in the autumn of 1907 i went for the first time to south russia. to kharkov, and then to gievko, a small village in the neighbourhood, where i stayed with prince mirski in his country house.
this was the first time i had visited little russia, that is to say, southern russia. the contrast between central and southern russia is, i noted at the time, not unlike that between cambridgeshire and south devon.
the vegetation was more or less the same in both places, and in both places the season was marking the same hour, only the hour was being struck in a different manner. in central russia there was a bite in the morning air, a smell of smoke, of damp leaves, of moist brown earth, and a haze hanging on the tattered trees, which were generously splashed with crimson and gold. in the south of russia, little green remained in the yellow and golden woods; the landscape was hot and dry; there was no sharpness in the air and no moisture in the earth; summer, instead of being conquered by the sharp wounds of the invading cold, was dying like a decadent roman emperor of excess of splendour, softness, and opulence. the contrast in the houses was sharper still. in central russia the peasant’s house is built of logs and roofed with straw or iron according to the means of the inhabitant. the villages are brown, colourless, and sullen; in the south the houses are white or pale green; they have orchards and fruit trees, and sometimes a glass verandah. there is something well-to-do and smiling about them—something which reminds one of the whitewashed cottages of south devon or the farms in normandy.
prince mirski lived in a long, low house, which gave one the impression of a dignified, comfortable, and slightly shabby grand trianon. the walls were grey, the windows went down to the[387] ground, and opened on to a delightful view. you looked down a broad avenue of golden trees, which framed a distant hill in front of you, sloping down to a silver sheet of water. in the middle of this brown hill there was a church painted white, with a cupola and a spire on one side of it, and flanked on both sides by two tall cypresses. there were many guests in the house: relations, friends, neighbours. we met at luncheon—a large, patriarchal meal—and after luncheon, prince mirski used to play vindt in the room looking down on to the view i have described. prince mirski had been minister of the interior for a short period in the autumn of 1905, and during his period of office he had abolished all censorship of newspapers previous to their publication. this act, which would not seem at first sight to be momentous, had far-reaching effects. never could this censorship be restored again, and its removal let in a flood of light to russian life. it was the opening of a small skylight into a darkened room. after that nothing could ever be as it had been before. prince mirski was a warm-hearted, welcoming host, and spoke a beautiful easy russian, and his great, saltlike good sense pervaded the light rippling waves, or the lambent shafts of an urbane wit, never heavy, never tedious, never lengthy, but always light, always amiable, and yet never divorced from a strong fundamental reasonableness. i was taken to see the little russian farms, which were painted green, and were as clean outside as they were inside. inside, the walls were painted red and blue, the furniture was neatly arranged, and no hens nor other live-stock shared the living-rooms. the inhabitants wore no gorgeously picturesque south russian costumes. there were factories in the neighbourhood, and this was perhaps the reason an air of manchester and birmingham had invaded the fashions. the shirt and the collars of the intelligentsia had spread downwards to the peasant population, but every now and then one came across a picturesque figure.
one day i met a blind beggar. he was sitting on a hill in front of the church, and he was playing an instrument called a “lira,” that is to say, a lyre.
it was a wooden instrument shaped exactly like a violin. it had three strings, which were tuned with pegs, like those of a violin, but it was played by fingering wooden keys, like those of[388] a large concertina, and by, at the same time, turning a handle which protruded from the base of the instrument. the musician said he could play any kind of music—sad, joyous, and sacred, and he gave examples of all three of these styles; they were to my ear indistinguishable in kind; they seemed to me all tinged with the same quick and deliciously plaintive melody; and the sound made by the instrument instantly suggested the melody and the accompaniment of schubert’s song: “der leiermann”; the plaintive, comfortable noise of the first hurdy-gurdy players. i found out afterwards this lyre was indeed the same instrument as schubert must have had in his mind. it was the instrument that in germany is called leierkasten, in france vielle, and in england, hurdy-gurdy; and my blind beggar was just such a man as schubert’s leiermann.
after i had stayed some days at gievko, i went farther south to kiev, and stayed at smielo with count andré bobrinsky. count bobrinsky lived in a compound next to a large beet-sugar factory. in the same compound various members of the same family lived. each member of the family had a house of his own, and the whole clan were presided over and ruled by an old count lev bobrinsky.
count lev bobrinsky was an old man of astonishing vigour and activity, both of body and mind. he knew every detail of all the affairs that were going on around him. he was afraid of nothing, and once when he was attacked by a huge hound he tackled and defeated the infuriated beast with his hands, and broke the animal’s jaw.
all his family held him in wholesome respect not unmixed with awe.
one day we went out shooting. count lev no longer shot himself, but he organised every detail of the day’s sport, and would come out to luncheon. we drove in a four-in-hand harnessed to a light vehicle to the woods, which were most beautiful. the trees had huge red stems. we were to shoot roebuck with rifles. i was specially told not to shoot a doe. while i was waiting there was a rustle in the undergrowth and a shout from someone, which meant don’t shoot, but which i interpreted to mean shoot, and i let off my rifle. it was a doe. the whole party were agreed that count lev was not to be told. in the evening i was taken to his office to see him. it was a little pitch-pine house full of rifles, boots and ledgers, and[389] walking-sticks. he seemed to have about a hundred walking-sticks and two hundred pairs of boots. he went over the events of the day. with me was one of the neighbours, who had also been one of the guns, a prince yashville.
count lev went through the bag and the number of shots fired, and just when he was going to ask me if i had fired, prince yashville intervened, and said that i had not had a shot, and i by my silence gave consent to this statement. the next day i left for the north, but on the following sunday, the whole clan of bobrinsky family met as usual at tea, and when count lev came in the first thing he said was: “it is an odd thing that people can’t tell the truth. mr. baring said he had not had a shot out shooting, and one of the barrels of his gun was dirty.” then it was explained to him that i had shot at a doe.
i felt i could never go back there again.
near smielo there was a village which was almost entirely inhabited by jews.
it was from this village, one day, that two jews came to countess bobrinsky and asked if they might store their furniture and their books in her stables … they would not take up much room. when countess bobrinsky asked them why, they said a pogrom had been arranged for the next day. countess bobrinsky was bewildered, and asked them what they meant, and who was going to make this pogrom. the two jews said: they were coming from kiev by train, and from another town. the pogrom would take place in the morning and they would go back in the evening.
when she asked: “who are they?” she could get no answer, except that some said it was the tsar’s orders, some that it was the governor’s orders, but they had been sent to make a pogrom.
countess bobrinsky told them to go to the police, but the jews said it could not be prevented, and that all had been arranged for the morrow. both count and countess bobrinsky then made inquiries, but all the answer that they could get was that a pogrom had been arranged for the next day. it was not the people of the place who would make it; these lived in peace with the jews. they would come by the night train from two neighbouring towns; they would arrive in the morning; there would be a pogrom, and then they would go away, and all the next morning carts would arrive from the neighbouring[390] villages, just as when there was a fair, to take away what was left after the pogrom. when they asked who was sending the pogrom-makers they could get no answer. count bobrinsky interviewed the local police sergeant, but all he did was to shrug his shoulders and wring his hands, and ask what could two policemen do against a multitude? if there was to be a pogrom, there would be a pogrom. he could do nothing; nothing could be done; nobody could do anything.
the next morning the peasant cook, a woman, came into countess bobrinsky’s room, and said: “there will be no pogrom after all. it has been put off.”
i stayed in russia all that autumn and winter, and i saw the opening of the third duma, and arrived in london in the middle of december. i was no longer correspondent in st. petersburg, but i worked in london at journalism, and in the summer of 1908, together with hilary belloc, i edited and printed a newspaper, which had only one number, called the north street gazette. the newspaper was printed at a press which we had bought and established in my house, no. 6 north street—a picturesque house behind the other houses in north street, which possessed a courtyard, a fig-tree, and an underground passage leading to westminster abbey.
the newspaper was written entirely by belloc, myself, and raymond asquith, who wrote the correspondence.
it was to be supported by subscribers. we received quite a number of subscriptions, but we never brought out a second number, and we returned the cheques to the subscribers.
the north street gazette had the following epigraph: “out, out, brief scandal!” and opened with the following statement of aims and policy:
“the north street gazette is a journal written for the rich by the poor.
“the north street gazette will be printed and published by the proprietors at and from 6 north street, smith square, westminster, london, s.w. this, the first number, appears upon the date which it bears; subsequent numbers will appear whenever the proprietors are in possession of sufficient matter, literary and artistic, or even advertisement, to fill its columns. no price is attached to the sheet, but a subscription of one guinea will entitle a subscriber to receive no less than twenty copies, each differing from the last. these twenty copies[391] delivered, none will be sent to any subscriber until his next subscription is paid.
“the north street gazette will fearlessly expose all public scandals save those which happen to be lucrative to the proprietors, or whose exposure might in some way damage them or their more intimate friends.
“the services of a competent artist have been provisionally acquired, a staff of prose writers, limited but efficient, is at the service of the paper; three poets of fecundity and skill have also been hired. specimens of all three classes of work will be discovered in this initial number.
“a speciality of the newspaper will be that the russian correspondence will be written in russian, and the english in english.
“all communications (which should be written on one side of the paper only) will be received with consideration, and those accompanied by stamps will be confiscated.”
then followed a leading article composed entirely of clichés; a long article advocating votes for monkeys, written by belloc and afterwards republished by him; “society notes”; a “city letter”; and a poem by belloc, called “east and west,” parts of which, but not the whole of it, are to be found in his book the four men.
the version i print here is the original form of this spirited lyric:
“east and west
“the dog is a faithful, intelligent friend,
but his hide is covered with hair.
the cat will inhabit a house to the end,
but her hide is covered with hair.
the camel excels in a number of ways,
the arab accords him continual praise,
he can go without drinking for several days—
but his hide is covered with hair.
chorus:
oh! i thank my god for this at the least,
i was born in the west and not in the east!
and he made me a human instead of a beast:
whose hide is covered with hair.
the cow in the pasture that chews the cud,
her hide is covered with hair,
and even a horse of the barbary blood
his hide is covered with hair.
[392]
the hide of the mammoth is covered with wool,
the hide of the porpoise is sleek and cool,
but you find if you look at that gambolling fool—
that his hide is covered with hair.
the lion is full of legitimate pride,
but his hide is covered with hair;
the poodle is perfect except for his hide
(which is partially covered with hair).
when i come to consider the barbary ape,
or the african lynx, which is found at the cape,
or the tiger, in spite of his elegant shape,
his hide is covered with hair.
the men that sit on the treasury bench,
their hide is covered with hair,
etc. etc. etc.
chorus:
oh! i thank my god for this at the least,
i was born in the west and not in the east!
and he made me a human instead of a beast:
whose hide is covered with hair.”
then came a city letter, an account of a debate in the house of lords, and some book reviews.
this was the review of hamlet:
“the number of writers who aspire to poetic drama is becoming legion; mr. william shakespeare’s effort—not his first attempt in that kind—is better in some ways than some others which we recently noticed. we regret, therefore, all the more that the dominant motive of his drama makes it impossible for us to deal with it.
“mr. shakespeare has taken his subject from the history of denmark, and in his play king claudius is represented as murdering his brother and marrying queen gertrude, his deceased brother’s wife. there was a king claude (whether there has been an intentional change of name we do not know) who succeeded his brother olaf ii. we hear a good deal about him, his parentage, and life at court. that he was intemperate and hasty—he was known to exceed at meals, and on one occasion he boxed the lord chamberlain’s ears—need hardly be said. but there is nowhere we can discover a hint of the monstrous wickedness mr. shakespeare has attributed to him. were this vile relationship (i.e. the king’s marriage with his murdered brother’s wife) a fact, it might fairly be a theme[393] for the dramatist to deal with; but we repeat we certainly do not care to criticise the drama in which it is treated.
“we regret this, because we see unmistakable signs of power in mr. shakespeare’s verse. he has a real instinct for blank verse of the robustious kind, and the true lyric cry is to be found in the songs of his play, although they are too often marred by deplorable touches of coarseness.
“he will, we suppose, regard us as fusty old-fashioned critics for the line we have taken; but, trusting to the promise which we think we discern in mr. shakespeare, it is by no means unlikely that in ten years’ time he will be the first to regret his extravagance and to applaud our disapproval.
“at any rate, although we must speak frankly of such a plot as hamlet, we have not the slightest desire wholly to condemn mr. shakespeare as a poet because he has written a play on an unpleasant theme.
“if he turns his undoubted poetic gifts to what is sane and manly we shall be the first to welcome him among the freemasonry of poets. at the same time we should like to remind him that speeches do not make a play, and that his dialogue, halting somewhere between what is readable and what is actable, loses the amplitude of narrative without achieving the force of drama.”
the newspaper ended with a sonnet written in the house of commons by belloc, and by a correspondence column written by raymond asquith—both of which items i transcribe. this correspondence is, i think, the most brilliant of raymond asquith’s ephemera.
“sonnet written in dejection in the house of commons.
“good god, the boredom! oh, my lord in heaven,
strong lord of life, the nothingness and void
of percy gattock, henry murgatroyed,
lord arthur fenton, and sir philip bevan,
and mr. palace! it is nearly seven;
my head’s a buzz, my soul is clammed and cloyed,
my stomach’s sick and all myself’s annoyed
nor any breath of truth such lees to leaven.
no question, issue, principle, or right;
no wit, no argument, nor no disdain:
no hearty quarrel: morning, noon, and night
the old, dead, vulgar fossil drags its train;
the while three journalists and twenty jews
do with the country anything they choose.”
[394]
“to the editor of the north street gazette
mr. gladstone’s diction
“sir,—mr. tollemache’s letter (in which he shows that mr. gladstone invented the phrase ‘bag and baggage’) has suggested to me the following reminiscences. i was the humble means of bringing together mr. gladstone and the late mr. cheadle ffrench (at a breakfast-party which i gave at frascati’s in 1876). i remember that mr. gladstone turned to me towards the close of the meal, and remarked in his always impressive manner, ‘we shall hear more of that young man.’ the prediction was never fulfilled (though mr. ffrench was about to become a j.p. when he died so suddenly two years ago), but the anecdote is worthy of record as illustrating the origin of another phrase which has since passed into popular parlance. on a different occasion i recollect mr. gladstone (who was a good french scholar) employing the (now familiar) expression ‘dieu et mon droit.’ i also had the honour to be present when mazzini altered the famous epigram (afterwards remembered and quoted against him) ‘non vero ma ben trovato.’ i remember too the pleasure which was caused by another gentleman present (who shall be nameless) neatly capping it with the expression ‘trocadero.’ but those were indeed ‘noctes cen?que deum!’ i recollect telling this story to jowett. he replied by asking me in his curious high voice whether i had read his translation of thucydides. i confessed somewhat shamefacedly that i had not, and i remember that he made no reply at all (either then or afterwards), but remained perfectly silent for three days (from saturday to monday). it was characteristic of the man.—yours, etc.,
“lionel bellmash.
“(all this is very interesting, and proves what we have always asserted, that wit as well as honesty and logic is on the side of the free trader.—editor, the north street gazette.)
“coincidences
“sir,—the following may not be without interest to those of your readers who care for natural history. yesterday as i was walking home from the city, i noticed a large flock of flamingoes (ph?nicopterus ingens) hovering over shaftesbury avenue. this was at 6.17 p.m. on reaching home i went up to dress to my own room, which communicates with my wife’s by a stained oak[395] door. judge of my surprise to find it tenanted by a giraffe (tragelaphus asiaticus). surely the coincidence is a remarkable one.
“the only analogy which occurs to me at this moment (and that an imperfect one) is a story which my father used to tell, of how he was one day driving down threadneedle street and observed a middle-aged man of foreign appearance standing under a lamp-post and apparently engaged in threading a needle! on inquiry he discovered that the man’s name was street!—yours, etc.,
foxhunter.
“p.s.—it is only fair to mention that the man was not really threading a needle, but, as it afterwards turned out, playing upon a barrel-organ. my father’s mistake was due to his defective vision. but this does not affect the point of the story.
“(our correspondent’s letter is both frank and manly; and we shall be interested to know whether any of our other readers have had similar experiences.)”
the north street gazette died after its first number, but it was perhaps the indirect begetter of another newspaper, that had a longer life, the eye witness, which in its turn begat the new witness.
the eye witness was edited at first by belloc, and then by cecil chesterton. cecil chesterton edited the new witness until he went as a private soldier to france to fight in the war and to die. the editorship was then taken over by his brother gilbert.
during the next years, until the outbreak of the war, my life was divided between journalistic work in london and long sojourns in russia; while i was in russia i wrote books on russian matters, literary and political. during this period i went twice to turkey—once for the morning post, to see the turkish revolution in may 1909; and once for the times, to try and see something of the balkan war in 1912. early in 1912 i went round the world. on three separate occasions i went for a cruise in a man-of-war. one of these cruises—in december 1908, when i went as the guest of commander fisher on board the indomitable—lasted for several weeks, and i was privileged during this visit to see a sight of thrilling interest—gun-layer’s test and battle practice in aranci bay.
on the eve of candlemas 1909, i was received into the[396] catholic church by father sebastian bowden at the brompton oratory: the only action in my life which i am quite certain i have never regretted. father sebastian began life as an officer in the scots guards. he had served as a.d.c. under the same chief and at the same time as my uncle, lord cromer. he lived all the rest of his life at the oratory and died in 1920. he was fond even in old age of riding about london on a cob. his face was stamped with the victory of character over all other elements. he was a sensible conservative, a patriot, a fine example of an english gentleman in mind and appearance; a prince of courtesy, and a saint; and i regard my acquaintance with him and the friendship and sympathy he gave me as the greatest privilege bestowed on me by providence.