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13 March 1908 — 3 Savile Row | |
Friday. 13th [March 1908]. Breakfast downstairs. Went with Eda to Stears at 10 to have the electric treatment as Eda was anxious to see it being desirous to try it for her deafness. On my return home at 11 I went to bed & slept till one. At 1.30 Canon McCormick Rector of St James’ came to lunch & Blanche came to meet him. The Layards, Nelly & Eda were also at lunch. The Canon was very entertaining and told us many interesting stories of conversions from R. Catholicism. One thing he told us was that he was speaking somewhere in the North on the errors of the R. Church & as he went up to the platform he was told that there were 3 ladies in the audience who were R.C.s. On leaving the hall he spoke to them & said “for my part I cant believe a religion which places the Virgin Mary before Christ & says that we only come to God thro her.” “Is that so,” she answered “if I thought it were so I would leave the R. Church tonight.” The Canon took a book, he happened to have with him, out of his pocket & gave it to the lady saying “This is an R.C. book which teaches that belief.” The lady took it & did give up the R.C. faith that night. The other two soon followed her. The Canon says he always has a midnight service in his church & one night he addressed those there saying “If any girl amongst you has left her home & her parents let me advise her to go back this very night. There was a girl who burst out sobbing & said to the lady next her—“I have run away, I will go back.” It turned out that she had quarrelled with her sister & run away by train to London. When there at Charing X Station with 4/6 in her pocket she knew not what to do. She did the maddest & most dangerous thing possible. Walked up a small street out of the Strand having spent her 4/6 in food & knocked at a late hour at the door of a house. By chance it was a respectable house & luckily no one in the street had spoken to her. The woman who answered the door asked her business. She told her that she was penniless & pleaded to be allowed to sleep there the night. The woman being struck with her air of respectability said she regretted that her own house was full but said she would take her to a friend. This she did & the friend agreed to keep her for the night but said she was going to the midnight service at St James’ Piccadilly & she must accompany her. The Canon had just begun the address wh so struck the girl that she confessed that she had run away. The lady she was with telegraphed to the father of the girl who came to town the next day & took her home. The father was an unbeliever but when asked what he thought of the circumstances—confessed that he could not deny the finger of God in the case. Amongst other things he told us about Miss Driver the owner of the oyster shop in Glasshouse St what a nice woman she is & a good churchwoman. Hers is now the best oyster shop in London & she sells daily abt 7000. I went out driving with Eda at 3.15. The Raymond Layards were leaving for the country soon after & Nellie returned to the Tile House. I went to give Capt. Beaumont the sale accounts & to see Daisy Du Cane whose broken leg it not yet mended but she was sitting up in the drawing room. I left Eda there for tea & came straight home. Lady Humphery & Lady Constance Leslie came to tea with me, also Mrs Byard & Lady Minson & Bee Eliot & Connie. Charlie & Eda dined with the Humpherys & I with Sir Felix & Lady Sémon—& met a large & distinguished company. Sir Charles Mathews & Lady M., Sir Ernest Cassel (rather a repulsive looking Jew), Sir Gilbert & Lady Parker, Sir Wm & Lady Gilbert Herkimer, Pinero Count Zeilen & Marquis de Villalobar. Sir Felix took me down to dinner & Sir Wm Gilbert sat on my right. There were also Sir John & Lady Fletcher Moulton– Sir Felix was very agreeable & full of spirits. Sir Wm Gilbert was grumpy & morose & said sharp things. One funny thing he said àpropos of mistaking a gentleman for a valet– Once at a smart house in Park Lane Napier Stout mistook him for a servant & said “Just call me a fourwheeler”– Gilbert answered “Yes I will call you a fourwheeler, but I never will call you a hansom!” When Sir Felix asked him if he had been to see any of the new plays he said “Oh yes I have—when I feel I have to perform penance in Lent.” Sir Felix told us how one day at Marlboro’ Hse he was called to see Pss Victoria. He saw a man in the passage & said “Oh I say, will you show me Pss Victoria’s room & led the way. Sir Felix soon discovered that the man he had mistaken for a page was Ps Charles of Denmark the present King of Norway. After dinner the Marquis of Villalobar was presented to me & told me he had been a small child when Henry & I were at Madrid & he remembered being often brought to play at the Legation & also the fancy dress childs ball he had come to which I gave when he was dressed as an “Incroyable.” He remembered my big white cat & the rooms of the Legation now no longer belonging to our Govt in Calle Torija. I asked Sir Felix how he had thought the Kaiser looking when he was lately in England. He said he did not think him looking well. He had been very civil to Sir Felix when he met him at a party at Buckingham Palace & had kept him in close conversation for so long a time that many others who hoped to have speech of H.M. was disappointed—in fact he was very different in his manner to Sir Felix this time to the last time they had met in Berlin. Sir F. had been sent a especially by our King to represent him at Berlin on a public occasion at the inauguration of something connected with the memory of the Empress Frederick– The Kaiser merely shook hands with Sir Felix as he did ordinarily to indifferent people & turned quickly away. I suggested to Sir Felix that it might be accounted for by the Kaiser’s want of affection for his mother. Sir Felix merely shrugged his shoulders. Lady Gregory arrived from Ireland to stay with me this evening. | |
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