IN the autumn following the end of the Franco-German war, Dr. Bird and I
visited all the principal battlefields. In England the impression was
that the bloodiest battle was fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I
believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with
that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a
cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery
officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly explained
the distribution of the forces. Large square mounds were scattered about
the plain where the German dead were buried, little wooden crosses being
stuck into them to denote the regiment they had belonged to. At
Gravelotte we saw the dogs unearthing the bodies from the shallow graves.
The officer told us he did not think there was a family in Germany
unrepresented in the plains of St. Privat.
It was interesting so soon after the event, to sit quietly in the little
summer-house of the Château de Bellevue, commanding a view of Sedan,
where Bismarck and Moltke and General de Wimpfen held their memorable
Council. ‘Un terrible homme,’ says the story of the ‘Débâcle,’ ‘ce
général de Moltke, qui gagnait des batailles du fond de son cabinet à
coups d’algèbre.’
We afterwards made a walking tour through the Tyrol, and down to Venice.
On our way home, while staying at Lucerne, we went up the Rigi. Soon
after leaving the Kulm, on our descent to the railway, which was then
uncompleted, we lost each other in the mist. I did not get to Vitznau
till late at night, but luckily found a steamer just starting for
Lucerne. The cabin was crammed with German students, each one smoking
his pipe and roaring choruses to alternate singers. All of a sudden,
those who were on their legs were knocked off them. The panic was
instantaneous, for every one of us knew it was a collision. But the
immediate peril was in the rush for the deck. Violent with terror, rough
by nature, and full of beer, these wild young savages were formidable to
themselves and others. Having arrived late, I had not got further than
the cabin door, and was up the companion ladder at a bound. It was pitch
dark, and piteous screams came up from the surrounding waters. At first
it was impossible to guess what had happened. Were we rammed, or were we
rammers? I pulled off my coats ready for a swim. But it soon became
apparent that we had run into and sunk another boat.
The next morning the doctor and I went on to England. A week after I
took up the ‘Illustrated News.’ There was an account of the accident,
with an illustration of the cabin of the sunken boat. The bodies of
passengers were depicted as the divers had found them.
On the very day the peace was signed I chanced to call on Sir Anthony
Rothschild in New Court. He took me across the court to see his brother
Lionel, the head of the firm. Sir Anthony bowed before him as though the
great man were Plutus himself. He sat at a table alone, not in his own
room, but in the immense counting-room, surrounded by a brigade of
clerks. This was my first introduction to him. He took no notice of his
brother, but received me as Napoleon received the emperors and kings at
Erfurt—in other words, as he would have received his slippers from his
valet, or as he did receive the telegrams which were handed to him at the
rate of about one a minute.
The King of Kings was in difficulties with a little slip of black
sticking-plaster. The thought of Gumpelino’s Hyacinthos, _alias_ Hirsch,
flashed upon me. Behold! the mighty Baron Nathan come to life again; but
instead of Hyacinthos paring his mightiness’s _Hühneraugen_, he himself,
in paring his own nails, had contrived to cut his finger.
‘Come to buy Spanish?’ he asked, with eyes intent upon the
sticking-plaster.
‘Oh no,’ said I, ‘I’ve no money to gamble with.’
‘Hasn’t Lord Leicester bought Spanish?’—never looking off the
sticking-plaster, nor taking the smallest notice of the telegrams.
‘Not that I know of. Are they good things?’
‘I don’t know; some people think so.’
Here a message was handed in, and something was whispered in his ear.
‘Very well, put it down.’
‘From Paris,’ said Sir Anthony, guessing perhaps at its contents.
But not until the plaster was comfortably adjusted did Plutus read the
message. He smiled and pushed it over to me. It was the terms of peace,
and the German bill of costs.
‘£200,000,000!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s a heavy reckoning. Will France
ever be able to pay it?’
‘Pay it? Yes. If it had been twice as much!’ And Plutus returned to
his sticking-plaster. That was of real importance.
Last autumn—1904, the literary world was not a little gratified by an
announcement in the ‘Times’ that the British Museum had obtained
possession of the original manuscript of Keats’s ‘Hyperion.’ Let me tell
the story of its discovery. During the summer of last year, my friend
Miss Alice Bird, who was paying me a visit at Longford, gave me this
account of it.
When Leigh Hunt’s memoirs were being edited by his son Thornton in 1861,
he engaged the services of three intimate friends of the family to read
and collate the enormous mass of his father’s correspondence. Miss Alice
Bird was one of the chosen three. The arduous task completed, Thornton
Hunt presented each of his three friends with a number of autographic
letters, which, according to Miss Bird’s description, he took almost at
random from the eliminated pile. Amongst the lot that fell to Miss
Bird’s share was a roll of stained paper tied up with tape. This she was
led to suppose—she never carefully examined it—might be either a copy or
a draft of some friend’s unpublished poem.
The unknown treasure was put away in a drawer with the rest. Here it
remained undisturbed for forty-three years. Having now occasion to
remove these papers, she opened the forgotten scroll, and was at once
struck both with the words of the ‘Hyperion,’ and with the resemblance of
the writing to Keats’s.
She forthwith consulted the Keepers of the Manuscripts in the British
Museum, with the result that her _trouvaille_ was immediately identified
as the poet’s own draft of the ‘Hyperion.’ The responsible authorities
soon after, offered the fortunate possessor five hundred guineas for the
manuscript, but courteously and honestly informed her that, were it put
up to auction, some American collector would be almost sure to give a
much larger sum for it.
Miss Bird’s patriotism prevailed over every other consideration. She
expressed her wish that the poem should be retained in England; and
generously accepted what was indubitably less than its market value.