Prime Ministers and Some Others Part 19

But the head of that feeble State, the leader of that irresolute society, was the fourteenth Earl of Derby, whose ancestors had practised the arts of government for eight hundred years.

In Ireland the case is the same. Both parties have succeeded in governing it, and both have failed. Mr. Balfour has been justly praised for his vigour in protecting property and restoring order; but it was Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan who, four years before, had caught and hanged the a.s.sa.s.sins of the Phoenix Park, and had abolished agrarian murder. It was, alas! a Liberal Government that tolerated the Ulster treason, and so prepared the way for the Dublin rebellion. Highly placed and highly paid flaccidity then reigned supreme, and produced its inevitable result. But last December we were a.s.sured that flaccidity had made way for firmness, and that the pudding had been replaced by the flint. But the transactions of the last few weeks--one transaction in particular[*]--seem worthy of our flabbiest days.

[Footnote *: A release for political objects.]

I turn my eyes homewards again, from Dublin to the House of Commons.

The report of the Mesopotamia Commission has announced to the world a series of actions which every Briton feels as a national disgrace.

Are the perpetrators of those actions to go unpunished? Are they to retain their honours and emoluments, the confidence of their Sovereign, and the approbation of his Ministers? If so, flaccidity will stand revealed as what in truth it has always been--the one quality which neutralizes all other gifts, and makes its possessor incapable of governing.

V

_THE PROMISE OF MAY_

This is the real season for a holiday, if holidays were still possible.

It is a point of literary honour not to quote the line which shows that our forefathers, in the days of Chaucer, felt the holiday-making instinct of the spring, and that instinct has not been affected by the lapse of the centuries. It stirs us even in London, when the impetuous lilacs are bursting into bud, and the sooty sparrows chirrup love-songs, and "a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove"--or, to be more accurate, pigeon--which swells and straddles as if Piccadilly were all his own. The very wallflowers and daffodils which crown the costers' barrows help to weave the spell; and, though pleasure-jaunts are out of the question, we welcome a call of duty which takes us, even for twenty-four hours, into "the country places, which G.o.d made and not man."

For my own part, I am no victim of the "pathetic fallacy" by which people in all ages have persuaded themselves that Nature sympathized with their joys and sorrows. Even if that dream had not been dispelled, in prose by Walter Scott, and in verse by Matthew Arnold, one's own experience, would have proved it false.

"Alas! what are we, that the laws of Nature should correspond in their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings?" _The Heart of Midlothian_.

"Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; Nature and man can never be fast friends."[*]

[Footnote *: _In Harmony with Nature_.]

A funeral under the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June loses nothing of its sadness--perhaps is made more sad--by the unsympathetic aspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitual gloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in the Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall disasters and disappointments which have overcast the spring, and tidings of achievement or deliverance which have been happily out of keeping with the melancholy beauty of autumn.

In short, Nature cares nothing for the acts and sufferings of human kind; yet, with a strange sort of affectionate obstinacy, men insist on trying to sympathize with Nature, who declines to sympathize with them; and now, when she spreads before our enchanted eyes all the sweetness and promise of the land in spring, we try to bring our thoughts into harmony with the things we see, and to forget, though it be only for a moment, alike regrets and forebodings.

And surely the effort is salutary. With Tom Hughes, jovial yet thoughtful patriot, for our guide, we make our way to the summit of some well-remembered hill, which has perhaps already won a name in history, and find it "a place to open a man's soul and make him prophesy, as he looks down on the great vale spread out, as the Garden of the Lord, before him": wide tracts of woodland, and fat meadows and winding streams, and snug homesteads embowered in trees, and miles on miles of what will soon be cornfields. Far away in the distance, a thin cloud of smoke floats over some laborious town, and whichever way we look, church after church is dotted over the whole surface of the country, like knots in network.

Such, or something like it, is the traditional aspect of our fair English land; but to-day she wears her beauty with a difference.

The saw is at work in the woodlands; and individual trees, which were not only the landmarks, but also the friends and companions of one's childhood, have disappeared for ever. The rich meadows by the tranquil streams, and the grazing cattle, which used to remind us only of Cuyp's peaceful landscapes, now suggest the sterner thought of rations and queues. The corn-fields, not yet "white to harvest,"

acquire new dignity from the thought of all that is involved in "the staff of life." The smoke-cloud over the manufacturing town is no longer a mere blur on the horizon, but tells of a prodigality of human effort, directed to the destruction of human life, such as the world has never known. Even from the towers of the village churches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-song of an older patriotism--"In the name of our G.o.d we will set up our banners."[*]

[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5.]

Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what this year is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truth and fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould." It is the promise of strong endurance, which will bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, and never fail or murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise of a brighter day, when the skill of invention and of handicraft may be once more directed, not to the devices which destroy life, but to the sciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify it. Above all, it is the promise of a return, through blood and fire, to the faith which made England great, and the law which yet may wrap the world in peace.

"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord G.o.d will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations" (Isa. lxi. II).

VI

_PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM_

Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almost to frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult with philosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below the surface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle.

"In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man," he wrote, "we find employed that invest.i.ture of the acts themselves with an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual.

The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same: it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expression of the inward." The word "ritual" is by common usage restricted to the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it has a far wider significance. It gives us the august rite of the Convocation, the ceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, the formal usages of battles.h.i.+ps, the silent but expressive language of heraldry and symbol; and, in its humbler developments, the paraphernalia of Masonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty pageantry of Flag-days and Rose-days. Why should these things be? "Human nature itself, with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. The marriage of the outward and the inward pervades the universe."

The power of the outward reaches the inward chiefly through the eye and the ear. Colour, as Ruskin taught us, is not only delightful, but sacred. "Of all G.o.d's gifts to the sight of man, colour is the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.... Consider what sort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leaves black, and the sky _brown_." The perfection of form--the grace of outline, the harmony of flowing curves--appeals, perhaps, less generally than colour, because to appreciate it the eye requires some training, whereas to love colour one only needs feeling. Yet form has its own use and message, and so, again, has the solemnity of ordered movement; and when all these three elements of charm--colour and form and motion--are combined in a public ceremony, the effect is irresistible.

But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through the eye. The ear has an even higher function. Perhaps the composer of great music speaks, in the course of the ages, to a larger number of human hearts than are touched by any other form of genius. Thousands, listening enraptured to his strain, hear "the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound." And yet again there are those, and they are not a few, to whom even music never speaks so convincingly as when it is wedded to suitable words; for then two emotions are combined in one appeal, and human speech helps to interpret the unspoken.

It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishes the beauty of our public and communal life. Khaki instead of scarlet, potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly things usurping the places aforetime a.s.signed to beauty and splendour--these are our daily and hourly reminders of the "great tribulation" through which the nation is pa.s.sing. Of course, one ought not to wish it otherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet," but eminently salutary, are these "uses of adversity," for they prevent us from forgetting, even if we were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realities of the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, and in spite of all this, beauty retains its sway over "the common heart of man."

Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily obscure, the beauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting for the opportunity of Peace to rea.s.sert itself.

To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcome exception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, during the week now closed, has been enacted at Queen's Hall.[*] There were critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contended that such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it all sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime of fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was performed, at a great cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of all this. All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial were displayed--colour and form and ordered motion; n.o.ble music set to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above their ordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion. The climax, wisely ordered, was our tribute of grat.i.tude to the United States, and never did the "Battle-hymn of the Republic" sound its trumpets more exultingly. For once, the word "Ritual" might with perfect propriety be separated from its controversial a.s.sociations, and bestowed on this great act of patriotic pageantry. It was, in the truest sense, a religious service, fitly commemorating the entry of all the world's best powers into the crowning conflict of light with darkness.

[Footnote *: Under the direction of Madame Clara b.u.t.t (May, 1918).]

VII

FACT AND FICTION

N. B.--_These two stories are founded on fact; but the personal allusions are fict.i.tious. As regards public events, they are historically accurate.--G. W. E. R._

I

_A FORGOTTEN PANIC_

Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrow holidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to some friends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I was alone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task; but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into the carriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porter who breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This is all," and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settled himself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage which I had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of the carriage--a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an umbrella, and one or two smaller parcels--all legibly labelled

G. W. E. RUSSELL, Woodside, Harrow-on-the-Hill.

After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed: "When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you will know that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease." Youth, I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but there was something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as to disarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alike prepossessing. He drew from his pocket the _Daily News_, in those days a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he composed himself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his appearance.

He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, of the middle height, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the train had shown, as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned that it was difficult to guess his natural complexion; but his closely cropped hair was jet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed the roots of a very dark beard. In those days it was fas.h.i.+onable to wear one's hair rather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a moustache. Priests and actors were the only people who shaved clean, and I decided in my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he laid down his paper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy which when one is very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, sir, that my abrupt entry did not disturb you. I had a rush for it, and nearly lost my train as it was. And I hope what I said about luggage did not seem impertinent. I was only thinking that, if I had been obliged to look after portmanteaus, I should probably still be on the platform at Carlisle." I hastened to say, with my best air, that I had not been the least offended, and rather apologized for my own enc.u.mbrances by saying that I was going South for three months, and had to take all my possessions with me. I am not sure that I was pleased when my friend said: "Ah, yes; the end of the vacation. You are returning to college at Harrow, I see." It was humiliating to confess that Harrow was a school, and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it with great composure. Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He should have said "school," not "college." He had a great admiration for the English Public Schools. It was his misfortune to have been educated abroad. A French lycee, or a German gymnasium, was not such a pleasant place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the best way of starting a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve being once broken, we chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told him everything about myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amus.e.m.e.nts, my favourite authors, and all the rest of it; but presently it dawned upon me that, though I had disclosed everything to him, he had disclosed nothing to me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemed him so, was not very proud of his profession. His nationality, too, perplexed me. He spoke English as fluently as I did, but not quite idiomatically; and there was just a trace of an accent which was not English. Sometimes it sounded French, but then again there was a tinge of American. On the whole, I came to the conclusion that my friend was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad, or else an American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced, the American theory gained upon me; for, though my friend told me nothing about himself, he told me a great deal about every place which we pa.s.sed. He knew the industries of the various towns, and the events connected with them, and the names of the people who owned the castles and great country-houses. I had been told that this habit of endless exposition was characteristic of the cultured American. But, whatever was the nationality of my companion, I enjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not as a man to a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy of asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all the little arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good terms with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a very jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a little about himself.

When, late in the afternoon, we pa.s.sed Bletchley Station, I bethought me that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Western train, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order to disgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goods and to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to my great joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. I shall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much like to pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions.'" This was exactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so I joyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, though we had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend's name. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to me, saying, "I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I will write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit." Just then the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fighting my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform, I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the window of the carriage which I had just quitted.

The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Sat.u.r.day afternoon, the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found him even pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools to the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great part due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our course of study? What our system of discipline? What were our amus.e.m.e.nts?

The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the Spire, he asked me if we had any other amus.e.m.e.nts. Fives or racquets he did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics?

(In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Every boy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was a national glory. Had we any part in it?

The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those days Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton Challenge s.h.i.+eld five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles (for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only.

Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather wis.h.i.+ng to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing, remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury, and, as the local corps (the 18th Middles.e.x) was a large one, it contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian, who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept everything in apple-pie order, and on this Sat.u.r.day afternoon was just putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches of tidiness to the properties in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor.

Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train?

As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for, to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station with mutual regrets.