[[9]] I wrote, I fear, rather heatedly to good old Ainger (Secretary of the War Fund), on what seemed to me the painful incongruity of the building with its surroundings. "Many people, I believe," he replied with admirable restraint, "feel quite as you do on this matter; but no one has expressed himself quite so strongly!"
[[10]] Poor little Ringan! (his name was the ancient "pet" form of "Ninian," the saint of Galloway). On the election-day, a year or so afterwards, the burgesses of Cardiff smiled to see him driving through the streets in a motor from which flew a bannerette recommending them to "Vote for Daddy!" There was universal regret, a few days later, at the sad news that the little electioneerer had succumbed to a chill caught on the occasion of his first public appearance, when less than two years old. See post. page [176].
[[11]] The actual tenant, Colonel Campbell, whose wife was a Catholic, eventually bought the property.
CHAPTER VIII
1908-1909
I spent the Christmas of 1908, as usual, very pleasantly at Beaufort. For the first time for many years the family was absolutely au complet: the services of the season in the beautiful chapel were well attended; and I sympathized with the happiness of my kind hostess, as she knelt at the altar at midnight mass surrounded by all her children, without exception. There were grandchildren, too, of all ages, who amused themselves vastly in spite of appalling weather, rain, snow, frost, thaw, and gales, following one another in rapid and unwelcome succession. The children acted a pretty and touching miracle-play, the hand-painted programme whereof still adorns my scrap-book; and there were seasonable revels of various kinds. At New Year somebody announced that 1909 was to be a great year of anniversaries, 1809 having been annus mirabilis. We remembered (with difficulty) eight celebrities born that year—Mendelssohn, E. Barrett Browning, Darwin, Tennyson, O. Wendell Holmes, Lord Houghton, W. E. Gladstone, and Abraham Lincoln, but could think of no others. This reminded some one else that I. Disraeli called thirty-seven the "fatal age of genius," four great men (among others) who died at that age having been Raphael, Mozart, Byron and Burns. I wound up with a statement new, I think, to everybody, viz., that Saturday was the fatal day of the week to the English Royal Family (Hanoverian Line). I have not followed the matter down to quite recent times; but it is undoubtedly singular that William III., Queen Anne, George I., II., III., and IV., the Duchess of Kent, the Prince Consort, and Princess Alice all died on a Saturday.
I stayed at Loudoun Castle on my way south, finding there a big party of young men and maidens—Howards of Glossop, Hastings', Bellasis', Beauclercs, and Bethells, gathered for an Eglinton Hunt Ball (recalling the days of my youth). Nearly all were Catholics, so I had quite a congregation in the little chapel, redecorated (with the rest of the castle) since my previous visit. I was back in Oxford before the middle of January for the Lent term, to me always a more interesting period than the golden weeks of summer, when everybody's heads seemed to be full of nothing but amusement and sport. Our Sunday conferences were given this term by Father Kenelm Vaughan (the late Cardinal's missionary brother), who used to arrive for the week-ends with no luggage save a little well-worn Bible hanging from the girdle of his cassock and (possibly) a toothbrush in his pocket. If there ever was a man who lived entirely in "a better country, and that an heavenly," it was Kenelm. Like all the Vaughans, he was of striking appearance; and his personality, as well as his appealing eloquence, made a great impression on his young hearers, although his unconventional sayings and doings had an occasionally disconcerting effect on our good host and his guests, which used to remind me of Jerome's "Man in the Third Floor Back." Wilfrid Ward was with us for a day or two, with a great flow of conversation, chiefly about himself. He read an interesting paper to our Newman Society on "The Writing of the Apologia"—anticipatory gleanings, of course (if the phrase is permissible), of his great forthcoming biography, and including several of the Cardinal's unpublished letters. There was a record meeting of the Society a little later, to hear W. H. Mallock on (or "down on") Socialism. Many dons of note were present, and there was a brisk debate, W. H. M. holding his own very well. At supper afterwards I ventured to remind him of two sentences of his (I forget from which of his writings) which had given me much pleasure:—
"The Catholic Church is the Columbus of modern society, who will guide us eventually to the new moral continent which other explorers are trying in vain to reach."