CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XIVA MEMORY RETOUCHEDThe nineteenth wave of the ages rollsNow deathward since thy death and birth.Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls?Hast thou brought freedom upon earth?Or are there less oppressions doneIn this wild world under the sun?Nay, if indeed thou be not dead,Before thy terrene shrine be shaken,Look down, turn usward, bow thine head;O thou that wast of God forsaken,Look on thine household here, and seeThose that have not forsaken thee.A. C. Swinburne:Before a Crucifix.INearly twelve months after the treaty of peace with Germany had been signed, a few of the men who had gone down from Oxford ten or twelve years before met again at their annual college gaudy. It may be not superfluous to explain that all masters of arts who have kept their names on the books are invited in rotation, in the second half of June, to the commemoration ceremony, to dinner in hall, to a service next day and to breakfast in hall. From 1914 to 1918 the gaudies were discontinued; and 1920 provided the first occasion on which the men who had taken their M.A. degrees in the years immediately prior to the war received an invitation.From the moment that they clambered into their hansoms, men who had not seen one another for ten years lapsed into a world which they had known as undergraduates in the last days of King Edward's reign. They had come together from India and Africa: clergymen, civil servants and officials of the Woods and Forests; with or without lasting injury, they had survived the war on one of its many fronts; some had grown rich, some had married and begotten children; some had remained as materially unchanged as they were unchanged in appearance; and, after a longer or shorter Odyssey of adventure, all were now settled to their work in life. Automatically they disinterred forgotten nicknames, and the first of all seemed to cast a spell upon them and to revive the atmosphere of the last night of their last term. The awnings and supper-tent lingered on as a reminder of Commemoration; ornate young men hurried through Tom Quad to the last ball of the week, leaden-footed young men limped to the bathrooms next day as their seniors made ready for prayers in the Cathedral.Ten years before, a world to which their schools and universities were but a window lay before a disintegrating Oxford generation; and on its youth and enthusiasm, in an age which aspired to keep soul and body in hard condition, depended the mark that each member made in it. Half unconsciously, the young men of that epoch were reacting to that epoch's literary fervour of humanity and rational order: Galsworthy was teaching them that life should be gentle, Wells that it should be tidy, Shaw that it should be ascetic. That was the open noon of their idealism; those seemed the brave days for men of democratic faith.In little more than the hundred years which ended with Queen Victoria's death an humane spirit of liberalism, not confined to a single country, had forbidden torture and abolished slavery; it had achieved political emancipation and religious toleration; in making the whole of a community responsible for each part, it was slowly inculcating an idea of fraternity; and, in asserting public right between nations, it was beginning to merge in that universal spirit which at intervals of many centuries shines through the world and teaches men to regard mankind as one whole: the constant spirit of Buddha, of Christ and of Tolstoi, the transitory half-understood dream of Alexander and of Napoleon. The trend of history seemed, in those days, to be a term interchangeable with the progress of liberalism; whatever stood in its way seemed destined to fight a losing battle; and the hope of the future was rooted in the record of the past. Every difficulty that for a moment seemed insuperable was matched by some old and seemingly insuperable difficulty which had been overcome: if old age, lazy and without vision, predicted that there must always be violence and injustice, youth could retort that injustice and violence were diminishing daily; if war continued, duelling in England had at least been abolished; if the modern sportsman fired broadsides into a cloud of driven birds, he was at least denied, and perhaps disinclined for, the pleasures of cock-fighting. Life, until 1914, was sacred; and the conditions under which life was carried on were becoming no less important than life itself.The young liberals of those days, taught to feel that every human being must have a chance, through freedom, of attaining happiness, believed in their cause andin their leaders; through the pitched battles of the next four years their faith was undimmed. More than this dumb allegiance it was not yet easy for them to give: still little more than boys, most of them had careers to make before they could participate actively in politics. Later, as a few of them were ready to take their place in the line, a more urgent war burst upon them; democracy at home had to be left to take care of itself, though in August 1914 they hoped and expected their local democracy would be caught up in a greater democracy; they believed then that "a war to end war" would prepare the way for ultimate human brotherhood.Was it so fantastic a dream? In 1914 less than one hundred and seventy years had passed since the last civil war in which Englishmen fought against Englishmen on British soil; now England was consolidated and uniform. Might there not soon be a time when Europe, disarmed and controlled by an international police, would be so far uniform and consolidated that war between any of its component states would be no less unthinkable than war in England between Lancashire and Cornwall? Until Ireland was driven to anarchy, the common conscience of Great Britain refused to tolerate disorder and free shooting; might there not be a time when the common conscience of Europe refused to tolerate periodical massacres? In 1914, though perforce their grip slackened on the reforms nearer at hand, the souls of the young men were touched for a moment by the universal spirit.For the survivors who paced the quadrangles after dinner, peering at the familiar staircases and glancing up at the silent windows, every comer of the college was haunted by some one who would never see Oxford again.In 1910 very few believed that a European war was necessary; very many still believe that even by 1910 a different and more honest diplomacy could have averted it. In 1914, when war broke out, it was fancied that those who were offering their lives would be rewarded everlasting freedom from the fear of another war; could that still be fancied in 1920? It was felt and said, too, that, as these men were venturing all for one corner of the earth, they—if they came back—or their survivors should find it so swept and garnished that they would know they had ventured to good purpose. Oxford is still the kingdom of youth, and idealism still flourishes in its shelter; but, when the gathering speed of the London train cut short the last glimpse of Tom Tower and of the cathedral spire, it was not easy to feel that the sweeping and garnishing were complete.II"Whoever attempts to forecast the course systems of government will take," wrote Lord Bryce inModern Democracies, "must ... begin from the two propositions that the only thing we know about the Future is that it will differ from the Past, and, that the only data we have for conjecturing what the Future may possibly bring with it are drawn from observations of the Past, or, in other words, from that study of the tendencies of human nature which gives ground for expecting from men certain kinds of action in certain states of fact. We cannot refrain from conjecture. Yet to realise how vain conjectures are, let us imagine ourselves to be in the place of those who only three or four generationsago failed to forecast what the next following generation would see. Let us suppose Burke, Johnson, and Gibbon sitting together at a dinner of The Club in 1769, the year when Napoleon and Wellington were born, and the talk falling on the politics of the European Continent. Did they have any presage of the future? The causes whence the American Revolution and the French Revolution were to spring, and which would break the sleep of the people in Germany and Italy, might, one would think, have already been discerned by three such penetrating observers, but the only remarks most of us recall as made then and for some years afterwards to note symptoms of coming dangers were made by a French traveller, who said that the extinction of French power in Canada had weakened the tie between the American colonies and Great Britain, and by an English traveller who saw signs of rottenness in the French Monarchy. Men stood on the edge of stupendous changes, not discerning the causes that were already in embryo beneath their feet, like seeds hidden under the snow of winter, which will shoot up under the April sunlight. How much more difficult has it now become to diagnose the symptoms of an age in which the interplay of economic forces, intellectual forces, moral and religious forces is more complex than ever heretofore, incomparably more complex than it had seemed to be before discovery had gone far in the spheres of chemistry, physics, and biology, before education had been diffused through all classes, before every part of the world had been drawn into relations with every other part so close that what affects one must affect the rest."In ten years the men who hoped to beautify the world through the agency of politics had learned something ofparliament and of its limitations; it is not the perfect instrument for a social reformation or a spiritual revival; such vain imaginings revealed the reformers' folly or at least their youth, but they were misled by the resonant beatitudes of public speeches. Parliament and the whole machine of government are, by their remoteness from the public life of the nation, always a little loftier in temper than the basest elements of the population: the House of Commons may be blind, greedy, vindictive or persecuting, but at such moments it is never so persecuting or vindictive, so greedy or blind as an incensed mob would like it to be. On the other hand, parliament and the whole machine of government never, in their most exalted moments, attain such a nobility of soul as the mob outside achieves in its disinterested moods. From the first day of war to the last and for all their lapses into panic and madness, the uninstructed silent masses were prompt in every crisis with more patience and fortitude, more philosophy and more capacity for sacrifice than parliament knew how to use. It is not through the House of Commons that England will be made a home for heroes."We had no conception of the quality of politics," wrote Wells of one character then aged fifteen, "nor how 'interests' came into such affairs; we believed men were swayed by purely intellectual convictions and were either right or wrong, honest or dishonest (in which case they deserved to be shot), good or bad. We knew nothing of mental inertia, and could imagine the opinion of a whole nation changed by one lucid and convincing exposition.... We rebuilt London by Act of Parliament, and once in a mood of hygienic enterprise we transferred its populationen masseto the North Downsby an order of the Local Government Board. We thought nothing of throwing religious organisations out of employment or superseding all the newspapers by freely distributed bulletins. We could contemplate the possibility of laws abolishing whole classes; we were equal to such a dream as the peaceful and orderly proclamation of Communism from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, after the passing of a simply worded bill,—a close and not unnaturally an exciting division carrying the third reading.... We were not fools; it was simply that as yet we had gathered no experience at all of the limits and powers of legislation and conscious collective intention...."At one-or two-and-twenty the "mental inertia" of their conservative opponents had discouraged the reformers from thinking that the more drastic and dramatic methods of the French Revolution could be applied to British legislation in 1910; of the entire efficacy of legislation no doubt was entertained. Everything, it was believed (and the liberal majority of 1906 believed it too), could be done by means of a simply worded bill; all that a reformer needed was those sure voters who would carry the third reading after "a close and not unnaturally an exciting division"; and they were to be found in Scotland and Wales, in the north of England and every other liberal stronghold not yet seduced by factious, independent labour.In London, it was soon discovered, there was no help to be expected save in the poor fringe of Camberwell and Hornsey, Stratford and Battersea; the liberal oratory of the period taught that dukes and slum-landlords were identical; and the young liberal was convinced in those days that the London he knew was vehementlyopposed to all amelioration of social conditions. If, later, he found that the most tory element in society had no greater liking than he for dirt, disease, crime, misery and hunger, he found, too, that the world in which his lot was cast for the next ten years was too busily engaged to spare anything but mental inertia for social reform. Its members displayed no ill-will; they subscribed hundreds of thousands every year to charity, they worked like slaves for the objects in which their interest had been aroused; but they did not see and they would not be made to see that Europe was an extension of England, that England was an extension of the village at their lodge-gates and that they were acquiescing in conditions of want and suffering, vice and crime which for very shame they would not allow among their own tenants.In the course of those ten years young liberals often wondered what daily spur could be applied to imaginations and consciences which are active enough when once the spur has been applied. The work done for the relief of suffering is immense; the sums subscribed to charity are enormous; and yet by any standard they are insufficient. For want of a better postulate the reformers were agreed that it was incumbent on the state for every man and woman to be secured at least the minimum of essentials; in the search for a first principle of private conduct they would not have refused the criterion whether an act would increase or decrease, in any form or any degree, the world's total of unhappiness. To an agnostic, the value of Christian ethics lay less in the protection which they secured to the weak than in the chivalry which they demanded of the strong; and, if the mentally inert began with a test even so rudimentary asthis, they might progress to a frame of mind in which a man would be pulled up short by the fear, that, whatever the gain to others, his act would cause pain to a single living creature.Pain of heart, pain of mind and pain of body are within the experience of all; the desire to escape it is older and stronger even than the desire to attain pleasure. And directly or indirectly, by implication, or expression, the most generous and humane men and women are daily adding to the world's suffering or are consenting to leave it unreduced. If the war could not inspire a consecration of life and a crusade for the extirpation of pain, what other spur can avail to rouse this somnolent collective conscience? Certain streets in every great city are thronged at certain hours with the women whom patronage calls "unfortunate" and superiority dubs "fallen"; the benevolent societies which exist to "reclaim" them succeed as well as a gardener who tries to give back its lost bloom to a rose. In misery of soul and suffering of body, every prostitute adds to the world's total of pain; but no woman can become a prostitute without the help of a man.Here is a fate from which every man would save his mother, his sister and his daughter; to a slumbering conscience, other men's sisters and daughters do not matter.IIIIn the last ten years, all those who find in mental inertia the chief obstacle to progress have been forced to enquire what does matter to the men and women whom they have been meeting. With comparatively few exceptionsthese people are temperate, kindly and faithful within conventional limits; they are as honourable and veracious as they are expected to be; almost without exception they are physically courageous, though they have little moral and less intellectual courage; they have a sluggish pride and hardly any dignity; they have great energy and resource, versatility and endurance; many have charm, most have ability and some have brilliance. A feudal aristocracy leavened by commerce has produced a society of men and women whom an alien may, with admiring detachment, consider the finest raw material for any human enterprise in any part of the world. No nation scored as high a total in as many different tests during the war. Before 1914, indeed, it seemed as if this incomparable human material was running to waste; since 1919 it seems to be running to waste again. The war shewed that in an emergency there was no less available supply of courage and endurance, of self-sacrifice and ability than ever before; these qualities are still there if any knew how to rouse them; but it seems that, though the English will always train for a race, they will not at other times keep themselves in even moderately good condition.In the reaction from the war nothing seems to matter. Theargotof London varies from week to week, like the style of dressing and dancing; but the atmosphere is the same, the restlessness is the same, the mad striving after effect is the same, the want of purpose is the same; and it may be doubted whether the money and energy demanded of such a life are justified by the tepid, flat pleasure which they purchase. In ten years London has become steadily and uncaringly more greedy and vulgar. Breeding is a memory of childhood; mannersgrew blunt and were discarded during the years between the South African war and 1914; happiness has been lost to view in the hunt for distraction; and success is measured, arithmetically, by invitations."Queer place," Mr. Jingle said of Rochester. "Dock-yard people of upper rank don't know Dock-yard people of lower rank—Dock-yard people of lower rank don't know small gentry—small gentry don't know tradespeople—Commissioner don't know anybody."London, it has been suggested, is less exclusive; and the only person who is in serious danger of not being received is the man who is detected cheating at cards. For all this facile accessibility, however, the tradespeople cannot expect to visit the small gentry without effort and assiduity. Before the war, since the war and despite the harrowing preoccupation with war's intensest crisis, a busy army of soft-voiced, watchful women have plied their unflagging trade of "getting to know people"; in wealth or in rank, in charm or in notoriety, in a combination of all or any, there is always some one to be found on a slightly higher plane, there is always one greater eminence from which exclusion is synonymous with disgrace: to cross the threshold they will fawn on those whom they despise and accept favours from those whom they detest. Among men the vice is confined to the very young, the mean, the vain and the insufficient; women are afflicted more widely and deeply, for they feel their value depreciated when an invitation passes them by. In the words of 'Algernon Moncrieff,' "Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations."IVA few of the passing generation have retained their vision; many more have acquired a new vision from the heart-searching of war. The conscious striving after beauty and the gift of laughter alone differentiate man from the beasts; and to these few the attainment of beauty still matters here and elsewhere. London is still the greatest city of the world; it is no less true than in Dr. Johnson's day that, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; but it is difficult for any one who has lived for thirty years in its midst to look patiently on while the lessons of the war are forgotten and the debt owing to all who died in the war is repudiated. This lapse into futility is, perhaps, only a temporary reaction from the war; no man, thinking otherwise, would want to go on living, for in little more than thirty years the generation of which the time has now come to take leave has lost the greater part of those things which it valued. For a few, their country has been handed over to the blind violence and madness of anarchy; for more, their political idols have been flung on their faces; for all, their relations and friends have died in scores. The world of the survivors, like that corner of it in which they assembled at Oxford, is peopled with shades; the mood of the survivors is that of H. W. Garrod, when he wrote hisIntruders."One day, I knew, it had to be:Sooner or later I must seeAnother race of men invadeRooms which the men I knew had made,With books, with pictures on the wall,With pipes and caps, with bat or ball,Obscurely individual.I hate your steps upon the stair,Your vacant voices on the air ...I hate your chatter overhead.And your jests that fall like leadWhere only golden things were saidBy the men that are dead, the men that are dead."It is not a mood of resignation or acquiescence, but of resolution, hope and preparation to pay a debt and to take up, with hands howsoever much enfeebled and reduced, the task left unfinished "by the men that are dead." "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church"; and, unless that seed bring forth a spirit of peace abroad and of community at home, the blood will have been spilled to no purpose. The survivors of this decimated generation have to resist, to control or to convert the languid fatalists who would drift helplessly and hopelessly into revolution or into another war; they have to subdue and to convince the anarchist of Hyde Park and of Park Lane, to drive "blood-sucker" from the lips of the one and "Bolshevist" from the lips of the other, to mitigate the credulity alike of those who find Russian gold in the pocket of every opponent and of those who scent in all opposition a plot for enslaving the proletariat. In a country that has endured, bleeding but alive, after four years and three months of fighting, there must be no talk of class-wars: and it must be realised that the miscreant who bases political salvation on the lamp-posts of Whitehall is own brother to the miscreant who would win economic peace by shooting strike-leaders. If the war has not made of the English, at least, a united people, the task lies ready to the hand of those liberals who have survived it; if they lack a leader, it is only for a moment.One movement is ended. Anintermezzois playing, perhaps is already drawing to a close. Soon the new movement will begin."This world has been harsh and strange;Something is wrong: there needeth a change.But what, or where? at the last or first?In one point only we sinned, at worst.The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet,And again in his border see Israel set.When Judah beholds Jerusalem,The stranger-seed shall be joined to them.To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave,So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.Ay, the children of the chosen raceShall carry and bring them to their place:In the land of the Lord shall lead the same,Bondsmen and handmaids...."THE END

A MEMORY RETOUCHED

The nineteenth wave of the ages rollsNow deathward since thy death and birth.

Hast thou fed full men's starved-out souls?Hast thou brought freedom upon earth?

Or are there less oppressions doneIn this wild world under the sun?

Nay, if indeed thou be not dead,Before thy terrene shrine be shaken,

Look down, turn usward, bow thine head;O thou that wast of God forsaken,

Look on thine household here, and seeThose that have not forsaken thee.

A. C. Swinburne:Before a Crucifix.

Nearly twelve months after the treaty of peace with Germany had been signed, a few of the men who had gone down from Oxford ten or twelve years before met again at their annual college gaudy. It may be not superfluous to explain that all masters of arts who have kept their names on the books are invited in rotation, in the second half of June, to the commemoration ceremony, to dinner in hall, to a service next day and to breakfast in hall. From 1914 to 1918 the gaudies were discontinued; and 1920 provided the first occasion on which the men who had taken their M.A. degrees in the years immediately prior to the war received an invitation.

From the moment that they clambered into their hansoms, men who had not seen one another for ten years lapsed into a world which they had known as undergraduates in the last days of King Edward's reign. They had come together from India and Africa: clergymen, civil servants and officials of the Woods and Forests; with or without lasting injury, they had survived the war on one of its many fronts; some had grown rich, some had married and begotten children; some had remained as materially unchanged as they were unchanged in appearance; and, after a longer or shorter Odyssey of adventure, all were now settled to their work in life. Automatically they disinterred forgotten nicknames, and the first of all seemed to cast a spell upon them and to revive the atmosphere of the last night of their last term. The awnings and supper-tent lingered on as a reminder of Commemoration; ornate young men hurried through Tom Quad to the last ball of the week, leaden-footed young men limped to the bathrooms next day as their seniors made ready for prayers in the Cathedral.

Ten years before, a world to which their schools and universities were but a window lay before a disintegrating Oxford generation; and on its youth and enthusiasm, in an age which aspired to keep soul and body in hard condition, depended the mark that each member made in it. Half unconsciously, the young men of that epoch were reacting to that epoch's literary fervour of humanity and rational order: Galsworthy was teaching them that life should be gentle, Wells that it should be tidy, Shaw that it should be ascetic. That was the open noon of their idealism; those seemed the brave days for men of democratic faith.

In little more than the hundred years which ended with Queen Victoria's death an humane spirit of liberalism, not confined to a single country, had forbidden torture and abolished slavery; it had achieved political emancipation and religious toleration; in making the whole of a community responsible for each part, it was slowly inculcating an idea of fraternity; and, in asserting public right between nations, it was beginning to merge in that universal spirit which at intervals of many centuries shines through the world and teaches men to regard mankind as one whole: the constant spirit of Buddha, of Christ and of Tolstoi, the transitory half-understood dream of Alexander and of Napoleon. The trend of history seemed, in those days, to be a term interchangeable with the progress of liberalism; whatever stood in its way seemed destined to fight a losing battle; and the hope of the future was rooted in the record of the past. Every difficulty that for a moment seemed insuperable was matched by some old and seemingly insuperable difficulty which had been overcome: if old age, lazy and without vision, predicted that there must always be violence and injustice, youth could retort that injustice and violence were diminishing daily; if war continued, duelling in England had at least been abolished; if the modern sportsman fired broadsides into a cloud of driven birds, he was at least denied, and perhaps disinclined for, the pleasures of cock-fighting. Life, until 1914, was sacred; and the conditions under which life was carried on were becoming no less important than life itself.

The young liberals of those days, taught to feel that every human being must have a chance, through freedom, of attaining happiness, believed in their cause andin their leaders; through the pitched battles of the next four years their faith was undimmed. More than this dumb allegiance it was not yet easy for them to give: still little more than boys, most of them had careers to make before they could participate actively in politics. Later, as a few of them were ready to take their place in the line, a more urgent war burst upon them; democracy at home had to be left to take care of itself, though in August 1914 they hoped and expected their local democracy would be caught up in a greater democracy; they believed then that "a war to end war" would prepare the way for ultimate human brotherhood.

Was it so fantastic a dream? In 1914 less than one hundred and seventy years had passed since the last civil war in which Englishmen fought against Englishmen on British soil; now England was consolidated and uniform. Might there not soon be a time when Europe, disarmed and controlled by an international police, would be so far uniform and consolidated that war between any of its component states would be no less unthinkable than war in England between Lancashire and Cornwall? Until Ireland was driven to anarchy, the common conscience of Great Britain refused to tolerate disorder and free shooting; might there not be a time when the common conscience of Europe refused to tolerate periodical massacres? In 1914, though perforce their grip slackened on the reforms nearer at hand, the souls of the young men were touched for a moment by the universal spirit.

For the survivors who paced the quadrangles after dinner, peering at the familiar staircases and glancing up at the silent windows, every comer of the college was haunted by some one who would never see Oxford again.In 1910 very few believed that a European war was necessary; very many still believe that even by 1910 a different and more honest diplomacy could have averted it. In 1914, when war broke out, it was fancied that those who were offering their lives would be rewarded everlasting freedom from the fear of another war; could that still be fancied in 1920? It was felt and said, too, that, as these men were venturing all for one corner of the earth, they—if they came back—or their survivors should find it so swept and garnished that they would know they had ventured to good purpose. Oxford is still the kingdom of youth, and idealism still flourishes in its shelter; but, when the gathering speed of the London train cut short the last glimpse of Tom Tower and of the cathedral spire, it was not easy to feel that the sweeping and garnishing were complete.

"Whoever attempts to forecast the course systems of government will take," wrote Lord Bryce inModern Democracies, "must ... begin from the two propositions that the only thing we know about the Future is that it will differ from the Past, and, that the only data we have for conjecturing what the Future may possibly bring with it are drawn from observations of the Past, or, in other words, from that study of the tendencies of human nature which gives ground for expecting from men certain kinds of action in certain states of fact. We cannot refrain from conjecture. Yet to realise how vain conjectures are, let us imagine ourselves to be in the place of those who only three or four generationsago failed to forecast what the next following generation would see. Let us suppose Burke, Johnson, and Gibbon sitting together at a dinner of The Club in 1769, the year when Napoleon and Wellington were born, and the talk falling on the politics of the European Continent. Did they have any presage of the future? The causes whence the American Revolution and the French Revolution were to spring, and which would break the sleep of the people in Germany and Italy, might, one would think, have already been discerned by three such penetrating observers, but the only remarks most of us recall as made then and for some years afterwards to note symptoms of coming dangers were made by a French traveller, who said that the extinction of French power in Canada had weakened the tie between the American colonies and Great Britain, and by an English traveller who saw signs of rottenness in the French Monarchy. Men stood on the edge of stupendous changes, not discerning the causes that were already in embryo beneath their feet, like seeds hidden under the snow of winter, which will shoot up under the April sunlight. How much more difficult has it now become to diagnose the symptoms of an age in which the interplay of economic forces, intellectual forces, moral and religious forces is more complex than ever heretofore, incomparably more complex than it had seemed to be before discovery had gone far in the spheres of chemistry, physics, and biology, before education had been diffused through all classes, before every part of the world had been drawn into relations with every other part so close that what affects one must affect the rest."

In ten years the men who hoped to beautify the world through the agency of politics had learned something ofparliament and of its limitations; it is not the perfect instrument for a social reformation or a spiritual revival; such vain imaginings revealed the reformers' folly or at least their youth, but they were misled by the resonant beatitudes of public speeches. Parliament and the whole machine of government are, by their remoteness from the public life of the nation, always a little loftier in temper than the basest elements of the population: the House of Commons may be blind, greedy, vindictive or persecuting, but at such moments it is never so persecuting or vindictive, so greedy or blind as an incensed mob would like it to be. On the other hand, parliament and the whole machine of government never, in their most exalted moments, attain such a nobility of soul as the mob outside achieves in its disinterested moods. From the first day of war to the last and for all their lapses into panic and madness, the uninstructed silent masses were prompt in every crisis with more patience and fortitude, more philosophy and more capacity for sacrifice than parliament knew how to use. It is not through the House of Commons that England will be made a home for heroes.

"We had no conception of the quality of politics," wrote Wells of one character then aged fifteen, "nor how 'interests' came into such affairs; we believed men were swayed by purely intellectual convictions and were either right or wrong, honest or dishonest (in which case they deserved to be shot), good or bad. We knew nothing of mental inertia, and could imagine the opinion of a whole nation changed by one lucid and convincing exposition.... We rebuilt London by Act of Parliament, and once in a mood of hygienic enterprise we transferred its populationen masseto the North Downsby an order of the Local Government Board. We thought nothing of throwing religious organisations out of employment or superseding all the newspapers by freely distributed bulletins. We could contemplate the possibility of laws abolishing whole classes; we were equal to such a dream as the peaceful and orderly proclamation of Communism from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, after the passing of a simply worded bill,—a close and not unnaturally an exciting division carrying the third reading.... We were not fools; it was simply that as yet we had gathered no experience at all of the limits and powers of legislation and conscious collective intention...."

At one-or two-and-twenty the "mental inertia" of their conservative opponents had discouraged the reformers from thinking that the more drastic and dramatic methods of the French Revolution could be applied to British legislation in 1910; of the entire efficacy of legislation no doubt was entertained. Everything, it was believed (and the liberal majority of 1906 believed it too), could be done by means of a simply worded bill; all that a reformer needed was those sure voters who would carry the third reading after "a close and not unnaturally an exciting division"; and they were to be found in Scotland and Wales, in the north of England and every other liberal stronghold not yet seduced by factious, independent labour.

In London, it was soon discovered, there was no help to be expected save in the poor fringe of Camberwell and Hornsey, Stratford and Battersea; the liberal oratory of the period taught that dukes and slum-landlords were identical; and the young liberal was convinced in those days that the London he knew was vehementlyopposed to all amelioration of social conditions. If, later, he found that the most tory element in society had no greater liking than he for dirt, disease, crime, misery and hunger, he found, too, that the world in which his lot was cast for the next ten years was too busily engaged to spare anything but mental inertia for social reform. Its members displayed no ill-will; they subscribed hundreds of thousands every year to charity, they worked like slaves for the objects in which their interest had been aroused; but they did not see and they would not be made to see that Europe was an extension of England, that England was an extension of the village at their lodge-gates and that they were acquiescing in conditions of want and suffering, vice and crime which for very shame they would not allow among their own tenants.

In the course of those ten years young liberals often wondered what daily spur could be applied to imaginations and consciences which are active enough when once the spur has been applied. The work done for the relief of suffering is immense; the sums subscribed to charity are enormous; and yet by any standard they are insufficient. For want of a better postulate the reformers were agreed that it was incumbent on the state for every man and woman to be secured at least the minimum of essentials; in the search for a first principle of private conduct they would not have refused the criterion whether an act would increase or decrease, in any form or any degree, the world's total of unhappiness. To an agnostic, the value of Christian ethics lay less in the protection which they secured to the weak than in the chivalry which they demanded of the strong; and, if the mentally inert began with a test even so rudimentary asthis, they might progress to a frame of mind in which a man would be pulled up short by the fear, that, whatever the gain to others, his act would cause pain to a single living creature.

Pain of heart, pain of mind and pain of body are within the experience of all; the desire to escape it is older and stronger even than the desire to attain pleasure. And directly or indirectly, by implication, or expression, the most generous and humane men and women are daily adding to the world's suffering or are consenting to leave it unreduced. If the war could not inspire a consecration of life and a crusade for the extirpation of pain, what other spur can avail to rouse this somnolent collective conscience? Certain streets in every great city are thronged at certain hours with the women whom patronage calls "unfortunate" and superiority dubs "fallen"; the benevolent societies which exist to "reclaim" them succeed as well as a gardener who tries to give back its lost bloom to a rose. In misery of soul and suffering of body, every prostitute adds to the world's total of pain; but no woman can become a prostitute without the help of a man.

Here is a fate from which every man would save his mother, his sister and his daughter; to a slumbering conscience, other men's sisters and daughters do not matter.

In the last ten years, all those who find in mental inertia the chief obstacle to progress have been forced to enquire what does matter to the men and women whom they have been meeting. With comparatively few exceptionsthese people are temperate, kindly and faithful within conventional limits; they are as honourable and veracious as they are expected to be; almost without exception they are physically courageous, though they have little moral and less intellectual courage; they have a sluggish pride and hardly any dignity; they have great energy and resource, versatility and endurance; many have charm, most have ability and some have brilliance. A feudal aristocracy leavened by commerce has produced a society of men and women whom an alien may, with admiring detachment, consider the finest raw material for any human enterprise in any part of the world. No nation scored as high a total in as many different tests during the war. Before 1914, indeed, it seemed as if this incomparable human material was running to waste; since 1919 it seems to be running to waste again. The war shewed that in an emergency there was no less available supply of courage and endurance, of self-sacrifice and ability than ever before; these qualities are still there if any knew how to rouse them; but it seems that, though the English will always train for a race, they will not at other times keep themselves in even moderately good condition.

In the reaction from the war nothing seems to matter. Theargotof London varies from week to week, like the style of dressing and dancing; but the atmosphere is the same, the restlessness is the same, the mad striving after effect is the same, the want of purpose is the same; and it may be doubted whether the money and energy demanded of such a life are justified by the tepid, flat pleasure which they purchase. In ten years London has become steadily and uncaringly more greedy and vulgar. Breeding is a memory of childhood; mannersgrew blunt and were discarded during the years between the South African war and 1914; happiness has been lost to view in the hunt for distraction; and success is measured, arithmetically, by invitations.

"Queer place," Mr. Jingle said of Rochester. "Dock-yard people of upper rank don't know Dock-yard people of lower rank—Dock-yard people of lower rank don't know small gentry—small gentry don't know tradespeople—Commissioner don't know anybody."

London, it has been suggested, is less exclusive; and the only person who is in serious danger of not being received is the man who is detected cheating at cards. For all this facile accessibility, however, the tradespeople cannot expect to visit the small gentry without effort and assiduity. Before the war, since the war and despite the harrowing preoccupation with war's intensest crisis, a busy army of soft-voiced, watchful women have plied their unflagging trade of "getting to know people"; in wealth or in rank, in charm or in notoriety, in a combination of all or any, there is always some one to be found on a slightly higher plane, there is always one greater eminence from which exclusion is synonymous with disgrace: to cross the threshold they will fawn on those whom they despise and accept favours from those whom they detest. Among men the vice is confined to the very young, the mean, the vain and the insufficient; women are afflicted more widely and deeply, for they feel their value depreciated when an invitation passes them by. In the words of 'Algernon Moncrieff,' "Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations."

A few of the passing generation have retained their vision; many more have acquired a new vision from the heart-searching of war. The conscious striving after beauty and the gift of laughter alone differentiate man from the beasts; and to these few the attainment of beauty still matters here and elsewhere. London is still the greatest city of the world; it is no less true than in Dr. Johnson's day that, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; but it is difficult for any one who has lived for thirty years in its midst to look patiently on while the lessons of the war are forgotten and the debt owing to all who died in the war is repudiated. This lapse into futility is, perhaps, only a temporary reaction from the war; no man, thinking otherwise, would want to go on living, for in little more than thirty years the generation of which the time has now come to take leave has lost the greater part of those things which it valued. For a few, their country has been handed over to the blind violence and madness of anarchy; for more, their political idols have been flung on their faces; for all, their relations and friends have died in scores. The world of the survivors, like that corner of it in which they assembled at Oxford, is peopled with shades; the mood of the survivors is that of H. W. Garrod, when he wrote hisIntruders.

"One day, I knew, it had to be:Sooner or later I must seeAnother race of men invadeRooms which the men I knew had made,With books, with pictures on the wall,With pipes and caps, with bat or ball,Obscurely individual.I hate your steps upon the stair,Your vacant voices on the air ...I hate your chatter overhead.And your jests that fall like leadWhere only golden things were saidBy the men that are dead, the men that are dead."

It is not a mood of resignation or acquiescence, but of resolution, hope and preparation to pay a debt and to take up, with hands howsoever much enfeebled and reduced, the task left unfinished "by the men that are dead." "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church"; and, unless that seed bring forth a spirit of peace abroad and of community at home, the blood will have been spilled to no purpose. The survivors of this decimated generation have to resist, to control or to convert the languid fatalists who would drift helplessly and hopelessly into revolution or into another war; they have to subdue and to convince the anarchist of Hyde Park and of Park Lane, to drive "blood-sucker" from the lips of the one and "Bolshevist" from the lips of the other, to mitigate the credulity alike of those who find Russian gold in the pocket of every opponent and of those who scent in all opposition a plot for enslaving the proletariat. In a country that has endured, bleeding but alive, after four years and three months of fighting, there must be no talk of class-wars: and it must be realised that the miscreant who bases political salvation on the lamp-posts of Whitehall is own brother to the miscreant who would win economic peace by shooting strike-leaders. If the war has not made of the English, at least, a united people, the task lies ready to the hand of those liberals who have survived it; if they lack a leader, it is only for a moment.

One movement is ended. Anintermezzois playing, perhaps is already drawing to a close. Soon the new movement will begin.

"This world has been harsh and strange;Something is wrong: there needeth a change.But what, or where? at the last or first?In one point only we sinned, at worst.The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet,And again in his border see Israel set.When Judah beholds Jerusalem,The stranger-seed shall be joined to them.To Jacob's House shall the Gentiles cleave,So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.Ay, the children of the chosen raceShall carry and bring them to their place:In the land of the Lord shall lead the same,Bondsmen and handmaids...."

THE END

FOOTNOTES:[1]Once when Charles II visited Westminster, Busby, the head master, conducted him into school without uncovering: it would never do, he explained, for the boys to think that there was any one greater than himself. When the present king attended the pancake greeze, Dr. Gow related this story; the king at once commanded him to resume his cap.[2]Mon. Stat., forMonitor Stationis.[3]A contraction for "Volsci", the enemies of the "Romans",i.e., the Westminsters of many generations ago.[4]In such histories of intellectual development as I have read, too little attention is paid to the dates at which certain copyrights have expired and the other dates at which "popular editions" have been issued. Cheap printing, often aided by this new freedom to print, made available to the boys of my generation a vast literature of history, biology, politics, economics and theology. Darwin, Huxley, J. S. Mill and Carlyle were but a few of those who lay at our disposal.[5]Until Irish and English cease to put their trust in allegorical caricatures, there can be no sympathetic understanding between them. Mr. Max Beerbohm has written of the disillusion which he sustained on finding that all bishops were not as Du Maurier had drawn them forPunch; and it seems to be a natural failing of the English to see themselves and others in the terms of a Tenniel cartoon. Until the war, every German was blonde, fat, mild and spectacled, with an equal love for sausages, beer, music, metaphysics and a long, china-bowled pipe; the Frenchman, in conical tall-hat, loose tie and peg-top trousers, was excitable and gesticulatory, but polite and—after theententeand before the arrival of Carpentier—a man of whom much might be made if he could be interested in field sports. The American, thin, tall and chin-bearded, with fob-pockets and straps to his trousers, was pregnantly deliberate in the artlessly blended dialect of an East-Side saloon-keeper and a Middle-West farmer, while the indolent but dogged John Bull was made the emblem of stupid honesty, good sportsmanship and love of fair play; he was represented as being charged, rather against his inclination, with an imperial mission and as being endowed with a special skill in administering an empire; he was credited with a marrow-deep love of liberty and a genius for self-government. Even the war has done little to disturb these complacent hallucinations.[6]While this book was writing, I learned to my own regret and to the abiding loss of the House, that Dr. Strong, an Old Westminster, had been appointed to the bishopric of Ripon.[7]From time to time the regular speakers went on strike. It was then usual for one to propose the motion "That something be now done" and to secure that it was not carried, thus holding up all public business indefinitely. At Univ., I believe, it was customary to open the proceedings of the "Shakespeare" with a resolution "That the Bard be not read."[8]In these years Ronald Knox, Patrick Shaw-Stewart and Charles Lister occupied a place once filled by Raymond Asquith and, before him, shared by John Simon, F. E. Smith, Hilaire Belloc and E. G. Hemmerde.[9]I am informed by my friend, Captain Stephen Holmes, M.C., to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions, that the use of the guest-table had to be suspended owing to the rush of new members to the House in 1919.[10]One man became so much obsessed by the universality of a school in which all knowledge had a place, if he could but find it, that he was discovered on the morning of his examination committing to memory the statement of theMorning Postthat Lady X had left Hill Street for Scotland; somehow, he felt, this had a bearing on modern history; and I have no doubt that he used the information to illustrate a point of manorial tenure or to differentiate between the life of the new nobility and that described by Tacitus in theGermania.[11]I write of 1906-9, before women were admitted to degrees or accorded an academic position or costume.[12]Once a year the Gilbert and Sullivan operas came to Oxford; the booking opened a week in advance, and a queue stretched the length of George Street and half-way down the Corn. For days before and afterwards every piano in the college was tinkling with "The Silver Church" or the "Peers' Chorus." And we, in 1909, were privileged to entertain at luncheon Fred Billington, a great comedian and the greatest of all Pooh Bahs; fifteen or twenty of us, of the true Gilbert and Sullivan faith, shyly fed him with roast turkey and plum pudding, and he too was a little shy, suspecting some practical joke.The visitor is sometimes surprised that the New Theatre contains no boxes; the reason was supplied, in my day, by a famous living actor, who explained that he and his friends had attended a melodrama in the old theatre and had taken an uncontrollable dislike for the villain's trousers. As Æschylus undertook to finish any prologue of Euripides with the words "ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν," so this undergraduate party qualified the villain's every boast and confession with the words: "Notin those trousers."The dialogue ran roughly thus:Villain.I will carry the girl off and make her my wife——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.Villain.I will be revenged——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.Villain.I will stick at nothing——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.As the curtain fell on the first act, the interrupters leapt from their box on the stage and pursued the villain down the Corn and the High until they captured him on Magdalen Bridge. They then returned to the theatre with the offending trousers but without the villain.Jowett, as vice-chancellor, decreed that in the new theatre no boxes should be built.[13]The late Sir Edward Cook once did me the honour to quote the words of one of my own characters: "I am tempted to wonder whether it much matters what a man be taught, so long as he meet enough men who have been taught something else." Therein lies the difference between university education and all other kinds.[14]It is hardly possible to think of Oxford in those years without thinking of the second volume ofSinister Streetand of the great picture in which Compton Mackenzie's observation, memory and delicate realization of atmosphere were so triumphantly blended. At the House we had, no doubt, a stereotyped conception of the "typical" New College man; Balliol, no doubt, had its conventional idea of the average St. John's man; it was left to Compton Mackenzie to shew, from the angle of Magdalen, the reaction of the Exeter "type" on the imagination of Univ. The book is confined within the limits which Oxford of necessity imposes on herself as the theme or background of a novel; Oxford is a phase through which youth passes, a kingdom wherein it tarries, a hive where it grows and works towards maturity; it is not generally a scene of romance, of spiritual crisis or emotional clash; and, because most novels on Oxford persist in forcing drama into the least dramatic lives, they stand condemned as psychological confusions. It is a kingdom of youth because youth is made comfortably secure from the material conflicts of conventional drama; and youth, however intensely interested in itself, does not regard its spiritual conflicts seriously, it no longer agonizes in doubt nor wrestles in prayer, and, if it fall in love, ecstacy will disturb its digestion as little as despair will derange its slumbers. And the novelist of Oxford who writes with perspective and a sense of the appropriate must treat his material as youth awakening but not yet awake and as youth snugly protected from reality.For this reason and under these limitations, all women, all men who do not know Oxford and even the men who do will, in that order, be prudently advised to leave Oxford alone; afterSinister Street, with its analysis and atmosphere, its restraint and its consummate handling of countless figures on a giant canvas, there is no room for a book conceived on similar lines or scale; the novelist must force upon Oxford something which Oxford disowns or he may turn disgustedly away from a place where innumerable people talk and think endlessly about something that does not matter to any one else and where nothing ever happens.[15]The House went head of the river in 1907 and remained there for the rest of my time, an achievement to be periodically celebrated with a triumphant bump-supper, fire-works and a bonfire which once afforded to some an opportunity of venting their displeasure on the Oxford Pageant stands.[16]Mark Twain was the recipient of an honorary degree in these years, and the welcome accorded him was characteristic. By an unhappy coincidence certain news-bills had appeared with the words: "ARRIVAL OF MARK TWAIN IN ENGLAND. THEFT OF ASCOT GOLD CUP." Before he was allowed to take his degree, an untiring undergraduate chorus demanded to know: "Now, Mark, what did you do with the Gold Cup?" His reply I never heard; it was probably adequate, though occasionally he met his match in repartee. Once when he was staying in England as a young man, the income-tax authorities sent him an assessment form which he referred to Queen Victoria with the statement that he had not the honour to be one of her subjects; she must forgive his writing to her, because, though he did not know her, he had once had the pleasure of meeting her son. "He," said Mark Twain, "was driving in his coach of state to St. Paul's, and I was on the top of a 'bus." Many years later, when he returned to England in his glory, he was presented to King Edward who said that he was glad to meet him again. "Again, sir?" echoed Mark Twain. "Have you forgotten our first meeting?" asked the king. "I was in my coach of state, driving to St. Paul's, and you were on the top of a 'bus."[17]Lord Wolmer, the late W. G. C. Gladstone and the late Francis McLaren are the only exceptions that I recall in my own time.[18]The phrase is borrowed from my friend, Walter Roch.[19]The parliament which ultimately conceded the vote was substantially the same that had refused it in 1913; its "mandate" was still primarily for the parliament bill and the bills covered by that; but the war changed, with other things, the responsibility of a member to his constituents and the new franchise was granted by men with no more authority to grant it than to abolish the monarchy or to make marriage compulsory.[20]The name applied to themselves by members of a party which is Scottish in origin and which has, in the course of history, repudiated its allegiance to the Catholic Church and the Stuart dynasty and threatened to repudiate its allegiance to the Hanoverian dynasty.[21]These quotations are taken from Mr. Hugh Martin'sIreland in Insurrection.[22]This and the following quotations are taken fromThe Complete Grammar of Anarchycompiled by Mr. J. J. Horgan.[23]But not Viscount Grey.[24]Anatole France, inLes Dieux ont soif, which was written several years before the war of 1914, gives a few specimens of the portents and rumours which agitated Paris when the armies of the allies were marching against the revolutionary government. They were, almost without exception, reproduced in England in the first month of the war.[25]W. G. C. Gladstone: A Memoir.By Viscount Gladstone.[26]I am told that a similar herd-hallucination overtook Paris in the war of 1870. A rumour that the Crown Prince's army had been surrounded and that the news was posted at the Hôtel de Ville brought the inhabitants by thousands into the streets till those who were pressed against the Hôtel de Ville and those who were farthest away alike maintained that they had read the official report.[27]Generosity and war seem incompatible!Wellington.It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.The finest cavalry commander, he,That wears a foreign plume; ay, probablyThe whole world through!Spirit Ironic.And when that matchless chiefSentenced shall lie to ignominious deathBut technically deserved, no finger heWho speaks will lift to save him!Spirit of the Pities.To his shame.We must discount war's generous impulsesI sadly see.Thomas Hardy:The Dynasts.[28]I remained at Westminster a year, judging that period to be as long as I could support the daily risk of detection by pupils or colleagues. Sometimes—now that it is all over—I blush to think of the subjects that I essayed to teach; and sometimes I blush to recall the lessons that I actually taught. Since leaving, I have seen my year's work passed in more candid review than was possible at the time and have been honoured with a place in the repertory of imitations in which Westminsters love to indulge whenever two or three are gathered together. If one or two of my least promising pupils pay me the compliment of saying that I taught them at least something, one or two of the most promising now ask me how it was that I never discovered them cribbing in form or thrusting strange gifts down the necks of their neighbours. Our warfare was waged with good humour for the most part, though only a schoolmaster knows how highly his sense of justice may be tested in dealing with some one who is personally antagonistic to him. With many I am proud to say that I made lasting friendships: during the later years of the war I received letters from every front and my old pupils came to see me when they were on leave; since the war they write from Africa and America, I meet them in London and Oxford, we abandon ourselves to school "shop", and they embarrass me by occasionally addressing me as "sir". To my friends of the Modern Transitus from Play Term, 1914, to Election Term, 1915, to the Classical Transitus, the Modern Sixth, the Mathematical Sixth, the History Sixth and the Seventh, wherever you may be, I send greeting; my injustice was unintentional, my incompetence incurable; I should be well pleased to think that your memories of me are a hundredth part as kindly as my memories of you. For perhaps the first three cautious days you were a little awed by me: the cap and gown were imposing. I was taller than any of you, as an Old Westminster I knew too much about detention school and penal drill; above all, I also had lived in Arcady and had sat at those very desks not ten years before; does it comfort you to know that my awe of you continued for three terms? If ever the prayer-bell had not rung before I shewed that I could not solve some diabolical equation! If you had argued a little more confidently against my magisterial rulings! If you could have seen into my mind during the first week, when I took down your names, ranged you in alphabetical order and guided myself despairingly by the two red-heads in the form![29]I believe that the Education Office section, appropriately enough, threw into Latin elegiacs the general confession beginning: "My beat extends from (the sentry-box) to (the gate on Constitution Hill) and must be patrolled regularly ..."; I never saw a copy.[30]When Lord Emmott, the Director of the War Trade Department, invited me to serve under him in the summer of 1915, I intended to come only for the school holidays; as, however, the work of the blockade increased steadily, I asked Dr. Gow to release me for as long as I might be wanted.[31]As it had been in existence for five months before I entered it, I can only describe its early history from hearsay.[32]Six years before, on the first night ofThe Blue Bird, I remember constructing from the name of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos a mental picture of some one very tall, very thin, very dark and saturnine, with a long amber cigarette-holder and a single eyeglass depending from a broad black ribbon. I had not then seen Max Beerbohm's caricature of him; and, at our first meeting, I murmured to myself, as hundreds have done before and since: "Of course! The old sheep inAlice Through the Looking-Glass." As hundreds have done before and since, I surrendered to his charm; and there is no friend to whom I owe more. For over three years we worked together, many hours a day for six days a week; our minds and moods found something always in common; in five years there cannot have been many days on which we did not meet or telephone or write. In the next five years may there be as few!I am not alone in fashioning an imaginary figure to bear such a name. I am told that a distinguished black-and-white artist, meeting the name fortuitously, would walk pensively through the streets of London thereafter, searching the faces of the passers-by for one that would fit his ideal, Alexander-Teixeira-de-Mattos conception. And, when they met, I wonder if the artist was as much frightened as every newcomer to the department. On my second morning I looked up suddenly into a white impassive face; eyes unchanging in expression regarded me through the tortoise-shell spectacles which bestrid the impressive nose; the mouth was tightly-shut; neither word nor movement explained this paralysing figure which had glided to my table like some wandering sphinx. "I am not sure whether your minute intends to convey ..." he began at length and to my indescribable relief. Fear departed with that word, and we collaborated in redrawing the minute. Sometimes the Teixeira panic spread to distant committees which only knew his exquisite handwriting and his disabling knowledge of English; they hastened to do his bidding and to avert his wrath; no chairman likes to apologize twice for "the curiously pococurantist attitude of your committee", few care even to have the apology accepted with the words that consigned so many controversial files to oblivion: "Pray say no more. A.T."[33]Sir Ian Hamilton'sGallipoli Diaryis one of many military documents that shew that civilian morale at home cracked before the morale of the soldiers under fire. There was a fantastic legend that the English were unvaryingly calm and resolute, with a calmness and resolution that became calmer and more resolute with every demand. Nothing is farther from the truth. There was a panic when the Amiens despatch was published; and every outburst of popular violence or madness had panic as its origin and explanation. The spy-mania, the attack on Lord Haldane, the conscription campaign, the hunt for aliens and, finally, the Pemberton-Billing case were each in turn the result of a panic caused by accumulated despondency or by the violent despair induced by a sudden reverse. The east-end Jews who cowered in tube stations during air-raids had their own means of shewing fear; but it was not the only means.[34]This is becoming a conventional aftermath of any war in which the vanquished is so heavily defeated that he has to make a superhuman effort to galvanize his country into new life. The same alarms were spread by the Germans about the French in 1875.[35]"It is said," writes Mr. Walter Roch inMr. Lloyd George and the War, "that as a result of this Conference ('the Constitutional Conference which sat in secret between the two General Elections in 1910, and tried to reach a settlement of the constitutional issue, by agreement'), in the course of which a wide range of topics must have been discussed, Mr. Lloyd George then proposed, and committed to writing, a scheme for a Coalition Government which would settle the question of the House of Lords and Home Rule, adopt some form of National Service, and finance the Navy by means of a loan. But the details of this scheme are only vaguely known and add to our confusion."I am not aware, however, that the allegation has ever been denied.[36]I have ventured to enumerate, twice within a few pages, the chief causes of despondency at the end of 1916: the same thought-wave, given off from the same psychological effervescence, convinced President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George that the allies were beaten to their knees; the one was inspired to throw the resources of America into the struggle, the other to take personal charge of the war.[37]1920.[38]Sir Ian Malcolm was inspired by this memorandum to write his "rhymed endeavour to convey the contents of a grave 'pronunciamento' on deportment: compiled (it is believed) by Lord Eustace Percy and issued to the Members of the Mission before landing in the New World." The poem appears among the "Mission Hymns" inStuff—And Nonsense."Circular Notes"To the MissionIn your hours of ease, I beg youMissionaries, one and all,Read, mark, learn, digest and pass onThis concise Encyclical.You will find its interest chaining—Sometimes even entertaining.First of all you must rememberThat you go to U.S.A.,To a land of candid critics;So be careful what you say.I shan't mind the least if somePeople think you're deaf and dumb.If with questions you are pesteredBy the Press for news athirst,Do not risk replying till you'veWired home for instructions first.Heaven knows what might occurIf you answered "on the spur."E.G.: "Why bring re-made soldiersOn your diplomatic stunt?"Should the ready lie elude youGive a non-committal grunt,Or remark with pungent wit"Miles nascitur non fit."(Note: for General T. Bridges—Please observe a strict disguise;Don't appear in medalled khakiOr regard their martial cries.If they cap you, don't salute;If they challenge you, don't shoot.)Should they ask if England's starving,You may answer, "Look at me,Do I seem emaciatedOr in need of sympathy?"If you have the indigestion,Ask for notice of the question.Very possibly they'll ask you"What is happening in Greece?""What about the Spring Offensive?"Or what day the war will cease.You should say, "I've no idea,"And manœuvre for the rear.There is just one other matterWhich diplomacy dictatesShould be handled with discretionIn non-alcoholic States;'Twould be well received, I think,If the Mission didn't drink.That completes the list of topicsI would have you bear in mind;To sum up: I urge my colleaguesTo be deaf and dumb—not "blind."Please observe punctiliouslyThese injunctions.s.s. Olympic.————————————A. J. B.[39]This was, of course, before the great explosion.[40]It was, I believe, originally intended that no speeches should be delivered; but, when M. Viviani felt that he ought to say a few words on behalf of the French, Mr. Balfour could not do less than speak on behalf of his own mission. There was no time to prepare a formal oration, but the exquisite phrasing of his inscription was at least not less impressive than any speech. The original sheet of paper on which it was written has been, I understand, chemically treated against fading or decay and preserved among the historical records of the United States."M. Viviani," said Mr. Balfour, "has expressed in most eloquent words the feelings which grip us all here to-day. He has not only paid a fitting tribute to a great statesman, but he has brought our thoughts most vividly down to the present. The thousands who have given their lives, French, Russian, Italian, Belgian, Servian, Montenegrin, Roumanian, Japanese and British, were fighting for what they believed to be the cause of liberty."There is no place in the world where a speech for the cause of liberty would be better placed than here at the tomb of Washington. But as that work has been so adequately done by a master of oratory, perhaps you will permit me to read a few words prepared by the British mission for the wreath we are to leave here to-day:"'Dedicated by the British mission to the immortal memory of George Washington, soldier, statesman, patriot, who would have rejoiced to see the country of which he was by birth a citizen and the country which his genius called into existence fighting side by side to save mankind from subjection to a military despotism.'"[41]It is sad to record that the unwonted strain and exertion were too much for the advanced age of Mr. Choate, who died the following day; yet I doubt whether he could have chosen a happier moment for death than that which saw the great ambition of his life realised in the cordial friendship and whole-hearted cooperation of the United States and Great Britain.[42]Sir William Peterson, then Principal of M'Gill University. While writing this book, I received by wireless, on my way to South America, the sad news of his death.[43]In fact, General Pershing crossed independently.[44]Judge Amos, now Judicial Adviser in Cairo, endorses the substantial truth of the report which circulated about his chess-playing at this time. A tall man with a folding pocket-chessboard and a coloured silk handkerchief containing an incomplete set of chessmen might have been observed at almost any hour of the day or night prowling the deck with a preoccupied air and seeking to lure any one into playing with him. Those who knew the moves promptly beat him; those who did not know the moves had them lucidly explained—and then beat him as promptly. He had, I believe, exhausted the 6,000 Canadian troops, the ship's company and the other members of the mission before approaching that corner of the smoking-room in which, according to the story, I was sitting with an expression of imbecility calculated to suggest that I could not play chess and would not learn. He persevered with his explanation and after five minutes challenged me to a game. I hate to record that he did not win it.[45]The phrase is borrowed from Mr. Asquith.[46]One of the last words, in a long list beginning with "Armageddon," to hypnotize the newspaper-reader.[47]One evening I entered Covent Garden after the curtain had risen. "M. Kerenski?" enquired the sole occupant of the box, peering at me through the gloom. "I beg your pardon! I see that he landed in England this afternoon."[48]At the risk of a prophecy I would suggest that Masefield'sGallipolihas a lasting place in the treasury of great English prose, so long, at least, as our present canons of perfection in prose-style are maintained.[49]I am not limiting myself strictly to those war-books which had been published by the date of the armistice.[50]"Honestly, I do not care about the clever people," confessed 'Lady Maybury'. "I find themborné, self-centred, touchy, and embarrassing. They havenoconversation, and they always ask me if I was at Ranelagh last Saturday. Have you ever observed that?"[51]At Oxford I first heard the couplet which tells how"From out their different tubsStubbs butters Freeman,Freeman butters Stubbs,"it was quoted by one member of a prolific triumvirate which then filled a considerable proportion of the critical journals. In those days it was hardly possible to read an article by A which did not contain a panegyric of B's latest book; it was no less difficult to read B's book without meeting a reference to what had been "most justly observed by C."[52]The volume of hostile reviews, surely too great to be spontaneous and independent, which greetedThe Autobiography of Margot Asquith, was only less remarkable than the success which the book achieved in spite of them.[53]It will not have been forgotten that, in 1920, a cinematograph actress received a welcome to London which may have been equalled by crowned heads, but has, I should think, never been surpassed. Wherever she went, the streets were thronged; in its desire to see her, the crowd at a theatrical garden party nearly crushed her to death. Would Madame Curie, I wonder, have secured a single cheer? Would Miss Nightingale have been recognised?[54]The temptation to make class-lists is almost irresistible: I have been taken to task for saying in an introduction to Couperus'Old People and the Things That Passthat it was one of the world's half-dozen greatest novels; but the temptation should be resisted, for the proof of our fallibility is ever before our eyes.[55]On the first night ofL'Heure espagnolea devil entered into one member of the audience and tempted him to murmur at any open door: "Is this not extraordinarily reminiscent of Aïda?" Complete and immediate agreement was his reward.[56]Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.It is natural for Balliol to gravitate to the cabinet; and distinction was lent to the business government by the presence of Lord Curzon.[57]Memorandumto the cabinet by lord milner on his visit to france,including the conference at doullens, march 26th, 1918.The Prime Minister having asked me to run over to France in order to report to the Cabinet personally on the position of affairs there, I left Charing Cross at 12.50 on Sunday, March 24th....On arrival at Doullens I was at once seized by Clemenceau, who startled me by the announcement that Haig had just declared that he would be obliged to uncover Amiens and fall back on the Channel ports. I told him I felt sure there must be some misunderstanding about this, and that before the general Conference I thought it was desirable that I should have a short conversation with the Field-Marshal and the Army Commanders, whom I had not yet seen....The views of the British Commanders having thus been cleared up, the Conference assembled.... I asked whether I might have a word with Clemenceau alone. I then told him quite frankly of the conviction which had been growing in my mind ever since the previous day, and had been confirmed by my conversations with Wilson and Haig, that Foch appeared to me to be the man who had the greatest grasp of the situation, and was most likely to deal with it with the intensest energy. Could not he be placed by both the Governments in a position of general control, and given the sort of authority which he (Foch) had himself suggested to Wilson? Clemenceau, whose own mind, I am sure, had been steadily moving in the same direction, at once agreed, but he asked for a few minutes to speak to Pétain. While he took Pétain aside, I did the same with Haig. While I explained to the latter what was contemplated, he seemed not only quite willing, but really pleased. Meanwhile, Clemenceau had spoken to Pétain, and immediately wrote and handed me the following form of words, to embody what he and I had just agreed to:Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées britanniques et françaises sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les deux généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.I showed this to Haig, who readily accepted it, but suggested that it should be extended to cover the other armies—Belgian, American and possibly Italian—that might be employed on the present Franco-British front. To this Clemenceau at once agreed. We then all went back to the table. The amended formula, which ran as follows:Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées alliées sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.Doullens,le 26 mars, 1918.was read out, and after a very short discussion, which amounted to nothing more than cordial approval of the principle by all the speakers, the document was signed by Clemenceau and myself, and the Conference immediately rose with every appearance of general satisfaction....This quotation is taken from the special supplement toThe New Statesmanof 23 April, 1921.

[1]Once when Charles II visited Westminster, Busby, the head master, conducted him into school without uncovering: it would never do, he explained, for the boys to think that there was any one greater than himself. When the present king attended the pancake greeze, Dr. Gow related this story; the king at once commanded him to resume his cap.[2]Mon. Stat., forMonitor Stationis.[3]A contraction for "Volsci", the enemies of the "Romans",i.e., the Westminsters of many generations ago.[4]In such histories of intellectual development as I have read, too little attention is paid to the dates at which certain copyrights have expired and the other dates at which "popular editions" have been issued. Cheap printing, often aided by this new freedom to print, made available to the boys of my generation a vast literature of history, biology, politics, economics and theology. Darwin, Huxley, J. S. Mill and Carlyle were but a few of those who lay at our disposal.[5]Until Irish and English cease to put their trust in allegorical caricatures, there can be no sympathetic understanding between them. Mr. Max Beerbohm has written of the disillusion which he sustained on finding that all bishops were not as Du Maurier had drawn them forPunch; and it seems to be a natural failing of the English to see themselves and others in the terms of a Tenniel cartoon. Until the war, every German was blonde, fat, mild and spectacled, with an equal love for sausages, beer, music, metaphysics and a long, china-bowled pipe; the Frenchman, in conical tall-hat, loose tie and peg-top trousers, was excitable and gesticulatory, but polite and—after theententeand before the arrival of Carpentier—a man of whom much might be made if he could be interested in field sports. The American, thin, tall and chin-bearded, with fob-pockets and straps to his trousers, was pregnantly deliberate in the artlessly blended dialect of an East-Side saloon-keeper and a Middle-West farmer, while the indolent but dogged John Bull was made the emblem of stupid honesty, good sportsmanship and love of fair play; he was represented as being charged, rather against his inclination, with an imperial mission and as being endowed with a special skill in administering an empire; he was credited with a marrow-deep love of liberty and a genius for self-government. Even the war has done little to disturb these complacent hallucinations.[6]While this book was writing, I learned to my own regret and to the abiding loss of the House, that Dr. Strong, an Old Westminster, had been appointed to the bishopric of Ripon.[7]From time to time the regular speakers went on strike. It was then usual for one to propose the motion "That something be now done" and to secure that it was not carried, thus holding up all public business indefinitely. At Univ., I believe, it was customary to open the proceedings of the "Shakespeare" with a resolution "That the Bard be not read."[8]In these years Ronald Knox, Patrick Shaw-Stewart and Charles Lister occupied a place once filled by Raymond Asquith and, before him, shared by John Simon, F. E. Smith, Hilaire Belloc and E. G. Hemmerde.[9]I am informed by my friend, Captain Stephen Holmes, M.C., to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions, that the use of the guest-table had to be suspended owing to the rush of new members to the House in 1919.[10]One man became so much obsessed by the universality of a school in which all knowledge had a place, if he could but find it, that he was discovered on the morning of his examination committing to memory the statement of theMorning Postthat Lady X had left Hill Street for Scotland; somehow, he felt, this had a bearing on modern history; and I have no doubt that he used the information to illustrate a point of manorial tenure or to differentiate between the life of the new nobility and that described by Tacitus in theGermania.[11]I write of 1906-9, before women were admitted to degrees or accorded an academic position or costume.[12]Once a year the Gilbert and Sullivan operas came to Oxford; the booking opened a week in advance, and a queue stretched the length of George Street and half-way down the Corn. For days before and afterwards every piano in the college was tinkling with "The Silver Church" or the "Peers' Chorus." And we, in 1909, were privileged to entertain at luncheon Fred Billington, a great comedian and the greatest of all Pooh Bahs; fifteen or twenty of us, of the true Gilbert and Sullivan faith, shyly fed him with roast turkey and plum pudding, and he too was a little shy, suspecting some practical joke.The visitor is sometimes surprised that the New Theatre contains no boxes; the reason was supplied, in my day, by a famous living actor, who explained that he and his friends had attended a melodrama in the old theatre and had taken an uncontrollable dislike for the villain's trousers. As Æschylus undertook to finish any prologue of Euripides with the words "ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν," so this undergraduate party qualified the villain's every boast and confession with the words: "Notin those trousers."The dialogue ran roughly thus:Villain.I will carry the girl off and make her my wife——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.Villain.I will be revenged——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.Villain.I will stick at nothing——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.As the curtain fell on the first act, the interrupters leapt from their box on the stage and pursued the villain down the Corn and the High until they captured him on Magdalen Bridge. They then returned to the theatre with the offending trousers but without the villain.Jowett, as vice-chancellor, decreed that in the new theatre no boxes should be built.[13]The late Sir Edward Cook once did me the honour to quote the words of one of my own characters: "I am tempted to wonder whether it much matters what a man be taught, so long as he meet enough men who have been taught something else." Therein lies the difference between university education and all other kinds.[14]It is hardly possible to think of Oxford in those years without thinking of the second volume ofSinister Streetand of the great picture in which Compton Mackenzie's observation, memory and delicate realization of atmosphere were so triumphantly blended. At the House we had, no doubt, a stereotyped conception of the "typical" New College man; Balliol, no doubt, had its conventional idea of the average St. John's man; it was left to Compton Mackenzie to shew, from the angle of Magdalen, the reaction of the Exeter "type" on the imagination of Univ. The book is confined within the limits which Oxford of necessity imposes on herself as the theme or background of a novel; Oxford is a phase through which youth passes, a kingdom wherein it tarries, a hive where it grows and works towards maturity; it is not generally a scene of romance, of spiritual crisis or emotional clash; and, because most novels on Oxford persist in forcing drama into the least dramatic lives, they stand condemned as psychological confusions. It is a kingdom of youth because youth is made comfortably secure from the material conflicts of conventional drama; and youth, however intensely interested in itself, does not regard its spiritual conflicts seriously, it no longer agonizes in doubt nor wrestles in prayer, and, if it fall in love, ecstacy will disturb its digestion as little as despair will derange its slumbers. And the novelist of Oxford who writes with perspective and a sense of the appropriate must treat his material as youth awakening but not yet awake and as youth snugly protected from reality.For this reason and under these limitations, all women, all men who do not know Oxford and even the men who do will, in that order, be prudently advised to leave Oxford alone; afterSinister Street, with its analysis and atmosphere, its restraint and its consummate handling of countless figures on a giant canvas, there is no room for a book conceived on similar lines or scale; the novelist must force upon Oxford something which Oxford disowns or he may turn disgustedly away from a place where innumerable people talk and think endlessly about something that does not matter to any one else and where nothing ever happens.[15]The House went head of the river in 1907 and remained there for the rest of my time, an achievement to be periodically celebrated with a triumphant bump-supper, fire-works and a bonfire which once afforded to some an opportunity of venting their displeasure on the Oxford Pageant stands.[16]Mark Twain was the recipient of an honorary degree in these years, and the welcome accorded him was characteristic. By an unhappy coincidence certain news-bills had appeared with the words: "ARRIVAL OF MARK TWAIN IN ENGLAND. THEFT OF ASCOT GOLD CUP." Before he was allowed to take his degree, an untiring undergraduate chorus demanded to know: "Now, Mark, what did you do with the Gold Cup?" His reply I never heard; it was probably adequate, though occasionally he met his match in repartee. Once when he was staying in England as a young man, the income-tax authorities sent him an assessment form which he referred to Queen Victoria with the statement that he had not the honour to be one of her subjects; she must forgive his writing to her, because, though he did not know her, he had once had the pleasure of meeting her son. "He," said Mark Twain, "was driving in his coach of state to St. Paul's, and I was on the top of a 'bus." Many years later, when he returned to England in his glory, he was presented to King Edward who said that he was glad to meet him again. "Again, sir?" echoed Mark Twain. "Have you forgotten our first meeting?" asked the king. "I was in my coach of state, driving to St. Paul's, and you were on the top of a 'bus."[17]Lord Wolmer, the late W. G. C. Gladstone and the late Francis McLaren are the only exceptions that I recall in my own time.[18]The phrase is borrowed from my friend, Walter Roch.[19]The parliament which ultimately conceded the vote was substantially the same that had refused it in 1913; its "mandate" was still primarily for the parliament bill and the bills covered by that; but the war changed, with other things, the responsibility of a member to his constituents and the new franchise was granted by men with no more authority to grant it than to abolish the monarchy or to make marriage compulsory.[20]The name applied to themselves by members of a party which is Scottish in origin and which has, in the course of history, repudiated its allegiance to the Catholic Church and the Stuart dynasty and threatened to repudiate its allegiance to the Hanoverian dynasty.[21]These quotations are taken from Mr. Hugh Martin'sIreland in Insurrection.[22]This and the following quotations are taken fromThe Complete Grammar of Anarchycompiled by Mr. J. J. Horgan.[23]But not Viscount Grey.[24]Anatole France, inLes Dieux ont soif, which was written several years before the war of 1914, gives a few specimens of the portents and rumours which agitated Paris when the armies of the allies were marching against the revolutionary government. They were, almost without exception, reproduced in England in the first month of the war.[25]W. G. C. Gladstone: A Memoir.By Viscount Gladstone.[26]I am told that a similar herd-hallucination overtook Paris in the war of 1870. A rumour that the Crown Prince's army had been surrounded and that the news was posted at the Hôtel de Ville brought the inhabitants by thousands into the streets till those who were pressed against the Hôtel de Ville and those who were farthest away alike maintained that they had read the official report.[27]Generosity and war seem incompatible!Wellington.It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.The finest cavalry commander, he,That wears a foreign plume; ay, probablyThe whole world through!Spirit Ironic.And when that matchless chiefSentenced shall lie to ignominious deathBut technically deserved, no finger heWho speaks will lift to save him!Spirit of the Pities.To his shame.We must discount war's generous impulsesI sadly see.Thomas Hardy:The Dynasts.[28]I remained at Westminster a year, judging that period to be as long as I could support the daily risk of detection by pupils or colleagues. Sometimes—now that it is all over—I blush to think of the subjects that I essayed to teach; and sometimes I blush to recall the lessons that I actually taught. Since leaving, I have seen my year's work passed in more candid review than was possible at the time and have been honoured with a place in the repertory of imitations in which Westminsters love to indulge whenever two or three are gathered together. If one or two of my least promising pupils pay me the compliment of saying that I taught them at least something, one or two of the most promising now ask me how it was that I never discovered them cribbing in form or thrusting strange gifts down the necks of their neighbours. Our warfare was waged with good humour for the most part, though only a schoolmaster knows how highly his sense of justice may be tested in dealing with some one who is personally antagonistic to him. With many I am proud to say that I made lasting friendships: during the later years of the war I received letters from every front and my old pupils came to see me when they were on leave; since the war they write from Africa and America, I meet them in London and Oxford, we abandon ourselves to school "shop", and they embarrass me by occasionally addressing me as "sir". To my friends of the Modern Transitus from Play Term, 1914, to Election Term, 1915, to the Classical Transitus, the Modern Sixth, the Mathematical Sixth, the History Sixth and the Seventh, wherever you may be, I send greeting; my injustice was unintentional, my incompetence incurable; I should be well pleased to think that your memories of me are a hundredth part as kindly as my memories of you. For perhaps the first three cautious days you were a little awed by me: the cap and gown were imposing. I was taller than any of you, as an Old Westminster I knew too much about detention school and penal drill; above all, I also had lived in Arcady and had sat at those very desks not ten years before; does it comfort you to know that my awe of you continued for three terms? If ever the prayer-bell had not rung before I shewed that I could not solve some diabolical equation! If you had argued a little more confidently against my magisterial rulings! If you could have seen into my mind during the first week, when I took down your names, ranged you in alphabetical order and guided myself despairingly by the two red-heads in the form![29]I believe that the Education Office section, appropriately enough, threw into Latin elegiacs the general confession beginning: "My beat extends from (the sentry-box) to (the gate on Constitution Hill) and must be patrolled regularly ..."; I never saw a copy.[30]When Lord Emmott, the Director of the War Trade Department, invited me to serve under him in the summer of 1915, I intended to come only for the school holidays; as, however, the work of the blockade increased steadily, I asked Dr. Gow to release me for as long as I might be wanted.[31]As it had been in existence for five months before I entered it, I can only describe its early history from hearsay.[32]Six years before, on the first night ofThe Blue Bird, I remember constructing from the name of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos a mental picture of some one very tall, very thin, very dark and saturnine, with a long amber cigarette-holder and a single eyeglass depending from a broad black ribbon. I had not then seen Max Beerbohm's caricature of him; and, at our first meeting, I murmured to myself, as hundreds have done before and since: "Of course! The old sheep inAlice Through the Looking-Glass." As hundreds have done before and since, I surrendered to his charm; and there is no friend to whom I owe more. For over three years we worked together, many hours a day for six days a week; our minds and moods found something always in common; in five years there cannot have been many days on which we did not meet or telephone or write. In the next five years may there be as few!I am not alone in fashioning an imaginary figure to bear such a name. I am told that a distinguished black-and-white artist, meeting the name fortuitously, would walk pensively through the streets of London thereafter, searching the faces of the passers-by for one that would fit his ideal, Alexander-Teixeira-de-Mattos conception. And, when they met, I wonder if the artist was as much frightened as every newcomer to the department. On my second morning I looked up suddenly into a white impassive face; eyes unchanging in expression regarded me through the tortoise-shell spectacles which bestrid the impressive nose; the mouth was tightly-shut; neither word nor movement explained this paralysing figure which had glided to my table like some wandering sphinx. "I am not sure whether your minute intends to convey ..." he began at length and to my indescribable relief. Fear departed with that word, and we collaborated in redrawing the minute. Sometimes the Teixeira panic spread to distant committees which only knew his exquisite handwriting and his disabling knowledge of English; they hastened to do his bidding and to avert his wrath; no chairman likes to apologize twice for "the curiously pococurantist attitude of your committee", few care even to have the apology accepted with the words that consigned so many controversial files to oblivion: "Pray say no more. A.T."[33]Sir Ian Hamilton'sGallipoli Diaryis one of many military documents that shew that civilian morale at home cracked before the morale of the soldiers under fire. There was a fantastic legend that the English were unvaryingly calm and resolute, with a calmness and resolution that became calmer and more resolute with every demand. Nothing is farther from the truth. There was a panic when the Amiens despatch was published; and every outburst of popular violence or madness had panic as its origin and explanation. The spy-mania, the attack on Lord Haldane, the conscription campaign, the hunt for aliens and, finally, the Pemberton-Billing case were each in turn the result of a panic caused by accumulated despondency or by the violent despair induced by a sudden reverse. The east-end Jews who cowered in tube stations during air-raids had their own means of shewing fear; but it was not the only means.[34]This is becoming a conventional aftermath of any war in which the vanquished is so heavily defeated that he has to make a superhuman effort to galvanize his country into new life. The same alarms were spread by the Germans about the French in 1875.[35]"It is said," writes Mr. Walter Roch inMr. Lloyd George and the War, "that as a result of this Conference ('the Constitutional Conference which sat in secret between the two General Elections in 1910, and tried to reach a settlement of the constitutional issue, by agreement'), in the course of which a wide range of topics must have been discussed, Mr. Lloyd George then proposed, and committed to writing, a scheme for a Coalition Government which would settle the question of the House of Lords and Home Rule, adopt some form of National Service, and finance the Navy by means of a loan. But the details of this scheme are only vaguely known and add to our confusion."I am not aware, however, that the allegation has ever been denied.[36]I have ventured to enumerate, twice within a few pages, the chief causes of despondency at the end of 1916: the same thought-wave, given off from the same psychological effervescence, convinced President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George that the allies were beaten to their knees; the one was inspired to throw the resources of America into the struggle, the other to take personal charge of the war.[37]1920.[38]Sir Ian Malcolm was inspired by this memorandum to write his "rhymed endeavour to convey the contents of a grave 'pronunciamento' on deportment: compiled (it is believed) by Lord Eustace Percy and issued to the Members of the Mission before landing in the New World." The poem appears among the "Mission Hymns" inStuff—And Nonsense."Circular Notes"To the MissionIn your hours of ease, I beg youMissionaries, one and all,Read, mark, learn, digest and pass onThis concise Encyclical.You will find its interest chaining—Sometimes even entertaining.First of all you must rememberThat you go to U.S.A.,To a land of candid critics;So be careful what you say.I shan't mind the least if somePeople think you're deaf and dumb.If with questions you are pesteredBy the Press for news athirst,Do not risk replying till you'veWired home for instructions first.Heaven knows what might occurIf you answered "on the spur."E.G.: "Why bring re-made soldiersOn your diplomatic stunt?"Should the ready lie elude youGive a non-committal grunt,Or remark with pungent wit"Miles nascitur non fit."(Note: for General T. Bridges—Please observe a strict disguise;Don't appear in medalled khakiOr regard their martial cries.If they cap you, don't salute;If they challenge you, don't shoot.)Should they ask if England's starving,You may answer, "Look at me,Do I seem emaciatedOr in need of sympathy?"If you have the indigestion,Ask for notice of the question.Very possibly they'll ask you"What is happening in Greece?""What about the Spring Offensive?"Or what day the war will cease.You should say, "I've no idea,"And manœuvre for the rear.There is just one other matterWhich diplomacy dictatesShould be handled with discretionIn non-alcoholic States;'Twould be well received, I think,If the Mission didn't drink.That completes the list of topicsI would have you bear in mind;To sum up: I urge my colleaguesTo be deaf and dumb—not "blind."Please observe punctiliouslyThese injunctions.s.s. Olympic.————————————A. J. B.[39]This was, of course, before the great explosion.[40]It was, I believe, originally intended that no speeches should be delivered; but, when M. Viviani felt that he ought to say a few words on behalf of the French, Mr. Balfour could not do less than speak on behalf of his own mission. There was no time to prepare a formal oration, but the exquisite phrasing of his inscription was at least not less impressive than any speech. The original sheet of paper on which it was written has been, I understand, chemically treated against fading or decay and preserved among the historical records of the United States."M. Viviani," said Mr. Balfour, "has expressed in most eloquent words the feelings which grip us all here to-day. He has not only paid a fitting tribute to a great statesman, but he has brought our thoughts most vividly down to the present. The thousands who have given their lives, French, Russian, Italian, Belgian, Servian, Montenegrin, Roumanian, Japanese and British, were fighting for what they believed to be the cause of liberty."There is no place in the world where a speech for the cause of liberty would be better placed than here at the tomb of Washington. But as that work has been so adequately done by a master of oratory, perhaps you will permit me to read a few words prepared by the British mission for the wreath we are to leave here to-day:"'Dedicated by the British mission to the immortal memory of George Washington, soldier, statesman, patriot, who would have rejoiced to see the country of which he was by birth a citizen and the country which his genius called into existence fighting side by side to save mankind from subjection to a military despotism.'"[41]It is sad to record that the unwonted strain and exertion were too much for the advanced age of Mr. Choate, who died the following day; yet I doubt whether he could have chosen a happier moment for death than that which saw the great ambition of his life realised in the cordial friendship and whole-hearted cooperation of the United States and Great Britain.[42]Sir William Peterson, then Principal of M'Gill University. While writing this book, I received by wireless, on my way to South America, the sad news of his death.[43]In fact, General Pershing crossed independently.[44]Judge Amos, now Judicial Adviser in Cairo, endorses the substantial truth of the report which circulated about his chess-playing at this time. A tall man with a folding pocket-chessboard and a coloured silk handkerchief containing an incomplete set of chessmen might have been observed at almost any hour of the day or night prowling the deck with a preoccupied air and seeking to lure any one into playing with him. Those who knew the moves promptly beat him; those who did not know the moves had them lucidly explained—and then beat him as promptly. He had, I believe, exhausted the 6,000 Canadian troops, the ship's company and the other members of the mission before approaching that corner of the smoking-room in which, according to the story, I was sitting with an expression of imbecility calculated to suggest that I could not play chess and would not learn. He persevered with his explanation and after five minutes challenged me to a game. I hate to record that he did not win it.[45]The phrase is borrowed from Mr. Asquith.[46]One of the last words, in a long list beginning with "Armageddon," to hypnotize the newspaper-reader.[47]One evening I entered Covent Garden after the curtain had risen. "M. Kerenski?" enquired the sole occupant of the box, peering at me through the gloom. "I beg your pardon! I see that he landed in England this afternoon."[48]At the risk of a prophecy I would suggest that Masefield'sGallipolihas a lasting place in the treasury of great English prose, so long, at least, as our present canons of perfection in prose-style are maintained.[49]I am not limiting myself strictly to those war-books which had been published by the date of the armistice.[50]"Honestly, I do not care about the clever people," confessed 'Lady Maybury'. "I find themborné, self-centred, touchy, and embarrassing. They havenoconversation, and they always ask me if I was at Ranelagh last Saturday. Have you ever observed that?"[51]At Oxford I first heard the couplet which tells how"From out their different tubsStubbs butters Freeman,Freeman butters Stubbs,"it was quoted by one member of a prolific triumvirate which then filled a considerable proportion of the critical journals. In those days it was hardly possible to read an article by A which did not contain a panegyric of B's latest book; it was no less difficult to read B's book without meeting a reference to what had been "most justly observed by C."[52]The volume of hostile reviews, surely too great to be spontaneous and independent, which greetedThe Autobiography of Margot Asquith, was only less remarkable than the success which the book achieved in spite of them.[53]It will not have been forgotten that, in 1920, a cinematograph actress received a welcome to London which may have been equalled by crowned heads, but has, I should think, never been surpassed. Wherever she went, the streets were thronged; in its desire to see her, the crowd at a theatrical garden party nearly crushed her to death. Would Madame Curie, I wonder, have secured a single cheer? Would Miss Nightingale have been recognised?[54]The temptation to make class-lists is almost irresistible: I have been taken to task for saying in an introduction to Couperus'Old People and the Things That Passthat it was one of the world's half-dozen greatest novels; but the temptation should be resisted, for the proof of our fallibility is ever before our eyes.[55]On the first night ofL'Heure espagnolea devil entered into one member of the audience and tempted him to murmur at any open door: "Is this not extraordinarily reminiscent of Aïda?" Complete and immediate agreement was his reward.[56]Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.It is natural for Balliol to gravitate to the cabinet; and distinction was lent to the business government by the presence of Lord Curzon.[57]Memorandumto the cabinet by lord milner on his visit to france,including the conference at doullens, march 26th, 1918.The Prime Minister having asked me to run over to France in order to report to the Cabinet personally on the position of affairs there, I left Charing Cross at 12.50 on Sunday, March 24th....On arrival at Doullens I was at once seized by Clemenceau, who startled me by the announcement that Haig had just declared that he would be obliged to uncover Amiens and fall back on the Channel ports. I told him I felt sure there must be some misunderstanding about this, and that before the general Conference I thought it was desirable that I should have a short conversation with the Field-Marshal and the Army Commanders, whom I had not yet seen....The views of the British Commanders having thus been cleared up, the Conference assembled.... I asked whether I might have a word with Clemenceau alone. I then told him quite frankly of the conviction which had been growing in my mind ever since the previous day, and had been confirmed by my conversations with Wilson and Haig, that Foch appeared to me to be the man who had the greatest grasp of the situation, and was most likely to deal with it with the intensest energy. Could not he be placed by both the Governments in a position of general control, and given the sort of authority which he (Foch) had himself suggested to Wilson? Clemenceau, whose own mind, I am sure, had been steadily moving in the same direction, at once agreed, but he asked for a few minutes to speak to Pétain. While he took Pétain aside, I did the same with Haig. While I explained to the latter what was contemplated, he seemed not only quite willing, but really pleased. Meanwhile, Clemenceau had spoken to Pétain, and immediately wrote and handed me the following form of words, to embody what he and I had just agreed to:Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées britanniques et françaises sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les deux généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.I showed this to Haig, who readily accepted it, but suggested that it should be extended to cover the other armies—Belgian, American and possibly Italian—that might be employed on the present Franco-British front. To this Clemenceau at once agreed. We then all went back to the table. The amended formula, which ran as follows:Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées alliées sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.Doullens,le 26 mars, 1918.was read out, and after a very short discussion, which amounted to nothing more than cordial approval of the principle by all the speakers, the document was signed by Clemenceau and myself, and the Conference immediately rose with every appearance of general satisfaction....This quotation is taken from the special supplement toThe New Statesmanof 23 April, 1921.

[1]Once when Charles II visited Westminster, Busby, the head master, conducted him into school without uncovering: it would never do, he explained, for the boys to think that there was any one greater than himself. When the present king attended the pancake greeze, Dr. Gow related this story; the king at once commanded him to resume his cap.

[1]Once when Charles II visited Westminster, Busby, the head master, conducted him into school without uncovering: it would never do, he explained, for the boys to think that there was any one greater than himself. When the present king attended the pancake greeze, Dr. Gow related this story; the king at once commanded him to resume his cap.

[2]Mon. Stat., forMonitor Stationis.

[2]Mon. Stat., forMonitor Stationis.

[3]A contraction for "Volsci", the enemies of the "Romans",i.e., the Westminsters of many generations ago.

[3]A contraction for "Volsci", the enemies of the "Romans",i.e., the Westminsters of many generations ago.

[4]In such histories of intellectual development as I have read, too little attention is paid to the dates at which certain copyrights have expired and the other dates at which "popular editions" have been issued. Cheap printing, often aided by this new freedom to print, made available to the boys of my generation a vast literature of history, biology, politics, economics and theology. Darwin, Huxley, J. S. Mill and Carlyle were but a few of those who lay at our disposal.

[4]In such histories of intellectual development as I have read, too little attention is paid to the dates at which certain copyrights have expired and the other dates at which "popular editions" have been issued. Cheap printing, often aided by this new freedom to print, made available to the boys of my generation a vast literature of history, biology, politics, economics and theology. Darwin, Huxley, J. S. Mill and Carlyle were but a few of those who lay at our disposal.

[5]Until Irish and English cease to put their trust in allegorical caricatures, there can be no sympathetic understanding between them. Mr. Max Beerbohm has written of the disillusion which he sustained on finding that all bishops were not as Du Maurier had drawn them forPunch; and it seems to be a natural failing of the English to see themselves and others in the terms of a Tenniel cartoon. Until the war, every German was blonde, fat, mild and spectacled, with an equal love for sausages, beer, music, metaphysics and a long, china-bowled pipe; the Frenchman, in conical tall-hat, loose tie and peg-top trousers, was excitable and gesticulatory, but polite and—after theententeand before the arrival of Carpentier—a man of whom much might be made if he could be interested in field sports. The American, thin, tall and chin-bearded, with fob-pockets and straps to his trousers, was pregnantly deliberate in the artlessly blended dialect of an East-Side saloon-keeper and a Middle-West farmer, while the indolent but dogged John Bull was made the emblem of stupid honesty, good sportsmanship and love of fair play; he was represented as being charged, rather against his inclination, with an imperial mission and as being endowed with a special skill in administering an empire; he was credited with a marrow-deep love of liberty and a genius for self-government. Even the war has done little to disturb these complacent hallucinations.

[5]Until Irish and English cease to put their trust in allegorical caricatures, there can be no sympathetic understanding between them. Mr. Max Beerbohm has written of the disillusion which he sustained on finding that all bishops were not as Du Maurier had drawn them forPunch; and it seems to be a natural failing of the English to see themselves and others in the terms of a Tenniel cartoon. Until the war, every German was blonde, fat, mild and spectacled, with an equal love for sausages, beer, music, metaphysics and a long, china-bowled pipe; the Frenchman, in conical tall-hat, loose tie and peg-top trousers, was excitable and gesticulatory, but polite and—after theententeand before the arrival of Carpentier—a man of whom much might be made if he could be interested in field sports. The American, thin, tall and chin-bearded, with fob-pockets and straps to his trousers, was pregnantly deliberate in the artlessly blended dialect of an East-Side saloon-keeper and a Middle-West farmer, while the indolent but dogged John Bull was made the emblem of stupid honesty, good sportsmanship and love of fair play; he was represented as being charged, rather against his inclination, with an imperial mission and as being endowed with a special skill in administering an empire; he was credited with a marrow-deep love of liberty and a genius for self-government. Even the war has done little to disturb these complacent hallucinations.

[6]While this book was writing, I learned to my own regret and to the abiding loss of the House, that Dr. Strong, an Old Westminster, had been appointed to the bishopric of Ripon.

[6]While this book was writing, I learned to my own regret and to the abiding loss of the House, that Dr. Strong, an Old Westminster, had been appointed to the bishopric of Ripon.

[7]From time to time the regular speakers went on strike. It was then usual for one to propose the motion "That something be now done" and to secure that it was not carried, thus holding up all public business indefinitely. At Univ., I believe, it was customary to open the proceedings of the "Shakespeare" with a resolution "That the Bard be not read."

[7]From time to time the regular speakers went on strike. It was then usual for one to propose the motion "That something be now done" and to secure that it was not carried, thus holding up all public business indefinitely. At Univ., I believe, it was customary to open the proceedings of the "Shakespeare" with a resolution "That the Bard be not read."

[8]In these years Ronald Knox, Patrick Shaw-Stewart and Charles Lister occupied a place once filled by Raymond Asquith and, before him, shared by John Simon, F. E. Smith, Hilaire Belloc and E. G. Hemmerde.

[8]In these years Ronald Knox, Patrick Shaw-Stewart and Charles Lister occupied a place once filled by Raymond Asquith and, before him, shared by John Simon, F. E. Smith, Hilaire Belloc and E. G. Hemmerde.

[9]I am informed by my friend, Captain Stephen Holmes, M.C., to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions, that the use of the guest-table had to be suspended owing to the rush of new members to the House in 1919.

[9]I am informed by my friend, Captain Stephen Holmes, M.C., to whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions, that the use of the guest-table had to be suspended owing to the rush of new members to the House in 1919.

[10]One man became so much obsessed by the universality of a school in which all knowledge had a place, if he could but find it, that he was discovered on the morning of his examination committing to memory the statement of theMorning Postthat Lady X had left Hill Street for Scotland; somehow, he felt, this had a bearing on modern history; and I have no doubt that he used the information to illustrate a point of manorial tenure or to differentiate between the life of the new nobility and that described by Tacitus in theGermania.

[10]One man became so much obsessed by the universality of a school in which all knowledge had a place, if he could but find it, that he was discovered on the morning of his examination committing to memory the statement of theMorning Postthat Lady X had left Hill Street for Scotland; somehow, he felt, this had a bearing on modern history; and I have no doubt that he used the information to illustrate a point of manorial tenure or to differentiate between the life of the new nobility and that described by Tacitus in theGermania.

[11]I write of 1906-9, before women were admitted to degrees or accorded an academic position or costume.

[11]I write of 1906-9, before women were admitted to degrees or accorded an academic position or costume.

[12]Once a year the Gilbert and Sullivan operas came to Oxford; the booking opened a week in advance, and a queue stretched the length of George Street and half-way down the Corn. For days before and afterwards every piano in the college was tinkling with "The Silver Church" or the "Peers' Chorus." And we, in 1909, were privileged to entertain at luncheon Fred Billington, a great comedian and the greatest of all Pooh Bahs; fifteen or twenty of us, of the true Gilbert and Sullivan faith, shyly fed him with roast turkey and plum pudding, and he too was a little shy, suspecting some practical joke.The visitor is sometimes surprised that the New Theatre contains no boxes; the reason was supplied, in my day, by a famous living actor, who explained that he and his friends had attended a melodrama in the old theatre and had taken an uncontrollable dislike for the villain's trousers. As Æschylus undertook to finish any prologue of Euripides with the words "ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν," so this undergraduate party qualified the villain's every boast and confession with the words: "Notin those trousers."The dialogue ran roughly thus:Villain.I will carry the girl off and make her my wife——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.Villain.I will be revenged——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.Villain.I will stick at nothing——Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.As the curtain fell on the first act, the interrupters leapt from their box on the stage and pursued the villain down the Corn and the High until they captured him on Magdalen Bridge. They then returned to the theatre with the offending trousers but without the villain.Jowett, as vice-chancellor, decreed that in the new theatre no boxes should be built.

[12]Once a year the Gilbert and Sullivan operas came to Oxford; the booking opened a week in advance, and a queue stretched the length of George Street and half-way down the Corn. For days before and afterwards every piano in the college was tinkling with "The Silver Church" or the "Peers' Chorus." And we, in 1909, were privileged to entertain at luncheon Fred Billington, a great comedian and the greatest of all Pooh Bahs; fifteen or twenty of us, of the true Gilbert and Sullivan faith, shyly fed him with roast turkey and plum pudding, and he too was a little shy, suspecting some practical joke.

The visitor is sometimes surprised that the New Theatre contains no boxes; the reason was supplied, in my day, by a famous living actor, who explained that he and his friends had attended a melodrama in the old theatre and had taken an uncontrollable dislike for the villain's trousers. As Æschylus undertook to finish any prologue of Euripides with the words "ληκύθιον ἀπώλεσεν," so this undergraduate party qualified the villain's every boast and confession with the words: "Notin those trousers."

The dialogue ran roughly thus:

Villain.I will carry the girl off and make her my wife——

Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.

Villain.I will be revenged——

Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.

Villain.I will stick at nothing——

Interrupters.———————Notin those trousers.

As the curtain fell on the first act, the interrupters leapt from their box on the stage and pursued the villain down the Corn and the High until they captured him on Magdalen Bridge. They then returned to the theatre with the offending trousers but without the villain.

Jowett, as vice-chancellor, decreed that in the new theatre no boxes should be built.

[13]The late Sir Edward Cook once did me the honour to quote the words of one of my own characters: "I am tempted to wonder whether it much matters what a man be taught, so long as he meet enough men who have been taught something else." Therein lies the difference between university education and all other kinds.

[13]The late Sir Edward Cook once did me the honour to quote the words of one of my own characters: "I am tempted to wonder whether it much matters what a man be taught, so long as he meet enough men who have been taught something else." Therein lies the difference between university education and all other kinds.

[14]It is hardly possible to think of Oxford in those years without thinking of the second volume ofSinister Streetand of the great picture in which Compton Mackenzie's observation, memory and delicate realization of atmosphere were so triumphantly blended. At the House we had, no doubt, a stereotyped conception of the "typical" New College man; Balliol, no doubt, had its conventional idea of the average St. John's man; it was left to Compton Mackenzie to shew, from the angle of Magdalen, the reaction of the Exeter "type" on the imagination of Univ. The book is confined within the limits which Oxford of necessity imposes on herself as the theme or background of a novel; Oxford is a phase through which youth passes, a kingdom wherein it tarries, a hive where it grows and works towards maturity; it is not generally a scene of romance, of spiritual crisis or emotional clash; and, because most novels on Oxford persist in forcing drama into the least dramatic lives, they stand condemned as psychological confusions. It is a kingdom of youth because youth is made comfortably secure from the material conflicts of conventional drama; and youth, however intensely interested in itself, does not regard its spiritual conflicts seriously, it no longer agonizes in doubt nor wrestles in prayer, and, if it fall in love, ecstacy will disturb its digestion as little as despair will derange its slumbers. And the novelist of Oxford who writes with perspective and a sense of the appropriate must treat his material as youth awakening but not yet awake and as youth snugly protected from reality.For this reason and under these limitations, all women, all men who do not know Oxford and even the men who do will, in that order, be prudently advised to leave Oxford alone; afterSinister Street, with its analysis and atmosphere, its restraint and its consummate handling of countless figures on a giant canvas, there is no room for a book conceived on similar lines or scale; the novelist must force upon Oxford something which Oxford disowns or he may turn disgustedly away from a place where innumerable people talk and think endlessly about something that does not matter to any one else and where nothing ever happens.

[14]It is hardly possible to think of Oxford in those years without thinking of the second volume ofSinister Streetand of the great picture in which Compton Mackenzie's observation, memory and delicate realization of atmosphere were so triumphantly blended. At the House we had, no doubt, a stereotyped conception of the "typical" New College man; Balliol, no doubt, had its conventional idea of the average St. John's man; it was left to Compton Mackenzie to shew, from the angle of Magdalen, the reaction of the Exeter "type" on the imagination of Univ. The book is confined within the limits which Oxford of necessity imposes on herself as the theme or background of a novel; Oxford is a phase through which youth passes, a kingdom wherein it tarries, a hive where it grows and works towards maturity; it is not generally a scene of romance, of spiritual crisis or emotional clash; and, because most novels on Oxford persist in forcing drama into the least dramatic lives, they stand condemned as psychological confusions. It is a kingdom of youth because youth is made comfortably secure from the material conflicts of conventional drama; and youth, however intensely interested in itself, does not regard its spiritual conflicts seriously, it no longer agonizes in doubt nor wrestles in prayer, and, if it fall in love, ecstacy will disturb its digestion as little as despair will derange its slumbers. And the novelist of Oxford who writes with perspective and a sense of the appropriate must treat his material as youth awakening but not yet awake and as youth snugly protected from reality.

For this reason and under these limitations, all women, all men who do not know Oxford and even the men who do will, in that order, be prudently advised to leave Oxford alone; afterSinister Street, with its analysis and atmosphere, its restraint and its consummate handling of countless figures on a giant canvas, there is no room for a book conceived on similar lines or scale; the novelist must force upon Oxford something which Oxford disowns or he may turn disgustedly away from a place where innumerable people talk and think endlessly about something that does not matter to any one else and where nothing ever happens.

[15]The House went head of the river in 1907 and remained there for the rest of my time, an achievement to be periodically celebrated with a triumphant bump-supper, fire-works and a bonfire which once afforded to some an opportunity of venting their displeasure on the Oxford Pageant stands.

[15]The House went head of the river in 1907 and remained there for the rest of my time, an achievement to be periodically celebrated with a triumphant bump-supper, fire-works and a bonfire which once afforded to some an opportunity of venting their displeasure on the Oxford Pageant stands.

[16]Mark Twain was the recipient of an honorary degree in these years, and the welcome accorded him was characteristic. By an unhappy coincidence certain news-bills had appeared with the words: "ARRIVAL OF MARK TWAIN IN ENGLAND. THEFT OF ASCOT GOLD CUP." Before he was allowed to take his degree, an untiring undergraduate chorus demanded to know: "Now, Mark, what did you do with the Gold Cup?" His reply I never heard; it was probably adequate, though occasionally he met his match in repartee. Once when he was staying in England as a young man, the income-tax authorities sent him an assessment form which he referred to Queen Victoria with the statement that he had not the honour to be one of her subjects; she must forgive his writing to her, because, though he did not know her, he had once had the pleasure of meeting her son. "He," said Mark Twain, "was driving in his coach of state to St. Paul's, and I was on the top of a 'bus." Many years later, when he returned to England in his glory, he was presented to King Edward who said that he was glad to meet him again. "Again, sir?" echoed Mark Twain. "Have you forgotten our first meeting?" asked the king. "I was in my coach of state, driving to St. Paul's, and you were on the top of a 'bus."

[16]Mark Twain was the recipient of an honorary degree in these years, and the welcome accorded him was characteristic. By an unhappy coincidence certain news-bills had appeared with the words: "ARRIVAL OF MARK TWAIN IN ENGLAND. THEFT OF ASCOT GOLD CUP." Before he was allowed to take his degree, an untiring undergraduate chorus demanded to know: "Now, Mark, what did you do with the Gold Cup?" His reply I never heard; it was probably adequate, though occasionally he met his match in repartee. Once when he was staying in England as a young man, the income-tax authorities sent him an assessment form which he referred to Queen Victoria with the statement that he had not the honour to be one of her subjects; she must forgive his writing to her, because, though he did not know her, he had once had the pleasure of meeting her son. "He," said Mark Twain, "was driving in his coach of state to St. Paul's, and I was on the top of a 'bus." Many years later, when he returned to England in his glory, he was presented to King Edward who said that he was glad to meet him again. "Again, sir?" echoed Mark Twain. "Have you forgotten our first meeting?" asked the king. "I was in my coach of state, driving to St. Paul's, and you were on the top of a 'bus."

[17]Lord Wolmer, the late W. G. C. Gladstone and the late Francis McLaren are the only exceptions that I recall in my own time.

[17]Lord Wolmer, the late W. G. C. Gladstone and the late Francis McLaren are the only exceptions that I recall in my own time.

[18]The phrase is borrowed from my friend, Walter Roch.

[18]The phrase is borrowed from my friend, Walter Roch.

[19]The parliament which ultimately conceded the vote was substantially the same that had refused it in 1913; its "mandate" was still primarily for the parliament bill and the bills covered by that; but the war changed, with other things, the responsibility of a member to his constituents and the new franchise was granted by men with no more authority to grant it than to abolish the monarchy or to make marriage compulsory.

[19]The parliament which ultimately conceded the vote was substantially the same that had refused it in 1913; its "mandate" was still primarily for the parliament bill and the bills covered by that; but the war changed, with other things, the responsibility of a member to his constituents and the new franchise was granted by men with no more authority to grant it than to abolish the monarchy or to make marriage compulsory.

[20]The name applied to themselves by members of a party which is Scottish in origin and which has, in the course of history, repudiated its allegiance to the Catholic Church and the Stuart dynasty and threatened to repudiate its allegiance to the Hanoverian dynasty.

[20]The name applied to themselves by members of a party which is Scottish in origin and which has, in the course of history, repudiated its allegiance to the Catholic Church and the Stuart dynasty and threatened to repudiate its allegiance to the Hanoverian dynasty.

[21]These quotations are taken from Mr. Hugh Martin'sIreland in Insurrection.

[21]These quotations are taken from Mr. Hugh Martin'sIreland in Insurrection.

[22]This and the following quotations are taken fromThe Complete Grammar of Anarchycompiled by Mr. J. J. Horgan.

[22]This and the following quotations are taken fromThe Complete Grammar of Anarchycompiled by Mr. J. J. Horgan.

[23]But not Viscount Grey.

[23]But not Viscount Grey.

[24]Anatole France, inLes Dieux ont soif, which was written several years before the war of 1914, gives a few specimens of the portents and rumours which agitated Paris when the armies of the allies were marching against the revolutionary government. They were, almost without exception, reproduced in England in the first month of the war.

[24]Anatole France, inLes Dieux ont soif, which was written several years before the war of 1914, gives a few specimens of the portents and rumours which agitated Paris when the armies of the allies were marching against the revolutionary government. They were, almost without exception, reproduced in England in the first month of the war.

[25]W. G. C. Gladstone: A Memoir.By Viscount Gladstone.

[25]W. G. C. Gladstone: A Memoir.By Viscount Gladstone.

[26]I am told that a similar herd-hallucination overtook Paris in the war of 1870. A rumour that the Crown Prince's army had been surrounded and that the news was posted at the Hôtel de Ville brought the inhabitants by thousands into the streets till those who were pressed against the Hôtel de Ville and those who were farthest away alike maintained that they had read the official report.

[26]I am told that a similar herd-hallucination overtook Paris in the war of 1870. A rumour that the Crown Prince's army had been surrounded and that the news was posted at the Hôtel de Ville brought the inhabitants by thousands into the streets till those who were pressed against the Hôtel de Ville and those who were farthest away alike maintained that they had read the official report.

[27]Generosity and war seem incompatible!Wellington.It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.The finest cavalry commander, he,That wears a foreign plume; ay, probablyThe whole world through!Spirit Ironic.And when that matchless chiefSentenced shall lie to ignominious deathBut technically deserved, no finger heWho speaks will lift to save him!Spirit of the Pities.To his shame.We must discount war's generous impulsesI sadly see.Thomas Hardy:The Dynasts.

[27]Generosity and war seem incompatible!

Wellington.It's Marshal Ney himself who heads the charge.The finest cavalry commander, he,That wears a foreign plume; ay, probablyThe whole world through!

Spirit Ironic.And when that matchless chiefSentenced shall lie to ignominious deathBut technically deserved, no finger heWho speaks will lift to save him!

Spirit of the Pities.To his shame.We must discount war's generous impulsesI sadly see.

Thomas Hardy:The Dynasts.

[28]I remained at Westminster a year, judging that period to be as long as I could support the daily risk of detection by pupils or colleagues. Sometimes—now that it is all over—I blush to think of the subjects that I essayed to teach; and sometimes I blush to recall the lessons that I actually taught. Since leaving, I have seen my year's work passed in more candid review than was possible at the time and have been honoured with a place in the repertory of imitations in which Westminsters love to indulge whenever two or three are gathered together. If one or two of my least promising pupils pay me the compliment of saying that I taught them at least something, one or two of the most promising now ask me how it was that I never discovered them cribbing in form or thrusting strange gifts down the necks of their neighbours. Our warfare was waged with good humour for the most part, though only a schoolmaster knows how highly his sense of justice may be tested in dealing with some one who is personally antagonistic to him. With many I am proud to say that I made lasting friendships: during the later years of the war I received letters from every front and my old pupils came to see me when they were on leave; since the war they write from Africa and America, I meet them in London and Oxford, we abandon ourselves to school "shop", and they embarrass me by occasionally addressing me as "sir". To my friends of the Modern Transitus from Play Term, 1914, to Election Term, 1915, to the Classical Transitus, the Modern Sixth, the Mathematical Sixth, the History Sixth and the Seventh, wherever you may be, I send greeting; my injustice was unintentional, my incompetence incurable; I should be well pleased to think that your memories of me are a hundredth part as kindly as my memories of you. For perhaps the first three cautious days you were a little awed by me: the cap and gown were imposing. I was taller than any of you, as an Old Westminster I knew too much about detention school and penal drill; above all, I also had lived in Arcady and had sat at those very desks not ten years before; does it comfort you to know that my awe of you continued for three terms? If ever the prayer-bell had not rung before I shewed that I could not solve some diabolical equation! If you had argued a little more confidently against my magisterial rulings! If you could have seen into my mind during the first week, when I took down your names, ranged you in alphabetical order and guided myself despairingly by the two red-heads in the form!

[28]I remained at Westminster a year, judging that period to be as long as I could support the daily risk of detection by pupils or colleagues. Sometimes—now that it is all over—I blush to think of the subjects that I essayed to teach; and sometimes I blush to recall the lessons that I actually taught. Since leaving, I have seen my year's work passed in more candid review than was possible at the time and have been honoured with a place in the repertory of imitations in which Westminsters love to indulge whenever two or three are gathered together. If one or two of my least promising pupils pay me the compliment of saying that I taught them at least something, one or two of the most promising now ask me how it was that I never discovered them cribbing in form or thrusting strange gifts down the necks of their neighbours. Our warfare was waged with good humour for the most part, though only a schoolmaster knows how highly his sense of justice may be tested in dealing with some one who is personally antagonistic to him. With many I am proud to say that I made lasting friendships: during the later years of the war I received letters from every front and my old pupils came to see me when they were on leave; since the war they write from Africa and America, I meet them in London and Oxford, we abandon ourselves to school "shop", and they embarrass me by occasionally addressing me as "sir". To my friends of the Modern Transitus from Play Term, 1914, to Election Term, 1915, to the Classical Transitus, the Modern Sixth, the Mathematical Sixth, the History Sixth and the Seventh, wherever you may be, I send greeting; my injustice was unintentional, my incompetence incurable; I should be well pleased to think that your memories of me are a hundredth part as kindly as my memories of you. For perhaps the first three cautious days you were a little awed by me: the cap and gown were imposing. I was taller than any of you, as an Old Westminster I knew too much about detention school and penal drill; above all, I also had lived in Arcady and had sat at those very desks not ten years before; does it comfort you to know that my awe of you continued for three terms? If ever the prayer-bell had not rung before I shewed that I could not solve some diabolical equation! If you had argued a little more confidently against my magisterial rulings! If you could have seen into my mind during the first week, when I took down your names, ranged you in alphabetical order and guided myself despairingly by the two red-heads in the form!

[29]I believe that the Education Office section, appropriately enough, threw into Latin elegiacs the general confession beginning: "My beat extends from (the sentry-box) to (the gate on Constitution Hill) and must be patrolled regularly ..."; I never saw a copy.

[29]I believe that the Education Office section, appropriately enough, threw into Latin elegiacs the general confession beginning: "My beat extends from (the sentry-box) to (the gate on Constitution Hill) and must be patrolled regularly ..."; I never saw a copy.

[30]When Lord Emmott, the Director of the War Trade Department, invited me to serve under him in the summer of 1915, I intended to come only for the school holidays; as, however, the work of the blockade increased steadily, I asked Dr. Gow to release me for as long as I might be wanted.

[30]When Lord Emmott, the Director of the War Trade Department, invited me to serve under him in the summer of 1915, I intended to come only for the school holidays; as, however, the work of the blockade increased steadily, I asked Dr. Gow to release me for as long as I might be wanted.

[31]As it had been in existence for five months before I entered it, I can only describe its early history from hearsay.

[31]As it had been in existence for five months before I entered it, I can only describe its early history from hearsay.

[32]Six years before, on the first night ofThe Blue Bird, I remember constructing from the name of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos a mental picture of some one very tall, very thin, very dark and saturnine, with a long amber cigarette-holder and a single eyeglass depending from a broad black ribbon. I had not then seen Max Beerbohm's caricature of him; and, at our first meeting, I murmured to myself, as hundreds have done before and since: "Of course! The old sheep inAlice Through the Looking-Glass." As hundreds have done before and since, I surrendered to his charm; and there is no friend to whom I owe more. For over three years we worked together, many hours a day for six days a week; our minds and moods found something always in common; in five years there cannot have been many days on which we did not meet or telephone or write. In the next five years may there be as few!I am not alone in fashioning an imaginary figure to bear such a name. I am told that a distinguished black-and-white artist, meeting the name fortuitously, would walk pensively through the streets of London thereafter, searching the faces of the passers-by for one that would fit his ideal, Alexander-Teixeira-de-Mattos conception. And, when they met, I wonder if the artist was as much frightened as every newcomer to the department. On my second morning I looked up suddenly into a white impassive face; eyes unchanging in expression regarded me through the tortoise-shell spectacles which bestrid the impressive nose; the mouth was tightly-shut; neither word nor movement explained this paralysing figure which had glided to my table like some wandering sphinx. "I am not sure whether your minute intends to convey ..." he began at length and to my indescribable relief. Fear departed with that word, and we collaborated in redrawing the minute. Sometimes the Teixeira panic spread to distant committees which only knew his exquisite handwriting and his disabling knowledge of English; they hastened to do his bidding and to avert his wrath; no chairman likes to apologize twice for "the curiously pococurantist attitude of your committee", few care even to have the apology accepted with the words that consigned so many controversial files to oblivion: "Pray say no more. A.T."

[32]Six years before, on the first night ofThe Blue Bird, I remember constructing from the name of Alexander Teixeira de Mattos a mental picture of some one very tall, very thin, very dark and saturnine, with a long amber cigarette-holder and a single eyeglass depending from a broad black ribbon. I had not then seen Max Beerbohm's caricature of him; and, at our first meeting, I murmured to myself, as hundreds have done before and since: "Of course! The old sheep inAlice Through the Looking-Glass." As hundreds have done before and since, I surrendered to his charm; and there is no friend to whom I owe more. For over three years we worked together, many hours a day for six days a week; our minds and moods found something always in common; in five years there cannot have been many days on which we did not meet or telephone or write. In the next five years may there be as few!

I am not alone in fashioning an imaginary figure to bear such a name. I am told that a distinguished black-and-white artist, meeting the name fortuitously, would walk pensively through the streets of London thereafter, searching the faces of the passers-by for one that would fit his ideal, Alexander-Teixeira-de-Mattos conception. And, when they met, I wonder if the artist was as much frightened as every newcomer to the department. On my second morning I looked up suddenly into a white impassive face; eyes unchanging in expression regarded me through the tortoise-shell spectacles which bestrid the impressive nose; the mouth was tightly-shut; neither word nor movement explained this paralysing figure which had glided to my table like some wandering sphinx. "I am not sure whether your minute intends to convey ..." he began at length and to my indescribable relief. Fear departed with that word, and we collaborated in redrawing the minute. Sometimes the Teixeira panic spread to distant committees which only knew his exquisite handwriting and his disabling knowledge of English; they hastened to do his bidding and to avert his wrath; no chairman likes to apologize twice for "the curiously pococurantist attitude of your committee", few care even to have the apology accepted with the words that consigned so many controversial files to oblivion: "Pray say no more. A.T."

[33]Sir Ian Hamilton'sGallipoli Diaryis one of many military documents that shew that civilian morale at home cracked before the morale of the soldiers under fire. There was a fantastic legend that the English were unvaryingly calm and resolute, with a calmness and resolution that became calmer and more resolute with every demand. Nothing is farther from the truth. There was a panic when the Amiens despatch was published; and every outburst of popular violence or madness had panic as its origin and explanation. The spy-mania, the attack on Lord Haldane, the conscription campaign, the hunt for aliens and, finally, the Pemberton-Billing case were each in turn the result of a panic caused by accumulated despondency or by the violent despair induced by a sudden reverse. The east-end Jews who cowered in tube stations during air-raids had their own means of shewing fear; but it was not the only means.

[33]Sir Ian Hamilton'sGallipoli Diaryis one of many military documents that shew that civilian morale at home cracked before the morale of the soldiers under fire. There was a fantastic legend that the English were unvaryingly calm and resolute, with a calmness and resolution that became calmer and more resolute with every demand. Nothing is farther from the truth. There was a panic when the Amiens despatch was published; and every outburst of popular violence or madness had panic as its origin and explanation. The spy-mania, the attack on Lord Haldane, the conscription campaign, the hunt for aliens and, finally, the Pemberton-Billing case were each in turn the result of a panic caused by accumulated despondency or by the violent despair induced by a sudden reverse. The east-end Jews who cowered in tube stations during air-raids had their own means of shewing fear; but it was not the only means.

[34]This is becoming a conventional aftermath of any war in which the vanquished is so heavily defeated that he has to make a superhuman effort to galvanize his country into new life. The same alarms were spread by the Germans about the French in 1875.

[34]This is becoming a conventional aftermath of any war in which the vanquished is so heavily defeated that he has to make a superhuman effort to galvanize his country into new life. The same alarms were spread by the Germans about the French in 1875.

[35]"It is said," writes Mr. Walter Roch inMr. Lloyd George and the War, "that as a result of this Conference ('the Constitutional Conference which sat in secret between the two General Elections in 1910, and tried to reach a settlement of the constitutional issue, by agreement'), in the course of which a wide range of topics must have been discussed, Mr. Lloyd George then proposed, and committed to writing, a scheme for a Coalition Government which would settle the question of the House of Lords and Home Rule, adopt some form of National Service, and finance the Navy by means of a loan. But the details of this scheme are only vaguely known and add to our confusion."I am not aware, however, that the allegation has ever been denied.

[35]"It is said," writes Mr. Walter Roch inMr. Lloyd George and the War, "that as a result of this Conference ('the Constitutional Conference which sat in secret between the two General Elections in 1910, and tried to reach a settlement of the constitutional issue, by agreement'), in the course of which a wide range of topics must have been discussed, Mr. Lloyd George then proposed, and committed to writing, a scheme for a Coalition Government which would settle the question of the House of Lords and Home Rule, adopt some form of National Service, and finance the Navy by means of a loan. But the details of this scheme are only vaguely known and add to our confusion."

I am not aware, however, that the allegation has ever been denied.

[36]I have ventured to enumerate, twice within a few pages, the chief causes of despondency at the end of 1916: the same thought-wave, given off from the same psychological effervescence, convinced President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George that the allies were beaten to their knees; the one was inspired to throw the resources of America into the struggle, the other to take personal charge of the war.

[36]I have ventured to enumerate, twice within a few pages, the chief causes of despondency at the end of 1916: the same thought-wave, given off from the same psychological effervescence, convinced President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George that the allies were beaten to their knees; the one was inspired to throw the resources of America into the struggle, the other to take personal charge of the war.

[37]1920.

[37]1920.

[38]Sir Ian Malcolm was inspired by this memorandum to write his "rhymed endeavour to convey the contents of a grave 'pronunciamento' on deportment: compiled (it is believed) by Lord Eustace Percy and issued to the Members of the Mission before landing in the New World." The poem appears among the "Mission Hymns" inStuff—And Nonsense."Circular Notes"To the MissionIn your hours of ease, I beg youMissionaries, one and all,Read, mark, learn, digest and pass onThis concise Encyclical.You will find its interest chaining—Sometimes even entertaining.First of all you must rememberThat you go to U.S.A.,To a land of candid critics;So be careful what you say.I shan't mind the least if somePeople think you're deaf and dumb.If with questions you are pesteredBy the Press for news athirst,Do not risk replying till you'veWired home for instructions first.Heaven knows what might occurIf you answered "on the spur."E.G.: "Why bring re-made soldiersOn your diplomatic stunt?"Should the ready lie elude youGive a non-committal grunt,Or remark with pungent wit"Miles nascitur non fit."(Note: for General T. Bridges—Please observe a strict disguise;Don't appear in medalled khakiOr regard their martial cries.If they cap you, don't salute;If they challenge you, don't shoot.)Should they ask if England's starving,You may answer, "Look at me,Do I seem emaciatedOr in need of sympathy?"If you have the indigestion,Ask for notice of the question.Very possibly they'll ask you"What is happening in Greece?""What about the Spring Offensive?"Or what day the war will cease.You should say, "I've no idea,"And manœuvre for the rear.There is just one other matterWhich diplomacy dictatesShould be handled with discretionIn non-alcoholic States;'Twould be well received, I think,If the Mission didn't drink.That completes the list of topicsI would have you bear in mind;To sum up: I urge my colleaguesTo be deaf and dumb—not "blind."Please observe punctiliouslyThese injunctions.s.s. Olympic.————————————A. J. B.

[38]Sir Ian Malcolm was inspired by this memorandum to write his "rhymed endeavour to convey the contents of a grave 'pronunciamento' on deportment: compiled (it is believed) by Lord Eustace Percy and issued to the Members of the Mission before landing in the New World." The poem appears among the "Mission Hymns" inStuff—And Nonsense.

"Circular Notes"

To the Mission

In your hours of ease, I beg youMissionaries, one and all,

Read, mark, learn, digest and pass onThis concise Encyclical.

You will find its interest chaining—Sometimes even entertaining.

First of all you must rememberThat you go to U.S.A.,

To a land of candid critics;So be careful what you say.

I shan't mind the least if some

People think you're deaf and dumb.

If with questions you are pesteredBy the Press for news athirst,

Do not risk replying till you'veWired home for instructions first.

Heaven knows what might occur

If you answered "on the spur."

E.G.: "Why bring re-made soldiersOn your diplomatic stunt?"

Should the ready lie elude youGive a non-committal grunt,

Or remark with pungent wit

"Miles nascitur non fit."

(Note: for General T. Bridges—Please observe a strict disguise;

Don't appear in medalled khakiOr regard their martial cries.

If they cap you, don't salute;

If they challenge you, don't shoot.)

Should they ask if England's starving,You may answer, "Look at me,

Do I seem emaciatedOr in need of sympathy?"

If you have the indigestion,

Ask for notice of the question.

Very possibly they'll ask you"What is happening in Greece?"

"What about the Spring Offensive?"Or what day the war will cease.

You should say, "I've no idea,"

And manœuvre for the rear.

There is just one other matterWhich diplomacy dictates

Should be handled with discretionIn non-alcoholic States;

'Twould be well received, I think,

If the Mission didn't drink.

That completes the list of topicsI would have you bear in mind;

To sum up: I urge my colleaguesTo be deaf and dumb—not "blind."

Please observe punctiliously

These injunctions.

s.s. Olympic.————————————A. J. B.

[39]This was, of course, before the great explosion.

[39]This was, of course, before the great explosion.

[40]It was, I believe, originally intended that no speeches should be delivered; but, when M. Viviani felt that he ought to say a few words on behalf of the French, Mr. Balfour could not do less than speak on behalf of his own mission. There was no time to prepare a formal oration, but the exquisite phrasing of his inscription was at least not less impressive than any speech. The original sheet of paper on which it was written has been, I understand, chemically treated against fading or decay and preserved among the historical records of the United States."M. Viviani," said Mr. Balfour, "has expressed in most eloquent words the feelings which grip us all here to-day. He has not only paid a fitting tribute to a great statesman, but he has brought our thoughts most vividly down to the present. The thousands who have given their lives, French, Russian, Italian, Belgian, Servian, Montenegrin, Roumanian, Japanese and British, were fighting for what they believed to be the cause of liberty."There is no place in the world where a speech for the cause of liberty would be better placed than here at the tomb of Washington. But as that work has been so adequately done by a master of oratory, perhaps you will permit me to read a few words prepared by the British mission for the wreath we are to leave here to-day:"'Dedicated by the British mission to the immortal memory of George Washington, soldier, statesman, patriot, who would have rejoiced to see the country of which he was by birth a citizen and the country which his genius called into existence fighting side by side to save mankind from subjection to a military despotism.'"

[40]It was, I believe, originally intended that no speeches should be delivered; but, when M. Viviani felt that he ought to say a few words on behalf of the French, Mr. Balfour could not do less than speak on behalf of his own mission. There was no time to prepare a formal oration, but the exquisite phrasing of his inscription was at least not less impressive than any speech. The original sheet of paper on which it was written has been, I understand, chemically treated against fading or decay and preserved among the historical records of the United States.

"M. Viviani," said Mr. Balfour, "has expressed in most eloquent words the feelings which grip us all here to-day. He has not only paid a fitting tribute to a great statesman, but he has brought our thoughts most vividly down to the present. The thousands who have given their lives, French, Russian, Italian, Belgian, Servian, Montenegrin, Roumanian, Japanese and British, were fighting for what they believed to be the cause of liberty.

"There is no place in the world where a speech for the cause of liberty would be better placed than here at the tomb of Washington. But as that work has been so adequately done by a master of oratory, perhaps you will permit me to read a few words prepared by the British mission for the wreath we are to leave here to-day:

"'Dedicated by the British mission to the immortal memory of George Washington, soldier, statesman, patriot, who would have rejoiced to see the country of which he was by birth a citizen and the country which his genius called into existence fighting side by side to save mankind from subjection to a military despotism.'"

[41]It is sad to record that the unwonted strain and exertion were too much for the advanced age of Mr. Choate, who died the following day; yet I doubt whether he could have chosen a happier moment for death than that which saw the great ambition of his life realised in the cordial friendship and whole-hearted cooperation of the United States and Great Britain.

[41]It is sad to record that the unwonted strain and exertion were too much for the advanced age of Mr. Choate, who died the following day; yet I doubt whether he could have chosen a happier moment for death than that which saw the great ambition of his life realised in the cordial friendship and whole-hearted cooperation of the United States and Great Britain.

[42]Sir William Peterson, then Principal of M'Gill University. While writing this book, I received by wireless, on my way to South America, the sad news of his death.

[42]Sir William Peterson, then Principal of M'Gill University. While writing this book, I received by wireless, on my way to South America, the sad news of his death.

[43]In fact, General Pershing crossed independently.

[43]In fact, General Pershing crossed independently.

[44]Judge Amos, now Judicial Adviser in Cairo, endorses the substantial truth of the report which circulated about his chess-playing at this time. A tall man with a folding pocket-chessboard and a coloured silk handkerchief containing an incomplete set of chessmen might have been observed at almost any hour of the day or night prowling the deck with a preoccupied air and seeking to lure any one into playing with him. Those who knew the moves promptly beat him; those who did not know the moves had them lucidly explained—and then beat him as promptly. He had, I believe, exhausted the 6,000 Canadian troops, the ship's company and the other members of the mission before approaching that corner of the smoking-room in which, according to the story, I was sitting with an expression of imbecility calculated to suggest that I could not play chess and would not learn. He persevered with his explanation and after five minutes challenged me to a game. I hate to record that he did not win it.

[44]Judge Amos, now Judicial Adviser in Cairo, endorses the substantial truth of the report which circulated about his chess-playing at this time. A tall man with a folding pocket-chessboard and a coloured silk handkerchief containing an incomplete set of chessmen might have been observed at almost any hour of the day or night prowling the deck with a preoccupied air and seeking to lure any one into playing with him. Those who knew the moves promptly beat him; those who did not know the moves had them lucidly explained—and then beat him as promptly. He had, I believe, exhausted the 6,000 Canadian troops, the ship's company and the other members of the mission before approaching that corner of the smoking-room in which, according to the story, I was sitting with an expression of imbecility calculated to suggest that I could not play chess and would not learn. He persevered with his explanation and after five minutes challenged me to a game. I hate to record that he did not win it.

[45]The phrase is borrowed from Mr. Asquith.

[45]The phrase is borrowed from Mr. Asquith.

[46]One of the last words, in a long list beginning with "Armageddon," to hypnotize the newspaper-reader.

[46]One of the last words, in a long list beginning with "Armageddon," to hypnotize the newspaper-reader.

[47]One evening I entered Covent Garden after the curtain had risen. "M. Kerenski?" enquired the sole occupant of the box, peering at me through the gloom. "I beg your pardon! I see that he landed in England this afternoon."

[47]One evening I entered Covent Garden after the curtain had risen. "M. Kerenski?" enquired the sole occupant of the box, peering at me through the gloom. "I beg your pardon! I see that he landed in England this afternoon."

[48]At the risk of a prophecy I would suggest that Masefield'sGallipolihas a lasting place in the treasury of great English prose, so long, at least, as our present canons of perfection in prose-style are maintained.

[48]At the risk of a prophecy I would suggest that Masefield'sGallipolihas a lasting place in the treasury of great English prose, so long, at least, as our present canons of perfection in prose-style are maintained.

[49]I am not limiting myself strictly to those war-books which had been published by the date of the armistice.

[49]I am not limiting myself strictly to those war-books which had been published by the date of the armistice.

[50]"Honestly, I do not care about the clever people," confessed 'Lady Maybury'. "I find themborné, self-centred, touchy, and embarrassing. They havenoconversation, and they always ask me if I was at Ranelagh last Saturday. Have you ever observed that?"

[50]"Honestly, I do not care about the clever people," confessed 'Lady Maybury'. "I find themborné, self-centred, touchy, and embarrassing. They havenoconversation, and they always ask me if I was at Ranelagh last Saturday. Have you ever observed that?"

[51]At Oxford I first heard the couplet which tells how"From out their different tubsStubbs butters Freeman,Freeman butters Stubbs,"it was quoted by one member of a prolific triumvirate which then filled a considerable proportion of the critical journals. In those days it was hardly possible to read an article by A which did not contain a panegyric of B's latest book; it was no less difficult to read B's book without meeting a reference to what had been "most justly observed by C."

[51]At Oxford I first heard the couplet which tells how

"From out their different tubsStubbs butters Freeman,Freeman butters Stubbs,"

it was quoted by one member of a prolific triumvirate which then filled a considerable proportion of the critical journals. In those days it was hardly possible to read an article by A which did not contain a panegyric of B's latest book; it was no less difficult to read B's book without meeting a reference to what had been "most justly observed by C."

[52]The volume of hostile reviews, surely too great to be spontaneous and independent, which greetedThe Autobiography of Margot Asquith, was only less remarkable than the success which the book achieved in spite of them.

[52]The volume of hostile reviews, surely too great to be spontaneous and independent, which greetedThe Autobiography of Margot Asquith, was only less remarkable than the success which the book achieved in spite of them.

[53]It will not have been forgotten that, in 1920, a cinematograph actress received a welcome to London which may have been equalled by crowned heads, but has, I should think, never been surpassed. Wherever she went, the streets were thronged; in its desire to see her, the crowd at a theatrical garden party nearly crushed her to death. Would Madame Curie, I wonder, have secured a single cheer? Would Miss Nightingale have been recognised?

[53]It will not have been forgotten that, in 1920, a cinematograph actress received a welcome to London which may have been equalled by crowned heads, but has, I should think, never been surpassed. Wherever she went, the streets were thronged; in its desire to see her, the crowd at a theatrical garden party nearly crushed her to death. Would Madame Curie, I wonder, have secured a single cheer? Would Miss Nightingale have been recognised?

[54]The temptation to make class-lists is almost irresistible: I have been taken to task for saying in an introduction to Couperus'Old People and the Things That Passthat it was one of the world's half-dozen greatest novels; but the temptation should be resisted, for the proof of our fallibility is ever before our eyes.

[54]The temptation to make class-lists is almost irresistible: I have been taken to task for saying in an introduction to Couperus'Old People and the Things That Passthat it was one of the world's half-dozen greatest novels; but the temptation should be resisted, for the proof of our fallibility is ever before our eyes.

[55]On the first night ofL'Heure espagnolea devil entered into one member of the audience and tempted him to murmur at any open door: "Is this not extraordinarily reminiscent of Aïda?" Complete and immediate agreement was his reward.

[55]On the first night ofL'Heure espagnolea devil entered into one member of the audience and tempted him to murmur at any open door: "Is this not extraordinarily reminiscent of Aïda?" Complete and immediate agreement was his reward.

[56]Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.It is natural for Balliol to gravitate to the cabinet; and distinction was lent to the business government by the presence of Lord Curzon.

[56]Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret.It is natural for Balliol to gravitate to the cabinet; and distinction was lent to the business government by the presence of Lord Curzon.

[57]Memorandumto the cabinet by lord milner on his visit to france,including the conference at doullens, march 26th, 1918.The Prime Minister having asked me to run over to France in order to report to the Cabinet personally on the position of affairs there, I left Charing Cross at 12.50 on Sunday, March 24th....On arrival at Doullens I was at once seized by Clemenceau, who startled me by the announcement that Haig had just declared that he would be obliged to uncover Amiens and fall back on the Channel ports. I told him I felt sure there must be some misunderstanding about this, and that before the general Conference I thought it was desirable that I should have a short conversation with the Field-Marshal and the Army Commanders, whom I had not yet seen....The views of the British Commanders having thus been cleared up, the Conference assembled.... I asked whether I might have a word with Clemenceau alone. I then told him quite frankly of the conviction which had been growing in my mind ever since the previous day, and had been confirmed by my conversations with Wilson and Haig, that Foch appeared to me to be the man who had the greatest grasp of the situation, and was most likely to deal with it with the intensest energy. Could not he be placed by both the Governments in a position of general control, and given the sort of authority which he (Foch) had himself suggested to Wilson? Clemenceau, whose own mind, I am sure, had been steadily moving in the same direction, at once agreed, but he asked for a few minutes to speak to Pétain. While he took Pétain aside, I did the same with Haig. While I explained to the latter what was contemplated, he seemed not only quite willing, but really pleased. Meanwhile, Clemenceau had spoken to Pétain, and immediately wrote and handed me the following form of words, to embody what he and I had just agreed to:Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées britanniques et françaises sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les deux généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.I showed this to Haig, who readily accepted it, but suggested that it should be extended to cover the other armies—Belgian, American and possibly Italian—that might be employed on the present Franco-British front. To this Clemenceau at once agreed. We then all went back to the table. The amended formula, which ran as follows:Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées alliées sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.Doullens,le 26 mars, 1918.was read out, and after a very short discussion, which amounted to nothing more than cordial approval of the principle by all the speakers, the document was signed by Clemenceau and myself, and the Conference immediately rose with every appearance of general satisfaction....This quotation is taken from the special supplement toThe New Statesmanof 23 April, 1921.

[57]Memorandum

to the cabinet by lord milner on his visit to france,including the conference at doullens, march 26th, 1918.

The Prime Minister having asked me to run over to France in order to report to the Cabinet personally on the position of affairs there, I left Charing Cross at 12.50 on Sunday, March 24th....

On arrival at Doullens I was at once seized by Clemenceau, who startled me by the announcement that Haig had just declared that he would be obliged to uncover Amiens and fall back on the Channel ports. I told him I felt sure there must be some misunderstanding about this, and that before the general Conference I thought it was desirable that I should have a short conversation with the Field-Marshal and the Army Commanders, whom I had not yet seen....

The views of the British Commanders having thus been cleared up, the Conference assembled.... I asked whether I might have a word with Clemenceau alone. I then told him quite frankly of the conviction which had been growing in my mind ever since the previous day, and had been confirmed by my conversations with Wilson and Haig, that Foch appeared to me to be the man who had the greatest grasp of the situation, and was most likely to deal with it with the intensest energy. Could not he be placed by both the Governments in a position of general control, and given the sort of authority which he (Foch) had himself suggested to Wilson? Clemenceau, whose own mind, I am sure, had been steadily moving in the same direction, at once agreed, but he asked for a few minutes to speak to Pétain. While he took Pétain aside, I did the same with Haig. While I explained to the latter what was contemplated, he seemed not only quite willing, but really pleased. Meanwhile, Clemenceau had spoken to Pétain, and immediately wrote and handed me the following form of words, to embody what he and I had just agreed to:

Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées britanniques et françaises sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les deux généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.

I showed this to Haig, who readily accepted it, but suggested that it should be extended to cover the other armies—Belgian, American and possibly Italian—that might be employed on the present Franco-British front. To this Clemenceau at once agreed. We then all went back to the table. The amended formula, which ran as follows:

Le général Foch est chargé par les gouvernements britanniques et français de coordonner l'action des armées alliées sur le front ouest. Il s'entendra à cet effet avec les généraux en chef, qui sont invités à lui fournir tous les renseignements nécessaires.

Doullens,

le 26 mars, 1918.

was read out, and after a very short discussion, which amounted to nothing more than cordial approval of the principle by all the speakers, the document was signed by Clemenceau and myself, and the Conference immediately rose with every appearance of general satisfaction....

This quotation is taken from the special supplement toThe New Statesmanof 23 April, 1921.

Back to IndexNext