Although Bute (who was not given to exaggeration) found occasion to write at the end of 1894, in his usual brief summary of the events of the past twelve-month, "The whole year has been spent in the struggle for the University of St. Andrews," he nevertheless found time, with the ordered industry which was one of his marked characteristics, not only for the numerous other duties incumbent on him, but also for the social amenities which the début of his only daughter had brought into his retired life. His note on the Caledonian ball in London, which he attended this year, is amusing, if not altogether appreciative:
The ball was doubtless a great success as regarded the charity which benefited by it; but it was mismanaged, crowded, and hot beyond expression, and the dancing was a mere rough-and-tumble (as seems to be the way now), with neither science, grace, nor even an elementary idea of time. The poetry of motion seems to be asleep.
A dinner given to Lord Rosebery[[1]] by his old contemporaries at Christ Church, which Bute attended, must have evoked curious memories of long-past days.
R's cynical witticisms (when the doors were shut) on the state of politics were quite startling: we were all his political opponents except one. The well-remembered names and changed faces were rather pathetic.
Bute has a note on the famous Ardlamont murder trial, which was arousing general interest in the early days of 1894:
Lord Kingsburgh said that ten of the jury were determined to hang Monson, and he was determined they should not, as he did not consider the evidence legally conclusive. Nobody doubts M.'s guilt morally.[[2]]
1894, Maiden speech in Parliament
On June 4 Bute made his maiden speech in Parliament (it was his last as well as his first,) in reference to certain petitions he had occasion to present on the affairs of St. Andrews University. He wrote of this to Dr. Metcalfe:
I had a conversation with Lord Salisbury on Saturday, and consequently made my maiden speech in the House of Lords to-day. There were only two or three Peers present, but I was so nervous that I don't know what I said. However, Lord Windsor told me that I had been perfectly smooth and lucid, so I suppose I repeated mechanically the few sentences I had prepared.
A sequel, and to himself a very interesting one, to Bute's new and intimate connection with St. Andrews was his acquisition of the site of the ancient priory of canons-regular adjoining the ruined cathedral. Part of this was occupied by a modern villa, around and under which Bute carried out a series of exploratory excavations which must have been somewhat disconcerting to the occupants of the house. The discoveries consequent on these digging operations (Scoticè "howkings"), including that of a hitherto unknown vaulted chamber beneath the old refectory, were a very welcome diversion from the harassing duties of the Lord Rectorship. Bute always undertook and pursued such researches with the acutest zest and interest. "I think," a friend wrote of him with kindly humour, "some of the happiest hours of his life were spent standing by, wrapped in his long cloak and smoking innumerable cigarettes, while a band of workmen, directed by one of his many architects, dug out the foundations of a mediæval lady-chapel, or broke through a nineteenth-century wall in search of a thirteenth-century doorway."