Horace G. Hutchinson

“ But it is in Italy only that we can say that the Renaissance has arrived—in that land where the great painters have been at work, where Dante has sung his divine comedy, where Petrarch has written his sonnets, and where the despots of the cities have employed artists and architects to adorn the little States over which they tyrannised. Moreover, through nearly all Europe, and even in the gloom of the Dark Ages itself, there has been the most wonderful building of churches and cathedrals, of abbeys and ecclesiastical edifices, here and there of kings' palaces and of buildings for public use. ”

“ I have said little of the open championship during these years, for the reason that it has never had anything like the same attraction for me, either to play in or as a spectacle, as the amateur, in which golfers are brought together in matches, and there is the clash of temperaments, the man to man contest, the one bringing out (or driving in, as the case may be) all that is best in the other. I cannot see that any scoring competition ever competes, in the human and psychological interest, with such duels as these. ”

“ The exploits of Alexander and his army are unequalled in the whole course of the story of the world. Yet we must ever remember how much of that immense achievement was due to the genius of his father Philip, who created all the fighting force which the son led so triumphantly. The fame of the son is so glorious that the father's work is rather hidden by it. ”

“ But the danger passed, yet again, as soon as Austria realised the strength of the opposition. She withdrew from the war with Turkey, and Russia, left alone, did not press it. The war cloud passed. Men might again draw their breath freely after a time of breathless suspense in which the worst had been expected. They were free to sit in the audience and look on at the great events that quickly followed upon each other in France. ”

“ So, with so many of the clubs made of wood, and not always like the butter used by the Mad Hatter for watch greasing, the best wood, and the balls so hard and stony of impact, it is no wonder that golf was rather an expensive game for a boy whose shillings were not many. Though the ball only cost a shilling, while the modern ball costs half a crown, the club-smashing abilities of the shilling's worth made it a much dearer ball, to say nothing of the longer life of the half-crowner. ”

“ It seems as if there must have been some such power, for how else can we account for the fact that the society of the world did not fall all to pieces? And we know, as a fact, that there was such a power, penetrating everywhere: it was power emanating, as at the time of the Roman Empire, from Rome itself. But now it was not the power of a government with strong military forces, splendidly organised. It was the power of the Christian Church, of which Rome, with its bishop who was called the Pope, was the centre and headquarters for all the Western world. ”

“ We may regard that independence as a good thing or a bad thing for the world: we may think it better for the world that there should be this great free nation in the West, not united by any political ties with Europe; or we may, on the contrary, deem that the peace and prosperity of man would be better served if the United States belonged to that confederation of States which we call the British Empire—although "Empire" is rather a misleading name for it. ”

“ There is this great and wonderful machine of world government, the Roman power, in full operation. The power could reach to any part of the wide empire; the legions would march along those Roman roads, made, as you probably know, with a wonderful straightness, up hill and down dale, never turning aside from the direction at which they aimed unless it were for a very steep mountain. They went, as the Romans themselves went, direct to their ends, straight, with no faltering. ”

“ But then they did not have their actual roots in the soil of the links itself. They were outside it, over the boundary wall. But as for the opportunities which the tree hazard gives for those subtleties of slicing and pulling round, or of cutting the ball up with a very vertical rise, let those who have seen Harry Vardon on a course of this tree-beset kind bear witness. And the tree has at least this virtue: that it is permanent. It does not get trodden down and hacked out of existence by a niblick as the faint-hearted whin does. ”

“ We know that he is allowed much freedom. We are sure, too, that the freedom is not unlimited. Therefore it is impossible for us to tell, of any particular action or series of actions, whether they are all man's own or whether they have been arranged for him. I will only say this, that it looks to me very much as if it had been arranged that the Roman power, the Greek thought, and the Christian religion should come together just at this moment in our story and complete each other for the service of man. ”

“ But after Charlemagne's death, when his great possessions fell into hands less able to hold them, Hungary is yet again invaded and conquered by a people from the north-east, called Magyars, and what makes that conquest so notable for us is that the Magyars are the dominating race in Hungary to-day. On every side, and in every corner, of the world picture, in fact, we are now beginning to see States and kingdoms and populations settling down into the places and conditions in which we are able to recognise them as we look at a modern map. ”

“ We may probably say that no other man has made so great a difference to the history of the world, by his last will and testament, as did the King of Spain by that will which left all his monarchy to the grandson of him who already was so great as to be called the Grand Monarque. ”

“ The Phœnicians, as we have seen, had planted colonies of their own at all convenient places along the Mediterranean shore, and of all these Carthage had grown to be by far the strongest in its numbers. It was regarded as the capital city, the headquarters, of all that half-merchant and half-pirate host which we have seen always going to and fro on the waters of the great inland sea. For fifty years and more before the battle of Marathon was fought it had become a great power, the chief naval power of the world, and it had already come into collision with the Greeks. ”

“ Henry Lamb was a beautiful golfer. It was he who invented the "bulger," that club with its convex face, off which the ball flew with a straightness that was a revelation. You see, before the bulger was invented, the faces of our wooden clubs, by the perpetual contact and hammering of the hard "gutty" balls, always got worn away, so that instead of being flat, they were very decidedly concave. And you may understand what the effect of that gradient of face would be—to emphasize and aggravate every sin of heeling or toeing to which golfing flesh is heir. ”

“ Art and culture have nearly been destroyed under the barbarian invasions and the years of fighting. Now the Renaissance, the new birth of learning and of art, is at hand. Already we have seen hints of it and hopes of it, like flowers coming out in early spring, only to be nipped by late frost. There was that wonderful music of the troubadours of the Langue d'oc in the thirteenth century, with the ruder and less accomplished art of the trouvères in Northern France, of the minnesingers in Germany, and of the English minstrels. ”

“ That has been the chief wonder of the Chinese Empire, its permanence. And it is wonder that only grows, the more we realise the nature of that empire and the principles by which the society which has held it so long together has been guided. Again and again conquerors have forced their way in upon it from the north—rude, uncivilised tribes invading a highly civilised land. Again and again the chiefs of the invaders have established themselves on the throne of China. They and their sons for many generations have governed the land. ”

“ So now that I have brought the course of this faithful history to the point at which he and the Scottish Johnny—Laidlay—came together in the final of the amateur championship, it seems as if both of them had at length "arrived." They have set their names on the scroll of Fame and will grave them constantly deeper as the years go. ”

“ I do not know whether you will agree, but it seems to me that the story of mankind is much more amusing, and will do us much more good, if we try to see how the peoples of the world lived from time to time, what kind of people they were, and how they worked and played and fought, rather than if we just study a list of the names of their kings and of their towns. ”

“ Some of the goldsmith's and silversmith's work of the day was very finely executed, and many of the finest painters and sculptors themselves did not scorn to work at the jeweller's craft. But the real glory which lightens the general darkness of the Middle Ages, is the splendour of the architecture—the cathedrals and churches, the public buildings and the palaces of the great nobles. ”

“ No sooner had the wars of religion ceased than there began those wars over the succession to the thrones of the newly formed or forming nations. It seems that as soon as the people began to have any sense of nationality, as we say—any feeling that as a nation they had an existence free and independent of the others—they at once found themselves faced by the danger of some one nation, or some one Royal house ruling several nations, becoming so strong as to take their liberty from them. ”

“ In the great story we find this often repeated—that a people living in a mountainous country, in a severe climate, and in surroundings which make their lives difficult and their food hard to get, come down on the inhabitants of a country where the soil is more fertile, the climate milder, and life altogether easier, and drive these easy-going people out before them as if they were sheep running away before wolves. ”

“ The big landowners grew more and more independent of the king. He might be their feudal lord, in name, but for all this century and a half the King of France had no more power than several of the great lords themselves. More and more then it became necessary for the poorer class, if they would live safely, to live under the protection of one or other of the big men. This led to the clustering of the houses of the poor people round about the castle, the strong place, of their lord. He organised them as a fighting force, when fighting had to be done, and stood for them in place of the king. ”

“ Now if there is anyone who, being a golfer, has not appreciated the delight of the compound smell of the club-maker's shop—the pitch, the shavings, the glue, the leather and all the rest of the ingredients—if anywhere there lives a golfer with nose so dead, then I am very far indeed from thinking that words of mine can excite him to a right appreciation of this savour. ”

“ Napoleon was as ready to profess himself a good Catholic in France, as to pretend a leaning towards Mahommedanism in the East, in order to gain favour with the Orientals.
In spite of his lack of sympathy with mankind, he was a subtle judge of human nature. He observed men's weaknesses with a coldly critical eye. He knew that men—and Frenchmen more than most men, and perhaps women even more than men—are attracted and fascinated by show and splendour. Therefore, as First Consul, he caused all the ceremonies in connection with Government to be splendid ”

“ As we have seen, there was a moment in the Second Punic War, just after the Battle of Cannæ, when it seems marvellous that Rome escaped destruction. What is almost more marvellous still is that it was just during the same time that she was fighting so hard, and in the end so victoriously, against the Carthaginians that she was able to fight and to extend her power towards the East, over Macedon, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt. It is an extent of conquest which must seem most marvellous of all when we consider how quickly it was all done. ”

“ In the early days of Rome, when it was a Republic, the privileges of a Roman citizen were very important. The "citizen" alone had the right to a vote for the election of the officials by whom he and the whole Republic and its dependencies were to be governed. But this right of voting was given more and more freely as the years went on and as other parts of the Empire increased in importance. To all the free men—all who were not slaves—of certain states that had loyally helped Rome when she was hard pressed by her enemies, the right was given first; then to all Italian free men ”

“ They were little girls, bare-legged and bare-headed, but wonderfully keen and wonderfully pious, for they would make the sign of the cross over the line of the opponent's putt to prevent the ball going into the hole. And really it is extraordinary how difficult it is to putt straight along a line that has been thus crossed. Guernsey has a course which is finer in some of its natural qualities than that of Jersey, yet it does not seem to have grown a single great golfer, whereas the Jersey soil seems to bring them up like weeds. ”

“ The fourth and fifth are not of a political character at all; though more important in our story than any political event. First of these last two, because it came first in time, though I am not sure whether we should rate it first in importance, is the application of steam power to the working of machinery. The second is the discovery of evolution, with all that the word implies, and its turning of men's eyes with glad hope towards a splendid future for human life on the earth, instead of a despairing regret for a vainly imagined splendour in the past. ”

“ At the beginning of our knowledge of this region Assyria was only a province, a northern province, of Babylonia, and was ruled from Babylon. But the Assyrians became very strong and revolted, and conquered those who had been their masters, and it was during this victorious period that they made those incursions into Palestine of which the Bible tells us. But at length the Babylonians, their old masters, rose up against them and got the mastery over them again, and after this blaze of glory Assyria sinks back into its old place as a province of Babylon, in the northern part of the empire. ”

“ THE CAMPS OF THE LEGIONS
It never was any part of the Empire's plan to drive out the native people from lands that it subdued. What it wanted of these people was that they should stay where they were and follow their own customs and provide the necessities and the luxuries of life for their conquerors. The Romans were what we should call a very practical nation. Roman laws, of course, had to prevail in the lands so conquered, but otherwise it does not seem that there was much upsetting of the national habits of the people. ”

“ It is likely that until the latter half of the eighteenth century the people of Europe did not even begin to realise the full meaning of the great New World which Columbus had discovered for them in the West. Spain regarded it as a Tom Tiddler's ground where she would go and pick up gold. France and possibly England too had their foolish dreams. They expected enormous things from that vast continent of which the western limits were only gradually revealed to them. They expected enormous results which never were, nor ever could be realised. ”