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]
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—Alcestison this occasion, not so thrilling asAgamemnonfour years ago, but very well done, and the death of the heroine really very touching. A showerygarden 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 thebierstood 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 Galilæi, 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;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 propertyof 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 Preachersin 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-rôle inDon Giovanniwas perfectly done by Feinhals; but Anna and Elvira squalled, not even in tune. The enchanting music of Zauberflöte hardly compensated for the tedious story; and no one except theSarastro (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 Müncheners first called "Italian caps," and later "masskrüge," 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 numberthreehad 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; andhis 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 trampelthiertreibentrauungsthränentragödie," and "Mekkamuselmannenmeuchelmördermohrenmuttermarmormonumentenmacher"![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,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 wordpicopo, from "episcopus," which the natives applied to all Catholics. English Catholics they calledpicopo poroyaxono, from Port Jackson (Sydney), which most of them had visited in trading ships; while French Catholics were known aspicopo 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 anywhereen 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'spalace 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 calledEvangeline, 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 (andIthought 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 anoath?" "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 BenedictineWorcester, 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 bestraconteurI 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, fromhis 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 aquasi-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 scholarand 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 whereIwas raised, sir, we onlyskimthe 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 courseI 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, andadding, "Do you think that [Greek: chunagè parséne] in this line means 'a hunting parson'?" Talking of Greek, I interested my friends by citing two lines from theAjax, 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: Kalô darógon tèn te párthena,aeí th horônta panta ten brotois pathè.][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 anorthern 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 droveventre à terreto 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 chaœpagne 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, thelittle 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 kindof 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 £40,000 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 noteof 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 mediæval history of Oxford, which he had carefully "mugged up" beforehand. He had understood me to say that my friend's position was that of CityAnnalist!
[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 encyclopædia) 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 VirginAnd 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 soufflé) 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 ismeantto 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.
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 tohisneighbour, "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 thesehnsucht, 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 wantexplaining 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'sRonde des Lutins(he did play it, and admirably), and also that he had suddenly "struck," to the dismay of hisimpresario, 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 newpetit nomsince 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 sodisconsolate 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 coachmanbarksWow! 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 generallywas 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 pointin the twilight of a waning centuryto 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 duringmy 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 (funicolì-funicolà!) 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 allmolto 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—chieflykriegs!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, andchevetof 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 inEngland 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 deliveredthe 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 coolwhite 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 didnotattend the hot and tiresome Encænia, 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,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, notal 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 isverbatim:—