CHAPTER XI
Dislike of the elderly to change—Some legitimate grounds of complaint—Modern pronunciation of Latin—How a European crisis was averted by the old-fashioned method—Lord Dufferin's Latin speech—Schoolboy costume of a hundred years ago—Discomforts of travel in my youth—A crack liner of the "eighties"—Old travelling carriages—An election incident—Headlong rush of extraordinary turnout—The politically minded signalman and the doubtful voter—"Decent bodies"—Confidence in the future—Conclusion.
To point out that elderly people dislike change is to assert the most obvious of truisms. Their three-score years of experience have taught them that all changes are not necessarily changes for the better, as youth fondly imagines; and that experiments are not invariably successful. They have also learnt that no amount of talk will alter hard facts, and that the law that effect will follow cause is an inflexible one which torrents of fluent platitudes will neither affect nor modify. Even should this entail their being labelled with the silly and meaningless term of "reactionary," I do not imagine that their equanimity is much upset by it. It is, perhaps, natural for the elderly to make disparaging comparisons between the golden past and the neutral-tinted present; so that one shudders at reflecting what a terrific nuisance Methuselah must have become in his old age. One can almost hear the youth of his day whispering friendly warnings to each other: "Avoid that old fellow like poison, for you will find him the most desperate bore. He is for ever grousing about the rottenness of everything nowadays compared to what it was when he was a boy nine hundred years ago."
What applies to Methuselah may apply, in a lesser degree, to all of us elderly people, though I think that we are justified when we lament a noticeable decline in certain definite standards of honour which in our day were almost universally accepted both in private and in public life. Even then some few may have bowed the knee at the shrine of "Monseigneur l'Argent"; but it was done almost furtively, for "people on the make," or unblushingly "out for themselves," were less to the fore then than now, and were most certainly less conspicuous in public life.
We can also be forgiven for regretting a marked decline in manners. Possibly in hurried days when every one seems to crave for excitement, there is but little time left for those courtesies customary amongst an older generation.
There is no need to enlarge on the immense changes the years have brought about during my lifetime. Amongst the very minor changes, I notice that when my great-nephews quote any Latin to me, I am unable to understand one single syllable of it, and between ourselves I fancy that this modern pronunciation of Latin would be equally unintelligible to an ancient Roman.
Our old-fashioned English pronunciation of Latin may have been illogical, but on one occasion it helped to avert a European war. The late Count Benckendorff, the last Russian Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, a singularly fascinating man, was protocolist to the Congress of Berlin in 1878, and as such was present at every sitting of the Congress. He told me that at one meeting of the Plenipotentiaries, Prince Gortschakoff announced that Russia, in direct contravention of Article XIII of the Treaty of Paris of 1856, intended to fortify the port of Batoum. This was expressly forbidden by the Treaty of Paris, so Lord Beaconsfield rose from his chair and said quietly, "Casus belli," only he pronounced the Latin words in the English fashion, and Count Benckendorff assured me that no one present, with the exception of the British delegates, had the glimmer of an idea of what he was talking about. They imagined that he was making some remark in English to Lord Salisbury, and took no notice of it whatever. Lord Salisbury whispered to his colleague, and ultimately Prince Gortschakoff withdrew the claim to fortify Batoum. "But," added Count Benckendorff, "just imagine the consternation of the Congress had Lord Beaconsfield hurled his ultimatum to Russia with the continental pronunciation 'cahsous bellee!'" Just picture the breaking up of the Congress, the frantic telegrams, the shrieking headlines, the general consternation, and the terrific results that might have followed! And all these tremendous possibilities were averted by our old-fashioned English pronunciation of Latin!
My old Chief and godfather, the late Lord Dufferin, in his most amusing Letters From High Latitudes, recounts how he was entertained at a public dinner at Rejkjavik in Iceland by the Danish Governor. To his horror Lord Dufferin found that he was expected to make a speech, and his hosts asked him to speak either in Danish or in Latin. Lord Dufferin, not knowing one word of Danish, hastily reassembled his rusty remnants of Latin, and began, "Insolitus ut sum ad publicum loquendum," and in proposing the Governor's health, begged his audience, amidst enthusiastic cheers, to drink it with a "haustu longo, haustu forti, simul atque haustu."
Such are the advantages of a classical education!
My younger relatives, who naturally look upon me as being of almost antediluvian age, sometimes ask me to describe the discomforts of an all-night coach journey in my youth, or inquire how many days we occupied in travelling from, say, London to Edinburgh. They are obviously sceptical when I assure them that my memory does not extend to pre-railway days. I am surprised that they do not ask me for a few interesting details of occasions when we were stopped by masked highwaymen on Hounslow Heath in the course of our journeys.