[[20]] They said much that was nasty, but they could not oust the professor (though they tried their best) from his professorship. Au contraire, he received promotion soon afterwards, being elected to the Chair of Humanity; and a protest organized by certain bigots was allowed to "lie on the table"—i.e., went into the waste-paper basket.
CHAPTER IV
1905-1906
An event of Benedictine interest in the autumn of 1905, and one which attracted many visitors to Downside, our beautiful abbey among the Mendip Hills, was the long-anticipated opening of the choir of the great church. Special trains, an overflowing guest-house, elaborate services, many congratulatory speeches, and much monastic hospitality, were, as customary on such occasions, the order of the day. Architecturally, I confess that I found the new choir disappointing: it but confirmed the impression (which after many years had become a conviction with me) that the art of building a real Gothic church on a grand scale is lost, gone beyond hope of recovery. Ecce signum! Design, material, workmanship all admirable, and the result, alas! lifeless, as lifeless as (say) the modern cathedrals of Truro and Liverpool and Edinburgh, the nave of Bristol, and the great church of Our Lady at Cambridge. I have seen Downside compared with Lichfield: nay, some one (greatly daring) placed pictures of them side by side in some magazine. Vain comparison! Lichfield, built long centuries ago, is alive still—instinct with the life breathed into it by its unknown creators in the ages of faith; but these great modern Gothic churches seem to me to have never lived at all, to have come into existence still-born. No: Gothic architecture, in this century of ours, is dead. Such life as it has is a simulated, imitative, galvanized life, which is no more real life than the tunes ground out of a pianola or a gramophone are real living music.[[1]] "'Tis true, 'tis pity: pity 'tis, 'tis true."
Another engagement which I had in the west about this time was to preach at the opening of the new Benedictine church at Merthyr Tydvil. Bishop Hedley and I travelled thither together from Cardiff, through a country which God made extremely pretty, with its deep glens and hills covered with bracken and heather, but which man, in search of coal, has blackened and defaced to an incredible extent: the whole district, of course, a hive of industry. Lying in bed at night, I saw through my blindless window the flames belching from a score of furnace-chimneys down the valley, and thought what it must be to spend one's life in such surroundings. A curious change to find oneself next day in the verdant environment of Cardiff Castle, where, once within the gates, one might be miles away from coalpits and from the great industrial city close by. My room was the quondam nursery, of which the walls had been charmingly decorated by the fanciful genius of William Burges (the restorer of the castle), with scenes from children's fairy stories—Jack the Giant-killer and Cinderella and Red Riding-hood and the rest, tripping round in delightful procession. The Welsh metropolis was en fête on the day of my arrival, in honour of the town having become a city, and its mayor a lord-mayor; and Lord Bute was giving a big luncheon to civic and other magnates in the beautiful banqueting hall, adorned with historic frescoes and rich stained glass. The family was smiling gently, during my visit, at the news published "from a reliable source," that my young host was to be the new Viceroy of Ireland. Another report, equally "reliable" (odious word!) published, a little later, his portrait and not very eventful biography, as that of the just-appointed Under-Foreign Secretary. Why not Lord Chancellor or Commander-in-chief at once? one was as likely as the other.
The reference to the commander-in-chief reminds me that the Oxford Union was honoured this (October) term by a visit from Lord Roberts, who gave us a very informing lecture, illustrated with many maps, on the N.W. frontier of India and was received by a crowded house with positive shouts of welcome.[[2]] Almost equally well received, a week later, was Lord Hugh Cecil, who had held no office in the Union in his undergraduate days, but had often since taken part in its debates. His theme on this occasion was the interminable fiscal question; and the curiously poignant and personal note in his oratory appealed, as it always did, to his youthful hearers, who supported him with their votes as well as their applause.
A little later there was a great audience in the Town Hall, to hear Joe Chamberlain inveigh against the new Government,[[3]] and preach his fiscal gospel. He was in excellent form, and looked nothing like seventy, though his long speech—his last, I think, before his great break-down—certainly aged him visibly. A little incident at the opening showed his undiminished aptitude for ready repartee. He announced his intention of treating Tariff Reform from the Imperial standpoint, adding, "I am not going to deal with the subject from the economic side"; and then, as a derisive "Yah!" broke from some disgruntled Liberals at the back of the hall, going on without a moment's hesitation—"not, however, for the reason which I see suggests itself to some of the acuter minds among my audience!"