A New Medley of Memories Part 15

And then, as, my task completed, I lay down my weary pen, there come into my mind some other words--those of a great thinker and a great writer of our own time: "Our life is planted on the surface of a whirling sphere: our prayer is to find its tranquil centre, and revolve no more."

So may it be!

[1] The good old abbot died three months later, on August 13, 1913.

[2] Colonel David Hunter-Blair of the Scots Fusilier Guards, whose conversion to Catholicism, when I was a boy at Eton, had made a great impression on me. He died of consumption at Rome on March 31, 1869.

[3] "We implore Thy protection also," pet.i.tioned a certain Dean at family prayers, "for the minor canons of this cathedral; for even they, O Lord, are Thy creatures."

[4] Appointed Archbishop-bishop of Malta in 1914.

[5] I liked to hear once-a-year (not oftener) the prolonged musical ma.s.ses which were the "festival use" at the Oratory. Once, arriving rather late at the church, I found an old friend (a Gregorian-lover like myself) waiting in the porch, and asked him how far the service had progressed. "Thank G.o.d!" said old W---- P---- devoutly, "_the worst is over_--they have just finished the _Gloria_!"

[6] It can be matched, I think, by two lines from a university prize poem--not, of course, by a poet laureate!--on the "Sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers":

"Thus, ever guided by the hand of G.o.d, They sailed along until they reached Cape Cod!"

[7] Nine months later he was elevated to the Cardinalate, when he had, of course, to resign his presidency of the English Benedictine Congregation.

[8] At one time there were as many as eight; and I remember one of them (who had himself been "in the Boats" at Eton), saying that they wanted only a ninth to complete the crew!

[9] I recall one engagement broken off in consequence; and also a rift between two lifelong friends which still remained unhealed long after the "unhappy n.o.bleman languis.h.i.+ng in prison" (as his most notorious supporter used to call him) had been consigned to the limbo of penal servitude. The cost of the two trials was said to be at least 200,000, and seriously crippled the valuable Tichborne estates for a whole generation. My father prohibited the public discussion of the case at Blairquhan, either in dining-room or smoking-room, or even at a shooting-luncheon in the open air!

[10] The Caldey novice, and one of the affiliated brothers from Erdington Abbey, both left us, after the outbreak of the Great War, and joined the army; and the former was killed on active service.

[11] The school was finally reopened under my successor, in 1920.

[12] And an heiress--at least so a brother wrote to me. The lady's name was Hodges; and he added (but I think this was mere banter) that the question was, if Jack had to a.s.sume his wife's name, whether they would be known as "Boyle-Hodges" or "Hodges-Boyle"!

[13] Our first prior, Dom Jerome Vaughan, used to be at much pains to convince his incredulous friends in the south of the mildness of the Fort Augustus winter. I remember his writing to the prior of Belmont, when I was a novice there, enclosing daisies picked on Christmas Day.

Unluckily the same post brought another letter from Fort Augustus, mentioning that the frost was so severe that all the beer was frozen in the cellar!

[14] They were, as a matter of fact, inscribed in English, as were also the names of the Scottish saints on the pictured walls. The chapel was opened on St. Andrew's Day, 1915.

[15] "Many congratulations both to you and to the club," it ran.

[16] It was a don of this type who was reported to have written, in a letter of condolence to the father of an undergraduate who had been drowned in Sandford Lasher: "As your son had unfortunately failed to satisfy the examiners in Responsions, he would have had to go down in any case!" Poor Father Maturin! his love of a joke and other good qualities were extinguished (in this life) by the sinking of _Lusitania_ eleven months later.

[17] My friend did print it in his paper, adding, "To read this makes one hungry for Highland air and Highland fare."

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Appendix

I. PAGE 86.

NOVISSIMA VERBA

(LAST WORDS OF FORTY FAMOUS MEN)

Adam, Alexander (the famous schoolmaster) ... "It grows dark, boys: you may go."

Addison, Joseph ... "See how a Christian can die!"

Albert Prince Consort ... "Liebes gutes Frauchen!"

Augustus (Emperor) ... "Plaudite!"

Bede (The Venerable) ... "Consummatum est."

Bossuet, Benigne ... "Fiat Voluntas Tua!"

Bronte, Charlotte (to her husband) ... "I am not going to die, am I?

He will not separate us, we have been so happy."

Byron (Lord) ... "I think I will go to sleep."

Charles II. (King) ... "Don't let poor Nellie starve."

Charles V. (Emperor) ... "Ay, Jesus!"

Chesterfield (Lord) ... "Give Dayrolles a chair."

Cicero ... "Causa causarum, miserere mei!"

Darwin, Charles B. ... "I am not in the least afraid to die."

Devons.h.i.+re (8th Duke of) ... "Well, the game is over, and I am not sorry."

Disraeli, Benjamin ... "I am overwhelmed!"

"Eliot, George" ... "Tell the doctors that I have great pain in the left side."

Etty, William (painter) ... "Wonderful--wonderful! this death."

Frederick the Great ... "La montagne est pa.s.see; nous irons mieux."

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George IV. (King) ... "Watty, what is this? It is death, my boy: they have deceived me."

Gladstone, W. E. ... "Prions--commencons--Our Father."