Balaclava Dinner, Bassaleg,
October 29th, 1910.
[QUIPS AT THE SERVANTS' BALL.]
I have arrived at the age when to clasp the waist of one of the opposite sex for three hours is not considered the height of human happiness. I remember, however, with pleasure, a time in my younger days when I thought it was so, and perhaps some of those who can indulge in a valse without feeling giddy, or a polka without being "blown," think so now.
Servants' Ball,
January 14th, 1889.
"I remember, however,
with pleasure,
a time in my younger days."
I am happy to be able truly and honestly to say that I have not a word of difference with any servant of my establishment. Each year as it rolls onward finds me stiffer in the joints, shorter in the breath, and less able than formerly to perform the double shuffle, but there are others coming on—the younger members of the family—who will be able to kick up their heels as lightly as once I was able to do. As each year rolls round, too, there are always saddening memories, but on an occasion of this sort I will make no allusions to them, ... I hope you will stick to old fashions and old ways. You may be told of new-fangled ways, and be advised to get rid of the old, but I think it will be well if you do not pay too much attention to those advisers. England is like old Tredegar House, and you will find that the customs now prevailing have been in vogue for over 500 years. You will probably be told that the best way to make people happy is to make the poor rich and the rich poor; but, in truth, the richer people are, the better able they are to help the poor.
Servants' Ball,
January 7th, 1910.
Many of you waited last night for the old year to go out and the new year to come in. I did for one. I listened at the window and I heard bells ringing, and noises which I can only describe as hideous. There is an invention in this part of the world, which I believe comes from America (where they have a great many disagreeable things) called a "hooter." When I listened last night it seemed to me that it was deliberately hooting out the old year which to so many of us had painful recollections; and it occurred to me that it was a most appropriate thing to do. It was the wettest spring, the coldest summer, the windiest autumn that I have ever known.