Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

Frontispiece

Paul Jones as an Infant.

CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness.
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, Who is our home.

Wordsworth: "Intimations of Immortality."

Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones, born in London on May 18, 1896, was the first child of Henry and Emily Margaret Jones. His grandfather, the late Thomas Mainwaring, was in his day a leading figure in literary and political circles in Carmarthenshire. My own people have been associated with that county for centuries. For our son's christening a vessel containing water drawn from the Pool of Bethesda was sent to us by my old friend Sir John Foster Fraser, who in the spring of that year passed through Palestine on his journey by bicycle round the world.

At this time I was acting editor of The Weekly Sun, a journal then in high repute. Later, at Mr. T. P. O'Connor's request, I took charge of his evening newspaper, The Sun. After the purchase of The Sun by a Conservative proprietary I severed my connection with it, and in January, 1897, went to reside in Plymouth, having undertaken the managing editorship of the Western Daily Mercury.

We remained at Plymouth more than seven years. Paul received his early education at the Hoe Preparatory School in that town. He was a lively and vigorous child overflowing with health. When he was in his sixth year we discovered that he was shortsighted—a physical defect inherited from me. The discovery caused us acute distress. I knew from personal experience what a handicap and an embarrassment it is to be afflicted with myopia. Regularly thenceforward his eyes had to be examined by oculists. For several years, in fact until he was 16, the myopia increased in degree, but we were comforted by successive reports of different oculists that though myopic his eyes were very strong, and that there was not a trace of disease in them, the defect being solely one of structure which glasses would correct.

To Paul as a boy the habitual wearing of spectacles was at first very irksome, but in time he adapted himself to them. Even defects have their compensations. He was naturally rash and daring, and his short sight undoubtedly acted as a check on an impetuous temperament. He early gave signs of unusual intelligence. His activity of body was as remarkable as his quickness of mind. At play and at work, with his toys as with his books, he displayed the same intensity; he could do nothing by halves. There never was a merrier boy. His vivacity and energy and the gaiety of his spirit brightened everybody around him. When he bounded or raced into a room he seemed to bring with him a flood of sunshine.

From his childhood he gave evidences of an unselfish nature and a desire to avoid giving trouble. He had his share of childish ailments, but always made light of them and bore discomfort with a sunny cheerfulness; his invariable reply, if he were ill and one asked how he fared, was "Much better; I'm all right, thanks." Marked traits in him as a small boy were truthfulness, generosity and sensitiveness. In a varied experience of the world I have never met anyone in whom love of truth was more deeply ingrained. On one occasion in his twelfth year, when he was wrestling with an arithmetical problem—the only branch of learning that ever gave him trouble was mathematics—and I offered to help in its solution, he rejected my proffered aid with the indignant remark: "Dad, how could I hand this prep. in as my own if you had helped me to do it?" His generosity of spirit was displayed in his eagerness to share his toys and books with other children; his sensitiveness by his acute self-reproaches if he had been unkind to anyone or had caused pain to his mother or his nurse.

Plymouth is a fine old city, beautifully situated and steeped in historic memories. Our home was in Carlisle Avenue, just off the Hoe, and on that spacious front Paul spent many happy hours as a small boy. His young eyes gazed with fascination on the warships passing in and out of Plymouth Sound, on the great passenger steamers lying at anchor inside the Breakwater, or steaming up or down the Channel; on the fishing fleet, with its brown sails, setting out to reap the harvest of the sea; and when daylight faded in the short winter days he would watch the Eddystone light—that diamond set in the forehead of England—flashing its warning and greeting to "those who go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters." Always from the Hoe there is something to captivate the eye—the wonder and beauty of the unresting ocean; on the Cornish side the wooded slopes and green sward of Mount Edgcumbe; on the Devon side Staddon Height, rising bold and sheer from the water; looking landward the picturesque mass of houses, towers, spires, turrets that is Plymouth, and far behind the outline of the Dartmoor Hills. On the Hoe itself one's historic memories are stirred by the Armada memorial and the Drake statue; close at hand is the Citadel, the snout of guns showing through its embrasures; and near by is Sutton Pool, whence the Pilgrim Fathers set forth in the little Mayflower, carrying the English language and the principles of civil and religious liberty across the stormy Atlantic.

All these sights and scenes and historical associations had their influence on a bright and ardent boy in these impressionable years. He soon got to be keenly interested in the Navy, amassed a surprising amount of information about the types, engine strength and gun-power of the principal warships, and found delight in making models of cruisers and torpedo-boats. The Army in those days made no appeal to him, though he was familiar with military sights and sounds—the ceremonious displays that take place from time to time in a garrison town, bugles blowing, the crunch of feet on the gravel in the barrack square, and the tramp, tramp of marching men. It was to the Navy that his heart went out. The natural set of his mind to the Navy was encouraged by the accident that his first school prize was Southey's "Life of Nelson"—a book that inspired him with hero-worship for the illustrious admiral.

Frontispiece

Paul in his 6th Year.

On Saturday afternoons, whenever weather permitted, it was my custom to roam with Paul over the pleasant environs of Plymouth. We would visit Plympton or Plym Bridge, Roborough Down or Ivybridge, Tavistock or Princetown, for a tramp on Dartmoor. Or we would go by water to Newton, Yealmpton, Salcombe, or Calstock, or cross by the ferry to Mount Edgcumbe for Penlee Point, with its marvellous seaward view. He was an excellent walker and a most delightful little companion, keenly interested in all he saw, and absorbing eagerly the beauty of earth and sea and sky. No wonder he had happy memories of the West country and that his mind retained clear images of Plymouth, the sea, and gracious, beautiful Devon!

In the summer of 1904 I returned to London, having accepted an appointment on the editorial staff of the Daily Chronicle. Paul, who had left his first school with high commendation, was entered in September at Brightlands Preparatory School, Dulwich Common. There he remained four years, during which he made rapid strides in knowledge. His first report said: "Is very keen and has brains above the average; conduct and work excellent; extremely quick and a splendid worker. Doing very well in Classics, and making marvellous progress in French." From later reports the following expressions are taken: "Keen in the extreme, and a hard worker; a marvellously retentive memory." "His work has been superlatively good; conduct excellent; drawing poor; written work marred by blots and smudges." "Developing very much; thoroughly deserves his prizes; his work is neater; composition and geography excellent; and even in mathematics no boy has improved more; now plays very keenly in games." "He is making splendid progress with his Greek; gets flustered in Mathematics when difficulties appear." Paul won numerous prizes at Brightlands for Classics, English, French, General Knowledge, Reading, Athletics, and was almost invariably top of his form. He left the Preparatory School after the summer term, 1908.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER II
AT DULWICH COLLEGE

Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?

Byron: "Childe Harold."

Our son entered Dulwich College in September, 1908, when he was twelve years of age, and remained a member of it until March, 1915. These six and a half years had a powerful influence on the development of his character, which flowered beautifully in this congenial atmosphere. The most famous school in South London, Dulwich College has a notable history. It was founded through the munificence of Edward Alleyn, theatre-proprietor and actor, a contemporary, an acquaintance, and probably a friend of Shakespeare. At the inaugural dinner in September, 1619, to celebrate the foundation of Alleyn's "College of God's gift," an illustrious company was present, including the Lord Chancellor, Francis Bacon, "the greatest and the meanest of mankind," then at the summit of his fame but soon to fall in disgrace from his high eminence; Inigo Jones, the famous architect, who in that year was superintending the erection of the new Banqueting Hall in Whitehall; and other distinguished men.

Since its foundation the College has passed through many vicissitudes. With the development of building on the estate the income rapidly expanded in the nineteenth century. In 1857 the charity was reorganised and the trust varied by Act of Parliament. The present school buildings were opened in 1870. The old college—including the chapel (containing the pious founder's tomb), almshouses and the offices of the estate governors—remains in Dulwich Village, a very picturesque and well-preserved structure embowered in trees. At its rear is the celebrated Picture Gallery, the nucleus of which was a collection of pictures originally intended to grace the palace of Stanislaus, the last King of Poland. The new college buildings have a delightful situation. All around them are wide stretches of green fields; here and there pleasant hedgerows; on the slopes of Sydenham Hill charming woodlands, some of them a veritable sanctuary for bird-life. In the spring-time the whole neighbourhood is musical with the song of birds, and one is often thrilled by the rich haunting note of the cuckoo. On the fringes of the playing-fields and round about the boarding-houses are magnificent trees—chiefly elm, beech, birch and chestnut, more rarely oak. In short, the surroundings of the college have a thoroughly rural aspect. It is an ideal environment for the training of boys. There is nothing in this sylvan and pastoral beauty to suggest that we are in a great city.

Dulwich College is both a boarding school and a day school, the boarders numbering about 120 and the day-boys about 550. When Paul Jones entered the college as a day-boy in 1908 the Headmaster was Mr. A. H. Gilkes, who retired after the summer term of 1914. Our son, therefore, had the good fortune to come under the influence for six years of one of the greatest public-school masters of our generation. A former colleague of mine, Mr. Henry W. Nevinson, used to speak to me in glowing terms of Mr. Gilkes, who was a master at Shrewsbury School when he was a boy there, and I note that the Rev. Dr. Horton in his "Autobiography" alludes to him as "the master at Shrewsbury to whom I owed most." Undoubtedly Mr. Gilkes's best work was done as Headmaster of Dulwich. The College has never known a greater head. Under him the whole place was revivified. During his reign not only did a fine moral tone characterise the school, but there was equal enthusiasm for work and games. Thanks to a commanding personality, in which strength, dignity and graciousness were subtly mingled, the influence of Mr. Gilkes pervaded the whole school from the highest to the lowest forms. Paul quickly recognised the nobility of the "Old Man," as he was universally known to the boys. His affection for him amounted to veneration, and however brief the leave he had from the Army he always found time to pay his old headmaster a visit. On his part Mr. Gilkes had a great regard for our son, whom with sure perception he described as "fearless, strong and capable, with a heart as soft and kind as a heart can be."

A new boy's early days in a public school are often trying. He is in a strange world with its own laws and customs; and at the outset he has to endure the scrutiny of curious and often hostile eyes. Our son's marked idiosyncrasies, sturdy independence, fastidious refinement and passion for work, singled him out from his fellows as an original. As boys resent any deviation from the normal, he had a rough time until he found his feet, and the experience was repeated as he moved up to new forms. Not a word about all this escaped his lips at home; I have ascertained it from others. Stories reached me of personal combats from which he usually emerged the victor, and of one prolonged fight with an older boy that had at last to be drawn. In the end Paul won through; his pluck and strength compelled a respect that would have been refused to his intellectual gifts. His tormentors realised that he was not a mere "swot," that he had fists and knew how to use them. Animosity was also disarmed by his chivalric spirit. He began his career at Dulwich in the Classical Lower IV. In June, 1909, he won a Junior Scholarship, which freed him from school fees for three years, and in 1912 a Senior Scholarship of the same nature. When he was in the Classical Lower Fifth (1909), his form master, Mr. H. V. Doulton reported:

"He is a boy of great promise and will make an excellent scholar. He has marked aptitude for classical work, and success in the great public examinations may be predicted for him with absolute confidence." "Painstaking and anxious to do well, but rather slow," was the verdict of his mathematical teacher.

In the summer term, 1910, Paul changed over from the Classical to the Modern side of the school. I was averse to the change, and his Classical form-master dissuaded him against it. But once Paul's mind was made up nothing would break his resolution: he had a strong and tenacious will. His main desire in transferring to the Modern side was to study English literature and modern languages thoroughly. He never regretted the change. As he grew older the firmer became his conviction that Classics were overdone in the public schools. Even in a school responsive to the spirit of the age like Dulwich, which has Modern, Science, and Engineering sides, the primacy still belongs to Classics, and the captaincy of the school is rigidly confined to boys on the Classical side. My son believed that this bias for Classics was bad educationally. He thought the prestige given to Greek and Latin as compared with English Literature, Science, Modern Languages and History was simply the outcome of a pedantic scholastic tradition, which made for narrowness not for broad culture. With him it was not a case of making a virtue of necessity, as he had real aptitude for Greek and Latin. But he wanted the windows of our public schools to be cleared of mediÆval cobwebs and flung wide open to the fresh breezes of the modern world. In the report for the last term of 1910, when he was in the Modern Upper V, he was described as "a very capable boy with great abilities." The next report, when he was in the Remove, complained of his "frivolous attitude" in the Physics classes, but "otherwise he has worked well and made good progress." In June, 1911, he passed the Senior School Examination with honours, winning distinction in English, French and Latin—a remarkable achievement for a boy who had only just turned fifteen. Owing to his being under age, the London Matriculation certificate in respect of this examination was not forwarded until he had reached sixteen. "Considering that he is only fifteen," wrote Mr. J. A. Joerg, his form-master, "it should be deemed a great honour for him to have passed in the First Division; it does him much credit." Mr. Boon, who prepared him in mathematics, testified that Paul had "worked with interest and energy" at what was for him an uncongenial subject. He entered the Sixth Form in September, 1911, being then fifteen and a half years old; the form average was seventeen years. In 1912 his reports showed that he was making all-round progress, and was applying himself with zest to a new subject, Logic. In the summer term, 1913, he was first in form order—1st in English, 2nd in Latin, 3rd in French, 4th in German. Though specialising in History, he retained his position as head of the Modern side until he left school, with one interval in the summer term of 1914, when he had to take second place, recovering the headship next term. In order to have a clear road to Oxford University, he qualified in Greek at the London Matriculation Examination, January, 1914. During his Dulwich career he won many prizes, most of which took the form of historical works. As will appear later, he played as whole-heartedly in games as he worked at his books. History was a subject to which he was instinctively drawn, and in 1913 he began preparing definitely for an Oxford University scholarship. He read thoroughly and covered a wide field. In addition to the systematic study of History, he touched the fringes of philosophy and political economy. He was helped in his studies by a very retentive memory. One of his schoolfellows said to me, "Paul has only to read a book once and it is for ever imprinted on his mind." Among the historical writers whom he read during his eighteen months' preparation were: Gibbon, Carlyle, Macaulay, Hallam, Guizot, Michelet, Thiers, Bluntschli, Maine, Froude, Bagehot, Seeley, Maitland, Stubbs, Gardiner, Acton, John Morley, Bryce, Dicey, Tout, Mahan, Holland Rose, G. M. Trevelyan, Hilaire Belloc and H. W. C. Davis. Two recent books that gave him special pleasure were Mr. G. P. Gooch's masterly "History of Historians" and Mr. F. S. Marvin's entrancing little work "The Living Past."

His hard reading was crowned in December, 1914, by a considerable achievement, for he won the coveted Brakenbury Scholarship in History and Modern Languages at Balliol College, Oxford. This scholarship, worth £80 per annum, is tenable for four years; to it subsequently Dulwich College added an exhibition of the annual value of £20. He was the first Balliol scholar in history from Dulwich. Not at all confident that he had won the Brakenbury, he went up to Oxford a second time, while the result of the Balliol examination was still unknown, to try for a less exacting scholarship. Happily there was no necessity for him to undergo this second test, as he found on his arrival at Oxford that his name had just been posted as a Brakenbury scholar.

When he went up, in the last week in November, 1914, for examination at Balliol College, it was his first visit to Oxford. Short as was his stay within its precincts, it was long enough for the glamour and beauty of the venerable university to steal into his soul; and the spell of it remained with him as a permanent possession. In spite of examination anxieties he had a pleasant time at Oxford, as the following letter shows:

The Old Parsonage,
Oxford,
December 1st, 1914.

Everything going as well as could be anticipated. But I don't expect to win the Brakenbury, so there can't be much of a disappointment. I have done one paper already, the essay—subject, "A Nation's character as expressed in its Art and Literature." I think I got on fairly well. The papers end by Thursday afternoon. I was round with all the Dulwich fellows in Wetenhall's rooms at Worcester College last night, and had a great time. Cartwright came across, and a lot of other O.A.'s. To-night I am dining with Gover, an old friend of mine, in hall at Balliol, and going on to his rooms afterwards. I am booked for brekker and dinner to-morrow. Dulwich is a magic name here; if you add "captain of football" all doors fly open to you. Altogether I don't feel I am up for a scholarship at all—a good thing, for it prevents my getting nervous.

Of the many congratulations on his success in winning a Balliol scholarship, none granted him more than a letter from an "Old Alleynian," who wrote:

My very best congratters on the fresh laurel with which you have adorned your crown of victory. A Balliol scholarship for four years, and this to have been secured by the captain of a public school 1st XV that has won four out of its five great school matches! My dear Paul, you have done splendidly. I don't remember during my time such a happy combination of work and play.

Mr. Llewelyn Williams, K.C., M.P., himself an Oxford history scholar, wrote: "Paul's brilliant success warmed even my old heart. Tell him from me I hope when he is a Don he will write the History of Wales."

Paul was appointed a prefect at Dulwich in 1912. He participated in every phase of school life and was devoted to athletics. In cricket he was quick and adroit as a fielder, but he had no skill either as a batsman—doubtless owing to his visual defect—or as a bowler. Very fond of swimming, he was a regular visitor to the college swimming bath. He had great endurance in the water, but lacked speed, and much to his disappointment failed to get his swimming colours. His love of swimming never waned, and in the sea he would swim long distances. Swimming brought him an ecstasy of physical and moral exhilaration. He could say with Byron:

I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward.

Lawn tennis is discouraged at Dulwich, but Paul became adept in this pastime, thanks to games on the lawn attached to our house. In the whole range of athletics nothing gave him so much pleasure and satisfaction as Rugby football. Too massive in build to be a swift runner, and unable owing to his defective vision to give or take "passes" with quick precision, he was not suited to the three-quarter line; but as a forward he made a reputation second to none of his contemporaries in public-school football. He played for the College 1st XV in three successive seasons, during which he was not once "crocked," nor did he miss a single match. His success in football was an illustration of how a resolute will can triumph over a hampering physical defect.

In the autumn of 1913 he was offered a house scholarship, which would have meant residence in one of the boarding-houses. Without hesitation he declined what was at once an honour and a privilege, preferring to remain a day-boy. He dearly loved his home, and his opinion was that the advantages of public-school training were much enhanced when combined with home life. His custom was to ride to the College on his bicycle in the morning, stay there for dinner and return home in the evening between 6 and 7 o'clock, the hours following afternoon school being devoted to games, the gymnasium, or some other form of physical training.

In 1914 he was elected Captain of the 1st XV. No distinction he ever won—and there were many—gratified him more. In a great public school the duties that devolve on a captain of football are laborious and responsible. They entail many hours of work weekly, the careful compilation of lists of players for the numerous school teams, a vigilant oversight of training and a watchful eye for budding talent. But Paul loved the work, and love lightens labour. He threw himself into the duties with all the enthusiasm of his nature. The amount of time he was devoting to football in September and October made me doubtful of his ability to carry off a Balliol scholarship in December. Accordingly I suggested that he might relinquish the captaincy temporarily, say for a month, so as to allow him freedom to concentrate on his history reading before the examination. He would not listen to the suggestion. He said he meant to fulfil the duties of captain to the uttermost. If this jeopardised his chances for a scholarship he would be sorry, but whatever the cost he was not going to fall short in his work as captain of football. In the result he brought off the double event, winning the scholarship and leading his team with shining success.

Frontispiece

Winning the Mile, March 27, 1915.

His athletic career culminated at the school sports on March 27, 1915, when he won the mile flat race, the half-mile, and the steeplechase, and was awarded the silver cup for the best forward in the 1st XV. He tied for the "Victor Ludorum" shield with his friend S. J. Hannaford (a versatile athlete reported missing in France, September, 1917). These successes at the sports were a dazzling finish to Paul's school days. He bore them, like his scholastic triumphs, very modestly, but in his heart he was proud and happy. It was not his nature to plume himself on any achievement. Only once do I remember his betraying pride in what he had accomplished. It is the custom in Dulwich to inscribe on the walls of the great hall the names of boys who distinguish themselves on entering or leaving the Universities and the Army. In due time the ten Oxford scholars of 1914 were walled. During his first leave from the Army Paul revisited the old school, and I recollect his telling me that the names of those who had won scholarships at Oxford had been duly painted in hall. "My name is placed first," he said with a smile; adding with emphasis, "and so it ought to be."

It was his hope that his own success would give a stimulus to the study of history at Dulwich. In 1916, when he learnt that another Dulwich boy was thinking of preparing for a Balliol scholarship in history, he wrote to me from France, requesting that his notes, memoranda, essays and books should be placed at the student's disposal. He added in reference to a matter on which I had asked his opinion:

The education you get from a correspondence course is of a kind which, while useful for acquiring a knowledge of facts, is of very little value in the development of that culture which is the first and essential element in obtaining a 'Varsity—above all, a Balliol—scholarship. If a boy decides to go in for a history scholarship, the Dulwich authorities ought to provide him with adequate tutorship as part of his school training. Were the boy to go to an outside institution, the school would lose part of the honour gained by the winning of the scholarship. But remember that no one would have the ghost of a chance for an Oxford scholarship on the knowledge gained from a correspondence course taken by itself. Finally, any honour gained by a Dulwich boy ought to redound to the credit of Dulwich; the school alone should have the credit of the achievements of its members.

From masters and boys I learnt that my son's influence was specially marked in his last two years at the College. It was an influence that was always thrown on the side of what was lovely, pure and of good report. Frank, free-spirited, open-hearted, his buoyancy and his rich capacity for laughter diffused an atmosphere of cheerfulness; his unflagging enthusiasm stimulated interest in athletics; his love of learning and passion for work were contagious; his high ideals of conduct helped to set the tone in morals and manners. The qualities he most prized in boys were courage, purity, veracity. No one loved books more, but book-learning by itself he placed low on the list. To use his own words: "It is character and personality that tell." Purity in deed and thought was with him a constant aspiration. He reverenced the body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. From the ordeal of the difficult years between 14 and 16 he emerged like refined gold. A boy he was

With rosy cheeks
Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,
And conscious step of purity and pride.

His serene and radiant air was witness to a soul at peace with itself. Things coarse and impure fled from his presence. It was the union in him of moral elevation with physical courage that explained the secret of his remarkable influence in school.

At Dulwich the school year is full and various. In addition to the acquisition of knowledge there is much else to engage a boy's interest—cricket, football, fives, swimming, the gymnasium, athletic competitions, the choir; and then those red-letter days—Founder's Day, with its Greek, French or German play, the Prize Distribution and the Concerts. Our son bore his share in every phase of this varied life. He had a warm corner in his heart for the College Mission, which maintains a home in Walworth for boys without friends or relatives and enables them to be trained as skilled artisans. The home has accommodation for twenty-one boys; a married couple look after the house work, and two old Alleynians are in residence. He never failed after he left the College to send an annual subscription anonymously to the Mission funds. An enthusiastic lover of music, he was for years in the College Choir, singing latterly with the basses.

At the 1913 Founder's Day celebration Paul took a subsidiary part, that of Fitzwater, in a scene from Shakespeare's Richard II, on which occasion the King was brilliantly impersonated by E. F. Clarke (killed in action, April, 1917). On the same occasion Paul was one of the voyageurs in the scenes from Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, his amusing by-play in that modest rÔle sending the junior school into roars of laughter. At the 1914 celebration of Founder's Day he took the part of Fluellen in a scene from Henry V, and sustained a very different rÔle, that of Karl der Sieberite, in a scene from Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans. Reviewing the performances, The Alleynian said of the former: "In this piece Jones was the comedian. He was clumsy and not quite at home on the boards, but his Welsh was delightful."

Of his performances as Charles VII in Schiller's play the critic wrote:

The scene chosen is one of the most powerful scenes in the play. It is that in which the King, sceptical of the divine inspiration of the Maid, determines to test her by substituting a courtier upon his throne.... When she is not only not deceived, but proceeds also to interpret many of the King's innermost thoughts, the surprise of the monarch, passing into hushed reverence, calls for a studied piece of careful acting. H. P. M. Jones sustained this part, and sustained it well. He gave it the dignity which it needed, and if his natural gift of physical stature helped him somewhat, so also did the smooth diction and easy repose which he had evidently been at pains to acquire.

Of the performance as a whole: "It says a very great deal for the German in the upper part of the school, that a scene can be enacted in which both accent and acting can reach so high a level."

The school year at Dulwich always closes with a concert at which the music, thanks to the competent leadership of Mr. H. V. Doulton, is of a high order. The solos of the two school songs on 19th December, 1914, were sung by H. P. M. Jones and H. Edkins, both of them Oxford scholars who have since been killed in action. Edkins, who had a rich baritone voice, sang the song in praise of Edward Alleyn, the pious founder. My son, as captain of football, sang the football song, the first and last verses of which are appended:

Rain and wind and hidden sun,
Wild November weather,
Muddy field and leafless tree
Bare of fur or feather.
Sweeps there be who scorn the game,
On them tons of soot fall!
All Alleynians here declare
Nought like Rugby football.
.....
Broken heads and bleeding shins!
What's the cause for sorrow?
Shut your mouth and grin the more,
Plaster-time to-morrow.
Young or old this shall remain
Still your favourite story:
Fifteen fellows fighting-full,
Out for death or glory.

After each stanza the choir and the whole school rolled in with the chorus, proclaiming in stentorian voices that "the Blue and Black" (these being the Dulwich football colours) shall win the day. My wife and I were present at this concert, and there is a vivid image before us of our son, a tall, powerful figure in evening dress, standing on the platform in front of the choir, his eager face now following the conductor's bÂton, now glancing at the music-score, now looking in his forthright way at the audience. The reception that greeted him when he stepped on to the platform must have thrilled every fibre of his being; another rapturous outburst of cheers acclaimed him as he retired to his place in the choir. Those cheers, loud, shrill and clear, with that poignant note that there often is in boyish voices, still resound in our ears. We had heard that Paul was popular at Dulwich: we had ocular and audible testimony of it on this unforgettable night. Those had not exaggerated who told us that he was the hero of the school.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER III
FOOTBALL

Play it long and play it hard
Till the game is ended.

Dulwich Football Song.

The earliest reference to Paul as a footballer appears in The Alleynian's report of a match, "Boarders v. School," played on September 25, 1912, when the School won by 32 points to 21. "Jones," says the reporter, "presented an awesome sight." His first appearance in the 1st XV was against London Hospitals "A" in October. Singling him out for honourable mention, the critic says: "Jones displayed any amount of go." He was awarded his 1st XV colours after the match against Bedford School at Bedford in November. In this hard-fought game Bedford led at half-time by 15 points to 5, and 25 minutes before the close of play the score was in Bedford's favour by 28 to 5. Then, by a wonderful rally, Dulwich scored 23 points in almost as many minutes, the match finally being drawn 28-28. In The Alleynian for February, 1913, Paul is thus described in the article, "First XV Characters":

A young, heavy and extremely energetic forward. Puts all he knows into his play, and is a great worker in the scrum. In the loose, however, a lot of his energy is somewhat misdirected, and he has an alarming tendency for getting off-side.

Frontispiece

DULWICH COLLEGE 1st XV, 1914-15, OF WHICH PAUL JONES WAS CAPTAIN.

From left to right, top Row: H. C. Jensen, M. Z. Ariffin, E. A. F. Hawke, R. L. Paton, J. Paget, J. F. G. Schlund, J. M. Cat, G. H. Gilkes. Middle Row: A. H. H. Gilligan, L. W. Franklin, H. P. M. Jones, L. Minot, R. S. Hellier. On Ground: C. A. R. Hoggan, S. H. Killick.

In the 1913-14 season, a daily newspaper, describing the hard-fought Sherborne v. Dulwich match, said: "H. P. M. Jones worked like a Trojan for the losers, his Pillmanesque hair being seen in the thick of everything." That season Paul had charge of the Junior games. He had a way with small boys, and soon fired them with his own zeal. In an article in The Alleynian for December, 1913, giving counsel to the juniors, he wrote:

You must not gas so much on the field, but play the game as hard as it can be played. Except in rare circumstances, the only players who are to shout are the captain, the scrum-half, and the leader of the forwards. Forwards must learn to pack low and shove straight and hard. Three-quarters must remember not to run across too much, and never to pass the ball when standing still.

There are other useful hints. Looking upon the junior games as the seed-bed for future crops of 1st XV players, he devoted a great deal of time and patience to teaching the youngsters how to play. In addition to matches with other schools and clubs, a feature of the football season at Dulwich are the side-games. Paul played in three seasons for the Modern Sixth and Remove, and was captain of the victorious team in the side-contests, 1914-15. House matches of which he was only a spectator he often reported for The Alleynian.

It was at a meeting of the Field Sports Board on July 28, 1914, that Paul Jones was elected captain of the 1st XV, being proposed by A. W. Fischer and seconded by A. E. R. Gilligan. At the same meeting R. B. B. Jones was elected captain of the gymnasium. Fischer, Basil Jones and my son have been killed in the War. In a report of a meeting of the Field Sports Board held on September 29 appears the following: "H. P. M. Jones then submitted a code of rules to regulate the management of the school games. These were unanimously approved." In a survey of the prospects of the 1914-15 football season which appeared in the October Alleynian, Paul paid tribute to the magnificent work done for football in Dulwich by one of the masters, Mr. W. D. Gibbon, an old International, who joined the Army shortly after the outbreak of war and is now Lieutenant-Colonel. Paul wrote:

The loss of Mr. Gibbon is a staggering-blow. He it is who, more than anyone, has given us the very high place we hold among Rugby-playing schools. To lose his services is disastrous. Still, it would be shameful to grouse over his departure considering that he goes to serve his country. Rather let us congratulate him on his captaincy in the Worcestershires.

A reformer by temperament, my son was determined to improve the forward play during his captaincy, as he believed that not enough attention had been given to the forwards for several seasons at Dulwich. It was inevitable that the War would derange the football programme, but though there would be few club matches, the new captain thought that the "school games" might benefit from this very lack. Anyhow it was "a unique chance to build them up on a sound basis." He believed in doing everything to encourage in-school football, meaning by that the half-holiday games, the side-matches, cup matches, and such games as Prefects v. School, Boarders v. School, the House matches, etc. He realised that the first three XV's only include 45 boys, and that there were 600 others whose claims to consideration were equally great. Moreover, good in-school football would produce a succession of players for the first XV. Having all this in mind, in his article in The Alleynian he exhorted the game captains to instil "a general keenness" and to do their duty unselfishly and enthusiastically. His survey then proceeds:

Now as to the teams. In the first place, let it be said at once that the outsides are going to be fine this year. Franklin and A. H. H. Gilligan, the "star" wings of last year's team, and MinÔt, undoubtedly the best of the centres, remain to us. Franklin is faster than of yore, and still goes down the right touch-line like a miniature thunderbolt, brushing aside the opposition like so many flies. If he is the thunderbolt, Gilligan, on the other wing, is undoubtedly the "greased lightning"; we have not seen so fast a school wing for years, and his newly acquired swerve makes him all the more dangerous. MinÔt has quite mastered the art of passing; we have rarely seen "transfers" made so accurately and so artistically. He can cut through when required, and altogether should make Gilligan a splendid partner. All these three defend stoutly. We are also fortunate in retaining the services of Paton (2nd XV) for the other centre position; he only wants a little more judgment to be quite first-class.

At half, Evans and A. E. R. Gilligan have left a terrible gap. But again fortune is on our side, as we have in Killick (2nd XV) a worthy successor to the latter—very quick off the mark, and an excellent giver and taker of passes; while Jensen (2nd XV) shows promise of becoming a really "class" scrum worker. At present his chief fault is inaccuracy of direction, but that will soon vanish. Both these halves are excellent in defence. Again, Hooker (3rd XV) is a very useful scrum half, but slow in attack. For the full-back position we have that wily old veteran Ariffin (2nd XV), whose kicking has distinctly improved since last year. He tackles as well as ever. Sellick (3rd XV) is a useful back, but weak in defence.

So, gentlemen, outside the scrum all is well. But what of the scrum itself? This, we don't deny, is going to be a difficult problem. It is not that there isn't plenty of good stuff. Hellier and Gilkes (2nd XV), Hoggan, Schlund, Cat and Fischer (all 3rd XV)—here is the nucleus of a fine pack, not to mention a host of hefty and keen fellows as yet without colours. But the difficulty lies in the traditions of the past. Since 1912, our forwards have steadily deteriorated as our backs have got better and better. It was always the way last year that, if we had a ground wet to any degree, we were as good as beaten—look at the Easter term, for example. Also, the helplessness of the forwards threw a lot too much work on the outsides. This has got to be stopped. You can't always get weather to suit your team's outsides. We must learn how to play a forward game when it's necessary. We must learn to screw, to wheel, to shove and to rush. We repeat, the individuals are there, but they have to be trained into a combination. The outsides are so brilliant that they can be trusted faithfully to fulfil the work of passing and open-side attack.

Our chief efforts this year must be directed to the training of the forwards: (1) to play a truer forward game; (2) and not to forget how to attack and adopt open-side tactics when necessary. Once the teams have re-learnt these lessons, the games will automatically do so. In the days of Jordan, Mackinnon and Green we won as many matches by our forwards as by our outsides. It is fatuous to develop one division at the expense of the other. The outsides are going this season to receive all possible attention, but so are the forwards.

Paul carried out thoroughly the policy here foreshadowed. As a consequence forward play at Dulwich was absolutely transformed, and the impulse he gave to it survives to this day. Under his captaincy the 1st XV had a brilliantly successful season, winning four out of five of the great school matches, viz.:

• Dulwich v. Merchant Taylors; won 6 points to 5.
• " v. Sherborne, won 39 points to 9.
• " v. St. Paul's, lost 16 points to 28.
• " v. Bedford, won 30 points to 16.
• " v. Haileybury, won 36 points to 2.

With the exception of 1909-10, when Dulwich won all its school matches, this 1914-15 record during Paul's captaincy was the best for a dozen years. Of the football in the school generally the captain, writing in the December Alleynian, said: "Such a uniform standard of keenness has rarely been witnessed. For this I have to thank the Games Captains most sincerely. They have done their part most loyally and unselfishly. The next few years will prove the value of their work."

Frontispiece

DULWICH MODERN SIDE XV, 1914-15, CAPTAINED BY PAUL JONES.

From left to right, Top Row: C. F. N. Ambrose, W. B. Jellett, B. A. J. Mills, G. Walker, C. R. Mountain. Second Row, J. C. Corrie, R. W. Mills, G. Roederwald, L. Paton, H. V. Morlock. Seated: R. L. Paton, A. H. H. Gilligan, H. P. M. Jones, C. A. R. Hoggan, J. F. G. Schlund. On Ground: L. A. Hotchkiss, R. A. Mayne.

In a review of the 1st XV characters in The Alleynian for February, 1915, appeared the following:

H. P. M. Jones (captain) (1912-13-14-15) (12 st. 6 lb.). Forward.—One of the keenest captains Dulwich has ever produced. An untiring and zealous worker both in the game and organisation, from which he has produced one of the finest packs Dulwich has seen in recent years. He uses every ounce of his weight to advantage, and his knowledge of the game is beyond reproach. He is sound in defence, and in the open wherever the ball is you will find him. We shall all greatly miss him, but will remember that his valuable work for the forwards will mean much to the school in the future. (Forward Challenge Cup.)

On February 6 he had the gratification of avenging the defeat by St. Paul's in the previous November, Dulwich this time being victorious over the Paulines by 39 to nil. With this victory he regarded his work as captain of football finished, though he played in the side-games until March. In spite of the difficulties caused by the war, the season had been a triumphant one. An old member of the 1st XV, Lieut. A. E. R. Gilligan, writing from his regiment, congratulated Paul on "the magnificent record of the team—a record which reflects the utmost credit on its captain. Without your keenness and energy the side would have been a poor one." Lieut. Gilligan added: "To have beaten St. Paul's was absolutely a crowning effort. All the 'O.A.'s' here are overjoyed at our victory. It is simply splendid, and makes up for the defeat of last term. Best congratulations to all the gallant team and to its victorious captain."

Paul's football enthusiasm inspired him on one occasion to attempt a metrical description of a match between Bedford and Dulwich. The nature of this poetical effusion may be gauged by the following quotations:

In November, month of drabness,
Month of mud and month of wetness,
Came the red-shirted Bedfordians,
Came the lusty Midland schoolmen,
Skilled in every wile of football,
Swift to run, adept to collar,
'Gainst the Blue-and-Blacks to battle.
Know ye that this famous contest
Has from age to age endured:
Thirty years and more it's lasted
'Twixt Bedfordians and Dulwich,
'Twixt the Midlanders and Southrons.
.....
Behold the game now well in progress;
See the dashing Dulwich outsides,
Swift as leopards, brave as lions,
Down the field come running strongly—
See the fleet right-wing three-quarter
Darting through the ranks of Bedford,
Handing off his fierce opponents,
Scoring now 'mid deaf'ning uproar,
'Mid wild shouts of "Well played, Dulwich!"
'Mid the sweetest of confusion.

He followed with close attention the exploits of the chief Rugby clubs, especially those hailing from South Wales. His sympathies were with Wales in the international games. These international matches enthralled him, and he was a spectator whenever possible of those that were played in the vicinity of London. One of his ambitions was some day to don the scarlet jersey with the Prince of Wales's plume and play for Wales in international contests. To achieve that distinction and to win his football "blue" for Oxford—these were cherished ambitions which but for the War would doubtless have been realised.

In the spring of 1915, interviewed by a London football editor, he explained how Dulwich had built up its great football reputation. Much of the success he attributed to the system of training.

We do not divide the school into so many "houses," as they do elsewhere, but into "games." We have no fewer than eight senior games, which means eight groups of players, about thirty in each group; and these are selected so that boys of about the same age and weight will meet each other. When we have arranged our games, one of the Colours—1st XV men—is told off to coach. Sometimes we play as many as nine XV's in one day. With the first team we practise what are called "set-pieces." One day we will take the forwards, get the scrum properly formed, practise hooking, heeling and screwing. We have devoted a lot of attention to wheeling. We also practise hand-to-hand passing among the forwards.

My son held that brain as well as muscle was needed in athletics. "Rugby football," he wrote, "tends more and more to become an ideal combination of scientific actions. Haphazard, clumsy battering is useless. Your footballer has to be a thinking and a reasoning factor." He believed that games properly played are invaluable as a training in character. "They make," he wrote, "not only for courage and unselfishness, but also for clean living: a sportsman dare not indulge in excesses."

Nobody could have found greater happiness in a game of football than did Paul Jones. He revelled in a hard-fought match and seemed impervious to knocks and bruises. One of his merits as a captain was that he never lost heart; he would fight doggedly to the last, even against adverse conditions. He knew, too, how to adapt his tactics skilfully to varying conditions of play. It was an intoxicating moment after a victory, for the boys would sweep into the field of play and carry the captain in triumph shoulder-high from the arena. In public-school football no animosities are left, no matter how keenly contested the game. Victor and vanquished dine together after the match, the best of friends, and the home team escort their visitors to the railway station. How well I recollect Paul coming home on Saturday evenings about eight o'clock after a victorious match; his firm, quick step, and the eager joy that shone in his face! His mother and I often watched the games at Dulwich, and he would go over every phase of the play with us, inviting comments and contributing his own. He was always severe in his condemnation of anything in the shape of "gallery play," his constant maxim being that the player should subordinate himself entirely to the side. It was his conviction that unselfishness was stimulated by football. The amateur athlete, who forgot himself in the team of which he was a part, and who played and worked hard for the honour of the game, and without thought of personal advantage or reward, was the god of his idolatry. Fond as he was of sport, and highly as he appreciated it as a discipline for character, he held that the cult of athletics could be overdone, and that to make a business of what should only be a pastime was a grave blunder. In an essay which he wrote on "Sport," he characterises the professional athlete as a man who is engaged "in the vilest of trades." "Life," he wrote, "is made up of varied interests, and man has serious work to do in the world. Excess in sport—or in anything else—puts the notes of the great common chord of life out of harmony."[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IV
CRICKET

Your cricketer, right English to the core,
Still loves the man best he has licked before.

Tom Taylor in Punch.

Though, as has been said, Paul had no skill in cricket, he was jealous of the cricket reputation of the College. He knew the game thoroughly. His cricket "Bible," if I may use the expression, was Prince Ranjitsinhji's excellent "Jubilee Book of Cricket." He often accompanied the 1st XI for out-of-town matches, to act as scorer or reporter. His cricket reports in The Alleynian make racy reading. The following is taken from a picturesquely-written account of a victory over Brighton at Brighton in May, 1914:

When A. E. R. Gilligan appeared at the wicket things became more than merry. He was in fine fettle, and from the first made light of the bowling, hitting all round the wicket with immense vigour. The gem of the day was his treatment of D. S. Johnson's fifth over. We seem to recollect reading in our childhood a work of P. G. Wodehouse's, in which he remarks that "when a slow bowler begins to bowl fast, it is as well to be batting if you can manage it." Well, Johnson was—we think—originally a slow bowler, and he tried to bowl fast. The result was that traffic had to be suspended on the road running past the school. First Franklin—who had replaced Shirley, brilliantly caught at point—smote Johnson for a three. This brought Gilligan to the batting end, and a horse passing outside the ground nearly had its life cut short. The next ball just missed the railings, and the next almost smashed the fanlight in a house across the road. It was then that the police suspended the traffic. Gilligan finally played inside a good length ball, and was most unfortunately bowled when within two of his century. Hard luck! He had been missed twice—once, we admit, badly—but on the whole his smiting was admirably timed and placed. He hit three sixes and fifteen fours. Franklin had meanwhile been busy, and scored 22, with three fours. Finally, Brown and Wood put on some 30 runs, the former being not out for a useful 16, and the latter getting 13. Our score was 326 for eight when Gilligan declared.

Appended is a passage from his account of the match with Bedford on June 6 (in which Dulwich were victorious by 81 runs), describing a record achievement by A. H. H. Gilligan, one of three brothers who distinguished themselves in athletics in Dulwich:

A. H. H. Gilligan was now well over the 170 mark, and had therefore beaten the previous school record for the highest score. At 190, however, he just touched a short fast ball from Cameron, and put the ball into the hands of Dix at second slip: 283-9-190. The innings closed for 284 in the next over, Paton being run out. To score 190 out of 284 is an almost superhuman performance. For a man who was only playing his second match this season it was a positively marvellous achievement. Gilligan's innings was a masterpiece, and at no time did he seem to be in the slightest degree troubled by the bowlers, yet the latter were distinctly good, as they proved by the fact that they got nine men out for 94 runs or less. Gilligan's innings included a six and thirty-two fours. The previous best score—against a weak scratch side in 1911—was 171 by C. V. Arnold. Gilligan was at the wickets in all only two and a quarter hours or so.

The following is from his report of the Sherborne match, which Dulwich won handsomely:

Had not the last few wickets been able to put on a few more runs all earlier efforts might have been wasted, and certainly all would have been altered had it not been for the amazing bowling of Paton. His analysis was five for 6—a wonderful achievement. The wicket was, indeed, to a certain extent favourable to him, but he was able to make the ball swing with his arm and break back in a fashion that was quite astounding. A. E. R. Gilligan worked with his usual energy and bore the brunt of the bowling. While he did not have the success of Paton, he bowled extremely well, taking four for 30. All our team fielded so well that to specify individuals would be unnecessary. The Sherborne team brought off some excellent catches, though their ground-fielding was not quite so good. Wheeler bowled very well, and Westlake was in splendid form behind the wicket. After the match there were the usual handshakings and so forth, and we started back for London at five-thirty, getting to Waterloo at about eight o'clock. Our visit was quite delightful, and we send our very best thanks to our Sherborne friends for their kindness and hospitality.

Of the match with St. Paul's School in July, 1914, in which Dulwich were badly beaten, he wrote:

We would have given much to win this match, in particular, but at least there is the consolation that we lost to a really great side which could hardly have been beaten by any school in the country. The St. Paul's batting was so splendidly balanced that every man could be sure of a 10 or 20, while Skeet and Gibb were always certain of really good knocks; and in bowling the wizardry of Pearson was in itself enough to conjure any team out.

St. Paul's knocked up 188 in their first innings. Dulwich were disposed of for 67, largely owing to the bowling of Pearson.

The Pauline "demon" had now got all our men into a terrible "funk," and the result was that wickets began to fall at both ends like ninepins: 44-9-3. Then came the best batting of the game. Gilkes joined Brown, and quickly showed that he was not the man to hide his head before foes, however strong. After smiting Roberts to the leg boundary, he did the same to the off, and with Brown playing his usually steady game—being particularly smart in short runs—the 50 and 60 soon went up. But it could not go on, for at 67 Brown, avoiding Scylla, fell into the jaws of Charybdis—in other words, keeping Pearson out, was bowled by Skeet: 67-10-11. His 11 was a most valuable piece of batting. Gilkes, with 12 not out, was top scorer on our side—except for Mr. Extras. He had really done extremely well, and played with a straight bat at everything—therefore he did not get out. A most plucky and useful bit of work this.

But what of our innings as a whole? Let the heavens fall in confusion on us! We decline to discuss the matter. Pearson took five wickets for 17, Skeet three for 21, Roberts two for 13. St. Paul's fielded well, especially Skeet, Hayne and Gibb. It was Pearson's cakewalk-tango bowling that undid us. Note, however, that in a second innings we quite redeemed ourselves, Rowbotham (31 not out), Paton (29), and Brown (29 not out) playing really excellently. Why, oh, why! didn't we do it in the first innings?

His detailed and graphic reports were greatly appreciated by the members of the 1st XI, and read with relish by the whole school. Whenever opportunity offered Paul would visit the Oval for a great cricket match. Lord's not being so accessible, he seldom went to the M.C.C. ground. Though a poor cricketer himself, he loved the great summer game and admired those who excelled in it.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER V
EDITOR OF "THE ALLEYNIAN."

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance.

Pope: "Essay on Criticism."

To the school magazine, The Alleynian, which is published monthly, Paul began contributing in 1912. His success in essays having shown that he had facility in writing, he was asked by those in authority to report the lectures for the magazine and help to liven up its contents. His first contribution deals with a lantern lecture on the "Soudan," delivered before the Science and Photographic Society by Major Perceval on November 23, 1912. A summary of the lecture is enlivened by such observations as these:

A large and very distinguished audience was present. On the back benches in particular was a great array of Dulwich "knuts." The lecturer was, however, undaunted, though there can be no doubt that he felt much awe at the number of mighty men in his audience.

From the report of a lecture delivered on January 31, 1913, "The Land of the Maori," the following quotation is made because of its allusions to then topical events:

The lecturer said that in New Zealand the interests of labour were so well safeguarded that the country is called "the working-man's paradise" (loud cheers), while the women there had votes. At this an unparalleled uproar broke out. Cheers and hisses were commingled in one tremendous cataclysm of sound. Certainly we heard shouts of "Bravo" countered by shrieks of "Shame." The lecturer seemed dazed by the dreadful din. A report of the "Servants' Concert" (28th July, 1913) is in rollicking vein:

Success was in the air from the very start. The crush at the doors was like Twickenham on the day of the England v. Scotland match—we had almost said the Crystal Palace on Cup Final Day. It is evident that there is a tremendous amount of talent for the stage and the music-halls in the school. To hear Gill give the tragic history of "Tommy's Little Tube of Seccotine," or the duet on the touching story of "Two Little Sausages," by Savage and Livock, would have brought tears to the eyes of a prison warder. Then there were F. W. Gilligan to relate his horticultural, and brother A. E. R. his zoological reminiscences—works of great value to scientists and others. To hear Killick dilate upon the dangers of the new disease, the "Epidemic Rag" (which seems to be quite as catching as the mumps), Gill upon the risks of the piscatorial art, or Savage upon an original Polynesian theme, "Zulu Lulu," was to feel like Keats's watcher of the skies, "when a new planet swims into his ken." For the admirer of Spanish customs there was A. E. J. Inglis (O.A.) to sing, as only he can, the Toreador's song; while for the Cockney there was Killick to give, in his own inimitable fashion, that really touching little ballad "My Old Dutch," Ould Oireland being well catered for by Livock in "A Little Irish Girl." The pianoforte solos by Nalder, Jacob and Shirley were all excellent and thoroughly well appreciated, as was our old friend, "Let's have a Peal," by the First XI.

And now for the "star" performance of the evening. Positively for one night only, the Dulwich College Dramatic Society were down to give us W. G. O. Gill's one-act farce, "The Lottery Ticket." This fairly brought down the house. It went "with a bang," as actors say, from the very start. The great point about it was that all the performers forgot that they were acting, and were so perfectly natural. There was not a hitch. Killick, as a withered old Shylock, gave a really masterly representation of ancient villainy. Evans was admirably suited with the rÔle of a dashing young man-about-town. The way he took his gloves off was worth a fortune in itself. We felt that there must be many degrees of blue blood in his veins. His back-chat repartee was far better than that of Mr. F. E. Smith, K.C. If Gill and Waite are in the future ever in need of a berth they should, judging by their performances in this play, apply to Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree for parts as a dilapidated charwoman and unwashed office-boy respectively. The topical allusions in the play were all thoroughly well made and appreciated. We might suggest that it is not the custom "in polite circles" to open and read other people's telegrams, but for a hardened old reprobate like Mr. Grabbit we can feel no pity, while we can forgive anything to a Principal Boy like Mr. Knowall.

It is an open secret that the concert was organised by Killick. We take this opportunity of congratulating him heartily. From what rumour says, we take it that the Powers-that-be are very pleased with the concert. So are we. It was a complete success from start to finish. It is to be hoped that it will become a regular institution, especially considering the object it has in view—to give pleasure to those who have not often the chance of it.

In 1913 he was appointed secretary and treasurer of the magazine, and a few months later he became one of the editors. Throughout 1913 and 1914 he was the chief contributor to its pages. Reporting a lady's lecture on Tibet (October 17, 1913), he wrote:

But, at least, the Tibetans can teach us something—simplicity in ceremonies. For when Miss Kemp went to see the palace of the King all the decoration she saw there was a simple table and chair. A Tibetan kitchen was a very popular slide. In that country they apparently use a golf-bag to brew tea in, and cast-off bicycle wheels for plates. There prevails in Tibet some element of democracy, for Miss Kemp's cook was also a J.P., a Civil Servant, and held other such offices of fame. One of her assistants was a positive marvel—a human carpet-sweeper. If the floor was to be brushed he would simply roll over and over on it and clean it with his clothes! The Tibetans have no motor-bikes and no S. F. Edges, their fastest conveyance being a yÂk, a species of ox, which moves at an average speed of two miles an hour (with the high gear in), and can slow down to an infinite extent. However, the nature of the country would make high speeds rather dangerous, as constantly you find yourself in danger of falling over precipices, down crevasses, or of being overwhelmed by falling boulders, for the mountain lands are covered with great glaciers. It was these mountain views that were especially magnificent. They were, for the most part, taken with tele-photographic lenses at a distance of fifty or sixty miles.

To the November Alleynian he contributed a racy and rattling parody of the modern sensational drama entitled Red Blood: a Western Drama in Two Acts, in which the dramatis personÆ are an English cowboy (heir to a million dollars without knowing it), an Indian chief (his friend), a wicked uncle, a murderer, and a New York detective. His historical tastes peep out in his report of a lecture delivered 7th November, 1913, on the famous mediÆval doctor, Pareil (1510-1590). From this report the following is extracted:

Much interest attaches to the historic associations of Pareil's life. As a famous surgeon he was in constant attendance on figures renowned in history, personages like Coligny (who was murdered by the mob of Paris while recovering from an amputation of Pareil's), Erasmus, Servetus, Leonardo da Vinci, and Catherine de Medici. Like Chaucer's doctour of physik, Pareil knew well the works of "Olde Ypocras," Galen, Avycen, etc., the famous physicians whose names have come down from history, but he was no pedantic scholar, preferring to do his own thinking. A stout Protestant, his last act was to beseech the Catholic Archbishop of Lyons, who was holding Paris against the assaults of Henry of Navarre (with the result that the population of the city was perishing by thousands), to open the gates and save the inhabitants, but he beseeched in vain.

Altogether a remarkable figure, this old Pareil. Looked at in perspective, and in his era, it is clear how great a man he was. For he, first of all men in medicine, freed the world from the influence of pedantic tradition, and paved the way for modern medical science. Then all honour to his name, for, as the Master put it in proposing the vote of thanks to Mr. Paget, the art of healing is the greatest boon which man can give to the world.

The last lecture he reported was delivered by Mr. F. M. Oldham, chief Science Master at the College, on "Primitive Man," on 3rd April, 1914. From this report the following extract is taken:

Our main knowledge of man in the earliest stages of his existence comes from the examination of river mud. Mr. Oldham showed how different strata are built up by the river on its bed, and how in the lowest of these strata there will be found the oldest relics of man. In this way we are able to declare that the difference between the earliest man and his immediate followers lay in the question of polishing his flint instruments. That is to say, the earliest or palÆolithic man had his implements unpolished; his successors polished them, often to a beautifully smooth surface. This Mr. Oldham illustrated with a series of films—your pardon, slides—of the arrow-heads made by palÆolithic and neolithic man. It was a natural step, once man had learned to polish his instruments, and when he was advanced enough to try to form conceptions of beauty for himself, that he should draw or scratch pictures on stone. Several of these Mr. Oldham showed on the screen; some of them are extraordinarily well executed and show real artistic feeling. We would particularly mention one such representation of a reindeer, and another of a man stalking a bison.

After the cave-dwellers' epoch comes that of huts, wood and bronze. Man in this stage is really but little different from what he is to-day. He has even the wit to construct himself lake-dwellings, consisting of huts placed on rafts and secured temporarily with large stones sunk in the lake-bed. Characteristic of this period are the great tolmens and monoliths found all over the world. Neolithic man had, indeed, sometimes constructed for himself a hut of stone, as Dartmoor will testify, but the tolmens are of quite different origin, and indicate a distinctly greater mental development, in that they are usually put up as monuments to great men or events. Of the same nature are the great mounds or "barrows" that abound in Ireland; inside there was a sort of crypt in which chiefs were buried. The monoliths were constructed, as doubtless the Pyramids also were, by rolling the great stones up an inclined bank of earth previously built up.

Throughout 1914 Paul was the mainstay of the magazine. The May number contains from his pen exhaustive reports of two house matches (football), a shrewd commentary on the Junior School Cup matches, and a long report of a lecture. For the July number he wrote ten pages of cricket reports, and an account of the swimming competition. He was also responsible for the finances of the magazine, continuing to act as secretary and treasurer. All this time he was preparing for his Oxford scholarship. If he owed much to Dulwich, the College also owed something to him. No boy ever worked harder for it, or consecrated himself with more entire devotion to its welfare.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VI
PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND THE WAR

Now all the youth of England are on fire.

Shakespeare: "Henry V."

To The Alleynian for October, 1914, Paul contributed an editorial article on the War that had then begun to rage in its destructive fury. Taking the view that "this war had to come sooner or later," he wrote:

When one nation has a world-wide Empire embracing a fifth of the globe, founded on principles of absolute liberty for all whom it contains, and when another, built up by the force of circumstances on a basis of military despotism, also aspires to a different sort of world-power, and challenges the first nation, whose principles it abhors as much as its own are abhorred—in these circumstances it is hopeless to talk of reconciliation till one or the other is down. Actually, Germany's monstrous conduct in violating the neutrality of a small, industrious and inoffensive Power—a neutrality to which, be it marked, Germany was as much a partner as England or France—has put her hopelessly in the wrong with the civilised world. But that does not alter the fact that the War is primarily one for political existence. Either the despotism of Potsdam or the constitutional government of Westminster must survive. We, more even than Russia or France, are fighting for our very existence.

Things are, indeed, very favourable to us and to our Allies. Through the brutal but clumsy blundering of Prussian diplomats, Europe has been long awaiting the conflagration; every move in the game has been brought out long ago. Besides, Germany undoubtedly counted on our domestic troubles and our pacific tendencies to keep us out of this conflict. They imagined France could easily be wiped out while Russia's vast bulk was slowly mobilising, and that the Russians would then be held up by the victorious legions pouring back from Paris. Then in, say, ten years they would turn on England and wipe her from the map. Our entrance into the War now has not only braced the whole moral fibre of France, Russia, Belgium and Serbia, but has strangled German commerce and held up her food supply by means of our command of the seas. Thus all the enemy plans have been thrown into confusion. We would be indeed foolish if we did not realise our position—what it means to ourselves, to Europe, and to the world. Having won the toss on a hard wicket, we are not going to put Germany in. We must fight to the death. The law is "Eat or be eaten."

In these circumstances we call on Dulwich College to realise its duties to the State. Nothing—not work nor games—must be allowed to stand before the Corps till the War is over. Special drills and parades, extra route marches, all these must be and ought to be looked forward to cheerfully and willingly. The splendid number of recruits shows that the school is not going to fail in its duty here. We are not going to indulge in theories and jingo-patriotism, but call on you with deadly seriousness—the British Empire, the British principles of liberty, all are at stake. If we go down now we go down for ever. Germany is said to have called up every male between the ages of fifteen and sixty. If they can do that, surely we ought to be able to reply. Let that voluntary system which is the glory of our armies and navies carry us through now! We call on every one in the School to join the Corps at once.

Nothing was finer in the first months of the War than the rally of the manhood of Great Britain to the call of the country in its time of need. All classes, rich and poor, patrician and peasant, employer and workman, were uplifted by the great occasion. Through the influence of patriotism, the recognition by all sorts and conditions of our people of the honourable obligation of fidelity to the pledged word of Britain, combined with a chivalric desire to champion the cause of weak, unoffending Belgium against the Teutonic bully—there was released in this country a flood of noble idealism and pure emotion, the memory of which those who lived during that spiritual awakening will never forget. No section of the community rose more finely to the height of the occasion than the athletes and scholars from our public schools and universities. Nobly did they respond to the call voiced by one of their number, R. E. VernÈde (an old Pauline, now sleeping in a soldier's grave in France):

Lad, with the merry smile and the eyes
Quick as the hawk's and clear as the day;
You, who have counted the game the prize,
Here is the game of games to play.
Never a goal—the captains say—
Matches the one that's needed now;
Put the old blazer and cap away—
England's colours await your brow.

Man, with the square-set jaws and chin,
Always, it seems, you have moved to your end
Sure of yourself, intent to win
Fame and wealth and the power to bend.
All that you've made you're called to spend—
All that you've sought you're asked to miss—
What's ambition compared with this:
That a man lay down his life for his friend?

Exulting in the response of the athletes, Paul Jones found his faith in the value of games confirmed by this memorable rally to the Flag. His last contribution to The Alleynian was inspired by it. Shortly after he joined the Army he wrote to the magazine a letter (published anonymously in May, 1915) under the caption "Flannelled Fools and Muddied Oafs." In this contribution he sings a pÆan in praise of the amateur athlete. After reminding his readers of pre-War denunciations of "the curse of athletics," he asks, "What of athletics now?"

At present, we see that the poor, despised athlete or sportsman—call him what you will—is coming to the front, practically and metaphorically, in a way which makes one wonder if, for the higher purposes of duty, athletics are not really the very best of all systems of training. When we look at the matter in the broadest light, the explanation shines forth clearly. All learning and all business are in the end simply and solely selfish. For example, you work hard for a scholarship at Oxford or Cambridge—why? So that you can obtain for yourself—(underline these words, Mr. Printer, please!)—the advantages of 'Varsity life and culture, and to the ultimate end that you may be better fitted to make your own way in life. Of course, this is necessary, but life is always very sordid in its details, and the more civilised we become, the more apparent is that sordidity. In fact, it is only on our amateur playing-fields that we become really unselfish. For here we play for a team or a side; and for the success of that side—which success, by the way, is in no sense material or selfish—we are prepared to take all sorts of pains, to scorn delights and live laborious days. It is the clearest manifestation of the simple, unsophisticated man coming to the front and tearing aside for a brief moment the cloud of materialism with which civilisation has been enveloping him.

Nothing but athletics has succeeded in doing this sort of work in England. Religion has failed, intellect has failed, art has failed, science has failed. It is clear why: because each of these has laid emphasis on man's selfish side; the saving of his own soul, the cultivation of his own mind, the pleasing of his own senses. But your sportsman joins the Colours because in his games he has felt the real spirit of unselfishness, and has become accustomed to give up all for a body to whose service he is sworn. Besides this, he has acquired the physical fitness necessary for a campaign. These facts explain the grand part played by sport in this War; they also explain why the amateur has done so enormously better than the professional.

"Let us therefore," is his injunction, "take off our hats to the amateur athlete, who is one of the brightest figures in England to-day. Let us indeed not forget that it is not in any sense only the athletes who have gone, but let us remember that in proportion no class of men has seen its duty so clearly, and done it so promptly, in the present crisis. We suggest that this War has shown the training of the playing-fields of the Public Schools and the 'Varsities to be quite as good as that of the class-rooms; nay, as good? Why, far better, if training for the path of Duty is the ideal end of education."

Here, as always, Paul distinguished between the amateur athlete and the professional athlete. For the latter his scorn was unmitigated, and he could not endure Association football with its paid players. He also loathed the betting element that defiled the Soccer game.

This letter was his last contribution to The Alleynian. Its strictures are far too sweeping; it has the dogmatism and the note of certitude to which youth is prone. But it is animated by a fine spirit. Very characteristic is the emphasis placed in it on the ideas of duty and unselfishness. The passion for sacrifice was in his blood.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VII
TASTES AND HOBBIES

Variety's the very spice of life.

Cowper: "The Task."

Many of our son's vacations were spent in Llanelly, South Wales, where his mother's and my own kindred dwell. Llanelly is not a beautiful town—industrial centres seldom are—but Paul loved every aspect of it—the busy works, the spacious bay with its great stretches of sandy beach, the green and hilly hinterland, dotted with snug farmhouses and cheerful-looking cottages. Accompanied by his cousin Tom, for whom he had an intense affection, and under the guidance of his uncle, Mr. Edwin Morgan, a consulting engineer of high repute, he visited in process of time every industrial establishment in the neighbourhood—steel works, foundries, engineering shops and tinplate works. His insatiable curiosity, his desire to know the reason for everything, his alert interest in all the processes of manufacture, were noted with smiling admiration by managers and workmen. His last visit to Llanelly was in the summer of 1914. We joined him there in the third week of August. Clear in recollection is an incident that took place during our stay there. One sunny afternoon we were out in Carmarthen Bay in a little tug-boat and hailed a large four-masted vessel that had dropped anchor and was awaiting a pilot. She had just arrived from Archangel with timber. Her crew, athirst for news about the War, were most grateful for a bundle of newspapers. Paul thrilled at this meeting at sea with a vessel that had come direct from Russia, and he followed with fascinated interest the conversation between the tugboatmen and the crew of the barque. Little did any of us think then that the War was destined to claim Paul's life!

Celtic on his mother's side and mine, he was proud of the fact that he sprang from an "old and haughty nation, proud in arms." On many of his school books he wrote in bold lettering: "Cymru am byth!" ("Wales for ever!") His instinctive love of Wales was strengthened by his visits to Llanelly and by holidays on the Welsh countryside, where, amid romantic surroundings and far from the fret and fever of modern life, he obtained an insight into rural ways and things. Welsh love of music and Welsh prowess in football also appealed powerfully to him.

Like most boys he went through the usual run of hobbies: silkworms, carpentry, stamp-collecting, photography, parlour railways. Thoroughness was his quality even in his hobbies. He had the note-taking habit in marked degree. Even as a small boy on a long railway journey he would carefully record in his notebook the name of every station through which the train passed, and then, on reaching his destination, would work out the distances by maps and books, and finally draw an outline showing the route with the principal stations and junctions marked. The same passion for classifying facts made him, as soon as he began to follow cricket closely, compile tables showing the batting and bowling averages of the leading players. Similarly with football. He was familiar with the record of the leading Rugby clubs and the characteristics of the principal players.

Machinery had for him the fascination of life in motion. He would gaze with rapture at the rhythmic movement of a flywheel and was thrilled by the harmonious movement of cogs and eccentrics, pistons and connecting-rods, all "singing like the morning stars for joy that they are made." As a child visiting a printing office he used to clap his hands with delight at the sight of "the wheels all turning." For engines of all sorts he had a passion. At Plymouth he loved to watch the great G.W.R. locomotives steaming into Millbay terminus, and would often engage the driver or stoker in conversation. After our removal to London he spent part of one vacation in an engineering shop. When he was fifteen we bought for him a small gas-engine which was fixed in an upper room. Clad in overalls he spent many a happy hour with this engine, generating electricity which he used sometimes for lighting, sometimes for driving the engine and train on his miniature railway. Here are extracts from one of his vacation diaries:

January, 1912

January 1.—Went with Mother to first night of Nightbirds at the Lyric. Workman and Constance Driver excellent; Farkoa also very good.

January 2-5.—Busy making switchboard at home. At the engineering workshop I am starting on a steel rod; cutting with hack saw, cutting ⁵/₁₆ standard Whitworth thread; grooving it. All this on a Drummond 3-½-inch lathe.

January 6.—Heard of 4 v. 20 a.h. accumulator for 10s. 6d. I must buy it. Splendid acc. it is. Finished switchboard; all correct; polished up meters and instruments. [Here is diagram of connections.]

Evening.—At Tales of Hoffmann, Opera House, with Mother. Good performance. First and third acts excellent; second ("Barcarolle" act) poor. Orchestra superb. Felice Lyne, Pollock, Victoria Fer—artistes of great promise. Renaud a master.

January 7.—Wrote Economic Electric for new dynamo. Received letter from "Humber" recommending motor bike. I will probably buy one later on, or a "Triumph." January 10.—Took my old accumulator to electrician. To my great pleasure he said there was nothing wrong, only wanted filling and charging.

January 11.—Tried my acc. on the train, running through switchboard; a great success. Engine runs very well. All switchboard connections absolutely correct; the reading when running: volts 3.5 to 4.25, amps. 1 to 2.5.

January 12.—To Bassett Lowke's and bought wagon; yellow colour, red lettering; splendid model.

January 13.—At matinÉe Orpheus in the Underground, at His Majesty's. Exceedingly good show. Courtice Pounds, L. Mackinder and Lottie Venn—all first rate; good voices and not afraid to use them.

January 15.—To Hippodrome. The feature two amazingly clever Chimpanzees. Leo Fall's Eternal Waltz a pretty operetta.

January 16.—Final golf match between Dad and myself. Dad wins match and rubber by 1 up.

January 17.—Got back my P.O. bank book. Total now £6 3s. Discovered slight leakage at joint between the cylinder and combustion head of the gas engine, owing to wearing away of asbestos washer, so causing a very small but appreciable diminution of compression. Made a temporary stopping with vaseline.

Evening.—Dad and I to Tales of Hoffmann, at the Opera House. This time a magnificent performance.

January 19.—Dynamo arrived. A beautiful machine.

January 20.—Went with Dad to International football match, England v. Wales, at Twickenham. Score—England, 8 points; Wales, nil. A splendid game. Wales beaten chiefly owing to their very poor three-quarters. Little to choose between the packs.

January 31.—Having re-started music with a good teacher, a pupil of Professor Hambourg, I have practised very hard on the piano these last few days.

In his enthusiasm for engineering he devoured books like "Engineering Wonders of the World," "How it Works," "How it is Made," "Engineering of To-day," "Mechanical Inventions of To-day"; also books on wireless telegraphy and aviation. A great lover of books, he liked on off-days to visit London bookshops and rummage their shelves. Very proud he was of his purchases during these excursions. From time to time he would have a run round the museums and picture galleries of London or take a trip to Hampton Court—Wolsey's palace and William III's home—a spot dear to him for its links with history and for the beauty of its surroundings. He was always enthralled at the British Museum by the Rosetta Stone—that key by means of which Champollion unlocked for the modern world the long-hidden secret of Egypt's ancient civilisation.

A subject which he pursued keenly for a couple of years—from fifteen to seventeen—and which held him in fascinated wonder, was Astronomy, a branch of knowledge that happens to be strongly represented among my books. Often on starry nights he would be a watcher of the heavens.

Many a night from yonder ivied casement,
Ere he went to rest,
Did he look on great Orion, sloping
Slowly to the west.
Many a night he saw the Pleiads, rising
Thro' the mellow shade,
Glitter like a swarm of fireflies, tangled
In a silver braid.

It has been stated that most of Paul's vacations were spent in Wales, but in 1913 he went farther afield, accompanying his mother, his brother and myself on a tour in Germany. He was enraptured with this, his first visit to the Continent. On our outward journey we halted at Brussels, in those days a bright and happy city with nothing in its cheerful, prosperous air to suggest that in less than a year there would descend upon it the baleful shadow of the Great War. Much in the old Germany appealed powerfully to our son, and even of the new Germany, with its energy and its zeal for learning, he was something of an admirer. But he hated in modern Germany its brazen materialism and boastful arrogance. He attributed the change in the spirit of the German people to the hardness of their Prussian taskmasters, whose yoke was submissively borne because of the glamour of the military victories achieved since 1866, and the rapid growth in wealth that had followed the attainment of German unity. He read and spoke German and was familiar with the literature and history of the country. Two great Germans, Goethe and Wagner, he intensely admired. It so happened that we were at Frankfort on the centenary of Goethe's death. Paul visited the Goethe house and spent a couple of hours examining its souvenirs with loving interest. He liked to see the places and the houses associated with the names or lives of great men. On our homeward journey down the Rhine he left us at Bonn to visit the house where Beethoven was born, joining-us subsequently at Cologne.

This holiday in the Rhineland and the Black Forest brought deep enjoyment to him. His enthusiasm at his first sight of the Rhine was unrestrained, and the morning after our arrival he plunged into its waters for a swim. Professor Cramb, writing of the love of Germans for the Rhine, quotes a letter from Treitschke, in which that fire-eating historian said on the eve of his leaving Bonn: "To-morrow I shall see the Rhine for the last time. The memory of that noble river will keep my heart pure and save me from sad or evil thoughts throughout all the days of my life." Paul in a marginal note writes: "Wonderful attraction of the Rhine. I have felt it myself, though not a German."

He got on excellently with the German people. One Sunday afternoon, doing the famous walk from Triberg to Hornberg, he had a long and friendly talk with a German reservist in the latter's native tongue, about the relations of Germany and England. Both agreed that war between the two nations would be madness, and both dismissed it as to the last degree improbable, but the German said significantly that he feared the Crown Prince was a menace to peace.

In the spring of the following year (1914) Paul spent Easter week with me in Paris. Never had I seen the French capital more beautiful or happier-seeming than in that bright and joyous springtime. Who could have dreamt then that war was only three months distant? Paris was a revelation to Paul. He crowded a lot of sight-seeing into half a dozen busy days. All that was noble or beautiful in Art as in Nature appealed instinctively to him. I can see him now at the Louvre gazing rapt from various angles at that glorious piece of statuary the Venus of Milo. His knowledge of history made his visit to the glittering palace of Louis XIV at Versailles an undiluted pleasure. Fascinated by the genius of Napoleon, he spent a long time at the Invalides gazing down on the sarcophagus within which the conqueror of Europe sleeps his last sleep.

Later in the year he and two other Dulwich boys arranged to spend three weeks of the summer vacation in the house of a professor at Rouen. They were to have left London on the second week in August. This hopeful project was frustrated by the rude shock of war.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VIII
MUSIC

Music is a kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the Infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that.

Carlyle.

Paul began the study of music at an early age. He had natural aptitude for it and an unerring ear. As a little boy he used to sing with much expression in a sweet, clear voice. He received great assistance from his mother in his musical studies. After he had turned fifteen, music became one of his main interests. Indeed, if we except football, it was his master passion, and, unlike football, it could be pursued throughout the year. Whenever his scholastic studies and his athletic activities permitted, he would spend his leisure at the piano. With characteristic thoroughness he studied the lives as well as the works of the great composers. During the Grand Opera season he was a frequent visitor to Covent Garden Theatre and the performances of the Nibelungen Ring were for him a fountain of pure delight. He was also a regular attendant with his mother at the Queen's Hall and Albert Hall concerts. Ballad singing did not appeal to him in the same degree as operatic and orchestral music. Thanks to instinctive gifts and assiduous practice he became a scholarly and an accomplished musician. A brilliant pianist, his playing was marked by power and passion, and the colour and glow of an intense and sensitive personality. He could memorise the most intricate composition, and would play for hours without a note. Music was almost a religion with him: he found in it solace, joy, inspiration. Above all other musicians, he reverenced Beethoven and Wagner. For Beethoven's music, with its spiritualised emotion and divine harmonies, his admiration knew no bounds. Of the famous symphonies he assigned first place to that in C minor, No. 5, which he thought stood alone in the art of musical expression, peerless and unapproachable, a unique emanation from the soul and mind of man. "It holds us in its grasp," wrote Wagner of this composition, "as one of the rarer conceptions of the master, in which Passion, aroused by Pain as its original ground-tone, raises itself upward on the stepping-stone of conciliation and exaltation to an outburst of Joy conscious of Victory." Paul loved to play the Fifth Symphony as well as to hear it performed by an orchestral band. When playing it he seemed to lose touch with earth and to be transported to celestial heights. In his marginalia he compares the methods of expression of Shakespeare with those of Beethoven. That able critic, the late Professor Dowden, in some penetrating observations on Shakespeare's works, wrote:

In the earliest plays the idea is at times hardly sufficient to fill out the language; in the middle plays there seems a perfect balance and equality between the thought and its expression; in the latest plays this balance is disturbed by the preponderance, or excess, of ideas over the means of giving them utterance.

After underlining this passage Paul made the comment: "An extraordinary coincidence occurs to me in that the same thing happens with Beethoven, the greatest of the absolute musicians. Anyone must see that in the last symphony (No. 9 in D minor) he seems often at a loss how to put his feelings into shape (or sound), as though musical style up to his time could not express the intensity of his ideas. Hence in this symphony there is a distinct lack of balance—a defect which is absent from the works of his middle period (e.g., Symphony No. 5 or No. 7)."

Another Beethoven work that he loved was the Third Symphony in E Flat, with its epic opening; the mournful beauty of its funeral march, now sad, calm, solemn like a moonless, starless night, now shining with gleams of hope and faith; its crisp and lively scherzo; and the triumphant finale, a veritable ecstasy of divine joy. My son as an historical scholar found a peculiar attraction in this symphony by reason of its association with Napoleon Buonaparte, for it was inspired by Beethoven's belief—formed in those days when the soldier of the Revolution was regarded as the liberator of peoples and the enemy only of the old feudal order—that Napoleon was marked out by destiny to realise Plato's ideal of government. One recalls how the act of Napoleon in proclaiming himself Emperor shattered this illusion; how Beethoven erased the fallen hero's name from the title-page of his score, withheld the "Eroica" for a time, and then gave it to the world in 1805 as "An Heroic Symphony composed in memory of a great man." When Beethoven heard of Napoleon's death at St. Helena, he said he had already composed his funeral ode 17 years before. Of this marche funÈbre M. Ballaique wrote: "It owes its incomparable grandeur to the beauty of the melodic idea and also to a peculiarity of rhythm. At the first half of each bar there is a halt, a pause, which seems to punctuate each station, each painful slip or descent on the way to the illustrious tomb."

Of Wagner, Paul was a whole-hearted worshipper. He was familiar with the myths, legends and folk-poems from which Wagner drew his themes, and he exulted in the master's superb treatment of them. Never, he thought, had music and ideas been more felicitously blended than by Wagner, whatever the theme—the storm-tost soul of "the Flying Dutchman," to whom redemption came at last through loyalty and compassion; the conflict between sensuality and love fought out in the arena of TannhÄuser's mind; the cosmic glories of the Ring with the resplendent figures of Siegfried and Brunhilde; the self-dedication of Parsifal, the Sir Percival of our Arthurian legends, whom "The sweet vision of the Holy Grail drew from all vain-glories, rivalries and earthly heats." Into the glowing music of Wagner my son read lessons in renunciation, the sordidness of the lust for gold, the sublimity of pure human love, the redemptive power of self-sacrifice. The occasional voluptuousness of the music was so transmuted in the alembic of his temperament that for him the sensual element was eliminated. An incident illustrative of his devotion to Wagner is worth recording. In the summer of 1913, during our holiday tour in Germany, we had for part of the time our headquarters at Assmannshausen, a smiling village sheltering snugly at the foot of vine-clad hills on the right bank of the Rhine. That great river is at its best at Assmannshausen; the broad current here flows swiftly over a stony bed. Day and night one's ears are filled with the music of the rushing waters hastening impetuously to the distant sea as though eager to lose themselves in its infinite embrace. One evening the guests at the hotel arranged a concert, and to our surprise—for we knew how diffident he was—Paul, evidently moved by the genius loci, volunteered to take part in it. When the time came he advanced to the piano through the crowded room and, with an elbow resting on the instrument, astonished the audience by a few explanatory words. He said he was going to play the "Ride of the Valkyries," and explained what Wagner meant to convey by that wild, stormy music. Then seating himself at the instrument, he proceeded to play the "Ride" from memory. His execution had a verve whose charm was irresistible. It was a lovely summer night. Through the open windows of the concert-room one caught glimpses of the moonlight quivering on the waters of the swift-flowing Rhine. Nothing could be heard save the river's melodious roar softened by distance, and this enchanting music interpreted by one who was saturated with its spirit, both sounds blending harmoniously like the double pipe of an ancient Greek flute player. All of us felt the spell of the scene and the occasion. Everyone listened tense and silent until the descending chromatic passage at the end when the "Valkyries" vanish into space, the echo of their laughter dies away, and the "Ride" ends in a sound like the fluttering of wings in the distance. When Paul rose from the piano the pent-up feelings of the audience found expression in enthusiastic applause.

In the spring of 1913, just after he had turned 17, he wrote the following appreciation of Wagner for the Llanelly Star:

The 22nd of May, 1913, marks the centenary of an event of supreme importance in the annals of music. To-day just one hundred years ago was born at Leipzig Richard Wagner, king of the music-drama, who towers above all other operatic composers like some lofty mountain rising from the midst of a dull and featureless plain. Such a colossal revolution as was effected by Wagner in Art can hardly find a parallel in any walk of life. What, in brief, was the scope of Wagner's reforms? To answer this question it is necessary to glance at the state in which the opera stood in pre-Wagner days. From the days of Scarlatti the opera had consisted of a number of semi-detached solos, duets or choruses to which tunes were set. These pieces were joined up by any jumble of notes sung by the characters on the stage, usually with no artistic meaning whatsoever, known as the recitative. In a word, the opera was a mere ballad concert. The recitative was so utterly foolish and meaningless, as a rule, that men like Beethoven and Weber, when they composed music-dramas, abolished it altogether, and composed what is known as "Singspiel"—that is, a number of ballads connected simply by spoken words. (The well-known Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are really Singspiels in a lesser form.) Thus it is obvious that the meaning of the opera—that is, a drama whose significance is made more clear by the aid of music suitable to the situation in hand—had been entirely lost sight of.

In the average French or Italian opera, or in the singspiels, all that matters is a number of songs, ballads or arias—call them what you will—entirely disconnected and quite destructive to the continuity that must be the essence of every drama. This continuity is an absolute necessity to every spoken play; imagine the effect if Shakespeare or Ibsen had written little pieces of rhyming verse joined up by any jumble of nonsensical prose! Neglect of this fact led every opera composer before Wagner astray. We can imagine a pre-Wagner composer telling his librettist, "Now, mind you arrange that in certain parts the words will allow me to put in arias or choruses." In short, the situation was summed up in Wagner's famous phrase, "The means of expression (music) has been made the end, while the end of expression (the drama) has been made the means." Now this state of affairs is clearly wrong. If there is no dramatic idea kept as end to work to, then what is the use of writing opera at all? Why not be content with song-cycles or ballads, or lieder like Brahms's and Schumann's?

There are no divisions into aria and recitative in Wagner's operas, but dramatic continuity is retained by the voices of the characters singing music the succession of whose notes is determined by the emotional requirements of the moment. Meanwhile, the orchestra forms a sort of musical background by giving forth music which exactly suits the dramatic situation. The orchestra, in a word, as Wagner himself said of Tristan und Isolde, forms an emotional tide on which the voice floats like a boat on the waters. The essential relevance of the music to the dramatic situation is obtained, as a rule, by means of what are known as "leading motives." These form the basis of all Wagner's reforms. A leading motive is simply a musical phrase suggestive of a dramatic idea. Wagner's motives are marvellous in their descriptive and soul-stirring power. They seem to indicate not only the pith, but the utmost depths of the heart of the ideas which they represent. It is this that makes Wagner so very like Shakespeare. All can appreciate him, yet he is above all criticism, universal in his appeal.

Who but Wagner could make us feel the awful tragedy of Siegfried's death, the calm of the primeval elements, the pompous yet somewhat venerable character of the Mastersingers, the agony of Tristan's delirium, the superb majesty of Valhalla, or the free, noble nature of Parsifal? Even when Wagner uses motives comparatively little, writing rather "freely," as in Tristan und Isolde, he always has the power of imprinting an idea with the utmost clearness upon our souls. He will sometimes make a slight change in a motive, or make a development of it, that gives us an entirely different psychological impression of the idea represented by the motive, as indicating some new aspect of it in which the motives are all dovetailed together into a compact whole that is simply marvellous. If one considers the "Ring," that gigantic web of motives, and at the same time, in the words of that able critic, Mr. Ernest Newman, "beyond all comparison the biggest thing ever conceived by the mind of a musician," colossal yet logical, gigantic yet compact, the power of the Bayreuth master will become even still more evident.

Wagner's first work, Rienci, composed frankly in the blatant Meyerbeerian style, has no artistic significance. The Flying Dutchman marks a great advance. TannhÄuser and Lohengrin are milestones of progress, but in all these works Wagner's full ideal is, generally speaking, but little perceptible. The really great Wagner operas are his later works, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, Die Meistersinger von NÜrnberg, and, above all, that gigantic tetralogy (a complete musico-dramatic rendering of the Icelandic Saga put into English verse under the title of Sigurd the Volsung by William Morris) which consists of four stupendous operas, Das Rheingold, Die WalkÜre, Siegfried, and GotterdÄmmerung. These marvellous works, the consummation of the Bayreuth master's principles, undoubtedly stand with Beethoven's symphonies as the greatest achievements in music.

For the rest, it may be mentioned that Wagner was in private life a most kindly man, albeit at times quick-tempered, a great lover of children and animals. His philosophy was a somewhat variable quantity; he fell under the influence first of Feuerbach, then of Schopenhauer, and to some extent possibly of Nietzsche. But still, throughout all his works runs the doctrine of the Free Individual, of which Siegfried and Parsifal are perhaps the most striking impersonations.

Like Browning, Wagner believed in redemption by means of sacrifice. In his richness and strength Wagner typified the abounding vitality of the new Germany. To the Fatherland he is what Shakespeare is to England. One may apply to him the noble words Milton wrote of Shakespeare:

"Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a livelong monument.
......
And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die."

H. P. M. J.

I found among my son's papers a sketch in manuscript of Wagner's life and work. It begins with some observations on Romanticism and Classicism.

Whereas in the Classical style the spirit is held in restraint by certain forms, in the Romantic it refuses to acknowledge these forms and breaks away to give the soul entirely free play. It necessarily follows that the Romantic style makes the wider appeal, for it touches chords of the heart that the Classical cannot. Also the Romantic is rather more definite and less purely intellectual than the Classical, though the ideal may be equally high in the one as in the other. In short, the Romantic style is human in its appeal, while the Classical is superhuman. The best examples of men great in these two forms of art are Shakespeare in the Romance and Milton in the Classic.

Returning to music, he thought that Bach, "immortal though many of his works are," was fettered by his servitude to rules.

The Classical may become too cold, may lose all connection with the warmth of humanity. Such a fate does Haydn seem to have met in many of his works. Beethoven, the mightiest classicist, also to some extent Mozart, saw that the soul must not hold entirely aloof from humanity. Hence it is that Beethoven broke deliberately several, though not indeed very many, of Bach's more enchaining rules, while Mozart, in his operas at least, had a large amount of Romance worked into his music. On the other hand, by its very nature the Romance style is occasionally apt to slip into what is pre-eminently Classicism.

He confutes the argument that because base things have to be expressed in the Romantic style therefore that style degrades Art, for "base things handled artistically excite pure emotions of anger or indignation."

Wagner, though he broke every rule set up by Bach, though he abolished all the ideas of Classicism, produced with his later works (i.e., The Ring, Die Meistersinger, Tristan, and Parsifal) music which reveals infinitudes of art to quite as great an extent as any classicist has done.... Wagner gives us Nature's message, Beethoven the message of the incomprehensible Empyrean, and it is for no one to say that the one message is any greater or less than the other.

Necessarily the opera must be more romantic than the symphony. "Composers who have given the world both opera and symphony such as Beethoven, Mozart, Weber, Spohr, Berlioz, always wrote Romantically in their operas and Classically in their symphonies." Of the development of opera he wrote:

Opera was fast degenerating into a sort of collection of ballads, with hardly any orchestration at all, when a strong man rose to check these abuses. Gluck was the forerunner of the earlier German school of opera composers, which includes such men as Beethoven, Mozart, Weber and Schubert. Gluck had studied carefully the progress of non-operatic music since Bach's time, and seeing what vast strides the art had made in this direction, tried to bring into line with the opera its improvements. He was the first composer to show the immense and inestimable necessity of properly orchestrated music in opera. Gluck's rich scoring, beautiful melodies combined with dramatic connection between action, voice and orchestra, entirely revolutionised the opera. Fortunately, he had a still greater contemporary to carry on his reforms. Gluck has himself explained how he set out to avoid any concession of music to the vocal abilities of the singer; how he had tried to bring music to its proper function, i.e., to go side by side with the poetry of the drama—a clear forecasting of Wagner's own reforms.

Whereas in Monteverde's operas the dramatic significance was kept, but only at the expense of the music, which had absolutely no signification at all, in the works of Gluck, Mozart and Scarlatti the musical part is elevated, but entirely at the expense of the dramatic idea, which is quite lost. A Mozart melody, rhythmic, square-cut, is as different as possible from a Wagner theme, for whereas the former suggests nothing the latter is very rich in suggestion. It is clear that Gluck and Mozart, though they performed an inestimable service to the musical art by the raising of the orchestra to its proper position with regard to the voice and the music, yet failed to keep in view the continuity of the drama in opera. Hence it was that Weber and Beethoven frankly abolished the recitative that joins the formal melodies of the arias and melodic passages and composed Singspiel, having their works built up of airs and melodies joined by spoken dialogue. Such is Weber's Der FreischÜtz and such Beethoven's Fidelio.

After discussing Meyerbeer, Scarlatti, and Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti, my son comes to Wagner and the revolution in music he accomplished:

Wagner was a man of ripe culture, who was equally familiar with Beethoven's symphonies, Shakespeare's dramas, Kant's philosophic writings and Homer's epics. All the great works of literature and philosophy were well known to him. Thus he brought to bear on his music a mind singularly well equipped in every direction. He was, too, essentially a Teuton, with all the German massiveness of conception and depth of soul. A lesser man must have fallen before the prospect of attempting such a colossal reform. What was that reform in its essentials? It was this—to compose opera in which the idea of the drama was made the ruling conception; to attain this end by a wedding of suitable poetry to music of such a kind as should reflect by its themes what was happening on the stage or in the minds of the characters. There was to be no aria or fixed form of ballad, but continuous melody, in which the voices of the characters are regarded as extra instruments of the orchestra, with just that element of personality included....

To have succeeded entirely in this bold design he would have had to be a Shakespeare in poetry and knowledge of human nature, as well as a musician of equal ability. How could any one man fulfil both of these rÔles? In the matter of the music Wagner is a very Shakespeare. But if we take his own writings as evidences of what he meant to do, then his librettos must necessarily be unsatisfactory. They keep the dramatic idea in sight so much as almost entirely to lose sight of poetic beauty. Wagner was pre-eminently a musician; he was not a poet, as he wished also to be. Whatever his poetical achievements, the main fact is unaltered. The dramatic idea and the musical expression are kept so indissolubly close by Wagner as to be one for all intents and purposes.

Of Wagner's treatment of the vocalist he says:

The melody sung is modelled upon the way in which the speaking voice rises and falls in accordance with the feelings of the moment. With marvellous skill the master of Bayreuth has made the music sung reflect as clearly as any oration what are the thoughts and feelings of the character. The orchestra makes, as it were, a tide or ocean, over which the voice, in this manner, floats, now rising high on the crest of the wave, now sinking into the trough of the seas. Sometimes for added poignancy, Wagner makes the voice sing the leitmotif of some idea connected with the idea of the moment. This is constantly occurring in Die Meistersinger.

After scornful allusions to French and Italian opera, he shows how Wagner re-fashioned opera on new and nobler lines. Replying to those who say "You must have lightness sometimes," he wrote:

Yes, but never triviality. If we want lightness of touch and wittiness, have we not Die Meistersinger, the greatest comedy in the world, or a merry piece like Mozart's Nozze di Figaro? Here is all the wit that one wants, yet the level is kept high throughout. It is the same in literature. We have absurd, banal pieces, said to be humorous, such as The Glad Eye, which really contain not one-millionth the humour that there is in a noble comedy like Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or As You Like It, or a Shavian play like John Bull's Other Island. Man is too great a thing ever to be of his nature low and banal. We have in life farce sometimes, comedy very often indeed, but never banality.

The essay thus concludes:

If we have been flooded with rag-times and musical comedies, the fault lies in the first place with the French and Italian composers of the period 1790-1850. Pre-Wagner opera is as low a concoction as can possibly be conceived. It took all the genius of the great Bayreuth master to turn things back into their proper channel. But he has succeeded, and the old style is moribund. Anyone who glances over the list of living composers must see that they are all enormously influenced by Wagner's principle. The last of the old style was Massenet, and he is dead. We see Richard Strauss, an extreme Wagnerian, only without the master's full powers; Engelbert Humperdinck, who is a user of the leitmotif and a most skilled orchestrator, though his motifs are not so powerful as Wagner's or even Strauss's; Pietro Mascagni, a Mozartean composer; Bruneau, an extreme Wagnerian; Glazounov and Mossourgsky have combined Wagner's ideas with Tschaikovsky's; Puccini at least is a very strong supporter and admirer of Wagner. It will thus be seen that, with the exception of Mascagni, Wagnerian ideas have been paid tribute to by all the leading opera composers of the day. In a word, the Man is here. Opera, as represented by Richard Wagner's music-dramas, takes its place on a level with the absolute music of which Beethoven's work is the noblest example.

Paul found keen pleasure in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, liking the witty libretto as much as the bright, tuneful melodies. For the work of CÆsar Franck, a gifted Belgian musician who died on the threshold of manhood, he had profound admiration, and was of opinion that had he lived Franck would have taken rank with the great masters. As was to be expected, my son had for Welsh music a strong natural sympathy. He held that "Men of Harlech" was one of the greatest of all battle hymns, and that "Morfa Rhuddlan," the ancient Cymric dirge, had never been surpassed as a piece of funereal music. Some of the old Welsh hymn tunes he regarded as unique in their wistfulness and devout aspiration; and as for Welsh choral singing, he thought it was matchless for richness, fire and harmony.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER IX
LITERATURE AND ETHICS

Without the blessing of reading the burden of life would be intolerable and the riches of life reduced to the merest penury.

Gladstone.

The taste for reading stores the mind with pleasant thoughts, banishes ennui, fills up the unoccupied interstices and enforced leisures of an active life; and if it is judiciously managed it is one of the most powerful means of training character and disciplining and elevating thought. To acquire this taste in early life is one of the best fruits of education.

Lecky: "The Map of Life."

From his childhood Paul Jones had been a voracious and an omnivorous reader. He read with amazing rapidity. The first book he enjoyed whole-heartedly was Mabel Dearmer's "Noah's Ark Geography," one of the best children's books written in the past twenty years. He read and re-read this book as a little boy and used to talk lovingly of Kit and his friends, Jum-Jum and the Cockyolly Bird. Alas! Kit (Mrs. Dearmer's son Christopher) and his gifted mother have been claimed as victims by the World War. Paul revelled in "Æsop's Fables," "Robinson Crusoe," "The Swiss Family Robinson," "Don Quixote," "Treasure Island," "The Arabian Nights," "Gulliver's Travels," and classical legends. As he grew older he passed on to "The Mabinogion," "The Pilgrim's Progress," Lamb's "Tales of Shakespeare," and writers like Henty, Manville Fenn, Clark Russell, W. H. Fitchett and P. G. Wodehouse. He followed with delight the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, whose charm never faded for him. He made a point of reading everything written by Conan Doyle. But he gave first place among living writers to George Bernard Shaw, and next place to H. G. Wells. He would never miss a Shaw play. His delight at the first performance he saw of John Bull's Other Island was boisterous. He loved to read that play as well as to see it performed. The glimpses of Ireland and the portraits of Irish character enchanted him. Broadbent—typifying the self-complacency of the well-meaning but Philistine Victorian who had solved to his own satisfaction all mysteries in earth and heaven—he regarded as a masterpiece of creative art. For Kipling his admiration was qualified; but he loved "M'Andrews' Hymn," and often recited lines from the "Recessional." Of the great novelists Dickens was easily his first favourite; a long way behind came Scott, Stevenson and Jules Verne. Dickens he knew and loved in every mood. Pickwick like Falstaff was to him a source of perennial delight. He loved and honoured Dickens for his rich and tender humanity, the passion of pity that suffused his soul, the lively play of his comic fancy. Endowed with a keen sense of humour, he read Mark Twain and W. W. Jacobs with gusto. As a relaxation from historical studies he would sometimes devour a bluggy story, and as he read would shout with laughter at its grotesque out-topping of probabilities. He tried his own hand at sensational yarns. I recall one of them, rich in gory incidents, with a villain who is constantly leaping from a G.W.R. express to elude his pursuers. Among his papers I found the manuscript of a detective story, vivaciously written after the Sherlock Holmes and Watson manner.

At one time Paul liked to read Homer and Thucydides, Virgil and Tacitus; but as soon as he was at home in the wide realm of English literature he thrust the old classics from him, and subsequently his hard historical reading gave him no opportunity, even if he had felt the desire, to revert to Greek and Latin writers. But he was fully conscious of the world's debt in culture to Greece and in law and government to Rome. He wrote: "The influence of Greek thought, Greek form, Greek art, is universal and eternal."

Of all names in literature he reverenced most that of Shakespeare, in whom he saw "the spirit of the Renaissance personified," and whom he described "as romantic, philosophic, realistic, and as varied and impersonal as Nature." He was never weary of reading the tragedies and historical plays. He resented any word in disparagement of Shakespeare, and could not understand the inability of a supreme artist like Tolstoy to appreciate his greatness. Though he has written a noble sonnet in homage to Shakespeare's genius, Matthew Arnold once permitted himself to say that "Homer leaves Shakespeare as far behind as perfection leaves imperfection." Paul wrote in a marginal note, "Bosh! to put it bluntly." He would say with Goethe, "The first page of Shakespeare made me his for life, and when I had perused an entire play I stood like one born blind, to whom sight by some miraculous power had been restored in a moment." Paul and I often exchanged ideas on Shakespeare. He was lost in wonder at Shakespeare's creative power, his inexhaustible fertility, the universality of his range, the perfection of his portraiture, his mastery over all moods, his cunning artistry in the use of words, his exuberant imagery and effortless ease. He made a pilgrimage to Stratford-on-Avon to see with his own eyes the spots and scenes amid which Shakespeare's youth and declining years were spent. The smiling beauty of Stratford and the rich rural charm of its surroundings left on his mind a delightful impression that was never erased.

Next to Shakespeare his admiration flowed out to Milton. When he went into the battle-line he took with him only two books—his Shakespeare and his Milton. With Milton's character he had some marked affinities—the virginal purity of Milton's youth, his love of learning, his hatred of all tyrannies, secular and spiritual, making a strong appeal to the sympathies of my son. "Milton," he wrote, "is perhaps the very grandest figure in English history." "In Milton the spirit of Puritanism is combined with a purely Hellenic love of beauty." "'Paradise Lost' may be regarded (1) as a reflection of the Puritan point of view; (2) as a poem pure and simple; (3) as an epic of the classical school."

Profound as was his admiration for "Paradise Lost," he could not forbear smiling at Taine's quip that the Miltonic Adam is "your true Paterfamilias, a member of the Opposition, a Whig, a Puritan, who entered Paradise via England."

Paul extolled Pope's ingenuity and metrical felicity—he has thoroughly annotated the "Essay on Man"—but was acutely conscious of aridity and the absence of rapture and vision in Pope as in Dryden. He singled out as "the finest passage in the 'Essay on Man'" the eight lines in which Pope contrasts the majesty of the Universe with the insignificance of man, beginning:

Let earth unbalanced from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns run lawless through the sky.

He had not much respect for Pope's philosophy, and, commenting on one passage in the same poem, writes: "Pope, like many other unsound reasoners, when his position becomes dangerous, seeks to vindicate himself by insults."

Above all nineteenth-century poets he loved Wordsworth, the revelation of whose richness and glory only came to him after he was seventeen. There were no bounds to his admiration for the Wordsworth sonnets. Many a time since the War he would recite the glorious sonnet which proclaims that

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held. In every thing we are sprung
Of Earth's first blood, have titles manifest.

The magic of Keats and his adoration of beauty struck a responsive chord in Paul's nature. Tennyson did not stir him to the depths of his being like Wordsworth. "Ulysses," "The Revenge," and "Crossing the Bar" were the only Tennyson poems that he cared for. In an essay written when he was eighteen he defined poetry as "the soul of man put into untrammelled speech, the voice of angels, the music of the spheres." He read with critical discernment, sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing, with the author. It was his habit when reading a book to mark passages that impressed him and make comments in the margin. Some of his obiter dicta shall be given. In judging them it should be remembered that they were all pronounced before he was nineteen.

How aptly said that Dante seems to have tried to write a poem with a sculptor's chisel or a painter's brush.

Froissart observes clearly, but his observation is limited to the world of nobles and chivalry; he ignores the life, the sufferings and the joys of the people.

Ben Jonson, master of dignified declamatory drama, was the greatest of the post-Shakespeare school. We may justly say post-Shakespeare, though Jonson was nearly contemporaneous with the Bard of Avon, because the influence of such a man clearly belongs to an age in which the freedom and romantic magnificence of Shakespeare have been forgotten.

Gibbon is the first of historians. The "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" runs its course like some majestic river.

Burns is a microcosm of Scotland.

Burke—a stainless and beautiful character. A theorist in practice; a practical man in theory. Burke's view of Rousseau was biased and unjust.

Though contemptuous of Wordsworth, Byron himself is a romantic of the romanticists. He was the guiding star of rebels the world over.

In the calm purity of his verse, Shelley is more classic than romantic. What ecstatic melody in his lyrics!

Dickens is often mawkish and often portrays oddities; but these oddities do exist, especially in London (e.g., Sam Weller, Mrs. Todgers, Jo, etc.), and Dickens unearthed them for the first time. How his heart warms for the poor and the wretched! He is the great poet of London life.

Macaulay is not a philosophic writer; but then the English genius is certainly non-philosophic.

Froude in his essay on Homer says: "The authors of the Iliad and the Odyssey stand alone with Shakespeare far away above mankind." Paul's marginal note: "Add to them Milton, Goethe, the author of the Nibelungen-lied, Browning."

Froude, I think, has misunderstood the Nibelungen-lied entirely. There is really much savagery and much glory in both the German and the Greek epic.

How strange that men like Rabelais and Swift, Goldsmith and Dickens, who have done so much to make the world laugh, experienced in their own lives great unhappiness.

Browning is always an optimist. His manliness and vigour are unfailing:

I find earth not grey but rosy,
Heaven not grim but fair of hue.
Do I stoop? I pluck a posy.
Do I stand and stare? All's blue.

Paul considered that Macaulay lacked ideas and vision. He liked the lilt and swing of the Lays and Ballads, and enjoyed the Essays with their superb colouring. Disputing Macaulay's dictum that neither painters nor poets are helped by the advances in civilisation, science and refinement, he wrote: "This argument disproved by the examples of men like Shakespeare and Goethe, like Browning and Kipling. And did not Leonardo da Vinci become a student of anatomy in order to learn how to depict the human body properly on his canvas?"

Macaulay in his Essay on Mackintosh's "History of The Revolution" describes the condition of England in 1678, after eighteen years of Charles the Second's reign, in graphic words, beginning "Such was the nation which, awaking from its rapturous trance, found itself sold to a foreign, a despotic, a Popish court, defeated on its own seas and rivers by a State of far inferior resources, and placed under the rule of pandars and buffoons."

Paul's comment reads: "This superb passage is one of the most inspired of Macaulay's utterances. Contrast with it in the same Essay the vivid sentence beginning 'In the course of seven centuries,' in which he pronounces a magnificent panegyric on the greatness of Britain."

He thought the music of Macaulay's prose had often a metallic sound, and that it suffered from excess of epithet and addiction to antithetical phrases. In pithiness of style, sureness of touch and dispassionate judgment, he contrasted Acton as an historical writer with Macaulay, to the latter's disadvantage. He found every page of Acton packed with thought, every essay richly freighted with ideas. Moreover, Acton was sternly impartial and impersonal in his judgment of persons and in his estimate of influences. Paul wrote:

There has never been in historical writing such inexorable logic, such compact phraseology, so much pith and point, as are to be found in Acton's Essays.

His view of Carlyle was thus expressed: "Take away his style and half his greatness vanishes. Carlyle's works are not English in spirit, nor have they any point of resemblance to those of any other English writer." As for his views: "he has, alas! no love for democracy." Carlyle's habit of apotheosising heroes and his worship of the Strong Man made Paul pose the familiar problem: "Is the great man the fashioner of his age, or its product?" He thought something was to be said on both sides, and that it was impossible to lay down a positive proposition on what he called "this terribly difficult question." But he agreed with Guizot that "great events and great men are fixed points and summits of historical survey." He emphasises the fact that in his "French Revolution" Carlyle, in spite of his hero-worship, accepts the evolutionary view of history.

Among essayists he had a special liking for Froude, Matthew Arnold and Edmund Gosse. He often turned for refreshment to Froude's "Short Studies," and felt the fascination of his "Erasmus." In his essay on the Book of Job, Froude writes: "Happiness is not what we are to look for; our place is to be true to the best which we know; to seek that and do that." On this my son comments: "I don't hold with this idea; for, while happiness is not the end, yet it always in its purest and brightest form comes to the really good or great man in the consciousness of the work he has done." Froude in his essay on "Representative Men" enlarges on the importance of educating boys by holding up before them the pattern of noble lives. By picturing the career of a noble man rising above temptation and "following life victoriously and beautifully forward," Froude thinks you will kindle a boy's heart as no threat of punishment here or hereafter will kindle it. On this Paul writes: "A noble plea for an education of youth far more effective than the cursed nonsense of forbidding this or that on penalty of hell-fire."

Matthew Arnold, whom in some moods he admired, occasionally got on his nerves. I find this footnote on a page of "Culture and Anarchy": "This is self-satisfied swank." On another page: "Matthew Arnold himself often wanting in sweetness and light." On another: "Admirably put; here I do agree with M. A." He liked Arnold's essay on "The Function of Criticism," although he differed from some of the author's judgments. "The French Revolution took a political, practical character," wrote Arnold; on which my son's comment is: "Surely the French Revolution was only one aspect of a great world-movement of liberation! One side of it is Romanticism; another the Revolution itself; yet another, the Industrial Revolution. No movement has ever a character sui generis." On Joubert's remark: "Force and Right are the governors of this world, Force till Right is ready," his comment is: "A regular German theory." Paul's final note on "The Function of Criticism" reads:

I consider that Matthew Arnold insists too much on the non-practical element of criticism. After all, it is the lesson of life that the practical man wins in the end. When we are brought face to face with the realities of things—as in a war like the present one—all thought of art and letters simply vanishes. How is it that the mass of the world is always inartistic? How is it that the one people in the world—the Greeks—who built up their State on what Arnold regards as ideal conditions, collapsed in headlong ruin before the inartistic but practical Romans?

This comment illustrates one effect of the War on Paul's mind: he was becoming less of an idealist and more of a realist.

For Mr. W. H. Hudson's "Introduction to the Study of Literature" he had high esteem. This book he has carefully annotated. Of Mr. Hudson's remarks on the contrast between the style of Milton and that of Dryden, between Hooker and Defoe, he writes: "A comparison of remarkable discernment. The difference between the Miltonic and Drydenic styles, i.e., pre-1660 and post-1660, was simply due to the change in ideas caused by the reaction against Puritanism." Agreeing with Hudson that there is much poetry which is prosaic and much prose which is poetical, he cites as examples: "Prose in Poetry: Pope, Dryden, Walt Whitman. Poetry in Prose: Carlyle, Macaulay, Goethe." He did not concur with Hudson's remark that the "full significance of poetry can be appreciated only when it addresses us through the ear," and that "the silent perusal of the printed page will leave one of its principal secrets unsurprised." Paul's comment on this:

Too sweeping a statement. Take, for example, poets like Milton and Browning, where every line is fraught with some deep philosophic meaning and must be pondered over for some time before the whole of the greatness of the poetry is realised. In these cases reading aloud is not nearly so good as private, silent study.

He demurred to the proposition that while the function of Ethics is to instruct, that of Art is to delight. "I hold," he writes, "that Art's duty is to instruct as much as, if not more than, that of Ethics. Art to be great must elevate and edify." Hudson wrote: "The common view that the primitive ages of the world were ages of colossal individualism is grotesquely unhistorical; they were, on the contrary, ages in which group-life and group-consciousness were in the ascendant." "Quite true," notes Paul. "See Maine's 'Ancient Law,' where he points out that ancient history has nothing to do with the individual but only with groups." Another annotated book is Maeterlinck's "Wisdom and Destiny." To Maeterlinck's remark, "It is often of better avail from the start to seek that which is highest," he adds: "Always, not often." He heartily subscribed to Maeterlinck's doctrine that our attitude to life ought to be one of "gladsome, enlightened acceptance, not a hostile, gloomy submission."

His philosophy of life was expressed in that beautiful passage in Carlyle's essay on "Characteristics":

Here on earth we are as soldiers fighting in a foreign land; that understand not the plan of the campaign and have no need to understand it; seeing well what is at our hand to be done, let us do it like soldiers, with submission, with courage, with a heroic joy. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might." Behind us, behind each one of us, lie 6,000 years of human effort, human conquest. Before us is the boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered continents and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and from the bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars.

My inheritance, how wide and fair!
Time is my fair seed-field, of Time I'm heir.

The ethical side of Paul's character is reflected in the appended quotations from some of his essays:

Of French writers Paul liked most Taine, Sainte-Beuve, and Victor Hugo. His love of reading he took with him into the War. A box of books returned to us with his other effects from France included "The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius," Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," Macaulay's "Essays," Saint-Simon's "Memoirs," Sainte-Beuve's "Causeries," "The Imitation of Christ," Lecky's "History of European Morals," and works by Goethe, Victor Hugo, Dumas the elder, Flaubert, Maurice BarrÈs, and Mrs. Humphry Ward.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER X
HISTORY AND POLITICS

History is philosophy teaching by examples.

Bolingbroke.

The science of Politics is the one science that is deposited by the stream of history, like grains of gold in the sand of a river.

Acton.

Reared in the home of a political journalist, it was natural that Paul Jones should be attracted to public affairs. He followed with lively curiosity the progress of the two general elections of 1910, and from that year was an interested observer of political events. As he grew older his bent towards politics became more pronounced. A youth familiar with Roman, mediÆval and modern history could not fail to be fascinated by the political drama unfolding before his eyes. He watched history in the making with the same eagerness that he read the history of the past. The prevailing tone at Dulwich, as at most public schools, is Conservative. Paul was a perfervid Liberal. In school and out of school, not only did he not disguise, he gloried in his advanced opinions. The extent of his political knowledge and the ripeness of his views were astonishing in one so young.

From the moment he began to think for himself his sympathies flowed out to the wage-earning classes. What he remembered and what he had heard of his Puritan grandfather, William Jones, a grand specimen of the Victorian artisan, who died in December, 1905, on the verge of 80, deepened his regard for them. But his own broad and sympathetic nature would have drawn him instinctively to their side. In his judgment it was on and by the working-classes that the wheels of the world moved forward. He had nothing but contempt for the sparrow-like frivolity of fashionable Society, and was repelled from the middle classes by their servitude to conventions, their prejudices social and political, and their non-receptivity to ideas. He for his part must breathe an ampler air. He was wont to speak disdainfully of the Victorian era, because, in spite of all the advances it witnessed in the physical sciences and of Britain's rapid growth in wealth between 1850 and 1890, it did so little for social welfare.

For feudal magnates and the nouveaux riches he had scant respect, holding that both the aristocracy and the plutocracy had used their political power for selfish ends. Old feudalism in some respects he regarded as better than new Capital, for the landed aristocracy did at least recognise some obligations to those under their sway, whereas Capital was so concerned with its rights that it forgot altogether its reciprocal duties. His view was that, under shelter of the laissez-faire system, with its false presumption that employers and employed were on a parity in bargaining power, Capital had scandalously evaded its obligations to Labour. He regarded the conditions of life in some of our industrial districts as a grave reproach to the nation. The lust for wealth and other unlovely aspects of competitive commercialism were most repugnant to him. He knew that Nature cares not a rap for equality and lavishes her gifts with a strange caprice. But though there is inequality of natural gifts, he thought it was the duty of the State to ensure equality of opportunity to all its citizens. His ideal was a co-operative commonwealth, in which the competitive spirit would be held in check by communal needs and aims, and where every career would be opened freely to talent. In one of his essays he deplores the fact that political economists had fallen into the delusion of applying the laws that govern the exchange of commodities without any variation to Labour, and leaving out of account intangibles and imponderables like moral forces and other expressions of the delicate and mysterious human spirit. Political economy, he thought, would have to be recast and humanised. "The economists," he said, "have entirely ignored the human factor."

Paul's conviction was that when the rule of enlightened democracy was established wars would cease. "The peoples never want wars," he wrote; "under a pure democracy wars would be impossible." Because of the associations clustering around it the word "Imperialism" jarred on him, but he took pride in the greatness of the free and liberal British Empire, with its rule of law, its love of peace, its humane ideals. He had the historical sense in highly developed degree. The story of human progress stretched before the eye of his mind in a series of vivid pictures. Surveying the immense and imposing fabric of recorded events woven by the ceaseless loom of Time, he had an unerring instinct for the shining figures, the salient characteristic, the determining factor. Away from a library he could have written a quite tolerable essay on any century of the Christian era. Historical characters in whom he was specially interested were Julius CÆsar, Octavius, Charlemagne, the Emperor Charles V, Queen Elizabeth, Cromwell, Louis XIV, the elder Pitt, Frederick the Great, and Napoleon; and among the non-political Roger Bacon, Erasmus, Luther, Sir Thomas More, Isaac Newton, Faraday, and Darwin. The Elizabethan age had for him a magnetic attraction, because of the Queen with her enigmatical personality, marvellous statecraft and capacity for inspiring devotion, and of the brilliant galaxy of great men, statesmen and sailors, poets and scholars, who enriched her reign with so much glory. Another epoch he loved to study was that of the French Revolution. I have already referred to his habit of annotating the books he read. From notes he made on political books and from some of his essays I have culled the following:

In the autumn of 1914 my son read General von Bernhardi's book, "Germany and the Next War." In his notes on this book he drew attention to Bernhardi's frequent self-contradictions and his false philosophy. From these notes the following excerpts are taken:

On Bernhardi's remark: "No excuse for revolutionary agitation in Germany now exists."

In regard to Bernhardi's prediction that our self-governing Dominions would separate from the British Empire:

A frequent visitor to the Lobby and Press Gallery of the House of Commons, my son was known to many members of Parliament and political journalists. Thanks to his free, affable manner, he was on terms of cordial regard with several of the attendants and police-constables on duty in and about the House of Commons. His last visit to the Press Gallery was in May, 1916. He was stirred by the life and movement of the House and enjoyed a good Parliamentary debate, but he had a feeling that politicians were apt to mistake illusions for realities and to think that words could take the place of deeds.

In the last three years of his life, though his democratic sympathies never waned, some of his opinions underwent a change. He was disappointed at the indifference of the masses of the people to their own interests, at their low standard of taste, at the ease with which they could be exploited by charlatans. I remember his telling me once, in 1915, apropos of the blatancy of some noisy patriots: "I now realise for the first time what Dr. Johnson meant when he wrote, 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.'" He disliked the squalor of the political game and the glibness of tongue and tenuity of thought of the mere politician. A generous-minded youth of high ideals, he had not learnt to make allowances for political human nature, or for the fact that the mass of mankind are necessarily occupied with petits soins and apt to be dulled by the mechanical routine of their daily lives. Latterly he often told me that, after all, there was a great deal to be said for the rule of the enlightened autocrat. "But," he said, "the mischief is that you can't guarantee a succession of enlightened autocrats; so we must make the best of the rule of the majority." The backwardness of England in education used to make him wring his hands. To lack of education he attributed the tawdriness and vulgarity of popular taste. I thought my own political and social views were advanced: to Paul I was little better than a Whig with a veneration for Mr. Gladstone. He had a bold, forward-looking mind, and was in favour of root-and-branch changes. He was only 21 when he died, and his views on social and political questions would doubtless have been modified in one direction or another had he lived. But his passion for liberty of thought and action and his deep sympathy with the unprivileged multitude would have remained, for these things were inherent in his character. He would have said with Ibsen: "I want to awaken the democracy to its true task—of making all the people noblemen by freeing their wills and purifying their minds."

Literature, athletics, music, politics did not exhaust the interests of this strong and eager mind. He was a good chess-player, and followed with lively curiosity the new developments in mechanics and aviation. Very fond of dogs, between him and our little fox-terrier there was a tie of deep affection. As indicative of the catholicity of his tastes I may mention that, going over his papers after his death, I discovered in the same drawer a manuscript appreciation of Wagner, "Football Hints," memoranda on "Pascal and Descartes on Method," and the outline of an essay on "The Norman Conquest and its Effects."[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XI
IN THE ARMY

Ever the faith endures,
England, my England:
"Take and break us, we are yours,"
England, my own.

W. E. Henley.

In the first flush of enthusiasm for the War in 1914 Paul wanted to join the Public Schools Battalion, but I induced him to postpone doing so, pointing out that he had been preparing hard for an Oxford Scholarship, and that there would be ample time for him to join the Army after the examination early in December. My reasons were reinforced by his own desire to carry out his duties as Captain of Football. After winning the Balliol Scholarship, and with the knowledge that the number of recruits for the Army at that time was far in excess of the provision of equipment, he was persuaded to stay at Dulwich College till the end of the football season. But he became very restless in the early months of 1915. He had never cared for military exercises, much preferring free athletics, but in 1914 he had joined the O.T.C. at the College. He assiduously applied himself to drill and took part in many marches and several field-days. Meanwhile he followed every phase of the War with fascinated interest. He read all the War books he could get and began a War diary, which he entered up every week-end, giving a succinct account of the War's progress on land and sea and in the air. This diary he continued until he entered the Army, and at his request I have kept it up since. From copious entries by my son under the dates named the appended excerpts are taken. They indicate with what intelligence and comprehension he followed every phase of the War.

Paul joined the Army on April 15, 1915, within a month of his 19th birthday. His application for a commission in the Infantry was refused point-blank because of his defective vision. The War Office authorities, much impressed by his school and athletic record, had requested him to undergo a special examination by an oculist; and on receipt of the oculist's report showing how extreme was his short sight, wrote to me on March 26, "It is quite impossible to think of passing him for a commission, as his sight is so very much below the necessary standard." Subsequently at an interview at the War Office he admitted that if his spectacles were lost or broken he would be helpless; but he said he would equip himself with several pairs to provide against such emergencies. It was pointed out to him that in wet weather rain-spots on the lenses of his glasses would obscure his vision. "I am willing to take the risk," was his reply.

"Yes," came the rejoinder, "but as an officer you would be jeopardising other lives and not merely your own."

He was constrained to admit the force of this reasoning. Nevertheless, his rejection for the Infantry was a grievous disappointment to him.

Eventually he obtained a commission in the Army Service Corps. He was very proud to don the King's uniform. On April 15 he reported himself for duty at a home port which is the principal centre of supply for our armies abroad. There he remained for over three months. As his nature was in taking up any work, he got absorbed in his new duties, and, I am informed, executed them with the utmost efficiency. To keep himself physically fit he gave some of his leisure to golf and to long walks, some days tramping twenty miles and more. Looking forward impatiently to the prospect of going abroad, he used to worry himself by the thought that he, an athlete, had no more useful work to do than to superintend the unloading of railway trucks and the loading of vessels and seeing that supplies were up to specification. At Whitsuntide his mother, brother and I spent a week-end in the vicinity of the port where he was employed. One day we visited a little country town, where he had arranged to join us after his duty was done. Near to the town was a huge camp, also a hospital for wounded soldiers. We met Paul on his arrival by train and walked with him to the hotel. On the way he was kept busy acknowledging the salutes of soldiers who passed us. At tea he was grave and preoccupied—for him a most unusual mood. I rallied him on it, and asked whether he was in trouble with his C.O.

"Certainly not," was his reply, "I get on excellently with the Colonel." Then a moment or two later he exclaimed with emotion, "Dad, I simply can't stand it."

"Stand what!" I exclaimed.

"I can't stand receiving the salutes of men who have fought or are going out to fight while I spend my time about wharves and warehouses."

As he spoke his eyes filled with tears. To appease him was not easy. This outburst was indicative of something more than a fugitive mood.

To his intense delight he received orders to go abroad a couple of months later. On July 27, 1915, he left England for France, in which country and Flanders the next two years of his life were to be spent. His first appointment abroad was that of Requisitioning Officer to the 9th Cavalry Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division—a Brigade that took part in the severe fighting of the early months of the War and was now waiting eagerly for a fresh opportunity to display its prowess. Our Cavalry officers are a distinct type, with traditions and modes of life and thought of their own. Paul, to whom nothing human was alien, studied them with keen curiosity. He found them gay-hearted, chivalrous gentlemen, and soon shared their enthusiasm for horses. His experiences with the 9th Brigade are described in his letters. The psychology of the French peasantry and tradespeople with whom he came into contact also vastly interested him. It was very responsible work he had to do for a lad of 19, but he did it ably and zealously. He liked the work for its variety; it involved a great deal of riding on horseback and much motoring, and gave opportunities for practising his French.

Yet from time to time he heard voices from the trenches calling him. He was always contrasting his lot with the hardships that were being patiently endured in the front line by, as he would say, "better men than myself." He received his promotion to lieutenant in the spring of 1916. His pleasure at that step upward was soon dashed by his appointment to a Supply Column. This "grocery work," as he characterised it, was most distasteful to him; he thought of throwing up his commission and trying to enlist as a private, but finally decided to seek a commission in the Royal Field Artillery. After two unhappy months in the Supply Column he was appointed in command of an ammunition working-party at an advanced railhead in the Somme battlefield. How he enjoyed this work his letters will show. It involved, however, the hanging up of his application for transfer to the R.F.A. In October, 1916, he was appointed Requisitioning Officer to the 2nd Cavalry Brigade. He rejoiced at his escape from the inglorious, albeit necessary, work of the Supply Column, and was soon at home with his new comrades.

As time went on, it became more and more evident that our cavalry would not have much opportunity in the War. The enforced inaction preyed upon Paul's spirits, and in December he determined to do his utmost to exchange into a unit in the front line. In his application for transfer he put his preferences in this order: 1st, Infantry; 2nd, M.G.C., heavies; 3rd, Artillery. The authorities, realising that his extreme short sight disqualified him for the Infantry, assigned him to the Tank Corps, which he joined on February 13, 1917.

Paul's delight at the change of employment was unbounded. His letters from the time he joined the Tank Corps sing with happiness. Having pushed all obstacles aside in order to walk the sacrificial road, he found great gladness in breasting its steeps. A singular change is discernible in his letters in the last seven months of his life. No longer was there any reference in them to political affairs at home or to international events. He who used to follow the progress of the world with so much intentness had not a word to say about the change in the Premiership of Great Britain, or any comment to offer on such momentous events as the overthrow of the Tsardom in Russia, and the entry into the war of the United States of America. He was either too absorbed in his new duties to continue his old habit of observation and comment, or else his gaze was now turned otherwhere, and he was following the gleam.

A few weeks before his death I wrote to him suggesting that, as he was then twenty-one, a joint banking account in his name and my own might now be transferred to him so that he would have the money under his own control. His reply was: "I have a large number of serious questions, coupled with much hard work, engrossing my attention at present and would prefer to leave all subsidiary matters severely alone." This letter was a sign, and not the only one, that he was liberating himself from mundane ties.

Brother officers have told me of my son's happiness in the Tank Corps. His youthful love of engines had returned in full measure. For his Tank—a "male," carrying Lewis guns and two six-pounders—he had a positive affection, and would spend hours pottering about it after his crew had knocked off for the day. Captain Gates, M.C., who had charge of the section to which Paul's Tank belonged and who was wounded in the battle in which my son was killed, came to see us in London in September. From him we had a full account of the last three months of Paul's life. Among other things, Captain Gates spoke of his joie de vivre, infectious gaiety, hearty appetite, liberal contributions to the mess funds. Paul, he said, was the life and soul of the section. When they were out of the battle-line he used to begin his day by a plunge in the adjacent river. He would come into breakfast looking radiant, and even then was ready for a frolic. "Some of us would be a bit down at times," said Captain Gates, "but Paul never. He was always merry. He had immense strength. In frolicsome moods he would lift a brother officer in his arms like a child, hold him helpless, and then drop him gently on the ground; but it took three or four of us to get him down. To see him come down a village in his Tank was a sight; his gaiety was so great, and he had a shout or a greeting for every passer-by. A braver boy I have never met; he was quite calm and unruffled under shell-fire. If anything, he was too keen. He always wanted to be in the danger zone, and was most eager to get into personal touch with the Boches. I told Major Haslam that whenever Paul would be in battle it would be a case of the V.C. or death; for him there could be no medium course. On the morning of 31st July, when he was thrilling at the prospect of the coming attack, I said to him before we set out: 'Now, don't be too rash; remember that the lives of your crew are in your keeping.' Unfortunately he was killed quite early in the fight by a sniper's bullet. His death cast a gloom over the whole company. In our own mess we shall miss him dreadfully."

On New Year's Day, 1918, Gunner Phillips, of "C" Battalion, Tank Corps, called at our house in London, and told us a great deal about Paul from the standpoint of the men in the battalion. Mr. Phillips, a young craftsman of high intelligence, spoke with intense affection of our son, whom he knew almost from the first day Paul joined the Tanks. He said: "Lieutenant Paul Jones was sociable and most considerate. He was a grand officer and treated his men like brothers. He would never ask the men to do what he would not do himself. The result was that we would all have done anything for him. There are a few rough chaps in our battalion—men who know the guard-room—but even these yielded gladly to his influence, and liked him very much. No officer in the battalion was so loved and respected by the men. One day last summer, when a number of Tanks had assembled in a wood, our whereabouts were discovered by the Germans, who at daybreak simply peppered the place with shells. The order was given to go to the dug-outs. Lieut. Jones, aroused from sleep, came out half-dressed, but he was as cool as if he was on parade, and insisted on every man going into the dug-outs before he himself would take shelter. His merry spirits made him a great favourite with us all. My own relations with him were particularly cordial, because I was a Welshman and an athlete."

It was comforting to have these accounts at first-hand of our son's unalloyed happiness in the last seven months of his life. Countless brave men, gifted and simple, eminent and obscure, have sacrificed their lives in this War, none with more complete self-surrender than Paul Jones. In War as in Peace, he bore himself like Wordsworth's "Happy Warrior."

Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for humankind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a man inspired.
......
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray,
Who, not content that former Worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame
And leave a dead, unprofitable name—
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause:
And while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER XII
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves.

Shakespeare: "Measure for Measure."

Man he loved
As man; and, to the mean and the obscure
And all the homely in their homely works,
Transferred a courtesy which had no air
Of condescension....
A kind of radiant joy
Diffused around him.

Wordsworth: "The Prelude."

Paul Jones was a prodigious worker. What he accomplished in his brief life is proof that he did not waste his time. He had an abnormal capacity for prolonged exertion, whether at work or at play. Such was the vigour of his physical frame that he was usually fresh even at the end of a hard-fought game of football. In fact, he hardly knew what physical fatigue was; and only once, when he was suffering from a chill, and had to sit for his senior scholarship examination, do I recollect his exhibiting any sign of mental fag. He found rest in change of employment. Athletic exercises were a natural antidote to his strenuous intellectual work; and music lifted him into the region of pure emotion and soothed his soul with the concord of sweet sounds.

Paul Jones in his 19th Year.

Though he had read widely and reflected much on human life and destiny, he wore his culture as lightly as a flower. Even after he had left college, he retained the sunny outlook, the gladsomeness and the bloom of boyhood. Wherever he went he carried with him an atmosphere of joy. Fresh ingenuousness and glowing enthusiasm were part of his charm. There was a rich vein of the romantic in his character, but the cast of his mind was philosophical. He had no patience with superficiality masquerading as wisdom, and was quick to detect a fallacy in reasoning. A shining trait in him was truthfulness. He would never compromise or palter with the truth, either by way of suppression, or exaggeration, or casuistical refinement. What Carlyle said of John Sterling applied with remarkable exactitude to Paul Jones: "True above all one may call him; a man of perfect veracity in thought, word and deed; there was no guile or baseness anywhere found in him. Transparent as crystal, he could not hide anything sinister if such there had been to hide."

Affectations in speech or manner, and what schoolboys call "side" or "swank," he abhorred. His free-ranging mind loved to explore and inquire, and he would not be hindered from questionings by the weight of any convention, or the force of any authority. He obeyed Emerson's maxim: "Speak as you think; be what you are." From the vice of envy he was entirely free. His generous spirit loved to praise others, and he was rather prone to self-depreciation. A lenient judge of the actions of other individuals, he was a stern and exacting critic of his own. He had a lofty sense of his personal duty and responsibility; and if ever, or in anything, he fell short of his self-prescribed standard he would, so to say, whip himself with cords. From his boyhood he was distinguished by an extreme conscientiousness. "His chastity of honour felt a stain like a wound." To him conscience was to be reverenced and obeyed as "God's most intimate presence in the soul, and His most perfect image in the world." He had a passionate hatred of injustice, and the very thought of cruelty to human beings or to dumb animals made him aflame with anger. A master or a games captain who allowed himself to be influenced by favouritism he despised. Naturally quick-tempered and impatient, he tried hard to curb these propensities, not always with success; but if he had wounded or wronged anybody, he was eager to atone. Quiet and self-contained in strange company, he was joyous and witty among kindred souls. His manners were cordial and considerate. Servants—how he hated the name!—adored him, and he was always at ease among the working-classes. He was essentially a man's man. To women his attitude was reverential, but he was shy and embarrassed in young feminine society. He used to say apologetically, "I have no small talk," and from the vacuity of the average drawing-room chatter he would silently steal away.

For religious dogmas he cared nothing, but he bowed in reverent homage before the Christ. From some marginal notes he has made on Froude's essay on Newman's "Grammar of Assent," I take these quotations: "After all, what matter what our dogmas if we really follow the example of great teachers like Christ, who had nothing to do with creeds or ritual?" "Every man should be his own priest." The Sermon on the Mount was his religion. One of his favourite Scriptural texts was the familiar one from the Epistle of St. James (i, 27): "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Froude in one of his essays writes of the necessity for a campaign against administrative incapacity, against swindling and cheating, against drunkenness and uncleanliness, against hunger, squalor and misery. "Hear, hear," is Paul's comment; "this should be England's war." His tastes were extremely simple. He disliked luxurious modes of living, and really enjoyed roughing it. During his twenty-seven months in the Army he never uttered a complaint as to the conditions; discomfort and hardship seemed only to heighten his cheerfulness. He was a non-smoker, and virtually a teetotaller, but in France, when pure drinking water was unobtainable, he used to take wine at dinner. Though he set no store on money, he was so frugal in habit and spent so little on himself that he always had money at his command. Giving was a joy to him. Blest with perfect health, he was not absent from duty through indisposition for a single day in his two years' campaigning.

Paul had in eminent degree the gift of personality. There was something magnetic about him, and in any company he compelled attention. His whole being conveyed an impression of exuberant energy. Strength of will, serenity and good temper were expressed in his countenance. Wherever he went he attracted responsibility to himself. Sometimes the burden assigned to him was uncongenial; none the less, he would shoulder it manfully.

Except for the defect of short sight he was a splendid example of the mens sana in corpore sano. On one occasion, in 1911, returning from a visit to Canterbury Cathedral, we had as fellow-passenger in the train a medical practitioner of the old school with whom my wife and I had an agreeable conversation. I noted that from time to time he was closely observing Paul, then a boy of fifteen. Presently he asked him to stand up, passed his hands over his back and shoulders, tapped his chest, and noted his big bare knees. "Heavens!" exclaimed the old doctor, "what a magnificent boy! He will grow to be a glorious man. I have never seen such physique or such vitality." This expert opinion was borne out by our son's physical growth in the next three years. Athletic exercises assisted in the development of a physique that was naturally strong. In his nineteenth year he was six feet in height, and measured thirty-nine inches round the chest. He had exceptionally broad shoulders. Not an ounce of superfluous flesh weighed on the sinewy, supple frame. There was about him the fragrance, radiant vitality and ease of poise that are characteristic of the athlete in the pink of condition.

Though moulded on a big scale, he was very alert in movement, and had an easy swinging carriage. The head was large, hair rich and abundant, complexion fair, the face round and full, forehead high and spacious, cheeks ruddy with the glow of health, the mouth firm and kind, revealing when he smiled a perfect set of teeth; the aspect bold and noble; grey eyes shone like stars behind his gold-rimmed glasses. A smile of enchanting sweetness often played about the strong, handsome face. His voice had a caressing note; his laugh was loud, hearty and musical. Thanks to his abounding health, neither appetite nor sleep ever failed him. He had only to place his head on the pillow and sleep came to him on the instant, and he would not stir for eight or nine hours. As an infant he often slept twenty hours a day. This precious gift of sleep remained with him to the end; and in a letter to me in June, 1917, he humorously remarked that though not far away at the time, he slept undisturbed by the earth-rending explosion that preceded our capture of the Messines Ridge. His outstanding characteristic was massiveness—he was massive in physique, in intellect, in character. He had the ingenuous simplicity that is often associated with a big physical frame. In him a modest, unpretending nature was linked to a great soul. In judgment he was very sagacious, and for all his idealism there was a shrewd practical side to him. A boyish zest remained to the last one of his principal characteristics.

In the winter of 1916 we moved into a new house which my wife planned with special regard to the tastes of our two boys. Alas for these fond plannings! Paul never saw our new home, never worked in the pleasant library arranged specially for him, never entered the cosy little room garnished with his athletic trophies and adorned with those engravings of Beethoven and Wagner which he so much loved. His last visit home was in May, 1916. He declined leave at the end of 1916 from a fear that if he took it he might lose the opportunity of transferring from the A.S.C. The same spirit of devotion made him, when he was appointed to the Tank Corps, elect to be trained in France, instead of coming to England. I think that at last he almost dreaded taking leave lest a visit home might weaken his resolve to walk the sacrificial road. It was only after his death that we learnt from his brother officers in the 2nd Cavalry Brigade that he had often told them he was convinced he would not survive the War. That conviction seemed only to strengthen his determination to get into the fighting-line. A voice within told him his place was in the heart of the combat and he obeyed its monition with joyful alacrity. From the time he joined the Tank Corps a sort of divine content filled his soul.

Paul found and gave great happiness in his own home. Never moody or despondent, his sunny disposition made him like a glory in the house. He enjoyed nothing better than a frolic with his younger brother, of whom he was devotedly fond. A racy and witty talker, he loved an argument. Many a verbal joust he and I had together. Our views did not always concur. We differed in opinion on many matters, including our estimates of eminent men, alive and dead. For example, my son did not share my contempt for Rousseau; nor could I share his admiration for Frederick the Great and Napoleon, those ruffians of genius who wrought so much evil in the world. Paul, however, adored men of action, and he forgot the crimes and moral defects of Napoleon and Frederick in contemplating the splendour of their achievements. Austere though his own morals were, he nevertheless held that a man capable of great service to the State ought not to be debarred from performing it by his religious opinions or the lack of them, or by the nature of his private life. He felt that you must take genius on its own terms.

What Paul was to his mother and to me I dare not write. Let it suffice to say that no parents were ever blessed with a richer treasure. His love for us flowed through the channel of his being like a river singing on its way. How proud we were of his nobility of soul, his heroic temper, his many triumphs! Young as he was we found in him a firm stay and a sure support, and we felt ourselves more secure in life under the shelter of his strong and radiant personality. We had cherished high, and I hope not unworthy, hopes of his future—hopes which, but for the War, would assuredly have been fulfilled. He had not settled in his mind what profession he would adopt. Law attracted him once, then repelled him; and I strongly dissuaded him from Journalism. Politics had a fascination for him, but in no circumstances would he have become a professional politician, and he had resolved to earn an income independently. I am inclined to think that eventually he would have become a professor and a writer of history. Though it was a quality of his nature to do thoroughly whatever he put his hand to, he was not ambitious in the ordinary sense. He had no lust either for riches or fame. Duty, Honour, Service—these were his watchwords. His desire was to make his life worthy and gracious, and to use it in the service of humanity. That ideal he realised. If he had lived to old age he could not have made a greater thing of his life. Out of the warp and woof given to him by the Creator he has woven a noble and beautiful pattern. Words cannot express what his loss means to us. God alone knows the desolation of our hearts. But Paul has left us glorious and inspiring memories and we know he has gone to his reward. We feel, too, that though absent from us in the body, he is with us in the spirit. His mother and I, after the first stunning effect of our grief was passing, compared notes about our inner experiences, and we found that the image of our beloved son in our eyes was the same: Paul looking divinely happy, standing before us with that enchanting smile we knew so well, and cheerily enjoining us to "Carry on; carry on!"

A few weeks after Paul was killed I opened a volume of Froude's "Short Studies." Our son's early death lends significance and pathos to passages he has marked in this book. Froude, in the essay on "England's Forgotten Worthies," speaking of honoured old age—"beautiful as the slow-dropping mellow autumn of a rich glorious summer"—says: "It is beautiful, but not the most beautiful." Then comes the following sentence which Paul has heavily underscored:

There is another life, hard, rough, and thorny, trodden with bleeding feet and aching brow; the life of which the Cross is the symbol; a battle which no peace follows this side of the grave; which the grave gapes to finish before the victory is won; and—strange that it should be so—this is the highest life of man.

Our son has written on the margin, "The best kind of life that of constant struggle." Froude goes on to refer to the work in the sixteenth century of the servants of England, whose life was a long battle, either with the elements or with men, and who passed away content when God had nothing more to bid them do. The following passages are again underlined:

Paul's marginal note to this is, "Compare Browning's 'Prospice.'" I turn to "Prospice" and I read:

For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
.....
And with God be the rest![Back to Contents]