viii Preface 



in vigorous prose of the circumstances that have in the last 30 years 

 surrounded him, of talks with friends, and the gossip of Parliaments, 

 of gatherings for shooting or for tennis or for the sales of his famous 

 Arab Stud. They were written in early mornings not only where 

 Eastern travel accustomed him to rise with the rising of the sun 

 but through London seasons, and visits to great country houses in 

 fine society, for he was many sided ; a man of fashion, rider to hounds 

 at home; rider also on the camels of the desert; attache at the court 

 of a King of Greece, a Queen of Spain, an Emperor of the French at 

 the time of that Emperor's supreme vain glory, translator from the 

 Arabic; painter, architect and sculptor (as is shown in his greatest 

 effort, the beautiful monument at Crawley, the recumbent figure of 

 his brother); politician outside Parliament; revolutionist and helper 

 of revolutions. 



A brief summary of his earlier history, before I knew him, has 

 been given me by a friend of his and mine : 



"The English books of reference tell us that Mr. Wilfrid Scawen 

 Blunt was born at Crabbet Park in Sussex in the year 1S40. His 

 father was a squire possessed of some four thousand acres mostly of 

 forest land ; a justice of the peace, a Deputy Lieutenant of that 

 county, and master of the local foxhounds, who had served in the 

 Peninsular campaign and had carried the colours of the Grenadier 

 Guards under Sir John Moore at the battle of Corunna where he was 

 wounded, and remained through life a follower of the Duke of 

 Wellington, the object of his political devotion. 



"Mr. Blunt's sole hereditary connection with letters, it is inter- 

 esting to learn, was that the family estates in Sussex lay closely 

 adjoining those of the Shelleys and that his great grandfather was 

 fellow justice of the peace to Percy Shelley's father and that they 

 sat as Magistrates on the same Bench at the County town of 

 Horsham, also that his father was a contemporary at Harrow 

 School of that other great poet Byron, and acted as "fag" to him 

 there according to English public school fashion for a year, memories 

 that are cherished in the family traditions. 



"Left an orphan while yet a child, he had been brought up a Cath- 

 olic and had received his education under the Jesuits at Stonyhurst 

 and later at Oscott, but pursued his education no further. He was 

 never at an university, but at the early age of eighteen was given, by 

 one of his guardians connected with the Ministry of the day, a post 

 in the Diplomatic Service and was sent abroad the same year as 

 attache to the British Legation at Athens and afterwards by way of 

 Constantinople to Germany, where he went through a mental crisis 



