MARGOT: "Since I've got into the way of lying, you might spare yourself and me these vulgar questions."

PETER (SEIZING MY HANDS IN ANGUISH): "Say you aren't going to marry him ... tell me, tell me it's NOT true."

MARGOT: "Why should I? He has never asked me to."

After this the question of matrimony was bound to come up between us. The first time it was talked of, I was filled with anxiety. It seemed to put a finish to the radiance of our friendship and, worse than that, it brought me up against my father, who had often said to me: "You will never marry Flower; you must marry your superior."

Peter himself, in a subconscious way, had become aware of the situation. One evening, riding home, he said:

"Margie, do you see that?"

He pointed to the spire of the Melton Church and added:

"That is what you are in my life. I am not worth the button on your boot!"

To which I replied:

"I would not say that, but I cannot find goodness for two."

I was profundly unhappy. To live for ever with a man who was incapable of loving any one but himself and me, who was without any kind of moral ambition and chronically indifferent to politics and religion, was a nightmare.

I said to him:

"I will marry you if you get some serious occupation, Peter, but I won't marry an idle man; you think of nothing but yourself and me."

PETER: "What in the name of goodness would you have me think of? Geography?"

MARGOT: "You know exactly what I mean. Your power lies in love- making, not in loving; you don't love any one but yourself."

At this, Peter moved away from me as if I had struck him and said in a low tense voice:

"I am glad I did not say that. I would not care to have said such a cat-cruel thing; but I pity the man who marries you! He will think—as I did—that you are impulsively, throbbingly warm and kind and gentle; and he will find that he has married a governess and a prig; and a woman whose fire—of which she boasts so much— blasts his soul."

I listened to a Peter I had never heard before, His face frightened me. It indicated suffering. I put my head against his and said:

"How can I make an honest man of you, my dearest?"

I was getting quite clever about people, as the Mrs. Bo episode had taught me a lot.

A short time after this conversation, I observed a dark, good- looking woman pursuing Peter Flower at every ball and party. He told me when I teased him that she failed to arrest his attention and that, for the first time in my life, I flattered him by my jealousy. I persisted and said that I did not know if it was jealousy but that I was convinced she was a bad friend for him.

PETER: "I've always noticed you think things bad when they don't suit you, but why should I give up my life to you? What do you give me in return? I'm the laughing-stock of London! But, if it is any satisfaction to you, I will tell you I don't care for the black lady, as you call her, and I never see her except at parties."

I knew Peter as well as a cat knows its way in the dark and I felt the truth of his remark: what did I give him? But I was not in a humour to argue.

The lady often asked me to go and see her, but I shrank from it and had never been inside her house.

One day I told Peter I would meet him at the Soane Collection in Lincoln's Inn Fields. To my surprise he said he had engaged himself to see his sister, who had been ill, and pointed out with a laugh that my governessing was taking root. He added:

"I don't mind giving it up if you can spend the whole afternoon with me."

I told him I would not have him give up going to see his sister for the world.

Finding myself at a loose end, I thought I would pay a visit to the black lady, as it was unworthy of me to have such a prejudice against some one whom I did not know. It was a hot London day; pale colours, thin stuffs, naked throats and large hats were strewn about the parks and streets.

When I arrived, the lady's bell was answered by a hall-boy and, hearing the piano, I told him he need not announce me. When I opened the door, I saw Peter and the dark lady sharing the same seat in front of the open piano. She wore a black satin sleeveless tea-gown, cut low at the throat, with a coral ribbon round her waist, and she had stuck a white rose in her rather dishevelled Carmen hair. I stood still, startled by her beauty and stunned by Peter's face. She got up, charmed to see me, and expressed her joy at the amazing luck which had brought me there that very afternoon, as she had a wonderful Spaniard coming to play to her after tea and she had often been told by Peter how musical I was, etc., etc. She hoped I was not shocked by her appearance, but she has just come back from a studio and it was too hot to expect people to get into decent clothes. She was perfectly at her ease and more than welcoming; before I could answer, she rallied Peter and said she pleaded guilty of having lured him away from the path of duty that afternoon, ending with a slight twinkle:

"From what I'm told, Miss Margot, you would NEVER have done anything so wicked? ..."

I felt ice in my blood and said:

"You needn't believe that! I've lured him away from the path of duty for the last eight years, haven't I, Peter?"

There was an uncomfortable silence and I looked about for a means of escape, but it took me some little time to find one.

I said good-bye and left the house.

When I was alone I locked the door, flung myself on my sofa, and was blinded by tears. Peter was right; he had said, "Why should I give up my life to you?" Why indeed! And yet, after eight years, this seemed a terrible ending to me.

"What do you give me in return?" What indeed? What claim had I to his fidelity? I thought I was giving gold for silver, but the dark lady would have called it copper for gold. Was she prepared to give everything for nothing? Why should I call it nothing? What did I know of Peter's love for her? All I knew was she had taught him to lie; and he must love her very much to do that: he had never lied to me before.

I went to the opera that night with my father and mother. Peter came into our box in a state of intense misery; I could hardly look at him. He put his hand out toward me under the programme and I took it.

At that moment the servant brought me a note and asked me to give her the answer. I opened it and this was what I read:

"If you want to do a very kind thing come and see me after the opera to-night. Don't say no."

I showed it to Peter, and he said, "Go." It was from the dark lady; I asked him what she wanted me for and he said she was terribly unhappy.

"Ah, Peter," said I, "what HAVE you done? ..."

PETER: "I know ... it's quite true; but I've broken it off for ever with her."

Nothing he could have said then would have lightened my heart.

I scribbled, "Yes," on the same paper and gave it back to the girl.

When I said good night to my mother that night after the opera, I told her where I was going. Peter was standing in the front hall and took me in a hansom to the lady's house, saying he would wait for me round the corner while I had my interview with her.

It was past midnight and I felt overpoweringly tired. My beautiful rival opened the front door to me and I followed her silently up to her bedroom. She took off my opera-cloak and we sat down facing each other. The room was large and dark but for a row of candles on the mantel-piece and two high church-lights each side of a silver pier-glass. There was a table near my chair with odds and ends on it and a general smell of scent and flowers. I looked at her in her blue satin nightgown and saw that she had been crying.

"It is kind of you to have come," she said, "and I daresay you know why I wanted to see you to-night."

MARGOT: "No, I don't; I haven't the faintest idea!"

THE LADY (LOOKING RATHER EMBARRASSED, BUT AFTER A MOMENT'S PAUSE): "I want you to tell me about yourself."

I felt this to be a wrong entry: she had sent for me to tell her about Peter Flower and not myself; but why should I tell her about either of us? I had never spoken of my love-affairs excepting to my mother and my three friends—Con Manners, Frances Horner, and Etty Desborough—and people had ceased speaking to me about them; why should I sit up with a stranger and discuss myself at this time of night? I said there was nothing to tell. She answered by saying she had met so many people who cared for me that she felt she almost knew me, to which I replied:

"In that case, why talk about me?"

THE LADY: "But some people care for both of us."

MARGOT (RATHER COLDLY): "I daresay."

THE LADY: "Don't be hard, I want to know if you love Peter Flower . ... Do you intend to marry him?"

The question had come then: this terrible question which my mother had never asked and which I had always evaded! Had it got to be answered now ... and to a stranger?

With a determined effort to control myself I said:

"You mean, am I engaged to be married?"

THE LADY: "I mean what I say; are you going to marry Peter?"

MARGOT: "I have never told him I would."

THE LADY (VERY SLOWLY): "Remember, my life is bound up in your answer ..."

Her words seemed to burn and I felt a kind of pity for her. She was leaning forward with her eyes fastened on mine and her hands clasped between her knees.

"If you don't love him enough to marry him, why don't you leave him alone?" she said. "Why do you keep him bound to you? Why don't you set him free?"

MARGOT: "He is free to love whom he likes; I don't keep him, but I won't share him."

THE LADY: "You don't love him, but you want to keep him; that is pure selfishness and vanity."

MARGOT: "Not at all! I would give him up to-morrow and have told him so a thousand times, if he would marry; but he is not in a position to marry any one."

THE LADY: "How can you say such a thing! His debts have just been paid by God knows who—some woman, I suppose!—and you are rich yourself. What is there to hinder you from marrying him?"

MARGOT: "That was not what I was thinking about. I don't believe you would understand even if I were to explain it to you."

THE LADY: "If you were really in love you could not be so critical and censorious."

MARGOT: "Oh, yes, I could! You don't know me."

THE LADY: "I love him in a way you would never understand. There is nothing in the world I would not do for him! No pain I would not suffer and no sacrifice I would not make."

MARGOT: "What could you do for him that would help him?"

THE LADY: "I would leave my husband and my children and go right away with him."

I felt as if she had stabbed me.

"Leave your children! and your husband!" I said. "But how can ruining them and yourself help Peter Flower? I don't believe for a moment he would ever do anything so vile."

THE LADY: "You think he loves you too much to run away with me, do you?"

MARGOT (with indignation): "Perhaps I hope he cares too much for you."

THE LADY (not listening and getting up excitedly): "What do you know about love? I have had a hundred lovers, but Peter Flower is the only man I have ever really cared for; and my life is at an end if you will not give him up."

MARGOT: "There is no question of my giving him up; he is free, I tell you ..."

THE LADY: "I tell you he is not! He doesn't consider himself free, he said as much to me this afternoon ... when he wanted to break it all off."

MARGOT: "What do you wish me to do then? ..."

THE LADY: "Tell Peter you don't love him in the right way, that you don't intend to marry him; and then leave him alone."

MARGOT: "Do you mean I am to leave him to you? ... Do you love him in the right way?"

THE LADY: "Don't ask stupid questions . ... I shall kill myself if he gives me up."

After this, I felt there was nothing more to be said. I told her that Peter had a perfect right to do what he liked and that I had neither the will nor the power to influence his decision; that I was going abroad with my sister Lucy to Italy and would in any case not see him for several weeks; but I added that all my influence over him for years had been directed into making him the right sort of man to marry and that all hers would of necessity lie in the opposite direction. Not knowing quite how to say good- bye, I began to finger my cloak; seeing my intention, she said:

"Just wait one moment, will you? I want to know if you are as good as Peter always tells me you are; don't answer till I see your eyes ..."

She took two candles off the chimneypiece and placed them on the table near me, a little in front of my face, and then knelt upon the ground; I looked at her wonderful wild eyes and stretched out my hands towards her.

"Nonsense!" I said. "I am not in the least good! Get up! When I see you kneeling at my feet, I feel sorry for you."

THE LADY (getting up abruptly): "For God's sake don't pity me!"

Thinking over the situation in the calm of my room, I had no qualms as to either the elopement or the suicide, hut I felt a revulsion of feeling towards Peter. His lack of moral indignation and purpose, his intractability in all that was serious and his incapacity to improve had been cutting a deep though unconscious division between us for years; and I determined at whatever cost, after this, that I would say good-bye to him.

A few days later, Lord Dufferin came to see me in Grosvenor Square.

"Margot," he said, "why don't you marry? You are twenty-seven; and life won't go on treating you so well if you go on treating it like this. As an old friend who loves you, let me give you one word of advice. You should marry in spite of being in love, but never because of it."

Before I went away to Italy, Peter and I, with passion-lit eyes and throbbing hearts, had said goodbye to each other for ever.

The relief of our friends at our parting was so suffocating that I clung to the shelter of my new friend, the stranger of that House of Commons dinner.



CHAPTER V

THE ASQUITH FAMILY TREE—HERBERT H. ASQUITH's MOTHER—ASQUITH'S FIRST MARRIAGE; MEETS MARGOT TENNANT FOR FIRST TIME—TALK TILL DAWN ON HOUSE OF COMMONS' TERRACE; OTHER MEETINGS—ENGAGEMENT A LONDON SENSATION—MARRIAGE AN EVENT

My husband's father was Joseph Dixon Asquith, a cloth-merchant, in Morley, at that time a small town outside Leeds. He was a man of high character who held Bible classes for young men. He married a daughter of William Willans, of Huddersfield, who sprang of an old Yorkshire Puritan stock.

He died when he was thirty-five, leaving four children: William Willans, Herbert Henry, Emily Evelyn and Lilian Josephine. They were brought up by their mother, who was a woman of genius. I named my only daughter [Footnote: Princess Bibesco.] after Goethe's mother, but was glad when I found out that her grandmother Willans had been called Elizabeth.

William Willans—who is dead—was the eldest of the family and a clever little man. He taught at Clifton College for over thirty years.

Lilian Josephine died when she was a baby; and Evelyn—one of the best of women—is the only near relation of my husband still living.

My husband's mother, old Mrs. Asquith, I never knew; my friend Mark Napier told me that she was a brilliantly clever woman but an invalid. She had delicate lungs, which obliged her to live on the South coast; and, when her two sons went to the City of London School, they lived alone together in lodgings in Islington and were both poor and industrious.

Although Henry's mother was an invalid she had a moral, religious and intellectual influence over her family that cannot be exaggerated. She was a profound reader and a brilliant talker and belonged to what was in those days called orthodox nonconformity, or Congregationalists.

After my husband's first marriage he made money by writing, lecturing and examining at Oxford. When he was called to the Bar success did not come to him at once.

He had no rich patron and no one to push him forward. He had made for himself a great Oxford reputation: he was a fine scholar and lawyer, but socially was not known by many people.

It was said that Gladstone only promoted men by seniority and never before knowing with precision what they were like, but in my husband's case it was not so.

Lord James of Hereford, then Sir Henry James, was Attorney General, overburdened with a large private practice at the Bar; and, when the great Bradlaugh case came on, in 1883, it was suggested to him that a young man living on the same staircase might devil the Affirmation Bill for him. This was the beginning of Asquith's career: When Gladstone saw the brief for his speech, he noted the fine handwriting and asked who had written it. Sir Henry James, the kindest and most generous of men, was delighted at Gladstone's observation and brought the young man to him. From that moment both the Attorney General and the Prime Minister marked him out for distinction; he rose without any intermediary step of an under-secretaryship from a back-bencher to a Cabinet Minister; and when we married in 1894 he was Home Secretary. In 1890 I cut and kept out of some newspapers this prophecy, little thinking that I would marry one of the "New English Party."

A NEW ENGLISH PARTY

Amid all the worry and turmoil and ambition of Irish politics, there is steadily growing up a little English party, of which more will be heard in the days that are to come. This is a band of philosophico-social Radicals—not the OLD type of laissez-faire politician, but quite otherwise. In other words, what I may call practical Socialism has caught on afresh with a knot of clever, youngish members of Parliament who sit below the gangway on the Radical side. This little group includes clever, learned, metaphysical Mr. Haldane, one of the rising lawyers of his day; young Sir Edward Grey, sincere, enthusiastic, with a certain gift for oratory, and helped by a beautiful and clever wife; Mr. Sidney Buxton, who has perhaps the most distinct genius for practical work; and finally, though in rather loose attachment to the rest, Mr. Asquith, brilliant, cynical, cold, clear, but with his eye on the future. The dominant ideas of this little band tend in the direction of moderate Collectivism—i.e., of municipal Socialism.

I met my husband for the first time in 1891, at a dinner given by Peter Flower's brother Cyril. [Footnote: The late Lord Battersea.] I had never heard of him in my life, which gives some indication of how I was wasting my time on two worlds: I do not mean this and the next, but the sporting and dramatic, Melton in the winter and the Lyceum in the summer. My Coquelin coachings and my dancing- lessons had led me to rehearsals both of the ballet and the drama; and for a short time I was at the feet of Ellen Terry and Irving. I say "short" advisedly, for then as now I found Bohemian society duller than any English watering-place. Every one has a different conception of Hell and few of us connect it with flames; but stage suppers are my idea of Hell and, with the exception of Irving and Coquelin, Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, I have never met the hero or heroine off the stage that was not ultimately dull.

The dinner where I was introduced to Henry was in the House of Commons and I sat next to him. I was tremendously impressed by his conversation and his clean Cromwellian face. He was different from the others and, although abominably dressed, had so much personality that I made up my mind at once that here was a man who could help me and would understand everything. It never crossed my brain that he was married, nor would that have mattered; I had always been more anxious that Peter Flower should marry than myself, because he was thirteen years older than I was, but matrimony was not the austere purpose of either of our lives.

After dinner we all walked on the Terrace and I was flattered to find my new friend by my side. Lord Battersea chaffed me in his noisy, flamboyant manner, trying to separate us; but with tact and determination this frontal attack was resisted and my new friend and I retired to the darkest part of the Terrace, where, leaning over the parapet, we gazed into the river and talked far into the night.

Our host and his party—thinking that I had gone home and that Mr. Asquith had returned to the House when the division bell rang—had disappeared; and when we finished our conversation the Terrace was deserted and the sky light.

We met a few days later dining with Sir Algernon West—a very dear and early friend of mine—and after this we saw each other constantly. I found out from something he said to me that he was married and lived at Hampstead and that his days were divided between 1 Paper Buildings and the House of Commons. He told me that he had always been a shy man and in some ways this is true of him even now; but I am glad that I did not observe it at the time, as shy people disconcerted me: I liked modesty, I pitied timidity, but I was embarrassed by shyness.

I cannot truly say, however, that the word shy described my husband at any time: he was a little gauche in movement and blushed when he was praised, but I have never seen him nervous with any one or embarrassed by any social dilemma. His unerring instinct into all sorts of people and affairs—quite apart from his intellectual temperament and learning—and his incredible lack of vanity struck me at once. The art of making every man better pleased with himself he had in a high degree; and he retains to this day an incurable modesty.

When I discovered that he was married, I asked him to bring his wife to dinner, which he did, and directy I saw her I said:

"I do hope, Mrs. Asquith, you have not minded your husband dining here without you, but I rather gathered Hampstead was too far away for him to get back to you from the House of Commons. You must always let me know and come with him whenever it suits you."

In making this profound and attaching friendship with the stranger of that House of Commons dinner, I had placed myself in a difficult position when Helen Asquith died. To be a stepwife and a stepmother was unthinkable, but at the same time the moment had arrived when a decision—involving a great change in my life—had become inevitable. I had written to Peter Flower before we parted every day for nine years—with the exception of the months he had spent flying from his creditors in India—and I had prayed for him every night, but it had not brought more than happiness to both of us; and when I deliberately said good-bye to him I shut down a page of my life which, even if I had wished to, I could never have reopened. When Henry told me he cared for me, that unstifled inner voice which we all of us hear more or less indistinctly told me I would be untrue to myself and quite unworthy of life if, when such a man came knocking at the door, I did not fling it wide open. The rumour that we were engaged to be married caused alarm amounting to consternation in certain circles. Both Lord Rosebery and Lord Randolph Churchill, without impugning me in any way, deplored the marriage, nor were they by any means alone in thinking such a union might ruin the life of a promising politician. Some of my own friends were equally apprehensive from another point of view; to start my new life charged with a ready-made family of children brought up very differently from myself, with a man who played no games and cared for no sport, in London instead of in the country, with no money except what he could make at the Bar, was, they thought, taking too many risks.

My Melton friends said it was a terrible waste that I was not marrying a sporting man and told me afterwards that they nearly signed a round-robin to implore me never to give up hunting, but feared I might think it impertinent.

The rumour of my engagement caused a sensation in the East-end of London as well as the West. The following was posted to me by an anonymous well-wisher:

At the meeting of the "unemployed" held on Tower Hill yesterday afternoon, John E. Williams, the organiser appointed by the Social Democratic Federation, said that on the previous day they had gone through the West-end squares and had let the "loafers" living there know that they were alive. On the previous evening he had seen an announcement which, at first sight, had caused tears to run down his face, for he had thought it read, "Mr. Asquith going to be murdered." However, it turned out that Mr. Asquith was going to be married, and he accordingly proposed that the unemployed, following the example of the people in the West-end, should forward the right hon. gentleman a congratulatory message. He moved: "That this mass meeting of the unemployed held on Tower Hill, hearing that Mr. Asquith is about to enter the holy bonds of matrimony, and knowing he has no sympathy for the unemployed, and that he has lately used his position in the House of Commons to insult the unemployed, trusts that his partner will be one of the worst tartars it is possible for a man to have, and that his family troubles will compel him to retire from political life, for which he is so unfit." The reading of the resolution was followed by loud laughter and cheers. Mr. Crouch (National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives) seconded the motion, which was supported by a large number of other speakers and adopted.

I was much more afraid of spoiling Henry's life than my own, and what with old ties and bothers, and new ties and stepchildren, I deliberated a long time before the final fixing of my wedding-day.

I had never met any of his children except little Violet when I became engaged and he only took me to see them once before we were married, as they lived in a villa at Redhill under the charge of a kind and careful governess; he never spoke of them except one day when, after my asking him if he thought they would hate me and cataloguing my grave imperfections and moderate qualifications for the part, he stopped me and said that his eldest son, Raymond, was remarkably clever and would be devoted to me, adding thoughtfully:

"I think—and hope—he is ambitious."

This was a new idea to me: we had always been told what a wicked thing ambition was; but we were a fighting family of high spirits and not temper, so we had acquiesced, without conforming to the nursery dictum. The remark profoundly impressed me and I pondered it over in my heart. I do not think, by the way, that it turned out to be a true prophecy, but Raymond Asquith had such unusual intellectual gifts that no one could have convicted him of lack of ambition. To win without work, to score without an effort and to delight without premeditation is given to few.

One night after our engagement we were dining with Sir Henry and Lady Campbell-Bannerman. While the women were talking and the men drinking, dear old Mrs. Gladstone and other elderly ladies and political wives took me on as to the duties of the spouse of a possible Prime Minister; they were so eloquent and severe that at the end of it my nerves were racing round like a squirrel in a cage.

When Mr. Gladstone came into the drawing-room I felt depressed and, clinging to his arm, I switched him into a corner and said I feared the ladies took me for a jockey or a ballet-girl, as I had been adjured to give up, among other things, dancing, riding and acting. He patted my hand, said he knew no one better fitted to be the wife of a great politician than myself and ended by saying that, while I was entitled to discard exaggeration in rebuke, it was a great mistake not to take criticism wisely and in a spirit which might turn it to good account.

I have often thought of this when I see how brittle and egotistical people are at the smallest disapprobation. I never get over my surprise, old as I am, at the surly moral manners, the lack of humbleness and the colossal personal vanity that are the bed-rock of people's incapacity to take criticism well. There is no greater test of size than this; but, judged by this test, most of us are dwarfs.

Disapproving of long engagements and wishing to escape the cataract of advice by which my friends thought to secure both my husband's and my own matrimonial bliss, I hurried on my marriage. My friends and advisers made me unhappy at this time, but fortunately for me Henry Asquith is a compelling person and, in spite of the anxiety of the friends and relations, we were married at St. George's, Hanover Square, on May the 10th, 1894. I doubt if any bride ever received so many strange letters as I did. There was one which I kept in front of me when I felt discouraged. I shall not say who it is from, as the writer is alive:

MY DEAR MARGOT,

You are not different to other people except in this respect—you have a clear, cold head, and a hot, keen heart, and you won't find EVERYTHING; so choose what lasts, and with luck and with pluck, marrying as you are from the highest motives, you will be repaid. Asquith is far too good for you. He is not conventional, and will give you a great deal of freedom. He worships you, and understands you, and is bent on making the best of you and the life together. You are marrying a very uncommon man—not so much intellectually— but he is uncommon from his Determination, Reality and concentrated power of love. Don't pity yourself—you would not wish to have loved Peter less—though you might wish you had never seen him—but you must know you have allowed too much love in your life, and must bear the consequences. Deep down in your heart you must feel that you ought to put a stop to your present life, and to the temptation of making people love you. Depend upon it with your rich and warm nature you need not be afraid of not loving Asquith intensely. By marrying him you will prove yourself to be a woman of courage and nobility, instead of a woman who is talked about and who is in reality self-indulgent. You are lucky after your rather dangerous life to have found such a haven and should bless God for it.

In those days it was less common for people to collect in the streets to see a wedding. The first marriage I ever saw which collected a crowd was Lady Crewe's, but her father, Lord Rosebery, was a Derby winner and Prime Minister and she was married in Westminster Abbey. From Grosvenor Square to St. George's, Hanover Square, is a short distance, but from our front door to the church the pavements were blocked with excited and enthusiastic people.

An old nurse of my sister Charlotte's, Jerusha Taylor, told me that a gentleman outside St. George's had said to her, "I will give you L10 for that ticket of yours!" and when she refused he said, "I will give you ANYTHING YOU LIKE! I must see Margot Tennant married!" I asked her what sort of a man he was. She answered,

"Oh! he was a real gentleman, ma'am! I know a gentleman when I see him; he had a gardenia in his buttonhole, but he didn't get my ticket!"

Our register was signed by four Prime Ministers: Mr. Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, Arthur Balfour and my husband. We spent the first part of our honeymoon at Mells Park, Frome, lent to us by Sir John and Lady Horner, and the second at Clovelly Court with our friend and hostess, Mrs. Hamlyn.



CHAPTER VI

THE ASQUITH CHILDREN BY THE FIRST MARRIAGE—MARGOT'S STEPDAUGHTER VIOLET—MEMORY OF THE FIRST MRS. ASQUITH—RAYMOND'S BRILLIANT CAREER—ARTHUR'S HEROISM IN THE WAR

I do not think if you had ransacked the world you could have found natures so opposite in temper, temperament and outlook as myself and my stepchildren when I first knew them.

If there was a difference between the Tennants and Lytteltons of laughter, there was a difference between the Tennants and Asquiths of tears. Tennants believed in appealing to the hearts of men, firing their imagination and penetrating and vivifying their inmost lives. They had a little loose love to give the whole world. The Asquiths—without mental flurry and with perfect self- mastery—believed in the free application of intellect to every human emotion; no event could have given heightened expression to their feelings. Shy, self-engaged, critical and controversial, nothing surprised them and nothing upset them. We were as zealous and vital as they were detached and as cocky and passionate as they were modest and emotionless.

They rarely looked at you and never got up when any one came into the room. If you had appeared downstairs in a ball-dress or a bathing-gown they would not have observed it and would certainly never have commented upon it if they had. Whether they were glowing with joy at the sight of you or thrilled at receiving a friend, their welcome was equally composed. They were devoted to one another and never quarrelled; they were seldom wild and never naughty. Perfectly self-contained, truthful and deliberate, I never saw them lose themselves in my life and I have hardly ever seen the saint or hero that excited their disinterested emotion.

When I thought of the storms of revolt, the rage, the despair, the wild enthusiasms and reckless adventures, the disputes that finished not merely with fights, but with fists in our nursery and schoolroom, I was stunned by the steadiness of the Asquith temper.

Let it not be inferred that I am criticising them as they now are, or that their attitude towards myself was at any time lacking in sympathy. Blindness of heart does not imply hardness; and expression is a matter of temperament or impulse; hut it was their attitude towards life that was different from my own. They over- valued brains, which was a strange fault, as they were all remarkably clever. Hardly any Prime Minister has had famous children, but the Asquiths were all conspicuous in their different ways: Raymond and Violet the most striking, Arthur the most capable, Herbert a poet and Cyril the shyest and the rarest.

Cys Asquith, who was the youngest of the family, combined what was best in all of them morally and intellectually and possessed what was finer than brains.

He was two, when his mother died, and a clumsy ugly little boy with a certain amount of graceless obstinacy, with which both Tennants and Asquiths were equally endowed. To the casual observer he would have appeared less like me than any of my step-family, but as a matter of fact he and I had the most in common; we shared a certain spiritual foundation and moral aspiration that solder people together through life.

It is not because I took charge of him at an early age that I say he is more my own than the others, but because, although he did not always agree with me, he never misunderstood me. He said at Murren one day, when he was seventeen and we had been talking together on life and religion:

"It must be curious for you, Margot, seeing all of us laughing at things that make you cry."

This showed remarkable insight for a schoolboy. When I look at his wonderful face now and think of his appearance at the time of our marriage, I am reminded of the Hans Andersen toad with the jewel in its head, but the toad is no longer there.

I have a dear friend called Bogie Harris,[Footnote: Mr. H. Harris, of Bedford Square.] who told me that, at a ball given by Con and Hoppy Manners, he had seen a young man whose face had struck him so much that he looked about for some one in the room to tell him who it was. That young man was Cyril Asquith.

One night when he was a little boy, after I had heard him say his prayers he asked me to read the General Confession out of his Prayer Book to him. It was such an unusual request that I said:

"Very well, darling, I will, but first of all I must read you what I love best in the Prayer Book."

To which he answered:

"Oh, do! I should like that."

I put a cushion behind my head and, lying down beside him, read:

"Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee, O Lord; and by Thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of Thine only Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen."

After this I read him the General Confession, opening, "We have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep," and ending, "that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life." When I had finished I said to him:

"What do you take sober to mean here, darling?"

CYS (looking furtively at me with his little green eyes): "It does not mean drunkenness." (A slight pause and then reflectively): "I should say moderate living."

I told the children one day to collect some of their toys and that I would take them to the hospital, where they could give them away themselves. I purposely did not say broken toys; and a few days afterwards I was invited to the nursery. On arriving upstairs I saw that Cys's eyes were scarlet; and set out in pathetic array round the room was a large family of monkeys christened by him "the Thumblekins." They were what he loved best in the world. I observed that they were the only unbroken toys that were brought to me; and he was eyeing his treasures with anguish in his soul. I was so touched that I could hardly speak; and, when I put my arms round his neck, he burst into sobs:

"May I keep one monkey ... only one, Margot? ... PLEASE? ...PLEASE, Margot? ..."

This was the window in his soul that has never been closed to me. For many years during a distinguished college career he was delicate, but since his marriage to Miss Ann Pollock—a daylight creature of charm, beauty and goodness—he has been happy and strong.

My stepdaughter Violet—now Lady Bonham Carter—though intensely feminine, would have made a remarkable man. I do not believe there is any examination she could not have passed either at a public school or a university. Born without shyness or trepidation, from her youth upwards she had perfect self-possession and patience. She loved dialectics and could put her case logically, plausibly and eloquently; and, although quite as unemotional as her brothers, she had more enterprise and indignation. In her youth she was delicate, and what the French call tres personelle; and this prevented her going through the mill of rivalry and criticism which had been the daily bread of my girlhood.

She had the same penetrating sense of humour as her brother Raymond and quite as much presence of mind in retort. Her gift of expression was amazing and her memory unrivalled. My daughter Elizabeth and she were the only girls except myself that I ever met who were real politicians, not interested merely in the personal side—whether Mr. B. or C. spoke well or was likely to get promoted—but in the legislation and administration of Parliament; they followed and knew what was going on at home and abroad and enjoyed friendships with most of the young and famous men of the day. Violet Bonham Carter has, I think, a great political future in the country if not in the Commons. She is a natural speaker, easy, eloquent, witty, short and of imperturbable sang-froid.

Life in the House is neither healthy, useful nor appropriate for a woman; and the functions of a mother and a member of Parliament are not compatible. This was one of the reasons why my husband and I were against giving the franchise to women. Violet is a real mother and feels the problem acutely, but she is a real Liberal also and, with gifts as conspicuous as hers, she must inevitably exercise a wide-spread political influence. Her speeches in her father's election at Paisley, in February of this year, brought her before a general as well as intellectual audience from which she can never retire; and, whenever she appears on a platform, the public shout from every part of the hall calling on her to speak.

Raymond Asquith was born on the 6th of November, 1878, and was killed fighting against the Germans before his regiment had been in action ten minutes, on the 15th of September, 1916.

He was intellectually one of the most distinguished young men of his day and beautiful to look at, added to which he was light in hand, brilliant in answer and interested in affairs. When he went to Balliol he cultivated a kind of cynicism which was an endless source of delight to the young people around him; in a good- humoured way he made a butt of God and smiled at man. If he had been really keen about any one thing—law or literature—he would have made the world ring with his name, but he lacked temperament and a certain sort of imagination and was without ambition of any kind.

His education was started by a woman in a day-school at Hampstead; from there he took a Winchester scholarship and he became a scholar of Balliol. At Oxford he went from triumph to triumph. He took a first in classical moderations in 1899; first- class literae humaniores in 1901; first-class jurisprudence in 1902. He won the Craven, Ireland, Derby and Eldon scholarships. He was President of the Union and became a Fellow of All Souls in 1902; and after he left Oxford he was called to the Bar in 1904.

In spite of this record, a more modest fellow about his own achievements never lived.

Raymond was charming and good-tempered from his boyhood and I only remember him once in his life getting angry with me. He had been urged to go into politics by both his wife and his father and had been invited by the Liberal Association of a northern town to become their candidate. He was complaining about it one day to me, saying how dull, how stupid, how boring the average constituents of all electorates were; I told him I thought a closer contact with common people would turn out not only more interesting and delightful than he imagined, but that it would be the making of him. He flared up at once and made me appear infinitely ridiculous, but being on sure ground I listened with amusement and indifference; the discussion ended amicably, neither of us having deviated by a hair's breath from our original positions. He and I seldom got on each other's nerves, though two more different beings never lived. His arctic analysis of what he looked upon as "cant" always stirred his listeners to a high pitch of enthusiasm.

One day when he was at home for his holidays and we were all having tea together, to amuse the children I began asking riddles. I told them that I had only guessed one in my life, but it had taken me three days. They asked me what it was, and I said:

"What is it that God has never seen, that kings see seldom and that we see every day?"

Raymond instantly answered:

"A joke."

I felt that the real answer, which was "an equal," was very tepid after this.

In 1907 he married, from 10 Downing Street, Katherine Horner, a beautiful creature of character and intellect, as lacking in fire and incense as himself. Their devotion to each other and happiness was a perpetual joy to me, as I felt that in some ways I had contributed to it. Katherine was the daughter of Laura's greatest friend, Frances Horner, and he met her through me.

Raymond found in both his mother-in-law and Sir John Horner friends capable of appreciating his fine flavour. He wrote with ease and brilliance both prose and poetry. I will quote two of his poems:

IN PRAISE OF YOUNG GIRLS

Attend, my Muse, and, if you can, approve While I proclaim the "speeding up" of Love; For Love and Commerce hold a common creed— The scale of business varies with the speed; For Queen of Beauty or for Sausage King The Customer is always on the wing— Then praise the nymph who regularly earns Small profits (if you please) but quick returns. Our modish Venus is a bustling minx, But who can spare the time to woo a Sphinx? When Mona Lisa posed with rustic guile The stale enigma of her simple smile, Her leisure lovers raised a pious cheer While the slow mischief crept from ear to ear. Poor listless Lombard, you would ne'er engage The brisker beaux of our mercurial age Whose lively mettle can as easy brook An epic poem as a lingering look— Our modern maiden smears the twig with lime For twice as many hearts in half the time. Long ere the circle of that staid grimace Has wheeled your weary dimples into place, Our little Chloe (mark the nimble fiend!) Has raised a laugh against her bosom friend, Melted a marquis, mollified a Jew, Kissed every member of the Eton crew, Ogled a Bishop, quizzed an aged peer, Has danced a Tango and has dropped a tear. Fresh from the schoolroom, pink and plump and pert, Bedizened, bouncing, artful and alert, No victim she of vapours and of moods Though the sky falls she's "ready with the goods"— Will suit each client, tickle every taste Polite or gothic, libertine or chaste, Supply a waspish tongue, a waspish waist, Astarte's breast or Atalanta's leg, Love ready-made or glamour off the peg— Do you prefer "a thing of dew and air"? Or is your type Poppaea or Polaire? The crystal casket of a maiden's dreams, Or the last fancy in cosmetic creams? The dark and tender or the fierce and bright, Youth's rosy blush or Passion's pearly bite? You hardly know perhaps; but Chloe knows, And pours you out the necessary dose, Meticulously measuring to scale, The cup of Circe or the Holy Grail— An actress she at home in every role, Can flout or flatter, bully or cajole, And on occasion by a stretch of art Can even speak the language of the heart, Can lisp and sigh and make confused replies, With baby lips and complicated eyes, Indifferently apt to weep or wink, Primly pursue, provocatively shrink, Brazen or bashful, as the case require, Coax the faint baron, curb the bold esquire, Deride restraint, but deprecate desire, Unbridled yet unloving, loose but limp, Voluptuary, virgin, prude and pimp.

LINES TO A YOUNG VISCOUNT, WHO DIED AT OXFORD, ON THE MORROW OF A BUMP SUPPER (by the President of his College)

Dear Viscount, in whose ancient blood The blueness of the bird of March, The vermeil of the tufted larch, Are fused in one magenta flood.

Dear Viscount—ah! to me how dear, Who even in thy frolic mood Discerned (or sometimes thought I could) The pure proud purpose of a peer!

So on the last sad night of all Erect among the reeling rout You beat your tangled music out Lofty, aloof, viscontial.

You struck a bootbath with a can, And with the can you struck the bath, There on the yellow gravel path, As gentleman to gentleman.

We met, we stood, we faced, we talked While those of baser birth withdrew; I told you of an Earl I knew; You said you thought the wine was corked;

And so we parted—on my lips A light farewell, but in my soul The image of a perfect whole, A Viscount to the finger tips—

An image—Yes; but thou art gone; For nature red in tooth and claw Subsumes under an equal law Viscount and Iguanodon.

Yet we who know the Larger Love, Which separates the sheep and goats And segregates Scolecobrots, [1] Believing where we cannot prove,

Deem that in His mysterious Day God puts the Peers upon His right, And hides the poor in endless night, For thou, my Lord, art more than they.

[Footnote 1: A word from the Greek Testament meaning people who are eaten by worms.]

It is a commonplace to say after a man is dead that he could have done anything he liked in life: it is nearly always exaggerated; but of Raymond Asquith the phrase would have been true.

His oldest friend was Harold Baker,[Footnote: The Rt. Hon. Harold Baker.] a man whose academic career was as fine as his own and whose changeless affection and intimacy we have long valued; but Raymond had many friends as well as admirers. His death was the first great sorrow in my stepchildren's lives and an anguish to his father and me. The news of it came as a terrible shock to every one. My husband's natural pride and interest in him had always been intense and we were never tired of discussing him when we were alone: his personal charm and wit, his little faults and above all the success which so certainly awaited him. Henry's grief darkened the waters in Downing Street at a time when, had they been clear, certain events could never have taken place.

When Raymond was dying on the battle-field he gave the doctor his flask to give to his father; it was placed by the side of his bed and never moved till we left Whitehall.

I had not realised before how powerless a step-wife is when her husband is mourning the death of his child; and not for the first time I profoundly wished that Raymond had been my son.

Among the many letters we received, this one from Sir Edward Grey, the present Lord Grey of Fallodon, gave my husband the most comfort:

33 ECCLESTON SQUARE, S.W. Sept. 18, 1916.

MY DEAR ASQUITH,

A generation has passed since Raymond's mother died and the years that have gone make me feel for and with you even more than I would then. Raymond has had a brilliant and unblemished life; he chose with courage the heroic part in this war and he has died as a hero.

If this life be all, it matters not whether its years be few or many, but if it be not all, then Raymond's life is part of something that is not made less by his death, but is made greater and ennobled by the quality and merit of his life and death.

I would fain believe that those who die do not suffer in the separation from those they love here; that time is not to them what it is to us, and that to them the years of separation be they few or many will be but as yesterday.

If so then only for us, who are left here, is the pain of suffering and the weariness of waiting and enduring; the one beloved is spared that. There is some comfort in thinking that it is we, not the loved one, that have the harder part.

I grieve especially for Raymond's wife, whose suffering I fear must be what is unbearable. I hope the knowledge of how the feelings of your friends and the whole nation, and not of this nation only, for you is quickened and goes out to you will help you to continue the public work, which is now more than ever necessary, and will give you strength. Your courage I know never fails.

Yours affectionately,

EDWARD GREY.

Raymond Asquith was the bravest of the brave, nor did he ever complain of anything that fell to his lot while he was soldiering.

It might have been written of him:

He died As one that had been studied in his death To throw away the dearest thing he own'd. As 'twere a careless trifle. —MACBETH, Act I., sc. iv.

Our second son, Herbert, began his career as a lawyer. He had a sweet and gentle nature and much originality. He was a poet and wrote the following some years before the Great War of 1914, through which he served from the first day to the last:

THE VOLUNTEER

[Footnote: Reprinted from The Volunteer and other Poems, by kind permission of Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson.]

Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent Toiling at ledgers in a city grey, Thinking that so his days would drift away With no lance broken in life's tournament; Yet ever 'twixt the book and his bright eyes The gleaming eagles of the legions came, And horsemen, charging under phantom skies, Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.

And now those waiting dreams are satisfied, From twilight to the halls of dawn he went; His lance is broken—but he lies content With that high hour, he wants no recompense, Who found his battle in the last resort, Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence, Who goes to join the men at Agincourt.

He wrote this when he was in Flanders in the war:

THE FALLEN SPIRE (A Flemish Village)

[Footnote: Reprinted from The Volunteer and other Poems, by kind permission of Messrs. Sidgwick & Jackson.]

That spire is gone that slept for centuries, Mirrored among the lilies, calm and low; And now the water holds but empty skies Through which the rivers of the thunder flow.

The church lies broken near the fallen spire, For here, among these old and human things, Death sweeps along the street with feet of fire, And goes upon his way with moaning wings.

On pavements by the kneeling herdsmen worn The drifting fleeces of the shells are rolled; Above the Saints a village Christ forlorn, Wounded again, looks down upon His fold.

And silence follows fast: no evening peace, But leaden stillness, when the thunder wanes, Haunting the slender branches of the trees, And settling low upon the listless plains.

"Beb," as we called him, married Lady Cynthia Charteris, a lovely niece of Lady de Vesci and daughter of another beloved and interesting friend of mine, the present Countess of Wemyss.

Our third son, Arthur Asquith, was one of the great soldiers of the war. He married Betty, the daughter of my greatest friend, Lady Manners, a woman who has never failed me in affection and loyalty.

Arthur Asquith joined the Royal Naval Division on its formation in September, 1914, and was attached at first to the "Anson," and during the greater part of his service to the "Hood" Battalion. In the early days of October, 1914, he took part in the operations at Antwerp and, after further training at home in the camp at Blandford, went in February, 1915, with his battalion to the Dardanelles, where they formed part of the Second Naval Brigade. He was in all the fighting on the Gallipoli peninsula and was wounded, but returned to duty and was one of the last to embark on the final evacuation of Helles, in January, 1916.

In the following May the Naval Division joined the army in France, becoming the 63rd Division, and the "Hood" Battalion (now commanded by Commander Freyberg, V. C.) formed part of the 189th Brigade.

In the Battle of the Ancre (February, 1917) Arthur Asquith was severely wounded and was awarded the D.S.O.

In the following April, Commander Freyberg having been promoted to be a Brigadier, Arthur Asquith took over the command of the "Hood" Battalion and played a leading part in the operations against Gavrelle, taking the mayor's house (which was the key to the position) by assault and capturing the German garrison. It was largely due to him that Gavrelle was taken; and he was awarded a bar to his D.S.O.

In October, 1917, in the Battle of Passchendaele the Naval Division were heavily engaged. The following account of what happened near Poelcappelle (October 26th) is taken from the "History of the Royal Naval Division," by Sub-Lieutenants Fry and McMillan:

On account of the serious losses in officers, the four battalions were getting out of hand when Commander Asquith, like the born fighter that he is, came forward and saved the situation. He placed his battalion in the most advantageous positions to meet any counter-attacks that might develop. That done, in spite of heavy artillery and machine-gun fire, he passed from end to end of the line we were holding and superintended the consolidation of our gains. In addition, he established liaison with the Canadians on our right, and thus closed a breach which might have caused us infinite trouble and been the source of our undoing.

Arthur Asquith was recommended for the V.C. (he, in fact, received a second bar to his D.S.O.); and these are the terms of the official recommendation:

Near Poelcappelle, during the operations of October 26th-27th, 1917, Commander Asquith displayed the greatest bravery, initiative and splendid leadership, and by his reconnaissance of the front line made under heavy fire, contributed much valuable information which made the successful continuance of the operations possible. During the morning of the 26th, when no news was forthcoming of the position of the attacking troops, Commander Asquith went forward, through heavy fire, round the front positions, and heedless of personal danger, found out our dispositions, got into touch with the troops on the right, and returned after some hours with most valuable information. On the night of the same day, he went forward alone in bright moonlight and explored the ground in the vicinity of Varlet Farm, where the situation was not clear. He was observed by the enemy, but, in spite of heavy rifle and machine-gun fire directed at him, and the fact that the going was necessarily slow, owing to the awful state of the ground, he approached Varlet Farm then reported to be in the hands of the enemy. Entering a concrete building alone he found it occupied by a small British garrison, who were exhausted and almost without ammunition and the most of them wounded. After investigating the ground thoroughly he returned and led up three platoons of a company of this battalion and relieved the garrison. He superintended the disposal of the troops, putting one platoon in the building as garrison and placing the other two platoons on each flank. A very important position was therefore kept entirely in our hands, owing to magnificent bravery, leadership and utter disregard of his own personal safety. This example of bravery and cool courage displayed throughout the operations by Commander Asquith encouraged the men to greater efforts, and kept up their moral. His valuable reconnaissance, the manner in which he led his men and his determination to hold the ground gained, contributed very largely to the success of the operations.

On December 16th, 1917, he was appointed Brigadier to command the 189th Brigade; and a few days later, in reconnoitring the position, he was again severely wounded. His leg had to be amputated and he was disabled from further active service in the war. I never saw Arthur Asquith lose his temper or think of himself in my life.

. . . . . . .

I look around to see what child of which friend is left to become the wife of my son Anthony; and I wonder whether she will be as virtuous, loving and good-looking as my other daughters-in-law.

We were all wonderfully happy together, but, looking back, I think I was far from clever with my stepchildren; they grew up good and successful independently of me.

In consequence of our unpopularity in Peebles-shire, I had no opportunity of meeting other young people in their homes; and I knew no family except my own. The wealth of art and music, the luxury of flowers and colour, the stretches of wild country both in Scotland and high Leicestershire, which had made up my life till I married, had not qualified me to understand children reared in different circumstances. I would not perhaps have noticed many trifles in my step-family, had I not been so much made of, so overloved, caressed and independent before my marriage.

Every gardener prunes the roots of a tree before it is transplanted, but no one had ever pruned me. If you have been sunned through and through like an apricot on a wall from your earliest days, you are over-sensitive to any withdrawal of heat. This had been clearly foreseen by my friends and they were genuinely anxious about the happiness and future of my stepchildren. I do not know which of us had been considered the boldest in our marriage, my husband or myself; and no doubt step- relationships should not be taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, but reverently, discreetly, and soberly. In every one of the letters congratulating me there had been a note of warning.

Mr. Gladstone wrote:

MAY 5TH, 1894.

You have a great and noble work to perform. It is a work far beyond human strength. May the strength which is more than human be abundantly granted you.

Ever yours, W. E. G.

I remember, on receiving this, saying to my beloved friend, Con Manners:

"Gladstone thinks my fitness to be Henry's wife should be prayed for like the clergy: 'Almighty and Everlasting God, who alone workest great marvels . ...'"

John Morley wrote:

95 ELM PARK GARDENS, SOUTH KENSINGTON, S.W. MARCH 7,1894. MY DEAR MISS MARGOT,

Now that the whirl of congratulations must be ceasing, here are mine, the latest but not the least warm of them all. You are going to marry one of the finest men in all the world, with a great store of sterling gifts both of head and heart, and with a life before him of the highest interest, importance and power. Such a man is a companion that any woman might envy you. I daresay you know this without my telling you. On the other part, I will not add myself to those impertinents who—as I understand you to report—wish you "to improve." I very respectfully wish nothing of the sort. Few qualities are better worth leaving as they are than vivacity, wit, freshness of mind, gaiety and pluck. Pray keep them all. Don't improve by an atom.

Circumstances may have a lesson or two to teach you, but 'tis only the dull who don't learn, and I have no fear but that such a pair have happy years in front of them.

You ask for my blessing and you have it. Be sure that I wish you as unclouded a life as can be the lot of woman, and I hope you will always let me count myself your friend. I possess some aphorisms on the married state—but they will keep. I only let them out as occasion comes. Always yours sincerely, JOHN MORLEY.

Looking back now on the first years of my marriage, I cannot exaggerate the gratitude which I feel for the tolerance, patience and loyalty that my stepchildren extended to a stranger; for, although I introduced an enormous amount of fun, beauty and movement into their lives, I could not replace what they had lost.

Henry's first wife, Helen Asquith, was an exceptionally pretty, refined woman; never dull, never artificial, and of single-minded goodness; she was a wonderful wife and a devoted mother, but was without illusions and even less adventurous than her children. She told me in one of our talks how much she regretted that her husband had taken silk and was in the House of Commons, at which I said in a glow of surprise:

"But surely, Mrs. Asquith, you are ambitious for your husband! Why, he's a WONDERFUL man!"

This conversation took place in Grosvenor Square the second time that we met, when she brought her little girl to see me. Violet was aged four and a self-possessed, plump, clever little creature, with lovely hair hanging in Victorian ringlets down her back.

The children were not like Helen Asquith in appearance, except Raymond, who had her beautiful eyes and brow; but, just as they had none of their father's emotion and some of his intellect, they all inherited their mother's temperament, with the exception of Violet, who was more susceptible to the new environment than her brothers. The greatest compliment that was ever paid to my appearance—and one that helped me most when I felt discouraged in my early married life—was what Helen Asquith said to my husband and he repeated to me: "There is something a little noble about Margot Tennant's expression."

If my stepchildren were patient with me, I dare not say what their father was: there are some reservations the boldest biographer has a right to claim; and I shall only write of my husband's character—his loyalty, lack of vanity, freedom from self, warmth and width of sympathy—in connection with politics and not with myself; but since I have touched on this subject I will give one illustration of his nature.

When the full meaning of the disreputable General Election of 1918, with its promises and pretensions and all its silly and false cries, was burnt into me at Paisley in this year of 1920 by our Coalition opponent re-repeating them, I said to Henry:

"Oh, if I had only quietly dropped all my friends of German name when the war broke out and never gone to say good-bye to those poor Lichnowskys, these ridiculous lies propagated entirely for political purposes would never have been told; and this criminal pro-German stunt could not have been started."

To which he replied:

"God forbid! I would rather ten thousand times be out of public life for ever."



CHAPTER VII

VISIT TO WOMAN'S PRISON—INTERVIEW THERE WITH MRS. MAYBRICK—SCENE IN A LIFER'S CELL; THE HUSBAND WHO NEVER KNEW THOUGHT WIFE MADE MONEY SEWING—MARGOT'S PLEA THAT FAILED

My husband was Home Secretary when we married, and took a serious interest in our prison system, which he found far from satisfactory. He thought that it would be a good thing, before we were known by sight, to pay a surprise visit to the convict— prisons and that, if I could see the women convicts and he could see the men privately, he would be able to examine the conditions under which they served their sentences better than if we were to go officially.

I was expecting my baby in about three months when we made this expedition.

Wormwood Scrubs was the promising, almost Dickens-like name of one of our convict-prisons and, at that time, took in both men and women.

The governor scrutinised Henry's fine writing on our permits; he received us dryly, but without suspicion; and we divided off, having settled to meet at the front door after an hour and a half's inspection.

The matron who accompanied me was a powerful, intelligent-looking woman of hard countenance and short speech. I put a few stupid questions to her about the prison: how many convicts they had, if the food was good, etc.

She asked me if I would care to see Mrs. Maybrick, an American criminal, who had been charged with murder, but sentenced for manslaughter. This woman had poisoned her husband with mild insistence by arsenic, but, as he was taking this for his health at the time of his death, the evidence was conflicting as to where he stopped and she began. She had the reputation of being a lady and beautiful; and petitions for her reprieve were sent to us signed by every kind of person from the United States. I told the matron I would see her and was shown into her cell, where I found her sitting on a stool against a bleak desk, at which she was reading. I noted her fine eyes and common mouth and, apologising, said:

"I hope you will not mind a stranger coming to enquire how you are getting on," adding, "Have you any complaints to make of the prison?"

The matron had left me and, the doors being thick, I felt pretty sure she could not hear what we were saying.

MRS. MAYBRICK (SHRUGGING HER SHOULDERS): "The butter here is abominable and we are only given two books—THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and the Bible—and what do you say to our looking-glasses?" (POINTING TO A LITTLE GLASS, FOUR INCHES BIG, IN A DEEP THICK FRAME HANGING ON A PEG). "Do you know why it is so small?"

MARGOT: "No."

MRS. MAYBRICK: "Because the women who want to kill themselves can't get their heels in to break the glass; if they could they would cut their throats. The men don't have looking-glasses at all."

MARGOT: "Do you think they would like to have them?"

MRS. MAYBRICK (SHRUGGING HER SHOULDERS AGAIN AND FINGERING HER BLUE COTTON BLOUSE): "I don't suppose they care! I'm sure no one could wish to see themselves with cropped hair and in these hideous clothes."

MARGOT: "I think that I could get you every kind of book, if you like reading, and will tell me what you want."

MRS. MAYBRICK (with a sudden laugh and looking at me with a contemptuous expression which made my heart ache): "Oh, no, you couldn't! Never mind me! But you might tell them about the butter."

I did not find Mrs. Maybrick sympathique and shortly after this rejoined the matron. It was the first time I had seen a prison and my heart and mind were moved as we went from cell to cell nodding to the grey occupants.

"Have you any very bad cases?" I asked. "I mean any woman who is difficult and unhappy?"

MATRON: "Yes, there is one woman here who has been sitting on the floor for the last three days and, except a little water, I don't think she has swallowed a mouthful of food since she came in. She is a violent person and uses foul language. I do not think you had better see her."

MARGOT: "Thank you, I am not at all afraid. Please take me to her cell."

MATRON (still reluctant and eyeing my figure): "She may not speak to you, but if she does it might give you a shock. Do you think you are wise to go in your present condition?"

MARGOT: "Oh, that's all right, thanks! I am not easily shocked."

When we came to the cell, I took the precaution of telling the matron she could leave me, as after this visit I should have to join my husband and I could find my way to the front hall by myself. She opened the door in silence and let me in.

Crouching on the stone floor, in an animal attitude, I saw a woman. She did not look up when I went in nor turn when I shut the door. Her eyebrows almost joined above a square-tipped nose; and her eyes, shaded by long black lashes, were fixed upon the ground. Her hair grew well, out of a beautiful forehead, and the red curve of her mouth gave expression to a wax-like face. I had never seen a more striking-looking creature.

After my usual apology and a gentle recitative of why I had come, she turned what little I could see of her face away from me and whatever I suggested after that was greeted with impenetrable silence.

At last I said to her:

"It is so difficult for me to stand and talk while you are sitting on the ground. Won't you get up?"

No answer. At this—being an active woman—I sat down beside her on the stone floor and took her hand in both of mine. She did not withdraw it, but lifted her lashes to look at me. I noted the sullen, exhausted expression in her grey eyes; my heart beat at the beauty of her face.

"Why don't you speak to me?" I said. "I might, for all you know, be able to do a great deal for you."

This was greeted by a faint gleam and a prolonged shake of the head.

MARGOT: "You look very young. What is it you did, that brought you into this prison,"

My question seemed to surprise her and after a moment's silence she said:

"Don't you know why I am sentenced?"

MARGOT: "No; and you need not tell me if you don't want to. How long are you here for?"

THE WOMAN (in a penetrating voice): "Life!"

MARGOT: "That's impossible; no one is punished for life unless they commit murder; and even then the sentence is always shortened."

THE WOMAN: "Shortened in time for what? For your death and burial? Perhaps you don't know how kind they are to us here! No one is allowed to die in prison! But by the time your health is gone, your hair white and your friends are dead, your family do not need you and all that can be done for you is done by charity. You die and your eyes are closed by your landlady."

MARGOT: "Tell me what you did."

THE WOMAN: "Only what all you fashionable women do every day ..."

MARGOT: "What?"

THE WOMAN: "I helped those who were in trouble to get rid of their babies."

MARGOT: "Did you take money for it?"

THE WOMAN: "Sometimes I did it for nothing."

MARGOT: "What sort of women did you help?"

THE WOMAN: "Oh, quite poor women!"

MARGOT: "When you charged them, how much money did you ask for?"

THE WOMAN: "Four or five pounds and often less."

MARGOT: "Was your husband a respectable man and did he know anything about it?"

THE WOMAN: "My husband was highly respected. He was a stone-mason, and well to do, and knew nothing at all till I was arrested. ... He thought I made money sewing."

MARGOT: "Poor man, how tragic!"

After this rather stupid ejaculation of mine, she relapsed into a frozen silence and I got up off the ground and asked her if she liked books. No answer. If the food was good? No answer. If her bed was clean and comfortable? But all my questions were in vain. At last she broke the silence by saying:

"You said just now that you might be able to help me. There is only one thing in the world that I want, and you could not help to get it . ... No one can help me ..."

MARGOT: "Tell me what you want. How can I or any one else help you while you sit on the ground, neither speaking nor eating? Get up and I will listen to you; otherwise I shall go away."

After this she got up stiffly and lifted her arms in a stretch above her head, showing the outline of her fine bust. I said to her:

"I would like to help you."

THE WOMAN: "I want to see one person and only one. I think of nothing else and wonder night and day how it could be managed."

MARGOT: "Tell me who it is, this one person, that you think of and want so much to see."

THE WOMAN: "I want to see Mrs. Asquith."

MARGOT (dumb with surprise): "Why?"

THE WOMAN: "Because she is only just married and will never again have as much influence over her husband as she has now; and I am told she is kind ..."

MARGOT (moving towards her): "I am Mrs. Asquith."

At this the woman gave a sort of howl and, shivering, with her teeth set, flung herself at my feet and clasped my ankles with an iron clutch. I should have fallen, but, loosening her hold with great rapidity, she stood up and, facing me, held me by my shoulders. The door opened and the matron appeared, at which the woman sprang at her with a tornado of oaths, using strange words that I had never heard before. I tried to silence her, but in vain, so I told the matron that she might go and find out if my husband was ready for me. She did not move and seemed put out by my request.

"I really think," she said, "that you are extremely foolish risking anything with this woman.'

THE WOMAN (in a penetrating voice): "You clear out and go to hell with you! This person is a Christian, and you are not! You are a— ——!"

I put my hand over her mouth and said I would leave her for ever if she did not stop swearing. She sat down. I turned to the matron and said:

"You need not fear for me, thank you; we prefer being left alone."

When the matron had shut the door, the woman sprang up and, hanging it with her back, remained with arms akimbo and her legs apart, looking at me in defiance. I thought to myself, as I watched her resolute face and strong, young figure, that, if she wanted to prevent me getting out of that room alive, she could easily do so.

THE WOMAN: "You heard what I said, that you would never have as much influence with your husband as you have now, so just listen. He's all-powerful and, if he looks into my case, he will see that I am innocent and ought to be let out. The last Home Secretary was not married and never took any interest in us poor women."

Hearing the matron tapping at the door and feeling rather anxious to get out, I said:

"I give you my word of honour that I will make my husband read up all your case. The matron will give me your name and details, but I must go now."

THE WOMAN (with a sinister look): "Oh, no, you don't! You stay here till I give you the details: what does a woman like that care for a woman like me?" (throwing her thumb over her shoulder towards the matron behind the door). "What does she know about life?"

MARGOT: "You must let me open the door and get a pencil and paper."

THE WOMAN: "The old lady will do it for you while I give you the details of my case. You have only got to give her your orders. Does she know who you are?"

MARGOT: "No; and you must not tell her, please. If you will trust me with your secret, I will trust you with mine; but you must let me out first if I am to help you."

With a lofty wave of my hand, but without taking one step forward, I made her move away from the door, which I opened with a feeling of relief. The matron was in the passage and, while she was fetching a pencil, the woman, standing in the doorway of her cell, told me in lowered tones how cruelly unlucky she had been in life; what worthless, careless girls had passed through her hands; and how they had died from no fault of hers, but through their own ignorance. She ended by saying:

"There is no gratitude in this world ..."

When the matron came back, she was much shocked at seeing me kiss the convict.

I said, "Good-bye," and never saw her again.

My husband looked carefully into her case, but found that she was a professional abortionist of the most hopeless type.



CHAPTER VIII

MARGOT'S FIRST BABY AND ITS LOSS—DANGEROUS ILLNESS—LETTER FROM QUEEN VICTORIA—SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT'S PLEASANTRIES—ASQUITH MINISTRY FALLS—VISIT FROM DUCHESS D'AOSTA

Sir John Williams [Footnote: Sir John Williams, of Aberystwyth, Wales.] was my doctor and would have been a remarkable man in any country, but in Wales he was unique. He was a man of heart without hysteria and both loyal and truthful.

On the 18th of May, 1895, my sisters Charlotte and Lucy were sitting with me in my bedroom. I will quote from my diary the account of my first confinement and how I got to know him:

"I began to feel ill. My Gamp, an angular-faced, admirable old woman called Jerusha Taylor—'out of the Book of Kings'—was bustling about preparing for the doctor. Henry was holding my hands and I was sobbing in an arm-chair, feeling the panic of pain and fear which no one can realise who has not had a baby.

"When Williams arrived, I felt as if salvation must be near; my whole soul and every beat of my heart went out in dumb appeal to him, and his tenderness on that occasion bred in me a love and gratitude which never faded, but was intensified by all I saw of him afterwards. He seemed to think a narcotic would calm my nerves, but the sleeping-draught might have been water for all the effect it had upon me, so he gave me chloroform. The room grew dark; grey poppies appeared to be nodding at me—and I gasped:

"'Oh, doctor, DEAR doctor, stay with me to-night, just THIS one night, and I will stay with you whenever you like!'

"But Williams was too anxious, my nurse told me, to hear a word I said.

"At four o'clock in the morning, Henry went to fetch the anaesthetist and in his absence Williams took me out of chloroform. Then I seemed to have a glimpse of a different world: if PAIN is evil, then it was HELL; if not, I expect I got nearer Heaven than I have ever been before . ...

"I saw Dr. Bailey at the foot of the bed, with a bag in his hand, and Charty's outline against the lamp; then my head was placed on the pillow and a black thing came between me and the light and closed over my mouth, a slight beating of carpets sounded in my brain and I knew no more . ...

"When I came to consciousness about twelve the next morning, I saw Charty looking at me and I said to her in a strange voice:

"'I can't have any more pain, it's no use.'

"CHARTY: 'No, no, darling, you won't have any more.' (SILENCE.)

"MARGOT: 'But you don't mean it's all over?'

"CHARTY (soothingly): 'Go to sleep, dearest.'

"I was so dazed by chloroform that I could hardly speak. Later on the nurse told me that the doctor had had to sacrifice my baby and that I ought to be grateful for being spared, as I had had a very dangerous confinement.

"When Sir John Williams came to see me, he looked white and tired and, finding my temperature was normal, he said fervently:

"'Thank you, Mrs. Asquith.'

"I was too weak and uncomfortable to realise all that had happened; and what I suffered from the smallest noise I can hardly describe. I would watch nurse slowly approaching and burst into a perspiration when her cotton dress crinkled against the chintz of my bed. I shivered with fear when the blinds were drawn up or the shutters unfastened; and any one moving up or down stairs, placing a tumbler on the marble wash-hand-stand or reading a newspaper would bring tears into my eyes."

In connection with what I have quoted out of my diary here it is not inappropriate to add that I lost my babies in three out of my five confinements. These poignant and secret griefs have no place on the high-road of life; but, just as Henry and I will stand sometimes side by side near those little graves unseen by strangers, so he and I in unobserved moments will touch with one heart an unforgotten sorrow.

Out of the many letters which I received, this from our intimate and affectionate friend, Lord Haldane, was the one I liked best:

MY DEAR FRIEND,

I cannot easily tell you how much touched I was in the few minutes I spent talking to you this afternoon, by what I saw and what you told me. I left with the sense of witnessing triumph in failure and life come through death. The strength that is given at such times arises not from ignoring loss, or persuading oneself that the thing is not that IS; but from the resolute setting of the face to the East and the taking of one step onwards. It is the quality we touch—it may be but for a moment—not the quantity we have, that counts. "All I could never be, all that was lost in me is yet there—in His hand who planned the perfect whole." That was what Browning saw vividly when he wrote his Rabbi Ben Ezra. You have lost a great joy. But in the deepening and strengthening the love you two have for each other you have gained what is rarer and better; it is well worth the pain and grief—the grief you have borne in common—and you will rise stronger and freer.

We all of us are parting from youth, and the horizon is narrowing, but I do not feel any loss that is not compensated by gain, and I do not think that you do either. Anything that detaches one, that makes one turn from the past and look simply at what one has to do, brings with it new strength and new intensity of interest. I have no fear for you when I see what is absolutely and unmistakably good and noble obliterating every other thought as I saw it this afternoon. I went away with strengthened faith in what human nature was capable of.

May all that is highest and best lie before you both.

Your affec. friend,

R. B. HALDANE.

I was gradually recovering my health when on May the 21st, 1895, after an agonising night, Sir John Williams and Henry came into my bedroom between five and six in the morning and I was told that I should have to lie on my back till August, as I was suffering from phlebitis; but I was too unhappy and disappointed to mind. It was then that my doctor, Sir John Williams, became my friend as well as my nurse, and his nobility of character made him a powerful influence in my life.

To return to my diary:

"Queen Victoria took a great interest in my confinement, and wrote Henry a charming letter. She sent messengers constantly to ask after me and I answered her myself once, in pencil, when Henry was at the Home Office.

"I was convalescing one day, lying as usual on my bed, my mind a blank, when Sir William Harcourt's card was sent up to me and my door was darkened by his huge form.

I had seen most of my political and other friends while I was convalescing: Mr. Gladstone, Lord Haldane, Mr. Birrell, Lord Spencer, Lord Rosebery, the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Morley, Arthur Balfour, Sir Alfred Lyall and Admiral Maxse; and I was delighted to see Sir William Harcourt. When he came into my room, he observed my hunting-crops hanging on the wall from a rack, and said:

"I am glad to see those whips! Asquith will be able to beat you if you play fast and loose with him. That little tight mouth of his convinces me he has the capacity to do it.

"After my nurse had left the room, he expressed surprise that I should have an ugly woman near me, however good she might be, and told me that his son, Bobby, had been in love with his nurse and wrote to her for several years. He added, in his best Hanoverian vein:

"'I encourage my boys all I can in this line; it promises well for their future.'"

"After some talk, Mr. John Morley's card was brought up and, seeing Sir William look rather subdued, I told the servant to ask him to wait in my boudoir for a few minutes and assured my guest that I was in no hurry for him to go; but Harcourt began to fidget about and after a little he insisted on John Morley coming up. We had a good talk a trots, starting by abusing men who minded other people's opinion or what the newspapers said of them. Knowing, as I did, that both of them were highly sensitive to the Press, I encouraged the conversation.

"JOHN MORLEY: 'I can only say I agree with what Joe once said to me, "I would rather the newspapers were for than against me."'

"SIR WILLIAM: 'My dear chap, you would surely not rather have the DAILY CHRONICLE on your side. Why, bless my soul, our party has had more harm done it through the DAILY CHRONICLE than anything else!'

"MARGOT: Do you think so? I think its screams, though pitched a little high, are effective!'

"JOHN MORLEY: 'Oh, you like Massingham, of course, because your husband is one of his heroes.'

"SIR WILLIAM: 'Well, all I can say is he always abuses me and I am glad of it.'

"JOHN MORLEY: 'He abuses me, too, though not, perhaps, quite so often as you!'

"MARGOT: 'I would like him to praise me. I think his descriptions of the House of Commons debates are not only true and brilliant but fine literature; there is both style and edge in his writing and I rather like that bitter-almond flavour! How strangely the paper changed over to Lord Rosebery, didn't it?'

"Feeling this was ticklish ground, as Harcourt thought that he and not Rosebery should have been Prime Minister, I turned the talk on to Goschen.

"SIR WILLIAM: 'It is sad to see the way Goschen has lost his hold in the country; he has not been at all well treated by his colleagues.'

"This seemed to me to be also rather risky, so I said boldly that I thought Goschen had done wonders in the House and country, considering he had a poor voice and was naturally cautious. I told them I loved him personally and that Jowett at whose house I first met him shared my feeling in valuing his friendship. After this he took his departure, promising to bring me roses from Malwood.

"John Morley—the most fastidious and fascinating of men—stayed on with me and suggested quite seriously that, when we went out of office (which might happen any day), he and I should write a novel together. He said that, if I would write the plot and do the female characters, he would manage the men and politics.

I asked if he wanted the old Wilkie Collins idea of a plot with a hundred threads drawn into one woof, or did he prefer modern nothingness, a shred of a story attached to unending analysis and the infinitely little commented upon with elaborate and pretentious humour. He scorned the latter.

I asked him if he did not want to go permanently away from politics to literature and discussed all his wonderful books and writings. I chaffed him about the way he had spoken of me before our marriage, in spite of the charming letter he had written, how it had been repeated to me that he had said my light-hearted indiscretions would ruin Henry's career; and I asked him what I had done since to merit his renewed confidence.

"He did not deny having criticised me, for although 'Honest John' —the name by which he went among the Radicals—was singularly ill- chosen, I never heard of Morley telling a lie. He was quite impenitent and I admired his courage.

"After an engrossing conversation, every moment of which I loved, he said good-bye to me and I leant back against the pillow and gazed at the pattern on the wall.

"Henry came into my room shortly after this and told me the Government had been beaten by seven in a vote of censure passed on Campbell-Bannerman in Supply, in connection with small arms ammunition. I looked at him wonderingly and said:

"'Are you sad, darling, that we are out?'

"To which he replied:

"'Only for one reason. I wish I had completed my prison reforms. I have, however, appointed the best committee ever seen, who will go on with my work. Ruggles-Brise, the head of it, is a splendid little fellow!'

"At that moment he received a note to say he was wanted in the House of Commons immediately, as Lord Rosebery had been sent for by the Queen. This excited us much and, before he could finish telling me what had happened, he went straight down to Westminster . ... John Morley had missed this fateful division, as he was sitting with me, and Harcourt had only just arrived at the House in time to vote.

"Henry returned at 1 a.m. and came to say good night to me: he generally said his prayers by my bedside. He told me that St. John Brodrick's motion to reduce C. B.'s salary by L100 had turned the Government out; that Rosebery had resigned and gone straight down to Windsor; that Campbell-Bannerman was indignant and hurt; that few of our men were in the House; and that Akers Douglas, the Tory Whip, could not believe his eyes when he handed the figures to Tom Ellis, our chief Whip, who returned them to him in silence.

"The next morning St. John Brodrick came to see me, full of excitement and sympathy. He was anxious to know if we minded his being instrumental in our downfall; but I am so fond of him that, of course, I told him that I did not mind, as a week sooner or later makes no difference and St. John's division was only one out of many indications in the House and the country that our time was up. Henry came back from the Cabinet in the middle of our talk and shook his fist in fun at 'our enemy.' He was tired, but good- humoured as ever.

"At 3:30 Princess Helene d'Orleans came to see me and told me of her engagement to the Due d'Aosta. She looked tall, black and distinguished. She spoke of Prince Eddy to me with great frankness. I told her I had sometimes wondered at her devotion to one less clever than herself. At this her eyes filled with tears and she explained to me how much she had been in love and the sweetness and nobility of his character. I had reason to know the truth of what she said when one day Queen Alexandra, after talking to me in moving terms of her dead son, wrote in my Prayer Book:

"Man looketh upon the countenance, but God upon the heart.

"Helene adores the Princess of Wales [Footnote: Queen Alexandra.] but not the Prince! [Footnote: King Edward VII.] and says the latter's rudeness to her brother, the Duc d'Orleans, is terrible. I said nothing, as I am devoted to the Prince and think her brother deserves any ill-treatment he gets. I asked her if she was afraid of the future: a new country and the prospect of babies, etc. She answered that d'Aosta was so genuinely devoted that it would make everything easy for her.

"'What would you do if he were unfaithful to you?' I asked.

"PRINCESS HELENE: 'Oh! I told Emanuel. ... I said, "You see? I leave you ... If you are not true to me, I instantly leave you," and I should do so at once.'

"She begged me never to forget her, but always to pray for her.

"'I love you,' she said, 'as every one else does'; and with a warm embrace she left the room.

"She came of a handsome family: Blowitz's famous description,'de loin on dirait un Prussien, de pres un imbecile,' was made of a near relation of the Duchesse d'Aosta."

With the fall of the Government my diary of that year ceases to have the smallest interest.



CHAPTER IX

MARGOT IN 1906 SUMS UP HER LIFE; A LOT OF LOVE-MAKING, A LITTLE FAME AND MORE ABUSE—A REAL MAN AND GREAT HAPPINESS

I will finish with a character-sketch of myself copied out of my diary, written nine weeks before the birth of my fifth and last baby in 1906, and like everything else that I have quoted never intended for the public eye:

"I am not pretty, and I do not know anything about my expression, although I observe it is this that is particularly dwelt upon if one is sufficiently plain; but I hope, when you feel as kindly towards your fellow-creatures as I do, that some of that warmth may modify an otherwise bright and rather knifey CONTOUR.

"My figure has remained as it was: slight, well-balanced and active. Being socially courageous and not at all shy, I think I can come into a room as well as many people of more appearance and prestige. I do not propose to treat myself like Mr. Bernard Shaw in this account. I shall neither excuse myself from praise, nor shield myself from blame, but put down the figures as accurately as I can and leave others to add them up.

"I think I have imagination, born not of fancy, but of feeling; a conception of the beautiful, not merely in poetry, music, art and nature, but in human beings. I have insight into human nature, derived not only from a courageous experience, but also from imagination; and I have a clear though distant vision, down dark, long and often divergent avenues, of the ordered meaning of God. I take this opportunity of saying my religion is a vibrating reality never away from me; and this is all I shall write upon the subject.

"It is difficult to describe what one means by imagination, but I think it is more than inventiveness, or fancy. I remember discussing the question with John Addington Symonds and, to give him a hasty illustration of what I meant, I said I thought naming a Highland regiment 'The Black Watch' showed a HIGH degree of imagination. He was pleased with this; and as a personal testimonial I may add that both he and Jowett told me that no one could be as good a judge of character as I was who was without imagination. In an early love-letter to me, Henry wrote:

"Imaginative insight you have more than any one I have ever met!

"I think I am deficient in one form of imagination; and Henry will agree with this. I have a great longing to help those I love: this leads me to intrepid personal criticism; and I do not always know what hurts my friends' feelings. I do not think I should mind anything that I have said to others being said to me, but one never can tell; I have a good, sound digestion and personally prefer knowing the truth; I have taken adverse criticism pretty well all my life and had a lot of it; but by some gap I have not succeeded in making my friends take it well. I am not vain or touchy; it takes a lot to offend me; but when I am hurt the scar remains. I feel differently about people who have hurt me; my confidence has been shaken; I hope I am not ungenerous, but I fear I am not really forgiving. Worldly people say that explanations are a mistake; but having it out is the only chance any one can ever have of retaining my love; and those who have neither the courage, candour nor humbleness to say they are wrong are not worth loving. I am not afraid of suffering too much in life, but much more afraid of feeling too little; and quarrels make me profoundly unhappy. One of my complaints against the shortness of life is that there is not time enough to feel pity and love for enough people. I am infinitely compassionate and moved to my foundations by the misfortunes of other people.

"As I said in my 1888 character-sketch, truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue, but I cannot discriminate between truths that need and those that need not be told. Want of courage is what makes so many people lie. It would be difficult for me to say exactly what I am afraid of. Physically and socially not much; morally, I am afraid of a good many things: reprimanding servants, bargaining in shops; or to turn to more serious matters, the loss of my health, the children's or Henry's. Against these last possibilities I pray in every recess of my thoughts.

"With becoming modesty I have said that I am imaginative, loving and brave! What then are my faults?

"I am fundamentally nervous, impatient, irritable and restless. These may sound slight shortcomings, but they go to the foundation of my nature, crippling my activity, lessening my influence and preventing my achieving anything remarkable. I wear myself out in a hundred unnecessary ways, regretting the trifles I have not done, arranging and re-arranging what I have got to do and what every one else is going to do, till I can hardly eat or sleep. To be in one position for long at a time, or sit through bad plays, to listen to moderate music or moderate conversation is a positive punishment to me. I am energetic and industrious, but I am a little too quick; I am DRIVEN along by my temperament till I tire myself and every one else.

"I did not marry till I was thirty. This luckily gave me time to read; and I collected nearly a thousand books of my own before I married. If I had had real application—as all the Asquiths have— I should by now be a well-educated woman; but this I never had. I am not at all dull, and never stale, but I don't seem to be able to grind at uncongenial things. I have a good memory for books and conversations, but bad for poetry and dates; wonderful for faces and pitiful for names.

"Physically I have done pretty well for myself. I ride better than most people and have spent or wasted more time on it than any woman of intellect ought to. I have broken both collar-bones, all my ribs and my knee-cap; dislocated my jaw, fractured my skull, gashed my nose and had five concussions of the brain; but—though my horses are to be sold next week [Footnote: My horses were sold at Tattersalls, June 11th, 1906.]—I have not lost my nerve. I dance, drive and skate well; I don't skate very well, but I dance really well. I have a talent for drawing and am intensely musical, playing the piano with a touch of the real thing, but have neglected both these accomplishments. I may say here in self- defence that marriage and five babies, five step-children and a husband in high politics have all contributed to this neglect, but the root of the matter lies deeper: I am restless.

"After riding, what I have enjoyed doing most in my life is writing. I have written a great deal, but do not fancy publishing my exercises. I have always kept a diary and commonplace books and for many years I wrote criticisms of everything I read. It is rather difficult for me to say what I think of my own writing. Arthur Balfour once said that I was the best letter-writer he knew; Henry tells me I write well; and Symonds said I had l'oreille juste; but writing of the kind that I like reading I cannot do: it is a long apprenticeship. Possibly, if I had had this apprenticeship forced upon me by circumstances, I should have done it better than anything else. I am a careful critic of all I read and I do not take my opinions of books from other people; I have not got 'a lending-library mind' as Henry well described that of a friend of ours. I do not take my opinions upon anything from other people; from this point of view—not a very high one—I might be called original.