My Memories of Eighty YearsDepew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell)
History
My Memories of Eighty Years
Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell)
Biography; Depew, Chauncey M. (Chauncey Mitchell), 1834-1928; United States -- History -- 1865-1921
Lord Fisher exemplified what I have often met with in men who have
won eminent distinction in some career, whose great desire was
to have fame in another and entirely different one. Apparently
he wished his friends and those he met to believe that he was
the best storyteller in the world; that he had the largest stock
of original anecdotes and told them better than anybody else.
I found that he was exceedingly impatient and irritable when any
one else started the inevitable "that reminds me," and he was
intolerant with the story the other was trying to tell. But I
discovered, also, that most of his stories, though told with great
enthusiasm, were very familiar, or, as we Americans would
say, "chestnuts."
During my summer vacations I spent two weeks or more at Homburg,
the German watering-place. It was at that time the most interesting
resort on the continent. The Prince of Wales, afterwards
King Edward VII, was always there, and his sister, the Dowager
Empress of Germany, had her castle within a few miles. It was
said that there was a quorum of both Houses of Parliament in
Homburg while the prince was there, but his presence also drew
representatives from every department of English life, the bench
and the bar, writers of eminence of both sexes, distinguished
artists, and people famous on both the dramatic and the operatic
stage. The prince, with keen discrimination, had these interesting
people always about him. There were also social leaders, whose
entertainments were famous in London, who did their best to add
to the pleasure of the visit of the prince. I met him frequently
and was often his guest at his luncheons and dinners. He fell
in at once in the Homburg way.
The routine of the cure was to be at the springs every morning
at seven o'clock, to take a glass of water, walk half an hour
with some agreeable companion, and repeat this until three glasses
had been consumed. Then breakfast, and after that the great
bathing-house at eleven o'clock. The bathing-house was a
meeting-place for everybody. Another meeting-place was the open-air
concerts in the afternoon. In the evening came the formal dinners
and some entertainment afterwards.
Both for luncheon and dinner the prince always had quite a large
company. He was a host of great charm, tact, and character. He
had a talent of drawing out the best there was in those about his
table, and especially of making the occasion very agreeable for
a stranger. Any one at his entertainments always carried away
either in the people he met or the things that were said, or both,
permanent recollections.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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