A New Medley of Memories Part 1

A New Medley of Memories.

by David Hunter-Blair.

FOREWORD

Some kindly critics of my _Medley of Memories_, and not a few private correspondents (most of them unknown to me) have been good enough to express a lively hope that I would continue my reminiscences down to a later date than the year 1903, when I closed the volume with my jubilee birthday.

It is in response to this wish that I have here set down some of my recollections of the succeeding decade, concluding with the outbreak of the Great War.

One is rather "treading on eggsh.e.l.ls" when printing impressions of events and persons so near our own time. But I trust that there is nothing unkind in these more recent memories, any more than in the former. There should not be; for I have experienced little but kindness during a now long life; and I approach the Psalmist's limit of days with only grateful sentiments towards the many friends who have helped to make that life a happy as well as a varied one.

DAVID O. HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B.

S. Paulo, Brazil, _March_, 1922.

CHAPTER I

1903-1904

I take up again the thread of these random recollections in the autumn of 1903, the same autumn in which I kept my jubilee birthday at St.

Andrews. I went from there successively to the Herries' at Kinharvie, the Ralph Kerrs at Woodburn, near Edinburgh, and the Butes at Mountstuart, meeting, curiously enough, at all three places Norfolk and his sister, Lady Mary Howard--though it was not so curious after all, as the Duke was accustomed to visit every autumn his Scottish relatives at these places, as well as the Loudouns in their big rather out-at-elbows castle in Ayrs.h.i.+re. He had no taste at all either for shooting, fis.h.i.+ng, or riding, or for other country pursuits such as farming, forestry, or the like; but he made himself perfectly happy during these country house visits. The least exacting of guests, he never required to be amused, contenting himself with a game of croquet (the only outdoor game he favoured), an occasional long walk, and a daily romp with his young relatives, the children of the house, who were all devoted to him. He read the newspapers perfunctorily, {2} but seldom opened a book: he knew and cared little for literature, science, or art, with the single exception of architecture, in which he was keenly interested. The most devout of Catholics, he was nothing of an ecclesiologist: official and hereditary chief of the College of Arms, he was profoundly uninterested in heraldry, whether practically or historically:[1] the head of the n.o.bility of England, he was so little of a genealogist that he was never at pains to correct the proof--annually submitted to him as to others--of the preposterous details of his pedigree as set forth in the pages of "Burke." I seem to be describing an ignoramus; but the interesting thing was that the Duke, with all his limitations, was really nothing of the kind. He could, and did, converse on a great variety of subjects in a very clear-headed and intelligent way; there was something engaging about his utter unpretentiousness and deference to the opinions of others; and he had mastered the truth that the secret of successful conversation is to talk about what interests the other man and not what interests oneself. No one could, in fact, talk to the Duke much, or long, without getting to love him; and every one who came into contact with him in their several degrees, from princes and prelates and politicians to cabmen and crossing-sweepers, did love him. "His Grace 'as a good 'eart, that's what 'e 'as," said the old lady who used to keep the crossing nearly opposite Norfolk House, and sat against the railings {3} with her cat and her clean white ap.r.o.n (I think she did her sweeping by deputy); "he'll never cross the square, whatever 'urry 'e's in, without saying a kind word to me." One sees him striding down Pall Mall in his shabby suit, one gloveless hand plucking at his black beard, the other wagging in constant salutation of pa.s.sing friends, and his kind brown eyes peering from under the brim of a hat calculated to make the late Lord Hardwicke turn in his grave. A genuine man--earnest, simple, affable, sincere, and yet ducal too; with a certain grave native dignity which sat strangely well on him, and on which it was impossible ever to presume. Panoplied in such dignity when occasion required, as in great public ceremonies, our homely little Duke played his part with curious efficiency; and it was often remarked that in State pageants the figure of the Earl Marshal was always one of the most striking in the splendid picture.

The only country seat which the premier Duke owned besides Arundel Castle was Derwent Hall, a fine old Jacobean house in the Derwent valley, on the borders of Yorks.h.i.+re and Derbys.h.i.+re. The Duke had lent this place for some years past to his only brother as his country residence (he later bequeathed it to him by will); and herein this same autumn I paid a pleasant visit to Lord and Lady Edmund Talbot, on my way south to Oxford. In London I went to see the rich and sombre chapel of the Holy Souls just finished in Westminster Cathedral, at the expense of my old friend Mrs. Walmesley (nee Weld Blundell). The Archbishop's white marble _cathedra_ was in course of erection in the sanctuary, and preparations were going forward {4} for his enthronement.[2] Eight immense pillars of onyx were lying on the floor, and the great painted rood leaned against the wall. I was glad to see some signs of progress.

Our princ.i.p.al domestic interest, on rea.s.sembling at Oxford for Michaelmas Term, was the prospect of exchanging the remote and incommodious semi-detached villa, in which our Benedictine Hall had been hitherto housed, for the curious mansion near Folly Bridge, built on arches above the river, "standing in its own grounds," as auctioneers say (it could not well stand in any one else's!), and known to most Oxonians as Grandpont House. Besides the Thames bubbling and swirling at its foundations, it had a little lake of its own, and was (except by a very circuitous _detour_) accessible only by punt. Rather fascinating! we all thought; but when the pundits from Ampleforth Abbey came to inspect, the floods happened to be out everywhere, and our prospective Hall looked so like Noah's Ark floating on a waste of waters, that they did not "see their way"[3] to approve of either the site or the house.

Oxford was preoccupied at this time with the question of who was to succeed to the Chancellors.h.i.+p {5} vacant by the death of Lord Salisbury. I attended a meeting of the Conservative caucus summoned to discuss the matter at the President's lodgings at St. John's. These gatherings were generally amusing, as the President (most unbending of old Tories) used to make occasional remarks of a disconcerting kind.

On this occasion he treated us to some reminiscences of the great Chancellors of the past, adding, "I look round the ranks of prominent men in the country, including cabinet ministers and ex-ministers, and I see few if any men of outstanding or even second-rate ability"--the point of the joke being that next to him was seated the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Michael Hicks Beach, whose presence and counsel had been specially invited. The names of Lords Goschen, Lansdowne, Rosebery, and Curzon were mentioned, the first-named being evidently the favourite. "Scholar, statesman, financier, educationalist," I wrote of him in the _Westminster Gazette_ a day or two later, "a distinguished son of Oriel, versatile, prudent and popular.... The Fates seem to point to Lord Goschen as the one who shall sit in the vacant chair."[4]

Another less famous Oriel man, my old friend Mgr. Tylee, was in Oxford this autumn, on his annual visitation of his old college, and came to see me several times. He gravely a.s.sured me that he had "preached his last sermon in India"; but this was {6} a false alarm. The good monsignore was as great a "farewellist" as Madame Patti or the late Mr.

Sims Reeves, and at least three years later I heard that he was meditating another descent on Hindostan; though why he went there, or why he stayed away, I imagine few people either knew or cared.[5]

We were all interested this term in the award of the senior Kennicott Hebrew scholars.h.i.+p to a Catholic, Frederic Ingle of St. John's, who had already, previous to his change of creed, gained the Pusey and Ellerton Prize, and other honours in {7} Scriptural subjects. One could not help wondering whether it came as a little surprise to the Anglican examiners to find that they had awarded the scholars.h.i.+p to a young man studying for the Catholic priesthood at the Collegio Beda in Rome, an inst.i.tution specially founded for the ecclesiastical education of converts to the Roman Church. The "Hertford" this year, by the way, the Blue Ribbon of Latin scholars.h.i.+p, was also held by a Catholic, a young Jesuit of Pope's Hall--Cyril Martindale, the most brilliant scholar of his time at Oxford, who carried off practically every cla.s.sical distinction the university had to offer. The "Hertford" was won next year (1904) by another Catholic, Wilfrid Greene, scholar of Christ Church.

I celebrated in 1903 not only my fiftieth birthday, but the silver jubilee of my entrance into the Benedictine Order; and I went to keep the latter interesting anniversary at Belmont Priory in Herefords.h.i.+re, where twenty-five years before (December 8, 1878) I had received the novice's habit. Two or three of the older members of the community, who had been my fellow-novices in those far-off days, were still in residence there; and from them and all I received a warm welcome and many kind congratulations. These jubilees, golden and silver, are apt to make one moralize; and some words from an unknown or forgotten source were in my mind at this time:

Such dates are milestones on the grey, monotonous road of our lives: they are eddying pools in the stream of time, in which the memory rests for a moment, like the whirling leaf in the torrent, until it is caught up anew, and carried on by the resistless current towards the everlasting ocean.

{8}

Soon after the end of term I made my way northwards, to spend Christmas, as so many before, with the Lovats at Beaufort, where the topic of interest was the engagement, just announced, of Norfolk to his cousin, elder daughter of Lord Herries. We played our traditional game of croquet in the suns.h.i.+ne of Christmas Day, and spent a pleasant fortnight, of which, however, the end was saddened for me by the premature death of my niece's husband, Charles Orr Ewing, M.P. They had only just finished the beautiful house they had built on the site of my old home, Dunskey, and were looking forward to happy years there.

I was at Arundel for a few days after New Year, and found the Duke very busy with improvements, inspecting new gardening operations, and so on; "and after all," he said, "some one will be coming by-and-by who may not like it!" From Arundel I dawdled along the south coast to Canterbury, and paid a delightful visit to my old friends Canon and Mrs. Moore at their charming residence (incorporating the ancient monastic guest-house) in the close. I spent hours exploring the glorious cathedral--the most interesting (_me judice_) if not the most beautiful in England. The close, too, really is a close, with a watchman singing out in the small hours, "Past two o'clock--misty morning--a-all's we-e-ell!" and the enclosure so complete that though we could hear the Bishop of Dover's dinner-bell on the other side of the wall, my host and hostess had to drive quite a long way round, through the mediaeval gate-house, to join the episcopal dinner-party.

Their schoolboy son invited me that night to accompany the watchman (an old {9} greybeard sailor with a Guy Fawkes lantern, who looked himself like a relic of the Middle Ages) in his eleven o'clock peregrination round the cathedral. A weird experience! the vast edifice totally dark[6] save for the flickering gleam of the single candle, in whose wavering light pillars and arches and chantries and tombs peered momentarily out of the gloom like petrified ghosts.

I saw other interesting things at Canterbury, notably St. Martin's old church (perhaps the most venerable in the kingdom),[7] and left for London, where, walking through Hyde Park on a suns.h.i.+ny Sunday morning, I lingered awhile to watch the perfervid stump-orators wasting their eloquence on the most listless of audiences. "Come along, Mary Ann, let's give one of the other blokes a turn," was the prevailing sentiment; but I did manage to catch one gem from a Free Thought spouter, whose advocacy of _post mortem_ annihilation was being violently a.s.sailed by one of his hearers. "Do you mean to tell me,"

shouted the heckler, "that when I am dead I fade absolutely away and am done with for ever?"--to which query came the prompt {10} reply, "I sincerely hope so, sir!"[8] Lord Cathcart (a great frequenter of the Park), to whom I repeated the above repartee, amused me by quoting an unconsciously funny phrase he had heard from a labour orator near the Marble Arch: "What abaht the working man? The working man is the backbone of this country--and I tell you _strite_, that backbone 'as got to come to the front!"[9]

I left Paddington for Oxford in absolutely the blackest fog I had ever seen: it turned brown at Baling, grey at Maidenhead, and at Didcot the sun was s.h.i.+ning quite cheerfully. I found the floods almost unprecedentedly high, and the "loved city" abundantly justifying its playful sobriquet of "Spires and Ponds." A Catholic freshman, housed in the ground floor of Christ Church Meadow-buildings, described to me his dismay at the boldness and voracity of the rats which invaded his rooms from the meadows when the floods were out. The feelings of Lady Bute when she visited Oxford about this time, and found her treasured son--who had boarded at a private tutor's at Harrow, and had never roughed it in his life--literally immured in an underground cellar beneath Peckwater Quad, may be {11} better imagined than described. It is fair to add that the youth himself had made no complaint, and shouted with laughter when I paid him a visit in his extraordinary subterranean quarters in the richest college in Oxford.

The last words remind me of a visit paid me during this term by Dom Ferotin and a colleague from Farnborough Abbey. Escorting my guests through Christ Church, I mentioned the revenue of the House as approximately 80,000 a year, a sum which sounded colossal when translated into francs. "Deux millions par an! mais c'est incroyable,"

was their comment, as we mounted the great Jacobean staircase.

"Twopence each, please," said the nondescript individual who threw open the hall door. It was an anti-climax; but we "did" the pictures without further remark, and I remember noticing an extraordinary resemblance (which the guide also observed) to the distinguished French Benedictine in the striking portrait of Dr. Liddon hanging near the fireplace. We lunched with my friend Grissell in High Street, meeting there the Baron de Bertouche, a young man with a Danish father and a Scottish mother, born in Italy, educated in France, owning property in Belgium, and living in Wales--too much of a cosmopolitan, it seemed to me, to be likely to get the commission in the Pope's n.o.ble Guard which appeared at that time to be his chief ambition.[10]

{12}

I remember two lectures about this time: one to the Newman Society about d.i.c.kens, by old Percy Fitzgerald, who almost wept at hearing irreverent undergraduates avow that the Master's pathos was "all piffle," and that Paul Dombey and Little Nell made them sick; the other a paper on "Armour" (his special hobby) by Lord Dillon. I asked him if he could corroborate what I had heard as a boy, that men who took down their ancestral armour from their castle walls to buckle on for the great Eglinton Tournament, seventy years ago, found that they could not get into it! I was surprised that this fact (if it be a fact) was new to so great an authority as Lord Dillon; but we had no time to discuss the matter. Mr. Justice Walton, the Catholic judge, also came down and addressed the "Newman," I forget on what subject; but I remember his being "heckled" on the question as to whether a barrister was justified in conscience in defending (say) a murderer of whose guilt he was personally convinced. The judge maintained that he was.

February 15 was Norfolk's wedding-day--a quiet and pious ceremony, after his own heart, in the private chapel at Everingham. I recollect the date, because I attended that evening a French play--Moliere's _Les Femmes Savantes_--at an Oxford convent school. It was quite well done, entirely by girls; but the unique feature was that the "men" of the comedy were attired as to coats, waistcoats, wigs and lace _jabots_ in perfectly correct Louis XIV. style, but below the waist--in petticoats!

the result being that they ensconced themselves as far as possible, throughout the play, behind {13} tables and chairs, and showed no more of their legs than the Queen of Spain.

Going down to Arundel for Holy Week and Easter, I read in _The Times_ Hugh Macnaghten's strangely moving lines on Hector Macdonald,[11] whose tragic death was announced this week. Easter was late this year, the weather balmy, and the spring advanced; and the park and the whole countryside starred with daffodils and anemones, primroses and hyacinths. Between the many church services we enjoyed some delightful rambles; and the Duke's marriage had made no difference to his love of croquet and of the inevitable game of "ten questions" after dinner.

The great church looked beautiful on Easter morning, with its wealth of spring flowers; and the florid music was no doubt finely rendered, though I do not like Gounod in church at Easter or at any other time.

I refrained, however, when my friend the organist asked me what I thought of his choir, from replying, as Cardinal Capranica did to a similar question from Pope Nicholas V.--"that it seemed to him like a sack of young swine, for he heard a great noise, but could distinguish nothing articulate!"[12]

{14}

All the clergy of St. Philip's church dined at the castle on Easter Sunday evening; and the young d.u.c.h.ess, wearing her necklace of big diamonds (Sheffield's wedding present), was a most kind and pleasant hostess. Two days later my friend Father MacCall and I left England _en route_ for Rome, crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe in three-quarters of a gale. _Infandum jubes_.... The boat was miserable, so was the pa.s.sage; but we survived it, hurried on through France and Italy (our _direttissimo_ halting at all kinds of unnecessary places), and reached Rome at the hour of Ave Maria, almost exactly twenty-six years since my previous visit. What memories, as from our modest _pension_ in the Via Sistina we looked once again on the familiar and matchless prospect!

My companion hurried off at once to the bedside of a fever-stricken friend; and my first pilgrimage was of course to St. Peter's. I felt, as I swung aside the heavy "baby-crusher,"[13] {15} and entered, almost holding my breath, that strange sense of exhilaration which Eugenie de Ferronays described so perfectly.[14] Preparations were on foot for the coming _festa_,[15] and the "Sanpietrini" flying, as of old, a hundred feet from the floor, hanging crimson brocades--a fearsome spectacle. On Sunday we Benedictines kept the Gregorian festival at our own great basilica of St. Paul's; but the chief celebration was next day at St. Peter's, where Pope Pius X. himself pontificated in the presence of 40,000 people, and a choir of a thousand monks (of which I had the privilege of being one) rendered the Gregorian music with thrilling effect. All was as in the great days of old--the Papal March blown on silver trumpets; the long procession up the great nave of abbots, bishops, and cardinals, conspicuous among them Cardinals Rampolla, with his fine features and grave penetrating look, and Merry del Val (the youthful Secretary of State), tall, dark, and strikingly handsome; the Pontifical Court, chamberlains in their quaint mediaeval dress; and, finally, high on his _sedia gestatoria_, with the white peac.o.c.k-feather fans waving on right and left, the venerable figure of the Pope, mitred, and wearing his long embroidered _manto_: turning kind eyes from side to side on the vast concourse, and {16} blessing them with uplifted hand as he pa.s.sed. His Holiness celebrated the Ma.s.s with wonderful devotion, as quiet and collected as if he had been alone in his oratory. High above our heads, at the Elevation, the silver trumpets sounded the well-known melody, and the Swiss Guards round the altar brought down their halberts with a crash on the pavement.[16]

After the great function I lunched with the Giustiniani Bandinis in the Foro Trajano, where three generations of the princely family were living together, in Roman patriarchal fas.h.i.+on. But (_quantum mutatus!_) the old Prince had sold his historic palace in the Corso;[17] and his heir, Mondragone, who talked to me of sending his son to Christ Church as the Master of Kynnaird, seemed to shy at the expense.[18] They had all been at St. Peter's, in the tribune of the "Patriciato," that morning, and were unanimous (so like Romans!) in their {17} verdict that the glorious Gregorian music would have been much more appropriate to a funeral!

I was happy to enjoy a nearer view of the Holy Father before leaving Rome, in a private audience which he gave to the English Catholic Union. A slightly stooping figure, bushy grey hair, a rather care-worn kind face, a large penetrating eye--this was my first impression. His manner was wonderfully simple and courteous; and by his wish ("s'accommodarsi") we sat down in a little group around him. This absence of formality was, I thought, no excuse for the bad manners of a lady of rank, who pulled out a fountain pen, and asked his Holiness to sign the photograph of her extensive family.[19] The Pope looked at the little implement and shook his head. "Non capisco queste cose de nuova moda," he said; and we followed him into another room--I think his private library--where he seated himself before a great golden inkstand, and with a long quill pen wrote beneath the family group a verse from the hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm.[20] I had an opportunity of asking, not for an autograph, but for a blessing on our Oxford Benedictines, and on my mother-house at Fort Augustus.

Next day my friend and I left Rome for Monte Ca.s.sino--my first visit to the cradle of our venerable Order. I was deeply impressed, and felt, perhaps, on the summit of the holy mount, nearer heaven, both materially and spiritually, than I had ever {18} done before. To celebrate Ma.s.s above the shrine of Saint Benedict, at an altar designed by Raphael, was my Sunday privilege. The visitors at the abbey and a devout crowd of _contadini_ (many of them from the foot of the mountain) were my congregation; and the monks sang the plain-chant ma.s.s grouped round a huge illuminated _Graduale_ on an enormous lectern.

Three memorable days here, and I had to hasten northward, halting very briefly to renew old enchanting memories of Florence and Milan, and reaching Oxford just in time for the opening of the summer term.

[1] Lord Bute once told me that it was from him that the Earl Marshal first learned the meaning and origin of the honourable augmentation (the demi-lion of Scotland) which he bore on his coat-armorial.

[2] One of the first acts of Pope Pius X. had been to translate Bishop Bourne of Southwark to the metropolitan see of Westminster, in succession to Cardinal Vaughan, who had died on June 19. Archbishop Bourne became a Cardinal in 1911.

[3] My father used to hate this "new-fangled phrase," as he called it.

"'See my way'! What does the man mean by 'see my way'? No, I do _not_ 'see my way,'" he used to protest when a request for a subscription or donation was prefaced by this unlucky formula, and the appeal was instantly consigned to the waste-paper basket.

[4] Lord Goschen was elected on November 2 without a contest, the only other candidate "in the running" (Lord Rosebery) having declined to stand unless unopposed. Our new Chancellor lived to hold the office for little more than three years, dying in February, 1907.

[5] Tylee's sole connection with India was that he had once been domestic chaplain to Lord Ripon, who, however (much to his chagrin), left him behind in England when he went out as Viceroy. When the monsignore preached at St. Andrews, as he occasionally did when visiting George Angus there, the latter used to advertise him in the local newspaper as "ex-chaplain to the late Viceroy of India," which pleased him not a little. He was fond of preaching, and carried about with him in a tin box (proof against white ants) a pile of sermons, mostly translated by himself from the great French orators of the eighteenth century, and laboriously committed to memory. I remember his once firing off at the astonished congregation of a small seaside chapel, _a propos des bottes_, Bossuet's funeral oration on Queen Henrietta Maria.

Through a friend at the Vatican, Tylee got a brief or rescript from the Pope, who was told that he went to preach in India, and commended him in the doc.u.ment, with some reference to the missionary labours of St.

Francis Xavier in that country. The monsignore was immensely proud of this. "Haven't you seen my Papal Bull?" he would cry when India cropped up in conversation, as it generally did in his presence. The fact was that when in India the good man used to stay with a Commissioner or General commanding, and deliver one of his famous sermons in the station or garrison church, to a handful of British Catholics or Irish soldiers. He never learned a word of any native language, and did no more missionary work in India than if he had stayed at home in his Kensington villa.