I have arrived at the age when to clasp the waist of one of the
opposite sex for three hours is not considered the height of human
happiness. I remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger
days when I thought it was so, and perhaps some of those who can
indulge in a valse without feeling giddy, or a polka without being
"blown," think so now.
_Servants' Ball,
January 14th, 1889._
[Illustration: "_I remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my
younger days._"]
I am happy to be able truly and honestly to say that I have not a word
of difference with any servant of my establishment. Each year as it
rolls onward finds me stiffer in the joints, shorter in the breath,
and less able than formerly to perform the double shuffle, but there
are others coming on--the younger members of the family--who will be
able to kick up their heels as lightly as once I was able to do. As
each year rolls round, too, there are always saddening memories, but
on an occasion of this sort I will make no allusions to them, ... I
hope you will stick to old fashions and old ways. You may be told of
new-fangled ways, and be advised to get rid of the old, but I think it
will be well if you do not pay too much attention to those advisers.
England is like old Tredegar House, and you will find that the customs
now prevailing have been in vogue for over 500 years. You will
probably be told that the best way to make people happy is to make the
poor rich and the rich poor; but, in truth, the richer people are, the
better able they are to help the poor.
_Servants' Ball,
January 7th, 1910._
Many of you waited last night for the old year to go out and the new
year to come in. I did for one. I listened at the window and I heard
bells ringing, and noises which I can only describe as hideous. There
is an invention in this part of the world, which I believe comes from
America (where they have a great many disagreeable things) called a
"hooter." When I listened last night it seemed to me that it was
deliberately hooting out the old year which to so many of us had
painful recollections; and it occurred to me that it was a most
appropriate thing to do. It was the wettest spring, the coldest
summer, the windiest autumn that I have ever known.
_Servants' Ball,
January 1st, 1892._
I can imagine the Bassaleg Parish Council rejoicing in a license for
dancing in the hall, and the teetotallers passing a resolution in
favour of total abstinence, in which case we should have to obtain our
refreshments from the village pump.
_Servants' Ball,
January 9th, 1894._
Railways are springing up all round, and, reading the signs of the
times as I do, I think there will be increased prosperity. If all the
railways now proposed are constructed, we shall be able to paraphrase
the poet's lines:--
Railways to right of them,
Railways to left of them,
Railways behind them,
Most of them silly 'uns.
Into the lawyer's jaw,
And the Contractor's paw,
Go the eight millions.
I shall be able to convert Tredegar House into the "Railway Hotel,"
join the Licensed Victuallers' Association, and do a good trade--if I
can get a license. We have progressed a good deal lately, even in
dancing. I can remember the minuet being the fashion. It was danced
with a great deal of bowing and scraping. Then the waltz, quadrille,
and lancers came. We next had a kitchen lancers, and this year we have
a barn dance. Next year, perhaps, we shall have a pigstye polka, which
will no doubt be very amusing.
_Servants' Ball,
January 8th, 1896._
[Illustration: "_I shall be able to convert Tredegar House into the
'Railway Hotel.'_"]
There have been many changes in the manners and customs of the country
during late years. I am very fond of old customs, and I hope this
old-fashioned Servants' Ball will be kept up by those who come after
me. I am sure there is no gentleman in England who is blessed with a
better lot of servants than I have. If sometimes by my manner I do not
appear pleased, I hope you will make allowance for the business
anxieties constantly hanging over my head, and which do not always
conduce to a pleasant expression. I will relate an incident. An
individual who apparently takes a great deal of interest in me wrote
to me not so long ago and asked, "Why did you look so proud and
haughty when you met me the other day?" I have no recollection of
having been proud and haughty, but I have a very distinct recollection
of a very tight boot and a very bad corn.
_Servants' Ball,
January 8th, 1896._
[Illustration: "_When your toe begins to take a fantastic shape it is
pretty nearly time to give up dancing._"]
I always sympathise with you in your sorrows and try to join you in
your pleasures. In this life, unfortunately, for a good many, there
are more sorrows than pleasures, but I think it is the duty of all who
have it in their power to try to make those around them have, if
possible, more pleasures in their lives than sorrows. I congratulate
myself that I have still a kick left in me. You know that Milton, the
poet, has said in two lines:
"Come and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe."
but when your toe begins to take a fantastic shape it is pretty nearly
time to give up dancing. As my toes are beginning to take that shape,
I am afraid I shall not have a kick left much longer. I have always
spoken a few words to you on these occasions--sometimes of sentiment,
sometimes of politics, and sometimes of fun. I usually prefer fun,
because there is generally enough of the other phases around us. I
will therefore content myself with giving the establishment a little
bit of advice, or rather a hint. I have found that what I say on these
occasions has somehow or other found its way into the papers. I do
not know exactly how that is. However, I think it will be more
impressive in print, because if you forget what I say before the end
of the evening, you will be able to read it in the Press next day. My
hint is about fires. There are large fireplaces in Tredegar House,
which is an old one, full of old oak which is liable to catch fire.
During the last few weeks some fine old country houses have been
destroyed by fire. I do not think this has occurred through
carelessness. I know my servants are not careless. What I want you to
understand is the difference between a fire and a furnace. Old Welsh
families--and my family is really an old Welsh family--all believe
that they have very long pedigrees. There are in the strong room at
Tredegar House a great many old records--some of which I have read out
of curiosity. Many of them, no doubt, are mythical, and some are
accurate, but in all my study of them I have not been able to discover
that I bear any relationship to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. I
therefore fail to see why the household staff should pile up furnaces,
especially now that I assure them I am not quite impervious to fire. I
always like to entertain you a little on these occasions. I will
therefore just sing to you a few lines, and ask Young Charley (the
huntsman) to come in at the end. I notice that Old Charley (the former
huntsman) is also present, and he, perhaps, will join in as well. His
Lordship then sang the following verses to the tune of "Ben Bolt":--
There are soul-stirring sounds in the fiddle and flute
When music begins in the hall,
And a goddess in muslin that's likely to suit
As the mate of your choice for the ball.
But the player may strain every finger in vain
And the fiddler may resin his bow,
Nor fiddle nor string such rapture shall bring
As the sound of the sweet "Tally-ho."
_Servants' Ball,
January 11th, 1898._
Times have changed, and fashions change very quickly--so much so that
I was half afraid you would have petitioned me to allow you to have a
ping-pong tournament. I am glad to see that you still prefer to stick
to the old custom of a ball. Of all entertainments a ball is, in my
opinion, the most harmless. It will always follow that there will be
some who perhaps on the morrow will think that their affections had
not been quite under control, and that they had spoken words of
endearment that perhaps they regretted, and the lady might not. And
perhaps there will always be those whose control over their thirst at
a ball is not quite so strong as that of others.
_Servants' Ball,
January 3rd, 1902._
[Illustration: "_Perhaps there will always be those whose control over
their thirst at a ball is not quite so strong as that of others._"]
I have no doubt that much of what Mr. Perrott has just told you about
the revels that have taken place in the hall during the last 200 or
300 years is perfectly true. There may perhaps have been more fun in
the old days--that is a matter of history. I very much doubt it
myself, and I have a sort of idea, and I hope and trust that at the
Servants' Ball which still takes place here annually--unless there is
some misfortune to prevent it--there is as much fun and revelry as has
ever before taken place in this hall. The old lamp hung over your
heads belonged to a former Lord Mayor of London--Sir Edward
Clark--from whom I inherited some property and plate. That lamp
probably hung in the Mansion House in London some two or three hundred
years ago, and I have no doubt it has seen some peculiar scenes.
_Servants' Ball,
January 8th, 1903._
I also have my little anxieties. I have been hoping and praying that
the enemy will not come up the Bristol Channel and land somewhere near
here before I have got my Territorial Army into position. At the
present moment the Territorial Army in Monmouthshire consists exactly
of 17 men, all of whom are officers. So that unless the enemy give us
due notice that they are coming here, I am afraid that we shall have
to depend principally upon the Tredegar House establishment. I am
quite certain that you will all answer my call, the ladies more
particularly. I don't care so much about the enemy, whenever he comes,
so long as I have the ladies with me.
_Servants' Ball,
Jan. 8th, 1908._
[Illustration: "_I don't care so much about the enemy, whenever he
comes, so long as I have the ladies with me._"]
I take this opportunity of thanking you, and all those in my service
who have spent this year together with me, for the happy way in which
we have been enabled to pass the whole year together in our mutual
admiration for each other. I was going to say affection for each
other, and I should like to think so. We are--I propose using a silly
phrase to express our relations at Tredegar House--a brotherhood of
men. We are here as a brotherhood of men, and a sisterhood of women,
and I should like you to look upon me as one of yourselves. It may be,
before this time next year, if things go on as they are, that I shall
be calling you Comrade Perrot, and you will be calling me Comrade
Morgan. Things are going very fast just now, but I think there is a
right feeling throughout the country that we are going too fast. It
may be that next year, instead of being summoned to the ball here you
will be asked to
"Come and trip as you go
To the light fantastic veto,"
and we shall be invited to dance the Referendum Lancers.
_Servants' Ball,
January 17th, 1911._
[Illustration: "_I shall be calling you Comrade Perrot, and you will
be calling me Comrade Morgan._"]