CHAPTER IV: STOCKHOLM 1906-1908: Difference between revisions
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It has been necessary, in order to give sequence to the story | |||
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</I>safely delivered us at Liverpool. | </I>safely delivered us at Liverpool. | ||
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Revision as of 22:32, 24 October 2008
It has been necessary, in order to give sequence to the story of the political crisis of 1905 in the Scandinavian peninsula, to omit many of the experiences which gave me insight into the life of its people. Those of my countrymen who have never lived there probably think of Sweden in the first instance in the terms of Norse legend, as a land where nature is cold and stern. They will be less apt to conceive it as a region where summer's magic yields to no gentler land in charm. Perhaps just because the period is long between the progressively darkening weeks of an early autumn and the slow unbinding of the frozen earth which precedes an ephemeral spring the Swedes, who are great lovers of nature, enjoy their summer life as though any moment of it were too good to lose. We found it difficult in June and July to accustom ourselves to the brevity, to the absence almost of night, and indeed it seemed to us that the population, like the birds, hardly devoted any time to sleep. All who can then leave the city for wooden houses or chalets, some modest, others more pretentiously designed, overlooking the fiords or on the many islands which lie within easy reach. Such a wooden house of comfortable proportions, simply but adequately furnished, on an island not far from the narrow entrance into the Stockholm fiord, was our home for two consecutive summers. I had acquired a yacht, cutter of some forty tons, a Brixham trawler fitted as a yacht, which sailed out from England and had its anchorage throughout the summer in sight of our garden. These inland waters are ideal for sailing, as there is seldom any sea and wind is fairly constant. The Swedes are past masters in the art of small yacht sailing, and indeed there are few forms of sport in which they do not excel. An excellent service of steamboats linking the capital with its dependencies over an ample radius facilitates life among the islands. A telephone message to the city ensures your order being delivered by the first available boat and deposited on the landing-pier nearest to your residence. It is not entrusted to any caretaker or watchman. It simply lies there till you go or send to fetch it, and it is not conceivable that anyone would remove parcels which were not his own. The summer with its long days of sunshine is phenomenally productive, and the maturing of fruits and vegetables rapid. This is but just, as during the long winter fresh vegetables are practically unobtainable. Dairy produce is, however, always abundant and good. Sweden with a far less favourable climate supplies us with butter and cheese. As autumn approaches there is a plentiful supply of game, partridge, woodgrouse, blackcock and capereafizie. It is of course the country of trout and salmon. As regards the latter I was assured by competent authorities that in the Swedish rivers flowing into the Baltic, running that is from west to east, the salmon will not take a fly, whereas the Norwegian and the Finland rivers which all run from east to west are the paradise of the fisherman. There was said to be only one river in the whole of Sweden, in the south, where salmon could be tempted by the fly, and that was also the only river in the country which runs from east to west. If it is a stern land in winter, it is soft and winsome in its radiant summer, and nowhere more so than in beautiful, Dalecarlia, the land mountain and lake, where the people still wear the old national costume and live in log houses, coloured a glorious rusty red, nestling against the woodlands on the borders of the big pasture-lands. By the end of September the country chalet near the capital are abandoned and boarded up until the snow shall melt and the long days bring back their summer guests. We had just returned to the Legation when the news reached me of the death of Frankie Rhodes. He had gone to Nyasaland for the opening of the railway, and there his old enemy, the African fever, developed a pernicious black water character. He was the last survivor of my East African friends. It was just twelve years since Lloyd Mathews and I had parted from Raymond and Gerry Portal, Roddy Owen and Frank Rhodes at Mombasa when they started on the historic expedition which led to the annexation of Uganda. He had lived through much since then. But the siren land had drawn him back once more, and he was to die in the continent where his resource and geniality had given heart to many an exploit from the Cape to Khartoum and Dongola. Not one of all those knight-errants of adventure had left a child behind, and their tradition lives only in the memory of friends who knew and loved them. Sometimes, when the new generation seems to forget that a nation is constituted not only of the units living in it at a given moment with their fleeting ambitions and interests, but of all the collective values of the race that has formed it and lived and died for it, when they speak, as it seems to me, without adequate reverence for the empire which has come to them as an effortless inheritance, I grow resentful thinking of the goodly lives by whose sacrifice our African dominion grew, and I wonder whether the coming years will see a breed of men like those it was my privilege to know.
On the 2nd of November, Freddie Curzon, the King's messenger,
arrived in Stockholm from St. Petersburg, and brought us more
precise news of the revolutionary movement which had broken out
there than was to be found in the Press. He had obtained a passage
on a ship hired at a cost of £3,000 by Mr. Pierpont Morgan
the younger and certain French and German financiers who had been
negotiating a new loan. Lord Revelstoke, who was one of the group,
had engaged a steamer for Lübeck. I never appreciated so
vividly before the value of the time of a financier. Morgan told
me that they were actually closeted with the Finance Minister
when he was called to the telephone, and one of the party who
understood Russian heard him say, "This is the end of everything,
and Witte has triumphed all along the line." The next morning
the Tsar issued his constitutional manifesto. Finland took advantage
of the occasion to renew claims which had hitherto been refused
a hearing, and obtained all that she at that time desired. The
movement had, however, not been so pacific elsewhere. The Russian
Minister told me a characteristic story illustrating the primitive
instincts of the peasantry in his part of the country. When agrarian
outrages began, a friend of his who owned a large estate assembled
his tenants and addressed them. They had, he reminded them, always
lived on happy terms together. He had done all that was in his
power to improve their condition, and assisted them when times
were hard. He assumed, therefore, that they did not mean to attack
him or his family. "Oh no," they replied, "never
should we think of doing such a thing. We have made an arrangement
with the peasants on the estate of your neighbour X. We shall
attack him, and his peasants will attack you." A year before
I had met at a dinner-party at Lord Reay's, Komarow, the Russian
delegate who had been sent to Canada to regulate the vexed question
of the seal fisheries. He had said to me: "Our position in
Russia is really an impossible one. We, the cosmopolitan dominant
class, are like you of the twentieth century; our bourgeoisie
are of the fourteenth; and the peasantry are of the fourth."
Such conditions make it easy for things to happen in Russia which
would be quite inconceivable in countries where the evolution
of classes has been more uniform.
Towards the end of the year the venerable King sent for me,
and after some very kind words about my helpfulness during the
national crisis, put into my hands a box which I realized contained
the Grand Cross of the Order of the Northern Star. I had to explain
that we were not allowed to accept foreign decorations, and that
my sovereign had only in rare cases sanctioned exceptions. The
King, however, insisted on my asking for permission, and said
that should any objection be raised I could eventually give the
Order back quietly to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I wrote
to Lord Lansdowne, and apologized for not having managed better
on an occasion which had quite taken me by surprise. King Edward,
however, to whom the matter was referred, was so gracious as to
say he was glad to think appreciation had been shown of the manner
in which Great Britain had been represented at a critical moment,
with other words which it is unnecessary to repeat. This was,
to my regret, my last official correspondence with Lansdowne,
to whose able management of Foreign Affairs my country owed a
great debt. Just after I reached London for three weeks' leave
in the beginning of December, Mr. Balfour's Government resigned,
and Sir Edward Grey became my chief in the Campbell-Bannerman
administration. I had spent a few days on the way home at Brussels
to examine in the Royal Library the fourteenth-century manuscript
of the Livre de la Conquête de la Morée, which
had formerly belonged to the Dukes of Burgundy, and I only arrived
in London the evening before the death of my old friend, Clinton
Dawkins. He had not yet reached his fiftieth year. The public
service lost a very conscientious and valuable official when he
left it to become the London Manager of Morgan's bank. All through
his life he did everything too strenuously, and the exacting and
perhaps not altogether congenial work he had undertaken wore out
what seemed a very strong frame. A few days after this sad parting
I was meeting Curzon at Charing Cross on his return from India
after his duel with Kitchener and the authorities at home. There
was a large and representative gathering assembled to greet him.
But no minister of the Crown was present.
On the evening of the 29th of January we were entertaining
the Crown Prince of Sweden at dinner when a rumour spread through
Stockholm that the King of Denmark had suddenly died. It proved
to be true, and Court mourning cut short the winter season. For
us all social obligations would in any case have been terminated
by a grave domestic anxiety which overtook us in February. A telegram
from England summoned us home, as our eldest boy, now ten years
old and at a private school, had developed alarming symptoms.
We started at once. Happily for us my sister had, in our absence,
acted with great decision, bringing the boy up at once to a nursing
home in London, where he was placed in the hands of Sir Alfred
Fripp and Dr. Hale White, and a first operation had been performed
just in time to save his life. It was an aggravated case of appendicitis
with hardly any premonitory indications, which had produced strangulation
and intestinal paralysis. This is not a place in which to dwell
on the experiences of the terrible six weeks through which we
passed. The details of what proved to be a very exceptional case
were duly recorded in medical journals. But it is difficult not
to pay a paternal tribute to the pluck of that gallant little
life which, hanging so long upon a thread, never allowed us to
see his courage flinch through three severe operations, rendered
more critical by pneumonia, and the ordeal of daily subcutaneous
injections of olive-oil to nourish the system which could not
otherwise be supported. It would also be impossible, in such a
volume of recollections, to omit a testimony of gratitude to the
astounding skill, the resourcefulness and the devotion of Fripp,
Hale White, and their assistants, and the nursing of Sister Irwin.
It is at such moments that we learn to appreciate human nature
and the warm heart of the world. Relations, friends---and we then
realized how many they were---were overflowing with kindness,
and the King himself sent repeatedly to inquire after the progress
of our boy. At the end of nearly five weeks a final operation,
which lasted an hour and three-quarters, to join up several internal
communications, was successfully surmounted, and after a grim
interval of forty-eight hours' uncertainty, vitality returned
to the paralysed organ. Five days later the patient was asking
how soon he could start for Stockholm.
By the end of the first week in April I was able to return
alone to my post in good time to do my duty at an episode of old-world
ceremonial. An event was expected in the household of the heir-presumptive,
and as Princess Margaret was contingently if remotely in the succession
to the British Crown, it behoved its representative to be present
in the immediate vicinity in order to testify to the act of birth.
The old barbarous procedure which had required the attendance
of the Ministers of State at a royal accouchement had been modified,
and it was only expected that the wife of the Grand Marshal, or
some Court Lady taking her place, should actually be present.
I was just finishing dinner on the evening of the 23rd of April
when I received a warning to be ready to proceed to the Palace
at about eleven, and was putting on my uniform when a telephone
message instructed me to lose no time. At the Palace I met M.
Staaf, the Prime Minister, and Baron Trolle, the Minister for
Foreign Affairs, with a representative of the Grand Marshal, who
had been incapacitated by a fall from his horse. At ten minutes
past eleven a young Prince was born and brought in to us for verification.
The formal protocol was then drawn up and signed, and after telegraphing
to London I retired to bed. The christening of the young Duke
of Västerbotten took place some seven weeks later. The Duke
and Duchess of Connaught came in the Enchantress, and the
occasion was memorable for the simultaneous presence of four male
generations of the House of Bernadotte. The youngest member behaved
admirably during the religious service, but protested audibly
at the Bishop's address.
Meanwhile, a conflict arose between the two houses of the legislature
over an Electoral Reform Bill, which led to a constitutional crisis.
In Sweden, when there is a difference between the two houses they
vote together as one body, and the decision of the majority obtains.
In this case a Government Bill, accepted by the second Chamber,
corresponding to the House of Commons, which favoured proportional
election, was rejected in the combined assembly by a majority
of seventy. M. Staaf, the Radical Prime Minister, asked for an
immediate dissolution not of the First but of the Second Chamber,
in which he had a majority. The Crown Prince, who was constantly
called upon to act as Regent at critical moments, refused the
request on the ground that it would not be in accordance with
precedent to dissolve a Chamber which had just accepted a Bill
submitted with the approval of the Crown. The Constitution laid
down that the country should be governed by two Chambers of equal
authority, and independently of the Reform Bill there was a great
deal of current business to be disposed of before a dissolution
could be contemplated. Staaf tendered his resignation. He had
certainly a majority of the country behind him, and the dynasty
would no doubt have acquired more popularity by adopting a suggestion,
which Staaf's personal attitude had made difficult. Questions
of popularity, however, did not appeal to the Prince Regent so
much as they might have to his father. His view was that by dissolving
the Second Chamber and going to the country with a cry against
the Upper House, the Crown would have been acting as a partisan.
An administration which rather represented practical men than
politicians drawn from the Conservative centre took office under
Admiral Lindman, a former Minister of Marine, to study afresh
the question of electoral reform. At that moment the position
of the dynasty was not a very enviable one.
Among the many short cruises we made that summer, one at least
was not without its adventurous side. The Special Service Squadron
under Admiral Bosanquet had been ordered in August to Gothenburg
to salute the King as a British Admiral, and we decided to sail
there, with my boy, who was rapidly putting on flesh after his
long illness. In the middle of the Baltic we met a small gale.
Our crosstrees were carried away, and one of our two boats was
knocked to pieces. There was a disagreeable moment when water
began to appear in the saloon. But it proved to be only an intake
from the hawse-hole as the nose of the cutter buried itself in
the seas, and this was quickly remedied. My Swedish skipper did
not leave his helm for thirty hours, and at last brought us safely
in under the lee of the long island of Öland, enabling us
to reach Kalmar and so make our way overland to Gothenburg. There
the weather was equally inclement, and seas ran so high that communications
between the shore and the squadron were difficult. But the venerable
sovereign carried out his programme, crossed from his yacht to
the Euryalus, inspected every detail with a seaman's eye,
lunched and got off again. He was in his 77th year. We returned
in the cutter, but, paradoxical as it sounds, mostly overland,
crossing Sweden by the Gotha canal, sailing through the lakes,
ascending and descending ridges of hills by a succession of locks,
of which there were sometimes as many as eleven in a single group.
In the autumn I took six weeks' leave, most of which was spent
in Scotland. While at home I delivered to the publisher, The
Princes of Achaia, my study of medieval Greece, at which I
had been working on and off in my leisure time for some fifteen
years. It had often had to be set aside altogether for a year
and more when I was in remote countries like East Africa. We stayed
at Newmarket with Sir Ernest Cassel to meet the King. Our host
had considerable interests in Swedish iron mines, and was a constant
visitor to Sweden. I was amused at the consternation of Sir John
Fisher, as he then was, who, though prepared for almost any contingency,
did not dare to meet his Sovereign without the Order of Merit,
which he had forgotten to bring with him. His servant was hastily
dispatched to Town to fetch it, and returned just in time for
dinner. This reminds me of a story of Bismarck, who had received
nearly all the Grand Cordons in the world. Having to meet a certain
monarch who was visiting Berlin, he hunted in vain for the ribbon
and star of the appropriate order, which he presumed he possessed.
Unable to find his own he succeeded in borrowing one, and then
discovered that it had never been conferred upon him, and that
the sovereign in question intended to present him with it at their
interview.
At the beginning of 1907, King Oscar was seriously ill, and
the Crown Prince was once more called upon to assume the Regency.
The Diet which he opened had to deal with a new Government Bill
introducing a proportional electoral system for members of the
Second Chamber and for the electors of the First. All the leading
mathematicians in Sweden had been called upon to give their expert
advice. The method of counting the votes struck me as complicated
for the average man to grasp, but the measure was generally well
received, and its popularity was increased by the complete reform
of the upper house which its adoption would entail. I shall not
attempt to describe a system, the details of which are readily
available to those who are interested in them. This far-reaching
Reform Bill, proposed by a Conservative Government, was eventually
safely piloted with one or two amendments through a Second Chamber
with a big Liberal majority by the able statesmanship of Admiral
Lindman.
In April came the news of Lord Cromer's resignation. Letters
from Egypt gave me no little anxiety as to his health. He could
not have continued his work there with safety to his life. Sir
Eldon Gorst succeeded him. After Cromer no Englishman knew Egypt
better. It had been his first diplomatic post, and he had subsequently
served in nearly every department of the Egyptian Administration,
which he only left to become for a short time an Assistant Under-Secretary
at the Foreign Office. Nevertheless, I was not without some misgivings
as to how far he would be able to replace Cromer with any prospect
of success. With all his great ability there were certain personal
qualities of essential importance in the East to which he would
not himself have laid claim, and he had been for so many years
the servant of the Khedive, and was so well known to the Egyptians
in that capacity, that it would be difficult for him to reverse
the rôle.
After officially attending a second family event at the suburban
Palace of Drottningholm, to which we were summoned at 4 a.m.,
I went home in June. The new King and Queen of Denmark paid a
visit to London. After the Court Ball I made the acquaintance
of John Burns, and found no difficulty in understanding his popularity
with all classes. I had been lamenting certain modern tendencies
which might in the long run weaken the ties which bound us to
the children of the Empire overseas,---for one thing, the Government
had recently declined to entertain the question of preference
at the Colonial Conference. But all my misgivings were, or should
have been, dissipated by a hearty smack on the back and a confident
voice exclaiming: "Don't you be downhearted, Rodd, my boy."
The King gave me a message to take back with me which I found
very useful in the next few months. I was authorized to tell the
Crown Prince that His Majesty's feelings for Sweden were most
friendly, and that his only wish was to see the two Scandinavian
neighbours in cordial relations. It was not to be imagined that
he himself had any partiality. He, of course, could not but take
a personal interest in the welfare of his daughter and son-in-law,
the new sovereigns of Norway. But that in no way affected his
general attitude, which was one of warm regard for Sweden and
her King, who was one of his oldest friends. In view of an attempt,
which was shortly to be made, to attribute to King Edward an influence
which he never attempted to exercise, the framing of this message
might almost have seemed to indicate rare political foresight.
He was in any case before long to give practical proof of these
friendly feelings.
During the remainder of the summer and autumn in Sweden I had
exceptional opportunities for exploring more intimate aspects
of the country for which the stress of public events had till
then left but little time. A residence of three years had led
to many welcome and cordial friendships. My wife had a genius
for organizing new forms of social entertainment which enlarged
the circle of our acquaintance, and have, I am told, left a tradition
which is still remembered in the capital. To several of these
friends we paid visits at their country houses, where we learned
many details of the national life. From none of them did I gather
more about Swedish methods of dealing with the land and the condition
of the agricultural labourer than from Count Frederick Wachtmeister,
a former diplomatic colleague who had acted as Foreign Minister
during the crisis with Norway. After the settlement he was offered
the post of Minister in London. Conciliatory and very cultivated,
he and his charming wife would have been ideal representatives
of their country. But he could not tear himself away from his
large estates, which he managed in the best traditions of a conscientious
landlord. Another well-remembered visit which I paid alone was
to my friend, Count Clarence Rosen, a pioneer in every sporting
venture and a prince of good fellows. On his little property,
which we reached after a long motor drive through forest country
from the nearest station, he does himself what wealthier men achieve
vicariously, and breeds and trains the horses on which he and
his sons win prizes at Olympia.
The great elk which ranges through the forests and over the
moors of the Norseland may be shot only during a fortnight in
September. My wife and I, with Mrs. Murray Guthrie and Wilfrid
Ashley, were invited by a friend, a business man who had lived
many years in England, Herr Petersen of Elvestorp, to join his
party and to pursue the elk on a mining estate, extending over
a considerable area of mountain and woodland which he was developing.
There we had three days driving and one day tracking with dogs,
and then another big drive at Goldsmedshutten. I was lucky enough
to secure a very fine bull as well as a two-year-old.
We had a long railway journey north and west, and then a long
motor drive to our destination at the head-quarters of the Elvestorp
mines. The house in which the first three or four days were spent,
an old wooden country house taken over with the estate, had for
long been uninhabited. But it had been especially equipped for
the occasion with new beds and all that was necessary. Infinite
goodwill had improvised a bathroom, though when it came to be
tested, the plumbing proved defective. Even a piano had been sent
from Stockholm into the wilds. No trouble was too great for our
hospitable friends.
The life was very strenuous while it lasted. Our first experience
was repeated daily with little change. We rose reluctantly at
4 a.m. to prepare for a start at six. After driving as far as
possible in motor-cars over rough tracks we reached a limit, whence
it was only possible to proceed on foot to the points some miles
away where the guns were to be posted. The beaters, mostly hands
from the mines, had many hours before set out by circuitous routes
for a distant line of country, the physical contours of which
had been studied by the experts, with due regard also to the prevailing
wind. For the shy elk is extraordinarily sensitive to scent as
well as to sound, and would not fail to detect the presence of
a hunter to windward. The drivers, after encircling a wide extent
of highland forest and clearing, eventually converge towards the
spots where the guns are posted. A big drive will take the whole
of a morning or an afternoon. Sometimes the encircling movement
was made in vain, and no elk was sighted by any of the party,
or there might only be a momentary glimpse of a shadow flitting
behind a palisade of tree trunks, or again you might catch a distant
view of an antlered monster crossing the far side of a valley
out of range. It was a grand wild country, wooded with birch and
fir. Stretches of water-logged moorland were ruddy with the cranberry
in full fruit. So far as human habitations were concerned, it
might have been the end of the world, but still a very good place
in which to be. As you stood for hours together at your post,
silent and tobaccoless, hiding among the tree stems, the capercailzie
would tantalizingly alight and preen himself on a neighbouring
branch, or, where the clearing skirted the wood, a mountain hare
would stare at the intruder and then gallop away into the bush.
Thus you wait and wait, breathing an aromatic air in a spell-bound
stillness till you seem to be one with the spirit of mountain
and forest. At last, if you are fortunate, you may hear the sound
of a light hoof trotting over the fir-needle bed, and a great
bull elk will show for a moment, clean outlined, lifting his nostrils
as he scents danger, and then your chance has come.
Towards midday the drive will be over, and the more distant
guns, collected by the guides, will pick up the nearer ones. Pipes
can be lit again, and the party marches a few more miles to some
delightful spot by lake or river in which crayfish abound, where
fires are burning and lunch has been prepared. There you will
find abundant provision of those smoked delicacies which are a
prelude to every meal in the north, bucketfuls of the red crayfish,
freshly boiled, and elk steaks for those who appreciate them.
After lunch there will be another long trek over hill and vale,
and perhaps a passage in boats across a lake to a different area,
where a second drive has been organized which will last till the
light begins to wane.
I shall always remember the homeward tramp of the collected
party in the darkling twilight to the tune of old Swedish choruses
and marching songs. By the time we reached a spot where we could
pick up train or motor-car, we had covered some twelve to fifteen
miles on foot. At the head-quarters of the mining station, in
a long barn-like room lighted with candles, dinner awaited us
with friendly rows of bottles and the cheerful faces, ruddy with
the life of the hills, of the chief engineers and superintendents
of the mines, fine stalwart men with the physique of Vikings.
There were speeches, as always at a Swedish banquet, but not long
ones, and skoals for the successful slayer of the elk, and the
glasses were never empty. It was a kindly, merry, virile company
in surroundings reminiscent of a scene of revelry from Gösta
Berling's palmy days. The Swedes are an indefatigable as well
as an efficient race. Long and tiring as the day had been, nothing
could damp the high spirits of our hosts making holiday. There
were some good voices in the party, and dinner was followed by
songs, and then the carpet was rolled back for dancing, which
went on till after midnight, notwithstanding that the morrow's
breakfast hour was nominally at five. It was mid-September and
the close of the good summer life, during which, as I have suggested,
every moment is grudged to sleep, was at hand. We; for our part,
I trust, kept up the good name of the Englishman and the English
woman for physical endurance. The tracking of the elk with dogs
led to no result. But the last day's driving at Goldsmedshutten
added several more to our record, one of the best of them being
killed by our host. I never spent a more enjoyable week, nor met
with greater kindness nor more generous hospitality in any land.
Yet one more expedition undertaken at the end of this summer
deserves a brief mention, because so few seem ever to have heard
of the strange old-world Hans City in the mid-Baltic isle of Gothland,
which has slept for some five hundred years since the Danes rifled
its treasures and destroyed the homes and vessels of its wealthy
merchant princes. A night's passage from Nynäsholm brought
us in the early morning to the roadstead of Visby, where the grey
stone walls with their eight and thirty towers rose beyond a grass
meadow. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries it was the Baltic
emporium of the trade of the East, and certainly one of the richest
cities of the middle ages. No less than thirteen great Abbey churches,
dating from the period of its mercantile supremacy, still stand
within the circuit of the walls, roofless and ruinous to-day,
all save one which suffices for the needs of the present inhabitants.
The ruins of St. Katharine's are perhaps the most beautiful in
their present aspect, while the Church of the Holy Spirit is structurally
the most interesting. It is the more remarkable that so many churches
conceived on such a noble scale should be found in this remote
island, because, with the exception of the Cathedral of Lund,
Sweden has little to show that is memorable in ecclesiastical
architecture.
If I have wandered rather far away from the Capital to follow
certain pleasant byways of memory, it must not be assumed on that
account that there were not also serious matters to occupy the
attention of the British representative. And, indeed, there was
at this time a political issue which gave me not a little anxious
preoccupation, as it for a moment threatened to compromise relations
which had hitherto run so smoothly. The issue in question was
probably one which passed unperceived by the majority at home.
Its evolution, however, was so typical of the old diplomacy as
practised by certain nations that it demands more than a passing
mention.
After the repeal of the Union with Norway had once become an
established fact, and the immediate difficulties presented by
the settlement had receded into the background, public opinion
in Sweden, reflecting on the history of recent months and years,
was undoubtedly conscious of a certain loss of self-conceit, and
in their disillusion men began to cast about for responsibilities.
They reflected, whether rightly or wrongly at any rate too late,
that the dissolution was a contingency which might perhaps have
been avoided by an earlier perception of the forces at work and
a more sympathetic appreciation of Norwegian susceptibilities.
The attitude of Denmark during the crisis was recalled with some
acerbity. The efficiency of their own diplomatic and consular
services was called in question; and even the dynasty did not
always escape a certain undercurrent of criticism. This was in
such circumstances inevitable, and the soreness which the events
of 1905 left behind continued vaguely to manifest itself in various
forms until it found a definite object on which to concentrate.
This occasion was presented by the proposed Norwegian Treaty
of Guarantees. Norway, as a separate kingdom, desired not only
to have her territorial integrity secured by the great northern
powers as it had been by Great Britain and France under the old
Treaty of 1855 with the Union, but she was also anxious that her
neutrality should be guaranteed. Now the neutralization of Norway
would have closed the door for ever against any co-operation between
the two kingdoms of the peninsula in the face of a common danger
to both, and would therefore have been deeply resented by Sweden.
The King spoke to me very earnestly on the subject towards the
end of 1906. The point of view from which the proposal was regarded
by the Swedish Government was duly appreciated in London, and
the elimination of any idea of neutralization was made a condition
of our agreeing to guarantee territorial integrity. We had, from
the moment when Norway became a separate kingdom, made known our
readiness to renew in her behalf the guarantee we had given in
1855, and we should have been equally ready to do so on behalf
of Sweden also, had the latter desired its renewal, which she
did not. Germany and Russia were now prepared to join as guaranteeing
powers.
Discussions, regarding the form as well as the substance, of
the new Treaty continued throughout the spring of 1907, when public
attention in Sweden was concentrated on the question of proportional
elections, and they continued through the summer. When eventually
the Government became aware of the text of the proposed instrument,
which was communicated to them by the Russian Minister, they were
greatly disturbed. They had no objection to Norway receiving a
guarantee of territorial integrity in the form of a self-denying
ordinance from the four great powers. But when they learned that
it was contemplated that Norway should be guaranteed by these
against any power, they assumed that such a measure could only
be aimed at Sweden. After the peaceful dissolution of the Union,
in which they had deferred to the wish of Norway, they were much
concerned that the Great Powers should be invited to guarantee
her against her former partner. The point was only raised at the
eleventh hour, and the Swedish Government might well have asked
earlier for information regarding the discussions which were taking
place. We, however, then did our best to have the text modified
and reduced to the anodyne form of a self-denying ordinance. The
German Government professed to be entirely disinterested in the
matter, as might have been anticipated where no direct German
interest was involved. Russia, however, was not willing to modify
the text which had been adopted, and France, at first at any rate,
followed the Russian lead. In these circumstances it was somewhat
disconcerting to find that the Russian and French representatives,
who were perfectly well aware that we were' pledged to a Treaty
of Guarantees, kept assuring the Swedish Minister for Foreign
Affairs that only Great Britain would be able to move in the matter
with any prospect of success. If Sweden failed to obtain satisfaction,
the onus was thus to be thrown upon us. The Russian Minister in
Stockholm had nothing but soft words for Sweden, while his colleague
at Christiania kept pressing for the immediate signature, and
indeed used strong language in denouncing us for holding back.
Now these peculiar symptoms gave me occasion for much reflection.
There was, however, still what appeared to be a trump card
for Sweden to play. We had promised Russia not to sign the new
Treaty until the old Treaty of 1855, which had been directed against
her, was formally abrogated. Sweden, whose agreement as a party
to that Treaty had to be obtained, refused her consent to its
abrogation until she had satisfied herself that the new Treaty
with Norway contained nothing contrary to her dignity or interest.
Thereupon Russia shifted her ground, and announced that it was
a matter of indifference to her whether the Treaty of 1855 were
first abrogated or not.
The French Government were probably puzzled by the attitude
of their ally. They were in any case themselves hardly consistent,
as they now proposed that Sweden should prove her complete disinterestedness
by herself becoming a party to the new Treaty as one of the guaranteeing
powers. The other three powers accepted the proposal, but Norway
emphatically rejected it, while advancing a suggestion that Denmark
should be associated in the Treaty, a course which would inevitably
confirm the impression that it was directed against Sweden. In
the face of Norwegian opposition the French Government did not
press their proposal, which, however, continued to have our support.
Sweden then herself directly asked to be included as a co-signatory
or, as an alternative, that certain modifications should be made
in the article to which exception had been taken. Failing to obtain
satisfaction, the Government did not pursue the matter further.
We held out to the last in an endeavour to meet their wishes,
but, in view of the pledge originally given, we were at last obliged
to fall into line with the other great powers. The actual text
of the Treaty remained undisclosed for a time, but its substance
became known, and there was a feeling of strong resentment among
all classes in Sweden that Norway should have called in the four
great northern powers to protect her, as they assumed, against
her former partner in the Union whose attitude in 1905 should
have made it plain that she desired to be a peaceful neighbour.
The Treaty of Guarantees appeared, in fact, to rouse more bitterness
than had the dissolution of the Union itself.
When this feeling was at its height, the French Press and the
correspondents of Swedish journals writing from Paris, quite gratuitously
represented the situation which had arisen as being entirely due
to Great Britain, who was alleged to have resisted the generous
proposal of France to make Sweden a co-signatory, and it was asserted
that dynastic influences had turned the scale in favour of Norway.
No allegation could have been more unfounded, as King Edward had
throughout used his influence in favour of respecting Swedish
susceptibilities. The French Minister was treated as the hero
of the hour, and no less than three portraits of him were published
in the Stockholm Press. As a useful corrective I obtained authority
to issue a contradiction of the statement that we had opposed
the association of Sweden with the four guaranteeing powers.
Now what was the real purport of these manoeuvres? The Russian
Minister in Stockholm had taken the initiative in communicating
the text of the Treaty to the Swedish Government. The Russian
Minister in Christiania took an entirely different line to that
ostensibly adopted by his colleague in Sweden. It was Russia-
that declined to modify the Treaty in the sense desired by Sweden,
and then precipitated the signature by unexpectedly withdrawing
her demand that the Treaty of 1855 should first be abrogated.
I concluded, and rightly as events proved, that France had been
rather unwittingly let in by Russia in a matter in which she took
only a subordinate interest. But Russia had a definite object
to gain in aggravating the tension between Sweden and Norway.
Hitherto, Swedish interests had been identical with those of Great
Britain as regards an open Baltic. But if Sweden could be alienated
from us she might in her isolation and irritation look for support
elsewhere. Confirmation of this diagnosis was afforded not long
afterwards by Russian advances to Sweden for the negotiation of
a Baltic agreement, to which Germany was to be a party. Such advances
might develop into a policy of reservations in the Baltic.
Negotiations, however, hung fire, and France began to be disconcerted
at the action of her Russian ally. Sweden also found herself in
troubled waters because Russia made it a condition of any agreement
that she should waive her objections to the fortification of the
Åland Islands. If the consent of Sweden could have been
secured, Russia would then have invited Great Britain and France
to abrogate the post-Crimean Treaty of 1856, which precluded her
from reconstructing the Åland forts. But Sweden could never
willingly agree to the arming of those islands which practically
commanded the entrance to the Stockholm fiord. The very suggestion
created something like a panic. Having failed in this object,
the Russian Government allowed the Press agencies to disclose
the fact that certain negotiations had been taking place. The
disclosure forced the Swedish Government to make some announcement,
and it was admitted that there had been pourparlers regarding
the maintenance of the status quo in the Baltic. The Russian
Government followed this up with an official communication very
similar to the information published by the Press agencies, supplemented
by a statement that Denmark had not been consulted. The German
Government which had in the meantime shown the Danish Government
the proposed agreement, also announced that such discussions as
had taken place concerned the shores, and not the waters, of the
Baltic. While Russia now decided not to press the question of
the Åland Islands, and in fact went so far as to pretend
that it never had been raised, the position of Sweden was made
still more secure by an opportune reply given by Sir Edward Grey
to a question on the subject in Parliament. It was to the effect
that if we were asked to abrogate the Treaty of 1856 or to modify
its terms, we should not answer without having first consulted
Sweden. The British Press adopted a very friendly attitude, and
cordially supported the claim of Sweden to become a signatory
of a North Sea agreement, which was concluded early in 1908 simultaneously
with a very anodyne Baltic agreement and the abrogation of the
Treaty of Guarantees of 1855. The menace of the reconstruction
of the Åland forts made the Swedes understand more clearly
the motive of the attempt to isolate them and to create an entirely
unjustified spirit of irritation against Great Britain. Feeling
in the country reverted to its old orientation.
A very pleasant experience in the autumn of 1907 was our visit
to Gothenburg, to which we were invited by the "English Factory."
The members of the Factory are by origin Scotch and English, whose
ancestors settled there a century ago, and it was their enterprise
which made Gothenburg the powerful and wealthy city which it has
become. It would indeed not be too much to say that it is from
the initiative of the English Factory at Gothenburg that a modern
commercial movement spread over the whole of Sweden. The descendants
of the old business colony all became Swedes, but they still remain
English and Scotch in type and character. It seems strange to
find Dicksons, Barclays, Keillers, Seatons, Lyonses, and Carnegies,
many of them only speaking English with an effort. The principal
families of the Factory, whose members all appear to be prosperous
and wealthy, live in great comfort very much after the manner
of Englishmen sixty or seventy years ago. They are a healthy-minded
people, contented with their lot, and munificent in their benefactions
to the city which adopted their ancestors, while to complete the
picture I might add what every one who has been to Gothenburg
knows, that the ladies of the Factory are not only smart and accomplished
but also exceptionally good-looking.
1 had only been some ten days in London, whither we went at
the end of October, when I learned that the venerable King of
Sweden was ill, and that little hope was entertained of his recovery.
I started at once for my post, but only arrived in time to be
received with the other heads of missions by his successor. King
Oscar, as the youngest of three brothers, was not born to be King,
and yet he had reigned some five and thirty years. If he was not
a strong man, a more lovable one never existed, and it was therefore
the sadder that the end of his long life should have been embittered
by the diminution of his royal title. It came back to my mind
how two years earlier he had said to me, with tears in his eyes
- "They might have waited a little till I had been carried
out to the Church at Riddarholm.." Thither I followed the old King to his last resting-place, and watched with a pathetic interest his two oldest friends, the Riksmarshal Baron Essen, and Ankarkrone, the Grand Veneur, who was eighty-four, standing by his bier with the regret of a lifetime in their faces.
The new King, who had, during the last two years as regent
in time of stress, really borne the burden of kingship, entered
upon his duties modestly and earnestly. It was announced that
the ceremony of a coronation would be suppressed. When his predecessor
had succeeded, the Riksdag had refused to defray the expenses
of a coronation, and King Oscar who, notwithstanding his great
simplicity of character, had a certain artistic appreciation of
the pomp and circumstance of his high office, paid for it out
of his own pocket.
The visits to England of the new Danish and Norwegian Sovereigns
were to be returned at the end of April (1908), and King Edward,
who, as I have already indicated, missed no opportunity of showing
his friendliness to Sweden and its Royal House, announced his
intention of paying a visit at the same time to Stockholm without
waiting for the King and Queen of Sweden to have come first to
England in accordance with precedents. This visit would in the
natural order of events have been the last of the three. But as
King Gustaf had to be in Russia for his second son's marriage
at a date already fixed, it was agreed by mutual consent that
Stockholm should in this case have precedence over Christiania,
and the decision, though really due to accidental circumstances,
was gratifying to Swedish amour-propre. The arrival of King Edward
and Queen Alexandra in Stockholm just after public opinion in
Sweden, momentarily misled by misrepresentations of a diplomatic
intrigue, had realized that it had done less than justice to the
constant goodwill of Great Britain, was the signal for a national
demonstration of cordiality. In a long and rather comprehensive
experience, no ruler that I have ever met understood the métier
of kingship as did King Edward. Combining a natural dignity of
presence with a cordial kindliness which won every heart, he was
such a consummate man of the world that he never missed an opportunity
of saying and doing the right thing with unerring tact at the
right moment. Those two days in Stockholm won unbounded popularity
for the uncle of the English princess, to whom the Swedes were
already devoted, and the visit, helping to restore national confidence
at a difficult moment, was immensely appreciated.
I was glad also to feel that a little of the satisfaction which
it gave went out to the Sovereign to whom it was paid, whose position
was growing stronger every day. H.M., who presented me with the
collar of the Northern Star, which it seems is a distinction very
rarely conferred, told me that he had learned that we should be
leaving in the course of the autumn.
When the visit was over we went to St. Petersburg, and saw
for the first time that strange city where the magnificent and
the mean are so strikingly contrasted. It was the Hermitage collections
that we had really come to see, and these surpassed all my anticipations.
But we had unfortunately only been able to go there twice, when
the galleries were closed in consequence of the death of the curator.
At the end of June, only a few days after my arrival in London,
my old friend, Sir Edward Malet, passed away. I have, in the first
volume of these recollections, spoken so much of him and of the
sound lessons he taught us as young men, both as regards our profession
and as members of society and citizens of the world, that it is
unnecessary to repeat that testimony here. His diplomatic career
had been a remarkable one. He began at seventeen as an attaché,
and was afterwards for a short time in disponibility to enable
him to go to Oxford. He became Ambassador at Berlin at forty-eight,
after a very interesting career, and retired at the age of sixty.
During the last twelve years of his life he took no further part
in public affairs, though he was appointed in 1901 British member
of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. If Malet did
not originate much he had a very just appreciation of things and
saw rightly and clearly. He gave human nature all and perhaps
more than the credit it deserves, and was very tolerant in his
judgments of men, having imagination enough to appreciate their
very different points of view. Thus, though he often dissented,
he hardly ever condemned. His nature made him one of the most
considerate, but also one of the most sensitive, of men.
Two days after I had attended his funeral at Chenies, Sir Edward
Grey offered me the Embassy at Rome in terms which were very gratifying
to me. I was in my fiftieth year, not quite so young therefore
as Malet when he was appointed to Berlin, but then I did not enter
the service till I was twenty-four. I thus realized an ambition
which I had never openly admitted of reaching the highest rank
in my profession in twenty-five years. The Embassy at Rome was,
however, not to be vacant till November. Meanwhile, it would be
convenient for service reasons that I should withdraw from Stockholm
earlier in order to enable Cecil Spring Rice to take my place.
It suited me perfectly to go for two or three months into disponibility,
as this would enable us to visit Canada and the United States,
which we had long desired to do. There was some little delay in
obtaining the royal sanction, because the King had desired, as
he told me soon afterwards, to send me to Berlin. The Foreign
Office, however, were of opinion that my position there might
become difficult, in spite of my having many old friends in Germany,
because, though the Emperor had apparently quite got over the
grievance he once entertained, his moods were unforeseeable, and
at a difficult moment an old prejudice might have revived. This
was certainly my own view, and I had no ambition to return. Had
the King's wishes prevailed, it is conceivable that I might still
have been at Berlin six years later in 1914, and so might have
been called upon to meet the grave situation which was handled
with so much dignity and patience by Sir Edward Goschen. After
barely a month at home we returned to my post for a -few weeks
to take our leave. I had also to assist at the official receptions
of President Fallières and the German Emperor.
The constitution had just been declared in Turkey after the
almost bloodless revolution engineered by the Young Turks to the
success of which Salaeddin, the Sultan's own nephew, so largely
contributed by his work in Asia Minor, while Ahmed Bey Rizah was
the prime-mover in Turkey in Europe. The movement in its early
days indeed appeared to be full of promise and goodwill. The Turkish
Minister in Sweden was General Cherif Pasha, a particular friend
of mine who had embraced the ideas of the group with enthusiasm,
but became later on the most conspicuous opponent of a camarilla
which only served the ambition of unprincipled adventurers whose
rule was even more disastrous to Turkey than that of Abdul Hamid.
His life was attempted at least once in Paris, where he edited
and produced a paper which unmercifully castigated the new oligarchy.
His wife, Princess Eminée of Egypt, who was related to
the Sultan as well as to the Khedival family, had with the new
reign in Sweden abandoned the seclusion of Eastern domestic life,
and had appeared at Court with the other ladies of the Diplomatic
body. She was certainly one of the most cultivated and accomplished
ladies it has been my privilege to meet, and had been intimate
with my wife long before she took the step which must always be
very difficult for one brought up in the unchanging tradition
of the East.
It was twenty-six years since I had had an opportunity of talking
to the German Emperor, who on the occasion of his visit received
all the heads of Missions separately. He was extremely amiable
but looked older than I had anticipated. He had recently lived
through certain difficult passages. No reference was made to the
difficulty which had arisen just after I left Berlin in 1888.
He asked me to write after I reached Rome, and tell him how I
liked the Statue of Goethe which he had presented to the city
and whether it had been well placed in the Villa Borghese. After
I had seen the statue standing on an inverted Corinthian capital,
and the groups which surround it, it seemed to me more prudent
to forget the invitation.
It was with real regret that we bade farewell to our Swedish
friends who had accepted us in warm-hearted genuine intimacy.
Four years of friendly intercourse had created ties which it was
not easy to sever, and no one made me feel this more strongly
than the King himself when I presented my letter of recall. Of
the Crown Prince and Princess we had seen a good deal since their
marriage, and it was a pleasure to realize that an English Princess
had already acquired so strong a hold on the popular affection.
The Prime Minister, Admiral Lindman, thanked me for having been
a good friend to Sweden. Perhaps the good-bye which touched me
most was that of the veteran Riksmarshal, Baron von Essen, to
whom we had both been much attached. He was a very old man then.
He began: "On dit toujours au revoir---Mais." Then
he paused some time, and holding my hand and looking me straight
in the eyes he said: "Je ne vous oublierai jamais,"
and turned away.
Of all the peoples among whom I have lived, the Swedes seemed
most like ourselves in their general outlook on life with perhaps
a greater tendency to reserve. I learned many things from them,
and found much in their social institutions worthy of admiration
and even of imitation, were it possible to apply in a very populous
country methods which work without friction in a relatively small
population. Their educational system seemed to be admirably thought
out, and I appreciated the application of a uniform primary education
to all classes between the ages of seven and thirteen. There are
no boarding schools for primary pupils. The youth of the country
thus learns to rub shoulders with all sorts and conditions. At
least one hour a day is devoted to learning some handicraft which
the pupil is free to select. It is only in the secondary course
that the study of the classics is initiated : Latin at thirteen
and Greek at fifteen. The age for commencing to learn Latin ranges
from eleven to thirteen all over the Continent, where the atavistic
survivals of the Middle Ages, to which we still tenaciously cling,
have been discarded. In the secondary stage the pupil can select
his own school. Boarding schools as yet are rare, but their popularity
is increasing. What struck me as perhaps more open to question
in Sweden was the extreme length of the University course. But
the standard of education throughout the nation is very high.
It was in Stockholm in those days that I first heard from Swedish
Naval officers, who in common waters were in constant and intimate
touch with the German Navy, of a mysterious ward-room toast "Der
Tag," which was drunk in the warships of the latter.
My naval friends had never any doubt as to which navy and which
nation was contemplated as the eventual antagonist. That such
a toast was pledged in the German Navy was, in the early days
of the war, denied in Germany. But it was well known in Sweden
before 1908. Generally everything that I heard in Stockholm regarding
the country which their close proximity and commercial dependence
compelled the Swedes to study closely, confirmed the view which
I had reluctantly adopted, that the ultimate ambition of the younger
generation in Germany was the overthrow of the British Empire,
and one of the last private letters I wrote to my Chief in the
Foreign Office (to Lord Lansdowne before he retired from office)
summed up the grim conclusions of my experience.
Having already enjoyed my summer leave in England, I had now
a longer period of liberty in prospect than I had ever known since
I entered the public service. It was, however, overcast by the
grave illness and death of a very beloved sister-in-law, who has
left behind an abiding memory of sweetness and charm. After a
brief interval, my brother-in-law, Cecil Bingham, and his second
son decided to accompany us for the sea voyage to Canada, and
we left on the 2nd of October in the Allan liner Corsican
for Quebec. A wireless telegram in mid-Atlantic announced the
annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria, and the Bulgarian
proclamation of independence. On the receipt of this news, which
struck the first menacing note of a remodelling of the old Europe,
the habit of life made me regret that I was not at my post in
Rome instead of on the high seas. But the entrance to the St.
Lawrence and the shores brilliant with the autumn foliage distracted
my thoughts. Every few miles we passed a very big church with
a village of small white houses constituting its dependency. There
was something rather suggestive in the stationary life of these
modest houses occupied by the old French settlers under the shadow
of the belfries, on the threshold of a vast progressive Canada.
Quebec, magnificently situated, had the character of a French
provincial town. As such its interest is perhaps less intrinsic
than due to its situation in a new continent. The Château
Frontenac, one of the best hotels in the world, offered a welcome
atmosphere of home to those who had crossed the great water. But
it was Wolfe's cove and the Heights of Abraham which I had always
longed to see that struck the first note of real emotion in the
new world. The area seemed incredibly small for an event which
had decided the fate of the vast Canadian dominion. The battle-field,
hardly larger than Lord's cricket-ground, lay close to the fort
and the town, and the scene of the unopposed landing itself was
far nearer the ground of action than I had imagined it to be.
To realize the conditions under which Wolfe's little army of 5,000
men carried out their immortal enterprise, one had to think oneself
back into the early days of colonial warfare, when the range of
action was restricted and the movements of troops and ships slow,
when communications with an unimaginative Government at home were
rare and precarious, when men worn down with anxiety and sickness
and uncertainty of support were only sustained by a romantic faith
in the destiny of their country and a paramount sense of duty.
So, thinking backward, we may measure the stature of that solitary
and heroic figure who dared the great adventure with the prophetic
line upon his lips, "The paths of glory lead but to the grave."
In Montreal all doors were opened to us through the genial
sponsorship of Charles Hosmer and his wife. I was much impressed
by the genuine love of art which distinguished the hospitable
members of the cultivated group whom it was our privilege to meet.
The Ross and Drummond galleries were remarkable. Hosmer himself
had good pictures and a very interesting collection of miniatures
and Greek statuettes. Sir William van Horn was to our regret absent.
But we had great pleasure in making the acquaintance of another
owner of beautiful things, the veteran Mr. Angus, the handsomest
old man I ever saw, if indeed one could call him old in his seventy-seventh
year. For more than a decade later I met him quite unexpectedly
in the Vatican gallery, when his daughter complained to me of
his unreasonable attitude in declining to wear an overcoat in
the Roman spring.
The Binghams left us at Montreal to return to England, while
we went on to Toronto. I was a little disconcerted on arriving
there after a night journey, when a knock on the door, while I
was in pyjamas and preparing to shave, was followed by the immediate
entry of a gentleman who announced himself as the representative
of a newspaper which I need not name, and forthwith settled himself
down in an armchair. I made myself as agreeable as the circumstances
permitted during an interview which lasted the best part of an
hour, and when at last at liberty to dress went off to see Goldwin
Smith, whom I found very flourishing in spite of his eighty-six
years and delighted to have news of old friends at home.
At Niagara I was pleasantly reminded of my old Chief, Dufferin,
to whose influence it was, as I was told, largely due that nature's
superb manifestation of power has been so admirably framed on
the Canadian shore, in contrast with the grim and ugly utilitarian
structures which deface the American side. Thence after a hasty
glimpse at Buffalo, whose thronging streets had the aspect of
a perpetual fair, we went directly to Washington, where George
Meyer and his wife made us cordially welcome in the gracious city
which, having started with nothing provisional or ugly to undo,
promises to become, and indeed is already, an ideal capital. Meyer,
who became secretary for the Navy in the following administration,
was then Roosevelt's Postmaster-General. In the evening after
our arrival and a dinner at which Secretary of State Root and
the Jusserands were guests our host took me to the White House.
1 have always felt a little diffident at first meetings with
celebrated people whom I should wish not to disappoint, and I
must confess that a certain sense of shyness possessed me when
a broad-shouldered man with a large mouth opening in its eagerness,
but corner-lifted in a characteristic smile, advanced to greet
me, and hailed me with a warm grasp. of the hand, as the author
of the Princes of Achaia. Theodore Roosevelt put me at
my ease at once. He had, he said, always been interested in lost
causes, in great designs which through the accident of circumstance
had led to no result, and the particular bypath of history subsequent
to the Fourth Crusade which I had investigated had fascinated
him. We went on to discuss the last phase of Venetian achievement
in the near East and Morosini's great campaign in the Morea. He
had just been studying letters of Prince Eugene who served under
Francesco Morosini.
Besides Meyer, there were also present Taft, genially hopeful
of the success of his election campaign now in full swing, Garfield
and Wright, respectively Secretaries for the Interior and for
War. It was, in fact, a sort of informal Cabinet meeting, where
the members were addressed as Will and George, or referred to
as Elihu, and when the President could get his mind away from
books he would decide a few current affairs with Ministers. Then
we went back to literature and the latest volumes which he had
been reading with unadulterated pleasure : Trevelyan's Garibaldi,
and Gilbert Murray's Rise of the Greek Epic. He asked
me for suggestions as to what he could best include in the limited
library which he could take on hi forthcoming African expedition.
I submitted a few book which would take time to digest and be
sufficiently absorbing without demanding greater concentration
than camp life would permit. Among these was Gregorovius' Rome
in the Middle Ages, which he had never read. Then came the
turn of the others, and a lurid light was thrown on the proceedings
of a certain big boss who was not to escape with impunity.
The President took notes and sketched a modus operandi. After
that we returned to his travels, and my East African experience
was invoked for various counsels. I was also consulted as how
he could get through a contemplated European tour in 1910 without
being treated as a lion like President Grant, whose example he
did not wish to emulate. I could only advise to accept the gifts
of the gods and be his own genial self. Taft outlined a witty
programme of the ceremonies to be anticipated, and there was Olympian
laughter when the President talked of travelling like a simple
tourist. It was a small but goodly company of real men, simple
and direct, with a quiet force behind them. As for Roosevelt,
he was a splendid type or honest, vital humanity, sparkling with
energy and quick with brain of the highest quality. It was bracing
to meet him. We sat late. But when the President said: "I
am out for Bryan to-morrow," it seemed time to leave him
to prepare for the battle. I enjoyed myself immensely, and walked
home with Meyer feeling that I had been exceptionally privileged
There was a visit to Mount Vernon. The place has undoubtedly
an anima loci, that spiritual atmosphere which attaches
itself to certain, to a very few, spots. The wonderful situation
on the Potomac, where the ships dip their flags as they pass;
the intimate suggestion of the old colonial life conveyed by the
house with its wood-columned porticoes; the perfect simplicity
and good taste within and without; the association of the great
life whose home it was and the grave in the garden---he would
be cold and insensitive indeed whose soul did not respond to their
appeal.
The great event, however, in a wholly delightful week was the
dinner at which we were entertained at the White House. In addition
to the President's family and the Meyers, the other guests were
Jusserand and his wife, he the ideal French Ambassador for Washington,
Mr. Root and the Under-Secretary of State, Mr. Bacon, and Mrs.
Bacon. My wife sat between the President and Mr. Root, who was
in the best of his brilliant form. She asked the latter whether
he thought Mr. Bryan, who was beating the record in speech-making,
was gaining ground. "Ah. Bryan," said Root, " is
busy talking about his principles. Mr. Bryan's principles are
like ghosts. We may not ever have seen them, but we are all of
us very much afraid of them." If my volumes of verse have
only attracted a moderate attention at home, I had reason to be
proud of the appreciation they had received on the other side
of the water. I was shown a scrapbook by Mrs. Roosevelt, into
which a number of poems had been copied, and our cordial host
quoted a stanza in proposing my health. He seemed to have committed
to an unfailing memory all the poetry which appealed to him, and
he told me that he kept it fresh in mind by reciting to himself
when he was alone in his dressing-room. After dinner he took my
wife into his study and showed her a table piled with books which
had just arrived, including all the numerous volumes of Gregorovius
! "Look," he said, "at the result of an hour's
conversation with that man of yours; if he were to stay here another
week he would ruin me in books." He told us some astounding
stories about the wild men in his regiment during the Spanish
War. A reference from Root to a certain politician who had offended
evoked a characteristic outburst. "If I did not belong,"
said the President, "to a preposterous and effete civilization,
I should certainly kill that man." We found another bond
of sympathy in appreciating the rare individuality of our mutual
friend, Cecil Spring Rice, and then returned to African reminiscences
and anticipations. Roosevelt was of course the ideal man with
whom to hunt the lion and rhinoceros, and discuss the Hohenstauffens
or Canossa over the camp fire at night. We were to meet again
in Rome in 1910, and that was a date to which to look forward,
for in less than a week I had grown to love the man.
Philadelphia we saw from the hospitable house of an old friend
of Roman associations, Mrs. Rowland, the daughter of the Provost
of the University. The city of William Penn has a quite homelike
charm for Englishmen, and its kindly citizens made us regret that
a public official on his holiday could not pay a longer visit.
Boston was full of old friends, and Barret Wendell initiated us
into the life of Harvard. In much that was memorable there I think
I most appreciated the privilege of an invitation to the ancient
Wednesday Evening Club, where were Rhodes the historian and Lancelot
Lowell and many more, who talked brilliantly and made me happily
sensible of the freemasonry of letters in all lands. After these
too few well-filled days we were due at Ottawa to pay a visit
to the Greys. There we met Milner, who was to address the Canadian
Club, and Mackenzie King, whom I find already then indicated in
my diary as a probable future Prime Minister. I paid a long visit
to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, who was suffering from shingles, a most
picturesque figure in a blue dressing-gown, with his long grey
hair and a profile which would have been appropriate to one of
Ghirlandaio's frescoes. He gave me a summary of points which might
be of common interest to Italy and Canada. Though actually in
opposition, he spoke of politics with studied moderation, and
mentioned as a proof of his well-balanced mind that the Catholics
were denouncing him as an anti-clerical, while the Radicals branded
him as an ultra-montane. Grey, with his imperial convictions,
his infectious enthusiasm, and an eternal boyhood of the heart,
was an ideal Governor. He had just returned from an expedition
to the Far West, and was full of its boundless possibilities.
A brief visit to the Hosmers took us back to Montreal, where
Milner made an excellent speech on Imperial Preference as a step
on the road to federation. It fired the audience to sing "God
save the King," and they sang it from the heart. Thence we
went to New York, of which bewildering city I will not attempt
to speak. I wondered how the men of letters with whom I lunched
at the Players Club could do any writing in its bustling atmosphere.
But after all there is plenty of good work produced within a hundred
yards of the Strand, and did not Lowell himself find inspiration
in the hum of the great city, which suggested to him the roaring
loom of time ? In the midst of it I sat for an hour with a veteran
who was still compiling and criticizing at the ripe age of ninety-three,
old John Bigelow, who had been America's representative at Paris
under the Second Empire.
It was our good fortune to be in New York on election day.
After dinner Ralph Stuart Wortley took us out to see the humours
of the crowd in Broad Street. The popular carnival was entirely
good humoured and free from any suspicion of roughness. We went
on to a broker's office, where the returns were being posted.
Before eleven o'clock it was clear that Taft had swept the country.
The rooms were crowded, and there was supper for all comers. I
found it most refreshing there to talk to men who did not think
in grooves. In contradistinction to most of my countrymen, who
on their return from the United States dilate chiefly on the charms
of the American women---and far be it from me to differ from them---I
found that it was the men who in their own country interested
me most. They may perhaps have less general culture than the average
men of a similar class at home, and are in any case very modest
about their attainments, but they think for themselves, and give
you a first-hand bed-rock opinion on things as they see and feel
them.
Our "discovery of America" had been all too brief,
but not a minute had been wasted. Thanks to the sheltering hospitality
of friends, I escaped with a record of only three interviews and
three inevitable cocktails, and on the 16th of November the Cedric
safely delivered us at Liverpool.