A New Medley of Memories

by Sir David Oswald Hunter Blair

Abbot Gasquet, who had many friends in Oxford, was much in residence there during the summer of 1904, as he was giving the weekly conferences to our undergraduates. His host, Mgr. Kennard, usually asked me to dinner on Sundays, "to keep the Abbot going," which released me from the chilly collation (cold mutton and cold rhubarb pie), the orthodox Sabbath evening fare in so many households.[[1]] I recall the lovely Sundays of this summer term, and the crowds of peripatetic dons and clerics in the parks and on the river bank: many of them, I fancy, the serious-minded persons who would have thought it their duty, a year previously, to attend the afternoon university sermon, lately abolished. The afternoon discourse had come to be allotted to the second-rate preachers; and I had heard of a clergyman who, when charged with walking in the country instead of attending at St. Mary's, defended himself by saying that he preferred "sermons from stones" to sermons from "sticks!"[[2]]

The biggest clerical gathering I ever saw in Oxford was on a bright May afternoon in 1904, when hundreds of parsons were whipped up from the country to oppose the abolition of the statute restricting the honour-theology examinerships to clergymen. Scores of black-coats were hanging about the Clarendon Buildings, waiting to go in and vote; and they "boo'd" and cat-called in the theatre, refusing to let their opponents be heard. They carried their point by an enormous majority.[[3]]

Kennard took me to London, on another day in May, to see the Academy—some astonishing Sargents, Mrs. Wertheimer all in black, with diamonds which made you wink, and the Duchess of Sutherland in arsenic green, painted against a background of dewy magnolia-leaves, extraordinarily vivid and brilliant. I was at Blenheim a few days later, and admired there (besides the wonderful tapestries and a roomful of Reynolds's) two striking portraits—one by Helleu, the other by Carolus-Duran—of the young American Duchess of Marlborough.

An enjoyable event in June was the quadrennial open-air Greek play at Bradfield College—Alcestis on this occasion, not so thrilling as Agamemnon four years ago, but very well done, and the death of the heroine really very touching. A showery garden party at beautiful Osterley followed close on this: the Crown Prince of Sweden, who was the guest of honour, had forgotten to announce the hour of his arrival, was not met at the station, and walked up in the rain. I sat for a time with Bishop Patterson and the old Duke of Rutland (looking very tottery), and we spoke of odd texts for sermons. The Bishop mentioned a "total abstinence" preacher who could find nothing more suitable than "The young men who carried the bier stood still"! The Duke's contribution was the verse "Let him that is on the housetop not come down," the sermon being against "chignons," and the actual text the last half of the verse—"Top-knot come down"! They were both pleased with my reminiscence of a sermon preached against Galileo, in 1615, from the text, "Viri Galilæi, quid statis aspicientes in coelum?"

As soon as I could after term I went north to Scotland, where I was engaged to superintend the Oxford Local examinations at the Benedictine convent school at Dumfries. It was a new experience for me to preside over school-girls! I found them much less fidgety than boys, but it struck me that the masses of hair tumbling into their eyes and over their desks must be a nuisance: however, I suppose they are used to it. The convent, founded by old Lady Herries, was delightfully placed atop of a high hill, overlooking the river Nith, the picturesque old Border town, and a wide expanse of my native Galloway. My work over, I went on to visit the Edmonstoune-Cranstouns at their charming home close to the tumbling Clyde. I found them entertaining a party of Canadian bowlers and their ladies; and in the course of the day we were all decorated with the Order of the Maple-leaf! I went south after this to spend a few days with my good old friend Bishop Wilkinson, at Ushaw College, near Durham, of which he was president. An old Harrovian, and one of the few survivors of Newman's companions at Littlemore, he was himself a Durham man (his father had owned a large estate in the county), and had been a keen farmer, as well as an excellent parish priest, before his elevation to the bishopric of Hexham. He showed me all over the finely equipped college (which he had done much to improve), and pointing out a Dutch landscape, with cattle grazing, hanging in a corridor, remarked, "That is by a famous 'old master.' I don't know much about pictures, but I do know something about cows; and God never made a cow like that one!"[[4]] The good old man held an ordination during my visit, and was quite delighted (being himself a thorough John Bull) that "John Bull" happened to be the name of one of his candidates for the priesthood. "Come again soon," he said, when I kissed his ring as I took my leave; "they give us wine at table when there is a guest, and I do like a glass of sherry with my lunch." The old bishop lived for nearly four years longer, but I never saw him again.

I was delighted with a visit I paid a little later to Hawkesyard Priory, the newly acquired property of the Dominicans in Staffordshire: a handsome modern house (now their school) in a finely-timbered park, and close by the new monastery, its spacious chapel, with carved oak stalls, a great sculptured reredos recalling All Souls or New College, and an organ which had been in our chapel at Eton in my school days. I made acquaintance here with the young Blackfriar who was to matriculate in the autumn at our Benedictine Hall—the first swallow, it was hoped, of the Dominican summer, the revival of the venerable Order of Preachers in gremio universitatis.[[5]]

A kind and musical friend[[6]] insisted on carrying me off this August to Munich, to attend the Mozart-Wagner festival there. We stayed at the famous old "Four Seasons," and I enjoyed renewing acquaintance, after more than thirty years, with a city which seemed to me very like what it was in 1871. The Mozart operas (at the small Residenz-theater) were rather disappointing. The title-rôle in Don Giovanni was perfectly done by Feinhals; but Anna and Elvira squalled, not even in tune. The enchanting music of Zauberflöte hardly compensated for the tedious story; and no one except the Sarastro (one Hesch, a Viennese) was first-class. The Wagner plays, in the noble new Prinz Regenten theatre, pleased me much more: Knote and Van Rooy were quite excellent, and Feinhals even better as the Flying Dutchman than as Don Giovanni. I heard more Mozart on the Assumption in our Benedictine basilica of St. Boniface—the Twelfth Mass, done by a mixed choir in the gallery! I preferred the Sunday high mass at the beautiful old Frauenkirche, with its exquisite stained glass, and its towers crowned with the curious renaissance cupolas which the Müncheners first called "Italian caps," and later "masskrüge," or beer-mugs. I admired the attention and devotion of the great congregation at the cathedral: a few stood, nearly all knelt, throughout the long service, but no one seemed to think of sitting.

We made one day the pleasant steamer trip round Lake Starnberg, with its pretty wooded shores, and the dim mysterious snow-clad Alps (Wetterstein and other peaks) looming in the background. A middle-aged Graf on board (I think an ex-diplomatist) talked interestingly on many subjects, Bismarck among others. He said that the only serious attempt at reconciliation between him and the Kaiser, ten years before, had been frustrated not by the latter but by Bismarck himself, who was constantly ridiculing the young Emperor both in public and in private. It was odd, he added, how the number three had pervaded Bismarck's life and personality. His motto was "In Trinitate robur": he had served three emperors, fought in three wars, signed three treaties of peace, established the Triple Alliance, had three children and three estates; and his arms were a trefoil and three oak-leaves. Talking of Austria, our friend quoted a dictum of Talleyrand (very interesting in 1921)—"Austria is the House of Lords of Europe: as long as it is not dissolved it will restrain the Commons." Dining together in our hotel at Munich, he told us that the "Four Seasons" possessed, or had possessed, the finest wine in Europe, having bought up Prince Metternich's famous cellar (including his priceless Johannisberger and Steinberger Cabinet hocks) at his death. Of Metternich he said it was a fact that in 1825 Cardinal Albani was instructed by the Pope to sound the great statesman as to whether he desired a Cardinal's hat—"in which case," added his Holiness, "I will propose him in the next Secret Consistory."

We were much amused at reading in a local newspaper the result of a "longest word" competition. The prize-winners were "Transvaaltruppentropentransport trampelthiertreibentrauungsthränentragödie," and "Mekkamuselmannenmeuchelmördermohrenmuttermarmormonumentenmacher"![[7]] I had hitherto considered the longest existing word to be the Cherokee "Winitawigeginaliskawlungtanawneletisesti"; it was given me by a French missionary to that North American tribe, whom I once met at the Comte de Franqueville's house in Paris, and who said it meant, "They-will-now-have-finished-their-compliments-to-you-and-to-me"! I remember the same good priest telling me that when the first French missionary bishop went to New Zealand, he found the natives incapable of pronouncing the word "eveque" or "bishop," their language consisting of only thirteen letters, mostly vowels and liquids. He therefore coined the word picopo, from "episcopus," which the natives applied to all Catholics. English Catholics they called picopo poroyaxono, from Port Jackson (Sydney), which most of them had visited in trading ships; while French Catholics were known as picopo wee-wee, from the constantly-heard words, "Oui, oui."