1904-1905.
I am inclined to take the autumn of 1904 as the end of the first clearly
marked stage in the Twins’ lives after leaving Eton. It was a transition
period in which both were trying to decide what they wanted. Francis
had not yet found the military groove best suited to him, but he now
knew what it was, and he was on the eve of acquiring a true scientific
interest in his profession. Rivy, having played about in the City for
several years, had acquired a good deal of miscellaneous knowledge,
which fell far short, unfortunately, of a rigorous business training.
But he had learned one thing—the value of education—and he was very busy
making up leeway. Indeed, he was educating himself apparently rather
for Parliament than for business, for all his models were orators and
statesmen. Both, too, after experimenting in many sports, had reached the
conclusion that polo was the game for them, and were laboriously studying
to excel.
Francis in India was wildly excited at the news of Rivy’s visit, and
sketched the most far-reaching programme. The whole sporting and
educational wealth of Hindustan must be at his brother’s disposal. Rivy
hoped to arrive before Christmas and stay several months, and this was
Francis’s scheme:—
“Go to Calcutta. Stay with Curzon as Viceroy’s guest. Deuce
of a dog! Just like going to England and staying with the
King. In mornings see Calcutta trade. Afternoon, racing; see
hundreds of pals. Get a little pig-sticking (too early). Then
go to Cawnpore—biggest trade centre in India. Then do Agra,
Delhi, and on to Pindi; see F. G.; on to Peshawur and Khyber
Pass. Across to Quetta and see other end of frontier. Back,
play a little polo, perhaps Sialkote tournament. Go to Lucknow;
play in open tournament in Civil Service Cup race week. Pig
stick; arrange tiger shoot. If possible (doubtful), you have
time to go to Mysore for an elephant. This tiger-shooting and
pig-sticking will take you into March. Come to Patiala. If I
play for 9th I shall be there practising for Inter-Regimental.
Come to Meerut Inter-Regimental week. End of March, compete
in Kadir Cup—pig-sticking, best sport in the world. If you
only let me know in time, can buy you three good horses. Train
to Bombay; arrange to see trade and town. Tip F. G., get on
steamer, and leave about 1st April, having had best time in the
world.”
This delirious programme was not to be fulfilled. Rivy travelled through
Natal and the Transvaal, disliked Johannesburg, visited his brother
John’s copper mine at Messina, north of Pietersburg, and finally reached
Rhodesia, where he had a little shooting and began to enjoy himself.
“Its crab is that it is full of English gentlemen instead of Jew boys;
consequently everything is run very much _à la amateur_ instead of
professional.” But on 24th November he sat down in Buluwayo to write
Francis a melancholy letter, which is worth quoting for the light it
casts on Rivy’s mind.
“I have to write a very sad letter to tell you that I cannot
come to India after all. The cursed City seems to have turned
round, and a small boom to be in progress. The result is that
the Charter Trust want me home.... I have thoroughly thought
the position over the last five days, and, greatly against my
will, decided to return.
“These are the arguments:—
“In favour of staying my full time in Rhodesia and then going
to India:
“(1.) I am comfortably off, and at present don’t want more
money. I am far more anxious to be a clever and common-sense
man with sufficient money than an ordinary rich ‘City man’;
and so it is far better for me to travel and see the world and
return to England in four months, which, after all, is not much
time to lose, when one has the remainder of one’s life to spend
in business.
“(2.) It is far easier when you are away from home to stay
away, than it is when you are at home to get leave to go away.
“(3.) I went straight into the City from Eton, with the
intention of travelling when I was twenty-three or twenty-four.
“(4.) I urgently want to see you and talk with you, Mate.
“(5.) You have taken enormous trouble and expense on my
behalf, and bought ponies, and I have bought a dashed rifle for
£60 from John which I don’t want.
“(6.) Clinton Dawkins has sent me letters which I suppose would
help me to go anywhere.
“Arguments in favour of curtailing my stay here and abandoning
India:
“(1.) I have worked hard for five years in the City with the
idea of making business my career; and to miss ‘good times’
when you have been through the ‘bad times’ and learned fairly
thoroughly your trade is the same thing as a soldier studying
soldiering during a long peace and then not going to the war
when the chance comes.
“(2.) The idea of my travelling in America and Africa has been,
besides getting a good education, to learn the opportunities
that offer in the countries, to turn them to some good. I have
already lost a good chance by Americans having done well (and
especially the railways I saw) since I have been in Africa.
“(3.) It has been dashed good of the Charter Trust to let me go
away two years running (though without a salary) and see the
world.
“(4.) In India I should be enjoying myself, and should learn
nothing of business.
“(5.) There is a possibility of John and Arthur floating a
Copper Co. within the next six months. Having learned all about
the copper, I should look an uncommon fool if it was brought
out and everybody made money except you and me, who were
playing polo in India.
“With these opinions, I think it is my duty to chuck my
pleasure and great desire and return at once to business. O
my God, Mate, I am sick about it though, and fear you will be
greatly disappointed.”
So by the end of the year Rivy was back in London, full of large schemes
of reading. In South Africa he had ploughed his way through Lecky’s
_History_, and Morley’s _Burke_ had whetted his interest in that great
writer. So as soon as he got home he purchased Burke in twelve volumes,
and Butler’s _Sermons_, this latter on the ground that it was a book
“that Chatham, Pitt, and Gladstone studied.” He was very grateful for any
advice which gave him a clue to help him through the labyrinth of his
education. “Hugh Cecil told some one that every day of his life he reads
a good speech and tries to reason out all the original ideas which must
have brought the thoughts into the speaker’s mind, and studies how they
begin and end their speeches.” Lord Hugh was now by way of becoming his
exemplar in many things—“an absolute clinker and brilliant in every way;
he makes one roar with laughter, quotes Shakespeare, etc., and makes most
clever jokes.”
In January 1905 he stayed at Hatfield, and wrote to Francis a long
account of his visit. The Lyttons, Lady Mabel Palmer (Countess Grey),
Miss Maud Lyttelton (Mrs. Hugh Wyndham), the Harry Whites, Lady Edward
Cecil, Lord Hugh, and George Peel were there.
“After dinner acted charades. They chose most difficult
words—in fact, names of people that my education had never
reached—yet Hugh Cecil guessed every one.... They have a most
magnificent library, and a chapel bang in the centre of the
house; indeed, to go from one end of the house to the other
you have to pass through the chapel, only the altar being
consecrated.... In a quarter of an hour one learns history by
simply walking through these rooms.... It seems to me that
people like the Cecils simply cannot help being clever; in
each room are pictures of Prime Ministers, etc. Four of their
ancestors have been Prime Ministers!... They fairly do teach
their children. The Salisbury boy, aged eleven, has read nearly
all the family papers. They have a little boy three years old,
and I assure you he knows far more English poetry than me.”
Francis, too, was not without his taste of society. He went to Calcutta
for the Viceroy’s Cup, saw the races from the Cooch Behar box, and dined
with Lord Kitchener. “Bachelor dinner,” he wrote, “and played pool
afterwards. Met Hood,[6] who is in command of a battleship here. He’s a
proper good chap. Didn’t care a damn for Lord K.; bellowed at him as if
he was Jones. Such a change after frightened soldiers.”
Rivy’s devotion to duty was to be rewarded. On his return to the City
he found that he could be spared for a couple of months, and on 3rd
February he was in the Dover train on his way to India, “studying Burke
on American Taxation.”
Rivy’s Indian trip was one of the most successful expeditions that ever
fell to a young man’s lot. Nothing happened to mar its perfection, and
he returned in three months, having had his fill of every form of Indian
sport, and having won the blue ribbon of a game which he had never tried
before. He picked up Waldorf Astor at Brindisi, and the two of them were
deathly sea-sick on the voyage to Port Said. “Went to dinner, found the
captain and one other out of forty passengers, ate three courses, and
was sick between each,” is an entry in his diary. He arrived at Bombay
on 17th February, and on the 19th found Francis at Bareilly. Francis had
grown a moustache, which just made the Twins distinguishable.
For the next month Rivy was the intelligent tourist bent on seeing as
many of the sights as were consistent with polo, pig-sticking, and the
persevering study of Burke. He went first to Agra; then to Meerut,
where he played a good deal of polo and had his first experience of
pig-sticking, riding Francis’s horse “Barmaid”; then to Umballa to stay
with Eustace Crawley; then to Patiala, where the Settlement Commissioner,
Major Young, instructed him in Indian problems, and he had a little
pig-sticking; then to Peshawur by way of Umballa and Lahore. He was
back in Lucknow by 17th March, staying with Henry Guest, and then on to
Benares. At Bareilly he went to a “pig-sticking week” with Francis,
Henry Guest, and Lord Charles Fitzmaurice, and had four days of it. His
diary records his disappointment: “Most of us came to the conclusion
that even if the pig were there it could not be compared to fox-hunting.
One wants to find pig every fifteen minutes to make it really amusing.
Another drawback to my mind is that when a party goes out, if one part
enjoys it the other members have probably had no rides, and so been bored
to death. Charlie Fitzmaurice was very fed up.” After that he returned to
Agra to see the Pearl Mosque again, and then to Delhi, where he studied
the battlefield of the Ridge. On 26th March he and Francis started for
the ground of the Kadir Cup meeting, which that year was held in the
Sherpur country.
The Kadir Cup is the Derby of the sport of pig-sticking, and is run off
each spring in a selected area of jungle. Rivy had been first introduced
to that noble game exactly twenty-three days previously, so his boldness
in competing may be likened to that of a man who takes on the mastership
of a famous pack of hounds after a few weeks in the hunting field, or
a novice who leaves the jumps of a riding school to ride in the Grand
National. I quote the tale of his exploit exactly as he wrote it in his
diary. The field was enormous, there being over a hundred competitors.
“_26th March, Sunday._
“Got to camp about 12.30. Most delightful situation. Generals
Mahon[7] and Douglas Haig there, and we made many pals. At
5 p.m. F. G. and I went out riding and schooled the horses,
nearly slaying two wretched cattle in the attempt. Found a sow
and galloped after her. A jolly evening, and to bed early.
“_27th March, Monday._
“Breakfast at 6.45. The first round of the Kadir was run off.
I drew General Mahon and Douglas Haig, and rode ‘Cocos’ first.
We were in the third heat, and got away after being one hour on
the line. I was first on to the pig, being some way in front;
but my horse slipped up on the flat, and so General Haig got
the spear. Francis made all the running in his heat, and won.
We then rode on an elephant and watched the remaining heats.
“F. G. was beaten on position in his second heat by Barrett.
He was first on the pig, and did most of the riding; but it
jinked, and Barrett got the spear. I was on the line for nearly
three hours in my second heat. We had three false starts, and
lost our pig in some very heavy goul after a short ride. At
last we got away, with every one shouting at different pig from
the elephants. Haig (again drawing the same heat) and I got on
to a very fast sow, and had a heavy gallop; and I speared her,
only to find we had gone after the wrong one, and the heat was
declared off!
“_28th March, Tuesday._
“The line started at 8. Our heat was first run off. We were
slipped up to an old pig, and I, getting up to him first, soon
speared. Two hours after I had to run off the next round, in
rather a hot heat of Last and Kennard. We got a good start to
a fast pig. ‘Barmaid’ went like a gun, and soon got a long
lead, and I got first spear. F. G. drew White and Learmouth. He
rode ‘Recluse’ and cut out most of the work; but the pig jinked
right back, and let in White, who got the spear.
“_29th March, Wednesday._
“A red-letter day for me. The line started at 8.30 for the
semi-finals. Three heats were left in—two threes and a four. I
was in the four heat, composed of Barrett (15th Hussars), Last,
Neilson (4th Hussars), and myself. We were quite two and a half
hours on the line, and had three false starts. At last we got
away to a jinking pig. Last and I did most of the riding, with
Barrett some way behind. Last nearly got a spear once, and we
bumped unavoidably. The pig then jinked right back to Barrett,
who was about to spear him, when I came up with a rush. The pig
jinked across my front; he speared him very lightly behind,
while I ran him through and broke my spear. The umpire said he
would give it to Barrett if he could show blood, but luckily
for me he couldn’t. It would have been bad luck for me if I had
lost this spear, as I did most of the riding. So I qualified
for the final. ‘Barmaid’ went wonderfully, but got rather beat,
as it was a severe heat.
“On returning to the line I was met by F. G. and General Mahon.
F. G. then became stud groom. We took ‘Barmaid’ and let her
stand in the river, and then she had three good rolls in the
sand. After an hour’s rest we started for the final—Pritchard
(2nd Lancers) (on ‘Toffee,’ the horse which F. G. tried to get
me for £100, but Pritchard would only sell ‘Barmaid’ for £40),
Ritchie of the 15th, and myself. We soon got a good start on a
pig, and I was on him first and drew some way to the front, and
just got a spear as he jumped into a nullah. The mare jumped
right over him and knocked the spear, which was smashed, out of
my hand. The pig carried my spear some yards. It was a grand
feeling as the spear ran into him to think I’d won the Kadir.
Pritchard naturally appealed, as I’d dropped the spear, but the
committee upheld the umpire’s decision.
“In the afternoon the Hog-hunter’s Cup, a point-to-point over
three and a half miles, was run, and F. G. won easily on
‘Cocos,’ going a line of his own the whole way. This rather
made people stare, our carrying off the two chief events of
the day. F. G. and I then went out and found the pig killed in
the final which had been lost, and hacked thirteen miles to
Gujraula and caught the train for Calcutta.... I went round to
the Viceregal Lodge, and found Nipper Poynter as A.D.C. there.
I shall never forget the look of astonishment on his face when
I told him I’d won the Kadir.”
So much for the interloping Rivy’s performance in a “game he did not
understand.” The history of the Kadir Cup, and indeed of Indian sport,
hardly contains a parallel. It was the first time that the Cup had left
India. He spent the next few weeks shooting at Cooch Behar with the
Maharajah and his sons, and had a variety of sport—tiger, rhino, and
leopard. On the whole he thought Indian shooting overrated. “It is too
civilized. ‘To have been tiger-shooting’ always sounded in my ears the
same as to have gone through a battle and run great risks of one’s life.
It is not so. The meanest, most diminutive person might as easily shoot
twenty tigers as the boldest and the fittest. Yet it is worth a very
long journey to see the immense jungle, the elephants, and all the wild
and delightful surroundings of the Indian forests.” He also reflected a
good deal on the difficult question of the education of Indian princes
in England, and came to the conclusion that Lord Curzon’s policy of
discouragement was right. On 22nd April he bade a sad farewell to Francis
at Bombay, and on 5th May he was dining with Harry Rawlinson, Lord Lovat,
and his brother Arthur in London.
[Illustration: THE TWINS AFTER THE KADIR CUP.]
Rivy spent most of May in his annual training with the Bucks Yeomanry.
In that month of gorgeous weather he greatly enjoyed himself, and in his
spare hours he started a polo club in the regiment. For the rest his
main interest that summer was polo, and he and his brothers Cecil and
Arthur played steadily all the season at Hurlingham and Roehampton. To
tell the story of those matches would weary the reader, for of all games
polo is the worst subject for the resurrectionist. An arid chronicle
of strokes and goals achieved or missed cannot reproduce the glamour
of those delectable days. A young man living in London and regularly
playing polo recaptures the delights of school time. He is in the pink
of bodily health, and, as a background to his work in office or chambers
or barracks, has that happy world of greensward and glossy ponies, where
of an afternoon and a Saturday he pursues a sport which combines the
delicate expertness of the tennis court and the swift excitement of the
hunting field. Rivy had a most successful season. “My record,” he wrote
in September, “is certainly not bad, considering I have only played
for three years. I have won the Novice’s Cup, the Junior Championship
(besides being in the final twice), the Roehampton Cup twice, and the
Rugby Open Cup, besides most of the London Handicap Tournaments.”
In May Francis attained the desire of his heart and joined the 9th
Lancers. Just before leaving he had become very keen on his work with
the 60th, and was busy lecturing to his company. “By Jove,” he wrote,
“soldiering is interesting when you train the men yourself.... I think I
know Clive nearly by heart, and if only I could get hold of a picture of
him, I could imagine him walking about. I lectured the men on him, which
they liked very much.” At last came the moment of parting.
“I left the regiment on Wednesday, and dined on Tuesday as a
guest at a small farewell dinner. I am bound to say when the
time came I was most awfully sorry to go. It seemed so funny to
think that with the morrow I would be no more a Rifleman, and
I fear for a while I became like Amelia and could not restrain
the bitter tear. I think they were all sorry I left. It is a
consolation to think I leave behind me no regrets, as I have
never had words with any one.”
A few days later:—
“Here I am, R. G., at last a cavalry soldier, and as happy as
any millionaire or cheery bankrupt (whichever of the two is
the happiest). I am already attaining the cavalry air—slap
my leg, wear spurs with no end of a rattle, and discuss the
infantry rather like we Etonians used to talk of the boys at
Westminster!... Of course, R. G., I know that I join on most
favourable conditions, as all the men and N.C.O.’s have heard
about the polo, and about the second day after my arrival every
London paper contained an enormous picture of R. G. This has
been a great topic here, as all the regiment think it is _me_!
“To-day the farrier-corporal of my troop, who has been shoeing
my ponies, said they were the finest lot of cattle he had seen.
Then says he, ‘You’ve got a terrible wonderful name for polo
in the regiment, sir.’ So you see I have joined with trumpets
sounding and drums beating, and already I find that my chief
difficulty is not from want of feeling at home, but from being
too much at home to keep a back seat. However, I mean to keep a
back seat until I know my job and have got the measure of all
officers.”
The Ninth at the time were commanded by Claude Willoughby, who had
married Francis’s old friend, Miss Sybil Murray of Loch Carron. Francis’s
squadron leader was Lord Frederick Blackwood. The change woke all his
military ambitions. “I am going to try, now I am settled down, for two
stages—(1) to be adjutant of this regiment; (2) to go to the Staff
College.... I find my four years with the 60th have been an invaluable
experience, as I have that confidence which all possess who think they
have been taught in a better school. Though I have been here only a
fortnight, I find there are several, who are supposed to be teaching me,
that I could teach. But I am doing my utmost to keep my mouth shut and
learn all I can. The N.C.O.’s and men are first class—a much better class
than the infantry. Of course I find the riding chaps superior in the same
way as we fox-hunters think the huntsman superior to the gamekeeper. If
you can’t grasp my meaning, it would take me so much time to explain
that you would become weary, so I will leave you in darkness. The
difference between the cavalry and the infantry soldier is the same as
the difference between Tom Firr or Thatcher and the leading gamekeeper,
or between the huntsman of the O.B.H. and Tom Boon. Both, of course, do
their work equally well, but one is the nicer to deal with.” And at the
end he becomes humbler. “By Jove, R. G., I have never appreciated before
the good fortune and kindness we receive from the Almighty. Here am I, a
good rider and very fond of it, yet I ride only the best horses. But some
of the men! A man is given a horse known to be next door to impossible.
Some cannot ride, and are frightened to death. Yet they must ride over
the jumps horses that cannot jump, pull and probably run away.”
Francis shared a house at Rawal Pindi with Lord F. Blackwood, and
boasted of its comfort, its quiet, and the opulence of its chintzes. He
compared it to its advantage with the Bath Club, where Rivy had now gone
to live. But in July he found a crumpled leaf in his bed of roses. “R.
G., you made ‘in theory’ to me, some years ago, the observation that
it was in the end better to live by oneself and not share a house with
a pal. What you said in theory I have been through in practice. Old
Freddie has just returned. The first thing I spied among his kit was a
gramophone. He turns it on morning, noon, and night. It is quite comical.
Old Freddie is one of the best, but he sits, at the age of thirty, the
whole day listening to the same old tune, the same old story, the same
old ‘Bull and Bush.’ ... I am trying to work in spite of the heat,
Freddie and his gramophone.”
He worked to some purpose. “I must say,” he wrote in August, “I like
working far more than anything else when I am at it.” He stuck steadily
to his books, and I find him offering to send Rivy “a clinking book of
notes on strategy of Jap. War, _stolen from Lord K._” He was devoted to
the Commander-in-Chief, from whom he purloined books. Reggie Barnes[8]
told him of Lord Kitchener’s methods of work—information which he passed
on to Rivy. “He is up at 6 every day, and writes till 8.30; then on after
breakfast till 2, and then two hours in afternoon. All his correspondence
is done by his A.D.C.’s, who typewrite for him—either Fitzgerald,
Victor (Brooke), or Reggie; he never gives anything to a clerk, so that
nothing leaks out.” In October Lord Kitchener lunched with the Ninth. “I
think he likes us awfully. His first remark is always, ‘Hullo! how are
the Ninth? Been killing any more black men?’” In the Curzon-Kitchener
controversy Francis, of course, took the soldier’s side and upheld the
military against the civil arm; but he had a great regard for the new
Viceroy, Lord Minto—“a sporting fellow who has ridden three times in
the Grand National, and one of the few living who has broken his neck
steeplechasing.” At the end of October he had the pleasure of informing
Rivy that he had come out top in the first part of his examination, and
had won a certificate of distinction.
Upon this Francis, who had suffered a good deal from Rivy’s scathing
comments on his lectures, especially the celebrated one on Clive, thought
it was time for him to adopt the rôle of mentor. So he thus addresses his
brother:—
“Now for business. What good are you doing in the City?
“I have been thinking about you and your future prospects
for some time, and I have quite come to the opinion that you
are wasted hunting for money. In England people are very
narrow-minded, and the ruling idea (especially in our family)
is that one must be rich.
“I am beginning to think otherwise. To be rich is very nice,
but you are no happier, and you do your country no good.
Both C. and A. have been successful, but beyond buying extra
hunters, deer forests, and houses, to me they have not attained
a very high position. I would rather you chucked the City. I
think you should enter Parliament and work your way to the
Cabinet; I would far rather you succeeded in politics than in
the City.
“You know Hugh Cecil, Milner, and Co. They should all give you
advice. I hope you will think this over, and that your thoughts
will be guided rather by the amount you will help the nation
than by the amount with which you will fill your pocket.
“As we stand at present we have not done badly:—
“The Uncle General.
“Uncle Harry Admiral.
“First Cousin Jack Maxwell General.
“Harold Colonel.
“R. G. Winner of Kadir.
“F. G. ” ” Championship.
“Cecil 2nd in National.
“It is about time the City chaps gingered up! Chuck the City
and become Minister of War, and I will get on the Army Council
to help you.”
To this flattering injunction Rivy replied:—
“You discuss in your letter my future. I, oddly enough, have
been thinking this over for some months. In fact, ever since
I’ve travelled and read I have more and more seen that money
is not everything, and my feeling has been politics and not
business. But I am convinced of one thing—that the greatest
mistake one can make is to go into politics without being
exceedingly well furnished, having determined absolutely on
your principles, and feeling that you are prepared to back them
up with all earnestness, and, so to speak, with your life. Now,
many people enter Parliament as Tories because their fathers
were Tories, and then find, after some years, that they did
not know what Tories and Liberals were, and that their whole
sentiments are really Liberal; just as you entered the infantry
because your uncle was there, and found later you were born for
cavalry.
“I really inwardly don’t know whether I am Tory or Liberal,
Free Trader or Protectionist, and so I have decided to stay
on in the City and earn a good living, but shall not do more
work than I find necessary there. I have been fearfully slack
about business in the last six weeks, and read history whenever
I got a chance. In this way I hope in about five years to
have thoroughly mastered the various opinions and principles
of our political leaders, and traced through history how
those opinions came to be formed, and discovered whether I
agree with them. At the same time I shall have my business,
which will, therefore, make my reading a hobby, and I shall
be building up some capital, and shall, if I want to, enter
politics well furnished and keen and prepared to join in
the contest; whereas so many people who start politics at
twenty-five are bored with them at thirty-three. Chamberlain
never entered till he was forty.... I shall gradually try to
get to know fellows of the Hugh Cecil class, but I want them
to see me as an earnest, hard-working chap, not as a stupid
stay-at-country-houses-go-to-balls sort of idiot.”
Rivy certainly read all that year with praiseworthy persistence. He
seems to have found novels a toughish proposition, and generally notes
in his diary how he set his teeth and plugged away till he finished
one. For example: “I have finished _Vanity Fair_. Read like a Trojan
for four days. It is a good book. I never thought Rebecca would turn
out such a hot ’un.” Burke, on the other hand, had power to make him
forget time and place, as witness this entry: “Wednesday I was to have
gone to a ball, but after dinner began reading my Burke, and am ashamed
to say that I read till 2.45 a.m.” In a letter to Francis, in which
he made hay of the prose style of that laborious soldier, he bids him
have recourse to Burke, “who, though elaborate, is the finest example
of the English language.” Rivy, indeed, about this time had a curious
passion for serious writers, and does not seem to have needed the work on
“Concentration” with which Mrs. Cornwallis-West presented him. At Eaton,
“where there is a fine but ugly library that no one uses but me,” he read
_Venus and Adonis_, which he considered “delightful, and fine English.”
He studied the _Iliad_ in Pope’s translation, largely during working
hours in his City office. “It is a first-class book, full of descriptions
of battles, great orations of generals, both before and during a battle,
and wonderful deeds of the heroes interested, who slay everybody.” He
copied extracts from Bacon’s _Essays_ to send to Francis to point his
lectures to his troops. He considered Morley’s _Life of Gladstone_ “a
delightful book” (an epithet almost as unexpected as Raymond Asquith’s
answer to the stock question as to whether he had read that formidable
work; his reply was, “Often”). At the end of December he mentions that
in the previous three months he had got through “history up to 1860;
_Vanity Fair_; Homer’s _Iliad_ (five volumes); _Grenville Papers_ (three
volumes); _Life of Macaulay_; a fair sprinkling of Burke’s speeches and
his _Life_ by Morley; Shakespeare’s _Merchant of Venice_ (twice); S.’s
_Julius Cæsar_; _Europe and Asia_, by Townsend; _Oliver Twist_; a little
of _Childe Harold_; a book on Napoleon’s strategy.”
In addition to this miscellaneous reading, he discovered a restless
interest in military history, and worked as if he had had the Staff
College in prospect. All during the autumn and winter he was coached by
Dr. Miller Maguire in the strategy and tactics of famous campaigns—an
arrangement in which Francis joined later, and which continued right up
to the outbreak of the Great War.
But the “earnest, hard-working chap” was not averse to the country-house
visits and balls from which we have seen that he desired his name to be
dissociated. On 7th June he writes:—
“Went to a first-class show at Londonderry House. Talk about
the Patiala jewels! One would not have noticed them. The King
and Queen and King Alfonso of Spain were there. I got hold of
Sybil Grey, who is just back from Canada, and we pushed our
way through the people; stared at kings and queens, elbowed
princes, jostled dukes, stepped on marquises, ignored earls
and generals, and as for commoners we treated them like dirt.
It really was capital fun. I found innumerable pals, and had a
lot of chaff. The King amused me very much. He is a grand old
John Bull, and had a broad grin on his face from beginning to
end. The King of Spain is a nice-looking young man of nineteen.
I met Miss Whitelaw Reid. Her father has just come over as
American Ambassador. He has taken Dorchester House, and I
fancy pays about £8,000 a year for it. She said, ‘I have not
yet explored the whole house, but I guess you could just slide
grandly down those stairs on a tea-tray.’”
On 9th June:—
“I met Harry Dalmeny, who amused me very much. What an
extraordinary chap he is! Everybody who plays county cricket
sweats blood and goes to bed about 10. Not so Harry. He went to
a ball on Friday night and stayed till 3 in the morning. Next
day he played against Essex, and knocked up sixty-five runs in
about an hour.”
On 15th July he was staying at Buckhurst with the Robin Bensons.
“We had a jolly party—Sybil Grey, Miss Brodrick, Paul Phipps,
Geoffrey Howard, Douglas Loch and his new wife, and Mr. and
Mrs. Asquith, the latter a most charming lady. I asked her how
Asquith spent his time, to which she replied by going into the
minutest details. She told me he earned £5,000 a year at the
Bar (I always thought he earned about £14,000), but he is
prohibited by his Parliamentary duties from undertaking certain
cases. She told me he lived entirely by rules. He gets up at
8.45, and is at his chambers or in the Courts by 10.30, and
works there till 5. He then goes to the House of Commons and
stays till 8, when he returns for dinner; he then goes back
to the House till 12. After that, regularly for every day of
his life, he reads for two hours. Supposing he goes to a party
and does not return till 2, he still sits up and reads for two
hours, either his briefs or some serious book, and finishes up
with a novel in bed. In discussing certain people she told me
that Arthur Balfour was not very well educated in the ordinary
sense. I wonder what she would say about you and me, F. G. She
would probably compare our brains with an Irishman’s whisky
bottle—empty.”
In August he went to the Westminsters at Eaton for a polo week. The
house he thought “the most enormous place I was ever in, but dreadfully
ugly, just like the Natural History Museum with two wings added to it.”
“G. Wyndham (War Minister) came over every day and brought Hugh Cecil.
The latter was much interested, and said he ‘admired the bravery of
the players, while he sat like a miserable weed in a tent.’” In the
beginning of September he was in Ireland, staying with Lord Grenfell at
the Royal Hospital, and playing a good deal of polo. After that he went
to Ashby St. Ledgers to stay with Ivor Guest, where the conversation
must have been curious. “Ivor started an argument after dinner which
continued for about three and a half hours on: ‘Granted that one’s time
is limited, is it better to read all the masterpieces once and then
read them through again, rather than read the masterpieces and then the
sidelights referring to them?’ Ivor argued that a man would do best to
read the masterpieces only, whereas Winston and Lytton said it was better
to read other books as well, so as to check the masterpieces, for many
people learned far more from outside books than from the very highest
authorities.” There is also this note: “Winston Churchill is undoubtedly
exceedingly able, but if you mention a subject to him he instantly must
go into an oration. We talked of the Curzon-Kitchener methods. He went
into an oration about the Commander-in-Chief being an autocrat, and its
danger, etc. By-and-by I discovered that neither Winston nor Ivor had
read a word of any of the Blue Books on the subject.” From Ashby St.
Ledgers he went to Polesden Lacey to stay with Sir Clinton Dawkins, and
there he met Lord Milner, who was gradually taking place along with Lord
Hugh Cecil as the chief object of his admiration in public life.
In pursuance of the political training which he had laid down for
himself, Rivy began that autumn to practise speaking. There was then
a great revival of interest in politics in England. Mr. Balfour’s
Government was known to be on the eve of resignation, and everywhere
caucuses were girding their loins and getting ready for a general
election. In spite of his cross-bench professions, Rivy found himself
ranging with the Unionists. Most of his friends were of that persuasion;
he was an ardent Imperialist; he seems to have been a convinced, though
imperfectly informed, Tariff Reformer; and he had strong views on
that question of Chinese Labour in South Africa which was to play so
sinister a part at the polls. His first adventure in oratory was not
very successful. On 18th October he writes in his diary: “Went to a
debate at the London School of Economics, and spoke for ten minutes
on ‘Unpopularity of Railways’; was called to order for straying from
the subject; had to read most of my speech.” His next attempt was more
fortunate. “Attended meeting at Brixton, and spoke for thirty-five
minutes on Imperial Responsibilities in South Africa. Biggest attempt
I have yet made. Knew the speech so well I hardly had to look at my
notes. George Bowles in the chair. Capital fun. A band, and a very jolly
evening.” He also lectured somewhere on Conscription, and sent his MS.
to Francis, who replied thus: “I have read your lecture. What must
have struck all who heard it, and what struck me most when I read it,
was, how you could have said so much and touched so little on the real
subject.”
On 5th December, during that uneasy time when Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman was forming his new Ministry, Rivy went to stay at
Hatfield. His account of his visit deserves quotation.
“_Tuesday._
“A large party, including Asquith and Mrs., Mrs. Laurence
Drummond, Etty Grenfell [Lady Desborough], Revelstoke, Lord and
Lady Kenmare and Lady Dorothy Browne, General Broadwood, Arthur
Strutt, Lady Airlie and Lady Kitty Ogilvie, Dick Cavendish
and Lady Moira, Miss Claire Stopford, Edward Packe, Micky
Hicks-Beach, Hugh Cecil, and a very nice Miss Asquith. After
dinner the older ones played bridge, and we played stupid games
like ‘snap.’ My God! Hugh Cecil did make me laugh; he is the
most amusing fellow you ever saw.
“_Wednesday._
“Most of the party went up to London, except four of us who
shot partridges. I should have done better if I had thrown my
gun at the birds instead of shooting at them. At dinner I took
in Miss Asquith. Afterwards I had a long yarn with Hugh Cecil
about politics. We discussed elections and arguing with the
working man. He told me that what generally happened was that
you visited the working man and employed the finest arguments
for about half an hour, and the only reply you got was, ‘Oh
yes, I quite understand. You have been very well educated, and
I don’t believe a word you say.’ After dinner we did a sort of
dumb crambo acting, and I talked politics with Miss Asquith,
who is extremely clever and, of course, full of politics.
“In the smoking-room Asquith and H. Cecil discussed the various
bishops!
“_Thursday._
“We went pheasant-shooting. I shot very badly. There were a lot
of birds; we got 300. After tea I played bridge against the
future Chancellor of the Exchequer. We dressed up for dinner
in fancy dress, and had a cotillon afterwards. I went as a
toreador.
“I made great pals with Mrs. Asquith. I do not know if you
know her, but she is an absolute clinker. She dressed up as
a Spanish dancer, and did a _pas seul_ before us all. What
will people say in about twenty years when they hear this! The
leading lady of the Government dancing a _pas seul_, while
the Chancellor of the Exchequer looked on! Hugh Cecil said he
thought he had dislocated the inner organs of his body from
laughter.
“And now for secrets.... [Here follow certain matters which
have long ago been made public.] Read to-day’s _Times_, F.
G. There is about half a column on the political situation,
which gives you much of what I have written above. Asquith was
fearfully perturbed about how they got hold of it, for only
six people knew the situation—himself, Grey, Haldane, C.-B.,
Morley, Tweedmouth, and (proclaim it to your ancestors!) R. G.
“Mrs. Asquith told me that Asquith had had a terrible two
days. The Liberals, having been out for ten years, of course
owe honours to a great number of people. Innumerable people
had called on him and implored him to give them something—men
whose whole lives have been given up to working for the party,
and now there is nothing for them. This to some of them meant
a career finished. So you see that even being Chancellor of
the Exchequer and having the making of a Government isn’t
altogether honey.
“Here is an amusing story of Lady Curzon. The day after Curzon
arrived there was a bad accident at Charing Cross. Half the
roof fell in, owing to a girder snapping. Lady Curzon said
wittily that ‘Brodrick must have cut that girder on purpose,
but—so like him—was a day late!’
“Had there not been this crisis, the party at Hatfield was to
have included Austen Chamberlain and Balfour; but they had to
stay in London to pack up their belongings. We had great chaff,
as Austen C. was packing up to let the Asquiths in. They told
me an amusing story that happened last summer. Hugh Cecil and
Austen Chamberlain had a race on trays along a gallery. Cecil
slipped off his tray and won without it. The judge at the end
of the room said, ‘The Free Trader has won.’ ‘Yes,’ says Cecil,
‘but he has lost his seat in doing it!’”
In the same letter Rivy gives Francis a piece of advice most
characteristic of the attitude of both the Twins to life. They were
devotees of the “grand manner,” which appears to do things easily and
without effort, however much laborious spade-work may be done in secret.
Francis is adjured to study the hill tribes against a possible frontier
campaign in the next two years. “Do not tell anybody what you are about.
For some reason or other people are always inclined to think a person who
does anything from instinct more wonderful than if he has practised at
it first; just as you hear, ‘Isn’t it wonderful how So-and-so plays polo
so well, and never practises at all?’—whereas, as a matter of fact, the
said person has been years practising. Demosthenes was renowned for his
impromptu speeches. In reality, he had an underground chamber full of
looking-glasses, where he used to rehearse every single speech that he
made—for weeks, and sometimes years.”