A New Medley of Memories

by Sir David Oswald Hunter Blair

"An aristocracy is the best of all possible orders, in the worst of all possible worlds."

Our good Monsignore was nominally at home during these weeks, but in a restless and excitable state. He would exhaust himself by feverish energy at golf for a day or two, then rush off in his motor, "for change," with valet and chauffeur, and return more tired than he had gone away. He attended one evening a big golfing-dinner at the Master of University's: dined well (according to his own account), drank hock, old port, and Benedictine, came home and rolled about all night in indescribable agony. Most of his duties he delegated to me, including, sometimes, the task of "interviewing" bewildered Catholic parents, to whom Oxford university life was an absolute terra incognita, and who were puzzled or anxious about their sons' doings. Poor Lady E—— B——! I remember still the dismay with which she came to tell me how her boy had made friends in college with an Egyptian Moslem ("an unbaptized heathen Turk," was her description of him), and was bent on taking "digs" (lodgings) with him in the following term. I felt sympathy with the Catholic mother in her instinctive dislike to this prospect; but I felt none with the indignation of another parent (a distinguished diplomatist) at the refusal of one of the most sought-after colleges to admit his son. The fact was, as I had, after due inquiry, to explain tactfully to the aggrieved parent, that the youth (a pupil of one of our smaller Catholic schools) gave himself, at the preliminary interview with the college authorities, such "confounded airs" (as one of the dons expressed it) that they would have nothing to say to him. Probably the poor lad's "airs" were only one of the many forms in which extreme shyness manifests itself; anyhow it is fair to add that this was an exceptional case, and that our Catholic freshmen, as a whole, made a favourable impression by their good manners and modesty of demeanour. One Head, who had no sympathy at all with the Catholic religion, told me that so pleased was he with the Catholic contingent in his college, that he would willingly admit as many more as I cared to recommend to him.

Of events of general interest this spring, I recall a fascinating lecture by Sven Hedin on his Tibetan travels. The eminent explorer had a bumper audience and a great reception, and was given an honorary degree by Convocation next day. Kennard and I agreed in resenting his arrogant and bumptious manner; and the tone of some of his remarks might have prepared us for the outburst of anti-English fanaticism for which he made himself notorious a few years later. There was a big gathering at the Schools one evening in celebration of the centenary of Darwin. The oratorical tributes and panegyrics were, as usual, so lengthy as to become wearisome; but an interesting feature was the presence of three of Darwin's sons, of whom one (Sir George) gave us some pleasant personal details and reminiscences of his distinguished father. His affectionate loyalty to a parent's memory one can sympathize with and understand; but I confess that, reading the "pulpit references" to the centenary that week, I was puzzled to comprehend how Christian ministers could "let themselves go" in indiscriminating panegyric of a man of whom I hope it is not uncharitable, as it is certainly not untrue, to say that he was, if any man ever was, a self-confessed unbeliever in revelation and in Christ.[[1]] The utterances on such an occasion of a distinguished occupant of the university pulpit a generation earlier[[2]] would certainly have been pitched in a different key; and so would those of my old friend Dr. Frederick George Lee, whose summary of the logical result of Darwin's teaching was—

The Incarnation is but a dream, the Supernatural a delusion. Our only duties are to feed and to breed. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.

I received into the Church this term an undergraduate of one of the smaller colleges, who was reading for natural science honours and rowed in his college boat; but he had evidently had time for reading and reflection as well, and had thought the whole matter out so carefully that I had little left to do. In order to keep him back at the eleventh hour, his tutor (an Anglican divine of some repute) kept propounding to him historical difficulties such as "How was it that Henry of Navarre was allowed by the Pope to have two wives at once?" and so on. My young friend used to bring me these nuts to crack, and we had a good deal of fun over them.

It was proposed, and decided, before Easter that Oxford should send a representative to Louvain in the summer, to take part in the jubilee celebrations of the Catholic University. Cambridge, London, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and, I believe, other universities, had all elected, as a compliment to Louvain, to send a Catholic representative on this occasion; and the senior proctor told me that my name had been mentioned before the Council in this connection. Oxford, however, declined to associate itself with the other universities in this graceful act of courtesy—one which, as I heard privately from Louvain, was very highly appreciated there. A clergyman of the Church of England was nominated as the Oxford representative; and to a letter of remonstrance which (after consulting one or two of our resident masters) I sent to the Vice-chancellor, he replied by a courteously-worded note of explanation—which explained nothing.

Early in March I paid an interesting little visit to Douai Abbey, in the beautiful wooded country about Pangbourne, and lectured to the community and their eighty pupils on Jerusalem. I had a warmly Benedictine welcome here, and was glad to see additions being made to the buildings of the former diocesan college of Portsmouth, which the bishop had made over to the monks when they were expelled from their beloved home at Douai, by decree of the French Government dated April 3, 1903. Term over, I went up to Yorkshire to spend St. Benedict's festival with my brethren at Ampleforth, where I found myself deputed that evening to present the football colours in the college. They were scarlet and black; but while reminding the young players that those were the traditional colours of Mephistopheles, I disclaimed any intention of suggesting a common origin. My stay here was saddened by the rather unexpected news of the death of my dear old friend George Angus of St. Andrews. He had long been the only Catholic member of his Oxford Hall; and exactly a week before his death I had had, by a consoling coincidence, the pleasure of reconciling to the Catholic Church an undergraduate of the same venerable foundation.

I stayed a night in London, on my way to Arundel, to hear Lord Hugh Cecil discourse at our Westminster Dining-club, with his usual perfervid rhetoric, on "Some Diseases of the House of Commons." Two of our University Members, Sir William Anson and Professor Butcher, joined in the interesting subsequent discussion. A friend next morning insisted on carrying me off to Selfridge's, the huge new emporium in Oxford Street, and showing me all over it. He amused me by a story of how there, or in some other Brobdingnagian London store, the electric light suddenly went out, just at the busiest hour of the evening. "There they were—thousands of 'em," the narrator of the incident is supposed to have said, "pinching the goods right and left—'aving the time of their lives, with not a light in the 'ole place; and there was I—just my blooming luck—where do you think? in the grand piano department!"

I went for the week-end to Rickmansworth, to stay with Lady Encombe, who had a little party for the laying of the foundation-stone of the new church of the Assumptionists. The Bishop of Kimberley (S.A.) gave a nice address. I preached next day (Sunday) in the old church, and in the evening we all listened to a quaint Franco-English sermonette from good Fr. Julian, the superior. Monday was Jack Encombe's tenth birthday: I gave him Jorrocks, with coloured plates, which delighted him; saw him and his brother start hunting on their ponies (their mother following them awheel); and then left for Arundel, where I was very glad to find myself (though not yet fully robust) able to take my share in the solemn Easter services. I found the castle grounds at length "redd up" and in perfect order; the hordes of workmen vanished, and lawns and terraces and shrubberies and flower-beds twinkling in the April sunshine. It was a joy to see the beautiful home of the Howards looking itself again after all these years of reconstruction and upheaval. The Duke had told me that he was determined to get the place shipshape within a year of his second marriage, or (like Trelawny) "know the reason why!" and he had been as good as his word. I heard with pleasure in Easter week that my nephew had got his first in moderations at Balliol; and with sorrow of the death of my kind old friend Bishop Wilkinson, successor of St. Cuthbert as Bishop of Hexham, and a shining example of loyalty and devotion to his Church and his country. I lunched in London, on my way to Oxford, with Lady Maple, at Clarence House, the pretty residence in Regent's Park left to her by Sir Blundell Maple. Telephoning previously to "Clarence House" to inquire the luncheon-hour, I was informed in haughty tones that "their Royal 'Ighnesses were in Egypt, and that nothing was known about any luncheon!" It turned out that I was in communication with the other Clarence House, the St. James's residence of the Duke of Connaught.

My first duty, on returning to Oxford, was to marry my cousin John Simeon,[[3]] until recently an undergraduate of the House, to Miss Adelaide Holmes à Court. My little sermon at the Jesuit church (which was almost filled with the wedding guests) was not intended to be otherwise than cheerful, and I was surprised in the course of it to observe the unusual phenomenon of the bridegroom's father dissolved in tears! The happy couple motored off later to North Wales in a downpour of rain, which (I heard) never once stopped during their brief honeymoon.