Chapter I: Foreword

Some kindly critics of my _Medley of Memories_, and not a few private correspondents (most of them unknown to me) have been good enough to express a lively hope that I would continue my reminiscences down to a later date than the year 1903, when I closed the volume with my jubilee birthday.

It is in response to this wish that I have here set down some of my recollections of the succeeding decade, concluding with the outbreak of the Great War.

One is rather "treading on eggshells" when printing impressions of events and persons so near our own time. But I trust that there is nothing unkind in these more recent memories, any more than in the former. There should not be; for I have experienced little but kindness during a now long life; and I approach the Psalmist's limit of days with only grateful sentiments towards the many friends who have helped to make that life a happy as well as a varied one.

DAVID O. HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B.

S. Paulo, Brazil,
_March_, 1922.

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CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I.--1903-1904.

The Premier Duke--Oxford Chancellorship--A Silver Jubilee--In
Canterbury Close--Hyde Park Oratory--Oxford under Water--"Twopence
each" at Christ Church--Church Music--Gregorian Centenary in
Rome--Pope Pius X.--Pilgrims and Autograph--Cradle of the
Benedictine Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

CHAPTER II.--1904.

"Sermons from Stones"--_Alcestis_ at Bradfield--Whimsical
Texts--Old Masters at Ushaw--A Mozart-Wagner Festival--Bismarck
and William II.--"Longest Word" Competition--Medal-week at
St. Andrews--Oxford Rhodes Scholars--Liddell and Scott--Lord
Rosebery at the Union--Oxford Portraits--Wytham
Abbey--Christmas in Bute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

CHAPTER III.--1905.

A "Catholic Demonstration"--Boy-prodigies--Spring Days in
Naples--"C.-B." at Oxford--Medical Sceptics--Blenheim
Hospitality--A Scoto-Irish Wedding--Dunskey
Transformed--Lunatics up-to-date--Eton War Memorial--Four
Thousand Guests at Arundel--At Exton Park--Abbotsford and
Blairquhan--Lothair's Bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

CHAPTER IV.--1905-1906.

Modern Gothic--Contrasts in South Wales--Chamberlain's Last
Speech--A Catholic Dining-club--Lovat Scouts' Memorial--A Tory
_debacle_--Hampshire Marriages--On the _Cote d'Azur_--Three
Weddings--An Old Irish Peer--Guernsey in June--A Coming of Age
on the Cotswolds--The Warwick Pageant--Bank Holiday at
Scarborough . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

CHAPTER V.--1906-1907.

Melrose and Westminster--Newman Memorial Church--The Evil
Eye--Catholic Scholars at Oxford--Grace before Meat--A
Literary Dinner--A Jamaica Tragedy--An Abbatial
Blessing--Deaths of Oxford friends--Robinson Ellis--A Genteel
Watering-place--Visit to Dover--Pageants at Oxford and
Bury--Hugh Benson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

CHAPTER VI.--1907-1908.

Benedictine Honours at Oxford--Anecdotes from Sir
Hubert--Everingham and Bramham--Early Rising--Mass in a
Deer-forest--A Bishop's Visiting-cards--A Miniature College--Our
New Chancellor--Bodley's Librarian--Dean Burgon--A Welsh
Bishop--Illness and Convalescence--H.M.S. _Victory_ . . . . . . 94

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CHAPTER VII.--1908.

Miss Broughton at Oxford--Notable Trees--An Infantile
Rest-cure--Equestrians from Italy--"The Colours"--A
Parson's Statistics--Two Anxious Mammas--"Let us Kill
Something"--Scottish Dessert--A Highland Bazaar--I Resign
Mastership of Hall--Notes on Newman--Scriptural
Heraldry--Myres Macership--Scots Catholic Judge--At a
_chateau_ in Picardy--Excursions from Oxford--St. Andrew's
Day at Cardiff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

CHAPTER VIII.--1908-1909.

Christmas at Beaufort--_Annus mirabilis_--Kenelm Vaughan--A
"Heathen Turk"--Sven Hedin--Centenary of Darwin--Oxford
and Louvain--Hugh Cecil on the House of Commons--Arundel
itself again--The Bridegroom's Father weeps--Cambridge
Fisher Society--Bodleian Congestion--Shackleton at Albert
Hall--Oakamoor, Faber, and Pugin--Welsh Pageant--Hampton
Court--Father Hell and Mr. Dams!--A Bishop's
Portrait--Gleann Mor Gathering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

CHAPTER IX.--1909-1910.

The White Garden at Beaufort--Andrew Lang--A Holy Well--The
new Ladycross--"My terrible Great-uncle!"--Off to
Brazil---King's Birthday on Board---The New City
Beautiful--Arrival at S. Paulo---An Abbey
Rebuilding--Cosmopolitan State and City--College of S.
Bento--Stray Englishmen--Progressive Paulistas--Education in
Brazil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

CHAPTER X.--1910.

Provost Hornby--Christmas in Brazil--Architecture in S.
Paulo--The Snake-farm--Guests at the Abbey--End of the
Isolation of Fort Augustus--A Benedictine Festival--Sinister
Italians--Death of Edward VII.--Brazilian Funerals--Popular
Devotion--"Fradesj estrangeiros"--Football in the
Tropics--Homeward Voyage--Santos and Madeira--Sir John Benn . . 170

CHAPTER XI.--1910-1911.

A Wiesbaden Eye Klinik--The Rhine in Rain--Cologne and
Brussels--Wedding in the Hop-Country--The New Departure at
Fort Augustus--St. Andrew's without Angus--Oxford
Again--Highland Marriage at Oratory--One Eye _versus_
Two--Cambridge _versus_ Oxford---A Question of Colour--Ex-King
Manuel--A Great Church at Norwich--_Ave Verum_ in the
Kirk--Fort Augustus Post-bag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

CHAPTER XII.--1911.

Monks and Salmon--FitzAlan Chapel--April on Thames-side--My
sacerdotal Jubilee--Kinemacolor--Apparition at an
Abbey--St. Lucius--Faithful Highlanders--Hay Centenary--Nuns
for S. Paulo--A Brief Marriage Ceremony--Pagan
Mass-music--Seventeen New Cardinals--Doune Castle--A Quest
for our Abbey Church--Great Coal Strike--at Stonyhurst and
Ware--Katherine Howard--Twentieth-Century Chinese--An
Anglo-Italian Abbey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

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CHAPTER XIII.--1912-1913.

A Concert for Cripples--Queen Amelie--May at Aix-les-Bains--A
Sample Savoyards--Hautecombe--A "Picture of the Year"--A
Benedictine O.T.C.--Pugin's "Blue Pencil"--My nomination
as Prior--Fort Augustus and the Navy--Work in the
Monastery--Ladies in the Enclosure--A Bishop's Jubilee--A
Modern Major Pendennis--My Election to Abbacy--Installation
Ceremonies--Empress Eugenie at Farnborough--A Week at Monte
Cassino--Fatiguing Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

CHAPTER XIV.--1913-1914.

St Anselm's, Rome--Election of a Primate--My Uncle's
Grave--Milan and Maredsous--Canterbury Revisited--An Oratorian
Festival--Poetical Bathos--A Benedictine Chapter--King of
Uganda at Fort Augustus--Threefold Work of our Abbey--Funeral
of Bishop Turner--Bute Chapel at Westminster--A
Patriarchal Lay-brother--Abbot Gasquet a Cardinal--Corpus
Christi at Arundel--Eucharistic Congress at Cardiff--The Great
War--Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246