“Il vaudrait mieux aller au tigre mêmeArracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”
“Il vaudrait mieux aller au tigre mêmeArracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”
“Il vaudrait mieux aller au tigre mêmeArracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”
“Il vaudrait mieux aller au tigre même
Arracher ses petits qu’à moi celui que j’aime.”
He was dumbstruck.
I was two years a lower boy, and reached the lower division of fifth form by September 1889. Hugo arrived at Eton, and we shared a room together. We messed together with Dunglass, who had an order at Little Brown’s of a shilling a day. Every day on the sideboard of the passage a large plate used to await us in a brown paper parcel containing eggs and bacon or sausages or fish. My tutor changed his house, and we exchanged the convenient house opposite the school-yard for a house that was once Marindin’s, on the Etonwick road. It was far to go, and one had to get up early if one wished for coffee and a bun at Little Brown’s before early school.
Dunglass and I used to read a good many books. Rider Haggard and Edna Lyall were our favourite authors; Stevenson got a second or third place; butJane EyreandBen Hurwere approved of, andMonte Cristogot the first prize of all. After Rider Haggard and Edna Lyall, I had a passion for Marion Crawford’s books and read every one I could get hold of. I have still got a list of the books I read in the year 1889, marked according to merit. It is as follows:
The reason the last two have no comments was probably because the red ink in which the comments were made had run out. I remember being particularly thrilled byJane Eyre, and so was Dunglass, who read it at the same time.
The 4th of June was an excitement for boys who were just beginning their Eton career, but older boys were most blasé about it and preferred short leave. We made great preparationsfor my first 4th of June; grease spots were ironed out of the tablecloth, everything that looked untidy was put away; the window-box, which did duty for a garden, was prepared and decked. I struck out a bold note in my window-box by having a fountain in it, made by Mr. Duffield of High Street, according to my instructions. There was a square tin basin and a fountain in the middle of it, which was fed from a tank which was hung high up by the side of the window. The fountain worked successfully, but made a great mess, and the boys’ maid had no patience with it. When my tutor came round in the evening, the night before the 4th of June, he said the room looked like a whited sepulchre. I had visitors on the 4th of June. Chérie came, and I forget which other members of the family.
Once every half the Headmaster used to ask Hugo and myself to breakfast. This we enjoyed; it was an excellent breakfast, with lots of sausages. The Headmaster used to look at theTimes, comment on the House of Commons, quote Horace, and ask after John and Cecil. Other masters asked one to breakfast as well, and I think few things gave the boys so much pleasure. They used to discuss every detail of the breakfast with the other boys afterwards, and retail everything the master had said. I enjoyed my breakfasts with Mr. Impey most; he used to tell me about books, and we used to discuss Rider Haggard and Stevenson. I greatly preferred Rider Haggard, and I had just readKing Solomon’s Mines, and had one night sat up late readingShe.
Long leave and short leave were two great excitements. When I went for short leave I used to go by the earliest possible train and arrive at my sister Margaret’s house long before breakfast. When long leave came about, we always went to a play on Saturday night, and I remember seeingCaptain Swiftat the Haymarket, and Coquelin inL’Étourdi. For my long leave of the summer of 1889, I had been looking forward for days to going to see Sarah Bernhardt inLa Tosca, but when I came up to London, I found to my horror that Chérie and my mother had both been told it was too horrible a play to go and see. My eloquent advocacy overcame Chérie’s scruples. “Vraiment,” she said, “tu serais un superbe avocat.” And she, Margaret, and I went off to the Lyceum and thoroughly enjoyed Sarah’s harrowing and electric performance. While we werehaving dinner, before starting, someone who was there said that two men who had been to see the play had come out in the middle. Chérie, who by that time had decided we were to go, said they must have beendes poules mouillées.
I think it was in 1890 that Queen Victoria opened the New Schools at Eton and made a speech. And one summer while I was at Eton, the German Emperor inspected the Eton Volunteers. While he was doing this on horseback, a boy called Cunliffe let off his rifle and the German Emperor’s horse bolted into the playing fields.
Well-known people used to come and lecture at the literary society sometimes, but the only famous man I heard while I was at Eton was Mr. Gladstone, who lectured at the literary society in March 1891, on Artemis, as revealed in Homer. I was fortunate enough to get a ticket for this lecture. The boys, abstruse as the subject was, were spellbound. There was only one joke in the lecture, and that would have been better away. It was this: “Some of you may have heard the old story of the moon being made of green cheese.” Pause for laughter and a dead silence. “The moon might just as well,” continued Mr. Gladstone, “be made of green cheese for all the purposes she serves in Homer.”
At the end of the lecture the Provost returned thanks, and then Mr. Gladstone leapt to his feet and made an impassioned speech on classical education. The last sentence of his peroration was as follows: “But this, Mr. Provost, I venture to say, and say with confidence, and it is not a fancy of youth nor the whim of the moment, but the conviction forced upon me even more by the experience of life than by any reasoning quality, that if the purposes of education be to fit the human mind for the efficient performance of the greatest functions, the ancient culture, and, above all, the Greek culture, is by far the best and strongest, the most lasting, and the most elastic instrument that could possibly be applied to it.”
As he said these words his eyes flashed, he opened and raised his arms, and his body seemed to expand and grow tall. He seemed like the priest of culture speaking inspired words. His voice rolled out in a golden torrent, and as he said the words, “the best and strongest, the most lasting, the most elastic,” they seemed to come to him with the certainty of happy inspiration and with the accent of the unpremeditated. With thesewords his voice reached its highest pitch of crescendo, and then, slightly dying down, melodiously sank into silence.
This little speech showed me what great oratory could be.
At the end of my first year there was a prize called the Headmaster’s prize for French, for lower boys. I competed for this. It was always rather difficult to get a French prize at Eton, as there was usually a French or a Canadian boy who spoke and knew the language like a native. There was a special examination paper for this prize. I and a French boy, whose name I have forgotten, both got 95 marks out of 100. Then the papers were looked through again, and it was found that I had translated the French wordhôtebyhost, when it should have been guest, so the other boy was given the prize, but my tutor gave me a book as a consolation. The following year I competed for the Headmaster’s French prize for boys in fifth form, and that time I won it, much to the delight of Chérie and of everyone at Membland.
In fifth form we learnt German as an extra. German was taught by Mr. Ploetz, who knew the language; and by other masters, who didn’t. During the lessons of the latter, one paid no attention, and attended to one’s private affairs. Mr. Ploetz was an excellent, stimulating teacher, but most unpopular with the other masters. The boys liked him; he was a book collector, and had a fine library. He taught me a great deal, not of German, as I paid no attention to the regular work, but I picked up from him a mass of miscellaneous information. It was the fashion to rag during his lessons, and I outdid everyone in ingenious interruption during Mr. Ploetz’ lessons. It was not that he couldn’t keep order. He was extremely strict and competent, but one knew, with the fiendish intuition of boys, that his complaints would not be taken seriously by the other masters, or by one’s tutor. This was indeed the case. There were three forms of punishment at Eton. First of all, one could get a yellow ticket, which meant one had to do a punishment of some written kind and get the ticket signed by one’s tutor. We did not much like leaving out the yellow ticket in a prominent place for my tutor to see when he came round in the evening. If matters went further, one was reported to the Headmaster and received a white ticket. The white ticket was in force for a week. During that week leave was stopped, and if the slightest complaint was made by anyone, it meantbeing complained of to the Headmaster a second time and a flogging by the Headmaster. I was complained of by Mr. Ploetz to the Headmaster. As I guessed, the other masters took this far from seriously. “What have you been doing toMr. Ploetz?” said my tutor. What I had been guilty of was overt rowdyism, combined with prolonged and unbearable impertinence, which if done to any other master would have been taken very seriously indeed. “Whathaveyou been doing to Mr. Ploetz?” said another master to me, with a laugh, when he met me in the street. I received a white ticket, but I got through the week without further complaints, and I was never complained of again.
When I was in fifth form, the school library became a favourite haunt of mine, and Mr. Burcher, the librarian, a special friend. Mr. Burcher was a little dapper man, who was pained when we jumped over the tables, a favourite game of mine, or if we threw the books about. “Is it a joke,” he would ask plaintively, “or is it an insult?” But in that library, during my last year at Eton, I made by myself the discovery of English poetry, and read the works of Shelley in the three little volumes of the second Moxon edition of 1850, and the poems of Keats in Lord Houghton’s one-volume edition. On Sundays I used to go, rich with my new discoveries, to Norman Tower, and compare notes with Betty Ponsonby, who knew reams of English poetry by heart, and we would read each last new favourite poem. There is no joy in the world like this to discover these things for the first time. The shabby little Keats and Shelley, the green volumes of Tennyson, the three dark volumes of Matthew Arnold—what mines of fairy treasure they represented!
I made friends, through one of his pupils, with Arthur Benson. I had been in his division twice, but I had never known him well. One of the Coventrys, Willie Coventry, was his pupil, and he told Arthur Benson that I liked books and poetry, and had written a novel calledElvira, which was true (only it had to be destroyed after I had measles), and was going to write the libretto of an opera of which he, Coventry, was to write the music. He was not really musical, and did not know a note of music technically. He also intended, when I first made his acquaintance, to write a life of Mary Stuart; but this, like the opera, never got far.
Arthur Benson was most kind and interested, and it wasarranged that on Sunday afternoons we should meet in his rooms and read out poetry. Arnold Ward, Mrs. Humphry Ward’s son, who was in College, joined us. We read out poetry; if we had written something ourselves, we left it with Arthur Benson for a week, he told us what he thought about it next time. I showed him a Fairies’ Chorus from my libretto. He said: “I don’t like those galloping metres, but I see you have got a good vocabulary.” My next effort was an Ode on the Tercentenary of Eton College, in which Fielding was mentioned as “the great wielder of the painting pen.” “Have you read Fielding?” asked Arthur Benson. I had not read Fielding. “I see,” said Arthur Benson, “you take him on trust.”
There was at that time a newspaper edited by two of the boys, called theMayfly. I sent them my poem on Eton College, but they wisely refused it. TheMayfly, edited by Ramsay, was an amusing paper, but not quite as good as theParachute, which had come out the year before, and was edited by Carr Bosanquet and others. This was a singularly brilliant newspaper. It only had three numbers, but they were most successful. There was at the same time an exceedingly serious newspaper calledThe Eton Review, edited, I think, by Beauchamp, which had articles about the Baconian theory, and other rather heavy topics. During my last summer a newspaper which had twenty editors, but only one number, came out, calledThe Students’ Humour. There was also a book published in 1891, calledKeate’s Lane Papers, in which there is an excellent poem by J. K. Stephen, which has never been republished, called “The Song of the Scug.” It begins:
“There was a little scugWho sat upon a rug,With a dull and empty brain,And would show his indecisionIn a twopenny division,With a friend of the same low strain.And would eat a lot of cherries and see a lot of cricket,Till his lips and his fingers were as sticky as the wicket,But at last he came to be a bald old manWho talked about as wildly as a bald man can.And he said, by Gad;When I was a lad,And the very best dry bob alive,I should have made a million,But a man in the PavilionWas killed by my first hard drive.”
“There was a little scugWho sat upon a rug,With a dull and empty brain,And would show his indecisionIn a twopenny division,With a friend of the same low strain.And would eat a lot of cherries and see a lot of cricket,Till his lips and his fingers were as sticky as the wicket,But at last he came to be a bald old manWho talked about as wildly as a bald man can.And he said, by Gad;When I was a lad,And the very best dry bob alive,I should have made a million,But a man in the PavilionWas killed by my first hard drive.”
“There was a little scugWho sat upon a rug,With a dull and empty brain,And would show his indecisionIn a twopenny division,With a friend of the same low strain.And would eat a lot of cherries and see a lot of cricket,Till his lips and his fingers were as sticky as the wicket,But at last he came to be a bald old manWho talked about as wildly as a bald man can.And he said, by Gad;When I was a lad,And the very best dry bob alive,I should have made a million,But a man in the PavilionWas killed by my first hard drive.”
“There was a little scug
Who sat upon a rug,
With a dull and empty brain,
And would show his indecision
In a twopenny division,
With a friend of the same low strain.
And would eat a lot of cherries and see a lot of cricket,
Till his lips and his fingers were as sticky as the wicket,
But at last he came to be a bald old man
Who talked about as wildly as a bald man can.
And he said, by Gad;
When I was a lad,
And the very best dry bob alive,
I should have made a million,
But a man in the Pavilion
Was killed by my first hard drive.”
J. K. Stephen used often to come down to Eton, dressed always in slippers, a dark blue flannel blazer, and a dirty pink cap on the back of his head; and thus dressed, and reading a small book, I saw him serenely and unconsciously walk across the pitch during the Winchester match.
Arthur Benson stimulated our reading tremendously, and we were startled and interested by his frank heresies. He said he did not care for Milton’sLycidas. He wished Shakespeare had been a modern and had written novels. He was indifferent to Shelley. He loathed Byron, but was none the less impressed, when one Sunday Arnold Ward read out the description of the battle of Talavera (Childe Harold,I.xxxviii.), and he admitted it was moving. He disliked Carlyle, Ruskin, and Thackeray. On the other hand, he introduced us to Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, FitzGerald, and many others, and encouraged us to go on liking anything we did like. By this time I had read many novels—Thackeray’sVanity Fair,Pickwick, a good deal of Scott (I was given the Waverley Novels for Christmas 1889), George Eliot’sAdam Bede,The Mill on the Floss, and quantities of poetry. Betty Ponsonby gave me Swinburne’sAtalanta in Calydon, but explained to me that the denunciations of God in it only applied to the Greek gods, and she and my Aunt M’aimée both changed the subject when I suggested reading Swinburne’sPoems and Ballads.
Willie Coventry and I found out that there was a competition going on at this time in a magazine calledAtalantafor who should write the best essay in 500 words. You were allowed to choose your own subject. Willie Coventry won it one month by writing an essay on Dr. Schliemann’s Excavations, a subject suggested to him by Arthur Benson. The next month I competed, and chose as my subject a poem by Edgar Allan Poe called “For Annie,” and I won the prize too.
In the summer of 1890 I went to stay at the Coventrys’ place at Croome Court in Worcestershire, and Willie Coventry came to Membland later in the same summer. The libretto I was writing for him never got further than a few lyrics, and his score never got further than a few bars and a triumphal march, which I composed, and even played at one of Miss Copeman’s afternoon parties. I can still play it now, if pressed.
I had a faint hope at one time that I might be able to get into the Boats. Arthur Benson had taken me out one day downstream and advised me to try. I could row well enough on the stroke side, but not so well on the bow side of the boat. I put my name down for Novice Eights, in which boys were tried, and one evening I started out full of hope. Unfortunately I was told to row bow in the boat. A tall Colleger stood up in the stern of the boat to coach us. No sooner had we started than there was a loud call: “Keep time, Bow—keep time, Bow!” and we had not gone much farther than the Brocas when I caught so violent a crab that the coach fell into the water, the boat was partially submerged, and we had to go back, some of us swimming. I was never allowed to row in company again, and earned the reputation of being the only person who had ever swamped a Novice Eight.
In the autumn of 1890 Hugo and I went up to London for long leave. My father and mother were staying at my sister Elizabeth’s house in Grosvenor Place, and there we heard about the financial crisis in Baring Brothers, which had nearly ended in a great disaster. When we went back to Membland at Christmas everything was different. There was no Christmas party, and the household was going through a process of gradual dissolution. Chérie was leaving us, the stables were empty, and the old glory of Membland had gone for ever.
All through the next year I was engrossed with the discoveries I was making in English literature. In the summer I sent a poem toTemple Bar, then edited by George Smith, and to my great surprise it was printed, and I received a cheque for a guinea. During that same summer I had a little book of poems privately printed at Eton, calledDamozel Blanche, consisting of ballads and lyrics.
I was now a member of the House Debating Society, in which we used to have heated discussions on such subjects as whether sports were brutalising or not, whether conscription was a good thing, whether General Booth’s scheme was a sound one, and whether Mary Queen of Scots had been improperly beheaded.
There was another debating society founded before I left Eton, calledLe Cercle des Débats, in which we made speeches in French, and I remember M. Hua making a passionate speech in favour of England relinquishing her hold upon Egypt. I spoke several times at this debating society, and in the report on the debate as to whether Monte Carlo should be allowed to exist, it is recorded that: “M. Baring croyait que c’était un mauvais endroit mais que cela ne devrait pas être supprimé.”
The summer of the Eton Tercentenary, 1891, was great fun, especially the concert, when Hubert Parry’s beautiful setting to Swinburne’s “Ode” was performed. I sang among the baritones. My mother came down for the concert, and Hubert Parry conducted himself. There was an interesting exhibition in the school hall, and it was there that I made the acquaintance of Mrs. Cornish. My Aunt M’aimée introduced me to her, and I soon became a great friend of the Cornish family, and was invited by them to go out on water-parties down stream to the Bells of Ousley and Runnymede, and to have supper with them afterwards. I enjoyed these water-parties as much as anything at Eton.
In the summer holidays of 1891 I went to stay with Chérie, who had left us. She lived with her friend, Miss Charlesworth, in a little house called Waterlooville, near Cosham, in Hants, and realised the dream of her life, namely, to have a large garden of her own full of hollyhocks and sunflowers and sweet peas.
In the Michaelmas half of 1891 I competed for the Prince Consort’s French prize. I had already done so the last year, but I was then too young to compete with sixth-form boys, who were much older, and I was not expected to get a place, but I came out third. This year it was my great ambition to get the prize. I thought of nothing else. We had to read several books—Molière’sL’Avare, Alfred de Vigny’sCinq Mars, Taine’sVoyage aux Pyrénées, Victor Hugo’sRuy Blas, and Brachet’sGrammaire Historique. Besides this, we were examined in unseen translations from and into French, and we had to write a French essay. We were examined by a Monsieur Hammonet. I worked extremely hard for this examination, and had extra lessons in the evenings from M. Hua. So did the other competitors. My serious rival was Grand d’Hauteville, who I think was a French Canadian, and who spoke French fluently. The examination took five days, and as it went on I became more and more convinced that I had not done well and could not possibly win the prize. When it was over, there was a long interval of agonising suspense before the result was made known.
One afternoon I received a summons from my Uncle Henry Ponsonby to go and see him at Windsor. I found him, not at Norman Tower, but in a room somewhere in the Castle, and he told me that the Queen had just received the news of the resultof the Prince Consort’s prize. She was the first to get this news; the news was that I was first and had got the prize. I at once sent a telegram to my mother and to Chérie, and walked back to Eton, drunk with triumph and delight to tell my tutor.
The news was not published for some days, and I told nobody, I think, except my tutor and Dunglass. But it came out at last, and was published in theTimesand on the board at Eton. My father and mother came down to see me, and my father gave me his own watch: aBreguet, the DemidoffBreguet. It was then settled that I was not to go back to Eton, but to go to Germany to learn German and prepare for the Diplomatic Service competitive examination.
Dunglass went on messing with Hugo and myself until I left Eton. We had three or four fags and they bored us, and we could never find things for them to do. Dunglass developed into a fine Eton football player, and got his House Colours and then his Field Colours. He was a new boy the same half as I was, and our alliance lasted unbroken through my Eton life. One half we learnt bird-stuffing together, and when our mess funds used to run short Dunglass used to say: “I’ve marked off an uncle,” and one of his many uncles used to come down and tip us. Our mess was a lively one, and when there was a whole holiday on Friday, which necessitated Friday’s work being done on Thursday, an arrangement which used to be called doing Friday’s business, we used to sing in a loud chorus a song, the words of which were:
“Why not to morrow?Why not to-morrow?Why, because to-morrow is to-day!”
“Why not to morrow?Why not to-morrow?Why, because to-morrow is to-day!”
“Why not to morrow?Why not to-morrow?Why, because to-morrow is to-day!”
“Why not to morrow?
Why not to-morrow?
Why, because to-morrow is to-day!”
The greatest excitements of Eton life were, I always thought, the House football matches for the House Cup. There was the Eton and Harrow match, of course, but while I was at Eton these matches were unexciting and Eton never won, and Dunglass and I agreed that there were few things we enjoyed more than driving away from Lord’s. Nothing surpassed the excitement of the House matches. One year, I think it was the year before I left, we were supposed to have a small chance of getting beyond first ties, but our House played so well together that they got into the ante-final. They then drew Cornish’s, who had a strong side of powerfully built boys. An epic matchfollowed. Durnford’s played as if inspired; they got three rouges to nil, but failed to convert them into goals, and the game was almost over. Then, in the last five minutes of the game, Cornish’s scored a rouge, and being far the heavier team converted it into a goal, and won the match. Never was there a more exciting match.
During my last year my chief friends in the House, besides Dunglass, were Leslie Hamilton, who went into the Coldstream Guards and was killed in the war, and Crum; and outside the House, Gerald Cornish. He, too, killed in the war.
Arthur Benson was my greatest friend among the masters, and I used constantly to have tea with him, and have long talks about books and every other sort of thing. My last half I was up to Mr. Luxmoore, who was to be a lifelong friend.
The last days of my last half were like a dream. I was hardly conscious of the reality of things, and I did not yet fully realise that my Eton life was coming to an end. There was no more work to do. The battle for the Prince Consort’s prize had been fought and won. It was, as Eton triumphs go, a small triumph—small indeed compared with such glories as surround those who get the Newcastle, stroke the Eight, or play in the Field, or at Lord’s in the Eleven; but such as it was, it gave me as much joy and triumph as my being could hold, and nothing in after life could ever touch the rapture of the moment when I knew I had got it.
Now there was nothing left to do but to make every moment seem as long as possible and to say good-bye. Good-bye to the School Library, my favourite haunt at Eton, the scene of so much hurried, scrambled work, of such minute consultations of ecclesiastical authorities for Sunday Questions, or of translations of Virgil and Horace, and the Greeks; of such long and serious discussions of future and present plans and literary topics, schemes and dreams, poems, plays, operas, novels, romances, with Willie Coventry and Gerald Cornish. Good-bye to the leather tables where numberless poems had been copied out on the grey Library foolscap paper, which for some reason we used to callelectric-lightpaper; tables over which we had leapt in wild steeplechases, while Burcher protested, where so many construes had been prepared, and so many punishments scribbled, and where the great poets of England had been surreptitiously discovered, and the accents of Miltonand Keats overheard for the first time, and the visions of Shelley and Coleridge discerned through the dust of the daily work and above the din of chattering boys. Good-bye to the playing fields, to South Meadow, the Field, to Upper School, and to Williams’ inner room, full of prizes and redolent with the smell of tree-calf and morocco, where I had so often dreamt of getting prizes and wondered what I should choose if I ever managed to get the Prince Consort’s prize. Good-bye to the Brocas, to Upper Hope and Athens and Romney Weir,
“Where the lock-stream gushes,Where the cygnet feeds,”
“Where the lock-stream gushes,Where the cygnet feeds,”
“Where the lock-stream gushes,Where the cygnet feeds,”
“Where the lock-stream gushes,
Where the cygnet feeds,”
and to all the reaches of the river. Good-bye to Windsor and Norman Tower, and to the chimes of the inexorable school clock; to my little room with its sock cupboard, bureau, and ottoman, to Little Brown’s and to Phœbe, and then to one’s friends: to my Dame and to my tutor, and to Arthur Benson, and the unforgettable readings and talks in his house.
I went to Williams’ to choose my prize, and while I was there Mr. Cornish strolled in, and seeing what I was doing, he said: “Of course you will choose a lot of little books—boys always do—but what you ought to do is to get Littré’s Dictionary or all Sainte Beuve.” This was asking too much in the way of sense, and I compromised. I chose a Shakespeare in twelve volumes, bound in tree calf, a Milton in three volumes, and a few other small books. My tutor gave me two volumes of Ruskin; Mr. Luxmoore gave me a volume of Ruskin as well. Arthur Benson gave meIonica. Just before leaving I had the honour of dining with my tutor, which made one feel already as if one was entering a new world. The hour struck when I was actually leaving Eton. Up to that last moment all had been excitement and fun, but when I was actually sitting in the train and crossing the fifteen arches railway bridge, and Windsor Castle and the trees of the Brocas came into sight, the whole of the past, the Eton past, surged up and overwhelmed me like a flood, and I realised in that last fleeting glimpse of the trees, the river, and the grey Castle all that Eton life had meant, and what it was that in leaving Eton I was saying good-bye to.
I spent the Christmas holidays, after leaving Eton, at Membland. I had had another little book of poems printed privately as a Christmas present for my mother, and I was still making discoveries in English literature, and of these the most important of all: Shakespeare and Milton’sParadise Lost. We travelled up in January to London, and it was settled that I was to go to Germany to learn German. My father heard of a family in Hanover where English boys were taken, but there was no room there. Someone then gave him the address of a Dr. Timme who lived at Hildesheim, near Hanover, and also took in Englishmen. It was settled that I was to go there. I started at the end of the month, and at Victoria Station I met Hubert Cornish, who was going to Dresden to learn German. We travelled together to HanoverviaFlushing, and we were both of us seasick, and both swore that we would never cross the Channel again. We arrived at Hanover the next evening and stayed at Kasten’s Hotel. The next morning we went on by the same train. I got out at Hildesheim, and Hubert Cornish went on to Dresden. Hubert Cornish had just left Eton, but he was older than I was, and I had only seen him in the distance, and at his father’s house at picnics. We made great friends at once. Hildesheim was a charming little old town. One part of it was really old, and straight out of a fairy-tale, with houses with high gabled roofs, and mediæval carvings on them, and there were many quaint and interesting churches, including the old cathedral with its ravishingly beautiful cloister behind it, and a rose-tree said to be a thousand years old. Dr. Timme had a small house in the Weissenburger-Strasse on the edge of the modern town. It was a two-storied, square, grey house with a flat roof, looking out on to the street on one side, and on to a garden at the back. I was received byFrau Doktor Timme. Her husband was a master at theReal Gymnasium, and he was at school when I arrived. I could not speak a word of German. It was a curious sensation to live with a family and partake of their daily life and not to be able to understand a word they said; to go out for walks and pretend to be joining in and following a conversation when one had not the remotest idea of the drift of it. I started lessons at once, and bought a small Heine, which I used to read to myself, and I soon understood that. It was bitterly cold. There was still snow on the ground.
There were three children in the house: a dear little girl called Aenna, and a little boy called Kurt, and an older boy, about twelve, called Atho. Dr. Timme had two spinster sisters who lived in a house not far off with another old lady who was calledDie Alte Tante, and Frau Timme had a brother who was called Onkel Adolf, and who had fought in the Franco-Prussian War, and her mother was alive.
I found life interesting in spite of not understanding the language. In the early morning I used to go downstairs and have coffee andApfelgelee. We hadMittagessenat one, and after that the household indulged in aMittagschläfchen. At four in the afternoon we again drank coffee and ateApfelgelee, and we had supper at half-past seven, at which there would generally be some delicacy likeBratkartoffelorLeberwurstorHäringsalat. Many English boys had been there before; and Frau Timme told me that we English, as a rule, disliked German dishes. The first German phrase I remember understanding was when Frau Timme announced to one of the aunts a surprising fact about me that I ate everything (“Er isst alles”). In the evening the aunts and other people used to visit us, and sometimes we would go to a concert. The Timmes were great friends with the family of Herr Musik-Direktor Nick, who was a musician, and all his family played; they had entrancing musical evenings of trios and duets for violin, pianoforte, and viola. Herr Musik-Direktor Nick’s nephew, Wunnibald, gave me lessons on the pianoforte. I had German lessons with Dr. Timme.
In the afternoon, I used to go for long walks with Dr. Timme and his brother-in-law, and we walked to the Galgenberg, to the Steinberg, and the Moritzberg, rather bleak hills of fir-trees, stopping as a rule at a smallWirtshaus, where we used to drinkbeer or coffee. In the house there was a small drawing-room downstairs, where the guest of honour always sat on the sofa. A smart drawing-room or theGute Stube, which was only opened on rare and state occasions. Frau Timme told me one day that she knew this room was a useless extravagance, but it gave her, she said, such great pleasure that she could not sacrifice it. Upstairs, Dr. Timme had a sitting-room, where I took my lessons with him, and I had a sitting-room where I did my work. After about a month I could understand what was being said, and in about two months’ time I could make myself understood and carry on a conversation. I used sometimes to go to the theatre at Hanover, coming back by train afterwards. The first time I saw Schiller’sWallenstein’s TodI did not understand a word of it. One night I went to hearTannhäuser. Wagner was only a name to me, and meant something vaguely noisy. I had no idea he wrote about interesting or romantic subjects. I had no idea of whatTannhäuserwas about. I went expecting a tedious evening of dry and ultra-classical, unintelligible music. As soon as the orchestra began the overture, I was overwhelmed. I did not know that music was capable of so tremendous an effect. The Venusberg music and the “Pilgrims’ Chorus” opened a new world, and I was so excited afterwards that I could not sleep a wink. I was stunned by these magnetic effects of sound. Curiously enough, I left it at that, and made no further effort to go and hear any more Wagner. I was almost afraid of repeating the experience for fear of being disappointed, and the next time I went to the opera it was to hear Verdi’sOtello.
I happened to mention casually that it was my birthday on 27th April, and when I came down that morning I found in the drawing-room a beautiful cake orApfeltortewith eighteen candles burning on it and a present from every member of the family. I could talk German quite fluently by this time. Frau Timme suggested that I should make the acquaintance of some of the boys at the schools. There were two large schools at Hildesheim, a Gymnasium, and a Real Gymnasium. The Real Gymnasium concentrated on the modern. The Gymnasium was more classical in its programme. For the purpose of getting to know the boys I was introduced to a grown-up boy called Braun, who was, I think, a native of Hildesheim. Most of the boys at both schools came from different parts of Germany and liveden pensionin different families. The boys from bothschools used to meet in the evening before supper at a restaurant called Hasse, where a special room was kept for them. Braun was an earnest and extremely well-educated youth, a student of geology. Before I was taken to Hasse, he said I must be instructed in the rules of theBierkomment,[6]that is to say, the rules for drinking beer in company, which were, as I found out afterwards, the basis of the social system. These rules were intricate, and when Braun explained them to me, which he did with the utmost thoroughness, the explanation taking nearly two hours, I did not know what it was all about. I did not know it had anything to do with drinking beer. I afterwards learned, by the evidence of my senses and by experience, the numerous and various points of this complicated ritual, but the first evening I was introduced to Hasse I was bewildered by finding a crowd of grown-up boys seated at a table; each one introduced himself to me by standing to attention and saying his name (“Mein Name ist So-and-so”). After which they sat down and seemed to be engaged in a game of cross-purposes.
The main principles which underlay this form of social intercourse were these. You first of all ordered a half-litre of beer, stating whether you wanted light or dark beer (dunklesorhelles). It was given to you in a glass mug with a metal top. This mug had to remain closed whatever happened, otherwise the others put this mug on yours, and you had to pay for every mug which was piled on your own. Having received your beer, you must not drink it quietly by yourself, when you were thirsty; but every single draught had to be taken with a purpose, and directed towards someone else, and accompanied by a formula. The formula was an opening, and called for the correct answer, which was either final and ended the matter, or which was of a kind to provoke a counter-move, in the form of a further formula, which, in its turn, necessitated a final answer. You were, in fact, engaged in toasting each other according to system. When you had a fresh mug, with foam on the top of it, that was calleddie Blume, and you had to choose someone who was in the same situation; someone who had aBlume. You then said his name, not his real name but his beer name, which was generally a monosyllable likePfiff(my beer name was Hash, pronounced Hush), and you saidto him: “Prosit Blume.” His answer to this was: “Prosit,” and you both drank. To pretend to drink and not drink was an infringement of the rules. If he had no beer at the time he would say so (“Ich habe keinen Stoff”), but would be careful to return you yourBlumeas soon as he received it, saying: “Ich komme die Blume nach” (“I drink back to you yourBlume”). Then, perhaps, having disposed of theBlume, you singled out someone else, or someone perhaps singled you out, and said: “Ich komme Ihnen Etwas” (“I drink something to you”). When you got to know someone well, he suggested that you should drinkBruderschaftwith him. This you did by entwining your arm under his arm, draining a whole glass, and then saying: “Prosit Bruder.” After that you called each other “Du.” Very well. After having said “Ich komme Ihnen” or “Ich komme Dir etwas,” he, in the space of three beer minutes, which were equivalent to four ordinary minutes, was obliged to answer. He might either say: “Ich komme Dir nach” or “Ich komme nach” (“I drink back”). That settled that proceeding. Or he might prolong the interchange of toasts by saying: “Uebers Kreuz,” in which case you had to wait a little and say: “Unters Kreuz,” and every time the one said this, the other in drinking had to say: “Prosit.” Then the person who had said “Uebers Kreuz” had the last word, and had to say: “Ich komme definitiv nach” (“I drink back to you finally”), and that ended the matter. If you had very little beer left in your mug you chose someone else who was in the same predicament, and said: “Prosit Rest.” It was uncivil if you had arestto choose someone who had plenty of beer left. If you wanted to honour someone or to pay him a compliment, you said “Speziell” after your toast, which meant the other person was not obliged to drink back. You could also say: “Ich komme Dir einen halben” (“I drink you a half glass”), or even “einen Ganzen” (“a whole glass”). The other person could then double you by saying: “Prosit doppelt.” In which case he drank back a whole glass to you and you then drank back a whole glass to him.
Any infringement of these rules, or any levity in the manner the ritual was performed, was punished by your being told to “Einsteigen”[7](or by the words, “In die Kanne”), which meant you had to go on drinking till the offended party said “Geschenkt.” If you disobeyed this rule or did anythingelse equally grave, you were declared by whoever was in authority to be in B.V., which meant in a state ofBeer ostracism. Nobody might then drink to you or talk to you. To emerge from this state of exile, you had to stand up, and someone else stood up and declared that “Der in einfacher B.V. sich befindender” (“The in-simple-beer-banishment-finding-himself so-and-so”) will now drink himself back intoBierehrlichkeit(beer-honourability) once again. He does it. At the words, “Er thut es,” you set a glass to your lips and drank it all. The other man then said: “So-and-so ist wieder bierehrlich” (“So-and-so is once more beer honourable”). Any dispute on a point of ritual was settled by what was called aBierjunge. An umpire was appointed, and three glasses of beer were brought. The umpire saw that the quantity in each of the glasses was exactly equal, pouring a little beer perhaps from one or the other into his own glass. A word was then chosen, for choice a long and difficult word. The umpire then said: “Stosst an,” and on these words the rivals clinked glasses; he then said: “Setzt an,” and they set the glasses to their lips. He then said: “Loss,” and the rivals drained the glasses as fast as they could, and the man who finished first said: “Bierjunge,” or whatever word had been chosen. The umpire then declared the winner. All these proceedings, as can be imagined, would be a little difficult to understand if one didn’t know that they involved drinking beer. Such had been my plight when the ritual was explained to me by Mr. Braun. I found the first evening extremely bewildering, but I soon became an expert in the ritual, and took much pleasure in raising difficult points.
These gatherings used to happen every evening. If you wished to celebrate a special occasion you ordered what was called aTunnemann, which was a huge glass as big as a small barrel which was circulated round the table, everyone drinking in turn as out of a loving-cup. A record was kept of these ceremonies in a book. The boys who attended these gatherings were mostly eighteen or nineteen years old, and belonged to the first two classes of the school, thePrimaand theSecunda. They belonged to aTurnverein, a gymnastic association, and were divided into two classes—the juniors who were calledFüchseand the seniors who were not. TheFüchsehad to obey the others.
Another thing which I found more difficult than theBierkommentwas a card game which Dr. Timme tried to teach me. It was the game of Skat, and was played by three people, one against two, with a possible fourth person cutting in, but only by three at a time. When Dr. Timme first explained it to me I understood German imperfectly, and I could not make head or tail of the game. This disgusted Dr. Timme, who said: “Herr Baring hat kein Interesse dafür.” But at the end of five years, after repeated visits to Germany, and with the help of an English book on the subject, I ended by mastering the principles of the game. I think it is the best game of cards ever invented, and by far the most difficult. I will not attempt to explain it, but it is a mixture of “Solo-whist,” “Préférence,” and “Misery,” with a dash of “Picquet” in it. Everybody plays for his own hand and you have no partner; so you are responsible to yourself alone. I did not learn the game until several years later.
In the meantime, Hubert Cornish had left Dresden and was established at Professor Ihne’s at the Villa Felseck, Heidelberg. Professor Ihne, who knew my cousins, invited me to go there. I set out, and after travelling all day I arrived at one in the morning and found not only Hubert but an American called Mr. Hazlitt Alva Cuppy, who was studying German, and who had come to the station in case I should want help with my luggage. The next morning I woke up and went to the window, and beheld one of the most beautiful sights it is possible to see: Heidelberg Castle and the hills of the Neckar in spring. It was the beginning of May. It was fine and hot; the trees had just put on their most brilliant green; the lilac and laburnum were out. The fields, yellow with buttercups and scarlet with poppies, were like impressionist pictures of the newest school. After the slow spring and the bleak fir-tree-clad country of the north it was like coming suddenly into another world. At breakfast I was introduced to Professor Ihne, a large, comfortable Professor with white hair and spectacles. I had met him once before at the Norman Tower. The two other inmates of the house besides Hubert were Mr. Hazlitt Alva Cuppy and Mr. Otto Kuhn, an Austrian; both of them were attending the lectures of the University. The Villa Felseck was half-way up a hill covered with vines, and Professor Ihne made his own wine. In the garden there was a pergola under which we worked outdoors at a table. Then a most blissful epoch began. In the morningwe went to lectures in the University and strolled about the town, and in the afternoons we went for walks in the woods or for expeditions on the river.
Heidelberg was full of students, and our ambition was to get to know some of them, but we did not know how to set about doing this. We were too shy to take any steps, and every day we settled we would take a step, but the day passed, and nothing had been done. We confided our hesitations to a lady—a kind, motherly lady who kept aWirtshaus, and she said that the matter was simple. What she did I do not know, but that very day we received a visit from the representatives of aBurschenschaftcalled theFranconia, who asked us to visit their clubhouse with a view to our being received as guests. We went there the next morning, and the conditions under which we could be eitherKonkneipanteorKneipgästeof the Germania were read out to us.
AKonkneipantwas a kind of unofficial member, aKneipgaswas simply a guest with certain obligations. The former, theKonkneipant, seemed to be liable to many alarming possibilities and conditions, and he had to be prepared to fight duels, even if he did not do so, so we chose the latter status, and were enrolled asKneipgäste.
We attended aKneipethat night, I think. All the rules of theBierkomment, which I have already described, obtained. You sat at a table, and endless mugs of beer were brought in, and toasts were drunk, according to ritual, but the evening was enlivened by the singing of songs in chorus. Someone accompanied the songs, everyone had a song-book, and the entertainment led off with Goethe’s song, “Ergo Bibamus”; after that a song was sung about every quarter of an hour: “Der Mai ist gekommen,” “Es hatten drei Gesellen ein fein Collegium,” or “Es zogen drei Burschen wohl über den Rhein.”
The entertainment went on till about one in the morning. There was an officialKneipethree nights a week (offiziell), and an unofficialKneipe(offizieuse) on the other nights. Besides this, the members of theBurschenschaftmet in the morning forFrühschoppenin the castle gardens, or elsewhere, and in the afternoon went expeditions together. In the morning they had fencing lessons. They never went to lectures. When they wanted to work they went for a term to another university,and did nothing but work there. One morning Hubert and I attended a lecture onPhilosophie, that is to say, history, and curiously enough the lecture was about England. The lecturer went through the gifts which different nations had bequeathed to the world as a legacy; how Greece had given the arts to the world, and the Romans had given it law; England’s gift to the world, he said, wasFreedom, and as he said the wordFreiheit, his voice rang, and we felt all of a tremble.
The country round Heidelberg was at this time of year at its most glorious. The fields were sheets of the brightest yellow. At night choruses of nightingales sang; the air was heavy with the smell of the lilacs. Sometimes we would go up the river and to the little town of Neckarsteinar, which is like a toy city on the top of a green hill, with a wall round it, and is exactly what I imagined the “green hill far away” to be when I was a child, except that it had a wall. One evening—but this was later in the summer when I went back a second time to Heidelberg—we had aKneipein Dr. Ihne’s garden and invited the GermaniaBurschenschaft. Professor Ihne came and made a speech and then left us; songs were sung, and I made a speech in German, and we sang: “Alt Heidelberg du Feine.”
Besides all these events, Hubert and I spent a good deal of time reading and discussing theories of life. We were intoxicated by Swinburne, spellbound by Kipling, and great devotees of Meredith and Hardy. We also read a certain amount of German, and I remember reading Lewes’Life of Goethe. I had already read a certain amount of Goethe and Schiller with Dr. Timme, includingHermann und Dorothea,Iphegenie auf Tauris, andTasso.Faustand the lyrics I had read by myself as soon as I could spell out the letters. Professor Ihne used to discuss books with us. He admired Byron enormously. He had no patience with the German infatuation for Tennyson, especially for “Enoch Arden,” which he thought a childish poem. Byron, he used to say, was a giant; Tennyson a dwarf. Shelley, he admitted, had written a fine philosophical poem: “Prometheus Unbound,” and Swinburne couldschöne Versen machen. He could not abide the German cult for Shakespeare. It was not that he did not admire Shakespeare as a dramatist and a poet, but the German searching for meanings in the plays, and the philosophical theories deduced from them and spun round his work, made him impatient. This was a sound point of view, forhe approached Shakespeare in much the same spirit as Dryden and Dr. Johnson did. Hamlet annoyed him. Why, he used to ask, did Hamlet presume to think he was born to set the world aright? Nobody had asked him to do so. Othello, he said, was stupid:ein dummer Kerl. The tragedies hurt him too much. He preferred Schiller.
He had no great love for Milton’sParadise Losteither; he thought there was a lot of tautology in the English language. He said the phrase, “Assemble and meet together,” in the Prayer Book was an instance of this. He said the modern English writers used unnecessarily long Latin words. He had actually seen the word topullulatein aTimesleading article. Swarm would have meant the same thing and been a thousand times better. He was broad-minded in politics and the contrary of a Chauvinist. He had a hearty dislike of Bismarck. There was something refreshingly Johnsonian about him, and when Mr. Cuppy read him the thesis which he destined to show up to the Heidelberg examiners for his degree, Professor Ihne repeated the first sentence, which ran thus: “Ever since my earliest years I determined to be a great man,” and said: “Pooh, pooh, you can’t say thathere.” “But it’s true,” said Mr. Cuppy.
Mr. Cuppy was a charming character. He had been in about twenty-five professions before arriving at Heidelberg, and he had been in a circus troop, a stoker in the railway, a clerk, a journalist, a farmer, and I don’t know how many other things, and he was now working hard for his degree. He was the kindest man I have ever met, and there was no trouble he would not take to do one a service, and there was no atom of selfishness in his composition.
The students took us to theMensurto see the duels. The students fought with sharp rapiers, as sharp as a razor on one side, which they held high over their heads, all the fighting being done by the strength of the wrist; you could only, from the position that the rapier was held in, wound your adversary on the top of his head or on the side of his cheek, but lest your rapier should go astray, and wound some other vital part the duellists wore a padded jacket, and a protection for the neck. The wounds on the top of the head were formidable, and directly after a fight they were sewn up. TheMensurreeked with iodoform. After the entertainment was overMaibowlewasdrunk, a delicious sort of cup in which wild strawberries floated. Hubert used to have fencing lessons and found the exercise difficult.
The time came when I had to go back to Hildesheim. Shortly after I arrived there the Timmes invited Hubert Cornish to come and stay with them, and he stayed with us for about ten days. During his visit we went for a short walking tour in the Harz Mountains and climbed up the Brocken, a disappointing mountain, as, so far from meeting Mephistopheles and the witches, you walk up a broad and intensely civilised and tidy road, with a plentiful array of notice-boards, till you get to the top, where it is uncomfortably cold. After he left us, it was settled, at my earnest request, that I should go to the school, the Real Gymnasium, and take part in some of the lessons. I was to be anOberprimaner: in the first class, that is to say; and to attend not all the lessons, but the English, German, and History classes. Before entering upon this school career, Frau Doktor Timme told me that I must make an official visit to all the masters with gloves. So I bought a pair of shinyglacégloves and paid an official visit to the Headmaster and the various undermasters. The first class I attended was a mathematical lesson, given by the Headmaster. I sat next to a boy called Schwerin, whom I met years later as the director of one of the Berlin theatres. I was not meant to go to this lesson, and I went there by accident, but the Headmaster told me I might stay and listen to it if I liked. It was so far above my head that I did not even know what it was about. At the English lesson I was more at home, and I was asked to give the English dictation. I did this, but the boys at once complained, as I did not read out the English with the German pronunciation, which they were accustomed to, and they could not understand me. The master said they were quite right, and that it was plain I did not know how to pronounce English. The lessons in German literature and in history were interesting. Every week the boys had to write a German essay on the topic that was being discussed, or rather on the book that was being read and diagnosed. This essay was the main feature of the week’s work, just as Latin verses were at Eton. The writing of this essay took an enormous amount of time and trouble. I only wrote one, on Schiller’sBraut von Messina. It had to be neatly copied out, on paper folded in a special way, and the subjecthad to be divided into sections. The history master was fond of drawing parallels between ancient and modern history, and when he discussed the Punic wars, he laid stress on the fact that sea power had been beaten by land power. That was, he said, the universal lesson of history, and let England lay this matter to heart. The Napoleonic Wars seemed to have escaped him.
After I had been at Hildesheim a little time, Frau Timme told me one day that perhaps I was unaware how greatly Englishmen were disliked in Germany. This was a complete surprise to me, as I had always thought the relations between the two countries were supposed to be good, and that in a kind of way the Germans were supposed to be our cousins. “No,” said Frau Timme; “there is a real prejudice against English people,” and Timme added: “There had always beenein gewisser Neid,” a certain envy of the English. They knew, they said, that individual Englishmen were often admirable, but politically and collectively the English were disliked. One grievance was we supplied, they said, the French with coal during the Franco-Prussian War: another, the behaviour of the Empress Frederick, who was accused of redecorating Frederick the Great’s rooms at Potsdam. I found afterwards the Empress Frederick’s doings were a universal topic, wherever I went in Germany. Frau Timme’s brother, Onkel Adolph, deplored the relations between Great Britain and Germany, which he said could not well be worse, although looking back on that time they were supposed then, I think, to be good. The Timmes were Hanoverians, and used still to reckon inThalersand speak of the Prussians with dislike; in spite of this they were whole-hearted admirers of Bismarck. I enjoyed my little bit of school life at Hildesheim immensely. I used to get up at half-past six, walk to school and be there by seven, wear a red cap, take part in the few classes I attended, and then come back for luncheon. In the afternoon, I used to go for walks or bathe in the little river which ran through Hildesheim, called the Innerste. In the evenings before supper we met at Hasse’s, and sometimes we used to walk to a distant village and hold aKneipe, after which the boys used to dance to the strains ofDonauwellen. It was difficult to believe that one had ever lived any other kind of life.
Domestic life in the Timme family was full of infinite charm and many amusing little incidents. Dr. Timme grew a melon, which he kept in a cucumber frame. It was not a satisfactory melon, for it never grew to be larger than a tennis ball. It was hard and green. Nevertheless, one day Dr. Timme made the announcement that the melon would be ready for eating in a fortnight’s time. “In vierzehn Tagen wird die Melone gegessen,” were his actual words. Frau Doktor looked sceptical. When the fortnight had elapsed Timme brought in the melon, which was still no bigger and no softer, and said, “Heute essen wir die Melone” (“To-day the melon will be eaten”), and he cut it with difficulty into twelve bits. Frau Doktor said it was unripe, and not fit to be eaten, and that it was quite hard and green. “No,” said Timme, “Dass ist die Sorte, sie bleibt immer grün” (“It is that kind of melon: an evergreen”). He added later, “Man sollte immer unreifes Obst essen. Die Thiere suchen sich immer unreifes Obst aus” (“One ought always to eat unripe fruit. Animals eat unripe fruit for choice”).
I used often to visit the two aunts, Dr. Timme’s sisters. They had a charming little house and a conservatory. Little Aenchen said one day that many people in the summer went to Switzerland or to Italy, butdie Tantedid no such thing—she merely moved into the conservatory. (Sie zieht nur in die Blumenstube.) One of the aunts had a passion for the opera, and knew the plot of every opera ever written, and kept the programmes, and was a mine of information on the subject. I once said something rather disparaging about Switzerland to her, and she could not get over this, and for ever afterwards she would say that whenever she looked at her album of Swiss photographs she used to say: “Gott! nein! dass Herr Baring das nicht mag!” (“To think of Mr. Baring not liking that!”)
Sometimes she would invite us to tea, and we would have anApfeltortein the garden, and if it was fine the “Alte Tante” used to come down. Kurt’s future used to be discussed, and the army was mentioned as a possible career. “No,” cried theAlte Tante; “an officer’s life is a brilliant misery” (“Ein glänzendes Elend”). I said that in other professions you had theElendwithout theGlanz, the misery without the brilliance, and she was delighted with thismot.
My father, who finished his education in Germany, at Gotha (after having gone to school at Bath at the age of six in astage-coach), used always to say that there was nothing in the world for simplicity and charm to compare with the life in a small unpretentious household in the Germany of old days. He used to tell a story of some Coburg royal lady whom he met at Gotha saying to him after Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert, “Wenn Sie nach England kommen, suchen Sie meinen Vetter Albrecht aus and grüssen Sie ihn von mir” (“When you go back to England, look up my Cousin Albert and give him my love”).
The simplicity and the charm he described were to be found in the Timme household at Hildesheim. In the cosy winter evenings, in the little drawing-room with its warm stove, when the lamp used to be put on the table opposite the place of honour, the sofa, against the wall at the end of the room, a bottle of beer and glasses would be brought, and Dr. Timme would light his cigar and suggest a game of Skat, and Onkel Adolph would stroll behind my chair and say: “Nein, Herr Baring, das dürfen Sie nicht spielen.” Then perhaps Frau Timme’s mother would look in and occupy the place of honour, and perhaps Tante Agnes (who was an unappreciated poetess) or Tante Emile (the opera lover), and perhaps a neighbour, Fräulein Schultzen, who received English girls in her house, or Frau Ober-Förster. Then Frau Doktor’s mother would take out her knitting and the children would be discussed. “Nächsten Monat,” someone would say: “Bekomme Ich neue Mädchen.” Onkel Adolph and Dr. Timme would talk mild politics, and faintly deprecate the present state of things; perhaps Herr Wunibald Nick would be there and sing a song—“Es liegt eine Krone im tiefen Rhein”—and deplore the amount of operas by well-known composers which were never performed. “Wird nicht gegeben,” he would exclaim, after every item of his long list, or would almost weep from enthusiasm for the second act ofTristan, although no Wagnerite he. While this talk went on in the major key, in a subdued minor the aunts and Frau Doktor and Frau Ober-Förster would tell the latest developments of a neighbour’s illness, and the climax of the tale would be reached by someone saying: “Dann liess sie den Arzt rufen” (“Then she sent for the doctor”). There would be a pause, and someone else would inevitably ask, “Welchen Arzt?” (“Which doctor?”), as there were many doctors in Hildesheim, and opinions were sharply divided on their merits. The answerwould perhaps be: “Brandes,” and then there would be a sigh of relief from some, a resigned shrug from others, as if to say: “Poor things, they knew no better.”
And the conversation would bevernünftig, and the old people would say that the big towns were spoiling everything, that life was a hustle and a rush, that Fräulein So-and-so wasein unverschämtes Wesen, and would bewail, as in Heine’s lovely poem, that everything had been better in their time: