A NEW MEDLEY OF MEMORIES BY THE RIGHT REV. SIR DAVID HUNTER-BLAIR BT., O.S.B., M.A. TITULAR ABBOT OF DUNFERMLINE WITH PORTRAIT LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD & CO. 1922 [ All rights reserved ] TO THE MASTER AND SCHOLARS OF SAINT BENET'S HALL, OXFORD, IN MEMORY OF TEN HAPPY YEARS....

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 im

I take up again the thread of these random recollections in the autumn of 1903, the same autumn in which I kept my jubilee birthday at St. Andrews. I went from there successively to the Herries' at Kinharvie, the Ralph Kerrs at Woodburn, near Edinburgh, and the Butes at Mountstuart, meeting, curiously enough, at all three places Norfolk and his sister, Lady Mary Howard—though it was not so curious after all, as the Duke was accustomed to visit every autumn his Scottish relatives at these places,

Abbot Gasquet, who had many friends in Oxford, was much in residence there during the summer of 1904, as he was giving the weekly conferences to our undergraduates. His host, Mgr. Kennard, usually asked me to dinner on Sundays, "to keep the Abbot going," which released me from the chilly collation (cold mutton and cold rhubarb pie), the orthodox Sabbath evening fare in so many households.[ 1 ] I recall the lovely Sundays of this summer term, and the crowds of peripatetic dons and clerics in the

There had been an official visitation, by Abbot Gasquet, of our abbey at Fort Augustus in January, 1905. I had been unable to attend it, but the news reached me at Oxford that one of its results had been the resignation of his office by the abbot. This was not so important as it sounded; for the Holy See did not "see its way" (horrid phrase!) to accept the proffered resignation, and the abbot remained in office. I attended this month a Catholic "Demonstration," as it was called (a word I always

An event of Benedictine interest in the autumn of 1905, and one which attracted many visitors to Downside, our beautiful abbey among the Mendip Hills, was the long-anticipated opening of the choir of the great church. Special trains, an overflowing guest-house, elaborate services, many congratulatory speeches, and much monastic hospitality, were, as customary on such occasions, the order of the day. Architecturally, I confess that I found the new choir disappointing: it but confirmed the impress

Before returning to Oxford for the autumn term of 1906, I spent a pleasant ten days at Abbotsford with my old friends the Lane Foxes, and visited with them Dryburgh Abbey, Galashiels, and other interesting places. Melrose, too, we thoroughly explored, agreeing that ( pace Sir Walter) the time for seeing it "aright" was not "by the pale moonlight," but on a sunlit afternoon, which alone does justice to the marvellous colouring—grey shot with rose and yellow—of the old stone. Modern textbooks talk

The opening of the Long Vacation of 1907 was pleasantly signalized for us Benedictines by the gratifying successes in the Final Schools of our little Hall, which secured two first classes (in "Greats" and History), and a second class in Theology. The Oxford Magazine was kind enough to point out that this was a remarkable achievement for a Hall numbering nine undergraduates, and compared favourably with the percentage of honours at any college in the university. I was given to understand that my

I passed the closing days of the summer term of 1908 very pleasantly at Oxford, receiving many kindnesses from old friends, mingled with expressions of regret that my official connection with the university was approaching its close. I recall an interesting dinner-party at Black Hall, the Morrells' delightful old house in St. Giles's, where my neighbour was Miss Rhoda Broughton, at that time resident near Oxford. We talked, of course, of her novels; and the pleasant-faced, grey-haired lady was a

I spent the Christmas of 1908, as usual, very pleasantly at Beaufort. For the first time for many years the family was absolutely au complet : the services of the season in the beautiful chapel were well attended; and I sympathized with the happiness of my kind hostess, as she knelt at the altar at midnight mass surrounded by all her children, without exception. There were grandchildren, too, of all ages, who amused themselves vastly in spite of appalling weather, rain, snow, frost, thaw, and ga

Since my first visit to Brazil in 1896-97, my Benedictine friends labouring in that vast country had frequently expressed the wish that I should, if possible, return and help them in their great work of restoration and reconstruction, for which more labourers were urgently needed. With health in great measure restored, and the headship of our Oxford Hall, which I had held for ten years, passed into other hands, the way to South America seemed once again open; and the autumn of 1909 found me full

The early days of December brought me news from England of the death of Provost Hornby, my old head master at Eton, aged well over eighty. He had birched me three times;[ 1 ] still, I bore him no malice, though I did not feel so overcome by the news as Tom Brown did when he heard of the death of his old head master.[ 2 ] An eminent scholar, a "double blue" at Oxford, of aspect dignified yet kindly, he had seemed to unite all the qualities necessary or desirable for an arch-pedagogue; yet no head

The first news that reached me on my landing at Southampton on July 17, 1910, was that my nephew, Alan Boyle, the intrepid young airman, had been seriously hurt at Bournemouth—not in the "central blue," but through the wheels of his "Avis" catching in a clover-field. His life had probably been saved by the chance of his having borrowed (for he always as a rule flew bareheaded) an inflated rubber cap from a friend just before the disaster; but, as it was, his head was badly injured.[ 1 ] After te

Our brothers had good success this year with the spring salmon-netting in Loch Ness; and I myself witnessed the landing one afternoon of nine clean fish, all scaling between fifteen and thirty pounds. We had always enjoyed the privilege of netting a certain number of salmon during Lent; and I think it was this year that Lovat proposed, at a meeting of the syndicate of riparian owners and tenants who had recently assumed the control of the fishing, that this right should be conceded to us as here

The Lovat family were all interested in St. Vincent's Home for Cripples, near London, where a daughter of the house (a Sister of Charity) was a nurse; and I attended at their invitation a concert in aid of it, the day before I left London, at Sunderland House. The sumptuous ball-room, with its walls of Italian marble, heavily gilt ceiling, and chandeliers of rock crystal, made a handsome setting for a brilliant audience, which included Queen Amélie of Portugal. Her Majesty honoured me with a sho

The object of the great gathering, in the summer of 1913, of Benedictine abbots in Rome, whither they had been especially summoned by the Abbas Abbatum , Pope Pius X., was not primarily devotional or liturgical, like the assemblage just held at Monte Cassino. It was first and foremost a business meeting, called for the purpose of electing a coadjutor (with right of succession) to the first Abbot Primate of the Order, Dom Hildebrand de Hemptinne, the distinguished Belgian prelate, who, after a li

Adam, Alexander (the famous schoolmaster) ... "It grows dark, boys: you may go." Addison, Joseph ... "See how a Christian can die!" Albert Prince Consort ... "Liebes gutes Frauchen!" Augustus (Emperor) ... "Plaudite!" Bede (The Venerable) ... "Consummatum est." Bossuet, Benigne ... "Fiat Voluntas Tua!" Brontë, Charlotte (to her husband) ... "I am not going to die, am I? He will not separate us, we have been so happy." Byron (Lord) ... "I think I will go to sleep." Charles II. (King) ... "Don't l