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Title: Thirteen Years of a Busy Woman's Life
Author: Tweedie, Mrs. Alec
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Notes:
The spelling, hyphenation, punctuation and accentuation are as the
original, except for apparent typographical errors which have been
corrected.
Italic text is denoted _thus_.
See further notes at the end of the book.
THIRTEEN YEARS
OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
GEORGE HARLEY, F.R.S.; OR, THE LIFE OF A LONDON
PHYSICIAN
THROUGH FINLAND IN CARTS. (Several Editions)
A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY „
DANISH VERSUS ENGLISH BUTTER-MAKING
THE OBER-AMMERGAU PASSION PLAY
WILTON, Q.C.; OR, LIFE IN A HIGHLAND SHOOTING-BOX
A GIRL’S RIDE IN ICELAND. (Several Editions)
BEHIND THE FOOTLIGHTS „
MEXICO AS I SAW IT „
SUNNY SICILY „
PORFIRIO DIAZ. THE MAKER OF MODERN MEXICO
HYDE PARK. ITS HISTORY AND ROMANCE
THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE
[Illustration:
_Photo by Hoppé, 1911_
WRITING]
THIRTEEN YEARS
OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE
By MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN. MCMXII
THIRD EDITION
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
CONTENTS
PAGE
PROLOGUE 3
PART I
CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER
I. THE GOLDEN AGE 11
PART II
GIRLHOOD
II. THE GIRL IS MOTHER TO THE WOMAN 25
PART III
WOMANHOOD
III. “Wooed and Married, and a’” 37
IV. “A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY” 49
V. “THE TENDER GRACE OF A DAY THAT IS DEAD” 58
PART IV
WIDOWHOOD AND WORK
VI. WIDOWHOOD AND WORK 65
VII. WRITERS: SIR WALTER BESANT, JOHN OLIVER
HOBBES, MRS. RIDDELL, MRS. LYNN LINTON 80
VIII. JOURNALISM 94
IX. ON THE MAKING OF BOOKS 107
X. THE END OF A CENTURY 116
XI. MEXICO AS I SAW IT 123
XII. THE CONTENTS OF A WORKING-WOMAN’S LETTER-BOX 133
PART V
THE SWEETS OF ADVERSITY
XIII. PAINTERS 145
XIV. SCULPTORS 161
XV. MORE PAINTERS, AND WHISTLER IN PARTICULAR 168
XVI. “THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS” 180
XVII. LORD LI AND A CHINESE LUNCHEON 188
XVIII. FROM STAGELAND TO SHAKESPEARE-LAND 199
XIX. WOMAN NOWADAYS 209
XX. AMERICAN NOTES 224
XXI. CANADIAN PEEPS 241
XXII. ON PUBLIC DINNERS 256
XXIII. PRIVATE DINNERS 270
XXIV. FROM GAY TO GRAVE 283
XXV. JOTTINGS 298
XXVI. MORE JOTTINGS: AND HYDE PARK 310
XXVII. BURIED IN PARCELS 319
XXVIII. WORK RELAXED: AND ORCHARDSON 333
XXIX. DIAZ—FAREWELL 349
EPILOGUE 356
INDEX 359
ILLUSTRATIONS
WRITING. HOPPÉ _Frontispiece_
TO FACE PAGE
ORIGINAL LETTER FROM BISMARCK 16
HANS BREITMANN’S BALLAD 31
AUTHOR’S HAND 33
GRAPES GROWING ON A LONDON BALCONY 42
BORKUM OF SPY FAME. (SKETCH BY AUTHOR) 47
WHEN FIRST A WIDOW 65
MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE’S WRITING-TABLE 94
THE WRITER IN DIVIDED RIDING-SKIRT IN SOUTHERN MEXICO 123
THE AUTHOR, BY HERBERT SCHMALZ 145
HALF-HOUR SKETCH OF AUTHOR, BY JOHN LAVERY 156
WATER-COLOUR SKETCH, BY PERCY ANDERSON 161
WALTER CRANE’S MOST FAMOUS BOOK-PLATE 175
CHARACTERISTIC POSTCARD, BY BERNARD SHAW _Page_ 262
CHRISTMAS CARD, BY HARRY FURNISS „ 303
CHRISTMAS CARD, DESIGNED BY JOHN HASSALL „ 316
BURIED IN PARCELS, BY HARRY FURNISS (TO FACE) „ 320
SKETCH BY “SPY” „ „ 356
THIRTEEN YEARS
OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE
THIRTEEN YEARS OF A BUSY WOMAN’S LIFE
PROLOGUE
One day in the ’nineties I was quietly sitting in my library, when the
door opened and a gentleman was announced. Standing solemnly before me,
he said:
“I have come to thank you for my life.” I looked at him. Was the man
sane? Was he suffering from hallucinations, or what on earth did he
mean?
“Yes,” he repeated solemnly, “I have come to thank you for my life.”
“I am afraid I am at a loss to understand,” I replied, “perhaps you can
explain.”
“Existence became utterly unendurable,” he continued, “worries heaped
upon one another until the strain was unbearable, and then, to crown
all, a terrible disease took possession of me. I knew I could not live.
It might be a matter drawn out in all its hideousness for two or three
years, but—the germ was there.”
“We shall none of us live for ever,” I replied cheerily. “Death is
inevitable.”
“Oh yes,” he nodded, “death is inevitable; but we do not all have to
face it in this way. So unendurable was the strain that I determined
to end the matter in my own fashion, and a day or two ago I finally
decided to take my life.”
The man talked in a perfectly rational manner, though at the same time
in an extremely impressive tone.
“I did not come to the conclusion lightly,” he continued. “I weighed
all the _pros_ and _cons_; faced all the circumstances of the case, and
I could not see that my life was of any value; in fact, in many ways
my family would be better off without me. I had not much pluck left to
face the inevitable racks of pain and disease, so after hours and days
of mental torment I decided to end it all.
“Night came.
“Having determined to wait quietly until all the family were in bed, I
sat in my study and read. I read and thought, and planned and argued,
and the hours appeared to drag interminably. For some reason the
servants seemed later than usual in retiring, and I watched the hands
of the clock slowly move along. It was almost midnight. The lights
had been put out in the passages. I could no longer hear the tread of
people overhead; but for fear that it was still too early I returned
to the book I was reading. Strangely enough, my eye fell on the word
_suicide_. It seemed to rivet me with a weird and terrible fascination.
I looked again, and that word appeared to be written in letters of
blood. Was it a message, I wondered, to a man standing on the brink of
the grave, on the verge of cutting the knot of life? What did that word
_suicide_ portend? I read on....
“Gradually I became interested. Here was a strange case. A man battling
with blindness, a man whose circumstances seemed somewhat similar to
my own; and as I read, I discovered that he had thought deeply on the
same subject, he had disentangled the same problem. Yes, as I read
and re-read the words they seemed to burn into my brain. I realised
that this man decided that he was _not_ justified in taking his own
life, that even though blindness threatened he still had a mission to
fulfil; and when I had learnt those words by heart, I banged down the
book, rose from the table, clenched my fist, and determined to go on
quietly and live my life to the bitter end. That page which altered
the course of events was in the ‘Life’ you wrote of your father.[1]
Since that evening I have read the book from end to end. Clearly he was
right. He had a mission to fulfil and fulfilled it. I have, I hope, now
passed through the darkest hour of my life, but I could not rest until
I came to tell you personally that if you had not written the book,
which chance put into my hand that night, I should have been a dead man
to-day.”
Seizing both my hands, he uttered, “God bless you and thank you! God
bless you! Good-bye.”
And he was gone.
This incident set me thinking.
My father’s life had helped many men who had never seen or met him.
Well if I, a woman, could in some lesser manner help some lone,
struggling women who, like myself, after being reared in wealth,
suddenly found themselves forced to toil for those “little luxuries”
which to a refined woman are verily the necessaries of life, I too
might be of use.
The Society bride who went to Ascot on a drag; to Ranelagh, Hurlingham,
or Sandown in her husband’s buggy, or drove her own Park phaeton and
pair; the pampered, spoilt, well-dressed young wife, who only lived for
a “good time,” at one fell swoop lost all.
A hard school—more kicks than halfpence—and yet now it is passed one is
almost thankful for the experience, thankful for each link in the chain
so often welded with fire and tears.
Two things made life possible—ambition for one’s children and the
kindly hand of friendship—two most precious pearls in the diadem of
life. These, and a mother’s devotion and encouragement.
That hard time of Egyptian slavery is over; my thirteen years’ task is
ended. The widow’s cruse may run low, but need not be empty if she has
health and courage to work; yes, work, work, and still keep on working.
Only let me deplore the unfortunate circumstances that allow the
possibilities of widows and children left to battle with the world,
without sufficient means for a home and education after being born in
luxury.
* * * * *
I won’t attempt to write my memoirs, but just jot down a few odds and
ends before they slip my memory.
Memory is an excellent institution, and often assertive until one
begins to write. Then nasty little doubts have a way of creeping in,
doubts about dates, spelling of names, the actual perpetrator of a
certain cute act, or the inception of a particular thought. Each year
fills memory’s slate more full, and the older markings become gradually
obliterated as new pencillings take their place.
Poor old slate, let me see if I cannot decipher a few stray
remembrances before they are all rubbed out—and recall how I began to
write.
Thirteen years.
What does the title mean? It does not refer to a prison sentence, to
supposed ill-luck as a fateful sign which a modern club of thirteen
members is said to have put to the test, nor to anything romantic.
Like Nansen, I am not superstitious. He was the head of twelve men on
his Polar expedition, and his was the most successful one ever carried
through, for he never lost a man. They started a party of thirteen
and they returned a party of thirteen—an antidote to the superstition
originated by the treachery of Judas.
Thirteen years is a large lease of existence during which to hire one’s
self out a bond-slave. But that is what I did—perforce. Necessity is a
hard taskmaster; and necessity plied the lash.
A great deal of water runs in thirteen years; water that turns the
mill-wheel to grind us mortals to finer—perchance more useful—issues.
The various incidents in my busy life during those years of toil all
doubtless had their effect on character and my outlook on the world.
“Nobody simply sees; nobody simply meets, and doing, simply does this
and that. Inevitably in seeing, meeting, and doing there is a certain
shaping of the mind and spirit of the person principally concerned.” So
Richard Whiteing wisely remarked, speaking of this—my hardest stage of
life’s journey.
Certainly my outlook on the world has altered since the days of happy,
careless childhood, of joyous youth as girl and bride. How I resented
constraint at fifteen and appreciated it later. How the restlessness of
my teens mellowed and sobered and ripened.
Although I did not experience it myself, I am sure that adversity is a
fine up-bringing for youth. It makes children think, which youth nursed
in luxury seldom does. Adversity only came to me in my twenties.
Youth is often spent courting time,
Middle age in chasing time,
Old age, alas, in killing time.
Reared in a soil of generous sufficiency, nourished by wisdom and
kindness in the warm sunshine of love, instead of the human plant
being blighted when the winds blew and the rains fell, it grew stronger
and blossomed and bore the fruit of work.
“Oh, poor So-and-so was not brought up to work,” people often say
despondingly when bad times overtake their friends; “theirs was such a
happy home.” But surely the home should be happy. At least, let there
be something of gladness to look back on, when one is struggling uphill
under a heavy load. The influence of parents is incalculable in effect
on children. The example of my father was powerful in helping me to
take up my burden as he had done his.
If these pages, put together after thirteen years of constant work,
seem too scrappy—disconnected even—let me ask the sympathy of those who
know what it is to be interrupted again and again by illness in the
midst of a task. Illness that has laid me on my sofa, in bed, even sent
me to a “cure” in search of health, as often as six times in eighteen
months; that makes the grasshopper a burden.
Without friendship and sympathy courage would have failed to go on
struggling with what seemed a veritable burden, and yet when well, how
little I thought of toil and stress when writing more important books.
The offer of a friend to undertake a little of the drudgery of the task
seemed to lift tons’ weight off my head. Still, though other hands may
pull a sofa and shake pillows into place, the invalid’s direction is
needful or her own room would not have her own individuality, and would
lose the personal touch that gives the clue.
Ups and downs will come. Bolts will fall from the blue. The unexpected
is what always happens.
Then, oh, why not be prudent, both young men and maidens? Don’t be
foolish, shy, or negligent to make provision against a possible wintry
time, by settlement, or insurance, and in every sound and legal way
hedge round your home against those desolating intruders—Poverty or
Illness.
I do not intend to enter into all my ancestral chain between these
covers; and I do not mean to moralise. People don’t care a ha’penny
for other people’s philosophy, although everybody must have some kind
of working philosophy of his own after he has knocked about in the
crowd and scrimmage of life. I’ve got mine, like other folk, and I’ve
learnt there are only two things worth living for—love and friendship.
The first is not passion, but the capacity to care for the welfare
of others more than for one’s own. Passion burns itself out, love is
ceaselessly unselfish.
And friendship? Why, friendship is the handmaiden of sympathy, the art
of appreciation, the pleasant interchange of thought.
This is a jumble of facts and fancies, wherein memory and pen run riot.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _George Harley, F.R.S., or the Life of a London Physician._
PART I
CHILDHOOD
CHAPTER I
THE GOLDEN AGE
Unless a book starts with some interest it finds no readers. The first
page is often the key to the whole.
But how is one to be interesting about such commonplace events as being
born and vaccinated, cutting one’s first tooth or having measles and
whooping-cough? They are all so uneventful, and while important to the
little “ego” are so dull to the public. Therefore I refuse to be either
“born” or even cut a wisdom tooth within these pages anent a busy
woman’s life, except to say that on the night of my birth my father and
his friend, the famous surgeon John Erichsen (later Sir John), walked
home from a meeting of the Royal Society together, and on reaching the
old house in Harley Street a servant greeted them with the announcement
that my mother was very ill.
Up the stairs my father hurried, while his colleague went off for
the nurse. I was too small to be dressed, so my early days were
spent rolled up in cotton wool—which fact did not deter my further
development, as at fourteen years of age I stood five feet eight inches
high. On my second day of existence I was introduced in my cradle to
him who for nearly thirty years was as a second father to me—him whom I
always called “dear Uncle John.”
What a horribly egotistical thing it is to write about one’s self!
Until now I have generally managed to keep _I_ out of books by using
that delightful editorial _WE_, but somehow this volume cannot be
written as WE, and the hunting of the snark never afforded more
trouble than the hunting out of _I_. There it is and there it remains.
It refuses to be removed. It glares upon the pages, and spurns all
attempts to be suppressed.
Let me humbly apologise, once and for all, for
“I.”
Some people are born smart, just as others are born good—some are
born stupid—and some are born haunted by the first personal pronoun.
People believe they are relating the honest truth when they speak ill
of themselves, and yet it is so pleasant to relate appreciative little
stories of “ego.”
Why mention my early youth in a book only meant to treat of working
years?—it may be asked. Well, for this friends are to blame. Folk have
constantly asked, “What first made you write? Was it an inherited gift?”
Did my second baptismal name predestine my career? On this subject my
father wrote in a diary:
“The next favours I received from Fortune were domestic ones—a boy
and a girl. The name of Ethel was given the little maid to please
her mother, that of Brilliana to please me. Brilliana, I called her,
out of respect for the only woman of the name of Harley who added by
her writings to the celebrity of the race. _The Letters of the Lady
Brilliana Harley_, 1625-43, wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton
Bryan, Knight of the Bath, were reprinted by the Camden Society,
with introductions and notes by Thomas Taylor Lewis, M.A., Vicar of
Bridstow, Herefordshire.[2]
“Of men authors we have had abundance: of women only one. No wonder,
then, I wished our daughter to perpetuate her name.”
Thus it seems to have been my father’s wish to dedicate me to the
memory of the well-known Dame Brilliana who shone in both social and
literary circles in the seventeenth century. Did he, perhaps, remember
that the old Romans, at the birth of a child, used to choose for it the
name of some ancestor, whose career they wished to be its example, in
the belief that the deceased would protect and influence the infant to
follow in the same path?
This second name of mine is queer enough, and seems to have suggested
penmanship, followed by a number of strange nicknames, chosen
promiscuously by my friends, but all tending in two directions:
“Madame la Duchesse.”
“Liege Lady.”
“She who would be obeyed.”
“Grande Dame.”
“Esmeralda.”
“Carmen.”
“Vixen.”
Do these denote character?—for they apparently run from the sublime to
the ridiculous.
My parents seem to have been less careful about choosing me a nurse of
a literary turn, however otherwise excellent the woman was, for the
following quaint letter to my mother from my old attendant, who was for
nearly forty years in the family, is not exactly a model of epistolary
art:
“I am wrighting to thank you for Papers you so kindly sent Mrs.
B—— she wished me to do so i told her i would do so but there was
plenty of time for doing it but on Monday morning she very quietly
took her long departyer not being any the worse the Delusions was
to much for her and she just went off hoping you are quite well
also your four Gran children and there parents the wether is very
cold for May i remain your Obident
“S. D.”
Apart from the undoubted virtues of my illiterate old nurse, my
education proceeded on the usual infantile lines. My father taught us
children a great deal about natural history, which we loved, as most
children do, and many odds and ends of heterogeneous information picked
up from him in those early days proved a mine of “copy” in years to
come.
A sage once said the child should choose its own parents. He might have
gone farther and said that the child should choose its own school,
because if school-fellows have often had as much influence as mine did
on me, then school companions are a matter of importance. Youth is the
time of selfishness and irresponsibility. How cruel we are through
thoughtlessness! How we stab and wound by quick, unmeditated words! The
journey onwards is a stony one, but we all have to pass along if we are
to attain either worldly success or, greatest of all blessings, mastery
of self. I often wonder why people are so horrid at home. We know it,
we deprecate it, but we don’t seem to have the pluck or the courage to
change it. We suffer the loneliness of soul we all endure at times,
even more than we need, because of our own foolish pride and want of
sympathy with our surroundings. We could be so much nicer and more
considerate if we really tried. We mean to be delightful, of course;
but we signally fail.
In those far-away kindergarten days in Harley Street there were a
little boy and three grown-up gentlemen with whom I made friends. The
little boy grew up and went to Mexico, where I met him after a lapse
of twenty-five years, a merchant in a good position. He was able to do
a great deal for me during my stay there, and proved as a brother in
occasions of difficulty.
Sir Felix Semon became a great physician, and Dr. von Mühlberg a German
Ambassador. The more elderly gentleman was studying at the British
Museum, and only lodged at the house. Dr. von Rottenburg was also a
German, and he used to pat my head every morning on the stairs and
talk to me about my playthings, calling me “leetle mees.” When I grew
up this famous philosopher, diplomat, and writer never forgot the
little black-eyed girl going to school with her doll, and was one of my
dearest and best friends in Germany.
On his return to Berlin he published, in 1878, a book called _Begriff
des Staates_. It was a learned volume and created much sensation in
Germany. One day he was sitting in the Foreign Office when he received
an invitation to dine with the great Bismarck. He was amazed, but
naturally accepted. At the dinner were only two other men, the Imperial
Chancellor and his son Herbert. The former talked to von Rottenburg
about his book in most flattering terms. On his return home that night
his wife asked him how he had got on.
“Not particularly well,” he replied. “I was so awe-stricken by the
wondrous capacity, the bulk of both body and mind of Bismarck, that I
seemed paralysed of speech and said practically nothing.
“Why were you invited?” enquired his spouse.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” was his reply. “Anyway, I am afraid I
made but a poor impression.”
A week later von Rottenburg was again sitting in his room when Count
Wilhelm Bismarck was announced.
“My father wishes to see you to-morrow,” he said.
“Indeed, and may I ask what for?”
“That is his business, not mine. Be pleased to call at such an hour.”
Perplexed as to the repetition of the invitation the young diplomat
called as desired. Bismarck was sitting at his table writing. The man
who held the destiny of Europe in his hands looked up and nodded.
“Sit down,” he said, and went on signing letters.
When he had finished blotting the last bold signature, turning to von
Rottenburg, he said:
“Do you wonder why I sent for you?”
“To tell the truth, I do.”
“I wish to make you Chief of the Chancellery.”
Von Rottenburg was naturally amazed, but said nothing.
“Do you understand what I say?” repeated Bismarck. “I wish to make you
Chief of the Chancellery.”
“Well—er—but——”
“There is no _well_ or _but_ about it.”
“But, you see, I am rather ambitious.”
“Are you? I am glad to hear it.”
“And such being the case, perhaps——”
“Man!” thundered Bismarck from his seat as he thumped the table; “Do
you understand the importance of what I am offering you?”
“I quite realise the immense _honour_, but at the same time I am
interested in my present work, and am doing so well at the Foreign
Office that I should be sorry to relinquish——”
“Are you married?” interrupted the Chancellor.
“Yes, to an English lady.”
“I congratulate you. I believe English women are the best wives and
companions in the world.”
Here let it be remarked that Bismarck was a great English scholar. He
spoke the language fluently, he read _Tom Jones_ from cover to cover
four times, and was never without his Shakespeare in the original,
whole pages from which he could quote.
“Go home,” said the Prince; “tell your wife what I have offered you
and ask her advice. But mind, if you come to me you will have to be my
slave. Where I go you must go, and it is only fair that you should ask
her permission. Women should be more considered than they are. Go home,
I tell you, and ask your wife.”
[Illustration: ORIGINAL LETTER FROM BISMARCK WITH A TRANSLATION BY HIS
INTIMATE FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE DR. VON ROTTENBURG]
Still bewildered, flattered but faltering, von Rottenburg went home. He
told his wife of his extraordinary interview with the Chancellor, and
she at once exclaimed:
“Of course, you must accept.”
“Must I?”
“Why, of course you must. A chance comes once to every man; let him
accept it gladly when it does come.”
Accordingly he accepted the post of Chief of the Chancellery, and began
his ten years’ service directly under the Iron Chancellor.
This post is by appointment for three years, and, as a rule, men are
not reappointed, but von Rottenburg was enjoying his fourth term when
Bismarck went out of office. During all those ten years von Rottenburg
rarely left the side of his Chief—the greatest man of his day.
Speaking of the storm and stress of those years, he once said:
“No one can realise the strain of that time. Bismarck was the most
remarkable man in the world. His physical health was as wonderful as
his mental capacity. He had so much to do, so much to bear, so much to
arrange, that I naturally saved him in every way I could, therefore
nearly everything of importance went through me. That alone was a
great responsibility. I settled all I could, arranged what interviews
I thought necessary, and played buffer between him and the great world
outside. But I often felt he reposed too much confidence in me.”
Bismarck objected to German being written or printed in Latin
characters, and never read a book not printed in German letters. Von
Rottenburg told me Bismarck had the greatest mathematical head he ever
knew and a colossal brain. A man of huge bulk, vast appetite, and
unending thirst, he was once at a supper-party in Berlin where six
hundred oysters were ordered for ten people. He ate the greater share.
“Thank Heaven!” once exclaimed von Rottenburg; “during all those ten
years of constant attendance and companionship with Bismarck we hardly
ever had a disagreeable word, and instead of taking power from me, year
by year he placed more upon my shoulders.”
“Practically nothing went to the Chancellor that did not pass through
my hands. I shiver to think of the times I was disturbed at night with
messages of importance, telegrams, special messengers, or letters
marked _Private_; all these things seemed to have a particularly
unhappy knack of arriving during the hours one should have had repose.
It was very seldom, however, that I went to Bismarck, as I never
disturbed him at night unless on a matter of urgent business, feeling
that his sleep was as important to him as his health was to the German
nation.”
“No, I don’t think I am tidy,” von Rottenburg once exclaimed. “I had
to be tidy for so many years that I fear I am a little lax nowadays,
although I can always find the papers I want myself, and generally know
where I have put everything. During those years with Bismarck I had to
be so careful, so exact and methodical. One of his little hobbies was
that when he was staying in an hotel, or anywhere away from home, he,
or I, would carefully search the waste-paper baskets to see no scrap
of paper that could in any way be made into political capital was left
therein.
“Bismarck was most particular about this. He destroyed everything that
might, he thought, make mischief, or would do harm of any kind.”
Did von Rottenburg destroy his wondrous diaries which I saw a few weeks
before he died? Of them I may have more to say in the future.
Another of my very earliest recollections is of Madame Antoinette
Sterling. She came from America to sing in England, and often stayed
at the residence of my grandfather, James Muspratt, of Seaforth Hall,
near Liverpool. In this house in earlier years James Sheridan Knowles
wrote some of his plays, and in it also Baron Justus von Liebig—who
invented his famous soup to save my mother’s life—Charlotte Cushman
(the American tragedienne), Charles Dickens, and Samuel Lover had been
frequent and ever-welcome guests.
At the time that Antoinette Sterling arrived in this country sundry
cousins, who were all quite little children, sat, open-mouthed and
entranced, before the fire in that beautifully panelled, well-filled
library at Seaforth Hall, while she squatted on the floor amongst us
and sang, “There was an old Nigger and his name was Uncle Ned,” or
“Baby Bye, here’s a fly.” How we loved it! Again and again we wildly
demanded another song, clapping our hands, and again and again that
good, kind soul sang to her juvenile admirers—maybe her first English
audience.
Seaforth Hall was built by my grandfather about 1830, at which time
four miles of beach divided him from Liverpool. The docks of that
city are eleven miles long to-day, and the Gladstone Dock is now in
the field in which we children used to ride and play. It was named
“Gladstone Dock” because that great statesman was born at a house near
by. The next dock will probably be on the site of my grandfather’s
dining-room, and may berth the largest ship in the world, that monster
now being built by Lord Aberconway (John Brown and Co.).
During his early years my father went a great deal into Society, being
presumably considered a clever, rising young physician who had seen a
good deal of the world, and was an excellent linguist: so by the time
he moved to the house now numbered “25, Harley Street,” in 1860—a step
followed later by his marriage with Emma, daughter of the above-named
James Muspratt—he was well established in the social world.
I often heard him speak of the delightful gatherings he attended and
so much enjoyed in those early days before I had opened my eyes on
this wonderful world, when women like Charlotte Cushman, Catherine
Hayes, Helen Faucit, Mrs. Charles Kean, Mrs. Kemble, and Mrs. Sterling
added grace and charm to the company: when the scientific giants were
Faraday, Tyndall, Sir David Brewster, Graham, Sir Henry Holland, and
William Fergusson: and in the literary world he was brought into
contact with Thackeray, Dickens, George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Samuel
Lover, Theodore Hook, and Mark Lemon.
The people at whose houses he visited became his constant guests; so
later his children grew up in a delightful atmosphere, in a home of
culture, where art, science, and literature were amply represented.
Meetings like these, even in earliest childhood, with bright souls,
persons of culture, intellect, polished manners, and brilliant gifts,
all leave strong impressions on a plastic youthful mind, and the memory
is undoubtedly an influence through life.
But the commanding figure in Harley Street in my early years was
not to be found among the doctors: it was Mr. Gladstone, while Mrs.
Gladstone’s individuality was hardly second to that of her husband.
When Mr. Gladstone first came to live there the mob broke his windows,
and shouted and yelled outside his house because of his hostility to
Disraeli’s policy in the Russo-Turkish War (1876-8). The Jingo fever
was at its height. There was tremendous excitement, and ultimately
the street had to be cleared by mounted police. To the surprise of
everyone, in the full tide of the tumult, the Gladstones’ front door
opened, and out walked the old couple, arm-in-arm, and passed right
into the midst of the very people who had been hurling stones through
their windows. With the grand manner of an old courtier the statesman
took off his hat, made a profound bow to the populace, and before the
mob had recovered from its astonishment, he had walked away down the
street with his wife.
It was a plucky act, and one which so surprised the boisterous assembly
that they utterly subsided, and soon dispersed quietly.
Mr. Gladstone’s habit every morning was to leave home about half-past
nine or ten o’clock and walk down to his work. My sister Olga (wife of
Dr. Francis Goodbody), then a very little girl, used to go out with her
nurse about the same time to Regent’s Park for her airing in a “pram.”
Some twenty or thirty houses divided my father’s from Mr. Gladstone’s,
and therefore, as the elderly statesman and the little girl both left
home about the same time, they often met.
“Well, how is dolly this morning?” he would say, and then he would
chaff the child on not having washed dolly’s face, or tell her that
the prized treasure wanted a new bonnet. In fact, he never passed her
without stopping to pat her on the head, and make some little joke such
as children love. She became very fond of her acquaintance and came
home quite disappointed if she had not seen “my friend Mr. Gladstone,”
as she always called him.
Years afterwards, when Mr. Gladstone had ceased all association with
Harley Street, and was Prime Minister, I fell a victim to the desire to
possess his autograph. Few people now realise how difficult a thing it
was to secure, for the public imagined that the statesman showered post
cards, then a somewhat new invention, on his correspondents by hundreds
and thousands. I asked his friend Sir Thomas Bond what was best to do.
His advice was shrewdness itself. Mr. Gladstone, he assured me, had
great objections to giving his autograph. He could not himself ask him
point-blank for his signature. “But if,” said he, “you will send one
of your books as a presentation copy to him, with a little note on the
title page, ‘To Mr. Gladstone, from the Author,’ I will take it across
and ask him to write you an acknowledgment.”
I did so, and Mr. Gladstone wrote me a charming little letter in his
own hand:
“10 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL.
“To convey his best thanks for Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s kindness in
sending him a book of so much interest.
“W. E. GLADSTONE.”
Not long before his death I had another letter from him, short, as
all his communications were, but always long enough to include the
gracefully drawn compliment which, one fears, has died out of the art
of letter-writing as now practised:
“DEAR MADAM,
“I received your obliging gift and letter yesterday. I consider
Finland a singularly interesting country, singularly little known;
and I am reading your work in earnest and with great interest.
“Your very faithful
“W. E. GLADSTONE.
“Jul. 13, ’97.”
The mention of Mr. Gladstone in connection with Harley Street brings to
mind his famous physician, Sir Andrew Clarke, who was a great personal
friend of my father.
At one time Sir Andrew Clarke had the largest practice in London,
besides holding the proud position of President of the Royal College of
Physicians. Thanks chiefly to a charming personality, he was one of the
most successful and most beloved of all the London medical men, and to
him is doubtless due the widespread discovery that a careful diet is a
better means to health than promiscuous floods of medicine.
These were some of the friendships and associations that surrounded
my childhood: such was the soil that nourished my infant roots in
kindliness and encouraged my green idea-buds to put forth into leaf.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Lady Brilliana Harley was the daughter of Sir Edward Conway, and
was born in the year 1600, at the Brill, of which her father was
Governor. She became the third wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton
Bryan, in 1623.
From her letters published by the Camden Society one gathers she was a
woman of considerable education, and of deep religious feeling imbued
with Calvinistic doctrine, while devotion to her home and children is
the keynote of her correspondence.
In the Great Rebellion, however, when Sir Robert Harley’s Parliamentary
duties necessitated his absence from Brampton Bryan, the Royalists
in the neighbourhood of the Castle alleged that Lady Brilliana was
sheltering rebels; and, after various threats and efforts to gain
possession of the stronghold, a Royalist force under Sir William
Vavasour laid siege to Brampton Bryan Castle on July 26th, 1643.
There Lady Brilliana with her children and household, and several
neighbours who had joined her in resisting the encroachments of the
Royalists, were shut up for six weeks, during which time she, usually
spoken of as “the Governess,” conducted the defence with both skill and
courage. Shots were daily fired into the Castle and frequently poisoned
bullets were used: one of these wounded the cook, who died from its
effects; and two ladies among the besieged party were also wounded.
Finding that Lady Brilliana was obdurate and would not surrender,
Charles I sent her a personal letter by special messenger—Sir John
Scudamore—whom Lady Brilliana received with calm dignity; but with
unflinching endurance she determined to continue her defence. She
replied to the King by a letter setting forth the attacks to which her
husband’s property had been subjected, and humbly petitioned that all
her goods should be restored to her.
Sir John Scudamore hurried back with another Royal document, offering
free pardon to Lady Brilliana and her supporters in the Castle, if she
would surrender, and also granting free licence to all to depart from
the Castle.
But Lady Brilliana stood her ground when the Royal messenger arrived on
September 1st. “By this time,” an “eye-witness” wrote later, “the fame
of the noble lady was spread over most of the kingdom, with admiration
and applause....”
And this courageous determination was all the more pronounced as she
was too unwell to receive Sir John on his return, having contracted a
chill which terminated fatally about a month later.
On September 9th, the defeat of the Royal troops elsewhere necessitated
the withdrawal of Sir William Vavasour’s force from Brampton Bryan, and
the siege was suddenly raised.
The relief was too late. Strain of deprivation and anxiety had taken
their toll and weakened the frame of the plucky heart that knew no
surrender.
“This honourable lady,” continued her historian, “of whom the world was
not worthy, as she was a setting forward the work of God suddenly and
unexpectedly fell sick of an apoplexy with a defluxion of the lungs....
Never was a holy life concluded with a more heavenly and happy ending.”
Her body was encased in lead and carried to the top of the Castle to
await burial in more peaceful days; but when the siege of Brampton
Bryan was renewed, and the Castle taken, her coffin was desecrated in
the search for plunder.
Her three beloved children, who had been through the first attack with
her, were taken prisoner at the end of the second siege in 1644.
PART II
GIRLHOOD
CHAPTER II
THE GIRL IS MOTHER TO THE WOMAN
As the boy is proverbially father to the man, so is the girl mother to
the woman.
Looking back, over thirteen years of exacting professional work,
beginning in 1896—the sad cause and necessity for which will be told
later—my destiny seems to have been that of a writer.
True, on my first coming out the stage was my girlish ambition.
Elsewhere[3] I have told how, after the success and delirious delight
of the private theatricals given at home for me instead of a ball—at
my own request—there came a tempting offer to make my bow behind the
footlights. Breathless with excitement I rushed downstairs to tell my
father and receive his approval. He heard my story, looked very sad,
and declared it should never be with his consent: “Of all professions
for women he disliked most the stage, especially for one so young.”
My dream was shattered, but the longing to work remained: _Je l’ai dans
le sang_. Looking back now, difficult though it is to see one’s own
growth, there was doubtless the worker dimly trying to struggle out of
the enveloping husk of protecting conventionalities: something within
me wanting to find an outlet, a means of _self-expression_.
In girlhood one hates the conventionalities. For instance, how I chafed
at the care demanded in handling old family treasures and wished
the cut-glass decanters, the old Scotch silver salvers, the Italian
embroidered cushions, and all the other details of a refined home, at
the bottom of the sea. I used mentally to vow that when I had a home
of my own I would never have anything that cost more than sixpence,
and would wear it out and throw it away. I did not then realise that
little by little the love of beautiful things, fine workmanship, rich
colours, coupled with reverence for ancient family gods, was being
fostered within me.
Environment is of enormous importance in a child’s life. Heredity and
environment are three-fourths of character, the other fourth being left
to chance and circumstances; and character counts for more in the end
than any other asset in life. If we are born into a refined home, we
learn to hate vulgar things, we are not interested in vulgar people,
and, however poor we may become, that love of culture and good taste
never leaves us.
In spite of the tales and explanations that my father gave us about
beautiful things of art, or curios, it must be owned these wearied me.
But when the day for work came, some of them formed the nucleus and
inspiration of the half-dozen articles the grown woman turned out every
week for the Press.
The influence of that Harley-Street home was very strong. I left it
when young for a house of my own, but its atmosphere went with me.
After all, it is the woman who makes the home. A man may be clever,
brilliant, hard-working, a good son, a good father, and a good master,
but without a wife the result is a poor thing. It is the woman who
keeps the home together. It is the woman who is the pivot of life. Most
men are like great big children, and have to be mothered to the end of
time.
To my mother I really owe any success I may have had. Encouragement
goes a long way, just as human sympathy is the very backbone of life.
It was she who encouraged, cheered, and often censured, for she was
a severe critic. It was she who helped my father during those awful
years of blindness, who wrote his scientific books from dictation,
before the days of secretaries and shorthand. It was she who learnt to
work the microscope to save his eyes. Later, it was she who corrected
my spelling and read my proofs. Never an originator herself, she
was always an initiator. She ran her home perfectly and—whether as
daughter, wife, or mother—never failed. Her personality dominated,
and her personality made the home. Only two homes in life have been
mine, and, roughly speaking, half has been spent in each; and yet few
people have had so many addresses. I might have been running away from
creditors, so many strange places have given me shelter in different
lands.
I was a lazy young beggar in those Harley-Street days. Books and
lessons had no particular fascination for me, and the only things
I cared about were riding daily in the Row with my father, hunting
occasionally, dancing, and painting. My education, after preparatory
schooling, was more earnestly taken in hand at Queen’s College,
Harley Street, but I was a very bad pupil, never did anything with
distinction, and the only lectures I really cared for were literature
and history, and the only occupations that appealed to me were drawing
and map-making; but I did actually win a prize for mathematics.
Lady Tree, who was my mentor, can vouch for my mediocrity, judging by a
letter just found, written by her shortly after a serious accident.
“WALPOLE HOUSE, THE MALL,
“CHISWICK,
“_November 21st, 1906_.
“DEAREST ETHEL,
“Thank you so much for your sweet letter. I am home and getting on
wonderfully well, though I dare say some weeks will go by before
I shall be fit to be seen. _You_ are a wonder with all your work
and energy. What fun your _Observer_ article was on Sunday. You
clever Ethel—and I used to think—how many years ago?—that you only
cared about the set of your lovely ‘pinafores’ over your black silk
dresses, with slim body and _tiny_ waist. What were you?—14-16, I
think, and _the_ most lovely figure I ever saw. _Most_ naughty and
inattentive and _vain_ (I feared), with very small feet in little
tiny smart shoes below the kilt of the black silk dress.
“You will think my brain has gone the way of my jaw (indeed,
it _was_ cracked a little as a matter of fact); but I am only
remembering. Tell me, if you have time, dear, to write to me again,
all sorts of _goodish_ novels to read. I mean that I find I can
devour _now_ what I called trash a month ago.
“It is lovely to be at home here, with the babies and Viola,
and Herbert sparing as much time as he can from his _Anthony_
rehearsals. He, like everybody else, has been an angel to me, and
my heart is _too_ full of gratitude to everybody for all the love
and tenderness they have shown.
“What a long letter, but it will show you how well I am, dear. Thank
you again and again for writing.
“With love always,
“Yours affectionately,
“MAUD TREE.”
Later on my school education was finished in Germany, where my mother
had many old friends, among whom was the great chemist, Baron von
Liebig, my godfather. How oddly, as years roll by, friends meet and
part and meet again, like coloured silks in a plaited skein. One of my
school-fellows in Germany, for instance, came from Finland, and, later
on, it was the fact of meeting her again that brought about my visit to
“Suomi,” described in _Through Finland in Carts_.
Another of my companions became engaged to one of Sweden’s most famous
artists, Carl Gustav Hellqvist, though at that time he was not known
so well as later. He only spoke Swedish and French, and Julie Thiersch
spoke German and English. Therefore many little translations were done
by myself at that delightful country home of Maler Thiersch, on the
shores of the König See, in Bavaria. Many sweet little sentences had to
be deciphered by me, although the language of the eyes is so powerful
that the actual proposal was accomplished through music (of which they
were both passionately fond) and rapturous glances, in which he, at any
rate, excelled.
What a delightful, fair, rough-and-tumble, jolly boyish man Hellqvist
then was. Later, gold medals were showered at his feet, and many
distinctions came to him while he painted those wonderful historical
pictures which are now in the Museum at Stockholm.
But, alas! a few years of happy married life ended in an early death.
Other German girl companions are now married to Dr. Adolf Harnack, the
famous theologian, and Professor Hans von Delbruck, Under-Secretary of
State for Germany.
Of amusement there was no lack at home, for from the age of seven,
I rode every morning with my father in Hyde Park, and kept up the
practice with my husband after my marriage. Then there was skating on
ice or rinks, croquet or tennis. There was also amusement of another
kind. A delightful old Scotch gentleman used to come and tune the piano
on Harley Street. One day he told me he was going on to tune one for an
entertainment for the blind in the East End.
“Why don’t you come and recite to them?” he asked.
I was fifteen or sixteen at the time and bursting with pride over
having won a prize for repeating Gray’s _Elegy_. That is a long time
ago, but from then till now I have gone two or three times a year as
girl, wife, or widow, to entertain those poor afflicted people—the
blind.
The Somers Town club, which began in a small way and now numbers over
eight hundred members, is the work of one woman. Mrs. Starey has
accomplished a great mission. Besides her clothing club, coal club,
and employment bureau, she provides an entertainment every Thursday
night for these sightless sufferers to whom she has devoted her life.
And as there are fifty-two Thursdays in a year, and it takes five or
six performers for each entertainment, one can glean some idea of the
labour entailed; but beyond all this, no outsider can realize what
her life and sympathy have done for these sufferers. As a girl my
interest was aroused in these people by the old piano tuner, and years
afterwards I went on to their work Committee—just one instance among
many, showing how first impressions and environment influence one’s
after-life.
At “our shop” for the _Society for Promotion of the Welfare of the
Blind_, on Tottenham Court Road, they sell mats, brushes, chairs,
re-make mattresses, and even undertake shorthand notes and typewriting
with nimble fingers and blind eyes.
I danced hard, painted, and accomplished a good deal of needlework
for my father’s hospitals, or my own person. One Bugaboo haunted me,
however, and that was music. I sang a little and played a little, both
very badly, but my parents insisted on me struggling on. When I first
met Alec Tweedie, shortly after my coming out, I heard him say, “There
is only one thing in the world that would induce me to marry, and that
is a thoroughly musical girl.” He had a beautiful voice and sang a
great deal—but he married me!
Perhaps those music lessons made me appreciative later, but they were
an awful waste of time and money.
Again, painting was another likely channel for my energies, for at that
time I used to show my pictures at the women’s exhibitions; yes, and
sell them too. But writing must have been ordained for me by the stars.
A year or two before my actual coming out my parents took me to supper
one Sunday night at the house of Nicholas Trübner (the publisher), in
Upper Hamilton Terrace, his only child being about my own age. Charles
Godfrey Leland, Bret Harte, Miss Braddon, and others were there.
On this particular occasion I sat next that famous writer of gipsy
lore, Charles Godfrey Leland. He was an old friend of my father, and
often came to Harley Street, so I knew him well. He chaffed me about
being so grown up, and told me tales of some gipsy wanderings he had
just made, when suddenly he exclaimed:
“Let me see your hand.”
Leland was a firm believer in palmistry, which lore he had picked up
from the gipsies. For a long time, as it seemed to me, he was silent.
“Most remarkable, the most remarkable hand I have ever seen in anyone
so young. My dear, you must write, or paint, or sing, or do something
with that hand.”
Up to that moment I had certainly never thought of doing anything but
lessons or enjoying myself.
He took out his pocket-book and made some notes, then he insisted upon
the others looking at what he called “the character, originality, and
talent” depicted in my hand.
He was so long about it that I grew tired, and at last exclaimed:
“I shall charge you if you lecture them about me any more.”
“And I’ll pay,” he said; “I’ll send you a Breitmann Ballad all to
yourself.”
And he did. Naturally proud of being so honored in verse, its heroine
was nevertheless shy, and never, never showed her poetic trophy for
fear of being thought conceited.
[Illustration: HANS BREITMANN’S BALLAD TO THE AUTHOR WHEN]
[Illustration: A GIRL—SET TO MUSIC BY ADOLPH MANN]
Years afterwards—in 1908—Mrs. E. K. Pennell wrote the _Life_ of
her uncle, Charles Godfrey Leland, and there, to my surprise,
reproduced my hidden ballad, a copy of which she had found amongst
the writer’s papers. Sydney Low, in his critique of the book in the
_Standard_, said this poem “was one of the best Leland ever wrote.”
Leland intended it to be his last Breitmann Ballad, but I believe he
wrote another later.
I dink de sonn’ hafe perisht in all dis winter rain,
I never dink der Breitmann vould efer sing again;
De sonne vant no candle nor any Erdenlicht,
Vot _you_ vant mit a poem? bist selber ganz Gedicht.
For like a Paar of Ballads are de augen in your head,
(I petter call dem bullets vot shoot de Herzen dead).
And ash like a ripplin’ rifer efery poem ought to pe,
So all your form is flowin’ in perfect harmony.
I hear de epigramme in your sehr piquant replies,
I hear de sonnets soundin’ ven your accents fall and rise,
And if I look upon you, vote’er I feel or see,
De voice and form and motion is all one melody.
Du bist die Ideale of efery mortal ding,
Ven poets reach de perfect—dey need no longer sing
Das Beste sei das Letzte—de last is pest indeed!
Brich Herz und Laut! zusammen—dies ist mein letztes Lied!
Leland was an enormous man, with a long, shaggy beard. He came from
Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1824, but lived the greater part of
his life on this side of the water. He was full of good stories: knew
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Talleyrand, J. R. Lowell, Emerson, and others of
that ilk. Our sympathy lay, however, in his love of the gipsies (about
whom he wrote so much that to his friends he was known as “The Rye”),
also in his affection for and knowledge of Germany, so that when I came
back from that country a first-class chatterbox in the Teuton tongue,
and ready to shake school-days from my feet, he wrote me that I “looked
like a gipsy and talked German like a _backfish_.”
Those were the days of his waning as a literary star in London life,
a firmament in which he had shone for long. His Breitmann Ballads
were an unexpected hit. They made the journalist famous. The author
became known as “H. B.” on both sides of the water. History relates
that cigars were called after them, they were the rage. Germany was
indignant; France ecstatic.
Lying by me is a letter I received from “Hans Breitmann.” It displays
his unvarying kindness and helpfulness towards younger people, always
wanting to be doing something to employ their energetic mind and body.
I had evidently made some proposal to him, and he says:
“DEAR FRIEND,
“Short biographical sketches, as they are almost invariably given,
are the veriest nutshells filled with ashes that literature yields.
As regards to accuracy, you cannot obtain it by interviewing. It
does not happen that once in twenty times—if ever—that the most
practiced reporter succeeds in getting and giving even an average
idea of a life. I have sat for this kind of portrait more than
once. I once gave a professional collector of anecdotes _six_—and
when they appeared in his book he had missed the point of _five_.
“The best I can do for you will be to write you a brief sketch
of my rather varied and peculiar life—which I will do whenever
you want to go to work on me. It is rather characteristic of the
Briton that he or she does not invariably distinguish accurately in
conversation what is printable from what is not. Once in talking
with Frank Buckland about animals I mingled many Munchausenisms and
‘awful crammers’ with true accounts of our American fauna, etc.
Fortunately he sent me a _proof_ of his report! I almost—gasped—to
think that any mortal man _could_ swallow and digest such stories
as he had put down as facts. Had they been published he would have
appeared as the greatest fool and I as the grandest humbug—yea,
as the ‘Champion Fraud’ of the age. I believe that he was
seriously angered. Now the American knows the scum from the soup
in conversation. I never dreamed that any human being out of an
idiot asylum or a theological seminary could have believed in such
‘yarns’ as the great naturalist noted.
“I will do myself, however, the pleasure of interviewing you when I
get a little relief from the work which at present prevents me from
interviewing even my tailor.
“Yours faithfully,
“CHARLES G. LELAND.”
Leland was a most talented man, if one may use the word, for talent
itself is generally undefinable even through a magnifying glass.
[Illustration: AUTHOR’S HAND]
Later, Adolph Mann, the composer, wished to set Leland’s charming words
to music, and the accompanying ballad in 1908 was the result.
Sir Charles Santley thought so highly of it, “that he much regretted
that the public would not let him sing any new things or he would have
rendered it himself,” but, as he sadly remarked, “I am never allowed to
sing anything but the old songs,” and at seventy two, when he retired,
he was still “singing the old songs.”
That is the worst part of being a celebrity. The moment a man makes
a name in any particular line, whether singing a song, acting a
particular style or part, painting a certain type of tree, scenes
of snow or what not—along that line he has to go for evermore, for
the public to consider anything else from that particular person an
imposition. People do not naturally become groovy. It is the public
that makes them so.
The next development of Leland’s palmist theory, which begun in my
youth, took place some years later, when a man arrived one day asking
permission to make an impression of my hand. If I remember correctly,
it was for a series of magazine articles upon the resemblance between
the hands of persons occupied in the same professions. He showed
impressions of the hands of many well known folks, and it was strange
to see how inventive minds, like Sir Hiram Maxim, that delightful man
of leonine appearance, had blunted tips to their fingers. That artistic
and musical people should have long and tapering fingers was not
surprising, but he pointed out other characteristics. Smearing a sheet
of white paper with smoke, he pressed the palm of my hand on it, ran
round the fingers with a pencil, and the trick was done. Anything more
hideous or like a murderer’s fist one has seldom seen, but the lines
were there as distinctly as those of prisoners’ fingers when their
impressions are taken for purposes of identification.
This discovery, that the lines of the human thumb do not change from
cradle to grave—was one of the brilliant achievements of Sir Francis
Galton (the founder of Eugenics). I remember the great kindly,
soft-voiced scientist in my father’s house speaking enthusiastically
of Darwin—who was his relative—and his work. He was as determined to
improve the race as Darwin was to prove its origin.
Sir Francis Galton was one of the kindest old gentlemen. Benevolence,
goodness, and sympathy were written large all over his face. It was his
very sympathy with mankind that made him wish to better the lot of the
degenerate, while preventing their marriage, and improve the condition
of the unsound. He even went so far as to wish rich folk to gather
about them fine, sturdy young couples, to protect them and look after
their children for the good of the race. He saw that the human race is
deteriorating, while different breeds of animals are improving under
care.
The tiny seeds of the environment of youth are what blossom and ripen
in later years. And here, again, my childish environment bore ultimate
fruit. As a child I met Galton, and as a woman I went on to the Council
of the Eugenic Society of England.
Yes, I had a good time, a really lovely girlhood, and when the days of
worry came I could look back with pleasure to those happy years. The
remembrance helped me—but I missed the old life.
It doesn’t matter being born poor, that is no crime, and we cannot miss
what we never had; but the poverty which robs of the luxuries—that use
has really made necessaries—of existence is a cruel, rasping kind of
poverty, that irritates like a gall on a horse’s back until one learns
the philosophy of life. Luxury is merely a little more self-indulgence
than one is accustomed to. Prolonged luxury becomes habit. The
well-born can do without cream, but they cannot do without clean linen.
Those girlhood days were bright and happy. I had no cares, just a
rollicking time in a refined and cultured home, with lots of young men
ready to amuse me, and after all these years I am proud to say girl
friends of my school days, and even of the kindergarten, are still
constant visitors at my home. As I write a beautiful white azalea
stands before me, an offering from a woman, who sent it with a note,
saying, “It was so kind of you to let me come and see you after nearly
thirty years, and so charming to find you so little changed from my
school-playmate, in spite of all you have done since we met. Accept
this flower with gratitude and affection from a friend of your early
youth.”
These are the pretty little things that make life pleasant.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] _Behind the Footlights._
PART III
WOMANHOOD
CHAPTER III
“WOOED AND MARRIED, AND A’”
Iceland seems a strange place to go to, but it came about in this wise.
My brother was ill after completing his medical education, and wanted
a holiday. Not having the slightest idea where to go, Iceland was
suggested. To Cook’s I then went. The young man behind the counter
shook his head. They had never been asked for a ticket to Iceland.
Indeed, they did not know how to get there. They knew nothing about the
place. That decided the matter, and to Iceland, in 1886, we young folk
went.
Then it was that my father besought me to keep a diary. “There will
be no possibility of sending letters home,” he said, “because there
are only two or three posts a year, and there is no telegraphic
communication. So by the time you come back, you will have forgotten
many of the interesting details, all of which your mother and I would
like to know. Consequently I beg you will keep a diary.”
Therefore I took with me some funny little black-backed shiny books
at a penny each, and scrawled down notes and impressions, sometimes
written from the back of a pony, sometimes in the darkness of a tent in
which one could not stand up; sometimes sitting beside a boiling geyser
while our meal bubbled in a little tin can on the edge of the pool, but
always beneath the gorgeous skies, the endless days and little-known
nights of the Arctic in summer.
To that little trip romance is attached.
Alec Tweedie, who had been proposing to me regularly since the day I
came out, was, to my amazement and disgust, standing on the quay at
Leith when we arrived there ready to start.
We were a little party of four, and as he knew I particularly wished
him not to come, and that he would make an odd man in the party and
also render the situation uncomfortable for me, I was perfectly furious.
I raged up and down that quay, I used every bad word I could think of.
But still he was firm to his ground. He would take his gun, he would
shoot. He would never say a word to cause me the least embarrassment
from the day we started till we returned, he would never refer to
the old sentimental charge of which I was heartily sick. In fact, he
promised to be on his “best behaviour,” but come he would.
I nearly turned tail myself, even at the last moment, so furious was I
at the situation. However, as his word of honour was given, I accepted
the matter rather than upset the whole party at the eleventh hour or
let the others guess the secret.
To his credit be it said, he entirely carried out his promise. He was
always there when I wanted him, never when I did not. He was just as
nice to my girl companion as to myself. He was good pals with the two
men, in fact, I do not think any of the others realised the situation
in the least.
It was his behaviour during that time that made me begin to change my
mind. I saw the strain it was on him and admired him for carrying it
through. I saw him pull himself up many times and march off to light a
pipe for solace.
* * * * *
If love is service, Alec loved.
Riding astride over a lava bed near Hekla my pony fell, the girths gave
way, and saddle and I turned round together. It was a nasty fall on my
head and I was stunned. Alec appeared—from goodness knows where—to pick
me up. I have ridden since I was seven, generally on a side-saddle, but
in Iceland, Morocco, and Mexico astride, and only two falls have been
my lot, this and another from a side-saddle in Tangier, when my horse,
climbing a steep stony road, strained and broke the girths and I fell
on the off-side.
* * * * *
It was not till we were coming into the Firth of Forth many weeks
later, just before landing on the quay where I had stormed and raged,
that Alec Tweedie said:
“There is Edinburgh Castle, have I kept my word?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Have you any fault to find with anything I have said or done during
the trip?”
“No,” I murmured.
“Have I kept my promise in the letter and the law?”
Again I had to answer “Yes.”
“Then you are satisfied?”
“But you had no right to come,” I weakly said.
“That has nothing to do with it. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes,” I had to reply.
“Then,” he continued, “remember that my bond is waste paper when we
land in a few minutes, and the proposals I have made before, I shall
repeat on _terra firma_.”
* * * * *
Six weeks later we were engaged, and six weeks later still I married
one of the handsomest men in London.
* * * * *
When I was first engaged it was a constant subject of interest to my
friends that the man should have such an extraordinary name as ALEC.
In 1887 no one in England had apparently ever heard the name of Alec.
He was the fifth generation bearing the name himself, but outside that
family the abbreviation does not appear to have penetrated.
Times change, and twenty years later the name had become so well
known that I had the honour and felicity of seeing it on a music-hall
programme, and placarded for a music-hall artist.
In his diary my father states the following:
“My daughter Ethel has just married (1887) Alec Tweedie, son of an
Indian Civil Servant and grandson of Dr. Alexander Tweedie, F.R.S.,
formerly of 47, Brook Street, whose portrait hangs in the Royal College
of Physicians, London. Old Dr. Tweedie’s work on fever was very well
known, and the London Fever Hospital was built under his auspices.
Strangely enough, he examined me when I first came to London to take
the membership of the Royal College of Physicians.
“But the connecting-link is even stronger, for Alec Tweedie is first
cousin to Sir Alexander Christison, my old Edinburgh chum, who took
his degree with Murchison and myself on the same day in Edinburgh. My
son-in-law is therefore a nephew of dear old Sir Robert Christison,
whose classes I attended as a student.
“On his mother’s side, Alec is the grandson of General Leslie,
K.H., and great-grandson of Colonel Muttlebury, C.B.K.W., a very
distinguished soldier, who was in command of the 69th at Quatre Bras.
“My son-in-law is also a nephew of General Jackson, who was in the
famous charge of Balaclava, so that on his mother’s side he is as much
connected with the army as he is on his father’s with medicine.”
* * * * *
Being a young person with a mind of her own, I rebelled against hideous
sugar flowers on my wedding-cake. I loved wedding-cake, and my father,
knowing this form of greed, laughingly said:
“You had better get a wedding-cake as big as yourself and then you will
be happy.”
I did, that is to say it weighed nine stone four pounds, my own weight,
which is barely a stone more when these pages go to press.
Well, thereupon, I repaired to Mr. Buszard, junior—whose father,
attired in a large white apron and tall hat, I, as a baby, had known in
his then little shop in Oxford Street.
“I want real flowers on my cake,” I announced.
“Impossible, we never do such a thing,” he replied.
“Then you must do it now, do it for me.”
Much palaver, and Mr. Buszard and I crossed the street together to
a little flower shop, with the result that those three tiers of
wedding-cake were decked with natural blooms and a tall vase of white
flowers as a central ornament.
Everyone has natural flowers nowadays.
I travelled away with the top tier of my cake, and ate bits of it in
France, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany, during our three months’
honeymoon.
We took one of the houses at the top of Harley Street, overlooking
Regent’s Park, where squirrels frolic and wood pigeons cry, and there,
in York Terrace, where the muffin man rings his bell on Sundays and
George IV lamp-posts hold our light, I still live.
Apropos of this street, Sir Arthur Grant of Monymusk once told me a
curious story.
His grandfather owned many houses in the neighbourhood in the beginning
of the nineteenth century, and whenever one was empty he put an old
caretaker in who had once been a personal servant. On one occasion one
of the houses was to let. A lady and gentleman arrived in a carriage
and asked to see over it. The caretaker showed them round and they
seemed pleased with everything. They asked many questions and lingered
some time, and when they left, to the surprise of the caretaker, they
handed her a sovereign.
As most people gave her nothing, and others a shilling, she was rather
taken aback with the sovereign, and explained how large a sum it was.
“It is all right,” said the gentleman, “put it in your pocket and may
it bring you luck.”
Not long after her return to the staircase, which she had been cleaning
before their arrival, she heard a child’s voice. It seemed to be
crying. She listened for some time, and as she was quite alone in the
house, she was unable to understand the cause. Finally, feeling sure it
came from a certain room, she went and opened the door, just to satisfy
herself it was an hallucination. What was her amazement to find a
sturdy little boy of two standing before her. She nearly had a fit, the
people had not mentioned a child, nor had she seen anything of it, and
she remembered that the lady and gentleman had left no address. Feeling
sure such kind people would come back, she took the small boy to the
kitchen and gave him some milk. He was too small to tell her who he was
or where he came from, though he sat and cried.
When her husband came home she told him the strange story.
“Oh, they will come and fetch him presently. Don’t you worry,” he said.
But day wore on to evening, and evening wore on to night, and no one
came. The only thing she could do was to pacify him and put him to bed,
and when she undressed him golden sovereigns fell out of a bag tied
round his neck.
The mystery thickened. Days went on; no one claimed the child. The
caretaker went to Sir Arthur’s grandfather and reported the matter, and
everything was done to try to trace the owners of the little boy, but
nothing was heard of them.
The woman’s husband was a nice old man, and instead of wishing to turn
the child out, he said:
“No, God ordained to give us no children of our own. This little boy
has been left with us, and it is our duty to take care of him.” So
accordingly the little boy was brought up as their own son.
He was sent to school, went out as a page-boy, and became a footman. He
made an excellent servant, clean, punctual, tidy, and efficient—but,
alas! he finally traced his pedigree to a family of very high degree;
from that moment he was ruined. He thought himself too grand for his
situation, became idle, took to drink, began blackmail, and generally
went to the dogs.
The house we took was a few doors from this romance.
Built about 1810, the house was strong and good, but old-fashioned, so
we had to put in a bath, have hot and cold water laid on upstairs; add
gas, after finally deciding it would be too much bother to work our own
electric dynamo in the cellar (the only possible source of electric
light in London in 1887 was at the Grosvenor Gallery in Bond Street);
reconstruct the drains from end to end; in fact, turn an ancient
dwelling into a modern one. A vine, probably as old as the house, bears
fruit on the drawing-room balcony every summer, and lilies of the
valley and jasmine flourish beneath the window.
One year the vine bore one hundred and seventy bunches of little black
grapes. In the hot summer of 1911 the number of bunches was less; but
two weighed respectively one pound, and thirteen ounces.
* * * * *
Was it Chance? or did Dame Brilliana Harley hover as a guardian angel
round the path of her namesake, gently whispering suggestions shedding
her influence to draw me in her footsteps? Howe’er it was, after my
marriage and departure abroad, naturally nothing more was thought of
the shiny black cloth book of Iceland notes by its owner.
Meantime it happened that Miss Ellen Barlee, a fairly well-known
authoress in those days—she wrote a _Life of the Prince Imperial_—was
going blind, and my father lent them to her so that her secretary might
read my jottings aloud in the evening with a view to amusing the old
lady.
[Illustration: GRAPES GROWING ON A LONDON BALCONY]
One day she sent for me. “My dear, you must publish this,” she said as
soon as I arrived.
At that time I had not long returned from my wedding tour. Needless
to say, therefore, I laughed at the idea. Miss Barlee was determined,
however, to carry her point.
“If you do not believe in my opinion,” she said, “may I send the
manuscripts to my publisher, and if he approves of it, will you take
the matter into serious consideration, as you are almost the first
woman—girl, I should rather say—to have been across Iceland?”
Naturally I assented to her proposal, thinking the whole thing absurd.
What was my surprise when, a little later, I received a letter from the
publisher to say that he liked the notes, and if I would divide them
into chapters he thought that they would make a nice little book. He
also asked whether I could let him have any illustrations for it.
Feeling somewhat exalted, and yet very shy about the whole thing, I
sent him a number of the sketches that I had made. Lo and behold, they
were accepted for the illustrations, and the book appeared as _A Girl’s
Ride in Iceland_.
How strange it seems to look back and remember the origin of the title
_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_. It was the title I had put on the cover of
the little black book—but it seemed absurd and ridiculous to my mind as
a cover on a real book. I thought of all sorts of grand, high-sounding
delineations; but Miss Barlee would none of them. “I love your title,”
she said. “You were a girl, and it seems such an original idea, you
must stick to it.” I did, but the critics laughed at the idea of a girl
doing anything—nevertheless it was quickly followed with _A Girl in the
Carpathians_, and every sort and kind of “girl” has haunted the public
ever since, from the stage to the library.
The book ran through four editions, finally appearing on the bookstalls
at one shilling.
But, oh dear, how I struggled with those chapters! How I fought those
“Mondays,” “Tuesdays,” and “Wednesdays” of the diary-form and wrestled
to get the whole into consecutive line and possible chapters: but it
gave me amusement during long hours spent on a sofa before my eldest
child was born. I used to get into despair, the despair of the amateur
who does not know what is wanted, and which is just as bad as the
despair of the professional who really knows what is wanted and yet
cannot pull it off. And so _A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_ appeared just for
the fun of the thing. It cost me nothing and amused me hugely at the
moment; but I soon forgot all about it and set to work to enjoy myself
again.
Among the friends who came to our bridal dinners—alas! years have
rolled on and death has played havoc among them—was Professor John
Stuart Blackie, my husband’s cousin. In Edinburgh that remarkable head
of his, with the shaggy white locks, the incomparable black wide-awake
and the Scotsman’s plaid thrown around his shoulders, was really one of
the sights. In fact, no figure was better known north of the Tweed than
Professor Blackie in his day. The north was his “ain countree,” but he
was a delight to every social circle that he entered on those occasions
when he came south.
Of course, he commanded the whole company. And why not? Who would be an
octogenarian as full of activity and high spirits as he was, a Greek
scholar, professor, and a wit, without the authority to bid others keep
silence while one’s self talks? His little foibles and vanities were
the man, and nobody who knew him would willingly have seen him part
with a single one of them.
On such an evening, soon after my marriage, I was sitting between him
and Mr. (now Sir) Anderson Critchett. The Professor declared in his
emphatic way that no man who lacked a poetic soul ought to live, poetry
being one of the most refining and ennobling gifts; he had always been
a poet himself and hoped to continue so as long as he lived.
The old scholar became quite excited on the theme and said he would
sing to us after dinner, which he did, half singing, half reciting
“Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.”
“I believe in singing, it does one good,” he professed, and so he sang.
Eccentric as he was, Blackie’s courtesy was delightful. What a pity we
have not more of that sort of thing nowadays! We women do love pretty
little attentions.
Blackie once wrote me a poem—it was in Greek:
_Likeness to God._
Those _things_ are likest to God,
The _heart_ that fainteth never,
The _love_ that ever is warm,
And the hand of the generous giver.
When he gave it to me, he dropped on his knees on the floor before a
whole roomful of people, kissed my hand like a courtier of the Middle
Ages in humble obeisance, and handed me the little poem.
About this time also dates my first essay in journalism. Chance so
often steps in to foreshadow the important events of our lives.
Everyone gets his chance; but many do not recognise it when it comes.
If we only accept small beginnings they often lead to big endings. My
chance notebook on Iceland and some sporting articles in the _Queen_
were the beginning of an income a few years later.
I was going to Scotland to pay a round of shooting and golfing visits
with my husband, who was fond of all kinds of sport. It occurred to
me it would be an interesting thing to write some sporting articles,
for I invariably followed the guns. I therefore went down to the
office of the _Queen_ and boldly sent my card in to the editor. Miss
Lowe received me. I explained my idea to her, but as it would be an
innovation for a lady’s paper to attempt to print anything in the
nature of sport she did not know how it would be received, so she sent
for a worthy captain, who was at that time the art editor of the paper,
and asked for his opinion. “Absurd!” he exclaimed, without a moment’s
hesitation; “perfectly absurd! A woman can’t write articles on sport.”
As really I did not care very much about doing the articles except
for an amusement, I was turning to go away, when I noticed the editor
holding the lapels of the old gentleman’s coat and trying to bawl into
his ear.
“Women don’t know anything about sport and don’t want to,” he
continued, still determined not to listen.
Those were the early days of women in journalism, and men—or rather
most men—had a strong prejudice against us and a distinct disbelief in
our abilities. After this ultimatum there was nothing left for me to
do but to say good-bye and leave Miss Lowe’s room. I was going out a
little crestfallen that my plan had so completely fallen through, when,
as the captain opened the door for me, he suddenly noticed my gloves,
and said:
“Why do you wear those white gauntlet gloves? They look like the Horse
Guards.”
“They are my driving gloves,” I replied.
“Driving gloves!” he exclaimed. “What do you mean? You didn’t drive
here?”
“Certainly,” I answered, “the phaeton is at the door.”
“You drove down Holborn at this crowded hour of the day?”
“Yes,” I mildly replied.
He looked out of the window and saw the carriage and horses standing in
the street below. By this time I was in the passage. He called me back,
scanned me curiously, and, turning to Miss Lowe, said suddenly, and
without any preliminary canter:
“Let her do the articles. A woman who can drive a pair along the
crowded London streets in the season ought to be able to write a
sporting article.”
Perhaps his conclusion was as illogical as his previous opinion of
woman’s capability in the sporting line had been. Anyway, as it gave
me the opportunity I wanted, I was not disposed to question, much less
to quarrel, with it. So began the first series of sporting articles
to appear in a woman’s paper. The little set was a success. This was
my first essay in journalism, just done at the time for the fun of
the thing. I think I made about fifteen pounds over it, and promptly
distributed my earnings where most sadly required.
Any little earnings then were devoted to charity, and I always called
them my “charity money.” It was the generousness of superfluity. Now,
when I can’t help giving away a great deal more than I ought to afford,
it is the “extravagance of generosity.”
Having tried my hand at journalism I was satisfied, just as I had tried
my hand as a girl in my teens at exhibiting oil-paintings at the Lady
Artists’ Exhibitions or china plaques elsewhere; or as later, when I
exhibited photographs and won a Kodak prize of five pounds for horses
galloping across the open prairie. It is nice to make an attempt at
anything and everything, and sometimes such experience becomes of
value. Truly, journalism did so to me when, six years after those first
half-dozen sporting articles appeared for “the fun of the thing,” I had
to look to my pen, or my brush.
[Illustration: BORKUM OF SPY FAME—NOW A GREAT NAVAL STATION
_Water-colour sketch by the Author. Exhibited in London 1911_]
How strange, after such a span of time, to feel a little thrill of
pleasure at the announcement of acceptance of something I had done!
It shows that, after all, one is capable of new sensations along new
lines, even when parallel ones.
Everyone was talking of Borkum in 1910. Two English officers had been
arrested as spies there and imprisoned in a German fortress.
Mr. Percy Anderson, fresh from designing the dresses for _Kismet_,
chanced to see a sketch I had made at Borkum a few years before.
“Why on earth don’t you send it to an exhibition?” he asked.
“I never show anything nowadays,” was my reply.
“Send this for a change, then—just get a frame and send it in.”
The frame was bought, and to the Lady Artists in Suffolk Street it
went. A little thrill of joy passed through me when I opened an
envelope with a bright red ticket:
_Admit the artist to varnishing day._
A week later my little picture appeared in the _Daily Graphic_.
Borkum, once famous “as the only spot on earth without a Jew,” is now
a great German naval base. In 1900 it was little more than a sandhill,
with a few lodging-houses and bathing-machines, and ourselves the
only English folk. Icebound in winter, it was the home of millions of
wild fowl in summer. Every evening before going to bed the visitors
and residents sang their anti-Jewish anthem. Though strong in
fortification, Borkum is not great in size, being only six miles long
and half a mile wide.
Public charity is no doubt an excellent thing. The world could not
get on without it. But private charity seems to me of infinitely more
value. If every one of us always had some particular case in hand for
someone less blessed than ourselves, what a much happier place the
world would be. Individual charity means so much. There is nothing
easier than for a rich person to write a cheque and send it to some
institution, where a large percentage is swallowed up in paying rates,
rent, and taxes, clerks, and the rest of it, but it means a great deal
for a person to give up their private time, to expend their own energy,
in looking after some individual case. We all know people we can
help, not singly, but in multitudes, if we choose to take the trouble,
and for the greater part of my life I have found it a good thing to
have one big job in hand at a time and to work at it till completed.
Procuring public or private pensions for the genteel poor, getting
cripples into homes, invalids into hospitals, or people recovering
from illnesses into convalescent homes; starting young people in life;
enquiring into emigration cases and helping them; finding young women
places in bonnet shops, even securing employment in orchestras.
In fact, there is generally a niche for every case if one only takes
the trouble to find it. The niche is not always procurable by the
persons themselves, as they have not the world-wide knowledge and
influence to secure it; but with a little capacity, a little work,
and a little thought one is often able to help young people to start,
to help to educate children, and do hundreds of little individual
kindnesses which may keep the whole family together, or mean the future
success of the individual.
Poverty is always relative. It means possessing less than we have
been accustomed to. Having been both rich and poor, I am perhaps an
impartial critic.
The domestic experiences of those married years were, later, as so much
garnered grain to the writer. My luxurious, happy home was—without my
knowledge—affording me training which afterwards proved invaluable in
my writing. The responsibilities of motherhood gave me insight into the
workings and imaginations of children’s minds. The household wisdom
learnt as mistress of a fairly large establishment has been of infinite
use in writing on practical subjects of domestic interest—especially
those of interest to women.
Men must really cease to think women find fun in ordering cabbages.
As every book we read leaves some sort of an impression, so every scene
or incident we live leaves its mark.
CHAPTER IV
“A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY”
On a terribly cold day in January, 1893, my father received a wire from
Christiania, saying that my brother was dangerously ill there.
After he took his degree, Vaughan had worked with Pasteur in Paris
for some time at the table next Professor Sophus Torop. They thus
became friends, and when my brother wished to complete some original
scientific work of his own, Professor Torop kindly offered him space in
his huge laboratories at Christiania if he cared to use them. Thither
he went. A cut on his hand ended in serious blood-poisoning, and a
terrifying telegram suggesting amputation of the right arm was the
first intimation we had of the illness.
It was afternoon. Someone must go to Norway. Norway in winter! Yes,
Norway covered with snow and ice: its rivers, fjords, waterfalls, and
lakes all frozen: its mountains cloaked with purest snow: its people
swathed in fur.
My father was too tied by his profession to leave. My mother was not
equal to so perilous a journey. My husband was away in Scotland on
business, so I undertook the expedition. It was considered too wild
an undertaking for me, a young woman, to do quite alone, so my people
insisted that my sister, then a little girl, should accompany me.
Three hours later we started, not in the least knowing how we were ever
going to get to Christiania, as the winter was particularly severe,
and for months the great naval station at Kiel had been completely
ice-bound. We had the most exciting time crossing from Kiel to Korsör
in the first boat that had ventured through the ice for twelve weeks,
and so bad did the passage finally become that we were forced to get
out and walk.
Crossing an ice-floe was somewhat interesting and certainly exciting,
and walking on one’s feet from Denmark to Sweden was a queer experience.
Sometimes we stumbled through slush across ice-hummocks between two
and three feet thick. At other times we got into lumbersome ice-boats
and were pulled by sailors with feet properly swathed for the purpose.
Occasionally the boat would slide into an ice-crack, and, though the
passengers remained dry, the wretched men dragging the craft suffered
unexpected cold baths.
We passed encampments on the ice, with people living calmly there,
from whom we learnt that various venturesome travellers, thinking they
could cross the frozen belt without proper guides, had started off on
foot. Then fog or mist overtook them and they lost their way, or, being
fatigued, they sat down to rest and were frozen into their eternal
sleep. Others slipped and lost their lives in the ice-cracks. Two or
three such deaths were matters of weekly occurrence that severe winter.
* * * * *
We were met in Christiania at six o’clock in the morning by Dr. Nansen,
who came to tell us that our brother’s hand had been saved, and though
he was still seriously ill, they hoped all immediate danger was past.
We nursed him and finally took him away to the mountains, where there
was snow ten feet deep, to recoup after his illness.
Our experiences were so delightful that we returned to Norway a
couple of years later for the fun of the thing, and I took a number
of photographs. The Lady Brilliana Harley must have been at my elbow,
I think, as I only did the thing as a joke and to amuse myself at the
time. I had found ski so exciting a sport, I wanted others to know
about its joys. Strange to say, however, no newspaper would take my
photographs of ski. “They had never heard of such a sport, they did not
wish to hear of such a sport—one which would never be the slightest
interest to English people,” and so on. Who would believe this, when,
only fifteen years later, the windows of London sporting outfitters are
filled with _ski_ in the winter months, and great numbers of young men
and women have tried Skilübling themselves? Do not our English people
go out to Switzerland in thousands and tens of thousands every year
for this very purpose? While, after all, Norway is preferable in winter.
When I took up my pen professionally, I pegged away, and I wrote and
wrote and wrote. Other people began to be interested, so I contributed
the first snow-shoe articles to the _Encyclopædia of Sport_, and
newspapers and magazines galore.
At that time in Christiania, and later on when we returned for
snow-shoeing, Society was very simple, but very interesting. Night
after night at parties we met such men as Nansen, Ibsen, Björnson,
Leys the poet, and Ilef Petersen the artist. There were no grand
dinners, just simple little supper-parties, beer and milk being the
chief beverages, with one hot dish and many delicious cold compounds.
The daughter of the house, more or less, waited at table. Everything
was simplicity itself, but brains and talent, wit and humour were
omnipresent.
The greatest personality of all this group was undoubtedly Björnson. He
was one of the finest men, both in appearance and brain, that I have
ever met, and I have met many great men.
I made a few notes, remembered much more; and finally, when friends
begged me to write a volume of these travels, I wrote _A Winter Jaunt
to Norway_. It went into two or perhaps three editions, but that was
only as a _hors d’œuvre_. It contained personal chapters upon such
people as Nansen and the latter-day dramatists of Norway, Ibsen and
Björnson. Ibsen had not then the cult that he immediately afterwards
acquired, and it is curious now to read of the hostility which his
writings provoked. Sir Edwin Saunders wrote to me:
“You have gone far to sweeten Ibsen, which is no ordinary
achievement.”
Mr. W. C. Miller, the editor of the _Educational Times_, wrote:
“Some time I propose to try Ibsen again, when, I dare say, I shall
be reviled (once more) almost as if I were advocating robbery and
murder.”
One appreciates most the compliments of one’s own fellow-countrymen.
But the foreigner is charming, so frank and free, so naïve. How could
a young writer be otherwise than pleased to receive this letter from a
Norwegian?
“How well you bring out the poetry of winter in your Norway book!
I think you are more of a poet than you know of yourself. I think,
too, that you are a born story-teller. I never knew anyone seize
so quickly and unerringly the spirit of those Icelandic tales. I
believe you could modernise one of the Sagas so as to make it as
interesting to a modern reader as a novel. I have an unbounded
belief in you.
“Yours truly,
“J. STEFANSSON.”
Even as I write, the vision of Ibsen’s simple home, his plebeian wife,
and the old man seated at his desk with his little dolls laid out
before him, comes floating over the space of years.
A most unromantic figure, surely! though at the end of his life Ibsen
formed an attachment for a young girl which was tenfold returned
by her. He was, notwithstanding the rough exterior, an amorous old
gentleman, fond of squeezing ladies’ hands and whispering pretty things
into their ears, so I was not so surprised as some of his admirers on
this side seem to have been.
He was hardly dead before a little book appeared in German, its title
being _Ibsen. With Unpublished Letters to a Friend_, by Georg Brandes.
The friend was the girl. There were twelve letters, including a set of
album verses and the dedication of a photograph. The romance came about
in this wise.
In the late summer of 1889 Ibsen and his family spent a holiday in the
Tyrolese watering-place Gossensass, where they made the acquaintance
of a young Viennese girl who was also staying there. She was eighteen
years of age, the poet sixty-one; but that wide disparity did not
prevent a warm friendship springing up between them, which apparently
was cultivated more assiduously on her side than on his, and was
eventually brought to a close, as far as overt manifestations were
concerned at any rate, by his decision. On separating, the dramatist
gave her a copy of his photograph, on the back of which was written:
“To the May sun of a September life—in the Tyrol; 27-9-89.—HENRIK
IBSEN.”
By the following February Ibsen was already troubled in his mind over
the development which the friendship was taking. He wrote:
“Long, very long, have I let your last dear letter lie, read it
and read it again, without sending you an answer. Please accept my
most heartfelt thanks in a few words. And henceforward, till we
see one another personally, you will hear from me by letter little
and seldom. Believe me—it is better so. It is the only right thing
to do. I feel it a matter of conscience to put a stop to this
correspondence with you, or, at any rate, to restrict it.... You
will understand all this as I have meant it. And if we meet again
I will explain exactly. Till then and for ever you remain in my
thoughts. And that all the more if this troublesome letter-writing
causes no disturbance. A thousand greetings.
“Your
“HENRIK IBSEN.”
In spite of Ibsen’s entreaties his young friend continued to send him
letters, and a little present accompanied one of them at the close of
1890. He replied:
“I have safely received your dear letter. Also the bell with the
lovely picture. I thank you for them from my heart. My wife, too,
thinks the picture is very well painted. Soon I will send you my
new play. Receive it in friendship—but in silence.
“Your ever devoted
“HENRIK IBSEN.”
That was the end of the letter-writing. They never saw one another
again after the meeting in the Tyrol, and from then the Viennese girl
kept silence. Only once did she break it—on the poet’s seventieth
birthday, in 1898, when she sent him a congratulatory telegram. Three
days later she received from him a photograph, on the back of which was
written:
“The summer in Gossensass was the happiest, the most beautiful in
my life. Hardly dare to think of it. And yet must always—always.”
So Love came tapping at the window of the old gentleman who had
described Youth knocking at the door.
_A Winter’s Jaunt to Norway_ the papers unanimously described as
“lively” and “breezy,” and its proud parent began to feel as if she had
discovered the home of the winds.
A few years later the solid meal followed—the notes were served up as
soup, re-served as fish for the papers, and took more solid form as
meat for the magazines. Memory was called upon in all kinds of ways
and on all kinds of Scandinavian subjects as puddings for the Press,
so these little trips for pleasure became invested capital and bore
good interest. I became an authority on Northern lands, and for years
was written to, or telegraphed to, or ’phoned to for copy on like
subjects. I was asked to review somebody else’s Norway book; to join a
Norwegian Club; to supply someone with a teacher of Norsk literature,
and be interviewed for “galleries” of travellers or sportswomen. One
gentleman, whom I unfortunately did not see, but of whose industry I
remain an unceasing admirer, wrote an admirable four-column interview
with me, entirely from his own imagination.
It always pays to master something well, and it is strange how one
comes across things again and again through life. When I had been very
ill in 1909, and was ordered to Woodhall Spa for a course of baths, the
delightful Bath-chair man who conveyed me to the pump-room, suddenly
exclaimed, “Excuse me, ma’am, but are you the Mrs. Alec Tweedie that
writes?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“I wondered if you were immediately I heard your name,” he said,
“because I owe you a lot, ma’am.”
“Owe me?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, “seven or eight years ago there was a sale near here
and a lot of books were sold. I bought a dozen old copies of _Murray’s
Magazine_ for a shilling, and a shilling meant a good deal to me in
those days, but reading meant more. In them I read articles by you on
Nansen, Björnson, and those Norwegian fellows, and I got so interested
in Norwegian literature and the North Pole that I have read everything
about them I have been able to lay my hands on ever since. The Squire
has been awfully good in lending me his books on Arctic travel, and if
it had not been for you I should never have begun to take an interest
in such things.”
It was really quite touching. How little one knows when one takes up
one’s pen what good or ill those inky scratches may do.
On the heels of _A Winter’s Jaunt to Norway_, written for pleasure,
came _Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Highland Shooting-Box_, written for
gain, which _The Times_ was kind enough to praise for its _instruction_
as well as amusement, saying the author appeared to have a sound
knowledge of all varieties of the chase. This was the outcome of those
sporting articles in the _Queen_ written when I used to follow the
guns with my husband. It was followed by a booklet on _Danish versus
English Butter-making_, reprinted from the _Fortnightly Review_. This
subject interested me so greatly that it was most cheering to find
the big “dailies” taking up with zest my lecture to our slack farmers
at home. A leading article in the _Daily Telegraph_ said, “Those of
our readers who wish to learn how the thrifty, hardy, and industrious
Danes have grown rich during the last quarter of a century we refer to
Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s instructive exegesis.” And the _Review of Reviews_
affirmed, “It is a discourse much needed in the present day by our
agriculturists.” But I am running too far ahead. Life is often ruled by
chance, and that Danish subject which brought so much _kudos_ at the
time was taken up by chance because of a stray remark at a big dinner
in Copenhagen.
Apropos of the simplicity of life in Norway, it was rather amusing
to note the despair and worry caused over the dress allowance of the
maids-of-honour appointed to attend upon the young English Princess,
who had, in 1906, but recently taken her seat upon the throne of Norway.
It was decided that a certain amount of Court etiquette must be kept
up. Accordingly, a high official from the Court of St. James’s went
over to Christiania to see what could be done. It is a rule that a
maid-of-honour should be paid a sum sufficient to dress upon, a sum
which in England amounts to £300 a year, although a maid-of-honour
is no longer given a thousand pounds as a marriage portion; all she
carries away is her badge, with permission to wear it as a brooch since
it is no longer required as an Order.
Being anxious to make all arrangements as satisfactorily as possible
the Englishman visited a well-known gentleman in the capital, who had
several daughters and went much into Society. Touching the subject, he
asked, “What would be a reasonable figure for a Norwegian girl to dress
upon?” and explained his reason for wishing to know.
“Well,” said the likewise exalted Scandinavian official, “I have three
daughters, and as they go out a good deal, and I am particular that
they should always look nice, I am afraid I am a little extravagant in
their allowance and give them each twenty-five pounds a year.”
“Twenty-five pounds a year!” exclaimed the Britisher, amazed.
“Well, you see,” continued the Norwegian, evidently fearing that his
visitor was shocked at the magnitude of the amount, “an ordinary young
lady here would dress on fifteen or seventeen pounds a year, and, of
course, some people do think the allowance I give my daughters somewhat
excessive.”
The Englishman, evidently more surprised, proceeded to explain that a
_dame-d’honneur_ would have to dress more expensively than an ordinary
young lady; besides, there would be an occasional visit to London, or
some other capital, when new clothes would be required.
So these two good, kind creatures put their heads together, and,
hovering between the hundred pounds offered by the Britisher and the
fifty suggested by the Norwegian, decided that seventy-five pounds a
year would be ample.
Norway was amazed at the magnitude of the sum. For a young lady to have
seventy-five pounds a year to put upon her back was astounding. But
the young ladies soon discovered that they were expected to dress for
dinner every night, a social custom unknown in their experience; and
before the year had run out, they had learnt that their allowance was
as little as they could clothe themselves upon as maids-in-waiting to
the Queen of Norway.
It was pleasant, when I paid my last visit to Norway in 1910, to
hear how popular our English Princess and her Danish husband had made
themselves.
Norway is poor, but delightful.
Life on lentils and beans can be quite pleasant; but perhaps the
proletariat may deny us even these luxuries.
Demos may decree that all men and women not employed on manual labour
are “waste products,” and to work or to die will be demanded of them,
work being to Demos a purely physical action.
CHAPTER V
“THE TENDER GRACE OF A DAY THAT IS DEAD”
Those early days of married life were very gay. We entertained
tremendously. We went out enormously. We lived in a perfect social
whirl. I enjoyed the privilege of wearing pretty frocks at luncheons,
dinners, and dances; of riding in the morning, and driving a Park
phaeton and pair of cobs in the afternoon, followed by two brown
collies, given me by Sir John Kinloch of Kinloch. One, “Ruby” by name,
went everywhere with me, and, clinging to her coat as she perambulated
round the dining-room, my babies learnt to walk. They were a pretty
sight, those two small boys in Lord Fauntleroy suits, tumbling about on
the hearth with the long-haired red collies.
How I loved going to Ascot and Goodwood, taking people down, or being
taken down, always feeling I could help to make things “go” and amuse
people. Then the dinners; we had eight or ten to dine every Sunday
night, quite informally, but as we usually lunched out and were away
all day, we used to do this in the evenings. All sorts of charming
people came, and I never enjoyed myself more than in the capacity
of a hostess. Alec sang well, and we collected good musicians about
us; Madame Lemmens-Sherrington, Madame Antoinette Sterling, George
Grossmith, Corney Grain, Eugene Oudin, all went to the piano in turn.
My husband was member of a dozen golf clubs, including St. Andrews,
Wimbledon, and Sandwich; and we took houses for odd months on different
links for the benefit of the children, who were looked after by two
excellent nurses, while we ran down to see them for week-ends or
slipped over to Paris for a few days.
We went to shooting parties in the autumn, to race-meetings in the
spring, were members of Sandown and Hurst Park, were constantly at
Ranelagh or Hurlingham, kept a couple of boats on the river (the river
was the height of fashion in the ’nineties) and generally enjoyed
ourselves.
* * * * *
As a rule, we always lunched at the old Harley-Street house on Sundays
when we were in town, went to all the theatres, and, in fact, lived a
thoroughly happy, gay, social life, with no thought for the morrow.
I still kept up my painting, did a quantity of embroidery from my own
designs for bedspreads, sideboard cloths, babies’ bonnets, or lapels of
dresses; once and again wrote a little, but the business of existence
was more amusement, and fun and spending, rather than making money and
saving.
Everything seemed gay and bright and I found life one continual joy.
Let Youth be happy and gay. It is the time to be irresponsible and
light-hearted. Years bring soberness. Life makes us wonder if the game
is worth the struggle. I suppose it comes to all of us at times to wish
to run away and hide ourselves as Tolstoi did. The rebellion of youth
against home restraint returns again in later years as the rebellion of
age against life’s thraldom.
And then, when the sky was blue, the bolt fell. We had been married
eight years.
Suddenly all was changed. My husband had joined a syndicate. The
syndicate failed. He had lost—lost heavily. Lost his capital.
* * * * *
Immediately our household was reduced to modest limits. Our
drawing-room was shut up, three servants dismissed, the horses sold.
For the first time in my life I was without a carriage. But, as Alec
was sure of earning money again shortly, we did not part with anything
which this income would make possible to keep.
Then a wonderful thing happened. A very dear old friend came to me.
“Ethel,” he said, “I am more than sorry, my dear child, for all that
has happened, but your husband will go back to business and all will be
well; meantime put that in your bank to tide you over and keep things
going as a weapon to fight fate.”
It was a cheque for two thousand pounds. Imagine my amazement, imagine
my pride at having a friend willing to make such a sacrifice; but, of
course, I did not take it. I could not take it, although I thanked him
from the bottom of my heart and promised if the necessity really came I
would go to him.
To give in one’s lifetime is true generosity, to bequeath after death
is often merely convenience.
* * * * *
But my husband never smiled again. Overpowered by grief at the position
in which he had placed his wife and children, he died six months later
in his sleep; died simply of a broken heart.
He was followed on the same journey only a few weeks later by my
father, who passed away quite as suddenly, with the ink still wet on
the paper of an article he was writing for the _Lancet_. He never
finished his article, neither had he altered an old will as he had
intended.
* * * * *
Three shocks had thus each followed the other in quick succession
without time to recover from one before the next came, and so in little
more than half a brief year the once happy daughter, wife, and mother
stood alone, stunned, reduced to comparative poverty, with children
clinging to her skirts. The two breadwinners of the family had gone out
almost together.
* * * * *
There was not time to think and mourn and let precious moments go by.
Something must be done. There was I with about as much to live on as I
used to spend on my dress.
Then my old dear friend came back to me.
“I admired your pride and your pluck six months ago,” he said, “when
you had a husband beside you to fight for you. But now, my dear child,
you are alone and you have the children to think of. I wish you to go
to your bank and put that two thousand pounds to your credit; and, more
than that, I wish to adopt you as my daughter.”
It was all so bewildering, so strange. I had known him all my life.
He was one of my father’s oldest friends. His wife had always been
charming to me and she had left me bits of jewellery when she died;
but again I had to refuse. He had relations. I could not claim that
privilege. Still he persisted.
“You have always been like a daughter to me—to us—and now I want to
claim the right to provide for you and your children.”
Still I refused. I promised again to go to him if ever I was in real
need; but I took nothing.
When he died others inherited all he had.
* * * * *
There are only two crimes in Society: one to be poor, the other to be
found out.
It seems to me that everything in life is relative. If one is born
poor, one does not know what it is to be rich, and if one is rich, one
does not understand the responsibilities of strawberry leaves, and
strawberry leaves do not comprehend the difficulties of a throne.
If things change, if one goes up in the world, one naturally
assimilates ideas and ways by merely taking on a little more of what
one already has; but if one slides back in life, one has to give up
what is part and parcel of one’s very existence. I was not born in a
back street or a country cottage or a suburban villa—in either of these
I might have lived in simple comfort on my small income—but that would
not have been _me_.
* * * * *
Bills came in on every side. Bills haunted me. Bills were nothing in my
old life when they were paid up every quarter; but even a few hundreds
meant sleepless nights of haunting fear to me now.
I took up my pen feverishly. Nine years of married life were ended. All
was changed. Still, during those first few months of shock, my father
yet lived, and I knew I could rely on his help, so it was not until the
late autumn of 1896 that I realised my position in all its cruelty.
* * * * *
Pause, readers, not to give me your sympathy, not to shed tears on what
is past, but to think of the future; pause and think, and pave the
paths for your daughters, wives, mothers, and sisters by settlements.
Yes, _settlements_. It is a cruel thing to let a girl leave a home
without a safeguard in proportion to the income of her family. It is a
crueller thing to bring boys and girls into the world with insufficient
provision for their education and maintenance.
This little book of a woman’s work will have served a good end if one
father, husband, son, or brother, sees what opportunities were lost by
no adequate provision being made for its author, when this could so
easily have been done. Settlements of some sort are as necessary as the
marriage ring, a health certificate is as important as the marriage
lines.
I feel strongly that every child born should have some kind of
provision made for its education and maintenance and to give it a start
in life. Both boys and girls should be treated exactly alike.
* * * * *
The unexpected change in my position showed me how kind the world can
be; how good and generous the bulk of humanity is. There are certainly
exceptions, and those generally where they should not be. But one
does not think of them: one turns to the geniality and little acts of
thoughtfulness that day by day come from friends in the truest sense of
the word, and I can only wish that mine could realise to what extent
they have greased the wheels of these working years. Little kindnesses
are like flowers by the roadside or sun-gleams on a rainy day.
PART IV
WIDOWHOOD AND WORK
[Illustration:
_From a photograph by Lombardi & Co._
WHEN FIRST A WIDOW]
CHAPTER VI
WIDOWHOOD AND WORK
_Labor omnia vincit_
Alone!
’Tis often harder to live than to die.
Schopenhauer says happiness is only a delusion of youth and childhood;
anyway, my work now began. Hard work; collar-work, uphill and
unceasing. The work of a professional woman, not the pleasant dipping
into the inkpot as amateur fancy led.
Despite advice showered on me I refused to give up my “home.” Many
things were sold, the carriages and saddles among them, but I stuck to
the “home.” The old family silver was sent to the bank, the ancestors’
china packed away; the house was let for two years until the worker
should feel her feet. But those two years were destined to be more than
doubled before I should sit down once more on my own hearth, among my
beloved household gods.
Now that I had to face the world on my own and take up my pen
seriously, the few pounds that dilettante work had brought in before—to
be distributed in charity—must be doubled and quadrupled.
* * * * *
A school-fellow—the native of Finland whom I have already mentioned—was
staying with us in England that spring. She had often talked of her
wonderful country—her beloved Suomi—with its eight hundred miles of
coastline, and literally thousands of islands, ranging in size from
tiny rocks to habitable portions of land. She had often done her best
to persuade us to go there, but it seemed a long way and there was no
particular reason for the journey. Now, when my husband had passed
away, she persuaded me anew to pack my trunk and accompany her to
Finland. Change of scene and thought would be good for me, and I could
gather material for a book. We started within a week, and thus, on
a brilliant morning early in June, in 1896, our vessel steamed into
Helsingfors.
My friend was connected with some of the oldest families in Finland,
and great and wonderful was the hospitality we—my sister and I—received
upon her native shores. We were there for some months. We wandered
north, south, east, and west. We slept in a haunted, deserted
castle, which stood alone on a rocky island, round which the current
made endless whirlpools. We roved through districts where milk and
eggs and black bread were the only food procurable; we went to the
fashionable watering-place Hangö, and there were entertained on a
Russian man-of-war. We saw the Kokko fires lighted on Midsummer’s Eve;
we watched the process of emptying the salmon nets at five o’clock in
the morning and packing the fish for transport to St. Petersburg. We
heard the Runo singers, those weird folk who, by word of mouth, have
kept alive the Finnish legends from generation to generation. We saw
forests burnt; and I tried an ant-heap bath, which is a Finnish remedy
for rheumatism and such-like ills. We plodded along the stony path to
Russia. We stayed at a monastery at Lake Ladoga, and, above all, we
descended in tar-boats the famous rapids between Russia and the Gulf of
Bothnia, which was perhaps one of the most exciting events in my life—a
life which has not been altogether devoid of excitement.
No one can dream of the pleasure and nervous strain of rushing through
curdling water for six miles at a stretch over huge waves, in a fragile
craft, at breakneck speed.
Six miles, with a new experience every second. Six miles, when every
bend, every mile, may be the last. Turning and twisting between piles
of rocks, running down like precipices to the water’s side, from which
one could feel the drops of water as they splashed over our little
craft, or when a great wave struck it and threw a volume of water into
our laps. We felt almost inclined to shriek at the speed with which
we were flying those rapids. Wildly we tore past the banks, when, lo!
what was that? A broken tar-boat, now a scattered mass of beams, which
only a few short hours before had carried passengers like ourselves.
In spite of the wonderful dexterity of the pilots such accidents
sometimes happen. The steersman of that boat had ventured a little
too near a hidden rock and his frail craft was instantly shattered
to pieces, the tar barrels bubbling over the water like Indian corn
over a fire. The two occupants had luckily been saved, as they were
sufficiently near the water’s edge to allow a rope to be thrown.
Yes, these rapids, of which there are several, the largest being
thirteen miles long at Pyhakoski, represent an enormous force of
nature, and, to descend them, shows a wonderful example of what great
skill and a cool head can do to steer a frail boat through such
turbulent waters and such cataracts.
I tremble now when I think of those awful nights in Finland. Sleep had
deserted me. I used to steal from my bed in the small hours, when I
could toss about no more, and, throwing on a dressing-gown, slip out
on to the balcony. How perfect it all was, that great high dome of
sky so light that one could barely see a star, so warm that sun and
moon fought for pre-eminence. No one who has not really seen them can
know the glory of those Northern nights both in winter and in summer.
In winter the glory of the darkness and the aurora borealis (Northern
Lights), in summer the perfection of colour and light. I have seen them
on four or five different occasions. Beautiful as is the South, the
night of the Arctic is still more wondrous. It is so still, so calm, so
vast.
There on the balcony, listening to the grasshoppers and watching the
reds and yellows of the midnight sun, I would dream waking dreams.
Could I really write professionally? Could I earn sufficient to send my
boys to school and keep a home, ought I to risk it, or should I decide,
as so many friends wished, to part myself from all my old ties and
treasures, and live in seclusion on my little income in a cottage or a
suburb? It was a great fight. Six months of anxiety and two terrible
shocks had weakened me and made me distrust myself.
Yes, even now I shiver when I think of those nights. Nights of
wakefulness after a hard working day. Napoleon, Wellington, and Grant
could all sleep at a moment’s notice, even on the battlefield, the
result of will-power and habit. I wished I could acquire the gift.
Was it possible that I, a woman of no particular education, no
particular gift as far as I knew, could become one of the army of
workers?
That an occupation was necessary, I resolved. I had no money to enjoy
my old world, not enough to keep up my old home. There were debts to
be paid. The children must be properly educated, something must be
done—Ah—but what?
Should I turn to the stage? There I felt fairly sure of success.
I could walk, talk, move as a lady, knew how to recite and speak;
besides, had I not had that girlish offer when I was less capable than
now?
In the early ’eighties Mrs. J. H. Riddell, the then fashionable
novelist, started a magazine called _Home_. Looking back, I fancy
she wrote a good deal of the copy herself, anyway, it was fairly
successful, and amongst other articles was one called “Here and There,”
by an Idle Man. This gives in a few words her impressions of my
performance as a girl in the schoolroom.
_THEATRICALS_
“SWEETHEARTS.”
A Dramatic Contrast, by W. S. GILBERT.
ACT I
_Garden Scene—Early Spring, 1849._
Harry Spreadbrow (the Young Lover) SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY, BART.
Wilcox (the Old Gardener) GENERAL ANDERSON.
Jenny Northcott MISS ETHEL B. HARLEY.
ACT II
_The Fall of the Leaf, after a lapse of Thirty Years._
Sir Henry Spreadbrow SIR WILLIAM MAGNAY, BART.
(an Old Indian Judge)
Miss Northcott MISS ETHEL B. HARLEY.
Ruth (her maid-servant) MISS MAUD HOLT (afterwards
LADY BEERBOHM TREE).
Scenery painted by Miss Ethel B. Harley, Proscenium by General
Anderson.
Number 25, Harley Street, is the residence of Doctor George Harley,
F.R.S., the mention of whose name will at once recall to the
readers of _Home_ “My Ghost Story”—so weird a narrative that, to my
thinking, it was a pity to mar its dramatic effect by explanation.
To the general public, he is better known by the results of his
labours in the field of medical science; but it is only his friends
who are aware of his large experience, his wide knowledge, and
his untiring efforts to make the age in which he lives wiser,
happier, better. Though still, comparatively speaking, young, he
has been on terms of intimacy with most of the men of the Victorian
era, whose memories (alas! we live fast now and the great die too
soon) will never be forgotten while the English language remains
to tell of their achievements; and his conversation teems with
anecdotes concerning famous beauties, authors, artists, statesmen,
millionaires. No pleasanter hour could be spent than in hearing his
kindly appreciative talk concerning “People I have known.”
His observation of the habits of animals also has been marvellous. I
never recollect reading anything which conveyed so vivid a picture to
my mind, as his verbal description of a lake haunted by wild swans in
Scotland.
At the door of his house, then, do we find ourselves.
Such a day! the rain pouring down in torrents, the sky leaden, the
earth soppy, all cabs engaged, all trains full, all omnibuses wretched.
But once across the hospitable threshold, life casts its cloud-tints,
and sunshine seems to reign.
We go upstairs. Can this possibly be the remembered drawing-room? It
is parted off from door to window, the side next the hearth being
converted into the stage, and the larger half admirably arranged for
the accommodation of the spectators.
* * * * *
So, the lover comes to say farewell, and the young lady’s manner will
not let him say more. One does not quite like—at least an old fogey
like myself, with ideas as much out of fashion as his coat, hesitates,
even in such an exclusive publication as _Home_—to talk about the
charms of a living maiden in print; but yet in some future happy time
Miss Harley may like to show eyes still younger and brighter than her
own are now, the impression she produced upon one not too impressible.
Most fair, most sweet, most lovable. With respect as profound as our
admiration is deep we write this sentence. We look and wonder. So
young, so gifted!
* * * * *
And now we all go downstairs again, to find Wilcox—who we had fancied
was dead—alive, and looking exactly as he did thirty years ago,
handling meringues and jellies to the ladies, and suggesting coffee,
sherry, claret-cup. It is all very pretty and very pleasant. Our last
memory, ere we go out into the rain again, is of Jenny Northcott’s
lovely face, and our hostess’s kindly farewell; and so we take our
leave, feeling—well, we scarcely know how we feel!
At one moment the stage flashed through my mind, but the stage had
serious disadvantages my friends at the top of the tree told me. Supers
can generally get work, stars can’t. Of course, I hoped to be a star,
we all do, and then those kind friends told me of the weary months,
perhaps years, without work of those who have reached the top and for
whom there are no suitable parts—years of long-drawn-out waiting,
ironically called “resting.”
A very amusing account of some theatricals we had the following year,
for which Weedon Grossmith and I painted the scenery, appeared in a
little book by L. F. Austin, the predecessor of Chesterton on the
_Illustrated London News_—Beerbohm Tree supervised the performance,
and his young wife took part.
Should I take up painting seriously? My love of colour and form, the
fact that I had exhibited a little without lessons, seemed to point to
the possibility of my doing more if I studied.
Then again, a hat shop was no impossible means of livelihood, with my
huge connection of friends.
Or, should I give up everything, give up the battle, and just live
quietly in a small cottage somewhere and look after chickens?
Weeks rolled on in Finland, the notes for the book were made; parts of
it were written in steamers or on railway trains, bundles of material
had been collected for subsequent articles, and, most important of all,
my mind was made up. _I was going to write._
By the time we had knocked about Finland for three or four months I
was worn out, from worry, work, anxiety as to the future, and want of
sleep. Many people in England do not realise that the midnight sun
shines in Finland no less than in northern Norway, and the perpetual
sense of light is wearying, inexpressibly so sometimes, to the brain.
However, the notes were taken. I was steeped in the customs, habits,
thoughts, and scenery of Finland, but, more important than all the
rest, I had entered Finland in deepest sorrow, my mind had now been
made up, flame-like—imagination had decided I would write—my spirit
emerged in the house of life.
Artistic life is, after all, self-development, and self-development and
outward expression lay before me in my newly sought profession. Cruel
doubts crept in; but the flame of desire was burning, and again and
again I said to myself, “I _will_ write.” _Through Finland in Carts_
appeared in 1897, the third edition came out three years later, and
others followed at intervals (now in Nelson’s 1/- library).
On the borders of Lapland my resolution to become a scribe had
been made and my luck had turned. It was there I received the wire
containing an offer to take my house off my hands; and so began my
first “let.” Four years later, when strenuous effort had made it
possible, I went back to live in that same old home. It was a very
old-fashioned thing to do, because everybody lives in everybody else’s
house nowadays. The snobbish rich luxuriate in the castles of the
aristocratic poor, and the aristocratic poor curl themselves up in the
abandoned cottages of the self-made. But I reached my first goal when
I stepped across the threshold of my old home again. The accompanying
illustration, taken just after my husband’s death, is from a photograph
for which a paper asked on the appearance of _Finland_. The reason for
its not showing the conventional widow’s weeds—no crêpe and no veil—is
that I never wore these social brands, and my severe, unrelieved
black—a terrible breach of custom in the opinion of Jay’s forewoman—was
impossible, for reasons connected with the camera. Hence a dilemma!
Suddenly remembering my grandmother’s lace scarf and my sister’s new
bridesmaid’s hat, I donned both and went off to be “taken.” Hence this
photograph.
When I returned to England, late in September, and York Terrace was
in other hands, I took a tiny country cottage in Buckinghamshire, and
retired there alone with my little boys of six and seven years of age
to write my book.
This had barely been started, and the notes were still scattered over
the table and piled on the sofa, and the chapters had not yet been
formulated, when another dreadful telegram was put into my hands: My
father had fallen dead of apoplexy in his study. The second breadwinner
in the family had gone out.
This made the third death in my circle of loved ones within four
months: my husband, my father, my more or less adopted father, Sir John
Erichsen—“dear Uncle John”—and my mother was very ill.
Life seemed full of sorrow.
* * * * *
These were the sad circumstances under which _Finland_ was written.
* * * * *
Curious. Whilst so often my feelings during those days of journeying
were of exhaustion from insomnia, heat, mosquitoes, jolting vehicles,
and impossible beds, the papers were full of compliment on my “spirited
sprightliness,” on “the liveliness of observation and the humour
displayed by the narrator” whose pages were “full of entertainment
and instruction.” It must often be so in the lives of those who are
servants of the public. A smile and grin from actress or mountebank:
the sigh and tear when the curtain drops.
A leading article in the _Liverpool Post_, a column and a half in
length, kindly said:
“Very few English people visit Finland. There is a far-away sound
in the name. Probably the general idea of Finland in this country
is associated with thoughts of Polar bears and barbarity and
reindeer sledges in use all the year round. The task of disabusing
the English mind on this subject has fallen to a well-known and
popular English lady—Mrs. Alec Tweedie—whose latest book, entitled
_Through Finland in Carts_, has recently been published. In this,
Finland is extremely fortunate. No country and no people could find
a more capable champion. Not only is Mrs. Tweedie an experienced
traveller, whose intrepidity might well put many of the sterner sex
to the blush: she is also possessed of a remarkably keen faculty
for minute observation of men and manners and scenery; and a
power of expression and a literary style which are as strong and
convincing as they are easy and graceful. Her book has all the
interest of a well-told story; the vivacious charm of a volume of
personal reminiscences; the excitement of a book of adventure,
and the exactness and studious attention to necessary detail of
an official Blue Book. From this time forth let no one complain
that a journey to Finland is almost the only means of becoming
intimately acquainted with the country and its inhabitants. Mrs.
Alec Tweedie’s book—which ought to become a standard work on the
subject—is a contradiction of that notion.
“It is worth a thought that—some would say as a result of the free
and equal footing of the sexes—the morality and virtue of the
people reaches the highest possible level. Divorce is not often
heard of. When it does occur, it is oftener through incompatibility
of temper than immorality. ‘Surely,’ says Mrs. Alec Tweedie,
‘if two people find they have made a mistake, and are irritants
instead of sedatives to one another, they should not be left to
champ and fret like horses at too severe a bit, for all their
long, sad lives—to mar one another’s happiness, to worry their
children and annoy their friends. Finland shows us an excellent
example. The very fact of being able to get free makes folk less
inclined to struggle at their chains. Life is intolerable to Mrs.
Jones in Finland, and away she goes; at the end of a year Mr.
Jones advertises three times in the paper for his wife, or for
information that will lead to his knowing her whereabouts; no one
responds, and Mr. Jones can sue for and obtain a divorce without
any of those scandalous details appearing in the Press which are
a disgrace to English journalism.’ Whatever may be thought of
Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s plain words as to the facilities for divorce,
her remarks about the English Press do not quite convince the
journalistic mind. The Press has a public duty to perform, and if
it can be proved that the conscientious publication of ’scandalous
details’ is more likely to act as a deterrent to vice and crime
than would be the case if those details were suppressed, one should
pause before describing the course adopted by the majority of
English journals as a disgrace to the profession....
“We can only refer our readers to Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s pages, where
the inner life and the outer life of the Finns, their weaknesses
and their strong points, their advantages and their limitations,
are all revealed with the discreet thoroughness of an artist and
the kindliness and consideration and admiration and candour of a
friend.”
And now journalism in turn began and that seriously.
I found a list of editors and papers, scanned it carefully, and to the
most likely addressed manuscripts. On every possible and impossible
subject—very often the latter, be it known—I scribbled. Often the
manuscripts were returned, but equally often they were accepted, and
gradually this came to mean regular engagement. Thus, for years, I
turned out four, five, and six articles every week, many of them
signed. The front page of the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and the front page
of the _Queen_ were a constant source of employment, to say nothing of
other work on nearly every important paper at some time or the other.
I have written serious stuff for the magazines, topical stuff for the
dailies, and rubbish for the frivolous papers.
I never had an introduction in my life and have rarely been inside
a newspaper office. My work was done from my own writing-table and
entirely by correspondence; for, in my belief, if the material is
worth taking it will find its own market, and no amount of pushing or
introductions will be of the slightest avail.
Penmanship means hard brain-fagging work with little gain in
proportion. A well-known writer once told me one of his big important
books brought him exactly thirteen pounds.
I still remember with what joy I read a leader in the _Daily Telegraph_
on a magazine article of mine. It then seemed so great and wonderful to
be mentioned in a leader; next to which recollection comes my pride on
seeing book reviews with my own name above them in the literary page
of that literary paper, the _Daily Chronicle_. These little vanities
were the recompense for the dreary hours of work, when one’s head ached
and one’s eyes felt hot and swollen and one’s brain seemed on fire or
asleep.
What years of anxiety some of those were, when the house would not
let and the bills would come in! Tenant succeeded tenant, and between
whiles I wandered.
Later, when I returned to the old home, I took a boarder. In
polite society people talk of “paying guests.” I prefer the true
term—“lodger.” She was an old lady with a title, nearly blind, and had
her maid. They were with me for two years. I used to work all day,
and read aloud, trim her caps, or chat to her in the evening. She
very rarely had a meal outside the house, so there was a good deal to
arrange for her in my otherwise busy life.
My old lady came into an unexpected fortune and left.
Little boys home from school had to be fed at meals, amused between tea
and dinner during that precious “children’s hour,” and I often left my
bed in the morning, to begin another strenuous day, more tired than I
had entered it the previous night.
But mediocrity and determination succeeded where genius and inspiration
might have failed.
One rule, and a very good rule, for success is never to let one’s self
get out of hand. If anybody cannot rule himself, he cannot rule his
life.
Age has nothing to do with success. Byron, Burns, and Shelley all wrote
priceless gems in youthful years, and, on the other hand, Samuel Smiles
never took up his pen until he was past forty, and was then read by
millions all over the world and translated into a dozen languages.
Often in those days I longed for my old world. I was too proud to
tell people I could not afford a cab, and a bus fare was often
a consideration. My beautiful evening dresses were out of date.
Opera-cloaks and tea-gowns were laid aside in tissue paper—quite
inappropriate for a journalist living in a country cottage. I used to
long for a night at a theatre, a whirling dance, a day on the river.
But no, life was one round of work, work, work. Thoughtless friends,
out of the kindness of their heart, invited me to stay with them.
Wealth of gold often accompanies poverty of mind. They thought they
were helping me—they had not brains to see I could not afford the
ticket to Scotland, the clothes necessary for them and their guests, or
the stupendous tips required in large households—a life of pleasure now
seemed to me merely fierce misery. What time I could spare from my work
I spent resting, often in bed. Worn out mentally, bodily repose seemed
the only way of re-stoking the engine for a further pull uphill.
Invitation after invitation had to be refused because I could not
afford the expense nor the time. A great barrier had arisen between
me and my old world. How I regretted I had not done even more than
I had done for people less dowered than myself in the past! And yet
Alec and I had often sent a bank-note in an envelope to a sick or poor
friend. Then, yes then, the reward came. The thoughtless rich, with
all their kindly but useless offers of hospitality, left me alone, and
the others—those who were really worth knowing—sought me out. Well I
remember a first-class return ticket to Scotland being pinned, as if by
chance, on the top of the letter which invited me to a shooting-box.
Another time some friends asked me to go abroad with them _as their
guest_, and treated me as their most honoured friend. Boxes came for
the theatres, and the note accompanying them asked at what hour I would
like the carriage to fetch me, or motors were lent me to shop or call.
It was all to save me expense, I knew; but done so nicely, and showing
so keenly the determination to give me a good time and save my slender
purse. These were the acts of true gentlefolk—the vaunted offers of
visits that meant hundreds of pounds’ worth of clothes and ten pounds’
worth of tickets and tips were mere pretence, merely salves to the soul
of the sender of the invitation, that he or she was doing something
kind, knowing all the time they were but dangling a fly from the world
I had lost, to the woman not yet sure of her new world or of herself.
The creative mind is like a sensitive plant. It feels sorrow or joy
more acutely than its neighbour or it could not take in or give out
impressions.
Everyone with initiative in the Arts is receptive. They are like
sensitive plates in a camera. They conceive and receive impressions.
Genius suffers, or it cannot expand, and poverty to genius is often
cruelly crushing. It paralyses output, or is a wild incentive to work
at the cost of double brain force.
It would be so nice if all really clever people, people whose work
benefits mankind, could be saved the gnawing pains of poverty.
Genius is often emotional, and there are just as many emotional men as
emotional women. I have seen as many tears lurking in men’s eyes as in
women’s in my day. God bless them for it—a person who cannot feel is
not human.
* * * * *
I went to all sorts of queer old eating-houses, doss-houses, lunatic
asylums, gaols, docks, slums, Jews’ markets, and Billingsgate, in my
pursuit of “copy”; always seeking something new.
I began to wonder if money was the only thing that counted, and then—a
thousand times no. I realised that money was the only thing that
counted in the world of snobs—but did the world of snobs count at all?
The words of Montaigne came back to me: “We commend a horse for his
strength and sureness of foot and not for his rich caparison; a
greyhound for his share of heels, not for his fine collar; a hawk for
her wing, not for her jesses and bells. Why in like manner do we not
value a man for what is properly his own? He has a great train, a
beautiful palace, so much credit, so many thousand pounds a year, and
all these are _about_ him, but not _in_ him.”
A millionaire was one day sitting having tea with me, when I exclaimed:
“I wonder what it feels like to be so rich?”
He stared at me, as though puzzled that anyone should be in doubt.
“Often very disagreeable,” he replied.
“Why?”
“Well, one never knows who are one’s friends, because of one’s money;
or who would cut one to-morrow if it were lost!”
Then he told me an experience which must certainly have been mortifying.
“At a ball my wife and I gave recently I felt tired, and slipped down
to the supper-room for a glass of champagne and a sandwich. I sat for a
moment at a little table where two young men were sitting, and this is
what I heard:
“‘Whose house is this?’
“‘Oh, one of those beastly rich African Jews, I’m told.’
“‘Do you know them?’
“‘Lord, no! I came with Lady M——.’
“‘And I came with Lady N——. Not a bad house, though. Champagne might
have been better.’
“Sick at heart, I looked at them, turned on my heel, and went upstairs.
A few minutes later they followed. I was standing talking to Lady M——
as the pair sauntered up.
“She caught one of them by the arm and said to him, ‘Oh, I must
introduce you to Mr. X——, our host.’
“I pulled myself together. ‘Thanks, there is no need; we met in the
supper-room a moment ago, and I had the pleasure of hearing his opinion
of my champagne.’ And having said that, I put out my hand and hoped he
was enjoying himself. You should have seen that young man’s face.
“Is it pleasant to be rich? No!”
He spoke so bitterly, one could not help feeling how often accumulated
wealth is merely luck, when it comes from the yield of the earth
or is the product of invention; but yet how often it comes through
Stock-Exchange knowledge, which not infrequently is another name for
organised robbery!
In an earlier chapter I have alluded to my school-days at Queen’s
College, Harley Street. This was the first college opened for women,
and when it had been in existence fifty years (started 1848), I—as
an “old girl”—volunteered to edit a booklet giving a short account
of its history; and also suggested that other “old girls,” as an
encouragement to the younger generation, should contribute articles
describing their own particular professions, all of which were more or
less the outcome of the education they received in Harley Street.
If I gave an honest account of the editing of that volume people
would laugh. Up to that time no careful register of “old girls”
had been kept. These were the initial days of women learning to be
business-like, I suppose, and if the girls’ names were known their
addresses were not forthcoming, or else nobody had any idea whether or
not the said “girls” were married.
Persistency and dogged determination is rewarded in most things, and in
the end the first page of the little volume entitled:
“THE FIRST COLLEGE OPEN TO WOMEN,
QUEEN’S COLLEGE, LONDON,”
recorded the following contributions, among others (it appeared in
1898):
Dorothea Beale, “Recollections of the Early Days
of Queen’s College.”
Sophia Jex Blake, “The Medical Education of
Women.”
Louisa Twining, “Workhouses and Pauperism.”
Lady Beerbohm Tree, “Quick, thy tablets, memory!”
Dr. Jex Blake was too busy to write her own articles, so I jotted down
the sort of thing I wanted and she filled in the facts and figures.
Another good lady’s I entirely re-wrote; it was so impossible in the
form in which it was sent in.
Some of the other contributors accepted the task gleefully, wrote to
the point, sent copy to date, returned their proofs the same day, and
otherwise showed the difference between an amateur and the professional
journalist.
Several of my contributors seemed unaccustomed to writing for the
Press. One dear lady actually wrote to enquire how she would know when
she had written fifteen hundred words. She explained that a friend
had told her, that _she_ had a friend, who had another friend, who
thought that a column of a daily paper contained about three thousand
words, etc. etc. I suggested her writing a page and counting it, and
multiplying by the number of pages, but when the manuscript came back
the first page had been counted, and at the top of the second page
appeared, “Carried forward 162 words,” at the top of the third page,
“Carried forward 314 words,” and so on, as if it were the butcher’s
book. She had succeeded in life, but not as a scribe.
Another insisted on writing something quite different from the subject
arranged and asked for.
I had to sit in Maud Tree’s dressing-room at the Haymarket Theatre
during a performance of _Julius Cæsar_ to get her article out of her at
all. Not that she does not know how to write, for she is particularly
clever with her pen, as in many other things; but she has a little
trick of procrastination, so it was only by sitting beside her during
the “waits” and taking her ideas down on pieces of paper that we
managed the article. I know nothing of shorthand, unfortunately, so
the notes were somewhat scratchy and interlarded with remarks to her
dresser: “Give me my cloak,” “A little more rouge,” “Has the call-boy
been?” and so on.
There are two classes of successful people: those who buy a reputation,
and those who make one.
Each despises the other and nurses his own illusions. But, after all,
life would be deadly were it not for its illusions.
CHAPTER VII
WRITERS: SIR WALTER BESANT, JOHN OLIVER HOBBES, MRS. RIDDELL, MRS. LYNN
LINTON
New! Why, there is nothing new. The only luck is to pitch on something
old enough to be forgotten.
The writing profession is a hard and often underpaid one, but one thing
may be said, that writers are ever ready and willing to help each other.
We can most of us testify to this by kindnesses received.
Sir Walter Besant was the very embodiment of this spirit of
helpfulness, not only to me personally, but also to the literary world
at large, and it was he who conceived the idea of bringing this same
friendliness into a common centre by establishing the Incorporated
Society of Authors.
Having touched on the toil, sorrows, and worries of “work,” it is
pleasant to pass on to the silver lining to the cloud.
I cannot remember when I first met Sir Walter Besant, although two
or three meetings stand forth distinctly in the tangled web of
recollection. One of the many kind things he did for me was soon after
my election to the Society of Authors. A dinner was announced. I had
never been to a public dinner in my life, but as a member of that
august body I had a right to be present.
Naturally wishing to go, I wrote a little letter to Sir Walter, saying
that I simply dared not go alone; did he know any lady who would join
forces with me?
“I quite understand,” he replied; “you are young and new at the game,
and may bring any guest you like. If you take my advice you will let
it be a man, and not a woman, because, I think, you will have a better
evening’s enjoyment.”
From that moment women writers were allowed a guest.
Accordingly, with a man as my “chaperon,” I attended my first public
dinner.
Afterwards, when I was in great anxiety as to ways and means of
obtaining a pension for the late Mrs. J. H. Riddell, I went one day
to see Besant at his office in Soho Square. He was surrounded—half
buried, in fact—by manuscripts, for he was then correcting his books
on London—the really joyful work of his literary life. Volumes strewed
the floor, volumes were stacked upon the writing-table, volumes lay
pell-mell on the chairs. In fact, there was nowhere to sit or stand;
London on paper filled the room.
He quite sympathised with my difficult task, but said there was then no
fund available to which one could apply; and I asked if it would not be
possible to form, in connection with the Society of Authors, some sort
of Pension Fund for writers who had made fame but not fortune.
“Well, I don’t know; it might be,” he said.
As I poured forth a string of enthusiastic suggestions the dear
old gentleman listened calmly and quietly, gazing through his gold
spectacles in wonderment at my volubility.
“Not a bad idea,” he remarked.
Several interviews were the result, and not long afterwards the Pension
Fund of the Society of Authors was formed, under the able Chairmanship
of Mr. Anthony Hope. On the Original Committees of which I served, and
still serve.
Besant was a real practical help to young writers. Quaint,
old-fashioned, and prim, he addressed even his best friends as “Madam.”
The following letter is in connection with a further pension for Mrs.
Riddell, which I was then endeavouring to procure from the Civil List,
and did afterwards succeed in obtaining from Mr. Balfour:
“DEAR MADAM,
“The way to get a (Civil List) pension is to ask for it. You must
draw up a petition setting forth the exact circumstances of the
case, and get this signed by as many people of name and position
as you can, or—what is perhaps better—get it signed by a few
whose names command attention. If your friend is a member of our
society, I will undertake the petition and the signatures of a good
many known names. Remember that W. H. Smith, in administering
these pensions, is under the fixed belief that novelists are an
extravagant race who spend in luxury the enormous sums their
publishers allow them. Word your petition, therefore, so as to show
that your friend was never in receipt of his imaginary fabulous
income.
“I remain, dear madam,
“Very sincerely yours,
“WALTER BESANT.”
No man did more for writers than Walter Besant. He raised their
status, he demanded more pay for their products, he attempted to make
a copyright with America; and the present-day position of authors,
unsatisfactory though it is, is a thousand times better than it was
before Sir Walter Besant took the matter up and maintained that
literary wares were property, and as such should be treated legally. I
merely quote this letter to show the kindness of heart of the man, and
how even the busiest people find time to do a good deed. He wrote:
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“Your little book looks very nice. I hope it will go. Publishers
work by a regular method. Their travellers offer the book to
booksellers, who take at first what they think they can sell. Then
reviews—nature of the subject—the reputation which a book quickly
gets—cause or do not cause—a demand, and so the book succeeds or
fails. I hate to discourage people, but I have always entreated you
not to expect too much. This only on the general principle that
most books fail.
“Publishers, though very few would acknowledge this, can really do
very little for a book. What helps more than anything is for the
book to be talked about.”
His death was a loss to the entire literary profession.
He lived at Hampstead in a charming old house not far from George du
Maurier and Frank Holl; in fact, in the early days of my married life,
there was quite a little colony of interesting people living in that
neighbourhood, and we often drove up on Sundays for luncheon or to call
on those delightful folk.
Are there any novelists to-day who make enormous sums? When Sir Walter
Besant himself died he left only £6000.
* * * * *
Looking back into the recesses of one’s memory two women writers,
who died within a few weeks of each other (1906), come to mind; two
women entirely distinct in their lives and in their deaths, in their
writings, in their purpose. One rich, popular, and brilliant; the other
poor, popular, and—less brilliant, perhaps, but so extraordinarily
brave and persevering, that if it be true that genius is the capacity
to take infinite pains, no one will deny the late Mrs. J. H. Riddell’s
genius.
The first woman writer of these two was Mrs. Craigie (John Oliver
Hobbes).
And Mrs. Craigie was herself a dual personality. As a girl she was full
of romance, sentiment, enthusiasm, and fire. Mrs. Craigie as a woman
renounced romance—of which she had but a sad experience—and sought
solace in religion. The dissection of love and the solace of religion
became the keynotes of her writings.
“John Oliver Hobbes” was another person altogether. He was a cynic,
clever, brilliant, at times as hard as his name implied. He was the
mask, the curb by which the budding womanhood of Mrs. Craigie was
extinguished and held in check. The death of this duplex personality
was a real loss.
A paradox often ends conversation, the listener is so busy trying to
unravel its meaning. But a paradox in a book often stimulates the
reader, and Mrs. Craigie was a master of paradoxes.
No one could honestly wish her back. Her death was ideal. At the zenith
of her power, in the prime of her life and looks, with the happiness of
unfulfilled dreams still before her, she lay down quietly to rest and
passed away. She was a handsome woman, with wit and charm; her parents
were rich, she acquired position, and she commanded respect by her
work. She did not live to grow old or grey, she just slipped the cable
when all the world was rose-colour and the sun shone.
Mrs. Craigie’s face when in repose had a melancholy aspect, her tongue
was often bitter. Like all Americans, she loved titles and craved
for social success; for, clever and brilliant writer as “John Oliver
Hobbes” was, Mrs. Craigie was undoubtedly a woman of the world.
To a certain extent her life was dwarfed. An unhappy marriage, in
which she early divorced her husband, kept the woman in her nature
from expanding; she imposed restraint upon all her actions, all her
thoughts. She never—even in her writings—let herself go.
Mrs. Craigie was of medium height, with a slight figure, piercing
eyes, and dark hair, which she wore very simply. She was an excellent
_raconteur_, and a delightful neighbour at a dinner-table. She
certainly showed to greater advantage in the company of men than of
women, in which characteristic she was somewhat un-American.
Knowing this want of sympathy with her own sex, she rarely appeared at
women’s functions.
Mrs. Craigie’s name appeared in many papers as attending dinners or
committees, and making speeches; but in reality Mrs. Craigie herself
came seldom, ill-health or retirement into a convent being a frequent
excuse at the last moment for her non-appearance. She spoke well when
she did speak, although it was not really a speech at all, but a
carefully prepared little treatise which she read word for word to her
audience. She delivered it well, the matter was always worth listening
to, and she was pleasing to look upon.
“John Oliver Hobbes” was a weird pseudonym. The titles of her books
were equally incongruous. Imagine such anomalies as _Some Emotions
and a Moral_, _The Gods, Some Mortals and Lord Wickenham_, _The Herb
Moon_, or the latest—_The Dream and the Business_. Mrs. Craigie will be
remembered as a novelist, not as she aspired to be—a dramatist.
None of her plays achieved any real success except _The Ambassador_,
which had a considerable run at the St. James’s Theatre, ably helped
by that excellent manager, Sir George Alexander. Smart epigrams,
pretty setting, and French frocks won’t make a play. Her characters
lacked blood and sinew; they meant well and generally began well,
but they were not healthy, living beings. In a novel that lack of
characterisation was not so obvious as on the stage, and her smart
lines, her epigrams, and ironic thoughts, or rather the irony of “John
Oliver Hobbes” (her double), covered the lack of plot and thinness of
character more satisfactorily.
As years rolled on and the sentimental woman was lost in the thoughtful
religionist, swayed by the Romish Church, the philosopher found
satisfaction, and her later books became deeper in tone, stronger in
handling, and likely to be more lasting on the shelves of time. She
was a literary personality, with high aims where her art was concerned,
and had she lived she might some day have rivalled George Meredith,
whose style she so much admired. Much mystery surrounded her death; she
was barely forty when she suddenly and swiftly passed, as it were, like
a person going out of a house without a good-bye.
People pray against sudden death. Let me pray for it. What more lovely
ending than to sleep away into the Unknown? It may be a selfish wish,
because the shock is greater for those left behind, but, after all, to
them the death of a dear one is always a shock, come quick, come slow,
and why should the parting be harrowed by tardiness? Yes, let me pray
for sudden death, and at an early age before one gets dependent on
others.
And my body. Well, if I die of anything interesting—disease or
accident—that will make my body of any value whatever to medicine or
science, I bequeath it for dissection to University College, Gower
Street (or to any other hospital that may be nearer me at my decease).
It is only right we should help the living to the last, and interesting
cases should always be investigated; at least, my love and admiration
for science and medicine tell me so.
Then the scraps can be cremated, because they will have fulfilled their
end. Putrefaction is disgusting and harmful to living things; so let my
remains be consumed by fire to clean white ash, and let that (in one of
those beautiful urns designed by Watts) rest inside Kingsbury Church,
or in the vault outside, beside my husband and father.
None of this is morbid, it is only common sense. Death has no horrors
for me. I am content to die, and have even paid for and arranged my own
cremation to save my survivors time and expense.
But let us return to Mrs. J. H. Riddell, who was the second of these
two well-known women writers. Of her one thinks and writes differently;
and for myself it is difficult not to hold her in memory more as the
woman than the writer, for she was an intimate friend of my earliest
years. Even then she was approaching middle life, and, unlike “John
Oliver Hobbes,” who passed away when so much of the best of life seemed
before her, Mrs. Riddell had reached the eve of her seventy-fifth
birthday before death at last—in September, 1906—released her from her
prolonged struggle.
She was writing as early as 1858, when women writers were little known.
At one time she was among the most popular novelists of the day; but
she only declared her identity in 1865, after the enormous success of
_George Geith of Fen Court_.
The death of her husband whom she adored, the failure of her
publishers, and her own constant ill-health, brought her much trouble,
but she bravely struggled on with her writing for nearly half a
century, producing some thirty or forty novels, many of which ran into
second and third editions and are now in sixpenny numbers. Her insight
into character was her strong point, and her people gradually unfolded
themselves with skill and thought as the stories proceeded. She reaped
little reward, however, as her best work was done before there was any
copyright with America, and, being poor, she sold her books out for an
average of about one hundred pounds each.
Although born on the hill-side in Ireland, at Carrickfergus, the
daughter of a squire, and a lover of fresh air, fowls, flowers, and
country pursuits and produce, Mrs. Riddell settled in London. She hated
it at first, and then became an enthusiast over its charms. By day and
by night she wandered into its highways and peered into its alleys. She
learnt the City off by heart, and penetrated the mysteries of business
life so successfully that, woman though she was, she wrote _The Senior
Partner_, _City and Suburb_, etc. At that time business was not thought
a suitable subject for the novelist except in France, by men like
Balzac, so to Mrs. Riddell is due the honour of introducing the City
gentleman and making him known to the West End.
Many of the tragedies, the failures, and mysteries of business routine
which she so often depicted in her books, she wrote from personal
knowledge. Misfortunes fell upon her family and, as she was the one
to try to put matters right, she naturally learnt many curious ins
and outs of speculation and failure. Had she not always had her hand
in her pocket for someone, she would not have been so miserably off
financially when old age and sickness overtook her.
She wrote her first novel when only fifteen; but this she candidly
admitted never saw the light.
In my early writing days I remember asking Mrs. Riddell for an
introduction.
“What?” she replied. “Introductions are no good; the best and only
introduction to an editor is a good article.”
How right she was!
Mrs. Riddell once told me she collected the whole of a three-volume
novel in her head—all novels were then in three volumes—and for weeks
and months she worried out the story. When it was quite complete she
wrote the last, or the most telling chapter of the book, first. For
instance, Beryl’s death scene in _George Geith_ was set down just as it
appeared in print three years subsequently.
As I have said, it was my privilege to know Mrs. J. H. Riddell from my
childhood. She was an old and valued friend of my father, and in the
curious jumbling of early recollections I recall eating my first ice at
her house at Hampstead, and being obliged to confess, with a cold lump
of surprise on my tongue, “It isn’t as nice as I ’spected.” A remark
she recalled with amusement years afterwards.
I do not suppose I was more than five years of age at that time, but
I can remember perfectly well the kindly and charming face of the
hostess, and her dark brown hair, which she wore in a loose curl
hanging behind each ear.
Her Hampstead home existed in Mrs. Riddell’s palmy days; she went
through much subsequent trouble, backing a bill for a friend, paying
debts for her husband, keeping a paralysed brother whose health
necessitated constant care, and who was for many years a heavy drag
upon her purse, all of which brought incessant anxiety upon the
authoress. My father and my husband helped her substantially many
times—so when they both died so suddenly she was even more handicapped
by Fortune. She nobly struggled on until the year 1900, when, as
already mentioned, I made a personal application to Mr. Balfour, then
Prime Minister, for a sum of money towards purchasing an annuity for
her. Much correspondence ensued, and, thanks to the courtesy of Mr.
Balfour, a cheque for three hundred pounds was finally handed to me
from the Civil List. Through the help of Mr. J. M. Barrie, a further
couple of hundred pounds was obtained from the Royal Literary Fund.
This, with some kindly contributions from my own personal friends,
among whom may be mentioned Sir W. S. Gilbert, Mrs. Humphry Ward,
Justin Huntley McCarthy, E. W. Hornung, and Anthony Hope Hawkins,
was, however, found to be too small a sum to buy an annuity of real
value, and, accordingly, I made that bold suggestion to the Society of
Authors. It was finally agreed that I should hand over three hundred
pounds direct to them, in consideration of their granting her a pension
for life, the Society retaining the three hundred at her death.
Mrs. Riddell thus became the first pensioner of the Society of Authors,
of which she was one of the original members; and time after time she
expressed to me her gratitude for that sixty pounds a year, her own
private income being practically _nil_. The Society conferred a great
benefit in bestowing this pension, and, at the same time, must feel
proud to know it was given to one so worthy to claim it in the world of
literature.
Her struggles to work were magnificent, and she actually published
her last book after she was seventy years of age. Nearly fifty years
of penmanship is indeed a record. During the last months of her life
she suffered much pain from cancer, and was constantly in her bed, not
being able to write at all, and to read but little. I constantly went
to see her, and wondered at her patience and grieved at her poverty and
suffering.
Then came her release; for such was the messenger of death to her tired
spirit. And the few friends who saw her laid in the grave, felt it was
so, and had the relief of knowing they had added to her comfort—and
even the necessaries of life—in her last darkened years.
Since those days I have collected purses for a dozen or more folk.
Men and women whose names are known in every land—but who have fallen
on evil days—generally ill-health having been the cause. The Arts
are shockingly paid, the mental strain is great. Exponents of great
work live on their health capital, their brain-force, and sometimes
the chain snaps and the wheels refuse to go round. Then a few hundred
pounds, or a pension, or the kindly sympathy of friendship that backs
up their faltering strength, comes like a new fuse, inspiring the
recipient to take up the threads of work almost as well as before.
Yes, I collected between seven and eight hundred pounds for Mrs.
Riddell, which I doled out weekly till her death. I paid her servant’s
wages, rent, the doctor, and all the necessities of years of illness.
Just as my little store was coming to an end her life flickered out.
There was enough left for a modest funeral and a stone slab above her
grave. That was the first time I undertook a big job of the kind; but
not long after I did the same for one of the most famous singers of the
day.
Then again, the people who do things that will live have proverbially
bad business heads. Just as judges die without wills, and Chancellors
of the Exchequer leave their own affairs in a muddle, so artists,
writers, painters, scientists, reap little reward themselves when
weighed against the intense pleasure they give to others.
Each little monetary collection or pension has necessitated dozens,
almost hundreds, of letters, all of which have come into extremely busy
days. I only wish I could have done twice as much, for well I know what
a few hundred pounds handed over to me by friends and sympathisers
would have been in those early days of widowhood.
He who gives quickly gives twice. The generous people are those who
have been poor and suffered. The rich so seldom think of anyone but
themselves, although writing a cheque costs them no self-sacrifice.
Then comes another notable woman; a power in her day. One who, herself
strong-minded and a pioneer without recognising it, bitterly denounced
other women for so-called strong-mindedness; but, while inflicting
the lash on imaginary victims, she poured balm on the wounds of real
sufferers. Unhappily deserted in her married life, she yet extolled the
virtues of mankind to the skies—a living paradox.
Woman has advanced very far since Mrs. Lynn Linton invented the phrase
of “the shrieking sisterhood.”
That was in the distant ’eighties, when the modern young woman,
who filled her with such holy horror, was, after all, but a poor,
shrinking creature compared with the amazons of 1907, who marched to
Hyde Park to demand votes for women. A desire for the development
of her own individuality, freed from the control of parents and the
enforced escort of brothers, a latch-key, a club, and a _mode_ of
short hair, waistcoats, men’s coats, and even hard shirts, besides a
horse-shoe pin, were all that the “Girl of the Period” advanced; but,
in contemptuous condemnation of her, Mrs. Lynn Linton dipped her pen in
gall.
Dear me! what an archaic type she already seems, that original “new
woman” whom one used to find at the Pioneer Club in its early days.
Perhaps it is as well that Mrs. Lynn Linton did not live to see
suffragists concealed in pantechnicon vans for the purpose of raiding
Parliament, or shouting down Cabinet Ministers, assaulting policemen,
smashing windows, and going to prison in hundreds with as much
self-glorification as if they were notorious criminals and heroines
of a “Penny Dreadful.” The dictionary surely does not contain words
so scathing as the old lady would have required for such flagrant
revolters against her ideal of womanhood. That women suffragettes have
an ideal she would not have understood. The curt indifference of men
to their more peaceable demands has forced women to perpetrate these
antics to draw attention to their creed. She was herself a woman who
was greatly misunderstood. The conception formed by the public, who
knew Mrs. Lynn Linton only by her writings, was entirely different from
that of people who were privileged to know her personally. All her
venom was in her pen, all her heart in her home and her friends.
I have reason to recall her name with gratitude, for she was one of the
first to assist me by helpful advice and example along the slippery
path of authorship. Indeed, her readiness to place her long experience
at the service of young writers, who were often entirely unknown to
her, even at the sacrifice of considerable time and convenience to
herself, was one of the most delightful points in her character.
One day, late in the last century, I was chatting with her in her flat
eight stories up in Queen Anne’s Mansions, the windows of which looked
out high over the neighbouring chimney-pots and far away beyond the
grey mist of smoky London to the Surrey hills. Lying on the table was a
large bundle of manuscripts, upon which I naturally remarked, “What a
lot of work you have there on hand; surely that means two or three new
books?”
“Not one page is my own,” she replied, peering at me through her
gold-rimmed spectacles. “Bundles of manuscripts like these have haunted
my later life. I receive large packets from men and women I have never
seen and know nothing whatever about. One asks for my advice; another
if I can find a publisher; a third enquires if the material is worth
spinning out into a three-volume novel; a fourth lives abroad and
places the MS. in my hands to do with it exactly as I think fit.
“How fearful! But what do you do with them all?”
“Once I returned one unread, for the writing was so bad I could not
decipher it. But only once; the rest I have always conscientiously
read through and corrected page by page, if I have thought there was
anything to be made of them. But to many of my unknown correspondents,
I have had to reply sadly that the work had not sufficient merit
for publication, and, as gently as I could, suggest their leaving
literature alone and trying something else.”
“You are very good to bother yourself with them.”
“No, not good exactly; but I feel very strongly the duty of the old
to the young, and how the established must help the striving. I am so
sorry for young people, and know how a little help or advice given at
the right moment may prove the making of a career; kindly words of
discouragement, given also at the right time, may save many a bitter
tear of disappointment in the future.”
This was the “dragon” who, I do not doubt, existed in the minds of
thousands of readers of Mrs. Lynn Linton’s magazine essays—essays which
were full of fire; critical, analytical, clear-sighted and written
unflinchingly. Who would dream after reading one of her splendidly
forcible arguments, written in her trenchant style, that the real
author was one of the most domesticated, home-loving women possible,
full of kindness and sympathy, and keenly interested in the welfare
of all around her? How little a book reveals the true author. How
often the pen disguises the real person, as words disguise the inmost
thoughts.
Indeed, one might go far to find another such lovable old lady.
It is often supposed by the outside world that jealousies and rivalries
exist between authors, as is too often said to be the case in other
professions. Nonsense! Here is one example to the contrary. And many
another could easily be furnished.
At the very time that Mrs. Lynn Linton was earning her living by
writing novels, Mrs. Alexander, in private life Mrs. Hector (another
dear memory), was doing the same. Rivalry there was none between these
two; more than that, they actually helped each other. And in the end,
when Mrs. Lynn Linton died, she left her most cherished cabinet of
china and many other souvenirs to her woman writer friend, who prized
them above rubies.
The following is a characteristic letter from Mrs. Lynn Linton, anent
an article I had written about her:
“MY DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“Thank you so much for your kind letter. I am so glad you are busy
and successful in your work.
“The She you painted in _T.B._ was a very nice old She indeed, a
quite superior She, and a little better than the original, I am
sorry to say! But, la, la, la, the heaps of begging letters and
manuscripts the paper has brought me. It has punished me for any
pride I might have had there-anent, and kept my comb cut down to
my head. To-day, again, comes a long eight-paged letter of sorrow,
distress, and nonsense, which I am asked to help. Well, I do what I
can, and, at all events, sympathy and kind words and thoughts have
their own value, if that is not of a productive or golden kind.
“I was very sorry not to see that fine young fellow again. I was
charmed with him, if you like![4] I should have liked to kiss his
hand for respect and hope and admiration. I should have liked to
whip him as an aged Sarah might have whipped her grandson! I hope
he will come back safe and with renown and success.
“Good-bye, dear Mrs. Brightness.
“Yes, I have partly recovered from Ibsen, who had a lurid kind of
light that fascinates yet repels, a lying spirit that enthusiates
yet revolts.
“Affectionately yours,
“E. LYNN LINTON.”
I had sat between her and Beerbohm Tree at the first performance
in England of “Hedda Gabler,” which I had seen Ibsen rehearse in
Christiania shortly before in his slow pompous manner.
To understand humanity is a work of intelligence, and Mrs. Lynn
Linton had that gift in a marked degree. She was a woman of strong
individuality.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Nansen, whom she met at dinner at our house.
CHAPTER VIII
JOURNALISM
From other people’s work I must return to my own. As is Fleet Street
compared with Hyde Park, so is journalism with the authorship of more
lasting literature.
To would-be scribblers I would say journalism is a bagatelle in
comparison with the production of a book. The main axiom for a book is
_Write what you know about_. If you live with dukes, don’t write about
the slums. If you live in the slums, don’t write of dukes.
Don’t write unless you have something to say. For the papers, matter is
more important than style. Aim at telling something interesting in an
interesting way. Keep it short and crisp and to the point. Never mind
rejection. Introductions to editors are of no avail. They generally
retard. Work of merit always finds its niche, so peg away till you get
the right thing and fit it into the right corner.
A journalist requires no equipment but a quick perception of men and
matters, a desire for information, and a belief that what interests her
may interest someone else. A journalist is obliged to look ahead:
Someone is reported very ill—collect facts for an obituary notice.
A picture promises to become successful—have an account of the artist
and his work ready for press.
An actor is producing a new play—try to learn something about the play,
and any little incident of its production.
One used to write of things that had been; but since all this Yankee
journalism has come in, one has to anticipate things that _are_ to be.
Weddings are described to-day before the marriage ceremony even takes
place.
[Illustration: MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE’S WRITING TABLE]
It is a bad sign of the times, but that is modern journalism. A
journalist’s is a hard and anxious life and often ill-paid; but
here, at least, men and women can earn equal wages, and have equal
chances. Nearly all the papers except _The Times_ now have women on
their staff.
Just as an actor adopts various disguises, so it is amusing to remember
how many pseudonyms have been the different masks which have helped
me, as other journalists, to attract the attention of the public. The
public loves variety. It would never, never pay to appear always as the
same old stager.
Journalists must turn their hand to anything, at any time, and in any
way. Sometimes I wrote as a man, sometimes as an old lady, comparing
the past with the present. For instance, the “Elderly Scribe” became
“A Girl at the Drawing-room,” under which heading a long article once
appeared in a leading paper, describing my imaginary thrills as an
American _débutante_ at the first Court of King Edward VII.
I think it was in the _Pall Mall Gazette_:
“Although I am an American, a Republican and all that sort of
thing, I must own I dearly love a ceremony, adore a title, and was
prepared for wild enthusiasm at a Court function. I crossed the
Atlantic all in a quiver of excitement to know whether I should
receive a card or not, because on that would depend our tearing off
to Paris to get a Court dress.
“Oh, the joy and excitement on opening a big envelope, without a
stamp, with a purple die-mark in one corner, bearing the mysterious
words, ‘Lord Chamberlain’s Office’! There was nothing grand
whatever about the card, just a great, big, plain invitation:
“‘The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by their Majesties to invite
Miss American to a Court to be held at Buckingham Palace on Friday,
June 6, 1902, at 10 o’clock p.m.’
“‘Full dress, ladies with feathers and trains.’
“Hugging the much-prized card to my heart, I skipped about the room
practising that bow, or curtsey, or bob, or whatever they like to
call it, that I had been rehearsing for weeks in my own mind, so as
to be ready for the great event.
“We went to Paris and ordered the dress, which I dare say would
have been just as well made in England, only somehow it sounds
smarter to cross the Channel for it. The four yards of wonderful
train of glistening, sheeny, silvery stuff was made and ready, the
three white plumes, the long tulle veil and white gloves were all
on my bed waiting, and I was just wild with excitement. I wanted to
get dressed at breakfast-time, but as the Court did not begin until
10 p.m., the family decided that was rather too early, although I
really did have my head done soon after lunch, as the hairdresser
came then to perform upon it. He had so many engagements for Court
heads, he had to dress it then or not at all. He did it up in
the most wonderful manner, frizzed it and curled it, the greater
part of the coiffure being, however, low on my neck, as that, he
declared, was more becoming with the tulle veil. When he had done
he placed the three white feathers conspicuously in front, and
twisted the tulle in and out of the curls. A long strand of tulle,
which was finally to hang down my back, he folded up and pinned in
a bob on the top of my head, so that it might not inconvenience me
during the many hours that intervened before I went to Buckingham
Palace.
“They say that seven thousand people are still waiting for
invitations; if they only knew how lovely it all was they would be
more anxious even than they now are, for it was a veritable dream
of splendour, gorgeousness, and magnificence, such as my youthful
mind had never conceived possible.
“We left home early, and when we arrived at St. James’s Park about
half-past eight, a line of carriages was already before us, but
as the doors were not opened till nine we had to wait our turn.
Gradually that procession of carriages moved on; we did not draw up
in front of Buckingham Palace, which I know so well from the road,
but drove right into a courtyard at the back, a regular quadrangle,
round the four sides of which a brilliant row of gas-jets was
shining. The Royal folk wisely live in these more secluded portions
of the Palace, and their private rooms overlook the gardens, which
are lovely and contain a lake, instead of looking on to the public
part of St. James’s Park.
“There was a great wide stairway with red carpet, beyond which
was the cloakroom, and once having struggled through that, my
chaperone straightened me out and shook my train, telling me I
looked ‘just sweet,’ a very consoling remark in my flutter of
excitement. She then gave me my train back over my arm, and we were
ready. Four yards of Court train were pretty heavy, I found; for
although it was shining silver outside, it was lined with white
satin (_débutantes_’ dresses are always white), and there was an
interlining to make it stand out as I passed before the King and
Queen. Then I had a bouquet too, which seemed to grow very heavy
before the evening was over, and I envied those ladies who had come
without such floral adjuncts.
“Continuing our journey up the staircase we gave up our cards of
invitation at the top, and I passed into a room at the left—my
chaperone passing on to the big ballroom at once.
“The great State ballroom at Buckingham Palace is a magnificent
chamber; it is an immensely long saloon, probably about a hundred
and fifty feet, which looks out on the gardens. A friend we met
there said that the kitchens were underneath, and that this wing
was only added in 1850, when more space was found necessary.
“Our friend told us that all the rooms had been redecorated. They
were certainly perfectly beautiful—such lovely brocaded walls and
wonderful curtains, lots of pictures, many of which they said were
priceless; and one thing struck me as particularly strange: the
magnificent glass chandeliers and candelabra. We never have such
things in America; but they were simply gorgeous with incandescent
lights shining behind their prismatic colours. The Palace was
literally banked with flowers and the air scented with their
perfume.
“There were lots of gorgeous servants everywhere with red liveries
emblazoned with gold. Most of them wore white silk stockings
and black shoes with buckles. There were endless officials from
the Lord Chamberlain’s Office in dark blue uniforms with gold
embroidery. There were some of the most delightful old men
possible, who, they said, were Beefeaters, and had come from
the Tower of London in all their magnificence to assist at the
Court at Buckingham Palace. Numbers of men were there in black
velvet or cloth, with steel buttons, little white lace frills,
silk stockings, and a sword, probably the most becoming costume
a modern man ever wore, and there were many wonderful uniforms
with breasts ablaze with Orders and medals. These gentlemen were
specially favoured and allowed to go with their women-folk, but,
of course, they were not presented. A man is only presented to the
King at a Levée, and when at a Court and their ladies pass the
Royal Presence, the men disappear and join them in a later room.
Then there were beautiful men of the Body Guard, all gentlemen of
importance, who wore splendid uniforms and big brass helmets. There
are only forty-eight in this Royal guard, so most of them were
present, and I was sorry for them standing on show in their heavy
clothes for hours and hours. At the last Court one of them fainted
twice, they say.
“It was all so beautiful I hardly know how to describe it. At the top
of the staircase was the hall, which was lovely. Hundreds of ladies
were there before us, and nearly all of them had seats. Some of the
elderly ladies thought the seats were not comfortable, but there seemed
to be banks of long sofas with gilt legs and red cushions, which formed
a welcome resting-place and an opportunity for laying down the weight
of one’s train. That train made me feel awfully grand, ‘quite too
utterly too, too,’ in fact; but, oh dear, it was heavy.
“King Edward and Queen Alexandra arrived exactly at twenty minutes
past ten. By this time we had been in the Palace about an hour. They
entered at the top end of the big hall or concert-hall, and stood on
a red velvet carpet—not on a dais—facing the organ-loft, where the
band played at intervals. Behind them were two thrones, but they stood
for one hour and a quarter while the _débutantes_ and mothers passed,
and each bowed separately to each woman or Indian Prince who passed.
The Royal pair often talked to one another, and seemed to be enjoying
themselves. The Indian Princes over for the Coronation were wonderful.
One man in gold and cream brocade wore gorgeous jewels and a ruby as
big as a florin; another was dressed in a sort of dressing-gown with
diamond buttons of enormous size; another wore a wonderful green and
gold sash, which fastened in a big bow in front over his portly form.
They were certainly a great addition to a magnificent spectacle.
“We _débutantes_ passed through the bottom of the long hall—up the
corridor at the side, where I saw our Ambassador (the only man in
plain clothes), where our trains were let down by someone belonging
to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office, before re-entering the ballroom;
he seemed to be quite accustomed to that sort of thing, and spread
them out most neatly over the highly polished floor. I was feeling
all in a flutter when an official asked me for my card, which had
somehow got mixed up with my handkerchief and my bouquet; but I
managed to extricate it for him, and he roared my name out very
loudly as I entered the Royal Presence. I felt I should like to
catch hold of His Majesty’s hand as I made my curtsey, but I pulled
myself together and just had time to realise what a nice kind face
the King had, and how pleasantly he smiled, before walking a couple
of steps further and repeating my low obeisance to that beautiful
and lovely woman Queen Alexandra.
“Oh dear, how I wished I could stop and look at her for five
minutes instead of making my oft-rehearsed curtsey and getting out
of the way in five seconds. She looked perfectly charming, and it
seemed quite impossible to believe that those were her daughters
beside her. She did not seem to be any older than I am myself; her
auburn hair she wears in a fringe almost down to her eyebrows,
and it is all very neat and tight and well arranged. On her head
she wore a little crown of diamonds, encircled by a larger tiara.
It was not a great big crown, such as the peeresses are going to
wear at the Coronation in a few days’ time, but just a dear little
shining circlet looking eminently regal. Somebody said she was not
going to wear the crown that all the Queen Consorts have worn at
former coronations, but is having one made all for herself, and
the Koh-i-noor, the famous diamond, is to be mounted in it. The
late Queen had this famous diamond cut and wore it as a brooch.
So, although it is only half its original size, it is much more
beautiful and valuable now. The Queen was dressed in white satin
with golden fleurs-de-lis embroidered all over it. Her train was of
gold, lined with Royal crimson velvet, and in the procession it was
carried by two pages.
“What masses of jewels she wore. Round her neck she seemed to have
about a dozen necklaces of pearls and diamonds; great long strings
of pearls reaching down to her waist. They all suited her, and she
has the most delightful figure and most winning smile of anyone
I ever saw—in fact, it was worth while coming all the way from
America just to look at England’s Queen.
“The presentation was all too quick, the exciting moment had come
and gone, and when I found I was out of the room, another of those
grand gentlemen caught my train on his stick and in some wonderful
manner turned it over my arm, and I sailed away, my presentation
accomplished. The arrangements were excellent; of course, there
had been some difficulty about trains or no trains, but it had
been decided that everyone was to wear a train, although only
_débutantes_ passing immediately before their Majesties were
required to let them down at this evening Court early after the
death of Queen Victoria.
“Perhaps the most beautiful part of the Court was the passing of
the Royal procession through the galleries on their way to supper.
I was not flurried then as I was on presentation, so I could just
stand and see the regal party pass without personal emotion. The
King looks every inch a King in his dark blue uniform, wearing, of
course, that blue ribbon which they call the Order of the Garter.
First of all came the King and Queen, followed by their daughters,
the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, the Mistress of the Robes, and
a host of others. They walked very slowly, and the Queen, who had
no bouquet, bowed delightfully to everyone, as she passed through
those vast rooms. Oh dear! Oh dear! It was lovely, and I am sorry
it is over, for it was more lovely than anything I could ever have
conjured up in my wildest dreams.”
Most useful proved my own experiences at such functions as
Drawing-rooms, and my favourite adage as to journalism came into play,
viz. Write of what you know.
But how, some timid minds may object, can a working-woman still afford
to go to Court? Suffice it to say that one originally handsome gown of
wealthier days served me, its wearer, several times to make my curtseys
to Royalty.
I should not have attended so often in the ordinary way, but going
so much abroad as I did, it was advisable. There one’s reception at
Court is of use, for, after all, foreigners are unable to judge one’s
social position from one’s appearance, some of the worst scamps seeming
the most ideal on the surface, therefore a pass-word, such as having
“been to Court”—which means so little in England—counts for something
across the water. I always wore a train, that once belonged to my
great-grandmother. It ought to know its way to Buckingham Palace by
now. Strangely enough, that old _chiné_ silk (it must be between one
hundred and a hundred and fifty years old) has a stripe of soft grey
between wider stripes of beautiful mellowed flowers. It is exactly
the same kind of thing that is so fashionable to-day. History repeats
itself even in silk, and those dull _chiné_ ribbons and dull _chiné_
silks are but reproductions of those worn by our great-grandmothers.
Royalty and really great folk—that is great-minded people in high
places—do not carp at the clothes of those whose work in life is harder
than showing off new and expensive dresses. Thank goodness, the days
are long dead when writers were supposed to exist on the sufferance of
publishers, to be always ragged, in debt, or to fawn on patrons and
live in Grub Street.
Still, this is forestalling the account of my laborious, weary time
before achieving anything, so it must be put down in faithful warning
that “good times” have to be worked and waited for.
I often wonder now how I lived through those first years of hardship,
paying off debts, working often ten hours a day with the constant goal
of making an income and achieving success.
Poverty or ambition are the only stepping-stones to attainment.
Perseverance did it, and bed. On and on I pegged. Wrote and re-wrote
some things several times over, while others were not even corrected.
Worked with throbbing eyes and weary brain—I’ve always been more or
less a teetotaller, but it wasn’t that which helped me—it was bed.
Never a good sleeper at any time, I crept off to bed as early as
possible, and even if I did not sleep, I rested my back, closed my
eyes, and lay in the dark. Most of my work was planned then, all my
articles were thought out in that silent obscurity. My bed was my
salvation.
Lots of people work best in the evening and the small hours of the
morning. I was never any good then, and if “copy” had to be ready, say,
by eleven at night, and I knew a “printer’s devil” would be standing in
my hall at that hour to bear it away to the machines, I always got hot
and cold, nervous and fussy; I never worked so well as directly after
breakfast.
Work! Would anyone dare to say I have not worked? Why, in one fortnight
(November, 1906) I see I had long signed articles in the _Queen_,
_Daily Chronicle_, _Observer_, _Daily Mail_, and _Tatler_. Five
important papers, besides unsigned articles in others.
“What does a signed article imply?” someone may wonder. It means
double, treble, quadruple pay—as compared with an unsigned one. It
means the writer’s name is of value, and sufficiently established to
say what he thinks and means right out, instead of sending his poisoned
darts unofficially in the disguise of anonymity. All articles and
reviews ought to be signed, I think. One takes more care, gives more
thought, attains a higher standard than for anonymous stuff. Leaders
and critiques would be of real value if one knew who had written them.
Ease has come, facility of the pen. I believe I could write an article
on almost any sort of subject with five minutes’ notice, and twenty
minutes in which to dictate it. It is so easy to write on a theme which
you never really touch on at all, but just glide along the outside
edge. Things conceived like this cannot be of permanent value, but they
are the product of an active brain and serve their purpose for the
moment. That is journalism.
It may be interesting to beginners to read here how I wrote my first
magazine article as a girl, in amateur days. This will illustrate how
wise it is to make use of one’s opportunities; how from one small
beginning a path may be opened in the wood of difficulty, at which,
except in rare instances, all but genius has to hew.
I chanced to be in Paris in 1890, with my husband and mother who knew
Pasteur, and thus I saw a good deal of the delightful, grey-bearded old
gentleman whose work made such a stir at that time and revolutionised
science. He was then about seventy. Short in stature, he was in no way
a striking figure, but his clear eyes and thoughtful face arrested
attention. I shall never forget the charm of his manner, and the
courteous tolerance he displayed towards an unscientific young woman,
who had no excuse for poking about the place save that she was the
sister of one of his students and the daughter of a scientist. At that
time Pasteur did very little personal work or research himself, but he
most carefully superintended everything that was done under his roof.
So anxious was he for others to benefit by his experience that he had
set apart fourteen tables in his large laboratory, at which were to be
found working students of all nationalities and ages, from twenty-five
to fifty—some of them men who had already won a name in science. No
charge was made to them beyond the price of the materials they used,
and every facility for scientific research was provided.
The hydrophobia cure was then the subject of commanding interest in
the scientific world. It was a curious set of people who assembled in
the large outer hall of the Institute every morning. On one occasion
when I was there the patients numbered eighty-nine, amongst whom were
a little English girl (the first to be sent over by the Lord Mayor’s
Mansion-House Fund), a French soldier, a Belgian fisherman, a German,
and many more of different nationalities.
On my return to England from that visit, with mental and scribbled
notes, I sat down to write a little article on “Pasteur and his
Institute,” which I sent addressed to the editor of _Murray’s
Magazine_, feeling quite proud of myself but absolutely certain of its
rejection. It was the first magazine article I had attempted. What was
my surprise on receiving a letter in the course of a few days, signed
“The Editor,” saying that he had been much interested in the article,
but it was far too short for a magazine, and if I could double its
length and write on one side of the paper only, he would have great
pleasure in inserting it.
I actually jumped for joy. It seemed as if the whole literary world
were opening at my feet. Of course, I copied it all out carefully on
one side of the paper as ordered, and added a little bit here and a
little bit there, counting the words one by one as they crept from
tens into hundreds. The article duly appeared. It was wonderfully well
reviewed, for it was the first thing of the kind on Pasteur that had
been written in English, and therefore was quoted at some length in our
Press.
A few years afterwards, when struggling to pay Charterhouse and Harrow
bills, I was dining out one night when a gentleman was introduced to
me. He said:
“I know you very well, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, far better than you know me.
I have printed several of your articles.”
“Indeed,” I exclaimed, surprised, “but I have never seen you before.”
“No, but you know the editor of _Murray’s Magazine_ as a correspondent.”
“Of course I do,” I laughed, “and love him very much, for he printed my
first magazine effort.”
“I am the man,” he replied; “I am W. L. Courtney, under which name I
have since accepted several articles of yours for the _Fortnightly
Review_.”
This was a pleasant means of introduction to one’s editor.
Lending or borrowing money ends friendship, and in the same way I
feel shy of offering my wares to anyone I know. Mr. Courtney and I
are excellent friends; but the work is arranged by an agent nowadays.
Friendship and work have never gone together in my case. It is so much
better to be incognito, and for them to remain unknown. Writing is a
business, and can only be worked on a strictly business footing.
On one of the few occasions I ever entered an editor’s room—certainly
in all those thirteen years of stress of work the occasions could be
counted on my fingers—the experience was not pleasant.
Up dirty, dark stairs I stumbled, and after much waiting was shown into
the gentleman’s office. I informed him I was going abroad, that I could
take photographs, and suggested a somewhat new scheme of illustrated
articles.
“What do you want for half a dozen?” he enquired.
“Five guineas a column,” was my reply.
“Five guineas a column. Tush! I’ll give you one guinea; and take six
articles.”
I had only been a widow a short time, and was in deep, dull black, with
the little uniform muslin collar and cuffs. He looked me up and down.
Perhaps he thought I wanted the money badly, and repeated “A guinea a
column, no more.”
“But I cannot take less than five. I am going abroad to get the
information, and six guineas would not pay the ticket one way.”
“Ten guineas for the six, then.”
“No,” I replied, sticking firmly to my guns; “I am sorry I cannot do
them for that. Good morning.”
He barely raised his eyes from the paper. He did not even rise, nor
open the door. I stepped out, choking with humiliation and tears, but
with my head still high.
I wrote several books in the following years and many magazine
articles, but for five long years my name never once appeared in that
gentleman’s paper. Probably the only paper in the country into which
some sort of notice of something of mine did not creep.
He paid me out; but I survived.
Another time, I was dining in Grosvenor Street. A charming young man
took me in to dinner. He asked a number of questions, spoke much of my
past work and future plans. Being surprised, I said:
“You seem to know a great deal about me.”
“I do.”
“Would you mind telling me why? Are you a detective from Scotland Yard?”
He laughed.
“No, I am only one of your editors. You constantly write for me in the
_St. James’s Gazette_. My name is Hugh Chisholm.”
The same thing happened with regard to the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and Sir
Douglas Straight.
Editors seldom or never write; many of them do not even know how. There
are, of course, one or two brilliant exceptions, as W. L. Courtney of
the _Fortnightly_, Owen Seaman of _Punch_, L. J. Maxse of the _National
Review_, Austin Harrison of the _English Review_. But there is hardly
a single daily paper where the editor is a writer, except J. L. Garvin
of the _Pall Mall_, and J. S. R. Phillips of the _Yorkshire Post_.
Many editors were once “reporters,” and on an occasion of stress were
put on to edit some subject. Having done it satisfactorily they came
in useful in times of pressure, and finally became one of the many
sub-editors necessary in a news office. From that apprenticeship they
have gradually climbed to the post of editor. An editor is therefore
not a literary man as a rule, but a business manager with a sound
judgment of the public pulse and what the public wants. If he is wise
he never goes into Society or knows people, because then his hand is
free, and he can be independent. He decides the policy and the attitude
of his paper, therefore he must read all the contemporary Press, and
about eleven o’clock in the morning he is so buried in other people’s
newspapers that he has to be dug out of the pulpy débris and printer’s
ink.
It is a tremendous strain to be an editor, besides a terrible
responsibility. Poor men, I pity them. It is bad enough to be a topical
writer; to have a “printer’s devil” waiting on one’s door-mat for
articles on which the ink is hardly dry; but to have to read and pass
everything nightly at such a pace is enough to send the wretched editor
demented. He is responsible for libellous matter, so out it must go. He
must not offend his political party, so free-lance contributors must be
“edited,” and, above all, he has only so many columns to fill and ten
times the amount of stuff waiting to be inserted.
Then again, _The Times_, that great bulwark of the British
Constitution, receives from fifty to a hundred letters a day for
insertion, out of which only six or eight of the most public interest
can be printed. _The Times_ is a great asset of the country, and proud,
indeed, should be John Walter, the fifth generation. He is Chairman
of the journal founded and maintained by his family at such a high
standard for so many years. He ought to write the true history of _The
Times_, as he alone can.
But there are many and puzzling questions as to the journalism of the
present day.
Why are modern writers so destructive in their ideas? Why are they so
seldom constructive?
Why in politics is everything for pulling down, and nothing for
building up?
Is this the craze of the age? The hypercritical, hypersensitive desire
to destroy everybody and everything, and why, oh why, must we have
veiled advertisements in nearly every column of our minor newspapers?
CHAPTER IX
ON THE MAKING OF BOOKS
Once I thought the grandest thing in the world would be to write a
book. It appeared the acme of desire. To see one’s name on a cover, oh,
the joy of it! I trembled with fear and pride when that wondrous end
was attained. I almost took that first book to bed with me. I wasn’t
very old or very sedate, and so that little volume made me childish
with glee.
Well, I thought to myself, “I’ll never give away a single copy.
If anyone wants it they must get it from a library or spend
three-and-sixpence on it themselves.” I kept to my resolve, because
honestly afraid that if an utterly unknown young writer made presents
of her little venture, kind folk (!) would say she could not sell the
work, so distributed it amongst friends. A year or two afterwards, when
_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_ had gone through two or three editions, and
appeared on the bookstalls at a shilling, then—but not till then—did
its author feel justified in sending presentation copies, with some
words and her name inscribed on the fly-leaf. This was not churlish,
but reasoned out. Cheap sales of goods mean deterioration; but cheap
editions of books denote the popularity of the originals. On that first
venture I received a ten per cent royalty.
And now after years of labour and experience, so many and great to me
are the hardships, the struggles, the worries, the endless detail and
annoyances of producing a book, that I always feel inclined to take off
my hat figuratively, or drop a curtsey, to every fellow-author.
Strange as it may seem, every volume of mine has caused me sleepless
nights of ever-increasing anxiety. _Hyde Park_, for instance, was
written twice over from cover to cover—a little matter of about a
hundred thousand words, re-arranged and practically rewritten.
I have generally worked myself into a perfect fever of anxiety by the
day of publication, and even when those kindly, delightful reviews
have appeared, my misery has not abated. Treated more than generously
by both critic and public, I have naught to complain of. I have made
far more money by my pen than I ever deserved—three hundred pounds
advance on a twenty-five per cent royalty, is “nae so bad,” as our
Northern friends would say. Columns of excellent reviews have appeared
in the best papers of many lands. Yet I know the anxiety of it all, the
rejection of articles, the return of “copy” from magazines, the weary,
weary waiting when weeks seem years, after one has worked at break-neck
speed; and although literature—no, I must not call anything I have
done by such a stupendous name—although writing is a feverish joy, it
is generally ill-paid, and the greater the rubbish, the more money
it brings in. It certainly has done so in everything I have written.
Serious work receives the least remuneration.
Major Martin Hume and other kind critics have told me I have “written
two books that will live.” All I can say is those books (the last two
on the list) have cost me ten times the work for less reward and much
less public acknowledgment than the others. Serious work may live, but
it seldom pays. Rubbish may pay, but it never lives.
Here is the list of thirteen books—the children of my pen—and various
editions and translations of these have been published. But the
newspaper and magazine articles number thousands, they cannot be
counted.
_A Girl’s Ride in Iceland._
_The Oberammergau Passion Play._ (Out of print.)
_A Winter Jaunt to Norway._
_Wilton, Q.C., or Life in a Highland Shooting Box._ (Out of print.)
_Danish versus English Butter-making._
_Through Finland in Carts._
_The First College for Women._ (Out of print.)
_George Harley, or the Life of a London Physician._
_Mexico as I saw It._
_Behind the Footlights._
_Sunny Sicily._
_Porfirio Diaz, Seven Times President of Mexico._
_Hyde Park, Its History and Romance._
So many people have asked me how a writer works or plans out a day,
that a sketch of an ordinary writer’s ordinary day may be of interest.
For years I have been called with a cup of tea at seven o’clock.
Between then and getting up, thoughts have chased one another in quick
succession. As a composer composes without a piano, so a writer writes
without a pen. It is the thinking that does it. The arranging of facts
and settling the sequence of events. It is the length of a book that
wears one out, the necessity of keeping up the interest and working up
to some definite end.
Breakfast at half-past eight, and a glance at the papers. To the
kitchen as the clock struck nine, and then, every order given for the
day, the flowers arranged, and so on. Nine-thirty heralded the arrival
of my secretary, and from then till luncheon I was a hard-working
woman. After luncheon, I could afford to be a “laidy,” not before.
At one time I had three secretaries, one Spanish and two English, and
kept them all busy. On other occasions, I perforce worked ten hours a
day. But as a rule four to five hours’ steady grind accomplished all
that was necessary. One can do an immense amount in that time if one
sticks to it.
It is fairly easy to give advice on how to write for the papers:
journalism can be taught as a school task to a great extent, but with
books it is different. We all have to serve our apprenticeship for
ourselves, to learn how to balance our subject, to work out our theme,
and finally to make a readable volume. It seems to me book-making is
more a gift than anything else. Artists learn to draw, but they never
learn to paint. Colour is an inspiration. Drawing requires work. The
same applies to a book. We can all learn the mechanical part; but I
don’t honestly think that anyone can write a book that people will
read, unless they have some special gift that way. Books must be
individual.
All this perhaps sounds pedantic, but the dozens and dozens of young
men and women, who have written to me asking for advice, show how many,
from milk-maids to hotel-lift boys, are interested in the subject.
People, who can neither write nor spell, have strange ideas that God
has sent them special literary powers, and hope to sit on the top of
the ladder of fame without putting a foot on the bottom rung. ’Tis a
laborious ladder to climb in all the arts; but it has its rewards.
Public praise counts for little, the real pleasure is the knowledge
within ourselves that we have given of our best. It does not satisfy;
but it pleases.
To produce a book or a picture is a stupendous effort. It claims all
the power of thought and of concentration that is in us. It demands
enthusiasm, determination, the conquest of idleness and self. We may
not produce a great book or a great picture, but it is our supremest
effort at that time, and when done, we feel like a squeezed lemon.
“Writers are so dull,” is a frequent remark. So they may well be—at
times. So are artists, or musicians, or any creative workers. Their
life’s blood is given to their work.
Another saddening result of giving one’s self wholly (as a worker
should) to a task until success crowns one’s efforts is that it often
arouses the envy of onlookers, and mostly of those who would not take
the least trouble to compete.
Yes: it is fairly certain that the more one achieves in any walk of
life, the more jealousy one encounters. A pretty woman is called
hideous by some; a woman with charm—that indefinable attraction we all
love—is dubbed a minx. Brilliant wit calls forth much condemnation.
Success of work and brain is belittled by the envious. So while nothing
succeeds like success, no one makes more enemies than the one who wins.
Every little victory brings a new enemy. When one hears the “catty”
things people say, one can but wonder what catty things are said about
one’s self. People say malicious things, suggest improprieties without
foundation, assert motives that have never been born. In fact, Society
is often cruel and hard. It eats and drinks too much, gets overwrought
and tired, and says nasty things it does not mean.
The life of many an ordinary Society man or woman is despicable. They
are the people who are “too busy” to do anything useful, whose lives
are no good to anyone, and therefore boring to themselves.
Better work and be busy with something tangible, than idle life away in
social dissipation. Yet how good and kind and generous most people are,
and how hard many of them work for the good of others!
The vicissitudes of writers are many. I once suffered the loss in the
post of an entire chapter of a manuscript. That missing link never
turned up, and as I stupidly had kept no copy, while the rough notes
thereof were of the roughest order, it was considerably difficult to
rewrite the passages; indeed, impossible to remember the exact details
of what the missing fragment formerly contained. Oh, the exasperation
of it!—it was a thankless, dreary task.
How on earth Carlyle ever wrote his _French Revolution_ over again is
a marvel which fills me with admiration, whenever anything brings back
the memory of all that labour which the second edition of that silly
little chapter of an ordinary book cost me.
Work, too, is often wasted. Full of enthusiasm, after a peep at the
gorgeous Eastern life on my return from Morocco in the ’nineties, I
started a novel, which was nearly completed when the agent discovered
there was already a somewhat similar book on the market. The appended
letters speak for themselves and show the generosity of a man like
Grant Allen in replying to a young and almost unknown author:
“DEAR MR. GRANT ALLEN,
“I am much distressed! I was in Morocco this spring, and took
copious notes, which I have since been busily writing up into a
story, now nearing completion.
“Telling the plot to my host the other night, he exclaimed, ‘That
is very like Grant Allen’s _Tents of Shem_.’ He found the book, and
I have just read it, and put it down feeling very sad.
“You make English characters play the drama in Algiers, I do the
same in Tangier.
“You have a naturalist, F.R.S.; I have a Science Professor from
Cambridge.
“A Moorish girl falls in love with an Englishman.
“A Moorish man falls in love with my heroine.
“Indeed, the similarity of idea is in many ways extraordinary. I
don’t see what to do unless I rewrite the whole thing, the work of
some months, and even then, your story is splendid and your name
famous; mine is simple and my name more or less obscure.
“It is altogether very disquieting.
“Being an author yourself, I felt I must tell you of my woes.”
“MY DEAR MADAM,
“I really don’t think you need trouble yourself excessively. Pretty
much the same thing has happened to most of us—myself included.
Besides, the number of people who have read _The Tents of Shem_ is
not so very great; nor did the book make stir enough to be well
remembered by reviewers. My advice to you would be, go on and
publish, and you will probably find nobody else is struck by the
undesigned coincidence. Nor does it seem to me, from what you say,
to be particularly close. If you will kindly send me a copy of
your book when it appears, I will try to prevent any suggestions
by reviewing it myself (if editors will permit me) over my own
signature. If _I_ am not struck by the supposed resemblance, nobody
else need be. One little hint: don’t say anything about it to the
publisher to whom you offer the book; never anticipate possible
objections; ten to one, if _you_ don’t, nobody else will raise them.
“Yours very faithful,
“GRANT ALLEN.
“Writers’ cramp, not discourtesy, compels typewriting. My right
hand is useless, and even this machine I work with my left only.”
Still, that book was never finished. I had lost heart.
The same thing happened again in regard to a play in 1907. Everyone
seemed to be making vast sums by writing plays and naturally an
energetic woman wished to have a shot, too. I sketched out a most
elaborate plot, laid partly in England and partly in America, and was
brimming over with enthusiasm about it. Then I went gaily to the first
night of Sutro’s play, _John Glayde’s Honour_, at the St. James’s
Theatre, and lo and behold, the whole of my story unfolded itself on
the stage.
Sutro’s play ran for about a year. Mine was never completed.
After one has passed the critical age of twenty—I say critical, as
many a man and woman have made or marred their future by that time—the
love of books, the real honest pleasure of reading, the insatiable
craving for knowledge takes fast hold of us, and we begin to realise,
as we study even one single subject, what a vast field lies open before
us. Unfortunately, the enormous number of cheap newspapers that have
appeared on every side within the last few years have done much to
interfere with more profound reading; but it is quite unnecessary for
this to be the case, for there ought to be time for both. Newspapers
are excellent amusement, and sometimes afford much information in odd
moments, such as on journeys by train, or long rides in omnibuses, and
at other periods of the day’s existence. But there are the evenings,
and unless people are professionally engaged during that time, there
is no greater pleasure or amusement than in the perusal of some sound
book. Literature is so cheap nowadays, that it is within the scope of
everyone.
Besides, what a great field is Literature! A vast mass of education can
be gleaned from the pleasantest reading. It is a poor book, indeed,
from which we can obtain neither amusement nor instruction.
It is strange how even a humble writer like myself gets quoted; more
often than not, without payment or acknowledgment. A certain well-known
author wrote a book which was literally a réchauffé of one of mine;
but beyond my name appearing in the preface as “one of the works
consulted,” no further acknowledgment was made. Whole articles have
appeared with new headlines. Pages and pages have been embodied in
other people’s work without any acknowledgment whatever.
I remember two instances, however, where I was most graciously asked
for the right of reproduction. I say “graciously” advisedly, because
I should never have seen the publications, and never have known the
articles were used.
One was a letter from the head teacher of the great Military College
near Berlin, Lichtenfelde, who asked if an article on Mexico might be
used in the new _English Reading-book_, then in preparation for the
students.
The other was a request for permission to transcribe an article on the
_Silent Sisterhood_ at Biarritz into Braille for the blind. That again
was a thing I should never have been likely to come across.
Speaking of translations reminds me of the lack of emancipation of
Germany as recently as Christmas, 1906. _Porfirio Diaz_ had just been
translated. It was being well advertised and well reviewed, all the
result, probably, of a long article that had appeared a few months
before in the _Preussische Jahrbücher_, the leading political magazine
of the Fatherland, which had suggested that the book was of such value
they hoped to see a German translation.
Having many friends in Germany, I thought I would go over for a month,
let my boys join me for Christmas at Bonn, where we would visit Dr. von
Rottenburg (mentioned in an earlier chapter), and afterwards snow-shoe
and skate in the Thüringian Mountains.
On my dressing-table when I arrived in Berlin was a copy of _Diaz_,
with the publisher’s compliments. It was charmingly and most
artistically got up, and what cost a guinea here was only twelve
shillings there.
But I at once noticed the name attached was _Alec Tweedie_. There was
no “Mrs.” nor “Frau.” I peeped inside. Again the man’s name, without
the feminine prefix.
Next morning my esteemed publisher, who represented one of the most
important houses in Germany, called to make my acquaintance.
I congratulated him on the get-up of the book, and the excellent
translation. “But why,” I said, “did you put ‘Alec Tweedie’ on the
volume without a prefix?”
He hummed and hawed.
“That is a man’s name,” I continued, “my husband’s name, and I am a
woman.”
“That is true, Gnädige Frau, we preferred to put a man’s name on the
cover. You see a big historical, biographical work like that with a
woman’s name upon it would be seriously handicapped in Germany. Fifty
years ago, aye, twenty years ago in England, you women were hiding
your identity under the manly names of George Eliot, George Trafford,
George anything. Well, we are still in that condition in Germany, not
as regards novels, but as regards more serious work.”
True, O publisher, and yet with all this female emancipation, with all
the _Reform Kleider_ which stand for advancement in Germany, it really
was amusing.
Five years later the girls of the Fatherland were reading risky books
and taken to see risky plays, such was the rapidity with which the
pendulum of ultra-propriety swung the other way.
CHAPTER X
THE END OF A CENTURY
The close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth
was the subject of much notice both in drawing-room talks and articles
in the papers. The latter recapitulated all that the march of science
and civilisation had effected. Private persons spoke gaily or piously
anent “turning over a new leaf.”
For me? Well, it was much the same as with the rest of nature. My life
went on through 1900 with only this difference, that it had grown—grown
certainly in the past years of striving to put forth one’s self.
Personally the end of the old century marked a new departure, and was
the starting-point of much interesting public work—work, by the way,
that only a few short years before might not have seemed so enticing to
the then young Society woman as it was now to the thoroughly interested
worker.
In 1899 the International Council of Women, under that brilliant worker
the Countess of Aberdeen, had met in London. It was a tremendous
undertaking, and I served on several of the committees. The one,
however, which took most of my time and thought was the Agricultural
Section, for which I was the Convener, and finally took the chair.
It seems a funny thing for a writer to have taken the chair at the
proceedings of an Agricultural Section, but this was the outcome of the
pamphlet on butter-making, and the endless articles I had then written
about women taking up dairy-work in this country.
The Agricultural Section was a novelty, and, I am glad to say, proved
a success. I never felt more nervous in my life, although supported
on the platform by many able people, among them the Earl of Aberdeen.
Viscount Templetown sat next to me, and primed me in what to say, rang
bells when the allotted space of time had been filled by some speaker,
and generally acted as call-boy and prompter combined. And Professor
James Robertson, Agricultural Commissioner of Canada, travelled to this
country purposely to speak for me. I felt terribly impressed by the
solemnity of the entertainment, the whole section being a new departure.
I continually received little notes from the audience asking questions
or offering to speak. One of them ran, “Please pass me down that
beautiful hat.” Utterly amazed at such a thing, I read and re-read the
sentence. I seemed to know the writing. I looked again, and found a
little “Hy. F.”
“Good heavens!” I thought. “Harry Furniss is here making caricatures of
the proceedings.”
Truly enough, the picture appeared in a paper the following week.
One thing leads to another. At the Paris Exhibition of 1900 a Woman’s
Section was inaugurated, and a few people were invited by the Minister
of Commerce of the French Republic from England to go over and speak on
different subjects. Accordingly to Paris I went, and for twelve minutes
inflicted upon those poor, dear French people a speech which I read
in French, entitled “L’Agriculture et les femmes en Grande Bretagne.”
Since those days cultured women have energetically taken up dairying,
chicken-rearing, and egg-collecting, to say nothing of many branches of
horticulture in which they have proved themselves eminently successful.
But while these international courtesies and gatherings were in process
the tragedies of war were being enacted in South Africa, and deep
anxiety and sorrow prevailed throughout the British Empire.
Only a few weeks after the relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith Queen
Victoria came to London for a couple of days. She had a splendid
reception as she drove through the chief streets, a marvellous
demonstration of unorganised loyalty. After our sad reverses early in
the Transvaal War England went wild at the favourable turn of events,
and London continued its jubilation during Her Majesty’s stay.
The Queen visited the City—it was on March 8th, 1900—and, in
accordance with the ancient custom, the Lord Mayor awaited Her
Majesty’s arrival at the City boundaries. On this occasion the
Embankment was the route taken by the Royal procession, and the Lord
Mayor—Sir Alfred Newton—stood in the road by the Temple Gardens and
presented the Queen with the City sword in its pearl scabbard, offering
a welcome “on behalf of your ancient and most loyal City.” It was an
impressive scene. The great City dignitary is privileged to wear an
earl’s robe when receiving a crowned head, and he was surrounded by his
Sheriffs, the City Marshal, the Sword-bearer, and the members of the
Common Council.
After taking the sword—which was presented to the Corporation by
Queen Elizabeth—in both hands, Queen Victoria returned it to the Lord
Mayor “for safe keeping,” adding in her beautiful voice and faultless
diction, “My Lord Mayor, I wish to thank you for all the City has
done.” This, of course, alluded to the formation of the City Imperial
Volunteer Corps, which had started some weeks before for South Africa.
The next day, March 9th, 1900, a luncheon party was given at the
Mansion House by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress to the members of the
Executive Committee of the International Associations of the Press.
Among others I received an invitation.
When an alderman is elected Lord Mayor, he and his family take up their
residence at the Mansion House for a year. There is a charming suite of
apartments at the top of the house for their reception, and all they
have to take with them is their private house-linen; everything else is
found. The servants are supplied, but as the Lord Mayor _pro tem._ pays
their wages, he can dismiss them at his pleasure. This rarely occurs,
however, especially among the upper servants, who positively nurse the
Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress and steer them clear of shoals during
their year of office.
Arrived at the state door of the Mansion House, where magnificent
servants in blue velvet and gold trappings, white silk, and powdered
heads, took our cloaks, the guests ascended the red-carpeted staircase
to the chief corridor. Here, at the far end, between two splendid
thrones, stood the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress. The former wore a
black Court dress, with his chain of office, and a wonderful locket of
diamonds and enamel. On my name being announced, he most graciously
shook hands, and remarked, “I believe I am to have the pleasure of
sitting next you.” Evidently a Lord Mayor is not devoid of tact,
judging by this small incident.
The City Marshal, resplendent in scarlet uniform, the Mace-bearer
in black robes with sable cap, many well-known City dignitaries,
and various officials stood around; among others being Mr. Sheriff
(afterwards Alderman Sir) William Treloar, who was later a most popular
Lord Mayor himself.
Some hundred and fifty people had been received when luncheon was
announced. The Lord Mayor offered his arm to Mademoiselle Humbert,
the daughter of one of the French Deputies and editor of _L’Éclair_,
and the late Sir Hugh Gilzean Reid, one of the originators of evening
papers, was allotted to me. We formed into a procession and marched to
the big banqueting hall. A long table was arrayed down the room. At the
side centre sat the Lord Mayor, in a veritable throne of red velvet and
gilding. It was a magnificent setting, for behind him, along a large
part of the room, a sort of red-baize-covered sideboard was erected,
which literally groaned under gold plate. Tankards, cups, swords, and
bowls in number were here displayed, the collection of hundreds of
years of City wealth.
We began with the renowned turtle soup, and I ventured to ask the Lord
Mayor if that were part of the City religion, at which he laughed.
“Almost,” he said. “But I think to-day it has been given for luncheon,
a somewhat unusual affair, in honour of our foreign friends.” He
was both affable and charming. During the meal a perfect budget of
papers was brought in for his signature. He did not even look at their
contents—there were too many of them—but merely signed. Thereupon I
remarked:
“You may be signing away your birthright.”
“Oh,” he replied, “the Mansion House is a network of officialism, and
all these papers have gone through the proper office, been enquired
into, and passed; I have, therefore, nothing to do with them but sign
my name.” Gorgeous flunkeys placed the papers before him and gorgeous
flunkeys bore them away.
The luncheon was not particularly good, except the turtle soup,
though it was well served. All the plates and silver bore the City
arms. Beautiful yellow tulips stood in golden vases down the table.
Certainly the foreign visitors ought to have been impressed by the
solid magnificence of a City banquet. The Lord Mayor made a happy,
though evidently unprepared speech, and regretted that he was not
master of each of the sixteen languages represented by the different
nationalities sitting round the table, but he did give a few phrases in
French and German, much to the delight of the foreigners.
“What is the most difficult part of being Lord Mayor?” I asked.
“The dinners,” was his surprising reply. “It is a case of dining out
practically every night, and as the Lord Mayor goes everywhere in his
official capacity, he is always expected to say something. How is it
possible to say anything with any sense in it six times a week?”
He seemed delighted with the Queen’s visit and showed the sword which
had been used for the ceremony. The next day the announcement appeared
in the papers that Her Majesty, in recognition of her City reception,
had been pleased to confer a baronetcy upon him, and knighthood upon
the Sheriffs.
I had a long talk after the luncheon with Sir William Agnew, who
said, “I have now collected all my pictures for the Paris Exhibition,
and flatter myself they are the finest collection of representative
English art that has ever been brought together, considering the
number—Gainsborough, Raeburn, Romney, Constable, Turner, Watts,
Burne-Jones are among them, and several are insured for from £10,000
to £15,000 apiece. But I have never before found such difficulty in
obtaining the loan of pictures. In several cases I received an answer
in the affirmative until I mentioned Paris. ‘Oh no, my dear fellow! I
am not going to let my picture go _there_,’ has been the reply.
“There is no doubt about it,” he continued, “that the attitude of
the French Press lately towards the Queen, and their comments on the
Transvaal War, have caused a very bitter feeling in this country, and
in several instances I have had to make it a personal favour to myself
to get the pictures at all. Indeed, the fear has been so great that the
exhibition might be burnt down, or the canvases cut and destroyed, that
I almost gave up all idea of a representative English collection in
despair; and, although I have insured the pictures for a large sum from
their owner’s door till their ultimate return, I shall not be happy
in my mind until the exhibition is over and they are back again. The
present mistrust of the French people is extraordinary, and the sort
of feeling current that we may go to war with France has made it very
difficult.”
A few years later the influence of King Edward did much to create a
better understanding with France.
The Lord Mayor’s documents coming in for signature reminded me of a
millionaire, who has much to do with the issue of shares and can sign
his name fourteen or fifteen hundred times in an hour.
“I often do that,” he said; “in fact, two or three times in a year. But
the greatest number of times I ever signed my name in a week was once
in Paris when we were bringing out a new company; then I signed my name
thirty-three thousand times in one week.”
“How on earth do you manage it?” I exclaimed. “Does a secretary pass
the papers before you and blot them as you sign?”
“I have no secretary and no one blots them,” he replied. “A book,
containing from one to three hundred documents, is put before me, and
I lift each one with my left hand while I sign with my right. I don’t
stop to blot them, they blot themselves—or smudge,” he laughed; “and as
each book is completed I throw it on the floor and take up another from
the table beside me. Every hour or so one of the clerks comes in, and
wheels the signed books away on a trolley and places another bundle on
the table. I sometimes sign my name for three hours straight off, which
means four thousand to four thousand five hundred signatures without
rising from my seat.”
“I am going to assist at a bazaar,” I exclaimed, “and I really think
it would be a splendid idea to put you in a little room dressed up in
gorgeous Eastern attire, charge sixpence for admission, and write in
large letters on the outside: “‘The man who can sign his name fifteen
hundred times in an hour!’ We should make quite a lot of money.”
He laughed. Writer’s cramp never troubled him.
When the day came that I really was overpowered with work, that my
table was strewn with commissions, that I had secretaries hard at it,
sorting, arranging, looking out photographs or figures; as I dictated
between whiles and they typed, a horrible pain, like hot sand, came
in my eyes. At first intermittently, then more frequently, till at
last a hideous dread of blindness—like my father’s—seized hold of me.
Off to Sir Anderson Critchett I went. “Overwork, overstrain; you must
give up your work for a time.” “I can’t,” I replied. “Then you must be
responsible for the consequences.” Lotions, blisters behind the ears,
brought improvement, but still that hot, burning sand was there.
To Sir John Tweedy I then repaired. “Inflammation of the eyes from
overwork; you must rest the eyes. Never work at night, and always wear
a black shade when possible.”
So I gained nothing fresh from him. Both gave me exactly the same
advice and warned me of danger.
I wore that hideous shade for a year, tore it off the moment a stranger
appeared—never went out at night. The glaring lights of the theatre had
become positive torture; but, in spite of all, I managed somehow to
keep up my work and write another book.
Gradually, by resting my eyes whenever possible, never reading unless
obliged, and sitting much in the dark, my eyes became better and remain
better.
And thus the last days of the great Century of Progress sped into
the realm of past ages. But when the newcomer crossed the threshold
of Time, with all the new century’s opportunities and hopes, I was
far away under the Southern Cross amid the brilliant colouring and
luxuriant vegetation of the tropics.
[Illustration: THE WRITER—IN DIVIDED RIDING SKIRT, SOUTHERN MEXICO,
1900-1]
CHAPTER XI
MEXICO AS I SAW IT
One day in July, 1900, I was explaining to my small boys that I was
going off through Canada and America to Mexico to write a new book, to
make some more money for bread and butter and school bills.
One of them appeared distressed at the idea. At last, after a pause, he
said:
“Why don’t you go and sit in that shop in Regent Street with your hair
hanging down, like those three girls do?”
I looked surprised.
“It would not be so tiring as travelling all that long way and writing
another big book,” he explained, “and you would make just as much
money, I am sure.”
Lovely idea!
But I dared not accept his suggestion, kindly meant though it was.
A letter I wrote to a woman friend in 1900 has just come into my hands.
It says:
“Your congratulations on my ‘success,’ as you are pleased to call
it, are very sweet. Public success seems to me to mean so little.
After a good dinner the playgoeer enjoys any foolery—and much the
same with books. A good temper makes a satisfied reader, and an
easy chair and shady lamp do the rest. I am not satisfied. Far from
it. Sheaves of reviews—and all good ones, strange to relate—lie
before me; but they mean nothing. I know inside my little _me_ that
I ought to have done better.
“Perhaps I should have been wise never to have commenced the
struggle. To have retired from London to a suburb or a cottage and
lived quietly on my small income. You will say I have a fit of the
blues—and doubtless I have—or liver, or something equally stupid;
but I’ve been pretty hard at it for four years now—three
books have been conceived and born and a fourth nearly done, and
I am still alive; but I’m tired. Shall I go to Mexico and write
another while I am young enough to rough it and stand the racket,
or shall I throw down the pen and cry vanquished? Work is a tough
job to a woman never brought up to the idea of working, and perhaps
I’m trying to carry more on my silly shoulders than those silly
sloping shoulders can bear. The table is covered with orders of all
sorts and kinds—work lies before me if only I had the pluck to do
it. The more ’success’ I gather, as you call it, the more incapable
I feel.
“Two strings are tugging at me, one says _go on_, the other says
_stop_. The first may end in failure. The second begins in failure.
Mexico—and quite alone—mind you, is a long way, and a big job. To-night
I seem to funk it; but, then, to-night I seem to funk everything, and
even your letter of love and sympathy, dear friend, has not quite
dragged me back to my senses. I’m very lonely at times, and that’s the
truth. After that remark you will think I’m going to marry again; but
there you are wrong. You lost your hundred pounds bet that I would
re-marry in a year—so don’t be foolish and risk any more on this silly,
wayward, lonely, spoilt pen-woman.
“Yours, etc.”
N.B.—I went to Mexico shortly after—alone, quite alone, on a
twenty-five-thousand-mile journey.
Why did I choose Mexico to visit and write about? Because with all the
world before me that land seemed to offer a more historic past than
almost any other country on God’s earth; and was there not a spice of
danger and romance lurking amongst its hills and valleys?
I left London in July, and, after halting in Canada and the United
States, landed in Mexico on November 1st, 1900, and returned to England
in April, 1901. Between those dates I had travelled some twenty-five
thousand miles, had spent thirty-nine nights in moving trains, and many
more in private Pullman-cars in railway sidings. I had lived a life of
luxury and ease and had roughed it to nigh unendurable straits. Besides
which I was constantly sending home articles to the English Press.
It was a several months’ journey from Liverpool to Quebec, through
Canada to Niagara, then to New York, Chicago, Washington, and
Philadelphia; and onward, onward to Mexico. Before leaving America,
however, I turned aside when I found myself only fifty miles from
Galveston, which, about ten weeks previously, had been visited by its
historic and terrible storm. Heart-rending were the sights that met
my eyes and the tales that were poured into my ears. Eight thousand
people had perished in that terrible hurricane, their bodies were
even then being cremated on the shore. Rows of small houses literally
stood on their heads, while on the beach pianos, tramcars, saucepans,
sewing-machines, baths, and perambulators lay in wild confusion.
Resuming my journey I soon passed the Mexican frontier, and there
had my first experience in ranch life; there, too, a “norther,” or
dust-storm, made me long for the comparative comfort of a London fog.
Eyes, nose, mouth, ears, were all choked with hard, sharp, cutting
sandy dust. My raven locks were grey and no longer suitable for
exhibition in the shop in Regent Street. Next came another long railway
journey to Mexico City, with the President of the line in his private
train, with various entertainments on the way, including a bull-fight
and a cock-fight, and much interested amusement at the customs of
the people. Mexico City was reached just in time for me to see the
celebrations of the Feast Day of the Lady of Guadaloupe, the patron
saint of Mexico. It was a wonderful sight, and the story reminded me of
Lourdes, though it is of much earlier origin and the pilgrimage of far
greater magnitude.
The welcome tendered to me in the capital was delightful.
The Christmas customs were, of course, of great interest; Madame Diaz,
the wife of that great President, invited me to her _posada_. A most
enjoyable and novel evening. One of my most valued treasures is the
little bonbonnière she gave me on that occasion.
Many varied experiences followed; rides lasting two or three weeks
through that marvellous country to see old Aztec ruins; life at
tobacco, sugar, tea, or coffee _haciendas_; to say nothing of the
national customs, traditions, and superstitions on every side. The
President gave me a guard of forty _rurales_ (soldiers), and, as
the opportunity of penetrating remote parts was great, twenty-two
gentlemen of all nationalities, from Cabinet Ministers to clerks,
joined us. We were sixty-three all told, and, though I rode astride
like a man, I was the only woman.
Perhaps the most thrilling and exciting moment on my various travels
was that spent on a trolley-car in Southern Mexico. Along those distant
tracks barely two or three trains pass in a day, and hundreds, aye,
thousands, of miles of railway have to be kept in repair. It is usual
for the engineers to run along the line in a little open wagon, known
as a trolley-car, which is worked by hand by four or six men, and
covers the ground at a good pace. It can stop at any moment, and be
lifted bodily off the line should a train require to pass.
Naturally, one sees the scenery magnificently from a car of this
kind, for there is nothing before one. I was sitting in front with an
engineer on each side of me. We had just come through one of the most
magnificent passes in the world of engineering, and had, indeed, at
that moment crossed a bridge, a slender, fragile thing. Some two or
three hundred feet below it the water gurgled in a rushing stream.
Parrots shrieked overhead, terrapins floated on the water, and monkeys
swung from tree to tree. There was a precipice on one side, a high,
rocky hill on the other, and just room for this mountainous line to
crawl round the rocks.
We were all telling stories and chatting cheerfully: the next thing
I knew was that the man on my right seized me by the neck, as if he
suddenly wished to strangle me, and somehow he and I fell together a
tangled mass down the side of the precipice.
When I looked up—luckily caught in the shrubs—an enormous engine was
towering over my head, the grid-like rails of the cow-catcher looking
ominous and weird above me. The splintered platform of the trolley-car
was rushing down the mountain-side, and our iron wheels were running
off in different directions. It was a marvel we were not all killed.
It had happened in this wise.
As we turned a sharp corner an engine suddenly bore down on us—one
of those great black, high American locomotives, neither varnished
nor painted. The engineers, accustomed to the ominous sound, luckily
heard it before it was quite upon us. Hence, I was violently dragged
from what, in another second, would have been instantaneous death. The
natives all jumped off in some wonderful manner, also being accustomed
to the sound; but our trolley-car was smashed to smithereens.
It was a ghastly experience. By the time I regained my equilibrium,
and saw the horrible accident to our frail little carriage and learnt
the awful danger we had just come through, I realised that I had just
experienced one of the most perilous moments of my life.
I should have sat there oblivious and literally courted death. We never
know life’s real dangers till they are past, hence the courage of the
battlefield or shipwreck. We only worry over what we but partially
understand, hence the anxiety so often experienced before sitting in
the dentist’s chair. Anticipation is so much sharper than realisation.
This was not my only narrow escape, for I was blessed with the
proverbial three.
While visiting at the _hacienda_ of the Governor of one of the Southern
States we, one day after lunch, amused ourselves by shooting at bottles
with the rifles of the _rurales_. After a time my hostess and I had
wandered away for a stroll, and, as we returned, a ricochet bullet
slid off a bottle and buried itself in my womanly “Adam’s apple.” A
red streak ran down my collar, I opened my mouth and literally gasped,
choking; everybody thought I was dead. But it proved nothing, and in a
few minutes I could breathe and speak again and was washed clean.
My third escape was a terrible illness, contracted when riding in the
tropics, and caused either by venomous bites or poisonous ivy. Never
shall I forget the awful loneliness of those days and nights fighting
with death in a Mexican hotel.
Of all the marvellous sights, the magnificent scenery, the
many-coloured birds and flowers rivalling each other in gorgeousness,
I need not write here. But, far beyond everything, the scene that left
the deepest impression on my mind was in Southern Mexico. It was a
visit to the Caves of Cacahuimilpa, one of the greatest wonders of the
world, and the Governor of the State organised an expedition for me to
see them. Numberless Indians from far and wide had joined my party,
glad of the opportunity of going inside the wondrous caves which they
hold in such superstitious dread. Candles were distributed to the
company, which by now must have been swelled to something like a couple
of hundred people. All was ready.
The descent was easy, for a roadway had been made; but it was really
very impressive to see so many individuals solemnly marching two and
two into impenetrable blackness to the strain of martial music. Each
person carried a long lighted candle, but before we returned to our
starting-point, six and a half hours later, these candles had nearly
burnt out.
The caves were originally formed by a river, the waterline of which
is distinctly visible, while in places the ground is marked with wave
ripples like the sand of a beach. Then, again, many stones are round
and polished, the result of constant rolling by water; and, still more
wonderful, two rivers flow beneath them, probably through caves just as
marvellous, which no man had then dared penetrate.
I believe we went through seven caverns, and our numerous lights barely
made a flicker in the intense gloom—they were nothing in that vast
space. Rockets were sent up. Rockets which were known to ascend two
hundred and fifty feet, but which nowhere reached the roof; the height
is probably somewhere between five and six hundred feet. Think of a
stone roof at that altitude without any supports.
The size alone appalled, but the stalactites and stalagmites almost
petrified one with amazement. Many of them have joined, making rude
pillars a couple of hundred feet high and perhaps a hundred feet in
diameter at the base. Others have formed grotesque shapes. A seal
upon the ground is positively life-like: a couple of monster Indian
idols: faces and forms innumerable; here an old woman bent nearly
double, there a man with a basket on his head, thrones fit for kings,
organs with every pipe visible, which, when tapped, send forth deep
tones. It was all so great, so wonderful, so marvellous; I felt all
the time as if I were in some strange cathedral, greater, grander, and
more impressive than any I had ever entered. Its aspect of power and
strength paralysed me, not with fear, but with admiration.
At times it was terribly stiff climbing and several of the party had
nasty falls in the uncertain light; at others it was a case of sitting
down and sliding, in order to get from one boulder to another; but it
was worth it all to see such a sight, to realise the Power that made
those caves, to bow before the Almighty Hand which had accomplished
such work, even in millions of years. There hung those great stone
roofs without support of any kind—what architect could have performed
such a miracle? There stood those majestic pillars embedded in rocks
above and below; there hung yards and yards of stalactites weighing
tons, and yet no stay or girder kept them in place. It was a lesson,
a chapter in religion, something solemn and soul-stirring, something
never to be forgotten; one of the Creator’s great mysteries, where
every few yards presented some fresh revelation.
My knees were trembling, every rag of clothing I wore was as wet as
when first taken from the washerwoman’s tub, yet I struggled on,
fascinated, bewildered, awed, by the sights which met me at every step.
Think of it. Stumbling along for four and a half hours, even then not
reaching the end, and, though we returned by the easiest and quickest
way, it was two hours more before we found the exit.
In one of the caves the Governor proposed my health, and the party
gave three cheers, which resounded again and again in that wonderful
subterranean chamber, deep down in the bowels of the earth, with a
mountain above and a couple of rivers below. The military band of
Cacahuimilpa accompanied us, and the effect produced by their music was
stupendous. No words can give any idea of the volume of sound, because
the largest band in the world could not succeed in producing the same
effect of resonance in the open air which ten performers caused in
those vast silent chambers.
It is impossible to describe the immense grandeur of Cacahuimilpa.
Man is speechless in such majestic surroundings; but in this
all-pervading silence surely the voice of God speaks.
Hot, tired, and overpowered we were plodding homewards, when a letter
was handed to a member of the party by a mounted soldier, who, seeing
our lights approaching the entrance, had dared to venture into the
grottos to deliver his missive. We were all surprised at the man’s
arrival, and more surprised to find he carried an envelope. It turned
out to be a telegram which had followed our party from a village
forty miles distant, and had been sent on by special horseman with
instructions to overtake us at all speed. Was ever telegram delivered
amid stranger surroundings, to a more cosmopolitan collection of
humanity assembled in the bowels of the earth, far, far away from
civilisation?
What news that telegram contained! It had travelled seven thousand
miles across land and sea; it had arrived at a moment when we were all
overawed by stupendous grandeur and thoroughly worn out with fatigue.
At the first glance it seemed impossible to read. Men, accustomed to
the vagaries of foreign telegraph clerks when dealing with the English
language, found, however, no difficulty in deciphering its meaning.
Then the Governor spoke a word. Every Indian doffed his hat and bent
his eyes, as Colonel Alarcon walked solemnly towards me, and in deep
tone, with evident feeling, explained that the President of Mexico had
sent on the news to tell the English señora—
“QUEEN VICTORIA IS DEAD.”
A historic telegram, truly, announcing a national calamity, and
received amidst the wildest possible surroundings in the strangest
possible way.
The Queen was dead. The English-speaking people had lost her who had
been their figure-head for sixty-three years. The monarch, to whom the
whole world paid homage as a woman and respect as a Queen, had died at
Osborne on the previous day, while we, wandering over Aztec ruins at
Xochicalco, had not even heard of her illness.
Impressed as we were by the mystic grandeur of the caves, amazed at the
wonders of nature, this solemn news seemed to fit the serious thoughts
of the day, thoughts which had grown in intensity with each succeeding
hour. Cacahuimilpa appeared a fitting spot in which to hear of a great
public loss. Time and place for once were in no wise “out of tune.”
It was dark and the way steep as we rode back to the village in
silence.
Like the proverbial bad penny, I rolled home again with my pocket
full of notes on men, women, and things. I had collected my material,
written bits in railway trains, on steamboats, and almost in the
saddle, and as soon as I felt well enough, put together _Mexico as I
saw It_.
The beginning of the manuscript was sent off to the publishers in
the June following, just two months after landing at home, and the
remainder was printed, chapter by chapter, as I managed to finish each:
a most terrible and anxious manner of proceeding and one certainly not
to be recommended. The first proof of _Mexico as I saw It_ was returned
on July 10th; the slips, or galleys, finished on August 10th; the
whole was paged and passed for press on September 10th. It appeared in
October at a guinea net, the illustrations mostly from my own camera.
So I was just six months in Mexico, and just six more getting out the
book; in my own souvenir copy there is written on the fly-leaf: “It is
done, but it has nearly done for me.”
Reviews were more than kind, but then the subject was new, so people
found it interesting. As Frederic Harrison wrote in the _Positivist
Review_: “The marvellous restoration of Mexico, from being a hot-bed
of anarchy and the victim of superstition to its present condition of
one of the best governed and most enlightened of modern countries, has
often attracted the attention of political observers. In Mrs. Alec
Tweedie’s most interesting volume we find suggestive sketches of the
institution of the Republic, and a personal character of the President,
General Porfirio Diaz, the noble statesman who has achieved such
triumphs.” How could one help being gratified that other influential
organs of public opinion felt with me the “fascinations of the Southern
_haciendas_ and of the natives of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,” and held
the information, that had been zealously collected, of practical and
informing value?
On the hospitality of the President it is only necessary to say that,
looking back to those records of 1900-1, I find this expression—warm
from the heart—respecting General and Madame Diaz:
“Their kindness and courtesy, the extraordinary thoughtfulness and
consideration with which I was treated, will ever remain in my mind.
Without the personal aid of General Diaz I could not have written
_Mexico as I saw It_, and perhaps this peep into the life of the
people, over whom he rules so powerfully, may help to make that
wonderful country a little better understood.”[5]
* * * * *
Five years later I returned to Mexico and wrote the _Life_ of the
President.
The first time I left the country I was limping with pain after a
serious illness of blood-poisoning—the second time I left almost
limping again, but that was from the weight of the precious documents I
bore away.
No one knew but the President, his wife, and three of his Ministers,
what important material I was taking with me, or that I was going to
write the _Life_ of General Diaz from his diaries and notes. It was
published in England and America in February, 1906, and reprinted with
additions two months later. One kindly critic said: “It is a romance,
a history, a biography, one of the most thrilling stories of real life
ever written.” Later it was translated into German and Spanish. I was
so pressed with work at that time I had one Spanish and two English
secretaries constantly employed—I often sat at my desk for nine or ten
hours a day, and rarely went to any social entertainment except an
occasional public dinner.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] _Mexico as I saw It_ quickly passed into a second edition in spite
of its price, and then fell out of print. Nearly ten years later Nelson
and Sons decided to add it to their shilling Library of Travel. Strange
as it may appear, not a single copy of the old edition was on the
market anywhere, and we had to advertise three times before we could
get a dirty copy to tear to pieces for correction for the printers. In
August, 1911, the cheap edition was selling in thousands on the railway
bookstalls of Great Britain.
CHAPTER XII
THE CONTENTS OF A WORKING-WOMAN’S LETTER-BOX
The fact of having committed a book into printer’s ink lays one open
to curious correspondence. I am sure there are autograph hunters who
seek the appearance of each new writer, in order to mark her down, as
eagerly as ever angler watched for a trout rising to his fly. Some ask
directly and are unashamed; others wrap up their request by desiring
some piece of information. Happily it has not yet become a recognised
custom for a writer to be asked by people entirely unknown to her to
give them her books, but I have experienced even such modest requests.
One circumstance was perhaps a little unusual.
From far-away Mussoorie, in the North-West Provinces of India, came
a letter one day. It was dated “January,” after the season at the
hill station was over, by some exile compelled to stay on through
the dreariness of a deserted health resort, to live through the
monotonously dull days and watch the successive falls of snow on the
mountains. My correspondent had been reading about myself and my books
in a popular monthly which had reached her, and became emboldened to
ask “if the writer would lend her a copy of _A Girl’s Ride in Iceland_,
which she would carefully return.” As she covered the thin pages of her
foreign note-paper her boldness grew, for next she “confessed” that she
would like to possess the book; and she wound up with a suggestion that
if my name “was written on the fly-leaf, signifying that the book was a
gift to her by the author, it would add to its value.”
I believe in this instance I did weakly send the book, autographed
fly-leaf and all. One feels sympathetic towards a lonely woman
compatriot left stranded on an Indian hill-top, thinking perchance of
a friendly Christmas-time at home, with one’s own people, shops and
shows to amuse and cheer one.
“A bibliophilic favour” was on another occasion requested. This time my
correspondent was nearer home:
“Ever since boyhood I have been an ardent lover of books; but,
alas! owing to a paucity of pence (to say nothing of pounds), I am
only able to buy when I can, not when I would. So I am sorry to
have to confess that none of your volumes grace, as yet, my humble
shelves. But I am not wholly without examples of your pen. Some of
your articles, those on “Dr. Nansen at Home” and “Henrik Ibsen” and
“Björnstjerne Björnson,” I have had carefully excerpted from back
numbers of _Temple Bar_ and neatly backed for preservation. Well,
I should very much like to adorn each of them by the insertion
of a line or two in your handwriting—will you graciously make
it possible for me to do so? The veriest trifle—or trifles—that
you might care to send me would, you may be sure, be gratefully
accepted and prized.”
I am afraid those magazine excerpts, though neatly “backed” for
preservation, are still unadorned.
What, one wonders, will become of pickers-up of bibliophilic trifles
in these days when everything committed to paper is typewritten? The
relics of dead authors of the twentieth century, when those of the
twenty-first come to collect them, will not be the manuscripts written
in ink in a neat (or otherwise) handwriting, such as the British Museum
purchases for hundreds of pounds and stores among its treasures to-day;
but lacerated engrimed sheets of typescript which can make but small
appeal to anyone’s emotions.
At other times various correspondents have asked of me:
If I would figure with my children in a series of articles entitled
“Model Mothers,” which Mr. Harmsworth’s (Lord Northcliffe’s) enterprise
was bringing out.
Would I get somebody concert engagements?
Did I approve of divorce?
Had I any theory in the bringing up of babies?
Would I permit my visiting-card to be reproduced in the illustration of
an article on “The Etiquette of Card-leaving”?
Had I two or three good specimens of opals from Querétaro for a
correspondent who had _twice_ read my Mexican book?
While another enterprising gleaner sought my help in gathering his
sheaf as follows:
“I am endeavouring to collect the opinions of prominent ladies
and gentlemen as to what is the ideal age for marriage. If you
would be so good as to write a few lines, giving your opinion
on this matter, from the lady’s point of view, and enclose them
in the accompanying stamped addressed envelope at your earliest
convenience, I assure you that I should esteem it a great favour.
Sincerely hoping that you may see your way to accede to my
request,” etc.
Another enquired if I thought widows should remarry.
Lastly, among begging letters that visit the working-woman’s desk
like so many buzzing flies, one covering many pages may be taken as a
specimen. A youth, a French polisher by trade, wrote that he had given
up his situation: taken to writing: failed and become a tramp. After
many hardships, having only one penny left, he bought a postage-stamp
and hoped to find a _Who’s Who_ in his inn. He was unsuccessful, but
discovered a _Literary Year-Book_, which he opened by chance, and his
eyes fell on my name; therefore he sent me a most lengthy appeal for
help, adding a promise of repayment as he had a prospect of work.
Truly strange epistles drift into the working-woman’s letter-box, and
each steals a little time from her busy day.
Once an unknown person, chancing to read an article of mine on Lourdes,
sent me sixteen closely written pages in French, betraying a profound
anxiety on the writer’s part to convert me to Roman Catholicism.
Then come letters of a different kind requesting loans. They may be
from the Royal Geographical Society, or the Earl’s Court Exhibition, or
a lace collection, or perhaps some clergyman in the East End, but the
letters come and the letters have to be answered.
The writers generally require the loan of curios from Iceland, Finland,
Norway, Mexico, Morocco, Sicily; or any country, in fact, with which
one’s name is associated. Lists have to be made, the objects looked
out, packed, sent, placed, fetched, unpacked. Sometimes things get
damaged, or lost, and then no one seems responsible.
People write asking for patronage; the loan of one’s name as a
patroness to soup kitchens, charity concerts, balls, clubs, hospital
bazaars, or collections by a friend for some charity. I was once asked
by an unknown man to be godmother to his child. Soaps have asked for
my patronage, and a motor-car was suggested as a free gift (it was the
early days of motoring) if I would drive it through the streets of
London.
Letters from women and men aspiring to literature—and verily half the
world seems to think literary gifts are as common as pens and inkpots;
letters from the natives of all the countries about which I have ever
written, asking for help, or “for money to buy a ticket home because
they are stranded in London and destitute”; or a fond father wishing
to start his son in mining writes to ask my experience of mines in
Mexico; while perhaps a mother thinks my experience would solve a
question whether her daughter, who is a hospital nurse, would find a
good opening in Canada; and, again, a girl starting a dairy enquires
for hints on the Danish procedure.
Letters modestly ask me if through my medical connection I can get
“a poor friend” seen by a doctor gratis; or if I can give someone an
introduction for the stage, or hear somebody else sing or recite, and
see what he or she had better do with their talent.
Oh dear! Oh dear! Letters never end, they are like the taxes in their
persistency. Is there anything under the sun people will not bother a
busy woman to obtain? The following letter was as much underlined as
one of Queen Victoria’s epistles:
“I know your books so well, and have heard so much of _all_ your
_great_ kindness to people. I am a worker in one of ... and am
resting a time, and am anxious to get some help towards getting
a _Bath chair_ for a poor crippled child. It is _such a sad, sad
case_, and if she had a chair she could get to church and Sunday
School. I have also been a missionary in poor needy India. Please
send a _little_ help towards the Chair, and also if you can
_towards_ the support of our Hospital for poor _Purdah women_ in
India, where I hope to be able to return _some day_. I am Dean
...’s niece.
“Yours very truly,
“O. P.”
One effusion addressed to me begins:
“It is very many years since we met, but I am hoping you have not
quite forgotten me. I have been a widow for nearly two years,
and am now anxious to get some employment, as I am _absolutely
penniless_.”
In the same strain the letter runs on for several pages. For a long
time the signature was a puzzle, and then gradually rose before me the
vision of a man with whom I used to dance twenty years before as a
girl; he was then a rich bachelor in Park Lane. A few years after this
he married, and I only saw his wife two or three times. Surely on such
a slight acquaintance the letter could not come from her. But it did.
What is to become of the endless stream of charming but incapable
women, whose husbands, fathers, or brothers leave them in this
deplorable condition?
Among the newspaper articles for which my pen has travelled
over reams of paper—articles responsible for much of my strange
correspondence—were some on hand-loom weaving.
Far away in the wilds of Sutherlandshire, chance once drew my steps to
visit a little croft where homespuns were woven by the family, while
the hens laid their eggs in the corner, or cackled in the rafters.
Years went by and better days came to that household.
Appreciation is always pleasant, and such kindly words as those in the
following simple letter are good to read. The excellent English used by
the writer is a testimony to education in the Highlands of Scotland.
“DEAR MADAM,
“I feel very much my inability to write as I feel in regard to
the very able and very earnest appeal you have made through the
columns of the _Queen_—on behalf of the British workman, but more
especially for your kind way of writing about our little Cottage
home.
“Dear Lady, your visit had gladdened our hearts but your paper more
so, and I feel quite at a loss to thank you for your kindness. We
have an ‘heirloom’ in the family already (the one you saw), but if
this paper won’t be an ‘heirloom’ it will be a relic, in the family
of all about the loom.
“My mother said while you were here you would soon come to
understand about it, but I can’t help complimenting you on the
retentiveness of your memory. I don’t think you have forgotten
anything I said, but certainly you haven’t forgot about the hen
laying her egg. “What a joke?” nor my kitten either.
“Teazled ought to have been spelt Teazed. Teazling is part of the
operation fine tweeds undergo in the finishing process after being
woven.
“Teazed is an opening out of the wool.
“That is the only error and probably a printer’s one, so that your
facts are perfectly correct, the prices of your wool are not my
quotations.
“Sutherlandshire wools always get a higher price in the wool
markets than any other work. Wools under 9d. per lb. are of no
great value.
“I have been very successful in this Exhibition, sold out, some
orders, three prizes, for our own goods; woven the goods of seven
others (crofters), who have also obtained prizes. In the green
wincy 1st prize, the Black second; the travelling-rugs 1st prize,
the shepherd’s plaid commended.
“Again thanking you for your kindness
“I am,
“Dear Madam,
“Your humble and obedient Servant,
“A. P.”
If the weaver’s letter was pleasant, the following reversed the shield.
I have not often received abusive letters; but here is an example at
random:
“PUTNEY.
“MADAM,
“I have read your article on ‘Beauty’ in _The Daily Mail_ of
to-day’s date, regarding your idea of tall, slight figures (which
_you_ describe as being leggy, lanky, etc.). I consider you a fool
and an idiot and certainly _low-bred_. You are evidently coarse and
fat yourself, therefore you do not understand refined breed. Kindly
insert this in your next article on ‘Beauty.’
“A JUDGE OF REFINEMENT.”
Possibly my correspondent would claim that her judicial merits in the
matter of refinement extended to language.
A total stranger sent me the following—among epistolary
curiosities—dated from a well-known ladies’ club:
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“I am doing a most unusual thing and I fear you will at once
say—impertinent! but please don’t. You travel so tremendously,
each of your works I seem to like better than the other. I suppose
you always have a maid with you? or a companion? If only you would
take me with you (I would pay my own expenses) on one of your
fascinating journeys. I am just consumed with a desire to travel in
unfrequented country and would do anything if only I could go with
you sometime. Please do not consider me a most rude and forward
girl.”
Being struck with this letter, I sent for the girl. She came; tall,
dark, handsome, and a lady. It appeared that she was not happy at
home, but had means of her own. She had been abroad with friends, who
invariably stayed in large hotels, all alike and all uninteresting,
whilst she wanted to see something of the real life of the foreign
lands she visited.
“But what do you want to do with me?” I asked.
“Travel with you. I would go as your secretary, as your maid, as
anything if you would only take me. I would pay all my own expenses and
promise to be useful.”
“Maids sew on buttons and lace up boots,” I replied, laughing.
“I’ll do all that and more, if you will only take me. I have your
books, and I know I should love you, and I do so want to travel, to
really travel as you do.”
She was delightfully enthusiastic; but, alas! I could not take her; the
responsibility of a headstrong girl was too great. It might have turned
out an ideal arrangement, but, again, it might have been a hideous
failure, and when travelling to write books one has no time to tackle
needless worries.
To end this list of letter-samples that more often tease than gratify
the recipient are constant demands for subscriptions; appeals for gifts
of books to poor clubs; letters from comparative strangers asking if
they may bring a particular friend or a foreigner to call, as they wish
to have a talk with me, or see over my house. In fact, no one who does
not peep into a busy woman’s letter-box can have any idea of the amount
of correspondence on all conceivable subjects it contains.
No doubt other workers have likewise helped—or are helping—the young or
shiftless beginners who have not yet found foothold on the lowest rung
of the ladder, round which so great a crowd is struggling. But do all,
one wonders, learn, as has been my experience, how quickly eaten bread
is sometimes forgotten by the eater: how often so-called gratitude is
only the hope of fresh favours to come?
Does it ever strike people that it hurts?
A girl of my acquaintance was once very, very poor. She wrote asking
my advice; saw me, and finally started in a small way as a manicurist.
No move was made without claiming my advice at all times and seasons.
She called and sat for hours asking this and that. She brought
agreements to be looked over, earnings to discuss, address-books for
suggestions; Heaven knows what she did not bring. At my persuasion she
saved shillings and put them into the Post Office Savings Bank. Then it
became pounds, and I arranged with a bank to open a little account for
her, and later asked my stockbroker to invest her first saved hundred
pounds in something _very_ safe.
That first hundred saved, in a year or two became a thousand, and
quickly doubled itself. She deserved it all, for she worked hard and
saved diligently, but—well! the protectress was wanted less and less,
the protestations of affection and admiration slowly ceased, and when
my help could no longer be of use they came to an end.
Gratitude. Where is it? The people one helps most generously often turn
away the moment they are firmly established.
Take another case. I started a certain girl in journalism. (I’ve
started so many.) She worried me day and night for help and advice.
I corrected MSS., suggested subjects, rewrote whole articles, and
all because of feeling really sorry for her plight. She is now a
flourishing journalist. We often meet, but she rarely takes the trouble
to call because she need no longer get anything out of me.
Yes! after correcting four whole books, and that means hours and hours
of dreary work, only in one case, to my surprise and delight—for
such a small return gives one real pleasure—did I find a pretty
acknowledgment, in a preface, of my part of the work.
People will come again and again, and a hundred times again, no matter
how inconvenient the hour; they will drop in at meal-time, and knowing
how poor they are, one feels forced to ask them to stop. But these very
folk, once on their feet, sometimes forget the friendly outstretched
hand of help by which they climbed.
It hurts.
On the other hand, some people are almost too grateful. A boy who was
alone in lodgings and spent his Sundays with us in Harley Street in the
long ago, went to China, where he has done splendidly; and every year
since I have had a home of my own—since 1887, in fact—he has sent me a
chest of tea, “because he never could forget the kindness of the past.”
And he sends a similar recognition to my mother for the same reason.
Such tokens of remembrance keep alive the friendships of those bygone
days.
A woman who was with me for some years as secretary and left through
ill-health never forgets to send me a kindly note on my birthday, a
little thoughtfulness I greatly appreciate. One loves to be remembered.
A penny bunch of violets often gives a hundredfold its weight in
pleasure.
Yes, remembrance is always pleasant. Dear old Sir John Erichsen left me
£300 in his will to buy a memento. I was too poor for mementoes when
it came, so I invested it, and the £12 a year became of real tangible
help. Or again, an old cousin in Scotland whom I only saw twice, left
me, when she died, my paternal grandmother’s engagement-ring, and her
delightful old tea-service of soft buff and white china ornamented with
the daintiest landscape medallions.
Thank God, I have never been pursued in life by little ills, but three
or four times big collapses have overtaken me. Typhoid, rheumatic
fever, and blood-poisoning are no slight matters: but they are almost
worth the suffering and pain for the pleasure of receiving such
kindnesses from friends, letters of sympathy, flowers, fruit, wine,
jellies, all have been left at my door, and I blessed the kind donors
then as I bless them in remembrance now. Doubtless the severity of the
illnesses that overtook me was due to intense overwork coupled with
anxiety—overstrain invariably spells breakdown.
A horrible distrust overcame me at one time.
I used to go to bed worn out and weary, at last sleep would come.
Then I would wake up with a start, feeling some awful calamity had
overtaken me, that I had written something libellous or said something
scandalous, and the Court of Law was waiting to receive me. No one
would intentionally write a libel any more than they would cut a
friend. I would see paragraphs chasing paragraphs across the page, just
as the typed letters had turned red under my gaze when my eyes gave
out a few years before. I used to get horribly anxious over my proof.
Things I had rattled off when well were laborious now, and the anxiety
they entailed was wellnigh unendurable.
It was merely a matter of health—a tonic and a rest put matters right.
PART V
THE SWEETS OF ADVERSITY
[Illustration: MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE
_After a painting by Herbert Schmalz, 1894_]
CHAPTER XIII
ABOUT PAINTERS
It has been rather amusing to sit to various artists; they have such
different ways of working. When Herbert Schmalz did my portrait (1894)
he was busy upon those enormous religious canvases of his which
afterwards toured round England and Australia as a one-man show, and
which are so well known in reproductions.
He was painting “John Oliver Hobbes” at the same time, and she and I
went to the studio on alternate days. Although we were hardly alike,
the names of _Craigie_ and _Tweedie_ had something of the same sound,
and quite confused the little servant, who always announced me as Mrs.
Craigie, and John Oliver Hobbes as Mrs. Tweedie. Those were pleasant
sittings, and perhaps I went ten or twelve times for the picture.
Herbert Schmalz is a careful, painstaking artist, who is prone to alter
scheme or colour, and do the work all over again unless it pleases him.
At that time Sir Frederick Leighton often came to the studio, which
almost adjoined his own.
Leighton was one of the most courtly, charming men I ever knew. Short
of stature, he still had a magnificent presence, and his grey head
was grand. No President of the Royal Academy ever looked finer at the
top of the stairs on soirée night than this splendid draughtsman.
The Academy Soirée in his day was a grand function. His personality
attracted all that was best. I never liked his painting, but always
loved his drawing.
The portrait painted by Mr. Schmalz[6] was one day standing in my hall
a year or two later, when a new servant—new servants are luxuries I do
not often indulge in—asked if the picture was going away.
“Yes,” I replied, “it is going to an exhibition.”
“I thought pictures only went to exhibitions when they were newly
painted,” she remarked.
“So they do, as a rule,” I answered, “but this one is going to the
Exhibition of ‘Eminent Women’ at Earl’s Court.”
“Lor’!” (in her surprise she nearly dropped what she was holding). “You
don’t mean to say _you_ are going there?”
Mohammed could not have been a prophet in his own household.
After all, plain truths and trifling jokes are often the most
enjoyable, just as small ills are the least endurable.
When I sat to Blake Wirgman in 1902 for my portrait shortly after my
visit to the West, he insisted on my being dressed in a dirty old
divided skirt, huge Mexican sombrero, high boots, and shirt. The
canvas is nearly life-size, and as I was foolish enough to submit to a
standing position, with one foot up on a stone, I used to get awfully
tired. Balancing on one leg in stiff riding-boots is apt to bring
on cramp, so at odd intervals I danced round the studio to relieve
my aching toes, and begged him to paint the boots without me. After
dressing one day I returned to the studio, having put the boots on
their trees, and placed them carefully beside the rocky stone where I
stood. “There,” I exclaimed, “there are the boots, now can you paint
them without torturing me.” Never shall I forget his peal of laughter
at the idea of painting a pair of boots with wooden insides! However,
he found a girl who took “threes” in boots, and she saved me a few
hours of torture. Blake Wirgman is a delightful man, and I thoroughly
enjoyed those sittings—all but the cramp.
“All but” reminds me of a dear old Scotch minister who used to read
out the prayers for the Royal family, and to our amusement pronounced
“Albert Edward Prince of Wales,” “All-but Edward Prince of Wiles.” This
happened in a Highland kirk in Sutherlandshire, where the collie dogs
used to come into the church and get up and shake themselves at the
benediction, knowing that it was time to go home. A tuning-fork and a
precentor added simplicity to the service, while the shepherds from
the hills wore black coats and top-hats and pennies were collected on
a tray at the door, just as represented in the play _Bunty pulls the
Strings_.
The famous picture of “Scotch Elders” was painted by my husband’s
cousin John Lorimer, A.R.A.; a very fine picture it is too. The
appreciation of pawky Scottish humour runs in our blood, on both
sides of the family, so my praise of a kinsman’s work will be readily
understood as needing no apology.
Being with other workers amused and interested me, and made me forget
the everlasting grind of my usual working-day. Mr. Cyril Davenport, of
the British Museum, and author of many books on jewels, miniatures,
and heraldry, made a _vitreous_ enamel of my head. This is not paint,
but powdered glass, shaken on the silver and then fired in a furnace.
Some of the effects produced by this process are lovely. It is an old
art revived, and a tricky one, as no workman knows the exact shade
the furnace will turn out, any more than they did in the days of the
manufacture of the famous _rose du Barry_.
It is quite a mistaken idea to suppose that sitting for a portrait
necessitates sitting still. Far from it. Artists like one to talk and
be amused, otherwise the sitter gets bored and the picture reflects
the boredom. Few painters can work with a third person in the room,
although Sir William Orchardson always preferred to have his wife
reading aloud to him, or talking to his sitter while he was at the
easel.
It may seem strange that so many people have painted my head, but
please do not think it was the outcome of vanity on my part. I did not
ask them; they asked me. Dozens have asked me to sit, and the baker’s
dozen to whom I have sat have started off full of enthusiasm, found me
difficult, and ended by thinking me horrid. Yes, horrid, I know. They
have not said so in so many words, they have been too polite for that,
but they have owned I was “very difficult, especially about the mouth.”
That is why I have thirteen different mouths in thirteen different
pictures. A mouth is the most expressive and the most characteristic
feature of a face, and therefore the most elusive for the artist’s
brush. When I am not talking, my face is as dull as London on a Bank
Holiday.
Some painters make too much of a portrait and too little of a picture.
Others, on the other hand, make too much of a picture and too little
of a portrait. Really, the picture is of most consequence, because
the good picture with its impression of the sitter remains, while the
fleeting expression of the face and age of the sitter passes away.
Joy is only a flash, sorrow is an abiding pain. We women have lines of
figure when young, but we must all expect lines of wrinkles when old.
Artists and writers are generally poor, but we are often happy. The
greater the artist, the less he seems to be able to push his wares. It
is the mediocre who ring the muffin-bell, or whose wives sell their
cakes. A certain clever woman is said never to stop in a country house
without returning home with an order for a new ship in her husband’s
wallet. Well, why not? If a woman is smart enough to find purchasers
for her husband’s pictures, his horses, or his ships, all honour to
her. We all want agents, even literary agents—poor, dear, abused
things—and if we can get our own flesh and blood to do the work without
demanding a commission, so much the better, but we might give them a
little acknowledgment sometimes.
The poor want to be rich, and the rich want seats in the House of
Lords, while a Duchess wants to write books and be poor. The simple
want to be great, while the great know the futility of fame. It is a
world of struggle and discontent. The moment _any_body can get seats
for a first night, or tickets for a private view, _no_body wants them.
That sounds rather Gilbertian.
The late Sir William S. Gilbert was a dear and valued friend of mine
for many years. One of the most brilliant companions I ever knew when
he chose, and one of the dullest when something had put him out. He
talked as wittily as he wrote, and many of his letters are teeming with
quaint idiosyncrasies. He was a perennial boy with delicious quirk.
So few people are as interesting as their work—they reserve their wit
or trenchant sarcasm for their books. W. S. Gilbert was an exception—he
was as amusing as his _Bab Ballads_, and as sarcastic as “H.M.S.
Pinafore.” A sparkling librettist, he was likewise a brilliant talker.
How he loved a joke, even against himself! How well he told a story,
even if he invented it on the spot as “perfectly true.” His mind was
so quick he grasped the stage setting of a dinner-party at once, and
forthwith adapted his drama of the moment to exactly suit his audience.
After a lapse of nearly twenty years “Iolanthe” was revived at the
Savoy. Not one line or one word of the original text had been altered.
“Pinafore,” when it was revived for the second time, just twenty-one
years after its first performance, ran for months. How few authors’
work will stand such a test of excellence, yet Gilbert penned a dozen
light operas.
The genesis of “Iolanthe” is referable, like many of Gilbert’s
libretti, to one of the _Bab Ballads_. The “primordial atomic globule”
from which it traces its descent is a ballad called “The Fairy Curate.”
It is a well-known fact that almost every comedian wishes to be a
tragedian, and _vice versa_—look at Irving and Beerbohm Tree—and
Gilbert had a great and mighty sorrow all his life. He wanted to write
serious dramas, long five-act plays full of situations and thought;
but no, fate ordained otherwise, when having for a change started his
little bark as a librettist he had to persevere in penning what he
called “nonsense.”
The public were right; they knew there was no other W. S. Gilbert, they
wanted to be amused. Some say the art of comedy-writing is dying out,
and certainly no second Gilbert seems to be rising among the younger
men, no humorist who can call tears or laughter at will, and can send
his audience away happy every night. The world owes a debt of gratitude
to this gifted scribe, for he never put an unclean line upon the stage
and yet provoked peals of laughter while slyly giving his little digs
at existing evils. His style has created a name of its own; to be
Gilbertian is all that is smart, brilliant, caustic, and clean.
Mr. Gilbert proudly remarked when he was just sixty-five, that he
had cheated the doctors, and signed a new lease of life on the
twenty-one-year principle. During those sixty-five years he had turned
his hand to many trades. After a career at the London University,
where he took his B.A. degree, he read for the Royal Artillery; but on
the Crimean War coming to an end and no more officers being wanted,
he became a clerk in the Privy Council Office, and was subsequently
called to the Bar. He was also a Militiaman, and at one time an
occasional contributor to _Punch_, becoming thus an artist as well
as a writer. His pictures are well known, for all the two or three
hundred illustrations in the _Bab Ballads_ are from his clever pen. I
saw him make an excellent sketch in a few minutes at his home on Harrow
Weald; but photography cast its web about him and he disappeared into
some dark chamber for hours at a time, alone with his thoughts and his
photographic pigments. The results were charming.
What a lovely home that is, standing in a hundred and ten acres
right at the top of Harrow Weald, with a glorious view over London,
Middlesex, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire. He farmed the land himself,
and talked of crops and stock with a glib tongue, although the real
enthusiast was his delightful wife, who loves her chickens and her
roses.
Sullivan always wrote the music after Gilbert had written the words.
Gilbert’s ear for time and rhythm was impeccable, but he freely
admitted that he had a very imperfect sense of tune.
The Gilberts were tremendous travellers; for many years they wintered
in Egypt, India, the West Indies, Burma, or some other far-away
land, and it was on these wanderings that he conceived ideas for the
“Mikado.” When in Egypt for the third time, they nearly lost their
lives in the railway accident between Cairo and Halouan. Fortunately
they were only bruised from the concussion, but several of the
passengers were killed and many wounded. The expert photographer was
of course on the spot, and while waiting for a relief train W. S.
Gilbert was busy with his camera. Being physically incapacitated by a
long illness from being of any service to the sufferers, he contented
himself with sitting on a rock in the desert and taking snapshots at
the scene of the calamity.
Apropos of an interview I was writing on himself for one of a set that
appeared in the front page of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, he wrote the
following amusing reply to my chaff suggesting all sorts of dreadful
things that I would put in if he did not help me.
“GRIM’S DYKE, HARROW WEALD,
“_3rd December, 1901_.
“MY DEAR MRS. ALEC,
“I have filled the gap to the best of my ability—but really I have
very little to tell, on the subject of _Iolanthe_.
“I haven’t the least objection to be described as a ‘whipped
cur’ (indeed, I rather like it), but unfortunately the epithet
doesn’t in the least describe my attitude on a first night. The
‘embankment’ is purely mythical. I usually spend the evening in
the greenroom or in the wings of the theatre, and I fancy that few
authors accept failure or success more philosophically than I do.
When ‘Princess Ida’ was produced I was sitting in the greenroom as
usual, and, likewise sitting there, was an excitable Frenchman who
had supplied all the armour used in the piece. The piece was going
capitally, and he said to me, ‘Mais savez vous que vous avez là un
succès solide?’ I replied that the piece seemed to be all right,
and he exclaimed, with a gesture of amazement, ‘Mais vous êtes si
calme!’ And this, I fancy, would describe the frame of my mind on
every first night.
“It is also a mistake to suppose that I have fruitlessly longed to
write more important plays. As a matter of fact, I have written
and produced four ambitious blank-verse plays, ‘The Palace of
Truth,’ ‘Pygmalion and Galatea,’ ‘The Wicked World,’ and ‘Broken
Hearts,’ all with conspicuous success—besides many serious and
humorous dramas and comedies—such as ‘Daniel Druce,’ ‘Engaged,’
‘Sweethearts,’ ‘Comedy and Tragedy,’ and many others. It was when
I was tired of these that I tried my hand on a libretto, and I was
so successful that I had to go on writing them. If d——d nonsense is
wanted, I can write it as well as anybody.
“I know I can be dismally dull—but I am sure that dinner-party at
which I never opened my mouth (except to eat) is apocryphal. If you
put that in, I shall never be invited to dinner again!
“By the way, would you like to go to a rehearsal? There will be one
on Thursday at about 11.30, and the Dress Rehearsal on Friday at
2.30. The enclosed will pass you. If you don’t use it, tear it up.
“On Thursday the entrance will be by Stage Door—on Friday at the
front entrance.
“Yours for ever and ever, Amen,
“W. S. GILBERT.”
Amongst the many people who made a sketch of my head was the late
Captain Robert Marshall, the author of “The Second in Command” and
other delightful plays.
This came about a few days before the Coronation of Edward VII. We were
having tea together, when he took out a pencil, and in a few minutes
this soldier-playwright made a charming little sketch. What a strange
thing it is that people who succeed in one particular thing are often
so gifted in various other lines. And people who do not succeed at
anything seem to have no versatility of any sort or kind, except to
amplify the various forms of stupidity.
I first met Captain Marshall at Sir W. S. Gilbert’s. The younger man
almost worshipped his host, and considered him a model playwright. On
his side, Sir William had been very kind and encouraging. His manner
was perfectly frank, and he never hesitated to say whether he thought a
piece of work good or bad, as it struck him.
There are not many cases in which a man can earn an income in two
different professions. Lord Roberts is a soldier and a writer; Mr.
Forbes Robertson, Mr. Weedon Grossmith, and Mr. Bernard Partridge are
both actors and artists; Mr. Lumsden Propert, the author of a great
book on miniatures, was a doctor by profession; Mr. Edmund Gosse and
Mr. Edward Clodd have other occupations besides literature; Sir A.
W. Pinero is no mean draughtsman; Miss Gertrude Kingston writes and
illustrates as well as acts; and Mr. Harry Furniss is as clever with
his pen as with his brush.
No one looking at Captain Marshall would have imagined that ill-health
pursued him; such, however, was the case, and but for the fact that a
delicate chest necessitated retiring from the army, he would probably
never have become a dramatist by profession. “After one gets up in
the service,” he amusingly said, “one receives a higher rate of pay,
and has proportionately less to do. Thus it was I found time for
scribbling, and it was actually while A.D.C. and living in a Government
House, that I wrote ‘His Excellency the Governor.’ Three days after
it came out I left the army.” Many men on being told to relinquish
the profession they loved because of ill-health would have calmly sat
down and courted death. Not so Robert Marshall. He at once turned his
attention elsewhere; chose an occupation he could take about with
him when each winter drove him to warmer climes to live in fresh
air, doing as he was medically bidden, thus cheating the undertaker
for ten years. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to spend an
evening at the Opera. One night I happened to sit in a box between
him and Mr. Cyril Maude, and probably there were no more appreciative
listeners in the house than these two men, both intensely interested
in the representation of “Tannhäuser.” Poor Mr. Maude was suffering
from a sore throat, and had been forbidden to act that evening for
fear of losing the little voice that remained to him. As music is his
delight, and an evening at the Opera an almost unknown pleasure, he
enjoyed himself with the enthusiasm of a boy, feeling he was having a
“real holiday.” Since then he has appeared as a singer himself, in a
Christmas frolic.
Herbert Bedford, the painter who married that delightful composer
Liza Lehmann, was another once desirous to do a miniature of me.
Accordingly, one terribly foggy morning in January, 1909, he arrived
with his little box and ivory. He started; but of all things for a
miniature a good light is the most necessary and fate was not kind. The
fog deepened and blackened, till we were thoroughly enveloped in one of
“London’s particulars.” I really think it was one of the worst fogs I
remember; and that is saying a good deal, for I have not only had much
experience in London, but have seen denser specimens in Chicago, and
almost as bad in Paris and Christiania.
He waited an hour, but working was hopeless, so he departed. Next time
he came, the morning was beautifully bright, but ill-fate pursued us,
and we had no sooner settled down to work than Cimmerian darkness came
on again. A week later a third attempt was made, and incredible as
it may appear, the blackest of all smoky, yellow, carboniferous fogs
arrived that day also. Verily, it was a black month. Though the morning
was always fine when we started, the darkness arrived as soon as we
were well settled down to work, as if from very “cussedness.”
November is named the month of fogs, but as a Londoner I should say
they rarely come before Christmas, generally in January; and three or
four during the entire winter is now our usual number. They seldom last
more than a few hours; but they are so awful when they do come, that
that is quite long enough, and the sooner science robs us of their
presence the better. They certainly are less frequent and less severe
than when I was a child. Poor old London climate! how we abuse it,
and yet we have much to be thankful for. We do not get prickly heat
or mosquitoes, sunstroke or ticks, neither do we have frost-bite or
leprosy. The Marquis de San Giuliano, late Italian Ambassador in London
and now Minister of Foreign Affairs in Rome, always maintained that
London possesses the best climate in the world, and wondered why people
ever left England with all its comforts in the winter, for the South
with its cheerless houses and treacherous winds.
Madame Liza Lehmann has one of the most interesting faces I ever saw:
fragile, delicate, refined. Once a well-known singer, but always
shivering with nervousness, she left the public platform when she
married, about 1894, and began composing. No woman has had more success.
“Liza doesn’t work, she conceives,” her husband once said as he
stippled in my head. “For instance, sitting over the fire after dinner,
I give her a poem that I think would make a song; she reads it through,
drops it idly on the floor, and takes up the nearest book. I know the
subject has not pleased. Another time she reads some verses, pauses,
puts them on her lap, looks into the flames, waits and then reads
them again. I say nothing; one word would spoil her thoughts. Again
and again she reads them. She gazes into the flames or plays with
her bracelet. Then, as in a dream, she gets up and fetches paper and
pencil. In feverish haste she writes. I have known her write a song
like that in ten minutes. I have known her go months and do nothing.
Words speak to her, thoughts come, she seems at times inspired—but she
can do nothing otherwise.
“One day she was at a publisher’s and was running through _The Daisy
Chain_.
“‘Too serious,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid it won’t sell.’ (He was wrong; it
did.) She was angry.
“‘Nonsense,’ she said, ‘the public can’t only want rubbish like this.’
And she rattled off something.
“‘Excellent, excellent,’ he cried; ‘just what they do want.’ That
became a popular song, and fifty thousand copies were sold in no time.”
“I feel almost ashamed of that song,” she said to me one day. “It
is not music at all, but I am punished for my sins; it haunts me on
hurdy-gurdies and from boarding-houses, when the windows are open in
the summer.”
Her husband is also an enthusiastic composer in a heavier line. His
orchestral pieces have been played in Berlin, Russia, and other
centres, but he cannot set a ballad to music, and has none of her
pretty touch. He is a charming miniaturist, and once painted an
interesting series of Meredith’s heroines.
Next in my gallery of artists comes Mr. Percy Anderson, who is
almost better known by his designs for stage costumes than as a
portrait-painter, although he has done some delightful sketches of
women and children. His wonderful knowledge of human attire through
the world’s history is well known. He has every period at his fingers’
ends, although sometimes, as in the case of “Ulysses” for His Majesty’s
Theatre, he spends days and weeks in the British Museum, hunting about
to find suggestions and designs for the required costumes; in fact, he
even went to Crete on one occasion to copy the mural decorations, in
order to be certain he was correct in his work.
Mr. Anderson is really an artist, not only in colour and form, but
also in grouping and harmony. The greatest compliment he ever received
was when he was invited to design the dresses for the famous “Ring” at
Munich. That for an Englishman was indeed high praise from Germany. In
working for the stage he often does six or seven hundred costumes for
a single historical play. Each has to harmonise with its own tableaux
groups, be right in detail and singly, yet form part of a scheme for
the effect of the whole.
The water-colour drawing of me was done in a couple of hours. (See page
161.)
One summer day in 1903, I sat to John Lavery for a little sketch of my
head, which that brilliantly clever artist painted in thirty minutes.
I chanced to have sat next to him at dinner shortly before, and he had
then exclaimed:
“I would like to paint your head!”
“You know how I hate sitting,” I replied.
“But could you not spare me half an hour one afternoon just for the
gratification of making a sketch of you? Once I have gained that
satisfaction I will give you the picture.”
This put a different complexion upon the matter, and accordingly one
afternoon I went to his studio, near the South Kensington Museum, to be
decapitated. That studio is probably the best proportioned in London.
It was built by Sir Coutts Lindsay, and is almost square like a box.
The high walls are covered with a sort of dull brown paper, and a few
French chairs and bureaus are its only decoration. I sat down in one
of these special chairs waiting for him to arrange his easel, when he
exclaimed:
“That will do, just sit as you are, and if you don’t mind I should like
to take off my coat, as when I paint at high pressure it is hot work.”
To this I assented, and in a moment he was hard at it.
“Talk as much as you like,” he said. “Forget you are sitting; move your
head or your arms as you wish, just simply think you are paying me a
little call; never mind the rest.”
All this sounded delightful. Then in a few minutes the speaking-tube
whistled, and a message was called up to know if Mr. Cunninghame Graham
might come up.
“Do you object?” asked Mr. Lavery, “Because he knows you are sitting to
me, and said he would like to come if he might.”
“Not in the least,” I replied; “I should like it.”
Cunninghame Graham in the capacity of chaperon was a novel experience.
So up he came, and took a seat immediately behind the artist so that
my eyes should not wander from the right direction for the picture.
Was there ever a greater contrast than those two men? Lavery, short
and broad, with ruddy cheeks, dark hair, and little, round, twinkling
black eyes full of life and verve, and the calm aristocratic, artistic
Cunninghame Graham, who always looks exactly like a Velasquez picture,
so perfect is he in drawing and colouring.
Mr. Lavery has a curious arrangement for his palette. There is a
table at his right hand, upon which a palette slants as on a desk. It
is about three feet by two in size, and can hold a large number of
colours.
[Illustration: HALF-HOUR SKETCH OF AUTHOR BY JOHN LAVERY, R. A.
EXHIBITED FAIR WOMEN EXHIBITION, LONDON, 1910]
“I require lots of paint and lots of room to splash about, and I like
the table arrangement; it is, in fact, the only way I can work,” he
remarked.
We chatted on about many subjects, and when the conversation turned on
Velasquez, whose wonderful pictures I had visited in Madrid only a few
months before, Cunninghame Graham waxed warm. Although descended from
a stock old as any in Scotland, his mother (or his grandmother) was
a Spaniard, and there is clearly some of the warm Southern blood in
his veins. He speaks Spanish with a charming accent, and has the true
Castilian lisp and pretty intonation.
In the ’nineties I was riding along the shore in Tangier with W. B.
Harris, _The Times_ correspondent, Sir Rubert Boyce, of the Liverpool
University, and the late Mr. Russell Roberts, a well-known barrister,
when we saw two men riding towards us. One of them was performing all
sorts of wild antics upon his steed, standing on the saddle and waving
his whip in the air. As he galloped towards us I thought he must be a
cowboy let loose, but as he came nearer he looked like a picture of
Charles V painted by Velasquez which had stepped out of its frame. The
tawny hue of his clothes, the brown leather of his boots, the loose
shirt, the large brown felt sombrero, and the pointed brown-grey beard
seemed familiar, and as the man drew nearer I discovered it was Mr.
Cunninghame Graham, with whom was Will Rothenstein.
The next night I heard this descendant of old Scotland’s shores
expounding Socialism to a handful of Arabs in Spanish. Well, well, Mr.
Graham has his foibles; but he is doubtless the most brilliant short
story writer in our language; and as fine a rider as any I ever saw on
the open prairie catching wild bulls for the ring.
Cunninghame Graham is a strange personality; he is an artistic being,
and Mr. Lavery’s portrait of him is inimitable. It has been exhibited
all over the world and is well known.
Suddenly Cunninghame Graham exclaimed, “Twenty-seven minutes are up.”
“All right!” replied the painter. “Let me know when the next three have
gone.”
“Thirty minutes, my friend. Time is up.”
Lavery looked round at me, smiling.
“Done. I shan’t touch it any more. You allowed me thirty minutes, but
you must let me have a moment over-time to add your name to the canvas,
and then you may take it home with you.”
And I did so.
In 1910, that canvas appeared at the Exhibition of Fair Women at the
Grafton Gallery, and a month or two later to my surprise I found it
reproduced in a large volume of works by Scottish artists published in
Edinburgh, under the title, _Modern Scottish Portrait Painters_, by
Percy Bate.
So much is John Lavery appreciated abroad that his most famous pictures
hang in Pittsburg and Philadelphia in the United States; in the
Pinakothek, Munich; the National Gallery of Brussels, the Luxembourg in
Paris, the Modern Gallery of Venice, the National Gallery of Berlin,
although a few have luckily been gleaned by the public galleries of
Glasgow and Edinburgh.
It is a curious fact that Mr. Lavery sent six or seven years
continuously to the Academy, and six or seven times his pictures were
refused. In 1888 the Committee accepted his “Tennis Party”—to his
amazement—and actually hung it on the line. It went to Paris, where it
gained a gold medal, was then “invited” to Munich, where it was finally
bought for the National Gallery. He continued to send to the Academy
for a few years, generally without success, but those rejected pictures
are now hanging in various National Galleries. Suddenly in 1910 he was
elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.
Concerning John Lavery, he told two funny little stories about himself
one night when he was dining with me. The Exhibition of Fair Women, in
1908, had been attracting all London.
“A picture of mine was lost there,” he remarked.
“Lost? How?”
“Well, I painted the portrait of a lady, and this picture went to the
New Gallery. It was three-quarter length. When its space was allotted
it was stood on the floor under the place where it was to hang, but
when the moment of hanging came the picture was gone, and what is more,
has never been heard of since.”
“Who would take it?”
“That is more than I can say.”
“Why would they take it?”
“For the sake of the frame.”
“But was the frame anything very remarkable?”
“Oh, it was worth about ten pounds.”
I laughed: “So they stole your valuable painting worth some hundreds of
pounds for the sake of a ten-pound frame. What have you done to get it
back?”
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Nothing,” I repeated, amazed.
“No, my only chance of ever seeing that picture again is to do nothing.
You see, it is this way. If a thief realised it was a valuable painting
which had attracted attention and was being searched for, he would
destroy it. Whereas, if he thinks it is of no value, he will sell it in
some back slum, and in course of time the picture will turn up again.
At least that is what we artists think. I have no replica, not even a
photograph, but the lady has kindly promised to sit again. Mercifully,
it was not an order, but my own picture; and in a year or two I shall
exhibit the second portrait and let it be photographed for different
papers, when, in all probability, someone will discover they have one
just like it, and we may be able to trace the picture back to the
original thief. The frame must have attracted his attention, for it was
not quite ordinary. I had it made in Morocco.”
“Have you ever had any other queer episode with a picture?”
“Yes,” he replied. “There is a certain well-known lady whose husband
has her painted every year by some artist. She is good-looking and
this is his hobby. My turn came. I painted the picture. It was barely
finished, and had to go to an exhibition while the paint was still
wet. When I went on varnishing day I was surprised to see a curious
green haze over the face just as when you stick your nose against a
window-pane, and the skin appears green in hue. I did nothing at the
time, but determined to make some little alteration when the exhibition
closed. The portrait came home. I looked at it. Yes, there was still
that strange green hue over it, so I began to take it out of the frame
in order to touch it up.
“Imagine my horror when I found that the canvas had stuck to the glass!
and the more I lifted it, lumps of paint from the lady’s cheeks stuck
to it. I did everything I could think of to get the two apart, ending
by leaving the glass and losing my temper.
“‘Oh,’ said an artist friend, ‘just break the glass, and you will find
it will be easier to get the portrait away.’
“Accordingly, I broke the glass. Worse and worse! bits of the canvas
broke too, and anything more deplorable than my poor lady with her torn
canvas and bits of glass hanging to her nose cannot be imagined. The
issue was critical.
“I dared not tell her, for her husband had liked the picture, so I
determined to copy it. For three solid months I painted every day at
that copy. I never can copy anything, and that was my last attempt. The
more I worked the worse it grew. I really was in despair. They kept
bothering me for the return of the picture. The lady was abroad and
could not sit again. They had paid me for a thing that was destroyed,
and I was at my wits’ end.
“One day the lady was announced. I felt in an agony. Then I thought,
before confessing, I would have one desperate and final shot. I told
her I wanted to make a slight alteration—would she sit? She amiably
complied. I seized the copy; feverishly for a couple of hours I worked
upon it, and then—all at once the long-lost likeness returned. I had
got it.
“The picture was sent home; her people were delighted with it, and it
was not till long afterwards that I told them the awful episode, by
which I had at least painted half a dozen portraits of that lady.”
Live and learn. Education is one constant enquiry, and knowledge is but
an assimilation of replies.
[Illustration: WATER-COLOUR SKETCH BY PERCY ANDERSON]
FOOTNOTES:
[6] Since reproduced in a volume, _Herbert Schmalz and his Work_.
CHAPTER XIV
ON SCULPTORS AND MODELLING
Few experiences are more interesting than sitting for a bust. There is
something enthralling in seeing great lumps of clay flung about in a
promiscuous manner, and then gently modelled with finger and thumb into
nose, eyes, and ears.
I had the privilege of sitting, in 1910, to Herbert Hampton, verily a
privilege, for not only is he a sculptor of note, but also a charming
personality.
Strangely enough, the first time we met, Hampton, without knowing
anything about previous performances, said he would like to model my
head.
“Oh no,” came in answer, “never again. I have done with studios and
sitting on what you call a ‘throne,’ but what I look on as a chair
of torture.” And so we laughed the matter off, but, after a second
meeting, he wrote such a perfectly charming letter on the subject that
my resolve gave way, and, let it be acknowledged at once, I have never
regretted the weakness.
Hampton has the finest sculptor’s studio in London.
Here are casts of Lord Kelvin, Sir Henry Irving, Sir Luke Fildes, Miss
Geneviève Ward, General Booth, and dozens more, besides plaster models
of the colossal statue of the late Lord Salisbury, now erected on the
stairs at the Foreign Office, and that of the late King Edward, to say
nothing of five of Queen Victoria.
We talked for about a quarter of an hour after my arrival, as he said,
“just to renew my first impressions,” and then, asking me to sit in a
revolving chair on that terrible dais, he went to work. In front, on a
moving table, stood the _armature_, or inside skeleton-support for my
future head. At the bottom was a block of wood, from which three narrow
lead pipes, tied together at the top, were designed to make a support
for my neck and face. It was a simple, amateurish-looking thing, but,
as Mr. Hampton explained, “the lead pipe is pliable, so I can alter the
pose of the head as I go on, as you will see.” I did see.
On the modelling stand were great lumps of dark grey mud, or shall we
call them bricks?—for they were about that size. This was the modelling
clay, known as _la terre_, because it is French. It is more tenacious
for working than our English clay. That is to say, it is firmer, and
is darker to look at. One great block was laid on top of the pipes and
squeezed till it might have been a melon; that was the beginning of my
head.
Half another brick went on in front, and this gradually assumed the
shape of a fat banana, out of which a nose was shortly evolved, and a
chin. Another block was quickly divided and dumped on each side. Out of
this two ears and some neck were manipulated.
Who shall say that such a performance was not fascinating? It reminded
me of the dear, dirty mud-pies of my youth, of the spade-and-bucket
days, and it was quite delicious to hear the “squeege” of the clay as
it was flung on the armature. This took but little longer to do than to
tell, for in a few minutes there was a sort of head and the beginning
of a neck, though it closely resembled a block in a barber’s shop. When
sufficient clay was in place, Mr. Hampton—who was talking all the time,
and kept declaring he did not want me to remain still, but that the
more I talked and amused him the better he should like it—really set to
work. Then one saw the capacity of the man.
In two hours he had modelled my head. Eyes, nose, ears, chin, cheeks,
and hair were all there; what was more, he had got the likeness.
It was a marvellous piece of work, not only as an exhibition of
modelling, for he is a master of his craft, but as a likeness. Also,
it was extremely pleasant to watch him work, to see him create order
out of chaos, and it seemed impossible that we could have been talking
for two hours, or that he could have done so much in two days, when the
time was ended.
As to the manner of work, a few boxwood modelling tools lay upon the
stand. They were like flat wooden knives with pointed ends, but except
to slice off a little extra neck or hair, or to draw a fine line round
eye or nostril, he did the whole thing with his hands.
Covered with a wet cloth, a bust of this kind will remain for months in
a moist condition, fit for working on, but if kept too long, say a year
or two, the wood inside rots and the clay falls to pieces.
On my next visit it was decided I should sit for the neck, and as a
good many solid pounds of clay go to form a modelled human neck and
shoulders, this had been prepared, so I did not have the pleasure of
seeing it lumped on in handfuls.
Taking off my high bodice, I tied up my sleeves like a little girl
of olden days. He walked round me several times, looked at me from
different points of view, and then exclaimed:
“I shall not turn your head quite so much.” Accordingly, he took my
clay face between his hands and twisted the whole physiognomy round.
This was where the pliable pipes proved of use. But I could not help
a little exclamation of horror when I saw a crack had come across the
neck of my second self.
“I have cracked!” I exclaimed.
“That does not matter, we will soon mend you again.” So, with my head
divided from my shoulders till he found the angle he wanted, he gave a
few more friendly pats, seized _la terre_, and in a moment my neck was
swan-like in form.
There was a particular fascination in sitting for this bust. Two more
hours completed the neck and shoulders, and we had finished work
for that day. If it had never been touched again, it would not have
mattered. It was rough and impressionist in style, but I was there. I
could see my very image on the modelling stand.
On my third visit the sculptor decided to add my hands and arms.
“Hands being as expressive as a face,” he said.
This meant more building up. Accordingly, bundle after bundle of
firewood was requisitioned, until nine whole faggots were piled up
inside me. A pretty little waist, truly, to require nine bundles of
firewood as a foundation. However, in they went, and on went the clay
in great dabs, with a nice greasy squish-squish each time it received
a pat from the sculptor’s hand.
Simplicity is his ideal, and it is interesting to hear Herbert Hampton
discourse on this subject, as, indeed, on other matters connected with
his craft.
The bust to the waist was completed in six sittings of about two
hours each, and a week later my image was placed in the Rotunda of
the Royal Academy, where it smiled on everyone passing the door. “The
impersonation of animation was my first impression of you,” said
Herbert Hampton, “and that is what I tried to get in the bust.” And he
certainly did. In spite of the usual placidity of white clay, the lady
looks as if she were speaking.
One can know too much.
I remember, for instance, Herbert Hampton saying one day to me:
“Only the rudiments of anatomy are wanted for sculpture. If one knows
too much one is apt to emphasise every muscle, every vein, every sinew,
and the result is an anatomical specimen. Simplicity is the greatest
charm of art, suggestion its goal. Why! great and wonderful as Michael
Angelo was, I almost feel he knew too much anatomy.”
Experiences such as this sitting are of the greatest help and value
to a writer, and give an insight into sister arts that widen one’s
mental horizon and ripen one’s judgment. All workers should leave
their own groove and see and know craftsmen in kindred branches of
endeavour. Outside interests and hobbies are the worker’s salvation and
inspiration.
After a bust is modelled it has to be cast in plaster. As a rule, only
one cast can be taken, but there are various ways of getting a second,
or even a third reproduction. The original clay bust on which the
sculptor worked is now so damaged that it is destroyed, the clay often
being used again for a fresh subject, and the bundles of wood being
utilised for lighting the fire.
A young Frenchman once begged me to let him cast a hand and foot for
some work he was doing, explaining that, though amongst the artists’
models there were exquisite heads and forms, that class of woman seldom
had good hands, and a good foot never. Bad boots doubtless accounted
for the latter. He made a pudding of plaster of Paris on a tin tray,
and into the cold, clammy stuff my well-vaselined extremity was
plunged. In a few minutes the cold, wet mud felt hot, almost burning,
and the foot was done; but, oh, the dirty mess and the nastiness of it
all.
Although England possesses some of the finest marble carvers, much
of the work, unfortunately, is sent to Italy to be hewn, and even
finished, because labour is cheaper there. Herbert Hampton always
employs Englishmen, and does the actual finishing of the marble
himself. In that he is a thorough John Bull.
It is an extraordinary thing to see how a bust is “mechanically
pointed” in a rough block. Three fixed points with needles attached to
each can copy the most accurate measurements, which, of course, are
purely mechanical, from the original cast. After it is roughly hewn the
sculptor begins carving and modelling with chisel and hammer. Thus the
process is done in three parts: modelled in clay, pointed in marble,
and then carved to its finished state of perfection.
Figures that are cast in bronze are done differently. The bust or
figure is prepared in exactly the same manner in plaster of Paris,
an exact model of what is wanted, and this has to be sent to the art
foundry to be cast. That is not the work of the sculptor himself, but
of the bronze-workers, and as bronze fetches from seventy to ninety
pounds per ton, and it takes two or three tons to make a large figure,
it is easily seen that five hundred pounds is quite an ordinary bill
for casting a single figure at a foundry.
The huge figure of the late Duke of Devonshire (now in Whitehall) and I
occupied the studio at the same time.
The greatest sculptor England ever produced, to my mind, was
the versatile Alfred Gilbert. He was also one of the strangest
personalities. He was both a genius and wayward. A genius as a
sculptor, and wayward as regards the world. Never, never, in all my
experience, have I known a stranger personality. For years I saw a
good deal of him. He often came and dined, preferably alone, for
dress-clothes irritated him, and humanity in the aggregate bored him.
I do not believe Gilbert knew what time or method meant. He slid
through life. Sometimes he slipped into the right niche, sometimes he
glided into the wrong one—but he was a genius by temperament, a genius
oft-times in execution. He turned up on the wrong day to dinner, or
failed to come on the right one. In fact, he was the most delightful,
irresponsible, brilliant, irresistible human creature I have ever come
across. His life was full of trouble, yet all those who really knew him
loved him, and their hearts went out to him and condoned his muddles as
the escapades of a boy.
Gilbert created the Clarence Memorial at Windsor, and if he had never
done anything else, that would have been enough to stamp him as a
genius. He designed the wonderful iron gates at Eaton Hall, and his
work in metals and precious stones was unsurpassed. He practically
revived the work of Albrecht Dürer and Benvenuto Cellini in this
country.
When he dined with me he talked, he listened, he wept, he laughed by
turns; after dinner he walked about, or passed his hands over the piano
and played awhile, or would strike weird chords of wailing. He was a
bit of a musical genius as well as a master in his own line. How often
music and its sister art are thus twinned! But then, if I mistake not,
he was descended from musicians on both sides. Suddenly he would leave
the piano, attracted by a door-knob, a button, or an idea, and would
then plunge into a dissertation upon art or a lecture on philosophy.
How Gilbert loved art! Every bend and curve meant something to him.
His blue eyes would dilate with pleasure or his heavy jaw become set
and rigid in anger or contempt. When his work really pleased him he
could not bear to part with it; when it dissatisfied him he broke it
up—very honest of him, but hardly remunerative. He was never made for
this world. He was a dreamer, a poet, an idealist; perhaps this very
incongruity of temperament was the source of the beautiful ideals he
conceived and sometimes brought to birth.
Down in that studio in the Fulham Road I spent many pleasant hours
watching him work. He would often forget I was there. Then, rousing
himself to my presence, he would offer me a cup of tea at odd intervals
of half an hour, entirely oblivious of the fact that it was nearing
dinner-time. A certain actor does this sort of thing as a pose—an
impudent pose—but Gilbert did it because he could not help himself.
He wanted to be hospitable, and hours became moments as he worked
and dreamed. There were days and weeks and months when he never did
anything, when hunger stared him in the face. But rather than part with
a work of his creation, or an unfinished dream, he preferred to starve
and, if needs be, die. London was no place for him. He was too utterly
an artist for a great, teeming, bustling city, and away in Bruges—dead
to the world, dead to his friends—the wreck of that great and charming
personality is dreaming his life away amongst his unfinished gods,
without the strength of will or purpose to complete his inspirations.
The complexity of Gilbert was beyond comprehension. His very genius
was his curse. Truly a gifted, wayward child—lovable, but annoying;
exasperating, but delightful.
Bertram MacKennall, an Australian by birth, was poor and unknown as a
student in Paris, when he met Alfred Gilbert. He adored Gilbert and
worshipped his work. One day the latter said to MacKennall:
“Go to London, man, and start there.”
“But I cannot afford it.”
“Never mind, go and try, and you will become my rival. It will do us
both good, spur us both on to better things, perhaps.”
To London he came. He succeeded, and finally stepped into Alfred
Gilbert’s place at the Academy. What irony of fate!
One day I chanced to go to MacKennall’s studio when he was working on
a wax of the head of King George V for the coinage. On a school-slate,
standing up on a small easel, was a little grey wax head in relief,
measuring three or four inches across. Smaller he would not work
because of his eyes; from that plaque a machine would reduce the
silhouette exactly to the size required for the coin.
“Oh, the bother of this work,” he exclaimed. “Stamping one side of the
coin often bumps out the other side in the wrong place, and all sorts
of little annoyances like that constantly occur.”
His love of Gilbert was very touching—and his admiration of Phil May
was only equalled by his surprise at his becoming a Roman Catholic a
week before his death.
CHAPTER XV
MORE PAINTERS, AND WHISTLER IN PARTICULAR
James Mcneill Whistler was a foremost figure in the artistic world, and
he always struck me as the most curiously satanic gentleman I ever saw.
He cultivated an upward turn of his dark eyebrows, he waved his long,
thin hands in a fantastic way, he shook his locks or passed his fingers
through them in a manner all his own, and appeared not only a _poseur_
in art, but a _poseur_ in literature, and a _poseur_ among men. This
probably added to his interest, for he certainly had a remarkable
personality, and a better half-hour could not be spent than in his
company.
He was as cruel to his friends as to his enemies, as scathing in his
remarks, and yet at times almost maudlin in his sentimentalism. It
was quite delightful to hear him discuss his own work. His egotism
was—well, it was his own. His sweeping assertions were a revelation.
On my return from America in 1900 he told me that, “although an
American himself, he should never visit that country again, as there
was not an artistic soul to be found there.” And yet the purchasers of
a host of his pictures and etchings were Americans, as were many of his
best friends.
One hesitates to tell any Whistler stories, there has been such an
extraordinary output. Many are doubtless apocryphal. I recall one or
two that I have heard from his own lips, or from the persons (often the
victims) chiefly concerned in them.
George Boughton, the painter, had a house on Campden Hill, designed
by Mr. Norman Shaw, R.A., and five or six steps lead to the hall, as
that eminent architect so often arranges. Whistler had been dining with
Boughton one evening, and, as he was leaving, he did not notice the
steps and fell down head first. The host was distracted and ran to
pick him up.
Whistler sat up on the bottom step.
“What a d——d total abstainer you must have had for an architect,
Boughton!” was all he said.
The famous “Peacock Room” at Prince’s Gate was a wonderful scheme
of decoration, peacocks’ eyes on a gold ground being its principal
_motif_. About the year 1880 the late Mr. Leyland, a wealthy shipowner
and patron of the arts, had taken this grand new mansion, and asked
Whistler to decorate a room. Jimmy, poor and out at elbows, as usual,
jumped at the idea, but no terms were fixed upon. The work began. It
was a prodigious undertaking, and the extraordinary and erratic little
man spent two years and a half over his grateful task.
Being at Prince’s Gate all day, and having the run of Leyland’s house,
Whistler had a hospitable way of inviting his friends to come and see
the room, and then he would ask them to stop to luncheon. This sort
of thing, which began occasionally, ended in being an almost daily
occurrence, and Jimmy used to hold a little levée every morning, when
subsequently three, four, and five people remained to luncheon. This
became too much for Mr. Leyland, and his plan for putting an end to the
campaign was a somewhat ingenious one.
Jimmy one day entertained four friends; the meal not being announced,
he rang the bell for the butler.
“When is lunch?” he asked.
“I have no orders for lunch,” replied the man with a stately air.
“Oh no, of course,” replied Jimmy, not in the least disconcerted.
“We’ll go along to such and such an hotel. Stupid of me to forget it!”
But it was enough, and though he pretended not to mind, and with that
delightful impudence for which he was famous turned it off, he never
forgave the incident, and determined to pay Leyland out. From that day
he took his own lunch in a little paper parcel, and sat and devoured it
when so inclined. On the next occasion Leyland came in to admire the
peacock decorations about the usual luncheon hour.
“_You_ will have some lunch, won’t you?” Whistler said.
Leyland looked surprised.
“Oh, please don’t refuse. It is always excellent, I assure you.”
Leyland looked still more uncomfortable.
Up jumped Jimmy, fetched his bag, and proceeded to untie his parcels,
saying:
“It’s all right, old chap, have no anxiety; it is my lunch, not yours,
and you are heartily welcome to it.”
When the work was accomplished which had taken so long Leyland wished
to pay the bill, and asked the artist what was his figure.
“I have worked a whole year and more,” Whistler said. “I consider my
services are worth two thousand pounds a year, therefore the figure is
two thousand five hundred pounds, from which you can deduct the few
hundreds you have given me on account.”
Leyland was horrified.
“Preposterous!” he said, “perfectly preposterous!”
Jimmy looked at him and drew himself up to his full height, which was
not great.
“I beg, Mr. Leyland, that you will accept as a gift the entire work of
my life for the last year and a quarter. I can compromise nothing.”
Once again Whistler scored and Leyland paid. His thanks to his patron
afterwards took the form of painting a life-size portrait of him as a
devil with horns and hoofs.
The sale of the famous portrait of Carlyle gave Whistler one of
those opportunities in which he delighted. It was first exhibited in
Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh Corporation, wishing to possess this
masterful work, telegraphed to know what would be his lowest figure, to
which Jimmy replied by wire: “Terms a thousand guineas, to the tune of
the bagpipes.”
This was pure cheek, for the picture stood at five hundred guineas in
the catalogue, and instead of replying how much less he would take for
it, as the canny city fathers desired, he had doubled the sum. Three or
four years later he sold that selfsame picture to Glasgow for the sum
of a thousand guineas.
When painting his delightful picture of Miss Alexander, Whistler took
about seventy sittings—a fearful ordeal. She told Phené Spiers that she
thought he often rubbed out a whole day’s work after she had gone.
Near the close of his life Whistler withdrew from London for a period,
living permanently in his rooms in the Rue du Bac, in Paris. I had not
seen him for seven or eight years when I met him again in May, 1900,
at a dinner-party at Mr. Heinemann’s in Norfolk Street, Park Lane.
How altered Whistler was—he had changed from a somewhat sprightly
middle-aged man to one nearer seventy.
His shaggy hair was grizzly grey, his round, beady, black eyes were as
clear and brilliant as ever, overhung by thick black brows. A bright
colour was upon his cheek, almost a hectic flush, if one may apply the
term to a man of his age, and there was the same vivacity about him
as of old. He was just as thin, and, needless to say, had not grown!
He was the same witty little person, with the same sharp, sarcastic
tongue. The artistic world had come to appreciate his work very
differently from of old, and already he was encountering what a rival
wit has pithily described as “the last insult—popularity.”
He had practically given up living in England, he said, with that
strong American accent which he never lost: Paris he “found so much
more inspiring.”
“There is not much wit in France now,” he remarked, “but there is
positively none in Britain. There is not much good literature in France
either, but there is less in England. People are all too busy trying to
fill their pockets with gold to have time to store their brains with
knowledge.”
The conversation turned upon his studio. Speaking of students, he said:
“Oh, I like women ever so much better than men. They are finer artists;
they are more delicate, more subtle, more sensitive and artistic;
indeed, it is the feminine side of a man that makes him an artist at
all. Art is refined, or it is not Art. Man is not refined, except when
he copies woman.”
“That is all very well,” I answered, “but unfortunately there have been
so few great women artists.”
“Have there been many great men artists?” he enquired, with a little
twinkle; “because I think not. In fact, there has been just as good
work done by women as has ever been done by men in that line, and now
that more of them are taking up Art, and are breaking the trammels by
which they have been surrounded for generations, I shall be surprised
if the world does not produce better women artists than men. It is
in them; it is a born instinct. Love of refinement, beauty, poetry,
sentiment, and colour belong to woman. Cruelty, perhaps valour,
strength, and ruggedness, are on the man’s side.”
Encouragement goes a long way, just as human sympathy is the very
backbone of life. Poor Jimmy Whistler got very little of either until
his last few years. To the philosophy of youth everything matters, to
the maturity of old age nothing matters.
He was brilliant and vain. But then, all men are vain. It is the
prerogative of the male from the peacock upwards.
For some years Whistler had a little Neapolitan model, with very dark
hair and beautiful black eyes. His wife took great interest in her.
After his bereavement Jimmy felt he ought to continue to minister to
the welfare of the girl, who by this time had grown into a magnificent
specimen of a Neapolitan woman. She married when still very young,
and, being tired of sitting as a model, she asked her patron one day
to allow her to use his name if she started an atelier. “Might it be
called the ‘Whistler Studio,’ and would he himself come and see after
it and give instruction once a week?” Whistler approved of the plan and
assented.
The woman therefore took a studio in Paris, where the painter was
living, and at the end of the month, instead of having a dozen students
as she expected, something like a hundred had entered their names, all
eager to study under Whistler. On the strength of her success Madame
abandoned her simple clothes and appeared gorgeous in black, rustling
silk robes, in which she strutted about the studio and played the
_grande dame_. Whistler, as has been said, promised to attend, and
more or less he kept his word. The first day of his appearance the
great little man marched into the room occupied by the female students,
and, picking out one girl, sat down opposite her canvas, intending to
correct her work.
“Give me your palette,” he said. “What is this? and this? and this?”
She told him the different colours.
“Hideous!” he replied, “and impossible! Where are so and so, and this
and that?”
She had none of them. No one in the room was lucky enough to possess
the colours he sought, so Whistler sent out for them and chatted
pleasantly until the messenger’s return, having told the maiden in the
meantime to clean her palette of all the vivid hues she had displayed
upon it. The paints and the clean palette arrived together. Jimmy
arranged them according to his taste.
“Now,” he said, “that palette is fit to paint with, and so ends your
first lesson. Study it, and paint only with those colours until you see
me again.”
Before the day was finished every girl had arranged her palette
according to the plan, and the men in the other room likewise followed
suit. When the artist paid his next visit to the studio, he found the
palette he had himself prepared fixed upon the wall and immortalised
with a wreath, while underneath was a label announcing, “This palette
has been arranged according to the regulation of James Whistler, the
artist.”
Whistler’s marriage was the strangest affair in the world, for he was
probably about sixty at the time, and his bride, Mrs. Godwin, a widow,
although a pretty woman, was by no means young. Yet the romance and
enthusiasm they developed were delightful, and during the ten years
or so of his married life Whistler became infinitely more human and
contented in every way. They were very happy; indeed, his tender
solicitude for his wife’s welfare on every occasion, and his anxiety
and concern during her long illness, were a revelation to those who
only thought of Whistler as a quarrelsome egoist wrapped entirely in
himself. Hidden away, he had a kind heart, although he chose generally
to conceal it. His wife’s loss was the tragedy of his existence, and he
was never the same man afterwards.
Henry Labouchere wrote: “So my old friend Jemmy Whistler is dead. I
first knew him in 1854 at Washington. He had not then developed into
a painter, but was a young man who had recently left the West Point
Military College, and was considering what next he should do. He was
fond of balls, but he had not a dress-coat, so he attended them in
a frock-coat, the skirts of which were turned back to simulate an
evening-coat.
“I believe that I was responsible for his marriage to the widow of Mr.
Godwin, the architect. She was a remarkably pretty woman and very
agreeable, and both she and he were thorough Bohemians. I was dining
with them and some others one evening at Earl’s Court. They were
obviously greatly attracted to each other, and in a vague sort of way
they thought of marrying. So I took the matter in hand to bring things
to a practical point. ‘Jemmy,’ I said, ‘will you marry Mrs. Godwin?’
‘Certainly,’ he replied. ‘Mrs. Godwin,’ I said, ‘will you marry Jemmy?’
‘Certainly,’ she replied. ‘When?’ I asked. ‘Oh, some day,’ said
Whistler. ‘That won’t do,’ I said; ‘we must have a date.’ So they both
agreed that I should choose the day, tell them what church to come to
for the ceremony, provide a clergyman, and give the bride away. I fixed
an early date, and got the then Chaplain of the House of Commons to
perform the ceremony. It took place a few days later.
“After the ceremony was over we adjourned to Whistler’s studio, where
he had prepared a banquet. The banquet was on the table, but there were
no chairs. So we sat on packing-cases. The happy pair, when I left, had
not quite decided whether they would go that evening to Paris or remain
in the studio. How unpractical they were was shown when I happened
to meet the bride the day before the marriage in the street. ‘Don’t
forget to-morrow,’ I said. ‘No,’ she replied, ‘I am just going to buy
my trousseau.’ ‘A little late for that, is it not?’ I asked. ‘No,’
she answered, ‘for I am only going to buy a new tooth-brush and a new
sponge, as one ought to have new ones when one marries.’ However, there
never was a more successful marriage. They adored each other, and lived
most happily together; and when she died he was broken-hearted.”
[Illustration: WALTER CRANE’S MOST FAMOUS BOOK PLATE]
One day I asked Walter Crane, who knew both Watts and Whistler more
intimately than I did, whether he could tell me something of these two,
so different from one another, and yet each of whom needs a prominent
place—the one in the painter’s Valhalla; the other, well, let time
decide in what niche and where Jimmy’s little statue shall command
worship.
Crane replied:
“Watts was a most revered and generous friend of mine, I can
truly say, but as to Whistler, I never saw much of him, but I
always recognised his artistic qualities, though I was not of
his school. I think he regarded me as necessarily in a hostile
camp, artistically speaking, but it was not so. I can appreciate
Impressionism without decrying pre-Raphaelitism. As regards
Whistler and the Peacock Room, there was a panel at the end with
two peacocks (one with a diamond eye and one with an emerald eye)
fighting. Whistler is reported to have said that the one who is
getting the worst of it was Leyland and the conqueror was himself.
(Of course.)
“We were not intimate friends—only acquainted. Although I always
realised his distinction as an artist, I could not extend my
admiration to the man, and I think he only cared for worshippers
and even these he tired of.”
One of my cherished possessions is the book-plate here shown which
Walter Crane designed for me. He is probably the best _Ex Libris_
draughtsman of the day, and he himself thinks this is the best
book-plate he ever drew. At his request it was reproduced on wood, and
while it has delighted its possessor, it will surely be admired by all
for its intrinsic merit.
To explain the riddle of its symbolism.
On the right-hand side is the crest of the Harleys; on the left,
the arms of the Tweedies. At the top the Medusa head and three legs
represent Sicily. At different corners are implements, trappings,
and odds and ends from various countries I have visited. The lamp
of learning is burning brightly, the wreaths of fame, the book of
knowledge are there, and a little ship is sailing away into the
unknown; while below—and surely this is brilliant imagination—lies
the world at my feet. This was sent to me with the following letter,
written in the neatest and most brush-like of caligraphy:
“13 HOLLAND STREET, KENSINGTON.
“_Nov. 12, ’05._
“DEAR MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE,
“I have pleasure to send you my design for a book-plate in which
I have endeavoured to explain in symbolical way your literary
activities and your triumphs of travel.
“Trusting it may not be unpleasing, believe me, with kind regards,
“Yours very truly,
“WALTER CRANE.”
At a later date, on returning a book, the kind originator of my
treasure added some notes in pencil about this particular kind of work;
notes quaint and full of pith as the writer’s drawing.
“You have given me a handsome certificate as a book-plate designer
and I must live up to it, though, so far, book-plates have only
been a small part of my work. I am not always _Ex Libris_, but like
a rest inside the pages, you know, letting one’s fancy loose, both
as a writer and as a decorator and illustrator. All the same, there
are moments when one is inclined to shriek, with Hilda in Ibsen’s
_Master Builder_, ‘Books are so irrelevant,’ and, again, at other
times to say (with Disraeli, was it not?), ‘When I want a book, I
will write one.’”
Another note given below enclosed his own book-plate:
“I send you my own book-plate with the greatest pleasure. It has
been done some years, and I do not think it is as nice a one as
yours—though I say it! I am glad that yours not only pleases you,
but your friends. I don’t know whether you saw it in the _Arts and
Crafts_, but it was there.”
As to book-plates, seeing that books are a particularly treasured
kind of personal property and cannot yet be considered as communal as
umbrellas; and because borrowers of books like long leases, but are
generally provided with short memories, the possibly harmless, but
certainly most necessary, book-plate has a distinct _raison d’être_.
Furthermore, they afford an opportunity of embodying in a succinct,
symbolic, and decorative form the concentrated essence of the
character, performances, career, and descent of the book-owner or
lover. Thus book-plates acquire a certain historic interest in course
of time, and may from the first possess as well an artistic interest;
but this, naturally, depends on their design and treatment.
Next appears a notable figure thrown upon my cinematograph stage by the
rapid process of setting free successive memories.
Watts. For a lover of pictures, what recollections that name implies!
How many and varied the styles, how many and varied the subjects, that
in turn have found expression and thus sprung into life on the easel of
this great painter.
It happened that on June 1st, 1886 (the anniversary of my birthday), a
friend took me to the studio of Mr. Watts to see him at work, a note of
which incident lies before me in a big, round, girlish hand.
To begin with, the charming house in Melbury Road, Kensington, with its
large studio and spacious picture-gallery, seemed exactly the right
home for a great artist.
At this time the master was working on what appeared, to my young
mind, a ghastly subject—“Vindictive Revenge,” depicting a vulture of
human form tearing to pieces a victim, whether man or woman escapes my
memory. Horrible, and in no way satisfying to my reason. On another
easel was a huge sulphur-coloured canvas showing a dying man sitting in
his chair with a majestic woman’s figure standing by his side. Lying on
a table near was a sketch (later exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery) of
a most quaint and antiquated musical instrument that was used in the
larger picture. This instrument resembled a wooden bowl, its aperture
covered with a stretched skin, on which the shaggy hair was left, and
the strings were passed over a few holes in this skin.
What it was called or whence its origin history does not relate. It had
probably been picked up as a curio for its quaint appearance, but Mr.
Watts disclaimed being a collector of such, telling me that his house
would have been long overfilled had he given rein to this hobby, unique
in the way it carries one on and on.
In the gallery in Melbury Road hung all manner of pictures and numerous
portraits, amongst which I recognised those of Tennyson, the Prince
of Wales, his former wife Ellen Terry, and Violet Lindsay—one of his
favourite models—besides many more; but almost seventy were then being
exhibited at Manchester, which somewhat denuded the walls.
In personal appearance Watts was a gracious, kindly old gentleman, with
white hair and a closely trimmed beard. He wore a tight tweed suit and
a scarlet ribbon loosely tied round his neck, besides a black velvet
skull-cap, head-gear of so many “old masters.”
Here it seems permissible to quote a message from that great artist,
when he was ill, delivered by Alfred Gilbert at an Art Congress.
He urged “the importance of making the aims and principles of art
generally understood. The stumbling-block to the English was the
practical: all that did not present the idea of immediate advantage
seemed to them impractical. Till the love of beauty was once more alive
among us there could be little hope for art.... The art that existed
only in pictures and statues was like a religion kept only for Sundays.”
Like all other first impressions, this visit to the studio stands out a
clear and vivid sketch in my mind. Everyone must have enjoyed meeting
Watts, but to those workers who use the pen there is always a kindred
interest, an alliance of aim with the brothers of the brush, besides
the inspiring pleasure derived from the presence and helpful words of a
master of his art.
From 1886 to the year of grace 1910 is a leap indeed: all but a quarter
of a century! Likewise, from the awe-inspiring canvases of Watts,
the master, to the witty, delightful, crisp illustrations of that
past-craftsman of Art, Harry Furniss, is a change of subject well-nigh
as great. At the thought of him gravity forsakes one’s visage, gives
way to a smiling mien and expectation of wholesome fun, of delicate
enjoyment.
What a worker, oh, but what a worker! as the French would phrase it, is
the well-known and popular _Hy. F._
I think I can lay claim to being a fairly busy person, but I feel
ashamed, stunned, when I think of the stupendous amount of work
accomplished by Harry Furniss. Anyone who has seen those five hundred
illustrations to the eighteen volumes of Dickens must have admired
the delicate draughtsmanship, the characterisation, the comedy and
tragedy, and, above all, the penmanship of the artist. Five hundred
illustrations! Yes, nearly all full-page, most of them containing
several figures, and yet—but read in his letter below.
No wonder he was up with the first streaks of dawn for months, no
wonder he became ill. Harry Furniss achieved a Herculean piece of work,
if ever artist did.
“THE MOUNT, HIGH WICKHAM,
“HASTINGS,
“_May 7th, 1910_.
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“Just received yours. Nothing I could enjoy better than to enjoy
your hospitality for a few days—but alas! I have my nose to the
grindstone again. Another big work. I _must keep_ at it until I
finish.
“If I should find myself away from the British Museum print-rooms
(where I fly for references), I shall certainly walk in some
afternoon and have tea with you. At present I am here for the next
six weeks with models every day. I have to get them from London and
pay them whether I work or not.
“Glad you like my Dickens. I shall go down on my knees when I see
you (you will have to help me up again, though, as I have the gout)
and _swear_ the truth, which is, I illustrated the whole of Dickens
between the 1st of May last year and New Year’s Day. Eight months,
having it read and re-read as I worked, and yet I am alive!
“You do not say how you are, but I do hope your eye trouble is over.
“Yours very sincerely,
“HARRY FURNISS.”
Later in the autumn, accompanying a brief note snatched out of the
over-busy worker’s day, is the expressive sentence, scribbled beside a
pen-and-ink sketch of Father Time bearing the artist’s easel upon his
back, as the patriarch squats and smokes, and H. F. breathlessly paints:
“Still working _against_ Time.”
Doubtless he will go on doing so all his life, five hundred new
illustrations for Thackeray later being but an episode, and yet he
found time to illustrate many of his letters to friends: I have many I
prize.
CHAPTER XVI
“THEY THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS”
A knock came at the prison door.
“Is Mrs. Alec Tweedie here?”
Yes, Mrs. Alec Tweedie was having her tea, and heard the question.
Truly a nice situation! To be enquired for at a gaol.
But even that is capable of explanation. The man on the doorstep held a
letter in his hand addressed to me by name, but only vaguely “Glasgow”
otherwise. With the usual brilliancy of the postal authorities,
they had found the rest of the address and pinned me to the prison,
for I was staying with the Governor, who had married a friend of my
kindergarten days.
The letter was an invitation to christen a “P. & O.” steamer on the
Clyde at Greenock: to be godmother to an infant of twelve thousand
six hundred tons, that, lying in her cradle, was four hundred and
fifty feet long and fifty-four feet wide. When she sailed out to sea
on January 6th of 1900, this mighty goddaughter of mine carried two
thousand three hundred troops between her ample decks.
Needless to say, the sponsorial honour thus offered—the responsibility
being light—was duly accepted.
It was a most glorious day when the Governor of the prison escorted me
to Greenock. The P. & O. has become one of the most important factors
in the commerce of the nation, under Sir Thomas Sutherland, so the
christening was not only impressive to “those who go down to the sea
in ships,” but to all onlookers. Those great yards on the Clyde employ
several thousand men, all of whom, with their wives and children, were
spectators of the ceremony, to say nothing of an invited public.
How enormous that ship looked, her great iron sides standing out from
what shipwrights are pleased to call the “permanent ways”. She owned
as yet no masts or funnels, or indeed any _et ceteras_, only there
loomed her enormous iron carcase. One felt a fly on the wall standing
beneath the shadow of her massive frame. She literally towered above
us, a monster of steel and bolts and rivets. At the stern a wooden
erection had been made, with a little staircase leading to a platform,
and on this the builder of the vessel, Mr. Patrick Caird, and I stood
alone.
It was a most exciting moment. The sun shone, there resounded a dull
thud, thud, thud, for the men below were hammering her sides loose from
the wood in which she had been embedded for about two years. Then came
an almost breathless silence among the vast audience, when Mr. Caird
turned to me and said:
“_Be sure and break the bottle._”
I had never thought of doing anything else, knowing the importance
to the superstitious sailor-man that the glass should be shattered
to atoms, but his serious tones sent a shiver through me, and I
recognised, as in a flash, the gravity of the moment.
There was, as usual, a bottle of champagne, decked with ribbons and
flowers, hanging from the top of the vessel to a level with the place
on which we stood.
“Remember,” he continued, in an undertone of adjuration, “that once
the ship starts to move, she will run; so you must waste no time in
throwing the wine.”
I did not really feel nervous until this, but on being suddenly told
that the boat might be out of reach before one had time to execute the
critical deed, and also being reminded of the importance of scattering
the fluid, I felt a cold douche down my back.
We waited breathless—it seemed ages of suspense, and yet it was
probably only a few minutes. Suddenly the vast bulk began to tremble,
next gave herself little shakes like a dog, then she appeared to pause
and shiver again. It was a breathless moment. Then the mighty carcase
started. What a grand sight! There was something awe-inspiring as that
vast thing slid slowly, majestically, and then more and more rapidly,
down to the sea. I seized the flagon, and with might and main flung it
against the side of the ship, determined that it should be broken more
completely than bottle had ever been broken before.
“With this I wish all luck and prosperity to the _Assaye_,” I cried,
with a strange sensation of chokiness in my throat, while I flung the
ribbon-decked flagon towards her. Truly a thrilling scene.
Whether the heat of the day or the strength of my fling was the cause,
I know not, but the amount of froth that came out of that bottle of
champagne was quite impossible to believe. I was drowned in it. The
quart bottle seemed to contain gallons of froth. It effervesced over
my hat, ran in rivers down my nose, and scattered white foam all over
my shoulders. Mr. Caird, having recovered from his bath, produced a
handkerchief, and kindly began to mop my dripping face and dry my
watery eyes. It was a funny scene, rendered all the more funny, as
it turned out, because some of the cinematograph people were behind
us (those were the early days of cinematographs), and that night in
the music-halls of Glasgow and Edinburgh the _Launching of a P. & O.
Steamer_ caused much amusement to the audience. Only my back view
showed, I believe, but the black of my dress and the white champagne
froth made an interesting production.
Having slid down the permanent ways, the ship’s pace became quicker
and quicker, she really did run, and then she appeared to literally
duck as if to make a bow when she entered the Clyde. For a moment, to
my uninitiated eyes, it seemed as if she would turn a somersault. Not
a bit of it. She righted herself, while the great chain anchors fixed
to her sides were dragging mother-earth along with them, holding her
sufficiently in check, or else she would have run up the opposite bank
before the tugs had time to make her fast and tow her down-stream.
There was a rumour in the air that war was imminent in South Africa,
and Mr. Caird murmured in my ear that it was possible they would
receive a command to have her ready for transport as quickly as
possible. And although, as I have said, she had nothing whatever inside
her on October 7th, 1899, six weeks from that date the _Assaye_ left
Southampton fully equipped for the seat of war, and during the next two
or three years she made so many voyages with troops, that she conveyed
more soldiers to and from the Cape than any other boat afloat.
As a memento of the occasion, Mr. Caird gave me a charming brooch
representing the three crescents of the Orient in diamonds. It was a
pleasant, happy, and interesting experience.
Some years later it was my good fortune to go for the trial trip, as
the guest of the Chairman of the Cunard Company, in the greatest ship
and wonder of her day, the _Lusitania_ (July, 1907), and lastly, to
have been to the inaugural luncheon on one of the five new (1909) ships
of the Orient Line, fitted with all the latest modern improvements,
from electric plate-washers to electric potato-peelers and egg-boilers.
This last was truly a little history in shipping. Where will wondrous
labour-saving inventions end? It is these magnificent boats which do
so much to cement the friendship and foster family ties between us and
our Colonies, and when one sees that in an Orient steamer third-class
passengers can travel twenty-six thousand miles for eighteen pounds,
one opens one’s eyes at the comfort and marvels. These travellers have
even a third-class music-room, and never more than six people in a
cabin. Children can visit their parents, husbands their wives, in fact,
the East and West become as one. Sir Frederick Green, the Chairman of
the Orient Company, is not only a delightful man, but is extremely
enterprising, and has achieved wonderful things. Even the amateur band,
composed of stewards, has been abolished, and proper professional music
is provided for the passengers. Those terrible days when one packed up
sufficient underlinen for six weeks’ use have gone by, and everything
can now be sent to the laundry on board on Monday morning, as regularly
as it is done at home.
The christening of the proud P. & O. _Assaye_ amused me the more
at the time because of its sharp contrast with a humble Highland
“baptisement,” at which it had also been my lot to assist a few years
earlier. This last committal of a boat to the sea was the subject a
year or two after of one of my sketches in words, and may be here given
again, for who amongst us, on watching a fishing-smack going out from
harbour, does not feel a stir of interest, and wish that “weel may the
boatie row”?
At that time we—my husband was alive—had a little house in Sutherland,
and became much interested in the simple fisher-folk near by.
“Can you speak to Mrs. Murray, the fishwife, for a minute. Very
particular, she says, ma’am,” said the parlourmaid one morning.
“All right,” and, leaving the steaming herrings on the breakfast-table,
I went to the door to see Mrs. Murray.
“Good morning, Mrs. Murray. Did you want to see me?”
“’Deed, mem, yes, mem,” and the old body in short serge skirt, so full
at the waist that her creel of fish literally rested on the pleats,
beamed all over inside her nice, clean, white “mutch” cap.
“Maybe ye ken, mistress, we have got a new haddie boatie [haddock
boat], and we want to have the baptisement whatever.”
“Well?”
“And maybe, mem, ye would be sae guid as to humble yersel’, mistress,
and come down—the laddies want ye to come down and do the baptisement
yersel’.”
“Me?”
“Yes, mem, if we might make sae bold in the asking,” and the old body
looked quite shy at having asked, and actually the colour mounted to
her weather-worn cheeks.
“But what do you want me to do?” I enquired, really interested in what
a baptisement could be.
“Jist the baptisement, whatever.”
“Yes, but how do you do it?” I persisted.
“Law, mem, ye jist break the bottlie, whatever.”
“Oh; all right, I know all about that, and I’ll do it with the greatest
possible pleasure; but which day?”
“If ye’ll jist please to name the dee yersel’.”
“High tide would be nicest, I think. It would not be so wet and sloppy,
would it?”
“Weel, weel. I near forgot the laddies want ye to come pertikeler
Tuesday at three or Wednesday at four, for the tide be high then; and
they’ll bait some hooks, and ye can go out and catch the first haddie
yersel’ for luck, mem.”
“All right, then, Tuesday, at three.”
So on Tuesday we hurried over luncheon and drove in the dogcart to the
fishing village of Haddon, for the official ceremony, carefully armed
with a bottle of red wine to sprinkle the sides of the boat, and a
bottle of whisky for the family to drink the boat’s health; both being
suggestions of the dear old fishwife herself—the one for the cold, the
other for the boat, as she wisely remarked.
All our friends, the minister among them, refused to believe I—a
stranger—had actually been asked to perform such a ceremony: the Haddon
folk being usually so exclusive. They marry amongst themselves and do
everything amongst themselves, no outsider ever being asked to partake
in any of their functions.
Arrived at the quaint little village, driving with difficulty between
the pigs, the babies, and the chickens, we sought the heather-thatched,
whitewashed house of the Murrays.
“Good dee to ye, mem—good dee to ye au,” and out of the kitchen
tumbled the mother, father, sons, and daughters, pigs, chickens, and
grandchildren.
Carefully carrying a bottle in each arm, I marched to the beach,
followed by the Murray family, our numbers being swelled by other
villagers at every step.
There, on the sand, reposed the haddie boatie—a fine big boat, capable
of taking a dozen or twenty men to sea. She was lying on rollers, ready
to be put in the water—but, oh! what water. Great white horses lashed
the shore; Neptune truly was riding fiery steeds. We were admiring the
majestic crested waves breaking over the rocks when Mr. Murray said,
“The hooks is baited, and ye shall catch the first haddie for luck
yersel’, mem.”
Should I, or should I not, disgrace myself on that turbulent water,
over which the seagulls screeched and whirled and flapped their wings?
By this time fifty or sixty of the villagers had arrived to help launch
the boat, and my heart trembled when I remembered the one bottle of
whisky brought for the Murray family to drink to the boat’s success.
How far would it go amongst so many?
But my cogitations were interrupted by Willie Murray exclaiming, “Will
ye please to gie the name?”
“Yes; what do you want it called?”
“Your own name, mem, if ye will please to humble yersel’ to gie it.”
“Mrs. Tweedie.”
“Na, na, na, mistress, whatever, jist yer surname.”
“Well, Tweedie is my surname.”
“Na, na, no’ that surname. Yer other surname, mistress.”
“Do you mean Ethel?”
“Oi, oi, Essel—Essel.” (There is no “th” in Gaelic, and their tongues
cannot frame it.) “Oi, oi, that be it, mem—Essel Tweedie, whatever,”
and he took off his hat as though he hoped the wind would blow such an
extraordinary name into his cranium.
By this time men and women had put their shoulders to the boat, and had
got her down to the water’s edge. Just as she touched the sea I threw
the bottle with all my might, nearly upsetting myself in the endeavour,
for, if the bottle should not shatter to atoms, these superstitious
fisher-folk would think that their new boat was cursed.
As she touched the water the red wine ran down her side, and I cried,
“I name her Ethel Tweedie, and wish her all luck.”
“May the evil eye ne’er take upon her,” called Mrs. Murray, as the red
wine mingled with the crested waves.
Into the water with a cheer both men and women went, right up to their
waists, the waves breaking over their shoulders; but every time they
got the _Ethel Tweedie_ launched, a huge wave brought her back again.
“Come and drink her health before you put her into the sea,” I called.
“Has anyone a glass?”
“Oi, oi,” replied Mrs. Murray; and unfastening the front of her blue
cotton blouse, she brought forth a wine-glass, evidently brought down
in anticipation. The chief members of the party drank the health of the
boat and her namesake in Gaelic, and then one lad replied, when the
glass was offered to him, “I’m no’ for the tasting the dee.”
Had he a cold, or why couldn’t he taste? So I offered the glass to his
neighbour.
“I’m no’ for the tasting the dee,” he likewise replied; and we
afterwards learnt they were teetotallers, and that was their way of
expressing the fact.
“The hooks is baited, and ye shall catch the first haddie for luck
yersel’, mem,” resounded in our ears; and the roar of the sea kept
up a strange accompaniment, as a seagull shrieked in triumph at our
discomfiture.
I dare not say no; I must risk disgracing myself, endure any agony of
mind or body, but I must for the honour of Old England go and catch
that first haddie.
How the wretched folk struggled to get that boat into the sea! I
remonstrated at the women going into the water and working so hard on
my account, feeling particularly sympathetic when I thought of the
rough sea awaiting us outside, but all to no avail. I assured them I
should _not_ be disappointed if I could not catch the haddie to-day,
I could easily come again; but no, they would struggle on, a few feet
only at a time, always to be rebuffed again and again by the waves.
At last Mr. Murray took off his cap, scratched his head, talked Gaelic
to everyone in turn, and, after his consultation, came over to me and
said, “I’m right sad, mem, but the haddie boatie can no’ go in the
water the dee; she’d jist go to pieces on the rocks, whatever.”
“Oh, I am so sorry, but don’t mind me,” I replied as graciously as I
could, thankful for the deliverance.
“Na, na, but the haddie for luck! We au wanted ye to catch the haddie
for luck yersel’, mem.”
“Oh, I’ll come another day and catch the haddie for luck,” and I
inwardly thanked Heaven I had been saved the terrors of the deep.
“To-morrow I will come again and catch the haddie, and paint the name
on the boat, if you like.”
“Oi, oi, paint the name yersel’, that’ll be fine; but ye’ll do it nice,
now, won’t you? I want it weel done.”
Who could be offended at such a remark, made without the slightest
idea of rudeness? A little such honest, straight-forward speaking is
a treat, not an offence, in these days of gilded sayings and leaden
thoughts.
I never caught that haddie, but I took my palette and painted the name
in oils upon her sides, and happily the _Ethel Tweedie_ has proved one
of the luckiest boats in the herring fleet.
What a contrast those two launches were—the wealth of the one ship, the
wealth of the onlookers, the wealth of the prospective passengers and
cargo, the power and strength and value of it all.
On the other side—the simplicity of the humble little craft, the
simplicity of the fisher-folk, the simplicity of the life of the
fishing village.
Both were ships to go down to the sea, and yet how different.
CHAPTER XVII
LORD LI AND A CHINESE LUNCHEON
The “late” (or, as diplomacy ungraciously calls such, “ancient”)
Chinese Minister to London, Lord Li Ching Fong, did much to cement
a friendly feeling between the East and the West. He taught us to
appreciate the charm of manner and breadth of thought of a cultured
Chinese gentleman. No diplomat ever made himself more popular in London
Society than this cheery, kindly little representative of the East.
No matter where he went he always wore his hat indoors or out, with
its red bob on the top and his pig-tail below, and dark silk coats in
private, or embroidered robes at Court—but he walked about unattended
and lived the life of an ordinary English gentleman. In the Legation
he was one of the kindest and best hosts I have ever come across. He
entertained a great deal and handled large, important dinners of twenty
or thirty people with skilful ease. Lord Li never forgot a promise,
however trivial, and was never late for an engagement.
One June day in 1909 the Chinese Minister was lunching with me, so
I asked him to write his name on the cloth opposite the Japanese
Ambassador. His neighbour on the other side was Lady Millais, the
daughter-in-law of the famous artist. She was so delighted with the
neat, small Chinese writing that she asked His Excellency if he would
put her name on the back of her card in Chinese.
“Have you such a name as Mary or Maria,” I asked, “in Chinese?”
“No,” he replied, “but I can do its equivalent phonetically,” and very
pretty it looked when done.
On her other side sat Joseph Farquharson, R.A., and turning to him,
Lady Millais said:
“‘Mary had a little lamb,’ but where is the _lamb_?”
Farquharson being famous for painting snow and sheep quickly saw the
point, and taking her card, and a pencil from his pocket, exclaimed:
“Here it is!” and below the Chinese writing he drew a little lamb.
Mrs. Kendal, on his other side, leant over to hear what was going on,
and laughingly said:
“I am jealous. Although not a ewe lamb, I think I deserve a sheep.”
Whereupon Farquharson picked up her card, and with wonderful rapidity
drew a sheep, and handing it back, said:
“I am very sorry, Mrs. Kendal, it is only a black sheep.”
It was all done so quickly it was quite a delightful incident.
Then I asked the Minister to write his name in Latin characters above
the Chinese, and he did so; whereupon I proceeded to read the first
word as “Lie.”
“No,” he said, “that is a bad word in English, but it is not my
name. My father, Li Hung Chang, went to Paris, and as the Frenchmen
pronounced his name “Lee” we have remained “Li” ever since. So I am now
known by that title, and go about in Europe as Lord Li, although it
sometimes causes my countrymen to smile when they hear it.”
Lord Li (Lee) told me the only foreigner he had ever known who spoke
Chinese like a Chinaman was Sir Robert Hart; “And he speaks it as well
as I do.”
Later I chaffed my Chinese friend about our English tea, and asked him
if he considered it poison.
“Not poison,” he said, “but I do not like it.”
“Is yours made very differently?” I asked.
“Quite,” he replied.
“Will you show me some day?”
“With pleasure, but I must send you a Chinese cup, for I cannot make
Chinese tea in your cups. In our cups the saucer is on the top, not at
the bottom.”
Accordingly, this was arranged, and the following day the teacup duly
arrived. It was about the size of a breakfast cup, with a ring of
china instead of a saucer; the cup itself fitted into the hole, and
was covered with a lid, which again fitted inside the bowl instead of
outside.
Five o’clock was the hour named for our tea ceremony. I was sitting
in the drawing-room with my ordinary English tea arrangements, and a
special spirit lamp for His Excellency. At ten minutes past five he was
announced, laughing merrily.
“What do you think I have done?” he said. “I have been so stupid. It
was fine, so I walked from Portland Place, and thinking I knew your
house well I did not look up at the number. I arrived and was shown
upstairs by the parlourmaid, who seemed quite pleased to see me. At the
door I gave my name as the ‘Chinese Minister,’ and was duly ushered
into a drawing-room, which I at once saw was not like your room. A
lady who was sitting there rose and said, ‘How do you do?’ I bowed and
repeated the remark, at once feeling I had made a mistake.
“‘Do you speak English?’ she asked.
“‘Yes, madam,’ I replied, with my best bow, now quite certain of my
mistake.
“‘Shall I tell the lady?’ I thought. ‘It will make me look a fool, and
make her feel uncomfortable,’ and as she at once told me she had been
in China, and expressed pleasure at seeing me, we chatted for a few
minutes, and I waited for an opportunity which would allow me to get up
and go gracefully. The opportunity soon came, and I said good-bye. She
thanked me very much for calling, and I left.” Again the merry little
man chuckled at his intrusion.
“Ah,” said I; “but it won’t end there. If you _will_ call upon a
strange lady, she will think she met you somewhere and return the call.”
“I did not really know her, so I need not repeat my visit,” he said
quietly. “But I shall not forget I have done something stupid.”
I thought it so nice of him not to tell her of his mistake, and thus
give a very diplomatic ending to an awkward situation. Then came the
tea. Our tea-party.
He boiled the spirit lamp, and when I took off the lid, thinking it was
ready, he shook his head.
“No, no,” he said, “the water must actually boil three minutes; that is
the main point.” Into the cup, really the size of a breakfast-cup, he
put a small half-teaspoonful of Chinese tea.
“What a small amount,” I remarked; “we put one fat teaspoonful for each
person, and one for the pot.”
“No wonder your tea is so bad, madam,” he laughed; “my arrangement is
tea, yours is stew,” he continued with a wicked little twinkle.
On to these few scattered leaves Lord Li poured the boiling water,
which he immediately covered with the lid. In a few moments he removed
the latter, and taking the half-side of the lid instead of a spoon,
stirred the surface of the tea. This he did about three times in a
minute, by which time the water was slightly yellow and the leaves had
all sunk to the bottom.
“Now it is ready,” he said; “remember, no sugar nor milk, _ever_!”
“But it is too hot to drink,” I said.
“Not too hot for a Chinaman, we drink it like that. But if it is too
hot for you, we will pour it out,” and putting the versatile lid on the
table so that it formed a saucer, he poured some tea into it.
“Do you drink it from the saucer like that?”
“Yes; those people who cannot take it so hot always do so. Otherwise,
or when it is cooler, we drink it so,” and he put the lid back in the
cup, but only half _on_ in a slanting way, and made me sip the tea
through the aperture at the side.
“What is the idea of that?” I said.
“To keep the tea hot and to hold back the leaves, because you see our
cup is also our teapot.”
It really was both nice and refreshing.
“How many cups does your Excellency drink in a day?” I enquired.
“Always twenty, sometimes thirty.”
“Good heavens! How do you do it?”
“The better-class Chinaman gets up when it is light and goes to bed
when it is dark. I cannot do that in London because you keep me out so
late at night, but I am called at half-past seven, when I get a cup
of tea; with my bath I have another cup of tea. With my breakfast at
eight-thirty I have rice, vermicelli, fish, fruit, and more tea. Then I
go down to my office, and during all the hours from nine to half-past
twelve, when I am working with my secretaries, we all drink tea every
half-hour or so, and some smoke pipes, but not opium. That is rare in
China. Next comes lunch; but you must come and have a real Chinese
luncheon and see how we eat it with chopsticks. Not an official party
such as you have been to before at my house. Then it is the French
cook, but my own cook, when I am alone, is a Chinaman.
“At four in the afternoon we have our third meal, and for the first
time no tea, but cakes and light things. At half-past seven we dine, a
dozen little dishes all at once. Then, if I were in China, I should go
to bed, but as I am in London, I do as London does.”
“Last thing at night I still drink tea. The kettle is always boiling at
the Legation, the cup is always ready, and my servant puts in the tea
and pours on the water; then by the time it reaches me it is ready.”
The Chinese Minister is a very interesting man, and having finished our
tea-party, during which he laughingly suggested that I should give him
a certificate as a good cook, he told me many interesting things by way
of exciting my interest and persuading me to write a book on China.
The children of the high-class families in China are betrothed very
young, often when four or five years old, and never later than
fifteen. The parents get a third person to negotiate, and if a union
is considered desirable between the two families (they never marry out
of their own social position in China), the parents meet and more or
less settle the future line of education for their offspring, and sign
letters officially agreeing to the betrothal. Nothing more happens. The
wife, however, sometimes sees her future son or daughter-in-law.
When these children reach fifteen or twenty years of age their final
marriage takes place. They never meet until the wedding-day, and the
property settled on the girl by her father is her own by the law of
China. After her marriage she belongs to her husband’s family, and goes
to live in the house of her father-in-law.
If by the time a woman is thirty she has no son to continue the
traditions of the family—and family counts for everything in China—the
husband is legally allowed to take unto himself a mistress. She is
not well born. He chooses her from the people, and she is officially
accepted by the house, allowed to sit at the table, and if she bears
sons, the first belongs to the legal wife, the second to herself, and
if there is only one son, both wife and mistress share him, and,
strange as it may seem, they generally get on quite well.
We had a long and interesting talk on the future of China.
“We are going to be the greatest country in the world in the middle of
this century, but now there are troubled days ahead for us,” he said.
“We are far more conservative than Japan. It has taken us longer to
adopt Western civilisation, but when I went back from England some
years ago, after serving many years in this country, I was one of a
number of young men who tried, and in some cases succeeded, in making
reforms. Those were early days, but boys like my son, now at Cambridge,
are being educated in Europe in 1910; and they will go back with even
stronger and more modern ideas. Indeed, I can see perfectly well that
in the next twenty years there will be many reforms attempted in
diplomatic and other circles in China, before we settle down. Every
country must broaden and widen if it is to keep pace with the march of
civilisation, and China must not be behind. We have a great past, and
we must make a great future.”
Then he spoke with the utmost enthusiasm of the late Empress.
“She was old, she was not pretty, but she was wonderful. She had
the greatest charm of manner of any woman I have ever known. She
reigned for practically fifty years, and therefore her experience was
unbounded. Above all, she was a diplomat. For instance, one day in
1907, she sent for me. I went. She talked pleasantly for some time on
many subjects, and then she said, ‘We cannot always do what we like.
We have to remember our country. We must always work for its good.
You have been in England, and you like it. You are back in China, and
perhaps you like it better because your home is here.’ I bowed. ‘But,’
she said, ‘London wants you. It is necessary to send a Minister to the
Court of St. James’s, and, moreover, to send someone who understands
the English people and is in sympathy with them, and who can be relied
upon in every way. It is not a matter of pay. I know money does not
tempt you. It is not a matter of position. You have that here, but your
country needs your services. You can do much for China in England, and
I am going to ask you to renounce your home life for several years and
go to England.’
“It was charmingly put, and I felt touched at the many kind things she
said, but still I hesitated. Then she looked straight at me.
“‘Li, your father left China for the good of China. We owe him a great
debt for what he did in Paris. Will the son not follow the example of
so excellent a father?’
“That did it. I left my home, and here I am, very happy, for England is
to me a second home, and although I miss my wife and married daughters,
I have my son with me, and many friends. Yes, she was a wonderful
woman, our Empress. Her death was a great loss to China.”
Then I asked him why this boy of three was put upon the throne.
“Because,” he said, “the late Emperor was a nephew of the Empress, and
it is a rule with us that these dignities cannot descend from brother
to brother, but must always come down one generation. When the Emperor
died childless, it was therefore not his brother, but his brother’s
son who succeeded him. As he is only three, his father has been made
Regent, and is virtually the Emperor of China till the child is grown
up. That little boy will be employed in learning to read and write four
Chinese languages fluently till he is twelve or thirteen. After that
his more general education will commence, but he has a difficult task
before him, because he will take up the reins as Emperor at the very
time when I think China will be having its greatest struggle.
“We must never forget the teachings of Confucius, but we must model our
present Government according to the rules of modern civilisation.”
(Barely two years later the Manchus were overthrown.)
My own father had a great idea that everything in the world was good to
eat if only we knew how to cook it.
Therefore, I was brought up to eat all sorts of queer things, a
training that proved very useful in after-life when my travels took me
from Iceland to Africa, from Lapland to Sicily, from Canada to Mexico.
Sometimes I have lived on _foie gras_ and champagne, at others been
glad of black bread—sometimes I have been amongst thousands of cattle
on a ranch without a drop of milk or a pat of butter within hundreds of
miles; often I have been far from butcher’s meat, and drunk milk from
the cocoanut, or eaten steak from the elk, turtle from the river, or
bear from the woods.
Therefore, this paternal theory often held good and helped me over many
an awkward moment. Which philosophy, however, was by no means called
upon when the Chinese luncheon, to which I had been invited at my
little tea-party, became soon after an accepted fact.
It was a hot July Sunday. The door of the Legation in Portland Place
was thrown wide open, and up the green-carpeted stairs I walked. We
were only a party of four, as Lord Li laughingly remarked that there
were not many people in London who would care for Chinese food. He need
not have been so modest about it, for the dishes were really excellent.
We were waited upon by a Chinese servant and an English butler.
Needless to remark, the former was much the more picturesque. He was
dressed in black, with high black velvet boots on his little feet, and
though he looked about fourteen, the Minister assured me he was forty.
He was barber, tailor, and butler.
“These men can do anything,” said His Excellency; “I could not keep a
man in London to shave my head once a week, nor would he have enough to
do to make my clothes. The important suits are sent direct from China.
The others are made and mended by this man. I have four Chinese in the
house, and they eat and live together, the English servants being quite
apart. But they do not quarrel; in fact, I believe they are very good
friends.”
My earliest recollections being of strange foods from many lands, it
was not altogether a surprise to begin our repast with bird’s-nest
soup, which was served in similar cups to that brought by Lord Li to
my tea-party; the cup standing on a plate. At the bottom of the bowl
was a small quantity of white, gelatinous compound, which looked almost
like warm gelatine. Into this I was told to put a tablespoonful of
strawberry jam, the whole strawberries of which I stirred up with the
bird’s nest. Eaten with a spoon the two were very good.
The Minister explained the delicacy thus. “There is a small sea-bird in
China which builds its nest on the sides of the rock with the little
fish it gets from the water. These nests become quite hard in the heat
of the sun, and it is these that are collected and used for this soup.
It is a delicacy, quite expensive, and never eaten by ordinary people,
but used more like your turtle soup on great occasions.”
_Sharks’ fins_ made our next dish. These were also served in little
cups and eaten with chopsticks. The two chopsticks were about a foot
long and made of ivory, but it seems they are often made of bone,
silver, gold, or wood, and children, until they are six or seven
years of age, are rarely able to manipulate them. One is held between
the thumb and first finger, the second between the first and second
fingers, and so dexterous was Lord Li in their manipulation that he,
later, took the small bones out of a fish and put them on one side more
easily than one could have done with a knife and fork.
The shark fins, when boiled in Chinese fashion, were almost like the
gelatinous part of calf’s head or the outside of a turbot. They were
cooked with cabbage and some ham, so, in a way, the taste reminded
me of German sauerkraut; but though also a delicacy, this was less
delicate in flavour than the bird’s nest and somewhat satisfying.
Now came fish—mackerel, I think—likewise cooked in a Chinese way, for,
be it understood, the Chinese cook was doing the entire luncheon. A
thick brown sauce, with a curry flavour, and the tiniest of little
onions here and there, were added to the dish, which the guest simply
could not manipulate with chopsticks, so had recourse to an English
knife and fork.
The next course was again served in covered cups, and was chicken, a
favourite and ordinary dish in China. Apparently the bird was chopped
fine, or had been passed through the mincing machine. Anyway, there
were no bones, yet it was solid. My private opinion was that it must
have been compressed under weights, because it adhered to its own
skin and looked substantial, although the ingredients fell apart when
attacked with the chopsticks. This tasted like boned capon, and with it
was something white, appearing to be fish, which Lord Li said was dried
oyster. It seems there is a particularly large oyster in China which
has a sort of bag protrusion. This bit is cut away and sun-dried, when
it makes the flavouring and decoration for the chicken.
We had not finished yet. Duck was the next course. This came on a plate
and had its bones entire. It was also covered with thick brown sauce
and finely shredded vegetables. His Excellency told us there were many
more vegetables in China than in England, and that some of them were
prepared for export. These appeared to be shredded in the same way as
vegetables are cut for Julienne soup. With it was also served a great
dish of rice, and in ordinary Chinese households rice is served with
every course.
“In the rich homes we eat much meat and little rice, and in the poor
homes much rice and little meat,” said the Minister. This dish I did
not care for at all, besides finding it next to impossible to detach
the meat from the bones with the chopsticks.
Our next course was a very pretty one. On a plate sat a row of little
dumplings, into which lobster, finely shredded with ham, had been
daintily tucked.
I was struck by the fact that with the exception of the duck everything
had been passed through the mincing machine or chopped. Beef, by the
way, is so bad in China that it is rarely eaten.
Then followed the pudding, which was altogether a success, entitled
“Water lily.” The sweet was also served on plates. Lord Li maintained
that the foundation was rice; if so, it had been boiled so long that it
was more like tapioca. Round it were stewed pears and peaches, and all
over it little things that looked like white broad beans. These had a
delicate and delicious flavour, and I guessed a dozen times what they
could be, but in each case was wrong; and the Minister explained they
were the seeds of the lotus flower.
No wonder His Excellency lives on Chinese food at home when it is so
good and so well cooked. The native wine or spirit I did not like; it
rather reminded me of vodka.
Our meal finished we repaired to the drawing-room, where was set out a
silver tray of beautiful Chinese workmanship, with a silver teapot and
silver cups lined with white china and with ordinary handles.
“You ladies must sit on the sofa,” said Lord Li, “for it is the fashion
in China for the host himself to dispense the tea.”
Accordingly, he lifted the entire table and placed it before us, then
poured out what appeared to be the palest green liquid.
“Surely that is not tea!” I exclaimed.
“Oh yes, it is green tea. Not green tea made for the English market,
but real green tea, uncoloured, such as we drink in China without sugar
or milk.” And, putting the spoon in the pot, he produced the leaves,
very long and broad, each one separate from the other and absolutely
devoid of stalks and dust.
“This I have sent over for me specially from my own estate,” he said,
“and this is the tea of which I drink thirty or forty cups a day.”
It was refreshing, and reminded me of the orange leaves used so much in
tropical Southern Mexico in the same way. With this ended our quaint
Eastern meal.
CHAPTER XVIII
FROM STAGELAND TO SHAKESPEARE-LAND
How youth adores the stage! It ever has in all climes and ages, and
probably ever will.
This was amusingly borne in on me just after my boy had gone to
Cambridge. A particular play with a particularly fascinating actress in
the principal part was announced for production there.
Of course, all Cambridge went.
A day or so later, when a lot of “men” were raving over the beauties of
the fascinating actress, buying her photographs, wanting her autograph,
and so on, one of them turned round to my son and said:
“Isn’t she lovely? I’m just dying to be introduced to her. By Jove, she
is a ripping girl. What did you think of her, Tweedie?”
“I did not go,” he replied.
“Why not?”
“Well, you see, I know her pretty well; she went to school with my
mother.”
A bomb might have fallen.
“Went to school with _your_ mother?”
“Yes, and she has a girl nearly as old as I am.”
Bomb number two.
Charming and pretty as she is, a woman old enough to be their mother,
she stirs the hearts of the undergrads, who, across the footlights,
innocently think she is a girl of eighteen.
So much for the delusions of the stage.
Still, it is marvellous how some actresses seem blessed with perpetual
youth.
There is no doubt about it that Miss Geneviève Ward is one of the most
remarkable women of the age. One morning in March, 1908, came a knock
at the door, and in she walked.
“Out for my constitutional, my dear,” she exclaimed, “so I thought I
would just look you up. I have walked six miles this morning, and after
a little rest and chat with you I shall walk another mile home and
enjoy my luncheon all the better for it.”
“You are a marvel!” I exclaimed. “Seven miles and over seventy. I saw
your ‘Volumnia’ was a great success the other day when you played it
with Benson.” For “Volumnia” is one of the grand old actress’s chief
parts.
“Yes,” she said, “and the next day I started for Rome. I got a telegram
to say one of three old cousins, with whom I was staying in Rome a few
weeks previously, had died suddenly; so four hours after receiving the
message I set out.”
“Were you very tired?” I asked.
“No, not at all. I knitted nearly all the way and talked to my
fellow-passengers, and when I arrived, instead of resting, went at once
to see to some business, for these two old sisters, one of whom is
blind, were absolutely prostrate with grief, and had done nothing while
awaiting my arrival. I stayed a fortnight with them, settled them up,
and arrived back two days ago.”
Miss Ward has one of the most remarkable faces I have ever known. Her
blue-grey eyes are electric. They seem to pierce one’s very soul. They
flash fire or indignation, and yet they literally melt with love. And
this great, majestic tragedienne is full of emotion and sentiment.
Geneviève Ward is the Sarah Siddons of the day. Her “Lady Macbeth,”
“Queen Eleanor,” “Queen Katherine,” and her other classic rôles, are
unrivalled. Her elocution is matchless. Her French is as perfect as her
English; anyone who ever heard her recite in French will never forget
it, and her Italian, for purity of diction, is not far behind. On the
stage her grand manner is superb. She is every inch a queen, and yet,
strange as it may appear, she is only a small woman, five feet three at
most; but so full of activity and courage that she impresses one with
immense power, height, and strength.
I happened to tell her that I had again seen an account of her marriage
in a paper.
“Some new invention,” she laughed. “And yet it is not necessary to
invent, for the romance and tragedy of my life were acute enough.” And
she then told me the following story:
“I was travelling with my mother and brother on the Riviera in
1855, when we met a Russian, Count de Guerbel. He was very tall,
very handsome, very fascinating, very rich, and twenty-eight. I was
seventeen.
“He fell in love with me, and it was settled I should be married at the
Consulate at Nice, which I was; but the Russian law required that the
marriage should be repeated in the Russian Church to make the ceremony
binding, otherwise I was his legal wife, but he was not my legal
husband.
“It was arranged, therefore, that I should go to Paris with my mother,
the Count going on in advance to arrange everything, and we would be
remarried there in the Greek Church. When we arrived in Paris it was
Lent, when no marriage can take place in the Greek Church; and so time
passed on.
“He must have been a thoroughly bad man, because he did his best at
that time to persuade me to run away with him, always reminding me
that I was his legal wife. The whole thing was merely a trick of this
handsome, fascinating rascal. He promised me that, if I would go
to him, he would take me to Russia at once, and there we should be
remarried according to the rules of the Greek Church. Being positively
frightened by his persistence, I told my mother. At the same time
rumours of de Guerbel’s amours and debts reached her ears, and she
wrote to a cousin of ours, then American Minister in Petersburg, for
confirmation of these reports.
“My cousin replied, ‘Come at once.’ We went; I, of course, under my
name of Countess de Guerbel, which I had naturally assumed from the day
of our wedding at Nice, and we stayed at the Embassy in St. Petersburg.
The Count’s brother was charming to me. He told us my husband was
a villain, and I had better leave him alone. That was impossible,
however—I was married to him, but he was not married to me, and such a
state of affairs could not remain. It became an international matter,
and was arranged by the American Government and the Tzar that we
should be officially married at Warsaw. The Count refused to come.
The Tzar therefore sent sealed orders for his appearance. Wearing a
black dress, and feeling apprehensive and miserably sad, I went to the
church, and at the altar rails, supported by my father and mother, and
the Count’s brother, I met my husband.
“It was a horrible crisis, for I knew my father was armed with a
loaded revolver, and, if de Guerbel refused to give me the last legal
right which was morally already mine, its contents would put an end to
the adventurer’s life. There we stood, husband and wife, knowing the
service was a mere form; but the marriage was lawfully effected. He had
completed his part of the bargain and we had learned his villainy.
“At the door of the church we parted, and I never saw him again. We
called a cab and drove direct to the railway station, and thence
travelled to Milan.”
Romance, comedy, tragedy! As I sat looking at that beautiful woman,
still beautiful at seventy, it was easy to see how lovely she must have
been at seventeen, and to picture that perfect figure in her black
frock on her bridal morning—a pathetic sight indeed!
She was continuing her story:
“Determined to do something, I at once began studying singing for the
stage on our arrival in Italy, and in a year or two made my appearance
in Paris, London, and New York.
“I made a success in opera; but in Cuba I strained my voice by
continually singing in three octaves, and one fine day discovered
it had gone. Then I took to teaching singing in New York. But,
unfortunately, I hated it; most of my pupils had neither voice nor
talent; it was like beating my head against a stone wall.
“In my operatic days critics had always mentioned my capacity for
acting. Then why not go on the stage? Thus it was at the age of
thirty-five I appeared at Manchester, under my maiden name of Geneviève
Ward, and in the end, having played _Forget-me-not_ some thousand
times, all over the world, I retired from the profession when I was
about sixty. I have occasionally appeared since.”
This gifted tragedienne was going to Stratford to play in the
Shakespeare week in 1908.
She came to have tea with me, and as she sat beside me looking the
picture of strength and dignity, I asked if it took her long to get up
her part.
“Good heavens, no!” she replied. “I have never forgotten a
Shakespearian character in my life. Every word means something. All I
do is to read it through once or twice—perhaps three times—before the
night.”
“I own,” she said, “that sitting here now I do not recall a word of
_Forget-me-not_, and yet I played that several thousand times. But
then, there is nothing to grip hold of in the modern drama; however, I
could undertake to go on the stage letter-perfect even in that after
a day’s work. I am sure, after reading it through, it would all come
back to me. In Shakespeare I not only know my own part, but most of the
other people’s, and I can both remember things I learnt in my youth and
have played at intervals during my life, and memorise now more easily
than my pupils. I did so last year when I got up those classical plays
for Vedrenne and Barker.”
One cold February day Benson’s Company played _Coriolanus_ at the
“Coronet.”
As Miss Ward had sent me the following note, I was amongst the pleased
spectators.
“DEAR MEPHISTO,
“Here is the Box for Saturday. I hope you will enjoy ‘Volumnia.’
I love her. Come on the stage after the play, and let me take you
home.
“Yours cordially,
“GENEVIÈVE WARD.”
Her performance was simply amazing. Well rouged, with a cheerful smile
and sprightly manner, this dear lady of over seventy looked young,
handsome, animated, indeed beautiful, and buoyant in the first act.
As the play proceeded her complexion paled, her eyes dimmed, the deep
black robe and nun-like head-gear helped the tragedy of the scene,
until in the mad scene she was cringing and yet magnificent; in the
last act—thrilling.
Her clear enunciation, magnificent diction, and great repose are indeed
a contrast to the modern young woman of the stage, who speaks so badly
that one cannot hear what she says, and has often not learnt even the
first rules of walking gracefully.
After the play I went behind the scenes, as arranged. Benson was there
standing at Miss Ward’s door thanking her for her performance.
What a splendid athlete he is in appearance, and though I am not
particularly fond of his performance, _Coriolanus_ is by far his best.
I congratulated him upon it, and his simplicity and almost shyness were
amusing.
“But I am so much below my ideal of the part,” he said; “although it
is strengthening and broadening, I cannot even now get it,” and then,
turning to Miss Ward, added, “However, our ‘Volumnia’ is all she should
be.”
There was Miss Ward, dressed ready to return home, smiling cheerfully
and not in the least tired. As we were driving back to my house, she
told me, in answer to a friendly enquiry, what her day had been.
“I went for a long walk this morning, had my lunch at a quarter to one,
got to the theatre at two, began at two-thirty, and, as you know, did
not end till five-thirty.”
“I hope you had some tea,” I said.
“Tea, my dear! Certainly not. I shall have a glass of hot milk at six,
when I get in, and then my dinner as usual, a little later.”
Over seventy years of age, she thus had played a strong rôle for
three hours, yet did not even need to be refreshed with a cup of tea.
Geneviève Ward certainly is a great woman.
The three greatest English actresses I have ever seen are Ellen Terry,
Geneviève Ward, and Mrs. Kendal. The latter two are among the most
brilliant women and most charming conversationalists I know—outside
their stage life I mean.
One February day in 1909, Mrs. Kendal walked up Portland Place to fetch
me _en route_ for luncheon with Geneviève Ward.
“Why have you suddenly left the stage like this?” I asked in banter.
In a serious voice she replied:
“Because we want no farewells. I went on the stage when I was four,
and no one knew I was there. I go off the stage when I am fifty-five,
and I do not see why people should be asked to contribute to my
well-advertised disappearance as to a charity. I’ve worked hard for
fifty years, and have retired to enjoy myself while I can. Actors have
long-drawn-out ‘farewells’ lasting for two or three years. I don’t wish
to do likewise. We’ve worked hard, and we’ve been thrifty and saved,
and now we can retire from a kindly public—as their friends, I hope.
I don’t want to write to the papers, or make speeches, or call myself
their ‘humble servant.’ I’ve given them of my best, and they’ve paid me
for it, as they pay for their hats and gloves. No gratuities, nothing
more than I have rightly earned. Don’t you think I’m right?”
“Well, it is certainly more dignified, but we should have liked to give
you a farewell cheer.” Then, reverting to others, I asked why Irving
was so poor.
“Ah, because he was so generous. I remember an instance; when he
heard the Duchess of Manchester (afterwards Duchess of Devonshire)
had taken two stalls, he at once sent off to offer her a private box.
She accepted, and then he ordered a two-guinea bouquet to be placed
therein, and invited her to supper. Again she accepted. He at once
asked a party to meet her; that cost him over twenty-six pounds. He
told me so, and he returned the Duchess her guinea.
“Now do you call that business? Would a dressmaker give material gratis
and entertain a customer to supper? We have never given free seats. Why
should one? If the house does not fill, change the piece, but don’t
pretend it’s a success by paper. Yes—I’m retiring; the public doesn’t
want an actress to-day. It wants a pretty girl. If I was beginning now,
instead of ending, I should be a failure. I was never really pretty.
“Men and women who have never studied acting as an art are wanted now,
young, pretty, well built. But as to acting!—the old school of acting
is a thing of the past, my dear.”
From Stageland to Shakespeare-land is a natural transit. Besides, there
is no space left in this book to describe afresh the many valued and
gifted theatrical friends to whom I devoted an entire volume in 1904,
for which a second edition was called two months after publication.
This book was _Behind the Footlights_, and it occurred to me to write
in it that “Mrs. Kendal was the most loved and most hated woman on the
stage.” These words might apply almost to Marie Corelli in literature.
Who could help loving her who saw her as I did on October 6th, 1909, at
the opening of Harvard House in Stratford-on-Avon?
It was a wonderful day.
A private train with bowls of flowers on every table, and smilax
hanging in long tendrils from the roof (all this being the offering
of the Railway Company), took us to Stratford at sixty-eight miles an
hour. Our engine was also gaily decked with flags and flowers and had
“HARVARD” painted across its front in big letters.
The sun shone brilliantly on that early autumn day, bestowing, as it
were, his blessing on this scholarly alliance of the Union Jack with
the Stars and Stripes.
A gracious little lady bade us welcome; short and “comely,” with
fluffy brown hair above a round face. As a girl our hostess must have
been a pretty little blonde English type—she owns the sweetest voice
imaginable, a voice to love, to coo a child to sleep, the most gracious
manners, and a delightful smile.
This was Marie Corelli, to whom the work of restoration of Harvard
House had been entrusted; and her guests that day saw it just as
John Harvard himself saw it as a child. In that house where this
most modern of twentieth-century novelists awaited her guests, the
sixteenth-century maiden Katherine Rogers, passed her early days, and
in 1605 went thence as the bride of Robert Harvard the merchant, to
his home in Southwark. Between that place and the small country town
on the Avon their little son spent his childish years. And just as the
river deepened and widened as it joined the infinity of the ocean,
so John Harvard’s youthful intelligence deepened and widened in the
great ocean of learning. Far, far away it bore fruit—not only in his
own generation, but the waves of scholarly influence have rippled down
through successive decades to the present day, when the College he
founded in America—the first established in the New World—sends forth
her men in thousands to all parts of the globe, and the name of Harvard
is an honoured household word through the length and breadth of the
world.
Although I had been twice to America and knew that the best of the
culture and learning in the United States emanated from Boston and
Harvard, I had not then realised that the famous University was three
hundred years old—contemporaneous with our own Will Shakespeare—nor
that its founder had been christened in our little old English Mecca.
Miss Marie Corelli had a bright word for everyone; flitted hither and
thither like a bee, made speeches charmingly, and yet it must have been
a day of great nervous strain for this little lady. A woman of taste
and refinement, a woman of organisation—as the occasion revealed, with
all its details of a luncheon for a hundred and fifty people, as well
as an opening ceremony—and withal, what a strangely imaginative mind!
Almost a seer, a mystic, a religious dreamer, a hard worker, a strange
but lovable personality—such is Marie Corelli.
Many men and women who attain great ends are egotistical—and why not?
What others admire they may surely be allowed to appreciate also.
It is the conceit of ignorance that is so detestable. The assurance of
untutored youth that annoys.
The American Ambassador was, as ever, gentle, persuasive, eloquent,
delightful. We had a long conversation on Harvard, whose virtues he
extolled; but then Mr. Whitelaw Reid is at heart a literary man and
would-be scholar, besides having enough brains to appreciate brains in
others.
Mason Croft is Miss Marie Corelli’s home. Probably no writer of
fiction—not plays, mind you, but pure fiction—ever made so much money,
or has been so widely read, as Marie Corelli. The little girl without
fortune—by pen, ink, and paper and her own imaginative mind—has won
a lovely home. It is a fine old house, charmingly furnished, and
possesses a large meadow (the “croft“) and an enticing winter garden.
The châtelaine keeps four or five horses and is a Lady Bountiful. Yes,
and all this is done by a woman with a tiny weapon of magic power.
So came the end of a delightful gathering—
But stop!
As Marie Corelli wrote the story of that day in a few pithy words, let
me be allowed to repeat her message to the _Evening News_:
“To-day, October 6th, America owns for the first time in history a
property of its own in Shakespeare’s native town.
“The ‘Harvard House,’ the gift of Mr. Edward Morris, of Chicago, to
Harvard University, was opened to-day by the American Ambassador in
the presence of a large and representative gathering of American
social magnates amid the greatest enthusiasm.
“I am proud and glad to know that my dream of uniting the oldest
university in the States to the birth town of the Immortal
Shakespeare has been carried to a successful issue.—MARIE CORELLI.”
CHAPTER XIX
ON WOMAN NOWADAYS
Woman nowadays. Poor dear! How she is abused, derided, called this,
that, and the other—but she goes steadily on her own way, and she is
forging ahead. This will be woman’s century.
Everything that is new, old age dubs “deterioration.” Because the
modern girl is not early Victorian, does not wear low dresses and satin
slippers by day, shriek at a mouse or faint, she is called “unwomanly.”
Surely this is ridiculous. She is stronger mentally and physically,
she is beginning to take her place in the world; and because in the
transition stage she has forgotten how to make cordials—which she
can buy so much cheaper at any Co-operative Stores—she is styled
“undomesticated.” Every age has its own manners, and customs and ideals.
No, no, you dear old people, don’t think her unsexed. Woman’s sphere
should be the home; but her horizon must be the world.
In one sense there is nothing new under the sun. In another everything
changes, is renewed continually, and should be new. Therefore, to call
re-arrangement deterioration is absurd. It is more often advancement.
We can no more go back than we can do without the telephone, telegraph,
or taxi-cab. We are all progressing, improving; the world is improving.
Read Society books of a couple of centuries back, and note the change.
Note the coarseness of Fielding or Smollett, and see the refinement of
to-day.
It is a very good world that we live in, but youth must not be
sacrificed to old age, any more than old age must be sacrificed to
youth. Both must stand alone.
All this hue and cry about women’s work is very ridiculous. Since the
world began women have worked. They have borne the greatest of all
burdens—child-bearing; and they have cooked and washed and mended and
made. They have ministered to the wants of man and home.
Worked? Why, of course they have worked, but they have not always
been paid. Now is their day. They are strong enough to demand the
recognition the world has been ungenerous enough to withhold.
Equality in all things for the sexes will make happier men and women,
happier homes, and a more prosperous nation.
All women cannot be bread-winners any more than all men can be
soldiers. Women are marching onward in every land, their advancement
and the progress of civilisation are synonymous terms to-day.
The greater the women, the greater the country.
It is ridiculous to say that women workers oust men. This is hardly
ever the case. In these days of endless change, when a machine is
frequently introduced that does the work of four or five men, labour is
constantly re-arranged. Then again, with increase of work, so there is
incessant all-round shifting of the distribution of employment. Women
do not take the place of men. They merely find their own footing in the
general change. There is a niche for everyone ready to fill it.
Yes, women do work, and women must work, although a vast amount of
misery might be, and ought to be, alleviated by their men-folk. The
present disastrous state of things is largely due to men not providing
for their wives or equipping their daughters to be wage-earners.
There are, of course, a few enthusiastic women who work for work’s
sake, but they take the bread out of no man’s mouth. These are the
writers of deep and profound books, who make as many shillings as they
spend pounds in collecting their material—women who love research work
in science; women who labour among the poor, organise clubs and homes,
and devote their lives to charity and good deeds; but the cases are
rare, almost _nil_, where women work for salary who do not need the
money. Those who do certainly take the bread from the mouths of men and
women alike; but the rich workers who accept pay are so few they do not
count.
Many women with small incomes seek to increase those incomes in order
to clothe their children, pay the butcher, or have more to spend
on little luxuries, but these, again, are a small class. The large
multitude of women who work are those who must do so, and they are the
ones who require help, for theirs is an uphill fight against great
odds. They have to contend with want of general education, want of
special training, want of physical strength, want of positions open to
women, when they enter the already overcrowded field of labour.
Women must work until men realise the responsibility of thrusting them
unequipped into the sea of life to sink or swim on the tide of chance.
How bravely women do it too. Aching hearts and throbbing brows are
forgotten in the fight for daily existence. Poor souls, how hard many
of them toil, how lonely are their lives, and what a struggle it is for
them to keep their heads above water. Many of them do so, however; and
to them all honour is due.
Men and women should never be pitted as rivals in anything. Each sex
has its own place to fill; but when the exigencies of fighting for
existence occur, men should nobly help the courageous woman worker over
the difficulties her men-folk have thoughtlessly placed before her.
I hate sex. Surely, in working, thinking, human beings—it does not
matter whether one wears petticoats or trousers—there should be no sex
as regards bread-earning. There are a million and a quarter too many
women in England, and the gates of independence and occupation must not
be shut in their faces. Personally, I should like boys and girls to be
equal in everything. Forget sex, bring them up together, educate them
together. Send them to public schools and Universities together, open
all the trades and professions to women the same as to men. Let them
stand shoulder to shoulder.
Many people thought that the heavens would descend if a woman became a
doctor. They were wrong. Women are doing well in medicine and surgery,
though they are still excluded from the Bar and the Church.
Yes, give girls just the same advantages as boys. Divide your incomes
equally amongst all your children when you die, irrespective of sex.
Give them equality in divorce. The world will be all the happier.
Women will find their own level—just as men do; they will make or mar
their own lives—just as men do. But let men cease shutting gates of
employment in their faces.
A nation’s power depends on the physical strength and character of its
women, and not on its army of men, or its statesmen.
How I envy men with professions. They come down to comfortable
breakfasts, without the least idea of what will be laid before them.
They enjoy it, have a look at the papers, perhaps a pipe, and then
they get into boots and top-coat, go off to their chambers, offices,
studios, or their consulting-rooms, as the case may be. They throw
themselves into their work, knowing that no interruptions will occur
during the whole course of the morning.
They enjoy their luncheon, which they have not had the worry of
ordering beforehand, and so by the time four, or five, or six o’clock
arrives they have done a good day’s work without annoyance from
outside. They have earned so much money, and not far off they see a
tangible reward. Lucky men!
How differently things go with a woman like myself, with a small
income, a house, servants, children, all as important as the daily
round of wage-earning. By the time one gets settled down to one’s desk
at nine-thirty or ten o’clock one has gone through the drudgery of it
all. The orders and wants of cook, housemaid, parlourmaid, and nurse
have all been attended to. The cheques for washing bills and grocers’
books have to be written, orders sent for coals, the soda-water
telephoned for, with all the endless round of wearying details which
every housekeeper knows. In the midst of one’s morning work, curtains
return from the cleaners, and have to be paid for at the door, or a man
comes to mend the bell, and one has to leave one’s desk to show him
exactly what is wrong. In fact, the interruptions are incessant even in
the best regulated households, and one has to bring one’s distracted
mind back from domestic details to write important letters or articles
for the Press.
A working woman’s life would be endurable were it not for the
interruptions.
Yes! I have lived the ordinary woman’s life and the professional
woman’s life as well, and I always say to myself that the professional
part is a mere bagatelle, because of the larger rewards, in comparison
with the ceaseless worries and endless interruptions that fall at the
feet of every housekeeper.
Men do not half enough appreciate the amount of work (becoming every
year more difficult), the extraordinary number of little details,
necessary to run even the simplest home.
When one covers one’s own furniture, embroiders one’s own cloths,
and trims one’s own hats into the bargain, the daily round becomes
complicated indeed.
I believe in clubs for women. It is so heavenly to get away from an
ordinary dinner. It is really a holiday to have a chop or a fried
sole, that one has not ordered hours beforehand. Besides, at the club
one sometimes learns new dishes, and certainly new ideas from the
newspapers and magazines, all of which one could not afford to take in
at home independently.
For the unmarried woman the club is absolutely indispensable. It gives
her a place where she can receive her friends, and let it be known
that women are more hospitable than men. They are poorer, but are more
generous in giving invitations to tea or a meal. Men’s clubs are full
of old women, and women’s clubs full of young men, nowadays.
A club is also a boon to the married woman, for there are days when
country relations arrive in town, when, for instance, the sweep has
been ordered at home; then the country or foreign friends can be taken
to the club, and need not know that their hostess’s small household
cannot tackle a luncheon because of the advent of the sweep.
I believe clubs encourage women to read, and I am sure that expands
their ideas and opens their minds. Women’s clubs are certainly an
advantage, and though I have been an original member of several, I
always float back to my first love, the Albemarle, where our marble
halls, once the Palace of the Bishop of Ely, receive both men and women
members.
I love my own sex. They are the guiding stars of the Universe, and the
modern girl tends to make the world much more interesting than it used
to be. Youth must spread its wings, and if it is sound youth it will be
gently guided by experience. Let the bird fly, or it will fret at the
bars of its cage, break its wings, and languish.
No one ever profited by the experience of another, any more than any
person inherited the learning of an ancestor. Alas and alack, we must
acquire both for ourselves.
To our mothers and grandmothers, with their sweet but secluded and
often sequestered lives, it would have seemed a deed of daring for
a woman to lecture the public. Would they have thought it—would our
grandfathers rather have held it “ladylike”?
It is curious how one acquires a reputation without the least
foundation. For instance, I am always being asked to lecture; sometimes
it is at a People’s Palace, sometimes before a learned society, or
on behalf of various charities, or to address the blind, or deliver
educational discourses; and even the famous Major Pond of America once
tried to persuade me to go on a lecturing tour in the States.
Tempting as his money offer was, I dared not face that vast public.
This reputation is a chimera, for I have only lectured a few times in
my life; and these occasions have chiefly been at the People’s Palace
at Vauxhall, where an audience of two or three thousand persons,
paying from one penny to sixpence, eat oranges, smoke pipes, and
otherwise enjoy themselves after their manner, while the lecturer is
doing his (or her) best to amuse them. To keep these people out of the
public-houses and well occupied for an evening seems worth even the
pain and nervousness of standing alone on a stage, nearly as big as
that of Drury Lane, with footlights before, and a huge white curtain
for one’s slides behind.
The first time I ever spoke in public was at a large meeting (seven or
eight hundred) held in the St. Martin’s Town Hall, when at an hour or
two’s notice I took the place of the late Earl of Winchilsea, and, in
reply to his bidding by telegram, discoursed for fifteen minutes on
the position of women in Agriculture, a subject in which I was much
interested at the time. I spoke from notes only, having a horror of a
read paper, which is always exasperating or inaudible. Most speeches
are too low and too long. The fifteen minutes appeared to be nothing,
but the moments of waiting were torture until the first words had come
forth. When one’s knees shake, and one’s tongue seems to cleave to the
roof of the mouth, when the audience dances like myriads of fireflies
before one’s eyes, the misery is so awful that the result is not worth
the effort.
Women are often excellent speakers, both in matter and style, and those
who have an equal amount of practice are quite as good as the best men.
Nevertheless, after-dinner speaking is, alas, far more often boring
than entertaining, and one regrets a bell does not ring after five
minutes, as a gentle hint to sit down. The poor speaker seldom knows
when the right moment to end has arrived.
Everyone is shy about something. The rough-edged shyness of youth
wears away, but we each remain tender somewhere. Shyness overpowers me
when making a speech, or on hearing my name roared into a room full
of people. The first makes me sick, in spite of having addressed an
audience of three thousand people, which I find easier than thirty; the
second makes me wish to run away.
“I’m shy,” is the excuse of youth to cover rudeness. Gauche, awkward,
ill-mannered boys and girls call these delinquencies shyness. Being
shy, however, is no extenuation of being discourteous. It is merely
selfish self-conceit allowed to run rampant instead of being checked.
How much easier it is to form a bad impression than to destroy one.
We are all imperfect, but the only chance of bettering ourselves is to
realise the fact early and try self-reform.
I have been fighting faults all my life, and although I have overcome
some of them—and I shan’t tell you what they are—a vast crop still
remain to be mowed down by the scythe of Time.
The question of women and the suffrage is now so important that it is
impossible for any thinking man or woman not to have an opinion on
the subject. What a curious thing it is that Liberals who stand for
Progress fear this onward movement. Is it because they think women in
the main are conservative?
On the 6th of February, 1907, at the time when the Women Suffragists
were being marched in scores to prison, and big processions were
being organised, and endless fusses and excitements were in the air,
_Punch_ wrote an amusing article, sweeping away the House of Lords, and
substituting for it a _House of Ladies_.
My name happened to be among the half-dozen elected Peeresses, and a
funny crew we were. Miss Christabel Pankhurst was chosen because she
was then considered the only good-looking suffragette. Madame Zansig
because of her thought-reading propensities. Clara Butt because she
could reduce chaos to harmony, and so on.
Anyway, the article was commented on tremendously in the Press, and
was the subject of much amusement among my friends. It brought me many
quibs, telegrams, and telephones of congratulation on my elevation to
the Peerage.
The following letter is from a notable woman, written about two years
later:
“EDINBURGH,
“_November 26th, 1909_.
“MY DEAR MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE,
“I am very pleased to hear that you are disposed to take a more
active part than heretofore in demonstrating your support of
Women’s Suffrage. The London Society, of which Lady Frances Balfour
is the President, is non-party in character and is opposed to
stone-throwing, whip-lashing, and other methods of violence. The
London Society is one of more than a hundred Societies, which
together form the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies of
which I am President. I have asked Miss Strachey, the Secretary
of the London Society, to send you a membership form, and if you
approve of our methods and policy, we shall be most grateful if you
will join us. I am away here in Scotland for a round of meetings,
therefore please excuse a hasty line.
“Yours sincerely,
“M. G. FAWCETT.”
Later I wrote a long article in the _Fortnightly Review_, entitled
“Women and Work,” on the strength of which I received the following
note from the pioneer of the movement:
“_June 1st, 1911._
“MY DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“I am quite delighted by your article, and thank you very much for
sending it to me. It is a very valuable armoury of facts, which
will be of great value to our speakers and workers.
“Yours sincerely,
“M. G. FAWCETT.”
Every youthful person is a revolutionary at heart; anyway, I was, but
as years have mounted up, even my radical tendencies have diminished.
The real guides of a nation are the thinkers. Democracy must obey
leadership, and leadership is the outcome of brains and learning.
Here and there a great man rises from the millions; but the larger
percentage of great men are to be found in the aristocracy and upper
middle classes, not in the lower tenth, or even the lower middle class.
I am becoming more conservative with years. It seems so much more easy
to pull down than to build, and all this Socialistic cry is towards
pulling down, upsetting, upheaving, without the slightest idea how to
draw up a programme of reform or produce a single leader of worth.
It requires brains to appreciate brains. It requires talent to
understand talent. It requires knowledge and experience to value the
beautiful, and vast capacity to build, to organise, to make or to
govern.
Many women nowadays have the full courage of their opinions. They say
things and write things; lecture on them. But for myself—well, no!—not
yet quite.
Something awful would happen to me if I wrote _all_ the things I
think. To suggest one finds it actually sinful to incubate miserable
seedlings—the offspring of poverty, children conceived in drink,
immorality, insanity, epilepsy, children doomed from birth—brings
down denunciation. One hardly dare espouse such views, while it is
considered more good, more noble, more moral to foster a population
of degenerates than to prevent it. Our prisons are largely filled by
drink or insanity, but we feed and keep the creatures and send them
out to propagate their species, who in their turn fall upon the rates.
Degenerates should never be allowed to marry.
We court adultery by our Separation Acts, tie unfortunate men and
women to lunatics, instead of clearing the air by cheap divorce. We
positively suggest infidelity by not making equal laws for men and
women. We force women to work or starve, and then abuse them for
entering men’s professions; but we hardly dare speak or write openly on
these subjects, oh dear, no!
We see women neglecting their homes for bridge or men scattering their
wits by wrongful indulgences, and yet Society does not revolt. Still
we are waking up, and why? Simply because women are beginning to take
an interest in the big questions of life; and once they take a thing up
they generally manage to sift it to the bottom.
This is woman’s century. She is playing a bold game for the equality of
the sexes, but she will win; and the world will be the purer and better
for the part she plays.
Women don’t faint nowadays, and have vapours and migraine. They no
longer make jams or weep. They are up and doing. They do things instead
of talking of them. They are becoming the comrades of men. It is the
women of the twentieth century who are going to revise Society.
Lord Emmott, the late Deputy Speaker, was one day pretending to me that
all evil came through women.
“Look at the apple,” he cited.
“Oh, come now, that chestnut is _too_ old,” I replied.
“Old but nevertheless evergreen,” he answered promptly.
If men are creating unrest and Socialism, women are spurring their
sons to work and instilling into them morality. The immoral man will
find every decent door shut in his face before another century dawns,
just as the drunkard has been hounded from Society. Who would tolerate
drunkenness at a dinner-party to-day? Men and women both shrink from
it, and the same will be felt towards loose living. Women are free, no
longer the slaves of men, and they are exercising their freedom in the
purification of all things, ably helped by their comrades.
Women don’t grow old nowadays, they no longer put on caps when they
marry, or leave the nursery to become matrons. They develop younger,
marry later, are independent and self-respecting, and never grow old.
Old ladies and bonnets have gone out of fashion.
Dress—especially women’s dress—has in all ages and climes, so far back
as we can trace by rifling tombs, and studying picture-writings and
prehistoric carvings, formed subject of comment and satire, but also of
invariable interest.
What of the dress of womanhood in this opening century? On one point
all mankind cry out and many women join in the loud appeal. Here, so
please you, is an exordium that—one woman unit—fain would publish.
WOMEN OF ENGLAND,
Unselfishness is the keynote of the female race—at least men say
so—but what must they think of us to-day? They take a ticket for a
theatre, and a woman sits in front of them whose hat is so enormous
that they cannot see above it, and her feather or tulle boa is so
huge, they cannot see round it. That “lady” ought to have paid for
a dozen seats, for she impedes the view of a dozen longsuffering
beings. Many women take their hats off (how we bless them!),
others wear dainty little caps or small (not large) Alsatian bows;
but in shame be it said, there are still women at theatres and
concerts, or at such functions as the giving of the Freedom of the
City of London to Mr. Roosevelt, whose presence is the essence of
selfishness. Where is their unselfishness? Where their kindness of
heart? Where their sympathy for the rights of others, whether male
or female?
Women of England! when your head-gear inconveniences others, bare
your heads, I pray, before an Act of Parliament is passed like the
Sumptuary Laws of old, insisting that women shall not be a “public
nuisance.”
Concede to the wishes and convenience of others before you are
humiliated and made to do so by the law.
There is no doubt a woman should dress according to her station. If
she is the wife of an artisan, she should dress suitably; if the
daughter of a professional man, she should dress with care; and if
the wife of a millionaire, she might gown herself in such material
as will give the greatest amount of employment to the greatest
number of people.
Here is where French women excel. They are taught from childhood
to regard what is _convénable_, that is, suitable, not whether
velvet pleases their eyes better than serge. For years and years
every garment I put on was made at home. I did not actually make
it. I drew the design and did the trimming, while a dear old body
who worked for me for fifteen years did the sewing. We were rather
proud of ourselves, she and I, and when I saw a description of
one of her “creations” in some paper, I sent it to her, and she
chortled with joy. An occasional tailor-made from Bond Street did
the rest. Hats! Well, I can honestly say that it was twelve years
after my husband’s death that I bought my first ready-made hat. Up
to then I trimmed them myself.
This is not boasting. It is no credit to me that _le bon Dieu_ endowed
me with a few capabilities which circumstances allowed to be developed.
Few realise the necessity of thrift at home, and yet to women it should
be one of the first cares of life. There is often more waste in the
homes of the humble than in the mansions of the rich.
Nothing is more important than the subject of thrift. “Look after the
pence, the pounds will look after themselves” is an old truism, too
often neglected. How do people grow rich? There is only one way, and
that is to be thrifty and save. Never spend all your income, be it
big or little. The rainy day will come, the loss of money, or loss of
health, and its blow is softened immeasurably for those who have been
thrifty and have saved their little nest-egg.
Order and economy are absolutely necessary to a thrifty home. It is in
the class of establishment where things are done anyhow, and at any
time, that the most money is spent, and with the least result.
Thrift, be it understood, does not mean cheapness, far from it. It is
adaptability, carefulness over little things, the personal supervision
of details that make a thrifty home; and these are the things that
are so often neglected, and considered by the careless “not worth
troubling about.” They _are_ worth troubling about; everything is worth
troubling about, be it great or be it small, be it in the household, in
personal dress, in amusements, or the kitchen. All trifles are worth
considering, and are considered by the wise.
The only way to do housekeeping really well is to pay ready money for
everything. It is satisfactory in two ways. In the first place the
housekeeper knows exactly where she stands, what she has, and what she
can afford to spend. In the second place, it is very much cheaper—for
all articles, which are paid for by cash, are sold at a lower rate than
those for which the date of payment is problematical, and the risk of
non-payment sometimes great.
Happiness means possessing about double what you think you will spend.
Then, and then only, will you have a margin. For instance,
imagine a trip abroad will cost fifty pounds. Believe you have put down
every possible item for tickets, hotel bills, tips, and all the rest
of it; then _remember_ that you have forgotten extra cabs, theatres,
exhibitions, little presents, stamps, and all the thousand-and-one
things that come under “odds” or “petty cash,” and allow fifty pounds
for them; you will then be happy.
Ditto with a house or a dress. With all care work it out at
so-and-so, but these “_oddses_” will always creep in and double the
estimate—“_oddses_” are always more than items.
A twin to Thrift is Tidiness. And here we are not always equal to the
standard of our foremothers. “Oh, but life was so much more leisurely
then,” it may be replied. “They had heaps more time and less to do;
nowadays life is an everlasting rush.”
It is a rush; but more haste, less speed, is still true. And tidiness
is a kind of book-keeping.
The economics of housekeeping mean everything in its place, and a
right place for everything, and that is the only possible method for
a busy woman. The more busy we become, the more methodical we must
be; professional women have no time to waste in looking for things.
Organisation saves hours of misery. Tidiness in the home and tidiness
in the person bring joy wherever found. Muddle is lack of organisation.
Trifles make up life, and a busy woman’s trifles keep her straight. She
can lay her hand on anything in the dark, or send someone to find it,
because she knows where she put it. The more engagements we have, the
more punctual we must be.
“You are always so busy, I wonder you find time to do things,”
exclaimed a friend who wanted a recipe for some Russian soup she had
just had at my table.
“It is because I am busy that I have time.”
“That is a paradox,” she replied.
“Paradoxes are often true,” was my rejoinder. “Busy people have method.”
Success is the result of grasping opportunities—being busy is the
achievement of method—being idle is the courtship of unhappiness and
the seducer of attainment. Time is a tremendously valuable
asset. In my busy life I have never allowed more than twenty minutes
to dress for a dinner, or ball, or for riding, and fifteen usually
suffice. When one changes dresses three or four times a day, as London
often necessitates, even that runs away with precious moments.
It is the duty of every married man to go carefully into his income,
see exactly how much he has, and after putting by a certain proportion
for the rainy day, decide how much he has to spend. Having decided
that, the best thing he can possibly do is to divide his income in
half. The first half let him keep for himself: he can pay the rent,
taxes, the children’s school bills, pay for the family outings, the
wine bill, the doctor and druggist, clothe himself, and have enough for
his personal expenses, and pay all outside things, such as gardeners
and chauffeurs. The other half of his income he should hand over to his
wife. She can keep the house, feed the family, pay the servants, and
the thousand-and-one little things that are ever necessary to run a
household, and pay her personal expenses. Everything, in fact, inside
the house. Once having definitely tackled the subject of money, and
arranged who is to pay for each particular item, the man should never
be asked what he has done with his money; neither should the woman be
teased, nagged at, worried, and harassed as to what she has done with
every penny of her share, how she expended it, and so on. Each should
trust the other implicitly in detail. Haggling over money has upset
more homes than infidelity.
The way to make a woman careful, methodical, and business-like is
to trust her. She may at first make a few mistakes over her banking
account, but she will buy her experience, and will be very foolish
if she does not make her pounds go as far as they should, and keep a
reserve in her pocket.
If more men only continued the little courtesies of the lover to the
wife, those sweet attentions that went so far to win the woman, then
all would go smoothly. Married life should be one long courtship.
Women appreciate appreciation. Alas, instead, matrimony is too often
a ceaseless wrangle. Men scold and women nag. Foolish both. I am no
man-hater, far, far from it. Men are delightful; but one inconsiderate
or cruel man can so easily wreck a home and bring misery on his wife
and family, and men are sometimes a little selfish. Aren’t they?
Hobbies are delightful—they make existence so much more interesting—a
collection of teapots or buttons, miniatures or pewter. It really
doesn’t much matter what it is, but it gives one pleasure to poke about
in old shops, in odd towns, and secure an occasional prize. Hobbying is
like fly-fishing. It takes a deal of patience; but it is worth the play
for the joy of landing the fish.
Hobbies, Max Nordau tells us, are a sign of weakness and degeneration,
even of madness. Our nicknacks, our love of red and yellow, and things
artistic, tend to show mental lowering.
All this applies to me. I must be far gone, and yet I am happier than
the hobbiless being, who to my mind is as depressing as a dose of
calomel.
Any collection of facts or fancies, while in itself an occupation,
eventually leads to something tangible. Life is so much more
entertaining and engrossing if we take the trouble to interest
ourselves in something or someone.
Surely, it is a good thing to encourage children from their earliest
days to be interested outside their own wee sphere; to teach them to
work and sew, make scrap-books for the hospitals, baskets or toys
for poorer and less fortunate children, even to learn geography from
stamps. It is in the nursery we acquire our first knowledge of life.
Occupations and hobbies should be fostered in the earliest years;
carpentry, wood-carving, metal-work all being taken up in turn by boys;
cooking, sewing, painting, by girls, as well as the thousand-and-one
useful works they can do in their own homes.
The business of idleness is appalling—the overwork of attainment is
worth the trouble.
CHAPTER XX
AMERICAN NOTES
America is a vast country, likewise a vast subject to tackle.
Everything there is vast, its mercantile projects, its successes,
its catastrophes—but, above all, it possesses a vast wealth in the
warm hearts of its kindly people. I have so many friends on the other
side of the “herring pond,” that my memory lingers with pleasure and
interest in the United States.
I wonder how many times since I returned from my last delightful visit
in 1904 people have asked me what I thought of Roosevelt (Rosie-felt).
Those last weeks of the year had been spent in Mexico—my second visit
to that remarkable and enchanting land—as the guest of President
Diaz and his charming wife. Their great kindness, together with the
interesting phase of life unfolded to me day by day, as I made notes
for the _Diaz Life_, brought a desire to make the acquaintance of His
Excellency’s neighbour-President of the United States—Mr. Roosevelt.
It was about as difficult to see Mr. Roosevelt as to see the King of
England, perhaps even more so, for a good introduction would produce
a presentation to our sovereign, whereas in America even a good
introduction is looked upon with suspicion. President Roosevelt was
surrounded by a perfect cordon of officials.
The White House is one of the best things in America. It is a low,
rambling building, quite attractive in style, and like the homes of a
great many noblemen in England. There is nothing of the palace about
it; it does not seem big enough for the President of the United States,
although standing on rising ground, amid beautiful surroundings. It
is in a way more handsome externally—and decidedly more imposing—than
Buckingham Palace, and a great deal cleaner. The decorations of the
interior I thought appalling, but that may be my bad taste. They were
so horribly new, and American.
The day on which I was received at the White House happened to be the
eighteenth anniversary of the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt. They
had been the recipients of congratulatory messages from all parts of
the country, but the President was busy as ever. Except his annual
recess, he knew no holiday.
I presented myself at the portico. Policemen were everywhere; at each
corner was a blue coat.
“Pass on, if you please,” was the order of proceedings, until I arrived
at a sort of conservatory door, where another policeman bade me enter.
Horrors! a gaunt, square room with a small, empty writing-table in the
middle, and chairs standing all round close against the four walls. It
was enough to chill one’s enthusiasm. Worse than all! on nearly every
chair sat a man who stared obtrusively at the entrance of a woman.
Had I known the sort of ordeal to be passed through, in spite of my
excellent introductions, I doubt if I should have ventured at all.
Not daring to run away, I sat on a chair like the rest, and felt that,
instead of my best, my worst frock would have been the most appropriate
for the occasion. One man was summoned to a particular door, and his
neighbour to another, and then an old gentleman came forward to me and
bowed.
“Mrs. Alec Tweedie, I believe? Would you please to step this way? The
President will see you immediately.”
“A haven of refuge at last,” thought I, “anyway a carpet and a
cushioned seat.” But even here three men were sitting and waiting in
solemn silence, and all the staring had to be gone through again.
Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour of this awful tension passed, and
then two more individuals were ushered in, and sat down, not one—of all
the five staring beings—uttering a word. I was getting quite nervous,
and wondering how best to slip away, when the door opened again.
Merely expecting a sixth sitter, I did not even take the trouble to
look up. A vision stopped before me.
“Mrs. Tweedie, I am delighted to meet you,” it said. But somehow it
was so short and round and smiling, that I did not grasp the fact that
President Roosevelt himself was addressing me. A few pleasant words and
he added, “If you will go in there, I will be with you in a moment.”
I went in. This was his own private room, large, plain, and neat, with
an enormous, highly polished table reflecting a few roses in a vase. It
was just a nice sort of office and nothing more. The only interesting
personal thing appeared to be a business-like gun standing in a corner.
I sat and waited, but as the door was wide open I could see and hear
the following:
“How do you do? Delighted to see you. Am very busy at the moment, but
if there is anything I could do for you quickly, well——” Hesitancy, and
a few murmured remarks.
“Well, I’m afraid I can’t spare any time for that this morning.
Good-bye!” So in five minutes the President got rid of all those five
long-suffering, long-waiting mortals.
That was enough to make one run away without even waiting to say
Good-bye. But feeling how foolish that kind of thing would be, I braced
myself for the effort, and murmured:
“I’ve not come to ask you to make me a Bishop, or my uncle a Senator,
or my nephew an Ambassador, so perhaps I’ve no business here at all. In
fact, I’ve not come to ask for anything.”
The President laughed heartily, and, throwing himself back into a
capacious arm-chair, soon proved himself to be a very human specimen of
mankind.
There is no doubt about it, Roosevelt is an extraordinary man, and a
strong one. There may be a little of the ungoverned schoolboy about
him, but he is right at heart. His energy and enthusiasm prompted him
to do things which, in his position, may not always have been discreet,
but he accomplished a vast deal more for America than folk in his own
country yet realise.
It was all the more interesting to see and talk to this amazing
personality as I had just come direct from Mexico. No greater contrast
was possible than that between the two then Presidents of those
neighbouring countries.
Diaz—calm, quiet, reserved, strong, determined, thoughtful, and
far-seeing.
Roosevelt—impetuous, outspoken, fearless, hasty in action, and hurried
in forming opinions.
Both remarkable men, very remarkable men, and utterly dissimilar in
character as in physiognomy; each admiring the other in a perfectly
delightful way. Roosevelt writes a hand like a schoolboy’s, and, with
all his business rush and appetite for work, it somehow seemed to me
that he would love quiet sentimental songs and pretty poems. No doubt
there may be more clever men in America, more learned men, more suave
and polished diplomatists, but this man is a judicious mixture that
makes him great. In truth he is a gigantic personality. He is not in
the least American except in his unrestrained enthusiasm and rough
exterior. He gesticulates like a foreigner, his mind works quickly.
Withal he was the right man in the right place, and the United States
had every cause to be proud of him.
Once more I met, or rather saw and heard, America’s greatest living
President. But how this chanced was at a sad time for our country.
As told elsewhere, I was doing a cure at Woodhall Spa at the time
of King Edward VII.’s death. It happened that on my return to town
I tumbled across my old friend the late Sir Joseph Dimsdale, in the
railway dining-car, when the conversation turned on Mr. Roosevelt and
his visit to England.
I regretted the circumstances that had saddened his reception; also
that he should see nothing of our Court and alas! of the Monarch whom
he had so much admired. And then we talked of the Freedom of the City,
which was to be conferred on the ex-President in a few days’ time.
“Although my Cambridge boy was made a Freeman of the City of London the
other day, I have never witnessed the ceremony,” I said.
“Would you like to see one of these public ones?” asked the ex-Lord
Mayor.
“Immensely,” I replied.
“If it is possible to manage it, you shall have a seat,” he replied,
and accordingly I was invited to see Mr. Roosevelt made free of the
Ancient City of London, and enjoyed the privilege of hearing one of the
most memorable speeches ever made within the Guildhall walls: certainly
one of the most abused, admired, discussed.
Was Roosevelt playing to the gallery?
Was he angling for the Presidency of the United States? Or was he
really trying to do England a good turn in correcting her stupidity in
Egypt?
Anyway, it was a bold stroke, but done so skilfully that it did not
seem so rude as it looked in cold print.
I had been much struck with Roosevelt’s personality when I spent that
hour _tête-à-tête_ with him in Washington—his rough-and-ready manner,
his fearless, overflowing geniality—but I had never heard him speak in
public.
The giving of the Freedom of the City of London is a great event, very
old, very historic, very interesting, surrounded by ancient ritual.
As the Guildhall only holds about twelve hundred people, and that
twelve hundred is mainly composed of Aldermen and aldermanic wives,
sheriffs, ex-Lord Mayors, Masters of City Companies and burgesses, and
a very business element, with a very business-like class of femininity,
ordinary outsiders like myself are rare.
Owing to the death of Edward VII. everyone wore black. This made the
Hall look its best, for the red robes, or dark blue and fur of the
officials, contrasted well with the sombre hue of the audience.
Roosevelt was the personification of quiet dignity as he walked up the
central aisle, subdued possibly by nervousness, and he was very still
on the platform seated on the right of the Lord Mayor, with the Mace
and other Insignia of Pomp on the table before him.
Sir Joseph Dimsdale’s speech as Chamberlain of the City was excellent.
Well delivered by a far-reaching voice, with the manners of a
gentleman, the learning of a scholar, and the tact of a diplomat. It
was all that a speech of the kind ought to be.
Then rose Roosevelt the Democrat.
He bowed to everybody. To the right, to the left, behind and before,
and while doing so, walked about the platform, as he did at intervals
during the whole of his speech.
Speech? It was no address, no oration. He is not an orator. He merely
had a friendly chat with an audience he hoped was friendly disposed.
Although no speaker, he is convincing. He continually stretched out his
right arm and pointed his finger at some particular person and spoke
directly to him, as he thundered forth:
“You won’t like it. You won’t like what I am going to say! but I am
going to say it, and it is this!” Then glancing at the papers in his
left hand, he read all the important parts. He had evidently prepared
it with great care, and he said exactly so much and no more. He never
gave more than three or four words without a pause; in a staccato way
he hurled his ideas at his audience in the simplest language possible,
but with a real American accent.
He was grave and weighty. He was very deliberate as he addressed
different people by gesture, but he named no one, although Lord Cromer,
Sir Edward Grey, and Mr. Balfour, were all at his elbow. One could
not help feeling the earnestness of the man, and his claim to be an
idealist when he spoke of the future of nations, and begged the public
to throw aside the question, “Will it pay?” “Great nations must do
great work,” he said, “such work as Panama, or Egypt, and not ask that
eternal question, ‘Will it pay?’”
Personally, I think he did it extremely well, and feel also that,
coming from a stranger, his words may probably have the desired effect,
and make us strengthen our government in Egypt and India before we lose
these two grand possessions.
While I was in Washington I again saw my old friend Secretary John Hay,
who gave me his photograph taken in December, 1904, and consequently
his last. He looked ill then, but was so keenly interested in Mexican
affairs, and spoke so eulogistically of General Diaz, that on my return
to England I ventured to ask him if he would write a few lines for the
Biography of the Mexican President, on which I was by that time working.
He had already started for Europe when the letter arrived, but he
wrote the following hurried lines, penned a week after his return to
Washington from his last trip in search of health, when he must have
been very busy:
“DEPARTMENT OF STATE, WASHINGTON,
“_June 20th, 1905_.
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“I have received your letter of the 14th of March, asking me to
contribute something to your _Life of Diaz_.
“It would be a very great pleasure to me to have my name associated
with yours in what I am sure will be a very interesting work, but
I am obliged to decline all such requests, however agreeable and
flattering they may be.
“I am, with many thanks,
“Sincerely yours,
(Signed) “JOHN HAY.”
The letter was delivered in London the day following his death.
America has always sent us of her best in Ambassadors, but none was
more popular or more respected than Colonel John Hay. The most shy and
retiring of men, he abhorred ovations; public speaking was torture to
him, yet he was the constant recipient of the first, and was excellent
at the second. One of the most cultured of American Ambassadors, he was
really a man of letters. He had not the acute legal knowledge of Mr.
Choate, nor the diplomatic manner of Mr. Whitelaw Reid, but the world
knew him and admired him as a man who was honest to the core.
No Secretary of State ever did more to bring his country to the front
than John Hay. A number of most difficult foreign questions requiring
prompt decision—Cuba and the Philippines, Japan and China—came to the
forefront during his term of office; and the position, maintained in
the world of diplomacy by the United States, was, at the time of his
death, totally different from that existing when he first entered her
service in the Senate at Washington.
Napoleon may have merely boasted when he declared that every French
soldier carried a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack. The saying
would be literally true if applied to those who march in the ranks of
industry and politics in America. There is no office in the State which
is not open to the man of brains and grit.
If asked for a type of the go-ahead American who is making his mark,
I should be inclined to name John Barrett. I have run across him in
several quarters of the globe.
Keen and shrewd, with a Gargantuan appetite for work, Barrett, at the
age of some forty years, had already been United States Minister to
Siam, Argentina, Panama, and Colombia; he was Commissioner General
to Foreign Nations of the St. Louis World’s Fair, and a year or
two later held the important post of Director of the International
Bureau of American Republics, towards the establishment of which in
Washington, Carnegie gave a million sterling. One of his most marked
characteristics is his readiness to act in sudden emergency.
An open-air gathering in a very small New England town was being held
in support of Mr. Roosevelt. From the platform a man with a high
forehead and intellectual features was making a speech; clearly and
logically he dealt with the manner in which his country was fulfilling
its obligations in the Philippines and Panama. The speaker showed
remarkable personal familiarity with America’s Far Eastern possessions,
and with Central American affairs. Many farmers were in the audience.
Seeing this, the orator emphasised one of his points with a homely
illustration from farm life, adding:
“I know what it is to work on a farm myself.”
That was too much for a stalwart young Democratic rustic, who, with
others of the same party, had been attracted to the meeting by
curiosity. He eyed the speaker’s faultless frock coat, immaculate shirt
front and grey striped trousers, likewise the shining hat on the table
behind him. Then he arose in his place and blustered out:
“What bluff are you giving us? _You_ never worked on a farm! Bet yer
never milked a cow in your life!”
“Not only have I milked cows,” replied the orator quietly, “but, what
is more, I will put up a hundred dollars against the same amount
to be put up by you and your party friends—the sum to go to local
charity—that I can milk a cow faster than you can. Appoint a committee
and produce the cows.”
The challenge was taken up. By the time the speech was brought to
its close a committee was selected. It consisted of a Democrat, a
Republican, and a woman. Two Jersey cows, procured from a neighbouring
farm, were driven on to the platform. In full view of the electors each
of the contestants seated himself on a milking stool and took a pail
between his legs, the orator—“spell-binder” is the Americanism—still in
his frock coat, with silk hat tilted on the back of his head.
“Are you ready?” came the words.
“Go!”
The milk rattled in the bottoms of the pails. It was still rattling
in the young farmer’s pail when it already had begun to swash in the
“spell-binder’s,” and the latter had his cow milked dry before his
opponent was half through. The meeting wound up in a blaze of glory for
the victor.
That was Mr. John Barrett, the diplomatic representative of his country
in Panama, who was spending his leave in electioneering. He paid his
way in part through college with money he earned as a day labourer on
farms during the summer. First a schoolmaster, he drifted early into
journalism, with its wider opportunities, and working on San Francisco
newspapers, he divined what had remained hidden from people who had
spent all their lives on the Pacific coast—the opportunity that was
awaiting America across that vast body of water.
I first met Mr. Barrett when he was brought to call on me in London.
Later, on an October day in 1904, I was sitting in the “Waldorf” in New
York, talking to Colonel John Wier, when a man passed. He paused and
whisked round.
“Mrs. Alec Tweedie,” he exclaimed. “Why, where have you come from?”
“London; and you, Mr. Barrett?”
“Panama.”
We had both travelled far over the world since he had dined with me
in London a couple of years before, and yet our paths crossed in that
great meeting-place, the “Waldorf.” It was during his leave from duty
which I have just mentioned, and he was very busy. Unfortunately I was
leaving the same day for Chicago, but we met again in that city. His
enthusiasm for Roosevelt was delightful; “the greatest man on earth,”
according to him, “delightful to work under.” They had just been having
an hour’s conversation on the telephone, though Washington lies nearly
a thousand miles away.
“Won’t you come to Panama and write a book?” he said. “The Canal is to
be the revolution of the world’s traffic, and one of the finest spokes
in the American wheel.”
Poor old Lesseps; adored over Suez, damned over Panama, and then,
thirty years later, to have his dearest scheme realised by America,
through the aid of hygienic science. But more of my Lesseps friends in
a later volume.
Early in 1908 came a charming letter from Mr. Barrett, then at
Washington, part of which may be quoted here:
“... Now I want to tell you something I am sure will delight you.
When Mr. Elihu Root, whom I regard as the greatest Secretary of
State we have had in fifty years, made his recent trip to Mexico,
I placed in his hands your two books relating to that country
and President Diaz. Both of these he read with exceeding care,
and I heard him say that he found the one on President Diaz most
interesting and instructive. He has recommended many men to read
them both. We have the two volumes in the Library, and they are
consulted with much frequency.
“With kind personal regards, I remain,
“Yours very cordially,
(Signed) “JOHN BARRETT.”
John Barrett is now the head of the Great Pan-American Union of
American Republics in Washington.
Clara Morris, another personality of the West, was one of the greatest
actresses America has produced, and her book was one of the most
realistic presentations of stage life. On going to the States in 1900 I
wanted to see her, but she had retired. However, when I returned on my
second visit, she was back on the stage—the usual story of reverses.
It so chanced I was in Chicago that October, paying a visit to those
delightful people the Francis Walkers. _Behind the Footlights_ was
selling well in an American edition, and on learning that I was in
the city, the managers of the different theatres most kindly sent me
boxes. Success cannot adequately be gauged by gold, it brings friends
and opportunities beyond mere dross. One night we went to the Illinois
Theatre (since destroyed by fire, with frightful loss of life), and
occupied Mr. William Davis’s own box, to see _The Two Orphans_. There
was an “all-star” cast.
I had never seen that play since I was a little girl. It had been
almost my first theatrical experience; and, as the first act proceeded,
the story came back with more force than in any production seen for
the second time nowadays, after even only a week or two’s interval.
These childish impressions had sunk deep in the memory. In Chicago this
inferior drama was well acted, and again I noticed how many English
people were upon the boards. More than half the actors and actresses of
America are English, or of British parentage.
Clara Morris played the nun. She received a perfect ovation, and needed
to bow again and again before she was allowed to proceed with her small
part. There was a quiet dignity about her, and when she told the lie to
save the girl, she rose to a high level of dramatic power. After that
Mr. Davis came and took me to her dressing-room.
We did not get into the wings through an iron door direct from the
boxes, as in London, but had to go right to the back of the theatre,
down some stairs, under the stalls (there never is a pit), below the
stage, and upstairs again to the stage, where Clara Morris had a small
dressing-room almost on the footlights, it was so far in front. This
was _the_ star dressing-room, but it was certainly smaller than those
in our theatres, and one cannot imagine how three or four dresses and a
dresser ever squeezed into it.
She welcomed us at the door. “Mam, I am delighted to see you,” she
said, with a true American “Mam.” Her hand trembled, for she had just
left the stage after her big scene, and she was an elderly woman. I
told her how keen had been my wish to see her, and how I had quoted her
in my book. She knew that, and thanked me, saying many pretty things,
and added:
“No, I never dared play in England, although I have been there, and
loved it.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because of my ac-cent. You see, I was born in the West, where from
the age of thirteen I toiled at this profession. I starved and cried,
worked and struggled, and when success did come and I moved up East the
critics always rubbed in two things—my intonation and my accent. My
voice was criticised up hill and down dale. ‘A great actress, _but_——’
Then came down the hail. Mam, if my accent grated in America, among
all our awful accents here, what would it have done in Britain, with
your soft, beautiful voices? So I refused to go again and again. Then
also when success had come I felt, ‘This public likes me, my bed and
bread depend upon them; if I go to England and fail they will turn
their back upon me, and I shall starve again.’ And so, Mam, regretfully
I refused.”
She spoke dramatically, fire shot from those large, wonderful grey
eyes. I noticed she was not painted. Only the tiniest amount of
make-up I have ever seen on any actress was upon her face, and then I
remembered her words of warning upon the subject. In all those years
she had not changed her mind.
Her husband, an elderly man with white hair, stood or sat while we
talked in the tiny room, and as the last curtain came down I rose to
leave.
“Will you give me your photograph, please?”
“My dear, I haven’t one. My ugliness has caused me so much pain in life
that I have almost never let a camera be turned upon me. That was my
second horror: ‘She is a great actress, _but_——’ And then down came the
bricks upon my looks. God made me this way, but my critics have found
it a personal sin.”
And she waxed warm on the subject. Her grey eyes were beautiful,
however, they were so expressive; still her mouth was large, and her
features heavy and bad. Her voice certainly _had_ grated upon me when
I first heard it. With those who found fault with her voice I had
sympathy, but none with the beauty-seekers, for expression comes before
everything, and Clara Morris’s expression was wonderful.
She wore her wedding ring upon her little finger, for whatever part she
played through life she had never taken it off.
“You see how sentimental I have been,” she laughed.
In reply to a question, I replied that I had to be back in England for
my boys’ holidays. Only once was I absent at holiday time, and on that
occasion they were with my mother.
“Happy woman!” she exclaimed. “How I have always longed for children;
though such happiness never came to me. But I have an old mother who
still lives, thank God; and as long as a woman has a mother she can
never grow old or feel lonely.”
Another remarkable figure in America, when I was over there in 1904,
was Dowie the prophet, or as some on this side of the Atlantic more
correctly termed him—the “Profit”; perhaps the biggest humbug that even
his own vast country of adoption has produced.
Of course I went to see Dowie and Zion City; everybody did. The place
lay within an hour’s railway journey of Chicago. Four years before it
had been waste land. In the interval there had sprung up a railway
station, an hotel called Elijah House, a whole town of residences,
a huge tabernacle capable of holding seven thousand people, and a
population of over ten thousand souls.
Knowing his gross life, the horrible language he used, knowing also
that he was hounded out of England for his vituperation against King
Edward—his King, for Dowie was born in Edinburgh and had lived only
sixteen years in the States—I was surprised to find such a charming,
kindly old gentleman. A man nearly seventy years of age, short and
stout like Ibsen, with a large strong head and a grey beard; such was
“Elijah,” as he pleased to call himself.
Dowie received me in a most magnificent, book-lined library; thousands
of well-bound volumes—for which I have since heard he never paid—filled
the shelves. Beside him on the table stood a machine that was clicking.
“What is that?” I asked, having visions of dynamite.
He solemnly handed me a telegram which read:
“Tom and Mary Bateson” (or some such names) “are seriously ill; pray
for them.”
Looking me full in the face, he remarked:
“Tom and Mary Bateson were cured at 2.55.”
It was then 3.30.
“How?” I asked.
“Through my prayers,” he replied, “by faith.” And taking up a little
piece of paper, he clicked on it through the machine.
“A duplicate of this,” he explained, “has been posted to the sick man’s
friends so that they may have the record, but of course they felt the
benefit of the prayer the moment I gave it.”
He spoke so solemnly, so impressively, and with such apparent belief in
his own infallibility, that he greatly impressed me. I kept the piece
of paper as a memento of the occasion. It is short and business-like,
and is here reproduced:
PRAYED
NOV 2 2-55 PM 1904
JOHN ALEX. DOWIE.
The man was a charlatan. One felt it in his eyes and in the grasp of
his hand; and yet at the same time there was so much enthusiasm about
him, it was easy to understand how people came under his sway.
Not one of those ten thousand persons, who then filled Zion City, drank
alcohol, smoked tobacco, swore, gambled, or ate swine’s flesh.
The people, whether from fear or love I know not, certainly worshipped
the prophet. Unlike the Christian Scientists, he believed in illness,
and said it was punishment for sin and would be cured by prayer.
When I saw him he was revelling in every imaginable luxury, decked his
wife in diamonds and fine gowns, ate off superb mahogany and handsome
silver. Dowie was rich and prosperous, for every one of his followers
was forced to give him a tenth of all he earned. Yet such were his
extravagances that the largest shop in Chicago took possession of one
of his summer residences, and let it, so that the rent might pay their
bill.
Prophet or no prophet, Dowie had a keen eye to business. Everything
stood in his own name: land, houses, furniture, and, as his son showed
no spiritual desires, he educated him as a lawyer, with a view that he
should continue in the town, in a business-like way presumably.
Dowie owned also factories of lace, sweets, biscuits, soap, harness,
brooms, tailoring, even sewing machines and pianos. His disciples
generally came to him with a knowledge of various trades, and he made
use of that knowledge in a profitable way.
Dowie was a prodigious humbug, and died a beggar.
After many happy weeks spent in the States I am not in the least
surprised that Englishmen should marry American women. They show their
good taste—I should do the same were I a man. Nor am I surprised that
American women should prefer Englishmen—for the same remark applies.
There is a delightful freedom, an air of comradeship coupled with
pleasant manners and pretty looks in the American woman which are most
attractive. Her hospitality is unbounded, her generosity thoughtful,
and she is an all-round good sort.
The American woman is an excellent speaker. It is surprising to hear
her oratory at one of her large club luncheons, such as the Sorosis
in New York. I was honoured with an invitation as their special guest
(1900), and for the first time in my life saw two hundred women sit
down together for a meal. The club woman is young and handsome, well
dressed and pleasing, and she stands up and addresses a couple of
hundred women just as easily as she would begin a _tête-à-tête_ across
a luncheon table. She is not shy, or if she is she hides it cleverly.
Americans entertain royally; they almost overpower the stranger with
hospitality. They are generous in a high degree, not only in big
things, but in constantly thinking of “little gifts or kindnesses”
to shower upon their guests. They become the warmest and truest of
friends, in spite of their sensitiveness and hatred of criticism.
Never were any people so sensitive about their country or themselves,
or so ready to take offence at the slightest critical word. But we
all have our weaknesses, and while we are too terribly thick-skinned
and self-satisfied, Americans are perhaps too sensitive for their own
happiness. They are not only warm friends amongst themselves both in
sunshine and in shade, but they are equally staunch to their English
visitors. They may in the main be a tiny bit jealous of England, but
individually they seem to love British people, and welcome them so
warmly one can only regret that more English do not travel in America
where they would see her people at their best, for, alas! many of the
Americans who come over here leave a wrong impression altogether of the
charms of our brothers and sisters across the Atlantic.
The more the inhabitants of these two countries see of one another,
the better they understand and appreciate each other’s feelings, the
stronger are forged the links of the chain of brotherhood. And the
stronger this chain is made, the better for the whole world.
America! It is impossible to mention here all the delightful people I
met in America, from Mark Twain to Thompson Seton; from Kate Douglas
Wiggin to Gertrude Atherton; from Agnes Lant to Julia Marlowe; from
Jane Addams to Louise Chandler Moulton; from Dana Gibson to Roosevelt.
Their names are legion, and in grateful remembrance they lie until I
can visit their shores again, and shake them by the hand. I simply
loved the American women.
The following delightful Christmas note from Dr. Horace Howard Furness,
the great Shakespearian writer of America, and one of her foremost
sons, is an instance of the kindly remembrance and loyal friendliness
the American people keep green for their English friends, bridging not
only the billowy Atlantic but the swift stream of Time.
“WALLINGFORD,
DELAWARE COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA,
_December 12, 1910_.
“MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE,
London, England.
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“’Tis very pleasant to know that you still hold me in remembrance,
whether it be in the bright days of Christmas-tide or in the grey
days of the rest of the year.
“It is good to know that you have been journeying with your boys.
What happy fellows they must have been, and what a proud, proud
mother you!
“Politics in England, at present, are intensely interesting, and
it is certainly pleasanter to look on from afar than to be in the
turmoil itself. Having lived through that horrible nightmare, our
own Civil War, I have learned that it is far from pleasant to live
in times which the Germans call ‘epoch-machende.’
“One thing seems certain, that after this fierce struggle, England
will never again be in such a waveless bay as in the Victorian
period. England must grow, and a growing boy’s clothes must be
either made larger or they will rip.
“I had a delightful, affectionate letter from your Uncle a week
or two ago. He tells me that your mother is staying with him, and
suffers from rheumatism, a terrible ailment, which is so widespread
that it never receives half the deep sympathy to which it is
entitled. Do give my kindest remembrances to her when you write.
“With every friendly wish for the happiness of you and yours at
Christmas time and throughout the coming year,
“I remain, dear Mrs. Tweedie,
“Yours cordially and affectionately,
“HORACE HOWARD FURNESS.”
CHAPTER XXI
CANADIAN PEEPS
Canada is the land of possibilities.
On September 1st, 1900, I landed at Quebec, with introductions from the
late Governor-General of Canada (the Earl of Aberdeen), to be warmly
welcomed by the great historian of that country, Sir James Le Moine. He
had written endless volumes on the Dominion, among the best known being
_The Legends of the St. Lawrence_ and _Picturesque Quebec_.
As to the writings of this Canadian “worthy,” to quote the word fitly
describing him, the following extract from an article dealing with them
will best explain to some who may not know what a work of filial love
was his in chronicling the history of his native province.
“Nearly half a century ago James Macpherson Le Moine, advocate, and
inspector of inland revenue for the district of Quebec, published a
modest little volume of historical and legendary lore relating to the
city and environs of Quebec, under the title of _Maple Leaves_. Little
had been accomplished, prior to that time, in the way of collecting
the scattered wealth of Lower Canadian legends and folklore, and
English-speaking Canadians knew scarcely anything of the extremely
valuable collections of manuscript sources of early Canadian history,
scattered through the vaults of various public buildings in Quebec. To
Le Moine, whose maternal grandfather was a Macpherson, though on his
father’s side the young author was a French-Canadian, belongs much of
the credit, through his English books, in interesting English-speaking
Canadians in the history, the traditions, and the archæology of
French Canada. It was at his initiative and under his presidency that
the Quebec Literary and Historical Society, founded by the Earl of
Dalhousie in 1824, undertook the publication of some of the most
important existing manuscripts concerning the early history of the
country.”
The morning after my arrival in Montreal, a week later, various people
presented themselves before me—they had seen long notices in the two
papers that morning, and came on errands of friendship, or through
introductions. One was announced as “Dr. Drummond.”
I looked up; the name conveyed nothing to me; and as I was not ill, I
wondered at the visit.
“If I can be of any service to you,” he said, “you have but to
command me. I knew your father, his profession is my profession, your
profession is mine too.”
“You write? Are you any connection of _the_ Dr. Drummond who wrote the
_Habitant_?” I asked.
“I am he.”
“Oh, then, you can indeed do something for me.”
“And that is?”
“Take me to see the Habitants in their own homes.”
Accordingly I spent several days among the farms and cottages of the
old French-Canadians with this large-hearted man. I shall never forget
his recitation of his own poems. They brought tears to my eyes and
lumps to my throat, they were so simple and so real. And these poor
folk loved him. It was a treat to see a man so respected and adored by
the people whom he had been at such pains to make understood. Drummond
was the Kipling—the Bret Harte of Canada. He was not much of a French
scholar. His accent was horrible, but he comprehended. He had that
human understanding and perception that count for more than mere words.
He would sit and smoke in the corner with an old man, and draw him out
to tell me stories while the wife made cakes for our tea.
Complimenting me on my French, he said:
“I can’t speak like you; often I can’t even say or ask what I want.”
“Perhaps if you knew more, you would not be able to make your poems so
quaint,” I replied.
“I believe you are right. I jot down the English or French words just
as I use them, as the Habitants use them, and perhaps if I knew more I
should not do that.”
He was so human, so lovable, and at that time so poor. Half a dozen
years afterwards Fortune smiled. His books were selling well; his
cobalt mines had begun to pay. Then he heard disease (smallpox I think
it was) had broken out at the far-away mines.
“I must go,” he said. “I cannot take the money these men are bringing
me, without going to their help.”
He went; but almost before he had had time to make his medical
knowledge of value to them, he was himself stricken and died.
Poor Drummond, a lovable character, and a genial comrade. The following
verses are a good specimen of his style. They are taken from “The
Habitant’s Jubilee Ode,” written at the time of the celebration of the
sixtieth year of Queen Victoria’s rule. Why, the Habitant is asking
himself, are the “children of Queen Victoriaw comin’ from far away? For
tole Madame w’at dey t’ink of her, an’ wishin’ her bonne santé.” The
answer is good French-Canadian and good sense:
If de moder come dead w’en you’re small garçon, leavin’ you dere
alone,
Wit’ nobody watchin’ for fear you fall, and hurt youse’f on de
stone,
An’ ’noder good woman she tak’ your han’ de sam’ your own moder do,
Is it right you don’t call her moder, is it right you don’t love
her too?
Bâ non, an’ dat was de way we feel, w’en de old Regime’s no more,
An’ de new wan come, but don’t change moche, w’y it’s jus’ lak’ it
be before,
Spikin’ Français lak’ we alway do, an’ de English dey mak’ no fuss,
An’ our law de sam’, wall, I don’t know me, ’twas better mebbe for
us.
So de sam’ as two broder we settle down, leevin’ dere han’ in han’,
Knowin’ each oder, we lak’ each oder, de French an’ de Englishman,
For it’s curi’s t’ing on dis worl’, I’m sure you see it agen an’ agen,
Dat offen de mos’ worse ennemi, he’s comin’ de bes’, bes’ frien’.
Drummond spent part of his boyhood among the woods and rivers of
Eastern Canada. His own record of these early days was graphic. He
said: “I lived in a typical mixed-up village—Bord à Plouffe—composed
of French and English-speaking raftsmen, or ‘voyageurs,’ as we call
them—the class of men who went with Wolseley to the Red River, and
later accompanied the same general up the Nile—men with rings in their
ears, dare-devils, Indians, half-breeds, French-Canadians, Scotch
and Irish-Canadians—a motley crew, but great ‘river men’ who ran the
rapids, sang their quaint old songs—‘En Roulant,’ ‘Par Derrière chez
ma Tante,’ and ‘Dans le prison de Nantes,’ songs forgotten in France,
but preserved in French Canada. Running the rapids with these men, I
learned to love them and their rough ways.”
At the poet’s funeral a poor countrywoman of Drummond—he was an
Irishman by birth—was heard to say:
“Shure, he was the doctor that come into yer sickroom like an
archangel.”
The amount of French still spoken in Canada is surprising to a
stranger. One hardly expects to find French policemen on English soil,
or the law courts conducted in the French tongue.
Some of the old French title-deeds in Canada are very amusing. A friend
wanted to buy a small piece of property a few years ago, adjoining some
he already possessed on the shores of the St. Lawrence. Apart from
acquiring the land itself, there were “certain obligations which formed
a charge upon the property,” and these were so wonderful they are worth
repeating.
“EXTRACT FROM DEED OF CESSION BETWEEN CERTAIN PARTIES.
“To pay, furnish, and deliver to the said transferor during his
life an annual rent and donation for life as follows: Six quintals
of good fine flour at All Saints, one fat pig of three hundred
pounds in December, thirty pounds of good butcher’s meat in
December, twenty pounds of sugar, one pound of coffee, two pounds
of good green teas on demand, twelve pounds of candles, fifteen
pounds of soap, four pounds of rice on demand, twenty bushels of
good fine potatoes on St. Michael’s Day, one bushel of cooking peas
in December, one measure of good rum at Christmas, four dozen eggs
as required.
“These articles every year, and the sum of thirty dollars in money
(about £7), payable half at St. Michael’s Day and half in April,
during his life, commencing on next St. Michael’s Day.
“And, further, they oblige themselves to furnish annually to the
transferor during his life a milch cow, to be fed, pastured, and
wintered by the transferees with their own, and renewed in case of
death, infirmity, or age; and the profits or increase shall belong
to the transferor; this cow to be delivered on the 15th of May and
retaken in the autumn when she ceases to give milk.
“The transferees also oblige themselves to furnish to the
transferor, their father, during his life and at his need a horse,
harnessed to a vehicle suitable to the season (carriage or sledge)
brought to his door at his demand, and unharnessed at his return,
also to go and bring the priest and the doctor in case of illness
and at the need of the transferor, and to take them back and to pay
the doctor.
“In case of the death of the transferor, the transferees will cause
him to be buried in the churchyard of the parish of St. L—— with
a service of the value of twenty dollars, the body being present
or on the nearest possible day, and the second of the value of ten
dollars at the end of the year, and they will have said for him as
soon as possible the number of twenty-five Low Masses or Requiems
for the repose of his soul.
“The transferees will be obliged to take care of their sisters,
Josephte and Esther, as long as they are unmarried; to lodge,
light, and feed them at their own tables, and have to keep them
in clothing, footgear, and headgear at need; and as they have
always been at the house of their father, and in case they be not
satisfied with the board of the transferees and decide to live
apart, the transferees shall pay them annually at the rate of ten
bushels of good corn, one hundred pounds of good pork, twenty
bushels of potatoes, twenty pounds of butcher’s beef, six pounds of
rice, three pounds of tea, three pounds of coffee, twelve pounds of
sugar, twelve pounds of soap—these articles every year.
“The transferees will also take them to and from church on Sundays
and on feast days.”
This extraordinary deed was only drawn in 1866. The old man is now
dead, also one of the girls; the other is in a convent out West, and
my friend managed to compromise with her for a small sum instead of
letting her sit at his table, keep her in clothing, or provide her with
potatoes.
In Ottawa I was the guest of the man who was probably doing more than
anyone else for the agricultural development of Canada. The great
strides with which in this Department she has surprised the world
were primarily due to the enterprise of a Scotchman, Professor James
Robertson, who held the post of Agricultural Commissioner from 1895
to 1904. He has written volumes on the subject, as well as being
successful practically. It will be remembered that this able man had
come to speak for me in London at the International Council of Women
earlier in the year. After writing London, I ought to have put _Eng._,
as no Canadian thinks of _our_ London unless it has “Eng.” after it.
As a boy he left his father’s farm in the Lowlands of Scotland, where
he had been working, and, full of enthusiasm and enterprise, sailed
for Canada. He had much practical knowledge at his back, and many
theoretical ideas in his mind, that he found difficult to work out in
the narrow limits of a Scotch homestead. That lad’s name is probably
one of the best known and most respected in Canada to-day, and yet it
is not so many years since he landed, for he is still in the prime of
life.
Professor James Robertson is a wonderful man; he retains his Scotch
accent, has made practical use of his shrewd, hard-headed, far-sighted
upbringing, and has about the most extraordinary capacity for work of
almost any man I know. His energy is unbounded, and his physical powers
of endurance marvellous.
Since I was in Canada in 1900, the increase of population and the
output of the land is simply amazing. Roughly speaking, the population
was then six millions; to-day it numbers over seven millions.
Growth! Growth! Growth! Wherever one turns there is growth in Canada;
her cultured lands; her enormous crops; her untold mineral and
forest wealth; her wonderful fisheries and water power; her gigantic
railroads; her large cities—one knows not where they end. The Dominion
Government with its experimental farms, and agricultural colleges, with
its free grants of land which in 1910 equalled half of Scotland in
area, affords, to Canadian and immigrant alike, facilities unparalleled
in history. With such bountiful natural resources, such able statesmen
at the helm, and such advantages from modern discoveries; when the
rapidity of locomotion binds the ends of the earth together, and
nations from divers continents hold daily converse with each other,
rendering the world’s contemporary history an open book, the young
country of the twentieth century has advantages never even dreamt of by
the pioneers of past ages.
Surely Canada should be the nursery of Empire builders, and her sons
the makers of history, and she will continue so, unless too much
laudation turns her head, and she ceases to strive.
Professor Robertson took me to see Dr. Parkin, of Upper Canada College,
Toronto, another of the best-known writers of the Dominion; his most
widely read work being _The Life of Edward Thring_, the great reformer
of boys’ schools, whose devoted admirer the Doctor is. Upper Canada
College is like Eton, Harrow, or Charterhouse. It is a magnificent
building, and everything seemed charmingly arranged.
Dr. Parkin is a delightful personality, a great scholar, a kindly
teacher, and a staunch friend; he now lives in England, having been
appointed—about two years after my visit—the organising representative
of the Rhodes Scholarship Trust.
At his house I met Colonel George Denison, who had just written
_Soldiering in Canada_, a book as well known on this side of the
Atlantic as on the other. It was his grandfather, a Yorkshireman,
who went out to Canada and founded “York,” now known as Toronto. The
Colonel is an interesting companion and a good _raconteur_.
Sir William Macdonald may perhaps be said to have been the chief mover
of education in Canada for many years. He was justly proud of McGill
University in Montreal, and must have been gratified at the success
of the manual training schools in different parts of Canada, which
owed so much to his generosity. To him also Canada is indebted for
the Macdonald Agricultural College at Ste. Anne de Bellevue, which he
established and endowed at enormous cost.
No word on Canada, however brief, would be right without reference to
Goldwin Smith.
Born in 1823, he died at a ripe age a few weeks after King Edward, to
whom he had once been tutor in English history, and of whom the teacher
said admiringly:
“He never once let me see he was bored, therefore I gathered he would
successfully fulfil the arduous duties of royalty.”
After leaving England for the United States in 1864, Goldwin Smith saw
something of the great Civil War. Later he came to Toronto, and there
lived out his days in a charming old house called “The Grange.”
He told me emphatically in 1900 that “within ten years Canada would be
annexed by the United States.” Goldwin Smith died just a decade later,
and Canada seemed then more Imperial, more British, more loyal than
ever. But a few months later came this wheat business in Washington,
and up sprang the old cry of annexation.
There are a number of interesting writers in Canada. Most of them were
born in England, and went there as children; there are others who were
born there and have migrated back to England. Of the latter class Dr.
Beattie Crozier is, at the present time, most before the public. He
describes his early days in Canada vividly in _My Inner Life_, but
_Intellectual Development_ is one of the most readable philosophies
ever written. He has a knack of putting the most abstruse subjects in
the clearest possible light. Dr. Crozier lives in London, where he
practises medicine. A few years ago a terrible affliction threatened
to befall him. He went nearly blind. His eyes are now better, but to
save them as much as possible, his wife writes everything for him
to his dictation, looks up his data, translates French and German
philosophies; in fact, is his helpmate in the true sense of the word.
They are a devoted couple. One of those pretty ideal homes one loves
to see, and which are often found in the busiest lives. The doctor
resembles a smart officer in appearance; no one would ever take him for
one of the profoundest thinkers of the day.
Sir Gilbert Parker is a Canadian; but he, like Dr. Crozier, now lives
in London.
Lord Strathcona is another of the wonderful men of Canada. He is indeed
their “Grand Old Man.”
One of the things that most struck Ibsen about the English-speaking
race was their capacity for strenuous work at an advanced age.
“Britishers often take up important positions in that span of life in
which men of other nations are laying down their arms,” he once said to
me.
It was at a dinner given to Sir Henniker Heaton, of Post Office fame,
on his retirement from Parliament (1910) by the Men of Kent, that I
was particularly struck by Lord Strathcona. I was sitting next the old
gentleman with Sir George Reid, the High Commissioner for Australia, on
my other side. It was really most remarkable to find a man of ninety
years of age so clear and concise, and practical and sensible in every
way. With the rather weak voice of an old man, he spoke well and to
the point, referring to the blessings of penny postage, which Henniker
Heaton had made possible to all the English-speaking world, comparing
it with the days when he first went to Canada seventy years before, and
each letter cost four shillings, and eight shillings for a double page,
and no envelopes were used, as they increased the weight.
A fine well-chiselled head, Lord Strathcona has become a greater old
man than he was a young man. His life has been remarkable for its
steady Scotch perseverance and extraordinary luck, which, through
the Hudson Bay Company and the Canadian Pacific Railway, gave him
affluence. It was not brilliancy or genius that brought him to the
position he attained, but just that hard-headed Scotch capacity for
plodding. Luck leads to nothing without pluck.
He talked quite cheerily of his next visit to Canada, the ocean holding
no terrors for him, and he explained that his house in Montreal was
always kept open and ready to step into. The same with his place at
Glencoe, where he had only been able to spend four days in the year,
much to his regret.
It was midnight before that old gentleman went home, to begin an early
and hard day the next morning, for he is indefatigable at his work for
Canada as High Commissioner, and is to be found every day and all day
in his office in Victoria Street at the age of ninety-two.
“Yes,” he said, “Canada has a great future, though we must send out
the right people. Ne’er-do-weels will do no good anywhere, and hard
workers will always get on. Hard workers will get a hundred per cent
greater reward in Canada than in Great Britain, while ne’er-do-weels
will do worse, as there are no philanthropic institutions to bolster
them up, or pamper them, as there are here.”
He is modest—almost shy and retiring. Very courtly in manner, in spite
of his humble origin; but, then, he is one of Nature’s gentlemen.
Short in stature—the red hair almost white, but still peeping through
the beard—his stoop and tottering, dragging gait denote age—also his
slowness of speech; but his mind is all there—alive and active and full
of thought and force.
Men may rise to great power in a new country if they only have the grit.
The life of another such in Canada, merely as known to the public by
newspaper notices, reads like a romance.
“The Hon. William S. Fielding, the Budget-maker of Canada,
has never forgotten that he was an office-boy in the _Halifax
Chronicle_. His loyalty to the people from whom he sprang is a
secret of his popularity. The finest proof of that popularity was
when last year (1910) anonymous friends contributed a purse of
£24,000 to become a trust fund for the Minister and his family. For
though he handles millions he is a poor man and latterly his health
has been indifferent, and Canadian Ministers on retirement receive
no pension.
“Mr. Fielding was born in 1848, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the age
of sixteen he entered the office of the _Halifax Chronicle_. Four
years later he was a leader writer; at twenty-seven he was editor.
He entered Nova Scotian politics in 1882. In 1884 he was Premier.
In 1896 he was called by Sir Wilfrid Laurier to be Dominion
Minister of Finance.”
His last night before leaving England in February, 1909, Mr. Fielding
wished to see the popular play _An Englishman’s Home_. There was
not a seat in the house; but by a little judicious management, with
some difficulty I secured two tickets at the last moment. I dined
with him at the “Savoy,” and then we went on to the theatre. Being
short-sighted, I was holding up my glasses. The theatre was darkened
during the act. Suddenly I found something warm and soft deposited in
my lap. Dropping the glasses, I felt, and, lo! to my amazement, it was
a head. A human, curly head. Naturally surprised, I wondered where it
came from, and whether the man—for man it was—had had a fit, or was
dying. I saw Mr. Fielding pushing him up from the other side. Then the
head, murmuring apologies _sotto voce_, rose, but it was too dark, and
the house too silent to find out what had really happened.
When the curtain came down and the lights went up, behold the poor
owner of the head, who was sitting on the floor, covered with confusion.
“I am very sorry, madam,” he said. “It was most unfortunate, but my
seat gave way.” In fact, the stall on which this good gentleman had
been sitting had collapsed, sending his head into my lap, and his legs
into the lap of the lady on the other side. A pretty predicament.
The rush on the play was so great that extra stalls had been added,
until we had barely room for our knees. These had evidently not been
properly coupled together: when at some exciting moment in the play,
the gentleman had presumably laughed or coughed, and his downfall
ensued.
There lay the blue plush seat on the ground, and under it, his top-hat
squashed flat.
What a furore that play made, and yet there was little or nothing in
it. But success came from the fact that it struck the right note, and
struck it at the moment when the nation was ready for the awakening.
How it was boomed! Men rushed to join the Territorials, and even I was
one of the first women to send in my name for the First Aid Nursing
Yeomanry Corps. But, as they asked me to go to a riding-school to
_learn_ to ride—I, who had ridden all my life—I really could not go
further in the matter.
Mr. Fielding is a most interesting personality and character.
“We are so apt to forget the good things of life,” he said that
evening. “I wanted a motor-bus just now. There was none at the corner,
and I had to walk. I felt annoyed. Then I pulled myself up, and
thought—How many dozen times have I caught this bus just at the moment
I wanted it! Did I ever feel or express gratitude? Yet when I miss it
I growl—now is this fair?—and I shook myself and felt ashamed.”
“Very noble of you,” I said.
“Not at all. But I am always saying to myself I have no right to
grumble, no right to be annoyed while I omit to be thankful and
grateful for the manifold blessings around me.”
Speaking of nervousness being the cause of my refusal to go to Leeds
that week to address five thousand people, Mr. Fielding laughed.
“How I sympathise with you! For twenty years I have been before the
public, and yet have never made a speech without a little twinge.”
Of his chief, Laurier, he remarked: “It is an astonishing thing how
much more English than French he has become. Forty years of constant
communication with, and work amongst, British-speaking people has
moulded him along British lines, and although the French manner and
charm remain, British determination, doggedness, clear sight, and broad
views are dominant. In fact, I far more often find him reading an
English book than a French one, when I enter his library.”
Then briefly touching on his own doings:
“I’ve been in England two months, and sail to-morrow morning—came for
two things, and accomplished both. First, the trade treaty with France
begun eighteen months ago. Secondly, to raise six million sterling in
London. I’ve also done that this week; and am now going home with the
money, chiefly for our trans-continental railway.
“Treaty? Well, as a rule, only kings can make treaties, but in Canada
we are given a good deal of power. This is the second time I have been
made a Plenipotentiary in a way—a one-man affair when ready, signed by
Sir Francis Bertie.”
“A treaty with France, and you don’t know French.”
“Ah, but I know my subject, Mam. Don’t scorn me for my want of French.
In the province where I was born it was not wanted, and when it was
needed I was too busy to learn; telephone bells or messengers were
going all the time, so I had to give it up, but I’ll learn it yet, I
hope.”
“Do you require French in the Canadian House?”
“No, we are mostly English members, and although some of the Frenchmen
speak in French, and all things by law are read in both languages, the
Frenchmen generally stop the reading and consent to take it as read.
Laurier for twenty years has always spoken in English; perfect English.
Lemieux speaks in English. In fact, to get the ear of the House one
must speak in English.”
“Are the French-Canadians as loyal as the English-Canadians?”
“Yes, but in a different way. We are loyal because it is born in the
blood; they are loyal from gratitude, and because they know England
gave them freedom. They are more loyal than we should have been to
France if that fight on the Plains of Abraham had been won by the
French.”
Sir Wilfrid Laurier I do not know as I know Mr. Fielding or Mr.
Lemieux, but Sir Wilfrid Laurier is a great personality. He struck me
as a wonderful type when I first went up in a lift with him at the
Windsor Hotel in Montreal, although I did not then know who he was.
There is a rugged strength about his face that impresses. He is a
scholar and a gentleman, speaks perfect English, and has great charm of
manner.
He said in the Dominion House of Commons:
“I would say to Great Britain, ‘If you want us to help you, call us to
your councils.’”
Another time, when talking of Lloyd George’s Budget, W. S. Fielding
remarked:
“I have made thirteen Budgets, the only man who ever did such a thing,
I should imagine; and I know from experience people always grumble.
They grumble at everything and anything. To-day at Ascot (1910) a man
was abusing Lloyd George’s Budget. ‘There are a few thousand people
in the Royal Enclosure,’ I said, ‘and I should think every one of
them disapproves. They are rich, and it hits them. There are tens of
thousands of people over there on the race-course. They are poor, and
they are glad. Was not Lloyd George right, therefore, to consider the
millions?’”
Mr. Fielding possesses an enormous power for work. On one occasion,
after a _tête-à-tête_ dinner with me, he went home about eleven, and
finding letters and documents awaiting him, sat up till five a.m. and
finished them, also deciphering long Government telegrams in code.
Next morning he began work at ten again.
Quiet, gentle, reserved, Fielding strikes one as a delightful,
grey-headed old gentleman of honest, homely kindliness. He never
says an unkind thing of anyone. Toleration is his dominant note, and
yet with all that calm exterior he has proved himself the greatest
treaty-maker of his age, as well as the most successful handler of
budgets and manœuvrer of great Government loans; but he failed over
Reciprocity.
This chapter would be incomplete without mention of the late Canadian
“Ministre des postes,” M. Lemieux, of whom Fielding said: “He is one of
the cleverest men in Canada.”
“Your King, my King, our King, is the most perfect gentleman I have
ever met. _Il est tout à fait gentilhomme_,” so remarked the Hon.
Rodolphe Lemieux, K.C., when Postmaster-General of Canada, to me in
my little library, immediately on his return from Windsor, when King
Edward was still our Sovereign.
Then one of the most prominent politicians in Canada, for he was not
only P.M.G., but Minister of Labour for the Dominion, M. Lemieux
is another man still in his prime. He was born about 1860. A
French-Canadian by birth, he speaks English almost faultlessly, an
accomplishment learnt by habit and ear during the last few years, and
not from a lesson-book.
When I first met M. Lemieux in Canada about 1900, he hardly knew any
English. Six or seven years later he could get up and address a large
audience in our tongue with ease and fluency. Yet this art has been
acquired during the most strenuous years of his life.
“I’m in London,” he replied to a question one day, “to try to settle
the All Red Route cable between Britain and her Colony.”
Lemieux is an extraordinarily strong character. Of medium height,
inclined to be stout, sallow of skin, clean-shaven, with slightly grey
hair, standing up straight like a Frenchman’s; great charm of manner,
not fulsome, but gracious, and at times commanding. He gets excited and
marches about the room, waving his hands—nice hands, broad, but small
for his sex—and pursing his mouth. A man of strength, and a gentle,
kindly being. Very ambitious, and yet, as he says truly, “What is
success, when once attained?”
One night I was to dine with him. Nothing would do but he must fetch
me in a taxi. We went to the “Ritz,” where he had ordered an excellent
little dinner, and where a lovely bunch of roses and lilies was beside
my plate. When he went at five to order the dinner, he had ordered the
flowers and a pin!
The day after his arrival at his London hotel his little jewel-case was
stolen. He told me almost in tears. “Recollections, souvenirs, gone,
my wife’s first present to me—a scarf-pin. Her great-grandmother’s
earring. My ring as Professor of Law, gone. I feel I have lost real
friends—friends of years and friends I valued. Their worth was little,
their sentiment untold.”
A treaty between Canada and Japan allowed free emigration. At once
ten thousand Japanese descended on Canada. Yellow peril was imminent.
Lemieux was sent to Japan. After delicate manipulation he got the
treaty altered, so that only four hundred Japanese should land in a
year, a regulation that brought him much renown.
Then the Lemieux Act, which means amicable discussion between parties
before arbitration, was brought in. One representative from each side
and one representative of the Minister of Labour meet; everything is
sifted to the bottom and published, with the result that few cases
ever go to arbitration, but are generally settled by this intermediate
body. It works so successfully that Roosevelt sent people from the
United States to study its working, and the sooner Great Britain does
something to settle her strikes along the same lines the better.
Yes, Canada impressed me, charmed me, and as I am proud to reckon,
after ten years, two of the late Cabinet Ministers among my best
friends, not forgetting one of the leading spirits in agriculture,
I have followed the remarkable development of Canada with interest.
She will expand even more in the next ten years. Canada is a land to
reckon with. She can produce wealth, and as long as the Socialist does
not enter to destroy that wealth, and distribute it, Canada will forge
ahead. No one was more surprised than the Liberal Cabinet at their
overthrow in 1911; they were more surprised even than Borden at his
great victory.
CHAPTER XXII
PUBLIC DINNERS
At a public dinner the photographer said, “The people at the bottom
tables buy the photos, the people at the top table steal the pencils.”
Half the public dinners are attended by women nowadays, and yet women
did not even dine at the tables of their lords and masters in the
eighteenth century. They then took a back seat. Now in the twentieth
century women with common interests bind themselves together into
societies, recognising that “union is strength,” and they too follow
the tradition of ages, and preserve the sacred English habit of
organising dinners.
Is there any more thoroughly British custom, institution, or act of
national feeling, than a dinner? Heroes, potentates, benefactors to
mankind, are given a mighty Guildhall feast by the Chief Representative
of our great capital—the mightiest in the world. Other nations hold
banquets, but with them wreaths and ribbons are more to the fore than
turtle soup and barons of beef.
One public dinner that afforded me personally special pleasure was
given by the New Vagabond Club, on my return from my first visit to
Mexico, when a great compliment was paid me. Following their custom,
the Vagabonds had singled out two writers of recent books to be
honoured. The one, Sir Gilbert Parker, as author of his great novel
_The Right of Way_, as their guest, and myself in the chair, because
_Mexico as I saw It_ was kindly considered (to quote the cards of
invitation) “one of the best travel-books of the year.” We numbered
three hundred. Modesty forbids repetition of the speeches. Obituary
notices and speeches are always laudatory.
At another New Vagabond Dinner held at the Hotel Cecil, I remember
being much amused by a young officer of the Königin Augusta Garde in
Berlin, who was my guest. We had barely taken our seats when a deep
sonorous voice roared forth:
“Pray, silence for his Lordship the Bishop of ——.”
“What a splendid voice that gentleman has,” exclaimed my German friend.
“It is the toast-master,” I replied.
“Toast?” he said, “but that is something to eat,” and before further
explanation was possible the Bishop began to say grace, and everyone
stood up.
“Is this the King’s health?” asked the Baron, lifting his empty glass.
“No, it’s grace,” I answered.
“What is grace? It seems like a prayer.”
“So it is, for your good behaviour,” I said.
“Do you always have it?”
“Yes, when we go out to dinner.”
“And not at home?”
“Oh no, we are only good like that and enjoy all that official ceremony
at public dinners.”
He was much tickled at the idea, and likewise relieved that the King’s
health was not being toasted with empty glasses.
Another public feast—the Dinner of the Society of Authors, in 1907—gave
me still more food for mirth, besides intellectual and other enjoyment.
My seat at the top table placed me between Mr. Bernard Shaw and Lord
Dunsany. Exactly opposite was one of the fork tables that filled the
room, and gave accommodation to about two hundred and fifty guests. In
the corner facing us sat a nice little old lady. Somehow she reminded
me of a cock-sparrow. She was _petite_ and fragile, with a perky little
way, and her iron-grey hair was cut short. She looked at my neighbour
on my left, consulted her programme, on which she read the name of
Bernard Shaw, smiled with apparent delight, preened herself, and then
the following conversation began:
Old Lady (beaming across table): “I do love your writing.”
Grey-bearded Gentleman (bowing): “Thank you very much.”
Old Lady: “One sees the whole scene so vividly before one.”
The grey-bearded gentleman bowed again.
Old Lady (bending a little nearer): “They live and move. The characters
almost dance before one.”
Grey-bearded Gentleman (evidently rather pleased): “It’s good of you to
say so. So few people read my sort of stuff as a rule.”
Old Lady: “They are works of inspiration! By the by, how does
inspiration come to you?”
Grey-bearded Gentleman: “Well, it’s rather difficult to say. Anywhere,
I think. An idea often flashes through my mind in a crowd, or even when
someone is talking to me.”
Old Lady (flapping her wings with delight, and evidently hoping _she_
was an inspiration): “Would you be so very kind as to sign my autograph
book?”
“With pleasure,” was the reply. And thereupon she produced a tiny
little almanac from her pocket and a stylographic pen, and with a
beaming smile remarked:
“Under your name, please write _Man and Superman_!”
He turned to her with a puzzled look, and then this is what ensued:
“That is my favourite play.”
“Is it?”
“Don’t you love it the best?”
“Never read it in my life.”
“What! never read your own masterpiece!”
“No, madam. I am afraid you have made a mistake.”
“What! You do not mean to say that you are not Bernard Shaw?”
“No. I’m only Lewis Morris, the poet.”
Momentary collapse of the old lady, and amusement of my neighbour. By
this time I was in fits. Shaw having telegraphed he would not come in
till the meat course was over, Sir Lewis Morris had asked me if he
might take his place.
Old Lady (collecting herself): “Never mind. You had better sign your
autograph, all the same.”
And, not knowing whether to laugh or scowl, Sir Lewis Morris put on his
glasses and wrote his name, then turning to me, said:
“Well, that was a funny adventure.”
Bernard Shaw himself arrived a little later, and sitting near us,
waited for the moment when he was to get up and reply for the drama.
Being a vegetarian, he had avoided the first part of the dinner.
A merry twinkle hung round his eye all the time he talked, and with
true Irish brogue he duly pronounced all his _wh_’s as such, and mixed
up _will_ and _shall_! His red beard was almost grey, and his face has
become older and more worn since success weighed him down, and wealth
oppressed him so deeply.
I could not agree with Lewis Morris’s self-depreciatory remark that
few people “read my sort of stuff,” for I learnt on very excellent
authority that publishers have sold more than forty-five thousand
copies of his _Epic of Hades_—not bad for poetic circulation—and that
this and the _Songs of Two Worlds_ shared between them sixty editions.
Poor Lewis Morris died a few months after this little comedy occurred.
To continue with G. B. S., here may be given the recollection of a
luncheon at his home one day.
From dinners to a luncheon!—well, that is no great digression. Longer,
certainly, than from luncheon to dinner, with five o’clock tea thrown
in. To part from Bernard Shaw is too impossible.
“_Mrs. Bernard Shaw_” is the name upon the little oak gate across the
stairway leading to the second-floor flat near the Strand.
Below are a club, offices, and other odds and ends, above and beyond
the gate the great G. B. S. is to be found. “Bring your man to lunch
here,” was the amusing reply I received to a note asking the Shaws to
dine and meet “George Birmingham” (the Rev. James Hannay), the famous
Irish novelist.
Accordingly, to lunch “my man” and I repaired. Everything about George
Bernard Shaw is new. The large drawing-room overlooking the Thames
is furnished in new art—a modern carpet, hard, straight-lined, white
enamelled bookcases, a greeny yellow wall—a few old prints, ’tis
true—and over the writing-table, his own bust by Rodin, so thin and
aristocratic in conception, that it far more closely resembles our
mutual friend Robert Cunninghame Graham. No curtains; open windows;
sanitation; hygiene; vegetarianism; modernism on every side. Bernard
Shaw has no reverence for age or custom, antiquity or habit—a modern
man, his is a modern home, only rendered homelike by the touch of a
charming woman. It is wonderful how loud-talking Socialism succumbs to
calm, peaceful, respectable comfort. Since his marriage the Socialist
has given up much of the practice of his theories, and is accepting the
daily use of fine linen and silver, the pleasures of flowers and dainty
things; he politely owns himself the happier for them; but then Mrs.
Bernard Shaw is a refined and delightful woman.
George Bernard Shaw comes from Dublin, his wife from far-away Cork. She
is well-connected, clever, and tactful, and the sheet-anchor of G. B. S.
Shaw was at his best. He ate nuts and grapes while we enjoyed the
pleasures of the table. I told him I had first heard of him in Berlin,
in 1892, long before he had been talked of here. I had seen _Arms and
the Man_ in the German capital—that, eight years later, I was haunted
by _Candida_ in America, and then came back to find him creeping into
fame in England. That delighted him.
“Yes, I insist on rehearsing every line of my own plays whenever it is
possible—if I can’t, well, they do as they like.”
I told him I had seen Ibsen’s slow, deliberate way of rehearsing, and
W. S. Gilbert’s determined persuasion. What did he do?
“I like them to read their parts the first time. Then I can stop them,
and give them _my_ interpretations, and when they are learning them at
home, my suggestions soak in. If they learn their words first, they
also get interpretations of their own, which I may have to make them
unlearn. I hate rehearsals; they bore me to death; sometimes I have
forty winks from sheer _ennui_; but still I stick there, and, like the
judge, wake up when wanted.”
“Do you get cross?”
“No. I don’t think so. I correct, explain why, and go ahead. I never
let them repeat; much better to give the correction, and let them think
it out at home; if one redoes the passage they merely become more and
more dazed, I find.”
“Speaking of Ibsen, do you think his influence was so great?” I asked.
“Undoubtedly. But the movement was in the air. I had written several
of my plays which, when they appeared, the critics said showed Ibsen’s
influence, and yet at that time I had never read a word of Ibsen. He
emphasised and brought out what everyone was feeling; but he never got
away from the old idea of a ‘grand ending,’ a climax—a final curtain.”
“Plays are funny things,” he continued. “A few years ago I received a
letter from a young man in the country. He said his people were strict
Methodists, he had never been in a theatre in his life, he had not even
been allowed to read Shakespeare, but _Three Plays_ by Shaw had fallen
into his hands, and he had read them. He felt he must write a play.
He had written one. Would I read it? I did. It was crude, curious,
middle-aged, stinted, and yet the true dramatic element was there. He
had evolved a village drama from his own soul. I wrote and told him to
go on, and showed him his faults, but never heard any more of him.
“Once a leading actor-manager of mine took to drink. I heard it; peril
seemed imminent. I wrote and told him I had met a journalist, named
Moriarty, who had found him drunk in the street; explained that under
the influence of alcohol he had divulged the most appalling things,
which, if true, would make it necessary for me to find someone else to
play the part. Terrible despair! Many letters at intervals. I continued
to cite Moriarty, and all went well. One fine day a letter came, saying
my manager had met the tale-bearer. He had happened to call at a lady’s
house, and there Moriarty stood. The furious manager nearly rushed at
his enemy’s throat to kill him; but being in a woman’s drawing-room, he
deferred his revenge. Nevertheless, he would, by Jove, he would do it
next time, if he heard any more tales. Vengeance, daggers!
“Then I quaked. I had to write and say my ‘Moriarty’ was a myth, so
he had better leave the unoffending personage alone.” And G. B. S.
twinkled merrily through those sleepy grey eyes as he told the tale.
Once I was inveigled into editing and arranging a souvenir book for
University College Hospital, of which more anon. I asked Mr. Shaw to
do something for the charity. This is his characteristic reply, written
on a post card:
[Illustration:
10 ADELPHI TERRACE W.C.
15ᵗʰ. Feb. 1909.
No, Mʳˢ. Alec.
NO.
NO.
NO.
I never do it, not even for my best friends. I loathe bazaars
G. B. S.]
Yet another public dinner stands out prominently in my memory.
Quite a crowd attended the Women Journalists’ Dinner of November,
1907. Mrs. Humphry Ward was in the chair. Next to her was the Italian
Ambassador, the Marquis di San Giuliano, and then myself. My neighbour
was especially interesting as the descendant of an old Sicilian family,
Lords of Catania since the time of the Crusades, and also because he
himself had earned a considerable name in literature. Later he left
London for the Embassy in Paris, and is now in Rome, as Minister for
Foreign Affairs.
Taking up my card, his Excellency exclaimed:
“Why, are you the lady who wrote that charming book on Sicily?”
I nodded.
“I am a Sicilian, and I thank you, madam,” he said. In fact, in the
exuberance of his spirits, he shook and re-shook me by the hand.
We became great friends, and he often came in to have a talk about his
native land.
A Sicilian, he sat in the Italian Parliament for many years, and was
three years in the Ministry; then, in 1905, he was asked to come to
London as Ambassador. He had never been in the diplomatic service,
and had only visited Great Britain as a tourist; in fact, he feared
the climate, on account of rheumatism, which at fifty-two had nearly
crippled him. But pressure was brought to bear, so he came to St.
James’s.
He declared England to be most hospitable, the people were so kind
and opened their doors so readily; and he loved the climate. He was
delighted he had come.
“In Sicily,” he said, “you are right in saying that we are still in
the seventeenth century. We have much to learn. I believe in women
having equal rights with men in everything. I think they ought to have
the suffrage. Your women in England are far more advanced than in
Italy, and I admire them for it. I have the greatest respect and love
and admiration for women. My wife came from Tuscany. She was advanced
for an Italian, and she first opened my eyes to the capabilities of
women. I hope before I die to see them in a far better position than
they already hold. They have helped us men through centuries and they
deserve reward.”
What a delight the Marquis di San Giuliano will be to the suffragists
among his own countrywomen if ever they attain to the advancement of
our own Parliament Square agitators.
He lunched with me one day early in January, 1908, and afterwards drove
me down to the Pfeiffer Hall of Queen’s College, Harley Street, where,
with Sir Charles Holroyd as chairman, he had promised to deliver a
lecture to the Dante Society. Its subject was the twenty-sixth canto
of the _Inferno_, the whole of which the Ambassador read in Italian.
Then he went on to comment upon the text in English, and explained the
symbolical meaning of Ulysses’s voyage and wreck.
I was struck by a theory which the lecturer advanced: that the canto
was possibly one of the factors that helped to produce the state of
mind in Christopher Columbus which prepared him for his immortal
discovery. In the inventory of the estate of a Spaniard who was a
comrade of Columbus, one of the items named was a copy of Dante’s poem.
It was probable that Columbus, an Italian, and much more educated than
this officer, was in the habit of reading the book. It was known that
a certain astronomer who was one of Columbus’s foremost inspirers, was
a keen Dante student. Probably Columbus’s track, as far as the Canary
Isles, varied but little from that of Ulysses. Certainly in Columbus’s
speech to his wavering crew is found an echo of Ulysses’s exhortation.
On the drive to Queen’s College the Marquis wore a thick fur coat, and
it was a mild day; I remarked upon it.
“I always _transpire_ so, when I speak, that I am afraid of catching
cold,” he replied.
What a trouble all these oddities of our language must be to
foreigners. I remember a more amusing slip from the talented wife of
a very public man, who speaks the English tongue with perfect grace
and charm. I had asked if her husband wore his uniform when performing
annually a great historic ceremony.
“Oh no, he wears his nightdress,” she replied, meaning his dress
clothes.
Apropos of the Milton Centenary the Italian Ambassador was asked to
speak at the Mansion House on “Milton in connection with Dante.” He
motored down to my mother’s house in Buckinghamshire, where I was
staying, and together we explored Milton’s cottage, where the poet
wrote _Paradise Regained_ and corrected _Paradise Lost_. We spent
some time looking over manuscripts and photographs, in order that he
should be saturated with the subject, and the next night he went to the
Mansion House full of his theme.
“I got up,” said His Excellency, “referred to Milton, then to
Dante, knowing that this was only my preliminary canter to personal
reminiscences to come. What were those reminiscences? I gazed at that
vast audience. I pondered. I knew there was something very important I
had to say. I returned to the dissimilarity of the two men’s work. I
wondered what my great point was, and finally with a graceful reference
to poetry, I sat down.
“Then, and not till then, did I remember I had cracked the nut, and
left out a description of Milton’s home, the kernel of my speech.”
This man is a brilliant speaker in Italian and French, and quite above
the average in English and German. Which of us who has made a speech
has not, on sitting down, remembered the prized sentence has been
forgotten?
The Marquis gave some delightful dinners in Grosvenor Square. I met
Princes, Dukes, authors, artists, actors, and even Labour Members of
Parliament, at his table. He was interested in all sides of life, and
all the time he was in England he continued to take lessons in our
language.
I first met Mr. Cecil Rhodes in December, 1894, at a dinner-party which
was notable for its Africans, Dr. Jameson and H. M. Stanley being there
as well. A woman’s impression of a much-talked-of man may not count
for much. He sat next me. I was fairly young and maybe attractive,
I suppose, so he talked to me as if I were a baby or a doll. To be
candid, I took a particular dislike to Rhodes from the moment I first
saw him. A tall, some might say a handsome, man, his face was round and
red, and not a bit clever so far as appearances went. He looked like an
overfed well-to-do farmer, who enjoyed the good things of this life. He
seemed self-opinionated, arrogant, petulant, and scheming—no doubt what
the world calls “a strong man.” There seemed no human or soft side to
his character at all. Self, self, ambition. And self again marked every
word he uttered.
Of course he was masterful. Even his very Will denoted that. It was
hard, cool-headed, calculating, and less generous to his family than it
might have been.
Still Rhodes did great things, and was it not he who said, “It is a
good thing to have a period of adversity”? Mighty true—but strangely
disagreeable.
Although outwardly so indifferent to everyone and everything, Cecil
Rhodes was not above the vanities. He and a friend of mine had been
boys together, and Rhodes became godfather to one of the latter’s
children, a post which he considered held serious responsibilities. He
wished to make his godson a valuable present. It was the proud parent’s
idea to ask the great African to let the gift be his portrait.
“Of course I will,” said Cecil Rhodes; “arrange the artist and terms,
and tell me when I am to sit, and I’ll go.”
So matters were settled. An artist was asked to undertake the
commission, and one fine day my friend took Rhodes round to the studio
for the first sitting.
The artist decided to paint him side face. Rhodes petulantly refused
to be depicted anything but full face. Discussion waxed warm, and,
naturally, my poor friend felt very uncomfortable. However, the artist,
claiming the doctor’s privilege of giving orders and expecting to be
obeyed, began his work on his own lines.
Cecil Rhodes gave only the first sitting and one other. Then, finding
the picture was really being painted side face, like a child he
became furious. He refused ever to sit again, and on his return from
the studio wrote a cheque for the stipulated sum, and sent it to the
artist, asking him to forward the picture to him as it was.
The brush-man guessed that his object was to destroy the canvas, so,
instead of sending the picture, he returned the cheque. Thus the
portrait—unfinished, indeed, hardly begun—remained hidden away in
the studio; and now that the sitter is dead, it should possess some
interest.
A man who knew Cecil Rhodes very well once told me:
“He was a muddler. I was one of his secretaries. When he went away
we sorted his correspondence, ‘One,’ ‘Two,’ ‘Three.’ ‘One’ included
the letters requiring first attention. ‘Two’ those not so important,
and so on. When he came back from Bulawayo, we gave him the letters.
Three months afterwards, he had never looked at one of them. ‘Leave
them alone, they will answer themselves,’ he said; but that was a most
dangerous doctrine, and sometimes nearly cost C. R. his position.
He made endless enemies through this extraordinary, selfish, lazy
indifference.”
As stated above, Stanley was at this dinner of which I have been
writing, and I often met him later. He always appeared to me shy,
reticent, almost to moroseness on occasions. He was a small man with
white wavy hair, round face, and square jaw, dark of skin—probably more
dark in effect than reality, in contrast to the hair. He was broadly
made and inclined to be stout. His face was much lined, but a merry
smile spread over his countenance at times.
At one of my earliest dinners with the Society of Authors I sat between
him and Mr. Hall Caine. No greater contrast than that between these
two men could be found, I am sure—the latter quick and sharp; Henry
Stanley, on the other hand, stolid in temperament and a person not
easily put out or disturbed.
“I walk for two hours every day of my life,” said Stanley. “Unless I
get my six or seven miles’ stretch, I feel as if I would explode, or
something dreadful happen to me. So every afternoon after lunch I sally
forth, generally into Hyde Park, where, in the least-frequented parts,
I stretch my legs and air my thoughts. I live again in Africa, in the
solitude of those big trees, and I conjure up scenes of the dark forest
and recall incidents the remembrance of which has lain dormant for
years. Taking notes, going long walks, studying politics, compose the
routine of my daily life.
“I am a Liberal-Unionist, and shocked that you should say you are a
Radical—no lady should ever hold such sentiments.”
And he really appeared so terribly shocked I could not help telling him
a little story of how on one occasion an old gentleman was introduced
to take me down to dinner. Some remark on the staircase made me say, “I
am a Radical.” “Ma’am!” he replied, almost dropping my arm, and bending
right away from me. “Are you horrified? Do you think it dreadful to be
a Radical?” I asked. “Yes, ma’am, I am indeed shocked that any lady—and
let alone a young lady—should dare to hold such pernicious views!”
Really, the old gentleman was dreadfully distressed, seemed to think
me not even respectable, and, although I did my best to soothe him with
the soup, to chat to him on other topics with the fish, it was not
until dessert was reached that he was really happy or comfortable in
his mind that his young neighbour was fit society to be next to him at
a dinner-party.”
Stanley laughed.
I asked him if he had any desire to go back to Africa.
“None,” he replied. “I may go some day, but not through any burning
desire; for, although I have been a great wanderer, I don’t mind much
if I never wander again.”
During the evening he proposed the health of the late Mr. Moberly Bell,
our chairman, whom he had known for twenty-eight years. Stanley had a
tremendously strong voice, which filled the large hall, and seemed to
vibrate through my head with its queer accent. He spoke extremely well,
without the slightest nervousness or hesitation; his language was good
and his delivery excellent.
It was not till I read his _Life_, when it first came out in 1909,
that I realised what a struggle his had been. Reared in a workhouse,
this maker of the Congo (which we muddled and allowed the Belgians to
take for their own) was indeed a remarkable man. He attained position,
wealth in a minor degree, a charming lady as a wife, and a title. His
self-education and magnificent strength of purpose secured all this
unaided, even by good fortune. His _Life_ reads like an excellent
novel. In these Socialistic days one receives with interest his remark,
“Individuals require to be protected from the rapacity of Communities.
Socialism is a return to primitive conditions.”
Yes. Stanley was a great man. Seven thousand miles across unknown
Africa, amidst slave-traders, cannibals, and wild beasts, his
expedition “tottered its way to the Atlantic, a scattered column of
long and lean bodies; dysentery, ulcers, and scurvy fast absorbing the
remnant of life left by famine.” So he crossed from East to West, and
traversed hundreds of miles of the river Congo.
My other neighbour at that dinner—Hall Caine—had much in common with
me, and we discussed Iceland, where, of course, we had both been;
Norway, which he knew in summer and I in winter; and then Nansen.
The Manxman is an interesting companion, his nervous intensity throws
warmth and enthusiasm into all his sayings and makes his subjects
appear more interesting than they really are, perhaps. There is a
magnetic influence in him. Physically delicate, a perfect bundle of
nerves, there is an electric thrill in all he says, in spite of the
sad, soft intonation of his voice.
He ponders again and again over his scenes, throws himself heart and
soul into his characters, himself lives all the tragic episodes and
terrible moments that the men and women undergo, with the result that
by the time the book is completed he is absolutely played out, mind and
body.
Certainly, to sum up, my dinner neighbours have often been, and often
are, most interesting, and frequently delightful as well.
Nothing in the world is more bracing than contact with brilliant minds.
Brilliancy begets brilliancy just as dullness makes thought barren.
CHAPTER XXIII
PRIVATE DINNERS
My dinner slips and their history would fill a volume, therefore
they must be laid aside just now. Suffice it to say that as a bride
I conceived the idea of asking celebrated men and women to sign my
tablecloths. Now after twenty years there are over four hundred names
upon these cloths, including the signatures of some of the most
prominent men and women in London at the end of the nineteenth and the
beginning of the twentieth centuries. All the men on _Punch_ have drawn
a little picture, twenty Academicians have done likewise. Specialists,
such as Marconi, Sir Hiram Maxim, Sir Joseph Swan, Sir William Crookes,
or Sir William Ramsay, have drawn designs showing their own inventions.
Others have made sketches or caricatures of themselves. Among them are
Sir A. Pinero, Harry Furniss, Solomon J. Solomons, William Orpen, John
Lavery, E. T. Reid, Weedon Grossmith, Forbes Robertson, Thompson Seton,
Max Beerbohm, W. K. Haselden. A possession truly, and a record of many
valued friendships. It has its comic side too, for sometimes when I am
out at dinner and my name is heard my partner turns to me and says:
“Are you the lady who has the famous tablecloth?”
I own I am, and try to forget the fact that I ever wrote a book.
And—yes, that is the point—they have all been signed at my own table
and I have embroidered them myself.
How did a “worker” manage to continue to give little dinners, may be
asked by other workers who find hospitality a difficult task rather
than a pleasure. Well, with a little forethought and care it can be
done.
During all those thirteen years I don’t suppose I bought a first-class
ticket in Britain thirteen times. That was one of my many economies,
enabling me to save a few pounds here and there, just as bus fares
saved cab fares, and with these little savings I could enjoy the
privilege of having friends to tea or dinner. We appreciate most what
has caused us a little self-sacrifice, and I certainly appreciate my
friends far more than any personal inconvenience, besides I had a home
well filled with linen, glass, china, and silver.
It is snobbish to offer what we can’t afford, and honest to give what
we can. Anyone can open a restaurant, and always have it filled with
diners, but it requires a little personality to make and keep a home.
When a woman is poor and friends rally round, she has the intense joy
of knowing it is for herself they come and not for what she can lavish
on her guests. The man or woman who only comes to one’s house to be fed
is no friend, merely a sponger on foolish good-nature.
How hateful it is of people to be late. What a lot of temper and time
is wasted. Surely unpunctuality is a crime. People with nothing to do
seem to make a cult of being behind time, just as busy persons consider
punctuality a god. The folk, who sail into a dinner-party twenty
minutes after they were invited, ought to find their hosts at the first
entrée. One of the most beautiful and charming women who ever came to
London, the wife of a diplomat, took the town by storm; she was invited
everywhere, but by the end of the season her reign had ceased, and why?
“Because,” explained a man well known for hospitality, “she has spoilt
more dinners in London during the last three months than anyone I know.
Personally, I shall never ask her inside my door again.”
The punctuality of kings is proverbial. So is their punctilious way of
answering invitations, making calls, and keeping up _la politesse_ of
Society. ’Tis vulgar to be late, bourgeois not to answer invitations by
return of post, and casual to omit to leave a card when there is not
time for a visit.
Some people seem too busy to think and too indifferent to care. Marcus
Aurelius maintained that life was not theory, but action. What a pity
we don’t have a little more action in the realms of politeness and
consideration.
We owe our host everything. He gives, we take. Let us anyway accept
graciously, punctiliously, and considerately, not as if _we_ were
doing the favour; the boot is on the other foot.
Only eight or nine weeks before her death, Miss Mary Kingsley had dined
with me on the eve of her departure from England, full of health and
spirits, laughingly saying that she did not quite know why she was
going out to South Africa, excepting that she felt she must. She wanted
to nurse soldiers; she wished to see war; and, above all, she desired
to collect specimens of fish from the Orange River.
Armed with some introductions, which I was able to give her, she
departed, declaring with her merry laugh she would only be away a few
months, and would probably return to collect some more specimen-jars
and butterfly-nets before going on to West Africa to continue her
studies there. She had only been a few weeks at the Cape when she
was taken ill and died. She was a woman of strong character, great
determination, a hard worker in every sense of the word, one who had
struggled against opposition and some poverty, and the death of Mary
Kingsley was a loss to her country.
The intrepid explorer was thirty before she had ever been away from our
shores. She had up to that time nursed her invalid mother at Cambridge.
But the spirit of adventure, the desire to travel, were burning within
her; and as soon as the opportunity came she went off by herself to the
wild, untrammelled regions of West Africa, and has left a record of her
experiences in some interesting volumes.
Mary Kingsley made money as a lecturer, but the odd thing was that
she was by no means good at the art. She possessed a deep and almost
manly voice, but being far too nervous to trust to extemporaneous
words, she always read what she had to say, and in her desire to read
slowly and to be clear and distinct, she adopted an extraordinary
sing-song, something like the prayers of a Methodist parson. This was
all very well when she was telling a funny story, as it only heightened
its effect, but when one had to listen for an hour and a half to
this curious monotone, it became tiring. All who knew her, however,
recognised her as a brilliant conversationalist. Sir William Crookes
once truly said:
“Mary Kingsley on the platform, and Mary Kingsley in the drawing-room,
are two entirely different personalities.”
This woman who accomplished and dared so much, who braved the climate
and the blacks of Africa alone, whose views on West African politics
were strongly held and strongly expressed, was the very antithesis of
what one would expect from a strong-minded female. She was small and
thin, her light hair was parted in the middle, and she wore a hard
black velvet band across the head in quite a style of her own, never
seen nowadays on anyone except the little girl in the nursery. She had
all the angular ways, and much of the determination, of the male, when
put to the test, although to look at her one might think a puff of wind
would blow her away.
Mary Kingsley was the niece of Charles Kingsley, and the daughter
of Dr. Henry Kingsley. The woman, who would face a whole tribe of
natives alone and unprotected, was in the society of her own people a
shrinking, nervous little creature. Indeed, one marvelled and wondered
however she kept the strength of will and the physical courage which
she displayed on so many notable occasions during her adventurous
travels. Once she wrote to me:
“MY DEAR MRS. ALEC,
“Thank you very much. I will come if I possibly can. I have an
uncle ill just now that uses up my time considerably and makes me
dull and stupid and unfit for society, but he is on the mend.
“It is very good of you to have had me on Friday. I always feel I
have no right to go out to dinner. I cannot give dinners back, and
I am used only to the trader set connected with West Africa, so
that going into good society is going into a different world, whose
way of thinking and whose interests are so different that I do not
know how to deal with them. If I were only just allowed to listen
and look on it would be an immense treat to me.
“Ever yours truly,
“M. H. KINGSLEY.”
An amusing little incident happened at dinner in my house, when I sent
her a message down the table, accompanied by a pencil, asking her to
sign her name on the tablecloth under that of Paul du Chaillu. She was
covered with confusion, and when my husband told her to write it big,
as it was difficult otherwise to work it in, she said, with a blush:
“Please don’t look at me, for you will make me so nervous I shall not
be able to write it at all.”
Maybe this nervousness was the result of a bad attack of influenza from
which she was just then recovering. “Oh yes, I get influenza here,” she
said, “though I never get fever in Africa, and I am only waiting for
my brother to go off on some expedition to pack up my bundles and do
likewise myself.”
She found herself among several friends that evening, the great Sir
William Crookes was also one of the dinner guests, and she had read
a paper at the British Association a few months before, when he had
been President. Then she knew Mr. Bompas, the brother-in-law of Frank
Buckland, and by a stroke of good luck I was able to introduce her to
Sir Edwin Ray Lankester, who was afterwards appointed Director of the
Natural History Museum at Kensington. They had not met before, and
seemed to find in zoology many subjects of mutual interest.
Mary Kingsley had a keen humour. In her case the spirit of fun did not
override the etiquette of good taste as it is so often inclined to do.
Just before dinner one February night in 1907, I was expecting friends;
but when turning on the drawing-room lights a fuse went, and half of
the lamps were extinguished.
It was an awkward moment. I telephoned to the electrician, who could
only send a boy. Visitors arrived, and my agitation was becoming rather
serious, for the fuse refused to be adjusted, when Sir William and Lady
Ramsay were announced.
I rushed at the former.
“Can you put in an electric fuse?” I asked.
“Certainly,” was the reply.
“For Heaven’s sake, go down to the kitchen,” I continued. “There is
a hopeless boy there who evidently cannot manage it, and we are in
comparative darkness.”
Down the steps the great chemist bounded, followed by the parlourmaid,
and landed, much to the surprise of everybody, at the kitchen door.
There seemed to be barely time for him to have reached the electric
box, before the light sprang into being. Then he washed his hands and
came to dinner, smiling.
What a contrast to the fumbling of the British workman was the
dexterity of the scientific man.
Two evenings later, Sir Joseph Swan, the inventor of the incandescent
burner, was dining at my house and I told him the story.
“I have no doubt Ramsay had often done it before,” he said; “for when
electric light first came in I never seemed to go to any house that I
wasn’t asked to attend to the light. In fact, I quite looked upon it as
part of the evening’s entertainment to put things in order before the
proceedings began. But I think _you_ have inherited your father’s gift
as a _raconteur_, and that is paying you a high compliment, for he was
one of the best I ever knew. Only the other day I was retailing some of
his stories about Ruskin.” And then he reminded me of the following:
Ruskin and my father were great friends, and several times the latter
stayed at Brantwood. On his first visit he had been touring in the
English Lakes, and having a delightful invitation from Ruskin,
he gladly accepted; but there was no mention of my mother, and
consequently, rather than suggest that she should join him, it was
arranged that she and my small sister—then about eight—should go to the
neighbouring hotel.
That night Ruskin asked my father whether he liked tea or coffee before
he got up.
“A cup of tea,” he replied.
“Why don’t you choose coffee?”
“Well, to tell the truth, I have lived so much abroad that I don’t
fancy English coffee, it is generally so badly made.”
His host said nothing. The next morning my father was awakened and a
strong smell of coffee permeated the room, and turning to the servant,
he asked, “Is that my cup of tea?”
“No, sir, it is Mr. Ruskin’s coffee.”
“Mr. Ruskin’s coffee! What do you mean?”
“The master was up early, he roasted the coffee himself, he ground the
coffee himself, and he made the coffee himself, and he hopes you will
like it.”
So much for Ruskin....
During the course of the day it slipped out that my mother was at the
hotel. Ruskin was furious.
“How could you be so unfriendly?” he said.
“Well, you see my little girl is also with her,” my father replied,
“and as we are on our way to Scotland they could not very well go back
to London, and I really could not ask you to house so many.”
Ruskin did not answer, but rang the bell. When the servant arrived he
proceeded:
“Get such-and-such a room ready, and see the sheets are properly aired,
for a lady and little girl are coming to stop. Tell the coachman I want
the carriage at such-and-such an hour.”
Then turning to my father he remarked:
“At that time, Dr. Harley, you can amuse yourself. I am going to fetch
your wife.”
Ruskin loved children. He and my sister Olga became tremendous friends;
they used to walk out together hand in hand for hours and hours, while
he explained to her about beetles, flowers, and birds, and all things
in Nature which appealed to him.
Sir Joseph Swan told me an incident in Carlyle’s life which will be
new to worshippers of the Sage. “So many stories,” he said, “are
told of Carlyle which show him as a terribly bearish person that I
take pleasure in finding in this incident that there was another and
kindlier side of his nature.” It related to a young friend some thirty
years before, now a middle-aged and distinguished man:
The youth was a divinity student in a Birmingham College, preparing
himself for the duties of a dissenting minister. He used to make
occasional visits to London, and during one of these he haunted the
neighbourhood of Chelsea in the hope of meeting Carlyle, then the
subject of his hero-worship. Carlyle was “shadowed,” his goings out and
his comings in were watched for days together, in the far-off hope that
some moment would “turn up” which would bring them into contact.
“One day he followed Carlyle from his house, and across the Bridge into
Battersea Park. Mr. Allingham was with him. Presently the two sat down
together on one of the Park seats. No one was about, and the couple of
old gentlemen were in no way occupied except with their own thoughts.
My young friend nervously watched them as they sat, wondering how near
he might venture. At last he mustered up courage enough to walk softly
behind Mr. Allingham, and to say to him almost in a whisper:
“‘Mr. Allingham, do you think Mr. Carlyle would allow me to shake hands
with him?’
“‘Mr. Carlyle,’ said Mr. Allingham, ‘here is a young man who wishes to
speak to you.’
“Carlyle, roused from his reverie, stood up facing the young student
almost savagely, and said very sharply:
“‘Who are you, and what do you want?’
“The brusqueness of the challenge drove the youth’s shyness away—he
answered jestingly:
“‘I’m a Black Brunswicker from Birmingham.’
“Carlyle’s attitude completely changed. He laughed, and repeated:
“‘A Black Brunswicker from Birmingham!’ Then he added: ‘Tell us who you
are, and all about you.’
“This led to my friend giving Carlyle his name and a good deal of his
history. The Sage asked him many questions with evident interest and
kindly intention, and they were about to part when Carlyle not only
shook hands with his admirer, but gave him his blessing, putting a hand
on his head and saying with solemn earnestness:
“‘May the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac go with the lad!’“
We were sitting one evening under the electric light, steadily burning
in the Swan lamps. I asked Sir Joseph how he came to think of devising
the lamp which has made his name familiar all over the world. So
complicated a topic for the non-expert is the electric light that I am
glad not to have to rely upon memory. Sir Joseph kindly undertook to
put the matter in writing for me, and here is the narrative in his own
words:
“The question you have put to me—although in itself simple—is not
easy to answer. The genesis of ideas is often a puzzling matter,
and it is so to a considerable extent in the case of my electric
lamp. The germ was, I believe, implanted by a lecture on electric
lighting that I heard when I was about seventeen. That was in 1845.
“The lecturer was W. E. Staite, one of the first inventors of a
mechanically-regulated electric lamp. He illustrated his discourse
by brilliant experiments, and was confident in his prediction that
electric light would shortly be used for lighthouse illumination.
Mr. Staite in his lecture also slightly touched on the production
of small electric lights, suitable for house-lighting, and
he described and showed how much lighting could be done by
electrically heating a wire of Iridium. The experiment he showed
to illustrate this point was simply the heating to a white heat a
short piece of iridium wire stretched nakedly in the air between
two conducting pillars.
“The lecturer was careful to explain that means would have to
be provided for regulating the current of electricity, so that
the temperature of the wire should not vary, for if too little,
the light would be dull, if too much, the wire would melt. I
quite clearly remember that while I admired the ingenuity of the
mechanism of Staite’s lighthouse lamp, I was not at all satisfied
with the too elementary device he proposed for small electric
lights.
“As far as it is possible to ‘track suggestion to her inmost cell,’
the train of thought which led, long years after, to the evolution
of my electric lamp had its beginning in seeing Mr. Staite’s very
simple and very inefficient attempt to produce electric light _on a
small scale_, for I then _saw_ how essential it was that _the unit
of light must be small_ and the means of producing it _simple_ for
electricity ever to become a widely used means of illumination.
“That is my answer—a very restricted and imperfect answer—to your
kindly intended question.
“I have always felt indebted to Mr. Staite for the inspiration he
gave me. Unfortunately he did not live to see any great development
of electric lighting; he was distinctly an inventor in advance of
his time.
“It has always been a pleasure to me to think that Faraday had
the joy of seeing ripen some of the first-fruit of his great work
in his department of applied science. In his old age he had the
gratification of seeing the North Foreland Lighthouse lighted by
means of electricity generated in economical manner made possible
by his magneto-electrical discoveries. Would that he might have
seen their greater results that we see to-day!
“Most sincerely yours,
“JOSEPH SWAN.”
At a charming dinner at Sir James Mackay’s,[7] I sat between Prince
d’Arenberg, an old friend (who is best known publicly as the Chairman
of the Suez Canal) and Lord Morley; both elderly gentlemen, both
scholars, leaders of men, both small, concise, and full of strength.
Not long afterwards, I heard Lord Morley lecture on English Language
and Literature. He has a nervous manner, with thin, refined hands
and fidgety ways. It was no doubt an ordeal to face such an enormous
audience, but it was curious to see the nervousness of the accustomed
speaker. He took out his watch, unthreaded the long chain from the
buttonholes, and laid it on the table before him, drank three whole
tumblers of water by way of a preliminary canter, stood up, received a
perfect ovation, pulled at the lapels of his coat, and looked unhappy.
In clear black writing on half-sheets of note-paper, the lecture was
apparently written. The light was good and the lecture desk high, and
he was practically able to read without appearing to do so. Sometimes
one could see he was interlarding his prepared material with impromptu
lines, but the bulk of the material was delivered as it was prepared.
And it was a brilliant achievement. A thin, small voice and yet so
accustomed to use, that it could be heard all over the hall. As a rule
he spoke quietly, but sometimes he became emphatic, and thumped his
right hand on his left. Sometimes he folded his hands on his chest,
at others he folded them behind his back. In fact, one would dub him
a thoroughly good speaker from habit rather than circumstance. He has
not got a sufficiently commanding presence, nor is his voice strong
enough for effect, but being an absolute master of his subject and from
the practice of fifty years of public life, he knows how to catch an
audience and keep it interested.
Having referred to his nervousness, it is only fair to say it lasted
but a minute. Before he turned the first page of his manuscript it had
flown, and so accustomed was he to speak that he evidently prepared a
speech of one hour’s duration, and exactly as the clock pointed to the
hour he ceased. It was a scholarly production rendered in a masterly
way.
In 1911 the late Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema and other friends were
dining with me in York Terrace, when Arthur Bourchier’s name turned up
in conversation.
“How splendid he is as _Henry VIII._,” remarked the veteran
Academician, who had just celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday, and
who was still as hale, hearty, full of jokes as ever, and rattled off
new stories with every fresh course.
Taking up his name card as he spoke, he drew a little square box, and
in another instant, a few more lines had turned the box into the figure
of Bourchier as _Henry VIII._
“Have you seen Bourchier’s beard off the stage?” I asked.
“No, I do not think I have,” he replied, and then I told him of the
silly little remark I had made at a public dinner and which someone
must have overheard, as it appeared in endless newspapers the following
week.
Here it is, headed:
“MR. BOURCHIER’S REJOINDER
“When Mrs. Alec Tweedie a few days ago met Mr. Arthur Bourchier,
who was wearing, of course, his fiery red dyed Henry VIII. beard,
she exclaimed: ‘Why, I thought you were Bernard Shaw, with a
swollen face!’ ‘What an impossible conception—Bernard Shaw with any
part of his head swollen,’ replied the Garrick manager.”
Chaffing Mr. Bourchier about this a week or two later at a luncheon
given by Mr. Somerset Maugham at the Carlton, I said:
“I really believe your beard is redder than ever.”
“Quite so,” he replied; “to-day is dye-day, Monday.”
“Oh, is it? I always thought it was wash-day?”
“With me it is dye-day, and every Monday morning I am steeped in
henna,” he replied.
“Why did you start that beard?” I asked.
“Because, dear lady, when we began _Henry VIII._ it was winter, and I
had not the pluck to face gumming on a beard for eight performances a
week in the cold weather, tearing it off again, and shaving daily. I
should have had no face left by now. It would have been raw meat. The
only way was to grow a beard, and as the beard would come grey, the
only way to master it was to dip it in the dye-pot.” And he laughed
that merry chuckle which has become so familiar in his impersonation of
bluff King Hal.
Everyone liked Tadema with his genial personality. It is a curious
thing that though of Dutch descent, he was really born in Wimpole
Street, London. He lived more or less in Holland until he was sixteen,
when he went to Belgium to study Art, but he never drew his pictures,
except in his mind’s eye; he painted straight on the canvas. He was the
first exponent of art and archæology in combination. When he returned
to Holland they assured him that he was no longer Dutch, and if he
wished to be considered so, he must be naturalised. “Ridiculous,” he
said, “I shall do nothing of the kind, and if your rules are so absurd,
I shall have nothing more to do with Holland.” “I was annoyed and I
left, and England has been my home ever since,” he continued as he was
relating this to me. “The funny part is, that when I wear my uniform
to go to a Levée, I am always taken for an English admiral. You see I
am short and fat, and have a beard, and the man in the street seems to
associate that with the commander of the sea. Anyway, I have so often
been taken for an admiral, that I sometimes forget I am a painter.”
If Tadema looked like an admiral instead of a painter, Somerset Maugham
looks like a smart London young man rather than a medico who has taken
to the drama.
What a strange career! A young doctor, in a small practice, he spent
his spare time writing plays. For eight years _Lady Frederick_ was
refused a hearing. Then one day he heard that Ethel Irving wanted a
comedy in a hurry—looked up his book, saw Mary Moore had had it for a
year, dashed off in a hansom (there weren’t many taxis in 1905), made
her unearth it, went on in the hansom, left it with Ethel Irving, and
within twenty-four hours it was accepted. She was great in the part.
Success followed. _Mrs. Dot_ had been refused by managers for five
years. Once accepted, it roped money in. Success number two.
In 1910 he laughingly told me he had just used up the last of his
stock of plays, and would then (having made a fortune in the old ones)
have to begin something new. He owned he had altered and written them
all up a bit, but they were the same plays that all the managers had
previously refused.
When an artist paints a portrait, he leaves out the disagreeable
traits, when a photographer takes a photo he rubs out the wrinkles,
and when an author writes a personal book he leaves out all the most
personal touches.
The longer I live the more convinced I am that each tiny act has a
wider reaching result. For instance, I wrote _Iceland_ for fun. Ten
years afterwards that girlish diary was selling on the bookstalls at a
time when I badly wanted the money it brought in. Once I wrote a thing
I hated. I wavered, but finally published it, and that wretched article
has turned up again and again to annoy me and jeer at me.
We make a friend of good social standing, perhaps a little way above
us intellectually and socially, that friendship leads to others of a
similar kind. By chance we become acquainted with someone below our
own sphere and usual standard. He is right enough in his way; but
his friends fasten upon us. Without being positively rude various
undesirable people are foisted upon us. We do a kind act. Years
afterwards that kindness is unexpectedly returned with interest. We
do a cruel deed and that deed haunts us along life’s path by its
consequences. Everything counts in the game of life, and yet nothing
counts but an easy conscience.
A thick veil, therefore, covers many most striking episodes and
events. Diplomats have met at my house to discuss important world-wide
questions. Politicians have talked over knotty points in my
drawing-room hidden away from the eyes of the reporter. My little home
has witnessed striking interviews, and the walls have heard wondrous
tales of world-wide repute unfolded and discussed. I have often been of
use in this way, and am proud of the strange confidences that have been
placed in me, but such trust cannot be betrayed, and although I could
tell many wondrous facts, my readers must not be disappointed that they
should be withheld. Discretion is not a vice.
Silence is often golden.
Hence I may disappoint the many in these pages; but I hope to earn the
gratitude of the few, by respecting their important confidences.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Lord Inchcape.
CHAPTER XXIV
FROM GAY TO GRAVE
A truce to work. Even adversity has its sweets. After tasks should
come whatever pleases best, the toiler has earned a play-hour. A lover
of pageant, I will now describe what to me is one of the interesting
sights in London, namely a reception at the Foreign Office. The
invitations are issued “by His Majesty and His Ministers,” for
ten-thirty, but before ten o’clock a line of carriages is slowly
wending its way to Whitehall, through Downing Street, into the
courtyard of the Foreign Office.
It is the King’s Birthday, Parliament has risen, all the men of note in
the country are dining at official dinners. They have all donned their
best uniforms, Court dress, decorations, and ribbons, and presently are
making their way up the gaily decorated staircase.
One must own to a feeling of disappointment on driving up, for the
entrance door is meagre and indifferent, and the downstairs cloak-rooms
are not imposing. Nevertheless, the dividing staircase once reached,
all is changed. At its foot is the famous marble statue of the late
Lord Salisbury by Herbert Hampton, the cast for which I had gazed on
so often when my own bust was being modelled. The well is not so large
as in Stafford House, nor so imposing as in Dorchester House, so the
spectators do not stand all round, but on one side only; besides, the
aspect is somewhat contracted. Still, half-way up the Foreign Minister,
with several officials and a sprinkling of ladies, stands and receives.
Those who have the entrée pass up the stairs on his left hand; those
without it pass up on his right.
Masses of flowers festoon the marble balustrade; their scent is heavy
in the air. What a strange crowd it is! Some of the most renowned
men and women in Europe are present. Gorgeous ladies in magnificent
gowns, with sparkling tiaras, are escorted by gentlemen ablaze with
stars and orders. Then come a humble little Labour Member in a blue
serge coat, and his wife in an ill-fitting blouse. At the top of the
stairs the crowd disperses to the Great Hall, where the one and only
picture represents William III. Beyond this is the room used in the
last Administration for Cabinet meetings—for this particular reception
took place in 1907—and where also Sir Edward Grey, the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, had just given his full-dress dinner. Here
refreshments were served, and here also the band of the Grenadier
Guards played during the evening.
Among the visitors were Ambassadors from foreign States, besides
diplomats attached to the various Embassies, with their wives,
Ministers and Ladies of the Legations, Consuls and Consuls-General
of foreign countries, heads of Departments, and Chiefs of Government
Offices; representatives of the Army, Navy, Church, Art, Literature,
Drama, etc.
The decorations worn by the men certainly improve their appearance
and add to the brilliancy of the scene, but stars own sharp, angular
points, which have a way of scratching bare arms, as the writer knows
to her cost.
About eleven o’clock the strains of “God Save the King” were heard, and
shortly afterwards the Royal Procession was formed, and wended its way
through all the galleries, until it reached the room where supper was
arranged. Young men in official uniform preceded the procession, to
clear the way. Then followed the Prime Minister, with the Princess of
Wales (now Queen Mary), who has the gift of acquiring greater dignity
of manner as years roll on.
The Prince of Wales (now King George V.) came next, and, with that
extraordinary genial gift of recognition, apparently inherited from his
father, he stopped as he passed through the suite of rooms to shake
hands with the people he knew.
All the Ministers and their wives, the Duke of Norfolk, and a host
of other officials followed in his wake. It is the custom for the
gentlemen to bow low and the ladies to curtsey as the procession passes.
By this time there was barely breathing room, for all the official
diners had arrived, and most of the three thousand invitations issued
found a representative in that gay throng. Supper over, the Royal
Procession returned through the State Galleries, and, descending the
staircase, went home shortly after midnight.
Well, well! to think how many people declare they “would not thank you
for such a pretty sight; would rather sit at home with their book, or
smoke at their club; anything rather than see a fashionable gathering,
and be jostled by diplomats and peers.”
“OPENING OF PARLIAMENT.
An Impression of the Peers.
(By a Woman Commoner.)”
Thus my little article was headed in the front page of _The Pall Mall
Gazette_, 1902.
“A little flutter of excitement passed through me as I opened a
certain envelope one morning, and took out its contents. Just a
little bit of cardboard, but oh, how precious! for it represented a
seat at the opening of Parliament by His Most Gracious Majesty King
Edward VII. ‘Admittance 12 o’clock. Doors close 1.30. Day dress.’
“These were the orders, and, not wishing to miss anything, I
started forth a little after noon, and drove to the Victoria Tower
entrance. I had been there before, when the House was sitting, and
knew those rows of five hundred pegs on which the noble lords hang
their coats and hats, each peg being ornamented with its owner’s
name. By the by, there is a curious rule that no peer standing on
the floor of the Upper House, or moving from one side to another,
may do so with his hat on; and if he rise from his comfortable red
seat with his head covered, he must doff his hat, and not replace
it until he is seated again. Such a strange formality is easily
forgotten, so wise folk leave their hats downstairs.
“There is as great a charm about the interior of the House of Peers
as there is in the building architecturally; the moss-green carpets
and red-covered seats harmonise so well with the fine carvings
and passable pictures. The Robing Room is hung with canvases of
the Tudor period, and there are also some good carvings here,
which made a fitting setting to the day’s proceedings. Never has
there been such a demand for tickets as on this occasion, both
by Members of the Commons to hear the King’s Speech, and Society
generally to get into the Royal Gallery.
“Forty-one guns fired from St. James’s Park announced the arrival
of the Royal party. It was at this point of overpowering excitement
that the heralds first made their appearance. They were gorgeous in
red and blue and gold, ornamented with lions, rose, shamrock, and
thistle, headed by the Rouge Croix and Rouge Dragon, and followed
by the officers of the Lord Chamberlain’s office, Gentlemen of
the Court, and the Ushers. After sundry officials had passed,
the Lord Privy Seal (the Marquis of Salisbury) appeared. He was
looking very, very old, his stoop more noticeable than ever, in
spite of his great height; and he was certainly one of the tallest
men present, with the exception of the magnificent Lifeguardsmen
who lined the staircase. The Prime Minister appeared somewhat
more bald, and the hair at each side of his head seemed longer
and whiter than usual. The Duke of Norfolk, on the other hand,
was looking quite smart, and so was His Grace of Devonshire, who
wore his red robes with white bands round the shoulders with manly
grace. The Duke of Portland, many years their junior, though
getting extremely stout, is still strikingly handsome. Then came
the exciting moment; the Sword of State appeared in view, carried
by the Marquis of Londonderry, followed by the King, on whose
left side walked the Queen. She looked perfectly lovely. Her
carriage, the majestic turn of her head, all denoted the bearing
of a young woman, instead of one on the wrong side of fifty, and a
grandmother. On her chestnut hair she wore a small diamond crown
with a point in front like a Marie Stuart cap, and a long cream
veil of Honiton lace. This was caught under the crown, and hung
down the back, showing to advantage over her red velvet robe, which
was borne by pages. She wore a high black dress, high probably
owing to her recent illness; but the front of the bodice was so
covered with diamonds, arranged in horizontal bands from her deep
diamond collarette, that but little of the bodice was seen. She
bowed most sweetly, and, as she passed, folk murmured, ‘Isn’t she
lovely, and every inch a Queen!’ Her black-gloved hand rested
lightly upon the King’s white one, as he led her through the Royal
Gallery to the House of Peers. She wore large pearls in her ears,
and lengthy chains of pearls round her neck; in fact, she was
literally ablaze with diamonds and pearls.
“The King was looking better than formerly, only a little paler and
thinner. He wore a scarlet uniform, which rather clashed with the
dark red velvet of his robe, but his deep ermine cape with small
black tails broke the discordant tones. The Royal couple bowed
slightly as they moved slowly along, and a deathlike stillness
prevailed after the first blare of trumpets which heralded their
approach, when the doors were first thrown open, and they entered
the gallery. Immediately behind the Queen came the Countess of
Antrim, the Lady of the Bedchamber; the Duchess of Buccleuch,
as Mistress of the Robes; and Lady Alice Stanley, who bears the
strange title ‘Woman of the Bedchamber.’ They were all dressed
in black—their Court dresses cut low—and wore black feathers and
spotted black veils, with diamond pins in the hair.
“One of the chief features of the procession was the Cap of
Maintenance, which was carried immediately before His Majesty
by the Marquis of Winchester. Then came the Duke of Devonshire,
bearing the State Crown, which resembled an extremely large
peer’s crown of red velvet with an ermine border. Then came Gold
Sticks and Silver Sticks, pages and officers in uniform, truly
a magnificent procession, as it wended its way along the Royal
Gallery. The Yeomen of the Guard lined the aisle, and looked
as delightfully picturesque as usual. Now came the moment of
disappointment. These much-prized tickets did not admit us into
the House of Peers to hear the Speech from the Throne. We had to
wait patiently for about a quarter of an hour for the return of the
procession, which—by the by—had been a quarter of an hour late in
starting, and then wend our way down the Royal staircase and out
through the funny little oak door towards home. Wonderful carriages
were waiting below, with hammercloths and wigged coachmen, and all
the glories of nobility. Truly a regal entertainment.
“Now for a growl. That Royal Gallery is all very well, but it was
packed to suffocation, and there were no chairs at all, the three
raised tiers being impossible as seats, when the great crush came.
Would it not be better to issue less tickets, and provide narrow
benches for those present? Two to three hours’ standing for women
not accustomed to it is rather trying, especially when the space
is so crowded that it is hardly possible to breathe. Peeresses
married to commoners were there; peeresses by marriage whose
fathers-in-law are still living; sons who one day will succeed
noble fathers in the House of Lords; they were all there, crowds of
them; that was why the Hall was so full. There were some beautiful
women and handsome men in that Royal Gallery. Only peeresses, who
are the wives of the heads of noble families, were admitted to the
Peeresses’ Gallery itself, and even they could not all find room.
Standing in a crowd is a tedious performance; but a look at the
King and Queen was a grand recompense, and made us all forget our
aching feet and the want of luncheon.”
A tea-party at the House of Commons is another London experience that
to me is always rather amusing. For this one drives to St. Stephen’s
Porch, and, passing up a wide stairway flanked here and there by
ponderous-looking policemen, is accosted at the top of the stairs by
another magnificent guardian of the law, who demands one’s business.
“Tea with Dr. Farquharson,” was my humble reply on one occasion,
whereupon the functionary bowed graciously, and waved me through the
glass doors that led to the central hall.
There is always a hubbub in that particular lobby; at least, I have
never been there when it has not been full of men discussing political
affairs. (Or dare we call it gossiping?) Between four and five o’clock
a small sprinkling of ladies, who have been invited to tea within the
sacred precincts, are dotted here and there. Members are generally very
good at meeting their guests, and on the alert, at the appointed place
and time. It is well this is so, for it would be an awful trial for a
lone woman to stand and wait there long.
Having collected his chickens, the evergreen Member for Aberdeen led us
along the passage opposite our entrance to the Terrace. The way on the
left leads to the House of Commons, that on the right to the House of
Lords. It is all very imposing, as far as the end of the passage, but
having reached that one stumbles down a stone-flagged stairway which
would hardly do credit as the ordinary back-stairs of a private London
house, and would certainly be a poor specimen of the back-stairs of a
country mansion. Foreigners and Americans must be rather surprised at
the cellar-like and tortuous means by which they are led to the famous
river view; for back regions, consisting of kitchens, store-rooms,
pantries, and other like places, have to be passed by the dainty ladies
who trip their way to the Terrace overlooking the Thames.
Having emerged from semi-darkness to the light, all is changed. From
the Terrace there is a magnificent view of St. Thomas’s Hospital
opposite, and the barges and river craft plying between.
Neat maids in black dresses and white caps and aprons serve the
Commons. It is a charming place; still, although shaded from the sun,
wind on the Terrace is not unknown, and the cloths on the little tables
have to be carefully pegged down to keep them in their places. The
entertainment, however pleasant, is not exactly what one would call
smart. Plain white cups and brown earthenware teapots, hunks of cake
on plates, or strawberries and cream, form the fare. There are none of
those dainty little trays and mats, and pretty crockery, to which one
is accustomed at ladies’ clubs or in Bond Street tea-rooms.
At one end of the Terrace, nearest the Bridge, is the Speaker’s
House, and that part of the walk is reserved for Members alone. On a
hot summer afternoon twenty, thirty, or forty men may be seen there
settling important business, or enjoying tea and cigarettes. Then comes
the portion set aside for Members with guests, and there the gaiety
of the dresses—for every woman puts on her best to go to tea at the
House of Commons—is delightful, but mingled with the smart company are
some queer folk. Members are always being asked to entertain their
constituents, and some of the political ladies from the provinces must
be rather a trial to their representatives at Westminster.
We were a funny little party that afternoon. Miss Braddon (Mrs.
Maxwell) sat at the end of the table, then came Sir Gilbert Parker,
myself, Mr. and Mrs. (now Sir Henry and Lady) W. H. Lucy, Sir William
Wedderburn, and Mrs. John Murray.
Since the Radical majority in 1906 the Terrace has become a very
different place. Smart ladies and pretty frocks, well-set-up and
well-groomed men, are not predominant; for Labour Members wear labour
clothes, and smoke pipes, while their families and friends look ill at
ease below those glorious towers of Westminster.
A few days after that House of Commons tea with Dr. Farquharson I
chanced to have tea at the House of Lords with Viscount Templetown.
In this case, one drives up to the Peers’ Entrance, which is rather
farther from Parliament Street, and alights beneath the fine portico,
where officials in gorgeous uniform enquire one’s business, until the
kindly peer, who is waiting in the hall, steps forward to claim his
guest.
Passing, as on my visit to the House of Commons, through sundry
cheerless passages and more horrible stone staircases, we stepped out
upon the Terrace, this time at the end furthest from the Speaker’s
House. The only difference in the arrangements is that at the Lords’
teas, waitresses are superseded by waiters wearing gorgeous blue
ribbons and gold badges, so grand, indeed, that an American is said to
have innocently asked if that was the Order of the Garter.
“Yes, my lud,” “No, my lud,” is the answer to every question. The tea
is just the same, the fare is just as frugal, the cups and tray just
as simple as for the House of Commons, but on every chair is painted
“House of Lords.” What would not an American give to possess one of
those chairs, iron-clamped and wooden-rimmed though they be?
The less said about the Ladies’ Gallery the better. I have never
gone there without a feeling of disgust. One might as well be shut
up in a bathing-machine, so foul is the air; or behind the screen of
a cathedral, so little can one see; or in a separate room, so little
can one hear. For many months in 1910 women were forbidden even this
gruesome chamber as a punishment for militant disturbances. When
the rule of banishment was rescinded only relations of members were
admitted. Thus some curious relationships were invented. A story runs
that someone asked a prominent Irishman if he would pass a lady in as
his cousin.
“Certainly,” he replied—but when he saw her, she came from South
Africa, and was black, and so he cooled off.
“But the lady is official, and must get in.”
“All right, I’ll manage it,” replied the genial member, so off he went
to a fellow-Nationalist.
“I say, there is an official’s wife from South Africa wants a seat.
Will you pass her in as your cousin?”
“By all means,” replied his colleague.
Accordingly, the black lady took her seat complacently, and everyone
wondered whose “cousin” she was.
Let me, “in half joke and whole earnest,” as the Irish say, give an
instance of myself as an ordinary woman with certain ideas on politics,
and show how one incident changed my mind on the Tariff. Let us call
the little tale “The Story of a Fur Coat”—only a little story about
my very own fur coat, a Conservative garment which nearly became
Socialistic atoms.
In 1905 I was in Mexico. I had crossed the Atlantic in the warmth of
summer, had travelled in tropical heat beneath banana trees in the
South, and was to return to England in time for Christmas Day. I waited
in Mexico City until the last minute, because I wanted to see General
Diaz elected President for the seventh time. Then I remembered my big
sledging coat was in London, and three thousand miles of the Atlantic
had to be crossed in mid-winter, even after traversing as many more
miles by land to reach New York.
I wired for the coat to meet me in New York.
Seven feet of snow lay piled along the sides of the streets of that
city when I arrived, and chunks of ice floated down the Hudson, icicles
hung from the sky-scrapers; everyone shivered out of doors, and baked,
or rather stewed, inside the houses.
“Where is my fur coat?” I asked.
“It has not arrived,” was the answer.
Distressed and surprised, I went off the next day to the Steamship
Office to demand the coat. From White Star to Cunard, from Cunard
to White Star, backwards and forwards I trudged. At last a package
securely sewn up and sealed was found. Was that it?
Really I could not say, as I had never seen the parcel before; but,
as my name was on it, I presumed it was. Would the clerk kindly look
inside and see if it was a blue cloth coat with a fur lining and sable
collar?
The clerk regretted, but he dared not open it, and suggested my filling
in a sheet of paper.
“Certainly, I would fill in anything to get my coat.”
So I began. They have a way in America of asking the most irrelevant
questions. Your age?—Parents?—Probable length of sojourn?—What
illnesses have you had?—If you are a cripple?—What languages you
speak?—and generally end up by enquiring of first-class passengers if
they have ever been in prison.
I answered reams of such-like questions, as far as I can remember;
swore to all sorts of queer things, and against “Value” put forty or
fifty pounds, which was what the coat had originally cost.
The clerk took the paper, read it slowly through, appeared to juggle
with figures, and then said calmly:
“The duty will be twenty-three pounds!” ($115.)
“The what?” I exclaimed.
“The duty——”
“What duty? It is a very old coat; it has been in Iceland, Lapland,
Russia, and other countries with me, and it is not for sale. It is my
own coat.”
“I quite understand all that,” he replied, “but you said its value was
forty or fifty pounds, and we charge sixty per cent on the value.”
I nearly had a fit. I was sailing next day; I had no twenty-three
pounds in cash to pay with, and I absolutely declined to disburse
anything.
He simply refused to disgorge. Deadlock.
Fuming and fretting, I left the office. Every influential friend I had
was appealed to in the next few hours, I maintaining stoutly that every
paper in America should hear of the injustice to my “old clo’,” if I
had to cross the Atlantic without it; and if I died from cold, my death
would be laid at the door of the American custom-house officials.
Finally, the affair was arranged. At seven o’clock next morning a
friend fetched me in that rare commodity—in New York—a cab, and we
drove those weary miles to the docks. My luggage was on the vehicle, my
ticket in my hand. It was not the same dock as I was sailing from at
ten o’clock. More palaver, more signing of documents, more swearing to
the identity of the coat, more showing of frayed edges, to prove the
coveted garment was not new; and the precious thing was at last handed
over. An official helped me into it. Another official mounted on the
box of the cab and drove with me to the next dock; he actually conveyed
me—and the coat—“in bond” to my ship. He saw me up the gangway, and
then—but apparently not till then—did he believe I was not going to
sell the coat, and cheat the United States of a sixty per cent duty.
Up to that time I had been somewhat large in my views, somewhat
of a Free Trader; but after that I realised how impossible it was
for England to stand out practically alone against all the other
protected countries, and that if Free Trade was right, Free Trade must
be universal or not at all. Why should we be the only people to be
philanthropic?
When they wanted to take my fur coat from me I also realised I was not
really a Socialist. I did not wish to share it with anyone; and when
they wanted to charge me for my own wares, I felt the injustice of
England allowing tens and tens of thousands of new foreign clothes to
enter our ports unchallenged, while America and other countries charge
half the value of the goods received.
From that moment I believed in Protection, and bade adieu to Free-Trade
notions and Socialistic dreams.
_We_ do the _giving_, while others do the _taking_, and the odds work
against ourselves.
As we can’t make the world Free Traders, let us enjoy Protection, like
the rest of the world. Conscription, more practical—and especially
technical—education, and the revival of apprenticeships, would do more
good to England than all the Socialistic tearing to pieces of manners
and customs, strikes, disorganisation, and all the rest of it.
Cabinet Ministers, with their five thousand a year, and Members of
Parliament, with their four hundred pounds, can afford to go on keeping
the pot of discontent boiling—its very seething is what keeps them in
office. Paid agitators are ruining the land.
“From gay to grave” this chapter is headed. Surely no misnomer, for
to pass from teacups on the Terrace of Lords’ and Commons’ Houses,
where women chat and smile, and show off their pretty frocks, to the
atmosphere of solid learning diffused by the _Encyclopædia Britannica_,
its huge staff, its editor, its hundreds of workers, this is a weighty
and serious enough ending.
The _Encyclopædia Britannica_ celebrated its eleventh birthday—I mean
edition—on the 13th December, 1910; and all the great papers (and
the greater Dailies “include the lesser”) took notice of the really
noteworthy banquet.
Four dinners had been already given by Mr. Hugh Chisholm, the editor,
to his masculine contributors, but the feminine element being less
numerous, it was thought inadvisable to distribute the women as scanty
plums in four large dough puddings. Therefore the fifth and last of the
series of _Encyclopædia_ dinners given at the Savoy Hotel was dedicated
to celebrating the share taken by women in the colossal work. We sat
down two hundred and fifty, and no more representative attendance of
light and learning was ever brought together. It was a triumph for
both sexes. A splendid gathering of men came to do those women workers
honour.
_The Times_ said:
“Perhaps, if looked at rightly and seriously, one of the most
remarkable events in the world of women for many years was the
dinner given on Tuesday last by the Editor of the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, in celebration of the part taken by women in the
preparation of the 11th edition of that monument of learning. Among
the women present as contributors or guests were the following:—The
Mistress of Girton College and the Principal of Newnham College,
Cambridge, the Principal of Somerville College, Oxford, the
Principal of Bedford College, London, and the heads of many other
women’s colleges; H.M. Principal Lady Inspector of Factories (Miss
A. M. Anderson, M.A.), the Lady Superintendent of the Post Office
Savings Bank (Miss Maria Constance Smith, I.S.O.), Mrs. Fawcett,
Mrs. W. K. Clifford, Lady Strachey, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Mrs. Sophie
Bryant, D.SC., Mrs. Hertha Ayrton, Mrs. Bedford Fenwick, Mrs.
Wilfrid Meynell, Miss Emily Davies, LL.D., etc. Truly an imposing
list of names, a standing testimony to the value of woman’s brain
power in the work of the humanities and sciences.”
Twelve hundred contributors from all over the world. Among whom only
twenty-seven were women. Is it surprising that I was proud to be
numbered among those lucky few, and to have been one of the four asked
to speak at that great gathering?
_The Morning Post_, after giving the names of the guests present,
added that the wide range of feminine activity, shown in the lives and
work of those ladies present, proved that into the last four decades
women had compressed the work of four centuries. That the interests,
work, and present place in the social scheme of women were entirely
on a level with that of men, this being the strongest testimony of
the enormous advance in civilisation made by all the English-speaking
peoples in the past forty years.
Hurrah! All honour to women! Admiring my sex as I do, here let me
make my boast of them, and give a little list of the leading women
contributors that was kindly furnished me by Miss Janet Hogarth[8]
(head of the female staff of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_). If some
are omitted, I am sorry; for we should make the most of our few chances
of letting the blind, deaf outer world see and hear what women are
doing and have lately done.
_Education._—Mrs. Henry Sidgwick.
_Scholarship._—Mrs. Wilde (Miss A. M. Clay), Mrs. Alison Phillips,
Miss B. Philpotts.
_Science._—Lady Huggins, Miss A. L. Smith, the late Miss Agnes
Clarke, and the late Miss Mary Bateson.
_Travel._—Lady Lugard, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, Miss Gertrude Bell.
_Sociology._—Miss A. Anderson.
_Literature._—Mrs. Meynell, Miss Jessie Weston, Miss Margaret
Bryant, Miss A. Zimmern.
_Church History._—Miss A. Panes, Mrs. O’Neill.
_Music._—Miss Schlesinger.
_Medicine._—Mrs. Hennessy and the late Miss Fisher.
_Philosophy._—Lady Welby.
Having myself, as usual, refused to speak, I was kindly reproached by
Mr. Chisholm for declining, and told “to be sure to be amusing.”
But stop a moment! _Punch_ was so delightful in his next issue, that it
is to be hoped Toby will not yap at me for lifting the morsel wholesale.
“THE END OF WOMAN
“[Miss Fluffy Frou-Frou’s reply to Miss JANET HOGARTH, who, at a
recent Encyclopædia-Contributors’ Dinner, said the best answer she
had ever heard to the question, ‘What are women put into this world
for?’ was, ‘To keep the men’s heads straight.’]
“WHEN you would settle woman’s place and aim
And duties on this planet,
I, and whole _heaps_ of girls who think the same,
Bid you shut up, Miss JANET!
“Speak for the Few, if speak you must, but _pray_
Don’t speak for _us_, the Many;
_We_ simply _scream_ with mirth at what you say;
_We_ are not taking any.
“Your words, dear JANET, frankly are _si bête_
That all we others spurn them;
_We_ (Heavens!) _we_, ‘to keep the men’s heads straight!’
_We_ who just live to _turn them_!!”
It seems that in the first edition of the _Encyclopædia_, published
in 1798, the editor defined woman as “the female of man. See _Homo_.”
Finally, Miss Hogarth, who began by telling what women had done for the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, ended by saying what it had given them, viz.
the opportunity, hitherto unequalled, of showing what they could do to
help learning, the chance to demonstrate their rightful place in the
learned world.
Afterwards Mrs. Fawcett, in an excellent speech, said that the wife of
a working-man (if she did her duty) was the hardest-worked creature on
the face of the globe. Pointing to the successes achieved by women in
various directions, she recalled the remark of a famous Cambridge coach
who reproached his idle students, asking how they would like to be
beaten by a woman. One replied, “I should much prefer it, sir, to being
beaten by a man.”
To end up the notices of this memorable dinner, ever-delightful _Punch_
helps one to leave off with a smile. This is a little scrap stolen—be
quiet, Toby!—from a column of quips and cranks honouring our gathering:
“PERPETUAL EMOTION.
“(_From ‘The Times’ of December 20, 1906._)
“THE series of spritely dinners given by the proprietors of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_ to the contributors to the eleventh
edition is still in full swing, the two hundred and fiftieth
being held last night. Sir HUGH CHISHOLM took the Chair as usual,
habit having become second nature with him; and he made, for a
nonagenarian, a singularly lucid speech, in which he once again
explained the genesis of the Encyclopædic idea and its progress
through the ages until it reached perfection under his own
fostering care. Sir HUGH, who spoke only for two hours instead of
his customary three, was at times but imperfectly heard by the
Press, but a formidable array of ear-trumpets absorbed his earlier
words at the table.
“Sir THOMAS BEECHAM, Mus.Doc., responding for the toast of the
musical contributors, indulged in some interesting reminiscences of
his early career. In those days, as he reminded his hearers, he was
a paulo-post-Straussian. But it proved only a case of _sauter pour
mieux reculer_, and now he confessed that he found it impossible
to listen with any satisfaction to music later than that of
MENDELSSOHN. After all, melody, simple and unsophisticated, was the
basic factor in music, and an abiding fame could never be built up
on the calculated pursuit of eccentricity.
“Lord GOSSE, who entered and dined in a wheeled chair, remarked
incidentally that he had missed only seven out of the two hundred
and fifty dinners, and then told some diverting if not too novel
anecdotes of his official connection with the Board of Trade and
recited a charming sonnet which he had composed in honour of the
Editor, the two last lines running as follows:
Foe of excess, of anarchy and schism,
I lift my brimming glass to thee, HUGH CHISHOLM.
“Few centenarians can ever have contributed a more exhilarating
addition to an evening’s excitement.
“Dr. HOOPER, late Master of Trinity and ex-Vice-Chancellor of
Cambridge University, expressed his gratification that his _alma
mater_ was indissolubly associated with the great undertaking
which they were once more met to celebrate in convivial conclave.
Cambridge was famous for its ‘Backs,’ and it had put its back into
the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. He hoped that he might be spared to
attend their three hundredth meeting, with Sir HUGH CHISHOLM as
Autocrat of the Dinner-Table.”
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Now Mrs. W. L. Courtney.
CHAPTER XXV
ON JOTTINGS
Do you ever jot? If not, pray allow me to introduce you to one of the
least expensive and most repaying domestic hobbies. I am myself a
most inveterate jotter, both by pen and brush, for I have cases full
of water-colour sketches, and bundles of maps, scraps, photos, and
oddments. Plenty of entertainment for future years can be laid up in
this way. Good stories; real plots too strange for fiction; bon-mots;
impressions of scenery; plays; programmes; events; menus; anything that
pleases one’s fancy is fish for the jotting net.
In some receptacle—whether drawer, despatch-box, or tin case—fling in
your jottings, pencilled in haste while fresh. I have cupboards of
notes on Mexico, Iceland, Finland, Lapland, Sicily, Russia, Italy,
Morocco, America, Canada—pamphlets, prints, statistics, and other
heterogeneous matter.
And to all would-be journalists and aspiring book-writers let me also
add: jot down your happy thoughts, smaller inspirations, appreciated
quotations, for all may be useful some day.
To begin with, here is a “true fact”—as silly persons will sometimes
declare—concerning a banker.
By way of title to my little tale, I will call it:
“THE MILLIONAIRE’S FOUR POUNDS.”
He was lunching with me on his return from Egypt, this quiet,
unassuming head of a great banking firm.
“What have you written this year?” I asked.
“Twenty-two stanzas on Egypt, a land of ancient tombs and modern
worries. They appeared, and I actually got four pounds for them.”
The four pounds delighted him. That he spent more than four thousand
pounds in Egypt counted for naught, he had _earned_ four pounds.
“Rather funny, I was motoring in Scotland lately, and I called on
the Editor,” continued my guest. “He was charming. We talked on many
subjects, and then I said, ‘You don’t pay your contributors very
highly, do you?’
“‘Yes, oh yes, we do.’
“‘You only paid me four pounds for twenty-two stanzas the other day.’
“‘Ah, well, you see, that was poetry, and no one reads poetry!’”
He told me the joke with a merry little chuckle on his grave face, and
his blue eyes twinkled.
* * * * *
This story is equalised by one Herbert Hampton told me. He was at
Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire, and wanted a couple of rooms for a
week to rest and do a little sketching; so seeing “Apartments” up at a
tiny cottage, he went in. It was a very simple place, clean and tidy,
but quite a workman’s home.
The woman asked him two guineas a week. Considering the accommodation
offered, he thought the price ridiculous.
“Come, come, I am not a millionaire,” he said.
She looked at him, paused, and replied:
“I thought you were a _gentleman_.”
* * * * *
Sometimes one has utterly unexpected annoyances. Here is an instance of
such in my own experience. One day quite lately I was rung up on the
telephone, and in the most rude and insulting terms was upbraided for
having knocked off a woman’s hat in Regent Street. As I had not been in
Regent Street that day, and never knocked off a woman’s hat in my life,
I was naturally annoyed. The telephone rang again and again with the
same impertinent remarks.
This was only the beginning of much trouble. Then came letters,
blackmail, I suppose one might call them, and constant telephonic
communications and general annoyance.
In fact, it became so bad that, after nearly six months, I had to apply
to a private detective. He took the matter in hand, and some time
later—for though there were addresses, most of them proved to be bogus
ones—he succeeded in unearthing the culprit, and the trouble ceased.
That was one of the minor annoyances of life.
* * * * *
Now for one of the minor pleasures; just to balance the worries.
Some years ago I employed a gasfitter. The man interested me strangely.
He spoke like a gentleman. He had the most beautifully refined hands,
he was artistic in everything he did, and while attending to gas-fires,
kept excusing himself for making appreciative remarks on good bits of
furniture, or beautiful shades of colour.
One day he brought me a very old bit of china. It was a little cream
jug, good in form, colour, and design. He hoped that I would accept
it, as I seemed to appreciate pretty things. This was a little
embarrassing, and became more so when his eyes filled with tears and he
told me it had belonged to his mother.
“Yes, madam, to my mother. I was not born in the circumstances in which
you see me,” and then he owned that he was the son of a peer.
Beyond that he would not reveal his identity, though he acknowledged
that drink was the primary cause that brought him down to where he was.
Poor man. He was afterwards taken very ill, and I was able to do a
little for him, but he died. And so was buried a strange romance, for
the man was by birth a gentleman, in taste an artist, and in speech a
poet; and yet circumstances and weakness of character had brought him
to this low estate.
One instance of the strange stories concerning secret skeletons, locked
up in our neighbours’ hearts, naturally leads to another.
I once met a man at dinner at a friend’s house. He offered to drive
me home. He asked to call. After two or three chats he told me his
story—one of those heart-rending stories we hear sometimes. He had
married young and repented.
There was no real ground for divorce; besides, he shunned the publicity
of it in connection with an honoured name. Our country—alas!—won’t give
people divorces for incompatibility. The usual result followed.
Well—he thought his wealth, his name, his achievements would live down,
or, rather, drag up, the “woman of his choice.” Did they?
No. Of course not. He thought also that this time he had found an
idol, a sympathiser, an inspiration. All went well for a time. Then
the chains became irksome. _She_ chafed at her position. She had
everything but that marriage ring which spells respectability. She
became discontented, irritable, the love grew less, the desire to be
made “an honest woman” grew more and more. He dare not face the world a
second time and own he had misjudged woman’s character. Therefore their
dog-and-cat life continued—because they hadn’t the pluck to break it.
It was a tale of woe. Broken in health and in spirit, he owned he had
defied the world and yet—with all the odds of position and wealth in
his favour—had failed.
One day he suddenly wrote: “I can’t come and see you again, you belong
to the world I have left, or that has left me. It only stirs up the
misery of my present life. I thank you for your help, your sympathy,
your much-prized friendship, but it is not fair on you to let you worry
over me, and being with you is making me more discontented than ever.
And so good-bye.”
As he stepped suddenly across my path, he stepped as suddenly back into
the shadow. Poor man. His is the tale of many, but that does not make
it any the less sad.
I lived in the world he had turned his back on—the world which finally
shut him out, and that proud heart, that big brain and scholarly man
literally laid down his arms, weary of heart, sick of soul, ambition
sapped—life gone. He merely dragged out his existence from day to day.
Chained to a loathsome sore. He did not complain. How could he? The
chain was of his own making, the sore its inevitable result. Why, we
ask, did he submit? Why? Because habit had become stronger than will.
Success is made or marred by individuality.
* * * * *
Hostesses sometimes find themselves in very awkward positions.
A man once came up the stairs and shook hands with his hostess, who
cheerfully said:
“And where is your wife?”
There was a great crowd at the time, and the man, somewhat briefly,
replied:
“I have lost her.”
“I hope you will soon find her,” said the lady; “but it is rather
difficult among so many people,” she added, with a merry laugh.
He looked crestfallen, and, as if not knowing exactly what to say, bent
forward and murmured into the ear of his smiling hostess:
“My wife is _dead_.”
Collapse of the lady.
* * * * *
On Christmas cards.
Some folk affect to dislike or despise Christmas cards, but I find them
most useful, often most welcome, always a kindly remembrance.
People in strange lands have been good to me. They have taken me
about, invited me to their houses, have helped me in my work, and many
introductions, obtained originally for practical purposes, have ended
in real friendships.
It is impossible to keep up a correspondence with all one’s friends,
however, and yet one likes them to know they are not forgotten.
Hence the idea of my Christmas cards originated. For many years now
I have sent these cards of greeting to the furthermost corner of the
earth, and thanks to the talent of my friends, or the practical use of
my own camera, they have been somewhat original.
Here is a delightful card Harry Furniss designed for me among my
earlier ones. I had just written _Behind the Footlights_, hence the
lady with comedy and tragedy on her cap, pulling aside the curtain to
reveal sketches of the different books. Needless to say, this clever
idea was his own.
[Illustration:
30 YORK TERRACE
LONDON. N.W.
With
Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s
Compliments of the
Season
The Theatre
Finland
Morocco
Norway
Mexico
Sicily
Iceland
Harry Furniss
]
_Hustled History_, one of that series of clever little booklets that
have appeared annually for some time, was the talk of the town when
it came out in the spring of 1908. My publisher rang me up the next
morning to _congratulate me on_ the _advertisement_ of myself that it
contained. Rather a curious way of putting it, I thought.
Everyone read it, everyone talked about it. It had dabs at everyone,
but only three women were included—Mrs. Humphry Ward, Marie Corelli,
and myself. This latter take-off on my style appeared under the title
of:
In Romantic
Rouen
By
Mrs. Alec Tweedie
The same sort of quip had appeared about me a year or two before in
_Wisdom While You Wait_, but I cannot lay my hands on it.
Colonel Selfe, R.A., who wrote so many of the acrostics for _The
World_, one day sent me the following double acrostic on myself:
Where now will this lady go
Greece, Japan, Fernando Po,
Honolulu, Mexico?
Whatsoe’er her goal, we look
For another charming book
Telling of the route she took.
Ere she starts for foreign climes
With this wish we send these rhymes
_Bon voyage_ and pleasant times.
1. Though Kalja the Finnish taste may suit,
For this it seems a sorry substitute.
2. Those Finns who read their books most, dread the least
This long-named catechising by the priest.
3. In Tellemachen, so her pages tell
One coachman spoke this, though not very well.
4. Remember Nyslott, also where
The English ladies lodged while there.
5. This we gather, for “to the”
Norse equivalent to be.
6. In Finland the cow of this is the source,
Which is comparative only, of course.
7. Weird poems of a bygone time
Written on parchment black with grime.
8. We here must Fridtjof Nansen name
As this for ever known to fame.
9. His hand it was that, rising from the wave,
Dragged Lopt the sinner to a wat’ry grave.
10. With a terrific bang and mighty crash,
Full into this they felt the steamer smash.
11. To study this Iceland is not the place,
No butterflies, few insects there you trace.
CHAP.
1. Al E. Through Finland in Carts 2
2. Lukukinkeri T. “ “ “ 16
3. Englis H. A Winter’s Jaunt in Norway 8
4. Castl E. Through Finland in Carts 11
5. Ti L. A Winter’s Jaunt in Norway 49
6. Wealt H. Through Finland in Carts 16
7. Edd A. A Girl’s Ride through Iceland 13
8. Explore R. A Winter Jaunt in Norway 12
9. Devi L. A Girl’s Ride in Iceland 6
10. Ice flo E. A Winter’s Jaunt in Norway 1
11. Entomolog Y. A Girl’s Ride Through Iceland 4
This is another, composed by the late Major Martin Hume, the historian:
E astward bound to the Cuban coast
T hree tiny galleots ran
H omeward bearing a beaten host
E scaped from Yucatan.
L eft behind in the sleep of death
A gallant half remain
L ured to doom, but with dying breath
E xalting Christ and Spain.
C oarse and poor were the trophies gained,
T rinkets of tarnished dross,
W oe! for the land with blood they stained
E nslaved to greed and cross
E ndowed with grace, from old New Spain
D o _you_ rich trophies bring
I n gentle words that friendship gain
E ntail no pain or sting.
Most of us have known or heard of such a lesser tragedy as the
following, and thanked our stars it had not happened to one of our own
kin.
“What are you crying for?” asked the manageress of an hotel.
The girl she addressed was a fragile, pretty creature of nineteen or
twenty, looking more as if a puff of wind would blow her away than as
if she was capable of doing the dirty work of a kitchenmaid.
“Oh, nothing, thank you,” replied the tearful voice. “I hurt my finger,
but it will be all right in a moment.”
The manageress eyed her critically. The polite reply, the refined
speech and tone of voice, were all so unlike anything she was
accustomed to in the kitchen department that they struck her as strange.
Then she noticed that, while the girl’s cotton sleeves were tucked up
above her elbow, her arms were round, white, and plump, the hands small
and pretty. Turning to the _chef_ standing behind her, she remarked:
“Your kitchenmaid looks hardly up to her work, _chef_.”
“Oh, she is all right,” he replied. “She has not been in a situation
just lately and she is a bit soft.”
The reply was satisfactory, and, being a busy woman, the manageress
went on with her orders.
Next morning she was again strongly attracted by her new little
kitchenmaid, who was busy in the scullery washing dishes. The girl was
so ladylike in appearance, so delightful in manner, so charming in
voice, her superior felt that there was something unusual, even wrong,
about the matter; so she searched for the original letter from the
_chef_ to see under what conditions the underling had been engaged. It
said that, as he preferred to work with his own kitchenmaid, he wished
to bring her with him, more especially as she was now his wife.
Some days went on, and the little maid looked paler each morning,
sadder and more depressed. At last a tap came at the manageress’s door,
and the girl, in her cotton frock, white apron, neat hair and dainty
cap, was standing on the threshold.
“May I come in, madam?” asked the plaintive voice.
“Yes, certainly; come along. Are you not well?”
“Oh yes, I am quite well, but I want to know if you will do me a
favour. I have got a cheque for ten pounds from a lady whose service I
used to be in, and I want to know if you will change it for me without
letting my husband know.”
The manageress looked up, surprised.
“Yes, I can change it; but how does this lady come to be sending you
such a big cheque?” (As she took it in her hand she saw a well-known
name upon it.)
The girl made some excuse and told a long and rambling story, but
blushed to the roots of her hair when given the money.
Imploringly she said, “You will never tell _him_, will you?”
“No,” replied the kindly woman; “mind you keep the money safe. You may
want it some day.”
Some hours went by. The manageress was pondering over the girl and
her reticence, over the cheque and its mystery, when a servant rushed
in asking her to come to the kitchen at once, as something dreadful
had happened. She flew. There on the floor, with blood streaming from
her head, lay the little kitchenmaid. Near her, sullen, stern, and
menacing, stood the _chef_. At once the manageress ordered that the
girl should be carried to her room and forbade the husband to enter.
Then she sent for him to the office and asked for an explanation. But
he gave none, except that his subordinate had cheeked him, so he hit
her rather harder than he meant to do and stunned her. A blow against
the oven door had caused the bleeding. Such was his story. Very
different was that of the girl.
As she recovered consciousness, she moaned, “Save me!” and as her
senses became more acute, she begged, “Don’t let him come near me.”
“Are you afraid of him?” asked her protectress.
“Yes, madam, mortally afraid; he will kill me. Do not let him come near
me,” she implored in agony of mind.
“What happened?” persisted the manageress.
“Somehow he found out I had that cheque and wanted me to give it to
him, but I would not and came to you. For it was all I had in the
world, and I wanted it to get away and leave him.”
“To leave him? But you have only been married a month.”
“It seems like a hundred years of hell,” moaned the unhappy little
bride. “He has been so cruel to me.” And then she told her story.
“I am not really a kitchenmaid. I am Lady Mary ——, but I liked
cooking, and mother wanted me to learn, so I used to go into the
kitchen in the morning and play about. The _chef_ was charming to me,
and—well, I think I must have been mad—I thought I had fallen in love
with him, and I ran away and married him a month ago. From the first
moment he has been bullying my family for money. He made me come away
with him as his kitchenmaid until he got enough money out of my family
to start a home of our own. But please do not let him come near me
again. He will kill me! That cheque was from my aunt, for I had to tell
her of my misery and disgrace. It was sent to enable me to get away and
go to her home, where I should be safe.”
“Do not worry any more about that,” said her protectress determinedly.
“You shall come to my room now, and I will telegraph to your aunt and
put things right.”
She did so, and the girl was restored to her family. Strange as the
story may sound, it is a true bill.
* * * * *
While on the subject of servants, the following is an interesting
sidelight.
A mistress offered a servant girl a seat for a theatre. The girl beamed
with delight. Suddenly her face shadowed, and she asked:
“Are there any countesses in it, ma’am?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because I don’t think mother would like me to go and see a play with a
countess in it, ma’am.”
“And why not?”
“Oh, because they are all so dreadfully wicked.”
“Who says so?” asked the lady, amazed.
“The books, ma’am.”
“What books?”
“The penny books and Sunday papers.”
* * * * *
When looking back on my delightful American trips and to my real good
time there, one little crumpled rose-leaf returns to memory, which, at
the time, was a minor annoyance, but since has often caused me to smile
at its absurdity.
Many and weird, truly, are the experiences and home truths one is
vouchsafed while travelling.
The last time I went to the States I intended to pay some visits, and
as I was very overworked and tired I was persuaded to take a maid to
look after me. That maid cost me a small fortune in money, as well
as proving a constant anxiety, inasmuch as _I had to look after her_
continually. A child of five years could not have been more trouble.
Almost before we left the landing-stage of the Mersey she told me
she felt ill. The water at the time was perfectly calm; we were, in
fact, still in the river, but the wretched woman went to bed before we
crossed the bar and did not appear again until we reached New York;
therefore I had the pleasure of paying her first-class fare and the
extra steward’s tips for waiting on her—instead of her being a comfort
to me.
Arrived on Yankee soil, I received a telegram from the President of
Mexico suggesting my revisiting his country. I told the good lady I was
going to Mexico.
“Law! M’m.”
“It is six days and nights in the train.”
“Law! M’m.”
By this time her eyes opened wider than ever. She still remembered the
six days and nights on the steamer. Alas and alack! she was even more
ill on the train than she had been on the boat. At Washington we had
rooms on the seventh floor; but that woman refused to go up or down
in the lift because it made her feel “so queer,” so she walked—and
grumbled.
Oh, the joys of travelling with a servant!
When we started from New York I took off my rings and watchchain, and,
as usual on such expeditions, packed them away.
The maid was sitting opposite to me in the train when she discovered
they were missing. Suddenly she exclaimed:
“Oh, what have you done with your rings?” knowing they were the only
articles of jewellery I always wore.
“I put them away,” I replied. “I never travel off the beaten track
wearing jewellery of any kind.”
“Oh dear, what a pity! They make you look such a lady.”
(Collapse of poor Mrs. A. T. Did “ladyism” depend on diamond rings?)
CHAPTER XXVI
MORE JOTTINGS: AND HYDE PARK
Geneviève Ward’s stories are endless and amusing. To mention only two
of these.
“A man arrived to have a tooth out.
“‘Will it hurt much, sir?’
“‘Rather.’
“‘Real hurt?’
“‘Rather.’
“‘Well, I don’t think,’ began the man in a dither....
“‘Sit down, sir, sit down right there, and bear it like a woman!’”
* * * * *
Story number two.
“Another man asked the dentist his charge.
“‘Fifty cents.’
“‘Fifty cents, eh?’
“‘Yes.’
“‘But with gas?’
“‘Guess that’s fifty cents more.’
“‘Wa’al, I won’t have gas then.’
“‘You’re a brave man!’
“‘’Tisn’t for me, it’s for my wife!’”
* * * * *
Now a couple of child stories. Surely, the workings of a child’s mind
are too strange to be imagined.
My little nephew, aged four, was saying his prayers, kneeling on his
bed and resting against his nurse. Suddenly he stopped.
Nurse: “Go on, dear.”
Small Boy: “I can’t.”
Nurse: “Go on, dear.”
Small Boy: “I am switched off, Dod’s talking to someone else.”
Naturally, nurse’s breath was somewhat taken away, and she did not know
what to answer, when suddenly reassurance came from the small boy. “It
is all right. We are connected again now,” and he began again.
Here is another story about the same little man, though he was then
rather younger, to be exact.
He was sent, one hot summer’s day, with his baby sister and two nurses,
to Kensington Gardens as a treat. When he came back his mother asked
him if he had enjoyed it.
“Oh yes,” he replied. “And what did you do?” she asked, but instead of
replying in his usual bubbling fashion, he opened his eyes wide, and
looking at her, exclaimed:
“Do you know?”
“Know what?”
“Do you know?”
“Well, what?”
“Do you know?” he again repeated, his eyes nearly dropping out of his
head by this time, “we saw a lady smoking!”
Not being exactly sure what to reply to this remark, the fond mother
went on with her work.
Seeing her unresponsive, the young gentleman trotted into the next room
where his father was smoking.
“Dad, do you know?”
“Yes, I know, you went to tea in Kensington Gardens.”
“But DO YOU KNOW?” repeated the small boy, more earnestly than ever;
and then standing before his father with his hands behind his back, he
solemnly announced:
“WE SAW A LADY SMOKING!”
The father, like the mother, was a little nonplussed, and merely
exclaimed:
“Oh, really!” But the small boy stood firm to his ground, and with eyes
still wider than before, exclaimed:
“Dad, do you think _she was learning to be a gentleman_?”
Occasionally my eyes light upon some jotting worthy of almost
pigeon-hole dignity—too prized for the society of mere scraps, yet
too small for the space of a chapter. Here is one concerning a famous
lawyer.
Fate has often thrown me into the company of lawyers—the most excellent
of people when you don’t meet them in a professional, or fee-paying
sense. The really busy advocate is in most cases a delightful man, for
the very qualities which make him a social favourite go no little way
to establish his success at the Bar.
I once asked Sir Edward Clarke, K.C., what was his recipe for producing
a good barrister, and was a little surprised at the importance he
attached to the study of oratory.
“Every law student at the beginning of his work should study the art
of speaking, the most valuable and the most highly rewarded of all the
arts which can be acquired by man.
“The counsel needs the power of fluent and correct expression and of
the rhetorical arrangement of his argument of speech. He should have
an easy, clear, and well-modulated elocution which compels attention,
makes it pleasant to listen to him, and so predisposes in his favour
the judgment of his hearers.”
“Ah, but has everyone this gift?” I said.
“Perhaps not, but all these things must be acquired. Each one of them
requires a special study. Some men are, no doubt, more highly gifted
by nature than others in strength of intellect, tenacity of memory,
and the graces of oratory, but no one was ever so highly gifted as to
be able to dispense with the labour by which the natural powers are
trained and strengthened. The best books for the young law student are
_Whately’s Logic_ and _Whately’s Rhetoric_. They should be read and
re-read until he knows them from cover to cover.”
“You are a very warm advocate of speech,” I interposed. “Do you think
it a lost art, or an improving one?”
“The ancients were the best teachers. Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ (the best
of all), Cicero’s _De Oratore_, Quintilian’s _Institutes of Oratory_,
are the books of study; Blair and Campbell should be read, but are of
no great merit, while of Whately I have already spoken. But the study
of good models—and when I speak of study I do not mean simply reading a
speech, but the examination and analysis of it, applying the rules of
the art which these treatises contain: the attentive hearing of great
speeches in Parliament or the courts, or of great sermons, is the only
way by which the capacity for really good speaking can be acquired.
“Then every man who wishes to speak well should study elocution as an
art. He should practise singing to give variety of tone to the voice.
He should habitually see and study the best actors of his time, and so
learn the ease and yet the moderation of gesture which helps so much
even the best-constructed and most clearly delivered speech. If any one
of these studies and exercises is neglected, the man who fails at the
Bar must put some part of the blame upon himself.”
Sir Edward Clarke has fulfilled his own theories, even to witnessing
the drama. He is a well-known first-nighter, and is often to be seen in
the stalls of a theatre.
He sat in Parliament and listened to great speeches. He has himself
built a church at Staines, wherein he has heard many sermons. And he
has climbed to the very top of his profession.
It would be doing him an injustice to suggest that he places speech as
the first and most essential quality in the lawyer’s training. The most
brilliant speaker must have something to say. A capacity for logical
and scientific reasoning and knowledge of the principles and rules of
the law come before all.
“All success in every calling comes from hard work; there is no better
secret,” he said decisively.
For years Sir Edward Clarke journeyed up to town from his charming home
at Staines every morning, during the legal terms. His companion in the
nine o’clock train was invariably the famous Orientalist and brilliant
scholar, Dr. Ginsburg, who had made a home for himself and his unique
collection of Bibles, and marvellous assortment of prints and etchings,
at Virginia Water. Many and interesting were the conversations which
these two celebrated men enjoyed during their little railway journey
together. The one went off to the British Museum to work among the dead
languages, and the completion of his life-work, the _Massorah_, and
the other to the Law Courts, where, in wig and gown, he soon appeared
from out his private room in the building, to the consolation of his
own clients and the anxiety of his opponents.
Sir Edward Clarke declares the best speech he ever made in his life was
addressed to one person—namely, the late Mr. Justice Kekewich. There
was no jury, and the judge was alone on the bench. It was the case
of Allcard and Skinner, a question of the plaintiff being allowed to
recover from an Anglican sisterhood the money she gave while herself a
member of it. Sir Edward managed to keep the money for the sisterhood,
and Lord Russell of Killowen always declared it was his friend’s
greatest stroke of oratory.
* * * * *
One of the events of the year at Leeds is the Lifeboat Celebration,
when some thousands of pounds are collected. In these days when women
are to the fore, the Committee decided to ask a woman to take the
chair, and I was chosen for that position. They have the biggest of
halls, which holds five thousand persons, with Members of Parliament,
Lord Mayors, and other dignitaries on the platform.
The London editor of the _Yorkshire Post_ came personally to ask
me. I refused, funking the speech. Two days later, the Yorkshire
Editor-in-chief arrived, flattered me to the skies, and begged me to
go. But I persisted in excusing myself, and suggested his asking Sir
Ernest Shackleton, promising that if they could not get him, I would do
it.
Thank Heaven! Shackleton accepted, in spite of all his engagements,
consequent on having just returned from the South Pole.
What an escape, but still it was a great compliment.
* * * * *
Here is a jotting that was pencilled down warm from the heart. As it
stands, I give it, with its date, May 14th, 1909:
I do not know when I have been so pleased as at a little episode which
happened yesterday.
It chanced a couple of years ago that I was able to help, encourage,
and sympathise with a young man at a very trying time, and I
laughingly told him I should not be satisfied till he had started
again, and put by a thousand pounds. He scoffed at the idea of a
thousand pounds as impossible, and wondered if he ever could begin life
afresh.
Yesterday he walked in and said, “I have come to tell you that through
your encouragement I have worked hard for the last two years, and have
done what I thought then impossible. I have not only lived, but saved a
thousand pounds, and in remembrance of this success, which is entirely
due to you, I have brought you a little souvenir. It has taken me
months to find anything quaint and old, such as I thought would really
give you pleasure.”
Now, was not that perfectly delightful? He has, indeed, given me
pleasure, and added to that his gift is quite charming. It is an
old-fashioned pendant, set with beryls, that formerly prized pale blue
stone.
Amongst the many disappointments one has in life, such success as this
inspires one to fresh efforts.
* * * * *
Here is a tiny stray wanderer in the jotting heap. Such a little one,
no one can object to it. Plainly it refers to some of my proof. Also
that a review in “T. P.’s” familiar weekly had unkindly referred to me
as an elderly sort of scribe, or something “previous” of the kind.
“P.S.—Just looked over proof. Feeling very sad at the prospect of
settling down to contemplate middle age and anticipating senile
decay, ordered hansom, gave man address.
“‘Yes, miss.’
“Hurrah! Nice man! Extra sixpence in prospect for the ‘miss’!
“Went to shop, ‘young gentleman’ behind the counter enquired:
“‘Your pleasure, miss?’
“Charming young man! Buy more than I really want.
“‘T. P.’ may be wrong; senile decay may be further off than he so
ardently hopes!”
With this farewell to jottings.
* * * * *
And now I come to the publication of a big and serious book, _Hyde
Park_, which made its appearance to the public in April, 1908, but
took me eighteen months to write and rewrite, while as to the works
consulted, seventy-three are duly acknowledged in the opening pages as
sources of help, besides which there were, of course, others.
“What put it into your head to write about Hyde Park?” asked a friend
the other day.
Well, partly because of my sons. When in search of data across an
ocean and thousands of miles of land besides, my endeavour to return
for the boys’ holidays entailed trying and often too rapid and arduous
travelling. Hyde Park was nearer my own door, so “homeward bound fancy
ran its barque ashore.”
Besides in anticipation the task seemed invitingly easy. From early
childhood had I not ridden with my father every morning over the tan of
the old Park, under its trees, or past its sunlit or steel-grey water?
In later days, when friends whose hospitality had been warmly shown me
overseas, arrived in London, it had become usual with me to drive them
round “the ’Ide Park” until I felt a sort of London _Baedeker_.
Once, however, the work begun, it proved serious and engrossing, and
meant study: study at the British Museum: study of many, many books:
search for pictures of old London. Three or four times the amount of
material actually used was assiduously gathered. Then began the task of
sorting out what was needful. The real difficulty of writing a book is
to know what to leave out.
Well, it was a great subject, and deserved the toil spent upon it.
Reward came in the praise of the Press, and—this was specially sweet—at
once. Within three days, thirteen kind, warm, even enthusiastic
reviews! And yet how often the contrary has been the case, and will be
with many works which the public slowly learn to value only after their
writers have obscurely passed away, embittered, maybe, by the lack of
appreciation.
Yes, I am grateful that my history of London’s great playground was
called one of “deep research” by the _Morning Post_, of “bright, cheery
entertainment” by the _Pall Mall_, a “thrilling and true romance which
Londoners will have to read” by the _Observer_. The _Westminster_
_Gazette_ and the _Sunday Sun_ agreed that the book made universal
appeal to all lovers of London and lovers of England.
[Illustration:
WITH
Mʳˢ ALEC TWEEDIE’S
BEST
WISHES
30 YORK TERRACE
LONDON N.W.
]
Perhaps not one among the many columns of flattering reviews, however,
gave me so much pleasure as the following letter, from an old friend,
well known to fame.
Love and friendship are the finest assets in the Bank of Life.
“_April, 1908._
“MY DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“I warmly congratulate you on what is certain to prove a most
successful book. I have read it through with great interest—and
old Londoner and old Hyde Parker as I am—for I can remember it
_seventy_ years ago! I find very many facts and stories new to me.
And yet I am a bit of a London antiquary and have written on London
and have helped to _make_ London (when I designed Kingsway for
L.C.C.).
“The book will go, and has come to stay.
“We are still very chilly down in the Weald, though daffodils and
hyacinths have begun to show and chestnuts are breaking. It is the
latest spring I ever knew. The only consolation is—there are hardly
any primroses this year to celebrate the Orgy of Evil.
“Yours sincerely,
“FREDERIC HARRISON.”
From generation to generation, Hyde Park has been the wide theatre upon
which many tragedies and comedies of London have been enacted, the
forum where many liberties have been demanded, the scene where national
triumphs have been celebrated.
* * * * *
Yes, the book was a success; but every success in life brings a
would-be friend, and a dozen enemies.
True friendship is not influenced by success or failure.
CHAPTER XXVII
BURIED IN PARCELS
“They can’t come in here—I tell you they simply can’t.”
I was sitting eating my matutinal egg on a sleety January day in 1909,
when I heard this altercation at the door.
“They can’t come in here,” repeated the cook, “they simply can’t.”
Thinking I had better go and see what it was all about, I ventured
forth. On the doorstep stood two laughing postmen.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Parcels, mum, parcels; we have got a whole van full.”
“A van full!” I exclaimed, seeing a large red parcels-delivery van in
the road.
“Yes, a special van for you, mum, containing one hundred and ninety-six
parcels.”
I nearly collapsed.
“Where _are_ they to go?” I exclaimed.
“I don’t know,” he replied.
“They can’t come in here,” chirruped the cook, knowing the hall was
already packed.
“You must leave them in the van,” I suggested helplessly, “until I have
time to think what is to be done with them.”
“Can’t do that,” replied the smiling postman. “We have brought you a
’special delivery’ as it is, and I must go back for my ordinary rounds.”
“Well, they can’t come in here,” I repeated in the cook’s words, as the
wind howled down the street and stray flakes of snow fell.
“Let us stand them in the street,” brilliantly suggested the postman.
This was an inspiration, and accordingly one hundred and ninety-six
parcels were packed up against the side of a London house. They stood
four or five feet high. Having told the cook to remain at the front
door and see that nothing happened to them, I returned to my half-cold
egg, but I had not even finished it before there were more altercations
at the door.
The noise continuing, I again left the breakfast-table (8.45 a.m.) to
see what it meant. Another van. This time a Carter Paterson.
“Have _you_ any parcels?” I asked in trepidation.
“Yes, mum, seventy-eight; nearly a van-load of sacks and crates and
other huge things.”
Into the street they also had to go, but before the men were finished
unpacking other carts were arriving, and depositing sixteen,
twenty-seven, thirty-six packages upon the pavement.
By ten o’clock the house and the neighbours’ houses were barricaded
with parcels. Never, probably, was such a sight seen in a London
street. Five vans’ loads disgorged at one time.
Messina was buried in ruins, I was buried in parcels. After eighteen
days I was being disinterred from bundles and packages in London.
It all came about in this wise. The letter I sent to six important
London papers, expecting, perhaps, that one of them might kindly
print it, appeared in all of them. The evening Press reprinted it.
It was copied into the large provincial papers the next day. That
letter started a veritable snow-ball scheme. It was a Tuesday. I had a
luncheon engagement.
On my return about four in the afternoon my parlourmaid met me with an
agonised face, and exclaimed:
“We _have_ had a time since you went out, m’m!”
“Why?” I asked, surprised.
“By twelve o’clock that front door-bell began to ring,” she said, “and
it has never ceased. Ladies in motors, people in carriages, gentlemen
in hansoms, babies in perambulators—and they have all left parcels.”
“Parcels!” I exclaimed in horror.
“Yes, m’m, parcels. The cloak-room is stacked from floor to ceiling.”
[Illustration: THE WRITER BURIED IN PARCELS FOR MESSINA
_By Harry Furniss_]
This rather took my breath away, and I wondered how on earth I should
ever get that number of things to Sicily.
No chance to return to the breakfast-table. There was no time to finish
that egg as wildly I rushed to the telephone, begging one or two
intimate friends to come and help at once, while a servant went off to
neighbours to ask for immediate assistance.
Between signing papers for quickly-arriving packages and struggling to
get helpers, a policeman appeared.
“Very sorry, mum, but, you know, you are obstructing the roadway,” he
said.
“I cannot help it,” I replied. “I am literally overpowered, and as it
is in the cause of charity, I suppose it does not matter.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he answered; “but you must leave some
pathway, besides which you are blocking the road; you will be taken up
as a public nuisance.”
This was really too much. Telephoning for assistance to a high official
at Scotland Yard, who chanced to be a personal friend, he soon sent me
a special constable. One was not enough. He had to send for another
policeman. But as every little butcher boy told every other little
butcher boy what was going on, and as every loafer told every other
loafer to come and see, an inspector had also to be requisitioned. For
four days we were guarded by three stalwart policemen, who kept an eye
on us for a further length of time.
“Pass along, please. Pass along, please,” became a well-known cry in
the Terrace. Verily it was a blockade—especially after the papers
extolled the novelty of the scene. Then nurses and perambulators
came to have a look at us; ladies in grand motors drove round to see
the sight; Bath chairs added to the confusion; and, above all, the
unemployed at one time threatened serious trouble.
But to go back in the history of events which led to the Siege of York
Terrace.
It was Christmas, 1908.
We were only a party of twelve, but amongst my guests was His
Excellency the Italian Ambassador, the Marquis di San Giuliano. We ate
turkey and plum-pudding, cracked crackers, and made merry in the usual
Christmas fashion.
The Ambassador and I talked much of Sicily, of its sunshine, its people
and the happy months I had spent there, and then of his family who
lived in or near Catania, not far from Messina.
Jovial, contented, and pleased we parted at midnight on that Friday.
Before daylight on the Monday following two hundred thousand people had
been killed, wounded, or rendered homeless in a few seconds in Messina.
Terrible indeed was the disaster. The earth opened and practically
swallowed Reggio on the opposite shore, while a huge wave overswept the
Sicilian coast. Houses fell like packs of cards, and the beautiful city
of Messina cracked to pieces like the smashing of glass.
For hours—yes, for many hours—the Italian Ambassador in London did not
even know whether his entire family had been swept away or not. All
his relations felt the shock, though happily none succumbed. His son,
the late Marquis di Capizzi, wrote to me a couple of days after the
catastrophe, and said:
“We are still suffering from the terrible impressions of the earthquake
that completely destroyed Messina, killing nearly 200,000 persons. It
lasted so long and so much that we were sure we should all be killed
here (Catania) and yet we escaped.”
Then followed details of death, horror, and misery, of starvation and
naked humanity running about in torrential rain. Thus flashed across my
mind an idea which matured in the above-mentioned letter to the Press:
“CLOTHING FOR SICILY
“30, YORK TERRACE, LONDON, N.W.
“SIR,—Nothing in the world’s history can compare with this disaster
which swept away 200,000 persons in a few seconds.
“In view of the appalling want of clothing among the survivors
owing to this terrific earthquake, it seems to me that there may
be many who cannot afford to contribute to the Mansion House Fund,
but who would willingly give something to the sufferers in ‘kind.’
The Italian Ambassador has promised that anything I collect shall
be rightly distributed by competent officials. I hope I may manage
to persuade some good folks to send the boxes out free, or to send
a small contribution in money to pay for their speedy transit. The
sooner we can land contributions the greater their value. The first
box of clothing, old and new, will, I hope, start on Friday.
“The winter in Sicily is often exceedingly cold; moreover, the
rains have lately been very severe, so that added to all the
horrors of shock, loss of homes and destitution, thousands of
people are insufficiently clad.
“All parcels (please prepay these, dear friends) sent to me shall
be properly and promptly attended to.—I am, etc.,
“(Mrs.) E. ALEC TWEEDIE.”
An innocent enough little letter! Yet how far-reaching in its results.
There stood the parcels, but what they were to go into was the next
problem. Each girl friend as she arrived was bundled into a cab,
and told to go to shops in the neighbourhood and collect all the
packing-cases she could and bring them back. They were brought,
but more and more were wanted. Each shop could only produce two or
three, and those they gave cheerfully, but as the stacks of packages
increased more rapidly than they decreased, it ended at last in our
requisitioning huge furniture cases, the sort of thing that holds a
cottage piano, a settee, or two or three arm-chairs.
The first fifteen hundred articles were counted. They filled ten
crates. After that it was impossible to enumerate, or even to do more
than cursorily sort the things, but on the estimate of the first ten
cases, I appear to have sent away twenty-seven thousand garments in one
hundred and ninety-eight packing-cases. Some of them were so heavy they
took four men to lift.
The first twenty thousand left in three days to catch the earliest mail
steamers to the stricken centres.
How terrific was the pace may be judged by one incident.
I telephoned on Wednesday morning to my friend Sir Thomas Sutherland,
asking that the weekly P. and O. boat might take out twenty cases for
delivery in Sicily. By lunch-time that number had swollen to forty,
so I telephoned again, and begged he would find room for forty in the
_Simla_.
Still the pile did not decrease. Still we sent for packing-cases to the
large furniture emporiums. By tea-time the number was much augmented,
and I wired desperately to Sir Thomas, begging him to come and see me
on his way home. He did so. His motor could not get up the street, for
the newspapers had begun to mention the circumstance, and a crowd of
sightseers and idlers had come to look on.
“I never saw such a sight,” he exclaimed; “the place is like a railway
emporium.”
“I have a confession to make,” I said. “I asked you at luncheon-time
to take forty cases. Dare I tell you I now have altogether eighty-five
packages standing on the pavement, waiting to go somewhere?”
“Eighty-five!” he exclaimed. “But the _Simla_ is full already.”
“They can’t stop here,” I said, almost in tears, for really the thing
was becoming too serious. “The cases won’t even come inside the door. I
have nowhere to put them, and they can’t remain in the street in case
it rains, even if the police do guard them all night.”
They went to the docks that night. Then I went to bed feeling that it
was over.
But not a bit of it. The very same thing began again next day, and
another friend—Sir Frederick Green, chairman of the Orient—had to be
appealed to, to convey the next consignment to Naples, which he most
generously did.
To give some idea of the enormous magnitude of this undertaking—twelve
dozen-dozen yards of rope were used to tie the cases, and twice I
sent out for four shillings and sixpence worth of nails for fastening
the lids. Two whole quart bottles of ink were used for painting on
the addresses; and three dust-carts—special dust-carts—were required
at the end of the first day to take away the refuse of string,
cardboard-boxes, and brown paper. Never can I thank my twenty-seven
willing helpers sufficiently. There were seldom less than fifteen at a
time unpacking, sorting, and repacking in the street in all that bitter
cold. They forgot personal suffering and backaches, working right
cheerily and generously all those anxious days.
Buried in parcels did I call it? Swamped in parcels, drowned in
parcels! Probably about three thousand of them.
Twenty thousand garments were got off by Friday night, when I had
already implored the public through the Press to stop sending any more.
Twenty thousand garments in reply to my appeal for a few things to send
in “a box”!
On Saturday I had the following letter inserted in the Press, thinking
this would stop the flow:
“SICILIAN CLOTHING
“SIR,—I had no idea when my appeal for clothing for the sufferers
in Sicily appeared last Tuesday that the response would be so
magnificent and so overwhelming. In three days about 20,000
articles were landed at my door. After the house was full they
stood in stacks in the street, as many as 196 parcels arriving
by one delivery. Thanks to the help of friends, all these were
repacked in three days. Carter Paterson generously conveyed the
crates and packing-cases to the docks. Forty cases went by the
Orient Line to Naples, addressed to the British Consul, ten cases
went by the Wilson Line from Hull, similarly addressed, whilst
the P. and O. kindly took no fewer than eighty-five packing-cases
of enormous size to Malta. They were addressed to Messina, to the
Duke of Bronte at Catania and the Marquis di Capizzi. Another
forty cases are being transported to-night by the Wilson Line for
distribution to the sufferers at Reggio. All these companies are
generously conveying these enormous consignments free of cost.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to reply personally to about 700
letters or about 2000 parcels, so I hope all kind donors will
accept my gratitude by this public acknowledgment. Where money
was sent, work from the Ladies’ Needlework Guild was purchased
(thereby doing a double charity), or men’s suits. The work has been
colossal, and only accomplished by the kind co-operation of many
friends. I would beg that no more clothes be sent, as physical
strength cannot combat further strain.—Yours, etc.,
“(Mrs.) E. ALEC TWEEDIE.”
But no, still they came.
A week later the Italian Ambassador’s kindly thanks appeared in the
Press:
“DEAR MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE,—I saw in the Press your acknowledgment of
nearly 25,000 articles of clothing which the public so generously
sent you for the sufferers from the earthquake. I wish to endorse
my thanks to that generous public, and I also wish to express my
gratitude to the Wilson Line, the P. and O., the Orient Line, and
Carter Paterson for conveying nearly 200 of those enormous crates
free of charge to the nearest ports to their destination.
“As the writer of _Sunny Sicily_ my country owed you much. It now
owes you still more for the thought, speed, organisation, and
despatch which accomplished such a gigantic task in three days to
catch the steamers. I myself saw the bales of clothing being packed
in the street by your fifteen friends, guarded by the police and
helped by several stalwart men, four of whom were required to lift
some of the cases. I can only repeat the task was herculean for a
private individual, and its successful completion amazing. Please
make this letter public.—Sincerely yours,
“SAN GIULIANO.
“The Italian Embassy, 20 Grosvenor Square,
_January 11_.”
Did that end it? Not at all. For another week packages dribbled in
from Ireland, from the North of Scotland, from Germany, and even from
Switzerland.
The curious thing about these parcels was that more than half the
clothes were absolutely new. People had gone to shops and bought five
or ten pounds’ worth of goods in reply to my appeal “in kind.” A large
number came from gentlemen’s clubs or chambers. These usually arrived
anonymously, with a touching little bit of paper inside, “God bless
you,” or “An unknown admirer of your books,” or “My interest in Sicily
was first awakened by your book on that country.”
A pair of baby’s socks came from a poor woman who wrote she was sorry
she could not send more, but still she wanted to send something.
Another workman’s wife offered a week’s time, as she had formerly been
a shirt-maker and could get through a lot in the time, and that right
willingly “for them poor things.”
A poor old governess wrote from a seaside town:
“DEAR MADAM,—When I read about your starting a Relief Fund for the
poor darlings—the sufferers in Messina—I prayed for God’s choicest
blessing to rest on you. Next came a wish to do something myself,
and a mournful inability presented itself unless _this_ attempt
may be of some use. I am an invalid—almost a martyr to bronchial
asthma, and I am oftener in bed than out of it.
“I am 70 years of age and am being maintained by a sister or the
workhouse would be my portion. I am a Board School teacher, and at
different times I tried my hand at composition. In the year 1902—I
think it was—I tried for the £100 prize for a story. If you can
make any use of the MSS., please apply the money to your fund.
“In conclusion, I pray again God will prosper you in all your way.
We want more of such _real_ Christians as you have proved yourself
to be. I wept when I first read of your grand work.
“With kind regards, yours very sincerely,
“(Mrs.) M. A. C.”
The address was rather touching:
“The Lady Authoress,
“Sending garments, etc.,
“To MESSINA,
“London.”
Another was poor; but had a pair of old ear-rings valued about £2,
which she offered to send me for sale if I would apply the money
in buying clothes. Some of the parcels contained several hundred
things—often newly bought and beautiful—many were accompanied by
complete lists of the contents.
Another letter came from a Home, and was signed by a row of Nurses on
the Staff, each sending a contribution. A charming lady sent an odd
shoe, and explained that the fellow shoe was in the parcel she had sent
off the day before! A man sent a coat, and the next day followed the
waistcoat which he had just found!
One more practical gentleman sent twenty-four pairs of beautiful new
white blankets, done up in sacking; another thoughtful person sent six
dozen new hair-brushes.
Numbers of people came to talk to me, shake hands with me, interview
me, until I had to beg my friends to say I was engaged and invisible.
A lady brought a parcel and almost refused to leave it without seeing
me personally and handing me her half-crown. As she was one of a
number, the servant refused, whereupon she insisted on writing a
letter, and sat down to slowly compile four sheets for my benefit,
while the parlourmaid, who had been dragged from the packing, stood
beside her. Luckily, she left the parcel and the two-and-sixpence.
Letters came from the grandest homes, from castles and courts, from
vicarages and schools, and from some of the very poorest dwellings,
carpenters’ wives and mill hands. They came from remote villages and
towns I had never heard of, and many consignments arrived from abroad,
the senders having written to large London emporiums and ordered
blankets or shirts to be sent for the refugees.
Probably one-third came anonymously, a third more asked for
acknowledgment, while others sent money to buy clothes, or for me to
use at my discretion.
“Please prepay the carriage, dear friends.” Innocent enough words—but
oh, the result of them almost swamped me—nearly nine hundred postal
orders, mostly for sixpence, was the result. They came in letters, they
came pinned to garments, they turned up anywhere and everywhere, and
also stamps; just three, or six, or nine, or a dozen odd stamps, to
help to pay carriage or buy clothes.
Roughly, I received about twelve hundred epistles, followed, after it
was all over, by several hundred more begging letters from England and
Italy. Many of these specified exactly what the writer would like to
have: “A green dress, and my waist is 28 inches,” or “A pair of grey
flannel trousers, and my height is 5ft. 10in.”
Among the strange addresses were:
“Alla Nobile Dama,
“Mrs. Alec Tweedie,
“Cultrice di belle Lettere,
“London.”
Or again,
“To the Right Honourable Lady
“Alec Tweedie,
“London.”
They flattered and praised me, spoke “of my great merits and noble
heart,” and then proceeded to ask me “to pay for the education of a
young musician,” “adopt a baby,” “get the plays of a young dramatist
performed in London,” “send money to a Viscount who was too proud to
beg, so would I address it to his servant?” England and Italy honoured
me with some hundred of these begging letters. Old clothes men offered
to buy up what was left over. “Mrs. Harts” and “Mr. Abrahams” rang up
to know if I wished to _sell_ any of the surplus things. (What did they
take me for?) Men and women pulled the front-door bell and asked for
coats and skirts; in fact, my house was not my own for a month or more.
As one hundred and twenty-six pounds eighteen shillings and eleven
pence came to me in money with the request that I would buy clothing
(which I did from poor guilds), as the donors lived in the country, or
do exactly as I liked with it, we tried to be businesslike, in spite
of the rush, and made most elaborate tables showing cases despatched,
dates, money received, expended, and so on.
Nothing was omitted. Every conceivable article of clothing for men,
women, and children was there. Numberless blankets, sheets, needles,
cottons, pins, tapes, new stockings with the proper-coloured mending
pinned on, and boots and shoes galore. The things in themselves
depicted the thought and care with which they had been selected,
showing the sympathy of the people of Great Britain, from the poorest
to the richest, with the unfortunate sufferers. Amongst other things
were razors and pipes. There were even braces, slippers, fur coats,
hairpins, sleeping-socks, and amongst it all came a parcel of most
useful things, amongst which were hidden a dozen copies of the
_Christian World_. Did the dear old body who sent them imagine that the
Sicilian peasants could read an English tract?
One lady wrote she “is sending a case weighing four hundredweight, and
as it contains seven hundred garments, she thinks it might go as it
stands.” It did; God bless her.
Really it was a study in parcels. Some were so beautifully done up that
one marvelled at the dexterity of amateur hands which tied the string;
others were disgracefully bundled together; and in one or two cases
labels arrived saying they had been found without any parcels attached.
Many people had carefully sorted the things into bundles and written
outside, “Complete outfit for a man,” “Complete outfit for a woman,”
“For a peasant child,” or “For a well-born little girl.”
Several people in different parts of England offered to get up
working-parties, and asked for suggestions for making suitable garments.
A Manchester manufacturer of flannel said he was willing to give all
that was required, and his workpeople would give the time if I let them
know what to make, but as his letter did not arrive until twenty-five
thousand things had gone, I did not feel able to begin over again.
Dressmakers and shops sent contributions. Several sent parcels in great
haste. Poor dears, they imagined there would be one crate—my “one box
on Friday” became a veritable joke. A lady sent a sack containing
clothes, and kindly requested that I would let her have the sack back.
I did return several portmanteaux, suit-cases, washing-baskets, and
even hold-alls, but when it came to a sack——
The crowd which collected in the street was both pathetic and humorous.
I remember two shabby little urchins of eight and ten looking with
longing eyes at the warm clothing, and the younger one remarked: “I
say, Bob, what a pity we wasn’t blowd up in that earthquake!”
A friend noticed a couple of unusual parcels being handed in at the
door and quietly put into one of the cases. On rushing to investigate,
she found that one contained my best drawing-room curtains returned
from the cleaners, and the other a cake for afternoon tea.
Warned not to leave her wraps about, one of my helpers put her muff and
stole on the staircase. An hour later she only rescued them in the nick
of time from a crate where a kindly man was packing them up, thinking
they “would be so comfortable for the poor people in Sicily.”
Many of these crates stood four feet from the ground. It was therefore
impossible, even with the aid of friendly walking-sticks, to pack
the bottom, consequently a kitchen chair was fetched, and by its
aid various girls got inside and gradually packed the clothing and
themselves upwards.
My rooms on the ground floor were full of parcels, letters, cheques,
postal orders, keys waiting to be returned with portmanteaux, labels
likewise to be affixed to returned empties, bills of lading, telegrams,
cards, accounts for clothing, etc. Personally, I never sat down for one
minute that somebody did not come to ask for a shilling, or sixpence,
or half-crown, to pay for some package delivered unpaid at the door.
To complicate matters, reporters and photographers seemed to arrive
from everywhere. They snapshotted us as we worked, they gleaned bits
of information from any and every one, and one of them insisted on
penetrating my private den, where he found me busily writing. A friend,
hearing a crash and seeing a mysterious light, thought there was a
sudden earthquake in York Terrace. She rushed to the hall to ask what
had happened. “Oh, it is nothing, only Mrs. Tweedie being snapshotted.”
And oh—what a photograph it was! But it was reproduced in France,
Germany, Italy, and Sicily.
Some weeks afterwards I received the following letter from the Italian
Government through Sir Rennell Rodd, our Ambassador in Rome:
“MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
“_27th January, 1909_.
“SIR,
“By your note of 14th inst. your Excellency informed me that the
well-known authoress, Mrs. Alec Tweedie, had in the short time of
three days collected twenty thousand pieces of clothing, which in
167 packages had been sent to Naples, Messina, and Catania, to
succour the sufferers in the recent disaster.
“I shall be grateful if your Excellency will, in the name of the
Royal Government and myself, express to Mrs. Alec Tweedie the sense
of profound gratitude for the zeal and alacrity which she showed in
coming to the help of so many sufferers.
“I have, etc.,
“(Signed) TITTONI.
“H.E. Sir R. Rodd,
“British Ambassador, Rome.”
Most of the packages were distributed by my personal friends to the
real sufferers in Sicily fourteen days after the earthquake.
Yes, it _was_ an experience. An extraordinary experience even in a life
not unknown to strange sights and circumstances, but it was not what
one would willingly undertake again. The strain of organising such a
performance in a few hours’ time was terrific.
It cost me some weeks of my life, made a hole in my pocket, and did my
walls and house much damage, but I gained a vast amount of experience,
and _hundreds of half-sheets of note-paper_!
CHAPTER XXVIII
WORK RELAXED: AND ORCHARDSON
A deal of ink had run from my pen in thirteen years—thirteen books
had been turned out, and thousands of odd articles, there was hardly
a paper or magazine in the country to which I had not contributed
something. Work had become much easier with practice, and a certain
amount of success—far, far more than I ever deserved—had come my way.
During that busy time I wrote more words per week than I wrote in the
whole previous nine years. I never believe in people making money they
do not require, unless occasionally, and then they should pass their
little gains on to some charitable cause. Still less do I believe
in anyone writing anything to be printed just for the pleasure of
seeing their name in print. That is taking bread out of someone’s
mouth, and lowering the market standard. I never wrote a line in my
life that was not paid for. Always before me lay two roads, the one
grinding on to the bitter end as a writer and journalist, the second
string being much the more important as it meant more pay for less
risk; or the possibility that some day investments of my husband’s
might turn out better and the necessity to work might cease. It did
not cease—but after thirteen years I felt my feet sufficiently to bid
adieu to journalistic work. A few hundreds here, and a few hundreds
there carefully re-invested, three small legacies left because of the
“splendid fight I had made,” or “in appreciation of her pluck and hard
work,” lifted the cloud, and as the cloud rolled away I took my leave
of the journalist’s yoke which had so often galled a sensitive back:
the moment I could do without this source of income I left it alone,
thankful, grateful for its kindly aid through years of adversity. I
don’t suppose my editors missed me. They never knew me personally;
incognito I entered their pages except as a name, incognito as a
personality I left them.
I was ill—over-work, over-strain, over-anxiety for thirteen years
bowled me over—I, who had never had “little ills,” seemed to be always
having colds and coughs, sleepless nights, aching temples, tonsilitis,
and other stupid little ailments; but in all reverence let me thank God
that the necessity that plied the lash so unceasingly for thirteen busy
years gradually relaxed.
I suppose there is no loneliness so complete as the creative
brain-worker’s. He writes a book through weary months of thought and
probably not one member of his own household even knows what it is
about or looks at it when done. The painter is almost as bad, although
a cursory glance may be given occasionally at his picture. The same
with the inventor. The creator must be content to live in loneliness of
soul and lack of sympathy. The knowledge that he is doing his best is
his only reward. Even wealth is generally denied him.
Often in those busy years I wondered if I had been too fond of
pleasure, too absorbed by amusement in those young married days, and
if the necessity to work was my punishment. Every little act counts in
life. Every good deed brings its reward, every silly action demands its
toll.
The completion of my thirteenth year had ended my strenuous literary
work. I then had more time for my friends, social purposes, calls of
charity, committee work of all sorts and kinds, so although I remained
as busy as ever, I was no longer a money-making machine.
It was then that I lost one of my oldest and dearest friends. I was
ill myself at the time of his death (April, 1910), but from my bed
I dictated, and corrected the proof on my sofa during the days of
convalescence of an article for the _Fortnightly Review_, July, 1910.
“One of the men I should like to meet in England is William Quiller
Orchardson.” So spoke the great Shakespearian writer of America, Dr.
Horace Howard Furness, when I was staying with him on the Delaware
River near Philadelphia (1905).
We were standing before a large engraving of the “Mariage de
Convenance,” one of this famous scholar’s dearest possessions.
“The idea,” continued Dr. Furness, “the thought, the sense of design;
the space, the refinement, the art of the whole thing, are, to my mind,
perfect. The man who did that must be a charming man, and next time I
cross the Atlantic I shall hope to see him.”
They will never meet now, but I told Orchardson the story when I came
home, and he looked quite shy with simple pleasure that any picture of
his was so much appreciated.
Sir William Orchardson was one of Nature’s courtiers. He was refined in
manner, delicate in thought, artistic in temperament.
England has lost one of her greatest painters. Orchardson is one of the
names that will be known centuries hence. He was one of the few men to
see his old work increase in value. He had a style of his own. “Thin,”
some called it, doubtless because of his means of work, whereby the
canvas remained exposed; but the talent was not thin. It was rich in
tone, and the work was strong. Probably no living artist painted with
less _impasto_, and yet produced such effect of solidity.
He had great partiality for yellows and browns, madders and reds, and,
whenever he could introduce these tones, did so. He loved the warmth
of mahogany, the shade of rich wine in a glass, the subdued tones of a
scarlet robe, the russet brown of an old shooting-suit, and as his own
hair had a warm hue, he generally wore a shade of clothes which toned
in with it. As grey mingled with his locks, he took to grey tweeds, and
a very harmonious picture he made with his slouch hat to match.
In these days, when it is the fashion to belittle modern artists, and
magnify a hundred-fold the value of so-called “ancient masters,” it was
delightful to come across one whose power was actually acknowledged
under the hammer in his own lifetime. One of Orchardson’s pictures,
“Hard Hit,” painted in 1879, fetched nearly £4000 at Christie’s thirty
years later for America. He had the gratification of seeing many of his
canvases double and treble in value, and yet he was always well paid
for his work on the easel.
He saw his “Mariage de Convenance,” for which he originally received
£1200, increase enormously in value, and his picture of “Napoleon on
the Deck of the _Bellerophon_,” painted in 1880, double in value
before it went to the Tate Gallery.
But the more success he achieved, the more modest he seemed to become.
Simplicity was the keynote of the man. Simplicity of character,
simplicity of life, simplicity of style. There is masterful simplicity
in all his work. Look at the large, majestic rooms he depicted, with
one or two figures round which the interest lies. His work invariably
gives one a sense of space, elegance, and refinement. It is always
reserved in colour and design, with great harmony and unity of effect,
possibly helped by the use of a very limited range of colour. His
drawing was strong in construction, highly sensitive in line, and had
an entire absence of flashiness.
His portraits were, perhaps, his greatest achievement, and were
extraordinary for their virility and power of characterisation; they
were hailed with enthusiasm by the artists both here and on the
Continent. He did not do a great number. Indeed, he was by no means
a prolific painter—from three to five canvases were the most he
accomplished in a single year.
He elaborated his still-life as much as the old Dutch painters, but the
whole scheme of colour and design and his eighteenth-century costumes
were simple.
As with his work, so with the man. He was moderate in all things.
Gentle, refined, sensitive, thorough, and painstaking, always striving
for better things. Never really satisfied with his work, never really
satisfied with himself. A deeply religious man, he never mentioned
religion, but somehow one felt he had profound convictions on this
subject. His moral standards were high, his sense of justice was
profound.
Two antagonistic qualities were ever fighting in the painter. The
gentleness of the man, the determination of the character.
Orchardson had been a veritable hero for years. He had really been
an invalid since the final years of the last century, sometimes
desperately ill. Often he could only do an hour’s work a day, and
during that time Lady Orchardson always read aloud to him. It
soothed and amused him at the same time, and volumes of memoirs and
travels were his delight. His wife was always beside him, and her
encouragement and criticism were of great value to his work. They were
a devoted couple.
Even neuritis did not stop his work. The triumph of mind over matter!
There were days during those ten or twelve years when he looked as
if a puff of wind would blow him away. Yet the work lost none of its
brilliancy. Orchardson painted as well at seventy-five as he did forty
years before. Of how many men can that be said?
Pluck is a wonderful quality. How few of the people, who admired
Orchardson’s marvellous picture of Lord Peel, realised the agonies the
artist endured during the time he was painting that and his following
canvases. It was about 1897 that he first began to fail. Some put
it down to heart trouble, others to an affection of the nerves, but
whatever it was he was told that nothing could be done, nothing, at
least, which could really cure the malady. With the most splendid
fortitude and pluck Orchardson realised the situation. He was still a
man of little over sixty. He was at the zenith of his glory, thousands
of pounds were paid for his pictures, and orders were far more numerous
than he could accomplish; he had a large family beside him, and for
years he painted on with this agonising pain, making light of the
matter.
How ill he looked one day when I called. He appeared so much thinner
than even a month or two previously, and there seemed a depression
about the merry laugh and twinkling eyes. He wore his left arm in a
black silk sling, and the hands, always thin, seemed to show more blue
veins, and look more delicate and nervous than usual. His hands were
even more characteristic than his face. He was painting, and beside him
his palette was fixed on a music stand.
“A very awkward arrangement,” he laughingly said; “but the best I can
do, for I can no longer hold the palette at all.”
“But the stand is just the exact height, and looks all right,” I said.
“Ah, my dear friend,” he replied, “a subtle difference in colour is
very slight, but when you are standing back from your canvas and decide
that a particular shade is wanted on a particular point of a particular
nose, if you have the palette on your hand you can mix it at once,
while if you have to walk back six or eight feet to the palette to
prepare the paint to complete this little alteration, you may just get
sufficiently off the shade to entirely alter the idea. I weigh every
tone. I am not an impressionist.”
Seeing Orchardson working under such circumstances struck me as one of
the most sad and pitiful things I had ever known. Here was he, one of
the greatest painters of the day, still in the prime of life, working
against the most horrible odds, and yet sticking to it in a manner
everyone must admire and few realise, for he always tried to make light
of the situation. He painted his picture of Sir Peter Russell under
these circumstances, also the portrait of Miss Fairfax Rhodes. Among
his best-known portraits are those of Mrs. Pattison, Sir David Stewart,
and Sir Walter Gilbey.
Orchardson’s famous picture of four royal generations (called “Windsor
Castle, 1897”) was finished in April, 1900, for that year’s Academy. I
went one afternoon a week before to have a look at it. The painter and
his wife were having tea in the splendid dining-room at Portland Place,
and he was thoroughly enjoying his buttered toast after a hard day.
“I like sitting at a table for my tea,” he said, “especially since my
arm became troublesome, for even now I really cannot balance a cup.
Congratulate me, however, for I have discarded my sling to-day after
two years.”
The man who could not hold a cup could paint a picture.
The canvas was enormous—simple and striking. The quiet dignity of Queen
Victoria on the left, and the happy little family group of the Prince
of Wales, the Duke of York (our present King), and baby Prince, was
charming.
“A difficult subject,” sighed Orchardson. “It took me months to make
up my mind how to tackle it at all. Two black frock-coats and a lady
in black seemed impossible, till I insisted on having the child and
his white frock to introduce the human interest. For days and days I
wandered about Windsor to find a suitable room to paint the group in,
and nothing took my fancy till I came to this long corridor. This is a
corner just as it stands. The dark cabinet throws out the Queen’s head.
The carpet gives warmth. The settee is good colour.”
“How very like that chair, on which the Prince has his hand, is to one
of your old Empire chairs,” I exclaimed. The great painter laughed.
“It is mine. I lent it, you see. They have nothing quite so suitable as
mine there, so I just painted in one of my own.”
It was only five days before the picture was to go to Burlington House.
The Prince of Wales’s—alas, the only portrait he painted of Edward
VII—was unfinished; one of the three busts was not even touched,
besides many other minor details.
“Will you ever be ready?”
“Oh dear, yes! I once painted half my Academy picture in the last
week. I take a long while thinking and planning, but only a short time
actually painting. I shall be ready all right. At any time I rarely
paint more than four hours a day, often only two; so you see I can
accomplish a fair amount with an eight-hours day.”
In 1887 the Orchardsons moved from Victoria to Portland Place. The new
house offered all the room required for his large family, but there was
no studio. Nothing daunted, the artist designed a studio, and made one
of the finest _ateliers_ in London, where stables and loose-boxes once
stood. He was not the first, for Turner, the great landscape painter,
who lived in Queen Anne Street, close by, had his studio in the stables
which later adjoined my father’s house in Harley Street. It was in that
stable-studio Turner painted some of his finest pictures, and it was in
a stable-studio almost a hundred years later that Orchardson painted
his most famous canvases.
Rich tapestries hung upon the walls. Old chairs of the Directoire and
Empire periods stood about on parquet floors, on which was reflected
the red glow from a huge, blazing fire.
The upstairs rooms, with their pillars and conservatory, formed the
background of such pictures as “Her Mother’s Voice,” “Reflections,”
“Music, when Soft Voices Die, Vibrates in the Memory,” and “A Tender
Chord,” and bits of the studio often served as backgrounds, just as
his Adams satin-wood chairs, his clocks and candelabra, glass and old
Sheffield plate, stood as models.
Orchardson was a man of wide interests. He was always liberal in his
outlook. Anything new, no matter by whom, or what form it took,
interested him, and he was particularly good to young men. For
instance, the son of Professor Lorimer, of Edinburgh, sent a portrait
of his father to the Academy. No one had then heard of young Lorimer,
but the picture was accepted and hung on the line. Two or three years
after, when the artist was in London, he was introduced to Orchardson,
who at once exclaimed:
“‘J. H. Lorimer’! Ah, yes! I remember. I hung a picture of yours on the
line at the Academy a few years ago, because it showed promise.” And
thus began a delightful friendship. That was his way. Whenever he could
do a young artist a good turn, he did so; whenever he could say a word
of encouragement, he was always willing; endless were the visits he
paid to the studios of youthful aspirants, and many the kindly words of
advice and encouragement he left behind.
He thought it one of the crying shames of the day that more was not
done for living painters and sculptors. He considered our public
buildings and open spaces should be adorned by sculpture, that our
public libraries and edifices should be decorated by paintings.
“There is just as good talent as ever there was,” he would say, “if
these millionaires would only encourage it, and not pay vast sums for
spurious old masters. You have only to call a thing _old_, and it will
be bought, but call the same thing _new_, and no one will even look at
it.”
Speaking to him once about a fellow-artist’s death, I said what a pity
it was a man should live to over-paint himself, just as men lived to
over-write themselves—paint until their eye has lost all idea of form
and colour.
He did not agree to this. “Once a painter, always a painter,” he
declared. “Our individual taste improves, our life becomes more
educated, until we look upon work as bad which, years before, we
thought good. In fact,” he maintained, “if the early pictures of
an artist were put with his later work, you would probably find he
had not deteriorated at all.” He gave as an illustration the works
in the Manchester Exhibition—where one man had, perhaps, twenty
pictures, painted in different years, hung side by side; and these,
he maintained, one and all reached a certain standard, and did not
deteriorate or improve very much with years.
Once asked to paint a picture containing several portraits, he agreed,
although the subjects were not handsome—ugly, in fact.
“What a trial that must be to you?”
“Oh dear, no! I far prefer an ugly face to a beautiful one. It is
generally so much more interesting.”
“Then you choose their dresses and surroundings, presumably?”
“No; I do not. I like to paint them as they are, and in their own home.
Dressing them up and giving them strange surroundings takes away their
identity, and makes a picture, but not a portrait. Men paint with their
brain, and if they haven’t got brains, no amount of teaching will make
them artists. They must feel what they do with the mind. Colour is
in the artist himself, but he must learn for years and years, not to
paint, but to draw. Drawing can only be acquired, and is difficult at
first. No man can hope to be an artist until drawing is no longer a
difficulty. Then, but not till then, he may start to paint. Look how
beautifully Frenchmen draw. Art is poorly paid and a disheartening
affair. When I see and hear of the thousands of ‘artists’ barely
earning a living to keep body and soul together, it makes me positively
sick.”
One day a friend brought a beautiful bunch of roses to Portland Place.
Mrs. Orchardson was so delighted with them, she took them into the
studio to show her husband.
“Can’t you paint them?” she enquired.
“Well, they are lovely,” he replied. And after thinking a moment, he
went and fetched a large canvas, on which he had drawn roughly his
scheme for the now famous picture of “The Young Duke.” Many feet of
white canvas and charcoal lines were there. The rest of the scheme and
the colour was only in the artist’s head. He fetched a bowl, placed
the roses in it, and there and then painted the flowers upon the great
white canvas. So began the picture, round the bowl of roses.
Flowers and the country were always attractive to Orchardson, and
in 1897 he bought a house near Farningham. Once settled, they were
invited to a large county dinner-party to be introduced to their
neighbours. Just before it was time to dress for dinner, it was
discovered that Orchardson had not brought his dress-clothes from
London. Should they send a message that they could not go? No; they
decided that would be ridiculous. Had he a frock-coat? No; he had not
even that in the country, and a blue serge suit was all that could be
produced. Accordingly, the artist appeared at the formal county dinner
arranged in his special honour more like an English yachtsman than a
dinner-party guest; and, to add to their misery—it had taken so long to
hunt for the clothes, and it took much longer to drive than they had
anticipated—the guests had already sat down when they were ushered into
the dining-room.
For many years before this, the Orchardsons lived off and on at
Westgate. It was there he built the tennis-court—real tennis, not lawn
tennis—that from first to last cost about £3000, and was finally pulled
down and sold as old bricks and mortar. That game was his recreation
and his amusement, and round him the painter collected tennis players
from all over the world. He called it the “king of games,” just as he
called fly-fishing the “king of sports.”
Another hobby was old furniture. One of his most prized treasures was
an old piano. A Vienna Flügel of the seventeenth century, containing
peals, drums, and bells. It was shaped like an ordinary grand, with
rounded side-pieces of beautiful rich-coloured mahogany, and in tone
resembled a spinet. This he gave a year or two before his death with a
tall harp piano, to the South Kensington Museum. One day, walking down
Oxford Street, he had seen the end of this Flügel piano sticking out
of some straw outside an auctioneer’s. The wood and form struck him,
and he pulled aside the straw to examine it more closely. He had the
legs brought out to him, and found they were figures supporting worlds,
on which the piano rested. Charmed and delighted at the whole design,
he offered to bid for it—and as only two very old musicians, who
remembered the piano in their youth, bid against him, it was knocked
down to him. Afterwards he found the only other similar one in England
was owned by the Queen, and stood at Windsor.
Funnily enough, he who had himself painted so many portraits, disliked
nothing in the world so much as sitting himself.
“I am a fidget,” he said, “and it worries me to keep still. When
Charlie [his son] asked me to sit to him in the autumn of ’98, I
said, ‘My dear boy, I would rather do anything else in the world for
you.’ However, his mother persuaded me that it would be to Charlie’s
advantage, and therefore, like a weak man—for man is always weak in the
hands of woman—I gave in. The boy painted it very cleverly, and people
tell me it is a good portrait. Not that I know much about that, for no
one knows what he really looks like.”
Orchardson was just twenty-nine when sitting in his little studio in
Edinburgh he read long accounts of the great Exhibition of 1862. “By
Jove, I’ll go and have a look at it,” he exclaimed. No sooner said than
done. With a small hand-bag he came to London. The die was cast. He
never returned to Edinburgh to live.
Those early days in this great city were days of work and struggle
for John Pettie, Peter Graham, John MacWhirter, and William Quiller
Orchardson, who all came together, and lived together in Pimlico, and
then in Fitzroy Square. They all worked in black and white to keep
the pot boiling, and right merry they were in those long-ago days.
All attained success. Orchardson’s first stroke of luck came three
years after his arrival in London, when he won a £100 prize for “The
Challenge,” and for the next forty-five years he continued to work
steadily, and climbed the ladder of fame rung by rung.
My last personal recollection of Sir William was when I was sitting
to Herbert Hampton, the sculptor. One day we were talking about
Orchardson, and Mr. Hampton was eulogistic in speaking of his work, and
regretted Sir William had never been to his studio.
“I will ask him to come.” Below is his reply, written on March 12th,
1910, exactly a month before his death.
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“So sorry to be all day engaged! Give me another day—do—Yours ever
so much,
“W. Q. ORCHARDSON.
“Have sitter waiting.”
It was his habit to go out daily for fresh air, and, when able for it,
for exercise, so I suggested fetching him in a taxi the next time I was
to sit. To this he replied a few days later:
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“So do I [this refers to a remark that I wished I were the sitter].
I should have loved the taxi, and your presentment at the hands of
Herbert Hampton. It must be worth seeing—but that I have promised
to be at the meeting to-morrow of the Fine Art Section of the White
City, of which I am Chairman.—Horrid, is it not? With many thanks
and more regrets,
“Yours,
“W. Q. ORCHARDSON.”
The writing was very shaky, as it had been for some years. For years
he could paint firmly and yet only write badly. This was probably due
to his extraordinary power of concentration. Even ten days before his
death he was struggling daily to the studio, too weak to stand before
his canvas, callous to all outside matters, so determined to finish his
pictures that he could concentrate his mind on his work and make great
strides in a quarter of an hour. Then he would fall back exhausted.
Here was a case of indomitable pluck, and such determination and
concentration that he almost died with his brush in his hand.
Orchardson was a delightful _raconteur_, and although I knew him
intimately for twenty years, I never heard him say an unkind word of
anyone, and often admired his refinement of thought and delightful
belief in everyone and in everything beautiful. He was by nature a
serious, thoughtful man, although a certain air of gaiety overspread
his speech, and a merry twinkle often sparkled in his eye. He told
stories dramatically, quickly turning from grave to gay. Although
casual in manner, unconventional in ideas, and remiss in answering
letters, he never seemed to give offence to anyone. That same slack,
casual way of acting on impulse that brought young Orchardson to London
in 1862, remained through life. He never could make plans; seldom knew
from week to week where he would be. He was, in fact, irresponsible
by nature, but so sweet in character that the gods smiled on him and
oblivion of time was excused, just as forgetfulness of appointments
was exonerated. That was the man; but when work was foremost, all was
changed.
Orchardson was a great painter and a kindly man. The world is the
poorer for his death. Such men can ill be spared.
When my article appeared it was pleasant to hear from the wife of the
painter:
“Your article in the _Fortnightly_ is quite delightful, and I much
appreciate it. You have depicted his character so exactly, and I am
sure all who have ever known him will quite agree.”
Or again from his old friend Mr. John MacWhirter, R.A., who followed
him so quickly to the grave:
“I have just read Orchardson in the _Review_. It is admirable. I
did not know that you understood him so well. He was a delightful
character, and you have described him well. I feel I owe you real
thanks!”
These few kindly words were a great reward for a very little work. Poor
MacWhirter himself died a few months later.
* * * * *
Some years ago the Society of Women Journalists did me the honour of
appointing me one of its Vice-Presidents, an unmerited honour, for I
was a bad journalist in the sense of ordinary journalism. I have never
written about fashions or Society functions, and did little of the
ordinary journalistic hack-work, such as reporting, though I wrote
yards of “copy” of all sorts and kinds.
One day the idea came to me that it would be nice to invite my
fellow-journalists to tea before finally ringing down the curtain on my
journalistic life, and as a tea-party composed entirely of themselves
would be rather too much of a family affair, I decided to ask some
of my own friends as well. The card indicated on the next page was
accordingly sent out.
There are three hundred members of the Society of Women Journalists,
not all of course living in London, so we reckoned that one hundred
might turn up during the afternoon. As it happened, the total number
of people who crossed my doorstep between 3.45 and 7.15 (for they came
before the appointed time and stayed after the allotted hour) was four
hundred—one hundred and sixty-four of whom were men!
[Illustration:
To Meet Society of Women Journalists.
MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE
AT HOME
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 4-7.
4.0. MRS. KENDAL.
4.30. MISS GRAINGER KERR.
5.0. MISS GENEVIÈVE WARD.
5.30. MR. ADOLPH MANN.
6.0. LADY TREE.
6.30. MISS CHRISTIAN MUIR.
30, YORK TERRACE,
HARLEY STREET.
]
Luckily, some days beforehand I had sorted out the glass and china,
been to the plate-chest, seen to the table-linen, ordered the
hat-stands and urns, and made everything in readiness, for on Monday
night before this memorable Wednesday I was taken ill.
Internal chills are like influenza, they sound so little and may mean
so much. Tuesday found me worse, and when the doctor came late in the
day, my suffering was so intense that he insisted upon an injection of
morphia. I was too dull with pain, too stupefied from the drug to so
much as even think about putting off that party. It seemed to me an
absolutely impossible task. I had not tacked those tiresome letters
“R.S.V.P.” on the cards of invitation, and therefore had not the
slightest idea how many people would come, so as everything had been
arranged, it seemed best to let things take their course, and chance my
being up, clothed, and in my right mind.
The Fates decided otherwise. By Tuesday night I was worse. The nurse
shook her head, still the doctor saw the impossibility of stopping the
party, and wisely begged me not to trouble myself about it.
I knew my sister, Mrs. W. F. Goodbody, would be quite equal to the
task of receiving in my absence. Besides, I sent messages to one or
two intimate friends to come early and hand tea and coffee, and smile
and talk; in fact, turn themselves into public entertainers for the
afternoon. Everyone behaved splendidly. With so much brilliant talent
to amuse them, they could hardly be dull. Even to my bed there rose
the shouts of laughter and sounds of enthusiastic applause after the
recitations and music.
The nurse stood over me like a dragon, refusing to let anyone cross the
threshold of the sick-room; as a kindly angel she trotted backwards
and forwards, telling me some of the names she heard announced. An
Ambassador, and several Ministers, Royal Academicians, inventors,
authors, Admirals, Generals, actors, and scientists, all came in turn.
I shall never really know who all my guests were at that party, for
only in a haphazard way have I heard who came and who did not. But it
proved that _Hamlet_ without the Dane, or a wedding without the bride,
might almost be possible when a party without a hostess can be a “great
success.” Such is the comedy and tragedy of life. My guests were told
I was suffering from a “little chill,” and, though kindly or politely
regretful, they little guessed that their enjoyment was counterbalanced
by my agony.
Many days passed before I was up again, and then I only crawled to
Woodhall Spa. _Crawled_ is a fairly correct expression, for the first
time I was able to leave my room was to go to the train, and then a
porter trundled me along the platform at King’s Cross in a Bath chair.
So lying on my back all the journey, I arrived there a human wreck;
but, thanks to Dr. Calthrop, and the efficacy of the waters, the
patient found herself on her feet a few weeks later.
All praise to Woodhall Spa.
A day or two after my arrival even that quiet, sleepy little village
was raised to the tiptoe of anxiety when a rumour came that King Edward
VII. was dangerously ill. On that Friday night—May 6th, 1910—we tried
to telephone to London for the latest bulletin, but no message could
be got through; and it was not till the early hours of Saturday morning
that the dreaded news which had already spanned the world in a flash,
reached the restful retreat of Woodhall Spa, by means of the mail cart.
The King was dead.
A strong contrast was the little English village, where I learnt
the sad tidings, to that wonderfully dramatic scene in the recesses
of a Mexican cave, in which news of the death of Queen Victoria was
announced to me.
All of us in the hotel were wearing coloured clothes, and all with one
accord telegraphed home, or to the London shops or dressmakers, for
black things to be sent; and rich ladies sallied forth and bought pots
of paint to blacken their hats, or bits of ribbon of funereal hue.
And those wonderful days following the death of King Edward VII.
showed forth not only spontaneous world-wide reverence for the Great
Peacemaker, and homage to his dignity and prestige as a monarch; they
bore witness to the sorrow of individuals numbered by multitudes and
nations—the sob of a grief-stricken Empire that had lost and was
mourning a valued friend.
CHAPTER XXIX
DIAZ
Does the hand lose its cunning? I had practically given up all forms of
rapid journalism, when, on November 24th, 1910, I was suffering from a
cold (which had, by the way, prevented my seeing my own tableaux got up
for a charity at the Court Theatre). The telephone buzzed and fumed.
“Will you speak to the editor of the _Daily Mail_, please, ma’am,
at once?” asked the parlourmaid. Down I went to the ’phone in my
dressing-gown.
“There is a report that Diaz is assassinated.”
“Don’t believe it,” I replied.
“But the telegram is lying before me,” he continued.
“Sorry, but I don’t believe it. I know Diaz. I know his home, and I
know the Mexican people.”
“Would I write fourteen hundred words at once?”
After some persuasion I promised to write something for the next day’s
publication, although stoutly refusing to write an obituary. It so
chanced my secretary was not at hand, so without looking up anything,
I wrote those fourteen hundred words by hand in fifty minutes. The
boy came up from the _Daily Mail_ office to fetch it an hour after my
conversation with the editor, and bore it off, to be telegraphed to
Paris and Manchester.
Then I had some Cambridge friends to luncheon, followed by my “At Home”
day. That night I dined at the “Criterion,” a Society of Authors’
Dinner, went on to a reception, given by the Chairman of the County
Council, Mr. Whitaker Thompson, at the Hotel Cecil, and then to bed.
Of course the cold was worse, but inhaling creosote (of all sweet
scents!) soon improved it again; and I slept peacefully until early tea
began another strenuous day, and brought the following column of type
to my bedside.
Here it is, just as it was scribbled:
PORFIRIO DIAZ.
THE MAN WHO MADE MEXICO.
_By MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE, Author of “Seven Times President of Mexico.”_
That General Diaz was the greatest man the nineteenth century
produced is a bold assertion—and yet I have no hesitation in making
it. The statement is especially bold of a century that recognised
so many great men. But then Diaz rose from humble origin, and
became a dictator, a very Czar and Pope in one, and not only did he
attain such a position, but he has kept it. For over thirty years
he has governed the country he once roamed as a shoeless boy, and
now, as he announced yesterday in a special cable to the _Daily
Mail_, he has suppressed yet another revolt and has established his
rule yet more firmly.
Diaz is a democratic ruler. Without a middle class a successful
democracy is impossible, and Diaz, alive to all such facts, set
himself the task, during the last ten or fifteen years, of building
up a middle class in Mexico. Diaz remains as firm a believer in a
democracy as ever, although his own Republic has practically become
an autocracy. He believes in an Opposition Party; but it is only
now an Opposition Party has actually risen against him. During long
and interesting visits to Mexico I was unceasingly impressed by
the love of the people for their ruler. They revered and esteemed
him as a man, they admired and appreciated his capacity to govern,
and even his political enemies threw party feelings aside and
realised that in him they had an ideal ruler. The Conservatives—who
naturally ought to have opposed him—were tranquilly content to let
the man who had held the helm for over thirty years continue to
steer their bark.
A YOUTHFUL VETERAN
Old in years, Diaz has ever been young in spirit. Those nostrils quiver
and dilate as he speaks, those deep-set eyes seem to penetrate his
listener’s soul. In personality this short, thick-set Mexican appears a
giant of physical strength, while his broad brows denote the thinker.
He is a youthful veteran.
Two months ago (Sept., 1910) this great President assisted at two
celebrations. He stood on the balcony of the Municipal Palace and
rang the bell that clanged forth the centenary of the Independence of
Mexico. Only two months ago he kept his eightieth birthday. Last night
I had the pleasure of sitting next Lord Strathcona, one of the most
remarkable men of his age, and some ten years older than General Diaz;
but then those ten years count for nought in a hardy Scotsman when
pitted against a man of Southern climes. Longevity is an asset of the
North. Diaz is of the South, and that he should still be strong and
vigorous and able to pull the ropes of public affairs after fourscore
years is a remarkable achievement for any man, and the more remarkable
for a man with Indian blood in his veins. Not only that, but one must
remember Diaz had an extraordinarily hard life until a few years ago.
His father was a little innkeeper in a little town in Southern Mexico.
He died of cholera when the boy was only three years old. There were
five other children. The mother’s daily struggle to provide food and
clothing for them was great. Diaz went to the village school. At
fourteen he joined the Roman Catholic seminary with the intention of
entering the Church. It was his mother’s dearest wish. Education in
those early days was free in Mexico where even military students pay no
fees to-day, and education is on a high standard generally.
A LIFE OF ADVENTURE
Then the boy earned a small sum by teaching, which he spent in
acquiring Latin grammar, logic, and philosophy. He found the tenets
of the Church unacceptable. Mexico was at that time seething with
revolution. Troops were continually passing through Oaxaca. The youth
used to slip off in the evening to join the camp fires and listen to
tales of valour and strife that made the blood tingle in his veins.
The call of the bugle fired his soul. One has only to look at the man
to see he was a born soldier beneath the guise of the politician of
to-day. His life is one long story of romance and adventure, of serious
difficulties ably overcome.
In the course of fifty-five years there had been sixty-eight dictators,
presidents, and rulers in Mexico. This all ended in 1876, when General
Diaz, then but a rough soldier, rode up to the City of Mexico at the
head of the revolutionary army and declared himself President.
With the exception of four years he has reigned ever since. He fought
hand to hand for Mexico and liberty. He saw the overthrow of the
Church. He lived to see his beloved country rise from the lowest to
one of the highest rungs of the world’s ladder. It is impossible here
even to hint at the narrow escapes from death he had as a soldier, to
mention the strange and sad story of the Emperor Maxmilian and his
misguided and beautiful wife Carlotta. It is not possible to dwell on
the courtly manners and charming grace of the elder Diaz as compared
with the rough soldier of sixty years ago. One cannot even mention his
ideally happy home life, his love of sport, or his interest in science
and the great questions of this great world. Diaz can only be summed up
here as a man of many parts and many interests.
AN ERA OF PROSPERITY
What have been the results of General Diaz’s long administrations? That
terrible poverty which sapped the life’s blood from the country during
three-fourths of last century has turned to affluence. Peace is the
outcome of revolution. The country, jibed and jeered at abroad, now
holds a position among the leading nations. Lawlessness has given place
to wise jurisdiction. The Mexicans are better governed, they can afford
to pay the taxes imposed for the benefits they receive, and are yet
more wealthy. Instead of money pouring out to repay old debts, foreign
capital is pouring into the country, so secure has Mexican credit
become in the world’s markets.
More important than all, Diaz has taught the Mexicans the benefit of
lasting peace, has set before them an ideal of honest public life which
will survive him as a great monument to a great man. Diaz made modern
Mexico. Roughly dividing his life into three parts, hunger and struggle
were dominant in the earlier years. During the next span he was helping
to make history in one of the wildest and most beautiful countries of
God’s earth. The latter part of his strenuous life he has devoted to
a desk and diplomacy, has thrown aside the soldier’s cloak for the
frock-coat and tall hat of civilisation.
For thirty years President Diaz has been teaching men to govern. He
has made many men. He has modelled a nation. Diaz has always been a
patriot, whether old or young. He has established thirty years of
peace, and made a Presidency famous for its political rule. Not only
do Mexicans love him, but Europeans who have filled their purses with
Mexican gold must honour and respect so remarkable a man. It will be
an evil day when anything happens to General Diaz; but his work will
live. The nation he has moulded and made is too well impressed with the
benefits received to wander from the path of good government or throw
aside his able laws for long. Mexico is no longer a country in the
making. Mexico is made, and it was Porfirio Diaz who made it.
Apropos of the book itself, the late Major Martin Hume wrote some
months before, in a review on the work of some other author:
“Any book that truly and attractively sets forth the life-story
of such a man as Diaz should be worth reading. Mrs. Alec Tweedie,
a few years ago, produced in England an excellent biography and
appreciation of the President, and the book now before us will
certainly not displace it as the standard work in English on the
subject.”
President Diaz himself selected it as his authentic biography.
The following letter from my publisher is, perhaps, therefore, of
interest:
“CRANES PARK, SURBITON,
“_Feb. 25, ’09_.
“DEAR MRS. TWEEDIE,
“I am very glad to hear that the President of Mexico appreciates
your _Life_ of him so highly that he wishes the book brought up
to date, and that it should be translated into Spanish for sale
in Mexico. I remember the day I took the book for the first time
round the trade. No one seemed to take the slightest interest in
_Porfirio Diaz_, in fact, very few seemed to know that he existed,
and it was only when I mentioned the fact that you were the author,
and that the matter for the _Life_ had been supplied to you by the
President himself, and that they would be bound to use copies, as
they all know you have a public of your own, they gave me orders.
“I was surprised myself at the interest the book created, as repeat
orders from both booksellers and libraries commenced almost at
once, and continued to come in.
“I had always an idea that the book had something to do with the
tardy recognition of the President by the English Government.
“Yours very truly,
“HERBERT BLACKETT.”
Diaz was hurled from power in his eighty-first year. It is one of the
saddest episodes in the history of great rulers, and at the same time
one of the most important in the history of a country. His remaining
in office for an eighth term was a fatal mistake, and shrouded in
gloom the close of a career of unexampled brilliancy, both in war and
statesmanship.
Diaz left Mexico in May, 1911, and for fifteen months after that
country did not know one moment’s peace.
His life was verily a moving spectacle of romance.
* * * * *
And so here end snatches of remembrance of thirteen busy years.
No—not quite—see next page.
EPILOGUE
QUITE WELL AGAIN
Just been elected to the Council of the Eugenic Society, and the only
woman to sit on the Council of the Cremation Society of England.
And so ring down the curtain on the “Bakers’ Dozen,” and the
booksellers’ and authors’ thirteen. So ends my tale—no “Spy’s” tail.
AU REVOIR!
P.S.—No woman ever wrote a letter—tradition says—without a P.S.
Above everything I am a woman, so let me hasten to add my P.S.
These pages have been corrected for press during fourteen days of
great strain.
Thousands of invitations were sent from my door between reading
the “galleys.” Thousands of letters and questions were answered
during the correction of the “page proof,” which turned up while
I was acting as Hospitality Honorary Secretary for the FIRST
INTERNATIONAL EUGENICS CONGRESS, held in London, July, 1912.
For the Inaugural Banquet I sent out to all parts of the world
about a thousand invitations, nearly five hundred of which were
accepted. Major Leonard Darwin, son of the great Darwin and nephew
of Sir Francis Galton, presided at the dinner, and Mr. Arthur J.
Balfour and the Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas Crosby) spoke. A Reception,
at which all members attending the Congress were present, followed.
Amongst those who came forward and helped me, by giving delightful
entertainments and each receiving five or six hundred guests in
their beautiful homes, were H. E. the American Ambassador, the
Duchess of Marlborough, the Lord Mayor (the first medical man to
fill that post), Mr. Robert Mond, and Major Darwin.
My part of the festivities ended by my taking a hundred of our
foreign and colonial visitors to tea on the Terrace of the House of
Commons, thanks to the generosity of ten Members of Parliament. The
Speaker kindly lent his gallery, and allowed his Private Secretary
to find seats for the whole number.
All this was most enjoyable, but it was not good for careful
proof-reading.
[Illustration: HERE ENDS THE TALE. SKETCH IN “SPY,” 1912]
INDEX
A
Aberconway, Lord (John Brown & Co.), 19
Aberdeen, Earl of, 116, 241
— Countess of, 116
Africa, 194
Agnew, Sir William, 120
Alarcon, Colonel, 130
Albemarle, The, 213
Alexander, Mrs. (see Hector), 92
— Miss, 92
Algiers, 111
Allen, Grant, 111
Allingham, Mr., 276
America, 18, 100, 123, 125, 206, 292
Anderson, Miss A. M., M.A., 294, 295
— Mr. Percy, 47, 155
Andrews, St., 58
Angelo, Michael, 164
Antrim, Countess of, 287
Argentina, 231
“Arms and the Man,” 260
Arnold, Matthew, 19
Arts and Crafts Exhibition, 176
Ascot (Prologue, 5), 58, 253
_Assaye_, P. & O. steamer, 183
Atherton, Gertrude, 239
Aurelius, Marcus, 271
Austin, L. F., 69
Australia, 145
Avon, The, 206
Ayrton, Mrs. Hertha, 294
Aztec ruins, 125
B
_Bab Ballads_, 148
Balaclava, 40
Balfour, A. J. (Prime Minister), 87, 229
— Lady Frances, 216
Barlee, Miss Ellen, 42, 43
Barrett, John, 230, 233
Barry, J. M., 87
Bate, Percy, 158
Bateson, Mary, 236, 295
— Tom, 236
Battersea Park, 276
Bavaria, 28
Beale, Dorothea, 78
Bedford, Mr. Herbert, 153
Beecham, Sir Thomas, Mus. Doc., 297
Beerbohm, Max, 270
_Behind the Footlights_, 108, 205, 233
Belgium, 281
Bell, Mr. Moberly, 268
— Miss G., 295
Benson, 200, 203
Berkshire, 150
Berlin, 15, 113, 155, 257
Bertie, Sir Francis, 252
Besant, Sir Walter, 80
Biarritz, 114
Birmingham, George, 259, 277
Bismarck, 15, 16, 17, 18
Björnson, 51, 55
“— Björnstjerne,” 134
Blackett, Herbert, 354
Blackie, Professor, 44
Blake, Dr. Jex, 78
Bompas, Mr., 274
Bond, Sir Thomas, 20
Bonne, 114
Booth, General, 161
Bordon, 255
Borkum, 47
Boston, U.S., 206
Bothnia, Gulf of, 66
Boughton, George, 168
Bourchier, Arthur, 280
Boyce, Sir Rubert, 157
Braddon, Miss, 30, 289 (Mrs. Maxwell)
Braille, 114
Brampton, Bryan, 12
Brandes, Georg, 52
Breitmann, Hans, 31
Bret Harte, 30, 242
Brewster, Sir David, 19
_Broken Hearts_, 151
Bruges, 167
Bryant, Mrs. Sophie, D.SC., 294
— Miss Margaret, 295
Buccleuch, Duchess of, 287
Buckingham Palace, 97, 101, 224
Buckinghamshire, 150, 264
Buckland, Frank, 32, 274
Burmah, 150
Burne-Jones, 120
Burns, 74
Buszard, 40
Butt, Clara, 216
Byron, 74
C
Cacahuimilpa, Caves of, 127-9
Caird, Mr. Patrick, 181. See Cunard
Cairo, 150
Calthrop, Dr., 347
Cambridge, 111, 193, 199, 272, 296
Camden Society, 12
Campden Hill, 168
Canada, 117, 123, 194, 246, 255
Carlton, The, 280
Carlyle, 111.
See _Sartor Resartus_, 170, 276
Carnegie, 231
Castle, Edinburgh, 39
Catania, 263
Cellini, Benvenuto, 166
Chaillu, Paul du, 273
Charles V, 157
Charterhouse, 103, 247
Chelsea, 276
Chesterton (_Illustrated London News_), 69
Chicago, 125, 153, 208, 232
China, 190, 193, 230
Chisholm, Hugh. See _St. James’s Gazette_, 105, 294, 295
Choate, Mr., 230
Christian Scientists, 237
Christiania, 49, 153
Christison, Sir Alexander, 39
— Sir Robert, 40
_Chronicle, The Daily_, 74, 102
Clarence Memorial, The, 166
Clarke, Sir Edward, K.C., 312
— Sir Andrew, 21
— Miss Agnes (the late), 295
Clifford, Mrs. W. K., 294
Clodd, Mr. Edward, 152
Clyde, The, 180
College, Queen’s, Harley Street, 27, 264
— Bedford, 294
— Girton, 294
— Newnham, 294
— Somerville, 294
Colombia, 231
_Comedy and Tragedy_, 151
Congo River, 268
Connaught, Duke of, 100
— Duchess of, 100
Constable, 120
Copenhagen, 55
Corelli, Marie, 205, 207, 304
_Coriolanus_, 203
Corney Grain, 58
Coronet Theatre, 203
Courtney, W. L., 104, 105.
See _Fortnightly_
Crane, Walter, 174
Cremation Society of England, 356
Critchett, Sir Anderson, 44, 122
Cromer, Lord, 229
Crookes, Sir William, 270, 272, 274
Crozier, Dr. Beattie, 248
Cuba, 230
Cunard Company (see Caird), 183, 291
Cushmann, Charlotte (American tragedienne), 18, 19
D
_Daisy Chain, The_, 154
Dalhousie, Earl of, 241
_Daniel Druce_, 151
_Danish versus English Butter-making_, 108
Dante Society, The, 264
Darwin, Charles, 33
Davenport, Mr. Cyril, of the B.M., 147
Davies, Miss Emily, 294
Davis, Mr. William, 233
Delbruck, Professor Hans von, 28
Demos, 57
Denison, Colonel George, 247
Denmark, 50
Devonshire, Duke of, 165, 286
— Duchess of (see Manchester), 205
Diaz, Madame, 125, 131
— (President), General Porfirio, 125, 131, 224, 233, 291, 350
_Diaz, Porfirio, Seven Times President of Mexico_, 109, 114
Dickens, Charles, 18, 19, 178
Dimsdale, Sir Joseph, 227
Disraeli, 20
_Dot, Mrs._, 281
Drummond, Mr., 242
Drury Lane Theatre, 214
Dowie, John Alexander, the Prophet, 236
Dublin, 260
Dunsany, Lord, 257
Dürer, Albrecht, 166
E
Earl’s Court Exhibition, 135, 174
Edinburgh, 40, 44, 158, 170
Egypt, 150
Eliot, George, 19, 114
Ely, Bishop of, 213
Emerson, 31
Emmott, Lord, 218
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 293, 297
_Engaged_, 151
England, 18
_English Review._ See Harrison, 105
_Epic of Hades_, 259.
See Lewis Morris
Erichsen, John (Uncle John), later Sir John, 11, 71, 141
Eton, 247
Eugenic Society, 356
F
Faraday, 19
Farquharson, Dr., 288, 290
— Joseph, R.A., 188
Faucit, Helen, 19
Fawcett, M. G., 216
— Mrs., 294, 296
Fenwick, Mrs. Bedford, 294
Fergusson, William, 19
Fielding, 209, 251
— Hon. W. S., 250
Fildes, Sir Luke, 161
First Aid Yeomanry Corps, 251
_First College for Women, The_, 108
Finland, 21, 28, 65-7
Fisher, Miss (the late), 295
Foreign Office, The, 161, 283
_Forget-me-not_ (play), 203
_Fortnightly_ (see Courtney), 105
France, 40, 121
_Frederick, Lady_, 281
Furness, Dr. Horace Howard, 239, 334
Furniss, Harry, 117, 152, 178, 270, 302
G
Gainsborough, 120
Gallery, Grafton, 158
— Grosvenor, 42, 177
— Modern (Venice), 158
— National (Brussels), 158,
and Berlin, 158
— New, 158
Galton, Sir Francis, 33, 34
Garvin, J. L. (see _Pall Mall_), 105
Germany, 28, 40, 114
Gibson, Dana, 239
Gilbert, Alfred, 165, 167, 178
— Sir W. S., 88, 148-50, 152, 260
Ginsburg, Dr., 313
_Girl’s Ride in Iceland, A_, 108, 133
Giuliano, Marquis de San, 154
“Gladstone Dock,” 19
— Mr., 19-21
— Mrs., 19
Glasgow, 158, 180
Glencoe, 249
Godwin, Mrs. (Mme. Whistler), 173
Goodbody, Dr. Francis, 20
— Mrs. W. F., 347
Goodwood, 58
Gosse, Mr. Edmund, 152
— Lord, 297
Gossenass, 52
Graham, 19
— Cunninghame, Mr., 156, 157, 259
Grant, 67
— Sir Arthur, of Monymusk, 41
Gray (_Elegy_), 29
Green, Sir Frederick (see Orient), 183
Greenock, 180
Grey, Sir Edward, 229, 284
Grossmith, George, 58
— Weedon, 69, 152, 270
Grub Street, 101
Guerbel, Count de, 201
— Countess, 201
Guildhall, 228
H
_Habitant_, The, 242.
See Drummond
Haddon, 184
Halifax, 250
_Halifax Chronicle_, 250
Halouan, 150
Hampton, Herbert, 161, 162, 283, 299, 343
Hangö, 66
Hannay, Rev. James, 259
_Harley, George, or the Life of a London Physician_, 108
Harley, Sir Robert, Knight of the Bath, 12
— Lady Brilliana, 12 (see note), 13, 42, 50
— Street, 11, 15, 19, 20, 21, 26, 27, 30, 40, 59, 264
Harmsworth, Mr. See Lord Northcliffe, 134
Harnack, Dr. Adolph, 28
Harris, W. B., 157
Harrison, Austin (see _English Review_), 105
— Frederic, 131, 318
Harrow, 103, 150, 247
Hart, Sir Robert, 189
Harvard House, 206
— John, 206
— Robert, 206
Haselden, W. K., 270
Hawkins, Anthony Hope, 88
Hay, John, 229
Hayes, Catherine, 19
Heaton, Sir Henniker, 249
Hekla, 38
Hector, Mrs. (see Alexander), 92
_Hedda Gabler_ (play), 93
Heinemann, Mr., 171
Hellqvist, Carl Gustav (Swedish artist), 28
Helsingfors, 66
_His Excellency the Governor_, 152
Hennessy, Mrs., 295
H.M. Theatre, 155
Hobbes, John Oliver (Mrs. Craigie), 83, 145
Hogarth, Miss Janet (now Mrs. W. L. Courtney), 295
Holl, Frank, 82
Holland, Sir Henry, 19
—, 281
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 31
Holroyd, Sir Charles, 264
_Home_ (magazine), 68
Hook, Theodore, 19
Hooper, Dr., 297
Hornung, E. W., 88
Hospital, St. Thomas’s, 289
House of Lords, 215
Hudson Bay Company, 249
Huggins, Lady, 295
Humbert, Mlle., Editor of _L’Éclair_, 119
Hume, Major Martin, 108, 305
Hurlingham (Prologue, 5), 59
Hurst Park, 59
Hyde Park, 29, 107, 267
_Hyde Park, Its History and Romance_, 109
I
Ibsen, 51, 93, 176, 236, 249, 260
“Ibsen, Henrik,” 134
Iceland, 37, 38, 43, 194
_Ida, Princess_, 151
Illinois Theatre, 233
Inchcape, Lord (see Mackay), 279
India, 133, 150
_Inferno_, 264.
See Dante Society
_Intellectual Development_ (see Crozier), 248
_Iolanthe_, 149, 151
Irving, Sir H., 149, 161
— Ethel, 281
Italy, 40, 202, 263
J
Jackson, General, 40
Jameson, Dr., 265
Japan, 230, 255
_John Glayde’s Honour_ (play), 112
Judas (Prologue, 6)
K
Kekewich, Mr. Justice, 314
Kelvin, Lord, 161
Kemble, Mrs., 19
Kendal, Mrs., 189, 204
Killowen, Lord Russell of, 314
Kiel, 49
Kimberley (Relief of), 117
King Edward VII, 98, 121, 161, 227, 248, 254
— George V, 167, 284
Kingston, Miss Gertrude, 152
Kinloch, Sir John, 58
Kingsley, Charles, 273
— Miss Mary, 272, 273
— Dr. Henry, 273
Kipling, 242
Knowles, James Sheridan, 18
“Koh-i-noor” (diamond), 99
Königin Augusta Garde, The, 257
Korsör, 49
L
Labouchere, 173
Lady of Guadaloupe (Patron Saint of Mexico), 125
Ladysmith (Relief of), 117
Lankester, Sir E. Ray, 274
Lapland, 70, 194
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, 250, 252
Lavery, John, 155, 156, 158, 270
Legation, 195
Lehmann, Liza, 153
Leighton, Sir Frederick, P.R.A., 145
Leith, 37
Leland, Charles Godfrey, 30, 31, 32
Lemieux, Hon. Rodolphe, K.C., 254
Le Moine, Sir James, 241
Lemmens-Sherrington, 58
Lemon, Mark, 19
Leslie, General K. H., 40
Lesseps, 233
Lewis, Thomas Taylor, M.A., 12 (see note)
Leyland, Mr., 169
Leys, 51
Lichtenfelde, 113
Li Ching Fong, Lord (Chinese Minister), 188
Liebig, Baron Justus von, 18, 28
Li Hung Chang, 189
Lindsay, Sir Coutts, 156
— Violet, 177
Linton, Lynn, Mrs., 89
Liverpool, 18, 19, 125
_Liverpool Post_, 72
Lloyd George, 253
London, 150, 154, 202
Londonderry, Marquis of, 286
Lorimer, John, A.R.A., 147
— J. H., 340
Lourdes, 125, 135
Lover, Samuel, 18, 19
Low, Sydney, 31
Lowe, Miss, 44
Lowell, J. R., 31
Lucy (now Sir Henry), 289
Lugard, Lady, 295
_Lusitania_, The, 183
Luxembourg, The Paris, 158
M
Macbeth, Lady, 200
Macdonald, Sir W., 247
— College, The, 247
Mackay, Sir James (see Lord Inchcape), 279
Mackennall, Bertram, 167
MacWhirter, John, 345
Madrid, 157
_Mail, The Daily_, 102
_Man and Superman_, 258
Manchester, 177-202
— Duchess of (see Devonshire), 205
Mann, Adolph, 33
Mansion House, 118, 264
_Maple Leaves_, 241
Marconi, 270
Marshall, Captain Robert, 152
_Master Builder_, The, 176
Maud, Mr. Cyril, 153
Maugham, Mr. S., 280
Maurier, George du, 82
Maxim, Sir Hiram, 33, 270
Maxse, L. J. (see _National Review_), 105
Maxwell, Mrs. (see Braddon), 289
May, Phil, 167
McCarthy, J. H., 88
Mendelssohn, 297
Mexico, 15, 38, 123, 125, 194, 291
_Mexico as I Saw It_, 108, 131, 256
Meynell, Mrs. Wilfrid, 294
Milan, 202
Millais, Lady, 188
Miller, Mr. W. C., 51
Milton Centenary, The, 264 (_Paradise Lost_, 265)
_Model Mothers_, 134
Mohammed, 146
Montaigne, 76
Montreal, 242, 247, 249, 253
Moore, Mary, 281
Moriarty, 261
Morley, Lord, 279
Morocco, 38, 159
Morris, Mr. Edward, 208
— Clara, 233
— Sir Lewis, 258
Mountains, Thüringian, 114
Mühlberg, Dr. von (German Ambassador), 15
Munich, 155, 158
Murchison, 40
Murray, Mrs., 184, 289
— Willie, 185
_Murray’s Magazine_, 103
Museum, British, 15, 134, 155, 179
— South Kensington, 156
Muspratt, James, of Seaforth Hall, 18, 19
— Emma (daughter), 19
Mussoorie (N.W. India), 133
Muttlebury, Colonel, C.B., K.W., 40
_My Inner Life_, 248.
See Crozier
N
Nansen (Prologue, 6), 50, 54
_Nansen at Home_, 134
Napoleon, 67
_National Review_ (see Maxse), 105
National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, 216
Newton, Sir Alfred, Lord Mayor of London, 118
New Vagabond Club, 256
New York, 125, 202, 232, 291
Niagara, 125
Nice, Consulate at, 201
Nordeau, Max, 223
Norfolk, Duke of, 284
Northcliffe, Lord (see Harmsworth), 134
Norway, 49
— Queen of, 56
Nova Scotia, 250
O
_Oberammergau Passion Play, The_, 108
_Observer_, The, 102
O’Neil, Mrs., 295
Orchardson, Sir William Q., 147, 334
Orient Line, 183.
See Green
Orpen, William, 270
Osborne, 130
Ottawa, 246
Oudin, Eugène, 58
P
_Palace of Truth, The_, 151
_Pall Mall Gazette_ (see Straight), 73, 95, 105, 150, 285
Panama, 231, 233
Panes, Miss, 295
Pankhurst, Miss Christabel, 216
_Paradise Lost._ See Milton, 265
_Paradise Regained_ “ “
Paris, 49, 58, 102, 153, 171, 202
Parker, Sir Gilbert, 248, 256, 289
Parkin, Dr., 247
Partridge, Mr. Bernard, 152
Pasteur, 49, 102
“Peacock Room,” 169
Pennell, Mrs. E. K., 30
Pennsylvania, 31
Petersburg, St., 66, 201
Petersen, Ilef, 51
Philadelphia, 125, 158
Philippines, The, 230
Phillips, Mrs. Alison, 295
— J. S. R. (see _Yorkshire Post_), 105
Philpotts, Miss B., 295
Physicians, Royal College of, 21
_Pinafore, H.M.S._ (play), 148
Pinakothek, The (Munich), 158
Pinero, Sir A. W., 152, 270
Pittsburg, 158
Plains of Abraham, 253
Polar Expedition (Prologue, 6)
Pond, Major, 214
Portland, Duke of, 286
_Preussische Jahrbücher_ (Political magazine), 114
Prince Imperial, 42
Propert, Mr. Lumsden, 152
_Punch_ (see Owen Seaman), 105, 215, 295
_Pygmalion and Galatea_, 151
Pyhakoski, 67
Q
Quebec, 125, 241
— Literary and Historical Society, 241
_Queen_, The, 73, 102
Queen Alexandra, 98, 99
— Catherine, 200
— Eleanor, 200
— Elizabeth, 118
— Mary (present Queen), 284
— Victoria, 100, 117, 130, 161
Querétaro, 134
R
Raeburn, 120
Railway, Canadian Pacific, 249
Ramsay, Sir William, 270, 274
— Lady, 274
Ranelagh (Prologue, 5), 59
Red River, 244
Reid, E. T., 270
— Sir George, 249
— Sir Hugh Gilzean, 119
— Whitelaw, Mr., 207, 230
Rhodes Scholarship Trust, 247
— Cecil, 265
Riddell, Mrs. H. J. (novelist), 68, 81, 85, 88, 89
_Right of Way, The_, 256.
See Sir G. Parker.
“Ring,” The, 155
Riviera, The, 201
Roberts, Lord, 152
— Mr. Russell, 157
Robertson, Mr. Forbes, 152, 270
— Professor James, 117, 246
Rodd, Sir Rennell, 331
Rodin, 259
Rogers, Catherine, 206
Rome, 154, 263
Roosevelt, Mr., 219, 224, 239
Root, Elihu, 233
Rothenstein, Will, 157
Rottenburg, Dr. von, 15, 16, 17, 18, 114
Royal Academy (London), 158
Royal Artillery, 149
Royal Geographical Society, 135
Rue du Bac, Paris, 171
Ruskin, 275
Russia, 66, 155
Russo-Turkish War, 20
S
Salisbury, Lord, 161, 283, 286
Sandown (Prologue, 5), 58
Sandwich, 58
San Francisco, 232
San Giuliano, Marquis di, 263, 326
Santley, Sir Charles, 33
_Sartor Resartus._ See Carlyle, 111
Saunders, Sir Edwin, 51
Savoy, The, 149
Schlesinger, Miss, 295
Schmalz, Herbert, 145
Schopenhauer, 65
Scotland, 45, 137, 157, 276
Seaman, Owen (see _Punch_), 105
_Second in Command_, 152
See, König, 28
Selfe, Colonel, R.A., 304
Semon, Sir Felix, 15
Seton, Thompson, 239, 270
Shackleton, Sir Ernest, 314
Shakespeare, 202, 261
Shaw, Mr. Bernard, 257, 260
— Mrs. Bernard, 259
— Mr. Norman, 168
Shelley, 4
Siam, 231
Sicily, 194, 263
Siddons, Sarah, 200
Sidgwick, Mrs. Henry, 295
_Silent Sisterhood_, The, 114
Smiles, Samuel, 74
Smith, Goldwin, 248
— Miss A. L., 295
— Miss Maria Constance, I.S.O., 294
Smollett, 209
Society for the Blind, 29
_Soldiering in Canada_ (see Denison), 247
Solomons, Solomon J., 270
Somers Town Club, 29
_Songs of Two Worlds_, 259
Southampton, 182
Southwark, 206
Spiers, Phené, 170
Staite, W. G., 277
Stanley, H. M., 265
Stanley, Lady Alice, 287
Starey, Mrs., 29
Stefansson, J., 52
Sterling, Madame Antoinette, 18, 58
— Mrs., 19
_St. James’s Gazette_ (see Chisholm), 105
St. James’s, Court of, 193, 263
— Theatre, 112
St. Lawrence, 241
St. Martin’s Town Hall, 214
Stockholm, 28
Strachey, Lady, 294
— Miss, 216
Straight, Sir Douglas, 105.
See _Pall Mall Gazette_
Stratford, 202, 206
Strathcona, Lord, 249
Suez, 233
— Canal, 279
Suffragists, Women, 215
_Sunny Sicily_, 109
Suomi, 65
Sutherland, Sir Thomas, 180
Sutro, 112
Swan, Sir Joseph, 270, 275, 278
Sweden, 50
_Sweethearts_, play by W. S. Gilbert, 68, 151
Switzerland, 40
T
Tadema, Sir L. Alma-, 279, 281
Talleyrand, 31
Tangier, 38, 111, 157
_Tatler_, The, 102
Tehuantepec, Isthmus of, 131
_Telegraph_, The, 74
_Temple Bar_, 132
Templetown, Viscount, 117, 290
Tennyson, 177
_Tents of Shem_, 112
Territorials, The, 251
Terry, Ellen, 177, 204
Thackeray, 19, 179
Thiersch, Julie, 28
— Maler, 28
Thompson, Mrs. W., 343
_Thring, Life of Edward_, 247.
See Dr. Parkin.
_Through Finland in Carts_, 108
_Times, The_, 106
Tittoni, 331
Tolstoi, 59
Toronto, 247
Torop, Sophus, 49
Tower of London, 97
Trafford, George, 114
Tree, Sir Herbert, 27, 70, 93, 149
— Lady, 27, 78, 79
— Viola, 27
Treloar, Sir William, 119
Trübner, Nicholas (publisher), 30
Turner, 120
Twain, Mark, 239
Tweedie, Alec, 29, 37
_Tweedie, Ethel_ (fishing boat), 186
Tweedie, Mrs. Alec, 21, 54, 82, 92, 104, 114, 131, 138, 175, 180,
216, 232, 280, 294, 295, 304, 322, 325
— Dr. Alexander, F.R.S., 39
— Sir John, 122
Twining, Louisa, 78
_Two Orphans, The_, 233
Tyndall, 19
U
_Ulysses_, 155, 264
United States, 124, 206, 224
University, London, 149
— College Hospital, 261
V
Vaughan, 49
Vauxhall (People’s Palace), 214
Vedrenne and Barker, 203
Velasquez, 156, 157
“Volumnia,” 200
W
Waldorf Theatre, The, 232
Wales, Prince of (Albert Edward), 146, 177
— — George (now George V), 284
— Princess of (now Queen Mary), 284
Walter, John (see _The Times_), 106
War, Crimean, 150
— Transvaal, 117
Ward, Miss Geneviève, 161, 199, 202, 310
— Mrs. Humphry, 88, 262, 304
Warsaw, 201
Washington, 125, 173, 229, 231
Watts, R.A., 85, 120, 174
Wedderburn, Sir William, 289
Welby, Miss, 295
Wellington, 67
West Indies, 150
Weston, Miss Jessie, 295
Whistler, James McNeill, 168, 170, 173, 175
— Mme., 172
Whitehall, 165, 283
White House, 224
Whiteing, Richard (Prologue, 6)
White Star Line, 291
_Wicked World_, 151
Wier, Colonel John, 232
Wiggin, K. D., 239
Wilde, Mrs. (Miss A. M. Clay), 295
William III, 284
_Wilton, Q.C._, 108
Wimbledon, 58
Winchilsea, Earl of, 214
Winchester, Marquis of, 287
Windsor, 166
_Winter Jaunt to Norway, A_, 108
Wirgman, Blake, 146
Wolseley, General, 243
Woodhall Spa, 54, 227
X
Xochicalco, 130
Y
_Yorkshire Post_ (see Phillips), 105
Z
Zansig, Mme., 216
Zimmern, Miss A., 295
Zion City, 236
Mexico as I Saw It
By MRS. ALEC TWEEDIE
(_née_ HARLEY)
=Morning Post.=—“In her new volume, Mrs. Alec Tweedie has chosen
fresh subjects for her bright descriptive powers. Of the glorious
amphitheatre she writes like a true artist. The public will, we
believe, heartily welcome this fascinating work, which contributes to
our knowledge of one of the greatest men of the day, and supplies at
the same time the most agreeable reading.”
=Punch.=—“She ‘saw it’ under exceedingly favourable circumstances.
Armed with an introduction to the President she was welcomed with more
than Mexican warmth.... A born traveller, ready when occasion compelled
to put up with hardships and short commons, Mrs. Alec Tweedie took
cheerfully to the private cars provided for her in the railways, to the
semi-official banquets, and to life in palaces. She travelled all over
Mexico with her eyes, as usual, wide open.”
=Sunday Sun= (The book of the week).—“The reading public may
congratulate itself as well as Mrs. Alec Tweedie on the happy
inspiration which directed her to Mexico. For the antiquarian she
contributes information both new and valuable, as she had the good
fortune to be in Mexico at the time of important discoveries of Aztec
remains. We owe this book much gratitude, for there is a practical and
informing value in its crisp, vivid pages.... It shows to a public
curiously ignorant on the subject a great country.”
=Pall Mall Gazette.=—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie is famous for her spirited
‘relations of journeys’ to less get-at-able resorts. Mexico will fully
sustain the reputation which she acquired with ‘Through Finland in
Carts.’ There is no doubt it is just such a relation of a journey as
the general reader likes. It is light, it is long, it is chatty, it
is informing, and is profusely illustrated with really first-rate
photographs. The grave and the gay alternate in her pages, and her
touch is never ponderous. There has been no better book of travel ...
for a long time.”
=Westminster Gazette.=—“That alert and experienced traveller, Mrs.
Alec Tweedie, gives a lively account of recent journeying. A good
deal of historical and archæological lore finds a natural place in
this variegated travel-book. Her vivid description of the Caves of
Cacahuamilpa justifies her rapturous comparison of these wonders of
nature with the mightiest buildings of the world.”
AMERICAN PAPERS
=Philadelphia Public Ledger.=—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie is one of the most
vivacious, accomplished and amiable of travellers. She writes with
unflagging spirit and humour, and is never weary. As a result we have
a narrative of incidents and observations from day to day, intimate
as a diary, full of entertainment, portraying scenes, customs and
experiences of unusual interest. Mrs. Tweedie’s progress was almost
royal in the hospitality and service she received from men of every
rank and position. It would be difficult among the books of travel
issued during the past twelve months to find one so amusing and
comprehensive as this.”
=Boston Transcript.=—“A traveller born. Nothing worth seeing or hearing
escapes her. Her first experiences of life in Mexico were on a ranche,
where she had abundant opportunities of studying its various phases at
her leisure.”
=New York Times.=—“The very name of Mexico bears with it a mysterious
breeze and charm. She is happy when she deals off-hand with what her
senses bring her; the ragged ugliness of the beggar, the funeral cars,
the cock and bull fights, the landscapes, and the riot of tropical
verdure, the sharp contrasts of society, the flood of religious
superstition, and happier still when she takes up the doings of high
society.”
=Churchman.=—“The book is an _olla podrida_; social studies of the
aristocracy, labourers, beggars, politicians and the Indians elbow
archæological investigations, and besides these are all the adventures
of a venturesome traveller, told in brisk fashion with a breezy humour,
with enthusiasm for her subject, and yet with a practical common sense
quite as awake to the economic possibilities of Mexico in the future as
to the picturesque relics of Mexico in the past.”
Through Finland in Carts
=Saturday Review= (Books of the week).—“There is something that is
almost, if not quite, fascinating about Mrs. Alec Tweedie and her
manner of making a book. A monument of discursive energy. A mass of
information both useful and entertaining.”
=Daily Mail.=—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie has added to our stock of entertaining
books of travel in unfamiliar lands.”
=Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News= (The book of the week).—“From
first to last there is not a dull page in the volume, which is
admirably written, well illustrated, and full of humour. It is one of
the best books of travel we have read for many a year.”
=The Speaker.=—“There are many vivid pen-and-ink sketches in these
pages of peasant life, and Mrs. Tweedie shows that she possesses not
only a quick eye but ready powers of expression.”
=Pall Mall Gazette.=—“She saw everything and everybody in Finland,
nothing—from the squalor of the peasants’ huts to the political
outlook—escaped her lively observation. Her book is full of information
and entertainment.”
=Literary World.=—“A most valuable book. It is more than a book of
travel, it is the best study of Finland that has yet appeared; like
the Finlanders themselves, it is extremely up to date, indeed it is
difficult to imagine a better-balanced book of travel.”
=Daily Telegraph.=—“A spirited story of adventure in Finland. The
account given of the women of Finland is very curious and instructive.”
=Morning Post.=—“Containing information of a very varied sort imparted
in a very sprightly way. Sportsmen should read what Mrs. Alec Tweedie
has to say about fishing in Finland.”
=The Queen= (The book of the week).—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie has written
several good books of travel, each better than the last. Finland
is really an excellent book—it is about the most entertaining and
instructive travel book of the year.”
“_A BOOK OF ABSORBING INTEREST._”
Hyde Park: Its History
and Romance
=The Academy.=—“In ‘Hyde Park’ Mrs. Tweedie is triumphantly encamped
and any attempt to dislodge her would be quite futile. Her study of
an extraordinarily interesting and attractive subject is thoroughly
complete, and from first to last most delightfully done. It is a wholly
delightful book, and what with the immense interest of the subject, the
pleasant writing, and the number of well-chosen pictures, should have a
really great success.”
=Sunday Sun= (The book of the week).—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s book is
altogether delightful. She is frankly a gossip, and while she includes
in her book all that appertains to the Park itself, she can never
resist the temptation to tell a good story. No side of life escapes her
attention.... In short, a great subject is worthily treated. Lovers
of London and lovers of England should be grateful for this memorial
of their great playground. Hyde Park may be called a picture book of
history, and its history has been written with loving care and no
little skill.”
=Pall Mall.=—“Mrs. Alec Tweedie is a capital stage manager of this
wonderful play, bright, cheery, and always entertaining. She has
saturated herself with the atmosphere of each period, and each
character, good, bad, and indifferent, stands before us with wonderful
reality.... To watch them is to realise how important Hyde Park is
to our gregarious metropolis; and if distance intervenes and exiles
you, you may still be transported thither on the magic carpet of Mrs.
Tweedie’s most engrossing pages.”
=The Nation.=—“As delectable to the sociable as it is puzzling to the
misanthropic, Hyde Park represents the same spirit of serious trifling
and enforced idleness as in the days when it first became a pleasure
ground for the High-World some three centuries ago. These are among
the ghosts raised by Mrs. Alec Tweedie’s ‘Hyde Park.’ She devotes
considerable space to the painful and gruesome chronicles of Tyburn,
and tells an entertaining account of the evolution of the carriage.”
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
Behind the Footlights
TWO EDITIONS
=Morning Post.=—“It ought to have an unusually large circulation in
comparison with other books which describe the inner life of the stage.
Mrs. Alec Tweedie touches the moral aspect of the acting life with
delicacy and reticence.... Her pictures of rehearsals are realistic.
She has many delightful anecdotes.”
=Daily Express.=—“A gossiping encyclopædia of the stage. If there is
anything about the stage that is not touched upon, it is because it is
not worth troubling about, and there is not a dull page in the book
from start to finish, and scarcely one which is not brightened by an
anecdote.”
=Standard.=—“‘Behind the Footlights’ contains a greater amount of
direct personal information concerning leading contemporary actors,
actresses, managers, and dramatists than can be found in any number of
recently published books about the theatre in England.... She must be
thanked for a singularly clever and entertaining volume.”
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, W.
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
George Harley,
F.R.S.;
or,
The Life of a Harley Street Physician
By HIS DAUGHTER
=The Times.=—“The authoress is well known by her pleasant and chatty
books of travel.... She has succeeded, by a judicious combination of
her father’s notes with her own recollections, in producing a readable
and interesting memoir.”
=Morning Post.=—“The memoir contains much interesting reading, tracing
as it does the career of a distinguished man of science, who, though
he had to struggle for years against almost insuperable difficulties,
reached at last a high place in the professional tree and maintained
his position there.”
=St. James’s Gazette.=—“Mrs. Tweedie is to be congratulated both on her
subject and on the way she has manipulated it.”
A Girl’s Ride in Iceland
FOUR EDITIONS
=Morning Post.=—“This account of an autumn trip to an unhackneyed land
is much better worth reading than many more pretentious volumes....
The authoress has an eye for what is worth seeing, a happy knack of
graphic description, and a literary style which is commendably free
from adjectival exuberance.”
=Manchester Guardian.=—“Mrs. A. Tweedie’s account of her trip is so
bright and lively that the novelty of her experience is rendered
additionally interesting by her manner of describing it.... The
authoress interests us from first to last, and her style is altogether
free from affectation of fine writing ... her book, indeed, is both
instructive and amusing.”
=St. James’s Gazette.=—“... Many interesting details of the history and
social life of the Icelanders are set forth in a pleasant, chatty style
by the spirited and observant lady who rode 160 miles like a man.”
=Saturday Review.=—“... people intent on new fields of travel; Mrs.
Tweedie’s lively account of a voyage to Iceland, and its agreeable and
entirely successful results, ought to inspire adventurous ladies to
follow her example.... Mrs. Tweedie describes the wonders of the land
with a keen appreciation, and has not forgotten to supply many useful
hints.”
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY
TORONTO: BELL AND COCKBURN
NOTICE
_Those who possess old letters, documents, correspondence, MSS., scraps
of autobiography, and also miniatures and portraits, relating to
persons and matters historical, literary, political and social, should
communicate with Mr. John Lane, The Bodley Head, Vigo Street, London,
W., who will at all times be pleased to give his advice and assistance,
either as to their preservation or publication._
LIVING MASTERS OF MUSIC.
An Illustrated Series of Monographs dealing with Contemporary Musical
Life, and including Representatives of all Branches of the Art.
Edited by ROSA NEWMARCH.
Crown 8vo. Cloth. Price 2/6 net.
HENRY J. WOOD. By ROSA NEWMARCH.
SIR EDWARD ELGAR. By R. J. BUCKLEY.
JOSEPH JOACHIM. By J. A. FULLER MAITLAND.
EDWARD A. MACDOWELL. By LAWRENCE GILMAN.
THEODOR LESCHETIZKY. By ANNETTE HULLAH.
GIACOMO PUCCINI. By WAKELING DRY.
IGNAZ PADEREWSKI. By E. A. BAUGHAN.
CLAUDE DEBUSSY. By MRS. FRANZ LIEBICH.
RICHARD STRAUSS. By ERNEST NEWMAN.
STARS OF THE STAGE
A SERIES OF ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE LEADING ACTORS, ACTRESSES,
AND DRAMATISTS.
Edited by J. T. GREIN.
Crown 8vo. Price 2/6 each net.
ELLEN TERRY. By CHRISTOPHER ST. JOHN.
SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE. By MRS. GEORGE CRAN.
SIR W. S. GILBERT. By EDITH A. BROWNE.
SIR CHARLES WYNDHAM. By FLORENCE TEIGNMOUTH SHORE.
_A CATALOGUE OF MEMOIRS, BIOGRAPHIES, ETC._
THE LAND OF TECK & ITS SURROUNDINGS. By Rev. S. BARING-GOULD. With
numerous Illustrations (including several in Colour) reproduced
from unique originals. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 10s. 6_d._ net.
AN IRISH BEAUTY OF THE REGENCY: By MRS. WARRENNE BLAKE. Author of
“Memoirs of a Vanished Generation, 1813-1855.” With a Photogravure
Frontispiece and other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.)
16_s._ net.
⁂ The Irish Beauty is the Hon. Mrs. Calvert, daughter of Viscount
Pery, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, and wife of Nicholson
Calvert, M. P., of Hunsdson. Born in 1767, Mrs. Calvert lived to
the age of ninety-two, and there are many people still living who
remember her. In the delightful journals, now for the first time
published, exciting events are described.
NAPOLEON IN CARICATURE: 1795-1821. By A. M. BROADLEY. With an
Introductory Essay on Pictorial Satire as a Factor in Napoleonic
History, by J. HOLLAND ROSE, Litt. D. (Cantab.). With 24 full-page
Illustrations in Colour and upwards of 200 in Black and White from rare
and unique originals. 2 Vols. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 42_s._ net.
_Also an Edition de Luxe._ 10 guineas net.
MEMORIES OF SIXTY YEARS AT ETON, CAMBRIDGE AND ELSEWHERE. By ROBERT
BROWNING. Illustrated. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 14_s._ net.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. By STEWART HOUSTON
CHAMBERLAIN. A Translation from the German by JOHN LEES. With an
Introduction by LORD REDESDALE. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 2 vols.
25_s._ net.
THE SPEAKERS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day, with a Topographical Account of Westminster at various
Epochs, Brief Notes on sittings of Parliament and a Retrospect of the
principal Constitutional Changes during Seven Centuries. By ARTHUR
IRWIN DASENT, Author of “The Life and Letters of JOHN DELANE,” “The
History of St. James’s Square,” etc. etc. With numerous Portraits,
including two in Photogravure and one in Colour. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches.) 21_s._ net.
WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH AND HIS FRIENDS. By S. M. ELLIS. With
upwards of 50 Illustrations, 4 in Photogravure. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. (9 ×
5¾ inches.) 32_s._ net.
NAPOLEON AND KING MURAT. 1808-1815: A Biography compiled from hitherto
Unknown and Unpublished Documents. By ALBERT ESPITALIER. Translated
from the French by J. LEWIS MAY. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and
16 other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
LADY CHARLOTTE SCHREIBER’S JOURNALS Confidences of a Collector of
Ceramics and Antiques throughout Britain, France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Turkey. From the Year 1869 to
1885. Edited MONTAGUE GUEST, with Annotations by EGAN MEW. With upwards
of 100 Illustrations, including 8 in colour and 2 in photogravure.
Royal 8vo. 2 Volumes. 42_s._ net.
CHARLES DE BOURBON, CONSTABLE OF FRANCE: “THE GREAT CONDOTTIERE.”
By CHRISTOPHER HARE. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
THE NELSONS OF BURNHAM THORPE: A Record of a Norfolk Family compiled
from Unpublished Letters and Note Books, 1787-1843. Edited by M. EYRE
MATCHAM. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 16_s._ net.
⁂ This interesting contribution to Nelson literature is drawn from
the journals and correspondence of the Rev. Edmund Nelson. Rector
of Burnham Thorpe and his youngest daughter, the father and sister
of Lord Nelson. The Rector was evidently a man of broad views and
sympathies, for we find him maintaining friendly relations with his
son and daughter-in-law after their separation. What is even more
strange, he felt perfectly at liberty to go direct from the house
of Mrs. Horatio Nelson in Norfolk to that of Sir. William and Lady
Hamilton in London, where his son was staying. This book shows how
completely and without reserve the family received Lady Hamilton.
A QUEEN OF SHREDS AND PATCHES: The Life of Madame Tallien Notre Dame
de Thermidor. From the last days of the French Revolution, until her
death as Princess Chimay in 1835. By L. GASTINE. Translated from the
French by J. LEWIS MAY. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
SOPHIE DAWES, QUEEN OF CHANTILLY. By VIOLETTE M. MONTAGU. Author of
“The Scottish College in Paris,” etc. With a Photogravure Frontispiece
and 16 other Illustrations and Three Plans. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.)
12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ Among the many queens of France, queens by right of marriage
with the reigning sovereign, queens of beauty or of intrigue, the
name of Sophie Dawes, the daughter of humble fisherfolk in the
Isle of Wight, better known as “the notorious Mme. de Feucheres,”
“The Queen of Chantilly” and “The Montespan de Saint Leu” in the
land which she chose as a suitable sphere in which to exercise her
talents for money-making and for getting on in the world, stand
forth as a proof of what a women’s will can accomplish when that
will is accompanied with an uncommon share of intelligence.
MARGARET OF FRANCE DUCHESS OF SAVOY. 1523-1574. A Biography with
Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations and Facsimile
Reproductions of Hitherto Unpublished Letters. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ A time when the Italians are celebrating the Jubilee of the
Italian Kingdom is perhaps no unfitting moment in which to glance
back over the annals of that royal House of Savoy which has
rendered Italian unity possible. Margaret of France may without
exaggeration be counted among the builders of modern Italy. She
married Emanuel Philibert, the founder of Savoyard greatness:
and from the day of her marriage until the day of her death she
laboured to advance the interests of her adopted land.
MADAME DE BRINVILLIERS AND HER TIMES. 1630-1676. By HUGH STOKES. With a
Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ The name of Marie Marguerite d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers,
is famous in the annals of crime, but the true history of her
career is little known. A woman of birth and rank, she was also a
remorseless poisoner, and her trial was one of the most sensational
episodes of the early reign of Louis XIV. The author was attracted
to this curious subject by Charles le Brun’s realistic sketch of
the unhappy Marquise as she appeared on her way to execution. This
_chef d’œuvre_ of misery and agony forms the frontispiece to the
volume, and strikes a fitting keynote to an absorbing story of
human passion and wrong-doing.
THE VICISSITUDES OF A LADY-IN-WAITING. 1735-1821. By EUGENE WELVERT.
Translated from the French by LILIAN O’NEILL. With a Photogravure
Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.)
12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ The Duchesse de Narbonne-Lara was Lady-in-Waiting to Madame
Adelaide, the eldest daughter of Louis XV. Around the stately
figure of this Princess are gathered the most remarkable characters
of the days of the Old Regime, the Revolution and the fist Empire.
The great charm of the work is that it takes us over so much and
varied ground. Here, in the gay crowd of ladies and courtiers, in
the rustle of flowery silken paniers, in the clatter of high-heeled
shoes, move the figures of Louis XV., Louis XVI., Du Barri and
Marie-Antoinette. We catch picturesque glimpses of the great wits,
diplomatists and soldiers of the time, until, finally we encounter
Napoleon Bonaparte.
ANNALS OF A YORKSHIRE HOUSE. From the Papers of a Macaroni and his
Kindred. By A. M. W. STIRLING, author of “Coke of Norfolk and his
Friends.” With 33 Illustrations, including 3 in Colour and 3 in
Photogravure. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 2 vols. 32_s._ net.
MINIATURES: A Series of Reproductions in Photogravure of Eighty-Five
Miniatures of Distinguished Personages, including Queen Alexandra, the
Queen of Norway, the Princess Royal, and the Princess Victoria. Painted
by CHARLES TURRELL. (Folio.) The Edition is limited to One Hundred
Copies for sale in England and America, and Twenty-Five Copies for
Presentation, Review, and the Museums. Each will be Numbered and Signed
by the Artist. 15 guineas net.
THE LAST JOURNALS OF HORACE WALPOLE. During the Reign of George III.
from 1771-1783. With Notes by Dr. DORAN. Edited with an Introduction
by A. FRANCIS STEUART, and containing numerous Portraits reproduced
from contemporary Pictures, Engravings, etc. 2 vols. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches.) 25_s._ net.
THE WAR IN WEXFORD. By H. F. B. WHEELER AND A. M. BROADLEY. An Account
of The Rebellion in South of Ireland in 1798, told from Original
Documents. With numerous Reproductions of contemporary Portraits and
Engravings. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
RECOLLECTIONS OF GUY DE MAUPASSANT. By His Valet FRANÇOIS. Translated
from the French by MAURICE REYNOLD. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 7_s._
6_d._ net.
FAMOUS AMERICANS IN PARIS. By JOHN JOSEPH CONWAY, M.A. With 32
Full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 10_s._ 6_d._ net.
LIFE AND MEMOIRS OF JOHN CHURTON COLLINS. Written and Compiled by his
son, L. C. COLLINS. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 7_s._ 6_d._ net.
THE WIFE OF GENERAL BONAPARTE. By JOSEPH TURQUAN. Author of “The Love
Affairs of Napoleon,” etc. Translated from the French by Miss VIOLETTE
MONTAGU. With a Photogravure Frontispiece and 16 other Illustrations.
Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ Although much has been written concerning the Empress Josephine,
we know comparatively little about the _veuve_ Beauharnais and
the _citoyenne_ Bonaparte, whose inconsiderate conduct during
her husband’s absence caused him so much anguish. We are so
accustomed to consider Josephine as the innocent victim of a cold
and calculating tyrant who allowed nothing, neither human lives
nor natural affections, to stand in the way of his all-conquering
will, that this volume will come to us rather as a surprise. Modern
historians are over-fond of blaming Napoleon for having divorced
the companion of his early years; but after having read the above
work, the reader will be constrained to admire General Bonaparte’s
forbearance and will wonder how he ever came to allow her to play
the Queen at the Tuileries.
A SISTER OF PRINCE RUPERT. ELIZABETH PRINCESS PALATINE, ABBESS OF
HERFORD. By ELIZABETH GODFREY. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
(9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
AUGUSTUS SAINT GAUDENS: an Appreciation. By C. LEWIS HIND. Illustrated
with 47 full-page Reproductions from his most famous works. With a
portrait of Keynon Cox. Large 4to. 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
JOHN LOTHROP MOTLEY AND HIS FAMILY. By Mrs. HERBERT ST. JOHN MILDMAY.
Further Letters and Records, edited by his Daughter and Herbert St.
John Mildmay, with numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.)
16_s._ net.
SIMON BOLIVAR: El Libertador. A Life of the Leader of the Venezuelan
Revolt against Spain. By F. LORAINE PETRE. With a Map and
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
A LIFE OF SIR JOSEPH BANKS, PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY: With Some
Notices of His Friends and Contemporaries. By EDWARD SMITH, F.R.H.S.,
Author of “WILLIAM COBBETT: a Biography,” “England and America after
the Independence,” etc. With a Portrait in Photogravure and 16 other
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
⁂ “The greatest living Englishman” was the tribute of his
Continental contemporaries to Sir. Joseph Banks. The author of his
“Life” has, with some enthusiasm, sketched the record of a man
who for a period of half a century filled a very prominent place
in society, but whose name is almost forgotten by the present
generation.
NAPOLEON & THE INVASION OF ENGLAND: The Story of the Great Terror,
1797-1805. By H. F. B. WHEELER and A. M. BROADLEY. With upwards of 100
Full-page Illustrations reproduced from Contemporary Portraits, Prints,
etc.; eight in Colour. 2 Volumes. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 32_s._ net.
_Outlook._—“The book is not merely one to be ordered from the
library; it should be purchased, kept on an accessible shelf, and
constantly studied by all Englishmen who love England.”
DUMOURIEZ AND THE DEFENCE OF ENGLAND AGAINST NAPOLEON. By J. HOLLAND
ROSE, Litt.D. (Cantab.), Author of “The Life of Napoleon,” and A. M.
BROADLEY, joint-author of “Napoleon and the Invasion of England.”
Illustrated with numerous Portraits, Maps, and Facsimiles. Demy 8vo. (9
× 5¾ inches.) 21_s._ net.
THE FALL OF NAPOLEON. By OSCAR BROWNING, M.A., Author of “The Boyhood
and Youth of Napoleon.” With numerous Full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo
(9 × 5¾ inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
_Spectator._—“Without doubt Mr. Oscar Browning has produced a
book which should have its place in any library of Napoleonic
literature.”
_Truth._—“Mr. Oscar Browning has made not the least, but the most
of the romantic material at his command for the story of the fall
of the greatest figure in history.”
THE BOYHOOD & YOUTH OF NAPOLEON, 1769-1793. Some Chapters on the early
life of Bonaparte. By OSCAR BROWNING, M.A. With numerous Illustrations,
Portraits etc. Crown 8vo. 5_s._ net.
_Daily News._—“Mr. Browning has with patience, labour, careful
study, and excellent taste given us a very valuable work, which
will add materially to the literature on this most fascinating of
human personalities.
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NAPOLEON. By JOSEPH TURQUAN. Translated from the
French by JAMES L. MAY. With 32 Full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 ×
5¾ inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
THE DUKE OF REICHSTADT (NAPOLEON II.) By EDWARD DE WERTHEIMER.
Translated from the German. With numerous Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 ×
5¾ inches.) 21_s._ net. (Second Edition.)
_Times._—“A most careful and interesting work which presents the
first complete and authoritative account of this unfortunate
Prince.”
_Westminster Gazette._—“This book, admirably produced, reinforced
by many additional portraits, is a solid contribution to history
and a monument of patient, well-applied research.”
NAPOLEON’S CONQUEST OF PRUSSIA, 1806. By F. LORAINE PETRE. With an
Introduction by FIELD-MARSHAL EARL ROBERTS, V.C., K.G., etc. With Maps,
Battle Plans, Portraits, and 16 Full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 ×
5¾ inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
_Scotsman._—“Neither too concise, nor too diffuse, the book is
eminently readable. It is the best work in English on a somewhat
circumscribed subject.”
_Outlook._—“Mr. Petre has visited the battlefields and read
everything, and his monograph is a model of what military history,
handled with enthusiasm and literary ability, can be.”
NAPOLEON’S CAMPAIGN IN POLAND, 1806-1807. A Military History of
Napoleon’s First War with Russia, verified from unpublished official
documents. By F. LORAINE PETRE. With 16 Full-page Illustrations, Maps,
and Plans. New Edition. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
_Army and Navy Chronicle._—“We welcome a second edition of this
valuable work.... Mr. Loraine Petre is an authority on the wars of
the great Napoleon, and has brought the greatest care and energy
into his studies of the subject.”
NAPOLEON AND THE ARCHDUKE CHARLES. A History of the Franco-Austrian
Campaign in the Valley of the Danube in 1809. By F. LORAINE PETRE.
With 8 Illustrations and 6 sheets of Maps and Plans. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
RALPH HEATHCOTE. Letters of a Diplomatist During the Time of Napoleon,
Giving an Account of the Dispute between the Emperor and the Elector of
Hesse. By COUNTESS GUNTHER GRÖBEN. With Numerous Illustrations. Demy
8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
MEMOIRS OF THE COUNT DE CARTRIE. A record of the extraordinary events
in the life of a French Royalist during the war in La Vendée, and of
his flight to Southampton, where he followed the humble occupation of
gardener. With an introduction by FRÉDÉRIC MASSON, Appendices and Notes
by PIERRE AMÉDÉE PICHOT, and other hands, and numerous Illustrations,
including a Photogravure Portrait of the Author. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches.) 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
_Daily News._—“We have seldom met with a human document which has
interested us so much.”
THE JOURNAL OF JOHN MAYNE DURING A TOUR ON THE CONTINENT UPON ITS
RE-OPENING AFTER THE FALL OF NAPOLEON, 1814. Edited by his Grandson,
JOHN MAYNE COLLES. With 16 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches).
12_s._ 6_d._ net.
WOMEN OF THE SECOND EMPIRE. Chronicles of the Court of Napoleon III.
By FRÉDÉRIC LOLIÉE. With an introduction by RICHARD WHITEING, and 53
full-page Illustrations, 3 in Photogravure. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.)
21_s._ net.
_Standard._—“M. Frederic Loliee has written a remarkable book,
vivid and pitiless in its description of the intrigue and
dare-devil spirit which flourished unchecked at the French
Court.... Mr. Richard Whiteing’s introduction is written with
restraint and dignity.”
MEMOIRS OF MADEMOISELLE DES ECHEROLLES. Translated from the French
by MARIE CLOTHILDE BALFOUR. With an introduction by G. K. FORTESCUE,
Portraits, etc. 5_s._ net.
_Liverpool Mercury._—“... this absorbing book.... The work has a
very decided historical value. The translation is excellent, and
quite notable in the preservation of idiom.”
GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO: A BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY. By EDWARD HUTTON. With a
Photogravure Frontispiece and numerous other Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
(9 × 5¾ inches.) 16_s._ net.
THE LIFE OF PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893). By his Brother,
MODESTE TCHAIKOVSKY. Edited and abridged from the Russian and German
Editions by ROSA NEWMARCH. With Numerous Illustrations and Facsimiles
and an Introduction by the Editor. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 7_s._
6_d._ net. Second edition.
_The Times._—“A most illuminating commentary on Tchaikovsky’s
music.”
_World._—“One of the most fascinating self-revelations by an artist
which has been given to the world. The translation is excellent,
and worth reading for its own sake.”
_Contemporary Review._—“The book’s appeal is, of course,
primarily to the music-lover; but there is so much of human and
literary interest in it, such intimate revelation of a singularly
interesting personality, that many who have never come under the
spell of the Pathetic Symphony will be strongly attracted by what
is virtually the spiritual autobiography of its composer. High
praise is due to the translator and editor for the literary skill
with which she has prepared the English version of this fascinating
work.... There have been few collections of letters published
within recent years that give so vivid a portrait of the writer as
that presented to us in these pages.”
THE LIFE OF SIR HALLIDAY MACARTNEY, K.C.M.G., Commander of Li Hung
Chang’s trained force in the Taeping Rebellion, founder of the first
Chinese Arsenal, Secretary to the first Chinese Embassy to Europe.
Secretary and Councillor to the Chinese Legation in London for thirty
years. By DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER, Author of the “History of China,” the
“Life of Gordon,” etc. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.)
Price 21_s._ net.
DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS AND STRANGE EVENTS. By S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.,
Author of “Yorkshire Oddities,” etc. With 58 Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
(9 × 5¾ inches.) 21_s._ net.
_Daily News._—“A fascinating series ... the whole book is rich in
human interest. It is by personal touches, drawn from traditions
and memories, that the dead men surrounded by the curious panoply
of their time, are made to live again in Mr. Baring-Gould’s pages.”
THE HEART OF GAMBETTA. Translated from the French of FRANCIS LAUR by
VIOLETTE MONTAGU. With an Introduction by JOHN MACDONALD, Portraits and
other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 7_s._ 6_d._ net.
_Daily Telegraph._—“It is Gambetta pouring out his soul to Léonie
Leon, the strange, passionate, masterful demagogue, who wielded the
most persuasive oratory of modern times, acknowledging his idol,
his inspiration, his Egeria.”
THE LIFE OF JOAN OF ARC. By ANATOLE FRANCE. A Translation by WINIFRED
STEPHENS. With 8 Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches). 2 vols.
Price 25_s._ net.
THE DAUGHTER OF LOUIS XVI. Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, Duchesse
D’Angoulême. By G. LENOTRE. With 13 Full-page Illustrations. Demy 8vo.
(9 × 5¾ inches.) Price 10_s._ 6_d._ net.
WITS, BEAUX, AND BEAUTIES OF THE GEORGIAN ERA. By JOHN FYVIE, author
of “Some Famous Women of Wit and Beauty,” “Comedy Queens of the
Georgian Era,” etc. With a Photogravure Portrait and numerous other
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
MADAME DE MAINTENON: Her Life and Times, 1655-1719. By C. C. DYSON.
With 1 Photogravure Plate and 16 other Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches). 12_s._ 6_d._ net.
DR. JOHNSON AND MRS. THRALE. By A. M. BROADLEY. With an Introductory
Chapter by THOMAS SECCOMBE. With 24 Illustrations from rare originals,
including a reproduction in colours of the Fellowes Miniature of Mrs.
Piozzi by Roche, and a Photogravure of Harding’s sepia drawing of Dr.
Johnson. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches). 16_s._ net.
THE DAYS OF THE DIRECTOIRE. By ALFRED ALLINSON, M.A. With 48 Full-page
Illustrations, including many illustrating the dress of the time. Demy
8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches). 16_s._ net.
HUBERT AND JOHN VAN EYCK: Their Life and Work. By W. H. JAMES WEALE.
With 41 Photogravure and 95 Black and White Reproductions. Royal 4to.
£5 5_s._ net.
SIR MARTIN CONWAY’S NOTE.
Nearly half a century has passed since Mr. W. H. James Weale,
then resident at Bruges, began that long series of patient
investigations into the history of Netherlandish art which was
destined to earn so rich a harvest. When he began work Memlinc was
still called Hemling, and was fabled to have arrived at Bruges as
a wounded soldier. The van Eycks were little more than legendary
heroes. Roger Van der Weyden was little more than a name. Most of
the other great Netherlandish artists were either wholly forgotten
or named only in connection with paintings with which they had
nothing to do. Mr. Weale discovered Gerard David, and disentangled
his principal works from Memlinc’s, with which they were then
confused.
VINCENZO FOPPA OF BRESCIA, FOUNDER OF THE LOMBARD SCHOOL, HIS LIFE AND
WORK. By CONSTANCE JOCELYN FFOULKES and MONSIGNOR RODOLFO MAJOCCHI,
D.D., Rector of the Collegio Borromeo, Pavia. Based on research in the
Archives of Milan, Pavia, Brescia, and Genoa and on the study of all
his known works. With over 100 Illustrations, many in Photogravure, and
100 Documents. Royal 4to. £5 5_s._ 0_d._ net.
MEMOIRS OF THE DUKES OF URBINO. Illustrating the Arms, Art and
Literature of Italy from 1440 to 1630. By JAMES DENNISTOUN of
Dennistoun. A New Edition edited by EDWARD HUTTON, with upwards of 100
Illustrations. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾ inches.) 3 vols. 42_s._ net.
THE DIARY OF A LADY-IN-WAITING. By LADY CHARLOTTE BURY. Being the Diary
Illustrative of the Times of George the Fourth. Interspersed with
original Letters from the late Queen Caroline and from various other
distinguished persons. New edition. Edited, with an Introduction, by A.
FRANCIS STEUART. With numerous portraits. Two Vols. Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches.) 21_s._ net.
THE LAST JOURNALS OF HORACE WALPOLE. During the Reign of George III.
from 1771 to 1783. With Notes by DR. DORAN. Edited with an Introduction
by A. FRANCIS STEUART, and containing numerous Portraits (2 in
Photogravure) reproduced from contemporary Pictures, Engravings, etc. 2
vols. Uniform with “The Diary of a Lady-in-Waiting.” Demy 8vo. (9 × 5¾
inches). 25_s._ net.
JUNIPER HALL: Rendezvous of certain illustrious Personages during the
French Revolution, including Alexander D’Arblay and Fanny Burney.
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Transcriber’s Notes:
In Chapter VII the titles of John Oliver Hobbe’s books have been
amended thus:
_The Gods, Some Mortals and Mr. Wickenham_
Amended to read,
_The Gods, Some Mortals and Lord Wickenham_
_The Dream the Business_
Amended to read,
_The Dream and the Business_
The date given for the quotation from _Punch_ in Chapter XXIV is given
as 1960 in the original and has been amended to read:
“(_From ‘The Times’ of December 20, 1906._)
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