novice, and I hid my
hands in the orthodox way in my sleeves, but the Mother Superior
was evidently very much put out. The clothes that had come in
contact with my heretical person were ordered to be placed on one
side, I presume to be morally disinfected, and I can only trust
that the two old nuns did not get into serious trouble over their
little joke. I am sorry that my toilet was not completed; I should
like to have felt that just for once in my life I had taken the
veil, if for five minutes only.
In the "eighties" the city of Montreal spent large sums over their
Winter Carnival. It attracted crowds of strangers, principally
from the United States, and it certainly stimulated the retail
trade of the city. The Governor-General was in the habit of taking
a house in Montreal for the Carnival, and my brother-in-law was
lent the home of a hospitable sugar magnate. The dining-room of
this house, in which its owner had allowed full play to his
Oriental imagination and love of colour, was so singular that it
merits a few words of description. The room was square, with a
domed ceiling. It was panelled in polished satinwood to a height
of about five feet. Above the panelling were placed twelve owls in
carved and silvered wood, each one about two feet high, supporting
gas-standards. Rose-coloured silk was stretched from the panelling
up to the heavy frieze, consisting of "swags" of fruit and foliage
modelled in high relief, and brilliantly coloured in their natural
hues. The domed ceiling was painted sky-blue, covered with golden
stars, gold and silver suns and moons, and the signs of the
Zodiac. I may add that the effect of this curious apartment was
not such as to warrant any one trying to reproduce it. The house
also contained a white marble swimming bath; an unnecessary
adjunct, I should have thought, to a dwelling built for winter
occupation in Montreal.
The Ice-Castle erected by the Municipality was really a joy to the
eye. It was rather larger than, say, the Westminster Guildhall,
and had a tower eighty feet high. It was an admirable reproduction
of a Gothic castle, designed and built by a competent architect,
with barbican, battlements, and machiocolaions all complete, the
whole of gleaming, transparent ice-blocks, a genuine thing of
beauty. One of the principal events of the Carnival was the
storming of the Ice-Castle by the snow-shoe clubs of Montreal.
Hundreds of snow-shoers, in their rainbow-hued blanket suits,
advanced in line on the castle and fired thousands of Roman
candles at their objective, which returned the fire with rockets
innumerable, and an elaborate display of fireworks, burning
continually Bengal lights of various colours within its
translucent walls, and spouting gold and silver rain on its
assailants. It really was a gorgeous feast of colour for the eye,
a most entrancing spectacle, with all this polychrome glow seen
against the dead-white field of snow which covered Dominion
Square, in the crystal clearness of a Canadian winter night, with
the thermometer down anywhere.
Another annual feature of the Carnival was the great fancy-dress
skating fete in the covered rink. The Victoria Rink at Montreal is
a huge building, and was profusely decorated for the occasion with
the usual flags, wreaths of artificial foliage, and coloured
lamps. An American sculptor had modelled six colossal groups of
statuary out of wet snow, and these were ranged down either side
of the rink. As they froze, they took on the appearance and
texture of white marble, and were very effective. Round a cluster
of arc-lights in the roof there was a sort of revolving cage of
different coloured panes of glass; these threw variegated beams of
light over the brilliant kaleidoscopic crowd below. Previous
Governors-General had, in opening the fete shuffled shamefacedly
down the centre of the rink in overshoes and fur coats to the
dais, but Lord and Lady Lansdowne, being both expert skaters,
determined to do the thing in proper Carnival style, and arrived
in fancy dress, he in black as a Duke of Brunswick, she as Mary
Queen of Scots, attended by her two boys, then twelve and fourteen
years old, as pages, resplendent in crimson tights and crimson
velvet. The band struck up "God Save the Queen," and down the
cleared space in the centre skimmed, hand-in-hand, the Duke of
Brunswick and Mary Queen of Scots, with the two pages carrying her
train, all four executing a "Dutch roll" in the most workman-like
manner. It was really a very effective entrance, and was immensely
appreciated by the crowd of skaters present. I represented a
Shakespearean character, and had occasion to note what very
inadequate protection is afforded by blue silk tights, with
nothing under them, against the cold of a Canadian February. One
of the Aides-de-Camp had arrayed himself in white silk as Romeo;
being only just out from England, he was anything but firm on his
skates. Some malicious young Montrealers of tender age, noticing
this, deliberately bumped into him again and again, sending his
conspicuous white figure spinning each time. Poor Romeo's
experiences were no more fortunate on the rink than in the tragedy
associated with his name; by the end of the evening, after his
many tumbles, his draggled white silk dress suggested irresistibly
the plumage of a soiled dove.
A hill (locally known as "The Mountain") rises immediately behind
Montreal, the original Mont Real, or Mount Royal, from which the
city derives its name. This naturally lends itself to the
formation of toboggan slides, and one of them, the "Montreal Club
Slide," was really terrifically steep. The start was precipitous
enough, in all conscience, but soon came a steep drop of sixty
feet, at which point all the working parts of one's anatomy seemed
to leave one, to replace themselves at the finish only. The pace
was so tremendous that it was difficult to breathe, but it was
immensely exciting. The Montreal slide was just one-third of a
mile long, and the time occupied in the descent on good ice was
about twenty seconds, working out at sixty miles an hour. Every
precaution was taken against accidents; there was a telephone from
the far end, and no toboggan was allowed to start until "track
clear" had been signalled. Everything in this world is relative.
We had thought our Ottawa slides very fast, though the greatest
speed we ever attained was about thirty miles an hour, whilst at
home we had been delighted if we could coax fifteen miles an hour
out of our rough machines. The Lansdowne boys were very expert on
toboggans, and could go down the Ottawa slides standing erect, a
thing no adult could possibly manage. They had fitted their
machines with gong-bells and red and green lanterns, and the
"Ottawa River Express" would come whizzing down at night with
bells clanging and lights gleaming.
I can claim to be the absolute pioneer of ski on the American
continent, for in January, 1887, I brought my Russian ski to
Ottawa, the very first pair that had ever been seen in the New
World. I coasted down hills on them amidst universal jeers; every
one declared that they were quite unsuited to Canadian conditions.
The old-fashioned raquettes had their advantages, for one could
walk over the softest snow in them. Here, again, I fancy that it
was the sense of man triumphant over Nature that made snow-shoeing
so attractive. The Canadian snow-shoe brings certain unaccustomed
muscles into play, and these muscles show their resentment by
aching furiously. The French habitants term this pain mal de
raquettes. In my time snow-shoe tramps at night, across-country
into the woods, were one of the standard winter amusements of
Ottawa, and the girls showed great dexterity in vaulting fences
with their snow-shoes on.
A Canadian winter is bathed in sunshine. In the dry, crisp
atmosphere distant objects are as clear-cut and hard as though
they were carved out of wood; the air is like wine, and with every
breath human beings seem to enter on a new lease of life.
It is not so in the lower world. There is not a bird to be seen,
for no bird could secure a living with three feet of snow on the
ground. Nature is very dead, and I understood the glee with which
the children used to announce the return of the crows, for these
wise birds are the unfailing harbingers of Spring. With us Spring
is undecided, fickle, and coy. She is not sure of herself, and
after making timid, tentative advances, retreats again, uncertain
as to her ability to cope with grim Winter. In Canada, Spring
comes with an all-conquering rush. In one short fortnight she
clothes the trees in green, and carpets the ground with blue and
white hepaticas. She is also, unfortunately, accompanied by
myriads of self-appointed official maids-of-honour in the shape of
mosquitoes, anxious to make up for their long winter fast. As the
fierce suns of April melt the surface snow, the water percolates
through to the ground, where it freezes again, forming a sheet of
what Canadians term "glare-ice." I have seen at Rideau Hall this
ice split in all directions over the flower-beds by the first
tender shoots of the crocuses. How these fragile little spears of
green have the power to penetrate an inch of ice is one of the
mysteries of Nature.
Would space admit of it, and were paper not such an unreasonably
expensive commodity just now, I would like to speak of the glories
of a Canadian wood in May, with the ground flecked with red and
white trilliums; of the fields in British Columbia, gorgeous in
spring-time with blue lilies and drifts of rose-coloured
cyclamens; of the autumn woods in their sumptuous dress of
scarlet, crimson, orange, and yellow, the sugar-maples blazing
like torches against the dark firs; of the marvels of the three
ranges of the Rockies, Selkirks, and Cascades, and of the other
wonders of the great Dominion.
As boys, I and my youngest brother knew "Hiawatha's Fishing"
almost by heart, so I had an intense desire to see "Gitche Gumee,
the Big-Sea Water," which we more prosaically call Lake Superior,
the home of the sturgeon "Nahma," of "Ugudwash" the sun-fish, of
the pike the "Maskenozha," and the actual scene of Hiawatha's
fishing. To others, without this sentimental interest, the Great
Lakes might appear vast but uninteresting expanses of water,
chiefly remarkable for the hideous form of vessel which has been
evolved to navigate their clear depths.
One thing I can say with confidence. No one who makes a winter
journey to that land of sunshine and snow, with its energetic,
pleasant, and hospitable inhabitants, will ever regret it, and the
wayfarer will return home with the consciousness of having been in
contact with an intensely virile race, only now beginning to
realise its own strength.
CHAPTER X
Calcutta--Hooghly pilots--Government House--A Durbar--The sulky
Rajah--The customary formalities--An ingenious interpreter--The
sailing clippers in the Hooghly-Calcutta Cathedral--A succulent
banquet--The mistaken Ministre--The "Gordons"--Barrackpore--A
Swiss Family Robinson aerial house--The child and the elephants--
The merry midshipmen--Some of their escapades--A huge haul of
fishes--Queen Victoria and Hindustani--The Hills--The Manipur
outbreak--A riding tour--A wise old Anglo-Indian--Incidents--The
fidelity of native servants--A novel printing-press--Lucknow--The
loss of an illusion.
Lord Lansdowne had in 1888 been transferred from Canada to India,
and in May of that year he left Ottawa for Calcutta, taking on the
way a three months' well-earned holiday in England. Two of his
staff accompanied him from the vigorous young West to the
immemorially old East.
He succeeded as Viceroy Lord Dufferin, who had also held the
appointment of Governor-General of Canada up to 1878, after which
he had served as British Ambassador both at Petrograd and at
Constantinople, before proceeding to India in 1884.
Lord Minto, too, in later years filled both positions, serving in
Canada from 1898 to 1904, and in India from 1905 to 1910.
Whether in 1690 Job Charnock made a wise selection in fixing his
trading-station where Calcutta now stands, may be open to doubt.
He certainly had the broad Hooghly at his doors, affording plenty
of water not only for trading-vessels, but also for men-of-war in
cases of emergency. Still, from the swampy nature of the soil, and
its proximity to the great marshes of the Sunderbunds, Calcutta
could never be a really healthy place. An arrival by water up the
Hooghly unquestionably gives the most favourable impression of the
Indian ex-capital, though the river banks are flat and
uninteresting. The Hooghly is one of the most difficult rivers in
the world to navigate, for the shoals and sand-banks change almost
daily with the strong tides, and the white Hooghly pilots are men
at the very top of their profession, and earn some L2000 a year
apiece. They are tremendous swells, and are perfectly conscious of
the fact, coming on board with their native servants and their
white "cub" or pupil. There is one shoal in particular, known as
the "James and Mary," on which a ship, touching ever so lightly,
is as good as lost. Calcutta, since I first knew it, has become a
great manufacturing centre. Lines of factories stand for over
twenty miles thick on the left bank of the river; the great pall
of black smoke hanging over the city is visible for miles, and the
atmosphere is beginning to rival that of Manchester. Long use has
accustomed us to the smoke-blackened elms and limes of London, but
there is something peculiarly pathetic in the sight of a grimy,
sooty palm tree.
The outward aspect of the stately Government House at Calcutta is
familiar to most people. It is a huge and imposing edifice, but
when I first knew it, its interior was very plain, and rather
bare. Lady Minto changed all this during her husband's Vice-
royalty, and, with her wonderful taste, transformed it into a sort
of Italian palace at a very small cost. She bought in Europe a few
fine specimens of old Italian gilt furniture, and had them copied
in Calcutta by native workmen. In the East, the Oriental point of
view must be studied, and Easterns attach immense importance to
external splendour. The throne-room at Calcutta, under Lady
Minto's skilful treatment, became gorgeous enough for the most
exacting Asiatic, with its black marble floor, its rose-coloured
silk walls where great silver sconces alternated with full-length
portraits of British sovereigns, its white "chunam" columns and
its gilt Italian furniture. "Chunam" has been used in India from
time immemorial for decorative purposes. It is as white as snow
and harder than any stone, and is, I believe, made from calcined
shells. Let us suppose a Durbar held in this renovated throne-room
for the official reception of a native Indian Prince. The
particular occasion I have in mind was long after Lord Lansdowne's
time, when a certain Rajah, notoriously ill-disposed towards the
British Raj, had been given the strongest of hints that unless he
mended his ways, he might find another ruler placed on the throne
of his State. He was also recommended to come to Calcutta and to
pay his respects to the Viceroy there, when, of course, he would
be received with the number of guns to which he was entitled. The
Indian Princes attach the utmost importance to the number of guns
they are given as a salute, a number which varies from twenty-one
in the case of the Nizam of Hyderabad, who alone ranks as a
Sovereign, to nine for the smaller princes. Should the British
Government wish to mark its strong displeasure with any native
ruler, it sometimes does so by reducing the number of guns of his
salute, and correspondingly, to have the number increased is a
high honour. Sulkily and unwillingly the Rajah of whom I am
thinking journeyed to Calcutta, and sulkily and unwillingly did he
attend the Durbar. On occasions such as these, visiting native
Princes are the guests of the Government of India at Hastings
House (Warren Hastings' old country house in the suburbs of
Calcutta, specially renovated and fitted up for the purpose), and
the Viceroy's state carriages are sent to convey them to
Government House. Everything in the way of ceremonial in India is
done strictly by rule. The precise number of steps the Viceroy
will advance to greet visiting Rajahs is all laid down in a little
book. The Nizam of Hyderabad is met by the Viceroy with all his
staff at the state entrance of Government House, and he is
accompanied through all the rooms, both on his arrival and on his
departure; but, as I said before, the Nizam ranks as a Sovereign.
In the case of lesser lights the Viceroy advances anything from
three to twenty steps. These points may appear very trivial to
Europeans, but to Orientals they assume great importance, and,
after all, India is a part of Asia. At right angles to the
Calcutta throne-room is the fine Marble Hall, with marble floor
and columns and an entirely gilt ceiling; empty except for six
colossal busts of Roman Emperors, which, together with a number of
splendid cut-glass chandeliers of the best French Louis XV.
period, and a full-length portrait of Louis XV. himself, fell into
our hands through the fortunes of war at a time when our relations
with our present film ally, France, were possibly less cordial
than at present. For a Durbar a long line of red carpet was laid
from the throne-room, through the Marble Hall and the White Hall
beyond it, right down the great flight of exterior steps, at the
foot of which a white Guard of Honour of one hundred men from a
British regiment was drawn up, Aligned through the outer hall, the
Marble Hall and the throne-room were one hundred men of the
Viceroy's Bodyguard, splendid fellows chosen for their height and
appearance, and all from Northern India. They wore the white
leather breeches and jack-boots of our own Life Guards, with
scarlet tunics and huge turbans of blue and gold, standing with
their lances as motionless as so many bronze statues. For a
Durbar, many precious things were unearthed from the "Tosha-
Khana," or Treasury: the Viceroy's silver-gilt throne; an arm-
chair of solid silver for the visiting Rajah; great silver-gilt
maces bearing & crown and "V.R.I."; and, above all, the beautiful
Durbar carpets of woven gold wire. The making of these carpets is,
I believe, an hereditary trade in a Benares family; they are woven
of real gold wire, heavily embroidered in gold afterwards, and are
immensely expensive. The visiting Rajah announces beforehand the
number of the suite he is bringing with him, and the Viceroy has a
precisely similar number, so two corresponding rows of cane arm-
chairs are placed opposite each other, at right angles to the
throne. Behind the chairs twelve resplendent red-and-gold-coated
servants with blue-and-silver turbans, hold the gilt maces aloft,
whilst behind the throne eight more gorgeously apparelled natives
hold two long-handled fans of peacock's feathers, two silver-
mounted yak's tails, and two massive sheaves of peacock's
feathers, all these being the Eastern emblems of sovereignty.
We will suppose this particular Rajah to be a "nine-gun" and a
"three-step" man. Bang go the cannon from Fort William nine times,
and the Viceroy, in full uniform with decorations, duly advances
three steps on the gold carpet to greet his visitor. The Viceroy
seats himself on his silver-gilt throne at the top of the three
steps, the visiting Rajah in his silver chair being one step
lower. The two suites seat themselves facing each other in dead
silence; the Europeans assuming an absolutely Oriental impassivity
of countenance. The ill-conditioned Rajah, though he spoke English
perfectly, had insisted on bringing his own interpreter with him.
A long pause in conformity with Oriental etiquette follows, then
the Viceroy puts the first invariable question: "I trust that your
Highness is in the enjoyment of good health?" which is duly
repeated in Urdu by the official white interpreter. The sulky
Rajah grunts something that sounds like "Bhirrr Whirrr," which the
native interpreter renders, in clipped staccato English, as "His
Highness declares that by your Excellency's favour his health is
excellent. Lately, owing to attack of fever, it was with His
Highness what Immortal Bard has termed a case of 'to be or not to
be!' Now, danger happily averted, His Highness has seldom reposed
under the canopy of a sounder brain than at present." Another long
pause, and the second invariable question: "I trust that your
Highness' Army is in its usual efficient state?" The surly Rajah,
"Khirr Virr." The native interpreter, "Without doubt His Highness'
Army has never yet been so efficient. Should troubles arise, or a
pretty kettle of fish unfortunately occur, His Highness places his
entire Army at your Excellency's disposal; as Swan of Avon says,
'Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock
them.'" A third question, "I trust that the crops in your
Highness' dominion are satisfactory?" The Rajah, "Ghirrr Firrr."
The interpreter, "Stimulated without doubt by your Excellency's
auspicious visit to neighbouring State, the soil in His Highness'
dominions has determined to beat record and to go regular mucker.
Crops tenfold ordinary capacity are springing from the ground
everywhere." One has seen a conjurer produce half a roomful of
paper flowers from a hat, or even from an even less promising
receptacle, but no conjurer was in it with that interpreter, who
from two sulky monosyllabic grunts evolved a perfect garland of
choice Oriental flowers of speech. It reminded me of the process
known in newspaper offices as "expanding" a telegram. When the
customary number of formal questions have been put, the Viceroy
makes a sign to his Military Secretary, who brings him a gold tray
on which stand a little gold flask and a small box; the
traditional "Attar and pan." The Viceroy sprinkles a few drops of
attar of roses on the Rajah's clothing from the gold flask, and
hands him a piece of betel-nut wrapped in gold paper, known as
"pan." This is the courteous Eastern fashion of saying "Now I bid
you good-bye." The Military Secretary performs a like office to
the members of the Rajah's suite, who, however, have to content
themselves with attar sprinkled from a silver bottle and "pans"
wrapped in silver paper. Then all the traditional requirements of
Oriental politeness have been fulfilled, and the Rajah takes his
leave with the same ceremonies as attended his arrival. At the
beginning of a Durbar "tribute" is presented--that is to say that
a folded napkin supposed to contain one thousand gold mohurs is
handed to the Viceroy, who "touches it and remits it." I have
often wondered what that folded napkin really contained.
When I first knew Calcutta, most of the grain, jute, hemp and
indigo exported was carried to its various destinations in
sailing-ships, and there were rows and rows of splendid full-
rigged ships and barques lying moored in the Hooghly along the
whole length of the Maidan. The line must have extended for two
miles, and I never tired of looking at these beautiful vessels
with their graceful lines and huge spars, all clean and spick and
span with green and white paint, the ubiquitous Calcutta crows
perched in serried ranks on their yards. To my mind a full-rigged
ship is the most beautiful object man has ever devised, and when
the dusk was falling, with every spar and rope outlined in black
against the vivid crimson of the short-lived Indian sunset, the
long line of shipping made a glorious picture. Nineteen years
later every sailing-ship had disappeared from the Hooghly, and in
their place were rows of unsightly, rusty-sided iron tanks, with
squat polemasts and ugly funnels vomiting black smoke. A tramp-
steamer has its uses, no doubt, but it is hardly a thing of
beauty. Ichabod! Ichabod!
Calcutta is fortunate in having so fine a lung as the great
stretch of the Maidan. It has been admirably planted and laid out,
with every palm of tree of aggressively Indian appearance
carefully excluded from its green expanse, so it wears a curiously
home-like appearance. The Maidan is very reminiscent of Hyde Park,
though almost double its size. There is one spot, where the Gothic
spire of the cathedral emerges from a mass of greenery, with a
large sheet of water in the foreground, which recalls exactly the
view over Bayswater from the bridge spanning the Serpentine.
Considering that Calcutta Cathedral was built in 1840; that it was
designed by an Engineer officer, and not by an architect; that its
"Gothic" is composed of cast-iron and stucco instead of stone, it
is really not such a bad building. The great size of its interior
gives it a certain dignity, and owing to the generosity of the
European community, it is most lavishly adorned with marbles,
mosaics, and stained glass. It possesses the finest organ in Asia,
and a really excellent choir, the men Europeans, the boys being
Eurasians. These small half-castes have very sweet voices, with a
curious and not unpleasing metallic timbre about them. At evening
service in the cathedral, should one ignore such details as the
rows of electric punkahs, the temperature, and the dingy
complexions of the choir-boys, it was almost impossible to realise
that one was not in England. I had been used to singing in a
church choir, and it was pleasant to hear such familiar cathedral
services as Garrett in D, Smart in F, Walmisley in D minor, and
Hopkins in F, so perfectly rendered seven thousand miles away from
home, thanks to that excellent musician, Dr. Slater, the cathedral
organist.
St. Andrew's Scottish Presbyterian Church stands in its own wooded
grounds in which there are two large ponds, or, as Anglo-Indians
would put it, it stands in a compound with large tanks. The church
is consequently infested with mosquitoes. The last time that I was
in Calcutta, the Gordon Highlanders had just relieved an English
regiment in the fort, and on the first Sunday after their arrival,
four hundred Gordons were marched to a parade service at St.
Andrew's. The most optimistic mosquito had never in his wildest
dreams imagined such a succulent banquet as that afforded by four
hundred bare-kneed, kilted Highlanders, and the mosquitoes made
the fullest use of their unique opportunity. Soon the church
resounded with the vigorous slapping of hands on bare knees and
thighs, as the men endeavoured to kill a few of their little
tormentors. The minister, hearing the loud clapping, but entirely
misapprehending its purport, paused in his sermon, and said, "My
brethren, it is varra gratifying to a minister of the Word to
learn that his remarks meet with the approbation of his hearers,
but I'd have you remember that all applause is strictly oot of
place in the Hoose of God."
The Gordon Highlanders were originally raised by my great-
grandfather, the fourth Duke of Gordon, in 1794, or perhaps more
accurately, by my great-grandmother, Jean, the beautiful Duchess
of Gordon. Duchess Jean, then in the height of her beauty,
attended every market in the towns round Gordon Castle, and kissed
every recruit who took the guinea she offered. The French Republic
had declared war on Great Britain in 1793, and the Government had
made an urgent appeal for fresh levies of troops. Duchess Jean, by
her novel osculatory methods, raised the Gordons in four months.
My father and mother were married at Gordon Castle in 1832, and
the wedding guests grew so excessively convivial that they carried
everything on the tables at the wedding breakfast, silver plate,
glass, china, and all, down to the bridge at Fochabers, and threw
them into the Spey. We may congratulate ourselves on the fact that
it is no longer incumbent on wedding guests to drink the health of
the newly married couple so fervently, and that a proportional
saving in table fittings can thus be effected.
Barrackpore, the Viceroy's country place, is unquestionably a
pleasant spot, with its fine park and famous gardens. Like the
Maidan in Calcutta Barrackpore is a very fairly successful attempt
at reproducing England in Asia. With a little make-believe and a
determined attempt to ignore the grotesque outlines of a Hindoo
temple standing on the confines of the park, and the large humps
on the backs of the grazing cattle like the steam domes on railway
engines, it might be possible to imagine oneself at home, until
the illusion is shattered in quite another fashion. There is an
excellent eighteen-hole golf course in Barrackpore park, but when
you hear people talking of the second "brown" there can be no
doubt but that you are in Asia. A "green" would be a palpable
misnomer for the parched grass of an Indian dry season, still a
"brown" comes as a shock at first. The gardens merit their
reputation. There are innumerable ponds, or "tanks," of lotus and
water-lilies of every hue: scarlet, crimson, white, and pure sky-
blue, the latter an importation from Australia. When these are in
flower they are a lovely sight, and perhaps compensate for the
myriads of mosquitoes who find in these ponds an ideal breeding-
place, and assert their presence day and night most successfully.
There are great drifts of Eucharis lilies growing under the
protecting shadows of the trees along shady walks, and the blaze
of colour in the formal garden surrounding the white marble
fountain in front of the house is positively dazzling. The house
was built especially as a hot-weather residence, and as such is
not particularly successful, for it is one of the hottest
buildings in the whole of India. The dining-room is in the centre
of the house, and has no windows whatever; an arrangement which,
though it may shut out the sun, also excludes all fresh air as
well. The bedrooms extend up through two storeys, and are so
extremely lofty that one has the sensation of sleeping in a lift-
shaft. Apart from its heat, the house has a dignified old-world
air about it, with vague hints of Adam decoration in its details.
The establishment of Government House consisted of five hundred
and twenty servants, all natives, so it could not be termed short-
handed. With so many men, the apparently impossible could be
undertaken. Lord Lansdowne left Calcutta for Barrackpore every
Saturday afternoon. As soon as we had gone into luncheon at
Calcutta on the Saturday, perfect armies of men descended on the
private part of the house and packed up all the little things
about the rooms into big cases. An hour later they were on their
way up the river by steamer, and when we arrived at Barrackpore
for tea, the house looked as though it had been lived in for
weeks, with every object reposing on the tables in precisely the
same position it had occupied earlier in the day in Calcutta. Late
on Sunday night this process was reversed for the return journey
at seven on Monday morning. The Viceroy had a completely fitted-up
office in his smart little white-and-gold yacht, and was able to
get through a great deal of work on his voyage down the Hooghly
before breakfast on Monday mornings. A conscientious Viceroy of
India is one of the hardest-worked men in the world, for he
frequently has ten hours of office work in the day, irrespective
of his other duties.
An enormous banyan tree stands on the lawn at Barrackpore. I
should be afraid to say how much ground it covers; perhaps nearly
an acre, for these trees throw down aerial suckers which form into
fresh trunks, and so spread indefinitely. Lady Lansdowne thought
she would have a bamboo house built in this great banyan tree for
her little daughter, the same little girl for whom I had built the
snow-hut at Ottawa, for she happens to be my god-daughter. It was
to be a sort of "Swiss Family Robinson" tree-house, infinitely
superior to the house on the tree-tops of Kensington Gardens,
which Wendy destined for Peter Pan. The house was duly built, with
bamboo staircases, and little fenced-off bamboo platforms fitted
with seats and tables, at different levels up the tree. The Swiss
Family Robinson would have gone mad with jealousy at seeing such a
desirable aerial abode, so immeasurably preferable to their own,
and even Wendy might have felt a mild pang of envy. When the house
was completed, one of the Aides-de-Camp inspected it and found a
snake hanging by its tail from a branch right over one of the
little aerial platforms. He reported that the tree was full of
snakes. The risk was too great to run, so prompt orders were given
to demolish the house, and the little girl never enjoyed her tree-
top playground.
The Viceroy's State elephants were all kept at Barrackpore, and
the elephant-lines had a great attraction for children, especially
for a small great-nephew of mine, now a Lieut.-Colonel, and the
father of a family, then aged six. The child was very fearless,
but the only elephant he was allowed to approach was a venerable
tusker named "Warren Hastings," the very identical elephant on
which Warren Hastings made his first entry into Calcutta. "Warren"
was supposed to be nearly 200 years old, and his temper could be
absolutely relied on. It is curious that natives, in speaking of a
quiet, good-tempered animal, always speak of him as "poor"
(gharib). The little boy was perpetually feeding Warren Hastings
with oranges and bananas, and the two became great friends. It was
a pretty sight seeing the fearless small boy in his white suit,
bare legs, and little sun-helmet, standing in front of the great
beast who could have crushed him to a wafer in one second, and
ordering him in the vernacular, with his shrill child's voice, to
kneel. It was a more curious sight seeing the huge animal at once
obey his little mentor, and, struggling with the infirmities and
rheumatic joints of old age (to which, alas! others besides
elephants are subject), lower himself painfully on to his knees.
"Salaam karo" ("Salute me"), piped the white child, and the great
pachyderm instantly obeyed, lifting his trunk high in salute;
which, if you think it out, may have a certain symbolism about it.
It was the same small boy who on returning to England at the age
of seven, after five years in India, looked out of the windows of
the carriage with immense interest, as they drove through London
from Charing Cross station. "Mother," he piped at length, "this is
a very odd country! All the natives seem to be white here."
My little great-nephew was immensely petted by the native
servants, and as he could speak the vernacular with greater ease
than English, he picked up from the servants the most appalling
language, which he innocently repeated, entailing his frequent
chastisement.
I can sympathise with the child there, for at the age of nine, in
Dublin, I became seized with an intense but short-lived desire to
enlist as a trumpeter in a Lancer regiment. Seeing one day a real
live, if diminutive, Lancer trumpeter listening to the band
playing in the Castle yard, I ran down and consulted him as to the
best means of attaining my desire. The small trumpeter was not
particularly intelligent, and was unable to help me. Though of
tender years, he was regrettably lacking in refinement, for his
conversation consisted chiefly of an endless repetition of three
or four words, not one of which I had ever heard before. Carefully
treasuring these up, as having a fine martial smack about them
suitable to the military career I then proposed embracing, I, in
all innocence, fired off one of the trumpeter's full-flavoured
expressions at my horror-stricken family during luncheon, to be
at once ordered out of the room, and severely punished afterwards.
We all know that "what the soldier said" is not legal evidence; in
this painful fashion I also learnt that "what the trumpeter said"
is not held to be a valid excuse for the use of bad language by a
small boy.
In the late autumn of 1890 Admiral Sir Edmund Fremantle brought
his flagship, the Boadicea, right up the Hooghly, and moored her
alongside the Maidan. The ship remained there for six weeks, the
Admiral taking up his quarters at Government House. My sister Lady
Lansdowne had a mistaken weakness for midshipmen, whom she most
inappropriately termed "those dear little fellows." At that time
midshipmen went to sea at fifteen years of age, so they were much
younger than at present. As these boys were constantly at
Government House, four of us thought that we would lend the
midshipmen our ponies for an early morning ride. The boys all
started off at a gallop, and every one of them was bolted with as
soon as he reached the Maidan. As they had no riding-breeches,
their trousers soon rucked up, exhibiting ample expanses of bare
legs; they had no notion of riding, but managed to stick on
somehow by clinging to pommel and mane, banging here into a sedate
Judge of the High Court, with an apologetic "Sorry, sir, but this
swine of a pony won't steer;" barging there into a pompous Anglo-
Indian official, as they yelled to their ponies, "Easy now, dogs-
body, or you'll unship us both;" galloping as hard as their ponies
could lay legs to the ground, cannoning into half the white
inhabitants of Calcutta, but always with imperturbable good-
humour. When their panting ponies tried to pull up to recover
their wind a little, these rising hopes of the British Navy kicked
them with their heels into a gallop again, shouting strange
nautical oaths, and grinning from ear to ear with delight, until
finally four ponies lathered in sweat, in the last stages of
exhaustion, returned to Government House, and four dripping boys
alighted, declaring that they had had the time of their lives in
spite of a considerable loss of cuticle. It was the same at the
dances at Government House. The smart young subalterns simply
weren't in it; the midshipmen got all the best partners, and, to
do them justice, they could dance very well. They started with the
music and whirled their partners round the room at the top of
their speed, in the furnace temperature of Calcutta, without
drawing rein for one second until the band stopped, when a
dishevelled and utterly exhausted damsel collapsed limply into a
chair, whilst a deliquescent brass-buttoned youth, with a sodden
wisp of white linen and black silk round his neck to indicate the
spot where he had once possessed a collar and tie, endeavoured to
fan his partner into some semblance of coolness again.
Lady Lansdowne having invited eight midshipmen to spend a Sunday
at Barrackpore, they arrived there by launch with a drag net,
which the Viceroy had given them leave to use on the largest of
the ponds. My sister at once set them down to play lawn-tennis,
hoping to work off some of their superfluous energy in this way.
In honour of the occasion, the midshipmen had extracted their best
white flannels from their chests, and they proceeded to array
themselves in these. The Boadicea, however, had been two years in
commission, the flannels were two years old, and the lads were
just at the age when they were growing most rapidly. They squeezed
themselves with great difficulty into their shrunken garments,
which looked more like tights than trousers, every button and seam
obviously strained to the bursting point, and set to work playing
tennis with their accustomed vigour. Soon there was a sound of
rending cloth, and the senior midshipman, a portly youth of
Teutonic amplitude of outline, lay down flat on his back on the
lawn. A minute later there was a similar sound, and another boy
lay down on his back and remained there, and a third lad quickly
followed their example. A charming lady had noticed this from the
verandah above, and ran down in some alarm, fearing that these
young Nelsons had got sunstrokes. Somewhat confusedly they assured
her that they were quite well, but might they, please, have three
rugs brought them. Otherwise it was impossible for them to move.
With some difficulty three rugs were procured, and, enveloped in
them, they waddled off to their bungalow to assume more decent
apparel. A few minutes later there were two more similar
catastrophes (these garments all seemed to split in precisely the
same spot), and the supply of rugs being exhausted, these boys had
to retreat to their bungalow walking backwards like chamberlains
at a Court function. After luncheon, in the burning heat of
Bengal, most sensible people keep quiet in the shade, but the
midshipmen went off to inspect the great tank, and to decide how
they should drag it.
Soon we heard loud shoutings from the direction of the tank, and
saw a long string of native servants carrying brown chatties of
hot water towards the pond. We found that the courteous House-
Baboo had informed the midshipmen that the holes in the banks of
the tank were the winter rest-places of cobras. It then occurred
to the boys that it would be capital fun to pour hot water down
the holes, and to kill the cobras with sticks as they emerged from
them. It was a horribly dangerous amusement, for, one bad shot,
and the Royal Navy would unquestionably have had to mourn the loss
of a promising midshipman in two hours' time. When we arrived the
snake-killing was over, and the boys were all refreshing
themselves with large cheroots purloined from the dining-room on
their behalf by a friendly kitmutgar. The dragging of the tank was
really a wonderful sight. As the net reached the far end it was
one solid mass of great shining, blue-grey fish, of about thirty
pounds weight each. The most imaginative artist in depicting the
"Miraculous Draught of Fishes" never approached the reality of
Barrackpore, or pictured such vast quantities of writhing, silvery
finny creatures. They were a fish called cattla by the natives, a
species of carp, with a few eels and smaller fish of a bright red
colour thrown in amongst them. I could never have believed that
one pond could have held such incredible quantities of fish. The
Viceroy, an intrepid pioneer in gastronomic matters, had a great
cattla boiled for his dinner. The first mouthful defeated him; he
declared that the consistency of the fish was that of an old
flannel shirt, and the taste a compound of mud and of the smell of
a covered racquet-court. A lady insisted on presenting the
midshipmen with two dozen bottles of a very good champagne for the
Gun-room Mess. In the innocence of her heart she thought that the
champagne would last them for a year, but on New Year's Eve the
little lambs had a great celebration on board, and drank the whole
two dozen at one sitting. As there were exactly eighteen of them,
this made a fair allowance apiece; they all got exceedingly drunk,
and the Admiral stopped their leave for two months, so we saw no
more of them. They were quite good boys really though, like all
their kind, rather over-full of high spirits.
As is well known, Queen Victoria celebrated her seventieth
birthday by commencing the study of Hindustani under the tuition
of a skilled Moonshee. At the farewell audience the Queen gave my
sister, Her Majesty, on learning that Lady Lansdowne intended to
begin learning Hindustani as soon as she reached India, proposed
that they should correspond occasionally in Urdu, to test the
relative progress they were making. Every six months or so a
letter from the Queen, beautifully written in Persian characters,
reached Calcutta, to which my sister duly replied. In strict
confidence, I may say that I strongly suspect that Lady
Lansdowne's letters were written by her Moonshee, and that she
merely copied the Persian characters, which she could do very
neatly. The Arabic alphabet is used in writing Persian, with three
or four extra letters added to express sounds which do not exist
in Arabic; it is, of course, written from right to left. I had an
hour and a half's daily lesson in Urdu from an efficient, if
immensely pompous, Moonshee, but I never attempted to learn to
read or write the Persian characters.
I do not think that any one who has not traversed the plains of
Northern Indian can have any idea of their deadly monotony. Hour
after hour of level, sun-baked wheat-fields, interspersed with
arid tracts of desert, hardly conforms to the traditional idea of
Indian scenery, nor when once Bengal is left behind is there any
of that luxuriant vegetation which one instinctively associates
with hot countries. In bars in the United States, any one wishing
for whisky and water was (I advisedly use the past tense)
accustomed to drain a small tumbler of neat whisky, and then to
swallow a glass of water. In India everything is arranged on this
principle; the whisky and the water are kept quite separate. The
dead-flat expanse of the Northern plains is unbroken by the most
insignificant of mounds; on the other hand, in the hills it is
almost impossible to find ten yards of level ground. In the same
way during the dry season you know with absolute certainty that
there will be no rain; whilst during the rains you can predict,
without the faintest shadow of doubt, that the downpour will
continue day by day. Personally, I prefer whisky and water mixed.
In 1891 the Viceroy had selected the Kumaon district for his usual
official spring tour, and all arrangements had been made for this.
As my sister was feeling the heat of Calcutta a great deal, she
and I preceded the Viceroy to Naini Tal in the Kumaon district, as
it stands at an altitude of 6500 feet. The narrow-gauge railway
ends at Kathgodam, fifteen miles from Naini Tal, and the last four
miles to the hill-station have to be ridden up, I should imagine,
the steepest road in the world. It is like the side of a house.
People have before now slipped over their horses' tails going up
that terrific ascent, and I cannot conceive how the horses' girths
manage to hold. Naini Tal is a delightful spot, with bungalows
peeping out of dense greenery that fringes a clear lake. As in
most hill-stations, the narrow riding tracks are scooped out of
the hillsides with a perpendicular drop of, say, 500 feet on one
side. These khudd paths, in addition to being very narrow, are so
precipitous that it takes some while getting used to riding along
them. A rather tiresome elderly spinster had come up to Naini Tal
on a visit to a relative, and was continually bewailing the
dangers of these khudd paths. She had hoped, she declared, to put
on a little flesh in the hills, but her constant anxiety about the
khudds was making her thinner than ever. A humorous subaltern,
rather bored at these continual laments, observed to her: "At all
events, Miss Smith, you'll have one consolation. If by any piece
of bad luck you should fall over the khudd, you'll go over thin,
but you'll fall down plump--a thousand feet."
The very evening that Lord Lansdowne arrived for his projected
tour, the news of a serious outbreak in Manipur was telegraphed.
The Viceroy at once decided to abandon his tour and to proceed
straight to Simla, to which the Government offices had already
moved, and where his presence would be urgently required. Lord
William Beresford, the Military Secretary, a prince of organisers,
at once took possession of the telegraph wires, and in two hours
his arrangements were complete--or as an Anglo-Indian would put
it, "he had made his bundobust." The Viceroy and my sister were to
leave next morning at 6 a.m., and Lord William undertook to get
them to Simla by special trains before midnight. He actually
landed them there by 11 p.m.--quite a record journey, for Naini
Tal is 407 miles from Simla, of which 75 miles have to be ridden
or driven by road and 66 are by narrow-gauge railway, on which
high speeds are impossible. There were 6500 feet to descend from
Naini, and 6000 feet to ascend to Simla, but in India a good
organiser can accomplish miracles.
The Viceroy's tour being abandoned, Colonel Erskine, the
Commissioner for the Kumaon district, invited me to accompany him
on his own official tour. It was through very difficult country
where no wheeled traffic could pass, so we were to ride, with all
our belongings carried by coolies. I bought two hill-ponies the
size of Newfoundland dogs for myself and my "bearer," and we
started. The little animals being used to carrying packs, have a
disconcerting trick of keeping close to the very edge of the
khudd, for experience has taught them that to bump their load
against the rock wall on the inner side gives them an unpleasant
jar. These little hill-ponies are wonderfully sure-footed, and can
climb like cats over dry water-courses piled with rocks and great
boulders, which a man on foot would find difficult to negotiate.
The rhododendrons were then in full flower, and the hills were one
blaze of colour. We were always going up and up, and as we
ascended, the deep crimson rhododendron flowers of Naini Tal
gradually faded to rose-colour, from rose-colour to pale pink, and
from pink to pure white. It was a perfect education travelling
with Colonel Erskine, for that shrewd and kindly old Scotsman had
spent half his life in India, and knew the Oriental inside out.
The French have an expression, "se fourrer dans la peau d'autrui,"
"to shove yourself into another person's skin," and therefore to
be able to see things as they would present themselves to the mind
of a man of a different race and of a different mentality, and
from his point of view. All young diplomats are enjoined to
cultivate this art, and some few succeed in doing so. Colonel
Erskine had it to perfection. On arriving in a village he would
call for a carpet, and a dirty cotton dhuree would be laid on the
round. He would then order a charpoy, or native bed, to be placed
on the carpet, and he would seat himself on it, and call out in
the vernacular, "Now, my children, what have you to tell me?" All
this was strictly in accordance with immemorial Eastern custom.
Then the long line of suppliants would approach, each one with a
present of an orange, or a bunch of rhododendron flowers in his
hand. This, again, from the very beginning of things has been the
custom in the East (cf. 2 Kings, chap. viii, vers. 8, 9: "And the
King said unto Hazael, Take a present in thine hand, and go, meet
the man of God.... So Hazael went to meet him, and took a present
with him"). Colonel Erskine was a great stickler for these
presents, and as they could be picked off the nearest rhododendron
bush, they cost the donor nothing.
The outpouring of grievences and complaints then began, each
applicant always ending with the two-thousand-year-old cry of
India, "Dohai, Huzoor!" ("Justice, my lord!") The old Commissioner
meanwhile listened intently, dictating copious notes to his
Brahmin clerk, and at the conclusion of the audience he would cry,
"Go, my children. Justice shall be done to all of you," and we
moved on to another village. It was very pleasant seeing the
patriarchal relations between the Commissioner and the villagers.
He understood them and their customs thoroughly; they trusted him
and loved him as their official father. I fancy that this type of
Indian Civil servant, knowing the people he has to deal with down
to the very marrow of their bones, has become rarer of late years.
The Brahmin clerk was a very intelligent man, and spoke English
admirably, but I took a great dislike to him, noting the abject
way in which the natives fawned on him. Colonel Erskine had to
discharge him soon afterwards, as he found that he had been
exploiting the villagers mercilessly for years, taking bribes
right and left. From much experience Colonel Erskine was an adept
at travelling with what he termed "a light camp." He took with him
a portable office-desk, a bookcase with a small reference library,
and two portable arm-chairs. All these were carried in addition to
our baggage and bedding on coolies' heads, for our sleeping-places
were seldom more than fifteen miles apart.
The Commissioner's old Khansama had very strict ideas as to how a
"Sahib's" dinner should be served. He insisted on decorating the
table with rhododendron flowers, and placing on it every night
four dishes of Moradabad metal work containing respectively six
figs, six French plums, six dates, and six biscuits, all reposing
on the orthodox lace-paper mats, and the moment dinner was over he
carefully replaced these in pickle-jars for use next evening. We
would have broken his heart had we spoiled the symmetry of his
dishes by eating any of these. It takes a little practice to
master bills of fare written in "Kitmutar English," and for
"Irishishtew" and "Anchoto" to be resolved into Irish-stew and
Anchovy-toast. Once when a Viceroy was on tour there was a roast
gosling for dinner. This duly appeared on the bill-of-fare as
"Roasted goose's pup." In justice, however, we must own that we
would make far greater blunders in trying to write a menu in Urdu.
The Kumaon district is beautiful, not unlike an enlarged Scotland,
with deep ravines scooped out by clear, rushing rivers, their
precipitous sides clothed with dense growths of deodaras. In the
early morning the view of the long range of the snowy pinnacles of
the Himalayas was splendid. I learnt a great deal from wise old
Colonel Erskine with his intimate knowledge of the workings of the
native mind, and of the psychology of the Oriental.
There is something very touching in the fidelity of Indian native
servants to their employers. Lady Lansdowne returned to India
eighteen years after leaving it, for the marriage of her son (who
was killed in the first three months of the war) to Lord Minto's
daughter, and I accompanied her. One afternoon all the pensioned
Government House servants who had been in Lord Lansdowne's
employment arrived in a body to offer their "salaams" to my
sister. They presented a very different appearance to the
resplendent beings in scarlet and gold whom I had formerly known,
for on taking their pension they had ceased troubling to dye their
beards, and they were merely dressed in plain white cotton. These
grey-bearded, toothless old men with their high, aquiline features
(they were nearly all Mohammedans), flowing white garments and
turbans, might have stepped bodily out of stained-glass windows.
They had brought with them all the little presents (principally
watches) which my sister had given them; they remembered all the
berths she had secured for their sons, and the letters she had
written on their behalf. An Oriental has a very long memory for a
kindness as well as for an injury done him. Lady Lansdowne, whose
Hindustani had become rather rusty, began feverishly turning over
the pages of a dictionary in an endeavour to express her feelings
and the pleasure she experienced in seeing these faithful
retainers again: she wept, and the old men wept, and we all
agreed, as elderly people will, that in former days the sun was
brighter and life altogether rosier than in these degenerate
times. Before leaving, the old servants simultaneously lifted
their arms in the Mahommedan gesture of blessing, with all the
innate dignity of the Oriental; it was really a very touching
sight, nor do I think that the very substantial memento of their
visit which each of them received had anything to do with their
attitude: they only wished to show that they were "faithful to
their salt."
It is difficult to determine the age of a native, as wrinkles and
lines do not show on a dark skin. Dark skins have other
advantages. One of the European Examiners of Calcutta University
told me that there had been great trouble about the examination-
papers. By some means the native students always managed to obtain
what we may term "advance" copies of these papers. My informant
devised a scheme to stop this leakage. Instead of having the
papers printed in the usual fashion, he called in the services of
a single white printer on whom he could absolutely rely. The white
printer had the papers handed to him early on the morning of the
examination day, and he duly set them up on a hand-press in the
building itself. The printer had one assistant, a coolie clad only
in loin-cloth and turban, and every time the coolie left the room
he was made to remove both his loin-cloth and turban, so that by
no possibility could he have any papers concealed about him. In
spite of these precautions, it was clear from internal evidence
that some of the students had had a previous knowledge of the
questions. How had it been managed? It eventually appeared that
the coolie, taking advantage of the momentary absence of the white
printer, had whipped off his loin-cloth, SAT DOWN ON THE "FORM,"
and then replaced his solitary garment. When made to strip on
going out, the printing-ink did not show on his dark skin: he had
only to sit down elsewhere on a large sheet of white paper for the
questions to be printed off on it, and they could then easily be
read in a mirror. The Oriental mind is very subtle.
This is no place to speak of the marvels of Mogul architecture in
Agra and Delhi. I do not believe that there exists in the world a
more exquisitely beautiful hall than the Diwan-i-Khas in Delhi
palace. This hall, open on one side to a garden, is entirely built
of transparent white marble inlaid with precious stones, and with
its intricate gilded ceilings, and wonderful pierced-marble
screens it justifies the famous Persian inscription that runs
round it:
"If heaven can be on the face of the earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this."
I always regret that Shah Jehan did not carry out his original
intention of erecting a second Taj of black marble for himself at
Agra, opposite the wonderful tomb he built for his beloved Muntaz-
i-Mahal; probably the money ran out. Few people take in that the
dome of the Taj, that great airy white soap-bubble, is actually
higher than the dome of St. Paul's. The play of fancy and
invention of Shah Jehan's architects seems inexhaustible. All the
exquisite white marble pavilions of Agra palace differ absolutely
both in design and decoration, and Akbar's massive red sandstone
buildings make the most perfect foil to them that could be
conceived.
Lucknow is one of the pleasantest stations in India, with its ring
of encircling parks, and the broad, tree-shaded roads of its
cantonments, but the pretentious monuments with which the city is
studded will not bear examination after the wonders of Agra and
Delhi. The King of Oude wished to surpass the Mogul Emperors by
the magnificence of his buildings, but he wished, too, to do it on
the cheap. So in Lucknow stucco, with very debased details,
replaces the stately red sandstone and marble of the older cities.
In 1890 after a long day's sight-seeing in Lucknow, in the course
of which we ascended the long exterior flight of steps of the
great Imambarah on an elephant (who proved himself as nimble as a
German waiter in going upstairs), Lady Lansdowne and I were taken
to the Husainabad just as the short-lived Indian twilight was
falling. On passing through its great gateway I thought that I had
never in my life seen anything so beautiful. At the end of a long
white marble-paved court, a stately black-and-white marble tomb
with a gilded dome rose from a flight of steps. Down the centre of
the court ran a long pool of clear water, surrounded by a gilded
railing. On either side of the court stood great clumps of
flowering shrubs, also enclosed in gilded railings. At the far
end, a group of palms were outlined in jet black against that
vivid lemon-coloured afterglow only seen in hot countries;
peacocks, perched on the walls of the court, stood out duskily
purple against the glowing expanse of saffron sky, and the
sleeping waters of the long pool reflected the golden glory of the
flaming vault above them.
In the hush of the evening, and the half-light, the scene was
lovely beyond description, and for eighteen years I treasured in
my mind the memory of the Husainabad at sunset as the vision of my
life.
On returning to Lucknow in 1906, I insisted on going at once to
revisit the Husainabad, though I was warned that there was nothing
to see there. Alas! in broad daylight and in the glare of the
fierce sun the whole place looked abominably tawdry. What I had
taken for black-and-white marble was only painted stucco, and
coarsely daubed at that; the details of the decoration were
deplorable, and the Husainabad was just a piece of showy,
meretricious tinsel. The gathering dusk and the golden expanse of
the Indian sunset sky had by some subtle wizardry thrown a veil of
glamour over this poor travesty of the marvels of Delhi and Agra.
So a long-cherished ideal was hopelessly shattered, which is
always a melancholy thing.
We are all slaves to the economic conditions under which we live,
and the present exorbitant price of paper is a very potent factor
in the making of books. I am warned by my heartless publishers
that I have already exceeded my limits. There are many things in
India of which I would speak: of big-game hunts in Assam; of near
views of the mighty snows of the Himalayas; of jugglers and their
tricks, and of certain unfamiliar aspects of native life. The
telling of these must be reserved for another occasion, for it is
impossible in the brief compass of a single chapter to do more
than touch the surface of things in the vast Empire, the origin of
whose history is lost in the mists of time.
CHAPTER XI
Matters left untold--The results of improved communications--My
father's journey to Naples--Modern stereotyped uniformity--Changes
in customs--The faithful family retainer Some details--Samuel
Pepys' stupendous banquets--Persistence of idea--Ceremonial
incense--Patriarchal family life--The barn dances--My father's
habits--My mother--A son's tribute--Autumn days--Conclusion.
I had hoped to tell of reef-fishing in the West Indies; of surf-
riding on planks at Muizenberg in South Africa; of the extreme
inconvenience to which the inhabitants of Southern China are
subjected owing to the inconsiderate habits of their local devils;
of sapphire seas where coco-nut palms toss their fronds in the
Trade wind over gleaming-white coral beaches; of vast frozen
tracts in the Far North where all animate life seems suspended; of
Japanese villages clinging to green hill-sides where boiling
springs gush out of the cliffs in clouds of steam, and of many
other things besides, for it has been my good fortune to have seen
most of the surface of this globe. But all these must wait until
the present preposterous price of paper has descended to more
normal levels.
I consider myself exceptionally fortunate in having lived at a
time when modern conveniences of transport were already in
existence, but had not yet produced their inevitable results. It
is quite sufficiently obvious that national customs and national
peculiarities are being smoothed out of existence by facilities of
travel. My father and mother, early in their married life, drove
from London to Naples in their own carriage, the journey occupying
over a month. They left their own front door in London, had their
carriage placed on the deck of the Channel steamer, sat in it
during the passage (what a singularly uncomfortable resting-place
it must have been should they have encountered bad weather!), and
continued their journey on the other side. During their leisurely
progress through France and Italy, they must have enjoyed
opportunities of studying the real life of these countries which
are denied the passengers in a rapide, jammed in amongst a
cosmopolitan crew in the prosaic atmosphere of dining and sleeping
cars, and scarcely bestowing a passing glance on the country
through which they are being whirled. Even in my time I have seen
marked changes, and have witnessed the gradual disappearance of
national costumes, and of national types of architecture. Every
capital in Europe seems to adopt in its modern buildings a
standardised type of architecture. No sojourner in any of the big
modern hotels, which bear such a wearisome family likeness to each
other, could tell in which particular country he might happen to
find himself, were it not for the scraps of conversation which
reach his ears, for the externals all look alike, and even the
cooking has, with a greater or less degree of success, been
standardised to the requisite note of monotony. Travellers may be
divided into two categories: those who wish to find on foreign
soil the identical conditions to which they have been accustomed
at home, and those searching for novelty of outlook and novelty of
surroundings. The former will welcome the process of planing down
national idiosyncrasies into one dead level of uniformity of type,
the latter will deplore it; but this, like many other things, is a
matter of individual taste.
The ousting of the splendid full-rigged ships by stumpy, unlovely
tramp-steamers in the Hooghly River, to which I have already
referred, is only one example of the universal disappearance of
the picturesque. In twenty-five years' time, every one will be
living in a drab-coloured, utilitarian world, from which most of
the beauty and every scrap of local colour will have been
successfully eliminated. I am lucky in having seen some of it.
I have also witnessed great changes in social habits. I do not
refer so much to the removal of the rigid lines of demarcation
formerly prevailing in English Society, as to the disappearance of
certain accepted standards. For instance, in my young days the
possibility of appearing in Piccadilly in anything but a high hat
and a tail coat was unthinkable, as was the idea of sitting down
to dinner in anything but a white tie. Modern usage has common
sense distinctly on its side. Again, in my youth the old drinking
customs lingered, especially at the Universities. Though
personally I have never been able to extract the faintest
gratification from the undue consumption of alcohol, my friends do
not seem to have invariably shared my tastes. I am certain of one
thing: it is to the cigarette that the temperate habits of the
twentieth century are due. Nicotine knocked port and claret out in
the second round. The acclimatisation of the cigarette in England
only dates from the "seventies." As a child I remember that the
only form of tobacco indulged in by the people that I knew was the
cigar. A cigarette was considered an effeminate foreign
importation; a pipe was unspeakably vulgar.
In my mother's young days before her marriage, the old hard-
drinking habits of the Regency and of the eighteenth century still
persisted. At Woburn Abbey it was the custom for the trusted old
family butler to make his nightly report to my grandmother in the
drawing-room. "The gentlemen have had a good deal to-night; it
might be as well for the young ladies to retire," or "The
gentlemen have had very little to-night," was announced according
to circumstances by this faithful family retainer. Should the
young girls be packed off upstairs, they liked standing on an
upper gallery of the staircase to watch the shouting, riotous
crowd issuing from the dining-room. My father very rarely touched
wine, and I believe that it was the fact that he, then an Oxford
undergraduate, was the only sober young man amongst the rowdy
troop of roysterers that first drew my mother to him, though he
had already proposed marriage to her at a children's party given
by the Prince Regent at Carlton House, when they were respectively
seven and six years old. My father had succeeded to the title at
the age of six, and they were married as soon as he came of age.
They lived to celebrate their golden wedding, which two of my
sisters, the late Duchess of Buccleuch and Lady Lansdowne, were
also fortunate enough to do, and I can say with perfect truth that
in all three instances my mother and her daughters celebrated
fifty years of perfect happiness, unclouded save for the gaps
which death had made amongst their children.
Students of Pepys' Diary must have gasped with amazement at
learning of the prodigious quantities of food considered necessary
in the seventeenth century for a dinner of a dozen people. Samuel
Pepys gives us several accounts of his entertainments, varying,
with a nice sense of discrimination, the epithet with which he
labels his dinners. Here is one which he gave to ten people, in
1660, which he proudly terms "a very fine dinner." "A dish of
marrow-bones; a leg of mutton; a loin of veal; a dish of fowl;
three pullets, and two dozen of larks, all in a dish; a great
tart; a neat's tongue; a dish of anchovies; a dish of prawns, and
cheese." On another occasion, in 1662, Pepys having four guests
only, merely gave them what he modestly describes as "a pretty
dinner." "A brace of stewed carps; six roasted chickens; a jowl of
salmon; a tanzy; two neats' tongues, and cheese." For six
distinguished guests in 1663 he provided "a noble dinner." (I like
this careful grading of epithets.) "Oysters; a hash of rabbits; a
lamb, and a rare chine of beef, Next a great dish of roasted fowl
cost me about thirty shillings; a tart, fruit and cheese." Pepys
anxiously hopes that this was enough! One is pleased to learn that
on all three occasions his guests enjoyed themselves, and that
they were "very merry," but however did they manage to hold one
quarter of this prodigious amount of food?
The curious idea that hospitality entailed the proffering of four
times the amount of food that an average person could assimilate,
persisted throughout the eighteenth century and well into the
"seventies" of the nineteenth century. I remember as a child, on
the rare occasion when I was allowed to "sit up" for dinner, how
interminable that repast seemed. That may have been due to the
fact that my brother and I were forbidden to eat anything except a
biscuit or two. The idea that human beings required perpetual
nourishment was so deep-grounded that, to the end of my father's
life, the "wine and water tray" was brought in nightly before the
ladies went to bed. This tray contained port, sherry and claret, a
silver kettle of hot water, sugar, lemons and nutmeg, as well as
two large plates of sandwiches. All the ladies devoured wholly
superfluous sandwiches, and took a glass of wine and hot water
before retiring. I think people would be surprised to find how
excellent a beverage the obsolete "negus" is. Let them try a glass
of either port, sherry, or claret, with hot water, sugar, a
squeeze of lemon, and a dusting of nutmeg, and I think that they
will agree with me.
A custom, I believe, peculiar to our family, was the burning of
church incense in the rooms after dinner. At the conclusion of
dinner, the groom-of-the-chambers walked round the dining-room,
solemnly swinging a large silver censer. This dignified thurifer
then made the circuit of the other rooms, plying his censer. From
the conscientious manner in which he fulfilled his task, I fear
that an Ecclesiastical Court might have found that this came under
the heading of "incense used ceremonially."
My father had one peculiarity; he never altered his manner of
living, whether the house was full of visitors, or he were alone
with my mother, after his children had married and left him. At
Baron's Court, when quite by themselves, they used the large
rooms, and had them all lighted up at night, exactly as though the
house was full of guests. There was to my mind something very
touching in seeing an aged couple, after more than fifty years of
married life together, still preserving the affectionate relations
of lovers with each other. They played their chess together
nightly in a room ninety-eight feet long, and delighted in still
singing together, in the quavering tones of old age, the simple
little Italian duets that they had sung in the far-off days of
their courtship. As his years increased, my father did not care to
venture much beyond the circle of his own family, though as
thirteen of his children had grown up, and he had seven married
daughters, the two elder of whom had each thirteen children of her
own, the number of his immediate descendants afforded him a fairly
wide field of selection. In his old age he liked to have his five
sons round him all the winter, together with their wives and
children. Accordingly, every October my three married brothers
arrived at Baron's Court with their entire families, and remained
there till January, so that the house persistently rang with
children's laughter. What with governesses, children, nurses and
servants, this meant thirty-three extra people all through the
winter, so it was fortunate that Baron's Court was a large house,
and that there was plenty of room left for other visitors. It
entailed no great hardship on the sons, for the autumn salmon-
fishing in the turbulent Mourne is excellent, there was abundance
of shooting, and M. Gouffe, the cook, was a noted artist.
Both my father and mother detested publicity, or anything in the
nature of self-advertisement, which only shows how hopelessly out
of touch they would have been with modern conditions.
My father was also old-fashioned enough to read family prayers
every morning and every Sunday evening; he was very particular,
too, about Sunday observance, now almost fallen into desuetude, so
neither the thud of lawn-tennis racquets nor the click of
billiard-balls were ever heard on that day, and no one would have
dreamed of playing cards on Sunday.
It would be difficult to convey any idea of the pleasant family
life in that isolated spot tucked away amongst the Tyrone
mountains; of the long tramps over the bogs after duck and snipe;
of the struggles with big salmon; of the sailing-matches on the
lakes; of the grouse and the woodcocks; of the theatrical
performances, the fun and jollity, and all the varied incidents
which make country life so fascinating to those brought up to it.
It was the custom at Baron's Court to have two annual dances in
the barn to celebrate "Harvest Home" and Christmas, and to these
dances my father, and my brother after him, invited every single
person in their employ, and all the neighbouring farmers and their
wives. Any one hoping to shine at a barn-dance required
exceptionally sound muscles, for the dancing was quite a serious
business. The so-called barn was really a long granary,
elaborately decorated with wreaths of evergreens, flags, and
mottoes. The proceedings invariably commenced with a dance
(peculiar, I think, to the north of Ireland) known as "Haste to
the Wedding." It is a country dance, but its peculiarity lies in
the fact that instead of the couples standing motionless opposite
to one another, they are expected to "set to each other," and to
keep on doing steps without intermission; all this being, I
imagine, typical of the intense eagerness every one was supposed
to express to reach the scene of the wedding festivities as
quickly as possible. Twenty minutes of "Haste to the Wedding" are
warranted to exhaust the stoutest leg-muscles. My mother always
led off with the farm-bailiff as partner, my father at the other
end dancing with the bailiff's wife. Both my father, and my
brother after him, were very careful always to wear their Garter
as well as their other Orders on these occasions, in order to show
respect to their guests. Scotch reels and Irish jigs alternated
with "The Triumph," "Flowers of Edinburgh," and other country
dances, until feet and legs refused their office; and still the
fiddles scraped, and feet, light or heavy, belaboured the floor
till 6 a.m. The supper would hardly have come up to London
standards, for instead of light airy nothings, huge joints of
roast and boiled were aligned down the tables. Some of the
stricter Presbyterians, though fond of a dance, experienced
conscientious qualms about it. So they struck an ingenious
compromise with their consciences by dancing vigorously whilst
assuming an air of intense misery, as though they were undergoing
some terrible penance. Every one present enjoyed these barn-dances
enormously.
My father was an admirable speaker of the old-fashioned school,
with calculated pauses, an unusual felicity in the choice of his
epithets, and a considerable amount of gesticulation. The veteran
Lord Chaplin is the last living exponent of this type of oratory.
Although my father prepared his speeches very carefully indeed, he
never made a single written note. He had a beautiful speaking
voice and a prodigious memory; this memory, he knew from
experience, would not fail him. An excellent shot himself both
with gun and rifle, and a good fisherman, to the end of his life
he maintained his interest in sport and in all the pursuits of the
younger life around him, for he was very human.
It is difficult for a son to write impartially of his mother. My
mother's character was a blend of extreme simplicity and great
dignity, with a limitless gift of sympathy for others. I can say
with perfect truth that, throughout her life, she succeeded in
winning the deep love of all those who were brought into constant
contact with her. Very early in life she fell under the influence
of the Evangelical movement, which was then stirring England to
its depths, and she throughout her days remained faithful to its
tenets. It could be said of her that, though, in the world, she
was not of the world. Owing to force of circumstances, she had at
times to take her position in the world, and no one could do it
with greater dignity, or more winning grace; but the atmosphere of
London, both physical and social, was distasteful to her. She had
an idea that the smoke-laden London air affected her lungs, and,
apart from the pleasure of seeing the survivors of the very
intimate circle of friends of her young days, London had few
attractions for her; all her interests were centred in the
country, in country people, and country things. Although deeply
religious, her religion had no gloom about it, for her
inextinguishable love of a joke, and irrepressible sense of fun,
remained with her to the end of her life, and kept her young in
spite of her ninety-three years. From the commencement of her
married life, my mother had been in the habit of "visiting" in the
village twice a week, and in every cottage she was welcomed as a
friend, for in addition to her gift of sympathy, she had a memory
almost as tenacious as my father's, and remembered the names of
every one of the cottagers' children, knew where they were
employed, and whom they had married. With the help of her maid, my
mother used to compound a cordial, bottles of which she
distributed amongst the cottagers, a cordial which gained an
immense local reputation. The ingredients of this panacea were one
part of strong iron-water to five parts of old whisky, to which
sal-volatile, red lavender, cardamoms, ginger, and other warming
drugs were added. "Her Grace's bottle," as it was invariably
termed, achieved astonishing popularity, and the most marvellous
cures were ascribed to it. I have sometimes wondered whether its
vogue would have been as great had the whisky been eliminated from
its composition. In her home under the Sussex downs, amidst the
broad stretches of heather-clad common, the beautiful Tudor stone-
built old farm-houses, and the undulating woodlands of that most
lovable and typically English county, she continued, to the end of
her life, visiting amongst her less fortunate neighbours, and
finding friends in every house. Her immense vitality and power of
entering into the sorrows and enjoyments of others, led at times
to developments very unexpected in the case of one so aged. For
instance, a small great-nephew of mine had had a pair of stilts
given him. The boy was clumsy at learning to use them, and my
mother, who in her youth, could perform every species of trick
upon stilts, was discovered by her trained nurse mounted on stilts
and perambulating the garden on them, in her eighty-sixth year,
for the better instruction of her little great-grandson. Again,
during a great rat-hunt we had organised, the nurse missed her
ninety-year-old charge, to discover her later, in company with the
stable-boy, behind a barn, both of them armed with sticks,
intently watching a rat-hole into which the stable-boy had just
inserted a ferret.
My mother travelled up to London on one occasion to consult a
celebrated oculist, and confided to him that she was growing
apprehensive about her eyesight, as she began to find it difficult
to read small print by lamplight. The man of Harley Street, after
a careful examination of his patient's eyes, asked whether he
might inquire what her age was. On receiving the reply that she
had been ninety on her last birthday, the specialist assured her
that his experience led him to believe that cases of failing
eyesight were by no means unusual at that age.
My mother had known all the great characters that had flitted
across the European stage at the beginning of the nineteenth
century: Talleyrand, Metternich, the great Duke of Wellington, and
many others. With her wonderful memory, she was a treasure-house
of anecdotes of these and other well-known personages, which she
narrated with all the skill of the born reconteuse. She belonged,
too, to an age in which letter-writing was cultivated as an art,
and was regarded as an intellectual relaxation. At the time of her
death she had one hundred and sixty-nine direct living
descendants: children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and
great-great-grandchildren, in addition to thirty-seven
grandchildren and great-grandchildren by marriage. She kept in
touch with all her descendants by habitually corresponding with
them, and the advice given by this shrewd, wise old counsellor,
with her ninety years of experience, was invariably followed by
its recipients. She made a point of travelling to London to attend
the weddings of every one of her descendants, and even journeyed
up to be present at the Coronation of King Edward in her ninetieth
year. It is given to but few to see their GRANDSON'S GRANDSON; it
is granted to fewer to live ninety-three years with the full use
of every intellectual faculty, and the retention of but slightly
impaired bodily powers; and seldom is it possible to live to so
great an age with the powers of enjoyment and of unabated interest
in the lives of others still retained.
She never returned to Ireland after her widowhood, but was able,
up to the end of her life, to pay a yearly autumn visit to her
beloved Scotland. And so, under the rolling Sussex downs, amidst
familiar woodlands and villages, full of years, and surrounded by
the lore of all those who knew her, the long day closed.
I think that there is a passage in the thirty-first chapter of
Proverbs which says: "Her children rise up and call her blessed."
I have reached my appointed limits, leaving unsaid one-half of the
things I had wished to narrate. Reminiscences come crowding in
unbidden, and, like the flickering lights of the Will-o'-the-wisp,
they tend to lead the wayfarer far astray from the path he had
originally traced out for himself. "Jack-o'-lanthorn" is
proverbially a fickle guide to follow, and should I have succumbed
to his lure, I can only proffer my excuses, and plead in
extenuation that sixty years is such a long road to re-travel that
an occasional deviation into a by-path by elderly feet may perhaps
be forgiven.
Charles Kingsley, in the "Water-Babies", has put some very
touching lines into the mouth of the old school-dame in Vendale,
lines which come home with pathetic force to persons of my time of
life.
"When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad
And every dog his day.
"When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The old and spent among:
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young."
I protest indignantly against the idea that all the wheels are run
down; nor are the trees yet brown, for kindly autumn, to soften us
to the inevitable passing of summer, touches the trees with her
magic wand, and forthwith they blaze with crimson and russet-gold,
pale-gold and flaming copper-red.
In the mellow golden sunshine of the still October days it is
sometimes difficult to realise that the glory of the year has
passed beyond recall, though the sunshine has no longer the genial
warmth of July, and the more delicate flowers are already
shrivelled by the first furtive touches of winter's finger-tips.
Experience has taught us that the many-hued glory of autumn is
short-lived; the faintest breeze brings the leaves fluttering to
the ground in golden showers. Soon the few that remain will patter
gently down to earth, their mother. Winter comes.
End Project Gutenberg's The Days Before Yesterday, by Lord Frederic Hamilton