Part 4 (1/2)

Another contemporary well known to my father was Peacock, the novelist, for Peacock was also an official in the India House and so a colleague of ious views, though they deeply affected my own, I shall speak only very shortly He was, above all, a devoutand saw God throughout his days on earth The fatherhood of God and the idoh he was so single-s, he was no Pharisee of the New Dispensation; the sacerdotalism of the Christian Churches was as hateful to him as the sacerdotalis spirit, not with ritual, or formularies, or doctrinal shi+bboleths His enerous

He asked for free and full developht,” was one of his best-loved quotations

He welcomed the researches of scholarshi+p in the foundations of religion, as he did of science in the s of the h he loved to worshi+p with his fellows, and was a sincere land, the maxim _nulla solus extra ecclesiasm_ filled him with horror It was the worst of blasphemies

His teacher was Frederick Maurice, but in certain ways he went further than that noble-hearted, if somewhat mystical, divine It would have been an absurdity to ask ive up Christianity and try instead the faith of Christ That was always his faith For hioing to church, or saying prayers, or being sedulous in certain prescribed devotions His creed was a coh Christ Above all, he had an over sense of duty

He was sensitive in body and ree, and so may have see in Banyan's Drea came to the Valley of the Shadow of Death, no man was happier or braver The river had never been so lohen he crossed it The shi+ning Ones had never rim So it ith my father He had all his life dreaded the physical side of dissolution Yet, when Death canedly that I do not say he was resigned Resignation iret He had none

I do not think I can more fitly suram of Martial on ”Felix Antonius”

To-day, ret; His brave old eyes are steadfast yet, His heart the lightest heart alive

He sees behind hirim years; He sees the shore and dreadless hears The whisper of the creeping tide

For out of all his days, not one Has passed and left its unlaid ghost To seek a light for ever lost, Or wail a deed for ever done

So for reward of life-long truth He lives again, as goodhis allotted span With memories of a stainless youth

The version I have taken is that by Sir Henry Newbolt, and undoubtedly it is one of the best examples extant of the transference of the spirit of a Latin poelish My readers, however, will no doubt relish by Pope

Though the modern poet's version is to be preferred, the older translation contains one of the most felicitous lines written even by Pope

It is needless to say that I realise the essential inappropriateness of joining my father's name with that of Martial It is, indeed, a capital example of the irony of circumstance that I am able to do so But, after all, why should we be annoyed instead of being thankful, when bright flowers spring up on a dunghill? Certainly, nity He was the least superstitious and also the least sophistical oforthy in itself he would never call it co withabout the influence of my mother, I should leave a very false ience and of a specially attractive personality To her we children owed a great deal in the ave us an excellent exaentleness, unselfishness, and sincerity which is the foundation of good breeding My nosis, added that burnish without which good manners often lose half their power What she particularly insisted on was the practice of that graciousness of which she herself afforded so adoodunkind to other children, or selfish, or affected, or oafish, or sulky Her direst thunders, however, were kept for anything which approached ill-breeding Giving ourselves airs, or ”posing,” or any other forivable sins

But she did not content herself with inculcating the positive side of good ative side For exaers, a school-feast, or anything of the kind, both ere srown-up, she insisted that wein a corner by ourselves

We uests No excuses of shyness or not liking to talk to people one didn't know, or suggestions that they would think us putting on side if ent up to them, were allowed for a moment The injunctions we received were that, at a party in our own house, we must never think of our own pleasure or enjoyment, but must devote ourselves wholly and solely to the pleasure of our guests The sight of anyone sittingbored or unhappy was the destruction of a party Such persons, if seen, must be pounced upon at once, amused, and uests who got ht that the strength of the social chain is its weakest link It was quite safe to leave the big people, or the big people's children, to look after themselves The people to be made much of and treated like royalty were those who looked uncomfortable or seemed to feel out of it The result was that h her ill-health never allowed her to be a hostess on a big scale, her parties, whether in Sohtful Everyone, froyman, to the notables of a Riviera winter resort, owned her social charm As an example of it, I remember how one winter, which we spent at Bourne-room became at once the centre of a , as far as I remember, of people e had never known before There was a delightful old Mr Marshall, of the Marshalls of the Lakes, who used to come and play whist with her, and e boys sohty, he kept up his riding and liked to have a boy to ride with hientleman, attractive in his nity, was Lord Suffolk He dressed like ”the Squire” in the old _Punches_ He wore a loned, broadish-briht-brown or buff cloth coat and waistcoat He had two invalid daughters, and these, if I re a villa at Bournemouth

It was, however, either at the house-parties at Chewton or at Strawberry Hill, which were hardly considered coain at Cannes in her own villa that she reater world Though of good parts, she was not in any sense intellectual I never heard her attes, or to talk about books or historic people

She was, like sowomen, perfectly natural and perfectly at her ease, and full of receptive interest When she talked it was always to draw out her interlocutor and never to show off her own cleverness

She was quite as popular, indeed I had alreat a fascination for young people as for old I re told of a letter written by one of the big London hostesses who had come out to Cannes, madevoice, her warracious eyes She had written to a friend, saying, in effect,

What on earth did youme more about your cousin, Lady Strachey? She turns out to be one of the htful people I have ever met, and yet you never breathed a word about her Why did you want to keep her to yourself? Through your selfishness I have missed three or four weeks of her

It is notoriously difficult to describe charm, and I shall make no atteood looks in the ordinary sense of the word She had a witching expression, an exceedingly graceful carriage of her head and body, and a good figure; but her face was so raphs and pictures were always pronounced as ”ih she was in no sense nervous, the attempt to sit for her picture seeard_”

which was, I feel sure, the secret of the pleasure she spread around her No doubt she took trouble to please, but she had the art of concealing her art No one ever criticised her as ”theatrical” or ”artificial”

Her children fully felt her char back, I can now see that she, most wisely, took as much trouble to fascinate us as she did the rest of the world She would not mind this reht to take as ive pleasure to your nearest and dearest as to strangers Anyere never allowed to be rude or careless to her, or to anybody else merely because they ell-loved relations We never failed to get up from our chairs when she entered the room, or to open doors for her, or to show her any other physical for approaching harshness, or by a sharp tongue

All she did was to make us feel that ere uncouth bores, to be pitied rather than condemned, if we failed in the minor politenesses