The Days Before Yesterday | Page 4

extracted some further reminiscences from the lumber-room of
recollections. Those who expect startling revelations, or stale whiffs of
forgotten scandals in these pages, will, I fear, be disappointed, for the
book contains neither. It is merely a record of everyday events,
covering different ground to those recounted in the former book, which
may, or may not, prove of interest. I must tender my apologies for the
insistent recurrence of the first person singular; in a book of this
description this is difficult to avoid.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
Early days--The passage of many terrors--Crocodiles, grizzlies and
hunchbacks--An adventurous journey and its reward--The famous
spring in South Audley Street--Climbing chimney-sweeps--The story
of Mrs. Montagu's son--The sweeps' carnival--Disraeli--Lord John
Russell--A child's ideas about the Whigs--The Earl of Aberdeen-- "Old
Brown Bread"--Sir Edwin Landseer, a great family friend--A live lion
at a tea-party--Landseer as an artist--Some of his vagaries--His frescoes
at Ardverikie--His latter days--A devoted friend--His last Academy
picture

CHAPTER II

The "swells" of the "sixties"--Old Lord Claud Hamilton--My first
presentation to Queen Victoria--Scandalous behaviour of a
brother--Queen Victoria's letters--Her character and strong common
sense--My mother's recollections of George III. and George IV.--
Carlton House, and the Brighton Pavilion--Queen Alexandra--The
Fairchild Family--Dr. Cumming and his church--A clerical Jazz-- First
visit to Paris--General de Flahault's account of Napoleon's campaign of
1812--Another curious link with the past--"Something
French"--Attraction of Paris--Cinderella's glass slipper--A glimpse of
Napoleon III.--The Rue de Rivoli--The Riviera in 1865-- A novel
Tricolour flag--Jenny Lind--The championship of the
Mediterranean--My father's boat and crew--The race--The Abercorn
wins the championship

CHAPTER III
A new departure--A Dublin hotel in the "sixties"--The Irish mail
service--The wonderful old paddle mail-boats--The convivial waiters of
the Munster--The Viceregal Lodge--Indians and pirates-- The
imagination of youth--A modest personal ambition--Death- warrants;
imaginary and real--The Fenian outbreak of 1866-7--The Abergele
railway accident--A Dublin Drawing-Room--Strictly private
ceremonials--Some of the amenities of the Chapel Royal--An unbidden
spectator of the State dinners--Irish wit--Judge Keogh-- Father
Healy--Happy Dublin knack of nomenclature--An unexpected honour
and its cause--Incidents of the Fenian rising--Dr. Hatchell--A novel
prescription--Visit of King Edward--Gorgeous ceremonial, but a chilly
drive--An anecdote of Queen Alexandra

CHAPTER IV
Chittenden's--A wonderful teacher--My personal experiences as a
schoolmaster--My "boys in blue"--My unfortunate garments--A "brave

Belge"--The model boy, and his name--A Spartan regime--"The Three
Sundays"--Novel religious observances--Harrow--"John Smith of
Harrow"--"Tommy"--Steele--"Tosher"--An ingenious
punishment--John Farmer--His methods--The birth of a famous
song--Harrow school songs--"Ducker"--The "Curse of
Versatility"--Advancing old age-- The race between three brothers--A
family failing--My father's race at sixty-four--My own--A most
acrimonious dispute at Rome-- Harrow after fifty years

CHAPTER V
Mme. Ducros--A Southern French country town--"Tartarin de
Tarascon"--His prototypes at Nyons--M. Sisteron the roysterer--The
Southern French--An octogenarian pasteur--French industry--"Bone-
shakers"--A wonderful "Cordon-bleu"--"Slop-basin"--French legal
procedure--The bons-vivants--The merry French judges--La gaiete
francaise--Delightful excursions--Some sleepy old towns--Oronge and
Avignon--M. Thiers' ingenious cousin--Possibilities--French political
situation in 1874--The Comte de Chambord--Some French
characteristics--High intellectual level--Three days in a Trappist
Monastery--Details of life there--The Arian heresy-- Silkworm
culture--Tendencies of French to complicate details--Some
examples--Cicadas in London.

CHAPTER VI
Brunswick--Its beauty--High level of culture--The Brunswick
Theatre--Its excellence--Gas vs. Electricity--Primitive theatre
toilets--Operatic stars in private life--Some operas unknown in
London--Dramatic incidents in them--Levasseur's parody of
"Robert"--Some curious details about operas--Two fiery old pan-
Germans--Influence of the teaching profession on modern Germany--
The "French and English Clubs"--A meeting of the "English Club"

Some reflections about English reluctance to learn foreign
tongues--Mental attitude of non-Prussians in 1875--Concerning various
beers--A German sportsman--The silent, quinine-loving youth--The
Harz Mountains--A "Kettle-drive" for hares--Dialects of German--The
odious "Kaffee-Klatch"--Universal gossip--Hamburg's overpowering
hospitality--Hamburg's attitude towards Britain--The city itself--Trip to
British Heligoland--The island--Some peculiarities--Migrating
birds--Sir Fitzhardinge Maxse--Lady Maxse--The Heligoland
Theatre--Winter in Heligoland

CHAPTER VII
Some London beauties of the "seventies"--Great ladies--The Victorian
girl--Votaries of the Gaiety Theatre Two witty ladies-- Two clever girls
and mock-Shakespeare--The family who talked Johnsonian
English--Old-fashioned tricks of pronunciation-- Practical jokes--Lord
Charles Beresford and the old Club-member-- The shoeless
legislator--Travellers' palms--The tree that spouted wine--Ceylon's
spicy breezes--Some reflections--Decline of public interest in
Parliament--Parliamentary giants--Gladstone, John Bright, and
Chamberlain--Gladstone's last speech--His resignation-- W.H.
Smith--The Assistant Whips--Sir William Hart-Dyke--Weary hours at
Westminster--A Pseudo-Ingoldsbean Lay

CHAPTER VIII
The Foreign Office--The new Private Secretary--A Cabinet key--
Concerning theatricals--Some surnames which have passed into
everyday use--Theatricals at Petrograd--A mock-opera--The family
from Runcorn--An embarrassing predicament--Administering the
oath--Secret Service--Popular errors--Legitimate employment of
information--The Phoenix Park murders--I sanction an arrest--The
innocent victim--The execution of the murderers of Alexander II.-- The

jarring military band--Black Magic--Sir Charles Wyke--Some of his
experiences--The seance at the Pantheon--Sir Charles' experiments on
myself--The Alchemists--The Elixir of Life, and the Philosopher's
Stone--Lucid directions for their manufacture-- Glamis Castle and its
inhabitants--The tuneful Lyon family--Mr. Gladstone at Glamis--He
sings in the glees--The castle and its treasures--Recollections of Glamis

CHAPTER IX
Canada--The beginnings of the C.P.R.--Attitude of British
Columbia--The C.P.R. completed--Quebec--A swim at Niagara--Other
mighty waterfalls--Ottawa and Rideau Hall--Effects of dry
climate--Personal electricity--Every man his own dynamo-- Attraction