Part 14
One friend he had in Mr. Scott, afterwards Sir John, who became his private secretary, and whose affection stood to him almost in lieu of that of a son. Sir John’s father was a distinguished physician, a great personal friend of Sir Richard’s. One day this gentleman’s father-in-law, Mr. Murray, was calling upon him, shortly after his inheritance of Lord Hertford’s possessions, and he happened to say that he was badly in need of a private secretary, and did not know whom to choose. The post would require some unusual qualifications—amongst others, a perfect knowledge of French. Mr. Murray said that perhaps his grandson, a very young barrister just called, might fulfil the conditions. Sir Richard jumped at the offer, and the young man was sent to be looked at. The result was that he found favour in Sir Richard’s eyes, and, after probation, was appointed. No happier choice could have been made, no more devoted and faithful friend could have been found; he remained with Sir Richard until his death at Paris in 1890, and continued to keep watch over Lady Wallace until her end came seven years later.
The nation hardly knows how much it owes to the chivalrous self-effacement of Sir John Scott. When Lady Wallace, to whom Sir Richard had left everything, was about to make her will, she was anxious to bequeath her whole property to Sir John in gratitude for the devotion with which he had managed her affairs and cared for her interests. Sir John persuaded her that it would be a good thing if she were, at any rate, to leave the contents of Hertford House to the nation, and, moreover, that if he were to inherit the entire fortune, there might be some suspicion of undue influence. If, on the other hand, she gave her chief art treasures to England, her memory would be venerated as perhaps the country’s greatest benefactress, while he could gratefully and honourably accept whatever else she might be pleased to bequeath to him. The lady followed his advice. He was a large-minded and generous man, and though, as it turned out, he became the heir to a great fortune, it must never be forgotten that he might have inherited property worth at that time, according to the late Mr. Charles Davis’s computation, at least seven millions sterling, and now, in view of the amazing rise in the value of all works of art, perhaps as much more. It was a most courageous and loyal piece of self-sacrifice. One day, when I said this to a man who was inclined to scoff, his answer was: “Yes, but look at the Death Duties that he would have had to pay.” He could have met those by the sale of half a dozen pictures. Nothing, to my mind, can detract from the patriotic wisdom and generosity of Sir John’s conduct.
When the greatest collection of art treasures that ever was in any private hands became the property of the nation, the next question was how and where to house it. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, and he appointed a Committee, of which he asked me to be a member, to consider the matter. Lord Lansdowne was our chairman, and, after careful discussion, we came to the conclusion that the best plan to adopt would be, if possible, to purchase the freehold of Hertford House from the Portman Estate, and house the collection in its old home, turning the bedrooms on the first floor and the stables into galleries.
There was an idea favoured by Sir Edward Poynter that it would be wise to separate some of the pictures—the Spanish paintings, for example—and place them in the National Gallery; but that scheme would have been against the provisions of the will, which insisted upon nothing being taken from, and nothing added to, the collection as it stood, so the proposal could not be entertained. Sir Edward would have wished the whole collection placed in a building to be erected adjoining the National Gallery; this was also overruled.
Upon this subject Lord Esher writes:
“The Committee to which you allude was appointed under a Treasury Minute of the 3rd of May, 1897.
“The opponents of the Hertford House scheme, headed by Sir Edward Poynter, made a very determined resistance. Lord Chilston was First Commissioner of Works, and I, as you know, occupied the post which you had filled with so much distinction and permanent advantage to the nation.
“We, who were fighting for the retention of Hertford House, owe a heavy debt of gratitude to King Edward, then Prince of Wales, who, with unerring instinct in such matters, grasped at once the historical and æsthetic advantages of keeping the collections intact and _in situ_.
“We were also largely indebted to Sir Francis Mowatt, then Secretary to the Treasury, who afforded us unfailing and generous support.
“The purchase of the leasehold and freehold interest in the house cost £74,620.
“The structural alterations about £28,000, and electric light, heating and painting, £259 16s.
“In August, 1898, at your instance, I took the decorative work, to a very great extent, out of the hands of the Office of Works’ contractor. I remember that the paper used in the large picture gallery, the selection of which had given us a great deal of trouble, was copied from a piece of Italian silk which we borrowed from Bertram, who lived in Dean Street, Soho. Alfred Rothschild then, as always, took a deep interest in Hertford House, and his advice was invaluable to us all.”
A Board of Trustees was then appointed, consisting of Lord Rosebery, as chairman, who gave way to Sir John Scott, Sir Edward Malet, Sir John Stirling Maxwell, Sir Arthur Ellis, Mr. Alfred de Rothschild and myself. Mr.—now Sir—Claude Phillips, that distinguished connoisseur and critic, was appointed keeper. The Office of Works constructed the new Galleries according to our plan, and a Committee of the Trustees undertook the arrangement of the collection. Sir John Scott, Mr. Alfred de Rothschild and myself, with Sir Claude Phillips, worked day after day for many months, evolving kosmos out of a chaos of packing-cases. It was a huge task, but when the Galleries were finally thrown open, we were rewarded by a chorus of approbation, and the praise of foreign critics was no less loud than that of our own friends. Our leading idea was, as far as possible, to avoid the museum aspect, and to show the pictures, clocks, furniture, porcelain, etc., as the collection of a great connoisseur set out as if he were still living in the house. The trustees were fortunate in securing the generous co-operation of Sir Guy Laking in the arrangement and cataloguing of the armour. It may readily be believed that it was no small sorrow to us when, owing to the war, all our work had to be undone in order to stow away our treasures in safety. I, for one, can hardly expect to live to see the reawakening of the old glory. I can only hope that when that time comes something of the former order may be restored.
One morning—it was the 17th of January, 1912—I received an urgent message by telephone, begging me to go to Hertford House at once. Sir John Scott had died there suddenly. When I reached Manchester Square, I found him lying in the Trustees’ room. He had been discussing business with Mr. MacColl, who had succeeded Sir Claude Phillips as keeper, when all of a sudden he began to have a difficulty in breathing. He said it was nothing, but he grew worse. Doctors were sent for, but there was nothing to be done. That large-hearted man died in the house where he had lived so long, and surrounded by all the beautiful things which he loved and which he had been the means of securing for the nation when he might have had them for himself. The Government had made him a baronet. Lord Rosebery, with a keen appreciation of what he had done, said to me in righteous jest: “They have made him a baronet when they ought to have made him a duke.”
A NOTE ON RUSSIAN STUDIES
A few days ago—I am writing on the 7th of August, 1916—I read in the _Times_ a long speech by one of our preter-pluperfect rulers, announcing the determination of the Government to encourage the study of Russian, on account of its glorious literature. I think the adjective was “glorious,” but, at any rate, it was some such word. Was there ever a better example of the danger of giving reasons? Had this illustrious gentleman deigned to glance at some such easily accessible book as Mr. Maurice Baring’s delightful little “Outline of Russian Literature,” he would have been saved from talking such nonsense.
We are told that upon one occasion Dr. Johnson declared that he could quote by heart a whole chapter of the Natural History of Iceland from the Danish of Horreboro, and immediately proceeded to show that it was no vain boast.
Chapter LXXII, Concerning Snakes.
There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century literature in Russia was like the snakes in Iceland. Nor can it be said that the new development which took place early in that century was a _rinascimento_ such as sprang into being in Italy, in France and in England. A new birth implies a previous state of existence, and it cannot be said that the old chronicles which the dryasdusts of Kiev—the old head-quarters of such monkish learning as existed—still less a few embryonic attempts at versification and dramatic writing, could be dignified by the inspiring title of literature. “The Russian language”—to quote Mr. Baring—“was, as has been said, like an instrument waiting for a great player to play on it, and to make use of all its possibilities.” The fables of Kryloff—a playwright whose dramas have long since been forgotten—were published in 1806, and these remain a classic. Out of the two hundred fables which he left at his death in 1844, forty were translations, or, rather, “recreations,” as Mr. Baring puts it, of La Fontaine; seven were suggested by Aesop; the remainder were original. As in all fables, these contain an element of satire; that here and there the satire should be tinged with even a spice of political acidity did not hinder their popularity. I should like to say, in passing, that the few pages which Mr. Baring devotes to his account of Krylov contain passages of great beauty—passages which could only have been written by a man gifted with the keenest appreciation of the poetry which is part of himself.
[Illustration: IVAN TURGENIEV.
_From an etching by E. Hedouin._
[_To face p. 204._]
It was in 1816, that with Karamzin’s monumental work, “The Chronicles of Russia,” the literature of that country burst into existence, like Pallas Athene fully armed from the head of Zeus. “Not only were the undreamed-of riches of the Russian language revealed to the Russians in the style, but the subject matter came as a surprise.” Pushkin, the greatest Russian poet that ever lived, or probably ever will live, was the next great star that appeared upon the firmament, and he declared that Karamzin had revealed Russia to the Russians, just as Columbus discovered America. To Karamzin’s glorious prose and to Pushkin’s immortal verse belong the first honours in the _belles-lettres_ of Russia.
Fifty years and more have passed since I read Gogol’s “Dead Souls” in the original. The strivings and hard work of a somewhat strenuous life have swept away the little that I knew of Russian authors and literature. I am now obliged to walk upon the crutches of translations, though now and then a faint memory is in some mysterious way awakened, and the interest, at any rate, has not faded.
Such names as Turgeniev, whom I once met, Dostoieffski, and the two Tolstoys, have still a magic charm for me. Besides, all the world can prate of them. Of the host of lesser novelists, mostly translated by ladies, in my judgment the less said the better. The work of obviously coarse, uninstructed men, they often, both in their narration and in their imagery, deal with subjects which are unwholesome and which common consent rejects as unsuitable. Literature does not scramble about in midden heaps.
And the great ones—what is their place in the history of the world’s achievements? I very much doubt whether there be any among the most patriotic enthusiasts who would claim even for his beloved Pushkin a seat on Parnassus beside Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Goethe, Voltaire. That Karamzin’s prose was of the very first order is proved by Pushkin’s appreciation of him. Unfortunately it can only appeal to a very small public. Twelve volumes of chronicles, essential to the Russian student of his own country’s story, will hardly be faced by the average foreigner.
Pushkin’s activities were phenomenal. That in the thirty-seven years of his tragically short life he should have wrought what he did, and that he should have been so uniformly good, invests him with a glamour which is all his own. He was a meteor, and, like a meteor, he appeared as it were for a moment in the sky, and then vanished into space. And yet half a century ago, among the men who were the leaders of thought in Petersburg, there was far less talk of Pushkin than there was of Dante, Shakespeare, or Voltaire—not to speak of many other foreign authors.
It has taken many years to create the revival of the interest of Russians in Russian work. It has come at last, and now the only danger is lest, under much flattery and patting on the back from abroad, the true advance of public taste should not be rather hindered than furthered. Pushkin, be it remembered, was highly cultivated, a man of wide reading. He recognized the fact that in order to write well a man must read well, and study the best models. Some of his criticisms of Shakespeare and of Byron, under whose influence he was until Shakespeare dethroned his idol, are masterpieces.
It seems to me that the State encouragement of Russian studies will be of high value as promoting facility of intercourse—especially in the case of the Services, naval, military and civil. A far higher, even world-wide importance attaches to the establishment of schools of modern languages all over Russia. It is of less moment that the literature of Russia, in its present condition, should travel westward than that the literature of the West should gradually influence the mind of the Slav. Just as in music the wild barbaric outbursts of his gayer moods, the tender sadness of his dirges, have been enshrined in the harmonies of his own classic masters without losing one spark of their fire, one sob of their pathos, so the untutored writer of to-day, chastened by study, will be able to give us the freshness and zest of a life which is not ours, shorn of all its crudities, not to give them a worse name. Let me not be misunderstood. What I think is of consequence is that the startling audacity, the rough ore of the Slav mind, should be passed through the purifying furnace of the higher education it was in Pushkin’s case—all honour to him—and then you will have something worthy of the praise which is being rained upon the shameless translations by ladies, themselves ill-equipped by classic culture, of the cubism of literary art.
VERBA COMPOSITA
In the first volume of my “Memories” there is a print of a drawing by William Evans, of the inglenook in the picturesque dining-hall of his house at Eton. Above the stone screen in which it was held was a legend in Gothic letters: “Favus mellis verba composita.” The words had disappeared for many years when I went to place my son with Miss Evans—so long that she had even forgotten their existence when I asked the reason why. To us old boys it seemed a pity, for the inscription had derived a certain sanctity from the scholastic storm which raged round it. The learned would not accept the legend. No one could say whence the quotation or proverb came. Dr. Hawtrey, to whom the pure well of Latin undefiled was almost a religion with which to tamper was little short of sacrilege, declared that it was a barbarism, a piece of dog, or, what was perhaps to him as bad, monkish Latin. He maintained that it was untranslatable; but we, audacious monkeys, rushing in where scholars feared to tread, declared that if the words were obscure, the meaning was clear as crystal: “Sweet as the honeycomb is the talk of friends in council.” Here I would fain break off for a moment to pay a slight tribute to the memory of that most generous of men, William Evans, drawing-master and, though one of the most masculine of mortals, technically a “dame.” He was a big, burly man, of a jovial and rubicund aspect, a combination which earned for him the nickname of Beeves. He was a vigorous painter in water-colours, a member of the old water-colour society, and one of the best of good fellows.
A sportsman, too, for he was the friend of the late Duke of Atholl, spending most of his summer holiday at Blair, where he was always welcome as an enthusiastic stalker. Indeed, “Scrope’s Deerstalking” was the only book that I remember ever to have seen him read. I went to see him once as he lay in bed, very feeble, at the beginning of his last long illness. On the wall, at his right hand, was hanging his dearly-loved rifle, his powder-flask, and the other paraphernalia of those pre-breechloader days. In his youth he had been a great oarsman, and, indeed, the river was his joy till quite late in life.
He took the greatest interest in all that concerned boating and swimming, and it was owing to his influence, in conjunction with that of the noble Bishop Selwyn, of whom Eton is still so proud, that the law was passed by the authorities forbidding boys to enter a boat until they should have “passed” in swimming. Of the good bishop a story is told of the time when he was a private tutor at Eton which is worth preserving. He was sculling in a wherry amid a crowd of boats, when he was run into by some unskilled oarsman. Seeing that shipwreck was inevitable, he stood up, and, quoting Ovid’s description of the discreet death of Lucretia, exclaimed:
“Tunc quoque, jam moriens, ne non procumbat honeste Respicit, hoc etiam cura cadenti erat.”
Fasti II., 831.
And so, with a header as graceful as the quotation was apt, the amphibious bishop that was to be, dived into the Thames amid the plaudits of the multitude, who already recognized in him the heroism of which he was to give proof in New Zealand and elsewhere.
Evans’ was a very happy house, and the good old man spared nothing for the comfort of his boys. The table which he kept was excellent, the Sunday dinner quite a little feast, with a glass of sherry for each boy at plum-pudding time—not altogether wise we should perhaps think nowadays, but so kind and so hospitable. Rarely, too, would be fail to invite one or two boys to stay for dessert. The traditions of the house were nobly carried on by Miss Jennie Evans after her father’s death in 1877. And now she, too, has disappeared, the last of the dames, the last of one of those dear old institutions which were part of the mystery of Eton.
To remember is to wander, and when I begin to think of Eton—the Eton of seventy years ago—it is easier to ramble on than prudently to stop. But to-day I have only to deal with “Verba Composita.” It is of them that I was thinking this morning as I sat in my Veluvana, and, indeed, there could hardly be a more pregnant thought than that of the talk of friends in council.
How perfect is the feeling with which, in the company of a familiar friend of our own choice—we wander through the shaded paths and sweet groves of our sanctuary. Nor is it necessary that the chosen comrade should be himself a botanist or a gardener. Sympathy is all that is asked of him, and that he will not deny. Indeed, there is something in the worship of the great god Pan, and in the living, growing temples which are raised in his honour, which makes for all that is best in the intercourse between man and man.
A beautiful view, a discreet arrangement of flowers and graceful foliage, will rouse congenial memories of books, of poetry, of pictures, and sometimes even of melody. The sight of a plant recognized even by the unskilled as an old friend of some distant clime, seen again after many years, will excite a whole train of recollections fragrant with the perfume of half-forgotten travels and adventures. So may two greybeards sit happily in some remote nook, the home of fairies and dryads, where the trees whisper old thoughts and call up sympathetic talk, broken and yet stimulated afresh by “brilliant flashes of silence.”
[Illustration: FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
_From a photograph._
[_To face p. 212._]
All the better is this _solitude à deux_ if there should be the tinkling music of a tiny stream, with the electric gleam of a kingfisher darting across some idle sunlit pool. All these wield that magic power which, for the nonce charming away the wrinkles of time, transports us across the long years back to the days when the world and we were young and life meant hope. Rare, indeed, and very precious are such dreamy talks and silences. We can hardly rate their value too highly. The crazy poet-philosopher Nietzsche was not far wrong when, in a letter to Erwin Rohde, he wrote: “Eternally we need midwives in order to be delivered of our thoughts. Most people go to a public-house, or to a colleague whose mind is solely occupied with the interests of their calling, and there, like so many small cats, they tumble about all their thoughts and tiny schemes. But woe to us who lack the sunlight of a friend’s presence!”
It was a fine thought of his to elevate friendship to the rank of a goddess. But, alas for the inconsistencies of genius! Few of Nietzsche’s hot friendships had any lasting power. Rohde himself, Rée and others faded out of his life. But no change was so violent as that which occurred in the relations between the philosopher and the tone-poet Wagner. The historic friendship—born of an admiration for Schopenhauer shared by both, and of an adoration by Nietzsche of Wagner’s music—ripened so quickly and was so beautiful, that it ought to have lived with their lives; but this alliance between a budding youth and an older, already famous man came to the saddest end.
Suddenly the fruit grew mouldy and fell from the tree, and the love, which had seemed to be built upon a rock, the worship which was so full of pious conviction, were changed into a hatred which was nothing short of venomous, and which not even the death of Wagner could compel to silence. They had first met at Leipsic, at the house of Professor Brockhaus, and Wagner, touched by the boy’s enthusiasm, took to him at once, petted him, and encouraged him to go and visit him, which he did a few years later at Triebschen, Wagner’s retreat under the shadow of Mount Pilatus.