I
The structure, economy and polity of our time do not incline the meek
and lowly to a particular regard for persons of condition. Nor is the
patronage of princes and the favour of lords solicited to any noticeable
degree by the poets and scientists of the day. The most superficial
survey of history will discover that the condescension of a gentleman of
the _haut ton_ was once regarded as almost an essential of a poet’s
success: while the craftsman, was he never so cunning and exquisite,
must rely for his fame on the caprice of the young men of fashion, who
were, it is to be presumed, not the less generous because they were
invariably in debt and had not the worse taste because they were nearly
always in wine.
In our generation, however, we have progressed so far in the liberal
arts that, should a man of letters so mask himself with the impertinence
of fashion as to be remarked at Ascot in clothes which, with a
deplorable want of faith in the dignity of letters, have been cut to fit
his person, he shall at once be convicted by all really intelligent
people of a lack of feeling for all that is genuine in art and
literature. That cannot be altogether just. An effeminate manner and
unusual habits should not, on the other hand, invariably be taken for
sure signs of genius in the mental sciences; and laymen should be warned
against regarding soiled linen as an essential of the successful ascent
of Parnassus.
In the face of this illiberal attitude towards the upper sort, the
popular interest in the young Duke of Mall is the more surprising; and
to that gentleman’s familiars and dependents it has for long been a
source of gratification to observe how the esteem in which he is held by
the people of England is rivalled only by the interest shown in the
table-manners of the most famous pugilists and the respect extended to
the tireless energies of the most beloved prince in Christendom.
Nor was the young Duke’s greatness unheralded, his birth without good
omen: historians the world over will know the legend of the Dukedom of
Mall, how it was prophesied by a sibyl of the Restoration that on the
birth of the greatest of that house the golden cock on the weather-vane
of St. James’s tower would crow thrice, and on his death it would also
crow thrice. And only those most steeped in the modern vice of
scepticism will disbelieve the unanimous evidence of every club servant
in St. James’s Street, that this miracle attended the birth of the
seventeenth Duke; while we vulgar lovers of England’s might and enemies
to the Socialist tyranny can only pray that the second manifestation of
that miracle be averted for the longest span of God’s mercy to the most
gallant of His creatures.
There follow, then, some sidelights on the recent life of the young Duke
of Mall and his splendid lady. Than these two, history will say,
history must say, there never was a more comely pair; for such is the
unknowable wisdom of the All-Wise, that opposites will discover the
sweetest harmony. The differences referred to are, of course, those of
breeding and nationality, for the lady was an American out of Chicago,
in the State of Illinois. But to attempt to describe Miss Lamb were to
challenge contempt and defy the limitations set by the gods upon human
speech. Let it suffice that she was beautiful: the quality of her colour
comparable only to that of a garden in tempered sunlight, the texture of
her complexion the envy of silkworms, while the glory of her hair has
been described by a minor poet as a cap of beaten gold and autumn
leaves. As for the lady’s eyes, shall a phrase attempt where a thousand
photographs have failed?
The Duke, then, was tender of this lady: he wooed her, was mocked, he
entreated, was beguiled, he pleaded, was provoked, he stormed, was
dismissed, he worshipped, was accepted. The wedding paralysed the
traffic of London for several hours and the newspapers of England and
America for several days. The happy pair spent their honeymoon at the
Trianon at Versailles, lent to the young Duke by the French Government
in recognition of his gallant services as a _liaison_ officer during the
war.
It should be noted that the wedding-present of the bride’s father to the
young Duke was an ocean-going yacht of gratifying tonnage. White and
graceful, the yacht _Camelot_ rode the seas like a bird. The Duke, who
liked birds, was very impressed.