Three days ago I read a leading article in a great morning daily, headed "The Renascence of bell-founding in England," and I learnt from it that one English bell-foundry was casting a great peal of bells for the War Memorial at Washington, and that another firm was carrying out an order for a peal from, wonder of wonders, Belgium itself, the very home of bells, and that both these peals were designed on the "Simpson five-tone principle." I wish that my old friend could have lived to see his theories so triumphantly vindicated, or could have known that the many years which he devoted to his special subject were not in vain.
Had any one told me, say in 1912, that in two years" time I should be patrolling the streets of London at night in a policeman"s uniform as a Special Constable, I should have been greatly surprised, and should have been more astonished had I known of the extraordinary places I should have to enter in the course of my duties, and the curious people with whom I was to be brought into contact. I had occasion one night, whilst on my beat, to enter the house of a professional man in Harley Street, whose house, in defiance of the "Lighting Orders," was blazing like the Eddystone Lighthouse. I gave the doctor a severe lecture, and pointed out that he was rendering himself liable to a heavy fine. He took my jobation in very good part, for I trust that as a policeman I blended severity with sympathy, and promised to amend his ways, and then added hospitably, "As perhaps you have been out some time, constable, you might be glad of some sandwiches and a gla.s.s of beer. If you will go down to the kitchen, I will tell the cook to get you some." So down I went to the kitchen, and presently found myself being entertained by an enormously fat cook. John Leech"s _Pictures from Punch_ have been familiar to me since my earliest days. Some of his most stereotyped jokes revolved round the unauthorised presence of policemen in kitchens, but in my very wildest dreams it had never occurred to me that I, myself, when well past my sixtieth year, would find myself in a policeman"s uniform seated in a London kitchen, being regaled on beer and sandwiches by a corpulent cook, and making polite conversation to her. I hasten to disclaim the idea that any favourable impression I may have created on the cook was in any way due to my natural charm of manner; it was wholly to be ascribed to the irresistible attraction the policeman"s uniform which I was wearing traditionally exercises over ladies of her profession.
Between ourselves, my brother Claud was so pleased with his Special Constable"s uniform that when a presentation portrait of himself was offered to him he selected his policeman"s uniform to be painted in, in preference to that of a full colonel, to which he was ent.i.tled, and his portrait can now be seen, as a white-haired and white-moustached, but remarkably erect and alert Special Constable, seventy-five years old.
I had during the war another novel but most interesting experience. A certain well-known West End church has been celebrated for over fifty years for the beauty and exquisite finish of its musical Services. As 1915 gave place to 1916, one by one the professional choir-men got called up for military service, and finally came the turn of the organist and choirmaster himself, he being just inside the limit of age. The organist, besides being a splendid musician, happened to be a skilled mechanic, so he was not sent abroad, but was given a commission, and sent down to Aldershot to superintend the a.s.sembling of aircraft engines. By getting up at 5 a.m. on Sundays, he was able to be in London in time to take the organ and conduct the choir of his church. Meeting the organist in the street one day, he told me that he was in despair, for all the men of the choir but two had been called up, and the results of ten years" patient labour seemed crumbling away. He meant, though, to carry on somehow, all the same, and begged me to find him a ba.s.s for the Cantoris side. I have hardly any voice at all myself, but I had been used to singing in a choir, and can read a part easily at sight, so I volunteered as a ba.s.s, and for two years marched in twice, and occasionally three times, every Sunday into the church in ca.s.sock and surplice with the choir. The music was far more elaborate and difficult than any to which I had been accustomed, but it was a great privilege and a great delight to sing with a choir trained to such absolute perfection. The organist could only spare time for one short practice a week, during which we went through about one-third of the music we were to sing on Sunday, all the rest had to be read at sight. Had not the boys been so highly trained it would have been quite impossible; they lived in a Resident Choir School, and were practised daily, and never once did they let us down. I do not think that the congregation had the faintest idea that half the elaborate anthems and Services they were listening to, though familiar to the boys, had never been seen by the majority of the choir-men until they came into church, and that they were being read at sight.
One particularly florid Service, much beloved by the congregation, was known amongst the choir as "Chu Chin Chow in E flat." The organist always managed somehow to produce a really good solo tenor, as well as an adequate second tenor, mostly privates and bluejackets for the time being, but professional musicians in their former life. It was a point of honour with this scratch-choir to endeavour to maintain the very high musical standard of the church, and I really think that we did wonders, for we gave a very good rendering of Cornelius" beautiful but abominably difficult eight-part unaccompanied anthem for double choir, "Love, I give myself to thee," after twenty minutes" practice of it, and difficult as is the music, we kept the pitch, and did not drop one-tenth of a tone. At times, of course, the scratch-choir made mistakes, and then the organ crashed out and drowned us. The congregation imagined that the organist was merely showing off the power and variety of tone of his instrument; we knew better, and understood that this blare was to veil our blunder. It was really absorbingly interesting work. During Lent we sang, unaccompanied, Palestrina and Vittoria, and this sixteenth-century polyphonic music requires singing with such exact.i.tude that it needs the utmost concentration and sustained attention, if the results are to be satisfactory. The organist was quite pleased with his make-shift choir; though, as a thorough musician, he was rather exacting. At choir-practice he would say, "Very nicely sung, gentlemen, so nicely that I want it all over again. Try and do it a little better this time, and with greater accuracy, please." It is the custom in this church to sing carols from a chamber up in the tower on the three Sundays following Christmas. They are sung unaccompanied, and almost in a whisper, and the effect in the church below is really entrancing. To reach this tower-chamber we had to mount endless flights of stairs to the choir-boys" dormitory, and then to clamber over their beds, and squeeze ourselves through an opening about a foot square (built as a fire-escape for the boys) in our surplices. After negotiating this narrow aperture, I shall always sympathise with any camel attempting to insinuate itself through the eye of a needle. In a small, low-roofed chamber, where there is barely standing-room for twenty people, it is difficult even for a highly trained choir to do itself justice. The low roof tends to deaden the pitch, and in so confined a s.p.a.ce the singers cannot get into that instinctive touch with each other which makes the difference between a good and a bad choir; still, people in the church below told me that the effect was lovely. On one occasion, owing to force of circ.u.mstances, it had been impossible for the men to rehea.r.s.e the carols, though the boys had been well practised in them. We sung them at sight unaccompanied; rather a musical feat to do satisfactorily.
I would not have missed for anything my two years" experience with that church choir; every Sunday it was a renewed pleasure.
During 1915 and 1916 one got used to meeting familiar friends in unfamiliar garbs, and in a certain delightful club, not a hundred miles from Leicester Square, which I will veil under the impenetrable disguise of the "Grill-room Club," I was not surprised to find two well-known and popular actors, the one in a naval uniform, the other in an airman"s. I might add that the latter greatly distinguished himself in the air during the war.
The "Grill-room" is quite a unique club. It consists of one room only, a lofty, white-panelled hall, with an open timber roof. Nearly every distinguished man connected with the English stage for the last forty years has been a member of this club; Henry Irving, Charles Wyndham, Arthur Sullivan, W. S. Gilbert, George Grossmith, Corney Grain, George Alexander, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, and Arthur Cecil are only a few of the celebrities for whom this pa.s.sing show is over, but who were members of the club. It is unnecessary for me to give a list of the present members; it is enough to say that it comprises every prominent English actor of to-day.
Arthur Cecil had a delightful nature, with a marked but not unpleasant "old-maidish" element in it. For instance, no mortal eye had ever beheld him without a little black handbag. Wherever Arthur Cecil went the little bag went with him. There was much speculation amongst his friends as to what the contents of this mysterious receptacle might be. Many people averred, in view of his notoriously large appet.i.te, that it was full of sandwiches, in case he should become smitten with hunger whilst on the stage, but he would tell no one. As I knew him exceedingly well, I begged on several occasions to have the secret of the little black bag entrusted to me, but he always turned my question aside. After his death, it turned out that the little bag was a fully fitted-up medicine-chest, with remedies for use in every possible contingency. Should he have fancied that he had caught a chill, a tea-spoon of this; should his dressing-room feel over-hot, four drops of that; should he encounter a bad smell, a table-spoonful of a third mixture. Poor Cecil"s interior must have been like a walking drug-store. He was quite inimitable in eccentric character parts, his "Graves" in _Money_ being irresistibly funny, and his "Baron Stein" in _Diplomacy_ was one of the most finished performances we are ever likely to see, a carefully stippled miniature, with every little detail carefully thought out, touched up and retouched. I do not believe that the English stage has even seen a finer _ensemble_ of acting than that given by Kendal as "Julian Beauclerc," John Clayton as "Henry Beauclerc," and Squire Bancroft as "Count Orloff" when the piece was originally produced at the Hay-market, in the great "three-men" scene in the Second Act of _Diplomacy_, the famous "Scene des trois hommes"
of Sardou"s _Dora_; nothing on the French stage could beat it. Arthur Cecil bought a splendid fur coat for his entrance as "Baron Stein," but after the run of the piece nothing would ever induce him to wear his fur coat, even in the coldest weather. He was obsessed with the idea that should _Diplomacy_ ever be revived, his fur coat might grow too shabby to be used for his first entrance, so it reposed perpetually and uselessly in camphor. Arthur Cecil was cursed with the Demon of Irresolution. I have never known so undecided a man; it seemed quite impossible for him to make up his mind. Sir Squire Bancroft has told us in his _Memoirs_ how Cecil, on the night of the dress rehearsal of _Diplomacy_, was unable to decide on his make-up. He used a totally different make-up in each of the three acts, to the great bewilderment of the audience, who were quite unable to identify the white-moustached gentleman of the First Act with the bald-headed and grey-whiskered individual of the Second. This irresolution pursued poor Cecil everywhere. Coming in for supper to the "Grill-room" after his performance, he would order and counter-order for ten minutes, absolutely unable to come to a decision. He invariably ended by seizing a pencil, closing his eyes tightly, and whirling his pencil round and round over the supper-list until he brought it down at haphazard somewhere. As may be imagined, repasts chosen in this fashion were apt to be somewhat incongruous.
After the first decision of chance, Cecil would murmur to the patient waiter, "Some apple-tart to begin with, Charles." Then another whirl, and "some stuffed tomatoes," a third whirl, and "salt fish and parsnips, Charles, please. It"s a thing that I positively detest, but it has been chosen for me, so bring it." Cecil went for an annual summer holiday to France, but as he could never decide where he should go, the same method came into play, and with a map of France before him, and tightly closed eyes, the whirling pencil determined his destination for him. He a.s.sured me that it had selected some unknown but most delightful spots for him, though at times he was less fortunate. The pencil once lit on the mining districts of Northern France, and Cecil with his sunny nature professed himself grateful for this, declaring that but for the hazard of the whirling pencil, he would never have had an opportunity of realising what unspeakably revolting spots Saletrousur-Somme, or Saint-Andre-Linfecte were. He was a wonderfully kind-hearted man. Once, whilst playing at the Court Theatre, he noticed the call-boy constantly poring over a book. Cecil, glancing over it, was surprised to find that it was not _The Boy Highwayman of Hampstead_, but a treatise on Algebra. The call-boy told him that he was endeavouring to educate himself, with a view to going out to India. Cecil bought him quite a library of books, paid for a series of cla.s.ses for him, and eventually, thanks to Cecil, the call-boy pa.s.sed second in a compet.i.tive examination, and obtained a well-paid appointment in a Calcutta Bank. Cecil, or to give him his real name, Arthur Blount, was also an excellent musician, and his setting of _The Better Land_ is to my mind a beautiful one. He was an eccentric, faddy, kindly, gentle creature.
At the "Grill-room," actor-managers are constantly pouring out their woes. One well-known actor-manager came in full of a desperate row he had had with his leading lady because the printer in the bills of the new production had forgotten the all-important "and" before her name.
She merely appeared at the end of the list of characters, whereas she wanted "AND Miss Lilian Vavasour." "Such a ridiculous fuss to make about an "and,"" grumbled the actor-manager. "Yes," retorted Comyns-Carr, "and unfortunately "and and "art do not always go together on these occasions."
The neatest answer I ever heard came from the late Lord Houghton.
Queen Victoria"s predilection for German artists was well known. She was painted several times by Winterhalter, and after his death was induced by the Empress Frederick to give sittings to the Viennese artist, Professor von Angeli. Angeli"s portrait of the Queen was, I think, exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1876. Some one commenting on this, said that it was hard that the Queen would never give an English artist a chance; after Winterhalter it was Angeli. "Yes," said Lord Houghton, "I fancy that the Queen agrees with Gregory the Great, and says, "non Angli sed Angeli.""
Of minor neatness was an answer made to my mother by a woodman at Baron"s Court. Apparently at the time of her marriage the common dog-wood was hardly known in England as a shrub, although in the moist Irish climate it flourished luxuriantly. Every one is familiar with the shrub, if only on account of its bark turning a bright crimson with the early frosts. My mother on her first visit to Baron"s Court saw a woodman tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the dog-wood, and inquired of him the name of this unfamiliar red-barked shrub. On being told that it was dog-wood she asked, "Why is it called dog-wood?" "It might be on account of its bark," came the ready answer.
Pellegrini the caricaturist, the celebrated "Ape" of _Vanity Fair_, was a member of the "Grill-room," as is his equally well-known successor, Sir Leslie Ward, the "Spy" of that now defunct paper, who has drawn almost every notability in the kingdom. Sir Leslie is, I am glad to say, still with us. Leslie Ward has the speciality of extraordinary accidents, accidents which could befall no human being but himself. For instance, in pre-taxi days Ward was driving in a hansom, and the cabman taking a wrong turn, Ward pushed up the little door in the roof to stop him. The man bent his head down to catch his fare"s directions, and Leslie Ward inadvertently pushed three fingers right into the cabman"s mouth. The driver, hotly resenting this unwarranted liberty, bit Leslie Ward"s fingers so severely that he was unable to hold either pencil or brush for a fortnight. This is only one example of the extraordinary mishaps in which this gifted artist specialises.
In the recently published _Life of Herbert Beerbohm Tree_, the collaborators do not allude to that curious vein of impish humour which at times possessed him, turning him into a sort of big rollicking schoolboy. There was one episode which I can give with Tree"s actual words, for I wrote them down at the time, as a supreme example of the art of "leg-pulling." Amongst the members of the "Grill-room Club" was an elderly bachelor, whom I will call Mr.
Smith. "Mr. Smith," who has now been dead for some years, was wholly undistinguished in every way. He ate largely, and spoke little, but Tree had discovered that under his placid exterior he concealed a vein of limitless vanity. One evening "Mr. Smith" startled the club by breaking his habitual silence, and bursting into poetry. Apropos of nothing at all, he suddenly declaimed two lines of doggerel, which, as far as my memory goes, ran as follows:
"I and my doggie are now left alone, Johnstone, to-morrow, will give him a bone."
He then relapsed into his ordinary placid silence, and soon after went home. Beerbohm Tree made at once a bet of 5 pounds with another member that he would induce old Mr. Smith to repeat this rubbish lying at full length under the dining-table, seated in the firegrate (it was summer-time), and hidden behind the window-curtains. The story got about until every one knew of the bet except Mr. Smith, so next night the club was crowded. The unsuspecting Smith sat silently and placidly ruminating, when Tree appeared after his performance at His Majesty"s and lost no time in approaching his subject. "My dear Smith," he began, "you repeated last night two lines of poetry which moved me strangely. The recollection of them has haunted me all day; say them again, I beg of you." The immensely gratified Smith at once began:
"I and my doggie are now left alone, Johnstone, to-morrow, will give him a bone."
"Exquisite!" murmured Tree. "Beautiful lines, and distinctly modern, yet without the faintest trace of decadence. It is the note of implied tragedy in them that appeals to me, for were Johnstone unfortunately to die in the night there would, of course, be no bone for the faithful four-footed friend. Repeat them again, please." After a second repet.i.tion Tree went on: "You have _l"art de dire_ to an amazing extent, Smith, and you have the priceless gift of _les larmes dans la voix_. I know that no pecuniary inducements I might offer would make any appeal to you; still, could I but get you to repeat those beautiful lines on the stage of my theatre, all London would flock to hear you. I should wish now for them to float vaguely to my ears, as the sound of village chimes borne on the breeze; out of the vague; out of the unknown. Ha! I have it! Would you mind, Smith, lying under the table here, and exercising your gift as a reciter from there. I, on my side, will put myself into a fitting frame of mind by eschewing such grossly material things as tobacco and alcohol, and will eat of the simple fruits of the earth. Waiter, apples, many apples! Now, Smith, I beg of you," and Tree, munching an apple, made a gesture of appeal, and stood on the table, a second apple in his left hand.
"Really I," faltered Mr. Smith with a gratified smile, "really...
Well... do you mean it?" and he slid obediently under the table, and repeated the idiotic lines. "Gorgeous! Positively gorgeous!" sighed Tree. "Now, Smith, Bismarck once, when at the zenith of his power, electrified an audience of German _savants_ by repeating two simple lines of German poetry seated in the fireplace. I must emphasise the fact that it was when he was at the very zenith of his power, for otherwise, of course, he would have been unable to produce this effect.
I should like to see whether your touching lines would move me as strongly coming from so unexpected a quarter. See! I will place _The Times_ for you to sit on, the _Daily Telegraph_ for you to lean against. Two of the most powerful organs of public opinion both equally proud to minister to your comfort. I beg of you, Smith." "Really...
it"s rather unusual... but if you want it," smirked Mr. Smith, and the doggerel was duly repeated from the fireplace. "Now, Smith, I want those haunting lines to reach me faintly, as from some distant ocean cavern, or like the murmurs sea-sh.e.l.ls whisper into the ear. Ha! the window-curtains will m.u.f.fle the sound; say it from behind them, I pray." When this was over Tree buried his face in his hands, feigning deep emotion, and Mr. Smith regained his place wreathed in smiles, convinced that he had achieved an unparalleled triumph as a reciter, but Tree had won his 5 pounds.
That gifted man Charles Brookfield was also a member of the "Grill-room." There was a slight note of cynicism, and a touch of bitterness in his humour, for he was quite conscious that he had not achieved the success that his brilliant abilities seemed to promise.
It was characteristic of Brookfield that when attacked with the tuberculosis to which he eventually succ.u.mbed, he should draw up the prospectus and rules of the "Ninety-nine Club" (those who have ever had their lungs tested will understand the allusion), a doc.u.ment in which he gave full rein to his vein of cynical and slightly _macabre_ humour.
Some twenty-five years ago, I and another member of the "Grill-room Club" used occasionally to "walk-on" in the great autumn Drury Lane melodramas. We knew the manager well, and upon sending in our cards to him, we could figure as guests at a ball, or as two of the crowd on a racecourse. I liked seeing the blurred outlines of the vast audience over the dazzling glare of the footlights, and the details of the production of these complicated spectacular pieces amused me when seen from the stage. In one of these melodramas, I think the _Derby Winner_, there was a spirited auction scene on the stage, when Mrs. John Wood bid 30,000 pounds for a horse. I had an almost irresistible impulse to over-bid her and to shout "forty thousand pounds." Mrs. John Wood would have proved, I am sure, equal to the emergency, and would have got the better of me. Between us, we should probably have run the horse up to a quarter of a million, and the consternation of the rest of the company would have been very amusing to witness, but it would not have been quite fair on our friend the manager, so I refrained.
A great-nephew of mine, then an Eton boy of fifteen, had heard of these experiences and longed to share them; so, with the manager"s consent, I took him "on" the first day of his holidays. He was one of the crowd at an imaginary Oxford and Cambridge boat-race, cheering for all he was worth, when he suddenly saw four of his Eton friends sitting together in the front row of the stalls, and nodded to them.
The astonishment of these youths at seeing the boy they had travelled up with that morning, moving about the stage of Drury Lane Theatre as though he were quite at home there, was most comical. They gaped round-eyed, refusing to believe the evidence of their senses.
I believe that the appeal of the theatre is simply due to the fact that the majority of human beings retain the child"s love of "make-believe" but are too unimaginative to create a dream-world for themselves. Having lost the child"s power of creation, a more material dream-world has to be elaborately constructed for them, with every adjunct that can heighten the sense of illusion, an element the unimaginative are unable to supply for themselves. They require all their "i"s" carefully dotted and their "t"s" elaborately crossed; so they love "real water" on the stage, and "real leaves" falling in a forest scene, and genuine taxi-cabs rumbling about the stage so realistically that no strain need be put on their imagination.
At the age of seven or eight I came to the conclusion that one would go through life shedding illusions as trees shed their leaves in November. I had an ill.u.s.trated _History of England_ which contained a picture of knights tilting; splendid beings all in armour, with plumes waving from their helmets, seated on armoured horses and brandishing gigantic lances. I asked my governess whether there were any knights left. She, an excellent but most matter-of-fact lady, a.s.sured me that there were plenty of knights still about, after which I never ceased pestering her to show me one. One day she delighted me by saying, "You want to see a knight, dear. There is one coming to see your father at twelve o"clock to-day, and you may stand on the staircase and see him arrive." This was an absolutely thrilling episode! One of these glorious creatures of Romance was actually coming to our house that day! I may add that my mother was unwell at the time, and that the celebrated doctor Sir William Jenner, who had then been recently knighted, had been called in for a consultation. At Chesterfield House there is a very fine double flight of white marble stairs, and, long before twelve, wild with excitement, I took my stand at the top of it.
How this magnificent being"s armour would clank on the marble! Would he wear a thing like a saucepan on his head, with a little gate in front to peep through? It would be rather alarming, but the waving plumes would look nice. Supposing that he spoke to me, how was I to address him? Perhaps "Grammercy, Sir Knight!" would do. I was rather hazy as to its meaning, but it sounded well. It might also be polite to inquire how many maidens in distress the knight had rescued recently. Would he carry his lance upstairs and leave it outside my father"s door? If so, I could play with it, and perhaps tilt at the footman with it. Would he leave his prancing charger in the courtyard in the care of his esquire?
The possibilities were really endless. Presently our family doctor came upstairs with another gentleman, and they went into my father"s room. I said "Good-morning" to our own doctor, but scarcely noticed the stranger, for I was straining my ears to catch the first clank of the knight"s armour on the marble pavement of the hall below. Time went on; our doctor and the stranger reappeared and went downstairs, and still no knight arrived. At last I went back to my governess and told her that the knight must have forgotten, for he had never come. I could have cried with disappointment when told that the frock-coated stranger was the knight. That a knight! Without armour, or plumes, or lance, or charger! To console me for my disappointment I was allowed to see my father in his full robes as a Knight of the Garter before he left for some ceremony of the Order. This was the first intimation I had received that we could include a knight in our own family circle. My father"s blue velvet mantle was imposing, and he certainly had plumes; but to my great chagrin he was not wearing one single sc.r.a.p of armour, had no iron saucepan on his head, and was not even carrying a gigantic lance. It seemed to be the same with everything else. In my ill.u.s.trated _History_ there was a picture of the Barons forcing King John to sign Magna Charta at Runnymede. They had beards, and wore long velvet dressing-gowns, with lovely, long, pointed shoes, and carried swords nearly as big as themselves. I asked my governess if there were any barons left, and she told me that Lord B----, a great friend of my family"s, was a baron. This was dreadful. Lord B---- was dressed like any one else, had no beard, and instead of beautiful long shoes shaped like toothpicks, with flapping, pointed toes, he had ordinary everyday boots. He never wore a velvet dressing-gown or carried a big sword, and no one could possibly imagine him as coercing King John, or indeed any one else, to do anything they did not want to do. I asked to see a n.o.ble; I was told that I met them every day at luncheon. Like all properly const.i.tuted boys I longed to live on an island. I was told that I already enjoyed that privilege. It really was a most disappointing world!
To remedy this state of things, and as a protest against the prosaic age in which we lived, my youngest brother and I devised some strictly private dramas. One dealing with the adventures of Sir Alphonso and the lovely Lady Leonora lingers in my memory, and I recall every word of the dialogue. This latter was peculiar, for we had an idea that to be archaic all personal p.r.o.nouns had to be omitted. Part of it, I remember, ran, "Dost love me, Leonora?" "Do." "Wilt fly with me?"
"Will." "Art frightened, fair one?" "Am." Everything in this thrilling drama led up to the discovery of the hidden treasure which the far-seeing Sir Alphonso had prudently buried in the garden in case of emergencies. Treasure had, of course, to consist of gold, silver, and coin. Some one had given me a tiny gold whistle; though small, it was unquestionably of gold, and my brother was the proud possessor of a silver pencil-case. These unfortunate objects must have been buried and disinterred countless times in company with a French franc-piece.
To the eye of faith the whistle and the pencil-case became gleaming ingots of gold and silver, and the solitary franc transformed itself into iron-bound chests gorged with ducats, doubloons, or pieces-of-eight: the last having a peculiarly attractive and romantic sound.
In such fashion did we make our juvenile protest against the drab-coloured age into which we had been born.
CHAPTER XI
Dislike of the elderly to change--Some legitimate grounds of complaint--Modern p.r.o.nunciation of Latin--How a European crisis was averted by the old-fashioned method--Lord Dufferin"s Latin speech--Schoolboy costume of a hundred years ago--Discomforts of travel in my youth--A crack liner of the "eighties"--Old travelling carriages--An election incident--Headlong rush of extraordinary turnout--The politically minded signalman and the doubtful voter--"Decent bodies"--Confidence in the future--Conclusion.
To point out that elderly people dislike change is to a.s.sert the most obvious of truisms. Their three-score years of experience have taught them that all changes are not necessarily changes for the better, as youth fondly imagines; and that experiments are not invariably successful. They have also learnt that no amount of talk will alter hard facts, and that the law that effect will follow cause is an inflexible one which torrents of fluent plat.i.tudes will neither affect nor modify. Even should this entail their being labelled with the silly and meaningless term of "reactionary," I do not imagine that their equanimity is much upset by it. It is, perhaps, natural for the elderly to make disparaging comparisons between the golden past and the neutral-tinted present; so that one shudders at reflecting what a terrific nuisance Methuselah must have become in his old age. One can almost hear the youth of his day whispering friendly warnings to each other: "Avoid that old fellow like poison, for you will find him the most desperate bore. He is for ever grousing about the rottenness of everything nowadays compared to what it was when he was a boy nine hundred years ago."
What applies to Methuselah may apply, in a lesser degree, to all of us elderly people, though I think that we are justified when we lament a noticeable decline in certain definite standards of honour which in our day were almost universally accepted both in private and in public life. Even then some few may have bowed the knee at the shrine of "Monseigneur l"Argent"; but it was done almost furtively, for "people on the make," or unblushingly "out for themselves," were less to the fore then than now, and were most certainly less conspicuous in public life.
We can also be forgiven for regretting a marked decline in manners.
Possibly in hurried days when every one seems to crave for excitement, there is but little time left for those courtesies customary amongst an older generation.
There is no need to enlarge on the immense changes the years have brought about during my lifetime. Amongst the very minor changes, I notice that when my great-nephews quote any Latin to me, I am unable to understand one single syllable of it, and between ourselves I fancy that this modern p.r.o.nunciation of Latin would be equally unintelligible to an ancient Roman.
Our old-fashioned English p.r.o.nunciation of Latin may have been illogical, but on one occasion it helped to avert a European war. The late Count Benckendorff, the last Russian Amba.s.sador to the Court of St. James"s, a singularly fascinating man, was protocolist to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and as such was present at every sitting of the Congress. He told me that at one meeting of the Plenipotentiaries, Prince Gortschakoff announced that Russia, in direct contravention of Article XIII of the Treaty of Paris of 1856, intended to fortify the port of Batoum. This was expressly forbidden by the Treaty of Paris, so Lord Beaconsfield rose from his chair and said quietly, "Casus belli," _only_ he p.r.o.nounced the Latin words in the English fashion, and Count Benckendorff a.s.sured me that no one present, with the exception of the British delegates, had the glimmer of an idea of what he was talking about. They imagined that he was making some remark in English to Lord Salisbury, and took no notice of it whatever. Lord Salisbury whispered to his colleague, and ultimately Prince Gortschakoff withdrew the claim to fortify Batoum. "But," added Count Benckendorff, "just imagine the consternation of the Congress had Lord Beaconsfield hurled his ultimatum to Russia with the continental p.r.o.nunciation "cahsous bellee!"" Just picture the breaking up of the Congress, the frantic telegrams, the shrieking headlines, the general consternation, and the terrific results that might have followed! And all these tremendous possibilities were averted by our old-fashioned English p.r.o.nunciation of Latin!
My old Chief and G.o.dfather, the late Lord Dufferin, in his most amusing _Letters From High Lat.i.tudes_, recounts how he was entertained at a public dinner at Rejkjavik in Iceland by the Danish Governor. To his horror Lord Dufferin found that he was expected to make a speech, and his hosts asked him to speak either in Danish or in Latin. Lord Dufferin, not knowing one word of Danish, hastily rea.s.sembled his rusty remnants of Latin, and began, "Insolitus ut sum ad public.u.m loquendum," and in proposing the Governor"s health, begged his audience, amidst enthusiastic cheers, to drink it with a "haustu longo, haustu forti, simul atque haustu."
Such are the advantages of a cla.s.sical education!
My younger relatives, who naturally look upon me as being of almost antediluvian age, sometimes ask me to describe the discomforts of an all-night coach journey in my youth, or inquire how many days we occupied in travelling from, say, London to Edinburgh. They are obviously sceptical when I a.s.sure them that my memory does not extend to pre-railway days. I am surprised that they do not ask me for a few interesting details of occasions when we were stopped by masked highwaymen on Hounslow Heath in the course of our journeys.
My father told me that when he first went to Harrow in September, 1823, at the age of twelve, he rode all the way from London, followed by a servant carrying his portmanteau on a second horse. My father"s dress sounds curious to modern ears. Below a jacket and one of the big flapping collars of the period, he wore a waistcoat of crimson cut-velvet with gold b.u.t.tons, a pair of skin-tight pantaloons of green tartan with Hessian boots to the knee, further adorned with large bra.s.s spurs with bra.s.s chains. A schoolboy of twelve would excite some comment were he to appear dressed like that to-day, though my father a.s.sured me that he could run in his Hessian boots and spurs as fast as any of his school-fellows.
Though my recollections may not go back to pre-railway days, the conditions under which we travelled in my youth would be thought intolerable now. No sleeping- or dining-cars, long night-journeys in unheated, dimly lit carriages devoid of any kind of convenience, and sea-pa.s.sages in small, ill-equipped steamers. All these were accepted as a matter of course, and as inevitable incidents of travel.
The first long-distance voyage I ever made was just forty years ago, and I should like people who grumble at the accommodation provided in one of the huge modern liners to see the arrangements thought good enough for pa.s.sengers in 1882. Our ship, the _Britannia_ of the Pacific Steam Navigation Co., was just over 4,000 tons, and we pa.s.sengers congratulated each other loudly on our good fortune in travelling in so fast and splendid a vessel. The _Britannia_ had no deck-houses, the uncarpeted, undecorated saloon was the only place in which to sit, and its furniture consisted of long tables with swinging racks over them, flanked by benches. This sumptuous apartment was illuminated at night by no less than forty candles, a source of immense pride of the chief steward. The sleeping-cabins for a six weeks" voyage were smaller and less comfortably fitted than those at present provided for the three hours" trip between Holyhead and Kingstown; at night one dim oil-lamp glimmered in a ground-gla.s.s case fixed between two cabins, but only up to 10.30 p.m., after which the ship was plunged into total darkness. As it was before the days of refrigerators, the fore part of the deck was devoted to live stock.
Pigs grunted in one pen, sheep bleated in another, whilst ducks quacked and turkeys gobbled in coops on either side of them. No one ever thought of grumbling; on the contrary, we all experienced that stupid sense of reflected pride which pa.s.sengers in a crack liner feel, for the _Britannia_ then enjoyed a tremendous reputation in the Pacific. Certainly, seen from the sh.o.r.e, the old _Britannia_ was a singularly pleasing object to the eye, with her clipper bows, the graceful curve of her sheer, and the beautiful lines of her low hull unbroken by any deck-houses or top-hamper.
The traveller of to-day is more fortunate; he expects and finds in a modern liner all the comforts he would enjoy in a first-cla.s.s hotel ash.o.r.e; and finds them too in a lesser degree on railway journeys.
The long continental tours of my father and mother in the early days of their married life, were all made by road in their own carriages, and as their family increased they took their elder children with them in their wanderings, so what with children, nurses and servants, they travelled with quite a retinue.