Dislike of the elderly to change--Some legitimate grounds of
complaint--Modern pronunciation of Latin--How a European crisis was
averted by the old-fashioned method--Lord Dufferin's Latin
speech--Schoolboy costume of a hundred years ago--Discomforts of
travel in my youth--A crack liner of the "eighties"--Old travelling
carriages--An election incident--Headlong rush of extraordinary
turnout--The politically minded signalman and the doubtful
voter--"Decent bodies"--Confidence in the future--Conclusion.
To point out that elderly people dislike change is to assert the most
obvious of truisms. Their three-score years of experience have taught
them that all changes are not necessarily changes for the better, as
youth fondly imagines; and that experiments are not invariably
successful. They have also learnt that no amount of talk will alter
hard facts, and that the law that effect will follow cause is an
inflexible one which torrents of fluent platitudes will neither affect
nor modify. Even should this entail their being labelled with the
silly and meaningless term of "reactionary," I do not imagine that
their equanimity is much upset by it. It is, perhaps, natural for the
elderly to make disparaging comparisons between the golden past and
the neutral-tinted present; so that one shudders at reflecting what a
terrific nuisance Methuselah must have become in his old age. One can
almost hear the youth of his day whispering friendly warnings to each
other: "Avoid that old fellow like poison, for you will find him the
most desperate bore. He is for ever grousing about the rottenness of
everything nowadays compared to what it was when he was a boy nine
hundred years ago."
What applies to Methuselah may apply, in a lesser degree, to all of us
elderly people, though I think that we are justified when we lament a
noticeable decline in certain definite standards of honour which in
our day were almost universally accepted both in private and in public
life. Even then some few may have bowed the knee at the shrine of
"Monseigneur l'Argent"; but it was done almost furtively, for "people
on the make," or unblushingly "out for themselves," were less to the
fore then than now, and were most certainly less conspicuous in public
life.
We can also be forgiven for regretting a marked decline in manners.
Possibly in hurried days when every one seems to crave for excitement,
there is but little time left for those courtesies customary amongst
an older generation.
There is no need to enlarge on the immense changes the years have
brought about during my lifetime. Amongst the very minor changes, I
notice that when my great-nephews quote any Latin to me, I am unable
to understand one single syllable of it, and between ourselves I fancy
that this modern pronunciation of Latin would be equally
unintelligible to an ancient Roman.
Our old-fashioned English pronunciation of Latin may have been
illogical, but on one occasion it helped to avert a European war. The
late Count Benckendorff, the last Russian Ambassador to the Court of
St. James's, a singularly fascinating man, was protocolist to the
Congress of Berlin in 1878, and as such was present at every sitting
of the Congress. He told me that at one meeting of the
Plenipotentiaries, Prince Gortschakoff announced that Russia, in
direct contravention of Article XIII of the Treaty of Paris of 1856,
intended to fortify the port of Batoum. This was expressly forbidden
by the Treaty of Paris, so Lord Beaconsfield rose from his chair and
said quietly, "Casus belli," _only_ he pronounced the Latin words
in the English fashion, and Count Benckendorff assured me that no one
present, with the exception of the British delegates, had the glimmer
of an idea of what he was talking about. They imagined that he was
making some remark in English to Lord Salisbury, and took no notice of
it whatever. Lord Salisbury whispered to his colleague, and ultimately
Prince Gortschakoff withdrew the claim to fortify Batoum. "But," added
Count Benckendorff, "just imagine the consternation of the Congress
had Lord Beaconsfield hurled his ultimatum to Russia with the
continental pronunciation 'cahsous bellee!'" Just picture the breaking
up of the Congress, the frantic telegrams, the shrieking headlines,
the general consternation, and the terrific results that might have
followed! And all these tremendous possibilities were averted by our
old-fashioned English pronunciation of Latin!
My old Chief and godfather, the late Lord Dufferin, in his most
amusing _Letters From High Latitudes_, recounts how he was
entertained at a public dinner at Rejkjavik in Iceland by the Danish
Governor. To his horror Lord Dufferin found that he was expected to
make a speech, and his hosts asked him to speak either in Danish or in
Latin. Lord Dufferin, not knowing one word of Danish, hastily
reassembled his rusty remnants of Latin, and began, "Insolitus ut sum
ad publicum loquendum," and in proposing the Governor's health, begged
his audience, amidst enthusiastic cheers, to drink it with a "haustu
longo, haustu forti, simul atque haustu."
Such are the advantages of a classical education!
My younger relatives, who naturally look upon me as being of almost
antediluvian age, sometimes ask me to describe the discomforts of an
all-night coach journey in my youth, or inquire how many days we
occupied in travelling from, say, London to Edinburgh. They are
obviously sceptical when I assure them that my memory does not extend
to pre-railway days. I am surprised that they do not ask me for a few
interesting details of occasions when we were stopped by masked
highwaymen on Hounslow Heath in the course of our journeys.
My father told me that when he first went to Harrow in September,
1823, at the age of twelve, he rode all the way from London, followed
by a servant carrying his portmanteau on a second horse. My father's
dress sounds curious to modern ears. Below a jacket and one of the big
flapping collars of the period, he wore a waistcoat of crimson
cut-velvet with gold buttons, a pair of skin-tight pantaloons of green
tartan with Hessian boots to the knee, further adorned with large
brass spurs with brass chains. A schoolboy of twelve would excite some
comment were he to appear dressed like that to-day, though my father
assured me that he could run in his Hessian boots and spurs as fast as
any of his school-fellows.
Though my recollections may not go back to pre-railway days, the
conditions under which we travelled in my youth would be thought
intolerable now. No sleeping- or dining-cars, long night-journeys in
unheated, dimly lit carriages devoid of any kind of convenience, and
sea-passages in small, ill-equipped steamers. All these were accepted
as a matter of course, and as inevitable incidents of travel.
The first long-distance voyage I ever made was just forty years ago,
and I should like people who grumble at the accommodation provided in
one of the huge modern liners to see the arrangements thought good
enough for passengers in 1882. Our ship, the _Britannia_ of the
Pacific Steam Navigation Co., was just over 4,000 tons, and we
passengers congratulated each other loudly on our good fortune in
travelling in so fast and splendid a vessel. The _Britannia_ had
no deck-houses, the uncarpeted, undecorated saloon was the only place
in which to sit, and its furniture consisted of long tables with
swinging racks over them, flanked by benches. This sumptuous apartment
was illuminated at night by no less than forty candles, a source of
immense pride of the chief steward. The sleeping-cabins for a six
weeks' voyage were smaller and less comfortably fitted than those at
present provided for the three hours' trip between Holyhead and
Kingstown; at night one dim oil-lamp glimmered in a ground-glass case
fixed between two cabins, but only up to 10.30 p.m., after which the
ship was plunged into total darkness. As it was before the days of
refrigerators, the fore part of the deck was devoted to live stock.
Pigs grunted in one pen, sheep bleated in another, whilst ducks
quacked and turkeys gobbled in coops on either side of them. No one
ever thought of grumbling; on the contrary, we all experienced that
stupid sense of reflected pride which passengers in a crack liner
feel, for the _Britannia_ then enjoyed a tremendous reputation in
the Pacific. Certainly, seen from the shore, the old _Britannia_
was a singularly pleasing object to the eye, with her clipper bows,
the graceful curve of her sheer, and the beautiful lines of her low
hull unbroken by any deck-houses or top-hamper.
The traveller of to-day is more fortunate; he expects and finds in a
modern liner all the comforts he would enjoy in a first-class hotel
ashore; and finds them too in a lesser degree on railway journeys.
The long continental tours of my father and mother in the early days
of their married life, were all made by road in their own carriages,
and as their family increased they took their elder children with them
in their wanderings, so what with children, nurses and servants, they
travelled with quite a retinue.
I think that my father must have had a sentimental attachment for the
old travelling carriages which had taken him and his family in safety
over one-half of Europe, for he never parted with them, and various
ancient vehicles reposed in our coach-houses, both in England and
Ireland. The workmanship of these old carriages was so excellent that
some of them, repainted and re-varnished, were still used for
station-work in the country. There was in particular one venerable
vehicle known as the "Travelling Clarence," which remained in constant
use for more than sixty years after its birth. This carriage must have
had painful associations for my elder brothers and sisters, for they
travelled in it on my parents' continental tours. My mother always
complimented their nurse on the extraordinarily tidy appearance the
children presented after they had been twelve hours or more on the
road; she little knew that the nurse carried a cane, and that any
child who fidgeted ever so slightly at once received two smart cuts on
the hand from this cane, so that their ultra-neat appearance on
arriving at their destination was achieved rather painfully. This
Clarence was an unusually comfortable and easy-rolling carriage; it
hung on Cee springs, and was far more heavily padded than a modern
vehicle; it had vast pockets arranged round its capacious grey
interior, and curious little circular pillows for the head were
suspended by cords from its roof. On account of its comfort it was
much used in its old age for station-work in Ireland. Should that old
carriage have had any feelings, I can thoroughly sympathise with them.
Dreaming away in its coach-house over its varied past, it must have
remembered the vine-clad hills through which it had once rolled on the
banks of the swift-flowing, green Rhone. It cannot have forgotten the
orange groves and olives of sunny Provence overhanging the deep-blue
Mediterranean, the plains of Northern Italy where the vines were
festooned from tree to tree, the mountains and clear streams of the
Tyrol, or the sleepy old Belgian cities melodious with the clash of
many bells. Each time that it was rolled out of its coach-house I
imagine that every fibre in its antique frame must have vibrated at
the thought that now it was to re-commence its wanderings. Conscious
though the old carriage doubtless was that its springs were less
lissom than they used to be, and that the axles which formerly ran so
smoothly now creaked alarmingly, and sent sharp twinges quivering
through its body, it must have felt confident that it could still
accomplish what it had done fifty years earlier. I feel certain that
it started full of expectations, as it felt itself guided along the
familiar road which followed the windings of the lake, with the high
wooded banks towering over it, and then along a mile of highroad
between dense plantations of spruce and Scotch fir, until the
treeless, stonewalled open country of Northern Ireland was reached.
The hopes of the old carriage must have risen high as the houses of
the little town came into view; first one-storied, white-washed and
thatched; then two-storied, white-washed and slated, all alike lying
under a blue canopy of fragrant peat smoke. The turn to the right was
the Dublin road, the road which ultimately led to the sea, and to a
curious heaving contrivance which somehow led over angry waters to new
and sunnier lands. No; the guiding hands directed its course to the
left, down the brae, and along the over-familiar road to the station.
The old Clarence must have recognised with a sigh that its roaming
days were definitely over, and that henceforth, as long as its
creaking axles and stiffening springs held together, it could only
look forward to an uneventful life of monotonous routine in a cold,
grey Northern land; and, between ourselves, these feelings are not
confined to superannuated carriages.
The old Clarence had one splendid final adventure before it fell to
pieces from old age. At the 1892 Election I was the Unionist candidate
for North Tyrone. In the North of Ireland political lines of
demarcation are drawn sharply and definitely. People are either on one
side or the other. I was quite aware that to win the seat I should
have to poll every available vote. On the polling day I spent the
whole day in going round the constituency and was consequently away
from home. Late in the afternoon a messenger arrived at Baron's Court
announcing that an elderly farmer, who lived six miles off and had
lost the use of his legs, had been forgotten. As, owing to his
infirmity, he was unable to sit on a jaunting-car, it had been
arranged that a carriage should be sent for him, but this had not been
done. The old man was most anxious to vote, but could only do so were
a carriage sent for him, and in less than two hours the poll would
close. My brother Ernest, and my sister-in-law, the present Dowager
Duchess of Abercorn, were at home, and realising the vital importance
of every vote, they went at once up to the stables, only to find that
every available man, horse, or vehicle was already out, conveying
voters to the poll. The stables were deserted. The Duchess recollected
the comfortable old Clarence, and she and my brother together rolled
it out into the yard, but a carriage without horses is rather useless,
and there was not one single horse left in the stalls. My brother
rushed off to see if he could find anything with four legs capable of
dragging a carriage. He was fortunate enough to discover an ancient
Clydesdale cart-mare in some adjacent farm buildings, but she was the
solitary tenant of the stalls. He noticed, however, a three-year-old
filly grazing in the park, and, with the aid of a sieve of oats and a
halter, he at length succeeded in catching her, leading his two
captives triumphantly back to the stable-yard. Now came a fresh
difficulty. Every single set of harness was in use, and the
harness-room was bare. The Duchess had a sudden inspiration. Over the
fireplace in the harness-room, displayed in a glass show-case, was a
set of State harness which my father had had specially made for great
occasions in Dublin: gorgeous trappings of crimson and silver, heavy
with bullion. The Duchess hurried off for the key, and with my
brother's help harnessed the astounded mare and the filly, and then
put them to. The filly, unlike the majority of the young of her sex,
had apparently no love for the pomps and vanities of the world, and
manifested her dislike of the splendours with which she was
tricked-out by kicking furiously. The unclipped, ungroomed
farm-horses, bedizened with crimson and silver, must have felt rather
like a navvy in his working clothes who should suddenly find himself
decked-out with the blue velvet mantle of a Knight of the Garter over
his corduroys. The Duchess proposed fetching the old farmer herself,
so she climbed to the box-seat and gathered the reins into her hands,
but on being reminded by my brother that time was running short, and
that the cart-horses would require a good deal of persuasion before
they could be induced to accelerate their customary sober walk, she
relinquished her place to him. Off they went, the filly still kicking
frantically, the old Clydesdale mare, glittering with crimson and
silver, uncertain as to whether she was dragging a plough or hauling
the King in his State coach to the Opening of Parliament at
Westminster. Once on the level the indignant animals felt themselves
lashed into an unaccustomed gallop; they lumbered along at a clumsy
canter, shaking the solid ground as they pounded it with their heavy
feet, the ancient Clarence, enchanted at this last rollicking
adventure, swaying and rolling behind them like a boat in a heavy sea.
This extraordinary-looking turn-out continued its headlong course over
bog-roads and through rough country lanes, to the astonishment of the
inhabitants, till the lame farmer's house was reached. He was
carefully lifted into the carriage, conveyed to the polling-place, and
recorded his vote at 7.54 p.m., with just six minutes to spare before
the poll closed. As it turned out I won the seat by fifty-six votes,
so this rapid journey was really superfluous, but we all thought that
it would be a much closer thing.
In the North of Ireland where majorities, one way or the other, are
often very narrow, electioneering has been raised almost to a fine
art. A nephew of mine was the Unionist candidate for a certain city in
the North of Ireland during the 1911 election. Here again it was
certain that his majority could only be a very small one, and as is
the custom in Ulster every individual vote was carefully attended to.
One man, though a nominal supporter, was notoriously very shaky in his
allegiance. He was a railway guard and left the city daily on the 7.30
a.m. train, before the poll would open, returning by the fast train
from Dublin due at 7.40 p.m. He would thus on the polling day have had
ample time in which to record his vote. The change in his political
views was so well known that my nephew's Election Committee had
written off his vote as a hostile one, but they had reckoned without
the railway signalman. This signalman was a most ardent political
partisan and a strong adherent of my nephew's, and he was determined
to leave nothing to chance. Knowing perfectly how the land lay, he was
resolved to give the dubious guard no opportunity of recording a
possibly hostile vote, so, on his own initiative, he put his signals
against the Dublin train and kept her waiting for twenty-two minutes,
to the bewilderment of the passengers, until the striking of the
clocks announced the closing of the poll. Then he released her, and
the train rolled into the terminus at 8.5 p.m., so I fear that the
guard was unable to record his vote, hostile or otherwise. I think
that this is an example of _finesse_ in electioneering which would
never have occurred to an Englishman. My nephew won the seat by over
fifty votes.
I have again exceeded the space allotted to me, and am reminded by a
ruthless publisher of the present high cost of production.
We have strayed together through many lands, and should the pictures
of these be dull or incomplete, I can but tender my apologies. I am
quite conscious, too, that I have taken full advantage of the
privilege which I claimed in the first chapter, and that I have at
times wandered wide from the track which I was following. I must plead
in extenuation that the interminable straight roads of France seem to
me less interesting than the winding country lanes of England.
Indeed, I am unable to conceive of any one walking for pleasure along
the endless vistas of the French poplar-bordered highways, where every
objective is clearly visible for miles ahead; it is the English
meandering by-roads, with their twists and turns, their unexpected and
intimate glimpses into rural life, their variety and surprises, which
tempt the pedestrian on and on. We may accept Euclid's dictum that a
straight line is the shortest road between two points; a wandering
line, if longer, is surely as a rule the more interesting.
A Scottish clerical friend of mine, the minister of a large parish in
the South of Scotland, told me that there were just two categories of
people in the world, "decent bodies" and the reverse, and that the
result of his seventy years' experience of this world was that the
"decent bodies" largely predominated.
Although I am unable to claim quite as many years as my friend the old
minister, my experience coincides with his, the "decent bodies" are in
a great majority, I have met them everywhere amongst all classes, and
in every part of the world, and their skins are not always white.
They may not be conspicuously to the fore, for the "decent bodies" are
not given to self-advertisement. They have no love for the limelight,
and would be distinctly annoyed should their advent be heralded with a
flourish of trumpets. In the garden-borders the mignonette is a very
inconspicuous little plant, and passes almost unnoticed beside the
flaunting gaudiness of the dahlia or the showy spikes of the
hollyhock, yet it is from that modest, low-growing, grey-green flower
that comes the sweetness that perfumes the whole air, for the most
optimistic person would hardly expect fragrance from dahlias or
hollyhocks. They have their uses; they are showy, decorative and
aspiring, but they do not scent the garden.
Between 1914 and 1918 I, in common with most people, came across
countless hundreds of "decent bodies," many of them wearing V.A.D.
nurse's uniforms. These little women did not put on their nurse's
uniform merely to pose before a camera with elaborately made-up eyes
and a carefully studied sympathetic expression, to return to ordinary
fashionable attire at once afterwards. They scrubbed floors, and
carried heavy weights, and worked till they nearly dropped, week after
week, month after month, and year after year, but they were never too
tired to whisper an encouraging word, or render some small service to
a suffering lad. I wonder how many thousands of these lads owe their
lives to those quiet, unassuming, patient little "decent bodies" in
blue linen, and to the element of human sympathy which they supplied.
And what of the occupants of the hospital beds themselves? We all
know the splendid record of sufferings patiently borne, of indomitable
courage and cheerfulness, and of countless little acts of
thoughtfulness and consideration for others in a worse plight even
than themselves. Who, after having had that experience, can falter in
their belief that the "decent bodies" are in a majority?
I know many people looking forward to the future with gloom and
apprehension. I do not share their views. For the moment the more
blatant elements in the community are unquestionably monopolising the
stage and focussing attention on themselves, but I know that behind
them are the vast unseen armies of the "decent bodies," who will
assert themselves when the time comes.
These "decent bodies" are not the exclusive product of one country, of
one class, or of one sex. They are to be found "Here, There, and
Everywhere."