Other names crowd my mind: Sir Frank Lascelles, so long our Ambassador in Berlin, and Sir Rivers Wilson, also a distinguished public servant—delightful hosts, delightful guests—both great gentlemen, and both devoted to cards as an amusement. The former cursed them (never his partner) when they persistently went against him; the latter caressed them, however badly they treated him.
Of Schomberg McDonnell, known better to his big circle of friends as "Pom," I recall one personal incident. He was the first to congratulate me on my knighthood, through being at the time Lord Salisbury's private secretary, a post which he had the courage to give up to take his part in the South African War, where he did good service with the C.I.V., and was rewarded on his return by being reinstated. He again served his country in the Great War and died from his wounds, beloved and regretted.
I must in these names include that of a friend of many years, Sir Thomas Sutherland, so long the chairman of the P. & O. Company. To the kindness of his invitations to be a guest on trial trips of ships of that great fleet I owe the happiest "week-ends," in wonderful company, I have ever spent.
"Mr. Alfred," as Alfred de Rothschild was generally spoken of, was once our guest; we were often his in Seamore Place. I was invited to join a week-end party, when I might have seen the wonders of his country home, with its circus and performing animals, but I could not go. Being delicate and of a highly nervous temperament, he must have been a mine of wealth to members of the medical profession. He was a great lover and patron of the theatre. I remember a peculiar incident concerning him when we revived Robertson's comedy School at the Haymarket. Sometimes for several nights running, sometimes twice in a week, he took a large stage box, occupied it for not more than half an hour, sat alone to see the second act of the comedy, and then went.
Burton and Stanley
The two famous travellers and explorers, Burton and Stanley, were old friends of ours. I couple their names because it so chanced that we saw the most of them, and more intimately, together with Lady Burton and Lady Stanley, in hotels—one in Switzerland, the other in Italy—when we were all holiday making.
Burton's early career was that of a wild, untamed gipsy spirit. His childhood was passed in France and Italy, when his mastery of tongues began. At Oxford he acquired Arabic, having turned his back on Latin and Greek. He told me that, eventually, he conquered well over thirty languages—I forget the exact number—as well as made progress towards interpreting what he called the speech of monkeys. We first met him at the table of a dear friend, Dr. George Bird, who asked how he felt when he had killed a man. Burton replied that the doctor ought to know, as he had done it oftener.
Stanley's fame was chiefly established by his "finding" of Livingstone, when he was only about thirty, the search having occupied eight months.
Of the two, Burton was the easier to get on with, being full of talk and anecdotes. Stanley was reserved, and it often took my wife some time to draw from him stories, full of interest, about the King of Uganda and other persons, and incidents of his courageous travels.
Labouchere