Records, by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord FisherFisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron
History
Records, by Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Fisher
Fisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron
Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Fisher, John Arbuthnot Fisher, Baron, 1841-1920; Great Britain. Royal Navy
Lord Burnham was ever my great Friend, he was also a splendid man.
I should like to publish his letters. I have spoken of Labouchere
elsewhere. As Yates, of the _World_, Labouchere, and Lord Burnham
(those three) walked up and down the Promenade together (Lord
Burnham being stout), Russell called them “The World, the Flesh, and
the Devil.” I don’t know if it was original wit, but it was to me.
[Illustration: TWO PHOTOGRAPHS OF KING EDWARD VII. AND SIR JOHN FISHER
ON BOARD H.M.S. “DREADNOUGHT” ON HER FIRST CRUISE.]
Old Gallifet also was splendid company; he had a silver plate over part
of his stomach and wounds all over him. I heard weird stories of how he
shot down the Communists.
Sir Henry Hawkins I dined with at some Legal Assemblage, and as we
walked up the Hall arm in arm all the Law Students struck up a lovely
song I’d never heard before: “Mrs. ’enry ’awkins,” which he greatly
enjoyed. On one occasion he told me that when he was still a Barrister,
he came late into Court and asked what was the name of the Barrister
associated with him in the Case? The Usher or someone told him it was
Mr. Swan and he had just gone out of the Court. (I suppose he ought to
have waited for Sir Henry.) Anyhow Sir Henry observed that he didn’t
like him “taking liberties with his Leda.” I expect the Usher, not
being up in Lemprière’s Dictionary, didn’t see the joke!
Dear Shand, who was very small of stature, was known as the “Epitome
of all that was good in Man.” He reeked with good stories and never
told them twice. Queen Victoria fell in love with him at first sight
(notwithstanding that she preferred big men) and had him made a Lord.
She asked after his wife as “Lady Shand”; and, being a Scottish Law
Lord, he replied that “Mrs. Shand was quite well.” There are all sorts
of ways of becoming a Lord.
Rumbold knocked the man down who asked him for his ticket! He wasn’t
going to have an Ambassador treated like that (as if he had travelled
without a ticket!)
As the Czechs hate the Germans, I look forward to going back to my
beloved Marienbad once more every year. The celebrated Queen of Bohemia
was the daughter of an English King; her name was Elizabeth. The
English Ambassador to the Doge of Venice, Sir Henry Wootton, wrote
some imperishable lines in her praise and accordingly I worshipped at
Wootton’s grave in Venice. The lines in his Poem that I love are:--
“You Common People of the Skies,
What are You, when the Moon shall rise?”
In dictating the Chapter on “Some Personalities,” that appears in
my “Memories,” I certainly should not have overlooked my very good
friend Masterton-Smith (Sir J. E. Masterton-Smith, K.C.B.). I can only
say here (as he knows quite well) that never was he more appreciated
by anyone in his life than by me. Numberless times he was simply
invaluable, and had his advice been always taken, events would have
been so different in May 1915!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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