574 



MY FATHER: W. T. STEAD.— IV. 



BY HENRY STEAD. 



Father owed the foundation of his 

 education to the instruction he received 

 at home. His father taught him Latin, 

 and inculcated into a willing mind a 

 great desire to learn things. As a boy, 

 though, at school, he was not considered 

 particularly bright. He taught himself 

 French and German, the latter travelling 

 in the train to and from New^castle. 

 Had he had the opportunity he gave his 

 children, he would have been a fine lin- 

 guist. He read French easily, could 

 pick up a French newspaper and read it 

 out 171 English as rapidly and accurately 

 as if it had been an English one. As, 

 however, he pronounced French as if it 

 were Latin it was never any use to him 

 conversationally. 



HIS "FLUENT" GERMAN. 

 He talked German with a total disre- 

 gard for grammar — at a great rate. It 

 was an extraordinary sight to watch him 

 tell a thrilling ghost story to some 

 deeply interested German diplomatists ; 

 and hear their exclamations of astonish- 

 ment not only at the tale but at the 

 marvellous way in which he conveyed it. 



MARK TWAIN's JOKE. 



W'^hen he and I were in Vienna, we 

 spent an evening with Mark Twain, and 

 the great American humorist explained 

 how much easier it was for his German 

 washerwoman to learn English than for 

 him to learn German. " You see," he 

 said, " she does not require many words 

 to express herself in her own language, 

 so has not many to learn in mine, btit I 

 need such a lot of words to adequately 

 convey my meaning in English that it 

 would be hopeless for me to try and 

 learn their equivalent in German!" 

 Father had a wonderful command of 

 English, and the extraordinary thing 

 was that he had almost an equal com- 

 mand of French and German words, 

 however quaintly he put them together. 

 He had no time at all to study, but he 

 only needed to see a word once to re- 

 member it. 



When we went to Russia in 1898. he 

 suddenly remembered enough words to 



get along with, although the few he 

 had picked up on his first visit had never 

 been thought of for ten years. 



INTERVIEWING LEOPOLD II. 



During the last twenty years of his 

 life he was constantly on the Continent, 

 but his first trip to interview a monarch 

 was when he visited Brussels to see the 

 king of the Belgians about General 

 Gordon. The interview was a curious 

 one. Leopold did not want to see him, 

 and was furious about the share he had 

 had in taking Gordon away from his 

 service. Having some time to spare be- 

 fore the appointment, he wandered about 

 in the city and lost his way. When he 

 got on the right track he found he would 

 be late. In a way thoroughly character- 

 istic of him, he made good by sprinting 

 energetically for about a mile, arriving 

 breathless, but on time, at the palace, to 

 the joy of his cicerone. Baron de Lave- 

 leye. The king kept them waiting a few 

 minutes, and then limped in with the 

 help of his stick. He did not ask father 

 to be seated. The only monarch he in- 

 terviewed who never did, nor did he sit 

 down himself, evidently intending" to 

 cut the interview short. They were soon 

 hard at it, for father never minced mat- 

 ters, and continued talking for an hour. 

 " That man Stead," said Leopold after- 

 wards to de Laveleye " made me per- 

 spire." 



RED RUBBER. 



He impressed father as an able, un- 

 trustworthy, irascible, but resolute man, 

 who did not like to be contradicted or 

 even argued with. In those days — it was 

 in 1884 — everyone accepted Leopold II. 

 at his own valuation. There was no talk 

 of dividends from the Congo. It was years 

 later that the cloven hoof appeared, and 

 the king's enterprise in Central Africa, 

 originally projected on idealist lines, be- 

 came transformed into a sordid and 

 ruthless engine for the creation of a new 

 slavery, in order to extract gigantic divi- 

 dends from hapless negroes, with a 

 cruelty that cried aloud to heaven for 

 vengeance. 



