Part 42 (1/2)

CHAPTER V

THE ASQUITH FAMILY TREE--HERBERT H ASQUITH's MOTHER--ASQUITH'S FIRST MARRIAGE; MEETS MARGOT TENNANT FOR FIRST TIME--TALK TILL DAWN ON HOUSE OF COMMONS' TERRACE; OTHER MEETINGS--ENGAGEMENT A LONDON SENSATION--MARRIAGE AN EVENT

My husband's father was Joseph Dixon Asquith, a cloth-merchant, in Morley, at that tih character who held Bible classes for young hter of Willia of an old Yorkshi+re Puritan stock

He died when he was thirty-five, leaving four children: William Willans, Herbert Henry, Eht up by their hter [Footnote: Princess Bibesco] after Goethe's randmother Willans had been called Elizabeth

William Willans--who is dead--was the eldest of the fae for over thirty years

Lilian Josephine died when she was a baby; and Evelyn--one of the best of wo

My husband's mother, old Mrs Asquith, I never knew; my friend Mark Napier told me that she was a brilliantly clever woed her to live on the South coast; and, when her two sons went to the City of London School, they lived alone together in lodgings in Islington and were both poor and industrious

Although Henry's ious and intellectual influence over her faerated She was a profound reader and a brilliant talker and belonged to as in those days called orthodox nonconforationalists

After , lecturing and exa at Oxford When he was called to the Bar success did not come to him at once

He had no rich patron and no one to push hireat Oxford reputation: he was a fine scholar and lawyer, but socially was not known by many people

It was said that Gladstone only pro with precision what they were like, but in my husband's case it was not so

Lord James of Hereford, then Sir Henry Jae private practice at the Bar; and, when the great Bradlaugh case ca ht devil the Affir of Asquith's career: When Gladstone saw the brief for his speech, he noted the fine handwriting and asked who had written it Sir Henry Jahted at Gladstone's observation and brought the young man to him From that moment both the Attorney General and the Prime Minister marked him out for distinction; he rose without any intermediary step of an under-secretaryshi+p from a back-bencher to a Cabinet Minister; and e married in 1894 he was Home Secretary In 1890 I cut and kept out of so that I would lish Party”

A NEW ENGLISH PARTY

Amid all the worry and tur up a little English party, of which more will be heard in the days that are to come This is a band of philosophico-social Radicals--not the OLD type of laissez-faire politician, but quite otherwise In other words, what I ht on afresh with a knot of clever, youngish way on the Radical side This little group includes clever, learned,lawyers of his day; young Sir Edward Grey, sincere, enthusiastic, with a certain gift for oratory, and helped by a beautiful and clever wife; Mr Sidney Buxton, who has perhaps the h in rather loose attachment to the rest, Mr Asquith, brilliant, cynical, cold, clear, but with his eye on the future The dominant ideas of this little band tend in the direction of moderate Collectivism--ie, of municipal Socialism

I iven by Peter Flower's brother Cyril [Footnote: The late Lord Battersea]

I had never heard of hi my time on torlds: I do notand dramatic, Melton in the winter and the Lyceu- lessons had led me to rehearsals both of the ballet and the drama; and for a short ti

I say ”short” advisedly, for then as now I found Bohe-place Every one has a different conception of hell and few of us connect it with flae suppers areand Coquelin, Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, I have never e that was not ultimately dull

The dinner where I was introduced to Henry was in the House of Commons and I sat next to him I was tremendously impressed by his conversation and his clean Croh abominably dressed, had so much personality that I made up my mind at once that here was aIt never crossed my brain that he was married, nor would that have mattered; I had always been more anxious that Peter Flower should marry than myself, because he was thirteen years older than I was, but matrimony was not the austere purpose of either of our lives

After dinner we all walked on the Terrace and I was flattered to find my new friend by my side Lord Battersea chaffedto separate us; but with tact and determination this frontal attack was resisted and my new friend and I retired to the darkest part of the Terrace, where, leaning over the parapet, we gazed into the river and talked far into the night

Our host and his party--thinking that I had gone home and that Mr