CHAPTER III
1905
There had been an official visitation, by Abbot Gasquet, of our abbey at Fort Augustus in January, 1905. I had been unable to attend it, but the news reached me at Oxford that one of its results had been the resignation of his office by the abbot. This was not so important as it sounded; for the Holy See did not "see its way" (horrid phrase!) to accept the proffered resignation, and the abbot remained in office.
I attended this month a Catholic "Demonstration," as it was called (a word I always hated), in honour of the Bishop of Birmingham—or the "Catholic Bishop of Oxford," as an enthusiastic convert, who had set up a bookshop in the city, with a large portrait of Bishop Ilsley in the window, chose to designate him. The function was in the town hall, and Father Bernard Vaughan made one of his most florid orations, which got terribly on the nerves of good old Sir John Day (the Catholic judge), who sat next me on the platform. "Why on earth doesn't somebody stop him?" he whispered to me in a loud "aside," as the eloquent Jesuit "let himself go" on the subject of the Pope and the King. On the other hand, I heard the Wesleyan Mayor, who was in the chair, murmur to his neighbour, "This is eloquence indeed!" "Vocal relief" (as the reporters say at classical concerts) was afforded by a capital choir, which sang with amazing energy, "Faith of our Fathers," and Faber's sentimental hymn, the opening words of which—"Full in the pant" ... are apt to call forth irreverent smiles.
I took Bernard Vaughan (who knew little of Oxford) a walk round the city on Sunday afternoon. We looked into one of the most "advanced" churches, where a young curate, his biretta well on the back of his head, was catechising a class of children. "Tell me, children," we heard him say, "who was the first Protestant?" "The Devil, Father!" came the shrill response. "Yes, quite right, the Devil!" and we left the church much edified.
There was good music to be heard in Oxford in those early days of the year; and I attended some enjoyable concerts with a music-loving member of my Hall. The boy-prodigies, of whom there were several above the horizon at this time, generally had good audiences at Oxford; and I used to find something inexplicably uncanny in the attainments and performances of these gifted youngsters—Russian, German and English. Astonishing technique—as far as was possible for half-grown fingers—one might fairly look for; but whence the sehnsucht, the passionate yearning, that one seemed to find in some, at least, of their interpretations? That they should feel it appears incredible: yet it could not have been a mere imitative monkey-trick, a mere echo of the teaching of their master. And why should there be this precocious development in music alone, of all the arts? These things want explaining psychologically. I was amused at one of these recitals to hear the eminent violinist Marie Hall (who happened to be sitting next me) say that the boy (it was the Russian Mischa Elman) could not possibly play Bazzini's Ronde des Lutins (he did play it, and admirably), and also that he had suddenly "struck," to the dismay of his impresario, against appearing as a "wunderkind" in sailor kit and short socks, and had insisted on a dress suit!
The Torpids were rowed in icy weather this year; I took Lady Gainsborough and her daughter on to Queen's barge; and Queen's (in which they were interested) made, with the help of two Rhodes Scholars, two bumps, amid shouts of "Go it, Quaggas!"—a new petit nom since my time, when only the Halls had nicknames. Tuckwell, of an older generation than mine, reports in his reminiscences how St. Edmund Hall, in his time, was encouraged by cries from the bank of "On, St. Edmund, on!" and not, as in these degenerate days, "Go it, Teddy!" It was a novelty on the river to see the coaching done from bicycles instead of from horseback. But bicycles were ubiquitous at Oxford, and doubtless of the greatest service; and my young Benedictines and I went far afield awheel on architectural and other excursions. Passing the broken and battered park railings of beautiful Nuneham (not yet repaired by Squire "Lulu"[[1]]), my companion commented on their condition; and I told him the legend of the former owner, who was so disconsolate at the death of his betrothed (a daughter of Dean Liddell) on their wedding-day, that he never painted or repaired his park railings again!
I heard at the end of February of the engagement (concluded in a beauty-spot of the Italian Riviera) of my young friend Bute—he would not be twenty-four till June—to Augusta Bellingham. A boy-and-girl attachment which had found its natural and happy conclusion—that was the whole story, though the papers, of course, were full of impossibly romantic tales about both the young people. They went off straight to Rome, in Christian fashion, to ask the Pope's blessing on their betrothal; and I just missed them there, for I had the happiness this spring of another brief visit to Italy, at the invitation of a Neapolitan friend. I spent two or three delightful weeks at the Bertolini Palace, high above dear dirty Naples, with an entrancing view over the sunlit bay, and Vesuvius (quite quiescent) in the background. I found the city not much changed in thirty years, and, as always, much more attractive than its queer and half-savage population. Watching the cab-drivers trying to urge their lumbering steeds into a canter, I thought how oddly different are the sounds employed by different nations to make their horses go. The Englishman makes the well-known untransferable click with his tongue: the Norwegian imitates the sound of a kiss: the Arab rolls an r-r-r: the Neapolitan coachman barks Wow! wow! wow! The subject is worth developing.
I met at Naples, among other people, Sir Charles Wyndham, with his unmistakable "Criterion" voice, and as cynically amusing off the stage as he generally was on it. He reminded me of what I had forgotten—that I had once shown him all over our Abbey at Fort Augustus. I told him of a lecture Beerbohm Tree had recently given at Oxford, and showed him my copy of a striking passage[[2]] which I had transcribed from a shorthand note of the lecture. "Noble words," the veteran actor agreed, "I know them well; but they were not written for his Oxford lecture. I remember them a dozen or more years ago, in an address he gave (I think in 1891) to the Playgoers' Club; and the last clause ran—'to point in the twilight of a waning century to the greater light beyond.' Those words would not of course be applicable in 1904."