1902], Labouchere at Newbuildings 29 



" 2$th June. — Called at Dorchester House to write my name down 

 for Princess Helene, who with her husband represents the King of Italy 

 at the Coronation, and at 35 Park Lane to give Lettice her wedding 

 gift and the Sonnet I have written her. I found her with Lord Beau- 

 champ, her fiance, a good looking, smooth faced young man, who com- 

 plained much of the deception that had been practised on the public 

 in regard to the King's illness. Passing through the Park I found Rot- 

 ten Row crowded, not a trace of trouble on any face, though the news- 

 papers talk of general gloom. On the contrary, streets are full of 

 gay sightseers, satisfied to look at the decorations since there will be 

 nothing more. Returning after dark I found the Park still crowded, 

 but almost exclusively by lovers who occupied each bench in pairs re- 

 posing, according to the naive London custom, in each other's arms. 



" $th July. — The day of our horse sale. I am camped at Caxtons 

 very pleasantly. As a social function all went off most prosperously. 

 Five hundred and ninety people had accepted invitations, and some five 

 hundred sat down to luncheon. Also the quality of the guests was 

 exalted — Princess Louise, the Sultan of Perak with a turbaned suite, 

 Pertab Singh, Maharajah of Idar with the same, some twenty Colonial 

 big wigs, including Barton, Prime Minister of the new Australian com- 

 monwealth, and a fair show of our own Lords and Ladies. My health 

 was proposed by Lord Egerton, and I made a rather longer speech than 

 usual in reply. There was no hitch in any of the arrangements, and 

 all the world was pleased. The sole thing wanting was the presence 

 of buyers for the horses. It was the worst sale we have had in all 

 our twenty years, as last year's was the best. 



" 10th July. — Newbuildings. Hilaire Belloc came to see me and 

 stayed to dinner. He is a very clever fellow, a good talker, and a 

 powerful wine drinker, as his book, ' The Path to Rome,' indicates. (I 

 had not met him since sometime in the eighties, when he came as an 

 Oxford undergraduate to consult me on a plan he had of bringing out 

 a Catholic magazine.) We had an amusing evening trotting out 

 paradoxes." [This entry records Belloc's arrival to take up his resi- 

 dence in Shipley, who was afterwards to prove so good and interest- 

 ing a neighbour to me for so many years.] 



" 13//? July (Sunday). — Labouchere and his wife and daughter, Bill 

 Gordon and Sibyl Queensberry are here (Newbuildings) for a Sunday 

 visit. Labouchere in the highest possible form, brimming over with wit 

 and good stories, the most brilliant talker in England, now Oscar Wilde 

 is gone. Gordon, too, is no bad talker on his own subjects. La- 

 bouchere is to retire from Parliament at the dissolution, and has bought 

 Michael Angelo's Villa at Florence, where he means to live. He is 

 busy pulling the Villa about ' to suit it,' he says, ' to modern require- 

 ments,' uprooting old trees in the podere and planting new ones. 



