SOLDIER AND ARTIST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19298, 10 April 1926, Page 7 (Supplement)

SOLDIER AND ARTIST.

LORD GRENFELL'S memoirs. The memoirs of military men, not infrequently, are tedious reading for those outside tho profession, and uninterested in its technicalities, but the "Memoirs of Field-Marshall Lord Grenfoll" (Ilodder and Stoughton) are the work of a man whose interests were not bounded by the limits of military training. Ktngsley and Frondi* were his uncles by marriage; Labouchero (of Truth) was his cousin, and he himself was an artist of no mean order Also, and more precious still from tho reader's point of view, ho possessed a keen sense of humour which, being essentially a sense of values, prevented him from taking a dull or one-sided view of life. Possibly, ho inherited the saving grace from Ins grandfather, Josias Du Pre. This gentleman had several sisters who all lived to ii great age. "One of my greataunts left £lO to a surgeon to plunge a dagger into her heart. My grandfather, on being consulted, is stated to have said : 'Nonsense, if she isn't dead she ought to be'." As a small boy Lord Gronfell was refreshingly normal. He onco caused great disappointment when on being asked (in 1851) what of all tho beautiful things at tho exhibition ho liked best, ho replied "The strawberry ices!" As D.A.A.G. on Lord Chelmsford's staff in 1879 ho was closely concerned in tho death of tho Prince Imperial, whom he describes as "proud, brave and reckless . . . a Spaniard from top to too." His own recklessness was responsible for tho disaster, though tho conduct of Lieut. Carey, who was the only Englishman with him, appears to have been criminally weak. Lord Grenfell had, in a letter to his sister two months earlier, prophesied that the Prince would get himself shot. His memories of famous men include a pathetic interview with Joseph Chamberlain when tho lattor had beon stricken with paralysis. "While he had great, difficulty in speaking his brain was quite clear and ho was full of fight. . . . Mrs. Chamberlain greatly assisted him in his conversation, picking up any words that | he found difficult to pronounce. It was very sad to see so gre:it a man in this pileous state, his mind as active as ever, with his ideal unrealised and not likely to be." In his diary for 1916 ho speaks of taking tho chair at a patriotic, meeting and having to listen to Bottomley "bellowing virtuous sentiments, knowing full well he was a bankrupt and a swindler." Grenfell married a second time late in life and, in 1916, he uotes how on 1 April 29, his 75th birthday, he "resisted tho demand on the part of Arthur that I should ha% r e 75 candles on mv wedding cake which caused a break in tho happy relations between tho seven-year-old son and tho scix.mte-quinze father." Ho was the uncle of tho famous Grenfell brothers "Rivy" and Francis; and their death was a bitter blow to him. These Memoirs, though written with modesty, reveal the very lovable character of a brave Englishman who, by his life and in his precepts, taught the vouth of England to live up to tho highest ideals sf citizenship, to fear God and honour the King.