قراءة كتاب A New Medley of Memories
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
Augustus—A Benedictine Festival—Sinister
Italians—Death of Edward VII.—Brazilian Funerals—Popular
Devotion—"Fradesj estrangeiros"—Football in the
Tropics—Homeward Voyage—Santos and Madeira—Sir John Benn . . 170
CHAPTER XI.—1910-1911.
A Wiesbaden Eye Klinik—The Rhine in Rain—Cologne and
Brussels—Wedding in the Hop-Country—The New Departure at
Fort Augustus—St. Andrew's without Angus—Oxford
Again—Highland Marriage at Oratory—One Eye versus Two—Cambridge versus Oxford—-A Question of Colour—Ex-King
Manuel—A Great Church at Norwich—Ave Verum in the
Kirk—Fort Augustus Post-bag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
CHAPTER XII.—1911.
Monks and Salmon—FitzAlan Chapel—April on Thames-side—My
sacerdotal Jubilee—Kinemacolor—Apparition at an
Abbey—St. Lucius—Faithful Highlanders—Hay Centenary—Nuns
for S. Paulo—A Brief Marriage Ceremony—Pagan
Mass-music—Seventeen New Cardinals—Doune Castle—A Quest
for our Abbey Church—Great Coal Strike—at Stonyhurst and
Ware—Katherine Howard—Twentieth-Century Chinese—An
Anglo-Italian Abbey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
A Concert for Cripples—Queen Amélie—May at Aix-les-Bains—A
Sample Savoyards—Hautecombe—A "Picture of the Year"—A
Benedictine O.T.C.—Pugin's "Blue Pencil"—My nomination
as Prior—Fort Augustus and the Navy—Work in the
Monastery—Ladies in the Enclosure—A Bishop's Jubilee—A
Modern Major Pendennis—My Election to Abbacy—Installation
Ceremonies—Empress Eugénie at Farnborough—A Week at Monte
Cassino—Fatiguing Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
CHAPTER XIV.—1913-1914.
St Anselm's, Rome—Election of a Primate—My Uncle's
Grave—Milan and Maredsous—Canterbury Revisited—An Oratorian
Festival—Poetical Bathos—A Benedictine Chapter—King of
Uganda at Fort Augustus—Threefold Work of our Abbey—Funeral
of Bishop Turner—Bute Chapel at Westminster—A
Patriarchal Lay-brother—Abbot Gasquet a Cardinal—Corpus
Christi at Arundel—Eucharistic Congress at Cardiff—The Great
War—Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246
APPENDIX I. Novissima Verba . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267 II. Darwin's Credo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES
CHAPTER I
1903-1904
I take up again the thread of these random recollections in the autumn of 1903, the same autumn in which I kept my jubilee birthday at St. Andrews. I went from there successively to the Herries' at Kinharvie, the Ralph Kerrs at Woodburn, near Edinburgh, and the Butes at Mountstuart, meeting, curiously enough, at all three places Norfolk and his sister, Lady Mary Howard—though it was not so curious after all, as the Duke was accustomed to visit every autumn his Scottish relatives at these places, as well as the Loudouns in their big rather out-at-elbows castle in Ayrshire. He had no taste at all either for shooting, fishing, or riding, or for other country pursuits such as farming, forestry, or the like; but he made himself perfectly happy during these country house visits. The least exacting of guests, he never required to be amused, contenting himself with a game of croquet (the only outdoor game he favoured), an occasional long walk, and a daily romp with his young relatives, the children of the house, who were all devoted to him. He read the newspapers perfunctorily, but seldom opened a book: he knew and cared little for literature, science, or art, with the single exception of architecture, in which he was keenly interested. The most devout of Catholics, he was nothing of an ecclesiologist: official and hereditary chief of the College of Arms, he was profoundly uninterested in heraldry, whether practically or historically:[1] the head of the nobility of England, he was so little of a genealogist that he was never at pains to correct the proof—annually submitted to him as to others—of the preposterous details of his pedigree as set forth in the pages of "Burke." I seem to be describing an ignoramus; but the interesting thing was that the Duke, with all his limitations, was really nothing of the kind. He could, and did, converse on a great variety of subjects in a very clear-headed and intelligent way; there was something engaging about his utter unpretentiousness and deference to the opinions of others; and he had mastered the truth that the secret of successful conversation is to talk about what interests the other man and not what interests oneself. No one could, in fact, talk to the Duke much, or long, without getting to love him; and every one who came into contact with him in their several degrees, from princes and prelates and politicians to cabmen and crossing-sweepers, did love him. "His Grace 'as a good 'eart, that's what 'e 'as," said the old lady who used to keep the crossing nearly opposite Norfolk House, and sat against the railings with her cat and her clean white apron (I think she did her sweeping by deputy); "he'll never cross the square, whatever 'urry 'e's in, without saying a kind word to me." One sees him striding down Pall Mall in his shabby suit, one gloveless hand plucking at his black beard, the other wagging in constant salutation of passing friends, and his kind brown eyes peering from under the brim of a hat calculated to make the late Lord Hardwicke turn in his grave. A genuine man—earnest, simple, affable, sincere, and yet ducal too; with a certain grave native dignity which sat strangely well on him, and on which it was impossible ever to presume. Panoplied in such dignity when occasion required, as in great public ceremonies, our homely little Duke played his part with curious efficiency; and it was often remarked that in State pageants the figure of the Earl Marshal was always one of the most striking in the splendid picture.
The only country seat which the premier Duke owned besides