Margot Asquith, an Autobiography - Two Volumes in One

by Margot Asquith

CHAPTER I

THE SOULS—LORD CURZON's POEM AND DINNER PARTY AND WHO WERE THERE
—MARGOT'S INVENTORY OF THE GROUP—TILT WITH THE LATE LADY
LONDONDERRY—VISIT TO TENNYSON; HIS CONTEMPT FOR CRITICS; HIS
HABIT OF LIVING—J. K. S. NOT A SOUL—MARGOT'S FRIENDSHIP WITH
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS; HIS PRAISE OF MARIE BASHKIRTSEFF

No one ever knew how it came about that I and my particular friends were called "the Souls." The origin of our grouping together I have already explained: we saw more of one another than we should probably have done had my sister Laura Lyttelton lived, because we were in mourning and did not care to go out in general society; but why we were called "Souls" I do not know.

The fashionable—what was called the "smart set"—of those days centred round the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII, and had Newmarket for its head-quarters. As far as I could see, there was more exclusiveness in the racing world than I had ever observed among the Souls; and the first and only time I went to Newmarket the welcome extended to me by the shrewd and select company there made me feel exactly like an alien.

We did not play bridge or baccarat and our rather intellectual and literary after-dinner games were looked upon as pretentious.

Arthur Balfour—the most distinguished of the Souls and idolised by every set in society—was the person who drew the enemy's fire. He had been well known before he came among us and it was considered an impertinence on our part to make him play pencil- games or be our intellectual guide and critic. Nearly all the young men in my circle were clever and became famous; and the women, although not more intelligent, were less worldly than their fashionable contemporaries and many of them both good to be with and distinguished to look at.

What interests me most on looking back now at those ten years is the loyalty, devotion and fidelity which we showed to one another and the pleasure which we derived from friendships that could not have survived a week had they been accompanied by gossip, mocking, or any personal pettiness. Most of us had a depth of feeling and moral and religious ambition which are entirely lacking in the clever young men and women of to-day. Our after-dinner games were healthier and more inspiring than theirs. "Breaking the news," for instance, was an entertainment that had a certain vogue among the younger generation before the war. It consisted of two people acting together and conveying to their audience various ways in which they would receive the news of the sudden death of a friend or a relation and was considered extraordinarily funny; it would never have amused any of the Souls. The modern habit of pursuing, detecting and exposing what was ridiculous in simple people and the unkind and irreverent manner in which slips were made material for epigram were unbearable to me. This school of thought—which the young group called "anticant"—encouraged hard sayings and light doings, which would have profoundly shocked the most frivolous among us. Brilliance of a certain kind may bring people together for amusement, but it will not keep them together for long; and the young, hard pre-war group that I am thinking of was short-lived.

The present Lord Curzon [Footnote: Earl Curzon of Kedleston.] also drew the enemy's fire and was probably more directly responsible for the name of the Souls than any one.

He was a conspicuous young man of ability, with a ready pen, a ready tongue, an excellent sense of humour in private life and intrepid social boldness. He had appearance more than looks, a keen, lively face, with an expression of enamelled selfassurance. Like every young man of exceptional promise, he was called a prig. The word was so misapplied in those days that, had I been a clever young man, I should have felt no confidence in myself till the world had called me a prig. He was a remarkably intelligent person in an exceptional generation. He had ambition and—what he claimed for himself in a brilliant description—"middle-class method"; and he added to a kindly feeling for other people a warm corner for himself. Some of my friends thought his contemporaries in the House of Commons, George Wyndham and Harry Cust, would go farther, as the former promised more originality and the latter was a finer scholar, but I always said—and have a record of it in my earliest diaries—that George Curzon would easily outstrip his rivals. He had two incalculable advantages over them: he was chronically industrious and self-sufficing; and, though Oriental in his ideas of colour and ceremony, with a poor sense of proportion, and a childish love of fine people, he was never self-indulgent. He neither ate, drank nor smoked too much and left nothing to chance.

No one could turn with more elasticity from work to play than George Curzon; he was a first-rate host and boon companion and showed me and mine a steady and sympathetic love over a long period of years. Even now, if I died, although he belongs to the more conventional and does not allow himself to mix with people of opposite political parties, he would write my obituary notice.

At the time of which I am telling, he was threatened with lung trouble and was ordered to Switzerland by his doctors. We were very unhappy and assembled at a farewell banquet, to which he entertained us in the Bachelors' Club, on the 10th of July, 1889. We found a poem welcoming us on our chairs, when we sat down to dinner, in which we were all honourably and categorically mentioned. Some of our critics called us "the Gang"—to which allusion is made here—but we were ultimately known as the Souls.

This famous dinner and George's poem caused a lot of fun and friction, jealousy, curiosity and endless discussion. It was followed two years later by another dinner given by the same host to the same guests and in the same place, on the 9th of July, 1891.

The repetition of this dinner was more than the West End of London could stand; and I was the object of much obloquy. I remember dining with Sir Stanley and Lady Clarke to meet King Edward—then Prince of Wales—when my hostess said to me in a loud voice, across the table:

"There were some clever people in the world, you know, before you were born, Miss Tennant!"

Feeling rather nettled, I replied:

"Please don't pick me out, Lady Clarke, as if I alone were responsible for the stupid ones among whom we find ourselves to-day."

Having no suspicion of other people, I was seldom on the defensive and did not mean to be rude but I was young and intolerant. This was George Curzon's poem:

[Editor's Note: See footnotes at bottom of poem]

10th JULY, 1889.

Ho! list to a lay
Of that company gay,
Compounded of gallants and graces,
Who gathered to dine,
In the year '89,
In a haunt that in Hamilton Place is.

There, there where they met,
And the banquet was set
At the bidding of GEORGIUS CURZON;
Brave youth! 'tis his pride,
When he errs, that the side
Of respectable licence he errs on.

Around him that night—
Was there e'er such a sight?
Souls sparkled and spirits expanded;
For of them critics sang,
That tho' christened the Gang,
By a spiritual link they were banded.

Souls and spirits, no doubt
But neither without
Fair visible temples to dwell in!
E'en your image divine
Must be girt with a shrine,
For the pious to linger a spell in.

There was seen at that feast
Of this band, the High Priest,
The heart that to all hearts is nearest;
Him may nobody steal
From the true Common weal,
Tho' to each is dear ARTHUR the dearest. [1]

America lends,
Nay, she gives when she sends
Such treasures as HARRY and DAISY; [2]
Tho' many may yearn,
None but HARRY can turn
That sweet little head of hers crazy.

There was much-envied STRATH [3]
With the lady who hath [3]
Taught us all what may life be at twenty;
Of pleasure a taste,
Of duty no waste,
Of gentle philosophy plenty.

KITTY DRUMMOND was there— [4]
Where was LAWRENCE, oh! where?—
And my Lord and my Lady GRANBY; [5]
Is there one of the Gang
Has not wept at the pang
That he never can VIOLET'S man be?

From WILTON, whose streams
Murmur sweet in our dreams,
Come the Earl and his Countess together; [6]
In her spirit's proud flights
We are whirled to the heights,
He sweetens our stay in the nether.

Dear EVAN was there, [7]
The first choice of the fair,
To all but himself very gentle!
And ASHRIDGE'S lord [8]
Most insufferably bored
With manners and modes Oriental.

The Shah, I would bet,
In the East never met
Such a couple as him and his consort. [8]
If the HORNERS you add, [9]
That a man must be mad
Who complains that the Gang is a wrong sort.

From kindred essay
LADY MARY to-day [10]
Should have beamed on a world that adores her.
Of her spouse debonair [10]
No woman has e'er
Been able to say that he bores her.

Next BINGY escorts [11]
His dear wife, to our thoughts [11]
Never lost, though withdrawn from our vision,
While of late she has shown
That of spirit alone
Was not fashioned that fair composition.

No, if humour we count,
The original fount
Must to HUGO be ceded in freehold,
Tho' of equal supplies
In more subtle disguise
Old GODFREY has far from a wee hold! [12]

MRS. EDDY has come [13]
And we all shall be dumb
When we hear what a lovely voice Emmy's is;
SPENCER, too, would show what [14]
He can do, were it not
For that cursed laryngeal Nemesis.

At no distance away
Behold ALAN display [15]
That smile that is found so upsetting;
And EDGAR in bower, [16]
In statecraft, in power,
The favourite first in the betting.

Here a trio we meet,
Whom you never will beat,
Tho' wide you may wander and far go;
From what wonderful art
Of that Gallant Old Bart,
Sprang CHARTY and LUCY and MARGOT?

To LUCY he gave [17]
The wiles that enslave,
Heart and tongue of an angel to CHARTY; [18]
To MARGOT the wit [19]
And the wielding of it,
That make her the joy of a party.

LORD TOMMY is proud [20]
That to CHARTY he vowed
The graces and gifts of a true man.
And proud are the friends
Of ALFRED, who blends [21]
The athlete, the hero, the woman!

From the Gosford preserves
Old ST. JOHN deserves [22]
Great praise for a bag such as HILDA; [22]
True worth she esteemed,
Overpowering he deemed
The subtle enchantment that filled her.

Very dear are the pair,
He so strong, she so fair,
Renowned as the TAPLOVITE WINNIES;
Ah! he roamed far and wide,
Till in ETTY he spied [23]
A treasure more golden than guineas.

Here is DOLL who has taught [24]
Us that "words conceal thought"
In his case is a fallacy silly;
HARRY CUST could display [25]
Scalps as many, I lay,
From Paris as in Piccadilly.

But some there were too—
Thank the Lord they were few!
Who were bidden to come and who could not:
Was there one of the lot,
Ah! I hope there was not,
Looked askance at the bidding and would not.

The brave LITTLE EARL [26]
Is away, and his pearl-
Laden spouse, the imperial GLADYS; [26]
By that odious gout
Is LORD COWPER knocked out. [27]
And the wife who his comfort and aid is. [27]

Miss BETTY'S engaged,
And we all are enraged
That the illness of SIBELL'S not over; [28]
GEORGE WYNDHAM can't sit [29]
At our banquet of wit,
Because he is standing at Dover.

But we ill can afford
To dispense with the Lord
Of WADDESDON and ill HARRY CHAPLIN; [30, 31]
Were he here, we might shout
As again he rushed out
From the back of that "d—d big sapling."

We have lost LADY GAY [32]
'Tis a price hard to pay
For that Shah and his appetite greedy;
And alas! we have lost—
At what ruinous cost!—
The charms of the brilliant Miss D.D. [33]

But we've got in their place,
For a gift of true grace,
VIRGINIA'S marvellous daughter. [34]
Having conquered the States,
She's been blown by the Fates
To conquer us over the water.

Now this is the sum
Of all those who have come
Or ought to have come to that banquet.
Then call for the bowl,
Flow spirit and soul,
Till midnight not one of you can quit!

And blest by the Gang
Be the Rhymester who sang
Their praises in doggrel appalling;
More now were a sin—
Ho, waiters, begin!
Each soul for consomme is calling!

[Footnotes: 1 The Right Eton A. J. Balfour. 2 Mr. and Mrs White. 3 The Duke and Duchess of Sutherland. 4 Col. and Mrs L. Drummond. 5 Now the Duke and Duchess of Rutland. 6 Earl and Countess of Pembroke. 7 Hon. Evan Charteris. 8 Earl and Countess Brownlow. 9 Sir J. and Lady Horner. 10 Lord and Lady Elcho (now Earl and Countess of Wemyss). 11 Lord and Lady Wenlock. 12 Mr. Godfrey Webb. 13 The Hon. Mrs. E. Bourke. 14 The Hon. Spencer Lyttelton. 15 The Hon. Alan Charteris. 16 Sir E. Vincent (now Lord D'Abernon). 17 Mrs. Graham Smith. 18 Lady Ribblesdale. 19 Mrs. Asquith. 20 Lord Ribblesdale. 21 The Hon. Alfred Lyttelton. 22 The Hon. St. John Brodrick (now Earl of Midleton) and Lady Hilda Brodrick. 23 Mr. and Mrs. Willy Grenfell (now Lord and Lady Desborough). 24 Mr. A. G. Liddell. 25 Mr. Harry Cust. 26 Earl and Countess de Grey. 27 Earl and Countess Cowper. 28 Countess Grosvenor. 29 The late Right Hon. George Wyndham. 30 Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild. 31 Now Viscount Chaplin. 32 Lady Windsor (now Marchioness of Plymouth). 33 Miss E. Balfour (Widow of the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton). 34 Mrs. Chanler, the American novelist (now Princess Troubetzkoy).]

For my own and the children's interest I shall try, however imperfectly, to make a descriptive inventory of some of the Souls mentioned in this poem and of some of my friends who were not.

Gladstone's secretary, Sir Algernon West, [Footnote: The Right Hon. Sir Algernon West.] and Godfrey Webb had both loved Laura and corresponded with her till she died and they spent all their holidays at Glen. I never remember the time when Algy West was not getting old and did not say he wanted to die; but, although he is ninety, he is still young, good-looking and—what is even more remarkable—a strong Liberal. He was never one of the Souls, but he was a faithful and loving early friend of ours.

Mr. Godfrey Webb was the doyen of the Souls. He was as intimate with my brothers and parents as he was with my sisters and self. Godfrey—or Webber as some called him—was not only a man of parts, but had a peculiar flavour of his own: he had the sense of humour and observation of a memoirist and his wit healed more than it cut. For hours together he would poke about the country with a dog, a gun and a cigar, perfectly independent and self-sufficing, whether engaged in sport, repartee, or literature. He wrote and published for private circulation a small book of poems and made the Souls famous by his proficiency at all our pencil-games. It would be unwise to quote verses or epigrams that depend so much upon the occasion and the environment. Only a George Meredith can sustain a preface boasting of his heroine's wit throughout the book, but I will risk one example of Godfrey Webb's quickness. He took up a newspaper one morning in the dining-room at Glen and, reading that a Mr. Pickering Phipps had broken his leg on rising from his knees at prayer, he immediately wrote this couplet:

On bended knees, with fervent lips, Wrestled with Satan Pickering Phipps, But when for aid he ceased to beg, The wily devil broke his leg!

He spent every holiday with us and I do not think he ever missed being with us on the anniversary of Laura's death, whether I was at home or abroad. He was a man in a million, the last of the wits, and I miss him every day of my life.

Lord Midleton [Footnote: The Right Hon. the Earl of Midleton, of Peper, Harow, Godalming.]—better known as St. John Brodrick—was my first friend of interest; I knew him two years before I met Arthur Balfour or any of the Souls. He came over to Glen while he was staying with neighbours of ours.

I wired to him not long ago to congratulate him on being made an Earl and asked him in what year it was that he first came to Glen; this is his answer:

Jan. 12th, 1920. DEAREST MARGOT,

I valued your telegram of congratulation the more that I know you and Henry (who has given so many and refused all) attach little value to titular distinctions. Indeed, it is the only truly democratic trait about YOU, except a general love of Humanity, which has always put you on the side of the feeble. I am relieved to hear you have chosen such a reliable man as Crewe—with his literary gifts—to be the only person to read your autobiography.

My visit to Glen in R—y's company was October, 1880, when you were sixteen. You and Laura flashed like meteors on to a dreary scene of empty seats at the luncheon table (the shooting party didn't come in) and filled the room with light, electrified the conversation and made old R—y falter over his marriage vows within ten minutes. From then onwards, you have always been the most loyal and indulgent of friends, forgetting no one as you rapidly climbed to fame, and were raffled for by all parties—from Sandringham to the crossing-sweeper.

Your early years will sell the book.

Bless you.

ST. JOHN.

St. John Midleton was one of the rare people who tell the truth. Some people do not lie, but have no truth to tell; others are too agreeable—or too frightened—and lie; but the majority are indifferent: they are the spectators of life and feel no responsibility either towards themselves or their neighbour.

He was fundamentally humble, truthful and one of the few people I know who are truly loyal and who would risk telling me, or any one he loved, before confiding to an inner circle faults which both he and I think might be corrected. I have had a long experience of inner circles and am constantly reminded of the Spanish proverb, "Remember your friend has a friend." I think you should either leave the room when those you love are abused or be prepared to warn them of what people are thinking. This is, as I know to my cost, an unpopular view of friendship, but neither St. John nor I would think it loyal to join in the laughter or censure of a friend's folly.

Arthur Balfour himself—the most persistent of friends—remarked laughingly:

"St. John pursues us with his malignant fidelity." [Footnote: The word malignity was obviously used in the sense of the French malin.]

This was only a coloured way of saying that Midleton had none of the detachment commonly found among friends; but, as long as we are not merely responsible for our actions to the police, so long must I believe in trying to help those we love.

St. John has the same high spirits and keenness now that he had then and the same sweetness and simplicity. There are only a few women whose friendships have remained as loving and true to me since my girlhood as his—Lady Horner, Miss Tomlinson [Footnote: Miss May Tomlinson, of Rye.], Lady Desborough, Mrs. Montgomery, Lady Wemyss and Lady Bridges [Footnote: J Lady Bridges, wife of General Sir Tom Bridges.]—but ever since we met in 1880 he has taken an interest in me and all that concerns me. He was much maligned when he was Secretary of State for War and bore it without blame or bitterness. He had infinite patience, intrepid courage and a high sense of duty; these combined to give him a better place in the hearts of men than in the fame of newspapers.

His first marriage was into a family who were incapable of appreciating his particular quality and flavour; even his mother- in-law—a dear friend of mine—never understood him and was amazed when I told her that her son-in-law was worth all of her children put together, because he had more nature and more enterprise. I have tested St. John now for many years and never found him wanting.

Lord Pembroke [Footnote: George, 13th Earl of Pembroke.] and George Wyndham were the handsomest of the Souls. Pembroke was the son of Sidney Herbert, famous as Secretary of State for War during the Crimea. I met him first the year before I came out. Lord Kitchener's friend, Lady Waterford—sister to the present Duke of Beaufort—wrote to my mother asking if Laura could dine with her, as she had been thrown over at the last minute and wanted a young woman. As my sister was in the country, my mother sent me. I sat next to Arthur Balfour; Lord Pembroke was on the other side, round the corner of the table; and I remember being intoxicated with my own conversation and the manner in which I succeeded in making Balfour and Pembroke join in. I had no idea who the splendid stranger was. He told me several years later that he had sent round a note in the middle of that dinner to Blanchie Waterford, asking her what the name of the girl with the red heels was, and that, when he read her answer, "Margot Tennant," it conveyed nothing to him. This occurred in 1881 and was for me an eventful evening. Lord Pembroke was one of the four best-looking men I ever saw: the others, as I have already said, were the late Earl of Wemyss, Mr. Wilfrid Blunt—whose memoirs have been recently published—and Lord D'Abernon [Footnote: Our Ambassador in Berlin.]. He was six foot four, but his face was even more conspicuous than his height. There was Russian blood in the Herbert family and he was the eldest brother of the beautiful Lady Ripon [Footnote: The late wife of the present Marquis of Ripon.]. He married Lady Gertrude Talbot, daughter of the twentieth Earl of Shrewsbury and Talbot, who was nearly as fine to look at as he himself. He told me among other things at that dinner that he had known Disraeli and had been promised some minor post in his government, but had been too ill at the time to accept it. This developed into a discussion on politics and Peeblesshire, leading up to our county neighbours; he asked me if I knew Lord Elcho, [Footnote: The father of the present Earl of Wemyss and March.] of whose beauty Ruskin had written, and who owned property in my county.

"Elcho," said he, "always expected to be invited to join the government, but I said to Dizzy, 'Elcho is an impossible politician; he has never understood the meaning of party government and looks upon it as dishonest for even three people to attempt to modify their opinions sufficiently to come to an agreement, leave alone a Cabinet! He is an egotist!' To which Disraeli replied, 'Worse than that! He is an Elchoist!'"

Although Lord Pembroke's views on all subjects were remarkably wide—as shown by the book he published called Roots—he was a Conservative. We formed a deep friendship and wrote to one another till he died a few years after my marriage. In one of his letters to me he added this postscript:

Keep the outer borders of your heart's sweet garden free from garish flowers and wild and careless weeds, so that when your fairy godmother turns the Prince's footsteps your way he may not, distrusting your nature or his own powers, and only half-guessing at the treasure within, tear himself reluctantly away, and pass sadly on, without perhaps your ever knowing that he had been near.

This, I imagine, gave a correct impression of me as I appeared to some people. "Garish flowers" and "wild and careless weeds" describe my lack of pruning; but I am glad George Pembroke put them on the "outer," not the inner, borders of my heart.

In the tenth verse of Curzon's poem, allusion is made to Lady Pembroke's conversation, which though not consciously pretentious, provoked considerable merriment. She "stumbled upwards into vacuity," to quote my dear friend Sir Walter Raleigh.

There is no one left to-day at all like George Pembroke. His combination of intellectual temperament, gregariousness, variety of tastes—yachting, art, sport and literature—his beauty of person and hospitality to foreigners made him the distinguished centre of any company. His first present to me was Butcher and Lang's translation of the Odyssey, in which he wrote on the fly- leaf, "To Margot, who most reminds me of Homeric days, 1884," and his last was his wedding present, a diamond dagger, which I always wear close to my heart.

Among the Souls, Milly Sutherland [Footnote: The Dowager Duchess of Sutherland.], Lady Windsor [Footnote: The present Countess of Plymouth.] and Lady Granby [Footnote: The present Duchess of Rutland.] were the women whose looks I admired most. Lady Brownlow [Footnote: Countess Brownlow, who died a few years ago.], mentioned in verse eleven, was Lady Pembroke's handsome sister and a famous Victorian beauty. Lady Granby—the Violet of verse nine, Gladys Ripon [Footnote: My friend Lady de Grey.] and Lady Windsor (alluded to as Lady Gay in verse twenty-eight), were all women of arresting appearance: Lady Brownlow, a Roman coin; Violet Rutland, a Burne-Jones Medusa; Gladys Ripon, a court lady; Gay Windsor, an Italian Primitive and Milly Sutherland, a Scotch ballad. Betty Montgomery was a brilliant girl and the only unmarried woman, except Mrs. Lyttelton, among us. She was the daughter of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria's famous private secretary, and one of the strongest Liberals I ever met. Her sister Maggie, though socially uncouth, had a touch of her father's genius; she said of a court prelate to me one day at Windsor Castle:

"There goes God's butler!"

It was through Betty and Maggie Ponsonby that I first met my beloved friend, Lady Desborough. Though not as good-looking as the beauties I have catalogued, nor more intellectual than Lady Horner or Lady Wemyss, Lady Desborough was the cleverest of us. Her flavour was more delicate, her social sensibility finer; and she added to chronic presence of mind undisguised effrontery. I do not suppose she was ever unconscious in her life, but she had no self- pity and no egotism. She was not an artist in any way: music, singing, flowers, painting and colour left her cold. She was not a game-player nor was she sporting and she never invested in parlour tricks; yet she created more fun for other people than anybody. She was a woman of genius, who, if subtly and accurately described, either in her mode of life, her charm, wits or character, would have made the fortune of any novelist. To an outsider she might—like all over-agreeable femmes du monde—give an impression of light metal, but this would be misleading. Etty Desborough was fundamentally sound, and the truest friend that ever lived. Possessed of social and moral sang-froid of a high order, she was too elegant to fall into the trap of the candid friend, but nevertheless she could, when asked, give both counsel and judgment with the sympathy of a man and the wisdom of a god. She was the first person that I sought and that I would still seek if I were unhappy, because her genius lay in a penetrating understanding of the human heart and a determination to redress the balance of life's unhappiness. Etty and I attracted the same people. She married Willy Grenfell,[Footnote: Lord Desborough of Taplow Court.] a man to whom I was much attached and a British gladiator capable of challenging the world in boating and boxing.

Of their soldier sons, Julian and Billy, I cannot write. They and their friends, Edward Horner, Charles Lister and Raymond Asquith all fell in the war. They haunt my heart; I can see them in front of me now, eternal sentinels of youth and manliness.

In spite of a voracious appetite for enjoyment and an expert capacity in entertaining, Etty Desborough was perfectly happy either alone with her family or alone with her books and could endure, with enviable patience, cold ugly country-seats and fashionable people. I said of her when I first knew her that she ought to have lived in the days of the great King's mistresses. I would have gone to her if I were sad, but never if I were guilty. Most of us have asked ourselves at one time or another whom we would go to if we had done a wicked thing; and the interesting part of this question is that in the answer you will get the best possible indication of human nature. Many have said to me, "I would go to So-and-so, because they would understand my temptation and make allowances for me"; but the majority would choose the confidante most competent to point to the way of escape. Etty Desborough would be that confidante.

She had neither father nor mother, but was brought up by two prominent and distinguished members of the Souls, my life-long and beloved friends, Lord and Lady Cowper of Panshanger, now, alas, both dead. Etty had eternal youth and was alive to everything in life except its irony.

If for health or for any other reason I had been separated from my children when they were young, I would as soon have confided them to the love of Etty and Willy Desborough as to any of my friends.

To illustrate the jealousy and friction which the Souls caused, I must relate a conversational scrap I had at this time with Lady Londonderry,[Footnote: The late Marchioness of Londonderry.] which caused some talk among our critics.

She was a beautiful woman, a little before my day, happy, courageous and violent, with a mind which clung firmly to the obvious. Though her nature was impulsive and kind, she was not forgiving. One day she said to me with pride:

"I am a good friend and a bad enemy. No kiss-and-make-friends about me, my dear!"

I have often wondered since, as I did then, what the difference between a good and a bad enemy is.

She was not so well endowed intellectually as her rival Lady de
Grey, but she had a stronger will and was of sounder temperament.

There was nothing wistful, reflective or retiring about Lady
Londonderry. She was keen and vivid, but crude and impenitent.

We were accused entre autres of being conceited and of talking about books which we had not read, a habit which I have never had the temerity to acquire. John Addington Symonds—an intimate friend of mine—had brought out a book of essays, which were not very good and caused no sensation.

One night, after dinner, I was sitting in a circle of fashionable men and women—none of them particularly intimate with me—when Lady Londonderry opened the talk about books. Hardly knowing her, I entered with an innocent zest into the conversation. I was taken in by her mention of Symonds' Studies in Italy, and thought she must be literary. Launching out upon style, I said there was a good deal of rubbish written about it, but it was essential that people should write simply. At this some one twitted me with our pencil-game of "Styles" and asked me if I thought I should know the author from hearing a casual passage read out aloud from one of their books. I said that some writers would be easy to recognise—such as Meredith, Carlyle, De Quincey or Browning—but that when it came to others—men like Scott or Froude, for instance—I should not be so sure of myself. At this there was an outcry: Froude, having the finest style in the world, ought surely to be easily recognised! I was quite ready to believe that some of the company had made a complete study of Froude's style, but I had not. I said that I could not be sure, because his writing was too smooth and perfect, and that, when I read him, I felt as if I was swallowing arrow-root. This shocked them profoundly and I added that, unless I were to stumble across a horseman coming over a hill, or something equally fascinating, I should not even be sure of recognising Scott's style. This scandalised the company. Lady Londonderry then asked me if I admired Symonds' writing. I told her I did not, although I liked some of his books. She seemed to think that this was a piece of swagger on my part and, after disagreeing with a lofty shake of her head, said in a challenging manner:

"I should be curious to know, Miss Tennant, what you have read by
Symonds!"

Feeling I was being taken on, I replied rather chillily:

"Oh, the usual sort of thing!"

Lady Londonderry, visibly irritated and with the confident air of one who has a little surprise in store for the company, said:

"Have you by any chance looked at Essays, Suggestive and
Speculative?"

MARGOT: "Yes, I've read them all."

LADY LONDONDERRY: "Really! Do you not approve of them?"

MARGOT: "Approve? I don't know what you mean." LADY LONDONDERRY:
"Do you not think the writing beautiful … the style, I mean?"

MARGOT: "I think they are all very bad, but then I don't admire
Symonds' style."

LADY LONDONDERRY: "I am afraid you have not read the book."

This annoyed me; I saw the company were enchanted with their spokeswoman, but I thought it unnecessarily rude and more than foolish.

I looked at her calmly and said:

"I am afraid, Lady Londonderry, you have not read the preface. The book is dedicated to me. Symonds was a friend of mine and I was staying at Davos at the time he was writing those essays. He was rash enough to ask me to read one of them in manuscript and write whatever I thought upon the margin. This I did, but he was offended by something I scribbled. I was so surprised at his minding that I told him he was never to show me any of his unpublished work again, at which he forgave me and dedicated the book to me."

After this flutter I was not taken on by fashionable ladies about books.

Lady Londonderry never belonged to the Souls, but her antagonist, Lady de Grey, was one of its chief ornaments and my friend. She was a luxurious woman of great beauty, with perfect manners and a moderate sense of duty. She was the last word in refinement, perception and charm. There was something septic in her nature and I heard her say one day that the sound of the cuckoo made her feel ill; but, although she was not lazy and seldom idle, she never developed her intellectual powers or sustained herself by reading or study of any kind. She had not the smallest sense of proportion and, if anything went wrong in her entertainments—cold plates, a flat souffle, or some one throwing her over for dinner—she became almost impotent from agitation, only excusable if it had been some great public disaster. She and Mr. Harry Higgins—an exceptionally clever and devoted friend of mine—having revived the opera, Bohemian society became her hobby; but a tenor in the country or a dancer on the lawn are not really wanted; and, although she spent endless time at Covent Garden and achieved considerable success, restlessness devoured her. While receiving the adoration of a small but influential circle, she appeared to me to have tried everything to no purpose and, in spite of an experience which queens and actresses, professionals and amateurs might well have envied, she remained embarrassed by herself, fluid, brilliant and uneasy. The personal nobility with which she worked her hospital in the Great War years brought her peace.

Frances Horner [Footnote: Lady Horner, of Mells, Frome.] was more like a sister to me than any one outside my own family. I met her when she was Miss Graham and I was fourteen. She was a leader in what was called the high art William Morris School and one of the few girls who ever had a salon in London.

I was deeply impressed by her appearance, it was the fashion of the day to wear the autumn desert in your hair and "soft shades" of Liberty velveteen; but it was neither the unusualness of her clothes nor the sight of Burne-Jones at her feet and Ruskin at her elbow that struck me most, but what Charty's little boy, Tommy Lister, called her "ghost eyes" and the nobility of her countenance.

There may be women as well endowed with heart, head, temper and temperament as Frances Horner, but I have only met a few: Lady de Vesci (whose niece, Cynthia, married our poet-son, Herbert), Lady Betty Balfour[Footnote: Sister of the Earl of Lytton and wife of Mr. Gerald Balfour.] and my daughter Elizabeth. With most women the impulse to crab is greater than to praise and grandeur of character is surprisingly lacking in them; but Lady Horner comprises all that is best in my sex.

Mary Wemyss was one of the most distinguished of the Souls and was as wise as she was just, truthful, tactful, and generous. She might have been a great influence, as indeed she was always a great pleasure, but she was both physically and mentally badly equipped for coping with life and spent and wasted more time than was justifiable on plans which could have been done by any good servant. It would not have mattered the endless discussion whether the brougham fetching one part of the family from one station and a bus fetching another part of it from another interfered with a guest catching a five or a five-to-five train—which could or could not be stopped—if one could have been quite sure that Mary Wemyss needed her friend so much that another opportunity would be given for an intimate interchange of confidences; but plan-weaving blinds people to a true sense of proportion and my beloved Mary never had enough time for any of us. She is the only woman I know or have ever known without smallness or touchiness of any kind. Her juste milieu, if a trifle becalmed, amounts to genius; and I was—and still am—more interested in her moral, social and intellectual opinions than in most of my friends'. Some years ago I wrote this in my diary about her:

"Mary is generally a day behind the fair and will only hear of my death from the man behind the counter who is struggling to clinch her over a collar for her chow."

One of the less prominent of the Souls was my friend, Lionel
Tennyson.[Footnote: Brother of the present Lord Tennyson.] He was
the second son of the poet and was an official in the India
Office. He had an untidy appearance, a black beard and no manners.
He sang German beer-songs in a lusty voice and wrote good verses.

He sent me many poems, but I think these two are the best. The first was written to me on my twenty-first birthday, before the Souls came into existence:

What is a single flower when the world is white
with may?
What is a gift to one so rich, a smile to one so gay?
What is a thought to one so rich in the loving
thoughts of men?
How should I hope because I sigh that you will
sigh again?
Yet when you see my gift, you may
(Ma bayadere aux yeux de jais)
Think of me once to-day.

Think of me as you will, dear girl, if you will let
me be
Somewhere enshrined within the fane of your pure
memory;
Think of your poet as of one who only thinks of
you,
That you ARE all his thought, that he were happy
if he knew—
You DID receive his gift, and say
(Ma bayadere aux yeux de jais)
"He thinks of me to-day."

And this is the second:

She drew me from my cosy seat,
She drew me to her cruel feet,
She whispered, "Call me Sally!"
I lived upon her smile, her sigh,
Alas, you fool, I knew not I
Was only her pis-aller.

The jade! she knew her business well,
She made each hour a heaven or hell,
For she could coax and rally;
She was SO loving, frank and kind,
That no suspicion crost my mind
That I was her pis-aller.

My brother says "I told you so!
Her conduct was not comme il faut,
But strictly comme il fallait;
She swore that she was fond and true;
No doubt she was, poor girl, but you
Were only her pis-aller."

He asked me what I would like him to give me for a birthday present, and I said:

"If you want to give me pleasure, take me down to your father's country house for a Saturday to Monday."

This Lionel arranged; and he and I went down to Aldworth,
Haslemere, together from London.

While we were talking in the train, a distinguished old lady got in. She wore an ample black satin skirt, small black satin slippers in goloshes, a sable tippet and a large, picturesque lace bonnet. She did not appear to be listening to our conversation, because she was reading with an air of concentration; but, on looking at her, I observed her eyes fixed upon me. I wore a scarlet cloak trimmed with cock's feathers and a black, three- cornered hat. When we arrived at our station, the old lady tipped a porter to find out from my luggage who I was; and when she died —several years later—she left me in her will one of my most valuable jewels. This was Lady Margaret Beaumont; and I made both her acquaintance and friendship before her death.

Lady Tennyson was an invalid; and we were received on our arrival by the poet. Tennyson was a magnificent creature to look at. He had everything: height, figure, carriage, features and expression. Added to this he had what George Meredith said of him to me, "the feminine hint to perfection." He greeted me by saying:

"Well, are you as clever and spurty as your sister Laura?"

I had never heard the word "spurty" before, nor indeed have I since. To answer this kind of frontal attack one has to be either saucy or servile; so I said nothing memorable. We sat down to tea and he asked me if I wanted him to dress for dinner, adding:

"Your sister said of me, you know, that I was both untidy and dirty."

To which I replied:

"Did you mind this?"

TENNYSON: "I wondered if it was true. Do you think I'm dirty?"

MARGOT: "You are very handsome."

TENNYSON: "I can see by that remark that you think I am. Very well then, I will dress for dinner. Have you read Jane Welsh Carlyle's letters?"

MARGOT: "Yes, I have, and I think them excellent. It seems a pity," I added, with the commonplace that is apt to overcome one in a first conversation with a man of eminence, "that they were ever married; with any one but each other, they might have been perfectly happy."

TENNYSON: "I totally disagree with you. By any other arrangement four people would have been unhappy instead of two."

After this I went up to my room. The hours kept at Aldworth were peculiar; we dined early and after dinner the poet went to bed. At ten o'clock he came downstairs and, if asked, would read his poetry to the company till past midnight.

I dressed for dinner with great care that first night and, placing myself next to him when he came down, I asked him to read out loud to me.

TENNYSON: "What do you want me to read?"

MARGOT: "Maud."

TENNYSON: "That was the poem I was cursed for writing! When it came out no word was bad enough for me! I was a blackguard, a ruffian and an atheist! You will live to have as great a contempt for literary critics and the public as I have, my child!"

While he was speaking, I found on the floor, among piles of books, a small copy of Maud, a shilling volume, bound in blue paper. I put it into his hands and, pulling the lamp nearer him, he began to read.

There is only one man—a poet also—who reads as my host did; and that is my beloved friend, Professor Gilbert Murray. When I first heard him at Oxford, I closed my eyes and felt as if the old poet were with me again.

Tennyson's reading had the lilt, the tenderness and the rhythm that makes music in the soul. It was neither singing, nor chanting, nor speaking, but a subtle mixture of the three; and the effect upon me was one of haunting harmonies that left me profoundly moved.

He began, "Birds in the high Hall-garden," and, skipping the next four sections, went on to, "I have led her home, my love, my only friend," and ended with:

There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear,
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."

She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthly bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

When he had finished, he pulled me on to his knee and said:

"Many may have written as well as that, but nothing that ever sounded so well!"

I could not speak.

He then told us that he had had an unfortunate experience with a young lady to whom he was reading Maud.

"She was sitting on my knee," he said, "as you are doing now, and after reading,

Birds in the high Hall-garden
When twilight was falling,
Maud, Maud, Maud, Maud,
They were crying and calling,

I asked her what bird she thought I meant. She said, 'A nightingale.' This made me so angry that I nearly flung her to the ground: 'No, fool! … Rook!' said I."

I got up, feeling rather sorry for the young lady, but was so afraid he was going to stop reading that I quickly opened The Princess and put it into his hands, and he went on.

I still possess the little Maud, bound in its blue paper cover, out of which he read to us, with my name written in it by Tennyson.

The morning after my arrival I was invited by our host to go for a walk with him, which flattered me very much; but after walking at a great pace over rough ground for two hours I regretted my vanity. Except my brother Glenconner I never met such an easy mover. The most characteristic feature left on my mind of that walk was Tennyson's appreciation of other poets.

Writing of poets, I come to George Wyndham. [Footnote: The late Right Hon. George Wyndham.] It would be superfluous to add anything to what has already been published of him, but he was among the best-looking and most lovable of my circle.

He was a young man of nature endowed with even greater beauty than his sister, Lady Glenconner, but with less of her literary talent. Although his name will always be associated with the Irish Land Act, he was more interested in literature than politics, and, with a little self-discipline, might have been eminent in both.

Mr. Harry Cust is the last of the Souls that I intend writing about and was in some ways the rarest end the most brilliant of them all. Some one who knew him well wrote truly of him after he died:

"He tossed off the cup of life without fear of it containing any poison, but like many wilful men he was deficient in will-power."

The first time I ever saw Harry Cust was in Grosvenor Square, where he had come to see my sister Laura. A few weeks later I found her making a sachet, which was an unusual occupation for her, and she told me it was for "Mr. Cust," who was going to Australia for his health.

He remained abroad for over a year and, on the night of the Jubilee, 1887, he walked into our house where we were having supper. He had just returned from Australia, and was terribly upset to hear that Laura was dead.

Harry Cust had an untiring enthusiasm for life. At Eton he had been captain of the school and he was a scholar of Trinity. He had as fine a memory as Professor Churton Collins or my husband and an unplumbed sea of knowledge, quoting with equal ease both poetry and prose. He edited the Pall Mall Gazette brilliantly for several years. With his youth, brains and looks, he might have done anything in life; but he was fatally self-indulgent and success with my sex damaged his public career. He was a fastidious critic and a faithful friend, fearless, reckless and unforgettable.

He wrote one poem, which appeared anonymously in the Oxford Book of English Verse:

Not unto us, O Lord,
Not unto us the rapture of the day,
The peace of night, or love's divine surprise,
High heart, high speech, high deeds 'mid
honouring eyes;
For at Thy word
All these are taken away.

Not unto us, O Lord:
To us Thou givest the scorn, the scourge, the scar,
The ache of life, the loneliness of death,
The insufferable sufficiency of breath;
And with Thy sword
Thou piercest very far.

Not unto us, O Lord:
Nay, Lord, but unto her be all things given—
My light and life and earth and sky be blasted—
But let not all that wealth of love be wasted:
Let Hell afford
The pavement of her Heaven!

I print also a letter in verse sent to me on October 20th, 1887:

I came in to-night, made as woful as worry can,
Heart like a turnip and head like a hurricane,
When lo! on my dull eyes there suddenly leaped a
Bright flash of your writing, du Herzensgeliebte;
And I found that the life I was thinking so leavable
Had still something in it made living conceivable;
And that, spite of the sores and the bores and the
flaws in it,
My own life's the better for small bits of yours in it;
And it's only to tell you just that that I write to
you,
And just for the pleasure of saying good night to
you:
For I've nothing to tell you and nothing to talk
about,
Save that I eat and I sleep and I walk about.
Since three days past does the indolent I bury
Myself in the British Museum Lib'ary,
Trying in writing to get in my hand a bit,
And reading Dutch books that I don't understand
a bit:
But to-day Lady Charty and sweet Mrs. Lucy em-
Broidered the dusk of the British Museum,
And made me so happy by talking and laughing on
That I loved them more than the frieze of the
Parthenon.
But I'm sleepy I know and don't know if I silly
ain't;
Dined to-night with your sisters, where Tommy
was brilliant;
And, while I the rest of the company deafened, I
Dallied awhile with your auntlet of seventy,
While one, Mr. Winsloe, a volume before him,
Regarded us all with a moody decorum.
No, I can't keep awake, and so, bowing and blessing
you,
And seeing and loving (while slowly undressing)
you,
Take your small hand and kiss, with a drowsed
benediction, it
Knowing, as you, I'm your ever affectionate

HARRY C. C.

I had another friend, James Kenneth Stephen, too pagan, wayward and lonely to be available for the Souls, but a man of genius. One afternoon he came to see me in Grosvenor Square and, being told by the footman that I was riding in the Row, he asked for tea and, while waiting for me wrote the following parody of Kipling and left it on my writing-table with his card:

P.S. THE MAN WHO WROTE IT.

We all called him The Man who Wrote It. And we called It what the man wrote, or IT for short—all of us that is, except The Girl who Read It. She never called anything "It." She wasn't that sort of girl, but she read It, which was a pity from the point of view of The Man who Wrote It.

The man is dead now.

Dropped down a cud out beyond Karachi, and was brought home more like broken meat in a basket. But that's another story.

The girl read It, and told It, and forgot all about It, and in a week It was all over the station. I heard it from Old Bill Buffles at the club while we were smoking between a peg and a hot weather dawn.

J. K. S.

I was delighted with this. Another time he wrote a parody of Myers' "St. Paul" for me. I will only quote one verse out of the eight:

Lo! what the deuce I'm always saying "Lo!" for
God is aware and leaves me uninformed.
Lo! there is nothing left for me to go for,
Lo! there is naught inadequately formed.

He ended by signing his name and writing:

Souvenez-vous si les vers que je trace
Fussent parfois (je l'avoue!) l'argot,
Si vous trouvez un peu trop d'audace
On ose tout quand on se dit
"Margot."

My dear friend J.K.S. was responsible for the aspiration frequently quoted:

When the Rudyards cease from Kipling
And the Haggards ride no more.

Although I can hardly claim Symonds as a Soul, he was so much interested in me and my friends that I must write a short account of him.

I was nursing my sister, Pauline Gordon Duff, when I first met
John Addington Symonds, in 1885, at Davos.

I climbed up to Am Hof[Footnote: J. A. Symonds's country house.] one afternoon with a letter of introduction, which was taken to the family while I was shown into a wooden room full of charming things. As no one came near me, I presumed every one was out, so I settled down peacefully among the books, prepared to wait. In a little time I heard a shuffle of slippered feet and some one pausing at the open door.

"Has he gone?" was the querulous question that came from behind the screen.

And in a moment the thin, curious face of John Addington Symonds was peering at me round the corner.

There was nothing for it but to answer:

"No I am afraid she is still here!"

Being the most courteous of men, he smiled and took my hand; and we went up to his library together.

Symonds and I became very great friends.

After putting my sister to bed at 9.30, I climbed every night by starlight up to Am Hof, where we talked and read out loud till one and often two in the morning. I learnt more in those winter nights at Davos than I had ever learnt in my life. We read The Republic and all the Plato dialogues together; Swift, Voltaire, Browning, Walt Whitman, Edgar Poe and Symonds' own Renaissance, besides passages from every author and poet, which he would turn up feverishly to illustrate what he wanted me to understand.

I shall always think Lord Morley [Footnote: Viscount Morley of Blackburn.] the best talker I ever heard and after him I would say Symonds, Birrell and Bergson. George Meredith was too much of a prima donna and was very deaf and uninterruptable when I knew him, but he was amazingly good even then. Alfred Austin was a friend of his and had just been made Poet Laureate by Lord Salisbury, when my beloved friend Admiral Maxse took me down to the country to see Meredith for the first time. Feeling more than usually stupid, I said to him:

"Well Mr. Meredith, I wonder what your friend Alfred Austin thinks of his appointment?"

Shaking his beautiful head he replied:

"It is very hard to say what a bantam is thinking when it is crowing."

Symonds' conversation is described in Stevenson's essay on Talks and Talkers, but no one could ever really give the fancy, the epigram, the swiftness and earnestness with which he not only expressed himself but engaged you in conversation. This and his affection combined to make him an enchanting companion.

The Swiss postmen and woodmen constantly joined us at midnight and drank Italian wines out of beautiful glass which our host had brought from Venice; and they were our only interruptions when Mrs. Symonds and the handsome girls went to bed. I have many memories of seeing our peasant friends off from Symonds' front door, and standing by his side in the dark, listening to the crack of their whips and their yodels yelled far down the snow roads into the starry skies.

When I first left him and returned to England, Mrs. Symonds told me he sat up all night, filling a blank book with his own poems and translations, which he posted to me in the early morning. We corresponded till he died; and I have kept every letter that he ever wrote to me.

He was the first person who besought me to write. If only he were alive now, I would show him this manuscript and, if any one could make any thing of it by counsel, sympathy and encouragement; my autobiography might become famous.

"You have l'oreille juste" he would say, "and I value your literary judgment."

I will here insert some of his letters, beginning with the one he sent down to our villa at Davos a propos of the essays over which Lady Londonderry and I had our little breeze:

I am at work upon a volume of essays in art and criticism, puzzling to my brain and not easy to write. I think I shall ask you to read them.

I want an intelligent audience before I publish them. I want to "try them on" somebody's mind—like a dress—to see how they fit. Only you must promise to write observations and, most killing remark of all, to say when the tedium of reading them begins to overweigh the profit of my philosophy.

I think you could help me.

After the publication he wrote:

I am sorry that the Essays I dedicated to you have been a failure —as I think they have been—to judge by the opinions of the Press. I wanted, when I wrote them, only to say the simple truth of what I thought and felt in the very simplest language I could find.

What the critics say is that I have uttered truisms in the baldest, least attractive diction.

Here I find myself to be judged, and not unjustly. In the pursuit of truth, I said what I had to say bluntly—and it seems I had nothing but commonplaces to give forth. In the search for sincerity of style, I reduced every proposition to its barest form of language. And that abnegation of rhetoric has revealed the nudity of my commonplaces.

I know that I have no wand, that I cannot conjure, that I cannot draw the ears of men to listen to my words.

So, when I finally withdraw from further appeals to the public, as I mean to do, I cannot pose as a Prospero who breaks his staff. I am only a somewhat sturdy, highly nervous varlet in the sphere of art, who has sought to wear the robe of the magician—and being now disrobed, takes his place quietly where God appointed him, and means to hold his tongue in future, since his proper function has been shown him.

Thus it is with me. And I should not, my dear friend, have inflicted so much of myself upon you, if I had not, unluckily, and in gross miscalculation of my powers, connected your name with the book which proves my incompetence.

Yes, the Master [Footnote: Dr. Jowett, Master of Balliol.] is right: make as much of your life as you can: use it to the best and noblest purpose: do not, when you are old and broken like me, sit in the middle of the ruins of Carthage you have vainly conquered, as I am doing now.

Now good bye. Keep any of my letters which seem to you worth keeping. This will make me write better. I keep a great many of yours. You will never lose a warm corner in the centre of the heart of your friend

J. A. SYMONDS.

P.S. Live well. Live happy. Do not forget me. I like to think of you in plenitude of life and activity. I should not be sorry for you if you broke your neck in the hunting field. But, like the Master, I want you to make sure of the young, powerful life you have—before the inevitable, dolorous, long, dark night draws nigh.

Later on, a propos of his translation of the Autobiography of
Benvenuto Cellini, he wrote:

I am so glad that you like my Cellini. The book has been a success; and I am pleased, though I am not interested in its sale. The publisher paid me L210 for my work, which I thought very good wages.

MY DEAR MARGOT,

I wrote to you in a great hurry yesterday, and with some bothering thoughts in the background of my head.

So I did not tell you how much I appreciated your critical insight into the points of my Introduction to Cellini. I do not rate that piece of writing quite as highly as you do. But you "spotted" the best thing in it—the syllogism describing Cellini's state of mind as to Bourbon's death.

It is true, I think, what you say: that I have been getting more nervous and less elaborate in style of late years. This is very natural. One starts in life with sensuous susceptibilities to beauty, with a strong feeling for colour and for melodious cadence, and also with an impulsive enthusiastic way of expressing oneself. This causes young work to seem decorated and laboured, whereas it very often is really spontaneous and hasty, more instructive and straightforward than the work of middle life. I write now with much more trouble and more slowly, and with much less interest in my subject than I used to do. This gives me more command over the vehicle, language, than I used to have. I write what pleases myself less, but what probably strikes other people more.

This is a long discourse; but not so much about myself as appears. I was struck with your insight, and I wanted to tell you how I analyse the change of style which you point out, and which results, I think, from colder, more laborious, duller effort as one grows in years.

The artist ought never to be commanded by his subject, or his vehicle of expression. But until he ceases to love both with a blind passion, he will probably be so commanded. And then his style will appear decorative, florid, mixed, unequal, laboured. It is the sobriety of a satiated or blunted enthusiasm which makes the literary artist. He ought to remember his dithyrambic moods, but not to be subject to them any longer, nor to yearn after them.

Do you know that I have only just now found the time, during my
long days and nights in bed with influenza and bronchitis, to read
Marie Bashkirtseff? (Did ever name so puzzling grow upon the
Ygdrasil of even Russian life?)

By this time you must be quite tired of hearing from your friends how much Marie Bashkirtseff reminds them of you.

I cannot help it. I must say it once again. I am such a fossil that I permit myself the most antediluvian remarks—if I think they have a grain of truth in them. Of course, the dissimilarities are quite as striking as the likenesses. No two leaves on one linden are really the same. But you and she, detached from the forest of life, seem to me like leaves plucked from the same sort of tree.

It is a very wonderful book. If only messieurs les romanciers could photograph experience in their fiction as she has done in some of her pages! The episode of Pachay, short as that is, is masterly—above the reach of Balzac; how far above the laborious, beetle—flight of Henry James! Above even George Meredith. It is what James would give his right hand to do once. The episode of Antonelli is very good, too, but not so exquisite as the other.

There is something pathetic about both "Asolando" and "Demeter," those shrivelled blossoms from the stout old laurels touched with frost of winter and old age. But I find little to dwell upon in either of them. Browning has more sap of life—Tennyson more ripe and mellow mastery. Each is here in the main reproducing his mannerism.

I am writing to you, you see, just as if I had not been silent for so long. I take you at your word, and expect Margot to be always the same to a comrade.

If you were only here! Keats said that "heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter." How false!

Yes, thus it is: somewhere by me
Unheard, by me unfelt, unknown,
The laughing, rippling notes of thee
Are sounding still; while I alone
Am left to sit and sigh and say—
Music unheard is sweet as they.

This is no momentary mood, and no light bubble-breath of improvisatory verse. It expresses what I often feel when, after a long night's work, I light my candle and take a look before I go to bed at your portrait in the corner of my stove.

I have been labouring intensely at my autobiography. It is blocked out, and certain parts of it are written for good. But a thing of this sort ought to be a master's final piece of work—and it is very exhausting to produce.

AM HOF, DAVOS PLATZ, SWITZERLAND, Sept. 27th, 1891.

MY DEAR MARGOT,

I am sending you back your two typewritten records. They are both very interesting, the one as autobiographical and a study of your family, the other as a vivid and, I think, justly critical picture of Gladstone. It will have a great literary value sometime. I do not quite feel with Jowett, who told you, did he not? that you had made him UNDERSTAND Gladstone. But I feel that you have offered an extremely powerful and brilliant conception, which is impressive and convincing because of your obvious sincerity and breadth of view. The purely biographical and literary value of this bit of work seems to me very great, and makes me keenly wish that you would record all your interesting experiences, and your first-hand studies of exceptional personalities in the same way.

Gradually, by doing this, you would accumulate material of real importance; much better than novels or stories, and more valuable than the passionate utterances of personal emotion.

Did I ever show you the record I privately printed of an evening passed by me at Woolner, the sculptor's, when Gladstone met Tennyson for the first time? If I had been able to enjoy more of such incidents, I should also have made documents. But my opportunities have been limited. For future historians, the illuminative value of such writing will be incomparable.

I suppose I must send the two pieces back to Glen. Which I will do, together with this letter. Let me see what you write. I think you have a very penetrative glimpse into character, which comes from perfect disengagement and sympathy controlled by a critical sense. The absence of egotism is a great point.

When Symonds died I lost my best intellectual tutor as well as one of my dearest friends. I wish I had taken his advice and seriously tried to write years ago, but, except for a few magazine sketches, I have never written a line for publication in my life. I have only kept a careful and accurate diary, [Footnote: Out of all my diaries I have hardly been able to quote fifty pages, for on re- reading them I find they are not only full of Cabinet secrets but jerky, disjointed and dangerously frank.] and here, in the interests of my publishers and at the risk of being thought egotistical, it is not inappropriate that I should publish the following letters in connection with these diaries and my writing:

21 CARLYLE MANSIONS, CHEYNE WALK, S.W.

April 9th, 1915.

MY DEAR MARGOT ASQUITH,

By what felicity of divination were you inspired to send me a few days ago that wonderful diary under its lock and key?—feeling so rightly certain, I mean, of the peculiar degree and particular PANG of interest that I should find in it? I don't wonder, indeed, at your general presumption to that effect, but the mood, the moment, and the resolution itself conspired together for me, and I have absorbed every word of every page with the liveliest appreciation, and I think I may say intelligence. I have read the thing intimately, and I take off my hat to you as to the very Balzac of diarists. It is full of life and force and colour, of a remarkable instinct for getting close to your people and things and for squeezing, in the case of the resolute portraits of certain of your eminent characters, especially the last drop of truth and sense out of them—at least as the originals affected YOUR singularly searching vision. Happy, then, those who had, of this essence, the fewest secrets or crooked lives to yield up to you—for the more complicated and unimaginable some of them appear, the more you seem to me to have caught and mastered them. Then I have found myself hanging on your impression in each case with the liveliest suspense and wonder, so thrillingly does the expression keep abreast of it and really translate it. This and your extraordinary fullness of opportunity, make of the record a most valuable English document, a rare revelation of the human inwardness of political life in this country, and a picture of manners and personal characters as "creditable" on the whole (to the country) as it is frank and acute. The beauty is that you write with such authority, that you've seen so much and lived and moved so much, and that having so the chance to observe and feel and discriminate in the light of so much high pressure, you haven't been in the least afraid, but have faced and assimilated and represented for all you're worth.

I have lived, you see, wholly out of the inner circle of political life, and yet more or less in wondering sight, for years, of many of its outer appearances, and in superficial contact—though this, indeed, pretty anciently now—with various actors and figures, standing off from them on my quite different ground and neither able nor wanting to be of the craft of mystery (preferring, so to speak, my own poor, private ones, such as they have been) and yet with all sorts of unsatisfied curiosities and yearnings and imaginings in your general, your fearful direction. Well, you take me by the hand and lead me back and in, and still in, and make things beautifully up to me—ALL my losses and misses and exclusions and privation—and do it by having taken all the right notes, apprehended all the right values and enjoyed all the right reactions—meaning by the right ones, those that must have ministered most to interest and emotion; those that I dimly made you out as getting while I flattened my nose against the shop window and you were there within, eating the tarts, shall I say, or handing them over the counter? It's to-day as if you had taken all the trouble for me and left me at last all the unearned increment or fine psychological gain! I have hovered about two or three of your distinguished persons a bit longingly (in the past); but you open up the abysses, or such like, that I really missed, and the torch you play over them is often luridly illuminating. I find my experience, therefore, the experience of simply reading you (you having had all t'other) veritably romantic. But I want so to go on that I deplore your apparent arrest—Saint Simon is in forty volumes—why should Margot be put in one? Your own portrait is an extraordinarily patient and detached and touch-upon-touch thing; but the book itself really constitutes an image of you by its strength of feeling and living individual tone. An admirable portrait of a lady, with no end of finish and style, is thereby projected, and if I don't stop now, I shall be calling it a regular masterpiece. Please believe how truly touched I am by your confidence in your faithful, though old, friend,

HENRY JAMES.

My dear and distinguished friend Lord Morley sent me the following letter of the 15th of September, 1919, and it was in consequence of this letter that, two months afterwards, on November the 11th, 1919, I began to write this book:

FLOWERMEAD, PRINCES ROAD, WIMBLEDON PARK, S.W., SEPTEMBER 15TH, 1919.

DEAR MRS. ASQUITH,

Your kindest of letters gave me uncommon pleasure, both personal and literary. Personal, because I like to know that we are still affectionate friends, as we have been for such long, important and trying years. Literary—because it is a brilliant example of that character-writing in which the French so indisputably beat us. If you like, you can be as keen and brilliant and penetrating as Madame de Sevigne or the best of them, and if I were a publisher, I would tempt you by high emoluments and certainty of fame. You ask me to leave you a book when I depart this life. If I were your generous well-wisher, I should not leave, but give you, my rather full collection of French Memoirs now while I am alive. Well, I am in very truth your best well-wisher, but incline to bequeath my modern library to a public body of female ladies, if you pardon that odd and inelegant expression. I have nothing good or interesting to tell you of myself. My strength will stand no tax upon it.

The bequest from my old friend [Footnote: Andrew Carnegie.] in America was a pleasant refresher, and it touched me, considering how different we were in training, character, tastes, temperament. I was first introduced to him with commendation by Mr. Arnold—a curious trio, wasn't it? He thought, and was proud of it, that he, A. C., introduced M. A. and me to the United States.

I watch events and men here pretty vigilantly, with what good and hopeful spirits you can imagine. When you return do pay me a visit. There's nobody who would be such a tonic to an octogenarian.

Always, always, your affectionate friend,

J. M.

When I had been wrestling with this autobiography for two months I wrote and told John Morley of my venture, and this is his reply:

FLOWERMEAD, PRINCES ROAD, WIMBLEDON PARK, S.W. (JAN., 1920).

DEAR MRS. ASQUITH,

A bird in the air had already whispered the matter of your literary venture, and I neither had nor have any doubt at all that the publisher knew very well what he was about. The book will be bright in real knowledge of the world; rich in points of life; sympathetic with human nature, which in strength and weakness is never petty or small.

Be sure to TRUST YOURSELF; and don't worry about critics. You need no words to tell you how warmly I am interested in your great design. PERSEVERE.

How kind to bid me to your royal [Footnote: I invited him to meet the Prince of Wales.] meal. But I am too old for company that would be so new, so don't take it amiss, my best of friends, if I ask to be bidden when I should see more of YOU. You don't know how dull a man, once lively, can degenerate into being.

Your always affectionate and grateful

J. MORLEY.

To return to my triumphant youth: I will end this chapter with a note which my friend, Lady Frances Balfour—one of the few women of outstanding intellect that I have known—sent me from her father, the late Duke of Argyll, the wonderful orator of whom it was said that he was like a cannon being fired off by a canary.

Frances asked me to meet him at a small dinner and placed me next to him. In the course of our conversation, he quoted these words that he had heard in a sermon preached by Dr. Caird:

"Oh! for the time when Church and State shall no longer be the watchword of opposing hosts, when every man shall be a priest and every priest shall be a king, as priest clothed with righteousness, as king with power!"

I made him write them down for me, and we discussed religion, preachers and politics at some length before I went home.

The next morning he wrote to his daughter:

ARGYLL LODGE, KENSINGTON.

DEAR FRANCES,

How dare you ask me to meet a syren.

Your affectionate,

A.