1910
The early days of December brought me news from England of the death of
Provost Hornby, my old head master at Eton, aged well over eighty. He
had birched me three times;[1] still, I bore him no malice, though I
did not feel so overcome by the news as Tom Brown did when he heard of
the death of _his_ old head master.[2] An eminent scholar, a "double
blue" at Oxford, of aspect dignified yet kindly, he had seemed to unite
all the qualities necessary or desirable for an arch-pedagogue; yet
{171} no head master had ever entered an office under a cloud of
greater unpopularity. We were all Tories at Eton in the 'sixties; and
the rumoured association of the new head with the hated word _Reform_
(which his predecessor Dr. Balston was said to have stoutly resisted)
aroused in our youthful breasts a suspicion and dislike which
culminated in the words "No Reform!" being actually chalked on the back
of his gown (I personally witnessed the outrage) as he was ascending
the stairs into Upper School. _Tempora mutantur_: I dare say there are
plenty of young Etonian Radicals nowadays; though I do seem to have
heard of Mr. Winston Churchill having been vigorously hooted in School
Yard, on his first appearance at his old school after "finding
salvation" in the Radical camp.
Two or three weeks before Christmas our abbot found himself rather
suddenly obliged to sail for Europe on important business--leaving me a
little forlorn, for he was my only real friend in our rather
cosmopolitan community, though all were kindly and pleasant. The
midsummer heat, too, was more trying than I had anticipated on this
elevated plateau; and though the nights were sensibly cooler, they were
disturbed by mosquitoes, tram-bells in the square outside, _grillos_
and _cigarras_ in our cloister garden beneath, our discordant church
bells[3] striking every quarter above one's head, and our big
watch-dog, Bismarck, baying in the yard. I accompanied the abbot to
the station, where the _dispedida_ (leave-taking) in this country was
always an affair of much demonstration and copious embracing. When
{172} he had gone we all settled down for a week's retreat, given by a
venerable-looking and (I am sure) pious, but extraordinarily grimy,
Redemptorist father, who must have found it an uncommonly hard week's
work in the then temperature, for he "doubled" each of his Portuguese
sermons by a duplicate German discourse addressed to the lay brethren.
This pious exercise over, we prepared for the Christmas festival, which
I enjoyed. It was my privilege to officiate at matins and lauds and
the solemn Mass, lasting from half-past ten till nearly two. Our
church (the demolition of which had not yet begun) was elaborately
adorned and filled with a crowd of devout communicants, young and old;
and when the long services were over, our good brothers gathered round
the Christmas crib, and sang immensely long and pious German songs far
into the small hours of morning. Later in the day I went up to
Paradise ("Paraiso," the name of one of our picturesque suburbs), and
lunched with the kind Canadian family whose pleasant hospitality
constitutes one of the most agreeable souvenirs of my sojourn at S.
Paulo, both at this time and ten years later.
After New Year we had a sudden cool spell, with a southerly wind
bringing refreshing airs from the Pole; and I profited by it to extend
my daily walk, visiting churches and other places of interest in and
about the city. Such old Portuguese churches as the _Se_ (cathedral)
had a certain interest, though no beauty in themselves. The side
altars, surmounted by fat and florid saints boxed up in arbours of
artificial flowers, were painfully grotesque; and the big church was
decked (for Christmastide) with {173} faded red damask which, like Mrs.
Skewton's rose-coloured curtains, only made uglier what was already
ugly. A scheme, however, was afoot for pulling the whole place down;
and a model and plans for a great Gothic cathedral of white granite
were already on exhibition in a neighbouring window, and were exciting
much attention. A few of the other old churches in the city had
already been demolished to make way for new ones, mostly of an
uninteresting German Romanesque type, planned by German architects.
Native talent, however, was responsible for the splendid theatre, its
facade adorned with red granite monoliths; but the finest building in
S. Paulo (perhaps in Brazil) was the creation of an Italian architect
(Bezzi). This was the noble palace at Ypiranga--a site dear to
Brazilians as the scene of the Proclamation of Independence in
1822--now used as a museum of ethnography and natural history, and
containing collections of great and constantly increasing value and
importance. S. Paulo in 1909 was--perhaps is even now, a dozen years
later--a city still in the making;[4] but the intelligence of its
planning, the zeal of its enterprising citizens for its extension and
embellishment, and the noticeable skill and speed of the workmen
(nearly all Italians) under whose hands palatial buildings were rising
on every side, were full of promise for the future.
In 1909 the Instituto Serumtherapico, now very adequately housed at
Butantan (popularly known {174} as the "chacara dos serpentes," or
snake-farm), a mile or two from the city, was only beginning, after
years of patient and fruitful research, its remarkable work--a work of
which (like the sanitation and reconstruction of Rio and the successful
campaign against yellow fever) the credit is due to Brazilians and not
to the strangers within their gates. The serums discovered by the
founder of the Institute, Dr. Vidal Brazil, for the cure of snake-bite
are as important and beneficent, within the vast area where the
mortality from this cause has hitherto been far greater than is
generally known or supposed, as Pasteur's world-famous treatment for
hydrophobia. One serum is efficacious against the rattlesnake's bite,
another against the venom of the urutu, the jararaca, and other deadly
species, while a third is an antidote to the poison of any snake
whatever. Twenty-five per cent. of snake-bite cases have hitherto, it
is estimated, proved fatal; when the serum is administered in time cure
is practically certain. To Dr. Brazil is also due the credit of the
discovery of the mussurana, the great snake, harmless to man, which not
only kills but devours venomous reptiles of all kinds, even those as
big as, or bigger than, itself. It was expected, I was told, that the
encouragement of the propagation of this remarkable ophidian might lead
in time to the extermination of poisonous serpents not only in the
State of S. Paulo, but in every part of tropical Brazil.
The traditional Benedictine hospitality was never wanting at our abbey:
the guest-rooms were always occupied, and the guest-table in the
refectory was a kaleidoscope of changing colour--now the violet sash
and cap of a bishop from some remote State, {175} now the brown of a
Franciscan or bearded Capuchin, the white wool of a Dominican
missionary or a Trappist monk from the far interior, or the sombre
habit of one of our own brethren from some distant abbey on the long
Brazilian coast. Nor were the poorer claimants for rest and
refreshment forgotten. I remember the British Consul, after seeing the
whole establishment, saying that what pleased him most was the noonday
entertainment of the lame, blind, and halt in the entrance-hall, and
the spectacle of our good Italian porter, Brother Pio Brunelli,
dispensing the viands (which the Consul thought looked and smelled
uncommonly good) to our humble guests. Our Trappist visitor mentioned
above was "procurador" of a large agricultural settlement in charge of
his Order; and I remember understanding so much of his technical talk,
after dinner, about their methods of hauling out trees by their roots,
and their machinery for drying rice in rainy weather, as to convince me
that my Portuguese was making good progress!
All our cablegrams from England in these days were occupied with the
General Election, the result of which (275 Liberals to 273 Unionists)
was vastly interesting, leaving, as it appeared to do, the "balance of
power" absolutely in the hands of the seventy Irish Nationalists.
Several Catholic candidates (British) had been defeated, but nine were
returned to the new Parliament--five Unionists and four Rad.-Nat.-Libs.
Of greater personal interest to me was the welcome and not unexpected
news that by a Roman Decree issued on the last day of 1909 our
monastery of Fort Augustus had been reunited with the English {176}
Benedictine Congregation, our position of "splendid isolation" as a
Pontifical Abbey being thus at an end. My letters informed me that the
abbot's resignation had already been accepted, and Dom Hilary Willson
installed in office by the delegate of the English Abbot-president,
with the good will of all concerned, and the special blessing of Pope
Pius X., conveyed in a telegram from Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal
Secretary of State. The new superior's appointment was _ad nutum
Sanctae Sedis_, i.e. for an undetermined period; and the late abbot
(whose health was greatly impaired) was authorised to retire, as he
desired, to a "cell"--a commodious house and chapel--belonging to our
abbey, high among pine-woods near Buckie, in Banffshire.[5]
My mail brought me, too, tidings of the marriage of the sons and
daughters of quite a number of old friends--Balfour of Burleigh, North
Dalrymple (Stair's brother), the Skenes of Pitlour and All Souls,
Oxford; also of the engagement of Lovat's sister Margaret to Stirling
of Keir, and of the death (under sad circumstances already referred
to)[6] of Ninian Crichton Stuart's poor little son. I heard with
pleasure from Abbot Miguel that he hoped shortly to return to us: he
had already cabled the single word "Demoli"; our poor old choir was
under the hands of the house-breakers; and we were saying office
temporarily in the chapter-room, lighted by such inefficient lamps
{177} that I could read hardly a line of my breviary by their
glimmer.[7]
"Just a song at twilight,
When the lights are low,"
is all very well in its way; but the conditions are not suitable for
matins and lauds lasting an hour and a half! After an interval of this
discomfort, we get into our _corozinho provisorio_ (temporary little
choir), a hantle cut out of the nave, which was still standing; and
there we recited our office during the remainder of my stay.
St. Benedict's feast this year fell after Easter; and we kept it with
solemn services in our diminished church (which was packed to the
doors), an eloquent panegyric preached by the vicar-general, and a good
many guests in the refectory. The fare was lavish--too lavish for the
temperature: there were soup, fish, oysters and prawns, three courses
of meat, "tarts and tidiness," and great platters of fruit, khakis
(persimmons), mamoes, abacaxis (small pineapples), etc. "Oh!
Todgers's could do it when it liked!"[8] I sat for a while afterwards
with our U.S.A. padre, just returned from a week's trip on an American
steamer. He had grown restive under the sumptuary laws
(cassock-wearing, etc.) of our archdiocese, and as soon as the school
holidays began, had donned his straw hat and monkey-jacket, and gone
off to enjoy himself on the _Vasari_. He was very good company, and
full of quaint Yankee tales and reminiscences. I recall one of his
stories about a man who thought he could draw, and used {178} to send
his sketches to the editor of a picture-paper whom he knew. Meeting
his friend one day, he asked him why his contributions were never used.
"Well, the fact is," said the editor, "I have an aunt living in Noo
Jersey, who can _knit_ better pictures than yours!"
On May 1 my friend Father Caton and I, desirous of seeing something of
one important element of the heterogeneous population of S. Paulo,
witnessed a procession of Garibaldians on their way to inaugurate a
statue of their hero in one of the public gardens. A sinister crowd
they were, members of some fifty Italian clubs and associations here,
Socialist, masonic, revolutionary and anti-Christian, whose gods are
Mazzini, Carducci, and their like. Round the statue was gathered a
mass of their countrymen--some ten or twelve thousand at least, mostly
Calabrians of a low type,[9] who greeted with frantic applause a
hysterical oration, with the usual denunciations of Popes and priests
and kings, from a fanatical firebrand called Olavo Bilac. A
humiliating spectacle on a May-day Sunday in the Catholic capital of a
Catholic State; but a large proportion of these Italian immigrants were
in truth the scum of their own country and of Christendom. Our abbot,
whose zeal and charity extended to all nationalities in this
cosmopolitan city, had established, with the help of some Brazilian
ladies, a free night-school for the crowds of little shoeblacks and
newspaper-sellers, practically all Italians. He preached at their
periodical First Communion festivals, entertained them afterwards to a
joyful breakfast (at which I {179} sometimes assisted with much
pleasure), and did his best to keep in touch with them as they grew up.
I remember a great Italian audience (of the better sort) in our college
hall one evening, witnessing with delighted enthusiasm three little
plays, one in Portuguese and two in Italian, acted extremely well by a
troupe of the abbot's young Italian _proteges_. With all his
charitable efforts, he could never, of course, touch more than the
fringe of the question; but he never wearied of urging on the
ecclesiastical authorities--nay, he had the opportunity at least once
of forcibly representing to the Pope himself--the paramount necessity
of some organised effort to evangelise these uninstructed masses of
Italians who were annually pouring into the country. No one realised
better than he did that united and fervent prayer was at least as
powerful a factor as pastoral labour in the work of Christianisation
which he had so greatly at heart; and it was therefore with special joy
that he saw at this time the fruition of a scheme for which he had long
been hoping, the establishment in S. Paulo of a community of enclosed
nuns of our own Order. I spent some interesting hours with him
visiting, with the chosen architect, various possible sites for the new
foundation in and about the city. That matter settled, the rest soon
followed; and he had the happiness of seeing the foundation-stone of
the new monastery laid in May, 1911, and six months later, the
inauguration of community life and the Divine Office, under Prioress
Cecilia Prado.
The first week in May brought us news of the alarming illness of Edward
VII., and twenty-four hours later of his death. The universal and
{180} spontaneous tributes to his memory in this foreign city were very
remarkable: everywhere flags flying half-mast, and many shops and
business houses closed. The newspaper articles were all most
sympathetic in tone, with (of course) any number of quaint
mis-spellings. The "Archbishop of Canter Cury" figured in several
paragraphs; but I could never make out what was meant by one statement,
viz., that the King was "successivamente alumno de Trinity, Oxford, e
de Preoun Hall, Cambridge," and that he possessed intimate technical
knowledge of the construction of fortresses. The abbot and I called at
the British Consulate to express our condolence; and a large
congregation (including many Protestants) attended mass and my sermon
at S. Bento a Sunday or two later, it having been understood that there
would be a "pulpit reference" to the national loss. The Prefect of the
city was present, and called personally on me later to express his own
sympathy and that of the municipality of S. Paulo.
Funeral services in this Latin-American capital were not, as a rule,
very edifying functions. I attended, with the Rector of our college,
the obsequies of an aged, wealthy and pious lady, Dona Veridiana Prado.
A carriage and pair of fat white horses were sent to take us to her
house, where there was a great concourse of friends and relatives; but
neither there nor in the cemetery afterwards was there much sign of
mourning, or even of respect, and not a tenth part of those present
paid the slightest attention to the actual burying of the poor lady.
We walked afterwards through the great Consolacao cemetery, which
struck me as having little that was {181} consoling about it. It was
well kept, and the monuments were--expensive, the majority of white
marble, but with far too many semi-nude weeping female figures,
apparently nymphs or muses: inscriptions from Vergil, Camoens, etc.,
and such sentiments as "Death is an eternal sleep," and "An everlasting
farewell from devoted friends." The most remarkable tomb I noticed was
a tribute to an eminent hat-maker--a large relief in bronze
representing a hat-factory in full blast!
Much more consoling than the funeral of poor Dona Veridiana was the
general manifestation of faith and devotion on the festival of Corpus
Christi. All business was suspended for the day (although it was not a
state holiday); and when our procession emerged from the church and
passed slowly along one side of our busy square, I was pleased and
edified to see how every head in the great expectant crowd was bared,
and all, from cab-drivers, motor-men and police down to street arabs,
preserved, during the passing of the _Santissimo_, the same air of
hushed and reverent attention. It was a joy to feel, as I felt then,
that these poor people, whatever their defects or shortcomings,
possessed at least the crowning gift of faith. A curious reason was
given me by one of the clergy of the city for the unusual spirit of
devotion at that time manifest among the people. Halley's Comet was
just then a conspicuous object, blazing in the north-west sky. The
phenomenon, so said my informant, was very generally believed to
portend the speedy end of the world--a belief which stimulated popular
devotion, and sent many spiritual laggards to their religious duties.
However that may have been, a great deal of genuine popular {182} piety
there undoubtedly was in the big busy city. It was not only at solemn
functions on high festivals that our church was thronged by a silent
and attentive crowd; but Sunday after Sunday, at every mass from dawn
to noonday, the far too scanty space was filled by an overflowing
congregation, while the ever-increasing number of communions gave
evidence of the solid piety underlying their real love for the services
and ceremonies of the Church.
Our abbot, who returned to us from Europe on the morrow of King
Edward's death, had almost immediately to leave again for Rio, where
our brethren of S. Bento there were being fiercely attacked in the
public press. The French subprior in charge had not only refused leave
to the Government to connect the Isle of Cobras (an important military
station) with the mainland, i.e. with St. Benedict's Mount, on which
our abbey stood, but had revived an old claim of ownership to the Isle
itself. "Very imprudent," thought Abbot Miguel, who knew well the risk
of the old parrot-cry of "frades estrangeiros" (foreign monks) being
revived against us, and also shrewdly surmised that the young superior
was more or less in the hands of astute _advogados_, who (after the
manner of their tribe) were "spoiling for a fight," and scenting big
fees and profits for themselves if it came to litigation. Dom Miguel
left us quite resolved, with the robust common-sense characteristic of
him, to meet the attacks of the newspapers, interview the Papal Nuncio,
and (if necessary) the President of the Republic himself, talk over the
subprior, and give the lawyers a bit of his mind; and he did it all
very effectually! When he returned a few {183} days later, the
advocates had been sent to the right-about, all claims had been waived
(or withdrawn) to the Isle and the Marine Arsenal between our abbey and
the sea, which was also in dispute: the President and his advisers had
expressed their satisfaction with the patriotism and public spirit of
the monks: the Nuncio had sealed the whole transaction with the
Pontifical approval: the hostile press was silenced; and, in a word,
the "incident was closed"--and a very good thing too!
Among the fresh activities consequent on the new regime at Fort
Augustus was the contemplated reopening of our abbey school, which had
been closed for some years; and there was, I understood, some desire
that I should return home with a view of undertaking the work of
revival. I ventured to express the hope that the task might be
entrusted to a younger man; and Abbot Miguel had, whilst in Europe,
begged that I might be permitted to remain on in S. Paulo for at least
another year. These representations had their due effect; and I was
looking forward contentedly to a further sojourn under the Southern
Cross, when the matter was taken out of our hands by a serious
affection of the eyesight which threatened me with partial or total
blindness. There were plenty of oculists in S. Paulo; and after they
had peered and pried and peeped and tapped and talked to their hearts'
content, generally ending up with "Paciencia! come again to-morrow!"
the youngest and most capable of them diagnosed (quite correctly, as it
turned out), a rather obscure, unusual and interesting
ailment--interesting, _bien entendu_, to the oculists, not to the
patient--which necessitated more or less drastic {184} treatment. By
the advice of my friend the Consul (himself a medical man of
repute[10]), and with the concurrence of the abbot, I determined that
the necessary treatment should be undergone not in Brazil but at home.
Hasty preparations for departure, and the inevitable leave-takings,
fully occupied the next fortnight. I found time, however, to attend an
exciting football match, the winning of which by our college team gave
them the coveted championship of the S. Paulo schools. The game had
taken a wonderful hold of the Brazilian youth within the past few
years, very much to their physical and moral benefit; and many of these
youngsters, light of foot and quick of eye, shaped into uncommonly good
players. They had plenty of pluck too: in the last few minutes of the
match of which I have been speaking one of our best players, a lively
pleasant youth with a face like a Neapolitan fisher-boy's, had the
misfortune to fall with his right arm under him, and broke it badly.
He bore the severe pain like a Trojan; and when I visited him next day,
though he confessed to a sleepless night, laughingly made light of his
injury. His chief regret was being unable to join in the exodus of our
hundred and fifty boarders, who departed with much bustle and many
cheers for their month's holiday. Their long three months' vacation
was in the hot season, from November to February. {185} A few, who
stayed with us for the winter holiday, hailed from remote corners of
the State, and some from even farther afield, from Goyaz, Pernambuco,
or Matto Grosso. Two I remember whose homes were in far Amazonas; and
it took them a much longer time to journey thither (in Brazilian
territory all the time) than it would have done to reach London or
Paris. One never ceased to wonder at the amazing vastness of Brazil,
and to speculate on what the future has in store for the country when
it begins to "find itself," and seriously to develop its incomparable
resources.
Almost my last visit in S. Paulo was to the newly-appointed English
clergyman, whom I had met at a friend's house. He entertained me
hospitably at luncheon; but whilst helping me to prawn mayonnaise
begged me to say if "I shared the official belief of my Church that he
and all Protestants were irrevocably d----d." I need not say that I
evaded the question, not deeming the moment propitious for a course of
the Catechism of the Council of Trent; and we parted good friends.
On June 28 I left S. Paulo with many regrets, wondering whether I
should ever revisit the fair city and my kind friends, of whom many
mustered at the station, according to the pleasant custom of the
country, to speed the parting traveller. The rapid drop down the
serra--it was my first trip on the wonderfully-engineered "English
Railway," which enjoys the profitable monopoly of carrying passengers
and coffee (especially coffee) to the busy port of Santos--was
enjoyable and picturesque, with glimpses, between the frequent tunnels,
into deep wooded valleys, the dark uniform green of the _matto_ {186}
interspersed with the lovely azure and white blossoms of the graceful
Quaresma, or Lent tree (_Tibouchina gracilis_), one of the glories of
the Brazilian forest. The kind prior of S. Bento at Santos met me
there, and I rested for a while at his quaint and charming little
priory, perched high above the city on its flight of many steps, and
almost unchanged in appearance since its foundation two centuries and a
half before, though the buildings had, I believe, been restored early
in the eighteenth century. Higher still, and accessible only on foot,
stood the famous shrine or hermitage of Our Lady of Montserrat, served
by our Benedictine fathers ever since its foundation in 1655, and a
much-frequented place of pilgrimage. I had a drive, before going
aboard my ship, round the picturesque and prosperous little city, the
transformation of which, since I passed by it in 1896, had been almost
more rapid and astonishing than that of Rio. From a haunt of
pestilence and death, yearly subject to a devastating epidemic of
yellow fever, it had become a noted health-resort, its unrivalled
_praia_, stretching for miles along the blue waves of the Atlantic,
lined with modern hotels and charming villas standing in their own
luxuriant gardens, whither the _fina flora_ of Paulista society came
down in summer with their families to enjoy the sea-bathing and the
ocean breezes.
I was cordially welcomed on the _Araguaya_, a fine ship of over 10,000
tons, by my old friend Captain Pope, with whom I had made my first
voyage to Brazil nearly a quarter of a century before. There was a
full complement of passengers, including (at the captain's table with
me) Sir John Benn, _ex_-chairman of the London County Council and {187}
M.P. for Devonport, also Canon Valois de Castro, representative of S.
Paulo in the Federal Parliament. I landed at none of the Brazilian
ports, the ascent and descent of steep companions, sometimes in a heavy
swell, being hardly compatible with my semi-blind condition. Leaving
Pernambuco, I looked rather wistfully at the unforgotten heights of
Olinda, and wondered if I should ever see Brazil's low green shores
again. Sir John was my chief companion on deck: he was a clever
artist, and kept me amused with his delightful sketches of famous
Parliamentarians--Disraeli, Gladstone, R. Churchill, Redmond, Parnell,
Hartington, and many others--as well as of some of the more eccentric
of our fellow-passengers. At our table was an agreeable captain of the
Brazilian Navy, going to Barrow-in-Furness to bring out their new
Dreadnought, the _Sao Paulo_. His 400 bluejackets were on board,
smartly dressed in British fashion; but he confided to us that most of
them were raw recruits, and that some had never seen the sea till they
boarded the _Araguaya_! As our voyage progressed he grew more and more
_distrait_, lost, no doubt, in speculation as to how he and his
heterogeneous crew were ever going to get their big new battleship from
Barrow to Rio. I never heard how they got on.[11]
At Madeira I went ashore to see the Consul (Boyle, a cousin of
Glasgow's) and his pleasant wife, sat for an hour with them enjoying
the enchanting view, and returned on board in company (as I afterwards
discovered) with three professional card-sharpers, who, having been
warned off Madeira, were returning more or less _incog._ to England.
The last days of {188} our voyage were made in a fog that never
lifted--an anxious time for my friend the captain. We never sighted
Ushant light at all, and steamed far past Cherbourg, to which we had to
return dead slow, our dreary foghorn sounding continually all night
long. However, it cleared quite suddenly, and we raced across the
Channel in bright sunshine, but reached Southampton so late that a kind
brother who had come down to meet me there had been obliged to return
to London.
[1] Once quite unjustly--but that was not his fault, for he acted only
on "information received." This reminds me of Mr. Gladstone's story of
his schoolfellow Arthur Hallam (of _In Memoriam_ fame). "Hallam," said
W. E. G., indulging in some Etonian reminiscences at his own table when
not far off ninety, "was a singularly virtuous boy; but he was once
flogged by Dr. Keat, though quite unjustly. When we came into school
one day, the master, Mr. Knapp--("He was a sad scoundrel, and got into
prison later," the old gentleman added in parenthesis, "and I
subscribed to relieve his necessities"),--said at once, 'Praepostor, put
Hallam's name in the bill for breaking my window.'--'Please, sir, I
never broke any window of yours,' cried Hallam, starting up.
'Praepostor,' said Mr. Knapp, 'put Hallam's name in the bill for lying,
and breaking my window.'--'Upon my sacred word of honour, sir,' said
Hallam, jumping up again, 'I never touched your window.' But Mr. Knapp
merely said, 'Praepostor, put Hallam's name in the bill for swearing,
and lying, and breaking my window!'
[2] _Tom Brown's School Days_ (ed. 1839), pp. 370, 371.
[3] Replaced in 1920 by a new and sonorous peal. They still struck the
quarters! but anyhow in tune.
[4] "Were the Vanderbilts as great a power in the American railway and
financial world in your time as they are now?" some one asked an
Englishman who had at one time spent some years in the United States.
"No," he replied; "I think when I was out there they were only
Vanderbuilding!"
[5] His quiet sojourn at St. James's, which he had himself built and
inaugurated five years previously, was a sadly short one. I heard with
deep regret of his death there on St. Benedict's, Day (March 21) of
this year, 1910.
[6] See _ante_, page 130, _note_.
[7] This straining of the sight precipitated, I think, the affection of
the eyes which was to prove so troublesome.
[8] Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_, chap. ix.
[9] "La creme de la guillotine," as our Parisian monk, Dom Denis,
described them.
[10] The O'Sullivan Beare, a graduate of Dublin University, had had an
interesting career. He had served in the Egyptian War of 1885, had
been medical officer on the Gold Coast and at Zanzibar, a Vice-consul
in East Africa, engaged in the suppression of the slave-trade, and
later Consul at Bahia and S. Paulo. He was Consul-general at Rio de
Janeiro during a great part of the European War. Col. O'Sullivan Beare
died in 1921.
[11] See, however, _post_, page 202.
{189}