CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 



IN CONCLUSION 



r 



I'^HE narrative ended in 1925 and has remained unfinished till 

 April 1939 — the remaining fourteen years can be covered in a few 

 pages. 



The penalty for remaining alive is the loss of dear ones, friends and 

 relations, who drop away one by one. On March 21, 1926, we lost our 

 beloved and only son Charles, whose life was a record of disappoint- 

 ments and hopes deferred, but of unblemished honour. 



A few weeks later I sailed for Cherbourg on my way to Madrid for 

 the International Geological Congress, arriving there on May 10. The 

 more important excursions before the Congress had all been filled and, 

 perforce, I had to take one that, geologically speaking, was farcical, but 

 fascinating from every other point of view, for it enabled me to visit 

 Granada and the Alhambra, Cordoba, Seville, Toledo, and the Escorial. 

 The Congress was opened on May 24 by the King in person and occu- 

 pied a week, with two days out for the excursions to the Escorial and 

 Toledo. No outstanding papers were read and the visitors were more 

 engaged in sight-seeing than in attending the sessions. There was a very 

 striking contrast between the admirably efficient way in which the 

 excursions were managed and the dilatory, slipshod methods of the 

 Madrid secretariat. Letters and telegrams were delivered by scattering 

 them on the floor; one example is the notice of my appointment as one 

 of the delegates of the U.S. Government to the Congress, which reached 

 me after my return home. The excursions had been put in the hands of 

 the Wagons Lits by contract. 



Happening to have with me my scarlet gown, which I was taking to 

 Oxford for repairs, I ventured to wear it at the opening ceremony and 

 was well rewarded, for the Papal Nuncio and I were much the most 

 conspicuous persons present and the ushers, thinking that I must be 

 "somebody in particular," came to me where I was sitting in the audience 

 and made me change to "the seats of the mighty" near the King. 



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