Evening star., 1923-04-01
The House of Cecil
BY FREDERICK CUNLFFEOWEN C. BE.

house OF lords. statement which he
I know to be untrue. The affair was
/ something SO entirely foreign to the
late Lord Sal!sburys reputation and
character that 1t created a sensation
abroad. OF which nowadays IT Is diff
ficult to gauge the extent. II was a
| thing that might have been expected
from Lord Beaconsfield. but not from
the late Marquis of Salisbury, and
there is no doubt that the fact that
he had been Obliged to act thus is
! known to have weighed heavily on
his mind to the end OF his days.
OF course. the liberal opposition in
Great Britain, especially the radicals,
and. above all. the ultraProtestants.
| who have always taken exception to
! the high chul>h leanings Of the house
| of Cecil. denounced it as a piece of
! Cecil Jesuitism," and this is urged
against the members of the family
whenever they seem to sacrifice prin-
| ciples to eXpediency, not in any sense
| insulting to the great order of Jesuits,
| but because OF the fact that its mem
| bers are famed throughout the world
for their cleverness in every branch
| of casuistry.
4 = !: :
Perhaps the most brilliant Of Lord
! Robert Cecil's brothers is Lord Hugh
| Cecil, the "enfant terrible" of the
conservative party, known by his rel
| atives as "Linky," and whom some
have described as cross between a
saint and a jester. There are those
: who declare that he is blessed" and
| others that he is cursed" with the
| most extraordinary sense Of humor,
! and he is continually giving express
! sion to his keen sense of the ridicu-
| lous and of the paradoxical. even in
Neither
| own party in the house of commons.
where he represents the University of
/ Oxford, nor yet the liberals and radi-
| Gals or laborites, are ever safe from
his Quips, and his rhetorical gymnaS-
| tics are as brilliant as unexpected
| and as diverting as his extravagances
| of gesture and the twistings of his
| body when addressing the house. Dis
cusstons have often taken place as to
| whether the contortfons TO which he
| treats his fellow legislators in the
/ commons are of Christian or of
| Buddhist origin. One particular clasp
| Of the hand and turn OF the head
! would appear to be derived from
| some illuminated ancient Cathonc
missal or from the stained glass win
| dow of an old Christian church, while
others Of his attitudes suggest the
| figures on the red lacquer panels or a
Japanese temple.
| In fact. his legs, his spine, his pre-
ternaturally long neck-nay. his en-
! tire body - seem to be executing
! thought waves, while the 1erky mo-
! tions of his arms remind one of the
| signals of a semaphore. At times he
rises to flights of such oratory as to
win from the house that perfect ST.
lence and solemn stiffness which
never comes over it except when II is
under the spell of the most perfect
and moving eloquence, while few
minutes later he will evoke angry
cries of shame" order etc, by
some particularly gross piece of dis
respect addressed to the prime minis
, ter in cackling voice that has moth
| ing whatsoever in common with the
musical and melodious tone of his
previous utterances.
The fact of the matter is that Lord
Hugh has the most profound con-
tempt for Asquith, Lloyd George and
for the liberals in general and the
radicals in particular. He cannot rec
oncile himself to the fact that men
such as these should have slipped in
between the throne and people like
| the Cecils, who were there first why
should these new boys play like this
with our marbles? Let them wait for
| a few hundred years and learn before
presuming to govern U.s..
These are his views. and he makes
no concealment thereof, He personi-
fies the highest form of the high