Maurice Baring
Passing By
Housman has bought a large modern statue representing The Triumph of Truth, a female figure carrying a torch, with a serpent at her feet. She is triumphing, I suppose, over the snake.
Saturday, April 3rd.
We went to see the Easter Saturday ceremony at the Duomo, and then to luncheon at the Villa Michael Angelo. It belongs to a rich American called Fisk. There were present besides Mr and Mrs Fisk an English authoress, a picture connoisseur, Scalchi, an American archæologist, an Italian man of letters, and a Miss Sinclair, also an archæologist. Housman said afterwards this was the cream of intellectual Florence.
I sat between two archæologists. I found their conversation difficult to follow.
After luncheon we called on the British Consul's wife, whose day it was. Then after a drive in the Cascine we went home.
Easter Sunday, April 4th.
Mrs Housman went to Mass early. Went for a walk with Housman. On the Ponte Vecchio we met Ayton and his sister, Mrs Campion. Mrs Campion, he said, had insisted on him taking her to Florence.
Housman asked them to dinner to-night; they accepted. A great many people came to tea.
The dinner-party to-night was quite a large one. Baron and Baroness Strong, Lord Ayton, Mrs Campion, Mr and Mrs Fisk, Scalchi and the Marchese and his wife, whom we met lately. I sat between Mrs Campion and Baron Strong. After dinner Mrs Fisk played Chopin with astonishing facility, but without any expression.
A. intends to stay here another fortnight.
Housman said he received a telegram which will necessitate his meeting his partner at Genoa. His partner is on the way to the Riviera. He may have to go to Paris too, but he hopes not, and intends to be back in a few days if possible.
Monday, April 5th.
Housman left to-day for Genoa. I went with Mrs Housman to San Marco and the Accademia in the morning. In the afternoon to the Certosa with Mrs Housman, A. and Mrs Campion.
Tuesday, April 6th.
Mrs Campion and A. came to luncheon. Mrs Campion, who is an expert gardener, told me the names of all the flowers in the garden. They have not remained in my mind.
Wednesday, April 7th.
We all spent a morning sight-seeing and had luncheon at a restaurant. In the afternoon we drove to Fiesole.
Thursday, April 8th.
Housman is not coming back. He is obliged to go to Paris and he will go straight to London from there.
We drove to Fiesole in the morning. Had luncheon with some Italian friends of Mrs Campion, Count and Countess Alberti. Nobody there except the host and hostess and their three children. A fine villa and no garden. Countess Alberti said it was no use having a garden if one lived here in summer, as everything dried up. She is a charming woman, natural and unpretentious, and talks English like an Englishwoman.
She asked A if he had met many people, and A. said he was a tourist and had no time for visits. Countess Alberti said he was quite right and that she knew nothing in the world more —seccante was the word she used, than Florentine society.
She asked us all to come again next week. I am leaving on Sunday, and A. and Mrs Campion are going to Paris on Monday. Mrs Housman remains here another week.
Friday, April 9th.
Mrs Housman had a headache and did not come down. I went to the town and did some shopping and went over the Bargello. Mrs Housman came down to dinner and sang afterwards, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. I had never heard her sing O Versenk o versenk dein Leid mein Kind, in die See before.
Saturday, April 10th.
We went to a great many churches in the morning and saw a number of frescoes. Mrs Housman received a great many invitations, but refused them all. A. and Mrs Campion and the Albertis came to dinner. Countess Alberti persuaded Mrs Housman to sing. She sang some English songs: Passing By, Lord Randall, etc., Gounod's Chanson de Mai, and some Lully. Countess Alberti said it was a comfort to hear singing of which you could hear every word. A. liked Passing By best, and he made her sing it twice. He asked me who the words were by. The tune is Edward Purcell's. The words, although generally attributed to Herrick by musical publishers, are by an anonymous poet, and occur in Thomas Ford's Music of Sundry Kinds, 1607. They are as follows: —
There is a ladye sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleas'd my mind,
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.
Her gestures, motions, and her smile,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguile,
Beguile my heart, I know not why;
And yet I love her till I die.
There is also a third stanza.
Letters from Guy Cunninghame to Mrs Caryl
VILLA BEAU SITE,MENTONE,Thursday, April 8th.
DEAREST ELSIE,
It is divine here and this villa is a dream. We went to Monte Carlo yesterday and I won 300 francs and then lost it again. I saw hundreds of people, monde and demi-monde. Among the latter Celia Russell, having luncheon with rather a gross-looking shiny financier. I asked who he was and found out that he was Housman of Housman & Smith. Apparently C.R. has been living with him for some time, ever since, in fact, L. went to India. But the interesting thing to me is that Housman is the husband of that beautiful Mrs Housman I told you about. M. knows them and knows all about them. Mrs Housman was a Canadian, very poor, with no one to look after her but an old aunt. He married her about ten years ago. Since then he has become very rich. Carrington-Smith is now his partner. Housman supplies the brains. They live somewhere in the suburbs and she never goes anywhere.
I am not coming back till next Monday. I shall be able to stop two or three days in Paris, very likely longer.
Yours,G.HALKIN STREET,Sunday, May 9th.
DEAREST ELSIE,
I have had a busy week since I have been back. Monday I dined with George at his flat. A man's dinner to meet some French politicians who are over here for a few days. I told you I was determined to make Mrs Housman's acquaintance, and I have. I had luncheon on Tuesday with Jimmy Randall, a city friend of mine. You don't know him. He knows the Housmans intimately. I told him I wanted to know them and he asked me to meet them last night.
We dined at the Carlton, Randall, the Housmans and myself. I think she is even more beautiful than I thought before. I couldn't take my eyes off her. She was in black, with one row of very good pearls. I never saw such eyes. Housman is too awful; sleek, fat and common beyond words, but sharp as a needle. He has an extraordinary laugh, a high, nasal chuckle, and says, "Ha! ha! ha!" after every sentence. They have asked me to dinner next Tuesday. I will write to you about it in detail. Mrs H. is charming. There is nothing American or Colonial about her, but she is curiously un-English. I can't understand how she can have married him. I caught sight of her again this morning at the Oratory, where I always go if I am in London on Sundays, for the music. Randall told me she is very musical, but I didn't get any speech with her.
The flat looks quite transformed with all the Paris things. They are the greatest success.
Yours,G.Wednesday, May 12th.
DEAREST ELSIE,
The dinner-party came off last night. They live in Campden Hill. I was early and the parlour-maid said Mrs Housman would be down directly, and I heard Housman shouting upstairs: "Clare, Clare, guests," but he did not appear himself. I was shown into a large white and heavily gilded drawing-room, with a candelabra, a Steinway grand, and light blue satin and ebony furniture, a good many palms, but no flowers. The drawing-room opened out on to an Oriental back drawing-room with low divans, small stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and a silver lamp (from a mosque) hanging from the ceiling, heavy curtains too, behind which I suspect stained-glass windows. Over the chimney-piece an Alma Tadema (a group on a marble seat against a violet sea). At the other end of the room Walter Bell's picture. It was the picture I saw before, but more about that later. On another wall over a sofa a most extraordinary allegorical picture: a precipice bridged by a large serpent, and walking on the serpent two small figures, a woman in white draperies and a knight dressed like Mephistopheles, all these painted in the crudest colours. The Housmans then appeared, and Housman did the honours of the pictures, faintly damned the Alma Tadema, and said the Snake Picture was by Mucius of Munich in what he called Moderne style. He had picked it up for nothing; some day it would be worth pots of money. Ha! ha! Then the guests arrived. Sir Herbert Simcox, K.C., Lady Simcox, dressed in amber velvet and cairngorms; Housman's sister Miss Sarah, black, and very large, in yellow satin, with enormous emerald ear-rings; Carrington-Smith, Housman's partner; Mrs Carrington-Smith, naked except for a kind of orange and red Reform Kleid, with a green complexion, heavily blacked eyebrows, and a Lalique necklace. Then, making a late entrance, as if on the stage, a Princesse de Carignan, a fine figure, in rich and tight black satin and a large black ruff, heavily powdered. Housman whispered to me that she was a legitimate Bourbon. I think he meant a Legitimist. We went down to dinner into a dark Gothic panelled dining-room, with a shiny portrait of Mr Housman set in the panelling over the chimney-piece.
I sat between Mrs Housman and Mrs Carrington-Smith. I talked to Mrs Housman most of the time. Mrs Carrington-Smith asked me if I liked Henry James's books. I said I liked the early ones. She said she preferred the later ones, but she could never feel quite the same about Henry James again since he had put her into a book. She was, she said, Kate in The Wings of the Dove. After dinner Housman moved up and sat next to me. He talked about art and bric-à-brac. I asked him if I could possibly have seen Bell's portrait of Mrs Housman in America. He said, "Certainly." He had bought it cheap and sold it dear, anticipating a slump in Bell, which was not slow in coming. He had then bought it back directly Bell died, anticipating a boom, which had also occurred. "It is now worth double what I gave for it. Ha! ha! ha!"
Randall said he liked a picture to tell a plain story and he could make nothing of the Snake Picture upstairs. Housman laughed loudly and said it was the oldest story in the world: the man, the woman, and the serpent. Ha! ha! We went upstairs, where there was a crowd. I was seized upon by the Princesse de Carignan, and she whispered to me confidential secrets about Europe. She preened herself and displayed the deportment of a queen in exile.
Then we had some music. Esther Lake bawled some Rubinstein, and Ronald Solway played an interminable sonata by Haydn with variations and all the repeats. Some of the guests went downstairs, but I was wedged in between the Princesse and a Mrs Baines, a fluffy, sinuous woman, dressed in a loose Byzantine robe. Her husband, who is an expert in French furniture, told me she was once mistaken for Sarah, and she has evidently been living up to the reputation for years. He was careful to add that it was in the days when Sarah was thin – Mrs Baines being a wisp.
After the music, which I thought would never stop, we went downstairs again for a stand-up supper and sweet champagne. I was introduced by Housman to Ronald Solway. Housman told him I was a musical connoisseur, so he bored me with technicalities for twenty minutes. I couldn't get away. He had no mercy on me. Housman has got a box at the Opera. He told me I must use it whenever I like. How can she have married that man?
Yours,G.Wednesday, May 19th.
DEAREST ELSIE,
Thank you for your most amusing letter. I have been busy and not had a moment to write. We have had a good deal of work to do. Last Friday I had supper at Romano's after the play. Housman was there with Celia Russell. I spent Saturday to Monday with the Shamiers. Lavroff was there. Last night I went to the Opera to the Housmans' box. It was Bohème. During the entr'acte who should come into our box but George. He stayed there the whole time, talking to Mrs H., and came back during the next entr'acte.
The next day at the office when I was in his room I said something about the Housmans and began telling him about my dinner. He froze at once and said Mrs Housman was an extremely nice woman. I said something about Housman, and George said: "Oh, not at all a bad fellow." So I saw I was on dangerous ground. Housman has asked me to spend next Sunday at his country house, a small villa on the Thames near Staines. I am going.
They are dining with me on Thursday. I asked George, too, and he accepted joyfully.
Yours,G.Monday, May 24th.
DEAREST ELSIE,
I am just back from the country. But first I must tell you about my dinner. I had asked the Housmans, George, Eileen Hope, and Madame de Saint Luce who is staying in London for three weeks. Just before dinner I got a telegram saying that Mrs Housman was laid up and couldn't possibly come. Housman arrived by himself. George was evidently frightfully annoyed and hardly spoke. Madame de Saint Luce was amazed and rather amused by Housman, and after dinner Eileen sang beautifully, so it went off fairly well except for George.
Saturday I went down to Staines. Housman had got an elegant villa on the river. Very ugly, with red tiles, photogravures, and green wooden chairs and a conservatory, full of calceolaria. But I must say his food is delicious. George was there, Lady Jarvis, and Miss Sarah.
After dinner on Saturday there was a slight fracas. George asked Mrs Housman to sing. She didn't much want to, but finally said she would. Miss Sarah, who is a brilliant pianist, said she would accompany her (she evidently hates being accompanied). She sang a song of Schubert's, Gute Nacht. Miss Sarah played it rather fast. Mrs Housman said it ought to be slower. Miss Sarah said it was meant to be fast, and that was her conception of the song in any case.
Mrs Housman said she couldn't sing it like that, and didn't, and then she said she couldn't sing at all. Afterwards she did sing some English ballads and accompanied herself.
She sings most beautifully, her voice is perfectly produced and you hear every word. There is nothing throaty or operatic about it but her voice goes straight through one. George was entranced. Sunday afternoon George and Mrs H. went out on the river and stayed out all the afternoon. I spent the afternoon with Lady Jarvis, who is most clever and amusing. She told me all about the Housmans. Mrs H. is not Canadian but Irish. She was brought up in a convent in French Canada. Directly she came out of it her marriage with H., who was then in a Canadian firm, was arranged by her aunt (her aunt was an imbecile and quite penniless). They lived several years in Canada, California and other parts of America, and came to England about three years ago. Housman was unfaithful from the first. Lady Jarvis knew about Celia Russell. I asked her if Mrs Housman knew. She said she – Lady Jarvis – didn't know, but it wouldn't make any difference if Mrs H. did or not. She said: "There is nothing about Albert Housman that Clare doesn't know." Then she said that unless I was blind I must of course have seen George was madly in love with her.
I said I agreed. She said she thought Mrs Housman was madly in love with him. I said I wasn't sure. Lady Jarvis said she was quite sure.
They came back very late from the river and Mrs Housman didn't come down to dinner. She said she had a headache. We had rather a gloomy dinner although Miss Sarah and Lady Jarvis never stopped talking for a moment, but George was silent.
You know he sees nobody now except the Housmans.
Yours,G.
From the Diary of Godfrey Mellor
Monday, May 3rd. Gray's Inn.
A. returned to London a day sooner than he was expected. His Secretary, Tuke, had not returned. He had left his address with me. He spent his holiday in the Guest House, Fort Augustus Abbey, a Benedictine monastery. He returned this morning. A. asked me on Saturday where he was. When I told him, A. showed great surprise. He said: "He has been with me six years and I never knew he was an R.C. It's extraordinary when a thing once turns up, you then meet with it every day. I seem always to be coming across Catholics now."
Tuesday, May 4th.
Alfred Riley telegraphed to me to know whether I could put him up to-night. I have answered in the affirmative, but he will be, I fear, most uncomfortable.
Wednesday, May 5th.
Riley arrived last night. He has been in Paris for the last three months working at the Bibliothèque Nationale. He told me he had something of importance to tell me: that he was seriously thinking of becoming a Roman Catholic. I was greatly surprised. He was the last person I would expect to do such a thing. I told him I had no prejudice against Roman Catholics, but it was very difficult for me to believe that a man of his intellectual attainments could honestly believe the things he would be expected to believe. Also, if he needed a Church I did not understand why he could not be satisfied with the Church of England, which was a historic Church. He said: "Do you remember when we were at Oxford that we used to say it would be a great sell if we found out when we were dead that Christianity was true after all? Well, I believe it is true. I believe, not in spite of my reason, nor against my reason, nor apart from my reason, but with my reason. Well, if one believes with one's reason in the Christian revelation, that is to say, if one believes that God has uttered Himself fully and uniquely through Christ, such a belief has certain logical consequences." I said nothing, for indeed I did not know what to say. Riley laughed and said: "Don't be alarmed; don't think I am going to hand you a tract. For Heaven's sake let me be able to speak out at least to one person about this." I begged him to go on, and he said he thought Catholicism was the only logical consequence of a belief in the Christian revelation. Anglicanism and all forms of Protestantism seemed to him like the lopped off branches of a living tree.
I asked him what there was to prevent him worshipping in Roman Catholic churches if he felt inclined that way without sacrificing his intellectual freedom to their tenets.
He said: "You talk as if it was ritual I cared for and wanted. One can be glutted with ritual in the Anglican Church if one wants that."
As for giving up one's freedom, he said I must agree that law, order and discipline were the indispensable conditions of freedom. He had never heard Catholics complain of any loss of freedom, indeed Catholic philosophy, manners, customs, and even speech, seemed to him much freer than Protestant or Agnostic philosophy, and what it stood for. He asked me which I thought was freest, a Sunday in Paris or Rome or a Sunday in Glasgow or London.
I suggested his waiting a year. He said perhaps he would.
Thursday, May 6th.
Riley talked of music, Wagner, Parsifal. He quoted some Frenchman who said that Parsifal was "moins beau que n'importe quelle Messe Basse dans n'importe quelle Église." I said that I had never been to a Low Mass in my life, but that I disliked the music at most High Masses I had attended. I said I disliked Wagner, especially Parsifal. He said he agreed about Wagner, but I did not understand what the Frenchman had meant. I confessed I did not. He said: "It is like comparing a description of something to the reality." I told him that I envied people who were born Catholics, but I did not think it was a thing you could become. He said it was not like becoming a Mussulman. He was simply going back to the older tradition of his country, to what Melanchthon and Dr Johnson called and what in the Highlands they still call the Old Religion. I told him that I had once heard a man say, talking of becoming a Roman Catholic, "if I could tell the first lie, all the rest would be easy and follow naturally down to scapulars and Holy Water."
Friday, May 7th.
Riley left this morning. He has gone back to Paris. He is not going to take any immediate step.
Sunday, May 9th
I went to see Mrs Housman yesterday afternoon. I told her what Riley had told me. I asked her if she thought people could become Roman Catholics if they were not born so. She said she wished that she had not been born a Catholic so as she might have become one. She envied those who could make the choice. I asked her if she did not consider there was something unreal about converts. She said she thought English converts were in a very difficult situation which required the utmost tact. Many perhaps lacked this tact. She said that in Canada and America, where she had lived most of her life, the anti-Catholic prejudice as it existed in England did not exist, at any rate it was not of the same kind. "The nursery anti-Catholic tradition doesn't exist there."
She asked me what I had advised Riley to do. I told her I had dissuaded him from taking such a step and had begged him to wait. She said: "If he is to become a Catholic there will be a moment when he will not be able to help it. Faith is a gift. People do not become Catholics under the influence of people or books, although people and books may sometimes help or sometimes hinder, but because they are pulled over by an invisible rope – what we call Grace."
I told her I would find it difficult to believe that a man like Riley would believe what he would have to believe. She asked me whether I found it difficult to believe that she accepted the dogmas of the Church. I said I was convinced she believed what she professed, but that I thought that born Catholics believed things in a different way than we did. I did not believe that this could be learnt by converts.
She said I probably thought that Catholics believed all sorts of things which they did not believe. Such at least was her experience of English Protestants, who seemed to imbibe curious traditions in the nursery, on the subject.
I asked her if Mr Housman believed in Catholic dogma. She said: "Albert has been baptized and brought up as a Catholic, but he is an Agnostic. He is very charitable towards Catholic institutions."
She asked me more about Riley and whether he had any Catholic friends. I said: "Not to my knowledge." "Poor man, I am afraid he will be very lonely," she said.
She said that she herself knew hardly any Catholics in England, that is to say she had no real Catholic friends, and that she felt as if she were living in perpetual exile.
"You see," she said, "your friend ought to realise that he will have to face the prejudice and the dislike not only of narrow-minded people but of very nice intelligent and broad-minded people, who agree with you about almost everything else. The Church has always been hated from the beginning, and it always will be hated. In the past it was people like Marcus Aurelius who carried out the worst persecutions and hated the Church most bitterly with the very best intentions, and it is in a different way just the same now."
I said that to me it was an impossible mental gymnastic to think that Catholicism was the same thing as early Christianity.
She said: "Because the tree has grown so big you think it is not the same plant, but it is. When I go to Mass I feel as if I were looking through the wrong end of a telescope right back into the catacombs and farther."
I told her Riley would take no decisive step. He had promised to wait. She said there was no harm in that. There were many other things I wished to ask her, but A. arrived, and after talking on various topics for a few moments I left.
Monday, May 10th.
A. told me he had been invited to dinner by Aunt Ruth next Thursday and that he was going. He asked me whether I was invited. I said I was invited.
Tuesday, May 11th.
Cunninghame said he was dining at the Housmans' to-night.
Wednesday, May 12th.
I asked C. whether he had enjoyed his dinner. He said it was very pleasant, but that the music was too classical for his taste. A. was not there.
Thursday, May 13th.
I dined last night with A. in his flat. Nobody but ourselves. A. played the pianola after dinner. He said I must come and stay with him in the country soon. He would try and get the Housmans to come too.
Friday, May 14th.
A. dined with Uncle Arthur and Aunt Ruth. So did I. It was a dinner for the American Ambassador. I sat next to a Miss Audrey Bax, a lady of decided views and picturesque appearance. She talked about Joan of Arc, and asked me whether I had read Anatole France's book about her. I said I had not, but I had read an English translation of Joan of Arc's trial which I thought one of the most impressive records I had ever read. She said: "Ah, you like the stained-glass-window point of view about those sort of people." I was rather nettled and said I preferred facts to fiction. I thought Joan of Arc as she appeared in her trial was a very sensible as well as being a very remarkable person. She had not read this. She said Anatole France told one all one wanted to know from a rational point of view. It was a comfort to read common-sense about this sort of hallucinated people. A man who was sitting opposite her joined eagerly in the conversation, and said that the two people in the whole of history who had made the finest defence when tried were Mary Queen of Scots and Joan of Arc. Miss Bax said she supposed he looked upon Mary Queen of Scots as a martyred saint. The other man, whose name I found out afterwards was Ashfield, an American who is now at the American Embassy, said that he regarded Mary Queen of Scots as a woman who was tried for her life and who had defended herself without lawyers without making a single mistake under the most difficult circumstances. He said he had been a lawyer, and spoke from a lawyer's point of view. Miss Bax went back to Joan of Arc and Anatole France and said his book was as important a work as Renan's Vie de Jésus. Mr Ashfield said he thought that work no improvement on the Gospel. I said I had not read it. Miss Bax again said that if we preferred sentimental traditions we were at liberty to do so. She preferred rational writers untainted by superstition. Ashfield said he regarded Renan as a sentimental writer. Miss Bax said: "No doubt you prefer Dean Farrar." Ashfield said he did not think Renan's book was a more successful attempt to rewrite the Gospels than Dean Farrar's although it was better written. She said that proved her point, and as she seemed satisfied, we talked of other things. But throughout her conversation she struck me for a professed free-thinker to be singularly dogmatic and sometimes almost fanatical.
Saturday, May 15th.
Spent the afternoon and evening with Solway at Woking but came back after dinner.
Sunday, May 16th.
Went to see Mrs Housman in the afternoon, but she was not at home. This is the first time she has not been at home on Sunday afternoons for a very long time.
Monday, May 17th.
A. said he was going to the opera to-night. Housman, whom he had seen yesterday, had told him it would be a very fine performance.
Tuesday, May 18th.
Went to the opera in the gallery. Some fine singing. Cunninghame had been in the Housmans' box.
Wednesday, May 19th.
Was going to dine with the Housmans to-night, but Mrs Housman is unwell.
Thursday, May 20th.
Lady Jarvis has asked me to stay with her Sunday week.
Friday, May 21st.
This morning a man called Barnes came to the office. He is an acquaintance of Cunninghame's; he is in the F.O. He talked of various things, and then he asked Cunninghame whether he knew Mrs Housman. He said she was playing fast and loose with A.'s affections. She was doing it, of course, to convert him. Catholics didn't mind how immoral they were in such a cause. He said that she was well known for it. She had refused to marry Housman till he had been converted. He had been so much in love with her that he could not refuse. I said that I happened to know that Housman had been baptized a Catholic when he was born. Cunninghame bore me out and said it was all nonsense about A. He was sure Catholicism had nothing to do with it. He knew Mrs Housman quite well and she had never mentioned it to him. Barnes said we could say what we liked, but all London was talking of A.'s unfortunate passion and Mrs H.'s behaviour.
"One sees them everywhere together," he said.
C. said: "Where?"
Barnes said: "Oh, at all the restaurants and at the opera."
Cunninghame said he had expected Mrs Housman to dinner, but she had been unable to come.
Saturday, May 22nd.
Called on Mrs Housman to inquire. They have gone to the country until Monday.
Monday, May 24th.
I had luncheon with A. to-day at his flat. He said he had been staying with the Housmans at their house on the Thames. He said he had put his foot in it. On Saturday night at dinner they were talking about Ireland, and he said he had no wish to go to a country full of priests. Mrs Housman told him, laughing, she was a Catholic. He asked me if I had known this. I told him I had always known it. He asked me whether she was very devout. I said I knew she always went to Mass on Sundays, that she had never mentioned the subject to me except once when I asked her a question with reference to a friend of mine. He asked me whether Housman was a Catholic too. I told him what I knew.
Tuesday, May 25th.
Went to the opera, in the Housmans' box. Housman and Cunninghame were there. Mrs Housman did not come. A. looked in during the entr'acte.
Wednesday, May 26th.
A. gave a dinner at his Club. All politicians except myself and Cunninghame.
Thursday, May 27th.
Tuke asked me to take a ticket for a concert at Hammersmith at which his sister is performing on the piano. I have done so.
Friday, May 28th.
Luncheon with A. at his Club. He is staying with Lady Jarvis on Saturday. The Housmans, he said, will be there. Cunninghame is going also. A. told me Mrs Housman has not been well lately. I said I thought she did too much. He asked me in what sort of way. I said she attended to a great many charities and that as Housman entertained a great deal I thought it tired her. Mrs Housman had told him I was very musical. He asked me if I played any instrument. I said none except the penny whistle. He asked me if I did not think Mrs Housman a very fine singer. I said I did. He also said that he supposed she knew a lot of priests. I said I had never met one in her house.
