Collections and Recollections Part 14

When Lord Beaconsfield was driven from office by the General Election of 1880, one of his supporters in the House of Commons begged a great favour--"May I bring my boy to see you, and will you give him some word of counsel which he may treasure all his life as the utterance of the greatest Englishman who ever lived?" Lord Beaconsfield groaned, but consented. On the appointed day the proud father presented himself with his young hopeful in Lord Beaconsfield's presence. "My dear young friend," said the statesman, "your good papa has asked me to give you a word of counsel which may serve you all your life. Never ask who wrote the Letters of Junius, or on which side of Whitehall Charles I. was beheaded; for if you do you will be considered a bore--and that is something too dreadful for you at your tender age to understand." For these last two stories I by no means vouch. They belong to the flotsam and jetsam of ephemeral gossip. But the following, which I regard as eminently characteristic, I had from Lord Randolph Churchill.

Towards the end of Lord Beaconsfield's second Premiership a younger politician asked the Premier to dinner. It was a domestic event of the first importance, and no pains were spared to make the entertainment a success. When the ladies retired, the host came and sat where the hostess had been, next to his distinguished guest. "Will you have some more claret, Lord Beaconsfield?" "No, thank you, my dear fellow. It is admirable wine--true Falernian--but I have already exceeded my prescribed quant.i.ty, and the gout holds me in its horrid clutch." When the party had broken up, the host and hostess were talking it over. "I think the chief enjoyed himself," said the host, "and I know he liked his claret." "Claret!" exclaimed the hostess; "why, he drank brandy-and-water all dinner-time."

I said in an earlier paragraph that Lord Beaconsfield's flattery was sometimes misplaced. An instance recurs to my recollection. He was staying in a country house where the whole party was Conservative with the exception of one rather plain, elderly lady, who belonged to a great Whig family. The Tory leader was holding forth on politics to an admiring circle when the Whig lady came into the room. Pausing in his conversation, Lord Beaconsfield exclaimed, in his most histrionic manner, "But hush! We must not continue these Tory heresies until those pretty little ears have been covered up with those pretty little hands"--a strange remark under any circ.u.mstances, and stranger still if, as his friends believed, it was honestly intended as an acceptable compliment.

Mr. Brett, who shows a curious sympathy with the personal character of Lord Beaconsfield, acquits him of the charge of flattery, and quotes his own description of his method: "I never contradict; I never deny; but I sometimes forget." On the other hand, it has always been a.s.serted by those who had the best opportunities of personal observation that Lord Beaconsfield succeeded in converting the dislike with which he had once been regarded in the highest quarters into admiration and even affection, by his elaborate and studied acquiescence in every claim, social or political, of Royalty, and by his unflagging perseverance in the art of flattery. He was a courtier, not by descent or breeding, but by genius. What could be more skilful than the inclusion of _Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands_ with _Coningsby_ and _Sybil_ in the phrase "We authors"?--than his grave declaration, "Your Majesty is the head of the literary profession"?--than his announcement at the dinner-table at Windsor, with reference to some disputed point of regal genealogy, "We are in the presence of probably the only Person in Europe who could tell us"? In the last year of his life he said to Mr. Matthew Arnold, in a strange burst of confidence which showed how completely he realized that his fall from power was final, "You have heard me accused of being a flatterer. It is true. I am a flatterer. I have found it useful. Every one likes flattery: and when you come to Royalty you should lay it on with a trowel." In this business Lord Beaconsfield excelled. Once, sitting at dinner by the Princess of Wales, he was trying to cut a hard dinner-roll. The knife slipped and cut his finger, which the Princess, with her natural grace, instantly wrapped up in her handkerchief. The old gentleman gave a dramatic groan, and exclaimed, "When I asked for bread they gave me a stone; but I had a Princess to bind my wounds."

The atmosphere of a Court naturally suited him, and he had a quaint trick of transferring the grandiose nomenclature of palaces to his own very modest domain of Hughenden. He called his simple drawing-room the Saloon; he styled his pond the Lake; he expatiated on the beauties of the terrace walks, and the "Golden Gate," and the "German Forest." His style of entertaining was more showy than comfortable. Nothing could excel the grandeur of his state coach and powdered footmen; but when the ice at dessert came up melting, one of his friends exclaimed, "At last, my dear Dizzy, we have got something hot;" and in the days when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer some critical guest remarked of the soup that it was apparently made with Deferred Stock. When Lady Beaconsfield died he sent for his agent and said, "I desire that her Ladyship's remains should be borne to the grave by the tenants of the estate."

Presently the agent came back with a troubled countenance and said, "I regret to say there are not tenants enough to carry a coffin."

Lord Beaconsfield's last years were tormented by a bronchial asthma of gouty origin, against which he fought with tenacious and uncomplaining courage. The last six weeks of his life, described all too graphically by Dr. Kidd in an article in the _Nineteenth Century_, were a hand-to-hand struggle with death. Every day the end was expected, and his compatriot, companion, and so-called friend, Bernal Osborne, found it in his heart to remark, "Ah, overdoing it--as he always overdid everything."

For my own part, I never was numbered among Lord Beaconsfield's friends, and I regarded the Imperialistic and pro-Turkish policy of his latter days with an equal measure of indignation and contempt. But I place his political novels among the masterpieces of Victorian literature, and I have a sneaking affection for the man who wrote the following pa.s.sage: "We live in an age when to be young and to be indifferent can be no longer synonymous. We must prepare for the coming hour. The claims of the Future are represented by suffering millions, and the Youth of a Nation are the Trustees of Posterity."

FOOTNOTES:

[28] June 1897.

XXIV.

FLATTERERS AND BORES.

Can a flatterer be flattered? Does he instinctively recognize the commodity in which he deals? And if he does so recognize it, does he enjoy or dislike the application of it to his own case? These questions are suggested to my mind by the ungrudging tributes paid in my last chapter to Lord Beaconsfield's pre-eminence in the art of flattery.

"Supreme of heroes, bravest, n.o.blest, best!"

No one else ever flattered so long and so much, so boldly and so persistently, so skilfully and with such success. And it so happened that at the very crisis of his romantic career he became the subject of an act of flattery quite as daring as any of his own performances in the same line, and one which was attended with diplomatic consequences of great pith and moment.

It fell out on this wise. When the Congress of the Powers a.s.sembled at Berlin in the summer of 1878, our Amba.s.sador in that city of stucco palaces was the loved and lamented Lord Odo Russell, afterwards Lord Ampthill, a born diplomatist if ever there was one, with a suavity and affectionateness of manner and a charm of voice which would have enabled him, in homely phrase, to whistle the bird off the bough. On the evening before the formal opening of the Congress Lord Beaconsfield arrived in all his plenipotentiary glory, and was received with high honours at the British Emba.s.sy. In the course of the evening one of his private secretaries came to Lord Odo Russell and said, "Lord Odo, we are in a frightful mess, and we can only turn to you to help us out of it. The old chief has determined to open the proceedings of the Congress in French. He has written out the devil's own long speech in French and learnt it by heart, and is going to fire it off at the Congress to-morrow. We shall be the laughing-stock of Europe. He p.r.o.nounces _epicier_ as if it rhymed with _overseer_, and all his p.r.o.nunciation is to match. It is as much as our places are worth to tell him so. Can you help us?" Lord Odo listened with amused good humour to this tale of woe, and then replied: "It is a very delicate mission that you ask me to undertake, but then I am fond of delicate missions. I will see what I can do." And so he repaired to the state bedroom, where our venerable Plenipotentiary was beginning those elaborate processes of the toilet with which he prepared for the couch. "My dear Lord," began Lord Odo, "a dreadful rumour has reached us." "Indeed! Pray what is it?" "We have heard that you intend to open the proceedings to-morrow in French."

"Well, Lord Odo, what of that?" "Why, of course, we all know that there is no one in Europe more competent to do so than yourself. But then, after all, to make a French speech is a commonplace accomplishment.

There will be at least half a dozen men at the Congress who could do it almost, if not quite, as well as yourself. But, on the other hand, who but you can make an English speech? All these Plenipotentiaries have come from the various Courts of Europe expecting the greatest intellectual treat of their lives in hearing English spoken by its greatest living master. The question for you, my dear Lord, is--Will you disappoint them?" Lord Beaconsfield put his gla.s.s in his eye, fixed his gaze on Lord Odo, and then said, "There is much force in what you say. I will consider the point." And next day he opened the proceedings in English. Now the psychological conundrum is this--Did he swallow the flattery, and honestly believe that the object of Lord Odo's appeal was to secure the pleasure of hearing him speak English? Or did he see through the manoeuvre, and recognize a polite intimation that a French speech from him would throw an air of comedy over all the proceedings of the Congress, and perhaps kill it with ridicule? The problem is well fitted to be made the subject of a Prize Essay; but personally I incline to believe that he saw through the manoeuvre and acted on the hint. If this be the true reading of the case, the answer to my opening question is that the flatterer cannot be flattered.

We saw in my last chapter how careful Lord Beaconsfield was, in the great days of his political struggles, to flatter every one who came within his reach. To the same effect is the story that when he was accosted by any one who claimed acquaintance but whose face he had forgotten he always used to inquire, in a tone of affectionate solicitude, "And how is the old complaint?" But when he grew older, and had attained the highest objects of his political ambition, these little arts, having served their purpose, were discarded, like the green velvet trousers and ta.s.selled canes of his aspiring youth. There was no more use for them, and they were dropped. He manifested less and less of the apostolic virtue of suffering bores gladly, and though always delightful to his intimate friends, he was less and less inclined to curry favour with mere acquaintances. A characteristic instance of this latter manner has been given to the world in a book of chit-chat by a prosy gentleman whose name it would be unkind to recall.

This worthy soul narrates with artless candour that towards the end of Lord Beaconsfield's second Administration he had the honour of dining with the great man, whose political follower he was, at the Premier's official residence in Downing Street. When he arrived he found his host looking ghastly ill, and apparently incapable of speech. He made some commonplace remark about the weather or the House, and the only reply was a dismal groan. A second remark was similarly received, and the visitor then abandoned the attempt in despair. "I felt he would not survive the night. Within a quarter of an hour, all being seated at dinner, I observed him talking to the Austrian Amba.s.sador with extreme vivacity. During the whole of dinner their conversation was kept up; I saw no sign of flagging. _This is difficult to account for._" And the worthy man goes on to theorize about the cause, and suggests that Lord Beaconsfield was in the habit of taking doses of opium which were so timed that their effect pa.s.sed off at a certain moment!

This freedom from self-knowledge which bores enjoy is one of their most striking characteristics. One of the princ.i.p.al clubs in London has the misfortune to be frequented by a gentleman who is by common consent the greatest bore and b.u.t.tonholer in London. He always reminds me of the philosopher described by Sir George Trevelyan, who used to wander about asking, "Why are we created? Whither do we tend? Have we an inner consciousness?" till all his friends, when they saw him from afar, used to exclaim, "Why was Tompkins created? Is he tending this way? Has he an inner consciousness that he is a bore?"

Well, a few years ago this good man, on his return from his autumn holiday, was telling all his acquaintances at the club that he had been occupying a house at the Lakes not far from Mr. Ruskin, who, he added, was in a very melancholy state, "I am truly sorry for that," said one of his hearers. "What is the matter with him?" "Well," replied the b.u.t.tonholer, "I was walking one day in the lane which separated Ruskin's house from mine, and I saw him coming down the lane towards me. The moment he caught sight of me he darted into a wood which was close by, and hid behind a tree till I had pa.s.sed. Oh, very sad indeed." But the truly pathetic part of it was one's consciousness that what Mr. Ruskin did we should all have done, and that not all the trees in Birnam Wood and the Forest of Arden combined would have hidden the mult.i.tude of brother-clubmen who sought to avoid the narrator.

The faculty of boring belongs, unhappily, to no one period of life. Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. Middle life is its heyday. Perhaps infancy is free from it, but I strongly suspect that it is a form of original sin, and shows itself very early. Boys are notoriously rich in it; with them it takes two forms--the loquacious and the awkward; and in some exceptionally favoured cases the two forms are combined. I once was talking with an eminent educationist about the characteristic qualities produced by various Public Schools, and when I asked him what Harrow produced he replied, "A certain shy b.u.mptiousness." It was a judgment which wrung my Harrovian withers, but of which I could not dispute the truth.

One of the forms which shyness takes in boyhood is an inability to get up and go. When Dr. Vaughan was Head Master of Harrow, and had to entertain his boys at breakfast, this inability was frequently manifested, and was met by the Doctor in a most characteristic fashion.

When the m.u.f.fins and sausages had been devoured, the perfunctory inquiries about the health of "your people" made and answered, and all permissible school topics discussed, there used to ensue a horrid silence, while "Dr. Blimber's young friends" sat tightly glued to their chairs. Then the Doctor would approach with Agag-like delicacy, and, extending his hand to the shyest and most loutish boy, would say, "Must you go? Can't you stay?" and the party broke up with magical celerity.

Such, at least, was our Harrovian tradition.

Nothing is so refreshing to a jaded sense of humour as to be the recipient of one of your own stories retold with appreciative fervour but with all the point left out. This was my experience not long ago with reference to the story of Dr. Vaughan and his boy-bores which I have just related. A Dissenting minister was telling me, with extreme satisfaction, that he had a son at Trinity College, Cambridge. He went on to praise the Master, Dr. Butler, whom he extolled to the skies, winding up his eulogy with, "He has such wonderful tact in dealing with shy undergraduates." I began to scent my old story from afar, but held my peace and awaited results. "You know," he continued, "that young men are sometimes a little awkward about making a move and going away when a party is over. Well, when Dr. Butler has undergraduates to breakfast, if they linger inconveniently long when he wants to be busy, he has such a happy knack of getting rid of them. It is so tactful, so like him. He goes up to one of them and says, '_Can't you go? Must you stay?_' and they are off immediately." So, as Macaulay says of Montgomery's literary thefts, may such ill-got gains ever prosper.

My Dissenting minister had a congener in the late Lord P----, who was a rollicking man about town thirty years ago, and was famous, among other accomplishments, for this peculiar art of so telling a story as to destroy the point. When the large house at Albert Gate, which fronts the French Emba.s.sy and is now the abode of Mr. Arthur Sa.s.soon, was built, its size and cost were regarded as prohibitive, and some social wag christened it "Gibraltar, because it can never be taken." Lord P---- thought that this must be an excellent joke, because every one laughed at it; and so he ran round the town saying to each man he met--"I say, do you know what they call that big house at Albert Gate? They call it Gibraltar, because it can never be let. Isn't that awfully good?" We all remember an innocent riddle of our childhood--"Why was the elephant the last animal to get into the Ark?"--to which the answer was, "Because he had to pack his trunk." Lord P--asked the riddle, and gave as the answer, "Because he had to pack his portmanteau," and was beyond measure astonished when his hearers did not join in his uproarious laughter.

Poor Lord P--! he was a fellow of infinite jest, though not always exactly in the sense that he intended. If he had only known of it, he might with advantage have resorted to the conversational device of old Samuel Rogers, who, when he told a story which failed to produce a laugh, used to observe in a reflective tone, "The curious part of that story is that stupid people never see the point of it," and then loud, though belated, guffaws resounded round the table.

XXV.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nTS.

Lately, when hunting for some notes which I had mislaid, I came upon a collection of Advertis.e.m.e.nts. No branch of literature is more suggestive of philosophical reflections. I take my specimens quite at random, just as they turn up in my diary, and the first which meets my eye is printed on the sad sea-green of the _Westminster Gazette:_--

"GUARDIAN, whose late ward merits the highest encomiums, seeks for him the POSITION of SECRETARY to a n.o.bleman or Lady of Position: one with literary tastes preferred: the young gentleman is highly connected, distinguished-looking, a lover of books, remarkably steady, and exceptionally well read, clever and ambitious: has travelled much: good linguist, photographer, musician: a moderate fortune, but debarred by timidity from compet.i.tive examination."

I have always longed to know the fate of this lucky youth. Few of us can boast of even "a moderate fortune," and fewer still of such an additional combination of gifts, graces, and accomplishments. On the other hand, most of us, at one time or another in our career, have felt "debarred by timidity from compet.i.tive examination." But, unluckily, we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and college dons who forced us to face the agonies of the Schools, instead of an amiable guardian who bestowed on us "the highest encomiums," and sought to plant us on Ladies of Position, "with literary tastes preferred."

Another case, presenting some points of resemblance to the last, but far less favoured by fortune, was notified to the compa.s.sionate world by the _Morning Post_ in 1889:--

"Will any rich person TAKE a gentleman and BOARD him? Of good family: age 27: good musician: thoroughly conversant with all office-work: _no objection to turn Jew_: lost his money through dishonest trustee: excellent writer."

I earnestly hope that this poor victim of fraud has long since found his desired haven in some comfortable Hebrew home, where he can exercise his skill in writing and office-work during the day and display his musical accomplishments after the family supper. I have known not a few young Gentiles who would be glad to be adopted on similar terms.

The next is extracted from the _Manchester Guardian_ of 1894:--

"A Child of G.o.d, seeking employment, would like to take charge of property and collect rents; has a slight knowledge of architecture and sanitary; can give unexceptionable references; age 31; married."

What offers? Very few, I should fear, in a community so shrewdly commercial as Manchester, where, I understand, religious profession is seldom taken as a subst.i.tute for technical training. The mention of that famous city reminds me that not long ago I was describing Chetham College to an ignorant outsider, who, not realizing how the name was spelt, observed that it sounded as if Mr. Squeers had been caught by the Oxford Movement and the Gothic Revival, and had sought to give an ecclesiastical air to his famous seminary of Dotheboys Hall by transforming it into "Cheat'em College."

That immortal pedagogue owed much of his deserved success to his skill in the art of drawing an advertis.e.m.e.nt:--

"At Mr. Wackford Squeers's Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge, in Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages, living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, singlestick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of cla.s.sical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled."

Now, mark what follows. Wackford Squeers the younger was, as we all know, destined by his parents to follow the schoolmaster's profession, to a.s.sist his father as long as a.s.sistance was required, and then to take the management of the Hall and its pupils into his own hands. "Am I to take care of the school when I grow up a man, father?" said Wackford junior. "You are, my son," replied Mr. Squeers in a sentimental voice.

"Oh, my eye, won't I give it to the boys!" exclaimed the interesting child, grasping his father's cane--"won't I make 'em squeak again!" But we know also that, owing to the pressure of pecuniary and legal difficulties, and the ill-timed interference of Mr. John Browdie, the school at Dotheboys Hall was at any rate temporarily broken up. So far we have authentic records to rely on; the remainder is pure conjecture.

But I am persuaded that Wackford Squeers the younger, with all the dogged perseverance of a true Yorkshireman, struggled manfully against misfortune; resolved to make a home for his parents and sister; and, as soon as he could raise the needful capital, opened a private school in the South of England, as far as possible from the scene of earlier misfortune. Making due allowance for change of time and circ.u.mstances, I trace a close similarity of substance and style between the advertis.e.m.e.nt which I quoted above and that which I give below, and I feel persuaded that young Wackford inherited from his more famous father this peculiar power of attracting parental confidence by means of picturesque statement. We have read the earlier manifesto; let us now compare the later:--

"Vacancies now occur in the establishment of a gentleman who undertakes the care and education of a few backward boys, who are beguiled and trained to study by kind discipline, without the least severity (which too often frustrates the end desired). Situation extremely healthy. Sea and country air; deep gravelly soil. Christian gentility a.s.siduously cultivated on sound Church principles. Diet unsurpa.s.sed. Wardrobes carefully preserved. The course of instruction comprises English, cla.s.sics, mathematics, and science. Inclusive terms, 30 guineas per annum, quarterly in advance. Music, drawing, and modern languages are extras, but moderate. Address--------, Chichester." Was it Vivian Grey or Pelham who was educated at a private school where "the only extras were pure milk and the guitar"?

I believe that there is no charitable inst.i.tution which more thoroughly deserves support than the Metropolitan a.s.sociation for Befriending Young Servants, affectionately contracted by its supporters into the "MABYS."

Here is one of its advertis.e.m.e.nts, from which, I am bound to say, the alluring skill displayed by Mr. Squeers is curiously absent:--

"Will any one undertake as SERVANT a bright, clean, neat girl, who is deceitful, lazy, and inclined to be dishonest? Address, Hon. Secretary, M.A.B.Y.S., 21 Charlotte Street, S.E."

I remember some years ago an advertis.e.m.e.nt which sought a kind master and a pleasant home for a large, savage dog; and I remember how admirably _Punch_ described the kind of life which the "large, savage dog" would lead the "kind master" when he got him. But really the vision of a bright maid-servant who is "deceitful, lazy, and inclined to be dishonest," and the havoc which she might work in a well-ordered household, is scarcely less appalling. A much more deserving case is this which I append:--

"Under-Housekeeper, under-Matron, desired by a Young Woman, age 22.

Energetic, domesticated. Great misfortune in losing right arm, but good artificial one. Happy home, with small remuneration."