By the Clock of St. James's
Peacv ARMYTAGE has given the best part of his life to The organization of pleasure. Born in a society in which Pleasures take a large part he found himself as a young man directing amateur theatricals, dances, charity concerts and country house amusements for love, and he came to the tonelusion that he might just as well do it for money, l'IftY years ago young Men of his sort were not content to turn an honest penny anyhow and as they could. His family and friends were rather shocked. "I cannot counten- ance." Sir George-Arniytage wrote to him, "a member of the ralytage family hiring himself out as a paid Master of the creinunies." But if Smart relations were sensitive in those "Ys they were also useful. The grandmother of this bold unovator had -been Lady Charlotte Lennox, everyone knew ,ito he was, and while disapproving his choice of a profession neY put work in his way.
!lulls and banquets, public and private, were soon " run " Mr. PereY Armytage, in' fact he tells us that "during 30 odd years I was Beau Nash---with a difference." Becoming a gentleman usher to the King he was able to indulge to the full his love of pageant and ceremonial, and we hear a great deal about both Jubilees, coronations and Royal marriages.
Descriptions of shows greater or smaller might well make dull reading, but somehow this book is far from dull. The writer manages to impart a very real sense of enjoyment, partly by a kind of literary telepathy which is not tinfrequently found among inexperienced writers who have the gift of literary simplicity.
Now and then we leave this country and arc taken to still more wonderful feasts abroad. "At a State ball given by the Emperor and Empress (of Russia) five thousand guests sat down to supper and were served simultaneously by five thousand footmen " ! One expects the Fairy Godmother to appear suddenly in the midst of them !
But it is not only cheerful ceremonials in which Mr. Armytagc delights. He has a great feeling for what we may call sump- tuous grimness. He not only pipes but he mourns to us. "The changing of the guard over a Royal Body" thrills him, partly no doubt because "opportunities for witnessing it are very rare."
Some of the most entertaining stories here told concern the East. We hear of an Indian Maharajah who, coining to the Coronation of King Edward VII, brought a retinue a hundred strong and announced his intention of living in England according to Hindu rites. A very large house in London with a paddock for a cow had to be found, and when such was at last obtained on Campden Hill it transpired that the Maharajah was bringing a god with him for whom must be provided a large room on the first floor and special food requiring a separate kitchen for its preparation. The first visit of the Shah of Persia, who rode about London wonderfully arrayed, on a white• horse with a pink tail, can hardly have given more trouble.
The whole of this largish volume is not made up of glitter and laughter shown up against a background of Court mourning. A little real wit and a little real seriousness are to be found in it. The author has, as he says, seen Vanity Fair from within and seen it to be much like other places, no better than it should be but much redeemed by kindness. The world both inside the Fair and out is changing, on the whole he thinks for the better. He sees, however, at the moment a sense of "being frustrated and balked" which seems to be found in all ranks of life, and which is not easy to account for. Drawing quite suddenly a curtain over the pageantry which holds his eyes, he comes with an apology to "the heart of the matter." Very simply and gracefully he tells us in what he believes happiness to consist—and the reader finds himself as much touched by the moral as he has been diverted by the fairy story.
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