Prince Henry of Prussia (1881).
The Prince of Wales in his eighteenth year, with the Duke of Newcastle, had visited the United States in 1859 The grandest and most ambitious ball ever given on American soH up to that time took place in the Academy of Music in New York City. I was present, and now recalled to the Prince one of its unique features, which, he said, embarrassed him greatly at the time. The young ladies were eager to dance with him, but the Committee of Managers could not select his partners without giving great offence to hundreds who would be neglected. A shrewd merchant, who was a member of the Committee, therefore proposed that "the Prince be turned loose among the girls and left to select his own partners." This plan was adopted, and he modestly moved through the lines of beautiful girls, who opened the way for him,—a very apple of discord,—and made his own selections, which could not be charged to the Committee.
At six o'clock in the evening we again visited Marlborough House, where a garden party was held on the lawn. Many carriages of the nobility were in a long line at the entrance, awaiting their turns to discharge their occupants, but the royal carriage containing the King and suite took precedence. The Prince and Princess received their guests near the door. Tents had been erected on the lawn, under the venerable trees. The Queen was announced; it was the first garden party she had attended since the death of Prince Albert. The Prince led her to a tent, where she was attended by the Princesses Louise and Beatrice. The King entered it, and, after a few moments' conversation, moved to one of the old trees, and under its branches held a reception of his own. While "the best blood" of England was there, the most attractive person on the ground, it seemed to me, was the American Minister, Mr. Lowell. It seemed as if here was the source of a pretty historical picture. As he slowly walked amid the members of the British court, among the descendants of those who had driven the Puritans out of England, and of those who for lack of foresight had called into being a great and independent republic beyond the seas, he seemed quietly to say:
The Princess of Wales (1881).
"I represent the crew of the 'Mayflower,' returning to you in their splendid transformation into a nation of your own blood."
Yet it was an informal gathering. The Princesses Louise and Beatrice, the Crown Princess of Germany, the Princesses Sophia and Margaret of Prussia, the Duchess of Connaught, the Princess Mary of Cambridge, moved from group to group and joined those who gathered around the King. If an intelligent traveller had been present who was entirely ignorant of the rank of the persons composing this garden party, he would have described them as good-natured people with simple manners and direct speech, and in all respects differing in no way from well-bred people in any land. The ruler over one fourth of the people of the world took her cup of tea with the same enjoyment, neither more nor less, than Mrs. Guppins, an East side washerwoman, takes hers. The conversation was confined to pleasant gossip; in no case did I hear the winds of exalted thoughts playing about the heads of these distinguished people. There were no formal introductions to the Queen, for the guests were her acquaintances and friends. I overheard, sometimes, the quiet comments of the guests upon my King. They were in every case pleasant; for his large size, the quiet repose of his manners, and his excellent command of the English language commended him; his colour seemed to bring him advantage among these people, who have no prejudice against it, and who cannot understand why, in the United States, the presence of a negro in society agitates it, like a rat in a ball-room.
The following day we were driven to Lord's cricket grounds, the Tower, St. Paul's, and through Hyde Park, in the Queen's carriage, and closed it with attending a garden party in Lambeth Palace, the residence of Archbishop Tait, of Canterbury. The Archbishop led the King and suite through its rooms, and revealed the splendour in which the spiritual lords of England lived,—a manner of living which had been reversed by the spiritual leaders of the same Church in their residences beyond the Atlantic, where the English race had created, "a State without a King, a Church without a Bishop."
In Albert Hall there was an afternoon concert. The King and suite sat in Lord Granville's box. The King was delighted with a duet sung by Patti and Albani.
At eleven o'clock in the evening we went to a reception given by Earl and Countess Spencer to the Prince and Princess of Wales in the Kensington Museum. We were received by Lord Spencer, who led us to a small chamber where his royal visitors gathered before they formally entered the large hall to meet the fifteen hundred guests who had been invited. There we found the Prince and Princess of Wales, their royal Highnesses the Princesses Louise and Beatrice, the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, Princess Mary of Cambridge, and the Duke of Cambridge. We were in this small chamber for a few moments, and the intercourse was informal.
Lord Spencer, who had been engaged in receiving his royal guests and had spoken briefly to the King, now entered the chamber rather hurriedly and approached our Chamberlain, who had, I have said, a very dark complexion, saying: "Will your Majesty please take——" when he was interrupted by our Chamberlain, who, seeing the mistake, replied: "I am not his Majesty; he is over there." This slight error was greatly enjoyed by the Princess Mary of Cambridge.
The Earl spoke to the King, who then took the Princess of Wales on his arm, and led a procession, followed by the Prince, and by Princess Louise and the rest, including the King's suite, to the large hall, where many hundreds of noble and distinguished persons awaited them. This royal body moved slowly through lines formed by the guests, and after this ceremony was over there began the functions of a conversazione which, so far as I could see, was substantially a close watch of the movements of the regal party, with subdued conversation.
There was an atmosphere of seriousness, as if all were engaged in anything but a frolic; the high-born women seemed to be anxious to get near to the Royal Family, who were in a group, informally chatting with acquaintances. A lady, covered with magnificent diamonds, whom I had met at the garden party, but whose name I could not recall, kindly offered to point out the grand people to me, and as we moved about we heard the comments made upon the King: "I am told he has thirty wives."-"He carries himself well."-"The Prince has taken him up."-"Where is his country; is it near America?"-"Was his grandfather a cannibal?"
There was a supper-room, to which only the Royal Family were admitted with their attendants and close friends. My clever escort, who knew every one, pointed out the statesmen, the men with great line-age, the soldiers who were in London to-day at the clubs, and to-morrow were fighting in the mountain passes of the Himalayas, or chasing savages in the African jungle; the beautiful women of the aristocracy, not at all numerous, and with the reputation for personal charms, created by the accidents of public opinion; men of great rank, many of whom descended from ancestors whose characters were now protected from review by a statute of limitations which protects the memories of the dead. Upon the tables in the supper-room were salads, ices, cold meats, and champagne, the same foods and drink which are consumed by the vast majority of English people who are called the commonalty, and who accept without murmur, even with pleasure, their social inferiority. I said to my patrician escort that having been born with the traditions of American democracy, though holding for a time some political rank, I desired to know from one, like herself, who occupied those rare social altitudes, whether there were any ecstatic sensations connected with such life; were there sensations pervading it which were not permitted to those of low rank. She replied that life was a great bore, and the aristocracy found it as monotonous as other people found it. It was nothing but a chasing of baubles and shadows. She inquired, "Is your party in ecstasies because you have seen so many new countries, and courts, and kings and queens?" I replied that instead of being in ecstasies we were counting the hours which would bring us to the cocoanut groves and the valleys of our islands.
I was then summoned to attend my royal master in the reception-room from which we had started; from it we returned to our lodgings. It was no
w four o'clock in the morning, and in an hour kings and princes, noblemen and great soldiers, princesses and beauties, were in their night-caps, with heads full of foolish dreams, restoring themselves for a repetition of the same pageantry the following days and nights.
CHAPTER XXV
Ball at Hyde Park Barracks — Grand Decorations — The Prince of Wales, as Colonel of the Second Life Guards, Receives the Guests — Colonial Banquet at Guildhall — Builders of the British Empire — The Prince and King Make Speeches — The King Offends the Irish — The Consequences — Entertained by Lord Brassey at Normalhurst — Lunch with Prince of Wales at Sir Christopher Sykes's — Dinner at Trinity House — General Grant's Mistake — Places of Interest — Handsome Jewish Women — Dinner with Baroness Burdett — Coutts — The King Decorated — He also Decorates the Queen and Prince of Wales — "Punch" and the King — Ball at Marlborough House — Lunch with the Duke and Duchess of Teck — The "Lion" Leaves England — The King and the British Government.
THE following evening we attended a ball at the Hyde Park barracks, given by the Second Life Guards, of which the Prince of Wales was Colonel-in-Chief. The decorations of the great ballroom rivalled in splendour, but not in delicate taste, the displays of the Orient. Around it was a crimson dado, and above it the polished helmets of the Guards, silver kettledrums, and standards; fountains surrounded by groups of rare exotics and flowers; with eight magnificent Louis Seize candelabra on ebony and ormolu pedestals. The royal supper-room was decorated with fine old tapestries, the floor covered with Persian carpets; and the table decorated with white flowers.
The Prince, as the Colonel Commanding, received the King and suite and the members of the Royal Family. One would suspect that the members of this family would become weary of meeting each other constantly in these public parades. This was, however, their mission in life, and no doubt they received the same satisfaction from. the discharge of duty which Providence had imposed upon them as the priests of the ancient Jewish nations were consoled for the discharge of their arduous duties by selecting and eating the choicest parts of the animals which they sacrificed.
Two lines of the Guards, tall men, with polished helmets and glittering cuirasses, stood immovable as statues while the guests passed between them. The dancing was without life; the British frame is too heavily built for graceful motion; its best action is in endurance, in taking ditches and fences, or in fighting its way over mountains or across deserts. The women were thick-set and heavy, rarely graceful or willowy, but with the beauty of high colour and the repose of great physical strength.
The next evening we attended the Colonial banquet given by the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall, at which the prominent men connected with the Colonies were brought together. The Lord Mayor, in gorgeous trappings, received the King at the door and led him into a reception-room where the Prince of Wales had just arrived. The attendants were in ancient and grotesque livery. One of them announced in a loud voice, "Your Royal Highness, your Majesty, my Lord Mayor, dinner is served." The Lord Mayor, with the Prince on his right and the King on his left, entered the great banqueting-hall, in which three hundred guests stood to receive them. Many of the foremost men of the empire were there. If you had mentioned any accessible spot on the earth and had asked if any one present had been there, some one would have replied, "I have." These men were the coral insects, who were building up the atolls of British Empire out of the seas.
At the close of the formal part of the banquet a choir of male and female voices, in a high balcony, chanted the Lord's Prayer. The Lord Mayor then rose and said,—
"Your Royal Highness, your Majesty, my Lords and gentlemen, charge your glasses."
He then proposed the health of the Queen. The Prince of Wales responded. Much practice had made him an adroit, pleasant, and even a model after-dinner orator, who, indeed, must speak in public, but by the inexorable rule of the British unwritten law, must say nothing. As firmly as Prometheus was fastened to the rock is the Prince, as the representative of the Queen, fastened to the top of the political fence, which he must invariably straddle, for he can take no side in political matters. The costermonger may, as a British freeman, be a violent partisan, but under the strange contrivances of the British Constitution the King must remain as impassive in political life as the image of Buddha in the Hindu religion; the nation elevates him, adores him, kisses his hand, but stands with an ugly club in its hands, with which it hits his head if he dares even to enlighten the thoughts of his subjects.
The Lord Mayor again rose, and said,—
"Your Royal Highness, my Lords, and gentlemen, charge your glasses! "He then proposed the health of King Kalakaua in a brief speech in which he said that in his travels he had visited the kingdom of Hawaii and found all things there which were a credit to civilisation.
The suite had selected this occasion as the one on which the King might properly express his thanks publicly for the favours he had received from the Colonial Governors and the Royal Family. What he said would, through the press, reach all of the colonies he had visited. At his request I prepared the outlines of a speech which he attempted to memorise while dressing for the banquet; but late hours had made him sleepy, and his excellent memory was sluggish. I noticed that during the banquet he closed his eyes several times. At this time there was intense feeling in England against the Land Leaguers of Ireland,—a matter which the King did not understand. He had intended to visit Ireland before leaving for the United States. When he arose to respond to the toast, he began,—
"Your Royal Highness, my Lord Mayor, and gentlemen—"
Then he hesitated; he had forgotten the prepared speech, and was adrift in an open boat on the squally and dangerous sea of an impromptu talk. He looked around the room, at the ceiling, at the three hundred guests who watched him, but was imperturbable as usual. He began by thanking the Royal Family and the Colonial Governors for their hospitality, and declared that no event in his tour around the world had given him more pleasure than his reception in London. Upon this there was much applause, and he instantly took courage for more speech.
"I have," he said, "no political parties in my own country; there are no Land Leaguers there [his open boat began to rock in the dangerous sea], I would not permit such men to trouble my people."
The applause was great, for he had touched the right chord. But a well-known statesman sitting next to me whispered, "I fear he will hear from the Irish about this." He continued for a few moments longer, and sat down with much satisfaction to himself and amid loud applause. His Royal Highness nodded pleasantly to him across the broad form of the Lord Mayor, who sat between, and the King looked at me as if he said: "You see, I am able to take care of myself."
It was not until many years later that Kipling wrote that song of "The Native-Born," which was most fitting for this occasion in Guildhall:
"I charge you charge your glasses-
I charge you drink with me
To the men of the Four New Nations,
And the Islands of the Sea. . . .
"To the hearth of our people's people,—
To her well-ploughed windy sea,
To the hush of our dread high-altars
Where the Abbey makes us We;
To the grist of the slow-ground ages,
To the gain that is yours and mine-
To the Bank of the Open Credit,
To the Power-house of the Line!"
The loving-cup was now passed around, and the Prince, with the Lord Mayor, walked with the King to the royal carriage, which having entered, he fell asleep at once.
At our tea the next morning I advised the King to abandon his trip to Ireland unless he was ready to face showers of decayed vegetables and an Irish mob of the Land Leaguers. He said the British government would protect him. I replied, "It may give you some money satisfaction, but you will get the contents of a hundred swill-pails. You have unintentionally insulted those people; if you are willing to be the target for dead cats, I am not
." Mr. Synge agreed with me. The trip was abandoned.
A few days later, while we were in Berlin, Mr. Synge forwarded to me a copy of a Dublin newspaper which contained an editorial from which the following is an extract:—
"QUASHEE ON HIS LEGS.
"The nominal ruler of Hawaii, who is a lineal descendant of Ho-Ki-Po-Kia-Wua-Ki-Frum, King of the Cannibal Islands, is on a visit to England in quest of subjects, and has been entertained at the Mansion House by that rabid nonconformist, Mr. Lord Mayor Mc-Arthur; this great grandson of the Anthropophagi indulged in a sneer at Ireland. We must take the liberty of giving him a figurative rap over the knuckles."
These words were followed by a column of invective comment on the King's speech at the Colonial dinner. I showed this article to my royal master, who declared that it was "Irish mud." I replied, "Your Majesty, you are doing well by Lord Bacon's advice, for you are sucking much knowledge of foreign countries; Irish mud comes up with other stuff."
Sir Thomas and Lady Brassey, by reason of their pleasant visit to the King's islands in the" Sunbeam," tendered to him their hospitality in their fine country seat of five thousand acres at Normalhurst, near Hastings, and he remained there one night. It was a large residence, in which scores of guests could be entertained at the same time; a principality in itself, covering gardens and forests and lakes. The municipal authorities of Hastings presented him with an "address," which is the common and rather dreary form of expressing municipal good-will in Great Britain.
The following day we had luncheon with Sir Christopher Sykes, and again met the Prince of Wales, with several of the charming beauties who were described as the members of his "set." In the evening we attended the Board of Trade banquet in Trinity House. It was the annual dinner given by the Board of Trade, which is the most powerful corporation of the city of London, for it superintends marine affairs. The Prince of Wales and the King again spoke; the direct and simple speech of the Prince resembled other speeches which he constantly makes as the spokesman of the Queen, but differing from each other as one human face differs from another. Among the distinguished men who discharged the office of after-dinner orators was Sir William Harcourt, who was most amusing. It was said that General Grant, who attended the annual banquet two years before, had been misled by the invitation to "Trinity House," and for lack of inquiry assumed that it had some connection with the promotion of the interests of the church; he therefore delivered a devout speech on the propagation of the gospel, which surprised the guests, who looked upon their religion as they do upon the water of the Thames,—a most excellent article for certain uses, but not to be served up at a banquet.
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