fact, there was no need to do so, for the Master’s wife, in the
interests of Liberalism, very kindly asked Mrs. Asquith to dinner
herself. And so, that was how we dined,--the men in one building, the
women in another, as closely segregated as though we had been members
of some strict religious order which forbade the intermingling of the
sexes.
Asquith was in great form at dinner. I had never seen him before, and
if first impressions are of any value, be it recorded that he struck
me as having a head far too large for his body. His face was of a
pleasant, rosy hue, rather like that of a genial baby, his body was
short and rather inclined to stoutness. Two things only about him
suggested the sheather of swords--his hair and his voice. The former
was long and white and so silky that one longed to stroke it. His voice
was deep and rich with a quality that also suggested silk.
The first thing he said to me after we had been introduced was:
‘Did you get my box?’
This cryptic remark needs a little explanation. As soon as Asquith had
consented to speak for us he sent word by his secretary saying that
it was most important that we should prepare for him a box, some ten
inches high and twelve inches broad. This object must be covered in
green baize, and placed on the table at which he was going to speak. It
was destined, as we afterwards learnt, to carry his notes.
Such a request was, at first, a little surprising. One had always
thought of Asquith as a man with an endless flow of language, who did
not have to rely upon written memoranda in his speeches. However, the
more one learns about apparently impromptu oratory the more does it
appear in its true light, as carefully prepared. Winston Churchill has
told us that the speech that gained him his greatest reputation as an
impromptu was written out six times with his own hand. Bright used to
have an entire synopsis hidden between the palm and fingers of his left
hand, and I am sure the more ‘mountainous’ districts in Lloyd George’s
perorations are carefully hacked and hewn beforehand. So at least
Asquith was in good company.
During dinner I asked him if it was true that he had once laughingly
summarized the most valuable attribute of Balliol men as a ‘tranquil
consciousness of superiority.’
‘A tranquil consciousness of _effortless_ superiority,’ he corrected.
‘Don’t forget the “effortless.” That’s the whole point of it. But,’ he
added, ‘I don’t want to corrupt the youth of Balliol by such agreeable
theories as that.’
He had an extraordinary thirst for knowledge about post-war Oxford--a
thirst that was almost pathetic, so clearly did it indicate a love of
the very stuff, one might almost say, the very smell, of scholasticism.
Was there much unrest among the undergraduates? Did they find it hard
to settle down after the War? How many people were abandoning the
classics? And what was their chief reason for doing so? Was it lack of
time or lack of thought, or mere laziness? One could not help thinking
what an admirable Master of Balliol Asquith would have made if he had
ever chosen to abandon politics for university life--(his natural
element).
Dinner passed quickly under this fusillade of questions, and I was
longing to see how Mrs. Asquith had fared in her comparatively solitary
dinner. It cannot have been a very inspiriting one, for when we all
trooped over to the lodge, and joined them in the big room upstairs,
the atmosphere was gloomy, not to say strained. Mrs. Asquith was
sitting on a table, swinging her legs, which were encased in grey
Russian top-boots, and she greeted our arrival with a whoop of delight,
and started to talk very quickly, as though she had been pent up for
years. How wonderful of the undergraduates to give her a bouquet of red
roses! Had they guessed that she was going to wear a red hat? And did
they mind her not dressing? No? How charming of one to say that she
looked nice in anything, etc., etc.
The Master’s wife, on the other hand, said nothing at all, but remained
by the fireplace in what appeared to be deep melancholy. I went up to
her and said, ‘We really ought to be going along to the Town Hall now.
The meeting starts in five minutes.’
At this she brightened considerably, and said:
‘Is Mrs. Asquith going?’
I explained that it was snowing outside, and that the other guests had
to be disposed of first. Mr. and Mrs. Asquith would bring up the rear,
as they were the most important people.
‘Oh, I see,’ she said, ‘Mrs. Asquith’s the climax, is she?’
I was very thankful when we were all safely landed at the Town Hall,
and the meeting had begun.
I needn’t say anything about the meeting itself, except that everybody
made admirable speeches, which called forth a great deal of applause,
and set the fires of Liberalism blazing fervently. A few extra lines
may, however, be inserted to make this sketch of Mrs. Asquith a little
less shadowy.
I am perfectly certain that this lady has been very much maligned by
the British public. A section of that public regards her as vulgar
because she is enthusiastic, prejudiced because she is loyal, conceited
because she is frank, and generally a very tiresome creature. They
have not the wit to realize that she is, in reality, a woman almost
unbearably sensitive, who is aggressive only in self-defence, and that
she is so emotional that she does things in public which some people
regard as outrageous only because they do not understand her.
I shall never forget, for example, seeing her at the end of the
meeting, put her hand on her husband’s shoulder while they were playing
God Save the King, and, as soon as the King was saved, throwing the
flowers from her bouquet into the stolid faces of the crowd below. How
I sympathized with her at that moment. I should have liked to jump to
the roof with elation. The only difference was that Mrs. Asquith had
the courage to do what she wanted, and I hadn’t.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In which Mr. Winston Churchill loses his Temper, and Mr. Horatio
Bottomley wins his Debate
You may, or you may not, have heard of the Oxford Union Society. It has
a habit of producing future Prime Ministers. Among its past presidents
it numbers such illustrious names as Gladstone, Salisbury, Asquith,
Birkenhead, etc., etc., to say nothing of such minor fry as occasional
Archbishops, diplomats and ambassadors.
Among its past presidents it also numbers myself. A matter again of no
importance, except for the people with whom it brought me into touch.
Now, every president of the Oxford Union Society can invite, during his
term of office, not more than two distinguished statesmen to address
the Society. As soon as I had been elected I looked round for two
men who might bring a little live blood into our somewhat academic
discussions, and there seemed no better couple, for this purpose,
than Winston Churchill, the Secretary for War, and Horatio Bottomley,
M.P., who is at present languishing in gaol. Both expressed themselves
as delighted to accept, and dates were fixed for their respective
appearances.
A terrible problem faced me as Winston’s arrival drew near. I had to
give a dinner, not only to him, but to his guests (four of them), and
about a dozen others. When one dines in this fashion, one has to dine
well, with Moët 1914 and all the usual things which go to make good
oratory. Being quite devoid of funds, and having long before exhausted
my allowance in riotous living, there seemed no alternative but to
make a descent on an already overburdened parent. Then suddenly, a
charming friend, who is now brightening a not very brilliant House of
Commons, suggested that we should all dine with him ... a suggestion
which was carried _nem. con._
Winston was the first great English statesman who ever dined with me
(probably the last also). Remembering that it was he who had, on his
own responsibility, given orders to the British Fleet at the outset
of the War which were probably instrumental in saving the Empire, I
sat gazing at him in a sort of awe. ‘This,’ I thought, ‘is the face
that launched a thousand ships.’ And yet there was something a little
incongruous about Winston Churchill in this tiny room. He was so
vigorous, he breathed so hard, and spoke so quickly that one feared
he might at any moment seize all his knives and forks and glasses and
arrange them in the form of a field of battle to illustrate his martial
theories.
This he actually did. I happened to mention that, in order to help our
memory of the campaigns of Napoleon, I and several others who were
working together, had composed a series of rhymes round the tributaries
of the Po, which we found of the greatest value.
That set Winston off. He seized a knife, a fork, and a salt cellar
and made with them a little plan round which he marched the imaginary
armies of Napoleon. I have never heard anybody talk of war with such
gusto. With each martial adjective, a light seemed to be turned on
inside his head, his eyes gleamed, his lips parted, and he talked so
vividly that the slight impediment in his speech, which he has always
so pluckily fought, was forgotten. And when he had finished he gave me
an exhaustive list of military treatises on Napoleon, which, needless
to say, I did not attempt to read.
Winston was a wonderful talker that night--not only of war, but of
other arts, notably of literature and painting. He asked how long it
had taken me to write my novel _Prelude_.
‘I haven’t the least idea,’ I said, ‘because it was done in bits and
patches over a period of about five months.’
‘Didn’t you work at it regularly?’
‘No. I don’t see how you can do work in that manner if it is to have
any sort of claim to be emotional.’
‘Nonsense.’
I sat up, and Winston began to put forward some very interesting
theories on the writing of books.
‘You should go to your room every day at nine o’clock,’ he said, ‘and
say to yourself, “I am going to sit here for four hours and write.”’
‘But suppose you _can’t_ write? Suppose you’ve got a headache, or
indigestion....’
‘You’ve got to get over that. If you sit waiting for inspiration, you
will sit there till you are an old man. Writing is a job like any other
job, like marching an army for instance. If you sit down and wait till
the weather is fine, you won’t get very far with your troops. It’s
the same with writing. Discipline yourself. Kick yourself. Irritate
yourself. But write. It’s the only way.’
Advancing years have taught me that there is a good deal more than half
of the truth in what Winston said. The ideal combination would seem
to be a little of both spirits--the spirit that enabled Mozart to sit
down, like an accountant, and write his divine melodies at his desk,
and the spirit that urged Beethoven out into the woods and forests when
the storm was at its height.
To return to Winston. He made a very good speech--(it was about
Russia)--quite as good as those of the undergraduates who were opposing
him--won his motion, and then trotted off to bed, with the cheers of a
thousand young throats ringing in his ears.
The next day I called on him after breakfast and suggested that it
might amuse him to walk round some of the colleges. ‘All right,’ he
said, and we set out forthwith, while I tried to recall the names of
the various buildings which one passed every day, but never recognized.
However, Winston strode along gloomily, smoking a cigar, tapping
his stick on the pavement, and taking not the faintest notice of my
chatter, which showed his good sense. Still, I wanted to know the
reason for his ill-humour, and was about to ask him if he had got out
of bed on the wrong side, when he said:
‘There was a shorthand reporter there last night, of course?’
I shook my head. ‘No. We don’t run to that.’
He glared at me in astonishment. ‘But there was a man from the _Morning
Post_?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but he only takes extracts. Did you want a report?’
‘I should damned well think I did,’ replied the Secretary for War.
‘I said a lot of very--er--delicate things last night and it’s most
important for me to know what I _did_ say.’
I remembered, with exquisite clarity, his remarks about footpads,
assassins and other gentlemen with whom His Majesty’s Government, of
which he was a prominent member, were at that period negotiating. And
I also appreciated the fact that he was honest enough to stand up for
his personal convictions at the risk of being severely censured by his
colleagues. However, there seemed nothing to be done.
‘Perhaps,’ I remarked, with singularly misplaced brightness, ‘it may
be a good thing in view of the delicacy of the discussion, that there
_was_ a certain vagueness about what you actually said?’
For reply, he merely clasped his hands behind his back, made a clucking
noise with his teeth and said:
‘Is that Lincoln or Exeter?’
That night, in the House of Commons, several indignant gentlemen rose
to their feet to draw the attention of the House to the indiscretions
of the Secretary for War at Oxford. Many uncomplimentary things were
said before the matter was allowed to drop. For one night, at least, I
experienced something of the thrill of government.
* * * * *
It is a long step from Winston Churchill to Horatio Bottomley, but
not quite as long as might at first be imagined. Both men have a good
deal in common--(this is meant as a tribute to Horatio rather than a
reflection on Winston)--and if Horatio had been to Harrow instead of
to a little school in the East End of London, it is not impossible
that he would have risen to Cabinet rank, have stirred the nation with
patriotic speeches, and have gone down to history as one of the great
men of our times.
At any rate, he seemed to me a fascinating figure, and one who should
enliven any debate in which he spoke.
I therefore wrote to him, suggesting that he might care to visit us. By
return of post I received a reply, typed on the sort of notepaper that
is described by stationers as ‘superfine,’ and couched in the third
person. It stated that ‘Mr. Bottomley considered himself honoured by
the invitation, which he had great pleasure in accepting. Mr. Bottomley
would also like to know the subject of the debate. If he had any say
in the matter he would prefer to speak in favour of the Independent
Political Party. Failing that, he would like to attack the League of
Nations, which he considered a useless and a pernicious institution.’
The Independent Party won the day.
On the night of Bottomley’s arrival, I was suddenly sent into a panic
by the news that a gang of undergraduates, who considered that the
dignity of the Union was being outraged by including Bottomley among
its ‘distinguished visitors,’ had arranged to kidnap him. The plan was
to meet him at the station before anybody else could get near, to hurry
him into a motor-car, and to drive straight up to Boar’s Hill, where he
would be given a good dinner, and allowed to depart in peace after the
debate was over. I immediately went down to the station, seized several
burly porters and informed them of the situation. Whether or no these
measures had the effect of nipping the plot in the bud, history will
never know. He arrived safely.
A grotesque figure, one would have said at first sight. Short and
uncommonly broad, he looked almost gigantic in his thick fur coat.
Lack-lustre eyes, heavily pouched, glared from a square and sallow
face. He seemed to have a certain resentment against the world at
large. It was not till he began to talk that the colour mottled his
cheeks and the heavy hues on his face were lightened.
Was there any excitement at his coming? Yes? He smiled like a child.
A lot of big men came down to speak, didn’t they? Asquith, Winston,
Lloyd George? Yes? ‘And now, Horatio.’ He rubbed his coarse hands and
chuckled.
At the entrance to the hotel he stood sunning himself in such publicity
as was afforded by the gaping hall porter and his underlings. He
stumped across to the office, his fur coat swinging open, drew from
his pocket a heavy gold pen, and signed his name with a flourish. The
signature was illegible, but the gesture was Napoleonic.
He dined with me that night, and kept the small gathering of
undergraduates I had invited in a constant splutter of unholy laughter.
‘Do I pay my income tax?’ he said. ‘Not I.’ And he told us, with a
dazzling display of figures, exactly how he managed to avoid that
obligation. To my dying day I shall regret that I forget his method. He
discussed religion, with his tongue well out in his cheek. He drew for
us a little portrait gallery of contemporary politicians, as crude but
as vivid as the work of an inspired pavement artist. Birkenhead seemed
to be the sole politician for whom he entertained any genuine regard.
‘When Birkenhead was seriously ill a few months ago,’ he said, ‘I was
the only man he allowed into his room. I would go and sit with him for
hours, sometimes talking, sometimes just silent. Funny, isn’t it?’
We adjourned to the debating hall, were greeted with uproarious
applause, took our places. As the debate proceeded, I looked from time
to time at Bottomley. He seemed, suddenly, to have grown nervous.
His face was flushed and hot, and from time to time he mopped his
forehead with a large silk handkerchief. The light and airy chatter,
the brilliant irrelevancies, of the Oxford Union seemed to be filling
him with a certain mistrust. He had never known an audience like this.
Every phrase, every gesture, he watched with narrowed eyes, leaning
forward intently. And then he rose to speak. He took the wind out of
our sails from the very beginning.
I had been afraid that before this, ‘the most critical audience in
the world,’ he would try to assume an air of culture that was foreign
to him, that he would endeavour to put on airs. He did exactly the
reverse. After his opening sentence there was a moment when everything
hung in the balance. He made some rather inapt historical reference,
paused, and was for a moment at a loss. And then, quite calmly and
deliberately, he looked round and said:
‘Gentlemen: I have not had your advantages. What poor education I have
received has been gained in the University of Life.’
Dead silence. I sat back, marvelling at the consummate stagecraft
of the man. After that brief remark, any men who laughed at his
pronunciation or his mannerism would be cads, and they knew it. And he
knew that they knew it.
From that moment, he sailed on triumphantly. His eloquence was uncanny.
For sheer force of oratory I have never heard anyone like him. Compared
with him, Asquith was a dry stick. (I am talking of the manner, not of
the matter.) And his aptness of retort was modelled on the best Union
styles. For instance, he happened to use, during one of his passages,
the phrase ‘the right to work.’ A Welsh miner who was in the gallery,
and who was, as usual, on strike, cried out ironically, ‘’ear, ’ear.’
Bottomley did not look at him. He merely added, in exactly the same
voice as he had used before, ‘a right which I am sure we will gladly
grant to the honourable member.’ Delicious.
Nor was his repartee merely flippant. One of the preceding speakers
had made a great hit by referring to him, somewhat contemptuously, as
‘a voice crying in the wilderness.’ Bottomley took up the gage and
hurled it with unerring skill back into the face of his opponent. ‘All
my life,’ he cried, ‘I have been a voice crying in the wilderness. All
my life I have battled alone, fought alone, struggled for causes that
other men have deserted as hopeless. A voice crying in the wilderness!
Yes, gentlemen, and I am proud of it!’ Thunders of applause.
He won his motion by several hundred votes, and when he left the hall,
they cheered him to the echo.
But he did not seem particularly elated by his success. When he
returned to a party I gave for him at my room afterwards, the voting
had totalled about 1,100--a few less than a record attendance. ‘I’d
hoped I should draw the biggest house you ever had,’ he said with a
sigh. ‘Are you sure there was no mistake in the counting?’
I assured him that the tellers were thoroughly trustworthy.
He nodded. ‘Well, it can’t be helped. Still--it’s a pity.’
Further regrets were stopped by the discovery that nobody could open
any of the champagne. ‘Give me a bottle,’ said Bottomley. ‘I’ll show
you a trick.’
He seized a bottle in his podgy hand, went to the door, half opened
it, shut it again, gave the bottle a pull, and lo!--the cork was
removed. As he drank our healths he looked across and said ‘Damned fine
champagne.’
He was either a liar or a very bad judge of champagne, for it was the
worst wine I have ever tasted.
* * * * *
We had arranged to breakfast together the next morning, and at nine
o’clock I arrived at the hotel. It was a drizzling, dreary sort of
morning, with a cold wind, and an indeterminate mist over the roofs.
Bottomley came downstairs looking very tired. The lustre had faded from
the heavy eyes, the bulky frame had lost all elasticity.
‘And what would you like for breakfast?’ I asked him.
He protruded the tip of his tongue, paused, and then gave me a wink.
All Whitechapel was in that wink.
‘A couple of kippers,’ he said, ‘and a nice brandy and soda.’
I gave the order, as gravely as possible, to the waiter, and watched
him gulp his brandy, leaving the kippers untouched. He cheered up after
that, and by the time his cab had arrived he was quite gay. ‘I’ve
enjoyed myself,’ he said to me when I bade him good-bye. ‘Enjoyed
myself like hell.’
It will need a clever man to write _finis_ to an analysis of the
character of Horatio Bottomley--part genius, part scoundrel, and yet,
wholly human.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Being an Impression of Two Ladies of Genius
So far the feminine element has not obtruded greatly into these pages,
not for lack of females, but for lack of distinguished ones. It is
a matter of little significance to the reader that in May I met a
charming girl called Jean, and in June lost my heart to a languorous
beauty named Helen. But at about this time (the summer of 1920) I did
meet and get to know two very remarkable women.
The first was Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She was staying at a house whither
I journeyed in late July to escape the heat of a London summer. My
first sight of her was as I emerged from the car; very dirty and
dishevelled after a long journey, in which somebody had spilt a bottle
of champagne all over my trousers. I entered the hall, and observed
a strange, dark woman in orange looking at me, wondered who she was,
wondered still more when she advanced and said in a deep booming voice:
‘Oh, young man. Run upstairs quickly before you go in to see them. The
room is full of earls and cocktails.’
This remarkable announcement (which was true in so far as there was an
earl somewhere in the distance, and the clinking of ice in glasses) was
followed by a mutual introduction.
A fiery, billowing, passionate, discontented creature of genius--that
is my impression of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. She absolutely dominated the
party during my whole visit. I fell passionately in love with her, with
the shy, ridiculous love of twenty-one for--?
Try to see her as I see her now. The tall, cool dining-room, the Romney
smiling from the wall, the long dining-table, and, near the end, Mrs.
Patrick Campbell, hunched up, scowling, smoking a cigar, and as she
puffed the smoke into the face of the lady opposite (whom she detested)
telling the following story:
‘Do you know’ (oh! the mellow boom of that magical voice!) ‘the story
of the old hen that was crossing the road and that was run over by
a Rolls-Royce? There was a flutter of feathers, a shrill cackle and
then--’ (turning to her neighbour) ‘what do you think the hen said as
she died? _My God, what a rooster!_’
I don’t think anybody was ever quite so rude to people as Mrs. Patrick
Campbell. She would stand in front of the glass, tugging fitfully at
her dress, and then, with her head on one side, she would say, in
dreamy but resounding tones:
‘Isn’t it awful? I try to look like a lady and all I look like is
Miss --.’ The fact that Miss -- was standing just behind her, made no
difference at all.