I listened often to remarks made about the Kaiser by the men who had been his subjects, and never once did I hear one word of pity for him, one word of regret at his downfall. The fact that so many valuable articles, plate, jewels, pictures, were sent by him to Holland is a bitter pill to his people. So valuable were many of the articles that, had he allowed them to be sold, the proceeds might have paid off a considerable amount of the reparation debt. It seemed to me that any love which his people once had for William Hohenzollern was dead.
My mind went back to the time when my own country mourned the loss of a King, a King who had enjoyed as much lifetime as is given to many men, and who was deposed only by that strongest of all monarchs—Death. I saw the picture of the Great Hall at Westminster, with the crowds waiting to pay their last tribute to King Edward VII. I remembered how I stood, with many others, on the steps at the entrance, and, looking down into the hall, saw a solid, slowly moving mass of people, the representatives of a mourning nation. There in the centre stood the coffin, with the signs of temporal power laid upon it, and at each corner a soldier with bowed head, each representing one of Britain’s Colonies. Above the coffin, showing in the pale light of the candles, was a canopy, a cloud which floated over it. The breath of all the hundreds who had passed had gathered and hung there: the very life of his people had gone to make a canopy for the King. I thought how in the hall where the English people had won so much of their liberty, Edward the Seventh had held a last audience with his subjects; how he had lain there that everyone who wished might find him, for the last time, waiting for his people. For “the deposing of a rightful King” I had seen a nation mourn, mourning with a personal sorrow; and here in Germany I listened to the men who had been subjects of “The Peacock of the World”, and who for his passing, his degradation, his loss, had not one word of pity or regret.
The German people? I left Germany wondering, and even hoping. The breaking of the military party, the downfall of the house of Hohenzollern, with its brood of decadent, idle, pleasure-loving princes and the “Tinsel and Cardboard King” may mean ultimate salvation for the German people. Not perhaps in my lifetime, but in the wonderful “someday” when all the world will be wiser and happier than it is now. A country where the very waiters can discuss music, literature, and poetry; a country of beautiful towns, green trees, and great manufactures; a country where, because of the heights to which one realises it might have climbed, its fall is all the greater and more dreadful.
Not the least interesting feature of my visit has been the closer contact with the director of the film, and his wife—Mr. Herbert Wilcox, a short man with a great dignity and immense charm. He was one of the gallant youngsters of 1914, who joined up as a Tommy and later did great work in the Flying Corps. Through Mr. Wilcox I have had my first intimate knowledge of film direction, and it has filled me with great respect for that branch of the theatrical profession, which, because it is still comparatively new, is less well-known and understood.
CHAPTER XII
A BUNDLE OF OLD LETTERS
“Wait till you read the letter.”
—Eliza Comes to Stay.
To explain why I include this chapter at all, I want to give you the scene as it happened in my study in Whiteheads Grove. I think that will be a better explanation than if I were to tell you my ideas on letters and letter-writing, however fully and completely I might do so.
It was one of those days when the desire to explore drawers and boxes, the top shelves of cupboards, and brown paper parcels, comes over one; that desire came over me, and I began. I did not get on very fast—one never does—and the first obstacle was a parcel marked “Letters, Private”. I untied the string, and began to read them; that was the end of my exploring for the day, for as I read I went back to the times when those letters were written and turned over in my mind the happenings which had caused them ever to be written. I saw the writers, and heard their voices. So the afternoon went past very quickly, for when ghosts come to visit you they demand your whole attention, and will not be dismissed quickly, will not be told, as one can tell ordinary people, “I am so busy to-day, will you come and see me some other time?”; they demand attention, and you find most of them too dear to deny it to them.
Besides, does anyone ever really lose their fondness for letters? I write, I think, more than most people; sometimes I seem to spend my life writing letters, but—I still look forward to “to-morrow morning’s post”, and I think I always shall.