Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography
Home which just now I praised so lavishly, and applied myself,
circumspectly indeed but with keen enjoyment, to the pleasures of the
town.
"_One look back_"--What was London like in those distant days, which
lie, say, between 1876 and 1886?
Structurally and visibly, it was a much uglier place than now. The
immeasurable wastes of Belgravian stucco; the "Baker Streets and Harley
Streets and Wimpole Streets, resembling each other like a large family
of plain children, with Portland Place and Portman Square for their
respectable parents,"[21] were still unbroken by the red brick and
terra-cotta, white stone and green tiles, of our more aesthetic age. The
flower-beds in the Parks were less brilliant, for that "Grand old
gardener," Mr. Harcourt, to whom we are so much indebted, was still at
Eton. Piccadilly had not been widened. The Arches at Hyde Park Corner
had not been re-arranged. Glorious Whitehall was half occupied by shabby
shops; and labyrinths of slums covered the sites of Kingsway and
Shaftesbury Avenue.
But, though London is now a much prettier place than it was then, I
doubt if it is as socially magnificent. The divinity which hedged Queen
Victoria invested her occasional visits to her Capital with a glamour
which it is difficult to explain to those who never felt it. Of beauty,
stature, splendour, and other fancied attributes of Queenship, there was
none; but there was a dignity which can neither be described nor
imitated; and, when her subjects knelt to kiss her hand at Drawing
Room, or Levee, or Investiture, they felt a kind of sacred awe which no
other presence could inspire.
It was, of course, one of the elements of Queen Victoria's mysterious
power, that she was so seldom seen in London. In the early days of her
widowhood she had resigned the command of Society into other hands; and
social London, at the time of which I write, was dominated by the Prince
of Wales. Just at this moment,[22] when those who knew him well are
genuinely mourning the loss of King Edward VII., it would scarcely
become me to describe his influence on Society when first I moved in it.
So I borrow the words of an anonymous writer, who, at the time at which
his book was published, was generally admitted to know the subjects of
which he discoursed.
"The Social Ruler of the English realm is the Prince of Wales. I call
him the Social Ruler, because, in all matters pertaining to society and
to ceremonial, he plays vicariously the part of the Sovereign. The
English monarchy may be described at the present moment as being in a
state of commission. Most of its official duties are performed by the
Queen. It is the Prince of Wales who transacts its ceremonial business,
and exhibits to the masses the embodiment of the monarchical principle.
If there were no Marlborough House, there would be no Court in London.
The house of the Prince of Wales may be an unsatisfactory substitute for
a Court, but it is the only substitute which exists, and it is the best
which, under the circumstances, is attainable.
"In his attitude to English Society, the Prince of Wales is a benevolent
despot. He wishes it to enjoy itself, to disport itself, to dance, sing,
and play to its heart's content. But he desires that it should do so in
the right manner, at the right times, and in the right places; and of
these conditions he holds that he is the best, and, indeed, an
infallible, judge.
"The Prince of Wales is the Bismarck of London society: he is also its
microcosm. All its idiosyncrasies are reflected in the person of His
Royal Highness. Its hopes, its fears, its aspirations, its solicitudes,
its susceptibilities, its philosophy, its way of looking at life and of
appraising character--of each of these is the Heir-Apparent the mirror.
If a definition of Society were sought for, I should be inclined to give
it as the social area of which the Prince of Wales is personally
cognizant, within the limits of which he visits, and every member of
which is to some extent in touch with the ideas and wishes of His Royal
Highness. But for this central authority, Society in London would be in
imminent danger of falling into the same chaos and collapse as the
universe itself, were one of the great laws of nature to be suspended
for five minutes."
Of the loved and gracious lady who is now Queen Mother, I may trust
myself to speak. I first saw her at Harrow Speeches, when I was a boy of
18, and from that day to this I have admired her more than any woman
whom I have ever seen. To the flawless beauty of the face there was
added that wonderful charm of innocence and unfading youth which no
sumptuosities of dress and decoration could conceal. To see the Princess
in Society was in those days one of my chief delights, and the sight
always suggested to my mind the idea of a Puritan Maiden set in the
midst of Vanity Fair.
We have seen that the centre of Society at the period which I am
describing was Marlborough House, and that centre was encircled by rings
of various compass, the widest extending to South Kensington in the one
direction, and Portman Square in the other. The innermost ring was
composed of personal friends, and, as personal friendship belongs to
private life, we must not here discuss it. The second ring was composed
of the great houses--"The Palaces," as Pennialinus[23] calls them,--the
houses, I mean, which are not distinguished by numbers, but are called
"House," with a capital H. And first among these I must place Grosvenor
House. As I look back over all the entertainments which I have ever seen
in London, I can recall nothing to compare with a Ball at Grosvenor
House, in the days of Hugh, Duke of Westminster, and his glorious wife.
No lesser epithet than "glorious" expresses the combination of beauty,
splendour, and hospitable enjoyment, which made Constance, Duchess of
Westminster, so unique a hostess. Let me try to recall the scene.
Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a sudden
pause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Prince
and Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageant
worth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostess
usher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with the
canvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the fun
begins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the
tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sevres china
in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!'
exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from
their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How
safe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"[24]
Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable
interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than
the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of
Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in
proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow
_scagliola_ might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is
marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the
highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar
feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking,
and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was
rather that of a mob than of a party.
Northumberland House at Charing Cross, the abode of the historic
Percys, had disappeared before I came to London, yielding place to
Northumberland Avenue; but there were plenty of "Houses" left. Near
where the Percys had flourished, the Duke of Buccleuch, a magnifico of
the patriarchal type, kept court at Montagu House, and Londoners have
not yet forgotten that, when the Thames Embankment was proposed, he
suggested that the new thoroughfare should be deflected, so that it
might not interfere with the ducal garden running down to the river. In
the famous Picture-Gallery of Bridgewater House, Lord Beaconsfield
harangued his disconsolate supporters after the disastrous election of
1880, and predicted that Conservative revival which he did not live to
see. Close by at Spencer House, a beautiful specimen of the decorative
work of the Brothers Adam, the Liberal Party used to gather round the
host, who looked like a Van Dyke. Another of their resorts was
Devonshire House, which Horace Walpole pronounced "good and plain as the
Duke of Devonshire who built it." There the 7th Duke, who was a
mathematician and a scholar, but no lover of society, used to hide
behind the door in sheer terror of his guests, while his son, Lord
Hartington, afterwards 8th Duke, gazed with ill-concealed aversion on
his political supporters. Lansdowne House was, as it still is, a Palace
of Art, with all the dignity and amenity of a country house, planted in
the very heart of London. During the last quarter of a century the
creation of Liberal Unionism has made it the headquarters of a political
party; but, at the time of which I write, it was only a place of select
and beautiful entertaining.
Apsley House, the abode of "The Son of Waterloo," could not, in my time,
be reckoned a social centre, but was chiefly interesting as a museum of
Wellington relics. Norfolk House was, as it is, the headquarters of
Roman Catholic society, and there, in 1880, was seen the unique sight of
Matthew Arnold doing obeisance to Cardinal Newman at an evening
party.[25] Dorchester House, architecturally considered, is beyond doubt
the grandest thing in London; in those days occupied by the accomplished
Mr. Holford, who built it, and now let to the American Ambassador.
Chesterfield House, with its arcaded staircase of marble and bronze from
the dismantled palace of the Dukes of Chandos at Edgeware, was built by
the fourth Lord Chesterfield, as he tells us, "among the fields;" and
contains the library in which he wrote his famous letters to his son.
Holland House, so long the acknowledged sanctuary of the Whig party,
still stands amid its terraces and gardens, though its hayfields have, I
fear, fallen into the builders' hands. Macaulay's Essay, if nothing
else, will always preserve it from oblivion.
I have written so far about these "Houses," because in virtue of their
imposing characteristics they formed, as it were, an inner, if not the
innermost, circle round Marlborough House. But of course Society did not
dwell exclusively in "Houses," and any social chronicler of the period
which I am describing will have to include in his survey the long
stretch of Piccadilly, dividing the "W." from the "S.W." district. On
the upper side of it, Portman Square, Grosvenor Square, Berkeley Square,
the Grosvenor Streets and Brook Streets, Curzon Street, Charles Street,
Hill Street; and below, St. James's Square and Carlton House Terrace,
Grosvenor Place, Belgrave Square and Eaton Square, Lowndes Square and
Chesham Place. Following Piccadilly westward into Kensington, we come
to Lowther Lodge, Norman Shaw's most successful work, then beginning its
social career on the coming of age of the present Speaker,[26] April
1st, 1876. Below it, Prince's Gate and Queen's Gate and Prince's
Gardens, and all the wilds of South Kensington, then half reclaimed; and
that low-lying territory, not even half reclaimed, which, under Lord
Cadogan's skilful management, has of late years developed into a
"residential quarter" of high repute. Fill all these streets, and a
dozen others like them, with rank and wealth and fashion, youth and
beauty, pleasure-seeking and self-indulgence, and you have described the
concentric circles of which Marlborough House was the heart. Sydney
Smith, no mean authority on the social capacities of London, held that