CONVERSATION LOST ART

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 June 1936, Page 12

CONVERSATION LOST ART

CLOISTER AND OPEN HOUSE. “Eccentricity,” said Mr. T. W. Hill, recently retired secretary of the A thenaeum Club, London, in an interview with a special rrespondent of the “Observer.” * Ex-centricity —out ot the centre That is the modern mark. Everybody nowadays is thorough 15' eccentric. Why don’t you wear a hat?”

1 pointed to ml’ hat lying on a chair, j “Yes, I know, but. you carry it about] in your hand. Why do people lose tho right-hand glove and go about wearing the left? Why do women go stockinglcss? They want to be different—out of the centre. We all have a line of eccentricity. Until the War man brought himself more into Hue with the vogue of the day. Now he allows his eccentricity' to get the better ot him. He doesn’t conform to the pattern.”

“But surely there was eccentricity' before the War?”

"Not in the general sense. Extrava-j gance, vanity, if you like, among indi-j, victuals. Why did J. M. W.'Turner always drink his port in the dark after i blowing the candles out? Why did’ Charles Dickens come into the Athenaeum in the middle of the morning,, snatch a sandwich, and walk rapidly up and down the-coffee round? The extravagance of genius. - “Of course there will be another change. No doubt in the next twenty years sunbathing will disappear. And i can see signs in the latest architecture of less eccentricity. More attention is being paid to design. The novel, too, will either change or disappear. The modern novel has* lost its old raison d’etre —to tell a story. Unless the stbry-teller returns, the novel as a literary form will vanish. “And what, you ask, has all that, to do with the Athenaeum? Why, every, thing. All change affects club life. The qld cloistral atmosphere of thc| West End club, the club with a hall-1 porter who combined the qualities of I a bear, a bull, and a tiger, has disappeared. There is a tendency nowadays to make a club a house of entertainment. That, too, disappear. 1 believe that a form of club life will evolve which will keep the best of both tendencies —the cloistral and the open house.”

“What of conversation? Will that ever revive?” “Conversation died thirty-five or forty years ago. There were the old conversational breakfasts given bs' Lord Avebury, and before him by Sam Rogers, both members of the Athenaeum. Thej' disappeared as conversational centres, and were succeeded by private dinner parties such as those given by two other members .of the Athenaeum, Sir Henry Thompson and Sir Mountstuart Grand Duff. Sir Henry Thompson’s dinner parties were given eight times a year on the eighth of the month for eight people and consisted of eight courses.

“They also ended not long after the beginning of the century. Sir Henry Thompson died in 1904. Sir Mountstuart Grand Duff in 1906. From then until aft,er the War, conversation was succeeded by gossip, chaff, and anecdote. Now it is being restored by the occasional dinners followed by symposia which are held in various clubs. Certain modern clubs are almost purely dining clubs. The- Athenaeum has it.q winter season of dinners with svmposia. That is all helping to revive conversation as a cult. “There’s the Athenaeum for you then. Life and change. Does it matter how many hat pegs we have, or what the members like for dinner, or how they dress? The ordinary, educated man knows what is going on in the Athenaeum by instinct.” I looked at Mr. Hill, secretary,' the oldest man among the secretaries of the great West End chibs, talking with the brisk assurance of a vigorous sixty. Mr. Hill looked at the future.

“I hope,” I said, as we shook hands, “that you will enjoy your retirement more than you have enjoyed your work in the Athenaeum.” “That,” said Mr. Hill gravely, “would be impossible.”