The Jasper news. [volume] (Jasper, Missouri) 1898-1924, 1918-01-10
CHESTERFIELD GzaQSH5I

SN----~-@S
turn for all the clubs and private hos
pitality that Englishmen have always
received in America that the house has
been turned into an American Officers
club, writes ]. p. Collins, London cor
respondent of the Boston Transcript.
AS such the king and queen opened
Il with visit Of inspection and ap-
prevail without formallty, and declared
their pleasure that 1t had retained the
homelike atmosphere. That, in word,
is the main charm of the place, and
the donor, Lord Leconfield, has added
sunshine to daylight by making the
gift complete, for he has put not only
his house but its contents at the dis
posal of the committee concerned.
Leconfield house is favored in its sit
uation. 1t backs upon old Chesterfield
house, where the writer of the famous
(and infamous) letters kept Doctor
Johnson waiting on the mat century
and a half ago, until the great Samuel
turned in his wrath and indited let
ter which is worth all his lordship's
epistles combined. You may read In
these same epistles all about the glo-
ries of Chesterfield house and what 1t
was meant to be; but it cannot COM
pare for comfort with its ne!ghbor,
and club without this quality of COM
fort is no club at all.
1t stands Off Curzon street, the street
where Smollett starved, Dlsraeli died,
and Becky Sharp cut a fashionable
and dashing figure before her great col
lapse. 1t is the high street of Mayfair,
which Is the most privileged and coy
of our London parishes, because 1t
skirts the best end Of Piccadilly and
the royal quarters, and puts you with
in five minutes of Whitehall and every
where that matters by means Of
pleasant saunter across the green park.
Lord Leconfield Is a nephew of Lord
Rosebery, and cousin to the late
George Wyndham, the courtly states
man and critic. His lordship Is a
pleasant blend of both these interesting
figures, except that he has never shown
the Primrose Earl's turn for graceful
oratory, and revealed compensating
good sense by leaving politics practi-
cally alone. He has served in the First
Life Guards and commanded the Sus-
sex Imperial Yeomanry; besides which
he saw fighting in South Africa. and
got a wound there. All his proclivi-
ties are for travel and sport. He in
herits from the third Earl of Eyre
mont all the glorious Turner'S at his
chief country seat, Petworth in Sus-
sex, and his family have always had
an eye for a good picture. It is all
the more gratifying and generous,
therefore, that in handing his town
house over, he has left his ancestors
and their friends undisturbed upon the
walls; so that the new inmates for so
long as the war may last, and perhaps
a little beyond, will find stately COM
pany In some of the best-known master
portraits by Van Dyck and Sir Peter
Lely.
This very generosity. however, was
an occasion of misgivings, for the rari-
ties and nick-knacks that make for dis
tinction and interest In private abode
Gay be redundancies or even NUS
ance in a club. When Lord Leconfield,
as an old Pilgrim-and a founder, by
the way-asked his brother Pilgrims
to take the place and the scheme in
hand, he gave them carte blanche to
do as they would with the furniture
and belongings. They boarded up the