church-going as a spiritual privilege; and everyone, religious or not,
recognized it as a civil duty. "When a gentleman is _sur ses terres_,"
said Major Pendennis, "he must give an example to the country people;
and, if I could turn a tune, I even think I should sing. The Duke of St.
David's, whom I have the honour of knowing, always sings in the country,
and let me tell you it has a doosed fine effect from the Family Pew."
Before the passion for "restoration" had set in, and ere yet Sir Gilbert
Scott had transmogrified the Parish Churches of England, the Family Pew
was indeed the ark and sanctuary of the territorial system--and a very
comfortable ark too. It had a private entrance, a round table, a good
assortment of armchairs, a fire-place, and a wood-basket. And I well
remember a wash-leather glove of unusual size which was kept in the
wood-basket for the greater convenience of making up the fire during
divine service. "You may restore the church as much as you like," said
the lay-rector of our parish, to an innovating Incumbent, "but I must
insist on my Family Pew not being touched. If I had to sit in an open
seat, I should never get a wink of sleep again."
A country home left its mark for all time on those who were brought up
in it. The sons played cricket and went bat-fowling with the village
boys, and not seldom joined with them in a poaching expedition to the
paternal preserves. However popular or successful or happy a
Public-school boy might be at Eton or Harrow, he counted the days till
he could return to his pony and his gun, his ferrets and rat-trap and
fishing-rod. In after years, amid all the toil and worry of active life,
he looked back lovingly to the corner of the cover where he shot his
first pheasant, or the precise spot in the middle of the Vale where he
first saw a fox killed, and underwent the disgusting Baptism of Blood.
Girls, living more continuously at home, entered even more intimately
into the daily life of the place. Their morning rides led them across
the Village Green; their afternoon drives were often steered by the
claims of this or that cottage to a visit. They were taught as soon as
they could toddle never to enter a door without knocking, never to sit
down without being asked, and never to call at meal-time. They knew
everyone in the village--old and young; played with the babies, taught
the boys in Sunday School, carried savoury messes to the old and
impotent, read by the sick-beds, and brought flowers for the coffin.
Mamma knitted comforters and dispensed warm clothing, organized relief
in hard winters and times of epidemic, and found places for the
hobbledehoys of both sexes. The pony-boy and the scullery-maid were
pretty sure to be products of the village. Very likely the
young-ladies'-maid was a village girl whom the doctor had pronounced too
delicate for factory or farm. I have seen an excited young groom staring
his eyes out of his head at the Eton and Harrow match, and exclaiming
with rapture at a good catch, "It was my young governor as 'scouted'
that. 'E's nimble, ain't he?" And I well remember an ancient
stable-helper at a country house in Buckinghamshire who was called "Old
Bucks," because he had never slept out of his native county, and very
rarely out of his native village, and had spent his whole life in the
service of one family.
Of course, when so much of the impressionable part of life was lived
amid the "sweet, sincere surroundings of country life," there grew up,
between the family at the Hall and the families in the village, a
feeling which, in spite of our national unsentimentality, had a
chivalrous and almost feudal tone. The interest of the poor in the life
and doings of "The Family" was keen and genuine. The English peasant is
too much a gentleman to be a flatterer, and compliments were often
bestowed in very unexpected forms. "They do tell me as 'is
understanding's no worse than it always were," was a ploughman's way of
saying that an uncle of mine was in full possession of his faculties.
"We call 'im 'Lord Charles' because he's so old and so cunning," was
another's description of a pony which had belonged to my father. "Ah, I
know you're but a poor creature at the best!" was the recognized way of
complimenting a lady on what she considered her bewitching and romantic
delicacy.
But these eccentricities were merely verbal, and under them lay a deep
vein of genuine and lasting regard. "I've lived under four dukes and
four 'ousekeepers, and I'm not going to be put upon in my old age!" was
the exclamation of an ancient poultry-woman, whose dignity had been
offended by some irregularity touching her Christmas dinner. When the
daughter of the house married and went into a far country, she was sure
to find some emigrant from her old home who welcomed her with effusion,
and was full of enquiries about his Lordship and her Ladyship, and Miss
Pinkerton the governess, and whether Mr. Wheeler was still coachman, and
who lived now at the Entrance Lodge. Whether the sons got commissions,
or took ranches, or became curates in slums, or contested remote
constituencies, some grinning face was sure to emerge from the crowd
with "You know me, sir? Bill Juffs, as used to go birds-nesting with
you"; or, "You remember my old dad, my lord? He used to shoe your black
pony." When the eldest son came of age, his condescension in taking this
step was hailed with genuine enthusiasm. When he came into his kingdom,
there might be some grumbling if he went in for small economies, or
altered old practices, or was a "hard man" on the Bench or at the Board
of Guardians; but, if he went on in the good-natured old ways, the
traditional loyalty was unabated. Lord Shaftesbury wrote thus about the
birth of his eldest son's eldest son:--"My little village is all agog
with the birth of a son and heir in the very midst of them, the first,
it is believed, since 1600, when the first Lord Shaftesbury was born.
The christening yesterday was an ovation. Every cottage had flags and
flowers. We had three triumphal arches; and all the people were
exulting. 'He is one of us.' 'He is a fellow-villager.' 'We have now got
a lord of our own.' This is really gratifying. I did not think that
there remained so much of the old respect and affection between peasant
and proprietor, landlord and tenant."
In the present day, if a season of financial pressure sets in, people
shut up their country houses, let their shooting, cut themselves off
with a sigh of relief from all the unexciting duties and simple
pleasures of the Home, and take refuge from boredom in the delights of
London. In London life has no duties. Little is expected of one, and
nothing required.
But in old days, when people wished to economize, it was London that
they deserted. They sold the "Family Mansion" in Portland Place or Eaton
Square; and, if they revisited the glimpses of the social moon, they
took a furnished house for six weeks in the summer; the rest of the year
they spent in the country. This plan was a manifold saving. There was no
rent to pay, and only very small rates, for everyone knows that country
houses are shamefully under-assessed. Carriages did not require
re-painting every season, and no new clothes were wanted. As the ladies
in _Cranford_ said--"What can it matter what we wear here, where
everyone knows who we are?" The products of the Park, the Home Farm, the
hothouses, and the kitchen-garden kept the family supplied with food. A
brother-magnate staying at Beaudesert with the famous Lord Anglesey
waxed enthusiastic over the mutton, and, venturing on the privilege of
an old friendship, asked how much it cost him. "Cost me?" screamed the
hero. "Good Gad, it costs me nothing! I don't buy it. It's my own," and
he was beyond measure astonished when his statistical guest proved that
"his own" cost him about a guinea per pound. In another great house,
conducted on strictly economical lines, it was said that the very
numerous family were reared exclusively on rabbits and garden-stuff, and
that their enfeebled constitutions and dismal appearance in later life
were due to this ascetic regimen.
People were always hospitable in the country; but rural entertaining was
not a very costly business. The "three square meals and a snack," which
represent the minimum requirements of the present day, are a huge
development of the system which prevailed in my youth. Breakfast had
already grown from the tea and coffee, and rolls and eggs, which
Macaulay tells us were deemed sufficient at Holland House, to an affair
of covered dishes. Luncheon-parties were sometimes given--terrible
ceremonies which lasted from two to four; but the ordinary luncheon of
the family was a snack from the servants' joint or the children's rice
pudding; and five o'clock tea had only lately been invented. To
remember, as I just can, the Foundress[20] of that divine refreshment
seems like having known Stephenson or Jenner.
Dinner was substantial enough in all conscience, and the wine nearly as
heavy as the food. Imagine quenching one's thirst with sherry in the
dog-days! Yet so we did, till about half-way through dinner, and then,
on great occasions, a dark-coloured rill of champagne began to trickle
into the V-shaped glasses. At the epoch of cheese, port made its
appearance in company with home-brewed beer; and, as soon as the ladies
and the schoolboys departed, the men applied themselves, with much
seriousness of purpose, to the consumption of claret which was really
vinous.
Grace was said before and after dinner. There was a famous squire in
Hertfordshire whose love of his dinner was constantly at war with his
pietistic traditions. He always had his glass of sherry poured out
before he sat down to dinner, so that he might get at it without a
moment's delay. One night, in his generous eagerness, he upset the glass
just as he dropped into his seat at the end of grace, and the formula
ran on to an unexpected conclusion, thus: "For what we are going to
receive, the Lord make us truly thankful--D--n!" But if the
incongruities which attended grace before dinner were disturbing, still
more so were the solemnities of the close. Grace after dinner always
happened at the moment of loudest and most general conversation. For an
hour and a half people had been stuffing as if their lives depended on
it--"one feeding like forty." Out of the abundance of the mouth the
heart speaketh, and everyone was talking at once, and very loud. Perhaps
the venue was laid in a fox-hunting country, and then the air was full
of such voices as these: "Were you out with the Squire to-day?" "Any
sport?" "Yes, we'd rather a nice gallop." "Plenty of the animal about, I
hope?" "Well, I don't know. I believe that new keeper at Boreham Wood is
a vulpicide. I don't half like his looks." "What an infernal villain! A
man who would shoot a fox would poison his own grandmother." "Sh! Sh!"
"What's the matter?"
"_For what we have received_," &c.
"Do you know you've been talking at the top of your voice all the time
grace was going on?"
"Not really? I'm awfully sorry. But our host mumbles so, I never can
make out what he's saying."
"I can't imagine why people don't have grace after dessert. I know I'm
much more thankful for strawberry ice than for saddle of mutton."
And so on and so forth. On the whole, I am not sure that the abolition
of grace is a sign of moral degeneracy, but I note it as a social change
which I have seen.
In this kind of hospitality there was no great expense. People made very
little difference between their way of living when they were alone, and
their way of living when they had company. A visitor who wished to make
himself agreeable sometimes brought down a basket of fish or a barrel of
oysters from London; and, if one had no deer of one's own, the arrival
of a haunch from a neighbour's or kinsman's park was the signal for a
gathering of local gastronomers. And in matters other than meals life
went on very much the same whether you had friends staying with you or
whether you were alone. The guests drove and rode, and walked and shot,
according to their tastes and the season of the year. They were carried
off, more or less willingly, to see the sights of the
neighbourhood--ruined castles, restored cathedrals, famous views. In
summer there might be a picnic or a croquet-party; in winter a lawn-meet
or a ball. But all these entertainments were of the most homely and
inexpensive character. There was very little outlay, no fuss, and no
display.
But now an entirely different spirit prevails. People seem to have lost
the power of living quietly and happily in their country homes. They all
have imbibed the urban philosophy of George Warrington, who, when Pen
gushed about the country with its "long, calm days, and long calm
evenings," brutally replied, "Devilish long, and a great deal too calm.
I've tried 'em." People of that type desert the country simply because
they are bored by it. They feel with the gentleman who stood for Matthew
Arnold in _The New Republic_, and who, after talking about "liberal
air," "sedged brooks," and "meadow grass," admitted that it would be a
dreadful bore to have no other society than the Clergyman of the parish,
and no other topics of conversation than Justification by Faith and the
measles. They do not care for the country in itself; they have no eye
for its beauty, no sense of its atmosphere, no memory for its
traditions. It is only made endurable to them by sport and gambling and
boisterous house-parties; and when, from one cause or another, these
resources fail, they are frankly bored, and long for London. They are no
longer content, as our fathers were, to entertain their friends with
hospitable simplicity. So profoundly has all society been vulgarized by
the worship of the Golden Calf that, unless people can vie with alien
millionaires in the sumptuousness with which they "do you"--delightful
phrase,--they prefer not to entertain at all. An emulous ostentation has
killed hospitality. All this is treason to a high ideal.
Whatever tends to make the Home beautiful, attractive, romantic--to
associate it with the ideas of pure pleasure and high duty--to connect
it not only with all that was happiest, but also with all that was best,
in early years--whatever fulfils these purposes purifies the fountain of
national life. A home, to be perfectly a home, should "incorporate
tradition, and prolong the reign of the dead." It should animate those
who dwell in it to virtue and beneficence, by reminding them of what
others did, who went before them in the same place, and lived amid the
same surroundings. Thank God, such a home was mine.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] Henry Scott Holland.
[20] Anna Maria, Duchess of Bedford, died in 1857.
VII
LONDON
"O'er royal London, in luxuriant May,
While lamps yet twinkled, dawning crept the day.
Home from the hell the pale-eyed gamester steals;
Home from the ball flash jaded Beauty's wheels;
From fields suburban rolls the early cart;
As rests the Revel, so awakes the Mart."
_The New Timon_.
When I was penning, in the last chapter, my perfectly sincere praises of
the country, an incongruous reminiscence suddenly froze the genial
current of my soul. Something, I know not what, reminded me of the
occasion when Mrs. Bardell and her friends made their memorable
expedition to the "Spaniards Tea-Gardens" at Hampstead. "How sweet the
country is, to be sure!" sighed Mrs. Rogers; "I almost wish I lived in
it always." To this Mr. Raddle, full of sympathy, rejoined: "For lone
people as have got nobody to care for them, or as have been hurt in
their mind, or that sort of thing, the country is all very well. The
country for a wounded spirit, they say." But the general verdict of the
company was that Mrs. Rogers was "a great deal too lively and
sought-after, to be content with the country"; and, on second thoughts,
the lady herself acquiesced. I feel that my natural temperament had
something in common with that of Mrs. Rogers. "My spirit" (and my body
too) had been "wounded" by Oxford, and the country acted as both a
poultice and a tonic. But my social instinct was always strong, and
could not be permanently content with "a lodge in the vast wilderness"
of Woburn Park, or dwell for ever in the "boundless contiguity of shade"
which obliterates the line between Beds and Bucks.
I was very careful to observe the doctor's prescription of total
idleness, but I found it was quite as easily obeyed in London as in the
country. For three or four months then, of every year, I forsook the
Home which just now I praised so lavishly, and applied myself,
circumspectly indeed but with keen enjoyment, to the pleasures of the
town.
"_One look back_"--What was London like in those distant days, which
lie, say, between 1876 and 1886?
Structurally and visibly, it was a much uglier place than now. The
immeasurable wastes of Belgravian stucco; the "Baker Streets and Harley
Streets and Wimpole Streets, resembling each other like a large family
of plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for their
respectable parents,"[21] were still unbroken by the red brick and
terra-cotta, white stone and green tiles, of our more æsthetic age. The
flower-beds in the Parks were less brilliant, for that "Grand old
gardener," Mr. Harcourt, to whom we are so much indebted, was still at
Eton. Piccadilly had not been widened. The Arches at Hyde Park Corner
had not been re-arranged. Glorious Whitehall was half occupied by shabby
shops; and labyrinths of slums covered the sites of Kingsway and
Shaftesbury Avenue.
But, though London is now a much prettier place than it was then, I
doubt if it is as socially magnificent. The divinity which hedged Queen
Victoria invested her occasional visits to her Capital with a glamour
which it is difficult to explain to those who never felt it. Of beauty,
stature, splendour, and other fancied attributes of Queenship, there was
none; but there was a dignity which can neither be described nor
imitated; and, when her subjects knelt to kiss her hand at Drawing
Room, or Levee, or Investiture, they felt a kind of sacred awe which no
other presence could inspire.
It was, of course, one of the elements of Queen Victoria's mysterious
power, that she was so seldom seen in London. In the early days of her
widowhood she had resigned the command of Society into other hands; and
social London, at the time of which I write, was dominated by the Prince
of Wales. Just at this moment,[22] when those who knew him well are
genuinely mourning the loss of King Edward VII., it would scarcely
become me to describe his influence on Society when first I moved in it.
So I borrow the words of an anonymous writer, who, at the time at which
his book was published, was generally admitted to know the subjects of
which he discoursed.
"The Social Ruler of the English realm is the Prince of Wales. I call
him the Social Ruler, because, in all matters pertaining to society and
to ceremonial, he plays vicariously the part of the Sovereign. The
English monarchy may be described at the present moment as being in a
state of commission. Most of its official duties are performed by the
Queen. It is the Prince of Wales who transacts its ceremonial business,
and exhibits to the masses the embodiment of the monarchical principle.
If there were no Marlborough House, there would be no Court in London.
The house of the Prince of Wales may be an unsatisfactory substitute for
a Court, but it is the only substitute which exists, and it is the best
which, under the circumstances, is attainable.
"In his attitude to English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolent
despot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing,
and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so in
the right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and of
these conditions he holds that he is the best, and, indeed, an
infallible, judge.
"The Prince of Wales is the Bismarck of London society: he is also its
microcosm. All its idiosyncrasies are reflected in the person of His
Royal Highness. Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations, its solicitudes,
its susceptibilities, its philosophy, its way of looking at life and of
appraising character--of each of these is the Heir-Apparent the mirror.
If a definition of Society were sought for, I should be inclined to give
it as the social area of which the Prince of Wales is personally
cognizant, within the limits of which he visits, and every member of
which is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His Royal
Highness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be in
imminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as the
universe itself, were one of the great laws of nature to be suspended
for five minutes."
Of the loved and gracious lady who is now Queen Mother, I may trust
myself to speak. I first saw her at Harrow Speeches, when I was a boy of
18, and from that day to this I have admired her more than any woman
whom I have ever seen. To the flawless beauty of the face there was
added that wonderful charm of innocence and unfading youth which no
sumptuosities of dress and decoration could conceal. To see the Princess
in Society was in those days one of my chief delights, and the sight
always suggested to my mind the idea of a Puritan Maiden set in the
midst of Vanity Fair.
We have seen that the centre of Society at the period which I am
describing was Marlborough House, and that centre was encircled by rings
of various compass, the widest extending to South Kensington in the one
direction, and Portman Square in the other. The innermost ring was
composed of personal friends, and, as personal friendship belongs to
private life, we must not here discuss it. The second ring was composed
of the great houses--"The Palaces," as Pennialinus[23] calls them,--the
houses, I mean, which are not distinguished by numbers, but are called
"House," with a capital H. And first among these I must place Grosvenor
House. As I look back over all the entertainments which I have ever seen
in London, I can recall nothing to compare with a Ball at Grosvenor
House, in the days of Hugh, Duke of Westminster, and his glorious wife.
No lesser epithet than "glorious" expresses the combination of beauty,
splendour, and hospitable enjoyment, which made Constance, Duchess of
Westminster, so unique a hostess. Let me try to recall the scene.
Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a sudden
pause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Prince
and Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageant
worth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostess
usher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with the
canvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the fun
begins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the
tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sèvres china
in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!'
exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from
their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How
safe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"[24]
Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable
interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than
the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of
Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in
proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow
_scagliola_ might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is
marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the
highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar
feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking,
and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was
rather that of a mob than of a party.