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+Project Gutenberg's The Days Before Yesterday, by Lord Frederick Hamilton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Days Before Yesterday
+
+Author: Lord Frederick Hamilton
+
+Posting Date: May 28, 2009 [EBook #3827]
+Release Date: March, 2003
+First Posted: September 29, 2001
+Last Updated: February 25, 2005
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Rowe and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY
+
+
+by
+
+Lord Frederick Hamilton
+
+
+
+
+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 us, 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, comes 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 of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Days Before Yesterday, by 
+Lord Frederick Hamilton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DAYS BEFORE YESTERDAY ***
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