My speech was offensive: it was meant to be. But offensive though I knew it to be, I did not know how offensive it really was. I mentioned the name of Wagner and, as I did so, I saw Dr Walford Davies shudder most violently. Though I attacked the Church for her unimaginative attitude to music, though I stamped on hymns and hymn tunes, though I slanged the microscopic brains of many organists, though I said that nearly all Cathedral music was to me anathema maranatha, nobody except Bishop Welldon appeared to care in the least, and he did not care half so much as poor, virginal Walford Davies, who, at the name of Wagner, shuddered and put his glass aside.
Davies spoke: earnestly, like St Francis; frenziedly, like Savonarola; passionately, like Venus ... no! no! no! ... passionately, like St Paul. Eschew Wagner! That’s what it all came to.... “Eschew....” Hate the sin, love the sinner, but most certainly “eschew” both. His cheeks were very white, his lips pale. He trembled a little. Wagner, it appeared, was one of the devils. Ab-so-lute-ly pernicious.... Have you ever noticed how accurately you can estimate a man by his [30] ]adjectives? Dr Walford Davies used “pernicious” eleven times, “poisonous” twice, “very-much-to-be-distrusted” once, “naughty” once (“this naughty man!” was the phrase), “unlicensed” thrice, and “immoral” fifteen times.... I must say, en passant, that I am writing from memory and that my memory for figures is atrocious; still, these adjectives, collectively represent the impression his speech left on my mind.
After dinner (well, neither after nor before dinner) one does not ardently desire a speech of that kind. It fell flat. A fat organist from Bolton (or was it Bacup?) winked me a fat wink. The man on my left—a young musical doctor from Cambridge—dug his elbow into my ribs.
And then came Bishop Welldon’s speech. He was extraordinarily clever. He said some of the most cutting things imaginable. He was scathing. He hurt me. Reaching for my glass, I hastily swallowed the large brandy I had been careful to ask for beforehand. He made epigrams, epigrams adapted most skilfully from the writings of his friend, John Oliver Hobbes. And he spoke so well; he had presence; he had a manner; he, like Sir Willoughby Patterne, had a leg ... and a leg that was gaitered. Perhaps it was the gaiters that did it. One has heard a good deal lately about the Hidden Hand, but what about the influence of the Hidden Leg? The leg hidden under the table? The gaitered leg hidden under the table? Most of the diners, remembering that Bishop Welldon was indeed a bishop—though, truly, only, so to speak, an ex-bishop, and an ex-bishop only of Calcutta, and now possessing only the powers of a dean (whatever those powers may be!)—most of the diners, I say, recollecting that Bishop Welldon was indeed a bishop, looked at me with eyes of faint hostility or did not look at me at all.
I was very young, said Bishop Welldon. I was [31] ]enthusiastic; I was inexperienced; I was “artistic”; I was a jumper-at-conclusions.
When he finished and, with one of his good-natured smiles, turned and looked at me, I was crumbling bread very rapidly, rolling the bread into soiled little pills, putting the little pills all in a row.
Later on in the evening Bishop Welldon, a little group of jolly people and I myself sat and smoked and drank very inferior coffee. Dr Walford Davies did not join us. He shot little pointed darts at me from his eyes, but (as, of course, you must have anticipated) when he and I parted he was most studiously polite.
And, on my way to my tram, I hummed Davies’ Hame! Hame! Hame! to myself and pondered over the mystery that enables a man to write such a wonderful, soul-searching melody and yet possess an intellect of quality only ... well, so-so.
Here a little child I stand,
Heaving up my either hand ...