We were all busy, but we must all have tea somewhere, and why not in a place close to the Houses of Parliament, the Foreign Office, Downing Street, and the War Office? I went on to say that though I could not promise a Prime Minister once a week, I would undertake to get one of his colleagues or else some distinguished general or admiral whose conversation about the war would be worth hearing, to ornament my Conversazione. The proposal was met with the charming ease and good sense with which every suggestion that I made to my guests was received, and it was arranged that we should begin in the following week.
Oddly enough, I cannot now remember who was my next guest of honour, but I do remember that in the course of that year I twice got Sir Edward Grey, and that on one occasion he spent over two hours, from 4.30, that is, until nearly 6.30, over my tea-cups. Other Cabinet Ministers were equally obliging, and if I remember rightly, among the number were included two Lord Chancellors, Lord Haldane, and Lord Buckmaster. Mr.
Balfour and Mr. McKenna were also visitors, as was Earl Grey--the cousin of Sir Edward Grey. Lord Roberts was to have come, but Death intervened to prevent his visit.
Lest the diet should be monotonous, I also got distinguished people like the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, Admiral Sir Reginald Custance, General Ian Hamilton, and Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, at that time the head of the Intelligence Department at the Admiralty. There was also Sir Maurice Hankey, the Belgian Minister, the American Amba.s.sador, Mr. Page, and Colonel House, whom I was lucky enough to catch on one of his flying visits. Last, but not least, I had the two Censors, Sir Edward Cook and Sir Frank Swettenham.
It was as if The Thunderer and Mercury had descended to play with mere mortals. My two naval experts, Admiral Cyprian Bridge and Admiral Custance, were among the most constant supporters of my Conversaziones.
They proved very popular with the correspondents.
I know that the lions I provided for my arena in Queen Anne"s Gate were quite genuine when they told me how much they had liked meeting the able and keenly-interested young men who formed the bulk of the correspondents.
I suppose I ought not to flatter my own tea-parties, but I am bound to say that I don"t think I ever listened to better talk than the talk I heard on those occasions. I specially remember a conversation which took place when Lord Buckmaster became Chief Censor, shortly before he was made Chancellor. Naturally enough, the correspondents were inclined to be critical, though friendly, and he, though equally friendly, was sternly determined to defend the policy which his office was pursuing.
Curiously enough, our dialectic on that occasion seemed to have made as strong an impression upon others as upon myself. I found, later, one of the most distinguished of news experts of his own or any other country, Mr. Roy Martin, of the a.s.sociated Press of America, in a little tract which he wrote about the censorship when America entered the war, spoke of my parties and the talk with Lord Buckmaster in terms which showed that he had been impressed. The tract in question was ent.i.tled "Newspaper Men should direct the Censorship." The following is the pa.s.sage to which I am referring:
On the day when Lord Buckmaster became Lord High Chancellor I met him at the hospitable home of St. Loe Strachey, of _The Spectator_, the best friend American newspaper men have had during this war, in London, and told him that newspaper men had probably been a more constant nuisance to him than to any man in Great Britain. With characteristic suavity he a.s.sured me that he had only the pleasantest recollection of all his relations with the press. An American probably would have admitted a part of the indictment. We do not produce that type of urbanity in this country; like the colour on the walls of St. Paul"s and the Abbey, it comes only with centuries.
But all the dreadful lapses of the British censorship and all its inequalities can be avoided by the United States. The mistakes which required months to correct are signposts for us.
Its printed rules reveal its slow growth. Our censorship can develop equal efficiency in a month, if it notes the charted pitfalls in Whitehall.
I think my tea-parties would have run to the end of the war if it had not been that my health temporarily gave way. Owing to my illness I had to be a great deal away from London, and in any case was not equal to the extra strain they imposed. If I remember rightly, the last meeting was held at _The Spectator_ office, for 14 Queen Anne"s Gate was let at the time, _i.e._ in April or May, 1917.
I hope I shall not be thought indiscreet if I take note of an incident which occurred in the last six months of the Strachey teas, for it marked the extreme kindness, consideration, and true-hearted friendship shown me by my guests. For some reason, I daresay a good one, though I have forgotten it, the Foreign Office suddenly took it into their heads that they might improve upon my tea-parties by making them more official. Accordingly they asked me whether I should mind handing over the conduct of them to a gentleman whom they named. He had lived, they pointed out, for over twenty years in the United States and was therefore likely to be a better host than I was. Indeed, it was suggested, of course most politely and considerately, that on general grounds he would be more acceptable to the correspondents than I should be and would understand them better.
We were at war, and we did not in those days waste time upon compliments, but spoke our minds freely--and quite rightly. I was not in the least hurt. Though I loved the parties, which had given me such good friends and such good talk, I was very busy, and indeed very much overworked, and was in a sense relieved at the idea of getting a couple of hours of much needed leisure in the week. Accordingly, it was arranged that I should retire gracefully and recommend my official successor to my American friends in a short speech. This I did with perfect good-will. But the Foreign Office, though they did not reckon without their host, had reckoned without his guests. When the concrete proposal (well-meant, I am sure) was made in all its glorious navete in a little speech by the new host, it was received with something like annoyance--a fact which worried me not a little, for I had, rather unwisely perhaps, a.s.sured my official mentors that there would be no objection.
Things, however, went further than the grim silence with which the initial proposal was met at what was designed to be "the positively last appearance of Mr. Strachey." After a few days I heard that three or four of the correspondents, representing the whole body (with their usual tact they had kept this from me), had gone to one of the officials at the Foreign Office and told him plainly that if the scheme was not abandoned and I was not continued as host, they would none of them put in an appearance at the weekly gatherings. The result was that the official scheme was abandoned and that my Conversaziones continued as before.
Many people may think this action somewhat strange. I do not think so.
Noting that I had only spent three weeks in America, it was most natural that the officials concerned should consider that I must be ignorant of American minds and ways and that my ignorance might be liable to become offensive. But this view, to borrow Gibbon"s immortal phrase, "though probable is certainly false." It is logical, no doubt, but it is not consistent with the inconsistency of human nature.
I ought, perhaps, at the same time to record that earlier in the war, when, owing to the amount of work I had on hand, I offered to retire from the office of host and let it be carried on by others, I was sternly rebuked by the Prime Minister"s Private Secretary, and told peremptorily that it was my duty to go on exactly as before--a mandate which I naturally regarded as a compliment as well as an order.
The incident was indeed a pleasant one, and I have reason to believe that what I did was regarded with satisfaction and with grat.i.tude by the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the Cabinet. In any case, the whole episode was characteristically English. I suggested it myself, I carried it out myself, and though my little organisation had no regular official sanction or recognition, it was regarded as I have just recorded as war- work from which I could not retire, without leave. It was valued as a useful method of keeping touch between the men who were directing the war and the journalists of America. Without frightening anyone by making official inquiries, it was easy to find out the temper of the men who kept America informed. Those concerned had only to drop in at the next Strachey tea and sound the correspondents.
Is it to be wondered at, then, that I am intensely proud of what I was able to do? and proud in three capacities: as a man who wanted to help his country during the war, as a working journalist who wanted to help his colleagues, and last, but not least, as one whose life"s object has been to improve the relations between this country and America.
To this account of my tea-parties I will further add as a postscript some proofs of what was the opinion of the correspondents as to these gatherings.
I had plenty of kind words from my American journalist friends, but as, I am thankful to say, they are almost all living, I shall obey my rule and not quote their letters or my recollections of their words. One of them, Mr. Needham, who, alas! died in an aeroplane accident in the spring of 1915, wrote me a letter not long before he died, from which I may quote the following. The letter was written from Paris, and is dated 11th April, 1915.
The thing I miss most, now that I am away from England, is your charming tea every Wednesday afternoon. I know of nothing to compare with it, and I find myself wishing that I could drop in, have a good time, and incidentally pick up some really useful knowledge, which one can"t so easily do, you know.
Having said so much, I think I must quote the next sentence, because it involved a question which was often discussed in the spring of 1915 at the tea-parties. That was a rather plain-spoken article which I had written in _The Spectator_ in regard to President Wilson"s policy of neutrality on a moral issue. I spoke frankly, and my words were not unnaturally resented by those of Mr. Wilson"s friends who were personal admirers and supporters of the President.
I want to tell you, also, that privately speaking with my finger to my lips, I quite approve of your article on Wilson.
You will find it hard, at least over here, to find anyone to disagree with you, except, of course, on American top-soil, namely, an American Emba.s.sy or Legation.
I may add another proof that the correspondents met my efforts to help them and also do them the honour they deserved for the magnificent work they did individually and collectively in preventing the growth of ill- feeling, or, at any rate, misunderstanding, between what I may call their and our two nations.
On November 4th, 1914, my friends gave me a dinner at Claridge"s Hotel, which was, I can say without flattery, the easiest, the most pleasant, the most natural, the least strained function of the kind in which I have ever taken part. Here is the list of my hosts--as representative a body both for men and newspapers as any journalist could desire to entertain him:
Edward Bell _Chicago Daily News_ Sam Blythe _Sat.u.r.day Evening Post_ Curtis Brown _New York Press_ John T. Burke _New York Herald_ R. M. Collins _a.s.sociated Press_ Herbert Corey _a.s.sociated Newspapers_ Fred Grundy _New York Sun_ Edward Keen _United Press_ Ernest Marshall _New York Times_ Roy Martin _a.s.sociated Press_ H. B. Needham _Collier"s Weekly_ Frederick Palmer _Everybody"s_ Philip Patchin _New York Tribune_ Fred Pitney _New York Tribune_ J. Spurgeon _New York World_ W. Orton Tewson _New York American_ J. M. Tuohy _New York World_
The dinner was as good as the company, and that is saying a great deal.
I shall record the Menu, to show that in 1914 the cooks of London were still bravely ignoring the ugly fact that we were at war.
MENU
Oyster c.o.c.ktail a la Strachey
Lobster-Newburg Chicken a la Maryland
Selle d"Agneau
Haricots Verts Pommes Anna
Beca.s.sine Fine Champagne
Aubergine
Bombe a la Censor
Friandises
Cheese Savoury a la "Spectator"
Corbeilles de Fruits
Cafe--Liqueurs
The speeches I remember well. Those about me were much too flattering, but I liked them none the less for that. I am sure they were sincere.
Certainly mine was. I had started out on the hard track of duty to my profession and my country, and behold, it had turned into the Primrose Path of pleasure! I expected to deal with a body of severe strangers and I found myself with a band of brothers--men to whom you could entrust your secrets in the spirit in which you entrust a bank with your money.
CHAPTER XXIII
IDYLLS OF THE WAR
People are getting tired of military controversies, and if they were not, I should be precluded from dealing with them by the fact that I intend to avoid as far as possible matters which concern living men, unless these are non-contentious. _Horas non numero nisi serenas_.
Again, and even if it were desirable to add fresh fuel to the controversial fire, I could not, speaking generally, add to knowledge without violating confidence.
Nevertheless I cannot treat the war as if it had never existed, or as if it had no influence on my life. It had, of course, a profound influence, and that I am bound to display in an autobiography of the kind I am writing.
This influence, however, must be gathered indirectly rather than directly. All I propose to do at present is to touch the war on two points. First, I want to give one or two examples of what I may call "War Idylls"--recollections which were of so picturesque and poignant a character that they made a fast impression on my mind. Later, I must say something of the adventure of living continuously for four and a half years in a hospital. There I learnt great and useful lessons about my countrymen and countrywomen and confirmed from direct knowledge what had been but guesses or intuitive visions.
My Idylls of the conflict are partly objective and partly subjective. In my visits to the front and in such war-work as I did at home, I witnessed many striking and even entertaining things, and I saw them at moments of mental concentration and exaltation which no doubt heightened them and sometimes made them a.s.sume an interest and importance not altogether their own.