Passing By

I am going back to London at the end of next week.

Yrs.G.LONDON, Wednesday, January 11th.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I came back to London on Monday. I asked Housman to dinner with me and told him that he had much better get Mrs Housman back. He said he quite agreed that it was the only thing to do. Things were now worse than ever. Mrs Park was impossible. Poor little "Bert"! The worst of it is, that directly this is over there is quite certain to be someone else and perhaps someone worse. However, let us hope for the best. George came to the office yesterday. He said he had been staying with his sister; he said nothing about Florence. He is in low spirits.

I shall certainly go abroad at Easter and spend a few days in Paris in any case. Lady Jarvis is back in London, and the Shamiers. I dined there last night. Lavroff was there and Louise is just as fond of him as ever.

Poor Godfrey Mellor is terribly melancholy. He has got a friend staying with him now and I don't see much of him.

Yrs.G.

From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor

Tuesday, February 15th, 1910.

Alfred Riley arrived last night. He is now professor at Shelborough University and is editing Propertius. He has come to consult some books at the British Museum.

Wednesday, February 16th.

Sat up very late last night talking with Riley. He was amused by a conversation he had overheard at a Club. Two men were talking about someone who had become a Roman Catholic. Someone he didn't know. One of them said to the other that it was a very pleasant solution if you could do it. The other one said: "Certainly; no bother, no responsibility … everything settled for you." I said that I did think the Confessional must be the negation of responsibility. Riley said that by becoming a Catholic you became responsible for all your actions. He said that before he was a Catholic he felt no responsibility at all to anything or anyone, but that the moment you were a Catholic everything you did and said counted. Every time you went to Confession you acknowledged and confirmed your assumption of responsibility. I mentioned a common friend of ours, O'Neil, who had been a Catholic all his life and who, though he was married, had never ceased to live with a Miss Silvia Thorpe, whom I had known as an artist. He didn't hide it, neither did she. Riley said that this proved his point. O'Neil never dreamt of going to Confession; he knew it would be useless, because he had no intention of giving up Miss Thorpe, and that being so, he knew he couldn't get Absolution, It was a sacrifice to him, a very great sacrifice, as he Was a believing Catholic. "That shows," he went on, "that you don't understand how the thing works. You and all Protestants think that one can stroll into the Confessional, wipe the slate clean and go on with what you are doing, however bad it is, with the implied sanction of the Church. But the fact remains that practising Catholics who are living in a way which the Church condemned do not go to Confession. Going to Confession entails facing responsibility instead of evading it." He said that if what I thought was true, people like O'Neil would go to Confession. I must face the fact that he did not go to Confession and was extremely unhappy on that account. He would like to go to the Sacraments but he had made this great sacrifice with his eyes open. I said that I had always thought the Church was lax about such matters. He said individuals might be lax. The Church was not responsible for the conduct of individuals, but the rule of the Church was absolutely uncompromising. I said O'Neil might be an extreme case, but supposing a devout Catholic married woman had a great man friend, supposing he was very much in love with her, but she was a virtuous woman, faithful to her husband, she could go on seeing the other man as much as she liked? Would the Church forbid it? Riley said the Church would forbid sin. Any priest would tell her that if she thought it might lead to sin, she must cut it out of her life. I said that was quite clear, but he was not telling me what I wanted to know. He said: "What is it that you want to know?" I said I must give it up. I couldn't put it into words. I said Roman Catholics were always so matter-of-fact. They handed one opinions and ideas like chocolates wrapped up in silver paper. He said: "You think that, because you would sooner walk naked in the streets than think things out, or call things by their names. You like leaving them vague. 'Le vague,' Renan said, 'est pire que le faux.'"

I said, going back to the question of responsibility, that I had often heard Catholics themselves complain of the want of responsibility of Catholics. Riley said that might very well be; they might lack a sense of responsibility, just as they might lack a sense of charity or honesty. "You think," he said, "that the Church is perpetually arranging comfortable compromises. Nothing is further from the truth. Nothing is harder on the individual than certain of the commandments of the Church with regard to marriage: for instance, divorce, and the bearing of children. Some of the Church's views were just as hard on the individual as it was hard on a man, who is going to catch a train to see his dying child, to be delayed by a policeman holding up the traffic, but in order to make traffic possible, you had to have a policeman, and the individual couldn't complain however much he might suffer.

"I know a much harder case than O'Neil's," he said: "a colleague of mine who is married and has been completely neglected by his wife. On the other hand, he has been looked after devotedly for years by another woman, who nursed him when he was ill and saved his life. He wants to become a Catholic, but he knows quite well that the Church will not receive him unless he were to give up this woman, whom he adores, and go back to his wife, who is indifferent to him. What you don't understand," he said, "is that the Church is not an air cushion but a rock."

He said I accused the Church of being lax, but many people that he knew found fault with what they called the hardness of the Church. But as a matter of fact they had generally to admit that as far as the human race was concerned the Church in such matters of morals was always right. He cited instances of what the Church was right in condemning. I said that one did not need to be Roman Catholic to know that immorality was bad for the State, and that vice was noxious to the individual. The ordinary laymen reach the same conclusions merely by common-sense.

Riley said there were only two points of view in the world: the Catholic point of view or the non-Catholic point of view. All so-called religions which I could mention, including my layman's common-sense view, were either lopped-off branches of Catholicism or shadows of it, or a blind aspiration towards it, or a misguided parallel of it, as of a train that had gone off the rails, or a travesty of it, sometimes serious, and sometimes grotesque: a distortion. The other point of view was the materialist point of view, which he could perfectly well understand anyone holding. It depends, he said, whether you think human life is casual or divine.

I said I could quite well conceive a philosophy which would be neither materialist nor Catholic. He quoted Dr Johnson about everyone having a right to his opinion, and martyrdom being the test. Catholicism, he said, had survived the test; would my philosophy?

As far as I was concerned I admitted that I held no opinion for which I was ready to go to the stake, except, possibly, that Jane Eyre was an interesting book.

Monday, February 21st.

I heard from Mrs Housman this morning. She returns to-morrow.

Saturday, February 26th.

Called on Mrs Housman, and found her in. Housman was there also. They asked me to dinner next Monday.

Sunday, February 27th. Rosedale.

I am staying with Lady Jarvis. There is no one else. Lady Jarvis said she was glad Mrs Housman had returned to London.

Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl

LONDON, Tuesday, March 1st.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I dined with the Housmans last night. Only myself, Miss Sarah, Lady Jarvis, and Godfrey Mellor. Everything as it used to be. Carrington-Smith came in after dinner. He has not been inside the house for months. I don't know what Mrs Housman did nor how it was done, but it was done, and done most successfully and quickly! She only came back a week ago. "Bert" looks quite different and is perfectly radiant.

George, I gather, hasn't seen her. They asked him to dinner last night, but he had an official dinner and couldn't come. He asked me whether I had seen her. He said he had been there several times, but she had always been out. He is still most depressed and goes nowhere unless he is absolutely obliged to. The Housmans have asked me to spend Easter at their villa. Lady Jarvis is going, and Godfrey; and Housman told me he was going to ask George. I am going and I shall stop two or three days in Paris on the way.

Lavinia Wray has gone to the south of France with her aunt. The Shamiers are going to Paris next week. They will tell you all the news, not that there is much.

Yrs.G.

From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor

Monday, February 28th.

A. told me he had not been to the country after all on Saturday.

Tuesday, March 1st.

Dined with the Housmans, a very agreeable dinner. Mrs Housman played and sang after dinner: Brahms' Lieder, and some Grieg.

Wednesday, March 2nd.

A. asked me to luncheon. He told me he had been so sorry not to be able to go to the Housmans' last night. He said he had not seen them yet. He was so busy. He asked me how Mrs Housman was and whether Florence had done her good.

Thursday, March 3rd.

I told Riley I had been reading Renan's Souvenirs d'enfance et de jeunesse, and that Renan said in this book that there was nothing in Catholic dogmas which raised in him a contrary opinion; nothing either in the political action or in the spirit of the Church, either in the past or in the present, that led him to doubt; but directly he studied the "Higher Criticism" and German text-books his faith in the Church crumbled. I asked Riley what he thought of this. He said people treated German text-books superstitiously then and they still did so now. If German text-books dealt with Shakespeare people could see at once that they were talking nonsense, and that mountains of erudition were being built on a false base, a base which we knew to be false, because we were English; but when they dealt with things more remote, like the Gospels, people swallowed what they said, and accepted any of their theories as infallible dogma. In twenty years' time, he said, nobody will care two straws for the "Higher Criticism."

Riley is going away to-morrow.

Friday, March 4th.

Mrs Housman has written to ask me to come and see her on Sunday afternoon if I am in London.

Dined with Cunninghame at a restaurant and went to the Palace Music Hall afterwards.

Saturday, March 5th.

A. is much annoyed at having to stay with the Foreign Secretary. Dined at the Club.

Sunday, March 6th.

Spent the afternoon at Mrs Housman's. There was nobody there until Housman came in late just when I was going. Housman said we must all meet at Florence. He said he was going to ask A. "But we never see him now," he added. He asked me what A. was doing. I told him he was staying with the Foreign Secretary. He said, of course he was right to attend to his official and especially to his social duties. He said he would ask him to dinner next week. He asked me to dine on Wednesday. Mrs Housman asked me to go to a concert with her on Tuesday.

Monday, March 7th.

Dined at the Club.

Tuesday, March 8th.

Went to a concert in Chelsea with Mrs Housman, Housman and Miss Housman. Solway played, and an excellent violinist, Miss Bowden; Beethoven Sonata (G Major) and Schubert Quartet (D Minor). We all enjoyed the music and the playing. During the interval we went to see Solway. Housman asked him to dinner to-morrow.

Wednesday, March 9th.

Dined with the Housmans. Lady Jarvis, Mrs Campion, Solway, Cunninghame, Mrs Baines, and A. and Miss Housman were there. I sat between Lady Jarvis and Mrs Campion. After dinner Mrs Housman asked Solway to try a song with her, a new English song by a boy who has just left the College of Music. She sang this and after that she sang all the Winterreise. Housman asked A. and Mrs Campion to stay with them in Florence. Mrs Campion cannot get away this Easter. A. accepted the invitation.

Thursday, March 10th.

Went after dinner to Aunt Ruth's. Uncle Arthur is quite restored to health. He asked me whether I had been appointed to Paris, still thinking that I was in the F.O. There were a great many people there. Aunt Ruth spoke severely about A. and said she heard he only went out in the Bohemian world. I said he had stayed with the Foreign Secretary last week.

Friday, March 11th.

Dined with Mrs Campion. A. was there and the Albertis, who are over in England. A. said he was much looking forward to Florence. Easter is early this year.

Saturday, March 12th.

A. has gone to Littlehampton. He has asked the Housmans and Cunninghame. I am going to Woking.

Sunday, March 13th.

Spent the day with Solway, who played Bach. Returned by the late train after dinner.

Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl

LONDON, Monday, March 14th.

DEAREST ELSIE,

I have just come back from Littlehampton, where I spent Sunday with George and his sister. The Housmans were asked and Housman went, but Mrs Housman was not well. I start on Thursday morning and shall be in Paris Thursday night and stay there till Monday. Let us do something amusing. I should like to go to the play one night. But you have probably seen all the best things hundreds of times. I am going on co Florence on Monday. I don't think George has seen much of Mrs Housman. I dined there last Wednesday. Mrs Housman sang the whole evening so that he did not get any talk with her. Godfrey has been much more cheerful lately and even suggested going to a music-hall one night. Mrs Campion is coming to Florence too.

I'm sorry I've been so bad about writing lately. I seem to have had no time and yet to have done nothing, and there have been a series of rather tiresome episodes at the office.

Au revoir till Thursday,

Yours,G.

From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor

Monday, March 14th

A. came back from the country in a gloomy state of mind. He said it was a great mistake to go to the country in March and that his party had been a failure. He said bachelors should not give parties. He asked me to dine with him, which I did. He says he is leaving on Wednesday but will stop two nights in Paris. Mrs Campion is travelling with him.

Tuesday, March 15th.

Mrs Housman rang up on the telephone and told me that a young vocalist was dining with them to-morrow night. She wanted a few people to hear her. Would I come? Solway was coming.

Dined with Cunninghame at his Club. He says he has never seen A. so depressed.

Wednesday, March 16th.

Dined with the Housmans. Miss Housman, Solway and Lady Jarvis were there. The vocalist, a Miss Byfield, did not arrive till after dinner. Mrs Housman said Miss Byfield was shy and had refused to dine at the last moment. After dinner she sang some songs from the classical composers. She was extremely nervous. Mrs Housman and Solway say she has promise. Housman said to me confidentially that he was sure there was no money in her. The Housmans leave to-morrow. A. left to-day.

Thursday, March 17th.

Cunninghame left to-day. I had dinner with Lady Jarvis. She asked me to travel with her on Saturday. We are both stopping Sunday night in Paris.

Friday, March 18th.

Lunched and dined at the Club. Packed up my things. Am taking some music with me.

Saturday, March 19th. Paris.

Arrived at the Hôtel Saint Romain. Had a pleasant journey with Lady Jarvis.

Sunday, March 20th.

Lady Jarvis took me to see a French friend of hers, Madame Sainton. It was her day. There was a large crowd of men and women in the drawing-room and the dining-room, where there was tea, Madeira and excellent sandwiches. The French take just as much trouble about preparing a good tea as they do to write or to dress well. I was introduced to a famous composer, who talked to me technically about boxing. I was obliged to confess that I knew nothing of the art. It was a pity, I thought, Carrington-Smith was not there. I was also introduced to a French author, who asked me what was the place of Meredith in modern literature, what les jeunes thought about him. I was obliged to confess I had never read one line of Meredith. The French author thought I despised him. He asked me: "Quest qu'on lit en Angleterre maintenant avant de se coucher?" I said that I had no idea what les jeunes read but that I personally, for a bedside book, preferred Jane Eyre.

The French author said "Tiens!" He then asked me what I thought of Bernard Shaw. I had again to confess that I had never seen his plays acted. I told him that when I had time to spare I went to concerts. He said: "Ah! la musique," and I felt he was generalising a whole movement in young England towards music.

In the evening we went to the Opéra Comique and heard Carmen, which I greatly enjoyed.

Monday, March 21st. Florence. Villa Fersen.

We arrived at Florence this morning. Cunninghame and A. and Mrs Campion were in the same train. The Housmans had been there some days already.

Tuesday, March 22nd.

Cunninghame, Mrs Housman, A. and Mrs Campion went out together. Lady Jarvis stayed at home. I went later in the morning to the Pitti. In the afternoon they went to Fiesole. Housman went to call on some friends. Lady Jarvis and I went for a walk.

Wednesday, March 23rd.

We were invited to luncheon by a Mr Eugene Lowe, a friend of Lady Jarvis. He has a flat in the town on the Pitti side of the river. The Housmans and Cunninghame and myself went. A. and his sister had luncheon with the Albertis. Mr Lowe's flat had the peculiarity that everything in it had been ingeniously diverted from its original purpose. The only other guest besides ourselves was an ex-diplomatist whom I met last year.

Thursday, March 24th.

Lady Jarvis has gone to Venice, where she is staying with friends until next Monday. While we were sight-seeing this morning we met a lady called Mrs Fairburn, who claimed to be an old friend of Mrs Housman. Mrs Housman told me she had met her in America soon after she married, but that she had never known her well. She asked us all to luncheon on Saturday. Mrs Housman accepted for herself and Housman. Cunninghame and I also accepted. A. and his sister were engaged.

In the afternoon Mrs Housman said she was going to hear a Dominican preach. Cunninghame and I asked if we might accompany her. A. said it was no use his going as he did not understand Italian. He was most eloquent.

Friday (Good Friday), March 25th.

Mrs Housman spent the whole morning in church. I went with Cunninghame for a long walk.

Saturday, March 26th.

We had luncheon with Mrs Fairburn, who has a villa on the Fiesole side. She is a widow and always, she says, lives abroad; so much so, she told us, that she had difficulty in speaking English correctly. She gave us no evidence that she spoke any other language with great correctness. She told me she was overjoyed at meeting Mrs Housman, who was her oldest friend. Housman asked her to dinner to-morrow night.

Sunday (Easter Sunday), March 27th.

I went for a walk by myself. When I got back I found various people at the villa and escaped to my room. Mrs Fairburn came to dinner. When Housman said he had been suffering from a headache she exclaimed: "Poveretto!" and said she was feeling-rather "Moche" herself. Looking at Mrs Housman, she said to me: "She is ravissante, che bellezza! E vero?"

Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl

VILLA FERSEN, FLORENCE, Easter Monday, March 28th.

DEAREST ELSIE,

We arrived safely and we are a very happy party. Lady Jarvis has gone to Venice to stay with the Lumleys, but comes back to-morrow. George is, of course, immensely happy at being here, but it isn't really satisfactory. We haven't seen many people, though we have been out to luncheon twice: once with that terrible bore, Eugene Lowe, who lives in a flat which is the most monstrous ind absurd thing I have ever seen. The walls are hung with Turkish carpets; the chairs and tables with Church vestments; the books turn out to be cigarette lamps and cigar cases; the writing-table is a gutted spinet; and in the middle of the room there is a large Venetian well, which he uses for cigarette ashes.

On Saturday we had luncheon with a Mrs Fairburn, who professed to be an old friend of Mrs Housman's. This turned out to be a gross exaggeration. She is an affected woman who dresses in what are meant to be ultra-French clothes, and she speaks broken English on purpose. She pretends to be silly, but is far from being anything of the kind. I can see now that she has got her eye on Housman. He was quite charmed by her. She has arranged an outing next week. I can see that she is going to stick like a leech, and she will be, unless I am very much mistaken, much worse than Mrs Park or any of them.

Godfrey Mellor is, I think, liking it, but he insists on going out by himself, and every day he goes to some gallery with a Baedeker, all alone. We always ask him to come with us, but it is no use. He says he has got things to do in the town and off he goes.

We go about mostly all together except for Godfrey, who always manages to elude us.

I am staying till Monday, then two days at Mentone, and then home (via Paris, but only for a night).

Yrs.G.

From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor

Monday (Easter Monday), March 28th.

We all had luncheon with the Albertis. Lady Jarvis returned in the afternoon from Venice.

Tuesday, March 29th.

Went to the Uffizzi. Housman said he was going to spend the day in visits.

Wednesday, March 30th.

Mrs Fairburn came to luncheon. Housman said when she had gone that she was a very remarkable woman, so cultivated, so well read and widely travelled. He said she ought to have held some great position. She should have been an Empress.

I went to the Pitti in the morning and to the Boboli Gardens in the afternoon.

Thursday, March 31st.

The Albertis came to luncheon. Baroness Strong and Mrs Fisk called in the afternoon. They both asked us all to entertainments, but Housman explained that we had guests ourselves every day. He asked them to dinner on Sunday, but they declined.

Friday, April 1st.

Housman has bought some miniatures by a young artist recommended by Mrs Fairburn. I do not think they are well done, but I am no judge. A. and Mrs Campion left.

Saturday, April 2nd.

Mrs Housman suggested having luncheon in the town and going to Fiesole afterwards, but Housman explained, with some embarrassment, that he had promised to go with Mrs Fairburn to see a studio and to have luncheon with her afterwards.

I leave for London to-night. I am going straight through.

Letter from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl

VILLA BEAU SITE, MENTONE, Wednesday, April 6th.

DEAREST ELSIE,

Just a line to say I shall arrive the day after to-morrow, and I can only stay one night. Godfrey Mellor left Florence on Saturday, and George and his sister are on their way back. George was very sad at going – I think he feels it's the end – Mrs Housman and Lady Jarvis are staying on till next Monday, and I think Housman also. What I fore-saw has happened more quickly than I expected. Housman is now the devoted slave of Mrs Fairburn, and she has announced her intention of coming to London in the summer, so this will make fresh complications.