Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography Part 6

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 gra.s.s," 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sociate 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 G.o.d, such a home was mine.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Henry Scott Holland.

[20] Anna Maria, d.u.c.h.ess 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 h.e.l.l 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 n.o.body 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, circ.u.mspectly 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 aesthetic 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 Queens.h.i.+p, 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 Invest.i.ture, 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 ma.s.ses 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 subst.i.tute for a Court, but it is the only subst.i.tute which exists, and it is the best which, under the circ.u.mstances, is attainable.

"In his att.i.tude 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 compa.s.s, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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, d.u.c.h.ess 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 "G.o.d 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 canva.s.ses 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 Sevres 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.

Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historic Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of 1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the host, who looked like a Van d.y.k.e. Another of their resorts was Devons.h.i.+re House, which Horace Walpole p.r.o.nounced "good and plain as the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide behind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, Lord Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select and beautiful entertaining.

Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time, be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening party.[25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Amba.s.sador.

Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built by the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son.

Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party, still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing else, will always preserve it from oblivion.

I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square, the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street, Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace, Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we come to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,[26] April 1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a "residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fas.h.i.+on, youth and beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that "the parallelogram between Oxford Street, Piccadilly, Regent Street, and Hyde Park, enclosed more intelligence and ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world had ever collected in such a s.p.a.ce before." This was very well for Sydney (who lived in Green Street); but he flourished when Belgravia had barely been discovered, when South Kensington was undreamed-of; and, above all, before the Heir Apparent had fixed his abode in Pall Mall. Had he lived till 1863, he would have had to enlarge his mental borders.

Of the delightful women and beautiful girls who adorned Society when I first knew it, I will not speak. A sacred awe makes me mute. The "Professional Beauties" and "Frisky Matrons" who disgraced it, have, I hope, long since repented, and it would be unkind to revive their names.

The "Smart Men," old and young, the "cheery boys," the "dancing dogs,"--the Hugo Bohuns and the Freddy Du Canes--can be imagined as easily as described. They were, in the main, very good fellows; friendly, sociable, and obliging; but their most ardent admirers would scarcely call them interesting; and the companions.h.i.+p of a club or a ballroom seemed rather vapid when compared with Oxford:--

"The madness and the melody, the singing youth that went there, The s.h.i.+ning, unforgettable, imperial days we spent there."

But here and there, swimming rare in the vast whirlpool of Society, one used to encounter remarkable faces. Most remarkable was the face of Lord Beaconsfield,--past seventy, though n.o.body knows how much; with his black-dyed hair in painful contrast to the corpse-like pallor of his face; with his Blue Ribbon and diamond Star; and the piercing eyes which still bespoke his unconquerable vitality.

Sometimes Mr. Gladstone was to be seen, with his white tie working round toward the back of his neck, and a rose in his b.u.t.ton-hole, looking like a rather unwilling captive in the hands of Mrs. Gladstone, who moved through the social crush with that queenlike dignity of bearing which had distinguished her ever since the days when she and her sister, Lady Lyttelton, were "the beautiful Miss Glynnes." Robert Lowe, not yet Lord Sherbrooke, was a celebrity who might often be seen in Society,--a noteworthy figure with his ruddy face, snow-white hair, and purblind gaze. The first Lord Lytton--Bulwer-Lytton, the novelist--was dead before I came to London; but his brilliant son, "Owen Meredith," in the intervals of official employment abroad, was an interesting figure in Society; curled and oiled and decorated, with a countenance of Semitic type.

Lord Houghton--to me the kindest and most welcoming of hereditary friends--had a personality and a position altogether his own. His appearance was typically English; his manner as free and forthcoming as a Frenchman's. Thirty years before he had been drawn by a master-hand as Mr. Vavasour in _Tancred_, but no lapse of time could stale his infinite variety. He was poet, essayist, politician, public orator, country gentleman, railway-director, host, guest, ball-giver, and ball-goer, and acted each part with equal zest and a.s.siduity. When I first knew him he was living in a house at the top of Arlington Street, from which Hogarth had copied the decoration for his "Marriage a la mode." The site is now occupied by the Ritz Hotel, and his friendly ghost still seems to haunt the Piccadilly which he loved.

"There on warm, mid-season Sundays, Fryston's bard is wont to wend, Whom the Ridings trust and honour, Freedom's staunch and genial friend; Known where shrewd hard-handed craftsmen cl.u.s.ter round the northern kilns, He whom men style Baron Houghton, but the G.o.ds call d.i.c.ky Milnes."[27]

When first I entered Society, I caught sight of a face which instantly arrested my attention. A very small man, both short and slim, with a rosy complexion, protruding chin, and trenchant nose, the remains of reddish hair, and an extremely alert and vivacious expression. The broad Red Ribbon of a G.C.B. marked him out as in some way a distinguished person; and I discovered that he was the Lord Chief Justice of England,--Sir Alexander c.o.c.kburn, one of the most conspicuous figures in the social annals of the 'thirties and 'forties, the "Hortensius" of _Endymion_, whose "sunny face and voice of music" had carried him out of the ruck of London dandies to the chief seat of the British judicature, and had made him the hero of the Tichborne Trial and the Alabama Arbitration. Yet another personage of intellectual fame who was to be met in Society was Robert Browning, the least poetical-looking of poets. Trim, spruce, alert, with a cheerful manner and a flow of conversation, he might have been a Cabinet Minister, a diplomatist, or a successful financier, almost anything except what he was. "Browning,"

growled Tennyson, "I'll predict your end. You'll die of apoplexy, in a stiff choker, at a London dinner-party."

The streams of society and of politics have always intermingled, and, at the period of which I am writing, Lord Hartington, afterwards, as 8th Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, leader of the Liberal Unionists, might still be seen lounging and sprawling in doorways and corners. Mr. Arthur Balfour, weedy and willowy, was remarked with interest as a young man of great possessions, who had written an unintelligible book but might yet do something in Parliament; while Lord Rosebery, though looking absurdly youthful, was spoken of as cheris.h.i.+ng lofty ambitions.

Later on, I may perhaps say more about private entertainment and about those who figured in it; but now I must turn to the public sights and shows. Matthew Arnold once wrote to his mother: "I think you will be struck with the aspect of London in May; the wealth and brilliancy of it is more remarkable every year. The carriages, the riders, and the walkers in Hyde Park, on a fine evening in May or June, are alone worth coming to London to see." This description, though written some years before, was eminently true of Rotten Row and its adjacent drives when I first frequented them. Frederick Locker, a minor poet of Society, asked in some pensive stanzas on Rotten Row:

"But where is now the courtly troop That once rode laughing by?

I miss the curls of Cantilupe, The laugh of Lady Di."

Lord Cantilupe, of whom I always heard that he was the handsomest man of his generation, died before I was born, and Lady Di Beauclerck had married Baron Huddleston and ceased to ride in Rotten Row before I came to London; so my survey of the scene was unmarred by Locker's reflective melancholy, and I could do full justice to its charm. "Is there," asked Lord Beaconsfield, "a more gay and graceful spectacle in this world than Hyde Park at the end of a long summer morning in the merry month of May?

Where can we see such beautiful women, such gallant cavaliers, such fine horses, such brilliant equipages? The scene, too, is worthy of such agreeable accessories--the groves, the gleaming waters, and the triumphal arches. In the distance the misty heights of Surrey and the lovely glades of Kensington." This pa.s.sage would need some re-touching if it were to describe the Park in 1911, but in 1880 it was still a photograph.