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diff --git a/36700.txt b/36700.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a278a9f --- /dev/null +++ b/36700.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9533 @@ +Project Gutenberg's A New Medley of Memories, by David Hunter-Blair + +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: A New Medley of Memories + +Author: David Hunter-Blair + +Release Date: July 11, 2011 [EBook #36700] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: Oswald Hunter Blair] + + + + + +A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES + + +BY THE + +RIGHT REV. SIR DAVID HUNTER-BLAIR + +BT., O.S.B., M.A. + +TITULAR ABBOT OF DUNFERMLINE + + + + +WITH PORTRAIT + + + + +LONDON + +EDWARD ARNOLD & CO. + +1922 + + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +TO THE + +MASTER AND SCHOLARS + +OF + +SAINT BENET'S HALL, OXFORD, + +IN MEMORY OF + +TEN HAPPY YEARS. + + + + +{vii} + +FOREWORD + +Some kindly critics of my _Medley of Memories_, and not a few private +correspondents (most of them unknown to me) have been good enough to +express a lively hope that I would continue my reminiscences down to a +later date than the year 1903, when I closed the volume with my jubilee +birthday. + +It is in response to this wish that I have here set down some of my +recollections of the succeeding decade, concluding with the outbreak of +the Great War. + +One is rather "treading on eggshells" when printing impressions of +events and persons so near our own time. But I trust that there is +nothing unkind in these more recent memories, any more than in the +former. There should not be; for I have experienced little but +kindness during a now long life; and I approach the Psalmist's limit of +days with only grateful sentiments towards the many friends who have +helped to make that life a happy as well as a varied one. + +DAVID O. HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B. + +S. Paulo, Brazil, + _March_, 1922. + + + + +{ix} + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + +CHAPTER I.--1903-1904. + +The Premier Duke--Oxford Chancellorship--A Silver Jubilee--In + Canterbury Close--Hyde Park Oratory--Oxford under Water--"Twopence + each" at Christ Church--Church Music--Gregorian Centenary in + Rome--Pope Pius X.--Pilgrims and Autograph--Cradle of the + Benedictine Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 + + +CHAPTER II.--1904. + +"Sermons from Stones"--_Alcestis_ at Bradfield--Whimsical + Texts--Old Masters at Ushaw--A Mozart-Wagner Festival--Bismarck + and William II.--"Longest Word" Competition--Medal-week at + St. Andrews--Oxford Rhodes Scholars--Liddell and Scott--Lord + Rosebery at the Union--Oxford Portraits--Wytham + Abbey--Christmas in Bute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 + + +CHAPTER III.--1905. + +A "Catholic Demonstration"--Boy-prodigies--Spring Days in + Naples--"C.-B." at Oxford--Medical Sceptics--Blenheim + Hospitality--A Scoto-Irish Wedding--Dunskey + Transformed--Lunatics up-to-date--Eton War Memorial--Four + Thousand Guests at Arundel--At Exton Park--Abbotsford and + Blairquhan--Lothair's Bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 + + +CHAPTER IV.--1905-1906. + +Modern Gothic--Contrasts in South Wales--Chamberlain's Last + Speech--A Catholic Dining-club--Lovat Scouts' Memorial--A Tory + _debacle_--Hampshire Marriages--On the _Cote d'Azur_--Three + Weddings--An Old Irish Peer--Guernsey in June--A Coming of Age + on the Cotswolds--The Warwick Pageant--Bank Holiday at + Scarborough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 + + +CHAPTER V.--1906-1907. + +Melrose and Westminster--Newman Memorial Church--The Evil + Eye--Catholic Scholars at Oxford--Grace before Meat--A + Literary Dinner--A Jamaica Tragedy--An Abbatial + Blessing--Deaths of Oxford friends--Robinson Ellis--A Genteel + Watering-place--Visit to Dover--Pageants at Oxford and + Bury--Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 + + +CHAPTER VI.--1907-1908. + +Benedictine Honours at Oxford--Anecdotes from Sir + Hubert--Everingham and Bramham--Early Rising--Mass in a + Deer-forest--A Bishop's Visiting-cards--A Miniature College--Our + New Chancellor--Bodley's Librarian--Dean Burgon--A Welsh + Bishop--Illness and Convalescence--H.M.S. _Victory_ . . . . . . 94 + + +{x} + +CHAPTER VII.--1908. + +Miss Broughton at Oxford--Notable Trees--An Infantile + Rest-cure--Equestrians from Italy--"The Colours"--A + Parson's Statistics--Two Anxious Mammas--"Let us Kill + Something"--Scottish Dessert--A Highland Bazaar--I Resign + Mastership of Hall--Notes on Newman--Scriptural + Heraldry--Myres Macership--Scots Catholic Judge--At a + _chateau_ in Picardy--Excursions from Oxford--St. Andrew's + Day at Cardiff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 + + +CHAPTER VIII.--1908-1909. + +Christmas at Beaufort--_Annus mirabilis_--Kenelm Vaughan--A + "Heathen Turk"--Sven Hedin--Centenary of Darwin--Oxford + and Louvain--Hugh Cecil on the House of Commons--Arundel + itself again--The Bridegroom's Father weeps--Cambridge + Fisher Society--Bodleian Congestion--Shackleton at Albert + Hall--Oakamoor, Faber, and Pugin--Welsh Pageant--Hampton + Court--Father Hell and Mr. Dams!--A Bishop's + Portrait--Gleann Mor Gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 + + +CHAPTER IX.--1909-1910. + +The White Garden at Beaufort--Andrew Lang--A Holy Well--The + new Ladycross--"My terrible Great-uncle!"--Off to + Brazil---King's Birthday on Board---The New City + Beautiful--Arrival at S. Paulo---An Abbey + Rebuilding--Cosmopolitan State and City--College of S. + Bento--Stray Englishmen--Progressive Paulistas--Education in + Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 + + +CHAPTER X.--1910. + +Provost Hornby--Christmas in Brazil--Architecture in S. + Paulo--The Snake-farm--Guests at the Abbey--End of the + Isolation of Fort Augustus--A Benedictine Festival--Sinister + Italians--Death of Edward VII.--Brazilian Funerals--Popular + Devotion--"Fradesj estrangeiros"--Football in the + Tropics--Homeward Voyage--Santos and Madeira--Sir John Benn . . 170 + + +CHAPTER XI.--1910-1911. + +A Wiesbaden Eye Klinik--The Rhine in Rain--Cologne and + Brussels--Wedding in the Hop-Country--The New Departure at + Fort Augustus--St. Andrew's without Angus--Oxford + Again--Highland Marriage at Oratory--One Eye _versus_ + Two--Cambridge _versus_ Oxford---A Question of Colour--Ex-King + Manuel--A Great Church at Norwich--_Ave Verum_ in the + Kirk--Fort Augustus Post-bag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 + + +CHAPTER XII.--1911. + +Monks and Salmon--FitzAlan Chapel--April on Thames-side--My + sacerdotal Jubilee--Kinemacolor--Apparition at an + Abbey--St. Lucius--Faithful Highlanders--Hay Centenary--Nuns + for S. Paulo--A Brief Marriage Ceremony--Pagan + Mass-music--Seventeen New Cardinals--Doune Castle--A Quest + for our Abbey Church--Great Coal Strike--at Stonyhurst and + Ware--Katherine Howard--Twentieth-Century Chinese--An + Anglo-Italian Abbey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 + + +{xi} + +CHAPTER XIII.--1912-1913. + +A Concert for Cripples--Queen Amelie--May at Aix-les-Bains--A + Sample Savoyards--Hautecombe--A "Picture of the Year"--A + Benedictine O.T.C.--Pugin's "Blue Pencil"--My nomination + as Prior--Fort Augustus and the Navy--Work in the + Monastery--Ladies in the Enclosure--A Bishop's Jubilee--A + Modern Major Pendennis--My Election to Abbacy--Installation + Ceremonies--Empress Eugenie at Farnborough--A Week at Monte + Cassino--Fatiguing Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 + + +CHAPTER XIV.--1913-1914. + +St Anselm's, Rome--Election of a Primate--My Uncle's + Grave--Milan and Maredsous--Canterbury Revisited--An Oratorian + Festival--Poetical Bathos--A Benedictine Chapter--King of + Uganda at Fort Augustus--Threefold Work of our Abbey--Funeral + of Bishop Turner--Bute Chapel at Westminster--A + Patriarchal Lay-brother--Abbot Gasquet a Cardinal--Corpus + Christi at Arundel--Eucharistic Congress at Cardiff--The Great + War--Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246 + + + +APPENDIX I. _Novissima Verba_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 + II. Darwin's _Credo_ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 + +INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 + + + + +{1} + +A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES + + + +CHAPTER I + +1903-1904 + +I take up again the thread of these random recollections in the autumn +of 1903, the same autumn in which I kept my jubilee birthday at St. +Andrews. I went from there successively to the Herries' at Kinharvie, +the Ralph Kerrs at Woodburn, near Edinburgh, and the Butes at +Mountstuart, meeting, curiously enough, at all three places Norfolk and +his sister, Lady Mary Howard--though it was not so curious after all, +as the Duke was accustomed to visit every autumn his Scottish relatives +at these places, as well as the Loudouns in their big rather +out-at-elbows castle in Ayrshire. He had no taste at all either for +shooting, fishing, or riding, or for other country pursuits such as +farming, forestry, or the like; but he made himself perfectly happy +during these country house visits. The least exacting of guests, he +never required to be amused, contenting himself with a game of croquet +(the only outdoor game he favoured), an occasional long walk, and a +daily romp with his young relatives, the children of the house, who +were all devoted to him. He read the newspapers perfunctorily, {2} but +seldom opened a book: he knew and cared little for literature, science, +or art, with the single exception of architecture, in which he was +keenly interested. The most devout of Catholics, he was nothing of an +ecclesiologist: official and hereditary chief of the College of Arms, +he was profoundly uninterested in heraldry, whether practically or +historically:[1] the head of the nobility of England, he was so little +of a genealogist that he was never at pains to correct the +proof--annually submitted to him as to others--of the preposterous +details of his pedigree as set forth in the pages of "Burke." I seem +to be describing an ignoramus; but the interesting thing was that the +Duke, with all his limitations, was really nothing of the kind. He +could, and did, converse on a great variety of subjects in a very +clear-headed and intelligent way; there was something engaging about +his utter unpretentiousness and deference to the opinions of others; +and he had mastered the truth that the secret of successful +conversation is to talk about what interests the other man and not what +interests oneself. No one could, in fact, talk to the Duke much, or +long, without getting to love him; and every one who came into contact +with him in their several degrees, from princes and prelates and +politicians to cabmen and crossing-sweepers, did love him. "His Grace +'as a good 'eart, that's what 'e 'as," said the old lady who used to +keep the crossing nearly opposite Norfolk House, and sat against the +railings {3} with her cat and her clean white apron (I think she did +her sweeping by deputy); "he'll never cross the square, whatever 'urry +'e's in, without saying a kind word to me." One sees him striding down +Pall Mall in his shabby suit, one gloveless hand plucking at his black +beard, the other wagging in constant salutation of passing friends, and +his kind brown eyes peering from under the brim of a hat calculated to +make the late Lord Hardwicke turn in his grave. A genuine +man--earnest, simple, affable, sincere, and yet ducal too; with a +certain grave native dignity which sat strangely well on him, and on +which it was impossible ever to presume. Panoplied in such dignity +when occasion required, as in great public ceremonies, our homely +little Duke played his part with curious efficiency; and it was often +remarked that in State pageants the figure of the Earl Marshal was +always one of the most striking in the splendid picture. + +The only country seat which the premier Duke owned besides Arundel +Castle was Derwent Hall, a fine old Jacobean house in the Derwent +valley, on the borders of Yorkshire and Derbyshire. The Duke had lent +this place for some years past to his only brother as his country +residence (he later bequeathed it to him by will); and herein this same +autumn I paid a pleasant visit to Lord and Lady Edmund Talbot, on my +way south to Oxford. In London I went to see the rich and sombre +chapel of the Holy Souls just finished in Westminster Cathedral, at the +expense of my old friend Mrs. Walmesley (nee Weld Blundell). The +Archbishop's white marble _cathedra_ was in course of erection in the +sanctuary, and preparations were going forward {4} for his +enthronement.[2] Eight immense pillars of onyx were lying on the +floor, and the great painted rood leaned against the wall. I was glad +to see some signs of progress. + +Our principal domestic interest, on reassembling at Oxford for +Michaelmas Term, was the prospect of exchanging the remote and +incommodious semi-detached villa, in which our Benedictine Hall had +been hitherto housed, for the curious mansion near Folly Bridge, built +on arches above the river, "standing in its own grounds," as +auctioneers say (it could not well stand in any one else's!), and known +to most Oxonians as Grandpont House. Besides the Thames bubbling and +swirling at its foundations, it had a little lake of its own, and was +(except by a very circuitous _detour_) accessible only by punt. Rather +fascinating! we all thought; but when the pundits from Ampleforth Abbey +came to inspect, the floods happened to be out everywhere, and our +prospective Hall looked so like Noah's Ark floating on a waste of +waters, that they did not "see their way"[3] to approve of either the +site or the house. + +Oxford was preoccupied at this time with the question of who was to +succeed to the Chancellorship {5} vacant by the death of Lord +Salisbury. I attended a meeting of the Conservative caucus summoned to +discuss the matter at the President's lodgings at St. John's. These +gatherings were generally amusing, as the President (most unbending of +old Tories) used to make occasional remarks of a disconcerting kind. +On this occasion he treated us to some reminiscences of the great +Chancellors of the past, adding, "I look round the ranks of prominent +men in the country, including cabinet ministers and ex-ministers, and I +see few if any men of outstanding or even second-rate ability"--the +point of the joke being that next to him was seated the late Chancellor +of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, whose presence and counsel +had been specially invited. The names of Lords Goschen, Lansdowne, +Rosebery, and Curzon were mentioned, the first-named being evidently +the favourite. "Scholar, statesman, financier, educationalist," I +wrote of him in the _Westminster Gazette_ a day or two later, "a +distinguished son of Oriel, versatile, prudent and popular.... The +Fates seem to point to Lord Goschen as the one who shall sit in the +vacant chair."[4] + +Another less famous Oriel man, my old friend Mgr. Tylee, was in Oxford +this autumn, on his annual visitation of his old college, and came to +see me several times. He gravely assured me that he had "preached his +last sermon in India"; but this was {6} a false alarm. The good +monsignore was as great a "farewellist" as Madame Patti or the late Mr. +Sims Reeves, and at least three years later I heard that he was +meditating another descent on Hindostan; though why he went there, or +why he stayed away, I imagine few people either knew or cared.[5] + +We were all interested this term in the award of the senior Kennicott +Hebrew scholarship to a Catholic, Frederic Ingle of St. John's, who had +already, previous to his change of creed, gained the Pusey and Ellerton +Prize, and other honours in {7} Scriptural subjects. One could not +help wondering whether it came as a little surprise to the Anglican +examiners to find that they had awarded the scholarship to a young man +studying for the Catholic priesthood at the Collegio Beda in Rome, an +institution specially founded for the ecclesiastical education of +converts to the Roman Church. The "Hertford" this year, by the way, +the Blue Ribbon of Latin scholarship, was also held by a Catholic, a +young Jesuit of Pope's Hall--Cyril Martindale, the most brilliant +scholar of his time at Oxford, who carried off practically every +classical distinction the university had to offer. The "Hertford" was +won next year (1904) by another Catholic, Wilfrid Greene, scholar of +Christ Church. + +I celebrated in 1903 not only my fiftieth birthday, but the silver +jubilee of my entrance into the Benedictine Order; and I went to keep +the latter interesting anniversary at Belmont Priory in Herefordshire, +where twenty-five years before (December 8, 1878) I had received the +novice's habit. Two or three of the older members of the community, +who had been my fellow-novices in those far-off days, were still in +residence there; and from them and all I received a warm welcome and +many kind congratulations. These jubilees, golden and silver, are apt +to make one moralize; and some words from an unknown or forgotten +source were in my mind at this time: + + +Such dates are milestones on the grey, monotonous road of our lives: +they are eddying pools in the stream of time, in which the memory rests +for a moment, like the whirling leaf in the torrent, until it is caught +up anew, and carried on by the resistless current towards the +everlasting ocean. + + +{8} + +Soon after the end of term I made my way northwards, to spend +Christmas, as so many before, with the Lovats at Beaufort, where the +topic of interest was the engagement, just announced, of Norfolk to his +cousin, elder daughter of Lord Herries. We played our traditional game +of croquet in the sunshine of Christmas Day, and spent a pleasant +fortnight, of which, however, the end was saddened for me by the +premature death of my niece's husband, Charles Orr Ewing, M.P. They +had only just finished the beautiful house they had built on the site +of my old home, Dunskey, and were looking forward to happy years there. + +I was at Arundel for a few days after New Year, and found the Duke very +busy with improvements, inspecting new gardening operations, and so on; +"and after all," he said, "some one will be coming by-and-by who may +not like it!" From Arundel I dawdled along the south coast to +Canterbury, and paid a delightful visit to my old friends Canon and +Mrs. Moore at their charming residence (incorporating the ancient +monastic guest-house) in the close. I spent hours exploring the +glorious cathedral--the most interesting (_me judice_) if not the most +beautiful in England. The close, too, really is a close, with a +watchman singing out in the small hours, "Past two o'clock--misty +morning--a-all's we-e-ell!" and the enclosure so complete that though +we could hear the Bishop of Dover's dinner-bell on the other side of +the wall, my host and hostess had to drive quite a long way round, +through the mediaeval gate-house, to join the episcopal dinner-party. +Their schoolboy son invited me that night to accompany the watchman (an +old {9} greybeard sailor with a Guy Fawkes lantern, who looked himself +like a relic of the Middle Ages) in his eleven o'clock peregrination +round the cathedral. A weird experience! the vast edifice totally +dark[6] save for the flickering gleam of the single candle, in whose +wavering light pillars and arches and chantries and tombs peered +momentarily out of the gloom like petrified ghosts. + +I saw other interesting things at Canterbury, notably St. Martin's old +church (perhaps the most venerable in the kingdom),[7] and left for +London, where, walking through Hyde Park on a sunshiny Sunday morning, +I lingered awhile to watch the perfervid stump-orators wasting their +eloquence on the most listless of audiences. "Come along, Mary Ann, +let's give one of the other blokes a turn," was the prevailing +sentiment; but I did manage to catch one gem from a Free Thought +spouter, whose advocacy of _post mortem_ annihilation was being +violently assailed by one of his hearers. "Do you mean to tell me," +shouted the heckler, "that when I am dead I fade absolutely away and am +done with for ever?"--to which query came the prompt {10} reply, "I +sincerely hope so, sir!"[8] Lord Cathcart (a great frequenter of the +Park), to whom I repeated the above repartee, amused me by quoting an +unconsciously funny phrase he had heard from a labour orator near the +Marble Arch: "What abaht the working man? The working man is the +backbone of this country--and I tell you _strite_, that backbone 'as +got to come to the front!"[9] + +I left Paddington for Oxford in absolutely the blackest fog I had ever +seen: it turned brown at Baling, grey at Maidenhead, and at Didcot the +sun was shining quite cheerfully. I found the floods almost +unprecedentedly high, and the "loved city" abundantly justifying its +playful sobriquet of "Spires and Ponds." A Catholic freshman, housed +in the ground floor of Christ Church Meadow-buildings, described to me +his dismay at the boldness and voracity of the rats which invaded his +rooms from the meadows when the floods were out. The feelings of Lady +Bute when she visited Oxford about this time, and found her treasured +son--who had boarded at a private tutor's at Harrow, and had never +roughed it in his life--literally immured in an underground cellar +beneath Peckwater Quad, may be {11} better imagined than described. It +is fair to add that the youth himself had made no complaint, and +shouted with laughter when I paid him a visit in his extraordinary +subterranean quarters in the richest college in Oxford. + +The last words remind me of a visit paid me during this term by Dom +Ferotin and a colleague from Farnborough Abbey. Escorting my guests +through Christ Church, I mentioned the revenue of the House as +approximately L80,000 a year, a sum which sounded colossal when +translated into francs. "Deux millions par an! mais c'est incroyable," +was their comment, as we mounted the great Jacobean staircase. +"Twopence each, please," said the nondescript individual who threw open +the hall door. It was an anti-climax; but we "did" the pictures +without further remark, and I remember noticing an extraordinary +resemblance (which the guide also observed) to the distinguished French +Benedictine in the striking portrait of Dr. Liddon hanging near the +fireplace. We lunched with my friend Grissell in High Street, meeting +there the Baron de Bertouche, a young man with a Danish father and a +Scottish mother, born in Italy, educated in France, owning property in +Belgium, and living in Wales--too much of a cosmopolitan, it seemed to +me, to be likely to get the commission in the Pope's Noble Guard which +appeared at that time to be his chief ambition.[10] + +{12} + +I remember two lectures about this time: one to the Newman Society +about Dickens, by old Percy Fitzgerald, who almost wept at hearing +irreverent undergraduates avow that the Master's pathos was "all +piffle," and that Paul Dombey and Little Nell made them sick; the other +a paper on "Armour" (his special hobby) by Lord Dillon. I asked him if +he could corroborate what I had heard as a boy, that men who took down +their ancestral armour from their castle walls to buckle on for the +great Eglinton Tournament, seventy years ago, found that they could not +get into it! I was surprised that this fact (if it be a fact) was new +to so great an authority as Lord Dillon; but we had no time to discuss +the matter. Mr. Justice Walton, the Catholic judge, also came down and +addressed the "Newman," I forget on what subject; but I remember his +being "heckled" on the question as to whether a barrister was justified +in conscience in defending (say) a murderer of whose guilt he was +personally convinced. The judge maintained that he was. + +February 15 was Norfolk's wedding-day--a quiet and pious ceremony, +after his own heart, in the private chapel at Everingham. I recollect +the date, because I attended that evening a French play--Moliere's _Les +Femmes Savantes_--at an Oxford convent school. It was quite well done, +entirely by girls; but the unique feature was that the "men" of the +comedy were attired as to coats, waistcoats, wigs and lace _jabots_ in +perfectly correct Louis XIV. style, but below the waist--in petticoats! +the result being that they ensconced themselves as far as possible, +throughout the play, behind {13} tables and chairs, and showed no more +of their legs than the Queen of Spain. + +Going down to Arundel for Holy Week and Easter, I read in _The Times_ +Hugh Macnaghten's strangely moving lines on Hector Macdonald,[11] whose +tragic death was announced this week. Easter was late this year, the +weather balmy, and the spring advanced; and the park and the whole +countryside starred with daffodils and anemones, primroses and +hyacinths. Between the many church services we enjoyed some delightful +rambles; and the Duke's marriage had made no difference to his love of +croquet and of the inevitable game of "ten questions" after dinner. +The great church looked beautiful on Easter morning, with its wealth of +spring flowers; and the florid music was no doubt finely rendered, +though I do not like Gounod in church at Easter or at any other time. +I refrained, however, when my friend the organist asked me what I +thought of his choir, from replying, as Cardinal Capranica did to a +similar question from Pope Nicholas V.--"that it seemed to him like a +sack of young swine, for he heard a great noise, but could distinguish +nothing articulate!"[12] + +{14} + +All the clergy of St. Philip's church dined at the castle on Easter +Sunday evening; and the young Duchess, wearing her necklace of big +diamonds (Sheffield's wedding present), was a most kind and pleasant +hostess. Two days later my friend Father MacCall and I left England +_en route_ for Rome, crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe in three-quarters +of a gale. _Infandum jubes_.... The boat was miserable, so was the +passage; but we survived it, hurried on through France and Italy (our +_direttissimo_ halting at all kinds of unnecessary places), and reached +Rome at the hour of Ave Maria, almost exactly twenty-six years since my +previous visit. What memories, as from our modest _pension_ in the Via +Sistina we looked once again on the familiar and matchless prospect! +My companion hurried off at once to the bedside of a fever-stricken +friend; and my first pilgrimage was of course to St. Peter's. I felt, +as I swung aside the heavy "baby-crusher,"[13] {15} and entered, almost +holding my breath, that strange sense of exhilaration which Eugenie de +Ferronays described so perfectly.[14] Preparations were on foot for +the coming _festa_,[15] and the "Sanpietrini" flying, as of old, a +hundred feet from the floor, hanging crimson brocades--a fearsome +spectacle. On Sunday we Benedictines kept the Gregorian festival at +our own great basilica of St. Paul's; but the chief celebration was +next day at St. Peter's, where Pope Pius X. himself pontificated in the +presence of 40,000 people, and a choir of a thousand monks (of which I +had the privilege of being one) rendered the Gregorian music with +thrilling effect. All was as in the great days of old--the Papal March +blown on silver trumpets; the long procession up the great nave of +abbots, bishops, and cardinals, conspicuous among them Cardinals +Rampolla, with his fine features and grave penetrating look, and Merry +del Val (the youthful Secretary of State), tall, dark, and strikingly +handsome; the Pontifical Court, chamberlains in their quaint mediaeval +dress; and, finally, high on his _sedia gestatoria_, with the white +peacock-feather fans waving on right and left, the venerable figure of +the Pope, mitred, and wearing his long embroidered _manto_: turning +kind eyes from side to side on the vast concourse, and {16} blessing +them with uplifted hand as he passed. His Holiness celebrated the Mass +with wonderful devotion, as quiet and collected as if he had been alone +in his oratory. High above our heads, at the Elevation, the silver +trumpets sounded the well-known melody, and the Swiss Guards round the +altar brought down their halberts with a crash on the pavement.[16] +After the great function I lunched with the Giustiniani Bandinis in the +Foro Trajano, where three generations of the princely family were +living together, in Roman patriarchal fashion. But (_quantum +mutatus!_) the old Prince had sold his historic palace in the +Corso;[17] and his heir, Mondragone, who talked to me of sending his +son to Christ Church as the Master of Kynnaird, seemed to shy at the +expense.[18] They had all been at St. Peter's, in the tribune of the +"Patriciato," that morning, and were unanimous (so like Romans!) in +their {17} verdict that the glorious Gregorian music would have been +much more appropriate to a funeral! + +I was happy to enjoy a nearer view of the Holy Father before leaving +Rome, in a private audience which he gave to the English Catholic +Union. A slightly stooping figure, bushy grey hair, a rather care-worn +kind face, a large penetrating eye--this was my first impression. His +manner was wonderfully simple and courteous; and by his wish +("s'accommodarsi") we sat down in a little group around him. This +absence of formality was, I thought, no excuse for the bad manners of a +lady of rank, who pulled out a fountain pen, and asked his Holiness to +sign the photograph of her extensive family.[19] The Pope looked at +the little implement and shook his head. "Non capisco queste cose de +nuova moda," he said; and we followed him into another room--I think +his private library--where he seated himself before a great golden +inkstand, and with a long quill pen wrote beneath the family group a +verse from the hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm.[20] I had an +opportunity of asking, not for an autograph, but for a blessing on our +Oxford Benedictines, and on my mother-house at Fort Augustus. + +Next day my friend and I left Rome for Monte Cassino--my first visit to +the cradle of our venerable Order. I was deeply impressed, and felt, +perhaps, on the summit of the holy mount, nearer heaven, both +materially and spiritually, than I had ever {18} done before. To +celebrate Mass above the shrine of Saint Benedict, at an altar designed +by Raphael, was my Sunday privilege. The visitors at the abbey and a +devout crowd of _contadini_ (many of them from the foot of the +mountain) were my congregation; and the monks sang the plain-chant mass +grouped round a huge illuminated _Graduale_ on an enormous lectern. +Three memorable days here, and I had to hasten northward, halting very +briefly to renew old enchanting memories of Florence and Milan, and +reaching Oxford just in time for the opening of the summer term. + + + +[1] Lord Bute once told me that it was from him that the Earl Marshal +first learned the meaning and origin of the honourable augmentation +(the demi-lion of Scotland) which he bore on his coat-armorial. + +[2] One of the first acts of Pope Pius X. had been to translate Bishop +Bourne of Southwark to the metropolitan see of Westminster, in +succession to Cardinal Vaughan, who had died on June 19. Archbishop +Bourne became a Cardinal in 1911. + +[3] My father used to hate this "new-fangled phrase," as he called it. +"'See my way'! What does the man mean by 'see my way'? No, I do +_not_ 'see my way,'" he used to protest when a request for a +subscription or donation was prefaced by this unlucky formula, and the +appeal was instantly consigned to the waste-paper basket. + +[4] Lord Goschen was elected on November 2 without a contest, the only +other candidate "in the running" (Lord Rosebery) having declined to +stand unless unopposed. Our new Chancellor lived to hold the office +for little more than three years, dying in February, 1907. + +[5] Tylee's sole connection with India was that he had once been +domestic chaplain to Lord Ripon, who, however (much to his chagrin), +left him behind in England when he went out as Viceroy. When the +monsignore preached at St. Andrews, as he occasionally did when +visiting George Angus there, the latter used to advertise him in the +local newspaper as "ex-chaplain to the late Viceroy of India," which +pleased him not a little. He was fond of preaching, and carried about +with him in a tin box (proof against white ants) a pile of sermons, +mostly translated by himself from the great French orators of the +eighteenth century, and laboriously committed to memory. I remember +his once firing off at the astonished congregation of a small seaside +chapel, _a propos des bottes_, Bossuet's funeral oration on Queen +Henrietta Maria. + +Through a friend at the Vatican, Tylee got a brief or rescript from the +Pope, who was told that he went to preach in India, and commended him +in the document, with some reference to the missionary labours of St. +Francis Xavier in that country. The monsignore was immensely proud of +this. "Haven't you seen my Papal Bull?" he would cry when India +cropped up in conversation, as it generally did in his presence. The +fact was that when in India the good man used to stay with a +Commissioner or General commanding, and deliver one of his famous +sermons in the station or garrison church, to a handful of British +Catholics or Irish soldiers. He never learned a word of any native +language, and did no more missionary work in India than if he had +stayed at home in his Kensington villa. + +[6] The Dean, my host told me, whilst prowling about the crypt in +semi-darkness once noticed one of the chapels lit up by a rosy gleam. +The Chapter was promptly summoned, and the canon-sacrist interrogated +as to how and why a votive red lamp had been suspended before an altar +without decanal authority. The crypt verger was called in to explain +the phenomenon. "Bless your heart, Mr. Dean," said the good man, "that +ain't no red lamp you saw--only an old oil stove which I fished up and +put in that chapel to try and dry up the damp a bit." + +[7] I suppose that there had been a Christian church on the site for +thirteen centuries. On the day of my visit it was locked and +barred--discouraging to pilgrims. + +[8] The converse of this story is that of the orthodox but sadly prosy +preacher who was demonstrating at great length the certainty of his own +immortality. "Yes, my brethren, the mighty mountains shall one day be +cast into the sea, but I shall live on. Nay, the seas themselves, the +vast oceans which cover the greater part of the earth, shall dry up; +but not I--not I!" And the congregation really thought that he never +would! + +[9] One more instance of Park repartee I must chronicle: the Radical +politician shouting, "I want land reform--I want housing reform--I want +education reform--I want----" and the disconcerting interruption, +"Chloroform!" + +[10] His mother, though a Catholic like himself, was a devotee of +"Father Ignatius," and lived at Llanthony. She travelled about +everywhere with the visionary "Monk of the Church of England," acting +as pew-opener, money-taker, and general mistress of the ceremonies at +his lectures, and had published an extraordinary biography of him. + +[11] Have they ever been reprinted? I know not. Here they are:-- + + "Leave him alone: + The death forgotten, and the truth unknown. + Enough to know + Whate'er he feared, he never feared a foe. + Believe the best, + O English hearts! and leave him to his rest." + +[12] These words were penned in 1449 by one whom a contemporary layman +described on his death as "the wisest, the most perfect, the most +learned, and the holiest prelate whom the Church has in our day +possessed." His beautiful tomb is in the Minerva church in Rome. +Exactly a century later (1549) Cirillo Franchi wrote on the same +subject, and in the same vein, to Ugolino Gualteruzzi: "It is their +greatest happiness to contrive that while one is saying _Sanctus_, the +other should say _Sabaoth_, and a third _Gloria tua_, with certain +howls, bellowings, and guttural sounds, so that they more resemble cats +in January than flowers in May!" + +Who recalls now Ruskin's famous invective against modern Italian music, +in which, after lauding a part-song, "done beautifully and joyfully," +which he heard in a smithy in Perugia, he goes on: "Of bestial howling, +and entirely frantic vomiting up of hopelessly damned souls through +their still carnal throats, I have heard more than, please God, I will +endeavour to hear ever again, in one of his summers." It is fair to +say that the reference here is probably not to church music. + +[13] The name which we English used playfully to give to the great +heavy leather curtains which hang at the entrance of the Roman churches. + +[14] Speaking of the impression of _triumph_ which one receives on +entering St. Peter's, she continues: "Tandis que dans les eglises +gothiques, l'impression est de s'agenouiller, de joindre les mains avec +un sentiment d'humble priere et de profond regret, dans St. Pierre, au +contraire, le mouvement involuntaire serait d'ouvrir les bras en signe +de joie, de relever la tete avec bonheur et epanouissement."--_Recit +d'une Soeur_, ii. 298. + +[15] The thirteenth centenary of St. Gregory the Great (d. March 12, +1904). + +[16] It was at this supreme moment that an Englishman of the baser sort +once rose to his feet, and looking round exclaimed, "Is there no one in +this vast assemblage who will lift up his voice with me, and protest +against this idolatry?" "If you don't get down in double quick time," +retorted an American who was on his knees close by, "there's one man in +this vast assemblage who will lift up his foot and kick you out of the +church!" + +[17] A day or two after writing these lines (1921) I heard that this +famous palazzo had been acquired as an official residence by the +Brazilian Ambassador to the Quirinal. + +[18] The Scottish Earldom of Newburgh (1660), of which Kynnaird was the +second title, had been adjudged to Prince Bandini's mother by the House +of Lords in 1858. The Duca Mandragone consulted me as to the expense +of three years at Oxford for his son. He thought the sum I named very +reasonable; but I really believe he supposed me to be quoting the +figure in _lire_, not in pounds sterling, which he found quite +impossible. + +[19] Would Lady X---- (who was familiar with Courts) have acted thus in +an audience granted her by King Edward VII.? I rather think not. + +[20] Verse 4. "Filii tui sicut noveliae olivarum, in circuitu mensae +tuae." + + + + +{19} + +CHAPTER II + +1904 + +Abbot Gasquet, who had many friends in Oxford, was much in residence +there during the summer of 1904, as he was giving the weekly +conferences to our undergraduates. His host, Mgr. Kennard, usually +asked me to dinner on Sundays, "to keep the Abbot going," which +released me from the chilly collation (cold mutton and cold rhubarb +pie), the orthodox Sabbath evening fare in so many households.[1] I +recall the lovely Sundays of this summer term, and the crowds of +peripatetic dons and clerics in the parks and on the river bank: many +of them, I fancy, the serious-minded persons who would have thought it +their duty, a year previously, to attend the afternoon university +sermon, lately abolished. The afternoon discourse had come to be +allotted to the second-rate preachers; and I had heard of a clergyman +who, when charged with walking in the country instead of attending at +St. Mary's, defended himself by saying that he preferred "sermons from +stones" to sermons from "sticks!"[2] + +{20} + +The biggest clerical gathering I ever saw in Oxford was on a bright May +afternoon in 1904, when hundreds of parsons were whipped up from the +country to oppose the abolition of the statute restricting the +honour-theology examinerships to clergymen. Scores of black-coats were +hanging about the Clarendon Buildings, waiting to go in and vote; and +they "boo'd" and cat-called in the theatre, refusing to let their +opponents be heard. They carried their point by an enormous +majority.[3] + +Kennard took me to London, on another day in May, to see the +Academy--some astonishing Sargents, Mrs. Wertheimer all in black, with +diamonds which made you wink, and the Duchess of Sutherland in arsenic +green, painted against a background of dewy magnolia-leaves, +extraordinarily vivid and brilliant. I was at Blenheim a few days +later, and admired there (besides the wonderful tapestries and a +roomful of Reynolds's) two striking portraits--one by Helleu, the other +by Carolus-Duran--of the young American Duchess of Marlborough. + +An enjoyable event in June was the quadrennial open-air Greek play at +Bradfield College--_Alcestis_ on this occasion, not so thrilling as +_Agamemnon_ four years ago, but very well done, and the death of the +heroine really very touching. A showery {21} garden party at beautiful +Osterley followed close on this: the Crown Prince of Sweden, who was +the guest of honour, had forgotten to announce the hour of his arrival, +was not met at the station, and walked up in the rain. I sat for a +time with Bishop Patterson and the old Duke of Rutland (looking very +tottery), and we spoke of odd texts for sermons. The Bishop mentioned +a "total abstinence" preacher who could find nothing more suitable than +"The young men who carried the _bier_ stood still"! The Duke's +contribution was the verse "Let him that is on the housetop not come +down," the sermon being against "chignons," and the actual text the +last half of the verse--"Top-knot come down"! They were both pleased +with my reminiscence of a sermon preached against Galileo, in 1615, +from the text, "Viri Galilaei, quid statis aspicientes in coelum?" + +As soon as I could after term I went north to Scotland, where I was +engaged to superintend the Oxford Local examinations at the Benedictine +convent school at Dumfries. It was a new experience for me to preside +over school-girls! I found them much less fidgety than boys, but it +struck me that the masses of hair tumbling into their eyes and over +their desks must be a nuisance: however, I suppose they are used to it. +The convent, founded by old Lady Herries, was delightfully placed atop +of a high hill, overlooking the river Nith, the picturesque old Border +town, and a wide expanse of my native Galloway. My work over, I went +on to visit the Edmonstoune-Cranstouns at their charming home close to +the tumbling Clyde. I found them entertaining a party of Canadian +bowlers and their ladies; {22} and in the course of the day we were all +decorated with the Order of the Maple-leaf! I went south after this to +spend a few days with my good old friend Bishop Wilkinson, at Ushaw +College, near Durham, of which he was president. An old Harrovian, and +one of the few survivors of Newman's companions at Littlemore, he was +himself a Durham man (his father had owned a large estate in the +county), and had been a keen farmer, as well as an excellent parish +priest, before his elevation to the bishopric of Hexham. He showed me +all over the finely equipped college (which he had done much to +improve), and pointing out a Dutch landscape, with cattle grazing, +hanging in a corridor, remarked, "That is by a famous 'old master.' I +don't know much about pictures, but I do know something about cows; and +God never made a cow like that one!"[4] The good old man held an +ordination during my visit, and was quite delighted (being himself a +thorough John Bull) that "John Bull" happened to be the name of one of +his candidates for the priesthood. "Come again soon," he said, when I +kissed his ring as I took my leave; "they give us wine at table when +there is a guest, and I do like a glass of sherry with my lunch." The +old bishop lived for nearly four years longer, but I never saw him +again. + +I was delighted with a visit I paid a little later to Hawkesyard +Priory, the newly acquired property {23} of the Dominicans in +Staffordshire: a handsome modern house (now their school) in a +finely-timbered park, and close by the new monastery, its spacious +chapel, with carved oak stalls, a great sculptured reredos recalling +All Souls or New College, and an organ which had been in our chapel at +Eton in my school days. I made acquaintance here with the young +Blackfriar who was to matriculate in the autumn at our Benedictine +Hall--the first swallow, it was hoped, of the Dominican summer, the +revival of the venerable Order of Preachers _in gremio +universitatis_.[5] + +A kind and musical friend[6] insisted on carrying me off this August to +Munich, to attend the Mozart-Wagner festival there. We stayed at the +famous old "Four Seasons," and I enjoyed renewing acquaintance, after +more than thirty years, with a city which seemed to me very like what +it was in 1871. The Mozart operas (at the small Residenz-theater) were +rather disappointing. The title-role in _Don Giovanni_ was perfectly +done by Feinhals; but Anna and Elvira squalled, not even in tune. The +enchanting music of Zauberfloete hardly compensated for the tedious +story; and no one except the {24} Sarastro (one Hesch, a Viennese) was +first-class. The Wagner plays, in the noble new Prinz Regenten +theatre, pleased me much more: Knote and Van Rooy were quite excellent, +and Feinhals even better as the Flying Dutchman than as Don Giovanni. +I heard more Mozart on the Assumption in our Benedictine basilica of +St. Boniface--the Twelfth Mass, done by a mixed choir in the gallery! +I preferred the Sunday high mass at the beautiful old Frauenkirche, +with its exquisite stained glass, and its towers crowned with the +curious renaissance cupolas which the Muencheners first called "Italian +caps," and later "masskruege," or beer-mugs. I admired the attention +and devotion of the great congregation at the cathedral: a few stood, +nearly all knelt, throughout the long service, but no one seemed to +think of sitting. + +We made one day the pleasant steamer trip round Lake Starnberg, with +its pretty wooded shores, and the dim mysterious snow-clad Alps +(Wetterstein and other peaks) looming in the background. A middle-aged +Graf on board (I think an ex-diplomatist) talked interestingly on many +subjects, Bismarck among others. He said that the only serious attempt +at reconciliation between him and the Kaiser, ten years before, had +been frustrated not by the latter but by Bismarck himself, who was +constantly ridiculing the young Emperor both in public and in private. +It was odd, he added, how the number _three_ had pervaded Bismarck's +life and personality. His motto was "In Trinitate robur": he had +served three emperors, fought in three wars, signed three treaties of +peace, established the Triple Alliance, had three children and three +estates; and {25} his arms were a trefoil and three oak-leaves. +Talking of Austria, our friend quoted a dictum of Talleyrand (very +interesting in 1921)--"Austria is the House of Lords of Europe: as long +as it is not dissolved it will restrain the Commons." Dining together +in our hotel at Munich, he told us that the "Four Seasons" possessed, +or had possessed, the finest wine in Europe, having bought up Prince +Metternich's famous cellar (including his priceless Johannisberger and +Steinberger Cabinet hocks) at his death. Of Metternich he said it was +a fact that in 1825 Cardinal Albani was instructed by the Pope to sound +the great statesman as to whether he desired a Cardinal's hat--"in +which case," added his Holiness, "I will propose him in the next Secret +Consistory." + +We were much amused at reading in a local newspaper the result of a +"longest word" competition. The prize-winners were +"Transvaaltruppentropentransport +trampelthiertreibentrauungsthraenentragoedie," and +"Mekkamuselmannenmeuchelmoerdermohrenmuttermarmormonumentenmacher"![7] I +had hitherto considered the longest existing word to be the Cherokee +"Winitawigeginaliskawlungtanawneletisesti"; it was given me by a French +missionary to that North American tribe, whom I once met at the Comte +de Franqueville's house in Paris, {26} and who said it meant, +"They-will-now-have-finished-their-compliments-to-you-and-to-me"! I +remember the same good priest telling me that when the first French +missionary bishop went to New Zealand, he found the natives incapable +of pronouncing the word "eveque" or "bishop," their language consisting +of only thirteen letters, mostly vowels and liquids. He therefore +coined the word _picopo_, from "episcopus," which the natives applied +to all Catholics. English Catholics they called _picopo poroyaxono_, +from Port Jackson (Sydney), which most of them had visited in trading +ships; while French Catholics were known as _picopo wee-wee_, from the +constantly-heard words, "Oui, oui." + +Our pleasant sojourn at Munich over, we made a bee-line home (as we had +done from England to Bavaria), without stopping anywhere _en route_, as +I was bound to be present at certain religious celebrations at +Woodchester Priory, in the Vale of Stroud. I was always much attracted +by the Gloucestershire home of the Dominican Order: it was built of the +warm cream-coloured stone of the district, and with its gables, low +spire, and high-pitched roofs looked as if it really belonged to the +pretty village, and was not, like most modern monasteries, a mere +accretion of incongruous buildings round an uninteresting +dwelling-house.[8] From Woodchester I went over one day to Weston +Birt, a vast ornate neo-Jacobean mansion set in the loveliest gardens, +and a not unworthy country pendant to the owner's {27} palace in Park +Lane, to which (as I told my hostess) I once adjudged the second place +among the great houses of London.[9] + +I spent the rest of the Long Vacation at Fort Augustus, whither the +summer-like autumn had attracted many visitors, and where a golf-course +had been lately opened. Golf, too, and nothing but golf, was in the +air during my annual visit to St. Andrews, which coincided with the +Medal Week there. A lady told me that, looking for a book to give her +golfing daughter on her birthday, she was tempted by a pretty volume +called _Evangeline, Tale of a Caddie_, and was disappointed to find +that Longfellow meant something quite different by "Acadie!" "Medal +Day" was perfect, and the crowd enormous. I was passing the links as +two famous competitors (Laidlaw and Mure Fergusson) came in--a cordon +round the putting-green, and masses of spectators watching with bated +breath. No cheers or enthusiasm as at cricket or football--a curious +(and _I_ thought depressing) spectacle. In the club I came on old Lord +---- (of Session), anathematizing his luck and his partner, as his +manner was. Some one told me that it was only at golf that he really +let himself go. Once in Court he addressed a small boy, whose head +hardly appeared above the witness-box, with dignified solicitude: "Tell +me, my boy, do you understand the nature of an {28} oath?" "Aye, my +lord," came the youngster's prompt response, "ain't I your caddie?" + +I think that it was at the climax of the medal-week festivities that +the news came of the sudden death (in his sleep) of Sir William +Harcourt at Nuneham, to which he had only lately succeeded. He had +survived just ten years the crowning disappointment of his life, his +passing-over for the premiership on the final resignation of Gladstone. +He had long outlived (no small achievement) the intense unpopularity of +his early years; and it seemed almost legendary to recall how three +members of parliament had once resolved to invite to dinner the +individual they disliked most in the world. Covers were laid (as the +reporters say) for six; but only one guest turned up--Sir William +Vernon Harcourt, who had been invited by all three! + +I reached Oxford in October to find our Benedictine Hall migrated from +the suburbs to a much more commodious site in dull but rather dignified +Beaumont Street.[10] The proximity of a hideous "Gothic" hotel, and of +the ponderous pseudo-Italian Ashmolean Galleries, did not appeal to us; +but the site was conveniently central, and was moreover holy ground, +for we were within the actual enclosure of the old Carmelite Priory, +and close to Benedictine {29} Worcester, beyond which Cistercian Rowley +(on the actual site of whose high altar now stands the bookstall of the +L.N.W.R. station!) and Augustinian Oseney had stretched out into the +country. One of my first guests in Beaumont Street was Alfred Plowden, +the witty and genial Metropolitan magistrate, then just sixty, but as +good-looking as ever, and full of amusing yarns about his Westminster +and Brasenose days. I think he was the best _raconteur_ I ever met, +and one of the most eloquent of speakers when once "off" on a subject +in which he was really interested. On this occasion he got started on +Jamaica, where he had been private secretary to the Governor after +leaving Oxford; and his description of his experiences in that +fascinating island was delightful to listen to. + +Lord Ralph Kerr's son Philip, who got his First Class in history in +June, came up this term to try for an All Souls fellowship. There is a +sharp competition nowadays for these university plums; and the +qualification is no longer, as the old jibe ran, "bene natus, bene +vestitus, medocriter doctus." I prefer the older and sounder +standard--"bene legere, bene construere, bene cantare." There seemed, +by the way, a certain whimsicality in some cases in the qualifications +for the Rhodes Scholarships here. I had a call about this time from +the Archbishop of St. John's, Newfoundland, who wished to interest me +in a scholar from that colony (called Sidney Herbert!) who was coming +up after Christmas. His Grace said that the youth had been required to +pass three "tests"--a religious one from his parish priest, an +intellectual one, from the authorities of his college, and a social +one, from {30} his classmates; and I felt some curiosity as to the +nature of the last-named.[11] Amusing stories were current at this +time about the Rhodes Scholars. One young don told me that an American +scholar had replied, when asked what was his religion, "Well, sir, I +can best describe myself as a _quasi_-Christian scientist."--"Do you +think," the don asked me, "he meant the word '_quasi_' to apply to +'Christian' or to 'scientist'?" Another young American drifted into +Keble, but never attended chapel--a circumstance unheard-of in that +exclusively Anglican preserve. Questioned as to whether he was not a +member of the "Protestant Episcopal Church" (if not, what on earth was +he doing at Keble?), he rejoined, "Certainly not; he was a 'Latter-day +Saint'!" He was deported without delay to a rather insignificant +college, where it was unkindly said that the Head was so delighted to +get a saint of any kind that he welcomed him with open arms.[12] + +A Rhodes Scholar, who had been also a fellow of his university in +U.S.A., showed himself so lamentably below the expected standard, that +his Oxford tutor expressed his surprise at a scholar {31} and a fellow +knowing so little. "I think you somewhat misapprehend the position," +was the reply. "In the University of X---- fellowships are awarded for +purely political reasons." To another college tutor, who voiced his +disappointment that after a complete course at his own university a +Rhodes Scholar should be so deplorably deficient in Greek and Latin, +came the ready explanation: "In the university where _I_ was raised, +sir, we only _skim_ the classics!" A Balliol Rhodes Scholar, who had +failed to present the essential weekly essay, replied to his tutor's +expostulation, in the inimitable drawl of the Middle West: "Well, sir, +I have not found myself able to com-pose an essay on the theme +indicated by the college authorities; but I have brought you instead a +few notes of my own on the po-sition of South Dakota in American +politics." + +The mention of classics reminds me that the question of the retention +or abolition of compulsory Greek was a burning one at this time. +Congregation had voted for its abolition in the summer of 1904; but on +November 29 we reversed that decision by a majority of 36. I met Dean +Liddell's widow at dinner that week, and said that I supposed that she, +like myself, was old-fashioned enough to want Greek retained. "_Of +course_ I am," said the old lady: "Think of the Lexicon!" which I had +in truth forgotten for the moment, as well as the comfortable addition +which it no doubt made to her jointure. Rushforth of St. Mary Hall, to +whom I repeated this little dialogue after dinner, told me that he +possessed a letter from Scott to Liddell, calling his attention to +Aristoph. Lys., v. 1263, and {32} adding, "Do you think that [Greek: +chunage parsene] in this line means 'a hunting parson'?" Talking of +Greek, I interested my friends by citing two lines from the _Ajax_, +which (I had never seen this noticed) required only a change from +plural to singular to be a perfect invocation to the Blessed Virgin: + + [Greek: Kalo darogon ten te parthena, + aei th horonta panta ten brotois pathe.][13] + + +A distinguished visitor to Oxford this autumn was Lord Rosebery, who +came up to open--no, that is not the word: to unveil--but I do not +think it was ever veiled: let us say to inaugurate, Frampton's fine +bust of Lord Salisbury in the Union debating-hall. To pronounce the +panegyric of a political opponent, with whose principles, practice, and +ideals he had always been profoundly at variance, was just the task for +Lord Rosebery to perform with perfect tact, eloquence and taste. His +speech was a complete success, and so was his graceful and polished +tribute to the young president of the Union, W. G. Gladstone, whose +likeness, with his high collar and sleekly-brushed black hair, to the +youthful portrait of his illustrious grandfather, immediately behind +him, was quite noticeable. + +A whimsical incident in connection with this visit of the ex-premier +may be, at this distance of time, recalled without offence. I had +repeated to his Oxford hostess a story told me by the Principal of a +Scottish university, of how Lord Rosebery, engaged to speak at a great +Liberal meeting in a {33} northern city, found himself previously +dining with a fanatically teetotal Provost, who provided for his guests +no other liquid refreshment than orangeade in large glass jugs. As +this depressing beverage circulated, the Liberal leader's spirits fell +almost to zero; and it was by the advice of my friend the principal +that, between the dinner and the meeting, he drove _ventre a terre_ to +an hotel, and quaffed a pint of dry champagne before mounting the +platform and making a speech of fiery eloquence, which the good provost +attributed entirely to the orangeade! The lady, unknown to me, passed +on this delectable story to one of the Union Committee, who took it +very seriously: the result being that when Lord Rosebery reached the +committee-room, just before the inauguration ceremony, a grave young +man whispered to him confidentially: "There are tea and coffee here; +but I have got your pint of cha[oe]pagne behind that screen: _will you +come and have it now?_" "Well, do you know?" said the great man with +his usual tact,[14] "I think for once in a way I will have a cup of +coffee!" I do not suppose he ever knew exactly why this untimely pint +of champagne was proffered to him by his undergraduate hosts; and he +probably thought no more about the matter. + +Lunching with my friend Bishop Mitchinson, the {34} little Master of +Pembroke, I was shown his new portrait in the hall--quite a good +painting, but not a bit like him, though not in that respect singular +among our Oxford portraits. The supposed picture of Devorguilla, +foundress of Balliol, is, I have been assured, the likeness of an +Oxford baker's daughter, who was tried for bigamy in the eighteenth +century. An even more barefaced imposture is the "portrait" of +Egglesfield (chaplain to Queen Philippa, wife of Edward III, and +founder of Queen's), which hangs, or hung, in the hall of that college. +It is really, and manifestly, the likeness of a seventeenth-century +French prelate--probably Bossuet--in the episcopal dress of the time of +Louis XIV! Most of our Magdalen portraits are, I think, authentic; but +then they do not profess to represent personages of the early Middle +Ages! The best and most interesting portraits at Oxford belong to the +nineteenth century. I always enjoyed showing my friends those of Tait +and Manning, side by side in Balliol Hall, and recalling how their +college tutor once remarked, when they had left his room after a +lecture: "Those two undergraduates are worthy and talented young men: I +hope I shall live to see them both archbishops!" His prophetic wish +was duly fulfilled, though he had probably never dreamt of Canterbury +and Westminster! + +I remember pleasant visits this autumn to the Abingdons at Wytham +Abbey, their fine old place, set in loveliest woods, within an easy +drive of Oxford. "Why Abbey?" I asked my host, who did not seem to +know that the place had never been a monastery, though part of the +house was of the fifteenth century. Lord Abingdon himself was a kind +{35} of patriarch,[15] with a daughter married four and twenty years, +and a small son not yet four. He was trying to dispose of some of his +land for building, but without great success. The Berkshire side of +the Thames (to my mind far the most beautiful and attractive) was not +the popular quarter for extensions from Oxford, which was spreading far +out towards the north in the uninteresting directions of Banbury and +Woodstock. + +Term over, I went north to spend Christmas with the Butes at +Mountstuart, where I found my young host, as was only natural, much +interested in a recent decision of the Scottish Courts, which had +diverted into his pocket L40,000 which his father had bequeathed to two +of the Scottish Catholic dioceses.[16] My Christmas here (the first +for many years) was saddened by old memories; for I missed at every +turn the pervading presence of my lost friend, to whose taste and +genius the varied beauty of his island home was so largely due. +However, our large party of young people gave the right note {36} of +hilarity to the time; and if there was little sunshine without (I noted +that we had never a gleam from Christmas to New Year), there was plenty +of warmth and brightness and merriment within. The graceful crypt (all +that was yet available) of the lovely chapel was fragrant and bright +with tuberoses, chrysanthemums and white hyacinths; and the religious +services of the season were carried out with the care and reverence +which had been the rule, under Lord Bute's supervision, for more than +thirty years. The day after New Year, young Bute left home for London +and Central Africa (the attraction of the black man never seemed to +pall on him), and I made my way to our Highland Abbey to spend the +remainder of the Christmas vacation. + + + +[1] "Do you very much mind dining in the middle of the day?" a would-be +hostess at St. Andrews once asked George Angus. "Oh, not a bit," was +his reply, "as long as I get another dinner in the evening!" + +[2] It was, I think, a Scottish critic who suggested an emendation of +the line, "Sermons from stones, books in the running brooks." +Obviously, he said, the transposition was a clerical error, the true +reading being, "Sermons from books, stones in the running brooks!" + +[3] Another attempt, nine years later, to abolish the same statute was +decisively defeated; but in 1920 the restriction of degrees in divinity +to Anglican clergymen was removed by a unanimous vote, though the +examinerships are still confined to clergymen. + +[4] "Well, now, that is not my idea of an owl," said a casual visitor +to a bird-stuffer's shop, looking at one sitting on a perch in a rather +dark corner. "Isn't it?" replied the bird-stuffer dryly, peering up +over his spectacles. "Well, it's God's, anyhow." The owl was a live +one! + +[5] The "young Blackfriar" obtained (in History) the first First Class +gained in our Hall, rose to be Provincial of his Order in England, and +had the happiness of seeing, on August 15, 1921, the foundation stone +of a Dominican church and priory laid at Oxford. + +[6] Music was his hobby: by profession he was a chemist, and the City +Analyst of Oxford. I introduced him as such to dear Mgr. Kennard, who +promptly asked us both to dinner, and during the meal laboriously +discussed the mediaeval history of Oxford, which he had carefully +"mugged up" beforehand. He had understood me to say that my friend's +position was that of City _Annalist_! + +[7] The English of these uncouth concatenations, which are at least +evidence of the facility with which any number of German words can be +strung together into one, appears to be (as far as I can unravel them): +1. "The tearful tragedy of the marriage of a dromedary-driver on the +transport of Transvaal troops to the tropics." 2. "The maker of a +marble monument for the Moorish mother of a wholesale assassin among +the Mussulmans at Mecca." Pro-dee-gious! + +[8] Such were nearly all our Benedictine priories in England--a +circumstance which added to their historic interest, if not to their +architectural homogeneity. + +[9] I was once invited to write an article on the "six finest houses in +London." The word "finest," of course, wants defining. However, my +selection, in order of merit, was:--Holland House (perhaps rather a +country house in the metropolitan area than a London house), +Dorchester, Stafford, Bridgewater, and Montagu Houses, and Gwydyr +House, Whitehall. How many Londoners know the last-named? + +[10] Built about a century previously, to provide proper access to +Worcester College, then and long afterwards dubbed (from its remoteness +and inaccessibility) "Botany Bay." The only approach to it had been by +a narrow lane, across which linen from the wash used to hang, and once +impeded the dignified progress of a Vice-Chancellor. "If there is a +college there," cried the potentate in a passion, "there must be a road +to it." And the result was Beaumont Street! + +[11] Oxonians know the tradition that an All Souls candidate is invited +to dinner at high table, and given cherry pie; and that careful note is +taken as to the manner in which he deals with the stones! + +[12] A subsequent legend related that the undergraduates of his new +college were greatly interested in discovering (from reference to an +encyclopaedia) that a Latter-day Saint was equivalent to a Mormon. +"Where were the freshman's wives?" was the natural inquiry. Answer +came there none; but the excitement grew intense when it was rumoured +that he had applied to a fellow of Magdalen for six ladies' tickets for +the chapel service. + +[13] "And I call to my assistance her who is ever a Virgin + And who ever looks on all the sufferings among men." + --SOPH. AJAX. v. 835. + +[14] "My lord! my lord!" a Midlothian farmer (who had just been served +with an iced souffle) whispered to his host at a tenants' dinner at +Dalmeny: "I'm afraid there's something wrang wi' the pudden: it's stane +cauld." Lord Rosebery instantly called a footman, and spoke to him in +an undertone. "No, do you know?" he said, turning to his guest with a +smile, "it is quite right. I find that this kind of pudding is _meant_ +to be cold!" + +[15] Less so, however, than the then Earl of Leicester (the second), +between whose eldest daughter (already a grandmother) and youngest +child there was an interval of some fifty years. Lord Ronald Gower +once told Queen Victoria (who liked such titbits of family gossip) the +astonishing, if not unique, fact that Lord Leicester married exactly a +century after his father. The Queen flatly refused to believe it; and +as the Court was at the moment at Aix-les-Bains, Lord Ronald was for +the time unable to adduce documentary evidence that he was not "pulling +her Majesty's leg." The respective dates were, as a matter of fact, +1775 and 1875. + +[16] Lord Bute could never do anything quite like other people; and his +legacies to Galloway and Argyll had been hampered by conditions to +which no Catholic bishop, even if he accepted them for himself, could +possibly bind his successor. + + + + +{37} + +CHAPTER III + +1905 + +There had been an official visitation, by Abbot Gasquet, of our abbey +at Fort Augustus in January, 1905. I had been unable to attend it, but +the news reached me at Oxford that one of its results had been the +resignation of his office by the abbot. This was not so important as +it sounded; for the Holy See did not "see its way" (horrid phrase!) to +accept the proffered resignation, and the abbot remained in office. + +I attended this month a Catholic "Demonstration," as it was called (a +word I always hated), in honour of the Bishop of Birmingham--or the +"Catholic Bishop of Oxford," as an enthusiastic convert, who had set up +a bookshop in the city, with a large portrait of Bishop Ilsley in the +window, chose to designate him. The function was in the town hall, and +Father Bernard Vaughan made one of his most florid orations, which got +terribly on the nerves of good old Sir John Day (the Catholic judge), +who sat next me on the platform. "Why on earth doesn't somebody stop +him?" he whispered to me in a loud "aside," as the eloquent Jesuit "let +himself go" on the subject of the Pope and the King. On the other +hand, I heard the Wesleyan Mayor, who was in the chair, murmur to _his_ +{38} neighbour, "This is eloquence indeed!" "Vocal relief" (as the +reporters say at classical concerts) was afforded by a capital choir, +which sang with amazing energy, "Faith of our Fathers," and Faber's +sentimental hymn, the opening words of which--"Full in the pant" ... +are apt to call forth irreverent smiles. + +I took Bernard Vaughan (who knew little of Oxford) a walk round the +city on Sunday afternoon. We looked into one of the most "advanced" +churches, where a young curate, his biretta well on the back of his +head, was catechising a class of children. "Tell me, children," we +heard him say, "who was the first Protestant?" "The Devil, Father!" +came the shrill response. "Yes, quite right, the Devil!" and we left +the church much edified. + +There was good music to be heard in Oxford in those early days of the +year; and I attended some enjoyable concerts with a music-loving member +of my Hall. The boy-prodigies, of whom there were several above the +horizon at this time, generally had good audiences at Oxford; and I +used to find something inexplicably uncanny in the attainments and +performances of these gifted youngsters--Russian, German and English. +Astonishing technique--as far as was possible for half-grown +fingers--one might fairly look for; but whence the _sehnsucht_, the +passionate yearning, that one seemed to find in some, at least, of +their interpretations? That they should feel it appears incredible: +yet it could not have been a mere imitative monkey-trick, a mere echo +of the teaching of their master. And why should there be this +precocious development in music alone, of all the arts? These things +want {39} explaining psychologically. I was amused at one of these +recitals to hear the eminent violinist Marie Hall (who happened to be +sitting next me) say that the boy (it was the Russian Mischa Elman) +could not possibly play Bazzini's _Ronde des Lutins_ (he did play it, +and admirably), and also that he had suddenly "struck," to the dismay +of his _impresario_, against appearing as a "wunderkind" in sailor kit +and short socks, and had insisted on a dress suit! + +The Torpids were rowed in icy weather this year; I took Lady +Gainsborough and her daughter on to Queen's barge; and Queen's (in +which they were interested) made, with the help of two Rhodes Scholars, +two bumps, amid shouts of "Go it, _Quaggas_!"--a new _petit nom_ since +my time, when only the Halls had nicknames. Tuckwell, of an older +generation than mine, reports in his reminiscences how St. Edmund Hall, +in his time, was encouraged by cries from the bank of "On, St. Edmund, +on!" and not, as in these degenerate days, "Go it, Teddy!" It was a +novelty on the river to see the coaching done from bicycles instead of +from horseback. But bicycles were ubiquitous at Oxford, and doubtless +of the greatest service; and my young Benedictines and I went far +afield awheel on architectural and other excursions. Passing the +broken and battered park railings of beautiful Nuneham (not yet +repaired by Squire "Lulu"[1]), my companion commented on their +condition; and I told him the legend of the former owner, who was so +{40} disconsolate at the death of his betrothed (a daughter of Dean +Liddell) on their wedding-day, that he never painted or repaired his +park railings again! + +I heard at the end of February of the engagement (concluded in a +beauty-spot of the Italian Riviera) of my young friend Bute--he would +not be twenty-four till June--to Augusta Bellingham. A boy-and-girl +attachment which had found its natural and happy conclusion--that was +the whole story, though the papers, of course, were full of impossibly +romantic tales about both the young people. They went off straight to +Rome, in Christian fashion, to ask the Pope's blessing on their +betrothal; and I just missed them there, for I had the happiness this +spring of another brief visit to Italy, at the invitation of a +Neapolitan friend. I spent two or three delightful weeks at the +Bertolini Palace, high above dear dirty Naples, with an entrancing view +over the sunlit bay, and Vesuvius (quite quiescent) in the background. +I found the city not much changed in thirty years, and, as always, much +more attractive than its queer and half-savage population. Watching +the cab-drivers trying to urge their lumbering steeds into a canter, I +thought how oddly different are the sounds employed by different +nations to make their horses go. The Englishman makes the well-known +untransferable click with his tongue: the Norwegian imitates the sound +of a kiss: the Arab rolls an r-r-r: the Neapolitan coachman _barks_ +Wow! wow! wow! The subject is worth developing. + +I met at Naples, among other people, Sir Charles Wyndham, with his +unmistakable "Criterion" voice, and as cynically amusing off the stage +as he generally {41} was on it. He reminded me of what I had +forgotten--that I had once shown him all over our Abbey at Fort +Augustus. I told him of a lecture Beerbohm Tree had recently given at +Oxford, and showed him my copy of a striking passage[2] which I had +transcribed from a shorthand note of the lecture. "Noble words," the +veteran actor agreed, "I know them well; but they were not written for +his Oxford lecture. I remember them a dozen or more years ago, in an +address he gave (I think in 1891) to the Playgoers' Club; and the last +clause ran--'to point _in the twilight of a waning century_ to the +greater light beyond.' Those words would not of course be applicable +in 1904." + +I had looked forward to a day in the museum, with its wonderful +sculptures and unique relics of Pompeii; but I was lost there, for the +whole collection was being rearranged, and no catalogue available. The +Cathedral too was closed, being under restoration--for the sixth time +in six centuries! Some of the Neapolitan churches seemed to me sadly +wanting in internal order and cleanliness, an exception being a +spotless and perfectly-kept convent chapel on the hill, conveniently +near me for daily mass. The German Emperor made, with his customary +suddenness, a descent on Naples during {42} my stay. The quays and +streets were hastily decorated, and there was a ferment of excitement +everywhere; but I fled from the hurly-burly by cable-railway +(_funicoli-funicola!_) to the heights of San Martino, to visit the +desecrated and abandoned Certosa, now a "national monument": tourists +trampling about the lovely church with their hats on. It made me sick, +and I told the astonished guide so. The cloister garth, with its sixty +white marble columns, charmed and impressed me; but all _molto triste_. +Three old Carthusian monks, I heard, were still permitted to huddle in +some corner of their monastery till they dropped and died.[3] + +A day I spent at Lucerne on my way home, in fog, snow, and sleet (no +sign of spring), I devoted partly to the "Kriegs-und-Frieden" +Museum--chiefly _kriegs!_ with an astonishingly complete collection of +all things appertaining to war. I went to Downside on my arrival in +England, had some talk with the kind abbot on Fort Augustus affairs, +and admired the noble church, a wonderful landmark with its lofty +tower, choir now quite complete externally, and _chevet_ of flanking +chapels. I got to Arundel in time for the functions of Holy Week, and +thought I had seen nothing more beautiful in Italy than St. Philip's +great church on Maundy Thursday, its "chapel of repose" bright with +lilies, azaleas and tulips, tall silver candlesticks and hangings of +rose-coloured velvet. I had landed in {43} England speechless with a +cold caught at Lucerne, and could neither sing nor preach. Summer Term +at Oxford opened with a snowstorm, and May Day was glacial. I found I +had been elected to the new County Club, a good house with a really +charming garden, and (to paraphrase Angelo Cyrus Bantam) "rendered +bewitching by the absence of ---- undergraduates, who have an +amalgamation of themselves at the Union." The most noteworthy visitor +to the Union this term was Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman (then leader of +the Opposition), who made a somewhat vitriolic speech, lasting an hour, +against the Government. The 550 undergraduates present listened, +cheered frequently--and voted against him by a large majority, a good +deal (I heard afterwards) to the old gentleman's chagrin. + +The Archbishop of Westminster (Dr. Bourne) came to Oxford in May as the +guest of Mgr. Kennard, who illuminated in his honour the garden and +quad of his pretty old house in St. Aldate's, and gave a dinner and big +reception, at neither of which I could be present, being laid up from a +bicycle-accident. It was Eights-week, and his Grace saw the races one +evening, and I think was also present at a Newman Society debate, when +a motion advocating the setting up of a Catholic University in Ireland +by the Government was rejected by a considerable majority.[4] I was +able to hobble to Balliol a few days later, when Sir Victor Horsley +delivered {44} the Boyle lecture to a crowded and distinguished +audience. I noted down as interesting one thing he said (I fancy it +was a quotation from somebody else[5]): "Every scientific truth passes +through three stages: in the first it is decried as absurd; in the +second it is said to be opposed to revealed religion; in the third +everybody knew it before!" Sir Victor's lecture left me, rightly or +wrongly, under the impression that he was something of a sceptic; and I +asked my neighbour, a clerical don of note, from Keble, why so many +medical bigwigs seemed inclined to atheism. He answered (oddly enough) +that it was only what David had prophesied long ago when he asked +despairingly (Psalm lxxxvii. 11), _Numquid medici suscitabunt et +confitebuntur tibi?_ ("Shall the physicians rise up and praise +Thee?")--a curious little bit of exegesis from an Anglican.[6] + +June 16 was a busy day--a garden party at Blenheim, with special trains +for the Oxford guests; the Duchess, in blue and white and a big black +hat, welcoming her guests in her low, sweet, and curiously un-American +voice, and the little Duke rather affable in khaki (he was encamped +with the Oxfordshire Hussars in the park). We sat about under the big +cedars, and there was organ-music in the cool {45} white library, where +I noticed that Sargent's very odd group of the ducal family had been +hung--with not altogether happy effect--as a pendant to the famous and +beautiful group painted by Reynolds. I got back to Oxford just in time +for the festival dinner of the Canning and Chatham Clubs, at which my +old schoolfellow Alfred Lyttelton, Hugh Cecil, and other Tory +notabilities, were guests. Alfred spoke admirably: Hugh, though loudly +called upon, refused to speak at all. The President of Magdalen, by +whom I sat, told me in pained tones how some Christ Church +undergraduates, _suadente diabolo_, had recently scaled the wall into +Magdalen deer-park, had dragged (Heaven knew how) over the wall two of +our sacrosanct fallow deer, and had turned the poor brutes loose in the +"High"--an outrage without precedent in the college annals. I duly +sympathized. + +A feature of Catholic and Benedictine interest in this year's +Commemoration was the conferring of the honorary doctorate of letters +on my old friend and fellow-novice, Dom Germain Morin, the +distinguished patristic scholar.[7] I did _not_ attend the hot and +tiresome Encaenia, but I went to the Magdalen concert, where I found +myself talking between the songs to Lady Winchilsea, whose husband and +brother-in-law had been friends of mine at Eton, and had acted with me, +I think, in more than one school play. The lady was born a Harcourt, +{46} and talked interestingly about beautiful Nuneham in the days of +her girlhood. I met her again next day at Radley College, where the +annual "gaudy" was always a pleasant wind-up to the summer term. It +turned wet, and the usual concert was given, not _al fresco_, but in +the fine old panelled schoolroom with its open roof, once Sir George +Bowyer's barn.[8] Two days later I kept yet another "silver jubilee" +(following naturally on that of my receiving the Benedictine habit), +namely the anniversary of my religious profession. Being in London, I +spent the day with what piety was possible, in the Dominican monastery +at Haverstock Hill, attending high mass in the beautiful church, dining +with the good friars, and sitting awhile in their pretty shady garden. +One of the fathers told me of a notice he had personally seen affixed +to a pillar in Milan Cathedral in 1899. I copied it forthwith, as one +of the funniest things of the kind which I had ever seen. Here it is +_verbatim_:-- + + +APPELE TO CHARITABLES.--The Brothers (so-called of Mercy) ask some +slender Arms for their Hospital They harbour all kinds of diseases, and +have no respect for religion. + + +I met this evening my nephew Kelburne, R.N., who had just been +appointed first lieutenant on {47} H.M.S. _Renown_ (which was to take +the Prince and Princess of Wales to India); he was looking forward to a +good spell of leave and plenty of sport in the East. He seemed very +keen on polo, and amused me with a yarn about his (naval) team having +been offered L50 if they would kill Winston Churchill in their coming +match against the House of Commons![9] The event of July was Bute's +wedding in Ireland on the 6th. I travelled straight to Castle +Bellingham two days previously, with Bute's Scots pipers in my train, +much admired by the populace. I found, of course, the little Louth +village, and indeed the whole countryside, _en fete_. The bride-elect, +in inviting me, had spoken about "a quiet wedding at home"; but how was +that possible? for the day could not be other than a popular festival +to the warm-hearted folk among whom "Miss Augusta" had spent all her +life. The wedding guests, bidden and unbidden, converged on the little +country church in every imaginable conveyance, from special trains and +motor-cars to the humble donkey-cart. The marriage service was simple +and devout, the officiant being neither cardinal nor bishop, but the +bride's own parish priest, while the music was grave plain-chant, +perfectly rendered, with an exquisite motett by Palestrina. The royal +Stuart tartan worn by the bridegroom, and the vivid St. Patrick's blue +of the bridesmaids' cloaks and hoods, made a picturesque splash of +colour against the masses of pure white lilies and marguerites with +which the church was {48} decorated. Most picturesque of all was the +going-away of the happy pair from the little fishing-harbour, whither +they were preceded, accompanied, and followed by troops of friends. +Embarking in a white barge manned by oarsmen in the Bellingham +liveries, they were rowed out to the steamer which was to take them +across the sea to their honeymoon in Galloway. The pipers, following +in another barge, played "Johnnie Stuart's gone awa'"; the band on the +pier struck up "Come Back to Erin"; and amid cheers and tears and +acclamations and blessings the white boat turned the corner of the +pierhead and glided out over the rippling sunlit waters. We were +regaled afterwards with some delightful part-singing by a famous Dublin +choir on the castle lawn. Next day I departed with the Loudouns for +Belfast, where it rained as it _can_ rain only in Ireland, and I +thought of one of Lady Dufferin's charming letters from the south of +France to her Irish relatives:-- + + +"O that I could transport a bit of that Provence sky which I have been +enjoying, over your dear, dripping heads in Ireland! It is a terrible +drawback on the goods of life at home to lead a web-foot existence. I +sometimes fancy that I could put up with any amount of despotic +monarchy taken warm, with Burgundy, rather than the British +constitution, with all that cold water!" + + +We crossed to Stranraer in rain and mist, but found the sun shining in +Galloway. The Loudouns went on to Ayrshire, and I to visit my niece at +Dunskey, the new house which already looked old, with much dark oak, +good pictures, and fine old prints everywhere. I liked the long and +lofty terrace in front, commanding a beautiful view of the blue {49} +curve of the Irish Sea, the Mourne Mountains in the background, and, +far to the south-westward, the Isle of Man[10] hanging like an azure +cloud on the horizon. Everywhere round my dear old home,[11] in farms +and village, gardens and woods, were signs of the changes and +improvements wrought by the late owner, who had barely lived to see +them. _Sic vos non vobis_, I sadly said to myself, as I stood on the +point between the two bays at the foot of Dunskey Glen (his chosen +resting-place), and looked at the simple granite cross rising above the +brackens and heather. Portpatrick I found changed out of knowledge, +with its red-roofed houses, electric light, golf-course, and big hotel +on the brow of the hill. _Tout passe_. I had loved the quiet +old-world village of my childhood, but I could not grudge the place its +new prosperity, and all was full of interest to me. From Dunskey I +went on to Kelburne and Loudoun Castle--the latter big, imposing and +bare, and a little suggestive of Castle Carabas! though new pictures +and redecoration did much, later on, to improve the interior. My +examination-week at the Dumfries convent followed, diversified by an +interesting visit to the local madhouse (euphemistically known as the +"Crichton Royal Institution"), {50} said to be the finest lunatic +asylum in Britain; with splendid buildings, in perfect condition, 800 +acres of fertile land, and the same number of patients, from country +gentlemen to paupers. The high wall round the establishment was being +replaced by a hedge, and the attendants were kept out of sight as much +as possible, in accordance with the modern theory of not letting +lunatics know that they were under restraint.[12] The luxuriousness of +the whole place, in comparison with the home surroundings of most of +the inmates, was very noticeable; and the spectacle of a "doited" +farm-labourer seated in an arm-chair in a carpeted lounge, reading the +_Graphic_ upside down, was certainly curious, if not instructive. + +I paid a visit to Eton this summer, on the occasion of the laying of +the foundation of the South African war memorial by Princess Alexander +of Teck (her husband and brother were both Etonians), who looked +charming all in ivory white, with a long plume of Eton blue in her hat. +The school O.T.C. formed the guard of honour, the only _contretemps_ +being that several of the youthful warriors were overcome by the heat, +dropping down in the ranks one after another, like so many ninepins. +The new building was to occupy the site of "m' tutors" ("the tallest +house in college," he had said to me on my first arrival, "as I am the +tallest master!"), and I walked {51} through the hideous building for +the last time--_memor temporis acti_--before going on to the head +master's party in his charming garden sloping down to the river--a +farewell function, as Dr. Warre was resigning the head mastership to +Edward Lyttelton this half, and several masters were leaving with him. +I went to London from Eton to attend Hyde's marriage to Miss Somers +Cocks, and (though the season was over) met many friends afterwards at +Lady Dudley's house in Carlton-gardens, where the wedding guests +foregathered. + +A visit to Arundel a little later was signalized by great festivities +in honour of the birth of the Duke's little daughter. The four +thousand guests who, as the fancy took them, danced in the tilting-yard +(converted into a great open-air ballroom), listened to martial music +from military bands, roamed through the beautiful state-rooms, or gazed +admiringly at the myriad fairy lamps which glowed many-coloured on +castle walls, battlements, and towers, were literally of every class. +Peers and peeresses, officers and deans and doctors, and Sussex county +magnates, mingled freely with the farmers, artisans, and workmen who +were their fellow-guests. The fete wound up with a grand display of +fireworks in the park, and the host and hostess (the latter looking +very nice in her white summer frock, with flowing crimson sash and a +string of great pearls round her neck), made every one happy with their +affability and kindness. + +On my way north I stayed a few days with the Gainsboroughs at Exton, +near Oakham--my first visit to the little shire of Rutland. A most +attractive place, I thought: a charming modern Jacobean {52} house (the +ruins of the Elizabethan hall, burnt down a century before, stood close +by): beautiful gardens and a nobly-timbered park, in which stands the +fine old parish church with its singularly graceful spire. Tennis, _al +fresco_ teas, and much music, occupied a few days very agreeably; and I +then went on to St. Andrews for my usual autumn sojourn, which I always +enjoyed. But my most memorable Scottish visit this autumn was to +Abbotsford, which, curiously enough, I had never yet seen, though I had +known its owners for thirty years. My grandfather and Sir Walter Scott +had been friends for many years: they were planning and building at the +same time their respective homes in the western and eastern Lowlands, +and often exchanged visits and letters. Here is a little note +(undated) in which Sir Walter acknowledged, with an apt Shakespearian +reference, a gift of game from Blairquhan:-- + + +My Dear Sir David,-- + +I thank you much for your kind present. The pheasants arrived in +excellent condition, and showing, like Shakespeare's Yeomen, "the +mettle of their pasture."[13] + +When are you and Lady Blair going to take another run down Tweed? + +Your obliged humble servant, + WALTER SCOTT. + + +My father had stayed at Abbotsford as a little boy, before he entered +the Navy, and two or three years before Sir Walter's death in 1832. He +had not the customary reminiscence of having sat on {53} the great +man's knee;[14] but he remembered a beautiful collie which lay outside +the study door, and refused to let any one enter in his master's +absence. We were all brought up on Scott--his _Tales of a +Grandfather_, his novels and poems. My father seemed to know the +latter all by heart: he would reel them off (with fine elocution, too) +by the hour, and we children loved the stirring music of the Border +songs, the _Lady of the Lake_ and the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which +only in our later and more sophisticated days suggested the answer to a +flippant conundrum.[15] + +To me, of course, Abbotsford had, and has, a special and peculiar +charm, as having been for more than sixty years one of the "Catholic +Homes of Scotland."[16] The "incongruous pile" sneered at by Ruskin, +the bizarre architecture which, I suppose, made Dean Stanley describe +it as a place to be visited once and never again, are open to criticism +and easily criticized. I prefer the judgment of Andrew Lang, that "it +is hallowed ground, and one may not judge it by common standards." To +{54} Catholics it is doubly hallowed--as a Catholic centre in the sweet +Border-land which Scott knew and loved so well, and as the "darling +seat" of one who by the magic of his writings made the Catholic past of +Scotland live again, and the last words on whose dying lips were lines +from two of the noblest and most sacred hymns in the Catholic +liturgy.[17] + +The Dowager Lady Bute was the occupant of Abbotsford during my visit +there, and had hoped to make it her home for some time; but her stay +was cut short by a serious motor accident, in which she and her +daughter sustained rather severe injuries. I was at the time at +Dumfries House, where Bute and his bride were happily settled for the +autumn; and there was of course great concern at the Abbotsford +disaster, which fortunately turned out less grave than was at first +feared. I was interested in the recent additions to Dumfries House, +including a fine Byzantine chapel, a saloon lit from the roof for the +Stair tapestries,[18] and a new library-billiard-room, all so cleverly +tucked in by the architect behind the existing wings, that the +beautiful Adam front remains as it was. Lady Bute, smartly frocked, +and twinkling with diamonds, sapphires, and ropes of pearls, was quite +"Lothair's bride." On Sunday we had the regulation walk to the lovely +old garden, stables, farm, and poultry-yard. A great {55} "wale" of +cocks and hens,[19] among which our hostess dropped one of her +priceless earrings, and we had a long hunt for it. Reading my Glasgow +paper in the train next day, on my way south, I came on a paragraph +announcing the "reception into the Roman Church" of the Professor of +Greek (J. S. Phillimore) at Glasgow University--a Christ Church man, +and a scholar of the highest distinction. What (I thought) will the +"unco guid" of Glasgow say now?[20] + + + +[1] Sir William Harcourt's son, commonly known as "Lulu" (now Viscount +Harcourt), had lately inherited Nuneham on the death of his father. + +[2] It ran as follows: "In an age when faith is tinged with philosophic +doubt, when love is regarded but as a spasm of the nervous system, and +life itself as but the refrain of a music-hall song, I believe that it +is still the function of art to give us light rather than darkness. +Its teaching should not be to prove that we are descended from monkeys, +but rather to remind us of our affinity with the angels. Its mission +is not to lead us through the fogs of doubt into the bogs of despair, +but to point us to the greater light beyond." + +[3] On what principle, I could not help asking myself, are +Benedictines, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits (all engaged in +active work, and therefore _ex hypothesi_ dangerous), freely tolerated +in Rome, and Carthusians (whose only occupation is prayer) expelled +from Naples? + +[4] On a previous occasion our Catholic Society had voted on the same +motion in precisely the contrary sense. But the opinions of the +"Newman," as of all university debating societies (not excluding the +Union), were quite fluid and indeterminate on almost every subject. + +[5] Sir Charles Lyell, I am inclined to believe. But I cannot "place" +the quotation. + +[6] Curious; because the Authorized translation (presumably used at +Keble) ignores the _medici_ altogether, its version being "Shall the +dead arise and praise Thee?" There is, I fancy, some authority for my +friend's interpretation; still, the context seems to show clearly that +_suscitabunt_ means "rise from the dead," and that what the words +convey is that dead doctors, like other dead men, are done with +praising God anyhow in this world. + +[7] A monk of the abbey of Maredsous, in Belgium, but by birth a +Norman, a native of Caen. He was somewhat of the destructive school of +patristic critics, and I once heard it said that Dom Germain would not +die happy until he had proved to his own satisfaction that all the +supposed writings of St. Augustine were spurious! + +[8] Radley House, his birthplace, had been sold to the college some +years before by Sir George Bowyer, the eminent Catholic jurist and +writer, who had preceded Manning into the Church in 1850, and who built +the beautiful church annexed to the Catholic Hospital in Great Ormond +Street (removed later to St. John's Wood). I well remember in my early +Catholic days (I think about 1876) the excitement caused by the +expulsion of Sir George--whose strongly-expressed views on the Roman +question and other matters were highly distasteful to British +Liberals--from the Reform Club. + +[9] I think I heard afterwards that the sailors got him off his pony +once or twice; but the reward was not earned, and he lived to become +First Lord of the Admiralty just three years later! + +[10] Only visible in the clearest weather. From a point farther south +(the Mull of Galloway) could be descried also, across the Solway Firth, +the Cumberland hills; and my grandfather, standing there, used to say +that he could see five kingdoms--the kingdom of Scotland, the kingdom +of Ireland, the kingdom of England, the kingdom of Man, and the kingdom +of Heaven! + +[11] I had inherited Dunskey nearly fifty years before, on my +grandfather's death (1857). The place was bought in 1900 by Charles +Orr Ewing, M.P., who married my niece, the Glasgows' eldest daughter. + +[12] A theory which, reduced to practice, had its disadvantages. I +remember Lord Rosebery writing to the papers complaining that the +lunatics of Epsom, finding no difficulty, under the new and improved +system, in escaping from duress, used occasionally to saunter from the +local asylum into his grounds, and, I think, even his house, near by. + +[13] The reference, of course, is to _King Henry V._, Act iii., Sc. 2: + + "And you, good yeomen, + Whose limbs were made in England, show us here + The mettle of your pasture." + +[14] My dear old cousin Felicia Skene, whose father had been one of +Scott's closest friends, told me that this had been her privilege. So +also did the late George Boyle, sometime Dean of Salisbury, who, +however, in his autobiography, speaks merely of having once seen Sir +Walter (looking very old and ill) when he came to call on his (the +Dean's) father. + +[15] "If you happened to find an egg on a music-stool, what poem would +it remind you of?" + +[16] James Hope Scott, the eminent parliamentary lawyer, friend of +Newman, Manning and Gladstone, and husband of Sir Walter's +granddaughter and eventual heiress, made his submission to Rome in +1851. His daughter Mary Monica (afterwards Hon. Mrs. Joseph Maxwell +Scott), inherited Abbotsford at his death; and it is now owned by her +son, General Walter Maxwell Scott. + +[17] The _Dies Irae_ and the _Stabat Mater_. See Lockhart, _Life of +Walter Scott_ (2nd Ed.), vol. x., p. 215. + +[18] From the looms of Gobelin: presented by Louis XIV. to an Earl of +Stair, British Ambassador in Paris. They had come into the Dumfries +(Bute) family through the marriage of a son of the first Earl of Stair +to Penelope, Countess of Dumfries in her own right. It was a standing +grievance of our old friend the tenth Earl of Stair that these +tapestries were not at Lochinch. + +[19] "Wale"=choice, or selection. A Fife laird, driving home across +Magus Moor after dining not wisely but too well, fell out of his gig, +and his wig fell off, but was recovered by his servant. "It's no' ma +wig, Davie, it's no' ma wig," he moaned as he lay in the mire, +thrusting the peruke away. "You'd best take it, sir," said the +serving-man dryly; "_there's nae wale o' wigs on Magus Moor_." + +[20] They said much that was nasty, but they could not oust the +professor (though they tried their best) from his professorship. _Au +contraire_, he received promotion soon afterwards, being elected to the +Chair of Humanity; and a protest organized by certain bigots was +allowed to "lie on the table"--i.e., went into the waste-paper basket. + + + + +{56} + +CHAPTER IV + +1905-1906 + +An event of Benedictine interest in the autumn of 1905, and one which +attracted many visitors to Downside, our beautiful abbey among the +Mendip Hills, was the long-anticipated opening of the choir of the +great church. Special trains, an overflowing guest-house, elaborate +services, many congratulatory speeches, and much monastic hospitality, +were, as customary on such occasions, the order of the day. +Architecturally, I confess that I found the new choir disappointing: it +but confirmed the impression (which after many years had become a +conviction with me) that the art of building a real Gothic church on a +grand scale is lost, gone beyond hope of recovery. _Ecce signum!_ +Design, material, workmanship all admirable, and the result, alas! +lifeless, as lifeless as (say) the modern cathedrals of Truro and +Liverpool and Edinburgh, the nave of Bristol, and the great church of +Our Lady at Cambridge. I have seen Downside compared with Lichfield: +nay, some one (greatly daring) placed pictures of them side by side in +some magazine. Vain comparison! Lichfield, built long centuries ago, +is _alive_ still--instinct with the life breathed into it by its +unknown creators in the ages of faith; but these great modern Gothic +churches seem to me {57} to have never lived at all, to have come into +existence still-born. No: Gothic architecture, in this century of +ours, is dead. Such life as it has is a simulated, imitative, +galvanized life, which is no more real life than the tunes ground out +of a pianola or a gramophone are real living music.[1] "'Tis true, +'tis pity: pity 'tis, 'tis true." + +Another engagement which I had in the west about this time was to +preach at the opening of the new Benedictine church at Merthyr Tydvil. +Bishop Hedley and I travelled thither together from Cardiff, through a +country which God made extremely pretty, with its deep glens and hills +covered with {58} bracken and heather, but which man, in search of +coal, has blackened and defaced to an incredible extent: the whole +district, of course, a hive of industry. Lying in bed at night, I saw +through my blindless window the flames belching from a score of +furnace-chimneys down the valley, and thought what it must be to spend +one's life in such surroundings. A curious change to find oneself next +day in the verdant environment of Cardiff Castle, where, once within +the gates, one might be miles away from coalpits and from the great +industrial city close by. My room was the _quondam_ nursery, of which +the walls had been charmingly decorated by the fanciful genius of +William Burges (the restorer of the castle), with scenes from +children's fairy stories--Jack the Giant-killer and Cinderella and Red +Riding-hood and the rest, tripping round in delightful procession. The +Welsh metropolis was _en fete_ on the day of my arrival, in honour of +the town having become a city, and its mayor a lord-mayor; and Lord +Bute was giving a big luncheon to civic and other magnates in the +beautiful banqueting hall, adorned with historic frescoes and rich +stained glass. The family was smiling gently, during my visit, at the +news published "from a reliable source," that my young host was to be +the new Viceroy of Ireland. Another report, equally "reliable" (odious +word!) published, a little later, his portrait and not very eventful +biography, as that of the just-appointed Under-Foreign Secretary. Why +not Lord Chancellor or Commander-in-chief at once? one was as likely as +the other. + +The reference to the commander-in-chief reminds me that the Oxford +Union was honoured this {59} (October) term by a visit from Lord +Roberts, who gave us a very informing lecture, illustrated with many +maps, on the N.W. frontier of India and was received by a crowded house +with positive shouts of welcome.[2] Almost equally well received, a +week later, was Lord Hugh Cecil, who had held no office in the Union in +his undergraduate days, but had often since taken part in its debates. +His theme on this occasion was the interminable fiscal question; and +the curiously poignant and personal note in his oratory appealed, as it +always did, to his youthful hearers, who supported him with their votes +as well as their applause. + +A little later there was a great audience in the Town Hall, to hear Joe +Chamberlain inveigh against the new Government,[3] and preach _his_ +fiscal gospel. He was in excellent form, and looked nothing like +seventy, though his long speech--his last, I think, before his great +break-down--certainly aged him visibly. A little incident at the +opening showed his undiminished aptitude for ready repartee. He +announced his intention of treating Tariff Reform from the Imperial +standpoint, adding, "I am not going to deal with the subject from the +economic side"; and then, as a derisive "Yah!" broke from some +disgruntled Liberals at the back of the hall, going on without a +moment's hesitation--"not, however, for the reason which I see suggests +itself to some of the _acuter_ minds among my audience!" + +{60} + +S---- H----, whom I found waiting to see me when I got home from the +Town Hall, told me that after two years in the Catholic Church he was +thinking of returning to the flesh-pots of Anglicanism, and said (among +other foolish things) that he had "a Renaissance mind!" I ventured to +remind him that he had also an immortal soul. How to increase his +income seemed his chief preoccupation; and he did not "see his way" +(that fatal phrase again!) to do this as a "practising" Catholic. + +Wilfrid Ward, the Editor of the _Dublin Review_, had recently started a +"dining-and-debating-club" in London with a rather interesting +membership; and I went up in November to read a paper on "Catholics at +the National Universities." I was less "heckled" than I expected; but +there was some "good talk" (as old Johnson would have said), and I +enjoyed the evening. Less enjoyable was another evening spent with our +Architectural Society at Oxford, to hear a lecture by Wells (fellow and +future Warden) of Wadham, on "Tudor Oxford" an interesting topic, and +treated by a man who knew his subject, but disfigured by strongly +Protestant interpolations about monks, Jesuits, and "Bloody Mary," much +out of place in an address to a quite "undenominational" society. It +recalled another paper read to us on the inoffensive subject of +"Bells." The reader on that occasion adroitly founded on the text of +the inscriptions on church bells a violent diatribe against the +invocation of saints and other "mediaeval corruptions," to the intense +annoyance of my little friend the Master of Pembroke (himself an +Anglican bishop), who sat next me, and whom I with difficulty +restrained until {61} the end of the lecture from rising to protest, as +he ultimately did with some warmth, against "turning an archaeological +address into a polemical sermon." + +Term over, I made my way north to Beaufort, arriving there just in time +to assist at the unveiling in the village square of Beauly, of the +Lovat Scouts' Memorial, for which I had written the inscription.[4] A +pretty function, with much local enthusiasm, an excellent speech from +The Mackintosh, our new Lord Lieutenant, and of course the inevitable +"cake and wine" banquet, at which I toasted Lovat. Christmas followed, +with a big and merry family party, the usual seasonable revels, and +some delightful singing from the wife of a Ross-shire laird, an +American lady with a well-trained voice of astonishing sweetness and +compass. The New Year found the whole country agog about the coming +General Election; and at Arundel, whither I went from Beaufort, I heard +Lady Edmund Talbot falsify Johnson's cynical dictum[5] by making an +excellent {62} speech on behalf of her husband, who was laid up in +London. He retained his seat for Chichester by a good majority; and +"dear little Wigtownshire" remained faithful to a lost cause, returning +Lord Stair's eldest son.[6] But on the whole the "Radical reaction," +"turn of the tide," "swing of the pendulum"--whichever you liked to +call it--was complete, the very first victim of the _debacle_ being my +brother-in-law, Charles Dalrymple, who was dismissed at Ipswich, after +twenty years' service, by nearly 2,000 votes. He had been given a +Privy Councillorship by the outgoing Government; but this poorly +compensated him for being ousted from the House of Commons, which had +been his "nursing mother" for nearly forty years.[7] Manchester was +absolutely swept by the Liberals, poor Sir James Fergusson going to +join his brother in limbo, and Arthur Balfour being beaten by a larger +majority than either of them. The final result showed--Radical members +returned, 378, against 156 Unionists. The new Ministry put educational +reform in the front of their programme; and we Catholics, with a +section of Anglicans (for they were by no means united on the subject), +organized meetings in advance against the nefarious projects of the +Government. I attended some of them, and heard many speeches, {63} +some of them terribly long and "stodgy." A Hampshire parson, by whom I +sat at one of these dreary meetings, told me, by way of illustrating +the educational standard of his peasant parishioners, that a bridegroom +would thus render the promise in the marriage-service: "With my body I +thee wash up, and with all my hurdle goods I thee and thou!" While the +bride's version of _her_ promise would be: "To 'ave an' to 'old from +this day fortnight for betterer 'orse, for richerer power, in +siggerness 'ealth, to love cherries and to bay!" I copied these +interesting formulas into my note-book on the spot. + +I was happily able to escape, at the end of term, from these political +alarums and excursions to the Continent. I longed for Italy; but the +friend who accompanied me (and financed us both) insisted on carrying +me to Nice--a place I never loved; and it proved sunless, the palms +shivering in a mistral and we shivering in sympathy. I used to escape +the odious Promenade des Anglais (much more a Promenade des Allemands) +by climbing the steep steps into old-world Nizza, and talking to the +good simple folk, who (so the parish priest assured me) remained devout +and pious, and wonderfully little affected by the manners and morals of +the objectionable crowd which haunts Nice more than any other spot on +the _Cote d'Azur_, except, I suppose, Monte Carlo. The latter resort +we eschewed (my friend and host was no gambler), but we had many +strolls through the toy-city of Monaco, where the tourist is little in +evidence. I noticed, crowning the picturesque promontory, the new +cathedral built by M. Blanc out of casino profits, which the +ecclesiastical {64} authorities accepted, I suppose, on the principle +of the good old maxim, _Non olet!_[8] We took a run to Milan before +turning homewards, and after an hour in the cathedral--impressively +vast, but not (to my thinking) impressively beautiful, either without +or within--spent a long day in exploring the far more interesting +churches of SS. Maurizio, Maria delle Grazie, Vittore, Lorenzo, +Giorgio, and Ambrogio, every one well worth visiting, and the +last-named unique, of course, in charm and interest.[9] Turin, where +we stayed a day, was wet and cold; but the arcades which line the chief +streets at least keep the rain off. At Paris the sun was actually +shining, and the trees on the boulevards sprouting greenly. I read in +the English papers here of the engagement of my nephew Kelburn (the +family had only recently dropped the final e from both the title and +the castle)[10] to a Miss Hyacinth Bell, whose pretty floral name +conveyed nothing to me. The {65} new Minister of Education[11] had +also published his "Birreligious" Bill (as some wags nicknamed it): it +seemed to satisfy nobody--least of all, of course, Catholics. + +I spent Easter, as usual, at Arundel, where a gathering of Maxwells +(the Duchess's young relatives) made the big house cheerful and +homelike. The summer term at Oxford was an uneventful one, the most +interesting event that I recall being our annual Canning and Chatham +dinner, with a more distinguished gathering than usual. Lord Milner +made a remarkable and interesting speech in reply to the toast of "The +Empire," and "Smith of Wadham," M.P. (the future Lord Chancellor), was +also very eloquent. The Duke of Leinster (then up at Balliol), who sat +next me, spoke of the hereditary good relations between his family and +Maynooth College, and amused me by saying that he thought it must be +"much more interesting" to be a Catholic in England than in Ireland! I +motored some of my young Benedictines over to Blenheim one day; and we +were, with other sight-seers, escorted over the show-part of the +palace. The little Duke burst in on us in one state-room, and retired +precipitately, banging the door with an audible "D--n!" "His Grace the +Dook of Marlborough!" announced, without turning a hair, the solemn +butler who was acting as showman; and our party was, of course, duly +impressed. + +{66} + +I was summoned this summer to three weddings, all of interest to me, +the first being that of my nephew Kelburn, a pretty country function in +Surrey. The Bishop of Worcester tied the knot--"impressively," as the +reporters say (but why cannot an Anglican dignitary read the Bible +without "mouthing" it?), and I afterwards found in his wife, Lady +Barbara Yeatman-Biggs, an old friend of my childhood.[12] Many +relatives, of course, were present here, and also, ten days later, in +the Chelsea church where Archdeacon Sinclair ("genial and impressive," +the newspapers called _him_) united my younger sister, _en secondes +noces_, to Captain Cracroft Jarvis. I spent the evening of her wedding +in the House of Commons, where I had a mind to see our famous new +Radical Parliament-men gathered together. A very "scratch lot" they +seemed to me to be; and Archbishop Walsh of Dublin, whom I found beside +me in the D.S.G., seemed as little impressed as myself by their +"carryings-on." His Grace was so pleased with Carlyle's definition, or +description, of the House, which I quoted to him (he was apparently +unfamiliar with it), that he promptly copied it down in his note-book: +"a high-soaring, hopelessly-floundering, ever-babbling, inarticulate, +dumb dark entity!" + +My third wedding was a picturesque Irish {67} one--that of Ninian +Crichton Stuart to Lord Gormanston's only daughter, with, of course, a +large party of Butes and Prestons gathered at Gormanston Castle, a huge +pile mostly modern; but the quaint little chapel, Jacobean Gothic +without and Empire style within, gaily adorned with lilies, +marguerites, and trailing smilax, dates from 1687.[13] It was far too +small to hold the wedding guests, who perforce remained on the lawn +outside. I walked with our host, later in the day, in the splendidly +timbered park, and the great picturesque untidy Irish garden; and he +held forth on the hardship of having to live uncomfortably in Ireland +after the luxury of Colonial governorships. "_Ireland!_ a rotten old +country, only fit, as some one said, to dig up and use as a +top-dressing for England!" was the summing-up of his lordship, whose +ancestors had owned the land on which we were walking for some seven +centuries.[14] I thought his bemoanings rather pathetic; but he amused +me by his recital of a prescription for "The Salvation of Ireland" +which once appeared (anonymously) in a northern newspaper. "Drain your +Bogs--Fat more Hogs--Lots more Lime--Lots more Chalk--LOTS MORE +WORK--LOTS LESS TALK!" + +I returned to Oxford in time for Commemoration, at {68} which Lord +Milner and Mgr. Duchesne, two of our be-doctored guests, were very +warmly received; attended the big luncheon in All Souls' library, where +the agreeable ladies who sat on my right and left were totally unknown +to me; and drank coffee in the sunlit quad, where a band played and I +met many friends. Next day I took ship at Southampton (a noisy, shaky, +creaky ship it was) for Guernsey, on a visit to my brother, who was in +command of the Gunners there. I thought the approach to the island +very pretty on a still summer morning: quaint houses and church towers +climbing the hill among trees and gardens, with a foreground of white +sails and blue sea. Very pretty too was "Ordnance House" and its old +garden, with hedges of golden calceolarias and other attractions. I +spent a pleasant week here, delighted with the rocky coast (reminding +me of my native Wigtownshire) and the luxuriant gardens, especially +that of the Lieutenant-Governor, whose charming house (he occupied Lord +de Saumarez's seat) was full, as was to be expected,[15] of beautiful +naval prints and other relics. Of a morning I would walk down to Fort +Cornet--part of it of great antiquity--and watch my brother's guns at +sea-target practice, till my head ached with the roar and concussion. +The shooting was excellent, but the electric firing-apparatus +occasionally went wrong, which might be awkward in battle! I was +interested in the fine fifteenth-century parish church of St. +Peter-Port, of flamboyant Gothic: the effect of the interior {69} +nave-arches rising almost from the ground, with hardly any pillars, is +most singular. + +I had to hurry back to "the adjacent island of Great Britain" (as the +Cumbrae minister put it),[16] to attend the jubilee dinner in London of +St. Elisabeth's Catholic Hospital, with Norfolk in the chair: a great +success, owing, I think, to the unusual circumstance that dinner and +wine were provided gratis, the result being much-enhanced subscriptions +from the grateful banqueters. I was present a little later at the +coming-of-age celebrations of Lord Gainsborough's son and heir at +Campden, the beautiful Jacobean family seat on the Cotswold slopes. We +sat down seventy to dinner on the evening of Campden's birthday; and +the youth acquitted himself excellently of what I consider (and I have +had some experience of majority banquets, including my own) one of the +most embarrassing tasks which can fall to any young man's lot. I, +being unexpectedly assigned the easier duty of replying for the +visitors, utilized the admirably appropriate opening which I had heard +not long before from the witty and eloquent American Ambassador,[17] at +the dinner of the Royal Literary Fund, and which was _not_ a "chestnut" +then, whatever it may be now. + +From Campden I went on to Leamington to visit {70} another brother, who +had invited me to witness the Warwick Pageant, I think the first, and +certainly the most effective and successful, of these spectacles, for +which the craze was just beginning to spread through England. The +dramatic episodes at Warwick were not always dramatic, and the dialogue +and acting were perhaps not quite worthy of the superb surroundings; +but the setting of the spectacle was absolutely perfect. Behind us the +towers and battlements of the feudal castle rose above the woods: on +our right the giant oaks of the park, in their glorious midsummer +foliage: to our left the Avon glistening like a ribbon of burnished +silver; and in front, beyond a great expanse of verdant lawn (the +"stage" of the pageant), a prospect of enchanting wooded glades and +long-drawn sylvan avenues, down which came the long processions of +players, mounted and afoot, with singular and striking effect. Lord +and Lady Willoughby de Broke, who appeared (with the splendidly mounted +members of their hunt) as Louis XI. and Margaret of Scotland, were +conspicuous, if only because the former acted his part and spoke his +lines best of the whole company. The concerted singing was quite +charming; and charming, too, the spectacle of the hundred boys of the +famous old Warwick Grammar-school, in their pretty dresses of russet +and gold, and their masters costumed as old-world pedagogues. +Altogether a delightful and notable entertainment, which I was very +glad to have seen; and in other respects I enjoyed my visit, my brother +taking me to Kenilworth, Stoneleigh, Charlecote, and other interesting +places in that most interesting country. The August Bank-holiday found +me at Scarborough, {71} of all places in the world, spending the day +there with the two schoolboy sons of my host at a country house in the +East Riding. I recall, at the aquarium there, my interest on +discovering a "fact not generally known"--namely that fishes can, and +do, yawn. We saw a turbot yawn twice, and a cod once. The cod's yawn +was remarkable chiefly for its width, but the turbot's was much more +noteworthy. It begins at the lips, which open as if to suck in +water;[18] then the jaws distend themselves and so the yawn goes on, +works through the back of the head, stretching the plates of the skull +almost to cracking point, and finally comes out at the gills, which +open showing their red lining, and are inflated for a moment; and then, +with a gasping kind of shiver, the fish flattens out again, until, if +unusually bored, as it appeared to be by our presence, it relieves its +feelings by another yawn. I left my young friends to enjoy the varied +humours of the front; and climbing up (as I had done at Nice) "far from +the madding crowd," discovered many quaint and charming bits of old +Scarborough. A policeman told me that they reckoned that at least +120,000 visitors were in the town that day; and they all seemed +collected together to view the evening firework display above the Spa. +The biggest crowds I had ever seen were at Epsom on Derby Day, between +Mortlake and Putney on Boat-race Day, and in St. Peter's Square at Rome +on the election-day of Leo XIII.: but this great _congeries_ at +Scarborough surpassed them all in impressiveness. I {72} turned my +back on the "set pieces" and Roman candles, gazed almost awestruck at +the vast sea of upturned white faces on the beach below, lit up from +time to time by the lurid glow of coloured fires, and listened to the +cry "Ah-h-h!" of the great multitude as the rockets shrilled up into +the starlit sky. _Mirabile visu et auditu!_ it somehow made me think +(at Scarborough on Bank Holiday evening!) of the Last Day and the +Valley of Jehoshaphat. From Scarborough, before going north to +Scotland, I went for a few days to Longridge Towers, Sir Hubert +Jerningham's beautiful place near Berwick, with views on every side +over the rolling Border country. "Norham's castle steep," built nine +centuries before by Flambard, the "Magnificent" Bishop of Durham, was +on the Longridge property; and I spent some delightful hours there with +my accomplished host, who was a charming companion, and (as became a +_bachelier-es-lettres_ of Paris University) could tell a good story as +well in French as he could in English. He showed me among many +curiosities a letter from an early Quaker which I thought worth +copying:-- + + +FRIEND JOHN,-- + +I desire thee to be so kind as to go to one of those sinful men in the +flesh called an attorney, and let him take out an instrument, with a +seal fixed thereto, by means whereof we may seize the outward +tabernacle of George Green, and bring him before the lambskin men at +Westminster, and teach him to do as he would be done by; and so I rest +thy friend in the light, + + M.D. + + +Mountstuart claimed me for a short visit when I had got across the +Border; and I found the big house very cheerful under the new and +youthful regime, and my hostess, now a happy mother, driving the baby +Lady Mary about the island and exhibiting {73} her to the admiring +farmers' wives. I made my way up the West coast to Fort Augustus to +spend the rest of the Oxford "Long," travelling thence in September to +Aberdeen to read a paper at the annual conference of the Catholic Truth +Society. There was a large attendance, Lady Lovat doing hostess at a +big reception one evening; and it was pleasant to find oneself in a +genuinely Scottish, as well as Catholic, gathering, presided over by a +Highland bishop (AEneas Chisholm of beloved memory), as patriotic and +popular as he was pious and pleasant. My paper, on "The Holy See and +the Scottish Universities," was very well received, and the local +newspapers did me the honour of reprinting it verbatim next morning, +while the _Scotsman_ devoted a leading article to it. Our principal +meeting, in the largest hall of the city, wound up not only with "Faith +of our Fathers" but "God save the King." "Is this necessary?" +whispered a prelate of Nationalist leanings to the presiding bishop, in +the middle of the loyal anthem. "It may not be necessary," replied +Bishop Chisholm, in a very audible "aside," "but it is very right and +extremely proper." _O si sic omnes!_"[19] + + + +[1] Such seeming exceptions as the noble churches of St. John at +Norwich and St. Philip at Arundel, the Duke of Newcastle's sumptuous +chapel at Clumber, the impressive church of the Irvingites in Gordon +Square, are only satisfactory in so far as they are more or less exact +imitations of mediaeval Gothic. The cloisters of Fort Augustus Abbey +are beautiful because they are reproductions, from A. W. Pugin's +note-books, of real live fifteenth-century tracery. The more the +modern Gothic architect strives to be original (a hard saying, but a +true one), the more certainly he fails. And to see how feebly +ineffective even his imitations can be, one need only look at the +entrance tower of St. Swithun's Quad at Magdalen, and compare it with +the incomparable Founder's Tower immediately opposite. + +Let me add that I have no animus against Downside in particular: it is +merely an instance taken at random to illustrate my thesis. I had felt +just the same, years before, about the first grandiose plans for our +own church at Fort Augustus. "Go to Westminster Abbey--you can see it +from your windows," I wrote to the architect, "and get an inspiration +from that glorious temple of _living_ Gothic. Your elaborate designs +have no life, no reality. If they were ever realized among our +Highland hills, I should expect some genie of the Arabian Nights to +swoop down one day and whisk the whole impossible structure back to +Victoria Street!" I still recall the pleasure and approval with which +Dom Gilbert Dolan of Downside, one of the most distinguished of modern +Benedictine architects, read this letter. + +[2] Who was the reporter who once announced (I believe it was really a +printer's error and not a little bit of malice) that "the Conservatives +among the audience received the candidate with welcoming snouts"? + +[3] Arthur Balfour had resigned the premiership in the previous week, +and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had succeeded him. + +[4] Not an easy task! for Lovat wanted the Scouts to have all the +honour, which _they_ wished assigned to him. My inscription (I believe +generally approved) ran: Erected by the Lovat Tenantry and Feuars of +the Aird and Fort Augustus Districts to Commemorate the Raising of the +Lovat Scouts for Service in South Africa by Simon Joseph, 16th Lord +Lovat, C.V.O., C.B., D.S.O., who Desired to Show that the Martial +Spirit of their Ancestors still Animates the Highlanders of To-Day, and +Whose Confidence was Justified by the Success in the Field of the +Gallant Corps Whose Existence was Due to His Loyalty and Patriotism. +A.D. 1905. + +[5] "A woman speaking in public is like a dog walking on its hind legs: +it is not well done, but you are surprised to find it done at all." + +[6] My native county remained consistently and uninterruptedly Tory for +fifty years--from 1868, when it returned Lord Garlics, until 1918, when +its separate representation was taken from it by the new Redistribution +Act. + +[7] Sir Charles had sat in Parliament continuously, except for a few +weeks, since 1868, when he was first elected for Buteshire. It was +only this very slight break which prevented him from being at one time +the Father of the House of Commons. + +[8] I heard an odd story to the effect that at the Anglican Church at +Monte Carlo no one had ever heard any hymn before No. 37 announced to +be sung; the reason being that the mention of any one from 1 to 36 +would instantly have sent a quota of the congregation racing down to +stake their money on that number! It was, and is, a current +superstition that a number suggested by something as remote as possible +from gambling is likely to prove a lucky one. + +[9] Due, I think, largely to the fact that though the greater part of +the church is ninth and tenth century work, it has the air of being +very much older, and seems to recall the days of St. Ambrose himself. + +[10] "Kelburn" was, I believe, the old spelling. About the same time +the Duke of Athole dropped _his_ final _e_ also; and the name-board at +the well-known station, at his castle gates, displayed, as I observed +on my next journey to the Highlands, the legend "Blair Atholl," instead +of "Blair Athole" as formerly. + +[11] Augustine Birrell, the distinguished essayist, whose literary +method, easy, witty, and urbane, has evoked the word "birrelling." He +succeeded Mr. Bryce a little later as Irish Secretary, and retained +that office (in which he was no more successful than most of his +predecessors) under Mr. Asquith. + +[12] _Nee_ Legge: one of a crowd of sisters (Ladies Louisa, Octavia, +Wilhelmina, Barbara, Charlotte, and I know not how many more) with whom +I made friends as a small boy when staying with my parents at +Aix-la-Chapelle; and we saw much of them afterwards. We children used +to call them the "Lady-legs." Their brother Augustus, who was also a +friend of my childhood, became Bishop of Lichfield in 1891. + +[13] Built in James II.'s reign (the original castle was of Henry +VII.'s), when the accession of a Catholic King enabled Catholics, +British and Irish, to emerge for a short time from the Catacombs. + +[14] Lord Gormanston, like Lord Talbot de Malahide and a few others, +represented the Anglo-Irish landowners of the time of Henry VII., "Lord +of Ireland." My friend Lord Kenmare was typical of the enriched +Elizabethan settlers in the country, while Sir Henry Bellingham was one +of the seventeenth-century group of immigrants popularly known as +"Cromwell's Drummers." Three out of the four mentioned were Catholics. + +[15] The first baronet and Baron de Saumarez was second in command at +the Battle of the Nile, and was raised to the peerage by William IV. + +[16] It was the parish minister of Millport, in Cumbrae (off the coast +of Ayrshire) who habitually prayed at Divine Service for the +"inhabitants of the Greater and the Lesser Cumbraes, and the adjacent +islands of Great Britain and Ireland!" + +[17] The late Mr. Choate. "When I came into this assembly this +evening, I felt very much like the prophet Daniel when he got into the +lion's den. When Daniel looked around, and saw the company in which he +was, 'Well,' he said, '_whoever's got to do the after-dinner speaking, +it won't be me!_'" + +[18] A turbot's mouth is twisted on one side, rather as if it had +belonged to a round fish which some one had accidentally trodden on, +and had squashed half-flat. + +[19] My friend Lord Ralph Kerr had, some time previously, refused to +preside at a meeting of the same Society (of which he was president) in +another Scottish city, on learning that the local committee would not +permit the National Anthem to be sung at the close. The reason +alleged, that "the Irish in the audience would not stand it," did not, +naturally, strike the gallant Scottish general as an adequate one. + + + + +{74} + +CHAPTER V + +1906-1907 + +Before returning to Oxford for the autumn term of 1906, I spent a +pleasant ten days at Abbotsford with my old friends the Lane Foxes, and +visited with them Dryburgh Abbey, Galashiels, and other interesting +places. Melrose, too, we thoroughly explored, agreeing that (_pace_ +Sir Walter) the time for seeing it "aright" was _not_ "by the pale +moonlight," but on a sunlit afternoon, which alone does justice to the +marvellous colouring--grey shot with rose and yellow--of the old stone. +Modern textbooks talk of the "decadence" of its architecture, but it +has details of surpassing beauty nevertheless. It was ill exchanging +the beauties of Tweedside in perfect September weather for foggy +London. I arrived there on a Sunday morning, just in time for high +mass at Westminster Cathedral, of which a fog rather enhances the +charm, softening the raw brick walls and imparting a mysterious and +shadowy splendour to the great spaces under the lofty domes. The grave +polyphonic music, perfectly rendered, greatly pleased me; but the +acoustics of the building seemed to be defective.[1] A noted preacher +was discoursing {75} to an immense congregation on "Pessimism"--so the +notice-boards informed me; but it might as well have been on Optimism +for anything I could hear of it. Walking homewards to Regent's Park, I +looked in at a Ritualistic church in Red Lion Square, where a singular +function was in progress in presence of the (schismatic) Archbishop of +Sinai, under the auspices of a body styling itself "The Anglican and +Orthodox Churches Union."[2] As I entered, a clergyman was just +remarking from the pulpit that as there was no visible Church on earth, +or as, at any rate, it was temporally broken to bits, there was no use +in looking for a visible head! a theory which his audience may or may +not have found satisfactory.[3] + +I lingered for a day at Birmingham, on my way to Oxford, to attend the +opening of the nave of the Newman Memorial Church. It was the +sixty-first anniversary of Newman's reception into the Church at +Littlemore, as well as the sixth of the death of Lord Bute, whose +conversion was a fruit of the Oxford movement, of which Newman was the +inspiring genius. I was pleased with the simplicity, even austerity, +of the building, relieved to some extent by the beautiful tints of the +double row of marble monoliths, and by the warm russet of the coved +roof of Spanish chestnut. Eight or ten prelates (the Archbishop of +Westminster was the preacher) gave dignity to the function, which {76} +was followed by a rather higgledy-piggledy luncheon at the "Plough and +Harrow" next door. The Norfolk family were of course present in force +at their beloved Oratory, the Duke, with sisters, brothers-in-law, +nephews and nieces, being prominent among the large gathering. Lord +Ralph Kerr's boy, a pupil of the Fathers, showed me over the school; +and I rather marvelled to see an educational establishment of such +deserved repute housed in so quaint a collection of lean-to's and +shanties, the only thing worth looking at being the fine refectory of +the Oratory, which the schoolboys used as their dining-room. + +I found Oxford swept and garnished for the new term, and my old friend +the President of Magdalen installed as Vice-chancellor, and performing +his multifarious duties (which included the matriculation of my two +Benedictine freshmen) with the mingled dignity and urbanity which +characterized him. Grissell, who was in residence this term, invited +me to luncheon to meet "a Roman Prince," and a lady who had, he said, +been miraculously cured by the Madonna of Pompeii. The cure, +unfortunately, had been incomplete or temporary, for the lady had had a +relapse, was in bed, and could not turn up. The Roman Prince, or +princeling, proved to be Don Andrea Buoncompagni-Ludovisi, descendant +of two Popes,[4] and a freshman at Merton; a pleasant youth, {77} but +his English, though fluent, was vulgar rather than princely. I +wondered where he had picked it up. A different type of Italian whom I +met the same week was the distinguished South Italian violinist, Signor +Simonetti. He had been fiddling at our Musical Club on the previous +evening--_roba Napolitana_, but clever and interesting. Our +conversation, however, turned not on music but on the "Evil Eye," as I +was anxious to know to what extent the belief in this still prevailed +in Italy. He said it was as persistent as ever, especially in the +south, and told us how the most famous advocate in Naples, in quite +recent times, was so universally accredited with this mysterious power, +that when the leader opposed to him in an impending lawsuit died on the +eve of the case coming on, another lawyer was only with the greatest +difficulty found to take his place. _He_ was killed by an accident on +the very morning of the trial; and the dreaded advocate was face to +face with the judge, who was in fear and trembling, as he expected to +have to give judgment against him. The story went that when the judge +rose to speak, his spectacles accidentally fell out of place. "I am +struck blind!" he cried out; "forgive me, Signor Avvocato--I have not +yet pronounced against you." Suddenly his spectacles fell across his +nose again. "Forgive me again," he said; "I can see after all!" The +Neapolitans laughed, but they believed all the same. When this +redoubtable advocate fell ill, half Naples was praying fervently for +his death; and if one reproached them for desiring the death of a +fellowman, the answer was, "Non e un uomo, e un _jettatore_!" Signor +Simonetti, I felt pretty sure, himself {78} sympathized with this +sentiment, although he passed it off as a joke. I contributed a tale +of a certain Count who had been pointed out to me, during my visit to +Naples in the previous year, as the most dreaded _jettatore_ in the +city. He was dining alone at a restaurant, and I was told that no one, +if they could avoid it, would sit down in his company. Meeting his +cousin, the old Duca di M----, in the street, he gave him his arm. The +Duca suddenly slipped, fell, and broke his leg. He was stunned by the +shock; and his first words, on recovering consciousness, were whispered +(in confidential Neapolitan patois) into the ear of his formidable +kinsman: "Grazie, perche tu me putive accidere, e te si cuntentate de +m'arruinare!" ("Thanks; for you might have killed me, and you contented +yourself with laming me!")[5] + +Some of us went over to Radley College for the usual All Saints' play, +the _Frogs_ of Aristophanes, in Greek; and it _was_ Greek, no doubt, to +the majority of the audience. Books of the words in English were, +however, supplied--"an attention," remarked a local paper, "which the +ladies received with unconcealed satisfaction, and the gentlemen with +satisfaction which they vainly endeavoured to conceal." Some of the +undergraduates present doubtless, like the schoolboy in _Vice Versa_, +"recognized several words from the Greek Grammar"; but what pleased me +was an elderly clergyman who declined to share his wife's copy of the +translation. "No, no, my {79} dear," he said, "I can follow the Greek +quite sufficiently well!" but before the end of the first act they were +both very contentedly looking over the English version together. + +Michaelmas Term is not of course the time for triumphs in the Schools; +but we were all delighted with the final achievement of the invincible +Cyril Martindale, S.J., who this autumn crowned his previous +successes--first classes in Moderations and "Greats," the Hertford and +Craven Scholarships, and the Chancellor's and Gaisford Prizes for Latin +and Greek Verse--by carrying off the Derby Scholarship for the year. +Another Jesuit much in evidence at Oxford at this time was Bernard +Vaughan, who was preaching sermons, giving lectures, and attending +discussions and debates with characteristic energy. Colum Stuart and I +heard him deliver himself, at a full-dress meeting of the Union, on the +subject of Egotism. His perfervid oratory made one occasionally +_squirm_ (it is the only word); but he was very well received by his +young audience, and carried the House with him. + +To the Jesuits and Benedictines, already domiciled in Oxford, were +added this winter the Franciscan Capuchins, who opened with some +ceremony their church and "seraphic college"[6] at Cowley. It was +something of an historic event, this returning of the Friars to Oxford +after a rustication of 367 years; and it evoked general and kindly +interest {80} quite outside Catholic circles. Sir Hubert Jerningham +accompanied me to the inaugural function, and to dinner later at Mgr. +Kennard's. We spoke of the decay of the good old custom, universal in +my youth, of grace before meals. Our host recalled a country squire +who, perfunctorily looking round his table, would mutter, "No parson? +Thank God!"[7] and hastily seat himself. I told of a Scots farmer on a +Caledonian Canal steam-boat, who, invited to "return thanks," delivered +himself of this sentiment, "O Lord, we're all floating down the stream +of time to the ocean of eternity, for Christ's sake, Amen!" and Sir +Hubert had a family story of the chaplain who, if he espied +champagne-glasses on the table, would begin his grace with "Bountiful +Jehovah!" but if only sherry-glasses, "We are not worthy of the least +of these Thy mercies." We all remembered Mr. Mallock's canon, who, +glancing with clasped hands at the _menu_, beginning with two soups, +comprising three _entrees_, and ending with Strasburg pate, began, "O +Thou that sittest between the Cherubim, whose glory is so exceeding +that even they veil their faces before Thee; consecrate to their +appointed use these poor morsels before us, and make them humble +instruments in the great scheme of our sanctification." I took Sir +Hubert next day over the Clarendon Press, which I had never myself +seen. We were both struck by two things: all the machinery was +American, and there was no electric light, the whole place being lit by +flaring {81} gas-jets.[8] We had planned that evening to go and hear +George Wyndham speak at the Union; but it occurred to us, as a happy +thought, to stay comfortably at home on a foggy November night, and +read his speech in next day's _Times_. The only important politician I +heard speak this term was Bonar Law, by whom I sat at the Conservative +Club dinner one evening. I found him a very pleasant neighbour, and he +made as good a speech as I ever heard at a gathering of the kind. + +I made my way northward to Beaufort for Christmas, feeling a bit of a +wreck after a sharp bout of influenza, and enjoyed to the full the +breezy sunshine which so often prevails there in mid-winter. There was +a shooting-party at New Year, with pleasant _al fresco_ luncheons in +sheltered corners of leafless woods, and of an evening music, and ghost +stories round a great fire of beechen logs. Of telepathy between the +dying and the living Lord Hamilton gave me a striking instance. He had +served in South Africa; and at dawn, sleeping on the veldt, was aroused +by an unmistakable voice thrice calling his name. The voice was his +father's, of whose death he heard next day by cable. The quiet +conviction with which he narrated this little incident impressed me +much. + +Staying at an uncle's in Edinburgh on my way south, I met at dinner +Lord Dunedin and some other interesting people; and there was some +"good {82} talk" on books and poetry. Some one quoted Swinburne's +opinion that the two finest lines in the language[9] were Browning's-- + + "As the king-bird, with ages on his plumes, + Travels to die in his ancestral glooms." + +Three unhackneyed images, from the _City of the Soul_, I noted as +admirable: + + "The distant rook's faint cawing, harsh and sweet." + + "Black was his hair, as hyacinths by night." + + "Wet green eyes, like a full chalk stream." + +The mention of Mallock reminded me of some of his delectable similes: + + +"Miss Drake dropped a short curtsey, which resembled the collapse of a +concertina." + +"Above them a seagull passed, like the drifting petals of a magnolia." + +"She advanced slowly towards the group, moving along the carpet like a +clockwork mouse on wheels." + +"Her eyes had the brown moisture that glimmers on a slug's back." + + +A cousin of mine at this dinner, lately returned from China, amused me +by the information that the pigeon-English word, or phrase, for a +bishop was "Number one topside heaven pidgin-man!" + +On the evening of my arrival in London, a geographical friend carried +me to a notable meeting of his Society at Queen's Hall--the sailor Duke +of the Abruzzi lecturing, in quaint staccato {83} Italian-English, on +his ascent of Ruanzori, in Equatorial Africa. The King (with the +Prince of Wales) was on the platform--stout, grey-bearded, and rather +bored, I fancied, at being deprived of his after-dinner cigar: he made +a nice little speech of thanks and appreciation. A day or two later +came the startling news of the great earthquake in Jamaica, the only +Englishman who lost his life being my dear old friend Sir James +Fergusson, whose body was found beneath the ruins of a tobacconist's +shop in Kingston. He was a man of many gifts and many friends, who had +served his country with distinction in almost every part of the Empire; +and his death was a real tragedy, as well as a very real grief to me. +It was followed very shortly by that of another old friend, Susan Lady +Sherborne; and two very pleasant houses in Cornwall Gardens and Brook +Street, where I had spent many happy hours, were thus closed to me. +There was some talk, a little later, of a memorial to Sir James, the +Anglican Bishop of the West Indies suggesting that this should take the +form of subscriptions to his church restoration scheme. I ventured +strongly to deprecate this proposal in the columns of _The Times_, and +my objections were emphatically endorsed by Mr. Fleming, the well-known +Presbyterian minister in Belgravia.[10] + +Two more deaths I may note in the early spring of 1907--the first that +of Professor Pelham, president {84} of Trinity; a gentleman and a +scholar, a real loss to Oxford, and (incidentally) one of my kindest +friends among college heads, just as his brother Sidney (famous slow +bowler and future archdeacon) had been thirty years before, when I was +a feather-headed freshman at Magdalen. In the same week died our +worthy Chancellor, Lord Goschen, after little more than three years of +office. Lords Rosebery and Curzon of Kedleston emerged as the +favourites among the many candidates "in the air"; but dining with a +large party at Lord Teignmouth's a little later, I heard it confidently +said that the country parsons would almost certainly "bring Curzon in." +They came up, as a matter of fact, in such swarms that they practically +swamped the election, Lord Curzon obtaining 1,101 votes against Lord +Rosebery's 440. I sat, by the way, at Lord Teignmouth's dinner next an +American "scientist" (odious word!) of some kind, who told me some odd +things about the Lower Mississippi. That river, he said, had, in 176 +years, shortened itself by 242 miles--an average of about l 1/10 miles +per year. From this it followed that in the old Oolitic-Silurian +period, some 100,000 years ago, the lower Mississippi was upwards of +1,300,000 miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a +fishing-rod! + +I went to Downside in March, for the solemn blessing of the new abbot, +my kind and learned friend Dom Cuthbert Butler. The elaborate ceremony +took nearly three hours: we were mercifully spared a sermon, but, _en +revanche_, the episcopal and abbatial speeches at the subsequent +luncheon were long and rather wearisome. At Fort Augustus, {85} +whatever the occasion, we never in those days derogated from the good +old monastic usage of silence, and public reading, in the refectory. +_Summum ibi fiat silentium_, said Saint Benedict: "let no _mussitatio_ +[delicious Low Latin word for "whispering"] be heard there, or any +voice save that of the reader alone." The custom was one, I think, as +congenial to our guests as to their monastic hosts. + +I was preoccupied at this time with the rapidly-failing health of my +oldest Oxford friend, H. D. Grissell of Brasenose, who spent half his +year in Rome, and the other half in what seemed a bit of old Rome +transported to Oxford. He was the most pertinacious and indefatigable +_collector_ I ever knew: coins, books and bindings, brass-rubbings, +autographs, book-plates, holy relics, postage-stamps, even birds' +eggs--all was fish that came to his far-flung net; and he laboured +incessantly to make all his collections, as far as possible, complete. +I found the old man at this time, rather pathetically, trying to +complete the collection of eggshells which he had begun as a Harrow boy +sixty years before. He insisted on exhibiting every drawer of his +cabinet, and was greatly pleased with the motto which, I told him, Sir +Walter Trevelyan had inscribed on _his_ egg-cabinet: "Hic Argus esto, +non Briareus"; or, in plain English, "Look, but don't touch!"[11] +Grissell said he would like to affix this classical caution to all his +collections of curios; but he did not live to do this, or indeed to do +much else of {86} any kind. He left England before Easter for Rome; +and there (as perhaps he would have wished) he died very suddenly a few +weeks later. By his own desire his body was brought back to England, +at great trouble and cost (these _post mortem_ migrations never +appealed to me), and was laid near his parents' graves in the pretty +country churchyard of Mickleham, in Surrey. There was a large +gathering in the pouring rain, Professor Robinson Ellis and I +representing his many Oxford friends. As his literary executor, I came +into possession of a great number of curious and interesting letters +and documents, dealing chiefly with Roman matters and the early days of +the Ritual movement at Oxford and elsewhere. + +The Corpus Professor of Latin, old Robinson Ellis, and I saw +subsequently (perhaps drawn together by the loss of our common friend) +a good deal of one another. At "meat tea," a meal he dearly loved, we +used to sit long together, and talk classics, the only subject in which +he seemed in the least interested. I wish I had noted down all the odd +bits of erudition with which he used to entertain me. Cicero's last +words, he said (I cannot imagine on what authority) were "Causa +causarum, miserere mei!"[12] A curious story (perhaps mediaeval) of +Ovid was of how two monks visited his tomb, and in gratitude for the +noble line--the best, in his own opinion, that he had ever +written--"Virtus est licitis abstinuisse bonis," began reciting Paters +and Aves for his soul. The poet's spirit, unhappily, {87} was +unappreciative of their charity; and a voice was heard from the tomb +declaiming the irreverent pentameter: "Nolo Paternoster: carpe, viator, +iter!" The professor told me that in his opinion the best elegiac +couplet ever written in English was: + + "Three Patagonian apes with their arms extended akimbo: + Three on a rock were they--seedy, but happy withal." + +He said that one of Dr. Johnson's acutest literary criticisms was his +remark that Tacitus seemed rather to have made notes for a historical +work than to have written a history. The word "jour," he pointed out +to me, was derived from "dies" (though every single letter was +different) through the Italian--"dies, diurnus, giorno, jour." He +asked if I could tell him the authorship of the striking couplet-- + + "Mors mortis! morti mortem nisi morte dedisses, + AEternae vitae janua clausa foret." + + +This I was unable to do: on the other hand, I evoked a chuckle +(whimsical etymologies always pleased him) by telling him how a +fifteenth-century writer[13] had rendered the "Royal Collegiate Church +of Windsor" into Latin as "Collegium Domini Regis de _Ventomorbido_!" + +At the end of Lent Term I spent a few days at Eastbourne, which struck +me (as the Honourable Mrs. Skewton struck Mr. Dombey) as being +"perfectly genteel"--no shops on the front, no minstrels or pierrots or +cockshys or vulgarity. The hill behind seemed to swarm with schools: +my host took me to one where he had two sons--a fine {88} situation, +capital playgrounds, and the head a pleasant capable-seeming little +man, who trotted briskly about on his little Chippendale legs, clad in +knickerbockers, and was as keen on his Aberdeen terriers as on his +young pupils. I remember at Eastbourne a quite appallingly ugly Town +Hall, and a surprisingly beautiful fourteenth-century church, I suppose +the only bit of old Eastbourne left. I went on to Arundel for my usual +pleasant Easter-tide visit; and after hearing much florid church-music +there, I enjoyed, on Low Sunday, the well-rendered plain-chant at +Westminster Cathedral; but I did not enjoy a terrible motett composed +by an eminent Jew--the words unintelligible and the music frankly +pagan. My nephew Kelburn and his wife ran me down one day to Chatham +in their new motor--cream-colour lined with crimson, very smart indeed. +He had been lately posted as first lieutenant to H.M.S. _Cochrane_, and +took us all over the great grey monster, vastly interesting. We buzzed +home through Cobham and Rochester, stopping to look over the grand old +Norman cathedral. "How strange," observed the simple sailor, looking +at the sculptured images round the west doorway, "to see all these old +Roman Catholic saints in a Protestant cathedral!" How I wished some of +my young Oxford friends had been by to hear him! Our whole drive to +town was of course redolent of Dickens and "Pickwick"--to me, but not +to my modern nephew and niece. + +For the last week of the vacation a friend was bent on taking me to +Belgium; but great guns were blowing when we reached the coast, so we +alighted at Dover and stayed there! finding it quite {89} an +interesting place of sojourn. I was astonished at the antiquity, +extent, and interest of the Castle, especially of its church, once a +Roman barrack, and its tower, the ancient Pharos or lighthouse. +Gilbert Scott and the Royal Engineers between them had done their best +(or their worst) in the way of "restoration," disjoining the Pharos +from the main building, and adding an Early English (!) front, windows, +and door; but it still was, and is, by far the oldest edifice in +England used for religious worship, and of the greatest antiquarian +interest. + +The event of the summer at Oxford was the installation of our new +Chancellor, Lord Curzon, who was by no means content, like the Duke of +Wellington, Lord Salisbury, and others of his not indistinguished +predecessors, to be quietly inducted into office by the university +officials at his own country residence. There was a great function at +the Sheldonian, and a Latin harangue from my lord which was both +elegant and well delivered, though it was thought by some that his +emotional reference to his late wife was a little out of place. + +Oxford had caught the pageant-fever which was this summer devastating +England; and a great part of the term was spent (some cynics said +wasted) in the extensive preparations for our own particular show. +When they were all but complete, one of the historic "rags" by which +Christ Church has from time to time distinguished itself broke out, in +consequence of the House becoming head of the river; and among other +excesses, some damage was done to the pageant-stands already erected in +the meadows. A few days after this _emeute_ a description of it, which +is really too good to be lost, {90} appeared in the _Corriere della +Sera_ of Milan, "telephoned by our London correspondent." I translate +literally from the Italian:-- + + +Recently the students of Oxford were beaten by those of Cambridge in +the great annual regatta: the other day they were defeated by the +sportive group (_il gruppo sportivo_) of Merton College; finally, they +allowed themselves to be vanquished by the sportive section (_la +sezione sportiva_) of the Society of Christ Church, to whom was +adjudged the primacy of the Thames. Yesterday, profoundly moved in +their _amore proprio_, the students of Oxford permitted themselves to +proceed to deplorable excesses, even to the point of applying fire to +the _stands_ erected on the riverside by the rival Societies. They set +fire also to the tent of the Secretariat of Christ Church, feeding the +flames with the chairs which they discovered in the vicinity.[14] + + +I believe that our Oxford pageant (in spite of the wet summer) proved +financially successful, if not altogether so artistically. A few of +the scenes were very pretty, especially the earliest (St. Frideswide), +and also the one representing Charles I. and his family at Oxford. And +the ecclesiastical and monastic episodes were instructive, if only as +showing the incompetence of twentieth-century Anglicanism to reproduce +even the externals--much more the spirit--of the Catholicism of old +England. Even more deplorable was the "comic" scene (written by the +Chichele professor of modern history!) in which the _clarum et +venerabile nomen_ of one of Oxford's saintliest sons was dragged in the +mud: Roger Racon being depicted as a mountebank cheap-jack, hawking +quack medicines from a {91} motor-bicycle![15] My brother, who had +entertained me at Warwick, came as my guest to witness the Oxford +effort; and we had the rather interesting experience of viewing it in +the company of Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. They were both pleased +and interested; but it was impossible to deny that the poetic glamour +of the Warwick pageant (largely due to the romantic beauty of its +setting) was almost wholly wanting at Oxford. + +Of the other pageants which were sprouting up all over the country +during this summer (unhappily one of the wettest on record), I attended +only one--that held at Bury St. Edmunds, which attracted me as being +mainly concerned with Benedictines. The setting was almost as fine as +at Warwick--verdant lawns, big trees and the majestic ruins of our +famous abbey all "in the picture"; and the "monks," mostly represented +by blameless curates, were at least presentable, not unkempt +ragamuffins as at Oxford.[16] The appearance of "Abbot Sampson" +(played, I was told, by a local archdeacon) was grotesque enough: he +wore throughout a purple chasuble over a black cassock, with a white +mitre, and strode about brandishing a great wooden crosier! but he +spoke his lines very well. Everything, however, was spoilt by the +pitiless rain, which {92} fell unceasingly. A clever black-haired lady +who played Boadicea (I believe the wife of an Ipswich dentist) had to +abandon her chariot and horses and appear on foot, splashing through +several inches of mud; and some of the "early British" matrons and +maidens sported umbrellas and mackintoshes! I had to leave half-way +through the performance, chilled to the bone, and firmly convinced that +open-air drama in England was a snare and a delusion. + +Mark Twain, whom I have mentioned above, was one of the miscellaneous +celebrities, including Prince Arthur of Connaught and "General" Booth, +whom our Chancellor nominated for honorary degrees at his first +Encaenia. I met Mrs. Whitelaw Reid (the American Ambassadress) at +dinner at Magdalen on Commemoration evening, and lunched with her a few +days later at Dorchester House. One of the attaches was told off to +show me the famous "old Masters," about which I found he knew a good +deal less than I did! The same agreeable young American accompanied me +a little later to Bradfield, to see the boys play _Antigone_: a real +summer's day, for once, and the performance was admirable, especially +that of the title-role, the youth who played the part proving himself a +genuine tragedian. The comments of a lady just behind us, who was +profoundly bored most of the time, were amusingly fatuous.[17] + +{93} + +I was in spiritual charge this term of our Catholic undergraduates +(fifty or so), their chaplain having gone off on an invalid's holiday, +and left his flock in my care. I was delighted to have the company +every week-end of Robert Hugh Benson, who was giving the Sunday +conferences in our chapel. "Far from being the snake-like gloomy type +of priest so common in fiction," a weekly paper said of him about this +time, "Father Benson is a thorough man of the world, liberal, amiable, +and vivacious." He was, of course, all this and a great deal more; and +I greatly appreciated the opportunity which these summer weeks afforded +me of becoming really intimate with him. It was the beginning of a +genuine friendship, which was only interrupted (not, please God, +broken) by his premature and lamented death seven years later.[18] + + + +[1] "Very satisfactory, I think, from an architectural point of view," +said the alderman to his colleague, as they surveyed together the +interior of the new town hall; "but I fear the acoustics are not +exactly what they ought to be." His companion sniffed several times. +"Do you think not?" he said. "I don't notice anything myself!" + +[2] [Greek: Henosis tes anglichanes chai tes Orthodoxou Echchlesias.] + +[3] It was at least a convenient method of disposing of the Pope and +his claims. + +[4] Collaterally, of course: Gregory XIII. (Buoncompagni), 1572-1585; +and Gregory XV. (Ludovisi), 1621-1623. I interested Don Andrea by +telling him that Gregory XIII. (reformer of the Julian Calendar and +builder of the Quirinal) was probably the last Pope officially prayed +for at Oxford, and that in his own college chapel. Mass certainly +continued to be celebrated in Merton Chapel well into the Pontificate +of Gregory XIII. + +[5] The possession of the Evil Eye has never been considered +incompatible with the highest moral excellence. Pius IX., who was +venerated by his people as a saint, was nevertheless regarded by many +of them as an undoubted _jettatore_. + +[6] The traditional name given by the Franciscans to their monastic +schools. But they had, if I remember rightly, sufficient sense of +humour not to apply it to their Cowley seminary. + +[7] Nearly, but not quite, the shortest grace on record. That palm, +perhaps, belongs to the north country farmer wiping his mouth with the +back of his hand after a plentiful meal, and ejaculating the single +word, "Then!" + +[8] Perhaps for the same reason as was given me by a Christ Church don, +who rashly prophesied that Wolsey's great hall would never be lighted +by electricity, as the additional heat given by the gas-jets was +absolutely essential by way of supplement to the huge fireplaces. + +[9] A large assumption; but Swinburne was doubtless better qualified +than most people to make it. The lines are from _Sordello_ (ed. 1863, +p. 464). + +[10] My own idea, suggested by a proposed memorial to Goschen at Rugby +school, where James Fergusson had been his school-fellow, was that the +memory of the latter also should be perpetuated there in some fitting +manner. I received letters cordially approving this suggestion; but I +never heard whether it was carried out in the case of either, or both, +of these distinguished public servants. + +[11] Is it necessary to explain that Argus Panoptes, the all-seeing +guardian of Io, had a hundred eyes, and Briareus, the pugnacious son of +Earth and Heaven, a hundred arms? Sir Walter's application of these +myths was distinctly neat. + +[12] Authentic or not, I added them to the collection of _novissima +verba_ of famous men which I had been long compiling. See Appendix. + +[13] Clement Maydeston, in his _Directorii Defensorium_ (A.D. 1495). +"Windsor," of course, means the "winding shore," not the "sick wind!" + +[14] The truth underlying the last sentence of this delectable report +is that some of the wilder rioters chucked the Secretary of the +Pageant's desk (containing all his papers) into the Cherwell; but it +was rescued so speedily by two of their more sober comrades that no +harm was done. + +[15] This particular episode was really regarded by many people as +almost an outrage; and an article called "A Blot on the Pageant," which +I devoted to it in a weekly review, elicited many expressions of +sympathy and approval in Oxford and elsewhere. + +[16] The Master of the Oxford Pageant, to whom I protested emphatically +against the scandalous caricatures of the Benedictines of Abingdon, +calmly told me that the British public looked on a monk as a comic kind +of creature, and would think itself defrauded unless he were so +represented! + +[17] The lines (vv. 824-826): + + [Greek: echousa ... tan phrygian xenan + tan, chissos os atenes, + petraia blasta davasen] + +seemed to strike the good lady particularly--the sound, that is, not +the sense of them. "Kisson----blast her--d--n her! Dear me!" she +remarked; "what language, to be sure! I had no idea that Antigone +[pronounced _Antigoan_] was that kind of young person!" + +[18] The Rev. R. H. Benson died on October 19, 1914. + + + + +{94} + +CHAPTER VI + +1907-1908 + +The opening of the Long Vacation of 1907 was pleasantly signalized for +us Benedictines by the gratifying successes in the Final Schools of our +little Hall, which secured two first classes (in "Greats" and History), +and a second class in Theology. The _Oxford Magazine_ was kind enough +to point out that this was a remarkable achievement for a Hall +numbering nine undergraduates, and compared favourably with the +percentage of honours at any college in the university. I was given to +understand that my young theologian would also have secured his "first" +had he not objected to the matter and form of some of the questions set +him, and declined to answer them! + +This cheerful news sent me in good spirits up to Dumfries for my usual +week's examinations at the Benedictine convent school there. I found +almost eighty nuns in residence, including the exiled community of the +mother house of Arras, whom (the Prioress was eighty-five, and there +were several old ladies on crutches) the great French Republic had +driven out of house and home as a "danger to the State!" I had several +interesting talks with "Madame la Prieure," who had been professed in +the reign of Louis Philippe, and who bore her cruel {95} uprootal with +true French (and Christian) resignation and cheerfulness. I do not +know if the tradition about St. Swithun holds good in Scotland; but +these days succeeding his festival (July 15) were certainly almost +continuously wet. One of the French nuns said that in her country +(Picardy) St. Medard was credited with a similar influence, and quoted +the lines-- + + Quan ploon per San Medar, + Ploon quarante jhiours pus tard; + +and I recalled the Italian distich about St. Bibiana (December 2)-- + + Se piove il giorno di Santa Bibiana, + Piovera per quaranta giorni ed una settimana. + + +I spent a few days at Longridge Towers, Sir Hubert Jerningham's Border +castle, when my work at Dumfries was finished, and found my host, as +usual, excellent company, and full of anecdotes, both French and +English. Speaking of a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Edmund at +Pontigny in which he had joined some years before, he said that an +English newspaper described an open-air benediction given by the +"Bishops of Estrade and Monte"; the reporters having doubtless been +informed that the bishops would _mount_ on the _platform_ to give the +blessing! He showed us a cutting from another English newspaper, +stating that MM. Navire, Chavire, and Bourrasque had been shipwrecked +and drowned at sea! Sir Hubert had a complete set of the _Revue des +Deux Mondes_ in his library; and I hunted up for his delectation a +passage in which M. Forgues, writing on English clerical life, _a +propos_ of George Eliot's first book, {96} gave an original etymology +for the word _tract_. "Il [Rev. Amos Barton] a sa _Track Society_, qui +va mettre en Fair toutes les bonnes femmes du pays, enregimentees pour +depister (track) les pauvres heres susceptibles de conversion." The +same writer rendered the epithet "Gallio-like" (applied by the minister +to the parishioners of Shepperton) by "pareils a des Francais!" + +Yorkshire, after Northumberland, claimed me for two pleasant +visits--the first to the Herries' at Everingham, with its beautiful +chapel copied from the Maison Carree at Nimes, and its famous +deer-park, one of the oldest in England (so Lord Herries told me), and +a very different thing, as one of Disraeli's country squires in +_Lothair_ remarks, from a mere park with deer in it. The weather was +bright and hot; and it was a pretty sight to see the droves of +fallow-deer, bucks and does together, clustering for shade under the +great trees near the house. From Everingham I went on to Bramham, +where George Lane Fox was spending a happy summer in his old home. He +took me everywhere, through the lovely gardens laid out by Lenotre, and +(in a brougham drawn by an ancient hunter and driven by a stud-groom +not less ancient) all over the park, and up the noble beech avenue +called Bingley's Walk. My friend had lost his splendid inheritance for +conscience' sake; and it was pleasant to see him, in old age and +enfeebled health, passing happy days, through his nephew's hospitality +and kindness, at the well-loved home of his boyhood and youth. + +I was glad to find myself settled for some golden weeks of August and +September at our abbey among {97} the Highland hills, where we were +this autumn favoured with almost continuous sunshine. Our many guests +came and went--some of them busy city men, enjoying to the full the +pure air, lovely surroundings, and quiet life in our guest-house, all +to the accompaniment of chiming bells and chanted psalms. Whether they +found our "brown Gregorians" as devotional as the sentimentalist of Mr. +Hichens's novel[1] I know not; but anyhow to me our monastic +plain-chant was restful and pleasant after the odd stuff in the way of +"church music" which had elsewhere assailed my ears. I confess that +after our more normal Oxford hours (though I hope we were not sluggards +at our Hall), I reconciled myself with difficulty to "the hour of our +uprising" in the monastery. The four o'clock matin-bell had always +been more or less of a penance to me (as I suppose it was to most of my +brethren), though I tried to fortify myself with Dr. Johnson's +argument--a purely academic one in the case of that lie-abed old +sage--that "it is no slight advancement to obtain for so many more +hours the _consciousness of being_"; but an American guest of ours, to +whom I cited this dictum, countered it by a forcibly-expressed opinion +"on the other side" by one of the most eminent living specialists in +insanity.[2] + +{98} + +One recalls delicious rambles with our brethren or our guests during +those sunlit autumn days: sometimes among the verdant Glengarry woods, +sometimes at our outlying "chapel-of-ease," some miles up the most +beautiful of the glens which run from Central Inverness-shire to the +sea. A veritable oasis this among the hills, with its green meadows, +waving pines, and graceful bridge spanning the rushing river; and all +framing the humble chapel, its eastern wall adorned with a fresco (from +the brush of one of our artist monks[3]) which the little flock--sadly +diminished of late years by emigration--greatly admired and venerated. +A week-end was sometimes spent pleasantly and not unprofitably at some +remote shooting-lodge, saying mass for Catholic tenants, and perhaps a +handful of faithful {99} Highlanders. One such visit I remember this +autumn at a lodge in Glencarron, a wild wind-swept place, with the +surrounding hilltops already snow-coated, which Lord Wimborne (for some +years Lovat's tenant at Beaufort) had recently acquired. Although in +the heart of the forest, the lodge was but two hundred yards from the +railway; there was no station, but the train would obligingly stop when +signalled by the wave of a napkin from the front door! A crofter's cow +strayed on the line one day of my stay, was, by bad luck, run over by +one of the infrequent trains, and (as a newspaper report once said of a +similar mischance) "cut literally into _calves_."[4] The night before +I left Glencarron, we were all wakened, and some of us not a little +perturbed, by two very perceptible shocks of earthquake--a phenomenon +not unusual in the district. We heard afterwards that at Glenelg, on +the west coast, the shocks had been more severe, and some damage had +been done; but, as a witty member of our party remarked, Glenelg might +have been turned inside out, or upside down, without suffering any +appreciable change.[5] On my way back to Fort Augustus I stayed a day +at Beaufort to wish _bon voyage_ to Lovat's brother-in-law and sister, +who were just off {100} to visit another married sister at our Embassy +in Japan, and (incidentally) to travel round the world. I met on the +steamer on my way home one of my Wauchope cousins, a spinster lady who +had gone some time before to live in Rome, and had asked me for letters +of introduction to "two or three Cardinals." Tired of Rome, she was +now making for the somewhat different _milieu_ of Rotherhithe, with +some work of the kind popularly called "slumming" in view. + +I visited, on my way south, a married brother at his charming home in +Berwickshire, where there was much tennis, and pleasant expeditions by +motor to interesting spots on both sides of the Border. One lovely +autumn day we spent at Manderston, where our hostess had her brother, +my lord chancellor of Oxford University, staying with her. The great +man was very affable, and asked me to go and see him in Michaelmas +Term, when he would be in residence at the "Judge's Lodgings" in St. +Giles's. I joined a family gathering at Newhailes, a few days later, +for the pretty wedding of my niece, Christian Dalrymple--"a very +composed bride," remarked one of the reporters present, "as befitted a +lady who had acted as hostess to the leading lights of the Conservative +party ever since she left the schoolroom."[6] Her uncle, the Bishop of +Bath and Wells, tied the knot (of course "impressively"), and I was +glad to find myself at Newhailes in his always pleasant {101} company. +Driving with him to pay a call or two in the neighbourhood, I amused +him with an _a propos_ story of the bishop who rode out on a long round +of leaving-calls, attended by his groom, who was sent into the house, +before starting, to get some cards. When they reached the last house, +the order came, "Leave two cards here, James"; and the unexpected reply +followed: "I can't, my lord; there's only the ace of spades left!" + +After a few days at Niddrie Marischal, the fascinating old seat of the +Wauchopes near Edinburgh (General "Andie" Wauchope's widow had lived +there since her husband's gallant death at Magersfontein), I went to +Cumbrae to visit Lady Bute at the Garrison, her home on that quaint +island in the Firth of Clyde. The house, too, was quaint though +comfortable, built in semi-ecclesiastical Gothic, with a sunk garden in +front, and a charming moonlight view from my window of the broad Firth, +with the twinkling lights of the tiny town in the foreground. Millport +was a favourite "doon-the-water" resort for Glasgow folk on holiday; +and I had quite a congregation at my Sunday mass in the little chapel +in the grounds, as well as a considerable catechism-class afterwards. +Winifred Lady Howard of Glossop, my lady's stepmother, was paying her a +visit, and as an inveterate globe-trotter (if the word may be +respectfully applied to an elderly peeress) kept us entertained by +stories of men and things in many lands. I spent one afternoon at the +college and "cathedral" of the Isles, the quaint group of buildings, +redolent of Butterfield and looking like an Oxford college and chapel +through the wrong end of a telescope, which the sixth Earl of Glasgow +(my {102} brother-in-law's predecessor) had more or less ruined himself +in erecting. Provost Ball, whom I found at tea with his sisters, +received me kindly, and showed me the whole establishment, which looked +rather derelict and neglected (I fancy there was very little money to +keep it going); and the college had been closed for some years. Some +of us crossed the Firth next day in an absurd little cockle of a +motor-boat (unsuitable, I thought, for those sometimes stormy seas), +and I was glad to find myself on _terra firma_, in a comfortable White +steam-car--my first experience of that mode of propulsion--which +whirled us smoothly and swiftly to Glasgow, in time for me to take the +night train to London and Oxford. + +In university circles I found a certain amount of uneasy trepidation +owing to the official presence of Lord Curzon. A resident Chancellor +was a phenomenon unprecedented for centuries, and one unprovided for in +the traditional university ritual, in which the first place was +naturally assigned to the Vice-chancellor. There was much talk as to +when, and in what direction, the new broom would begin to sweep, and +amusing stories (probably _ben trovati_) of dignified heads of houses +being called over the coals at meetings of the Hebdomadal Council. +Personally the Chancellor made himself very agreeable, entertaining +everybody who was anybody at his fine old mansion, once the "town +house" of the Dukes of Marlborough. It was all, perhaps, a little +Vice-regal for us simple Oxonians, who were not accustomed to write our +names in a big book when we made an afternoon call, or to be received +by a secretary or other underling instead of by our host when we went +out to luncheon or dinner. But it {103} was all rather novel and +interesting; and in any case the little ripples caused on the surface +of Oxford society by our Chancellor's sayings and doings soon subsided; +for, as far as I remember, his term of residence did not exceed a month +or so altogether. I was kept busy all this autumn term by the +considerable work I had undertaken (the contribution of nearly eighty +articles) for the American _Catholic Encyclopaedia_. One of the longest +was on Cambridge; and I felt on its completion that I knew much more +about the "sister university" than about my own! Most of my work was +done in the Bodleian Library; and it was a pleasant and welcome change +to find oneself installed in the new, well-lighted and comfortable +reading-room arranged in one of the long picture-galleries, instead of +(as heretofore) in an obscure and inconvenient corner of Duke +Humphrey's mediaeval chamber. The then Bodley's Librarian was a bit of +an oddity, and perhaps not an ideal holder of one of the most difficult +and exacting offices in the university; but he was always kindness +itself to me, and, whatever his preoccupations, was always ready to put +at my service his unrivalled knowledge of books and their writers. His +memory was stored with all kinds of whimsical rhymes: sometimes he +would stop me in the street, and--at imminent peril of being run over, +for he was extraordinarily short-sighted--would peer in my face through +his big spectacles, and say, "Did you ever hear of + + ----the learned Archdeacon of York, + Who _would_ eat his soup with a knife and a fork: + A feat which he managed so neatly and cleverly, + That they made him the Suffragan Bishop of Beverley!" + +{104} Or it would be, perhaps, "Listen to this new version of an old +saw: + + Teach not your parent's mother to extract + The embryo juices of an egg by suction: + The aged lady can the feat enact + Quite irrespective of your kind instruction." + +And before I had time to smile at the quip I would be dragging my +friend off the roadway on to the pavement to escape the oncoming +tramcar, bicycle or hansom cab. Sometimes we walked together, usually +in quest of some relic of antiquity in the neighbourhood, in which he +would display the most lively interest, though I really believe it was +all but invisible to his bodily eyes. One such walk was to inspect the +old lepers' chapel of St. Bartholomew, in the fields near Cowley--a +lovely derelict fragment of the ages of faith, which the local Anglican +clergy had expressed their intention of "restoring to the ancient +worship." "_You_," said my friend the librarian, with his ironic +smile, "will doubtless regard this promise as what our friend Dean +Burgon would have called 'polished banter,'" the allusion being to a +phrase in a sermon preached by the future Dean of Chichester at St. +Mary's at the time when the spread of the so-called "aesthetic movement" +was causing some concern to sensible people. "These are days," he +cried, "when we hear men speak, not in polished banter, but in sober +earnest, of 'living up to their blue china!'" I heard him speak these +words myself; and recalling that inimitable tone and accent, can +imagine the impression made by a more memorable utterance from the same +pulpit, when the new doctrines of Darwin were in the air, and the +alleged affinity of man with monkey was {105} fluttering orthodox +dovecotes. "O ye men of science! O ye men of science! leave me my +ancestors in Paradise, and I will willingly leave you yours in the +Zoological Gardens!" + +I had the pleasure in November of paying a short visit to the wise and +good Bishop of Newport, for a church-opening at Cardiff. A profit as +well as a pleasure, one may hope; for indeed no one could spend any +time in Dr. Hedley's company without instruction as well as +edification. We spoke of the late Lord Bute's remarkable philological +gifts; and I asked the Bishop if he had found his ignorance of Welsh +any practical hindrance to the work of his diocese. "No," was his +reply. "Fortunately for me (for I am no Mezzofanti) I find English a +good enough means of communication with my people, the majority of whom +are neither Welsh nor English, but Irish." I told him, much to his +amusement, of the advice once given to an Englishman appointed to a +Welsh (Anglican) see, as to the proper pronunciation of the Welsh +double _l_. "May it please your lordship to place your episcopal +tongue lightly against your right reverend teeth, and to hiss like a +goose!" A young Oxford friend of mine whom I met at Cardiff carried me +thence to Lichfield to stay a night at the Choristers' House of which +his father was master. It chanced to be "Guy Fawkes Day," and I +assisted at the fireworks and bonfires of the little singing-boys, who +(I was rather interested to find) did not associate their celebration +in the slightest degree with the old "No Popery" tradition. The merry +evening concluded with some delightful part-singing. + +I recall a week-end at Arundel when term was over: a large and cheerful +party, and the usual {106} "parlour games" after dinner, including +dumb-crambo, in which I was almost the only spectator; for everybody +else was acting, the Duke being a polar bear rolled up in a white +hearthrug! My customary Christmas was spent at Beaufort, in a +much-diminished family circle. Lord Lovat was on his way home from +South Africa, one brother absent on a sporting tour in Abyssinia, +another gold-mining in Rhodesia; his second sister with her husband in +Japan, and two others still _en voyage_ round the world. Some +schoolboy nephews, however, and their young sisters, were a cheerful +element in our little party, and there was a great deal of golf, good, +bad, and indifferent, on the not exactly first-class course recently +laid out in the park.[7] I had to go south soon after New Year, to tie +the knot and preach the wedding sermon at a marriage in Spanish Place +Church.[8] A thoroughly Scottish function it was, with Gordon +Highlander sergeants lining the long nave, the bridegroom's kilted +brother-officers forming a triumphal arch with their claymores, and a +big gathering of friends from the north afterwards at the Duchess of +Roxburghe's pretty house in Grosvenor Street. I attended next evening +at our Westminster dining-club, and heard {107} Father Maturin read a +clever, if not quite convincing paper, on "The Broad and Narrow Mind," +some of his paradoxes provoking a lively subsequent discussion which I +found very interesting. I had a stimulating neighbour in Baron Anatole +von Huegel. + +The opening of the Lent Term of 1908 at Oxford was dreary enough, with +a succession of the dense white fogs which only the Thames valley +generates in perfection. It is not cheering to come down morning after +morning to find what looks like a huge bale of dirty cotton-wool piled +up against one's window-panes; and the news at this time was as +depressing as the weather. We heard early in February of the brutal +murder of the King and Crown Prince of Portugal, before the eyes of +wife and mother; and I was saddened in the same month by the death of +an exemplary member of our community at Fort Augustus, though that had +been long expected. I was myself on the sick-list, and recall little +of interest during these weeks, except a most excellent lecture--of +course on boy scouts--given by General Baden-Powell, which I only +wished could have been heard, not by dons, ladies, and undergraduates, +but by the cigarette-slobbering, street-corner-loafing lads who were, I +think, more in evidence at Oxford than anywhere else. Early in March I +was in London, for the wedding of my old pupil, Charles Vaughan of +Courtfield, to the pretty niece of the Duke of Newcastle. I got to +Westminster Cathedral an hour before the appointed time: the +chapter-mass was being celebrated, and waves of sonorous plain-song +floating about the great misty domes overhead. After the ceremony I +joined the wedding guests at the Ritz for a short time, and, amid the +_frou-frou_ {108} and _va-et-vient_ of all the smart people, managed to +impart to a few intimate friends the news that I was going into +hospital in a few days, with no very certain prospect of coming out +alive! + +The next fortnight or so was of course taken up with inevitable +worries--giving up work for an indefinite period, resigning for a time +(it turned out to be for good) the mastership of my Hall, and finding a +_locum tenens_ letter-writing to a host of inquiring friends, and all +this when physically fit to do nothing. I spent the last days of +freedom at Arundel, receiving from the good people there every possible +kindness; and on March 18, under the patronage of the Archangel Gabriel +(saint of the day), betook myself to my nursing home in Mandeville +Street. Nurses (mine were most kind and devoted), surgeons and +anaesthetists soon got to work; and for a time at least (in the almost +classic words of Bret Harte) "the subsequent proceedings interested me +no more." + +A critical operation, followed by a slow and difficult convalescence, +ranks, of course, among the deeper experiences of a man's life. "We +were all anxious," said an Oxford friend some weeks later, a good old +chemist whom I had known for years; "for we heard that you were passing +through very deep waters." The expression was an apt one; and I +suppose no one rises from such waters quite the same man as he was +before. This is not the place to dwell on such thoughts; but one +reflection which occurs to me is that in such a time as I am now +recalling one realizes, as perhaps one had never done before, how many +kind people there are in the world, and appreciates what true +friendship is. During {109} my long stay in hospital my nearest +relations chanced to be greatly scattered, some of them in very remote +parts of the world. This made me all the more grateful for the +extraordinary kindness and attention I received, not only from approved +friends, but from many others whom I had hardly ventured to count as +such. I remember a little later compiling a kind of _libro d'oro_, +with a list of the names of all who had been good to me in word or deed +during those weary weeks. Some of them I have hardly ever seen since: +many have passed beyond the sphere of one's gratitude here on earth; +but I still sometimes con my list, and thank the dead as well as the +living for what they did for me then. + +I remember my first drive--round Regent's Park, on a perfect May day, +in the steam-car of which I have already spoken; and very tiring I +found it. After a lazy fortnight at St. John's Lodge, and daily +trundles in a Bath chair among the gay flower-beds of the park, I was +able to get down into the country; and after a sojourn with Lady +Encombe and her two jolly little boys near Rickmansworth (a wonderfully +rural spot, considering its nearness to London), I made my way to +Arundel, where it was pleasant to meet the Herries's and other kind +friends. The great excitement there was the hoped-for advent of a son +and heir, who made a punctual and welcome appearance before the end of +the month, and was received, of course, with public and private +jubilations in which I was happy to be able to participate. After this +I paid quite a long visit to my soldier brother at Kneller Court, the +pretty place near Fareham which he was occupying while commanding the +Artillery in that district. There were plenty of {110} pleasant +neighbours, who treated me to pleasant motor-drives through a charming +country little known to me; and the elm-shaded hall (I believe Sir +Godfrey Kneller had really lived there once), with its gay old garden +and excellent tennis-lawn, was a popular resort for young officers from +Portsmouth and elsewhere, who dropped in almost daily to luncheon, tea, +or dinner, and doubtless found the society of a kind hostess and her +two pretty daughters a welcome diversion from their naval and military +duties. One June day we spent in Portsmouth, lunching with Sir Arthur +and Lady Fanshawe at Admiralty House, a big, cool roomy mansion like a +French chateau, full of fine old portraits. We went out afterwards on +the flag-captain's launch to see the _Victory_, a visit full of +interest, though I was unequal to climbing the companions connecting +the five decks. A man whom I sat next at tea in the Admiral's garden +said he was connected with the Patent Office (I do not think he was +actually Comptroller-General, but he was something high up in that +rather mysterious department of the Civil Service), and told me some +entertaining yarns about early patents and monopolies.[9] One was +granted in 1618 to two men called Atkinson and Morgan, "to find out +things in monasteries!" Another man, about the same time, secured the +exclusive right of importing lobsters, which had hitherto cost a penny; +but the patentee bought them out at sea from Dutch fishermen, and {111} +sold them at threepence. In Charles I.'s reign a "doctour in phisick" +called Grant got a patent for a "fishe-call, or looking-glass for +fishes in the sea, very useful for fishermen to call all manner of +fishes to their netts, seins, or hooks." In the same reign it was made +compulsory to bury the dead in woollen in order to encourage the wool +manufacture; and ten years later Widow Amy Potter got a (rather +gruesome) patent for the elegant woollen costume she devised for this +purpose.[10] + +I went from Kneller to spend a breezy week at Brighton with Captain +Frank Grissell, to whom his brother, my old Oxford friend, had left +practically all his possessions and collections, and who had just +purchased a pretty villa in Preston Park in which to house them. No +brothers were ever more dissimilar or more devoted than Hartwell, whose +whole interests in life had been ecclesiastical and Roman, and his +brother Frank, ex-cavalry officer, to whom horses and hunting, racing +and coaching, were the salt of life. He had arranged his brother's +miscellaneous treasures, in one or two spacious rooms, with great care +and pains; and it was a curious experience to pass out of an atmosphere +and environment of religious paintings, Roman bookbindings, panels from +cardinals' coaches, Papal coins and medals, Italian ecclesiological +literature, and what the {112} French call _objets de piete_ of every +description, to the ex-lancer's own cheerful living-rooms: the walls +hung with pictures of hunters, steeplechasers, coaching and sporting +scenes; stuffed heads, tiger-skins, and other trophies of the chase +everywhere about, and the windows looking out on a pretty garden, in +the improvement and cultivation of which the owner was promising +himself unfailing interest and occupation. + +"Doctor Brighton" (was not this affectionate sobriquet the invention of +Thackeray?) did much for the restoration of my health and strength; and +I was able to get to Oxford before the end of summer term, to spend a +fortnight with kind Monsignor Kennard at his charming old house in St. +Aldate's, where I had a room so close to Tom Tower that the "Great Bell +of Tom" sounded as if it were tolling at my bedside![11] In his pretty +chapel (of which the open roof was said to be a relic of Oseney Abbey), +I had the happiness, on Trinity Sunday, of celebrating Mass for the +first time for more than three months--a greatly-appreciated privilege. + + + +[1] "A brown Gregorian is so devotional.... Gregorians are obviously +of a rich and sombre brown, just as a Salvation Army hymn is a violent +magenta." + +[2] Dr. Selden Talcott, of the State Asylum, Middleton, New York; +according to whom early rising is the most prolific cause of madness. +"A peremptory command to get up, when one's sleep is as yet unfinished, +is a command which grinds the soul, curdles the blood, swells the +spleen, destroys all good intentions, and disturbs all day the mental +activities, just as the tornado disturbs and levels with advancing ruin +the forest of mighty pines.... The free and lazy savage gets up when +he feels ready, and rarely or never becomes insane." Dr. Talcott +quotes the percentage of lunacy among country people as compared with +professional men. The latter, almost without exception, get up +comparatively late, whereas our manual labourers all leave their beds +long before they should. "The early morning hours, when everything is +still, are peculiarly fitted for sleep; and it is a _gross violation of +Nature's laws_ to tear human brains out of the sound rest they enjoy at +this time." A weighty utterance, no doubt: still, it is but fair to +point out that among monks, who perhaps, as a class, get up earlier +than any men living, the number of those whose good intentions are +destroyed and mental activities disturbed, and who finally become +lunatics, is really not alarmingly large. + +[3] Dom Paulinus Gorwood, who had been a choirboy at Beverley Minster, +and draughtsman in a great shipbuilding yard, and had studied religious +art in the famous Beuron Benedictine school at Prague. He had industry +as well as talent; and there were specimens of his handiwork in places +as remote from one another as the Highland Catholic Church at Beauly, +and the college chapel at St. Augustine's Abbey, Ramsgate. + +[4] This printer's feat somehow reminds me of the statement in an +Edinburgh paper that a certain eminent tenor, who had had a bad fall +alighting from the train, was nevertheless "able to appear that evening +at the concert in several pieces." But the funniest printer's slip +which I remember in connection with trains was an announcement in a +Hampshire newspaper that "The Express Engine was seriously indisposed, +and confined to bed." The distinguished invalid was really the Empress +Eugenie! + +[5] The word Glenelg is, of course, a palindrome, reading backwards and +forwards alike. + +[6] Randolph Churchill, Joseph Chamberlain, and Arthur Balfour were +only a few among the political magnates who had enjoyed my +brother-in-law's hospitality in the fine old Georgian mansion where +Lord Hailes had entertained Dr. Johnson. Newhailes was, of course, a +very convenient "jumping-off" place for meetings in the Scottish +metropolis. + +[7] About as good, perhaps, as a certain English nine-hole course over +which the secretary invited (partly by way of advertising his club) a +famous golfer to play. "Well, what do you think of our course?" asked +the secretary with some trepidation when the game was over. "Oh well, +it might be worse," was the great man's answer. "How do you mean +exactly, might be worse?" "Well," said the eminent golfer, "there +might be eighteen holes!" + +[8] That of Alister Gordon, of the Gordon Highlanders, to a sister of +Charles Edmonstoune-Cranstoun, an old pupil of mine. The bridegroom +was a fine soldier, became Brigadier-General in the European War, and +fell gallantly at Ypres in July, 1917. + +[9] My well-informed friend told me, if I remember right, that statutes +having been passed in more recent times, limiting the grant of patents +to actual new inventions, scientific or otherwise, nothing so amusing +as the instances he quoted were to be found in their modern records. + +[10] Not more gruesome, perhaps, than an exhibition organized at +Stafford House, in my young days about London, by Anne Duchess of +Sutherland, of _wicker-work coffins_. They were spread about the +garden, where tea was likewise provided; and a dapper and smiling young +man (I suppose the patentee) was in attendance to point out the +advantages--sanitary, economic, and aesthetic--of his invention to the +Duchess's interested guests. + +[11] I could not claim the concession (I believe unique) granted to an +old Captain De Moleyns, who lived--and died--close to Christ Church, +and during whose last days the immemorial ringing of "Tom" was +suspended. He was a man of very advanced age, and used to tell how as +a little boy he was rowed across Plymouth Harbour to see Napoleon +standing on the deck of the _Bellerophon_! + + + + +{113} + +CHAPTER VII + +1908 + +I passed the closing days of the summer term of 1908 very pleasantly at +Oxford, receiving many kindnesses from old friends, mingled with +expressions of regret that my official connection with the university +was approaching its close. I recall an interesting dinner-party at +Black Hall, the Morrells' delightful old house in St. Giles's, where my +neighbour was Miss Rhoda Broughton, at that time resident near Oxford. +We talked, of course, of her novels; and the pleasant-faced, +grey-haired lady was amused to hear that my sisters were not allowed to +read _Cometh Up as a Flower_, and _Red as a Rose is She_[1] (considered +strong literary food in the early 'seventies), until they "came out." +Mrs. Temple, the archbishop's widow, was also a fellow-guest: she had +taken a house in Oxford, close to "dear Keble"; but said that the noise +and uproar emanating at night from the college of "low living and high +thinking" was so great that she thought she would have to move. A +member of the lately-established {114} Faculty, or Institute, of +Forestry, who was of our party, told us some "things not generally +known" about trees, which I noted down. The biggest tree known in the +world was, he said, not in America (what a relief!), but the great +chestnut at the foot of Mount Etna, called the Chestnut of a Hundred +Horses, with a trunk over 200 ft. round, and a hole through it through +which two carriages can drive abreast. The biggest orange-tree known +was, said our oracle, in Terre Bonne, Louisiana: 50 ft. high, 15 ft. +round at base, and yielding 10,000 oranges annually. Finally, the most +valuable tree in existence was the plane-tree in Wood Street, in the +City, occupying a space worth, if rented, L300 a year--a capital value +of L9,000 or thereabouts. All these facts I thought curious. + +Term over, I stayed for a little time with a sister in Kensington Gore, +very handy for Kensington Gardens, where I sat an hour or two every +morning enjoying the fresh air and verdure of that most charming of +"London's lungs," and surrounded by frolicking children, including my +small nephew. One of his little playfellows, a grandson of Lord +Portman, suddenly disappeared from the gay scene; I inquired where he +was, and was told that he had gone for a rest-cure. "Great heavens!" I +said, "a child of three!--but why, and where?"--"Oh," was the reply, +"Master Portman was taking too much notice of the busses and motor-cars +and such-like, and wouldn't go to sleep; so he is taking a rest-cure in +his nursery at the top of the house, looking over the chimney-pots!" +The modern child! but then I do not of course profess to understand +infants and their ways and needs. + +{115} + +The White City, with its Irish village, and a notable exhibition of +French and English pictures, was a great attraction this summer. A +kind cousin motored me thither once or twice; and I met a little later +at her house some pleasant Italian cavalry officers, smart in their +Eton blue uniforms, who were going to jump at the horse-show at +Olympia. I went, at their urgent invitation, to see their performance, +and was both interested and impressed. As an exhibition of the art of +show-jumping it seemed to me unsurpassable. The horse answered the +very slightest movement of the leg or body of its rider, who, as he +rose to each leap, was so perfectly pivoted on the insides of his knees +that his balance remained absolutely unaffected. The French +competitors combined pace and dash with their excellent horsemanship; +and the finest horses were certainly those ridden by the English. But +the cool, quiet, scientific, deliberate riding of the Italians, trained +in the finest school in the world, made all their rivals seem, somehow, +a little rough and flurried and amateurish; and they gained, as they +undoubtedly deserved, the chief honours of the show. + +The heat in July was great; and I was so depressed, visiting the great +National Rose Show in the Botanic Gardens, by the spectacle of 100,000 +once lovely blossoms hopelessly wilted and shrivelled, that I fled from +London to a brother's shady river-side home near Shepperton. It was +reposeful under the big elms overhanging his garden, to watch the +boat-laden Thames gliding past; and another pleasure which I enjoyed +whilst there was a quite admirable organ-recital given at a +neighbouring church--Littleton, I think it was. The kind rector showed +us round {116} and gave us tea; and the sight of the many tattered +regimental colours (Grenadier Guards and others) hanging on the church +walls drew down upon him the following lines, which I sent him next day +in acknowledgment of his courtesy:-- + + + THE COLOURS + + (Hung in churches: no longer [1908] taken into action.) + + That rent is Talavera; that patch is Inkerman: + A hundred times in a hundred climes the battle round them ran. + But that is an ended chapter--they will not go to-day: + Hang them above as a link of love, where the people come to pray. + + * * * * * + + Perhaps when all is quiet, and the moon looks through the pane, + Under that shred the splendid dead are marshalled once again, + And hear the guns in the desert, and see the lines on the hill, + And follow the steel of the lance, and feel that England is + England still. + + +I found it very little cooler in Yorkshire than in London; but there +were noble trees and welcome shade in the beautiful park of Langdon, +near Northallerton, where I spent some July days, in an atmosphere a +thought too equine for my taste; however, my kind hosts (the Fifes) +were as fond of their flowers as of their horses, and were busy adding +wildernesses and rockeries and other informal beauty-spots to the +formal gardens of their new home, which they had recently bought from +Lord Teignmouth. I was driven over one day to see the Hospital of St. +John of God at Scorton, where a hundred inmates, all crippled or +disabled, were tended with admirable care and devotion by a religious +brotherhood. A local clergyman, I remember, dined with us that evening +at Langdon--a man whose mission, or hobby, seemed to be to collect and +retail such odd and out-of-the-way facts as one finds in the {117} +statistical column of _Tit-Bits_. In the course of the evening he +informed us (1) that a pound of thread spun by a silkworm will make a +thread 600 miles long; (2) that there are in the skin of the average +man 2,304,000 pores; and (3) that about 30,000 snails are eaten every +day in the city of Paris. What one feels about such facts, dumped down +on one promiscuously, is that they do not lead anywhere, or afford any +kind of opening for rational conversation. + +I had rather hoped to escape the burden of my Oxford Local Examination +work this summer; but as it was apparently difficult to replace me, I +went up to Dumfries for my usual week in July. Our Convent-school +being the only centre in the district for these examinations, there +were, as usual, several candidates from outside. Among them were two +pairs of Protestant sisters (Wedderburn-Maxwells and Goldie-Scotts), +whose mamma and governess respectively sat all day in the corridor +outside the big schoolroom, keeping watch and ward, it was understood, +against the danger of their children being "got at" between the papers +by the nuns--or possibly the Benedictine examiner!--and influenced in +the direction of Popery. Our children were much amused by the way in +which these little girls were whisked away, during the intervals, from +any possible contact with their "Roman" fellow-candidates; but the +little girls themselves looked somewhat disconsolate, having perhaps +had pleasant anticipations of games, between examination-hours, in the +well-equipped playground of the school. + +The kind abbot of Fort Augustus would not let me return to the +monastery, as I had expected to do when my Dumfries work was over, but +{118} suggested instead some further rest (for I was still far from +robust) with my own people in the west of Scotland. I spent a few +pleasant days first at Mountstuart, and was rather amused on the first +of August (the end of the "close season" for small birds) to see my +young host sally forth--a sailor, an architect, and an artist in his +wake--on a shooting-expedition, with as much ceremony and preparation +as if it had been the Twelfth![2] We motored out after them, and +lunched on one of the highest points of the island; drinking in, as we +ate our Irish stew, an entrancing prospect of the blue Firth, the long +sinuous Ayrshire coast, and the lofty serrated peaks of Arran. From +Bute I went on to Dunskey, a place full to me always--even under its +new, altered, and improved conditions--of a hundred happy memories. +There was an _al fresco_ entertainment--tea, music, and dancing on the +lawn--given by my niece to the tenants and their families one +afternoon; and I (mindful of old days) was happy to watch her and her +boy, the little heir, welcoming their guests. Some of their names, +Thorburns, Withers and MacWilliams, recalled the past; and they greeted +me with the friendly simple cordiality characteristic of Galloway folk. +One of our house-party had just arrived (by yacht) from the Isle of +Man, where he had been staying for some weeks. He had stories of the +quaint customs of the Men of Man, and wrote down for me the oath +administered in their courts. {119} The closing simile is delightfully +unconventional:-- + + +By this book, and by the holy contents thereof, and by the wonderful +works that God has miraculously wrought in heaven above and in the +earth beneath in six days and seven nights, I do swear that I will, +without respect of favour or friendship, love or gain, consanguinity or +affinity, execute the laws of this isle, and between party and party as +indifferently as the herring's backbone doth lie in the middle of the +fish. + + +At Blairquhan I found a large party assembling for August 12: naval +cronies of my sailor brother (including the captain of H.M.S. +_Britannia_), the master of the Whaddon Chase Hunt, Selby Lowndes, with +his wife and daughter, and other pleasant people. Shooting, dancing, +bridge and golf filled up their days agreeably enough. I essayed the +last-named sport, but was mortified to find myself still as weak as a +kitten. The weather was glorious, but my brother complained that the +long drought had left not a fruit in the garden; whereupon I suggested +the substitute mentioned by Captain Topham in his _Letters from +Edinburgh_ a century and a half ago:-- + + +The little variety of fruit which this climate brings to perfection is +the cause that the inhabitants set anything on their tables, after +dinner, that has the appearance of it; and I have often observed at the +houses of principal people a dish of small turnips, which they call +neeps, introduced in the dessert, and ate with as much avidity as if +they had been fruit of the first perfection. + + +The perfect summer weather accompanied me north to Beaufort, which was +doubly fortunate, as a great party was gathered there for a gigantic +bazaar, organized by one of the daughters of the house to raise funds +for a county sanatorium for consumption, in which she was greatly +interested. The difficulty of attracting _men_ to a show of the kind, +{120} especially in the shooting season, was cleverly met by including +among the attractions a novel and unique exhibition of stags' heads, +lent from all the great Highland forests. The interest of this drew +sportsmen from far and near to Beaufort, where a notable company was +assembled, including the whole Lovat family, most of the Chiefs of +clans and their wives, and, last not least, Ranguia, a genuine +chieftain from New Zealand, clad in what was understood to be his +native dress, and gifted with an astonishing voice (_tenore +robustissimo_), in which he sang Maori songs of love and war in the +great gallery at intervals during the two days of the bazaar. The most +charming of British Duchesses opened the proceedings with a speech of +enticing eloquence: sales were brisk, the weather perfect, and the +attendance enormous; and the profits, if I remember right, were +something like L4,000, so that the affair was altogether a success. We +recreated ourselves, after these fatiguing days, by a pleasant motor +drive to Oromarty, to see the splendid fleet (the Fifth Cruiser +Squadron (and some battleships of the Home Fleet) mustered in the +Firth. We went all over the _Dreadnought_, and drank tea on Kelburn's +ship, the _Cochrane_, burst a tyre on our way home and took refuge at +Balnagowan, where Lady Ross gave us dinner and sang to us perfectly +delightfully: a full and interesting day. + +Ampleforth Abbey having now Masters of Arts of its own qualified to +take over the Mastership of its Oxford Hall, I took the occasion of my +enforced temporary retirement to resign the office which I had held for +nearly ten years. The inevitable regrets were tempered by the kind +tributes I received {121} both from Ampleforth and from the +Vice-chancellor of the University; and also by my friend Mgr. Kennard's +urgent invitation (which I was authorized to accept) that I should +return to Oxford for a time as his guest and assistant-chaplain. This +settled, I went south to visit the Loudouns at Loudoun Castle, +cheerfully repainted and decorated in honour of the arrival of the +family pictures, an accession to Loudoun since his brother Paulyn +Hastings' death. At Woodburn, whither I went from Loudoun, I found +Philip Kerr at home from Johannesburg (where he was, I think, Secretary +to the High Commissioner)--looking as young as ever, the cynosure of +his adoring family and of a circle of admiring friends, one or two of +whom (I think old schoolfellows at Edgbaston) were staying at Woodburn. +The talk turned, as so often in this house, on Newman and the Oratory; +and Lord Ralph Kerr read a striking passage written by Coventry +Patmore[3] soon after the great Cardinal's death:-- + + +The steam-hammer of that intellect which could be so delicately +adjusted to its task as to be capable of either crushing a Hume or +cracking a Kingsley is no longer at work: that tongue which had the +weight of a hatchet and the edge of a razor is silent. + + +I recalled a characteristic sentence or two (half jest, half earnest), +from one of Bishop Samuel Wilberforce's letters to Mrs. Sarjent:-- + + +Newman was at Ryder's, but I thought it best not to see him. I heard +that unmistakable voice like a volcano's roar, tamed into the softness +of the flute-stop, and got a glimpse (may I say it to you?) of the +serpentine form through an open door--the Father Superior! + + +{122} + +In lighter vein Philip told us some odd Johannesburg stories. One was +of a man who had arrived there some years before with absolutely no +assets except a tin of condensed milk and a needle. He spread a report +that smallpox was on its way through the country, gave out that he was +a surgeon, and vaccinated the entire community with his needle and +condensed milk, at 5_s._ a head! From this beginning he rose to be a +wealthy capitalist, with the monopoly of selling liquor within the +precincts of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. + +Woodburn was admirably handy for the Edinburgh libraries, in which I +put in several days' work (much belated during my illness) for the +_Encyclopaedia_. September I spent happily at St. Andrews, where my +friend and host George Angus, though now a good deal of an invalid, was +as kind and pleasant as ever. We had talks on heraldry, a favourite +subject with us both; and I remember his rubbing his hands with delight +on reading (on the authority of Juliana Berners, prioress of Sopewell), +that the four Evangelists were "gentlemen come by the right line of +that worthy conqueror Judas Maccabaeus"; and also that the Four Latin +Doctors, Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory, were gentlemen of +blood and coat-armour."[4] I copied from one of his early heraldic +books the arms anciently assigned to:-- + + +_Adam_ (before the Fall)--a shield gules, whereon a shield argent borne +on an escutcheon of pretence [arms of _Eve_, she being an heiress]. + +_Do._ (after the Fall)--paly tranche, divided every way, and tinctured +of every colour. + +{123} + +_Joseph_--chequy, sable and argent. + +_David_--argent a harp or. + +_Gideon_--sable, a fleece argent, a chief azure gutte d'eau. + +_Samson_--gules, a lion couchant or, within an orle argent, seme of +bees sable. + + +I saw something at St. Andrews of another old acquaintance, Jock +Dalrymple, now Stair, who had some little time before succeeded his +father (the kind old friend of my youth), and had grown grey, portly, +and rather solemn since coming into his kingdom. He was Captain of the +Royal and Ancient this year; and although he boasted of "hating +politics," and would not trouble to vote in Parliament on the most +vital Imperial question, would sit for hours in the chair at a club +meeting, discussing the minutiae of golfing rules with a zest and +patience that never failed. Men are curiously made! + +I went, while at St. Andrews, to spend a weekend with the Fairlies at +their neighbouring castle of Myres (set in the most enchanting old +Scottish garden), and said mass in a billiard-room converted by my +friend into a decorous chapel, just as had been done by Bishop Hedley +in his episcopal villa near Cardiff. I noticed with interest the mace +sculptured on one of the angular turrets. Thereby hung a tale--and a +grievance; and my host told me how the presentation of a macership in +the Court of Session went with the ownership of Myres, i.e. of the +castle, as he maintained. But though he had bought the castle, my Lord +Bute had bought the estate (marching with his lands of Falkland); and +_his_ contention was that the estate, not the castle, carried with it +the macership.[5] _Hinc illae lacrymae_. + +{124} + +I left St. Andrews early on a bright autumn morning, my kind old +friend, who had insisted on getting up to serve my mass, waving me +good-bye under his hospitable porch--a last good-bye it proved to be, +for I never saw him again.[6] Before going south I spent a few days at +Aberdeen, having some business with our good bishop. I stayed with +Malcolm Hay of Seaton (one of my very few Catholic relations) at his +pretty old place on Donside. From the windows one looked across the +river, and up a wooded brae, to the venerable towers of St. Machar's +Cathedral. Malcolm motored me one day to Blairs College; I had not +before seen the new buildings and church of our Scottish seminary, +quite an imposing pile as viewed from the much-frequented Deeside road. +We found the Archbishop of St. Andrews (Mgr. Smith) at tea with the +Rector and his professorial staff, who were all most kind and civil. I +heard here of the elevation of the eminent advocate, Campbell of +Skerrington, to the Scottish Bench--the first Catholic Lord of Session +for generations, if not centuries. + +I was due in Oxford before the opening of the autumn term, in view of +my prospective "flitting" from our Benedictine Hall; but I first +fulfilled a long {125} overdue engagement to pay a visit to some French +friends (the Marquis de Franquetot and his wife) in Picardy. Their +pretty chateau, embowered in big chestnut-trees, was some ten miles +from Boulogne, and we drove thither on Sunday to high mass at St. +Nicholas-in-the-Market, as my host wanted me to hear the French +Bishops' joint pastoral (the first they had been permitted to issue for +a great number of years) on Christian education. M. de Franquetot said +it had been prepared under the roof of my old friend Lady Sophia +Palmer, Comtesse de Franqueville, who, with her excellent husband, had +entertained the whole hierarchy for a week at their beautiful hotel in +the Bois de Boulogne. The congregation at St. Nicholas was very large +and devout, comprising, as I was pleased to observe,[7] many men of all +ranks and ages; and the long pastoral, addressed "aux peres et meres de +famille," and interspersed with admirable comments from the good cure, +was listened to with close attention, and approval, which the "peres de +famille" occasionally showed by thumping the floor with sticks or +umbrellas, and muttering--not always _sotto voce_--"Tres bien +dit,"--"ils ont bien raison," and so on. I was very glad to have been +present. Boulogne seemed full of British trippers; and I was amused, +as we drove along the sea-front, to see the number of unmistakably +French eating-houses which labelled themselves by such enticing titles +as the "Royal English Chop {126} House" and the "Margate Bar." Some, +more accommodating still, announced in their windows that "Messrs. the +Britannic tourists who arrive furnished with their own provisions may +eat them here gratuitously." Could the _Entente_ go further? I had +hardly seen the pleasant town since I had lived for a year in its +environs with my family as a little boy; and the narrow bustling +streets looked to me much as they used to under the Empire, when my +father would point out to us the gallant Chasseurs d'Afrique swaggering +along--"the finest soldiers in the world, sir--fought beside us in the +Crimea,"--six short years before the _debacle_ of 1870. We passed +through Pont-de-Brique, and asked for the Chateau Neuf, the big +rambling house in an unkempt garden which had been our home; but no one +could point it out to us. + +My French visit was brought to an agreeable close by a trip across the +Channel ("Why do you call it the _English_ Channel, you others?" my +hostess asked me; "to us it is only La Manche!") in a beautiful +schooner yacht belonging to a friend of the de Franquetots. We scudded +along the English coast in bright sunshine, before a strong +south-easterly breeze, finally landing at Southampton, whence I made my +way to Kneller Court, which I found as friendly and hospitable as ever: +Admiral Sir Percy and Lady Scott at luncheon with my kind +sister-in-law, and subalterns and sub-lieutenants dropping in later for +tennis and tea. My brother drove me up to Fort Nelson, and showed me +his 60-pounders and the interior of the fort, one of the chain erected +at enormous cost by Palmerston fifty years before, and now absolutely +useless except as barracks. {127} Next day I escorted my pretty niece +by dogcart, train and tram to Hilsea, to see the Gunners' +sports--gun-driving, tent-pegging, wrestling on horseback, and so +forth. It was my fifty-fifth birthday, and my health was pledged at +dinner, with musical honours, by the merry party of relatives and +friends. On October 1 I reached Oxford, superintended the transport of +my effects from Beaumont Street (where my successor, Dom Anselm Parker, +was already installed as Master of our Hall) to St. Aldate's, and +received a kind welcome there from my host and new "chief," Mgr. +Kennard. He was suffering from the peculiar constitutional +disturbance--I believe a form of suppressed gout (King Edward was in +his last years a victim to it) which keeps people always on the move; +and this chronic restlessness took him away so constantly from Oxford +that a great deal of his pastoral work--the spiritual superintendence +of fifty or sixty Catholic undergraduates, scattered all over the +university, at once devolved to great extent on me. The experiment of +sending Catholic boys to Oxford (and Cambridge) had by this time passed +out of the experimental stage, and had on the whole justified the +anticipations of those to whose initiative it had been due. There +were, of course, a few failures and a few wastrels among our small +contingent of undergraduates; but on the whole they were a good lot of +young fellows, who did credit to the various Catholic schools where +they had been trained. And their personal kindness to me was such that +it was a real pleasure to find oneself in fairly intimate relations +with them, and to be of any service to them that one could. + +{128} + +The good Monsignore hardly ever returned from his many absences without +bringing a friend or two with him; and his great recreation at this +time was driving his guests about in a fine motor (a new toy) which he +had lately bought from his nephew Fritz Ponsonby, the King's equerry. +Fritz and his charming wife stayed with us this autumn, as did also our +host's brother, Colonel Hegan Kennard, who was considerably the older, +but much the more vigorous and energetic of the two.[8] He attended +service on Sunday at the Evangelical church close by, and came back +indignant. "By George, sir, I never saw anything so slovenly and +slipshod in my life; disgraceful, sir, positively disgraceful!" I took +him to hear Mrs. Garrett-Fawcett speak at a woman-suffrage debate at +the Union--a most plausible lady, but we voted against her by a large +majority. I found the motor an agreeable means of visiting various +places of interest in the neighbourhood--Dorchester Abbey, an epitome +of architecture from Early Norman to Late Perpendicular, but the +interior spoilt by the bad taste of the Ritualistic fittings; the grand +old Augustinian minster of Burford; and Cuddesdon, a miniature +cathedral, with its western porch and massive central tower. It was +over this porch that the ladies of Cuddesdon, in years gone by, wishing +to do honour on some feast-day to their beloved diocesan Samuel +Wilberforce, and not less beloved Archdeacon Alfred Pott, displayed +their joint initials wrought in evergreens. "S.O.A.P.," read {129} the +Bishop as he paused before the western gable. "Surely an enemy hath +done this," he sorrowfully muttered, and proceeded on his way. + +An excursion or two from Oxford I remember this autumn: one to +Downside, where it was always a happiness to go and spend a +church-festival with my Benedictine brethren; another to Eton, where I +gazed with dismay on the new school-hall with its unsightly dome, and +wondered if this was really the best the Committee of Taste could +achieve by way of South African War Memorial.[9] I met afterwards +quite a contingent of Scotsmen (Arthur Hay, the Duke of Roxburghe's +brother, etc.) at luncheon with the Irish Guards at Victoria Barracks, +where I used to breakfast of a Sunday morning--a dissipation forbidden, +I believe, to modern Etonians--with an uncle in the Scots Fusilier +Guards, in my own school days. I went to London that evening to dine +with, and read afterwards a paper on "Jerusalem of To-day" to, the +Guild of SS. Gregory and Luke, my host being Sir John Knill, Sheriff of +London, who was two years later to occupy the civic chair, as his +excellent father had done before him. On another evening I attended +our Westminster Dining-club, to hear Fr. R. H. Benson read us an essay +on "The Value of Fiction"--interesting, as coming from a successful +novelist, and of course brilliant; but I agreed with only about half of +it. + +Ninian Crichton Stuart had engaged me to go and {130} support him at +the St. Andrew's Day banquet of the Caledonian Society of Cardiff, the +suffrages of which city he was at that time wooing as Conservative +candidate, much assisted by his clever and charming wife. I stayed +with them at their pretty home near Llandaff, and we motored in to the +patriotic banquet, which began at 6.30 and lasted nearly five hours! I +proposed the principal toast, and had of course no difficulty in +showing (as one of the newspaper reports remarked) that all the chief +posts in the Empire--political, ecclesiastical, legal and +administrative, were, with the most insignificant exceptions, held by +Scotsmen. Bagpipes, of course, skirled and whisky flowed freely; and +the national enthusiasm reached its height when the haggis was borne +round the hall in procession, carried by the white-clad chef and +preceded by the pipe-major, playing his best and loudest in honour of +the "chief of pudding race." I left Llandaff next morning, Ringan, +Lady Ninian's pretty baby, crowing good-bye to me from his mother's +arms,[10] and spent an hour or two in Cardiff with Bishop Hedley, who +expressed his hope that I would help Kennard at Oxford as long as I +could, and would ultimately succeed him as chaplain. We visited +together the new and splendid town-hall, the finest municipal building +I had ever seen. The Oxford term ended in the following week, {131} +and I made my way north to Fort Augustus, where I found discussion in +progress as whether we should or should not sell our house and estate +of Ardachie, for which we had several good offers. I said yes; for the +place, though not without its attractions, had been altogether more of +a burden than a profit to us for a good many years.[11] Whilst at Fort +Augustus, I addressed, by desire of the community, letters to the +Abbot-Primate in Rome, as well as to our own bishop, urging, for many +weighty reasons, the reincorporation of our abbey into the English +Benedictine Congregation, from which it had been separated for just +twenty-six years. + + + +[1] Parodied in _Punch_ (I think by that inveterate punster the then +editor, F. C. Burnand), under the titles of _Goeth Down as an Oyster_ +and _Red in the Nose is She_. It is the Scottish hero of one of these +romances, I forget which (I mean, of course, the original, not the +parody), who shows his emotion at a critical moment by "cramming half a +yard of yellow beard into his mouth!" + +[2] The bag consisted of an assortment of miscellaneous fowl. Bute was +at this period of his career something of the typical Briton whose idea +of happiness, according to some French observer, is more or less summed +up in the formula: "My friends, it is a fine day: let us go out and +kill something!" + +[3] In the preface to _Rod, Root, and Flower_. The passage was quite +new to me. + +[4] From the _Boke of St. Albans_ (1486). + +[5] An antique privilege of the kind would appeal irresistibly to +Bute--_tenaci propositi viro_; he stuck to his guns, not only claiming +the right of presentation, but actually exercising it at the next +vacancy. I am not qualified to pronounce on the vexed question; but my +experience is that in such matters the big man usually gets his way, +and the smaller has to go to the wall. What was settled after Bute's +death I know not. Anyhow--the last Lord of Falkland lies among the +lilies in a war cemetery in France; and the memorial chapel in his +park, near by the House of Falkland, was designed by the present laird +of Myres. + +[6] George Angus, for nearly a quarter of a century resident priest at +St. Andrews, died there on St. Patrick's Day (March 17), 1909. + +[7] Less pleasing was it to notice the outside walls and very doors of +the old church plastered all over with flaring _affiches_ of music-hall +performances, pictures of ballet-dancers, etc. "Cette canaille de +Republique!" murmured in my ear, as we drove off, my friend and host, +whose sympathies were entirely with the _ancien regime_. + +[8] More of a man, in short. "Dear old Charlie," he said to me, "was +good at games when he was at Harrow, and a capital runner. All the +same, he was always a bit of an old woman, and always will be!" + +[9] I wrote, I fear, rather heatedly to good old Ainger (Secretary of +the War Fund), on what seemed to me the painful incongruity of the +building with its surroundings. "Many people, I believe," he replied +with admirable restraint, "feel quite as you do on this matter; but no +one has expressed himself quite so strongly!" + +[10] Poor little Ringan! (his name was the ancient "pet" form of +"Ninian," the saint of Galloway). On the election-day, a year or so +afterwards, the burgesses of Cardiff smiled to see him driving through +the streets in a motor from which flew a bannerette recommending them +to "Vote for Daddy!" There was universal regret, a few days later, at +the sad news that the little electioneerer had succumbed to a chill +caught on the occasion of his first public appearance, when less than +two years old. See _post._ page 176. + +[11] The actual tenant, Colonel Campbell, whose wife was a Catholic, +eventually bought the property. + + + + +{132} + +CHAPTER VIII + +1908-1909 + +I spent the Christmas of 1908, as usual, very pleasantly at Beaufort. +For the first time for many years the family was absolutely _au +complet_: the services of the season in the beautiful chapel were well +attended; and I sympathized with the happiness of my kind hostess, as +she knelt at the altar at midnight mass surrounded by all her children, +without exception. There were grandchildren, too, of all ages, who +amused themselves vastly in spite of appalling weather, rain, snow, +frost, thaw, and gales, following one another in rapid and unwelcome +succession. The children acted a pretty and touching miracle-play, the +hand-painted programme whereof still adorns my scrap-book; and there +were seasonable revels of various kinds. At New Year somebody +announced that 1909 was to be a great year of anniversaries, 1809 +having been _annus mirabilis_. We remembered (with difficulty) eight +celebrities born that year--Mendelssohn, E. Barrett Browning, Darwin, +Tennyson, O. Wendell Holmes, Lord Houghton, W. E. Gladstone, and +Abraham Lincoln, but could think of no others. This reminded some one +else that I. Disraeli called thirty-seven the "fatal age of genius," +four great men (among others) who died at that age having been Raphael, +Mozart, {133} Byron and Burns. I wound up with a statement new, I +think, to everybody, viz., that Saturday was the fatal day of the week +to the English Royal Family (Hanoverian Line). I have not followed the +matter down to quite recent times; but it is undoubtedly singular that +William III., Queen Anne, George I., II., III., and IV., the Duchess of +Kent, the Prince Consort, and Princess Alice all died on a Saturday. + +I stayed at Loudoun Castle on my way south, finding there a big party +of young men and maidens--Howards of Glossop, Hastings', Bellasis', +Beauclercs, and Bethells, gathered for an Eglinton Hunt Ball (recalling +the days of my youth). Nearly all were Catholics, so I had quite a +congregation in the little chapel, redecorated (with the rest of the +castle) since my previous visit. I was back in Oxford before the +middle of January for the Lent term, to me always a more interesting +period than the golden weeks of summer, when everybody's heads seemed +to be full of nothing but amusement and sport. Our Sunday conferences +were given this term by Father Kenelm Vaughan (the late Cardinal's +missionary brother), who used to arrive for the week-ends with no +luggage save a little well-worn Bible hanging from the girdle of his +cassock and (possibly) a toothbrush in his pocket. If there ever was a +man who lived entirely in "a better country, and that an heavenly," it +was Kenelm. Like all the Vaughans, he was of striking appearance; and +his personality, as well as his appealing eloquence, made a great +impression on his young hearers, although his unconventional sayings +and doings had an occasionally disconcerting effect on our good host +and his guests, which used to remind me of {134} Jerome's "Man in the +Third Floor Back." Wilfrid Ward was with us for a day or two, with a +great flow of conversation, chiefly about himself. He read an +interesting paper to our Newman Society on "The Writing of the +Apologia"--anticipatory gleanings, of course (if the phrase is +permissible), of his great forthcoming biography, and including several +of the Cardinal's unpublished letters. There was a record meeting of +the Society a little later, to hear W. H. Mallock on (or "down on") +Socialism. Many dons of note were present, and there was a brisk +debate, W. H. M. holding his own very well. At supper afterwards I +ventured to remind him of two sentences of his (I forget from which of +his writings) which had given me much pleasure:-- + + +"The Catholic Church is the Columbus of modern society, who will guide +us eventually to the new moral continent which other explorers are +trying in vain to reach." + +"An aristocracy is the best of all possible orders, in the worst of all +possible worlds." + + +Our good Monsignore was nominally at home during these weeks, but in a +restless and excitable state. He would exhaust himself by feverish +energy at golf for a day or two, then rush off in his motor, "for +change," with valet and chauffeur, and return more tired than he had +gone away. He attended one evening a big golfing-dinner at the Master +of University's: dined well (according to his own account), drank hock, +old port, and Benedictine, came home and rolled about all night in +indescribable agony. Most of his duties he delegated to me, including, +sometimes, the task of "interviewing" bewildered Catholic parents, to +whom Oxford university life was an absolute _terra incognita_, and who +{135} were puzzled or anxious about their sons' doings. Poor Lady +E---- B----! I remember still the dismay with which she came to tell +me how her boy had made friends in college with an Egyptian Moslem ("an +unbaptized heathen Turk," was her description of him), and was bent on +taking "digs" (lodgings) with him in the following term. I felt +sympathy with the Catholic mother in her instinctive dislike to this +prospect; but I felt none with the indignation of another parent (a +distinguished diplomatist) at the refusal of one of the most +sought-after colleges to admit his son. The fact was, as I had, after +due inquiry, to explain tactfully to the aggrieved parent, that the +youth (a pupil of one of our smaller Catholic schools) gave himself, at +the preliminary interview with the college authorities, such +"confounded airs" (as one of the dons expressed it) that they would +have nothing to say to him. Probably the poor lad's "airs" were only +one of the many forms in which extreme shyness manifests itself; anyhow +it is fair to add that this was an exceptional case, and that our +Catholic freshmen, as a whole, made a favourable impression by their +good manners and modesty of demeanour. One Head, who had no sympathy +at all with the Catholic religion, told me that so pleased was he with +the Catholic contingent in his college, that he would willingly admit +as many more as I cared to recommend to him. + +Of events of general interest this spring, I recall a fascinating +lecture by Sven Hedin on his Tibetan travels. The eminent explorer had +a bumper audience and a great reception, and was given an honorary +degree by Convocation next day. Kennard and I agreed in resenting his +arrogant and bumptious {136} manner; and the tone of some of his +remarks might have prepared us for the outburst of anti-English +fanaticism for which he made himself notorious a few years later. +There was a big gathering at the Schools one evening in celebration of +the centenary of Darwin. The oratorical tributes and panegyrics were, +as usual, so lengthy as to become wearisome; but an interesting feature +was the presence of three of Darwin's sons, of whom one (Sir George) +gave us some pleasant personal details and reminiscences of his +distinguished father. His affectionate loyalty to a parent's memory +one can sympathize with and understand; but I confess that, reading the +"pulpit references" to the centenary that week, I was puzzled to +comprehend how Christian ministers could "let themselves go" in +indiscriminating panegyric of a man of whom I hope it is not +uncharitable, as it is certainly not untrue, to say that he was, if any +man ever was, a self-confessed unbeliever in revelation and in +Christ.[1] The utterances on such an occasion of a distinguished +occupant of the university pulpit a generation earlier[2] would +certainly have been pitched in a different key; and so would those of +my old friend Dr. Frederick George Lee, whose summary of the logical +result of Darwin's teaching was-- + + +The Incarnation is but a dream, the Supernatural a delusion. Our only +duties are to feed and to breed. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow +we die. + + +I received into the Church this term an undergraduate of one of the +smaller colleges, who was reading {137} for natural science honours and +rowed in his college boat; but he had evidently had time for reading +and reflection as well, and had thought the whole matter out so +carefully that I had little left to do. In order to keep him back at +the eleventh hour, his tutor (an Anglican divine of some repute) kept +propounding to him historical difficulties such as "How was it that +Henry of Navarre was allowed by the Pope to have two wives at once?" +and so on. My young friend used to bring me these nuts to crack, and +we had a good deal of fun over them. + +It was proposed, and decided, before Easter that Oxford should send a +representative to Louvain in the summer, to take part in the jubilee +celebrations of the Catholic University. Cambridge, London, Glasgow, +Aberdeen, and, I believe, other universities, had all elected, as a +compliment to Louvain, to send a Catholic representative on this +occasion; and the senior proctor told me that my name had been +mentioned before the Council in this connection. Oxford, however, +declined to associate itself with the other universities in this +graceful act of courtesy--one which, as I heard privately from Louvain, +was very highly appreciated there. A clergyman of the Church of +England was nominated as the Oxford representative; and to a letter of +remonstrance which (after consulting one or two of our resident +masters) I sent to the Vice-chancellor, he replied by a +courteously-worded note of explanation--which explained nothing. + +Early in March I paid an interesting little visit to Douai Abbey, in +the beautiful wooded country about Pangbourne, and lectured to the +community and their eighty pupils on Jerusalem. I had a warmly {138} +Benedictine welcome here, and was glad to see additions being made to +the buildings of the former diocesan college of Portsmouth, which the +bishop had made over to the monks when they were expelled from their +beloved home at Douai, by decree of the French Government dated April +3, 1903. Term over, I went up to Yorkshire to spend St. Benedict's +festival with my brethren at Ampleforth, where I found myself deputed +that evening to present the football colours in the college. They were +scarlet and black; but while reminding the young players that those +were the traditional colours of Mephistopheles, I disclaimed any +intention of suggesting a common origin. My stay here was saddened by +the rather unexpected news of the death of my dear old friend George +Angus of St. Andrews. He had long been the only Catholic member of his +Oxford Hall; and exactly a week before his death I had had, by a +consoling coincidence, the pleasure of reconciling to the Catholic +Church an undergraduate of the same venerable foundation. + +I stayed a night in London, on my way to Arundel, to hear Lord Hugh +Cecil discourse at our Westminster Dining-club, with his usual +perfervid rhetoric, on "Some Diseases of the House of Commons." Two of +our University Members, Sir William Anson and Professor Butcher, joined +in the interesting subsequent discussion. A friend next morning +insisted on carrying me off to Selfridge's, the huge new emporium in +Oxford Street, and showing me all over it. He amused me by a story of +how there, or in some other Brobdingnagian London store, the electric +light suddenly went out, just at the busiest hour of the evening. +"There they were--thousands of {139} 'em," the narrator of the incident +is supposed to have said, "pinching the goods right and left--'aving +the time of their lives, with not a light in the 'ole place; and there +was _I_--just my blooming luck--where do you think? _in the grand piano +department!_" + +I went for the week-end to Rickmansworth, to stay with Lady Encombe, +who had a little party for the laying of the foundation-stone of the +new church of the Assumptionists. The Bishop of Kimberley (S.A.) gave +a nice address. I preached next day (Sunday) in the old church, and in +the evening we all listened to a quaint Franco-English sermonette from +good Fr. Julian, the superior. Monday was Jack Encombe's tenth +birthday: I gave him _Jorrocks_, with coloured plates, which delighted +him; saw him and his brother start hunting on their ponies (their +mother following them awheel); and then left for Arundel, where I was +very glad to find myself (though not yet fully robust) able to take my +share in the solemn Easter services. I found the castle grounds at +length "redd up" and in perfect order; the hordes of workmen vanished, +and lawns and terraces and shrubberies and flower-beds twinkling in the +April sunshine. It was a joy to see the beautiful home of the Howards +looking itself again after all these years of reconstruction and +upheaval. The Duke had told me that he was determined to get the place +shipshape within a year of his second marriage, or (like Trelawny) +"know the reason why!" and he had been as good as his word. I heard +with pleasure in Easter week that my nephew had got his first in +moderations at Balliol; and with sorrow of the death of my kind old +friend Bishop {140} Wilkinson, successor of St. Cuthbert as Bishop of +Hexham, and a shining example of loyalty and devotion to his Church and +his country. I lunched in London, on my way to Oxford, with Lady +Maple, at Clarence House, the pretty residence in Regent's Park left to +her by Sir Blundell Maple. Telephoning previously to "Clarence House" +to inquire the luncheon-hour, I was informed in haughty tones that +"their Royal 'Ighnesses were in Egypt, and that nothing was known about +any luncheon!" It turned out that I was in communication with the +other Clarence House, the St. James's residence of the Duke of +Connaught. + +My first duty, on returning to Oxford, was to marry my cousin John +Simeon,[3] until recently an undergraduate of the House, to Miss +Adelaide Holmes a Court. My little sermon at the Jesuit church (which +was almost filled with the wedding guests) was not intended to be +otherwise than cheerful, and I was surprised in the course of it to +observe the unusual phenomenon of the bridegroom's father dissolved in +tears! The happy couple motored off later to North Wales in a downpour +of rain, which (I heard) never once stopped during their brief +honeymoon. + +Father Maturin (whose repute as an orator had been long established in +Oxford) was giving our weekly conferences this term, and I was greatly +struck with them--packed close with thought and luminous argument, and +scintillating besides with {141} genuine eloquence. I had heard many +of his pulpit orations, but I thought this series of lectures the +finest thing he had ever done, though perhaps slightly over the heads +of his undergraduate auditors. I was myself fully occupied at this +time with a long article (biographical and critical) on St. Gregory +Nazianzene,[4] which, by a happy coincidence, I completed on May 9, the +feast-day of that great saint and doctor. I took two days off for a +visit to Cambridge (my first for fourteen years) in connection with the +Fisher Society dinner, at which I represented Oxford and the "Newman." +Some distinguished guests--a Cardinal, a judge, an author, and a +statesman--failed us at the last moment; but the gathering was cheery +and successful and the after-dinner oratory much less wearisome than +usual. I visited, of course, while at Cambridge, the really noble +Catholic church of Our Lady--finer, I thought (as I had thought +before), and more impressive outside than in. I remembered that the +great church of St. John at Norwich had given me precisely the contrary +impression. + +I was always bidden to (and pleased, when I could to attend) the +numerous weddings of my youthful relatives. One, in these early summer +days, was that of my pretty cousin, Eleanor Bowlby, to a Dorrien-Smith, +heir-apparent to the "King of Scilly," as his sobriquet was, though I +believe his proper local title was "Lord Proprietor." I sat at the +ceremony next to my brother-in-law Charles Dalrymple, who did not +approve of the ever-popular "O for the Wings of a Dove!" which a little +chorister warbled in the course of the service. {142} "Absurd and +unreal!" I heard him mutter. "They are going to Paris for their +honeymoon, and don't want doves' wings, or to be at rest either."[5] +On the same evening I attended, at the invitation of the genial head +master of University College School (whom I had known when on the staff +of Inverness College), an excellent presentation of _Alcestis_ in the +fine oak-panelled hall of his school at Hampstead. Not all the +audience witnessed dry-eyed the death of the poor heroine; the +sustained pathos, too, of Admetus was admirably portrayed; but the +chief honours of the evening fell to a young hero of six-foot-four, who +had played great cricket for the school against the M.C.C., and was a +most doughty and convincing Herakles. A very pleasant evening's +entertainment, which I had to abandon not quite completed to catch the +midnight train to Oxford; for I was interested in a debate in +Convocation next day, on the perennial problem of how and where to +house the ever-increasing thousands of books accruing to the Bodleian +Library. There were some drastic suggestions thrown out--one, if I +remember right, was to make a bonfire of all the obsolete works on +theology, philosophy and natural science! but our final decision was to +adopt somebody's ingenious proposal to excavate underground chambers, +with room for a million or so volumes, under the grass-plots round the +Radcliffe camera. This point settled, I went to lunch with my friend +Hadow in his rooms at Worcester, the former calefactory or +recreation-room (so he said) of {143} our whilom Benedictine students, +and looking out on a long narrow raised garden which there is reason to +believe was once the monastic bowling-green. I thought, as often +before, of the many unknown nooks and corners in this dear Oxford of +ours, each bearing its silent witness to some phase of her "strange +eventful history." + +A few interesting incidents in this--my last summer term in +residence--come back to me as I write. I recall a crowded meeting at +the Town Hall enthusiastically cheering a vitriolic attack on the +Admiralty by "Lieutenant Carlyon Bellairs, M.P., R.N." (a most +un-sailor-like person); a paper, or rather a harangue, at the Newman +Society, from Hilaire Belloc on "The Church and Reality," which left us +gasping at his cleverness but rather doubtful as to his drift; and an +odd meeting of dons and dignitaries at Hertford College, whereat Lord +Hugh Cecil was accepted as prospective Parliamentary candidate for the +university. I have called it "odd"; for odd it certainly was to hear +the Master of University, who proposed Lord Hugh, assert that he did so +in spite of his own profound disagreement with him on fiscal, +ecclesiastical, and educational questions! As a matter of fact, it +mattered little what the Master of University or anybody else thought, +said, or did; for as every one knew that the six hundred clerical +members of Convocation would vote for Lord Hugh to a man, his election +was of course a foregone conclusion. + +My last evening at Oxford was a happy one: a pleasant party gathered +round the Vice-chancellor's hospitable table, and after dinner the +Commemoration concert at Magdalen, Waynflete's ancient {144} hall +echoing with old madrigals perfectly rendered by the unrivalled choir, +and we guests, during the interval, flitting about the cloisters, dimly +lit with Chinese lanterns, and set out with tables of refreshments. I +left Oxford next day for Birmingham, for a jubilee celebration at the +Oratory School--a solemn memorial service in the fine church, an +admirable representation of Terence's _Phormio_ (as arranged by +Cardinal Newman), and a prize-distribution presided over by the Duke of +Norfolk. The Duke was next day the chief guest at an Oxford and +Cambridge Catholic graduates' dinner in London, and proposed the toast +of Oxford University, to which I had the pleasure of replying. I took +occasion to point out our guest's new and close family connection with +Oxford, where he had recently had three nephews, while two more were +shortly going up. His own father, the previous Duke, had been a +Cambridge man. London was so sultry during these midsummer days, that +it was pleasant to find oneself transported to the Antarctic Circle, +listening (at the Albert Hall) to Shackleton's fascinating narrative of +his trip to the South Pole. His great lantern pictures made one feel +almost cool: and the groups of solemn penguins, in their +black-and-white, pacing along the snowy shores, were quite curiously +reminiscent of a gathering of portly bishops--say at a Pan-Anglican +Congress. + +I refused to stay in London (as I had proposed doing) to attend an +international anti-vivisection meeting in Trafalgar Square, when I +found that I was expected to speak (from the back of a lion?). I fled +to Surrey, to stay first with my sister at her {145} newly-acquired +home near Reigate, a pretty old house in a "careless-ordered garden" of +which Tennyson would have approved; and then to the Kennards at their +charming Elizabethan manor-house of Great Tangley. The Sunday of my +visit here I spent partly at the fine diocesan seminary of Wonersh, and +partly at the Greyfriars monastery at Chilworth. The same architect +had designed the chapels at both; and I admired the skill with which he +had achieved extremely effective results by entirely different methods +of treatment. From Surrey I travelled to Scotland, to preach a charity +sermon at Saltcoats, in Ayrshire, for the excellent work of the Society +of St. Vincent of Paul. Saltcoats was within easy reach of Kelburn, +and I went thither for a short visit, finding my sister enjoying what +was always one of the chief pleasures of her life--that of having +helped to secure the happy engagement of one of our numerous nieces, +the elder daughter of my third brother. + +My Oxford Local Examination work lay this summer not among the little +maidens of Dumfries Convent School, but at St. Wilfrid's College at +Oakamoor, in the picturesque Staffordshire Highlands, a country quite +new to me. My room commanded a lovely view of wooded glens and distant +purple hills; and the place itself was full of interest, incorporating +as it did the old house of Cotton Hall, given by Lord Shrewsbury fifty +years before to Faber and his "Wilfridian" community, most of whom +joined the Oratory after their conversion to Catholicism. I admired +Pugin's church, at once graceful and austere, with the famous east +window which the architect told Lord Shrewsbury he "could {146} die +for."[6] I had a pleasant week here, presiding on the last day at the +school prize-distribution, and promising the boys a new set of Scott's +novels, to replace the one which, I was glad to see, was worn out with +assiduous reading. + +Going on to Cardiff from Staffordshire, I found Lady Bute entertaining +the Cymnodorion and other mysterious Welsh societies in the castle +grounds. I was lodged in the lofty clock-tower, in one of Burges's +wonderful painted chambers, and said mass for the family and large +house-party on Sunday in the richly-decorated but tiny domestic +chapel--so tiny (it has been the dressing-room of Bute's grandfather, +who died there) that most of my congregation were outside in the +passage, and the scene recalled my mass in the Grotto of the Nativity +at Bethlehem eight years before. I had never thought to see a Pageant +again; but the Welsh one, for some reason, had been postponed to this +summer, and we all attended the opening representation on July 26, most +of our house-party, indeed, taking part in the show. Lady Bute was +Dame Wales, and Lady Ninian Stuart Glamorgan; but the great reception +of the day was reserved for Lord Tredegar, veteran of Balaclava, and +the most popular magnate of Wales, who came on in full armour as Owen +Glendower, with Lady Llangattock as Lady Glendower. I thought the +finest feature of the Pageant the singing of the national hymn, "Hen +Wlad fy nhadau," at the close, actors and audience all joining in the +stirring chorus with thrilling effect. Most of {147} the next day we +spent at Caerphilly Castle, whither Princess Louise and the Duke of +Argyll came to explore the imposing ruins. + +I spent a couple of nights, on leaving Cardiff, at Belmont Priory, full +to me of old Benedictine memories; and in August I was once more my +brother's guest at his pleasant river-side home near Shepperton. One +day we devoted to a visit to Hampton Court--my first, curiously enough. +We saw everything conscientiously, great hall, state-rooms, pictures (I +had not expected so many good ones), big vine, and Dutch garden; but I +think I was most struck, entering Clock Court under the red turreted +tower, with the almost uncanny likeness of the place to the familiar +School-yard at Eton.[7] From Shepperton I presently moved higher up +the river to Goring, to attend the local regatta, of which my kind host +there was secretary and treasurer. He was likewise the leading +Catholic of the little mission, and had given up his commodious +boat-house to serve as a chapel till the pretty church was built. The +_padre_ at that time was a German priest called Hell (to which he later +added an e for euphony), while the name of the Anglican vicar, oddly +enough, was Dams! My host's son accompanied me up to town on an +excursion to the White City, where the outstanding attraction (how +strange it seems to-day!) was the aeroplane in which Bleriot had +achieved the unprecedented feat of crossing the Channel. London struck +me as a curious place in mid-August: a city of aliens and country +visitors, French and German {148} chattered everywhere, and the only +familiar face among the millions that of Simon Lovat, whom I came +across at Hatchard's buying books. + +George Lane Fox claimed my services as chaplain, before I returned to +Scotland, at Monkhams, the pretty place near Waltham Cross where he was +then living with his family; the house stood atop of a high hill +(pleasantly cool in these sultry August days), and was quite rural, +though the Lights o' London were clearly visible at night not many +miles away. There was a tiny chapel for our daily services, and a big +scouts' camp in the park close by, whence a quota of young worshippers +turned up for Sunday mass. George took me to see the noble church at +Waltham (surely one of the finest Norman naves in England),[8] and, +across the Lea, the beautiful and still perfect Eleanor Cross in the +market-place, before I went north to pay a few farewell visits to +Scottish relatives, in view of my approaching departure for South +America. At Blairquhan I found my brother entertaining his customary +August party, with, as usual, a considerable naval contingent. The +weather was "soft"--in other words, it rained every day and all day; +but people shot, fished, golfed, motored and played tennis quite +regardless of the elements. My brother had {149} developed a passion +for mechanical music; and the house was continuously resonant with the +weird strains of pianolas, gramophones and musical boxes. There was +music, too, of a strenuous kind when I reached Dunskey in preparation +for an amateur concert for some good object (I forget what) at +Portpatrick. My brother-in-law, David Glasgow, sang a naval song or +two with astonishing vigour and sweetness for a man of seventy-six; I +contributed "The Baby on the Shore," which I had first sung on the old +_Magdalena_ going out to Brazil in 1896; and the entertainment was so +successful that an overflow concert had to be arranged for the +following evening. I was sorry to leave the merry and pleasant party; +but I was due at Aberdeen to assist at the presentation of his portrait +to our kind old friend Bishop Chisholm, on the occasion of his +sacerdotal golden jubilee. The presentation ceremony took two hours, +and the luncheon afterwards two hours more! Why is there no time-limit +to the oratory on such occasions? I contrived to propose the health of +the whole Hierarchy of Scotland[9] in exactly six minutes (one minute +for each bishop); but the length of some of the speeches was appalling. +Next day I went on to Fort Augustus, where I found myself, after a +quarter of a century, "presiding" (as the phrase is) again at the +organ, our organist being away on a walking tour among the hills. In +the week after my return our local games (the Gleann Mhor Gathering) +came off in {150} glorious weather. Motors from neighbouring lodges +occupied the monastic lawns: the Chief of Glenmoriston and other noted +highlanders were acting as judges; and "quite a special feature (so +said one of the reporters) was given to the gay scene by the +black-robed monks, who flitted [I like that word] hither and thither +with a word of welcome for all." As a matter of fact, one of our +community (a Macdonell, to wit) was the moving spirit of the Gathering, +the success of which was in great measure owing to his efforts and +enthusiasm. + + + +[1] I would not venture to make such a statement except on the best +authority--Darwin's own words. See Appendix. + +[2] Dean Burgon. See _ante_, page 104. + +[3] His grandfather, Sir John Simeon, M.P. for the Isle of Wight, had +married my father's cousin, one of the Colvilles of Culross. They were +both converts to the Catholic Church. Johnnie succeeded his father as +fourth baronet in 1915. + +[4] For the _Catholic Encyclopaedia_ (vol. vii., pp. 10-14). + +[5] The most inappropriate wedding-anthem I ever heard was at a smart +marriage in Scotland; it was sung by a lady, and was called, "With thee +th' unsheltered moor I tread!" + +[6] Pugin's ecstatic allusion was, of course, to the tracery of the +window designed by himself, not to the (contemporary) stained glass, +which is in truth _laid a faire fremir_. + +[7] The likeness was the more remarkable in view of the fact that there +is a difference of eighty years in the respective dates (Eton _c._ +1440, Hampton Court, _c._ 1520) of the two buildings. + +[8] George was greatly amused with a description which I afterwards +sent him from a fifty-year old church paper, of a Victorian +"restoration" of this fine old church. There were oak choir-stalls (so +wrote the aggrieved reporter), but no choir, the stalls being occupied +by fashionably-dressed ladies. The only ornament of the restored +sanctuary was a gigantic Royal Arms under the East Window--"a work in +which the treatment of the Unicorn's tail is especially remarkable for +what Mr. Ruskin would call its 'loving reverence for truth.'" + +[9] I amused the company, in this connection, with the tale of the +undergraduate who was asked in an examination to enumerate the Minor +Prophets. "Well," said the youth after some hesitation, "I really do +not care to make invidious distinctions!" + + + + +{151} + +CHAPTER IX + +1909-1910 + +Since my first visit to Brazil in 1896-97, my Benedictine friends +labouring in that vast country had frequently expressed the wish that I +should, if possible, return and help them in their great work of +restoration and reconstruction, for which more labourers were urgently +needed. With health in great measure restored, and the headship of our +Oxford Hall, which I had held for ten years, passed into other hands, +the way to South America seemed once again open; and the autumn of 1909 +found me fully authorized to make all necessary preparations for the +voyage. I left Fort Augustus happy in the assurance that the long +anticipated, and generally desired, reunion of our abbey with the +English mother-congregation was certain to be soon realized; and stayed +at Beaufort for a few days before going south, meeting there "Abe" +Bailey (of South African renown), Hubert Jerningham, and some other +interesting people. My last glimpse of the Highlands was a golden +afternoon spent in the White Garden (the idea of one of the daughters +of the house), and a vision of serried masses of white blossoms--I +never realized before how many shades of white there are--standing up +in their pale beauty against the dark background of trees which +encircle {152} one of the most beautiful of Scottish gardens. From +Beaufort I went to Kelburn to take leave of my sister, whom I found +entertaining her Girls' Friendly Society, assisted by twenty +bluejackets from a cruiser lying off Arran. Their commander, Lord +George Seymour, had brought his sailors by express invitation to play +about and have tea with the Friendly Girls--an arrangement which seemed +quite satisfactory to all parties! I crossed the Firth next day to say +good-bye to Lady Bute, who was in residence at her pretty home in the +Isle of Cumbrae, and went on the same afternoon to visit my hospitable +cousin Mrs. Wauchope at beautiful Niddrie. The Somersets and other +agreeable folk were my fellow-guests there; and Andrew Lang arrived +next day, and seemed--shall I say it?--a little bit "out of the +picture." I was accustomed to his small affectations and egotisms and +cynical "asides," which always seemed to me more or less of a pose; for +the eminent writer was really a very kind-hearted man, and I dare say +just as humble-minded in reality as any of us. The poor Duke of +Somerset, however, who had no affectations or pretentions of any kind, +could not do with Mr. Lang at all; and I remember his imploring me +(against my usual habit) to come and sit in the smoking-room at night, +so that they should be on no account left _tete-a-tete_! On Sunday we +all walked to see the noble ruins of Craigmillar Castle, sadly +reminiscent of poor Queen Mary, and admirably tended by their present +owner, whom we chanced to meet there, and whom I interested by a tale +(oddly enough he had never heard it) of a ghost-face on the wall of his +own house at Liberton. + +At Woodburn, where I spent the following Sunday, {153} and where Lord +Ralph and Lady Anne Kerr were always delighted to welcome a priest to +officiate in their tiny oratory, I found staying with Ralph his brother +Lord Walter, whose seventieth birthday we kept as a family festival, +and who on the same day retired, as Admiral of the Fleet, from the Navy +in which he had served for fifty-six years. Our birthday expedition +was a most interesting pilgrimage to the Holy Well of St. Triduana, +near Restalrig, with its beautiful vaulted Gothic roof, recently +restored by the owner, Lord Moray.[1] The unpretentious little +Catholic chapel hard by pleased me more than the elaborate and +expensive new church recently erected at Portobello, which we also +visited. I broke my journey south at Longridge Towers, and whilst +there motored over with Sir Brooke Boothby, our Minister in Chili (an +agreeable and well-informed person) to see the poor remains of the +great convent at Coldingham--sad enough, but wonderfully interesting. +I made a farewell call at Ampleforth _en route_, lingering an hour at +York to admire the west front of the minster, from which all the +scaffolding was at length down after years of careful and patient +repairs. Hurrying through London, I travelled to Brighton and Seaford, +for the opening (by the Bishop of Southwark) of the new Ladycross +school, recently transferred from Bournemouth. There was quite a +notable gathering of old pupils and friends, and I had a charming +neighbour at luncheon in the person of Madame Navarro (Mary Anderson), +on my other {154} side being Count Riccardi-Cubitt, English-born, but a +Papal Count in right of his wife. The speeches, from the bishop, Lord +Southwell, and others, were for once commendably short. + +I was bidden to meet at luncheon in London next day Princess Marie +Louise--a title unfamiliar to me: it had, in fact, been lately adopted +to avoid confusion with an aunt and cousin, both also called Louise. +We spoke of the recent re-discovery of an abbey in Lincolnshire, of +which literally not a single stone had been left above ground by the +iconoclasts of the sixteenth century. "My terrible great-uncle again, +I suppose!" said Her Highness with a deprecatory smile. The reference +was to Henry VIII.! but I hazarded a conjecture that the work of +destruction dated from later and Puritan days. I attended on this same +afternoon the marriage of my old friend Herbert Maxwell's only son to +the youngest daughter of the House of Percy, at St. Peter's, Eaton +Square, the bright and ornate interior of which contrasted cheerfully +with the mirk and mire outside. The Bishop of Peterborough, the +bride's uncle, tied the knot; and the church, and the Duchess of +Northumberland's house in Grosvenor Place afterwards, were thronged +with Percys and Campbells and Glyns. + +After two busy days at Oxford, devoted to packing up and to taking +hasty farewells of kind old friends (both things I detest), I went down +to Hampshire to spend the Sunday previous to sailing with my brother at +Kneller Court. The omens were inauspicious, for it blew hard all day, +with torrents of rain. Next morning, however, was calm and bright as +we motored to Southampton, where I boarded {155} R.M.S.P. _Aragon_, +nearly 5,000 tons bigger than the good old _Magdalena_. We sailed at +noon, crossed to Cherbourg in perfect weather, and found the Bay of +Biscay next day all smiles and dimples and sunshine. I did not land at +Lisbon, having seen it all before, and having no friends there. We +dropped quietly down the Tagus at sundown, just when points of light +were breaking out over the city, and all the church bells seemed to be +ringing the Angelus. We had a full ship, and our voyage was +diversified by the usual sports, of which I was an "honorary +president," my colleagues in that sinecure office being a Brazilian +coffee-king, the President-elect of Argentina, and a Belgian Baron. +There were four Scotsmen at my table in the saloon, three of them +Davids! Somewhere about the Equator we kept the birthday of King +Edward, whose health was pledged by Brazilians and Argentinos as +cordially and enthusiastically as by the British. I wrote to Fritz +Ponsonby to tell him of this, for His Majesty's information.[2] Two +days later we sighted the low green shores of Brazil. I looked with +interest at the well-remembered heights of Olinda, with the white walls +of S. Bento shining {156} in the morning sun. Somehow I did not +picture myself stationed there again, though a newspaper which came +aboard at Pernambuco announced, I noticed, that "o conhecido +educationalista sr. David Hurter-blais" was coming to that city "afim +de tratar da educacao religiosa das classes populares!" The passengers +for Pernambuco, I observed, were now chucked into the Company's lighter +in a basket (in West African style), instead of having to "shin" down a +dangerous companion in a heavy swell, as we used to do. Two +lank-haired red-brown Indians, who came on board here to sell feather +fans and such things, interested me; and I recalled how Emerson had +described the aboriginals of North America as the "provisional +races"--"the red-crayon sketch of humanity laid on the canvas before +the colours for the real manhood were ready." + +My destination on this voyage was not, as thirteen years previously, +the steaming Equatorial State of Pernambuco, and the venerable +half-derelict city of Olinda, whither our Benedictine pioneers had come +out from Europe soon after the fall of the Brazilian Empire, just in +time, as it seemed, to save the Benedictine Order in that vast country +from collapse and utter extinction. From Olinda the arduous work of +revival and restoration had gone quietly and steadily on, including one +by one the ancient and almost abandoned abbeys of the old Brazilian +Congregation; and it was to one of these, the monastery of our Order in +the great and growing city of S. Paulo, that my steps were now turned. +Bahia, two days voyage from Pernambuco, is a city to which (like +Constantinople) distance very decidedly lends enchantment, and I did +not land {157} there. It was raining fast, and the fantastic hilltops +were wrapped in clouds, as we entered Rio Bay. I was welcomed by a +kind Belgian monk whom I had known at Olinda in 1896, and who drove me +up to our fine old Portuguese abbey, standing on its own mount or +_morro_ close to the sea, where I had paid my respects to the last of +the old Brazilian abbots a dozen years before. A vigorous young +community now occupied the long-empty cells; and the conduct of a +flourishing college, as well as pastoral work of various kinds outside, +gave scope to their energy and zeal. + +The weather next day was perfect, and my friend Dom Amaro devoted two +or three hours to driving me round the City Beautiful. Beautiful, of +course, it had always been; but I was astounded at the transformation +which had taken place in four short years. From "the cemetery of the +foreigner," as Rio had been called when its name, like those of Santos, +Havana and Panama, had been almost synonymous with pestilence and +death, it had become one of the healthiest, as it had always been one +of the loveliest, capitals in the world. Four men--Brazilians +all--minister of works, engineer, doctor, and prefect of the city,[3] +had undertaken in 1905 the gigantic task of the city's sanitation. The +extermination of the mosquitoes which caused yellow fever and malaria, +the destruction of their breeding-places, the widening of malodorous +streets, the demolition of thousands of buildings, the disinfection +{158} and removal of tens of thousands of tons of garbage, the +filling-up of swamps and marshes, were only preliminary to the colossal +work of reconstruction of which I saw some of the results. Right +through the central city was pierced the new Avenida, a broad +thoroughfare lined with noble buildings, of which the theatre, built at +enormous cost, and rivalling the Paris Opera, struck me most. More +striking still was the new Beira Mar, the unique sea-drive skirting the +bay for four miles, and leading to the equally beautiful circular +esplanade round the Bay of Botafogo. Here I left cards and letters of +introduction on the British Minister (who, I may remark _en passant_, +never took the slightest notice of either,)[4]; and we drove homewards +in a golden sunset, the whole city flushed with rosy light, and the +heights of Corcovado and the Organ Mountains glowing purple--as purple +as the evening tints of Hymettus and Pentelicus which gave to Athens +the immortal name of [Greek: Iostephanos], the violet-crowned. Behind +us the pointed Sugar-loaf rose grey and menacing into the opal sky; and +I recalled the quaint Brazilian tradition which tells how the Creator, +when He had made the Bay of Rio and found it very good, desired to call +man's admiring attention to His masterpiece by a mark of exclamation. +The mark of exclamation is the Sugar-loaf! We met in the Avenida, +returning from a grand _formatura_ (review) in honour of the day (it +was the anniversary of the foundation of the Republic), the +President--a {159} mulatto, by the way--and his staff, in a none too +gorgeous gala carriage. I was told that he was extremely popular. + +To reach S. Paulo from Rio I had the choice of two routes, the +pleasanter being that by sea to Santos, and an ascent thence to the +inland city by one of the most wonderful of the world's railways. But +as I wished to see something of the country, I chose the twelve hours' +train journey direct from the capital--and repented my choice; for +though the first part of the route was through fine scenery, as we +climbed the lofty Serra which stretches for miles along the Brazilian +coast, the dust, heat and jolting of the train soon grew almost +insufferable. I was very glad to reach S. Paulo, where the air was +pleasantly cool and fresh (the city stands 2,100 feet above the sea, +and just outside the tropical zone[5]), and where the kind abbot of S. +Bento, whom I had known up to then only by correspondence, met me at +the station. We were soon at his monastery, which was well situated, +occupying a whole side of one of the principal squares of the city, and +of historic interest as built on the same spot where, three hundred and +ten years before, the first Benedictine foundation in the then village +of S. Paulo had been made by Frei Mauro Texeira, a zealous and fervent +monk of Bahia. The monastery, as I knew it in 1909, was an +unpretentious building of the early eighteenth century, constructed not +of stone but of _taipa_ (compressed earth), its long {160} whitewashed +front pierced by ten windows, and flanked by the facade of the church +with its low cupola'd tower. My host, Abbot Miguel, who had been +appointed prior of the restored abbey in 1900, and abbot seven years +later, had inaugurated in 1903 a school for boys, which numbered at my +arrival some 300 pupils. For their accommodation, and for that of his +growing community, he had done all that was possible with the old and +inadequate buildings of the monastery, to which he had built on various +additions. But he and his community had already decided that a +complete reconstruction of both abbey and church was absolutely +essential for the development of their educational and other work; and +I found them all studying and discussing ornate and elaborate plans by +a well-known Bavarian architect, who had "let himself go" in a west +front apparently in English Elizabethan style (recalling Hatfield), and +a Byzantine church with Perpendicular Gothic details and two lofty +towers.[6] The process of demolition, commencing with the choir of the +old church, was started a few weeks after I reached S. Paulo; and I +remember that we were nearly asphyxiated by the falling and crumbling +walls, which (as I have said) were built of a kind of adobe or dried +mud, and broke into thick clouds of blinding yellow dust as they +tumbled about our ears. + +The rebuilding of the Benedictine Abbey was only {161} one feature, and +not the most considerable, of the architectural transformation which +was taking place before one's eyes in every part of S. Paulo, and was +developing it from an insignificant provincial capital into one of the +largest and most progressive cities of South America. In twenty years +the population had increased tenfold--from fifty thousand to nearly +half a million--and two facts struck me as both remarkable and +encouraging, namely that the birth-rate was more than double the +death-rate, and was (so I was told) more than double that of +London--nearly thirty-six per thousand. The State and city of S. Paulo +were alike cosmopolitan, 300,000 immigrants (more than half of them +Italians) having entered the country in the year before my arrival, and +more than half the population being of foreign birth. The vast +majority of the day-labourers in the city were Italians, on the whole +an industrious and thrifty race (though not without obvious faults), +who assimilated themselves without difficulty to the country of their +adoption. The rapidly growing prosperity of S. Paulo was shown by the +astonishing appreciation in a few years of the value of land in and +around the city--exceeding, so I was assured by a prominent American, +any phenomenon of the kind in the United States. Our Abbot had, not +long before my arrival, acquired with wise prescience a fine country +estate in the eastern outskirts, which was already worth at least ten +times what he had expended on its purchase. The _chacara_ (as such +properties are called) included a fine old house of Imperial days, +garden, farm, orchard, extensive woods, as well as a lake, football +fields, playgrounds and a rifle-range; and here our young pupils spent +{162} one day every week enjoying the open-air life and sports +unattainable in the city. + +The college, or _gymnasio_, of S. Bento had already taken its +recognised place among the best educational institutions of S. Paulo. +The fathers were assisted in the work of teaching by a competent staff +of lay masters, but retained the religious, moral, and disciplinary +training of their pupils entirely in their own hands; and I was pleased +to see how eminently suited the paternal and family spirit +characteristic of Benedictine education was to Brazilian boys, and how +well on the whole they responded to the efforts of their instructors to +instil into them those habits of obedience, self-control, and moral +responsibility, in which the home training of the children of Latin +America is often so deplorably deficient. Naturally docile, pious, and +intelligent, these little boys were brought under the salutary +influence of S. Bento at an age when there seemed every hope that they +would be tided safely over the difficult years of early adolescence, +and moulded, under solid Christian guidance, into efficient and worthy +citizens of their State and their country.[7] English was taught by an +American priest, who was also an excellent musician, and trained our +little choristers very successfully. Several of the fathers spoke +English well; but I was the only British-born member of the community, +and I was naturally glad of opportunities to meet the scattered English +{163} Catholics who were to be found among the not very numerous +British resident colony. Our little old church, unattractive enough as +to externals, was yet greatly frequented by those (and they were many) +who appreciated the careful reverence of the ceremonial and grave +beauty of the monastic chant. Sermons in Portuguese and German were +already preached regularly at the Sunday masses; and to these was added +soon after my arrival an English sermon, which was very well attended. +One came sometimes in the hospitals of the city, which I visited +regularly, on stray Englishmen of another class--an injured railwayman, +perhaps, or a sick sailor from a British ship, who were glad enough, +even if not Catholics, of a friendly visit from a countryman. I +remember a young Englishman from Warrington in Lancashire (this was one +of the consoling cases), who was dying of some obscure tropical disease +in the Santa Casa, the chief hospital of the city. It was the hottest +time of year, and he suffered much, but never once murmured or +complained. He had been baptized by a Benedictine (but eighteen years +before) in his native town in England, and he looked on it, as he said, +as "a bit of real luck" to be tended by a Benedictine on his death-bed. +"O santinho inglez" (the little English saint) his nurses called him; +and his death--he was never free from pain to the last--was truly the +death of the just, and made an ineffaceable impression on those who +witnessed it. _Fiant novissima mea hujus similia!_ + +I soon fell into the routine of our Brazilian monastic day, which +differed a good deal (especially as to the hours for meals) from our +European time-tables. {164} Coffee betimes; breakfast ("almoco") +before noon; dinner at half-past five, after vespers, suited the school +hours, and the busy life of the community. We anticipated matins at +seven p.m.; hurried to the refectory for a dish of scalding tea +(smothered in sugar, no milk), or a glass of lemonade, then hastened +back to choir for night prayers and sundry pious exercises. This final +collation (if it may be so called) was really alarming: the scorching +tea was gulped down with a reckless rapidity which reminded one of +Quilp tossing off the hissing rum in his riverside arbour! and I used +to return to choir positively perspiring. But our commissariat was on +the whole good, if simple; we had no such privations to face as in old +days at Olinda, and as far as I was concerned the kind abbot was always +on the alert to see that I wanted for nothing. Our chacara supplied us +with farm produce of the best; and great platters of green and purple +grapes, from the same source, were at this season served up at every +meal. + +The abbot, on his first free day, drove me round the interesting city. +We visited a fine girls' school, conducted by Augustinian canonesses; +the superior was sister to an Anglo-Irish Benedictine, and another nun +was a Macpherson, with an accent of that ilk. We saw, also, two +institutions founded by the Abbot, St. Adalbert's Parochial schools, +under nuns of St. Catherine, and a hospital managed by sisters of the +same Order. The hospital stood at the end of the Avenida Paulista, a +noble boulevard lined with handsome houses of every imaginable style of +architecture--Gothic, Renaissance, Moorish, Swiss, Venetian, classical, +rococo, each one in its own glowing and luxuriant garden. This, +naturally, was the rich {165} man's quarter; the working people had of +course their own dwellings, chiefly in the populous industrial district +of Braz. But I saw no slums in S. Paulo, and nowhere the depressing +contrast between ostentatious luxury and poverty-stricken squalor which +is the blot on so many European cities. In S. Paulo there was, in +fact, no poverty:[8] there was work and employment and food for all; +and it is true to say there was no need for any man to be a pauper +except through his own fault. To any one with preconceived ideas of +South American cities as centres of lethargy, indolence, and want of +enterprise, the industrial activity and abounding prosperity of S. +Paulo could not but appear as astonishing. That prosperity, as most +people know, was mainly due to the foresight and energy with which the +Paulistas had realised and utilised the fact that their famous _terra +roxa_ was adaptable for coffee-culture on a scale truly gigantic. Two +years before my arrival (in 1906-07) the production of coffee in Brazil +(three-fourths of it grown in S. Paulo) had reached the amazing figure +of twenty million sacks, five times what it had been a quarter of a +century before. Then, when the supply was found to exceed the demand, +when prices fell by leaps and bounds, and financial disaster seemed +imminent, the shrewd Paulistas conceived and adopted the +much-criticised expedient of "valorisation," the State itself +purchasing an enormous quantity of the crop, and holding it up until +prices became again normal. It was in this and in many {166} other +ways that the Paulistas showed the clearsightedness and acumen which +justly gained for their State and their capital the reputation of being +the most enterprising and progressive on the whole South American +continent. + +The abbot and I finished our afternoon's drive with a little expedition +to Cantareira, a hollow among wooded hills, some twelve or fourteen +miles distant (the access is by a steam tramway), where, set in +charming gardens, are some of the spacious reservoirs feeding the city. +We drank our coffee in a rustic arbour, with bright-hued hummingbirds +glancing and circling round our heads; and returning in the luminous +violet twilight (which struck me always as particularly beautiful in +this clear, high smokeless atmosphere), called to pay our respects to +the Archbishop of the province and diocese of S. Paulo. A zealous +parish priest in the city, where he had built a fine church (St. +Cecilia's), he had been made Bishop of Coritiba at only thirty, and +translated to the metropolitan see two years later. He was not yet +thirty-eight. + +I assisted, before our school broke up for the three months' summer +holidays, at some of the examinations, which were conducted in presence +of a _fiscal_ (Government official), our college being at that time +considered "equiparado," i.e., equivalent to the State secondary +schools, a condition of the privilege being some kind of more or less +nominal Government inspection. The school work, it struck me, had all +been very thoroughly done, though perhaps of a somewhat elementary +kind. A distraction to us all during the last hour was the news of a +great fire raging in the principal business street of the {167} city. +A big German warehouse, the Casa Allema, was in fact burned to the +ground; and we surveyed the conflagration (said, but never proved, to +be the work of incendiaries) from the belfry of our church tower. + +The North American element in S. Paulo, though much smaller than it +became later, was already fairly numerous. A great Canadian company +was responsible for the supply of light and power to S. Paulo as well +as Rio; some of the leading officials in both cities were Catholics, +and became my kind friends. Another hospitable friend was a Scots +banker married to an American wife, whom he habitually addressed as +"Honey!"[9] There was, generally, a very friendly and hospitable +spirit among the English-speaking residents; but (as usual in foreign +cities) it was curiously confined to the circle of their own +countrymen. Some of my Brazilian acquaintances used to express regret +that the English colony, for which they had much respect, never evinced +the least desire for any sort of intimacy with them; and it used to +surprise me to find English families which had been settled in the +country for a whole generation or more, of which not a single member +knew sufficient Portuguese to carry on a quarter of an hour's +conversation with an educated Brazilian of their own class. +Personally, I found such Brazilians as I had the pleasure of meeting +{168} almost uniformly extremely agreeable people--kind, courteous, +cultivated, and refined; and I thought, and still think, the insular +aloofness of my countrymen from the people among whom it was their lot +to live, a distinct disadvantage to themselves, and a mistake from +every point of view. + +It was a curious fact, and one worthy of attention from several points +of view, that at the time of which I am writing the public and official +interest of the Paulistas in educational matters, while undoubtedly +exceeding that of any other community in the Republic, was in practice +almost confined to primary schools. Nearly L400,000, a fifth of the +whole annual budget of the State, was devoted to their support and +extension; many of the school buildings were of almost palatial +appearance; the code was carefully thought out, and the teaching as a +whole efficient; and elementary education was, at least in principle, +obligatory, though the provisions of the law of 1893, which had +established a commission for bringing negligent parents to book and +fining them for non-compliance with the law, were to a great extent a +dead letter. For secondary education, on the other hand, the public +provision was of the slenderest: there were in 1909 but three State +secondary schools in the State of S. Paulo--at Campinas and Ribeirao +Preto, and in the capital; and the Lyceu in the last-named city (with a +population of over 400,000) numbered less than 150 pupils. The +all-important work of the education of the middle and upper classes of +children, both boys and girls, thus fell inevitably into the hands of +private teachers, the best colleges for both sexes (mostly _internatos_ +{169} or boarding-schools) being conducted by foreign religious orders. +These institutions, receiving no State subvention of any kind, were +regarded by the State with a tolerance due less to its appreciation of +the principles on which their education was based, than to an obvious +sense of the economic advantage of leaving private associations to +undertake a work which it neglected itself. The net gain of this +policy of _laisser aller_ was that a large number of children, +belonging to the classes on which depended the future prosperity of the +country, were being carefully educated on solid Christian foundations, +without, as far as I could observe at S. Bento and elsewhere, any +sacrifice of the patriotic principles which Brazil quite rightly +desired should be instilled into the rising generation of her sons and +daughters. + + + +[1] St. Trid's Well (as it was called before the Reformation) had the +repute of miraculously curing diseases of the eye. A satirical +sixteenth-century poet scoffs at the folk who flock to "Saint Trid's to +mend their ene." + +[2] The King (so his secretary wrote to me) was "much surprised and +gratified" at hearing how the toast of his health had been received by +the foreign passengers on an English ship. I sent on the letter from +S. Paulo to the captain, who said it should be framed and hung up on +board, but I never heard if this was done. Edward VII. died less than +six months later, and on December 30, 1917, the _Aragon_, whilst on +transport service in the Mediterranean, was torpedoed (together with +her escort H.M.S. _Attack_), a few miles from Alexandria. The ship +went down within half an hour of being struck, with a loss of more than +six hundred lives. + +[3] Their names are worthy of perpetuation--Lauro Muller, Paulo +Frontin, Pareiro Passo (the Haussmann of Brazil), and Dr. Oswaldo Cruz, +a pupil of Pasteur, and popularly known as the _mata-mosquitos_ +(mosquito-killer). + +[4] This lapse from diplomatic courtesy on the part of Sir William +Haggard was, I take pleasure in recalling, amply atoned for later by +the kindness I received from two of his successors as British +representative in Rio. + +[5] The Tropic of Capricorn passes through S. Paulo--I had even heard +said, through the monastery garden of S. Bento. "Let us dig and look +for it," said one of my little pupils to whom I imparted this supposed +geographical fact. + +[6] When I saw S. Bento (after a long interval) eleven years later, the +new buildings (except for the internal decoration of the church) were +practically complete. Many of the details were no doubt open to +criticism, and were in fact rather severely criticised; but it was a +tribute to the architect that the general effect of his work was +recognized as being both dignified and impressive. + +[7] When I returned to S. Paulo eleven years later, I heard with +pleasure from the parents of some of our former pupils of the +satisfactory way in which their sons had turned out--a happy result +which they attributed to the excellence of their upbringing at S. Bento. + +[8] Let me note once for all that whatever I say about S. Paulo, here +and elsewhere, is founded (facts and figures alike) on what I knew and +learned of the city in 1909-10. A dozen years may, and do, bring many +changes! + +[9] "Honey!" said an American bride (returning from an early morning +walk) at a door--which she imagined to be that of the nuptial +chamber--in the corridor of a big hotel; "honey! it's me: let me in." +No response. "Honey! it's me, it's Mamie: open the door." Still no +answer. "Honey! honey! don't you hear? it's me, honey." Gruff +(unknown) male voice: "Madam, this is not a beehive, it's a bathroom!" + + + + +{170} + +CHAPTER X + +1910 + +The early days of December brought me news from England of the death of +Provost Hornby, my old head master at Eton, aged well over eighty. He +had birched me three times;[1] still, I bore him no malice, though I +did not feel so overcome by the news as Tom Brown did when he heard of +the death of _his_ old head master.[2] An eminent scholar, a "double +blue" at Oxford, of aspect dignified yet kindly, he had seemed to unite +all the qualities necessary or desirable for an arch-pedagogue; yet +{171} no head master had ever entered an office under a cloud of +greater unpopularity. We were all Tories at Eton in the 'sixties; and +the rumoured association of the new head with the hated word _Reform_ +(which his predecessor Dr. Balston was said to have stoutly resisted) +aroused in our youthful breasts a suspicion and dislike which +culminated in the words "No Reform!" being actually chalked on the back +of his gown (I personally witnessed the outrage) as he was ascending +the stairs into Upper School. _Tempora mutantur_: I dare say there are +plenty of young Etonian Radicals nowadays; though I do seem to have +heard of Mr. Winston Churchill having been vigorously hooted in School +Yard, on his first appearance at his old school after "finding +salvation" in the Radical camp. + +Two or three weeks before Christmas our abbot found himself rather +suddenly obliged to sail for Europe on important business--leaving me a +little forlorn, for he was my only real friend in our rather +cosmopolitan community, though all were kindly and pleasant. The +midsummer heat, too, was more trying than I had anticipated on this +elevated plateau; and though the nights were sensibly cooler, they were +disturbed by mosquitoes, tram-bells in the square outside, _grillos_ +and _cigarras_ in our cloister garden beneath, our discordant church +bells[3] striking every quarter above one's head, and our big +watch-dog, Bismarck, baying in the yard. I accompanied the abbot to +the station, where the _dispedida_ (leave-taking) in this country was +always an affair of much demonstration and copious embracing. When +{172} he had gone we all settled down for a week's retreat, given by a +venerable-looking and (I am sure) pious, but extraordinarily grimy, +Redemptorist father, who must have found it an uncommonly hard week's +work in the then temperature, for he "doubled" each of his Portuguese +sermons by a duplicate German discourse addressed to the lay brethren. +This pious exercise over, we prepared for the Christmas festival, which +I enjoyed. It was my privilege to officiate at matins and lauds and +the solemn Mass, lasting from half-past ten till nearly two. Our +church (the demolition of which had not yet begun) was elaborately +adorned and filled with a crowd of devout communicants, young and old; +and when the long services were over, our good brothers gathered round +the Christmas crib, and sang immensely long and pious German songs far +into the small hours of morning. Later in the day I went up to +Paradise ("Paraiso," the name of one of our picturesque suburbs), and +lunched with the kind Canadian family whose pleasant hospitality +constitutes one of the most agreeable souvenirs of my sojourn at S. +Paulo, both at this time and ten years later. + +After New Year we had a sudden cool spell, with a southerly wind +bringing refreshing airs from the Pole; and I profited by it to extend +my daily walk, visiting churches and other places of interest in and +about the city. Such old Portuguese churches as the _Se_ (cathedral) +had a certain interest, though no beauty in themselves. The side +altars, surmounted by fat and florid saints boxed up in arbours of +artificial flowers, were painfully grotesque; and the big church was +decked (for Christmastide) with {173} faded red damask which, like Mrs. +Skewton's rose-coloured curtains, only made uglier what was already +ugly. A scheme, however, was afoot for pulling the whole place down; +and a model and plans for a great Gothic cathedral of white granite +were already on exhibition in a neighbouring window, and were exciting +much attention. A few of the other old churches in the city had +already been demolished to make way for new ones, mostly of an +uninteresting German Romanesque type, planned by German architects. +Native talent, however, was responsible for the splendid theatre, its +facade adorned with red granite monoliths; but the finest building in +S. Paulo (perhaps in Brazil) was the creation of an Italian architect +(Bezzi). This was the noble palace at Ypiranga--a site dear to +Brazilians as the scene of the Proclamation of Independence in +1822--now used as a museum of ethnography and natural history, and +containing collections of great and constantly increasing value and +importance. S. Paulo in 1909 was--perhaps is even now, a dozen years +later--a city still in the making;[4] but the intelligence of its +planning, the zeal of its enterprising citizens for its extension and +embellishment, and the noticeable skill and speed of the workmen +(nearly all Italians) under whose hands palatial buildings were rising +on every side, were full of promise for the future. + +In 1909 the Instituto Serumtherapico, now very adequately housed at +Butantan (popularly known {174} as the "chacara dos serpentes," or +snake-farm), a mile or two from the city, was only beginning, after +years of patient and fruitful research, its remarkable work--a work of +which (like the sanitation and reconstruction of Rio and the successful +campaign against yellow fever) the credit is due to Brazilians and not +to the strangers within their gates. The serums discovered by the +founder of the Institute, Dr. Vidal Brazil, for the cure of snake-bite +are as important and beneficent, within the vast area where the +mortality from this cause has hitherto been far greater than is +generally known or supposed, as Pasteur's world-famous treatment for +hydrophobia. One serum is efficacious against the rattlesnake's bite, +another against the venom of the urutu, the jararaca, and other deadly +species, while a third is an antidote to the poison of any snake +whatever. Twenty-five per cent. of snake-bite cases have hitherto, it +is estimated, proved fatal; when the serum is administered in time cure +is practically certain. To Dr. Brazil is also due the credit of the +discovery of the mussurana, the great snake, harmless to man, which not +only kills but devours venomous reptiles of all kinds, even those as +big as, or bigger than, itself. It was expected, I was told, that the +encouragement of the propagation of this remarkable ophidian might lead +in time to the extermination of poisonous serpents not only in the +State of S. Paulo, but in every part of tropical Brazil. + +The traditional Benedictine hospitality was never wanting at our abbey: +the guest-rooms were always occupied, and the guest-table in the +refectory was a kaleidoscope of changing colour--now the violet sash +and cap of a bishop from some remote State, {175} now the brown of a +Franciscan or bearded Capuchin, the white wool of a Dominican +missionary or a Trappist monk from the far interior, or the sombre +habit of one of our own brethren from some distant abbey on the long +Brazilian coast. Nor were the poorer claimants for rest and +refreshment forgotten. I remember the British Consul, after seeing the +whole establishment, saying that what pleased him most was the noonday +entertainment of the lame, blind, and halt in the entrance-hall, and +the spectacle of our good Italian porter, Brother Pio Brunelli, +dispensing the viands (which the Consul thought looked and smelled +uncommonly good) to our humble guests. Our Trappist visitor mentioned +above was "procurador" of a large agricultural settlement in charge of +his Order; and I remember understanding so much of his technical talk, +after dinner, about their methods of hauling out trees by their roots, +and their machinery for drying rice in rainy weather, as to convince me +that my Portuguese was making good progress! + +All our cablegrams from England in these days were occupied with the +General Election, the result of which (275 Liberals to 273 Unionists) +was vastly interesting, leaving, as it appeared to do, the "balance of +power" absolutely in the hands of the seventy Irish Nationalists. +Several Catholic candidates (British) had been defeated, but nine were +returned to the new Parliament--five Unionists and four Rad.-Nat.-Libs. + +Of greater personal interest to me was the welcome and not unexpected +news that by a Roman Decree issued on the last day of 1909 our +monastery of Fort Augustus had been reunited with the English {176} +Benedictine Congregation, our position of "splendid isolation" as a +Pontifical Abbey being thus at an end. My letters informed me that the +abbot's resignation had already been accepted, and Dom Hilary Willson +installed in office by the delegate of the English Abbot-president, +with the good will of all concerned, and the special blessing of Pope +Pius X., conveyed in a telegram from Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal +Secretary of State. The new superior's appointment was _ad nutum +Sanctae Sedis_, i.e. for an undetermined period; and the late abbot +(whose health was greatly impaired) was authorised to retire, as he +desired, to a "cell"--a commodious house and chapel--belonging to our +abbey, high among pine-woods near Buckie, in Banffshire.[5] + +My mail brought me, too, tidings of the marriage of the sons and +daughters of quite a number of old friends--Balfour of Burleigh, North +Dalrymple (Stair's brother), the Skenes of Pitlour and All Souls, +Oxford; also of the engagement of Lovat's sister Margaret to Stirling +of Keir, and of the death (under sad circumstances already referred +to)[6] of Ninian Crichton Stuart's poor little son. I heard with +pleasure from Abbot Miguel that he hoped shortly to return to us: he +had already cabled the single word "Demoli"; our poor old choir was +under the hands of the house-breakers; and we were saying office +temporarily in the chapter-room, lighted by such inefficient lamps +{177} that I could read hardly a line of my breviary by their +glimmer.[7] + + "Just a song at twilight, + When the lights are low," + +is all very well in its way; but the conditions are not suitable for +matins and lauds lasting an hour and a half! After an interval of this +discomfort, we get into our _corozinho provisorio_ (temporary little +choir), a hantle cut out of the nave, which was still standing; and +there we recited our office during the remainder of my stay. + +St. Benedict's feast this year fell after Easter; and we kept it with +solemn services in our diminished church (which was packed to the +doors), an eloquent panegyric preached by the vicar-general, and a good +many guests in the refectory. The fare was lavish--too lavish for the +temperature: there were soup, fish, oysters and prawns, three courses +of meat, "tarts and tidiness," and great platters of fruit, khakis +(persimmons), mamoes, abacaxis (small pineapples), etc. "Oh! +Todgers's could do it when it liked!"[8] I sat for a while afterwards +with our U.S.A. padre, just returned from a week's trip on an American +steamer. He had grown restive under the sumptuary laws +(cassock-wearing, etc.) of our archdiocese, and as soon as the school +holidays began, had donned his straw hat and monkey-jacket, and gone +off to enjoy himself on the _Vasari_. He was very good company, and +full of quaint Yankee tales and reminiscences. I recall one of his +stories about a man who thought he could draw, and used {178} to send +his sketches to the editor of a picture-paper whom he knew. Meeting +his friend one day, he asked him why his contributions were never used. +"Well, the fact is," said the editor, "I have an aunt living in Noo +Jersey, who can _knit_ better pictures than yours!" + +On May 1 my friend Father Caton and I, desirous of seeing something of +one important element of the heterogeneous population of S. Paulo, +witnessed a procession of Garibaldians on their way to inaugurate a +statue of their hero in one of the public gardens. A sinister crowd +they were, members of some fifty Italian clubs and associations here, +Socialist, masonic, revolutionary and anti-Christian, whose gods are +Mazzini, Carducci, and their like. Round the statue was gathered a +mass of their countrymen--some ten or twelve thousand at least, mostly +Calabrians of a low type,[9] who greeted with frantic applause a +hysterical oration, with the usual denunciations of Popes and priests +and kings, from a fanatical firebrand called Olavo Bilac. A +humiliating spectacle on a May-day Sunday in the Catholic capital of a +Catholic State; but a large proportion of these Italian immigrants were +in truth the scum of their own country and of Christendom. Our abbot, +whose zeal and charity extended to all nationalities in this +cosmopolitan city, had established, with the help of some Brazilian +ladies, a free night-school for the crowds of little shoeblacks and +newspaper-sellers, practically all Italians. He preached at their +periodical First Communion festivals, entertained them afterwards to a +joyful breakfast (at which I {179} sometimes assisted with much +pleasure), and did his best to keep in touch with them as they grew up. +I remember a great Italian audience (of the better sort) in our college +hall one evening, witnessing with delighted enthusiasm three little +plays, one in Portuguese and two in Italian, acted extremely well by a +troupe of the abbot's young Italian _proteges_. With all his +charitable efforts, he could never, of course, touch more than the +fringe of the question; but he never wearied of urging on the +ecclesiastical authorities--nay, he had the opportunity at least once +of forcibly representing to the Pope himself--the paramount necessity +of some organised effort to evangelise these uninstructed masses of +Italians who were annually pouring into the country. No one realised +better than he did that united and fervent prayer was at least as +powerful a factor as pastoral labour in the work of Christianisation +which he had so greatly at heart; and it was therefore with special joy +that he saw at this time the fruition of a scheme for which he had long +been hoping, the establishment in S. Paulo of a community of enclosed +nuns of our own Order. I spent some interesting hours with him +visiting, with the chosen architect, various possible sites for the new +foundation in and about the city. That matter settled, the rest soon +followed; and he had the happiness of seeing the foundation-stone of +the new monastery laid in May, 1911, and six months later, the +inauguration of community life and the Divine Office, under Prioress +Cecilia Prado. + +The first week in May brought us news of the alarming illness of Edward +VII., and twenty-four hours later of his death. The universal and +{180} spontaneous tributes to his memory in this foreign city were very +remarkable: everywhere flags flying half-mast, and many shops and +business houses closed. The newspaper articles were all most +sympathetic in tone, with (of course) any number of quaint +mis-spellings. The "Archbishop of Canter Cury" figured in several +paragraphs; but I could never make out what was meant by one statement, +viz., that the King was "successivamente alumno de Trinity, Oxford, e +de Preoun Hall, Cambridge," and that he possessed intimate technical +knowledge of the construction of fortresses. The abbot and I called at +the British Consulate to express our condolence; and a large +congregation (including many Protestants) attended mass and my sermon +at S. Bento a Sunday or two later, it having been understood that there +would be a "pulpit reference" to the national loss. The Prefect of the +city was present, and called personally on me later to express his own +sympathy and that of the municipality of S. Paulo. + +Funeral services in this Latin-American capital were not, as a rule, +very edifying functions. I attended, with the Rector of our college, +the obsequies of an aged, wealthy and pious lady, Dona Veridiana Prado. +A carriage and pair of fat white horses were sent to take us to her +house, where there was a great concourse of friends and relatives; but +neither there nor in the cemetery afterwards was there much sign of +mourning, or even of respect, and not a tenth part of those present +paid the slightest attention to the actual burying of the poor lady. +We walked afterwards through the great Consolacao cemetery, which +struck me as having little that was {181} consoling about it. It was +well kept, and the monuments were--expensive, the majority of white +marble, but with far too many semi-nude weeping female figures, +apparently nymphs or muses: inscriptions from Vergil, Camoens, etc., +and such sentiments as "Death is an eternal sleep," and "An everlasting +farewell from devoted friends." The most remarkable tomb I noticed was +a tribute to an eminent hat-maker--a large relief in bronze +representing a hat-factory in full blast! + +Much more consoling than the funeral of poor Dona Veridiana was the +general manifestation of faith and devotion on the festival of Corpus +Christi. All business was suspended for the day (although it was not a +state holiday); and when our procession emerged from the church and +passed slowly along one side of our busy square, I was pleased and +edified to see how every head in the great expectant crowd was bared, +and all, from cab-drivers, motor-men and police down to street arabs, +preserved, during the passing of the _Santissimo_, the same air of +hushed and reverent attention. It was a joy to feel, as I felt then, +that these poor people, whatever their defects or shortcomings, +possessed at least the crowning gift of faith. A curious reason was +given me by one of the clergy of the city for the unusual spirit of +devotion at that time manifest among the people. Halley's Comet was +just then a conspicuous object, blazing in the north-west sky. The +phenomenon, so said my informant, was very generally believed to +portend the speedy end of the world--a belief which stimulated popular +devotion, and sent many spiritual laggards to their religious duties. +However that may have been, a great deal of genuine popular {182} piety +there undoubtedly was in the big busy city. It was not only at solemn +functions on high festivals that our church was thronged by a silent +and attentive crowd; but Sunday after Sunday, at every mass from dawn +to noonday, the far too scanty space was filled by an overflowing +congregation, while the ever-increasing number of communions gave +evidence of the solid piety underlying their real love for the services +and ceremonies of the Church. + +Our abbot, who returned to us from Europe on the morrow of King +Edward's death, had almost immediately to leave again for Rio, where +our brethren of S. Bento there were being fiercely attacked in the +public press. The French subprior in charge had not only refused leave +to the Government to connect the Isle of Cobras (an important military +station) with the mainland, i.e. with St. Benedict's Mount, on which +our abbey stood, but had revived an old claim of ownership to the Isle +itself. "Very imprudent," thought Abbot Miguel, who knew well the risk +of the old parrot-cry of "frades estrangeiros" (foreign monks) being +revived against us, and also shrewdly surmised that the young superior +was more or less in the hands of astute _advogados_, who (after the +manner of their tribe) were "spoiling for a fight," and scenting big +fees and profits for themselves if it came to litigation. Dom Miguel +left us quite resolved, with the robust common-sense characteristic of +him, to meet the attacks of the newspapers, interview the Papal Nuncio, +and (if necessary) the President of the Republic himself, talk over the +subprior, and give the lawyers a bit of his mind; and he did it all +very effectually! When he returned a few {183} days later, the +advocates had been sent to the right-about, all claims had been waived +(or withdrawn) to the Isle and the Marine Arsenal between our abbey and +the sea, which was also in dispute: the President and his advisers had +expressed their satisfaction with the patriotism and public spirit of +the monks: the Nuncio had sealed the whole transaction with the +Pontifical approval: the hostile press was silenced; and, in a word, +the "incident was closed"--and a very good thing too! + +Among the fresh activities consequent on the new regime at Fort +Augustus was the contemplated reopening of our abbey school, which had +been closed for some years; and there was, I understood, some desire +that I should return home with a view of undertaking the work of +revival. I ventured to express the hope that the task might be +entrusted to a younger man; and Abbot Miguel had, whilst in Europe, +begged that I might be permitted to remain on in S. Paulo for at least +another year. These representations had their due effect; and I was +looking forward contentedly to a further sojourn under the Southern +Cross, when the matter was taken out of our hands by a serious +affection of the eyesight which threatened me with partial or total +blindness. There were plenty of oculists in S. Paulo; and after they +had peered and pried and peeped and tapped and talked to their hearts' +content, generally ending up with "Paciencia! come again to-morrow!" +the youngest and most capable of them diagnosed (quite correctly, as it +turned out), a rather obscure, unusual and interesting +ailment--interesting, _bien entendu_, to the oculists, not to the +patient--which necessitated more or less drastic {184} treatment. By +the advice of my friend the Consul (himself a medical man of +repute[10]), and with the concurrence of the abbot, I determined that +the necessary treatment should be undergone not in Brazil but at home. +Hasty preparations for departure, and the inevitable leave-takings, +fully occupied the next fortnight. I found time, however, to attend an +exciting football match, the winning of which by our college team gave +them the coveted championship of the S. Paulo schools. The game had +taken a wonderful hold of the Brazilian youth within the past few +years, very much to their physical and moral benefit; and many of these +youngsters, light of foot and quick of eye, shaped into uncommonly good +players. They had plenty of pluck too: in the last few minutes of the +match of which I have been speaking one of our best players, a lively +pleasant youth with a face like a Neapolitan fisher-boy's, had the +misfortune to fall with his right arm under him, and broke it badly. +He bore the severe pain like a Trojan; and when I visited him next day, +though he confessed to a sleepless night, laughingly made light of his +injury. His chief regret was being unable to join in the exodus of our +hundred and fifty boarders, who departed with much bustle and many +cheers for their month's holiday. Their long three months' vacation +was in the hot season, from November to February. {185} A few, who +stayed with us for the winter holiday, hailed from remote corners of +the State, and some from even farther afield, from Goyaz, Pernambuco, +or Matto Grosso. Two I remember whose homes were in far Amazonas; and +it took them a much longer time to journey thither (in Brazilian +territory all the time) than it would have done to reach London or +Paris. One never ceased to wonder at the amazing vastness of Brazil, +and to speculate on what the future has in store for the country when +it begins to "find itself," and seriously to develop its incomparable +resources. + +Almost my last visit in S. Paulo was to the newly-appointed English +clergyman, whom I had met at a friend's house. He entertained me +hospitably at luncheon; but whilst helping me to prawn mayonnaise +begged me to say if "I shared the official belief of my Church that he +and all Protestants were irrevocably d----d." I need not say that I +evaded the question, not deeming the moment propitious for a course of +the Catechism of the Council of Trent; and we parted good friends. + +On June 28 I left S. Paulo with many regrets, wondering whether I +should ever revisit the fair city and my kind friends, of whom many +mustered at the station, according to the pleasant custom of the +country, to speed the parting traveller. The rapid drop down the +serra--it was my first trip on the wonderfully-engineered "English +Railway," which enjoys the profitable monopoly of carrying passengers +and coffee (especially coffee) to the busy port of Santos--was +enjoyable and picturesque, with glimpses, between the frequent tunnels, +into deep wooded valleys, the dark uniform green of the _matto_ {186} +interspersed with the lovely azure and white blossoms of the graceful +Quaresma, or Lent tree (_Tibouchina gracilis_), one of the glories of +the Brazilian forest. The kind prior of S. Bento at Santos met me +there, and I rested for a while at his quaint and charming little +priory, perched high above the city on its flight of many steps, and +almost unchanged in appearance since its foundation two centuries and a +half before, though the buildings had, I believe, been restored early +in the eighteenth century. Higher still, and accessible only on foot, +stood the famous shrine or hermitage of Our Lady of Montserrat, served +by our Benedictine fathers ever since its foundation in 1655, and a +much-frequented place of pilgrimage. I had a drive, before going +aboard my ship, round the picturesque and prosperous little city, the +transformation of which, since I passed by it in 1896, had been almost +more rapid and astonishing than that of Rio. From a haunt of +pestilence and death, yearly subject to a devastating epidemic of +yellow fever, it had become a noted health-resort, its unrivalled +_praia_, stretching for miles along the blue waves of the Atlantic, +lined with modern hotels and charming villas standing in their own +luxuriant gardens, whither the _fina flora_ of Paulista society came +down in summer with their families to enjoy the sea-bathing and the +ocean breezes. + +I was cordially welcomed on the _Araguaya_, a fine ship of over 10,000 +tons, by my old friend Captain Pope, with whom I had made my first +voyage to Brazil nearly a quarter of a century before. There was a +full complement of passengers, including (at the captain's table with +me) Sir John Benn, _ex_-chairman of the London County Council and {187} +M.P. for Devonport, also Canon Valois de Castro, representative of S. +Paulo in the Federal Parliament. I landed at none of the Brazilian +ports, the ascent and descent of steep companions, sometimes in a heavy +swell, being hardly compatible with my semi-blind condition. Leaving +Pernambuco, I looked rather wistfully at the unforgotten heights of +Olinda, and wondered if I should ever see Brazil's low green shores +again. Sir John was my chief companion on deck: he was a clever +artist, and kept me amused with his delightful sketches of famous +Parliamentarians--Disraeli, Gladstone, R. Churchill, Redmond, Parnell, +Hartington, and many others--as well as of some of the more eccentric +of our fellow-passengers. At our table was an agreeable captain of the +Brazilian Navy, going to Barrow-in-Furness to bring out their new +Dreadnought, the _Sao Paulo_. His 400 bluejackets were on board, +smartly dressed in British fashion; but he confided to us that most of +them were raw recruits, and that some had never seen the sea till they +boarded the _Araguaya_! As our voyage progressed he grew more and more +_distrait_, lost, no doubt, in speculation as to how he and his +heterogeneous crew were ever going to get their big new battleship from +Barrow to Rio. I never heard how they got on.[11] + +At Madeira I went ashore to see the Consul (Boyle, a cousin of +Glasgow's) and his pleasant wife, sat for an hour with them enjoying +the enchanting view, and returned on board in company (as I afterwards +discovered) with three professional card-sharpers, who, having been +warned off Madeira, were returning more or less _incog._ to England. +The last days of {188} our voyage were made in a fog that never +lifted--an anxious time for my friend the captain. We never sighted +Ushant light at all, and steamed far past Cherbourg, to which we had to +return dead slow, our dreary foghorn sounding continually all night +long. However, it cleared quite suddenly, and we raced across the +Channel in bright sunshine, but reached Southampton so late that a kind +brother who had come down to meet me there had been obliged to return +to London. + + + +[1] Once quite unjustly--but that was not his fault, for he acted only +on "information received." This reminds me of Mr. Gladstone's story of +his schoolfellow Arthur Hallam (of _In Memoriam_ fame). "Hallam," said +W. E. G., indulging in some Etonian reminiscences at his own table when +not far off ninety, "was a singularly virtuous boy; but he was once +flogged by Dr. Keat, though quite unjustly. When we came into school +one day, the master, Mr. Knapp--("He was a sad scoundrel, and got into +prison later," the old gentleman added in parenthesis, "and I +subscribed to relieve his necessities"),--said at once, 'Praepostor, put +Hallam's name in the bill for breaking my window.'--'Please, sir, I +never broke any window of yours,' cried Hallam, starting up. +'Praepostor,' said Mr. Knapp, 'put Hallam's name in the bill for lying, +and breaking my window.'--'Upon my sacred word of honour, sir,' said +Hallam, jumping up again, 'I never touched your window.' But Mr. Knapp +merely said, 'Praepostor, put Hallam's name in the bill for swearing, +and lying, and breaking my window!' + +[2] _Tom Brown's School Days_ (ed. 1839), pp. 370, 371. + +[3] Replaced in 1920 by a new and sonorous peal. They still struck the +quarters! but anyhow in tune. + +[4] "Were the Vanderbilts as great a power in the American railway and +financial world in your time as they are now?" some one asked an +Englishman who had at one time spent some years in the United States. +"No," he replied; "I think when I was out there they were only +Vanderbuilding!" + +[5] His quiet sojourn at St. James's, which he had himself built and +inaugurated five years previously, was a sadly short one. I heard with +deep regret of his death there on St. Benedict's, Day (March 21) of +this year, 1910. + +[6] See _ante_, page 130, _note_. + +[7] This straining of the sight precipitated, I think, the affection of +the eyes which was to prove so troublesome. + +[8] Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, chap. ix. + +[9] "La creme de la guillotine," as our Parisian monk, Dom Denis, +described them. + +[10] The O'Sullivan Beare, a graduate of Dublin University, had had an +interesting career. He had served in the Egyptian War of 1885, had +been medical officer on the Gold Coast and at Zanzibar, a Vice-consul +in East Africa, engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade, and +later Consul at Bahia and S. Paulo. He was Consul-general at Rio de +Janeiro during a great part of the European War. Col. O'Sullivan Beare +died in 1921. + +[11] See, however, _post_, page 202. + + + + +{189} + +CHAPTER XI + +1910-1911 + +The first news that reached me on my landing at Southampton on July 17, +1910, was that my nephew, Alan Boyle, the intrepid young airman, had +been seriously hurt at Bournemouth--not in the "central blue," but +through the wheels of his "Avis" catching in a clover-field. His life +had probably been saved by the chance of his having borrowed (for he +always as a rule flew bareheaded) an inflated rubber cap from a friend +just before the disaster; but, as it was, his head was badly +injured.[1] After telegraphing sympathy and inquiries to the Glasgows, +I went straight to London, to interview doctor and oculist, who both +advised consultation with the famous Wiesbaden specialist, +Pagenstecher. My brother and I accordingly left England next day, +staying a night at Cologne to visit the Cathedral, which D. had never +seen, and which, marvellous as it is, struck me once again as the most +uninspired of all the great churches of Europe. We reached Wiesbaden +next evening; and I was soon established {190} in the comfortable +_klinik_ devoted to the cosmopolitan clients of the great oculist. Our +party included patients from America, Australia, Mexico and Ceylon, as +well as from every country in Europe, and I found myself at table next +to a wealthy Catholic gentleman from Yucatan, who told me much about +that little-known and marvellous country, and gave me an album of most +interesting photographs. I had feared to be caged in a dark room, but +escaped this fate, and was able to enjoy of an afternoon the excellent +music in the Kurhaus gardens. The internal decorations of the Kurhaus +were too hideous for words; but it stood charmingly among shady groves, +lakes and fountains, and there were 350 newspapers in the huge rococo +reading-room. I had some pleasant walks with my new friend from +Yucatan--one to the top of the Neroberg, where we enjoyed a really +magnificent prospect, and partook of iced coffee and kirschen-kuechen in +a rustic summerhouse. Another glorious view was from the Greek Chapel, +erected by a Grand Duke of Nassau to the memory of his Russian wife, +with an extraordinarily sumptuous and beautiful interior: I was greatly +struck by it, though I could not help thinking that when the guide said +it cost L700,000 he meant marks, for it is of no great size. + +Meanwhile I continued the prescribed "treatment" (unpleasant as it was) +at the hands of the eminent oculist, a mysterious-seeming old gentleman +who reminded me uncomfortably of Uncle Silas in Le Fanu's +blood-curdling novel. Our party at the Klinik was a remarkably +cheerful one, everybody seeming quite confident of being cured, or at +least greatly benefited. Personally, I soon made up my mind {191} to +the permanent loss of one eye (even though, as Dickens remarked of Mr. +Squeers, "popular prejudice runs in favour of two"); and in this +anticipation I was confirmed by the verdict of Pagenstecher's clever +son Adolf, a much more _simpatico_ person than his distinguished +parent. Anyhow I was out of the surgeons' hands (for this relief much +thanks!), and to celebrate my emancipation I dined at the Kurhaus, +listened to the admirable "Doppel-Orchester" (it was an Italian Opera +night, recalling many memories), witnessed the illuminations, and felt +quite dissipated. + +I was cheered, in the midst of these preoccupations, by a very hopeful +letter from my sister, fortified by Sir Victor Horsley's favourable +prognosis of Alan's case.[2] Interesting news, too, came from Lady +Lovat (doubly interesting to me) that Simon, now nearly thirty-nine, +was engaged to my pretty young kinswoman Laura Lister.[3] And on the +same day I heard of the betrothal of a favourite niece to a +brigadier-general, with a command in West Africa (whither, I imagine, +his bride could _not_ accompany him), and a little place in +Lincolnshire. In both cases, curiously enough, the +bridegroom-expectant was more than double the age of the bride-to-be; +but I saw no reason, if they knew their own minds, why this discrepancy +should militate against their happiness. + +Bethinking myself that I had never yet gone down the Rhine by water, I +boarded a steamer at Biebrich, {192} and steamed down the yellow turbid +river for eight hours in mist and rain, wishing all the time that I was +in the train. A female fellow-passenger introduced herself to me as a +former governess of the Glasgow children in the Antipodes, said she had +lost her party _and_ her purse, and requested a small loan! I spent +two pleasant days at Cologne (Sunday and the _festa_ of August 15 next +day), was edified by the immense and devout congregations and the +beautiful music in the vast cathedral, and pleased to see the simple +holiday-making of the good Rhinelanders in their pretty river-side +gardens. Brussels, my next halting-place, was crammed with visitors to +the Exhibition, or rather to the smoking ruins of what had been the +exhibition, the greater part of which had been burned down the night +before my arrival. I walked through the cheerful city, of which the +only new feature (to me) was the colossal Palace of Justice, which +seemed to dominate Brussels as the heaven-piercing spires of the Dom +dominate Cologne; but the gigantic mass of the Brussels building seemed +rather to be heaven-defying, and too suggestive of the Tower of Babel +to please me. + +Letters at Brussels told me of the long-hoped-for arrival of Kelburn's +son and heir, godson to Queen Mary (her first since the King's +accession). He was named Maurice at the special wish of Her Majesty, +who (so I understood) was possessed with the odd idea that "Maurice" +was the masculine equivalent for "Mary!" Crossing from Ostend to +Dover, I encountered a well-known Scottish peer of whose demise I had +read in an English paper two days before. He was on his way home from +visiting the Passion-play at Ober Ammergau, had seen no papers, {193} +and had been surprised, and rather annoyed, at receiving letters and +telegrams at Brussels congratulating him on being still alive. I +cheered him up with a story of another man who saw his death announced +in the morning papers, and calling up an intimate friend on the +telephone, said, "Did you see in this morning's paper that I was dead?" +"Yes," replied his friend, "I did. Where are you speaking from?" When +I got to London, the same kind brother who had escorted me to Wiesbaden +took me (by way of consolation for my wasted month[4]) to lunch--on +turtle soup and punch--at the "Ship and Turtle" in the City. After a +flying visit to my kind friends at Arundel and to my sister in Surrey, +I came back to stay with him at his elm-shaded Thames-side home. We +made some pleasant expeditions thence by land and water, motoring one +day to quaint old Guildford, where we explored Archbishop Abbott's +delightfully picturesque old Jacobean almshouses, and drank tea in an +almost equally picturesque tea-shop, kept, I was carefully informed, by +_real_ ladies! + +My pretty niece Cicely insisted on my presence at her wedding to her +Brigadier; and I journeyed down to Kent, on a piping August day, in the +company of crowds of Irish hoppers bound for the same county. The +marriage was from the Cranbrooks' nice place, Hemsted, in the very +heart of the Garden of England, a big Victorian house full of the first +Earl's[5] memorials of Queen Victoria, Beaconsfield, {194} and the +other great Tory statesmen of his day. Lady Jane Gathorne-Hardy did +the honours for the large house-party, as her parents were away taking +a "cure" somewhere; and the day after the pretty wedding in the pretty +parish church (the vicar, an old Magdalen man, gave a very good +address), our kind hostess escorted the whole party up to town and +entertained them to luncheon and a frivolous afternoon at the +"Follies." I left London the same night for Scotland, and met at +Beaufort, where I stayed _en route_, for our Highland abbey, Lovat's +youthful bride-elect--as tall, and I am sure as good, as the lady in +_The Green Carnation_,[6] and already an accepted and affectionate +member of the large and merry family of Frasers and Maxwells. I sailed +down our familiar canal to Fort Augustus on a marvellously still and +bright autumn afternoon; and as we slid alongside the Fort Augustus +quay and looked back on the panorama of azure lake and purple hills, a +friend and I agreed (as he colloquially put it) that it "licked the +Rhine into fits." + +I found things externally little changed under the new, or restored, +Anglo-Benedictine regime, the chief visible difference being that my +brethren now wore the flapping English hood, which gave them rather the +aspect of large nuns. There was much coming and going to and from +missions and {195} locum-tenancies of vacant parishes; and our house +seemed destined to become more and more a "jumping-off place" for that +kind of work rather than a great centre of monastic life and +observance. One aim was not of course incompatible with the other, +given a large enough community; but ours was at this time small enough, +and there were several more or less permanent absentees. Most of the +latter, however, "rolled up" for the excellent retreat given us by our +good old friend Bishop Hedley, who had done us the same kindness just +twenty-one years before. He was interested, after it was over, in +hearing of our plans and hopes (then much "in the air") for re-starting +the suspended building of our much-needed church, of which the +foundation-stone had been laid nearly fifteen years previously. A +young architect (an "old boy" of the abbey school) was staying with us, +and quite prepared to produce the most fascinating designs at the +shortest notice. But money, or the lack of it, was, as usual, the +crucial point; and we did not "see our way" (horrid phrase) to resume +operations either then or in the immediate future. + +I went, in these golden October days, when a wonderful stillness so +often broods over Highland hills and glens in their livery of autumnal +russet, to do chaplain for two Sundays to the Lovats, who had a large +shooting-party at Beaufort--Seftons and Howicks and Gathorne-Hardys and +some others, including an A.D.C. to the Irish Viceroy, of whom he told +me a good story. An old peer from the country presented himself at a +levee at Dublin Castle; and his Excellency engaged him in conversation, +starting as usual with the weather. {196} "Wonderful rain we've been +having: everything coming up out of the ground."--"God forbid!" said +the old peer. "I said that everything was coming up out of the +ground," repeated H.E., slightly raising his voice. "And _I_ said 'God +forbid!'" retorted the old gentleman: "I've got three wives buried +under it!" + +I went from Beaufort for a day or two to Nairn, which I remember hardly +more than a poor fishing village, frequented by ladies and children for +sea-bathing, but which owes its present reputation and prosperity, like +so many other places, to its excellent golf-links. After a short stay +at Kelburn, where I found my poor nephew Alan Boyle making good +progress to recovery, I could not resist an invitation to pass a few +days at St. Andrews, where the successor of my dear friend George Angus +was anxious for me to see his new church lately opened. It was a +rather effective building, in what a descriptive report called the +"Lombardic style, adapted to suit local conditions." One of the +"adaptations" was putting the tower at the wrong end, the "local +condition" being that the lady who had built the church, and who +inhabited a villa close by, had objected to a western tower as blocking +her view of the North Sea! I strolled about the "dear romantic town," +mounting the East Neuk road as far as "Rest and be thankful," and +feeling heavy-hearted enough, with Tennyson's lines constantly in my +mind: + + I climb the hill from end to end: + Of all the landscape underneath, + I find no place that does not breathe + Some gracious memory of my friend. + +{197} + + For each has pleased a kindred eye, + And each reflects a happier day; + And leaving them to pass away, + I think once more he seems to die. + + +I came home from my last walk by the old harbour, admiring, as I had +done a hundred times before, the wonderful lights on sea and land which +one associates with St. Andrews in autumn; but feeling that I never +cared to see the place again. Soon I went south, to Oxford, where Mgr. +Kennard, who was again threatening for the _n_th time to resign, for +reasons of health, his office of chaplain, had begged me to come and +help him for as much of the Michaelmas term as I could spare. I found +him, as a matter of fact, rather exceptionally well, and ready and +anxious to recount to an intelligent listener (which I fear I was +_not_, on this subject) every one of his golfing achievements during +the past four months at Burnham, Westward Ho! North Berwick, and +elsewhere. Although quite incapable of talking "golf shop," I +contributed one anecdote (new, I believed), which I had brought from +Nairn, and which pleased my old friend. It concerned a young man and +maiden who were playing golf--the lady quite a novice--and had reached +a hole which was on the top of a little hill. The youth ran up first +to see the lie of the balls. "A stymie!" he shouted: "a dead stymie!" +The young lady came up with a sniff. "Well, do you know?" she said, "I +_thought_ I smelled something as I was walking up the hill!" + +I had been invited to preach Lovat's wedding sermon on October 15; but +this, as well as much of the long choral service, had been +countermanded {198} at the eleventh hour. I went up the day before to +the family residence in Grosvenor Gardens: presents still pouring in, +and such unconsidered trifles as diamond pendants, silver salvers, gold +cigarette-cases, telescopes, and illuminated addresses, lying +promiscuously about. A small army of newspaper-reporters (whom I was +deputed to interview) swarmed in after dinner. There was a great +gathering at the Oratory next morning, where the ample space beneath +the dome makes a most effective setting for a wedding pageant. The +bride's procession was a little late; and the stalwart bridegroom, +supported by his Scots Guards brother, was (shall I say "the cynosure +of all eyes" or the "observed of all observers"?--both good old +_cliches_) in the full dress bravery of a Highland chief.[7] I went in +afterwards to sign the register, while the _primo soprano assoluto_ of +the famous choir thrilled out the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria," as +inevitable an accompaniment of Oratory weddings as "O for the Wings of +a Dove" is of those at Sloane Street or Eaton Square. Mrs. Asquith +(the bride's aunt) entertained us afterwards in the none too spacious +reception rooms at 10, Downing Street, where the well-dressed mob, +_more suo_, made play with their elbows in their quest for their own +and other people's presents on the loaded tables. There were +representatives from the bride's home in Ribblesdale, as well as a +deputation of farmers from distant Beaufort; {199} and one heard +intermittently the broad accent of Lancashire and the slow soft +Highland speech, mingling oddly with the London cackle. The +festivities at an end, I escorted a party of youthful Maxwells to the +Zoo. We saw a much-bored tiger, which gaped at us most rudely; also a +greatly vaunted American aloe, of the +"blooming-once-in-a-hundred-years" kind, which we all thought a fraud. + +I had planned to finish while at Oxford my greatly belated work for the +_Encyclopaedia_, but was (perhaps unduly) mortified to find how much my +progress was impeded by my altered conditions of eyesight. Let me, +however, record here, _pour encourager les autres_ similarly +handicapped, that the initial difficulty of _focussing_ (very serious +and very discouraging at first to a one-eyed man) tends to disappear +not only quickly but completely. "Un poco paciencia," as we say in +Brazil; kind Mother Nature steps in with her compensations, and one can +only feel grateful--I hope and believe that I did--at suffering so +little from what seems, and after all is, so serious a privation. + +Two of Lovat's nephews were now undergraduates at Trinity, Cambridge, +whither I went over to see them from Oxford. They gave me luncheon in +their quaint low-ceiled rooms in Trinity Street, took me to see their +sister (a pupil in a convent school), and escorted me over some of the +"lions," wanting to know at every turn whether I did not admit that +Cambridge was infinitely superior to Oxford. I handsomely owned that +we possessed nothing quite so fine, in their different ways, as King's +Chapel, the famous "backs," and the Fitzwilliam Museum {200} (to say +nothing of the Catholic church); and they were both pleased at this +tribute, though it must be confessed that the absorbing interest of +their lives at that period seemed less to be architectural masterpieces +than the internal mechanism of motor-bicycles, about which they, in +common with many of their undergraduate friends, appeared to be quite +curiously infatuated. I went on from Cambridge (an insufferably +tedious journey) to Douai Abbey, our Berkshire monastery, where one was +always sure of a welcome of Benedictine heartiness, and where I gave a +lantern-lecture on Brazil, of a popular and superficial kind, to the +good monks and their pupils. This reminds me that, as a supposed +authority on negroes (many Englishmen, I firmly believe, are under the +impression that the population of Brazil is almost exclusively black!), +I was invited by my friend the Warden of Wadham to meet the Master of +Pembroke at dinner, in order to discuss the advisability or otherwise +of admitting black, brown and yellow men freely into the university. +The Warden (a Scotsman who had never, I think, been out of Britain) was +all in favour of the "open door"; whereas the little Master of +Pembroke, who had been bishop of Barbadoes, and knew a thing or two +about blacks, was strongly for the "keep 'em out" policy, and I was +entirely with him. We had an interesting evening's talk; but the +solution of this not unimportant question (which the foundation of the +Rhodes Scholarships had brought much to the front) did not of course +rest with us. The mention of Rhodes reminds me that a conspicuous +memorial tablet had lately been erected to him in the Schools: the +design was good and simple, but the lettering of the inscription (as +{201} is too often the case on modern monuments) so deplorably bad as +to spoil the whole effect.[8] + +Walking through Magdalen cloisters on a sombre November afternoon, I +came unexpectedly on the poor young King (or ex-King) of Portugal, who +was looking through the college with a single companion. He looked +(who could wonder)[9] pale, depressed and nervous; and I was shocked at +the change in his appearance since I had seen him at Blenheim on the +occasion of his previous visit to England. Professor Oman (who had +been his guest in Portugal for the anniversary celebrations at Busaco) +met him, I believe, accidentally in High Street, and showed him all +over All Souls and the Bodleian; but I heard that his listless and +apathetic demeanour underwent little change. To be a "Roi en exil" +almost before reaching man's estate is about as dreary a lot as could +fall to any man; and one could only hope that fate had something better +in prospect for the young monarch so early and so tragically dethroned. + +I got to Ampleforth Abbey, on my way north, in time for our great +Benedictine festival of All Saints of our Order; but the "sweet vale of +Mowbray" was wrapt in mist and rain, and the boys' holiday spoilt. I +gave a lecture to them that evening on the lighter side of Brazil, with +stories of snakes and niggers; and another next evening on the work of +{202} the religious orders, especially our Benedictines, in the +evangelization of that vast country. I lectured in the new college +theatre, a really fine room, and acoustically very satisfactory, though +I did not care for the semi-ecclesiastical woodwork. When I got back +to Fort Augustus a few days later, I found Lovat, Lochiel, and other +local magnates there, discussing the fate of our poor little railway, +which the N.B. Company, tired of working it at a loss for several +years, had given notice to close after New Year.[10] Two pieces of +news reached me soon after my arrival--one that Congregation at Oxford +had declined, by a good majority, to abolish compulsory Greek; the +other that the Brazilian Navy was in full revolt, and the crews of +their two new Dreadnoughts (one the _Sao Paulo_, whose captain and crew +had come to England with me) were firing their big guns from the +harbour into the city! I could only hope that our poor abbey, which +must have been in the direct line of fire, had not suffered.[11] + +My own plans were almost matured for returning to Brazil early in 1911; +but it seemed prudent now to "wait and see" if this naval _emeute_ +really portended anything like a general revolution. Meanwhile I had +been authorized to accept an invitation from the Norfolks to stay with +them at Norwich, for the opening of the great church which had been +many years a-building, at the Duke's expense, in his {203} titular +city. He had taken the "Maid's Head," a delightful old half-timbered +inn, for our party, which pretty well filled it. I said an early mass +on Our Lady's _festa_, December 8, in the lady-chapel (a memorial of +the Duke's first wife),[12] of the vast, austere, and splendid +church--the only modern church in which I have ever felt as if I were +in a mediaeval cathedral. Breakfasting afterwards with the +clergy--mostly Irish--the news of Ninian Crichton Stuart's victory at +Cardiff[13] (which came to us by wire) was a bit of a bombshell; but +the "Maid's Head" party were of course delighted. The inaugural +services were very splendid, though unduly prolonged by a sermon an +hour long; and though for once there was no after-luncheon oratory, the +bishop preached for another full hour in the evening. The tediousness +of my long journey back to Scotland next day was aggravated by an +amateur politician (with a wheezy cough) in my carriage, who bored me +almost to tears with a _rechauffe_ of his speeches at various +election-meetings; but I consoled myself by reading in an evening paper +that the Unionist candidate for Ayr had increased his majority +five-fold. At Edinburgh I came on my energetic old brother-in-law +Glasgow, who had come in from Ayrshire (he was then not far off +seventy-eight) to dine at a naval banquet and to vote for the +Representative Peers. I went for the week-end to the Kerrs at +Woodburn, meeting {204} there a serious young publisher, who offered me +very good terms to write a detailed history--it has never yet been +written--of Scottish Catholicism since the Reformation: a fascinating +subject, and one with which I should have loved to grapple, but life is +too short to do all, or even half, that one would like to do. + +With an hour or two to spare in Glasgow on my way to the Highlands, I +lunched with my friend (the friendship was personal, not political) the +editor of the _Observer_, at his Radical Club. In the middle of the +meal a member rose with a long face, and announced an unexpected +Unionist victory at Tavistock--whereat, to the consternation of every +one, I cheered loudly! I reached Fort Augustus the same evening, to +learn of the death, at the advanced age of ninety-three, of our kind +old friend and neighbour Mrs. Ellice of Invergarry, one of the last of +the great landladies who a few years before had by a curious +coincidence owned and managed (very capably, too) some of the largest +estates in the North of Scotland. The vast Glengarry property, once +the domain of the Macdonells, and stretching from the Caledonian Canal +to the western seaboard, had been under Mrs. Ellice's sole control +since her husband's death more than thirty years before. We at Fort +Augustus, as well as the numerous Highland Catholics resident on her +estate, and under our spiritual care, had always found in her a most +friendly, kind and considerate neighbour. + +Two happenings I recall at Fort Augustus during these December +days--one a remarkably interesting lecture on the theory of +lake-temperature from a Mr. Wedderburn, who had been recently on the +{205} Scottish loch survey; and the other event was our all (that is, +all the priests of the monastery) being called on to vow, promise, +swear and sign, individually and collectively, our adherence to the +Creed of Pope Pius IV., which _I_ had sworn to some thirty-six years +before.[14] This act of submission, enjoined on every Catholic priest +in Christendom, was part of the vigorous campaign against Modernism +initiated by Pope Pius X. Having discharged this duty, I betook myself +to Keir, to spend Christmas with the Stirlings. It was a family party, +including the Lovats and a few others, and we spent the season in +homely Dickens fashion, with ghost-stories and snapdragon and a +priceless Early Victorian conjurer in a crumpled dress suit, who +accompanied tricks of really incredible antiquity with a "patter" +almost prehistoric. One day we drove down to survey the grand old +cathedral of Dunblane, very carefully restored (of course for +Presbyterian worship) since I had last seen it. As we entered, we +heard the opening strains of Elgar's _Ave Verum_-- + +[Illustration: Music fragment: Ave verum cor-pus na-tum Ex Ma-ri-a +Vir-gi-ne! etc.] + +(a Eucharistic hymn by a Catholic composer!) being played on a fine +organ, and wondered what old John Knox would have thought about it all. +Meanwhile the Catholics of Dunblane, a devout and fervent little flock +(so I was told), had perforce to content themselves with a poor loft, +where I preached {206} to them on two Sundays. At Stirling, not far +distant, there was a new church designed by Pugin--a rather dismal and +angular edifice, but anyhow spacious and well kept. On my return +journey to Fort Augustus, I found myself condemned, by the unholy +rivalry of the Caledonian and North British Railways, to a four hours' +wait at Crianlarich, where I found the temperature, on a frosty January +morning, quite as "invigorating" as did the fabled tourist.[15] I had +a few busy days at the abbey preparing for my return to South America. +My passage was booked for the middle of January: I had devoted a week +to farewells to relatives and friends--and then came the anti-climax! +On the very day on which (like the poor Sisters of Mercy) I was to have +"breasted the billows of the Atlantic"[16] _en route_ for Brazil, I +received so discouraging and peremptory a letter from my London +oculist, as to the risk to my remaining eye of a possibly stormy winter +voyage, that I had perforce to abandon the idea, and to return (like +the bad sixpence of poor Grissell's story)[17] to my {207} northern +monastery, where I received so brotherly a welcome home that I did not, +after the first disappointment, regret the change of plan. I was +inducted again into my old office of librarian (first entrusted to me +twenty-seven years before); and our young organist having gone into +residence at the Benedictine Hall at Oxford, I acted for a time as his +substitute. The post of subprior being presently vacated by the +departure of the then holder of the office for a Liverpool mission, +that also was committed to me; and as our good prior was at this time +to some extent invalided, I found myself pretty fully occupied, more +especially as I had in those days a curiously cosmopolitan +correspondence (much of it on literary or antiquarian matters), which +could not be neglected. I recall receiving by a single mail (on St. +Benedict's Day, as it chanced), letters from India, North America, +Brazil, Egypt, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Soudan! + + + +[1] Alan, the Glasgows' youngest son, had taken up flying most +enthusiastically, living in a shed at Brooklands (his mechanic acting +as his cook), and practising continually with his Avis monoplane, +which, like himself, was of purely Scottish origin. He had been the +third flying-man to gain an aero-certificate on a machine of British +design and build. + +[2] My nephew's recovery was slow and tedious; but he was ultimately +restored to health. + +[3] Her grandmother, Emma Lady Ribblesdale (born a Mure of Caldwell) +was my father's first cousin. + +[4] The word seems ungrateful: the time was not really wasted, for I +had done my best and knew the worst, and the suspense was anyhow over. + +[5] Gathorne Hardy, who turned Gladstone out of his seat for Oxford +University in 1865, and was afterwards successively Home Secretary and +Secretary for War and for India. His grandson the third Earl (my +nephew by marriage) broke away from the Tory traditions of the family, +sold Hemsted Park to one of the Harmsworths, and set up a new home for +himself in Suffolk. + +[6] "I believe she is very tall and very religious--if you notice, it +is generally short, squat people who are atheists."--_The Green +Carnation_. + +[7] Possibly the last spectacle of the kind at the Oratory (but that +was in the old tin church) had been the apparition of the youthful Earl +of Loudoun in Campbell tartan kilt and philabeg, acting as best man to +his cousin Lord Bute on the latter's memorable wedding-day, April 16, +1872. + +[8] The stonemason of to-day imitates (usually very badly, and with +deplorable result) the printing of a book, not in the least realizing +that a lapidary inscription is something quite different from a +sentence struck off movable metal types. + +[9] It was hardly a month since the Revolution of October 3, 1910, had +driven the unfortunate youth from the uneasy throne which he had +occupied since the cruel murder of his father and brother, in the +streets of Lisbon, on February 1, 1908. + +[10] The negotiations resulted in a respite for six months, after which +financial arrangements of some kind were made for keeping the line open +for the future. + +[11] It was, as a matter of fact, considerably damaged: moreover, one +of the shells fired by the insurgents not only inflicted serious injury +on the Prior, Dom Joachim de Luna, but blew the poor tailor of the +monastery into atoms. + +[12] Artistically reminiscent of "Duchess Flora" were the elaborate +carvings in this chapel, conventional but very charming representations +of English wild flowers. + +[13] A General Election--"Peers _v._ People," as the Radicals called +it--was at this time in progress. Ninian's election for Cardiff came +as a considerable surprise to the Liberals, as well as a triumph to the +Unionists. + +[14] When I escaped from the City of Confusion into the Church of God, +at Rome, on March 25, 1875. + +[15] "Isn't this invigorating?" exclaimed an English traveller, as he +emerged from his stuffy carriage early on a breezy August day. "No, +sir," said the stolid Highland station-master: "it's just Crianlarich!" + +[16] "In May, 1842, Sisters Ursula, Frances, and Rose left the +parent-house for the Far West--the first Sisters of Mercy who had ever +breasted the billows of the Atlantic."--_Annals of the Sisters of +Mercy_, vol. III., p. 16. It really reads as though the good nuns had +swum across! + +[17] "In Italy," he said to me once, "one is welcomed back with an +embrace and a cordial 'Ben ritornato, signore!' but coming back here to +Oxford, I call to pay my respects to the good Jesuit Fathers; and the +old brother who opens the door only grumbles out, 'Well, Mr. Grissell, +here you are, back again, _like sixpenn'orth of bad halfpennies!_'" + + + + +{208} + +CHAPTER XII + +1911 + +Our brothers had good success this year with the spring salmon-netting +in Loch Ness; and I myself witnessed the landing one afternoon of nine +clean fish, all scaling between fifteen and thirty pounds. We had +always enjoyed the privilege of netting a certain number of salmon +during Lent; and I think it was this year that Lovat proposed, at a +meeting of the syndicate of riparian owners and tenants who had +recently assumed the control of the fishing, that this right should be +conceded to us as heretofore. It was agreed to with but one +dissentient voice, that of a rather cantankerous neighbour of ours who +was only, I believe, an honorary member of the syndicate, having +pleaded that he was too poor to pay his subscription. "Certainly," +said a noble duke who had leased for some years the best spring water +in the vicinity; "by all means let the poor monks (or was it "poor +devils"?) have their salmon: it's probably all they get to eat!" + +Lovat was kind enough to tell me, when he came down about this +salmon-fishing question, that he and others (unnamed) were "pulling +strings" in various quarters to get me appointed chaplain at Oxford in +succession to our dear old Kennard, who (after numerous unheeded cries +of "Wolf!") was, {209} it seemed, really resigning, and preparing to +retire for life to a dull seaside town in Somerset. I told him, +however, that I was sure there was no chance of any monk or other +"regular" being appointed: moreover I had heard that a priest hailing +from Brighton, with the patent and obvious qualification of possessing +L1,000 a year of his own, had been already chosen; and, finally, I +hoped and expected to be allowed to return to Brazil, unless I received +some very clear and unmistakable indication that I was more wanted at +home. Meanwhile the work immediately in front of me was organizing the +Bishop Hay centenary celebrations, which were to be kept at our abbey +in the autumn on a considerable scale, and of which I had been named +general secretary. Before tackling this business I was enabled to +spend Holy Week and Easter, as so often before, happily at Arundel, +where my visit this year coincided with the anniversary of Duchess +Mora's death. I officiated at the memorial service for her in the +FitzAlan chapel, always an impressive function among the venerable +monuments--some of them more than five centuries old--of bygone +FitzAlans and Howards, touched by the chequered light from the great +east window, in which the Duke and his little son are depicted in +prayer before the altar. + +I went from Arundel to Brighton to see my friend Grissell, whom I found +wrestling with census-papers, and with the difficulty of inducing his +female domestics to admit (at least approximately) their real ages. I +had not, of course, had the same trouble at Fort Augustus, where our +residents varied in age from sixteen to ninety-five, the latter being +the record of our good old Brother Nathalan, whom {210} we all hoped to +see reach his century.[1] At the Union Club, whither Grissell carried +me to lunch, I remember how we (members, guests, waiters and all) +deserted our tables and flocked to the window to see--a flying man! +Gustave Hamel swooping down on the Hove lawns after flying from Hendon +(61 miles in 58 minutes), as steady as a rock on his Bleriot monoplane. +It was the first 'plane I had ever seen in the air! I reached London +next morning in time to attend Linlithgow's pretty wedding at St. +Margaret's, Westminster. It was Primrose Day, and the crowds inside +and outside the church were augmented by mobs gazing idly at Dizzy's +bedecked statue in Parliament Square. I squeezed in afterwards for a +few minutes at Hereford Gardens, congratulated the bridegroom's mother, +and was amused to hear a dignified menial (who, I thought, must have +been a City toastmaster hired for the occasion) shouting out the names +of the distinguished guests in stentorian tones for the benefit of our +exceedingly deaf host. April was summerlike this year; and I was glad +to escape from the noisy stuffy town to my brother's river-side home, +where we sat in the violet twilight on the edge of Thames, watching the +crafts of all sorts and sizes gliding past in the gloaming, and +listening to the snatches of music (sometimes quite pretty and +effective) coming to us from launch or wherry across the darkling +water. "That's a quiet pretty little thing," said my brother, looking +admiringly at an electrically-propelled canoe {211} "made for two" +which was skimming up stream swiftly and silently. But the susceptible +youth to whom the remark was addressed had eyes only for the vision of +beauty in the stern. "I don't think," he said knowingly, "that you'd +find her quite so quiet if you knew her!" and was surprised at the +shout of laughter with which his remark was received. I got back to +Fort Augustus just in time to vote at the School Board elections. We, +of course, all "plumped" for our Father Andrew Macdonell, who was duly +elected, together with the local Established, United Free, and "Wee +Free" ministers, and the Stratherrick priest--a curious clerical crowd. +The exceptionally fine summer attracted an unusual number of visitors +to Fort Augustus; and we had quite a gathering for the local +celebration of King George's coronation-day, which was kept chiefly as +a children's holiday, with games, an enormous tea, and loyal and +patriotic songs and speeches. A more domestic festival, a few days +later, was the silver jubilee of my ordination, which I was glad to be +able to celebrate with my brethren. I received quite a sheaf of +letters and telegrams--I had no idea that the anniversary would be so +generally remembered--and had the pleasure of reading in a Scottish +newspaper that I was "one of the most amiable, devout, and learned +ecclesiastics of the day!" I was glad that among those present at my +jubilee Mass was one of my oldest Catholic friends, Lady Lovat,[2] who +was herself receiving congratulations this year on the birth of three +new grandchildren, including {212} sons and heirs to Lovat and the +Stirlings of Keir. Arriving at Keir a few days later, _en route_ for +my examination-centre in Staffordshire, I found my host and hostess +out, but made friends with the "younger of Keir"--_alias_ Billy +Stirling--(aged two months), who was reposing in his perambulator +"under a spreading chestnut tree" on the lawn. + +My "Oxford Local" work at Oakamoor College over, I went on to Oxford +for a few days, on the tiresome (and to me rather melancholy) business +of finally packing up my goods and chattels there. Although in Long +Vacation, I found a few kind friends still in residence: and the +Hassalls took me to see the renovated west front (Wolsey's) of Christ +Church. The work, they said, had cost some L15,000, but was well worth +it. A few hours in London I devoted to taking a nephew to see the +Kinemacolor pictures--the Durbar and the Prince of Wales's investiture +at Carnarvon. By some new contrivance the primary colours, only, were +reproduced on the films, giving us the blue sky, the green grass and +the scarlet uniforms, but everything else brownish-grey: the effect was +perhaps more weird than beautiful or lifelike. The popular young +Prince was in a box with his sister, looking at his own doings at +Carnarvon; and it was curious to see the audience cheering alternately +the filmed prince and the live one, who seemed rather embarrassed by +the attention paid to him. On my northward journey I visited my +friends the Rector of Exeter College and his wife at their pretty +Westmorland home, near Oxenholme; it was a district quite new to me, +and I was delighted with the fine rolling country, and the noble view +over Morecambe Bay and towards the distant Lakes. + +{213} + +I found, on my return to our abbey, extensive repairs going on in view +of the expected influx of visitors in September, and the procurator in +despair at the dilatoriness of Highland workmen, recalling the famous +plumber of Carstairs.[3] All the shooting-lodges were full, and +expeditions to our monastery, when the shooters had an off-day, seemed +one of the regular attractions of the neighbourhood. I remember one of +our nearer neighbours, the shooting-tenant's wife from Glendoe, riding +down one day to call, with Lady Winifred Elwes--the ladies astride, in +ordinary frocks, on fat grey ponies, and our good lay-brother porter in +speechless astonishment at the apparition. I was glad to welcome one +day for an hour or two my old friends the Portsmouths, _en route_ for +their remote castle of Guisachan: his lordship pompously pleasant as of +old, and his wife equally pleasant without the pomposity. I presented +them to the Bishop of Chur (or Coire), Mgr. Schmitt, at that time a +guest in the abbey with his two chaplains. I had visited Chur more +than thirty years before on my way to the Engadine (before the railway +was made under the Albula Pass), and had visited the cathedral in quest +of the supposed relics of St. Lucius, the king of Britain who, Bede +says, wrote to Pope Eleutherius asking for instruction in the Christian +faith. The Bishop had never heard this story; but he said that there +was a constant tradition at Chur that Lucius was a Welsh saint who had +died there after {214} spending many years in missionary labours among +the Rhaetian Alps.[4] + +I spent the last Sunday of August as chaplain to the Lovats at +Stronlairg, their remote lodge nestling under the great range of the +Mona Liadh hills, in the wildest part of Central Inverness-shire. I +have called it, and Guisachan, "remote"; but no place is really so, if +accessible by a decent road, in these motoring days; and "neighbours" +from thirty or forty miles away thought nothing of dropping in casually +to luncheon or tea. Lady Derby, whose husband had one of Lovat's +forests, came up one day with her daughter and her sister-in-law Lady +Isobel Gathorne-Hardy, from whom I was sorry to hear a disquieting +account of the health both of my niece Dorothy Cranbrook and of her +husband. With our house-party and the servants, I had quite a +congregation in our _chapelle provisoire_ on Sunday; and it was, as +always, a happiness to me to have the privilege of saying mass for a +little flock of faithful Catholics in the splendid solitude of these +Highland hills and glens. + +The _triduo_, or three days' celebrations in honour of the centenary of +Bishop Hay, had been fixed for September 12-14; and we entertained more +than seventy guests in the abbey for the occasion. All the Scottish +bishops, except the aged Archbishop of Glasgow, were present, besides +Bishop Hedley, Abbot Gasquet, Monsignors, canons, heads of religious +orders, priests and devout laymen, including {215} Lovat and his +brother Alastair. The weather was perfect throughout the week; and the +religious services, though naturally the chief feature of the +celebrations, were not so prolonged or so continuous as to prevent our +visitors from enjoying many pleasant excursions by land and water. The +fine portrait of the illustrious bishop by George Watson (first +president of the Scottish Academy), lent us by Blairs College, excited +much interest; and my lantern-lecture on the Life and Times of Hay (a +collateral descendant of whom, by the way, was one of our guests), was +very well received by a distinguished audience. Many of the visitors +to the abbey and village stayed on a day or two for the local concert +and Highland Gathering. The Rotherhams, Bishop John Vaughan, Lady +Edmund Talbot and her sister Lady Alice Reyntiens, were among those who +arrived in time for these later festivities. I heard from Lord +Rotherham of the death of a very old friend, Sir William Farrer, whose +daughter had married my brother. He and his wife, whom he had long +survived (he was nearly ninety at his death) had shown to us all +constant kindness in the days of our childhood and ever since; and I +recalled pleasant days at his beautiful Berkshire home, where the +lovely gardens were the delight and recreation of his busy professional +life.[5] + +{216} + +The kind abbot of S. Paulo had come to England in order to escort to +Brazil a little community of nuns for his newly-founded Benedictine +convent; and I had promised to attend their _dispedida_ at Southampton +at the end of September. I found myself at Inverness among the gay +crowds attending the Northern Meeting, of which the special feature +this year was a great rally of boy-scouts from all the northern +counties, in honour of their popular Chief, Sir Robert Baden-Powell. +Seven hundred mustered, at least half of them kilted--a very pretty +sight; and "B. P." made them a stirring speech, with an interesting +account of the spread of the movement ("Escotismo," they called it in +Brazil, where it was very popular), in different parts of the world. I +travelled from Edinburgh to London with the Archbishop of York, who had +been officiating at the wedding of an Ayrshire Houldsworth. We had +last met at Dunskey, my old home in Galloway, when he was, I think, +vicar of Portsea. I journeyed straight to Southampton, where good +Abbade Miguel, an English Benedictine (Dom Sibley) who was accompanying +him to Brazil, and the seven nuns,[6] were all ready for their long +voyage. I saw them on board the good old _Aragon_ (which looked very +spick-and-span), "waved my hands (like Nancy Lee) upon the quay," and +rather wished that I was one of the party! Meanwhile I had to get back +to London, to help to marry (on a murky Saturday afternoon) my Irish +Guards friend Tom {217} Vesey[7] to Lady Cicely Browne. A "mixed +marriage," as it is called, is always a short affair, with no vocal +music, and of course no nuptial mass; but this was the briefest I ever +remember, the whole ceremony, including a five minutes' sermon from +Father Maturin, taking exactly a quarter of an hour! There was the +usual tiresome crowd afterwards at Lord Revelstoke's house in Carlton +House Terrace; but I was glad to see some old friends, and to have a +pleasant chat with Lady Bigge,[8] who, by the way, had just become Lady +Stamfordham. If there was no music at the Chelsea church, I came in +for more than I bargained for next day (Sunday), namely a performance +by a famous London choir of Beethoven's Grand Mass, a composition which +I would fain hear anywhere rather than in church. It was, of course, +excellently rendered; but as I listened to the crashing chords, I could +not help recalling the appreciation of an eminently-qualified critic, +treating of this musical masterpiece:-- + + +"The Christian sentiment has completely left him in the _Gloria_, where +there bursts forth, not the pure and heavenly melody of a hymn of +praise and peace, but the shout of victory raised by human passions +triumphing over a conquered enemy." + + +Journeying north to Ampleforth Abbey, where I {218} was engaged to give +my "Bishop Hay" lecture, I read in my morning paper (1) that old Sir +William Farrer had left L300,000 (I hoped my sister-in-law would +benefit), (2) that Lady Herbert of Lea, an outstanding figure in +English Catholic life for sixty years, and a very kind friend to me in +my own early Catholic days, had died at the age of nearly ninety; (3) +that the Pope had created seventeen Cardinals and two new English +archbishoprics (Liverpool and Birmingham); but no Benedictine Cardinal, +and none for Canada or Australia, although there were two +Irish-Americans for U.S.A.! I spent November 1 and 2 at Ampleforth: on +All Saints' Day I saw the college football team give a handsome +drubbing to a visiting school--a feat to be proud of, as they were +themselves quite novices at the Rugby game. Next day, All Souls', +there were the usual solemn requiem services; but owing to the +exigencies of the school classes, the poor monks had to crowd in before +breakfast matins, lauds, prime, meditation, October devotions, tierce, +sext, none, and Pontifical high mass--with a full day's teaching to +follow! rather killing work, I should imagine. The abbot told me that +he proposed sending two of his community to Western Canada, to +"prospect" in view of founding a monastery and college there.[9] + +A long day's journey from Ampleforth took me to Keir, where I found the +new house-chapel, though far from complete, available for mass on +Sunday. We drove over to Doune in the afternoon with the Norfolks (who +were my fellow-guests), and explored {219} the old castle of the Earls +of Moray, partially restored by Lord Moray's grandfather. The massive +remains I thought very impressive; and the Duke, who was perhaps more +interested in architecture than in anything else, was much taken with +the old place. He was also, however, interested in the Arundel +parlour-game of "ten questions," which we played after dinner, and in +which he displayed, through years of practice, an almost diabolical +cleverness. I travelled north to Fort Augustus after a night of +terrific gales, with fallen trees and snapped-off limbs lying +everywhere along the railway--a melancholy sight. + +I had been endeavouring to interest our friends in the south in our +desire to reopen the Abbey School when feasible; but at a Council held +at the abbey on my return it was decided to leave that project in +abeyance, and to concentrate our efforts meanwhile on trying to replace +the ramshackle shed which served as our church by at least a part of +the permanent building. Harrowing appeals in the Catholic press, +embodying views of the shanty in question: a personal campaign +undertaken by some of the fathers, and begging-letters of the most +insidiously-persuasive kind, were part of the plan of campaign, which +met with a fair measure of success. There was some feeling in our +community in favour of a very much less ambitious (and expensive) +church than originally planned; but I personally would be no party to +any scheme involving the abandonment of our hopes to see built a real +abbey church, worthy of the site and the surroundings, and the erection +instead of a neat, simple, and inexpensive R.C. chapel, which seemed +the ideal of some of the less {220} imaginative of our brethren. I was +receiving invitations from various Scottish centres to repeat my Hay +lecture; and this, we thought, might be judiciously combined with +efforts on behalf of our building-fund. I went to Blairs College, +outside Aberdeen, for the old bishop's actual centenary (which we had +anticipated at Fort Augustus), and lectured to the students and their +professors there. On my way back, I visited, for the first time, our +"cell" at St. James's, high above the pretty prosperous sea-port of +Buckie. The place pleased me--a conveniently-planned house, standing +among pine-woods and meadows, with a fine prospect over land and sea; +and a nice chapel, simple and devout, with a gaily-gilt altar from +Tyrol. I gave my lecture in three other places during these weeks of +early winter: at Motherwell, where my lantern failed me, and I was +grateful to my audience for listening to an hour's dry talk without +pictures; in Edinburgh, where I had a large and very appreciative +audience; and in Glasgow, where a still bigger gathering filled the +City Hall, and was really enthusiastic. It was all very fatiguing; and +I was glad to get home and enjoy a little rest and peace before +Christmas. Beaufort, too, where I acted as Christmas chaplain as +usual, was restful this year, with only a small family party, and the +Lovats getting ready for a trip to Egypt and Khartoum. We had a long, +severe, and stormy winter in the Highlands: gale after gale, in which +our poor wooden church swayed and shivered and creaked like the old +_Araguaya_ in the Bay of Biscay; and then bitter frosts with the +thermometer down in the neighbourhood of zero, and all the able-bodied +{221} monks smashing the ice in the "lade," in order to keep the +current going for our electric light. Meanwhile we were cheered by the +general interest, even in far-off lands, in our church-building +crusade. Our Maltese father brought a cheque from his island home; and +subscriptions came from my Yucatan friend, Senor Ygnacio Peon, and from +Alastair Fraser in remote Rhodesia. I went off on a campaign south of +the Tweed, with my lantern slides as a passport; and it was never +difficult, in lecturing on the straits and struggles of the Scottish +Church in the early nineteenth century, to pass to the needs and hopes +of the Scottish Benedictines in the early twentieth. I had, as always, +a kind reception and a sympathetic hearing from our brethren at Douai +Abbey, but had the bad luck to be invalided immediately afterwards, +fortunately in the pleasant Surrey home of my sister, who took me +drives, when I was convalescent, all among the queer-shaped hills of +the North Downs, intersected by the Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury. + +The national coal-strike began whilst I was at Nutwood--a million men +"downing tools," and the end impossible to foresee. Travelling, of +course, became at once infinitely troublesome and tedious;[10] however, +I made my way to Stonyhurst College, where I had a big and interested +audience (there were many young Scots among the 400 pupils), and then +managed to crawl back to London (one simply {222} sat in a station, and +waited for a train to come along some time), where I attended the +"house-warming" dinner of our Caledonian Club--I was an original +member--transferred from Charles Street to Lord Derby's fine house +overlooking St. James's Square. There were, of course, +self-congratulatory speeches; and a concert of Scottish music wound up +the evening agreeably. I paid a flying visit to Oxford this week--a +guest now in my old Hall, which had a full muster of monastic +undergraduates. The most conspicuous object in Oxford seemed to be our +"gracious tower" at Magdalen--a mass of elaborate scaffolding from top +to bottom:[11] spring-cleaning, I imagined, for the Prince of Wales, +who was going into residence there in October. I called on the new +University chaplain, installed, but not yet, apparently, quite at home +in, the old familiar house in St. Aldate's, and also managed to put in +a few hours at the Bodleian, to finish my article on William of +Wykeham, the last of eighty-three which I had written for the American +Encyclopaedia. It had been interesting work, of which some tangible +results were certain vestments, pictures, and other adornments which I +had been thus able to provide for the chapel of our Benedictine Hall. + +Lunching at the new Caledonian, on my way through London, I found +myself next young Bute, dreadfully depressed about the coal-strike, and +(not for the first time) looking forward to the workhouse for himself +and family. My next lecture was due at St. Edmund's College, Ware, +where I had the honour of numbering among my audience the {223} +brand-new Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster,[12] imposing in his +brand-new rose-coloured robes, but as kind and gracious as ever. In +the middle of my lecture (I had an audience of nearly 300) the "divine" +(as the church students were called) in charge of the lighting startled +us all by suddenly crying out, "There is going to be an explosion!" and +the next moment a flame shot up from the lantern almost to the ceiling. +"Only that and nothing more"; but it was quite sufficiently alarming +for the moment. Next day we enjoyed a motor-drive through the pretty +pastoral country, and saw in the course of it one curious sight--a +suffragist female (militant by the look of her) standing on a stool +just outside the lychgate of a village church, and addressing an +apparently very unreceptive audience of open-mouthed Hertfordshire +yokels. + +Holy Week and Easter found me again at Arundel, where there was a +holiday gathering of many young people at the castle, the youngest +member of the party being the Duke's baby daughter, who was christened +Katherine the day after my arrival. "_Absit omen!_" whispered (not +very tactfully, I thought) the good vicar of Arundel, as we drank tea +and nibbled the christening cake after the ceremony--looking up, as he +spoke, at a portrait of the baby's luckless ancestress Queen Katherine +Howard. "Il n'y a pas de danger," I whispered back; but I don't know +whether he understood French. I was amused afterwards, talking to the +nurse of the Duchess's small nephews and nieces, to hear _her_ opinion +of the castle and its glories. {224} "A dreadful place for children, +_I_ call it, with all these towers and battlements and dungeons and +hiding-holes--one never knows where they'll get to next. A London +house for me, where there's children to look after!" The services were +jubilant, and the great church beautifully adorned on Easter Sunday, +and the choir warbled what poor Angus[13] used to call the "sensuous +harmonies" of Gounod in their best style. Yet more children arrived +after Easter, including three tomboy great-nieces of our host; and +there were great games in the vast Baron's hall--roller-skating on the +expanse of polished floor, and dancing to the rather inadequate strains +of a wheezy gramophone which had suffered from the depredatory +explorations of my lord of Arundel and Surrey and his sisters. + +The Duke motored me up to London in Easter-week to attend Stafford's +wedding in Eaton-square: masses of arums and Madonna lilies, tall +upstanding plumes of Eton blue waving from the bridesmaids' heads, and +the inevitable and inappropriate "O for the Wings of a Dove!" The +Primate of All Ireland began his sermon by addressing the happy pair, +with unnecessary intimacy, as "Eilleen and George";[14] and when he had +finished we all trooped off to Grosvenor House. Duchess Millicent was +in {225} great beauty, but I was sorry to see Sutherland, with whom I +talked for five minutes, looking very ill and almost voiceless.[15] We +had a pleasant drive back to Arundel; and I was interested to notice +what one never, of course, sees travelling by rail, how completely the +scenery, the soil, even the appearance of the people, changed as we +crossed the border from Surrey into Sussex. + +I recall a luncheon about this time at a big London hotel--a snug +little party of a hundred or so--with Lord Saye and Sele in the chair, +and speeches from Lord William Cecil, Sir Henry Lunn, and others, about +the development of China, and especially the projected Chinese +university. The novel toast of the "President of the Chinese Republic" +was replied to, in excellent English, by the Chinese Minister, Yew Luk +Lin, next to one of whose two agreeable daughters I was seated: they +were all three in Western garb. Next day my brother motored me down to +Eton (always a pleasure to me) to see his boy there; we went on +afterwards to Brooklands, and looked at the motors dashing round the +track and the aeroplanes swooping round, rising and alighting, all new +to me and very interesting. Another interesting evening was spent at +the Albert Hall, at the annual demonstration of the Boys' Brigade, to +which, after the drill and other performances, Prince Arthur of +Connaught presented new colours, the gift of the Princess Royal. After +this I had to go down to Ramsgate (though feeling far from fit) to give +my last lecture at the Benedictine school and abbey there. I was +interested in the {226} church--Pugin's masterpiece, as he considered +it himself, and thought it impressive, but so dark that I could not +read my breviary in it at noonday.[16] The observance of the good +monks was in some respects Italian (e.g. the reading in the refectory +was in that language); but the schoolboys seemed quite British, and +cheered my lecture with British heartiness. I should have liked to +stay a little and enjoy the hospitality of my brethren in the pure air +and sunshine of the Thanet coast; but I had to hurry back to London and +submit to a serious medical overhauling, the net result of which was an +order to go in for an immediate and drastic "cure"--if possible at +Aix-les-Bains.[17] A friend's generosity made this feasible; and, duly +authorized, I prepared to pass three weeks at the famous Savoy +watering-place. + + + +[1] The old man died in his hundredth year, after spending nearly a +quarter of a century as a professed lay-brother in our abbey, whither +he had come as a septuagenarian, by the advice of an episcopal cousin, +to prepare for his end! See _post_, page 260. + +[2] Our friendship had lasted uninterruptedly for nearly forty years, +and had now extended to two generations of her descendants. + +[3] "There was an old maid of Carstairs, + Whose villa required some repairs: + When she asked if the plumber + Could finish _next summer_, + He said he would be there for years!" + +[4] My impression is that the "king of Britain" was a bit of a myth, +and that the "Lucius" venerated at Chur was Saint Lucius of +Glamorgan--called in Welsh "Lleurwg" or "Lleurfer Mawr"=the "Great +Light-bearer," who, according to the Welsh tradition, was the founder +of the Church of Llandaff and of others in South Wales. + +[5] Sir William and some of his nearest relations formed a remarkable +group of men who had won titles and honours in their various careers. +His brother was created Baron Farrer; one brother-in-law was Sir +Stafford Northcote, first Earl of Iddesleigh, and another was created +Baron Hobhouse; his nephew was Lord Northcote, the first +Governor-General of Australia; and he himself was given his knighthood +at the first Jubilee of Queen Victoria. + +[6] Three (of whom one, the destined Superior, unhappily died on the +voyage out) were English nuns from Stanbrook Abbey, near Worcester: the +remaining four were Brazilians, who had passed through their novitiate +in the same convent. + +[7] Our friendship had begun unconventionally. An anonymous article of +mine, in a weekly paper, on my Eton schoolfellows, had mentioned Tom's +father, Eustace Vesey, as "the dearest of them all." Tom, then himself +a small Etonian, wrote to me through the publisher: I of course +replied, and the friendship thus begun lasted through his school days, +his rather meteoric time at Christ Church, and afterwards. + +[8] Sister to my best and oldest Oxford friend, Willie Neville. Sir +Arthur Bigge, private secretary successively to Queen Victoria, Edward +VII., and George V., was raised to the peerage as Baron Stamfordham +this year (1911). + +[9] In the neighbourhood of Calgary. Nothing, however, came of the +scheme. + +[10] And domestic conditions, I may add, highly uncomfortable--far more +so than in the prolonged strike some years later, for which people were +more or less prepared. "I wonder, my lord," said a lady, visiting a +bishop in his vast and unwarmed palace, "that you don't get some of +that nice Welsh coal for your big house. I forget the exact name; I +think it is called _anti-christ_ coal!" + +[11] It was said to be the finest bit of scaffold-work ever put up. I +secured an excellent photograph of it. + +[12] Archbishop Bourne of Westminster had been created a Cardinal by +Pius X. in the Consistory of November 27, 1911. + +[13] "I never hear Gregorian music on earth," he said to me once, "but +I trust I shall hear nothing else in heaven. There are 'many mansions' +there, and I humbly hope that _my_ mansion will be as far removed as +possible from 'Hummel in B flat'!" + +[14] I mentioned this in my description of the wedding on our return to +Arundel. The comment of one of our party, a lady rather "slow in the +uptake" (as we say in Scotland) was, "But what did he _mean_? Whom was +she leaning _on_? was it _King_ George?" + +[15] The Duke of Sutherland died about a year later. + +[16] Pugin justified his love for "dim religious" churches with his +usual delightful inconsequence. "In the thirteenth century," he said +in effect, "no one thought of reading in church: they told their beads +and made acts of faith and said their prayers. _My_ church is a +thirteenth-century church, to all intents and purposes--_ergo!_" + +[17] It was a case of "inflammatory gouty eczema," too long neglected. + + + + +{227} + +CHAPTER XIII + +1912-1913 + +The Lovat family were all interested in St. Vincent's Home for +Cripples, near London, where a daughter of the house (a Sister of +Charity) was a nurse; and I attended at their invitation a concert in +aid of it, the day before I left London, at Sunderland House. The +sumptuous ball-room, with its walls of Italian marble, heavily gilt +ceiling, and chandeliers of rock crystal, made a handsome setting for a +brilliant audience, which included Queen Amelie of Portugal. Her +Majesty honoured me with a short conversation during the afternoon, and +seemed interested to hear of my sojourn, some years before, in a +Portuguese monastery (Cucujaes), and of our charitable but eccentric +neighbour there, the Condessa de Penha Longa.[1] The concert, which +included two woebegone recitations from Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and a +funny song written, composed, and sung by Cyril Maude--his first +effort, he assured us, in that line[2]--was a success by which, I hope, +the poor cripples benefited considerably. {228} Next day I made a +bee-line for the south of France, going through Paris without stopping. +The season was hardly open in Aix-les-Bains; and the pretty town looked +a little _triste_, with many shops still shut up. But the spring +weather was fresh and bright, and I was much in the open air between +the stages of my "cure," which was fairly severe. I liked the friendly +Savoyards, a pious and faithful race, though with such a reputation for +_grumbling_ that their own king (Victor Amadeus II.) said of them, "Ils +ne sont jamais contents: s'il pleuvait de sequins, ils dirait que le +bon Dieu casse leurs ardoises!" They did not, however, grumble in my +hearing; and the portly cure of the new church on the hill, with whom I +made friends, praised their simplicity and virtue. He organized +various attractions during May in his church, whither I used to conduct +some of my hotel-acquaintances after dinner, assuring them that they +would be better entertained there than in losing their money on the +"little horses" in the stuffy casino. One evening there would be +_projections lumineuses_, lantern-views of some of Our Lady's loveliest +churches in France, or of the adventures of Joan of Arc, always with +racy comments from his reverence; at another time a _conference +dialoguee_--the _vicaire_ (disguised in a red muffler) propounding +agnostic conundrums from a pew, and the _cure_ answering them +triumphantly from the pulpit, amid the plaudits of the congregation. +He was a really excellent preacher; and his series of May sermons +(which I insisted on my friends staying to hear) on "Les Peches d'un +homme d'affaires"--"de plaisir"--"d'Etat," and so on, were uncommonly +practical as well as eloquent. {229} Pentecost, a great popular +festival here, was kept with piety as well as merriment. The church +was crowded with communicants from daybreak: later on the Cardinal +Archbishop of Chambery (whom I had the pleasure of meeting at breakfast +at the presbytery) came and confirmed a large number of children who +had made their first Communions on Ascension Day, after himself giving +them a pretty searching public examination in the catechism. The +afternoon and evening were devoted to festivity--dancing, gymnastics, +military _retraites_, fireworks, illuminations, and a sort of Greenwich +Fair; all very gay and harmless. + +The exigencies of my cure would not permit of distant expeditions to +Annecy, the Grande Chartreuse, etc., which I should have liked to +visit. One interesting excursion I managed, to the Cistercian Abbey of +Hautecombe, charmingly situated on a wooded promontory overlooking Lake +Bourget. There was a resident community of thirty monks--the only one +left in France under the then anti-Christian regime. They owed their +exemption to the fact of their church being the Westminster Abbey of +Savoy, containing some thirty tombs of the ancestors of the King of +Italy, who had protested to the French Government against the expulsion +of the guardians of the ashes of his ancestors; and so they were +allowed to remain and serve God in peace. Unfortunately the fine +twelfth-century church had been restored and re-restored in debased and +florid fashion, a single chapel being all that was left intact of the +pre-Revolution building. + +I left Aix, much the better for my visit, at the end of May, travelling +straight to Paris with two {230} ladies--one an extraordinarily voluble +Irish widow, in my carriage. The weather was hot; and I tired myself +out with an exhaustive and exhausting visit to the Salon and the +sculptures in the Champs Elysees. The picture of the year (surrounded +always by a silent and interested crowd) was Jean Beraud's "New Way of +the Cross,"[3] which, if it made only a percentage of French men and +women realize what the public renunciation of Christianity meant, was +calculated to do more good than many sermons. A week later I was at +Keir, where I found some anxiety caused by the serious illness of +Lovat, who was laid up with typhoid, and fretting at being unable, for +the first time since the raising of the Lovat Scouts a dozen years +before, to take command of the corps at their annual training. We +enjoyed some lovely June weather at Keir, motoring one day to +Stirling's picturesque lodge on Loch Lubnaig, and lunching _al fresco_ +among stonecrops and saxifrages and pansies, on a bank overlooking the +loch and the purple mass of Ben Ledi. Another day we saw the smart +little soldier-boys of Queen Victoria's School at Dunblane get their +prizes from the Duchess of Montrose, with whose husband I had a chat +about our Etonian days together, _consule Planco_. + +I was bidden to Ampleforth for the jubilee celebrations there (their +fine college had been opened in 1862), which was graced by the presence +of {231} Cardinal Bourne--a stately figure with his long scarlet train +sweeping over the green lawns in the great open-air procession which +was the central feature of the solemnities. The college O.T.C. formed +an uncommonly smart bodyguard to his Eminence, though they puzzled, and +even shocked, some of the old Benedictines present by remaining covered +(in military fashion) during the service. The after-luncheon oratory +was neither more nor less tedious than usual; but we all enjoyed later +an admirable presentment by the boys of _The Frogs_ of Aristophanes, +with Parry's delightful music. I got back to Fort Augustus in time for +the canonical visitation of the monastery by the Abbot-president, to +whom I spoke of my hope that I might be allowed to return for a time to +Brazil; but he replied to me, in effect, in the words of St. Sixtus to +his faithful deacon,[4] and I could only resign myself with what grace +I could to the inevitable. I learned on July 2, the thirty-second +anniversary of my religious profession, that our prior's resignation of +office, owing to his almost continual ill-health, had been accepted, +and that I was to be appointed in his place. Meanwhile the Oxford +Local Examinations called me (for the last time) to North +Staffordshire, where it was pleasantly cool among the hills and wooded +glens of Oakamoor. I spent a Sunday at Cheadle, in the valley below, +and admired the graceful church which Pugin had been given _carte +blanche_ by the "Good Earl of Shrewsbury" to build as he liked, with no +fear of the "accursed blue pencil" (as he called it) {232} which so +often mutilated his elaborate designs.[5] "As attractive an example of +the architect's skill as could be quoted," a severe critic[6] had +called the Cheadle church; and the tribute was well deserved. Two days +after my return to our abbey I was formally installed in office as +prior, by my good friend the abbot of Ampleforth, with the same +ceremonial which I had witnessed thirty-four years previously, when Dom +Jerome Vaughan was inducted into office in the vaulted guard-room of +the old Fort, afterwards incorporated into the monastic guest-house. +The burden of superiorship, a heavy one enough, was lightened not only +by the unanimous kindness of my own brethren, but by the cordiality +with which my appointment was greeted by friends outside, including the +bishop and clergy of our diocese of Aberdeen, who were the guests of +the abbey for their annual retreat, a few days after my installation. +A consoling message, too, came to me from the Holy Father himself +through Pere Lepicier, who had come from Rome in the quality of +Apostolic Visitor to Scotland, and stayed with us for some days; a +Franco-Roman diplomatist with the suavest possible manner and address, +masking (it struck me) no little acuteness and a strong personality. +His visit, and that of the diocesan clergy, coincided with {233} St. +Oswald's Day, which we kept very happily, many of our neighbours in the +village and district, including my old friend the parish minister, +dining with us in the monastic refectory. A still older friend, George +Lane Fox, sent me a cordial telegram; and I was able to send one in +return congratulating him on the handsome testimonial he had just +received on his retirement from a quarter of a century's office as +Vice-chancellor of the Primrose League. A grief to us both, only a few +days later, was the news of the death, at our abbey of Cesena in Italy, +of his eldest son, who had been closely connected with Fort Augustus +from his childhood, first as a little boy in the abbey-school, and +later as a monk and priest of our community. + +One of my first works as prior was to organize a work which we had very +gladly undertaken--that of ministering as naval chaplains to ships in +Scottish waters. The chief naval stations were Lamlash (Arran) in the +south-west and Cromarty in the northeast; and thither certain of our +fathers journeyed every week, meeting as a rule with every kindness and +consideration from the captains and officers, and getting into touch +with the considerable number of Catholic bluejackets on the various +ships. Sometimes, between the Sundays, they found time to prosecute +the quest, which was ever before us, for our church-building fund; and +our good Father Odo, in particular, reaped quite a little harvest, +during his Lamlash chaplaincy, in my native diocese of Galloway, where +there were still kind friends who remembered me, and were glad to show +sympathy with an object which I had so deeply at heart. Dom Odo was +not only a zealous priest but an {234} equally zealous antiquarian and +F.R.S.A. (Scot.). He had specialized in artificial islands, about +which he read an interesting paper this autumn at the British +Association meeting at Dundee; and he was elected about the same time +president of the Inverness Field Club, the premier scientific society +of the north of Scotland. I record this with pleasure as an example +(not, of course, an isolated one) of the Benedictine liberty which +permits and encourages the members of our Order to cultivate +freely---apart from their professional studies and avocations--such +tastes and talents as they may possess, and which, needless to say, +greatly adds to the interest and variety of their lives. + +My own life was of course, after my entering on the office and duties +of prior, much more confined than heretofore to the precincts of our +Scottish abbey. This was no additional burden to me; for my life, +whether at Fort Augustus or Oxford or in Brazil, had always been a life +in community; and I had always been happy and at home in the society of +my brethren in the monastery. Perhaps the most tiring and trying +feature in my position as superior was the never-ceasing correspondence +of all kinds which it involved, and with which one had personally to +grapple; but in other ways the wise subdivision of labour which +prevails in a well-ordered religious house did much to lighten the +daily burden, and the ready willingness in all quarters to afford +whatever help and relief was needed was a constant solace and +encouragement. The busy days thus passed quickly by, varied by the +continual influx of guests--always interested and sometimes +interesting--who were never wanting in our abbey. {235} Our +neighbours, too, were kind and friendly; and their motors were often at +one's disposal for an afternoon's drive up one or other of the +beautiful glens which ran westward from our Gleann Mhor, the Great Glen +of all, to the sea. Then there were duties connected with the parish +and district Councils, to which I was elected soon after becoming +prior; and the constant interest of directing the plan of campaign in +aid of our building-fund, and the satisfaction of seeing its steady +increase. I recall, during those bright still days of late autumn +(often the loveliest season of the Highland year), a retreat given us +by an eloquent Dominican; and also a visit from Lady Lovat, who, as our +founder's widow, enjoyed the privilege of entering the monastic +enclosure with her "suite" (in this case her daughter-in-law, Lovat's +wife, and a friend)--a formal enough affair, but of course novel and +interesting to the ladies concerned. According to the quaint antique +prescription, the great bell was tolled when they entered the cloister, +warning the monks to remain in their cells: no meat nor drink could be +served to them within the enclosure: they were to visit only the +"public places" of the monastery, and were enjoined "not to gaze +curiously about them." Lady Lovat would fain have lingered in our +well-furnished library; but our little procession swept on +relentlessly, and her literary longings remained ungratified.[7] + +{236} + +It was not, I think, until November of this year that I spent a night +away from Fort Augustus, being bidden to Liverpool to keep, with a +large gathering of his friends, the golden jubilee of our kind old +friend Bishop Hedley. There was a High Mass, a sermon, and (of course) +a festival dinner, with many speeches--prosy, melancholy, +retrospective, or humorous, according to the mood or the idiosyncrasy +of the several speakers. My brief oration, conveying the thanks of the +guests, included two funny stories, which so favourably impressed one +of the reporters, that he announced in his paper next day that "the +honours of the evening's oratory undoubtedly rested with a venerable +and genial monk from the other side of the Border!" I stayed at +Glasgow on my way north, to take the chair at the annual festival of +the Caledonian Catholic Association, an admirably beneficent +institution in which I was glad to show my interest.[8] After the +concert, and before the ball which followed, Stirling and I left for +Keir in a hired motor-car, which broke down badly in the middle of +Cumbernauld Muir, leaving us _plantes-la_ till past midnight. There +was the residuum of a big shooting-party at Keir; and we all attended +next day a vocal recital given in the old cathedral by "Mlle. +Hommedieu"--an odd-sounding name: I wondered if she was "Miss Godman" +in private life. + +I had spent Christmas so often at Beaufort (no {237} less than eleven +times since 1893) that it seemed strange to be absent from there this +year; but I had of course to preside at the solemnities in our own +church, which (notwithstanding the appalling weather conditions) was +crowded to the doors for the midnight services. We dined, as usual, in +the vacant school refectory, gaily decorated, with a blazing log fire: +there was an informal concert afterwards, and the festive evening was +enjoyed by all. I made a Christmas call on my old friend Sir Aubone +Fife,[9] whose annual quest for hinds had been interrupted by illness. +He rented the winter shooting of Inchnacardoch Forest from Lovat, and +spent every Christmas and New Year _solus_ at our little hotel, content +with his sport, his own society, and an occasional visit from me! He +had comfortable bachelor quarters in Jermyn Street: London for him was +bounded by Pall Mall and Oxford Street: his home and recreation were in +his many clubs, and he always reminded me irresistibly of a +twentieth-century Major Pendennis. I managed to put in two nights at +Beaufort in Christmas week, receiving a hearty welcome from the merry +party of Frasers and Maxwells assembled there, and returned to the +abbey for New Year's Day, in time to take part in the various holiday +entertainments--Christmas trees, theatricals, etc., organised for our +good people. Twelfth-day I spent at Keir, preaching {238} (_seated_, +my usual practice now),[10] to a good congregation in the beautiful +private chapel, which was almost complete; and before returning home I +paid a little visit to Kelburn, where I found my poor brother-in-law in +bed with a broken crown (having fallen downstairs!) but my nephew the +flying-man apparently quite recovered, I was glad to see, from _his_ +more serious knock on the head at Bournemouth. I was pleased to hear +from my gunner brother, who was staying at Kelburn, of his +appointment--an excellent berth--as A.A.G. at the War Office. + +The closing weeks of our long northern winter were exceptionally bleak +and stormy this year; but constant occupation made them pass quickly +enough. February 10 (St. Scholastica's Day), on which our good nuns +kept high festival, and I officiated at their solemn services, was also +the opening day of our salmon-fishing; and in the first haul we landed +fifteen fish weighing just 250 pounds, the heaviest a beautiful +26-pounder. A salmon was always an acceptable present to a kind friend +in the south: some we ate fresh (a welcome variation of our Lenten +fare), and the rest we tried to kipper.[11] February 10 was otherwise +memorable this year, as on that day I learned that our community was to +elect its abbot a month later. We voted first on the important +question whether the election should be for life, as provided in our +Constitutions, {239} or (by special indult of Rome) for a fixed term of +years, which was the usual practice in the other houses of the +Congregation. The votes--some sent by post and telegraph--were almost +equally divided; and it was finally settled that the election should be +for eight years. Nearly all our absentee monks arrived from missions, +chaplaincies, and elsewhere, for the _tractatus_, or discussions +preliminary to the election, which was fixed for Thursday in Passion +Week, under the presidency of the abbot of Ampleforth. It took place +after the customary mass of the Holy Spirit, and turned out a very +brief affair, as I was elected by more than the requisite number of +votes at the first "scrutiny," as it was called.[12] My confirmation +and installation followed immediately--and then the letters and +telegrams began pouring in, all requiring to be answered; but the roads +and railways were providentially blocked for some days before Easter, +by a March snowstorm of almost unprecedented violence, and our mail +service was entirely suspended; so I got a little breathing time! Thus +undistracted, I officiated at all the services of the season, +celebrating on Easter Sunday amid rain, hail, and driving easterly +gales that made the text of my Paschal sermon--"Jam hiems transiit, +imber abiit et recessit,"[13] sound ironical enough. I spent an +Eastertide Sunday at Keir, where spring had really set in, and while +there made an expedition or two with an archaeological {240} enthusiast +who was of our party: to Stirling Castle, much finer and more spacious +than I had imagined; to the scanty remains--only the massive church +tower and the old monastic dove-cot!--of the grand old abbey of +Cambuskenneth; and to Doune Castle, where it was odd to come on workmen +installing electric light in the venerable ruins in preparation for the +coming-of-age of my Lord Doune, son of the "Bonnie Earl of Moray." I +returned to Inverness just in time to attend the funeral of Andrew +Macdonald, Sheriff-clerk of the county, a devout Catholic, and one of +the oldest and most faithful friends of our abbey and community. There +was a great gathering in the church and at the grave-side, and all +seemed impressed by the solemn rites, and by the chanting of our +monastic choir. + +We were all busily occupied, during the next ten days, with +preparations for the solemnity of my abbatial benediction, which took +place on April 9, in presence of a large assemblage of invited guests +and interested onlookers. It was a particular pleasure to me to +receive the Church's benison at the hands of a friend of many years' +standing, the venerable Bishop of Argyll and the Isles, whom I had +known in old happy days at Mountstuart, as parish priest of Rothesay. +Abbots Gasquet and Smith assisted the bishop; and Lovat and other +friends were among the laymen who had their part in the august and +impressive ceremony, which lasted for fully three hours. A hundred +guests were entertained in our refectory; and I received many good +wishes during the day, including telegrams from Cardinals Bourne and +Merry del Val, Norfolk, Bute, and Charles Dalrymple, whose kind {241} +message gratified me as the only one received from any member of my +family.[14] An informal concert in the evening, in the theatre-hall of +the college, was a pleasant close to a memorable day. + +An earlier date than might otherwise have been the case had been fixed +for the abbatial election at Fort Augustus by the superiors of our +Order, who desired that our abbey should be represented by its +duly-constituted head at the great Benedictine gathering which was to +take place in Italy this summer. The object of this assemblage, to +which every abbot of Black Monks (_Monachi Nigri_) in Christendom +received an invitation, was two-fold: first to assist at the +consecration of the crypt of the church at Monte Cassino, the cradle of +our venerable Order, after its complete restoration and decoration by +the Beuron School of Benedictine artists; and secondly, to elect, in +Rome, a coadjutor to the Abbot Primate of the Order, whose health had +broken down. I went south in the last week of April, and after a +flying visit to my sister in Surrey (where I said mass at the very +pretty and well-kept church at Redhill), went on to stay with the +French Benedictines at Farnborough, where two members of our Fort +Augustus community were at that time in residence. They showed me much +of interest, including the small museum of Napoleonic relics, and, of +course, the crypt containing the massive granite sarcophagi containing +the bodies of Napoleon {242} III. and his only son. It so chanced that +the aged Empress (then in her eighty-eighth year) had been praying in +the church when we entered it; and we saw her leaving in her carriage +for her chateau a few hundred yards away. I thought, as I glanced at +the frail shrunken figure leaning on her staff, of a summer day in +Paris forty-eight long years before, when I had seen her, a radiant and +beautiful vision, walking in the Tuileries gardens with her little son, +amid the admiring plaudits of an apparently devoted people. The young +prince was mounted on a sort of two-wheeled hobby-horse, gaily painted +and gilt, and I asked my companion (a French lady) what it might be. +"Ah!" she replied, "c'est une invention absolument nouvelle: cela +s'appelle un' 've-lo-ci-pede'!" The only other occasion on which I +ever saw the Empress was in Rome some ten years later, when she came, +widowed and dethroned, to pay her respects to the venerable Pontiff +Pius IX. I have described elsewhere[15] this memorable visit, which I +was privileged to witness as being at that time a chamberlain on duty +at the Vatican. + +My friend MacCall, from Arundel, joined me at Dover, and we had a swift +and uneventful journey to Venice (actually my first visit!) where I +spent three crowded happy days--it was all I could spare--as the guest +of an old Eton and Oxford friend in his delightful _palazzo_ on the Rio +Marin. I cannot attempt any description: what impressed me most +vividly, perhaps, apart from the incomparable glories of S. Marco, was +our visit, in the amber and purple twilight of a Venetian May-day, to +our Benedictine {243} church of St. George--its monastery (alas! almost +derelict) and graceful rose-red campanile reflected in the deep azure +of the lagoon. I regretfully left Venice that night, and travelling +straight through Rome, in the company of abbots of various lands and +languages, reached Cassino about mid-day, and was driven up the sacred +mountain in a motor-car (an innovation since my last pilgrimage +hither!) passing, at various turns of the excellent road, groups of +peasants toiling up the rugged immemorial path to the monastery. We +were welcomed by the kind abbot at the foot of the great staircase; and +I was soon installed in a pleasant cell, with a view that almost took +one's breath away over the wild and mountainous Abruzzi,[16] and the +thin clear mountain air blowing in at one's window with delicious +freshness. + +I do not think I ever attended such a series of prolonged and stately +church functions as during the week of our sojourn at Monte Cassino. +The chiefs of our Order in various countries officiated in turn at the +different solemnities; and we abbots (seventy or eighty of us) sat +perched on hard and narrow benches, tier upon tier, on either side of +the high altar. One day it was a solemn requiem mass for the deceased +benefactors of our Order: another, the consecration by the Cardinal +Legate representing {244} the Pope,[17] assisted by two Benedictine +archbishops, of the three altars in the crypt (this ceremony alone +lasted five hours, and almost finished me!), whilst on Sunday his +Eminence conducted the solemn high mass and subsequent procession, the +great church, _cortili_ beyond, and every available foot of space being +occupied by an immense and devout crowd of gaily-dressed peasants, most +of whom had slept on the bare ground in the open air on the previous +night. On this crowning day we were more than three hundred in the +vast refectory for dinner, at the end of which a choir of monks chanted +with thrilling effect the mediaeval _Laudes_, or Acclamations of +Hincmar, in honour of our illustrious guests. Among these magnates was +my old friend of early days in Brazil, Bishop Gerard van Caloen, whom I +had not seen for sixteen years.[18] He had grown a long grey beard, +and his eyes looked out through his spectacles as sad and inscrutable +as ever.[19] I sat next him at the _ludus liturgico-scenicus_, one of +the diversions provided for us by the community: a grave musical +setting of the life and death of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, so +pathetic that I wept--to the surprise of my friend the bishop, who said +he never knew that I was so tender-hearted! The play was presented by +some of the young monks {245} and their pupils (they had over two +hundred in the abbey, including a lay boarding-school and two +seminaries), and on another evening they gave us a really excellent +concert of vocal and instrumental music. I do not know where space was +found for playgrounds for all these boys, for there seemed really very +little room on the mountain top for anything except the extensive +buildings. The abbot of Downside, who was a great advocate of +exercise, used to walk half-way down the hill and up again every day +after dinner: it was, as far as I could discover, the only walk +possible. In any case the available time for recreation between the +long-drawn-out religious celebrations was short enough: it was a +strenuous week, though a very interesting one, and rendered enjoyable +by the unwearied attention which the good monks, one and all, showed to +their numberless and no doubt occasionally troublesome guests. When +all was over I left Monte Cassino in the pleasant company of my friend +Abbot Miguel of S. Paulo, and travelled by an incredibly slow train to +Rome, where we found a second Benedictine welcome of not less +heartiness in the international abbey of St. Anselm on the Aventine +Hill. + + + +[1] The lady supported an orphanage in her _castello_, and also an +incredible number of dogs, and distributed her affections equally +between the dogs and the orphans. + +[2] This, however, was probably a mere appeal _ad misericordiam_. +Cyril was no novice! + +[3] Representing Christ hounded along the road to Calvary by atheistic +deputies and anti-Christian schoolmasters, the latter inciting children +to fling stones at Him. On the opposite side of the way knelt a little +group of believers, children and others, with arms outstretched towards +the Saviour. Some of those looking at the picture were greatly +affected, even to tears. + +[4] "Majora tibi debentur pro fide Christi certamina."--_Office of St. +Laurence_. + +[5] It was Pugin's constant grievance that the poverty of English +Catholics prevented him from carrying out his grandiose ideas. A +bishop once wrote to him asking for plans for a cathedral, very +spacious, extraordinarily handsome, and--above all--cheap, money being +very scarce. Pugin lost his temper on seeing what was the sum +suggested. "My dear Lord," he wrote back, "why not say 30s. more, and +have a tower and spire when you are about it?" + +[6] Sir Charles Eastlake (_History of the Gothic Revival_, p. 154). + +[7] Queens Regnant (and I think Consort) have the _ex officio_ entree +to monasteries; but Fort Augustus had never been so honoured, our only +"crowned head" visitor having been King Leopold of Belgium. I remember +Prince Henry of Battenberg, who came in a yacht with Princess Beatrice, +being put out at the latter being denied admission into the enclosure. +There was some talk of King Edward paying us a visit from Glenquoich, +where he was Lord Burton's guest; but nothing came of it. + +[8] I had presided at a festival of the Association fifteen years +previously (in 1897). + +[9] A fine old soldier and sportsman, who had fought in Afghanistan and +Burmah, and was afterwards appointed, first Clerk of the Cheque, and +later standard-bearer, in the King's Bodyguard. He volunteered, when +well over seventy, for service in the Great War, and was given, I +think, some post in connection with the defences of the Forth Bridge. + +[10] "I preach sitting," said Bateman: "it is more conformable to +antiquity and to reason to sit than to stand."--Newman, _Loss and Gain_ +(ed. 1876), page 70. My friend George Angus had followed suit at St. +Andrews. + +[11] I say "tried"; for our good Belgian _chef_, who _said_ he +understood the process, used some mysterious pickle of his own +invention--with disastrous results! + +[12] In the event of no candidate receiving a sufficient number of +votes, the "scrutiny" was repeated again and again--often a very +lengthy and tedious proceeding. + +[13] "The winter is now past, the rain is over and gone." It was never +really safe to quote these words at Fort Augustus before (say) the end +of May. + +[14] My brother-in-law, Sir Charles Dalrymple, had been one of those +who most bitterly resented my change of religion in 1875, and still +more my entrance into the Benedictine Order. But time had softened old +asperities; and we had been on affectionate terms for many years past. + +[15] _A Medley of Memories_ (1st Series), pp. 81, 82. + +[16] Most of the Abruzzi was included in the extensive diocese of Monte +Cassino (one of the largest in Italy), which was under the +administration of the abbot, although he was not a bishop. His +jurisdiction extended over no less than seven ancient dioceses--a fact +symbolized by the interesting and unique custom of his wearing, when he +celebrated pontifical high mass, seven different mitres in succession. + +[17] Cardinal Gasparri, at that time Secretary of State to the reigning +Pontiff, Benedict XV. + +[18] The pioneer of the Benedictine revival in Brazil, and my Superior +at the abbey of Olinda seventeen years before. See _A Medley of +Memories_ (1st Series), chaps, xvi. and xvii. Dom Gerard was +consecrated (titular) Bishop of Phocaea on April 18, 1906. + +[19] Like Dr. Firmin's in _Philip_. "Dreary, sad, as into a great +blank desert, looked the eyes."--Thackeray, _Philip_, chap. iii. + + + + +{246} + +CHAPTER XIV + +1913-1914 + +The object of the great gathering, in the summer of 1913, of +Benedictine abbots in Rome, whither they had been especially summoned +by the _Abbas Abbatum_, Pope Pius X., was not primarily devotional or +liturgical, like the assemblage just held at Monte Cassino. It was +first and foremost a business meeting, called for the purpose of +electing a coadjutor (with right of succession) to the first Abbot +Primate of the Order, Dom Hildebrand de Hemptinne, the distinguished +Belgian prelate, who, after a life entirely devoted to the interests of +the Church and of his brother-monks, had been compelled by impaired and +enfeebled health to retire from all active work. One of his most +notable achievements had been the planning and erection, at the +instance and with the generous help of Leo XIII., of the noble monastic +college on the Aventine, which that Pontiff declared would be the +greatest material monument of his fifteen years' tenure of the see of +Peter. It was pathetic that, although in residence at St. Anselm's +College (his own beloved foundation) when we assembled there for the +business in hand, Abbot de Hemptinne was quite unable to take any part +in it, or even personally to welcome us to Rome. He appeared only once +in public during our stay {247} there--a mere wreck of the active +personality which had been so long associated with the interests and +the progress of our Order in every part of Christendom. We at Fort +Augustus owed much to his wisdom and sympathetic kindness; and I was +touched to see, during the few minutes' conversation which I had with +him, how his face lightened up, and something of the old alertness +reawakened in his voice and bearing, as we spoke of new hopes and new +developments in connection with our Scottish abbey.[1] + +There were at this time just a hundred _abbates regiminis_ (i.e. ruling +abbots, excluding those holding merely titular rank) of Black Monks in +the Christian world; and of these I ranked last--for we took precedence +according to the date of appointment, not according to the antiquity of +our respective abbeys. Seventy-five were actually present in Rome and +most of the absentees had sent proxies to represent them. Four (two +from U.S.A., one Brazilian, and one Australian) were of episcopal rank, +and six others, though not bishops, exercised episcopal jurisdiction. +There were ten Arch-abbots, or abbots-president, of various national +Congregations; the rank and file being "ruling abbots" from every +country in Christendom. Latin was, of course, the official language at +our meetings, and to some extent the medium also of private +intercourse, though the variations of pronunciation made this a matter +of some difficulty. The great hall of the abbey where our sessions +were held was bad acoustically; and the magnates at the table of honour +(some of them {248} prelates of great age) mumbled so inaudibly that +we, in our humble places at the end of the hall, raised a cry of +"Altius! loquimini altius! nihil audivimus!" and others of the fathers +took up the cry of "Nihil! nihil!" At the first scrutiny the abbot of +Einsiedeln, in Switzerland, got eighty-four out of the ninety-eight +votes, which seemed decisive, and would have been so had he not, "cum +magna gratitudine," but extremely emphatically, declared that nothing +would induce him to accept. The Pope, who was appealed to, expressed +his regret, but declined to put any pressure on the reluctant abbot: +two more scrutinies followed, and finally Abbot von Stotzingen, of +Maria-laach, was elected by seventy-five votes. _Causa finita est_. +Our work finished, I had a few days to renew old happy memories of +Rome, greatly changed (I suppose materially for the better) since my +first visit in 1875. I went the round of the great basilicas, and +explored the vast cemetery of S. Lorenzo in quest of the grave of my +uncle David,[2] laid to rest there fourty-four years before. I found +it in good repair, with flowering shrubs growing round it, and read +with interest the beautiful Latin epitaph, written by the scholarly pen +of Archbishop Manning, who had received him into the Church, and +afterwards officiated at his simple funeral. + +I celebrated the Whitsuntide solemnities in our own church of St. +Anselm, much impressed by the virile and sonorous chant of the monastic +choir. {249} I left Rome a few days later, travelling by night to +Milan, where I said mass early in the duomo--more impressive than I had +ever yet seen it in the dull morning light, with the vast spaces in +deep shadow, and the great jewelled windows gleaming faintly through +the murk. From Milan a long and fatiguing journey brought me to +Maredsous, the famous Belgian abbey which I had seen only once since I +had spent four months there as a young monk thirty years before. The +vast pile of building, of dark slate-coloured stone in the severest +Gothic, seemed to have altered little since 1883 (there is something +singularly, almost appallingly, unchangeable about these great +monasteries); but of course the trees about it had grown, and there +were additions near by--one the interesting school of arts and crafts +directed by the monks, where I saw excellent goldsmiths' and enamel +work done by the pupils, as well as fine embroideries. Another new and +striking feature was the nuns' abbey, a quarter of a mile away, with a +large and beautiful church open to the public. I found here an English +portress, with the English name of Sister Winifred; and the abbess, a +sister of our good abbot-primate in Rome, spoke English well; but she +persuaded me (after cake and wine) into giving a _conference_ in French +to her community, about our doings at Monte Cassino and Rome. + +It was interesting to pass straight, as I did, from a great modern +abbey in being to the impressive remains of our cathedral priory at +Canterbury, and to sleep in an Elizabethan bedroom constructed within +the ancient guest-hall of the monks. My kind host, Canon Moore, +devoted a day to showing {250} me the wonders of his cathedral; and a +party of cathedral dignitaries (and their wives) were asked to meet me +at dinner. I had some talk with a pleasant, though minor, canon,[3] +who had been for a time in charge of our choir at Magdalen. From +Canterbury I went on to Douai Abbey, to preside at their school +prize-giving, and then to keep St. Philip's _festa_ with the London +Oratorians, who had invited a Fort Augustus monk (Dom Maurus +Caruana[4]) to preach this year the panegyric of their patron saint. I +look back on these Oratory festivals as among the pleasantest of London +summer days--the marble altars in the great church aglow with roses and +lilies and orchids; music of the best from the unrivalled choir:[5] +sometimes a really eloquent sermon, and luncheon afterwards, in company +with all that was best in the Catholic society of the day, in the cool +spacious refectory, hung round with portraits of Faber and Dalgairns +and Knox and other eminent Oratorians. I sat on this occasion next a +kindly _litterateur_ and critic--so kindly a one that even when he does +attack you (as Russell Lowell put it) + + "you doubt if the toes + That are trodden upon are your own or your foe's." + +{251} We spoke of printers' perennial errors; and he quoted two new to +me--one from the prospectus of a new company: "Six thousand _snares_ of +five pounds each"; and the other from a speech of Lord Carnarvon: +"Every clergyman is expected nowadays to have the intellect and wisdom +of a Jeremy Taylor"--the last two words being transformed by a reporter +into "journeyman tailor!" The word "clergyman" (in these days somewhat +discredited) suggested to my friend Tennyson's dictum: "The majority of +Englishmen think of God as an immeasurable clergyman in a white tie"; +and to me a line from the same poet's "May Queen," which had always +seemed to me the _ne plus ultra_ of bathos:[6] + + +"And that good man, the clergyman, has spoken words of peace." + + +I stayed a night at Kelburn on my way north to congratulate my +brother-in-law, as it was not only his eightieth birthday, but his +fortieth wedding-anniversary also fell this year. I was glad to find +myself at home again after five weeks' absence; but it was only for a +few weeks, as I had to go to Yorkshire in June, for the quinquennial +General Chapter of our Order at Ampleforth, where our first business +was to re-elect and install Abbot Gasquet as our abbot-president.[7] I +attended, a few days later, {252} a dinner of our Catholic Etonian +Association. Shane Leslie and (Mgr.) Hugh Benson both made capital +speeches, and I had the honour of proposing _Floreat Etona_. George +Lane Fox (a _quondam_ captain of the boats) was our president; and it +was interesting to learn that among Catholic Etonians were three old +captains of oppidans, Lords Abingdon and North, and Sir Francis +Burnand. I stayed for this function with the kind Oratorians, who +always had one or two Etonians in their community.[8] Their spacious +house was delightfully quiet, and the verdant shady garden might have +been two miles, instead of a bare two hundred yards, from the bustle +and traffic of Brompton Road. I assisted next day in their church at +the marriage of another Etonian Catholic, Sir Joseph Tichborne, and +looked with interest on the smart young lifeguardsman, son of the baby +defendant in the famous lawsuit more than forty years before. It is +hard now to realize the _furore_ caused by the great "Tichborne Case," +which sapped old friendships and engendered lasting animosities among +people who had no earthly connection with it[9]--for the old English +Catholic families, which _were_ {253} closely interested in the matter, +took it very quietly and never discussed it in public. I have never +known since any popular excitement in the least like it. + +I was back at Fort Augustus before the end of June; and the summer and +autumn (both wonderfully fine this year) passed quickly and happily. +Long sunshiny days brought us, as always, many visitors, among the +first being the large contingent of Glasgow Catholics who came as +usual, during their "Fair Week," to spend some days at our abbey, +partly in pious exercises and partly in enjoyable excursions. Our most +notable guest this year was perhaps the young King of Uganda (I believe +his proper title was not King but "Kabaka"), who came to Fort Augustus +for a week-end with his dusky suite, and spent some hours with us--a +tall, graceful and agreeable, but very shy, youth in a lovely robe of +peacock blue (he had arrived at the inn the night before wearing a +dingy covert-coat over a sort of white cassock). One of his +fellow-chiefs, I think the only Catholic of the party, had a huge +rosary slung round his neck during the visit to our monastery. Another +distinguished visitor was Cardinal Bourne, whose clerical secretary had +been driving him (_incog._) all over the Highlands, and over all sorts +of roads, in a little two-seater motor. This had to go into hospital +on their arrival; but through the kindness of an American neighbour I +was able to escort our guests in a roomy "Fiat" to Glengarry (our most +notable beauty-spot), and to the famous little inn, embowered in woods +on the edge of the amber rushing Garry, where there were many notable +names in the visitors' book, though {254} not, I think, up till then +the signature of a Prince of the Roman Church. His Eminence's visit +synchronized with our Highland Games and annual concert, both of which +he honoured with his presence; and next day he and his faithful +monsignor trundled off westwards in their little car, much pleased (as +we all were also) with their brief sojourn in our abbey guest-house. + +Apart from the normal duties incumbent on the head of a monastic +community, I had, from the time of first taking the reins, placed three +objects in the forefront of my hopes and aspirations, and had +endeavoured never to lose sight of them. These were, first, an +increase in our numbers by the admission of suitable aspirants to our +life; secondly, the renovation and utilization of the long derelict +buildings of the abbey-school, and the reopening of the school itself +as soon as feasible; and thirdly, the hastening of the long anticipated +day when work should be resumed on our abandoned church, and a part of +it, at least, completed and opened for Divine Service. Thanks to the +goodwill and support of my own brethren, and to the interested sympathy +of many friends outside, I had the happiness of seeing all these hopes +in a fair way to be realized within a twelvemonth of my receiving the +abbatial benediction. Four of our first year's batch of novices were +ultimately admitted to profession and to holy orders: they were joined +by two priests from the Scottish mission, both of whom took their vows +after due probation; while there were also affiliated to our community +two young English monks from a German monastery near Birmingham, as +well as a novice from the monastery of Caldey, in South {255} Wales, +almost all the members of which had, with their superior, made their +submission to the Catholic Church in the previous year.[10] We were +all agreed in the wish and hope that the eminently Benedictine work of +the education of youth within our own abbey walls, discontinued for +several years, should be resumed as soon as circumstances permitted. +Carpenters and painters, plasterers and plumbers, were soon busily +engaged at the much-needed work of repair and restoration. The +buildings were practically ready for occupation in the summer of 1914; +but our hopes of reopening the school a few months later were +frustrated by the world-stirring events of July and August of that +year. It was a great satisfaction to all of us to be able, a little +later, to place our renovated college at the disposal of the Red Cross, +and to see it utilized as an Auxiliary Hospital, first for the wounded +soldiers of our gallant Belgian allies, and then for the wounded of our +own armies.[11] + +The date of resuming the long suspended work on the fabric of our +greatly-needed church, which I had at least as much at heart as the two +other objects already mentioned, depended, of course, on the slow but +steady increase of our building-fund; and there were always willing +helpers, both within and without our community, toward the ingathering +of a sum without which it would have been {256} imprudent to recommence +operations. Some of our fathers showed most commendable zeal and +energy in the not very pleasant or grateful task of begging: they +planted and watered, and God certainly sent the increase. Among other +efforts, a great garden fete was organized at Terregles, near Dumfries, +the beautiful old seat of the Maxwell-Stuarts. I opened the +proceedings: the day was lovely and the grounds thronged, and a very +substantial sum was realized for our fund. It was a great joy to us +all when, thanks to the success of this and other schemes, we were at +length able to see our way (let me use the obnoxious phrase with +gratitude for once!) to approve of the new plans--a modification of, or +rather a complete departure from, Pugin's elaborate Gothic designs, and +to see our massive Norman choir gradually rising in its severe and +solid beauty. The actual commencement of the work was delayed by a +curious incident--the appearance on the far horizon of a supposed +benefactress, said to be prepared to provide funds to an untold amount +for the erection of our church, on a plan approved by herself. I had +actually to go to Harrogate to discuss this Utopian scheme--not with +the mysterious lady in person, but with a friend who was supposed to +represent her. I never even heard her name, but have every reason to +suppose that it was "Mrs. Harris!" Anyhow the next thing I heard was +that she had sailed (I think) for China, and we never saw, as the +saying goes, the "colour of her money." I do not think that we had +ever really expected to, so the disappointment was the less; and there +was no worse consequence than a little delay which we could very well +put up with after waiting for {257} so many years to get the builders +to work again. + +The only event outside our own circle which I recall in the later +months of 1913 was the solemn blessing of the new abbot of Douai (an +old friend and fellow-novice of mine), at which I assisted in October. +The ceremony and subsequent luncheon lasted for nearly five solid +hours, and I began to think that I was getting too old for such +protracted functions! though I found the monks of the Berkshire abbey, +as always, most kind, considerate and hospitable. Staying at Keir on +my way home, I found a big shooting-party assembled--Tullibardines, +Elphinstones, Lovats, Shaw Stewarts and others. All day long they were +banging at pheasants (how remote those days of battues seem in 1922!) +and in the evening there were ghost-stories and music, Lady +Tullibardine's piano-playing and singing (of very high quality indeed) +giving especial pleasure to her hearers. + +On our national festival of St. Andrew I had the pleasure of admitting +two novices to profession--the first ceremony of the kind since 1908. +We kept also this month the "silver jubilee" of two of our fathers, of +whom one had been born without an ear (in the musical sense), and had +never sung mass in his life, but on this unique occasion chanted the +Gospel as deacon. December brought wild and stormy weather, which did +not, however, interfere with our customary activities; and many of our +fathers were at this time out giving missions, or temporary assistance +to invalided or absent priests. One of my Boyle nephews--a flying-man +like his younger brother--was married this month {258} to the daughter +of an Australian judge:[12] I could not be present, but telegraphed to +him, "The best of luck to you on earth and in the air!" An unwelcome +December visitant was an epidemic of gastric influenza, which +prostrated some of our community for a week or two; but all were +recovered, and most of our wanderers returned, for the Christmas +festival--a real old-fashioned one as regarded the weather, with hard +frost and snow lying seven inches deep. This was a rather unusual +state of things at Fort Augustus, where the comparatively high +temperature of Loch Ness (never known to freeze even in the hardest +winters) seemed to affect the whole district.[13] Lochaber too, where +winter is as a rule wild and wet rather than cold, was this year +frostbound and snowed up; and our afternoon diversion, on a Sunday +which I spent there, was to trudge a mile or two through the snow and +see the red deer fed by hand--a pretty and unusual spectacle. + +Among the domestic incidents of the New Year was the opening of our +village drill-hall, to be available to "all denominations" for +recreational purposes. Hitherto the "Churches" had run their {259} own +halls on more or less exclusive lines; but in the new one the +Protestant lion was to lie down, so to speak, with the Catholic lamb +(or _vice versa_!) and all was to be harmony and peace. I inaugurated +the new era by a lantern-lecture on "Unknown Brazil," which a kindly +newspaper report described as "brimful of information and sparkling +with anecdote and humour!" It was anyhow a successful start and the +hall proved a really valuable addition to our village assets. I was +unable to attend the next lecture--a most interesting illustrated +history of the old Fort--being called south to attend the funeral of +the Bishop of Galloway, an old and faithful friend of our house, with +whom I had been intimate for close on forty years. The funeral +procession, with crucifix and choir, vested clergy and mitred prelates, +passing through the streets of Dumfries thronged with silent mourners, +was one of the most remarkable spectacles I ever witnessed in Scotland. +Bishop Turner had long been on terms of close friendship with the Bute +family; but Bute and his brothers, being all abroad, were represented +by their brother-in-law Colin MacRae. I went south from Dumfries, +having some business with Cardinal Bourne, who talked, _inter alia_, of +the chapel (St. Andrew's) in his cathedral which was being adorned at +Bute's expense, and of the question whether the numerous texts should +be in Latin or English. I was all for Latin in the metropolitan +cathedral of the Empire, the resort of worshippers of every tongue and +every nation. His Eminence, however, favoured English, and I (like Mr. +Alfred Jingle) "did not presume to dictate."[14] I was elected this +{260} week a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Club, of which the big, +quiet, and well-furnished library was to me the chief attraction. The +Protestant drum had been, I was assured, if not beaten, at least +discreetly tapped, by a small clique of members in connection with my +candidature--a curious fact in what somebody describes as "the +so-called twentieth century"; but a gracefully-worded telegram from my +proposer and seconder[15] informed me that the plot (if there ever was +one, which I rather doubted) had failed. I went to Arundel for the +Lourdes festival, always kept solemnly there; found the kind Duke and +Duchess encircled, as usual, by a cloud of youthful Maxwells, and heard +Bernard Vaughan (just returned from the U.S.A.) preach eloquently on +"The claims of the Church" with a distinctly American accent, and, +later on, regale us in the smoking-room with a choice collection of +American chestnuts! + +I got back to our abbey just in time to give the last blessing to our +good old brother Nathalan, who died at the age of ninety-nine, the +patriarch of the Benedictine Order in these islands and possibly in +Christendom. A native of Glengairn, he spoke the Aberdeenshire idiom +of his mother-Gaelic with remarkable purity and fluency; and he could +talk for hours about beasts and birds, old smuggling adventures, second +sight, and cognate subjects. His grandfather had fought for Prince +Charlie at Culloden; and he knew the name and history of {261} every +Glengairn man who had taken part in that historic battle. A man of +robust faith and deep practical piety, he was content and happy in the +monastery, which he had only entered when well over seventy. He was +totally blind (though otherwise in good health) for some time before +his death; and morning after morning his bowed and venerable figure, +supported by a younger brother, might be seen wending its way to the +chapel where he daily heard mass and received Holy Communion. I was +glad to be at home for the closing hours of the life of the good simple +old man, whose death made a felt blank in the family circle of our +community. + +The early months of the eventful year 1914 passed quickly and quietly +enough at our Highland abbey. We resolved soon after Easter to accept +the contract for the building of the choir of our church--a venture of +faith, for the necessary sum was not yet all in hand; but we felt that +we were justified in making a start. A few days later came the +interesting and gratifying news that the elevation of Abbot Gasquet to +the Cardinalate--often rumoured in recent years--was actually decided +on. This entailed an "extraordinary" meeting of Chapter in connection +with the Abbot-president's resignation of that office; and going south +to attend it, I took the occasion of accepting an invitation to +officiate at the Corpus Christi procession at Arundel. It was a +curiously impressive function in that old-world English town: the long +_cortege_ of clergy and choristers and people, with the tall Venetian +lanterns, scarlet and gold, waving above their heads as they passed +slowly, to the sounds of sacred psalmody, under the grey walls of the +castle and back into the great church of {262} St. Philip. I went on +from Arundel to Oxford, to stay with Father Maturin, the acting +Catholic chaplain there (his undergraduate flock now numbered nearly a +hundred), and was delighted to see the good work he was doing. One was +always sure of a good story from him; and _a propos_ of his wish to +introduce hymn-singing at his Sunday services, he told me of the +Sunday-school superintendent who, dissatisfied with the children's +dead-alive singing of the well-known temperance hymn, "Little Drops of +Water," himself repeated the first line, adding, "Now, please, put a +little spirit into it!" My old tale of the don who objected to men +coming to church in slippers reminded him, he said, of a college dean +he had heard of in his Cowley days, who, to an undergraduate asking +leave to go down to attend his great-aunt's funeral, replied after some +hesitation, "Well, you may go; but I must say I do wish it had been for +a nearer relation!"[16] + +The June of 1914 was exceptionally hot, and I found the long journey to +the Highlands so intolerably tedious and dusty that I could not resist +jumping out of the train at the head of Loch Lomond, and staying the +night there. I wrote on a picture postcard to an editorial friend in +London--"not for publication," but just to tantalize him in his stuffy +sanctum in Fleet Street: + + +{263} + +Delightful little Highland inn. Just dined--_puree aux pois_, a Loch +Lomond trout (pink and flaky), an excellent mutton chop, and gooseberry +pie. Here is a view of Loch Lomond from my window, but the Ben has its +lace nightcap on. The colours are simply exquisite.[17] + + +Later in the summer I attended a great gathering at Downside (fifteen +bishops and ten abbots were guests of the abbey) for the solemn +reception of Cardinal Gasquet at his mother-house. There were imposing +church functions, of course, concerts, speeches galore, and on the +closing day of the festivities a luncheon-party of six hundred, after +which we (Cardinal, bishops, and abbots) motored off in clouds of dust +for Bristol and Cardiff, for the opening of the Eucharistic Congress +there. I stayed for the week at the castle, where were also Cardinals +Bourne and Gasquet, the Gainsboroughs, and others; the Butes gave a +banquet one evening, followed by a great reception, in honour of the +assembled dignitaries, who were also entertained by the Lord Mayor in +the splendid town hall. Just a fortnight after the closing of the +Congress, Germany declared war on Russia and France; and three days +later, on the midnight which ushered in the feast-day of Saint Oswald, +the English soldier-saint and martyr, Britain took up arms against +Germany. _Jacta est alea_! + +The reverberations of the Great War were not unfelt even in our quiet +home among the Highland hills; and our life, like the life of every +class of the community in those years of storm and stress, was affected +profoundly, and in many ways, by the {264} struggle which for four long +years was rending the civilized world. A detailed record of those +years of war, even so far as we were touched by it, would be out of +place in this chronicle of peaceful days. Many of our former pupils, +and some who had worn our habit and shared our life in the cloister, +fought, and more than one died, for king and country: a band of devoted +priests--few indeed, yet a large proportion of our total number--worked +throughout the war, at home and abroad, as chaplains in the army and +the navy, two of them being severely wounded, and two decorated by the +King for their good service; and, finally, we who perforce remained at +home had the consolation and satisfaction of receiving into our +provisional hospital a long succession of wounded soldiers, Belgian and +British, and of co-operating with the good people of our village and +neighbourhood in the work of tending and succouring them. So, +according to our measure, we "did our bit" like the rest, and could +feel, when the day of peace at length dawned, that we had tried to +render service to our country at a time when she had a right to the +service of all her sons. + + * * * * * + +I write down these closing memories in our monastery under the Southern +Cross, in the great South American city where my brethren in Saint +Benedict, active and devoted men, but far too few for the ever-growing +work that lies ready to their hands, are leading the same life of +prayer and liturgy, untiring, pastoral labour, and the education of the +young in religion and letters, which has been the mission of our Order +all through the Christian centuries. It is high noon on this Brazilian +summer's {265} day, and the fierce sun beats down from a cloudless sky +on the luxuriant tropical garden which glows beneath the window of my +quiet cell. At the foot of the last page I inscribe the same words as +the monastic annalist inscribed of old beneath the laboriously-written +manuscript which had been the work of his life: + + Explicit chronicon lx. annorum + Deus misericordie miserere miseri scriptoris. + +And then, as, my task completed, I lay down my weary pen, there come +into my mind some other words--those of a great thinker and a great +writer of our own time: "Our life is planted on the surface of a +whirling sphere: our prayer is to find its tranquil centre, and revolve +no more." + +So may it be! + + + +[1] The good old abbot died three months later, on August 13, 1913. + +[2] Colonel David Hunter-Blair of the Scots Fusilier Guards, whose +conversion to Catholicism, when I was a boy at Eton, had made a great +impression on me. He died of consumption at Rome on March 31, 1869. + +[3] "We implore Thy protection also," petitioned a certain Dean at +family prayers, "for the minor canons of this cathedral; for even they, +O Lord, are Thy creatures." + +[4] Appointed Archbishop-bishop of Malta in 1914. + +[5] I liked to hear once-a-year (not oftener) the prolonged musical +masses which were the "festival use" at the Oratory. Once, arriving +rather late at the church, I found an old friend (a Gregorian-lover +like myself) waiting in the porch, and asked him how far the service +had progressed. "Thank God!" said old W---- P---- devoutly, "_the +worst is over_--they have just finished the _Gloria_!" + +[6] It can be matched, I think, by two lines from a university prize +poem--not, of course, by a poet laureate!--on the "Sailing of the +Pilgrim Fathers": + + "Thus, ever guided by the hand of God, + They sailed along until they reached Cape Cod!" + +[7] Nine months later he was elevated to the Cardinalate, when he had, +of course, to resign his presidency of the English Benedictine +Congregation. + +[8] At one time there were as many as eight; and I remember one of them +(who had himself been "in the Boats" at Eton), saying that they wanted +only a ninth to complete the crew! + +[9] I recall one engagement broken off in consequence; and also a rift +between two lifelong friends which still remained unhealed long after +the "unhappy nobleman languishing in prison" (as his most notorious +supporter used to call him) had been consigned to the limbo of penal +servitude. The cost of the two trials was said to be at least +L200,000, and seriously crippled the valuable Tichborne estates for a +whole generation. My father prohibited the public discussion of the +case at Blairquhan, either in dining-room or smoking-room, or even at a +shooting-luncheon in the open air! + +[10] The Caldey novice, and one of the affiliated brothers from +Erdington Abbey, both left us, after the outbreak of the Great War, and +joined the army; and the former was killed on active service. + +[11] The school was finally reopened under my successor, in 1920. + +[12] And an heiress--at least so a brother wrote to me. The lady's +name was Hodges; and he added (but I think this was mere banter) that +the question was, if Jack had to assume his wife's name, whether they +would be known as "Boyle-Hodges" or "Hodges-Boyle"! + +[13] Our first prior, Dom Jerome Vaughan, used to be at much pains to +convince his incredulous friends in the south of the mildness of the +Fort Augustus winter. I remember his writing to the prior of Belmont, +when I was a novice there, enclosing daisies picked on Christmas Day. +Unluckily the same post brought another letter from Fort Augustus, +mentioning that the frost was so severe that all the beer was frozen in +the cellar! + +[14] They were, as a matter of fact, inscribed in English, as were also +the names of the Scottish saints on the pictured walls. The chapel was +opened on St. Andrew's Day, 1915. + +[15] "Many congratulations both to you and to the club," it ran. + +[16] It was a don of this type who was reported to have written, in a +letter of condolence to the father of an undergraduate who had been +drowned in Sandford Lasher: "As your son had unfortunately failed to +satisfy the examiners in Responsions, he would have had to go down in +any case!" Poor Father Maturin! his love of a joke and other good +qualities were extinguished (in this life) by the sinking of +_Lusitania_ eleven months later. + +[17] My friend did print it in his paper, adding, "To read this makes +one hungry for Highland air and Highland fare." + + + + +{267} + +Appendix + +I. PAGE 86. + +NOVISSIMA VERBA + +(LAST WORDS OF FORTY FAMOUS MEN) + + +Adam, Alexander (the famous schoolmaster) ... "It grows dark, boys: you +may go." + +Addison, Joseph ... "See how a Christian can die!" + +Albert Prince Consort ... "Liebes gutes Frauchen!" + +Augustus (Emperor) ... "Plaudite!" + +Bede (The Venerable) ... "Consummatum est." + +Bossuet, Benigne ... "Fiat Voluntas Tua!" + +Bronte, Charlotte (to her husband) ... "I am not going to die, am I? +He will not separate us, we have been so happy." + +Byron (Lord) ... "I think I will go to sleep." + +Charles II. (King) ... "Don't let poor Nellie starve." + +Charles V. (Emperor) ... "Ay, Jesus!" + +Chesterfield (Lord) ... "Give Dayrolles a chair." + +Cicero ... "Causa causarum, miserere mei!" + +Darwin, Charles B. ... "I am not in the least afraid to die." + +Devonshire (8th Duke of) ... "Well, the game is over, and I am not +sorry." + +Disraeli, Benjamin ... "I am overwhelmed!" + +"Eliot, George" ... "Tell the doctors that I have great pain in the +left side." + +Etty, William (painter) ... "Wonderful--wonderful! this death." + +Frederick the Great ... "La montagne est passee; nous irons mieux." + +{268} + +George IV. (King) ... "Watty, what is this? It is death, my boy: they +have deceived me." + +Gladstone, W. E. ... "Prions--commencons--Our Father." + +Goethe, W. von ... "Draw back the curtains, and let in more light." + +Goldsmith, Oliver (to the question, "Is your mind at ease?" in a +melancholy voice) ... "No, it is not." + +Haydn, Joseph ... "God preserve the Emperor!" + +Hood, Thomas (in a tone of relief) ... "Dying--dying." + +Humboldt, A. von ... "Wie herrlich diese Strahlen! sie schienen die +Erde zum Himmel zu rufen." + +Jerrold, Douglas, asked how he felt, said "he felt like one who was +waiting and was waited for." + +Johnson, Samuel ... "God bless you!" + +Keats, John ... "I feel the flowers growing over me." + +Knox, John ... "about 11 of the clock gave a deep sigh, exclaimed, 'Now +it is come,' and presently expired." + +Lacordaire, Henri ... "Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! ouvrez-moi, ouvrez-moi." + +Mackintosh, Sir James ... "Happy!" + +Mary Queen of Scots ... "In Te, Domine, speravi." + +Mathews, Charles ... "I am ready." + +Mezzofanti (Cardinal) ... "Andiamo, andiamo presto in Paradiso!" + +Mirabeau, Victor ... "Let me die to the sounds of delicious music." + +Napoleon Bonaparte ... "Tete d'armee." + +Pope, Alexander ... "There is nothing meritorious but virtue and +friendship; and indeed friendship itself is but a part of virtue." + +Rabelais ... "Je vais querir le grand peut-etre." + +Scott, Walter ... "God bless you!" + +Tasso, Torquato ... "In manus Tuas, Domine." + +Wordsworth, William ... "God bless you!" + +Ximenes, Cardinal ... "In Te, Domine, speravi." + + + + +{269} + +II. PAGE 136. + +DARWIN'S CREDO + +"Science and Christ have nothing to do with each other, except in as +far as the habit of scientific investigation makes a man cautious about +accepting any proofs. _As far as I am concerned, I do not believe that +any revelation has ever been made_. With regard to a future life, +every one must draw his own conclusions from vague and contradictory +probabilities."--(Letter to a Jena student, dated June 5th, 1879.) + +"Mr. Darwin was much less reticent to myself than in his letter to +Jena. He distinctly stated that, in his opinion, a vital or somatic +principle, apart from the somatic energy, had no more _locus standi_ in +the human than in any other races of the animal kingdom--a conclusion +that seems a mere corollary of, and indeed a position tantamount with, +his essential doctrine of human and bestial identity of nature and +genesis."--(Dr. Robert Lewins, in the _Journal of Science_.) + +It may be instructive to subjoin to the above _Credo_ of Darwin those +of three other eminent Victorians, whom the present generation would +probably pronounce it unkind and ill-mannered to brand as atheistical +or un-Christian. Let them speak for themselves:-- + + +_Stuart Mill_: "This world is a bungled business, in which no +clear-sighted man can see any signs either of wisdom or of God." + +_Huxley_: "Scepticism is the highest of duties: blind faith the one +unpardonable sin." + +{270} + +_Matthew Arnold_: "The existence of God is an unverifiable hypothesis." + + +Dr. Liddon, preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral on the Sunday after +Darwin's death, devoted his matchless oratory to a eulogy in which +there was not the remotest reference to the fact that the subject of it +was a man who had formally repudiated not only Christianity but +revealed religion. Here are the eloquent canon's opening words:-- + + +"These reflections may naturally lead us to think of the eminent man, +whose death during the past week is an event of European importance; +since he is the author of nothing less than a revolution in the modern +way of treating a large district of thought, while his works have shed +high distinction on English science." + + +Dr. Laing, of Cambridge University, on the other hand, expressed with +refreshing candour his objections to the proposed interment of Darwin +in Westminster Abbey:-- + + +"They urged his claim to Abbey honours on the very ground of his having +been the chief promoter of the atheistic mock-doctrines of evolution of +species and the ape-descent of man. It is, therefore, as the high +priest of dirt-worship that the English nation has assigned to him the +privilege of being interred in a temple dedicated to the service of his +Creator." + + + + +{271} + +INDEX + + +Abbotsford, 52, 54, 74 + +Aberdeen, Bishop (Chisholm) of, 73, 124, 139, 149 + +Abingdon, 7th Earl of, 34, 252 + +Abruzzi, Duca dei, 82 + +Aix-les-bains, visit to, 228 + +Amelie of Portugal, Queen, 226 + +Ampleforth Abbey, 120, 138, 153, 201, 217; jubilee of, 230, 251 + +Anderson, Mary (Mme. Navarro), 153 + +Angus, Rev. George, 19 _note_, 122; death of, 124 _note_, 138, 196, +224, 238 + +Anson, Sir William, M.P., 138 + +_Aragon_, R.M.S.P., 155 + +Argyll and the Isles, Bishop (Smith) of, 240 + +Arthur of Connaught, Prince, 92; Princess, 225 + +Arundel Castle, 3, 8, 13, 42, 51, 65, 105, 108, 109, 223, 260, 261 + +Asquith, Mrs., 198 + +Athole, Duke of, 64 _note_ + + +Bailey, "Abe," 151 + +Balfour of Burleigh, Lord, 176 + +Balfour, Arthur, 59 _note_, 62 + +Ball, Provost, 102 + +Balston, Dr. Edward, 171 + +Bath and Wells, Bishop (Kennion) of, 100 + +Battenberg, Prince and Princess Henry of, 237 _note_ + +Beaufort Castle, 61, 81, 99, 106, 119, 132, 151, 195, 220, 227 + +Beauly, Scouts' monument at, 61 + +Beethoven's Grand Mars, 217 + +Bellairs, Lieut. Carlyon, M.P., 143 + +Bellingham of Castlebellingham, 47, 67 _note_ + +Belloc, Hilaire, 143 + +Belmont Priory, 7, 147 + +Benedictine life and work in Brazil, 159-185 + +Benn, Sir John, M.P., 186 + +Benson, Robert Hugh, 93, 129 + +Bertouche, Baron de, 11 + +Birrell, Augustine, 69 _note_ + +Bismarck, William II and, 24 + +Blairquhan, 119, 149 + +Blair's College, 124 + +Blenheim Palace, 20, 44, 65 + +Bodley's Librarian, 103, 104 + +Boulogne-sur-mer, 125, 126 + +Booth, "General," 92 + +Boothby, Sir Brooke, 153 + +Bourne, Archbishop, 4 _note_, 43, 75; Cardinal, 223, 231, 240, 253, +259, 263 + +Bowlby, Eleanor, 141 + +Bowyer, Sir George, 46 _note_ + +Boyle, Hon. Alan, 189, 196 + +Boyle, Dean George, 53 _note_ + +Boyle, James (consul), 187 + +Boyle, Hon. John, 257 + +Bradfield College, Greek plays at, 20, 92 + +Bramham Park, 96 + +Brazil, Dr. Vidal, 174 + +Broughton, Rhoda, 113 + +Buckie, 220 + +Buoncompagni-Ludovisi, Don Andrea, 77 + +Burges, William, 58 + +Burgon, Dean, 104, 136 + +Bury St. Edmunds, pageant at, 91, 92 + +Butcher, Professor, M.P., 138 + +Bute, 4th Marquis of, 1, 35, 40, 47, 54, 56, 62, 118, 146, 222, 240, 259 + +Bute, Dowager Marchioness of, 10, 54, 101, 152 + +Butler, Abbot, 84, 245 + + +Caerphilly Castle, 147 + +Caldey Abbey, 255 + +Caledonian Club, 222 + +Caloen, Bishop Gerard van, 245 + +Cambridge, 141, 199 + +Campbell of Skerrington, 124 + +Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., 43, 59 _note_ + +Campden, Viscount, 69 + +Canterbury, 8, 9, 249 + +Cardiff Castle, 59, 141, 263 + +Caruana, D. Maurus, 250 + +Castlebellingham, 47, 48 + +Cecil, Lord Hugh, 45, 49, 138, 143 + +Cecil, Lord William, 225 + +Chamberlain, Joseph, 59 + +Chambery, Cardinal Archbishop of, 229 + +Cheadle, church at, 231 + +Choate, 69 + +Churchill, Winston, 47, 171 + +Clumber, chapel at, 57 _note_ + +Corehouse, 21 + +_Corpus Christi_ at S. Paulo, 181; at Arundel, 261 + +Craigmillar Castle, 152 + +Cranbrook, Earls of, 193, 194 + +Crianlarich, 206 + +Crichton-Stuart, Lord Colum, 79 + +Crichton-Stuart, Lord Ninian, 10, 67, 129, 130, 176, 203 + +Cuddesdon College, 128 + +Cumbrae, Isle of, 69 _note_, 101, 152 + +Curzon of Kedleston, Lord, 84, 89, 100, 102 + + +Dalrymple, Sir Charles, 62, 141, 240, 241 _note_ + +Dalrymple, Hon. North, 176 + +Darwin, Charles, 137, 267, 268 + +Day, Sir John, 37 + +De Moleyns, Captain, 112 + +Derwent Hall, 3 + +Dillon, 17th Viscount, 12 + +Dolan, Dom Gilbert, 57 _note_ + +Dorchester Abbey, 128 + +Dorrien-Smith, "King of Scilly," 141 + +Douai Abbey, 137, 200, 221, 250, 257 + +Doune Castle, 218, 240 + +Downside Abbey, 42, 56, 84, 129, 263 + +Dumfries, convent-school at, 21, 49, 94, 117; asylum at, 49 + +Dumfries House, 54 + +Dunblane, cathedral at, 205; Queen Victoria's School at, 230 + +Dunedin, Lord, 81 + +Dunskey, 9, 48, 118, 149 + + +Eastbourne, 87 + +Edmonstoune-Cranstouns, 21 + +Edward VII, King, 83, 127, 155; death of, 179 + +Ellice, Mrs., of Invergarry, 204 + +Ellis, Professor Robinson, 86, 87 + +Elwes, Lady Winifride, 212 + +Encombe, Viscountess, 109, 139; John Viscount, 139 + +Eton College, 50, 129, 147, 225 + +Eugenie, Empress, 99 _note_, 242 + +Everingham Park, 12, 96 + +"Evil Eye," the, 77 + +Exton Park, 51 + + +Faber, Rev. F. W., 145, 250 + +Fanshawe, Admiral Sir Arthur, 120 + +Farnborough, Benedictine Abbey at, 11, 241 + +Farrer, Sir William, death of, 215, 218 + +Fairlie of Myers, 123 + +Fergusson, Sir James, 62; death of, 83 + +Fife, Colonel Sir Aubone, 237 + +Fitzgerald, Percy, 12 + +Fort Augustus Abbey: reunited with English Benedictines, 176; railway +at, 202; election of abbot at, 239 + +Franquetot, Marquis de, 125 + +Franqueville, Comtesse de, 125 + +Fraser, Hon. Alastair, 215, 221 + + +Gainsborough, 3rd Earl of, 39, 51, 69, 263 + +Galloway, Bishop (Turner) of, 259 + +Garrett-Fawcett, Mrs., 128 + +Gasquet, Abbot, 19, 37, 240, 251; Cardinal, 261, 263 + +Giustiniani-Bandini, Prince, 16 + +Gladstone, W. E., at Eton, 170 _note_ + +Glasgow, George, 6th Earl of, 101 + +Glasgow, David, 7th Earl of, 149, 203 + +Gleann Mhor Gathering, 149, 254 + +Glencarron, 99 + +Gordon, Brig.-Gen. Alister, 106 _note_ + +Goring-on-Thames, 147 + +Gormanston, 15th Visct., 67 + +Gorwood, D. Paulinus, 98 + +Goschen, Viscount, 5, 83, 84 + +Gower, Lord Ronald, 35 _note_ + +Greene, Wilfrid, 7 + +Grissell, Captain Frank, 111, 209 + +Grissell, Hartwell, 11; death of, 86, 111, 206 + +Guernsey, visit to, 68 + + +Hadow, 142 + +Haggard, Sir William, 158 + +Hallam, Arthur, at Eton, 170 _note_ + +Hamel, Gustave, 211 + +Hamilton of Dalzell, 2nd Lord, 81 + +Hampton Court, 147 + +Harcourt, Sir William, death of, 28 + +Hautecombe, Abbey of, 229 + +Hawkesyard Priory, 23 + +Hay, Bishop George, centenary of, 215, 216 + +Hay, Malcolm, 124 + +Hedley, Bishop, 105, 130, 195, 236 + +Hemptinne, Abbot Hildebrand de, 246 + +Hemsted Park, 193 + +Herbert of Lea, Lady, death of, 218 + +Herries, 11th Lord, 1, 95, 109 + +Hexham and Newcastle, Bishop (Wilkinson) of, 23; death of, 140 + +Hicks-Beach, Sir Michael, 5 + +Hornby, Provost, death of, 170 + +Horsley, Sir Victor, 43, 191 + +Howard, Lady Katherine, 223 + +Howard, Lady Mary, 1 + +Howard of Glossop, Winifred Lady, 101 + +Huegel, Baron Anatole von, 107 + +Hyde, Lord, 51 + + +Italian cavalry officers, at Olympia, 115 + + +Jarvis, Captain and Mrs. Cracroft, 66 + +Jerningham, Sir Hubert, 72, 80, 95, 151 + + +Keir, 205, 212, 218, 230, 236, 237, 239, 257 + +Kelburn, Viscount, R.N., 46, 65, 192 + +Kennard, Mgr. Canon, 19, 20, 23, 43, 80, 112, 121, 127, 135, 197, 208 + +Kennard, Colonel Hegan, 128, 145 + +Kerr, Philip, 29, 121 + +Kerr, General Lord Ralph, 1, 73 _note_, 76, 121, 153, 203; Admiral Lord +Walter, 153 + +Kinharvie, 1 + +Kipling, Rudyard, at Oxford, 91 + +Kneller Court, 109, 126, 154 + +Knill, Sir John, 129 + +Kruse, Abbot Miguel, 159, 176, 216, 245 + + +Ladycross School, Seaford, 153 + +Lane Fox, George, 74, 96, 148, 233, 252 + +Lang, Andrew, 53, 132 + +Langdon Park, 116 + +Lansdowne, 5th Marquis of, 5 + +Law, Bonar, 81 + +Lee, Dr. Frederick George, 136 + +Legge, the Ladies, 66 _note_ + +Leicester, 1st and 2nd Earls of, 35 _note_ + +Leinster, 6th Duke of, 65 + +Leo XIII, Pope, 246 + +Lepicier, Pere, 232 + +Lichfield, Augustus, Bishop of, 66; Choristers' House at, 105 + +Liddell, Dean, 31 + +Linlithgow, 2nd Marquis of, married, 210 + +Lister, Hon. Laura, 191, 194; married, 198 + +Littleton Church, regimental colours in, 115 + +Longridge Towers, 72, 95, 153 + +Loudoun, 11th Earl of, 48, 49, 121, 133 + +Louvain University, Jubilee of, 137 + +Lovat, 14th Lord, 61, 99, 106, 148, 191; married, 198, 208, 214, 220, +240 + +Lovat, Alice Lady, 73, 132, 191, 211, 235 + +Lowndes, Selby, 119 + +Lucerne, visit to, 41 + +Lucius of Chur, St., 213, 214 _note_ + +Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred, 45 + +Lyttelton, Hon. Edward, 51 + + +MacCall, Rev. A. N. L., 14, 242 + +Macdonald, Andrew, death of, 240 + +Macdonald, General Hector, lines on, 13 _note_ + +Macdonell, D. Andrew, 211 + +Mackintosh, The, 61 + +MacRae, Colin, 259 + +Madeira, visit to, 187 + +Mallock, W. H., 80, 135 + +Man, Isle of, 49 _note_, 118 + +Manderston, 100 + +Manning, Archbishop, 248 + +Maple, Lady, 146 + +Maredsons, Abbey of, 249 + +Marie Louise, Princess, 154 + +Maryborough, 9th Duke of, 20, 44; Consuelo Duchess of, 20, 44 + +Martindale, Cyril, S.J., 7, 79 + +Maturin, Father, 106, 140, 217, 262 + +Maxwell, Sir Herbert, 154 + +Maxwell-Scott, Hon. Joseph and Mrs., 53 _note_ + +Melrose Abbey, 74 + +Merry del Val, Cardinal, 15, 240 + +Merthyr Tydvil, 57 + +Metternich, Prince, 25 + +Milan, visits to, 18, 64, 249 + +Milner, Lord, 65, 68 + +Mitchinson, Bishop, 33, 60, 200 + +Monte Carlo, 63, 64 + +Monte Cassino, 17, 243-245 + +Montrose, Duke and Duchess of, 230 + +Moore, Canon Edward, 8, 249 + +Moray, 16th Earl of, 153, 219, 240 + +Morin, D. Germain, O.S.B., 45 + +Mountstuart, 1, 35, 72, 118 + +Munich, festival at, 23 + +Myres Castle, 123 + + +Naples, visit to, 40 + +Nathalan, Brother, 209; death of, 260, 261 + +Neville, Rev. William, 217 _note_ + +Newburgh, Scoto-Italian of, 16 _note_ + +Newhailes, 100 + +Nice, visit to, 63 + +Niddrie-Marischal, 101, 152 + +Norfolk, 15th Duke of, 1, 2, 8; married, 12, 69, 76, 139, 144, 202, +219, 240 + +Norfolk, Flora Duchess of, 203 _note_, 209 + +Norfolk, Gwendolen Duchess of, 14, 65 + +Norham Castle, 72 + +Norwich, St. John's Church at, 202 + +Nuneham Park, 39 + + +Oakamoor College, 145, 212, 231 + +Odo, Father, O.S.B., 233, 234 + +Olinda (Brazil), 153, 155, 157, 187 + +Oman, Professor, 90, 201 + +Oratory (Birmingham), 75, 121, 144 + +Oratory (London), 198, 250 + +Orr-Ewing, Charles, M.P., 8 + +Osterley Park, 21 + +O'Sullivan Beare, The, 154 _note_ + +Oxford, Benedictine Hall at, 4; chancellor of, 5; floods at, 10; +portraits at, 34; boy-prodigies at, 38; pageant at, 89-91 + +Oxford and Cambridge Club, 260 + + +Pageant at Warwick, 70; Oxford, 89; Bury St. Edmunds, 91; Cardiff, 146 + +Paris, pictures at, 230 + +Parker, D. Anselm, 127 + +Patterson, Bishop, 21 + +Pelham, Professor, death of, 83 + +Penha Longa, Condessa de, 227 + +Pernambuco (Brazil), 156, 187 + +Phillimore, Professor J. S., 55 + +Pius X, Pope, 15, 17, 205, 246 + +Plowden, Alfred, 29 + +Ponsonby, Sir Frederick, 128, 153 + +Portugal, murder of King of, 107 + +Portugal, Ex-king Manoel of, 201 + +Prado, Dona Veridiana, 180 + +Pugin, A. W., 57, 145, 226, 231 + + +Radley College, 47, 78 + +Rampolla, Cardinal, 15 + +Ramsgate, St. Augustine's Abbey at, 225 + +Ranguia, New Zealand chieftain, 120 + +Reid, Mrs. Whitelaw, 92 + +Restabrig, St. Triduana's well at, 153 + +Rhodes Scholars at Oxford, 29-31, 200 + +Rickmansworth, 139 + +Rio de Janeiro, 157, 182, 202 + +Ripon, 1st Marquis of, 6 _note_ + +Roberts, Earl, 59 + +Rome, Gregorian centenary at, 15; assembly of Abbots at, 246 _et seq._ + +Rosebery, 5th Earl of, 5, 33, 84 + +Ruskin, John, on music, 14 _note_; in Abbotsford, 53 + +Rutland, 7th Duke of, 21 + + +St. Andrews, 27, 122, 196 + +St. Andrews, Archbishop (Smith) of, 124 + +St. Anselm's College, Rome, 246-8 + +Salisbury, 3rd Marquis of, death of, 5, 33, 89 + +Santos (Brazil), 186 + +Scarborough, Bank Holiday at, 71 + +Schmitt, Mgr., Bishop of Chur, 213 + +Scorton, hospital at, 116 + +Scott, Sir Walter, 52 + +Shackleton, Ernest, 144 + +Sherborne, Susan Lady, death of, 83 + +Shrewsbury, 10th Earl of, 145 + +Simeon, John, married, 140 + +Simonetti, Signor, 77 + +Sinclair, Archdeacon John, 66 + +Skene, Felicia, 53 _note_ + +"Smith of Wadham," F. E., 65 + +Somerset, 15th Duke of, 152 + +S. Paulo (Brazil), 156 _et seq._ + +Stafford, Marquis of, married, 224 + +Stair, 10th and 11th Earls of, 54 _note_, 123 + +Stirlings of Keir, 176, 205, 212, 236 + +Stonyhurst College, 221 + +Stotzingen, Abbot von, 248 + +Stronlairg, 214 + +Sutherland, 4th Duke of, 225 + +Sutherland, Anne Duchess of, 111 _note_; Millicent Duchess of, 20, 224 + +Sven Hedin, at Oxford, 135 + + +Talbot, Lord and Lady Edmund, 3, 61, 215 + +Talcott, Dr. Selden, on early rising, 97 _note_ + +Teck, Princess Alexander of, 50 + +Temple, widow of Archbishop, 113 + +Terregles, 256 + +Tichborne, Sir Joseph, 252 + +Tredegar, Viscount, 146 + +Tree, Beerbohm, 41 + +Tullibardine, Marchioness of, 257 + +Twain, Mark, at Oxford, 91, 92 + +Tylee, Monsignor, 5, 6 _note_ + + +Uganda, King of, at Fort Augustus, 253 + +University College School, 142 + +Ushaw College, 23 + + +Vaughan, Father Bernard, 37, 79, 261; Prior Jerome, 258 _note_; +Charles, married, 107; Bishop John, 215; Rev. Kenelm, 133 + +Venice, visit to, 242 + +Vesey, Hon. T. E., married, 217 + +_Victory_, H.M.S., 110 + + +Wales, H.R.H. Prince of, 212, 222 + +Walmesley, Mrs. Robert, 3 + +Walsh, Archbishop, 66 + +Waltham Abbey, 148 + +Ward, Wilfrid, 60, 134 + +Ware, St. Edmund's College, 222 + +Warre, Dr. Edmond, 51 + +Warwick, pageant at, 70 + +Wauchope of Niddrie, Mrs., 101, 152 + +Wells, J., 60 + +Westminster Cathedral, 3, 74, 89, 107, 259 + +Weston Birt, 26 + +Wiesbaden, visit to, 189-191 + +Wilberforce, Bishop Samuel, 121, 128 + +Wilkinson, Cicely Lady, 193 + +William II, Emperor, and Bismarck, 24; at Naples, 41 + +Willoughby de Broke, Lord and Lady, 71 + +Wimborne, Lord, 99 + +Winchilsea, Countess of, 45 + +Woodburn, 1, 153, 203 + +Woodchester Priory, 26 + +Worcester, Bishop of, and Lady Barbara Yeatman-Biggs, 66 + +Wyndham, Sir Charles, 40 + +Wyndham, George, 81 + +Wytham Abbey, 35 + + +Yew Luk Lin (Chinese Minister), 225 + +York, Archbishop (Lang) of, 216 + + + + +_Printed in Great Britain by_ Butler & Tanner, _Frome and London_ + + + + + + +Telegrams: + + "Scholarly, Wesdo, London" + 41 and 43 Maddox Street, + Telephone: 1883 Mayfair. + London, W. 1. + _March_, 1922. + + +Messrs. Edward Arnold & Co.'s + +SPRING ANNOUNCEMENTS, 1922 + + +MOUNT EVEREST + +The Reconnaissance, 1921. + +By LIEUT.-COLONEL C. K. HOWARD-BURY, D.S.O., AND OTHER MEMBERS OF THE +EXPEDITION. + +_With 33 full-page illustrations and maps. Medium 8vo._ + +25s. net. + +_Also a Limited Large Paper Edition, with additional plates in +photogravure. Demy 4to, each copy numbered._ + +L5 5s. net. + + +A journey through "unknown country," with the highest mountain on earth +as objective,--what visions of mystery and romance it conjures! This +is the first great piece of exploration attempted since pre-war days, +and the expedition will doubtless rank with the classic Arctic and +continental achievements that have made land-marks in the annals of +discovery. + +The book opens with a brilliant introduction by Sir Francis +Younghusband, President of the Royal Geographical Society and Chairman +of the Mount Everest Committee, by which the Expedition was organised. +Then comes the fascinating narrative of the expedition itself, told by +Col. Howard-Bury, the leader; he is followed by Mr. G. Leigh-Mallory +who describes the strenuous climbing which, after many failures and +disappointments, discovered what appears to be a feasible route to the +summit. Mr. A. F. Wollaston, another member of the expedition, +enlarges upon the remarkable fauna and flora of the Tibetan plateau and +valleys, and the valuable Survey work undertaken is summarized by Major +O. E. Wheeler. The Geological results are dealt with by Dr. A. M. +Heron. Especially interesting, in view of the coming season's +expedition, is a chapter by Prof. Norman Collie, President of the +Alpine Club, upon the difficulties of mountaineering at such +unprecedented altitudes and the prospects of reaching the summit of +Mount Everest in 1922. + +The illustrations, taken from the magnificent series of photographs +brought back by the expedition, are visions of beauty and grandeur, and +the Maps display for the first time the topography and general features +of a vast region hitherto unexplored. The hill-shaded map of the mass +of Mount Everest itself on a scale of 1/100,000, will enable readers to +trace the progress of the climbing parties in 1922, while showing in +detail the assaults made upon the great mountain during the +reconnaissance. + + + +GENERAL ASTRONOMY. + +By H. SPENCER JONES, M.A., B.Sc., + +CHIEF ASSISTANT AT THE ROYAL OBSERVATORY, GREENWICH. + +About 400 pages, with 103 diagrams and 24 plates. + +Demy 8vo. Cloth. About 21s. net. + +Mr. Spencer Jones, who is the leader of this year's British Eclipse +Expedition to Christmas Island, has written a book covering the general +aspects of Astronomy. The subject matter is treated from the +scientific standpoint in the light of modern theories. At the same +time the exposition is not too recondite and is such as to stimulate +the general reader who is interested in the study of the Heavens. +Whenever possible the argument is simplified by reference to a diagram, +and throughout the book mathematics have only been used where essential +for the elucidation of any problem. + +The book is fully illustrated and has twenty-four magnificent plates +depicting comets, nebulae, planets, etc., being the pick of the +observations of the different Observatories. + + + +A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES. + +BY THE + +RIGHT REV. SIR DAVID HUNTER BLAIR, BT., O.S.B., + +TITULAR ABBOT OF DUNFERMLINE. + +With Portrait. Demy 8vo. 16s. net. + +It will be remembered that the Author's first "Medley" published in +1919 only brought his reminiscences to the year 1903. He has now +continued them for another decade, and the contents of the new volume +are as full of variety and anecdote as ever. Many a notable personage +figures in these pages; many a good story is told and many interesting +fragments of antiquarian and ecclesiastical lore are quoted. + +It was the Author's privilege to spend some time in the service of his +Order in Brazil, and his account of monastic life in the tropical +surroundings is full of interest. At Rome, again, he describes in +vivid phrases several picturesque religious functions which he +attended, and wherever he goes he finds fresh material for shrewd and +kindly comment. + + + +IS GERMANY PROSPEROUS? + +By SIR HENRY PENSON, K.B.E., M.A., + +FORMERLY CHAIRMAN OF THE WAR TRADE INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT AND + DIRECTOR OF THE INTELLIGENCE SECTION OF THE BRITISH DELEGATION + TO THE PEACE CONFERENCE, PARIS, 1919. + +AUTHOR OF "THE ECONOMICS OF EVERYDAY LIFE." + +Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net. + +This is a question which every intelligent person is asking, and to +which the answers supplied through the ordinary channels of information +are widely divergent and confusing. Sir Henry Penson is a very shrewd +observer well-qualified by training and experience to sift evidence and +form an impartial judgment on facts and arguments. In addition, he is +a very lucid economic writer and explains clearly the influence of the +exchange position upon the situation in Germany at the present day. + +The Author visited Germany only a few weeks ago, and was helped in his +investigations not only by British officials in the Rhineland, but by +Germans of high position in industrial and commercial circles whose +statements he checked carefully. One has only to read his chapters on +Prices in Germany, or on Incomes and Standard of Living in order to +appreciate the value of his evidence, and of the conclusions at which +he arrived. They have, of course, an important bearing upon the vital +question "Can Germany Pay?" + + + +RECENTLY PUBLISHED. + +MEMORIES AND NOTES OF PERSONS AND PLACES. + +By SIR SIDNEY COLVIN, M.A., D.Litt., + +FORMERLY SLADE PROFESSOR OF FINE ART IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE + AND KEEPER OF THE PRINTS AND DRAWINGS AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM. + +With Portrait. Second Impression. 18s. net. + +"Readers of this book will be visited by only one regret--that Sir +Sidney Colvin was compelled to abandon his larger plan of writing his +personal recollections in several volumes. Such dreams, such memories +as these are treasures. Sir Sidney, for all his modesty, does not +persuade us that they can be enjoyed so richly without some equivalent +virtue. That there are special aptitudes for reaching Corinth is +proved by these delightful pages."--_Times Literary Supplement_. + +"The sloven style, the trivial matter, of so many of the Reminiscences +which every publishing season pours forth makes all the more welcome by +contrast a book of memories that is both rich in interest and itself a +piece of literature. Such is Sir Sidney Colvin's 'Memories and Notes.' +It is a pleasure to read from beginning to end, if only for the exact +and vivid phrasing, the sustained felicity of cadence, at times +touching emotion and imagination at once with just that kind of beauty +of sound in the words which is proper to fine prose."--Mr. LAURENCE +BINYON in the _Bookman_. + +"The man who enormously increased the regard of the public for Landor, +who indefatigably forwarded the interests of R. L. Stevenson, and who +is unmatched for his scholarly exposition of Keats, would, of course, +write a book of literary gossip with distinction and taste. But Sir +Sidney Colvin has done more than that. This book is a model of what +such books should be; it is well bred, balanced, informing, and yet it +is light and readable all through."--_Spectator_. + +"After all the reminiscences by women of no conceivable importance, and +all the gossip of chatterboxes in the purlieus of Fleet Street, it is +pleasant to meet a narrator who comes under the old-fashioned +comfortable rubric of 'a scholar and a gentleman.' + + Oh! how comely it is and how reviving + To the spirits of just men long opprest + +by fusty anecdotes about third-class politicians to breathe the +atmosphere of intellectual good breeding."--Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in _The +Sunday Times_. + +"The high vitality of the 'seventies and 'eighties, both in England and +France, is made to pulse again. The book is indispensable where it was +bound to excel, as in the personal study of Robert Louis Stevenson. +But, also, it is singularly close and graphic in ways for which we were +not prepared."--_Observer_. + +"Full of inimitable pictures."--_Nation and Athenaeum_. + +"The leading literary and artistic figures of 60 years flit through the +pages with a fascination which will amply repay those who have awaited +publication of the book for its real worth. The whole of the fifty +pages of Stevensonia give a more faithful picture of R. L. S. on the +human side than anyone has hitherto been able to do."--_Daily News_. + + + + +ADRIENNE TONER. + +By ANNE DOUGLAS SEDGWICK + (MRS. BASIL DE SELINCOURT), + +AUTHOR OF "TANTE," "THE ENCOUNTER," "VALERIE UPTON," ETC. + +Third Impression. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net. + +"Exquisite is the word that swims, not 'darkly' but with a sense of +utter satisfaction, through the brain in summing up Miss Anne Douglas +Sedgwick's new novel, Adrienne Toner. Its quality is extraordinarily +even. It is a fine book, with flashes of humour and a strong and clear +reading of human life, and withal of a quality of which it can only be +said at last, as at first, that it is exquisite."--_Country Life_. + +"I loved 'Adrienne Toner.' A wonderful book, I thought. It's well +worth reading."--From "The Letters of Evelyn" in the _Tatler_. + +"As a penetrating study of a rather uncommon personality it must be +regarded as a first-class piece of work."--_Daily Telegraph_. + +"In this grave and beautiful comedy of English life, with its central +figure typifying the strength and crudity of those spiritual influences +which have come to us from America, Anne Douglas Sedgwick reveals the +growth and maturity of her power."--_Westminster Gazette_. + +"An immensely clever study of an American girl and of the havoc wrought +by her entry into an ordinary English country family. It is probably +the best novel Miss Sedgwick has yet written."--_Evening Standard_. + +"Miss Sedgwick has never done better than in this novel and in nothing +is it so admirable as in the way in which her laughter leaves us and +her ready to admire Adrienne when, not changed, but converted, she +learns from Oldmeadow how much she has grown in spiritual +wisdom."--_Daily News_. + +"A remarkable and living narrative, well deserving all the applause +that it has received."--_Outlook_. + +"It is a surprising book--delicate and imaginative. Miss Sedgwick +excels in the rendering of recurrent moods, changes of attitude, subtle +currents of feeling. This is by far the best work she has given +us."--_British Weekly_. + +"A novel of rare distinction."--_Pall Mall Gazette_. + +"No one could read 'Adrienne Toner' without determining to miss nothing +from the same pen."--_Birmingham Post_. + +"It is a long time since one has read a novel at once as interesting +and as satisfying in its craftsmanship as this. Miss Sedgwick's +artistry is firmer and stronger in her new book than ever yet. The way +in which Adrienne is made visible is from the start quite +masterly."--_Review of Reviews_. + +"The book is to be read, thoughtfully and carefully, and with the +realization that all the time we are seeing into some of the +complexities of human nature as they are presented to us to-day. A +fascinating and powerful and uncommon book."--_Church Times_. + + + +THE RAINBOW BRIDGE. + +By REGINALD FARRER, + +AUTHOR OF "MY ROCK GARDEN," "ALPINES AND BOG PLANTS," ETC. + +With Illustrations and Map. Second Impression. 21s. net. + +"A classic of travel. Of modern travellers with a sense of style, Mr. +Farrer must take his place in the forefront alongside of Mr. Doughty, +Mr. Cunninghame Graham, and Mr. Norman Douglas."--_Times Literary +Supplement_. + +"There can be no denying that Mr. Farrer was one of the great masters +of English prose. His last book is bright with sidelights on _vie +intime_ of the essential China."--_Morning Post_. + + + +THE SOUL AND BODY OF AN ARMY. + +By GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON, G.C.B. + +AUTHOR OF "A STAFF-OFFICER'S SCRAP-BOOK," "GALLIPOLI DIARY," ETC. + +One Volume. Demy 8vo. 18s. net. + +"Sir Ian Hamilton has performed a _tour de force_. He has written a +book on military organization, and in his book there is not a dull +page. It will make some angry, it will make some think, but certainly +it will not produce a yawn."--Major-General Sir F. MAURICE in the +_Daily News_. + +"It is an odd, original, unequal, thought-compelling book, often +exasperating, but never for a moment dull. It is persuasive, too, and +on all the greater matters judicious."--JOHN BUCHAN in _The Evening +Standard_. + + + +WAR AND NATIONAL FINANCE. + +By the HON. R. H. BRAND, C.M.G., + +FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD. + +One Volume. Demy 8vo. 15s. net. + +"A work which is not merely interesting but is most +valuable."--_Morning Post_. + +"By its lucidity, if for no other reason, it will be quite as +interesting to the layman as to those who pretend to a small knowledge +of economics."--_Daily Telegraph_. + +"No one can read it without seeing the world's situation in the white +light of fact and truth and it is a sure cure for most current +fallacies."--_Financial News_. + + + +HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM. + +An Historical Sketch. + +By SIR CHARLES ELIOT, K.C.M.G., + +H.B.M. AMBASSADOR AT TOKIO. + +Three Volumes. L4 4s. net. + +"There can hardly be an over-measure of praise accorded to Sir Charles +Eliot for the methods he uses and the qualities he exhibits. A set of +volumes which henceforth, surely, must be counted indispensable."--_The +Times Literary Supplement_. + + + + +NEW SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL BOOKS. + + +ISOTOPES + +By F. W. ASTON, M.A., D.Sc., F.R.S., + +FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. + +With Diagrams and Plates. Demy 8vo. 9s. net. + +The foundations of the Atomic Theory have been based for over a century +on Dalton's definition of the Atom. The discovery of radio-activity +and the application of Positive Rays to the analysis of the elements +have shown that our conception of the Atom as being homogeneous and +indivisible must be modified. No one is better fitted to deal with the +subject of isotopes than Dr. Aston, whose memoirs on this subject +extend over a number of years. The book deals not only with isotopes, +but gives a general survey of the electrical theory of matter. + + + +AN INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. + +By H. G. DENHAM, M.A., D.Sc, PH.D., + +PROFESSOR OF INORGANIC CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAPETOWN. + +xii + 684 pages, with 144 figures and 56 tables. + +Demy 8vo. Cloth. About 12s. 6d. net. + +This is a general survey of inorganic chemistry up to the Intermediate +Examination Standard of the Universities. Obsolete manufacturing +processes are omitted unless they illustrate some particular type of +chemical reaction. The book is treated from a modern standpoint, as +much Physical Chemistry being introduced as is necessary for the proper +understanding of the subject. + + + +MAGNETISM AND ELECTRICITY. + +By J. PALEY YORKE, A.M.I.E.E., + +HEAD OF THE PHYSICS AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT AT THE + L.C.C. SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND NAVIGATION, POPLAR. + +Second Edition. Crown 8vo. About 5s. net. + +The Author has completely rewritten this book and brought it into line +with the modern methods of teaching the subject. It is written +primarily for the student in Technical Schools and abounds in +references to the various problems the student is likely to meet in his +every-day work. + + + +RAILWAY ELECTRIC TRACTION. + +By F. W. CARTER, M.I.E.E., + +HEAD OF THE TRACTION DEPARTMENT OF THE BRITISH THOMSON HOUSTON COMPANY, +RUGBY. + +400 pages, with 204 diagrams, photographs and plates. + +Demy 8vo. Cloth. About 25s. net. + +The author, a well-known authority on this subject, starts with a +survey of the different systems of electrification and with a +comparison between steam and electric working under various conditions. +He then deals with the locomotive, distribution systems, etc., in +detail and develops the mathematical calculations necessary for dealing +with the various problems which arise. Finally the characteristics of +the principal types of electrical locomotives throughout the world are +given with photographs of certain of these locomotives. + + + +ELEMENTARY HYDRAULICS FOR TECHNICAL STUDENTS. + +By F. C. LEA, D.Sc., M.INST., C.E., + +PROFESSOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERING IN THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM. + +Crown 8vo. About 8s. 6d. net. + +Professor Lea, who is well known as the author of "Hydraulics for +Engineers and Engineering Students," has here written a shorter book +suitable for the courses taken in Technical Schools. Certain of the +more elementary portions of the original book are included in this +volume, but much of the material is new. + + + +IONS ELECTRONS AND IONIZING RADIATIONS. + +By J. A. CROWTHER, M.A., Sc.D., + +UNIVERSITY DEMONSTRATOR IN EXPERIMENTAL PHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF +CAMBRIDGE. + +Third Edition. Demy 8vo. 12s. 6d. net. + +This book, originally published in November, 1919, has been thoroughly +revised. Many portions have been entirely rewritten and of these the +Chapter on "The Electron Theory of Matter" should be especially +mentioned. The tables of constants have been revised in accordance +with the best data available and the book is in all respects abreast of +the progress in this fast developing branch of modern Physics. + + + +London: EDWARD ARNOLD & Co., 41 & 43 Maddox Street, W. 1. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A New Medley of Memories, by David Hunter-Blair + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 36700.txt or 36700.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/7/0/36700/ + +Produced by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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