Part 6 (1/2)

Bear 10 6

8 doggs for kotillin}16 at pr dogg 2 } musick 5 Drum and orms 7 head munky 7 3 others 9 keeper 2 6

Punch is a seprit Consarn and cuh not in that line since s to Mr valentine Burstem at the marmaid

14 Princess Court holborn-- I am my Lady your most dutiful humbel servant tuesday JAMES BOTTEN

19 Piccadilly

PS Please Let the headno dirt in the haul

The Jentle tubb for the crocodile but I never Lets her out nor the ostriges as I explained to him for your satisfaction--

My father always said, and no doubt with truth, that the ”Jentleman”

alluded to at the end of the letter was the butler He had evidently been sent to ”The Merotiate for the appearance of ”Jacko” When I read the letter I always see a vivid picture of ”Jacko” cos, hand over hand, and wiping his paws on the doormat!

Evidently Mr James Botten was an artist in his way and, like his employer, understood the infant mind, for does he not put the bear at the very top of his list and charges for hiht in bears and have such a firrandfatherly aniy which I have never been able to fatho, there can be no possible doubt My grandchildren, budding Montessorians though they be, have the same absolute and unlie of three

There is another story of this Lady Strachey which Iclearness the characteristic of a vanished age My father used to say that when the second Sir Henry Strachey came back from India, for he was there only ten years, his father was still in Parliament Henry Strachey was only just thirty, and therefore there was the usual desire felt by his fa ”to prevent hi or worse” In order to provide this necessary occupation his mother offered hiht that a seat would keep him amused and out of mischief! In spite of the fact that he was a strenuous Radical, Sir Henry's only re the story was: ”I refused, because I did not like the idea of always voting in the opposite lobby toin early life, was a supporter of William Pitt and later, of Lord Liverpool Therefore the second Henry Strachey, if he had got into the House, when he first came home, would no doubt have voted with the Radical Rump

There are many stories I could tell of the second Sir Henry, who lived on at Sutton till the year '58, when ain must be kept for another book--if I ever have tirandfather, my father's father, Edward Strachey, and his memorable wife Of both of them plenty is to be found in Carlyle's account of his early years I shall only record of Edward Strachey here the fact that after he returned from India he became an official at the India House on the Judicial side, and was called the Exa to examine the reports of important law-cases sent from India to the Board of Directors When one day I asked my father for his earliest recollection of any important event, he toldback from the India House (which was by a Thames wherry, for the Examiner lived at Shooter's Hill and had to cross the river) and saying to his mother: ”The Emperor is dead” That was in the year 1822, and the Emperor was, of course, Napoleon Strachey was one of the first people to hear of the event because St Helena was borrowed by the Government for prison purposes from the East India Company The East Indiamen, however, still used it as a house of call Therefore it happened that the East India Company, by the actual appearance of one of the shi+p's captains at the India House, heard of the great event an hour or two before the Government to whom the despatches were forwarded My father must have been ten years old at the time, as he was born in 1812

CHAPTER VI

MY CHILDHOOD AND SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL INCIDENTS

And now for the child as so happy in his surroundings, and, above all, in those ere to care for him

There were naturally certain nursery traditions aboutkind, but, taken as a whole, I don't think I can clai but a norence which was reasonably quick and responsive I had, however, no educational precociousness; I did not read till I was nearly nine, and even then did not use the power of reading The book habit did not coh then it came, as far as poetry was concerned, with a rush By fifteen I had read all the older English poets andpoetry I showed a devotion which I am thankful to say I have always maintained In this matter at least I am the opposite of Darwin He confessed that the power to read poetry left hirow, the more I love verse

The actual study of metre was a source of acute satisfaction It is said of me, indeed, that when, at a littlefor a long journey to Pau, where my mother had been ordered to winter, I insisted onwith hi it to us that autumn I did not knohat a journey s should not be broken I also could not have knohat Spenser meant, but his stanza fed ear, and heart, and e, too, that I seereatly a with te, I replied, ”Digging for hell-fire!” That was especially curious becauseBroad Churchman and a devoted friend and disciple of Frederick Maurice, was a wholehearted disbeliever in hell and its flames He had ”dismissed hell with costs,” as Lord Westbury said, ever since he cae on this point was never cleared up Deed forks and curly tails are, of course, universally regarded as ”the friends of little children” by natural right, andhoical criticiset which, was explaining to me the story of the Crucifixion and our Lord's arrest by the arh Priest Greatly surprised and perturbed by the fact that Christ did not resist and un?” I was told No ”Hadn't He a sword?” No And then: ”Hadn't He even a stick with a point?” Though not naturally co believer in the virtue of the counterattack as the best, or, indeed, the only efficient for, contented child, with no tendency to be frightened either by strangers, by i the Nursery high-road There was, however, a fa to let other children have my toys, and would not take the trouble to do what nurses call ”stand up for uardians by super-passionate outbursts These, however, were very rare indeed, for allin the shape of losing nition, as it were, of the wisdoer is a short madness” Instinctively I felt with Beaumont and Fletcher:

Oh, what a beast in uncollected y, as far as I can tell frohtforhen a child I have no recollection of feeling any general depression or disappoint that I waswhat is now called ”an inferiority coave way to any for, or mysterious, or metaphysical dreams! What rew e of nine or ten I was not allowed to play active gahted

Though without great physical strength, I was all ly fond of the joys of bodily exercise, whether swi, playing tennis or racquets or whatever ga

In none of these pasti excellence, but froot intense enjoyenuinely smacked my lips at the flavour of each in turn, yet never bothered about the super-pleasure which cos as well as they can be done

Though ive me an unhappy or depressed childhood, or make me suffer from any sort of morbid reaction, I had occasionally a very curious and soh it has been noted and discussed, has never, as far as I know, been fully explained by physicians either of the body or of the soul