30 The Duke of Norfolk's Tragedy [1902 



About this vandalism, as about all else, he is shamelessly amusing. 

 ' Old Michael,' he explained, ' didn't understand how to make a house 

 comfortable, it's time we should teach him.' His daughter tells me 

 he is a model father, always in good humour, and never scolding her. 

 Indeed he is full of private kindnesses in spite of his public ferocity, 

 and they are a very happy family. I like them all. We sat up till 

 half -past one last night, and he must have told quite a hundred stories 

 and nearly all new. To-day Belloc joined us at dinner, and proved too 

 talkative for Labouchere, who would not compete with him." 



" The Duke of Norfolk's undeveloped son is dead, and Meynell, 

 whom I saw on Friday was full of anecdotes about him, tragical 

 enough, from his birth, which when it happened was considered an 

 event of the extremest significance in all the English Catholic world, 

 down to this drear conclusion. Perhaps the most pathetic incident 

 was when he was on pilgrimage at Lourdes to which place they re- 

 peatedly went in search of a miracle for him. As the ducal party 

 approached the shrine they found themselves face to face with a crowd 

 of joyous French peasants chaunting in honour of a cure which had 

 just been wrought, and the verse of the psalm they were singing was 

 ' He hath filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he hath 

 sent empty away.' ' We shall have no miracle,' said the Duke, and the 

 Duchess burst into tears. The boy as he grew up had a beautiful 

 face, but he had no mind, and he never learnt to speak. The only 

 words he knew were ' Pretty boy, pretty boy,' which he had heard 

 strangers say who came to see him, and he repeated these when he be- 

 came excited mechanically. His father spent several hours every day 

 with him, but he did not know his father, except as a playfellow, and 

 when the Duke came back from his campaign in South Africa the boy 

 had clean forgotten him. This was a sad wound to the Duke. The 

 Duke, some think, will never remarry. He considers that he resisted 

 a vocation when he did not become an Oratorian, and that he was ac- 

 cursed for this in his son by Heaven. He is more likely to end his 

 days as a priest. The little Lord Arundel is to be buried to-day. 



" 14th July. — Lord Salisbury has resigned, and is succeeded as 

 Prime Minister by Arthur Balfour. This has disappointed the extreme 

 Imperialists who have been intriguing for the last four years for Cham- 

 berlain, but I think Balfour will be found just as uncompromising a 

 Jingo as the other; however, it makes for morality in England, and 

 so on the whole I am glad. 



" The Tower of St. Mark's at Venice has fallen, its foundation 

 probably undermined by the wash of the steamers and the dredging 

 of the canals. 



" 21st July. — There are to be changes in the new Cabinet, Hicks 



