by Unknown
But let us try again. We are gathered here to see you cut your birthday cake, and in front of us are such a row of distinguished graduands as can seldom have been seen, all here about to enter into your service. They are the candles on your cake. Does that suffice you? She is hard to please — woman!
We have here with us distinguished delegates from nearly every University in Great Britain and Ireland, and some famous cities in other lands. They are here to pay you homage — homage from all the lands where the flags of learning fly. Is your cup full now? She did not shake her head that time. I think the delegates moved her — I think that a tremor passed over as she dropped that pretty old-fashioned curtsey.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you noted the smile cross her old face — no, no, her young face — just now. Let us say, simply, face that is so dear to you and me, though we shall never see it. If a smile passed her face it was because we, her children, seem to think that three hundred and fifty years were a long span of life. ‘Go to, ye ancients,’ she says, ‘I do not intend ever even to reach the drowsy years of discretion.’ Never for her to reach the full meridian; and yet, see, watch how she makes around her an atmosphere of light. Her eyes — her improbable eyes that you and I shall never fathom — they are fixed not on those three hundred and fifty years, but on the next three hundred and fifty that are now beginning. She knows very well that the rack of the tough world must still be her portion. But she is undismayed, stands full target for all the winds of the future.
She says, ‘For a University there can be no harbour.’ That, ladies and gentlemen, I understand, is her syllabus for the years between 1933 and 2283.
To the Australian Cricket Team
AT A DINNER GIVEN BY THE SURREY COUNTY CRICKET CLUB AT CARPENTERS’ HALL May 31, 1934
How can I, a Scot, dare to talk about the game in this den of cricketers? No Scot really knows anything about cricket.
You English and your games! It is many years agone since I left my kilted fastness and came to reside among you queer ones. Yet in a sense your cricket has got me. I too have fallen, O Lucifer! A month or more ago I thrilled — an English thrill — when I read in the newspapers — the Stop Press column — that the very day Mr. McCabe arrived in London he went out for a walk. Gentlemen, that is what I did also the day I arrived. No one recorded it, but I now feel that I — can say ‘McCabe and I.’ I hope he will make another 187 in a Test Match this year, and if he does I shall feel that I have a mysterious share in it.
I come out strong nowadays in argument about slow batting and brighter cricket. My proposi tion is that batsmen should follow the example of chess players in Spain, where chess contests are so long drawn out that combatants leave the continuance of the game to the second son in their wills. Again, I am permitted by Mr. Leveson-Gower to announce that there is to be a Test Match soon at Nottingham, and I am of opinion that, if in this match Mr. Bradman or Mr. Ponsford is out first ball, it would be a sportsmanlike thing on our part to let him claim, as in our boyhood days, that he thought it was a trial ball.
Gentlemen, I admit I feel a drawing towards the Australians, and if I may say so, especially to their captain, but some of them are visiting these shores for the first time, and for their guidance while among you I should like to tell them how I first got to know the English. Soon after I reached London I was wandering in the pleasant lands of Surrey, near where the Tillingbourne runs, with an elderly Scottish clergyman, his first appearance in the South. By some fatality we paused at the window of the village shop, and therein was exhibited a placard which he read before I could hurry him away. We were a silent pair and we expressed our emotions without words.
I forget if I told you what was on the placard.
It announced a local cricket match, Laity v. Clergy. I hope I don’t need to tell you that in Scotland the clergy do not play games. We thought it our duty to proceed to the match. There another staggerer awaited us. The clergy were wearing white flannels! He had never conceived — neither had I — that they would be in anything but their blacks. In after years, though he and I talked of it privately, he never told them in the North about this strange affair, for the English had got round him, as they got round everybody except, perhaps, Grimmett, and he thought it would be shabby of him to let Scotland know. Perhaps it is shabby of me to let your Australians know. Indeed, how can I be sure that Mr. Wall and Mr. Kippax and Mr. Woodfull himself are not all reverend gentlemen?
Such are the English, but please do not believe, gentlemen, for a moment longer that Scotland does not love cricket, or that this Scot does not love it. I wooed it first in my little native town on the most delectable ground these eyes have seen; and I have been made happy of it for countless years at Lord’s and the Oval, where you dwell among the great ones in the Pavilion while I represent low life among the mob. Sometimes as the years revolve I may get a little mixed between one year’s games and another. I see now that the Australians here tonight are not perhaps the ones I had expected to find. Is Victor Trumper just a shade? The other day I was at Cambridge when the Australians were playing the University — no, it couldn’t have been the other day, because I saw young Stanley Jackson there giving young Ranjitsinhji his Blue. A gay pair of boys they were. That moment at Fenner’s journeys on with me like some unforgettable Biblical picture.
Has it ever struck you that cricket deeds and phraseology conjure up scenes as colourful as if we had them from the days of the prophets? When the day’s play is over, Old Testament figures gather on the ground — Hobbs taking the first over while all the clocks have stopped; classic Oldfield diving while the policemen sob round the ropes — the gay Macartney comes down the steps — behold disdainful Woolley telling the ball to go away. We here tonight, gentlemen, share a lovely vision, we have all seen the hand of Chapman taking swallows on the wing.
Is cricket politics? Go to. May I venture, before I sit down, to say what I think cricket is? Cricket is an idea. It was an idea of the gods. They looked at poor humanity and its often tragic efforts, and though we made them wince we occasionally found favour in their eyes, and they sent us gifts — a little fortitude, a sense of fairness, an unconquerable gaiety of heart, and perhaps an aphorism about the wisdom of sometimes forgetting. They did not send those gifts to us one at a time, they rolled them up into quite a little ball and tossed it down to us. The name cricket is ours. Any genius could have invented it. But its meaning is theirs. The ball does not, as is generally supposed, contain ashes, it contains a living thing, a winged word about ‘playing the game.’ The immortals left it at that, for cricket is the only game they play themselves. If we don’t continue to play it in that spirit, posterity may forgive us, but we shall be accurst of our forebears. You will find all about it, gentlemen, in the lost books of Homer.
It is a great pleasure to couple with the toast of the Australian cricketers the names of their captain and manager. They could not wish for a better manager. As for Mr. Woodfull, we not only acclaim him, we thank Australia for him. Those gods would be here tonight to sing his praises were it not that they are already at Trent Bridge making sure of their seats. We rejoice that he brings with him many who have charmed us on a previous occasion. Bradman, when you were here before, we knew that another prodigy had arisen in the land of cricket; you won every garland batting can claim except one only, yours did not seem to issue sufficiently out of excess of joy and gaiety to win the love of greybeards, but the other day at Lord’s you did enter into our love. We also welcome the new men. We welcome you, Mr. O’Reilly and all, with affectionate disquietude. As for our kindly hosts of the Surrey C.C., how much better you would be employed, gentlemen, if instead of listening to me you would now go out into the highways and byways, and join in England’s searching, searching, searching for eleven fast bowlers!
The Marie Tempest Jubilee
AT THE LUNCHEON AT THE SAVOY HOTEL March 5, 1935
(Both the Luncheon and the Matinée which took place on May 30 were organized by THE D
AILY TELEGRAPH.)
I AM going to ask you to drink to the prettiest toast that ever was — and let me assure the more timid ones among you that I first took the precaution of getting written permission from Equity.
Alas, ah me, before I begin — before I let loose the toast that I am holding in my hand like a bird — I have to admit that I once did this dear lady a great wrong. It was long ago, and she does not know of it yet. Better perhaps for her peace of mind that she should never know of it; but for a thousand moons I have wanted to apologise to her, and, fool that I am, I am going to do so now, though my better judgement tells me that it may destroy the harmony of this occasion. I don’t know how Miss Tempest may take it. It may sever our old friendship. Perhaps she will swoon, and I don’t know anyone, and neither do you, who can swoon so beautifully as Miss Tempest.
Even you who are listening must be very uncomfortable now and feeling that your proper course is to steal away and leave me alone with Miss Tempest. And now that I think of it, that, please, is what I should like you to do. No? This tension is becoming unbearable for all of us. I must out with the crime. Know then that in ancient times, when I was a boy and Miss Tempest was still unborn, I played in school theatricals and had the part of a captivating widow in a picture hat to which my long tresses were secured with glue. (How it all comes back to me.) The years rolled on, and when I came to London I naturally went to see Miss Tempest, the young actress they were already all talking of. Conceive my shock when I found her playing my part! I suppose the artistic temperament was what o’erthrew me, for here is what I did, for which my apology to-day is profound. I said to all who would listen that I thought Miss Tempest quite good, but that she seemed to me to lack some of my womanly touches.
Afterwards I visited a woman’s university in America, where there were nine hundred students.
I was called upon to address them, and I said I could not make a speech to nine hundred girls, but that if they would come out into the quadrangle one at a time I would make nine hundred speeches. That was the silliest thing I ever did. But it brings to my mind that probably nine hundred is the exact number of Miss Tempest’s womanly touches.
I dare say she is feeling nervous to-day, but when we look at her, can we quite make out whether she is laughing or crying? She is such a masterpiece at both and at letting the one melt into the other, not only upon her own face but upon the faces of all those in front, the great British public who recognize her as their queen of comedy and, as her loyal subjects, delight in her this side idolatry.
Could one sum up Miss Tempest in two or three words? The nearest I can get to it is as George Meredith’s phrase, ‘A Rogue in Porcelain.’ And which is her greatest part? Many of you have doubtless been discussing that to-day, but I dare say you will agree with me that best of all is the lovely comedy in nine hundred acts which is called ‘Marie Tempest.’ It was written for her by the sportive gods who, from the very beginning of her, kept slipping womanly touches between her little fingers, or if you prefer it, between her little toes. She had no words with which to thank them — and so she did her first swoon.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, if you will excuse my halting words, I know you will admit that I have fulfilled my promise to give you ‘the prettiest toast that ever was.’
PREFACE TO THE YOUNG VISITERS
The “owner of the copyright” guarantees that “The Young Visiters” is the unaided effort in fiction of an authoress of nine years. “Effort,” however, is an absurd word to use, as you may see by studying the triumphant countenance of the child herself, which is here reproduced as frontispiece to her sublime work. This is no portrait of a writer who had to burn the oil at midnight (indeed there is documentary evidence that she was hauled off to bed every evening at six): it has an air of careless power; there is a complacency about it that by the severe might perhaps be called smugness. It needed no effort for that face to knock off a masterpiece. It probably represents precisely how she looked when she finished a chapter. When she was actually at work I think the expression was more solemn, with the tongue firmly clenched between the teeth; an unholy rapture showing as she drew near her love chapter. Fellow-craftsmen will see that she is looking forward to this chapter all the time.
The manuscript is in pencil in a stout little note book (twopence), and there it has lain for years, for though the authoress was nine when she wrote it she is now a grown woman. It has lain, in lavender as it were, in the dumpy note book, waiting for a publisher to ride that way and rescue it; and here he is at last, not a bit afraid that to this age it may appear “Victorian.” Indeed if its pictures of High Life are accurate (as we cannot doubt, the authoress seems always so sure of her facts) they had a way of going on in those times which is really surprising. Even the grand historical figures were free and easy, such as King Edward, of whom we have perhaps the most human picture ever penned, as he appears at a levée “rather sumshiously,” in a “small but costly crown,” and afterwards slips away to tuck into ices. It would seem in particular that we are oddly wrong in our idea of the young Victorian lady as a person more shy and shrinking than the girl of to-day. The Ethel of this story is a fascinating creature who would have a good time wherever there were a few males, but no longer could she voyage through life quite so jollily without attracting the attention of the censorious. Chaperon seems to be one of the very few good words of which our authoress had never heard.
The lady she had grown into, the “owner of the copyright” already referred to, gives me a few particulars of this child she used to be, and is evidently a little scared by her. We should probably all be a little scared (though proud) if that portrait was dumped down in front of us as ours, and we were asked to explain why we once thought so much of ourselves as that.
Except for the smirk on her face, all I can learn of her now is that she was one of a small family who lived in the country, invented their own games, dodged the governess and let the rest of the world go hang. She read everything that came her way, including, as the context amply proves, the grownup novels of the period. “I adored writing and used to pray for bad weather, so that I need not go out but could stay in and write.” Her mother used to have early tea in bed; sometimes visitors came to the house, when there was talk of events in high society: there was mention of places called Hampton Court, the Gaiety Theatre and the “Crystale” Palace. This is almost all that is now remembered, but it was enough for the blazing child. She sucked her thumb for a moment (this is guesswork), and sat down to her amazing tale.
“Her mother used to have early tea in bed.” Many authors must have had a similar experience, but they all missed the possibilities of it until this young woman came along. It thrilled her; and tea in bed at last takes its proper place in fiction. “Mr Salteena woke up rarther early next day and was delighted to find Horace the footman entering with a cup of tea. Oh thankyou my man said Mr Salteena rolling over in the costly bed. Mr Clark is nearly out of the bath sir announced Horace I will have great pleasure in turning it on for you if such is your desire. Well yes you might said Mr Salteena seeing it was the idear.” Mr Salteena cleverly conceals his emotion, but as soon as he is alone he rushes to Ethel’s door, “I say said Mr Salteena excitedly I have had some tea in bed.”
“Sometimes visitors came to the house.” Nothing much in that to us, but how consummately this child must have studied them; if you consider what she knew of them before the “viacle” arrived to take them back to the station you will never dare to spend another week-end in a house where there may be a novelist of nine years. I am sure that when you left your bedroom this child stole in, examined everything and summed you up. She was particularly curious about the articles on your dressing-table, including the little box containing a reddish powder, and she never desisted from watching you till she caught you dabbing it on your cheeks. This powder, which she spells “ruge,” went a little to her head, and it accompanies Ethel on her travels with superb effect. For instance, she is careful to put it on
to be proposed to; and again its first appearance is excused in words that should henceforth be serviceable in every boudoir. “I shall put some red ruge on my face said Ethel becouse I am very pale owing to the drains in this house.”
Those who read will see how the rooms in Hampton Court became the “compartments” in the “Crystale” Palace, and how the “Gaierty” Hotel grew out of the Gaiety Theatre, with many other agreeable changes. The novelist will find the tale a model for his future work. How incomparably, for instance, the authoress dives into her story at once. How cunningly throughout she keeps us on the hooks of suspense, jumping to Mr Salteena when we are in a quiver about Ethel, and turning to Ethel when we are quite uneasy about Mr Salteena. This authoress of nine is flirting with her readers all the time. Her mind is such a rich pocket that as she digs in it (her head to the side and her tongue well out) she sends up showers of nuggets. There seldom probably was a novelist with such an uncanny knowledge of his characters as she has of Mr Salteena. The first line of the tale etches him for all time: “Mr Salteena was an elderly man of 42 and fond of asking people to stay with him.” On the next page Salteena draws a touching picture of himself in a letter accepting an invitation: “I do hope I shall enjoy myself with you. I am fond of digging in the garden and I am parshal to ladies if they are nice I suppose it is my nature. I am not quite a gentleman but you would hardly notice it but can’t be helped anyhow.”