S)
 
 Photo. Elliot & Fry 
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 Aged Twenty-three, 1911.
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 ROBERT PALMER 
 
 1888-1916 
 
 BY 
 
 THE LADY LAURA RIDDING 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'SOPHIA MATILDA PALMER, COMTESSE UE FRANQUEVILLE " ETC. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 LIMITED LONDON
 
 "Ir is only when men are drawn out of self 
 by love of those near and dear to them that 
 their souls are turned to catch the finer 
 appeal to a wider and more arduous self- 
 sacrifice, and so become able to rise succes- 
 sively by stepping-stones of their dead selves 
 to higher things." 
 
 R. S. A. PALMER.
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 THIS record of a life full of promise of noble service 
 to God and man has been written at the desire of the 
 family and friends of Robert Palmer, my nephew. If it 
 brings inspiration to a wider circle, those who love him 
 will rejoice that his longing to help others continues to 
 fructify although he is no longer with us. 
 
 They and I join in grateful recognition of the assistance 
 given to me by all whose reminiscences of him have added 
 shape and distinctness to this slight sketch. 
 
 LAURA ELIZABETH RIDDING. 
 
 August 1921.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 CHILDHOOD, 1888-1902 ..... 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WINCHESTER, 1902-1907 . . . . .14 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 OXFORD, 1907-1909 . . . .39 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 OXFORD, 1909-191 1 ...... 56 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 INDIA, 1911-1912 ...... 83 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 INTERIM, 1912-1914 . . . . . .94 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 INDIA, 1914-1915 . . . . . .118 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 MESOPOTAMIA, 1915 . . . . . .149 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE END, 1916 . . . , . . .180 
 
 INDEX 202

 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER . . . Frontispiece 
 
 Aged twenty-three, 1911. 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 TOP (aged six and a half) AND BOBBY (aged five), 1893 . 8 
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER . . ^. . 96 
 
 Aged twenty-five, 1913. 
 
 CAPTAIN THE HON. R. S. A. PALMER . . .128 
 
 6th Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment (India). 
 Aged twenty-seven, 1915. 
 
 VJI
 
 CHAPTER I 
 CHILDHOOD, 1888-1902 
 
 IN poignant contrast with its tragic end, the life of Robert 
 Stafford Arthur Palmer began in a period of world- 
 prevailing peace, when the echoes of the celebration of 
 Queen Victoria's first Jubilee still reverberated through 
 the British Empire and when that Empire lay steeped 
 in the sunshine of peace, plenty, and prosperity. 
 
 Bobby (to call him by the name by which he was 
 always known to his family and friends), the third child 
 of my brother and his wife, Lord and Lady Maud Wolmer, 1 
 was born at 20 Arlington Street, London (the house of 
 his grandfather, Lord Salisbury), on 26th September 
 1888. His baptismal names, reminiscent of politicians, 
 were given him as those of his maternal grandfather and 
 of his godfathers, Mr. Arthur Balfour and Sir Henry 
 Stafford Northcote. 
 
 The years of Bobby's childhood coincided with those 
 of the greatest period of Lord Salisbury's premiership ; a 
 circumstance which, from the first, brought statecraft 
 prominently before the mind of his little grandson. 
 Bobby's earliest thoughts were mingled indistinctly with 
 scraps of political, philosophical, and religious discussions 
 
 1 Their family consists of : 
 
 1. Mabel Laura Georgina, born 6th October 1884. Married The 
 
 Viscount Howick, i6th June 1906. 
 
 2. Roundell Cecil, born isth April 1887. Married The Hon. Grace 
 
 Ridley, gth June 1910. 
 
 3. Robert Stafford Arthur, born 26th September 1888. Killed in the 
 
 battle of Umm-Al-Hannah, 2ist January 1916. 
 
 4. William Jocelyn Lewis, born isth September 1894. 
 
 I
 
 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 overheard in the conversations of his elders during meals 
 and walks. This talk on matters concerning the Govern- 
 ment of the Commonwealth fascinated him and his elder 
 brother, and aroused their keen interest in our national 
 leaders and the questions of the day, at an age when 
 most children are unaware of the existence of either the 
 men or the movements. 
 
 In the early childhood of every life there are certain 
 traits which indicate future marked characteristics of the 
 personality. Two such I recollect of Bobby : one, as 
 showing that tendency to morbid self-consciousness 
 which appeared to some of us to be the only flaw in his 
 singularly white character ; the other, as foreshadowing 
 his dogged determination to fulfil his religious duty in 
 the face of all obstacles. 
 
 It was always a perilous adventure to take little 
 Bobby out to luncheon. All enjoyment might be 
 poisoned by potatoes. He could not endure being helped 
 to them by anybody ; and, when they were handed to 
 him, if he delayed to help himself, too often a friendly 
 hostess or footman would unwittingly do the fatal act 
 and place them on his plate. Tragic tears at once began 
 to trickle down his cheeks, ending in a collapse of sobs. 
 When Bobby was an Oxford scholar, at a time when he 
 was staying with uncongenial companions, he wrote to 
 his father : " You used to laugh at me for weeping when 
 I was offered potatoes. I wept because the footman 
 wouldn't understand, and it all felt so helpless and un- 
 avoidable. And now I often have exactly the same feeling 
 here. There are hundreds of thoughts and hopes in my 
 heart. I ask for sympathy they don't understand, they 
 offer me potatoes ! It is a feeling of hopeless impotence." 
 Notwithstanding, he never allowed this sensation of 
 hopeless impotence to paralyse his action when duty 
 required service of him. Once when Bobby was six 
 years old, he was sitting in a seat at the farther end of a
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 3 
 
 large London church. He was taken unawares by the 
 alms-bag being handed to him, and it occupied some time 
 for him to extract a penny from his purse ; meanwhile, the 
 sidesman passed on and left him untithed. He quietly 
 slipped out of the seat and marched up the length of the 
 nave into the chancel at the moment when the alms were 
 being delivered to the clergy. He tugged at the sidesman's 
 coat-tails so vehemently that he turned ; Bobby then 
 made the offering of his penny and solemnly marched 
 back again in the face of the congregation. 
 
 Few of his experiences and fewer of his thoughts at 
 this period were unshared with his elder brother. He 
 professed his belief in a plurality of devils by assuring us 
 that, " I know there must be, because Top and I always 
 think of things at exactly the same moment ! " The two 
 little boys were devoted to each other and were in- 
 separable companions in their alarums and excursions, 
 whether in their London home at 49 Mount Street or on 
 visits to their grandparents at Blackmoor or at Hatfield. 
 Top (as Wolmer was nicknamed) was a year and a half 
 older than Bobby, whom he strongly resembled in figure 
 and colouring. They were both very fair-skinned, 
 flaxen-haired, and vigorous in movement, though Top's 
 eager, pugnacious expression contrasted sharply with 
 Bobby's meditative, often intent, perplexed gaze. Their 
 faces reflected the differences in their characters supple- 
 mentary, not antagonistic, differences, which made each 
 of them regard the other with understanding, toleration 
 and admiration. 
 
 While Top's nature was combative, ardent, imagina- 
 tive, Bobby's was conciliatory, calm, judicial. While 
 Top worked by starts and rushes, Bobby steadily ground 
 away with an extraordinary power of concentration 
 and method. While Top crashed through all obstacles 
 that blocked his path, like an irresistible Tank, Bobby 
 faced them with acute anxiety. "There is Bobby with
 
 4 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 another of his insurmountable difficulties ! " was a 
 frequent comment of Top's. It was not surprising that 
 the latter's fearless optimism made him appear like a 
 royal leader to the admiring eyes of a younger brother, 
 not endowed with his gifts for organization or with his 
 practical efficiency in solving unexpected problems. 
 
 When the boys were seven and eight years old, their 
 elder sister, aged ten, wrote an account of her brothers, 
 which they fitly considered as more frank than flattering. 
 After describing their faults in forcible language she 
 explained that when they were out walking in Hyde Park, 
 " I am quite ashamed of them and try to look as if I did 
 not belong to them. Bobby sometimes behaves very 
 nicely indeed, sometimes badly. Bobby will ask such a 
 lot of questions, he quite aggravates me. Bobby is very 
 silly sometimes and needs a lot of explanations to be told 
 a thing, and he takes an interest in some of the things. 
 He does what I tell him and runs messages for me. . . . 
 They are both on the whole rather funny, though some- 
 times vulgar. They both play with fire. At a first 
 meeting, I think Top and Bobby would be very nice 
 indeed for strangers, but though I love them very much I 
 do not think any stranger would care to live with them." 
 
 Mabel's complaint that Bobby " needed a lot of 
 explanations " was an unconscious tribute to his engrained 
 determination to master whatever subject was occupying 
 his mind. When quite a little boy, his teachers were 
 struck by his persistency in getting to the bottom of 
 statements and by his power of close reasoning, which 
 they considered to be very exceptional in one so young. 
 He gripped the essential points in an argument in a mature 
 way, and gave his opinion on them in a clear, solemn 
 voice, in sentences enriched with very long words and 
 delivered to the end, undeterred by laughter and interrup- 
 tions. His grandmother, Lady Salisbury, always called 
 him " Little Lord Selborne," because he had the Chan-
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 5 
 
 cellorian air when an infant. At six years old he an- 
 nounced his choice of his future profession : " I will be 
 a lawyer who shoots on Saturdays." He pondered early 
 on the problems presented by experience as well as those 
 presented by study. " Mamma," said he one day on 
 returning home after his dancing lesson, " I cannot 
 understand how it is that with a pretty dancing mistress 
 one is never so tired ! " " It is always so," replied his 
 oracle. 
 
 For Bobby, his mother was always his oracle, guardian 
 saint and wellhead of love, sympathy and wisdom 
 Undoubtedly the perfect understanding which existed 
 between them was a happy result of her educational 
 system. In training her children to be useful Christian 
 citizens, my sister-in-law was incessantly careful to 
 avoid confusing their immature minds with false standards 
 of morals and conduct. While abhorrent of selfishness, 
 cruelty and hard judgments, she was placidly lenient to 
 lapses of forgetfulness, unpunctuality and carelessness, 
 and to the torn clothes, grime and untidiness which are 
 the inevitable accompaniments of the frolics of adven- 
 turous childhood. 
 
 In consequence, while, for a short period of their lives, 
 Top's and Bobby's faces and general appearance were 
 probably more streaky and dirty than those of any 
 other little boys in Hampshire, their minds were free 
 from clouded calculations of the relative guilt of breaches 
 of the moral law and those of use and custom, and their 
 lives flourished in the sunshine of full trust and confidence 
 in their parents. 
 
 Another matter, on which their mother laid stress, 
 was the development of her children's independence and 
 capability. They were accordingly taught to dress 
 themselves, light the fire, pack their luggage, travel 
 alone, keep accounts of their expenditure and do sundry 
 offices, at an age much earlier than that at which the
 
 6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 majority of their young friends learnt these arts. Un- 
 doubtedly, they owed much of their healthy independence 
 of judgment and action to these two special points of 
 their upbringing. 
 
 When Bobby was eight years old, he and Top were 
 placed as day-scholars under Mr. Bewsher's care in St. 
 Paul's preparatory school at Colet Court, Hammersmith. 
 They went to and from school every day on the top of 
 the Hammersmith omnibus. These journeys brought 
 them many delightful experiences. They tried at first 
 to beguile the tedium by pea-shooting at the outside 
 passengers on other omnibuses, but their driver promptly 
 stopped that pastime. Occasionally they " economized " 
 by spending their fare-money on cocoanuts and walking 
 home. One morning they fell into conversation with a 
 fellow-passenger, a policeman. When they told him that 
 they had just begun to go to school, he solemnly advised 
 them " Whatever you do, mind you fight ! Whenever 
 you get a chance, mind you fight ! " a recommendation 
 which it was quite unnecessary to urge upon Top. 
 
 Another day their mother, returning home from a 
 walk, perceived two extremely grubby figures, adorned 
 with book satchels, standing motionless on the pilasters 
 on either side of the flight of doorsteps, with the steep 
 area yawning below them. " We are statues ! " explained 
 the breathing decorations. They had just been initiated 
 into the glories of Greek art. 
 
 Tea was always followed by preparation work for 
 the morrow's class. Bobby, after devouring enormous 
 teas, used to stand on his head in an arm-chair, with his 
 feet resting on the top. " It clears my brain for prep ! " 
 he declared. All his life he elaborated curious attitudes 
 in which to perform his mental exercises. 
 
 He adored his work as a lover adores his mistress, and 
 he was miserable if some ailment kept him away from
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 7 
 
 school. Once in the holidays he informed his mother 
 that, " I like being in the country very much, but I'm 
 rather school-sick ! " 
 
 He was already showing the scholar's delight in 
 branches of learning that ordinary boys regard with 
 dreary dislike. I recollect how an outburst of enthusiasm 
 for grammar struck Archbishop Temple : " It's so interest- 
 ing to see what slight changes make so many different 
 meanings." At the end of the first year Bobby was 
 already ahead of his brother. He was always top of 
 his class and carried away piles of prize-books. 
 
 His Headmaster considered him to be one of the ablest 
 boys that he had ever had in the school. He credited 
 him with great intellectual power and quickness in 
 grasping new ideas and in retaining what he so readily 
 acquired. He valued his accuracy and powers of memory 
 as remarkable for his age. 
 
 Happily for Bobby, his early thirst for knowledge 
 was coupled with an equally keen thirst for fun, which 
 saved him from any danger of becoming a prig. Nobody 
 could feel apprehension on that score who had ever 
 catered for his craving for jokes or who had enjoyed 
 the delight of witnessing the sudden transformation of 
 his intent expression into one of over-brimming gleaming 
 laughter, when something mirthful or ridiculous tickled 
 his fancy. This ready appreciation was very captivating. 
 Once, when he was taken to see a play called A Little Ray 
 of Sunshine, his seat was in the front row of the stalls, 
 and his hilarious laughter delighted and amused the 
 actors. They found themselves playing to the merry 
 little boy and continually gave him their special glances 
 and smiles. 
 
 Bobby was a born naturalist and began early the 
 collection of butterflies and birds' eggs to which he 
 assiduously continued to add during the rest of his life.
 
 8 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 His eyesight was splendid. I never met anyone who had 
 his power of seeing moths' eyes shine with white light 
 through the darkness or the tragic change to red " glow- 
 ing like fire " which came upon them as death overtook 
 them in the collecting-box. In 1899 Bobby spent part 
 of his holidays at Lord Salisbury's villa at Beaulieu on 
 the Riviera ; he went out daily in quest of a Camberwell 
 Beauty, and every day his grandfather anxiously asked 
 him " if he had yet met the lady ? " Eventually his per- 
 severance was rewarded beyond his utmost dreams, and 
 his father received an ecstatic letter from the collector. 
 It began : " I am happy ! What do you think : I'VE 
 GOT a SCARCE SWALLOWTAIL, only been caught twice 
 in England. If I get a claret-coloured Swallowtail I shall 
 have all the kinds of Swallowtails. The Common Brim- 
 stone is so rare here that it is only seen once in five or six 
 years, but nevertheless I've caught two." 
 
 Bobby visited us in the Midlands during the summer, 
 from whence he wrote the following letter to his mother : 
 
 "THURGARTON PRIORY, SOUTHWELL, 
 
 July 31, 1899. 
 
 *' Tell Pa that I have only got one butterfly here, i.e. 
 Whiteletter Hairstreak (a rare one), but I have got twenty- 
 one moths through the process known as * sugaring,' 
 which is to spread on trees a mixture made of equal 
 quantities of dark treacle and coarse brown sugar and 
 a small quantity of stale beer and three tablespoons of 
 strongest rhum. As we had not got any in the house, I, 
 Mr. Bax (Uncle George's l secretary), and Dommy 2 went 
 to a ' pub ' in the village and got some ' for the Bishop.' " 
 
 I have a vivid recollection of the concoction of that 
 witches' brew and of the boy's insistence on the purchase 
 
 1 Dr. Ridding, Bishop of Southwell. 
 - Our Aberdeen terrier.
 
 TOP (Aged Six-and-a-half) and BOBBY (Aged Five), 1893.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 9 
 
 of nine pennyworth of rum at "the lowest public-house 
 in the village, because the rum there will be the coarsest." 
 I suggested that he should consider Mr. Bax's reputation, 
 on which he at once replied : " We will preserve his 
 character and ask for the rum for Uncle George ! " 
 
 One Sunday we discovered him seated on the library 
 floor, surrounded by volumes of the new Encyclopedia 
 Britannica. " I can't find what I want ! " he complained. 
 " I wish to understand why women wear hats in church, 
 and I have looked under Hats, Church, Women, and cannot 
 find the reason." We introduced him to Bingham's 
 Antiquities, where his curiosity was satisfied, but without 
 convincing him of the reasonableness of the rule. 
 
 My brother's children were fond of playing at the 
 game of Twenty Questions. One day, when it was 
 Bobby's turn to discover the thing thought of, he gave 
 a striking instance of his critical discernment in subjecting 
 his uncle, Lord Hugh Cecil, to a cross-questioning con- 
 ducted with such mastery of method that in four minutes 
 he had turned him inside out, to the profound astonish- 
 ment of the victim, whose eyebrows were seen to rise 
 higher and higher under the process, like a thermometer 
 mounting to fever height. 
 
 Bobby was very methodical in his habits ; his powers 
 of observation were always alert. It was about this 
 time that, fired by the example of Sherlock Holmes, he 
 began to make a practice of mentally noting everything, 
 such as the number of steps in every flight of stairs 
 which he ascended or descended. He could tell us the 
 number of steps in every staircase in every house he had 
 ever visited. 
 
 When Lord Salisbury formed his last ministry in the 
 November of 1900, my brother was transferred from his 
 office of Under- Secretary for the Colonies to that of First 
 Lord of the Admiralty. His children's satisfaction with 
 their new home was enhanced by the building operations 
 2
 
 io ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 and excavation of ancient foundations which were then 
 being carried on at the Admiralty, and which caused 
 ominous cracks to yawn across the whole length of the 
 staircase walls. When the Venetian Campanile fell in 
 1902, Bobby reminded the household of the uncertainties 
 of life by sticking across a gaping crack a piece of paper 
 bearing the words : " Remember Venice ! " 
 
 I have not spoken of Bobby's spiritual growth. I 
 believe that the love of God was implanted in his heart 
 from infancy, and that he took its existence as naturally 
 and unconsciously as living and breathing. Unlike 
 Wolmer, who, from the first, had always shown keen 
 interest in theology, Bobby was not given to discussing 
 religious subjects in boyish days. Once, as a little boy, 
 he asked his mother during a Bible-lesson : " How do we 
 know it's true ? " She gave him such answer as occurred 
 to her at the moment. This he considered for some time, 
 and then said : " Well, I believe it because you believe 
 it ! " This appeared to satisfy him, and he asked no more. 
 As he got older, he decided to stay for the sermons in 
 church, " because he was often interested in them." 
 
 In November 1901, Bobby was confirmed by the 
 Bishop of Rochester. 1 He was deeply in earnest about 
 his confirmation, and no candidate ever resolved more 
 steadfastly to give himself wholly to the service of God 
 than did Bobby on that day. Thenceforth, throughout 
 his whole life, his faith in God was the lodestar which he 
 unswervingly followed. 
 
 His elder brother said of him : " Bobby was the 
 goodest little boy I have ever known or heard of. He 
 was always in intimate relation with God. He had no 
 other thought than to do God's will. He never returned 
 a cross answer, never teased, never quarrelled. I know, 
 
 1 Dr. Edward Talbot, afterwards Bishop of Southwark and subsequently 
 of Winchester.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER n 
 
 because we were the closest companions, sharing the same 
 room till I went to Winchester. You could not make 
 him lose his temper except by unmitigated bullying; 
 then he only dissolved into tears. The sin of others 
 was a mystery and a grief to him. He put tremendous 
 earnestness into his prayers, private and in church. 
 This grew every year till he attained a great power of 
 prayer. At Winchester he was never absent from the 
 early Celebration in Chapel. All his life he was always 
 as harmless as a dove and as wise as a serpent, innocent 
 of the wickedness of the world, a laughing angel." 
 
 In the May of 1902, Queen Alexandra selected Bobby 
 and the Prince of Wales chose Top to be their respective 
 pages at the coming Coronation. " I can't imagine why 
 the Queen chose you, Bobby ! " remarked his mother. 
 " We met five years ago," calmly explained the future 
 page. The Duke of Norfolk, at the rehearsal of the 
 ceremony, told Bobby that he was the only one of the 
 pages who had replied to the invitation. On his sister's 
 asking him how he had answered, he said : " I wrote : 
 ' MY DEAR DUKE OF NORFOLK, It is needless for me to 
 inform you that I shall be delighted to have the honour 
 of obeying the Queen's command. Your obedient servant, 
 ROBERT PALMER.' " 
 
 The postponement of the Coronation on account of 
 the King's sudden illness bereft the pages (as well as 
 thousands of other holiday folk) of the much anticipated 
 pageant. I remember that I helped to escort the children 
 and their cousins to Earl's Court, where we spent several 
 noisy, dusty hours, full of enjoyment for them, but of 
 terrible anxiety for their elders. The waterchute especi- 
 ally had overpowering attractions for Bobby, and he 
 described its charms to his governess thus : " You 
 feel as if you were launching into eternity and very 
 pleasantly, too ! "
 
 12 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 The manner in which the Queen's page acquitted 
 himself of his duties when, at last, the Coronation took 
 place on the 9th August, may be gathered from the 
 following letter written soon after : " I went to four 
 rehearsals before the postponement, and they were 
 extremely comic and indescribably confusing. Of course, 
 the first one was the worst. No one knew where anybody 
 ought to be, and the poor dummy King (Lord Churchill) 
 had a bad time of it, as everyone told him different 
 and the Duke of Norfolk lost his temper. 
 
 " The second and third were not so bad (though they 
 were quite different from the first and from each other), 
 the only thing odd being the substitutions for all the 
 important persons and things. For instance : 
 
 The KING was personated by Sir S. Ponsonby. 
 The QUEEN , Lady Mary Howard. 
 
 The ARCHBISHOP 
 
 The CROWN 
 
 The ROBES 
 
 The SCEPTRE 
 
 The IVORY ROD 
 
 CORONETS 
 
 The QUEEN'S TRAIN 
 
 Canon Robertson. 
 
 A coronet with most of the spikes off. 
 
 A sheet and a lady's dressing-gown. 
 , A poker. 
 , A curtain rod. 
 , Top hats. 
 , Mourning cloth for the late Queen. 
 
 After the postponement we had three more rehearsals, 
 but I shirked one and only attended the first and third. 
 At the third (dress), the Lord Chancellor x had to put 
 on his coronet over his wig, so he looked exactly like the 
 King in Alice in Wonderland. The coronet nearly slipped 
 off several times. 
 
 "The actual ceremony was very impressive, and the 
 rows of peers and peeresses on either side, in their velvet 
 robes and (later on) their coronets, presented a fine 
 spectacle. The Bishops were even smarter as they were, 
 nearly all, in copes of white and gold. The Archbishop 2 
 
 1 The Earl of Halsbury. 
 * Archbishop Temple.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 13 
 
 and Dean 1 came out of it with only one fall each, and 
 even then they were prevented from tumbling right down, 
 as on each occasion a couple of Bishops caught them. 
 The choir, I thought, was very good indeed. 
 
 44 1 was to have been photographed on Monday, but the 
 Queen sent for me to go to the Palace, where she was 
 photographed in a group with all the pages. I then had 
 lunch at the Palace and was sent back in a Royal carriage." 
 
 Bobby returned home from his morning at Buckingham 
 Palace, full of enjoyment of his experiences and of admir- 
 ing devotion to the charming Queen whose train-bearer 
 he had been. It was poignant to remember his happy 
 chatter over that day's doings fourteen years later when, 
 on hearing the news of his being among the " Missing " 
 after the battle of Umm-Al -Hannah, Queen Alexandra 
 sent a touching message of sympathy to his parents, in 
 which she assured them that she " had always taken the 
 greatest interest in her Coronation pages and that she 
 liked their boy particularly." 
 
 1 Dean Bradley.
 
 CHAPTER H 
 WINCHESTER, 1902-1907 
 
 BOBBY began his adventures as a public-school boy and a 
 Wykehamist at the beginning of Short Hatt, 21th Septem- 
 ber 1902, two days before he entered his fifteenth year. 
 As late Head of the School at Colet Court, he naturally 
 took a creditable place in Middle-Division at Winchester. 
 His eider brother had already been there two years when 
 Bobby became an inmate of his father's old house. 
 Southgate Hill, under the house-mastership of Mr. A. K. 
 Cook. 
 
 His cousin, James Palmer, 1 said that his four and a 
 half years at Winchester had developed in Bobby, "in 
 full measure the most typical characteristics of the true 
 Wykehamist, the spirit which finds artistic expression in 
 William of Wykeham's buildings, the spirit of sobriety 
 and modesty, ujpe* ayo* might almost be said to be 
 the motto which their silent influence impresses on aD 
 of us who can receive their influence.** Bobby's deep 
 admiration for austere beauty was fired by the glories 
 of the grey Cathedral and College and of the time-frosted 
 city of antique gates. Castle, and streets, with her feet set 
 on a base of ancient flower-dappled walls and waterways, 
 and her head crowned with emerald downs; but she 
 never captured his heart as she did that of another 
 Wykehamist, the poet, Lionel Johnson, who professed 
 homage to her as to the " Fairest, Noblest, Dearest 
 Mother, more than Mother.* 9 
 
 > Sow Bishop of Bombay.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 15 
 
 To his home-mother was Bobby's sole 
 given, and no rival claims ever existed for him. As one 
 of his friends observed in later years: "Most children 
 give their hearts, but few give their minds to their own 
 nearest and dearest, as Bobby did." This was true of 
 him from his earnest schooldays. During his years at 
 Winchester he poured out his heart to her in copious 
 letters foil OK n?^ "wyyrpT- fmy %MPU ffcE i io .if^- oy cy?ti^?iiPfTiiP off 
 books, politics, the public-school system and everybody 
 connected therewith, and his innermost secret thoughts. 
 As was inevitable for a boy of his character, who had 
 gone straight to Winchester from a home in which his 
 life had always been ideally happy, he suffered at first 
 acutely from nostalgia. Happily the presence of his 
 elder brother provided him, to a large degree, with support 
 anH consolation in the unaccustomed loneliness of his 
 new life. 
 
 When Bobby had been a few weeks at Winchester 
 he wrote home saying: "Papa is quite right. Top is 
 quite as good as a second GnVnor to me here. I find 
 that knowing a lot of the * notions ' is a huge advan- 
 tage. I must be very tike Top, as a gentleman has stopped 
 me in the street, and another said at once he thought I 
 must be Lord Wolmer's brother! Besides this, men* 
 are constantly saying that they 'know my face,* or that 
 I am 'exactly like a man in Buckland's called Wolmer."* 
 
 Top's fatherly care of his younger brother extended 
 to every department of school life. He gave him sage 
 advice on the desirability of in^Hi^ friends in his own 
 house and of working for a remove. Bobby quickly shot 
 ahead of Top, to the fetter's proud satisfaction. In 1905, 
 when Bobby was made Senior Commoner Prefect, he said : 
 "I should never have been where I am if it wasn't for 
 Top. At the end of February 1903 I was 8th in a certain
 
 16 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 division where only six removes were expected. I had 
 almost decided not to try for a remove so as to be able to 
 take it easy in the summer, but when I asked for Top's 
 advice he said it was always worth while trying for a 
 remove, so I did, and got it ! " 
 
 Mr. Carter, his Division Don during his first year at 
 Winchester, considered Bobby "to be one of the most 
 brilliant boys he had ever had under him, and the most 
 certain to make his mark in public life afterwards : his 
 personality shone through everything he did." 
 
 The following extracts from letters to his mother 
 show the keenness with which this fourteen-year-old boy 
 studied public questions and politics : 
 
 " I never realized before what a lot of facts one gets 
 from back numbers of Punch ; but this week's task was : 
 ' Write out all you know about a number of people ' 
 and among them were : Sir Robert Peel, Palmerston, 
 Garibaldi, Disraeli and Cecil Rhodes, and practically all 
 I know of these comes from back columns of Punch." 
 
 "May 1, 1903. Write and tell me all about the 
 Deceased Wife's Sister Bill." (Bobby was deeply inter- 
 ested in this hardy annual. I recollect how in the previous 
 year, in the midst of a game of lawn-tennis with the sons 
 of Mrs. Arthur Lyttelton, he amused them greatly by 
 apologizing for missing a stroke by explaining : " Excuse 
 me ! I was thinking about the Deceased Wife's Sister.") 
 
 " September 20, 1903. I was so abnormally busy yester- 
 day with work, arranging my toys, 1 playing fives, and going 
 to the school mission address, that I omitted to write to 
 you to thank you for sending me Arthur Balfour's pam- 
 phlet, which I have finished and passed on ; it is already 
 engaged four deep. Some parts of it are rather hard to 
 understand. Cook wants to talk the subject over with 
 
 1 Notion for Combination desk and bookcase.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 17 
 
 me (not controversially), as he thinks he can explain some 
 things I don't understand. Most of the House are Free 
 Traders on the grounds (1) that Protection will raise the 
 price of food ; (2) that we have done very well for fifty 
 years on Free Trade. Pretty conclusive arguments ! ! 
 But their idea of Protection is a mixed nightmare of 
 Retaliation, Preferential Tariffs, Fiscal Systems, Zoll- 
 vereinism, Corn Laws, etc., etc." 
 
 " October 15, 1903. At present I have read Joe's, 
 Arthur's, Asquith's, Austen's, and most of Rosebery's 
 speeches, of which Joe the elder's and Asquith's are 
 the best. I quite see that Retaliation will do more good 
 than harm, but as to taxes, Joe seems to have hardly 
 impressed the fact that all the revenue from these taxes 
 will lessen other taxes in proportion. It is true he said 
 that nothing can be wasted that goes into the Exchequer ; 
 and again, that he will reduce the taxes on tea, sugar, 
 etc., but he hasn't even mentioned the income-tax, which 
 is, after all, the most unpopular, and is, at this moment, 
 exorbitant for peaceful times." 
 
 " December 15, 1903. I have read papa's speech ; I 
 think he must have welshed some of it off one of my essays, 
 since he says exactly what I want to say, exactly how I 
 want to say it." 
 
 " July 27, 1904. Going down the street to-day, I saw 
 a hand-cart piled with empty packing-cases. The word 
 Holland caught my eye, and I examined the cases to see 
 where they came from. There were several from Den- 
 mark, two from Holland, three or four from France, some 
 from Chicago, one from New South Wales, and not A 
 SINGLE ONE from England. Some of the cases were ear- 
 marked as to contents, the others were labelled to contain 
 widely different things ; none were earmarked as to their 
 native land ! ! My only doubt about Joe's scheme is 
 that, if England is really decadent (which I begin to fear), 
 nothing can save her, though Protection may delay her 
 3
 
 iS ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 fall ; for a decadent nation seems to lose spirit unaccount- 
 ably, and, under precisely similar conditions as those 
 which prevailed in former generations, fails to make that 
 use of its opportunities as it would have done a hundred 
 or two hundred years before. But decadence is slow, and I 
 don't think we turned the corner as much as forty years ago, 
 so we ought to hold our place for some time to come yet." 
 
 Bobby made his maiden speech at the Debating Society 
 on 23rd March 1904. Here is his account of the debate : 
 
 " At the debate last night, Carter (the Colonial Don) 
 made a speech against Chinese Labour, but entirely on 
 the grounds that Chinamen were such awful pests in 
 California 1 1 Young Cook proposed the motion, and, 
 when I was speaking, he tried to squash me three times ; 
 I scored off him twice. Had I gone through all the 
 glaring contradictions of the proposer's and seconder's 
 speeches, I should have spoken for nearly twenty minutes ; 
 I spoke for about eight minutes. As I expected, the 
 motion against Chinese Labour was carried 24 to 17. 
 
 D went to the debate. Afterwards I asked him what 
 
 was his opinion. He said that he was quite bewildered 
 by the number of arguments on both sides, but with an 
 impartial mind he could not help feeling that Chinamen 
 were and must be villains. I expect this is just the view 
 of the man in the street." 
 
 Half a year later Bobby wrote to his father for " some 
 tips," as he had rashly promised under pressure " to 
 defend the Government against a motion of censure to be 
 moved at the next meeting of the Debating Society. 
 The chief points of attack will be l Licensing, Welsh 
 Education, Army Reform, and Budget.' I know nothing 
 about Welsh Education and very little about Army 
 Reform." Eventually Bobby developed into one of the 
 best speakers at the School Debating Society, contributing 
 forcible, sincere speeches, shot with tinges of racy humour.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 19 
 
 These extracts from letters written during his first 
 years at Winchester mark the early stage of the develop- 
 ment of Bobby's political ardour. Before he was twelve 
 years old he had determined to be a " statesman as well 
 as a lawyer," and, as his correspondence shows, he was 
 already studying political problems not usually magnetic 
 to Middle-Part schoolboys. He was a great reader, and 
 much of his reading contributed to this end. 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 "SOUTHGATE HlLL, 
 
 July 17, 1904. 
 
 " I should like you to explain to me how the Americans 
 elect their President and their Parliament ; from remarks 
 in the papers it appears to be different from any election 
 I know. 
 
 " I have read very little this Half, as is natural, but 
 I have read two books which are well worth reading. 
 One is Martin Chuzzlewit, which has given me a greater 
 warning against selfishness than any book or sermon I 
 have ever come across. I am afraid that I need it, too, 
 very badly. The other book is a history of The Liberation 
 of Italy, 1 the best- written and most interesting history 
 from a woman's pen that I have ever read. Its four 
 hundred pages are very well worth reading, not only for 
 the thrilling history and unquenchable patriotism of 
 Italy's struggle for freedom, but also for the lesson which 
 it conveys of the value of unity, of how useless is mere 
 disorganized devotion to a cause and how irresistible when 
 united and orderly. The book is probably partial and 
 perhaps overstates the grievances and understates the 
 faults of the Italians ; but how much they must have 
 suffered is proved by the fact that each rebellion was 
 
 1 The Liberation of Italy, by the Countess Evelyn Martinengo 
 Cesaresco.
 
 20 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 punished more severely than the last, and yet each 
 rebellion was in no way deterred by the fate of its pre- 
 decessors.'* 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " October 6, 1904. 
 
 " Gladstone's Life I call quite one of the most charming 
 books I have ever read ; and, curiously enough, I have 
 been specially struck this Half by the 1809 trio. In 
 Memoriam is simply marvellous, chiefly because its 
 diction is marvellously simple. Thirdly, Darwin is very 
 fascinating ; and so, in one fortnight, I have quite separ- 
 ately read and appreciated this trio : Darwin, Gladstone, 
 and Tennyson, all born in 1809." 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " SOUTHGATE HlLL, 
 
 November 9, 1904. 
 
 " You had quite an exciting adventure yesterday. 
 Now you know the charms of launching a cruiser ! If you 
 launched a battleship, you might have yet further plea- 
 sure, waiting one and a half hours, and drenching a tee- 
 total Archbishop in cherry-brandy ! As it is, I see no 
 prospect of finishing my reading by the end of the Half ; 
 and, unfortunately, it is always Gladstone who goes to 
 the wall. My present books have amounted to : 
 
 Gladstone . . . . \ 
 
 Darwin . . . I Bills to t^ carried. 
 
 Maine s Ancient Law . . 
 
 Carlyle's History of Heroes . > 
 
 ENGLISH -I Matthew Arnold's Essays. . \ 
 
 Leslie Stephen's Half-Hours in I Bills probably to be 
 
 a Library . . . j dropped. 
 
 Morley's Rousseau ; . . J 
 .Selections from Ruskin Bill carried.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 21 
 
 (Rousseau's Contrat Sooiale . . \ 
 
 L'Aiglon . . . I Bills to be passed. 
 
 Lettres de mon Moulin . ; I 
 
 Corneille's Le Cid . ' * . J 
 
 " I've determined to do a lot of reading in the holidays 
 when it is too dark or wet to go out even at the expense 
 of Solo billiards plus Bridge ! 
 
 " I have begun Rousseau, and he strikes me as being 
 able to build up a very plausible argument by careful 
 steps, but he always spoils it by suddenly drawing an 
 absurd inference or ignoring an obvious and fatal objec- 
 tion." 
 
 The benefit of his literary studies carried on in school 
 work and leisure hours showed itself in the lucid, effective 
 style which gave character and charm to Bobby's later 
 writings. They did not, however, monopolize all his 
 attention as a schoolboy. Detective stories, thrillers, and 
 comic verses met with full appreciation from him. He 
 began to train his Pegasus for future flights by gentle 
 ambles along the road to Limerick, whence he returned 
 adorned with gaudy gems like the following : 
 
 " There was an old man of this latitude, 
 Who assumed a theatrical attitude. 
 
 When they said : ' Make a speech I ' 
 
 He gave biscuits to each, 
 And on all he pronounced a beatitude." 
 
 " A young person in Constantinople 
 Said : ' I do hope that Leo the Pope 'ull 
 
 Let me marry my niece, 
 
 Who lives down in Greece, 
 For I've bought her a ring with an opal I " 
 
 Bobby's political and literary interests had a formid- 
 able competitor for the possession of his spare hours in 
 the " insatiable enthusiasm for birds " which had fired 
 him from the days of his infancy. Inspired by the
 
 22 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 examples of Gilbert White and of our cousin, Sir Edward 
 Grey, 1 he kept a careful list of every bird which came 
 within his lynx-eyed observation, and at one time took 
 a yearly census of all the nests in Blackmoor garden. 
 (One year he counted seventy different kinds.) He began 
 a live collection of the ducks of the British Isles on the 
 moat at Blackmoor. His large library of bird books was 
 begun to be made when he was quite young. 
 
 He observed a strict rule in his egg-collecting which 
 he enforced on other youthful collectors whenever he 
 got the chance. The rule permitted him to take one egg 
 only from each nest, and required that the rest should be 
 left undisturbed. He hated wanton destruction of life. 
 One day, in his first year at Winchester, he was bicycling 
 along a country road and accidentally dashed over two 
 sparrows quarrelling on the ground, and killed them 
 both. He burst into floods of tears at the catastrophe, 
 and was miserable for days after. With a strange touch 
 of inconsistency he loved shooting, like many other 
 English naturalists ; and he enjoyed wild-game shooting 
 because of the skill and adventure which it involved. 
 He tried to preserve a code of honour in his shooting 
 expeditions. " I always feel some compunction in killing 
 a big animal. A small target at a hundred yards is much 
 more satisfactory to hit than a large one at three hundred," 
 he remarked once when describing a shooting expedition 
 in South Africa. 
 
 The following are some of Bobby's bird-letters from 
 Winchester : 
 
 To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING 
 
 "SOUTHGATE HlLL, 
 
 May 28, 1903. 
 
 " To-day I found a butcher-bird's nest in a thorn tree 
 with one egg in. I also saw the female butcher-bird very 
 
 1 Afterwards Viscount Grev of Failed en.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 23 
 
 well. I did not take the egg, of course. I shall go back 
 there in about three weeks when they are hatched, to see 
 if I can see their larder round the nest. Quite close, I 
 found a hedge-sparrow with three eggs and one cuckoo's 
 egg (which I removed). I also found a white-throat's 
 nest and a linnet's. Not bad for one piece of gorse about 
 sixty yards by forty 1 There must have been lots of 
 nests I didn't find; I am sure that there is a yellow- 
 hammer's nest somewhere about, as I have seen the old 
 birds twice, but I hadn't time to watch them. I wonder 
 if yellow-hammers build in gorse (as they nearly always 
 do) on account of their colour, which I noticed matched 
 the gorse wonderfully well. I have persuaded all the 
 egg-collecting grandchildren l to conform to rules about 
 taking, which is a great blessing, as some of them used to 
 be very unprincipled." 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 " May 14, 1904 
 
 " When I was returning from bird-nesting yesterday, 
 I was crossing a field when I heard a noise, and, looking 
 up, saw a plover flying straight at me. When it was 
 about ten yards from, and seven above, me, it ceased 
 swooping and flew straight over me with a loud swishirig. 
 It hovered about twenty yards away, but directly I moved 
 on (still watching it) it again charged over me. I at once 
 saw that there must be a nest quite close to me, but 
 directly I looked down to search for it, the bird started 
 shrieking and screaming so loud that I looked up; it 
 stopped at once and tried to draw me off by flopping about. 
 Whenever I looked down, it started screaming and dashing 
 about, almost to the ground, then high into the air (like 
 their ordinary wheeling more violently and oftener done), 
 whenever I started walking. After a few repetitions of 
 
 1 Grandchildren of Lord Salisbury.
 
 24 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 this performance, I refused to look up when she screamed ; 
 and she then mounted high above me and called loudly, 
 upon which her mate quickly joined her and they both 
 wheeled round me peewitting and, at intervals, charging, 
 though not quite so near as at first. I had not got much 
 time, so I walked on. Both plovers at once got in front 
 of me, leading me on by flops and cries. As we went 
 farther, the plovers rose higher and cried less often and less 
 anxiously. They escorted me to the edge of the field, 
 where they suddenly left me and flew right away. I 
 must have almost trodden on the nest, but I think they 
 deserved that I should not find it." 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 "May 22, 1904. 
 
 " On Tuesday two nests which I was watching con- 
 tained one egg each, so to-day I went up to look at them. 
 On the way, I met two very small boys and entered into 
 conversation with them, and the eldest (aged about seven) 
 informed me that he had found a skylark's nest. I 
 promptly asked him to show it to me, but on the way he 
 so impressed upon me the wickedness of taking eggs that 
 I had to abandon all idea of procuring one of them. I 
 have never seen such a well and simply concealed nest. 
 In a field of young corn I was led to a small plant, like a 
 good-sized greyish dandelion, which looked as though it 
 could not conceal a hairpin. Under the shade of this 
 were three eggs in a nest of no more pretensions than a 
 plover's. The old bird, by the way, flew up from about 
 fifteen yards beyond, but almost in a line with the nest. 
 Of the nests which I intended to visit, the most interesting 
 had been robbed and the other proved to be a yellow- 
 hammer. I had to hurry back as it was beginning to 
 rain ; and, on my way, my eye was suddenly caught by a 
 hole in the bank of the road. Putting my hand in, I
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 25 
 
 found six robins' eggs, one of which had such exceedingly 
 curious markings that I kept it. In crossing the field I 
 was mobbed by six or eight plovers. It started with one 
 which rose high and quickly summoned a dozen more, and 
 these continued to wheel round me noisily till I left the 
 field ! " 
 
 The year 1905 brought great sorrow to my brother's 
 elder sons, inasmuch as his appointment to the High 
 Commissionership of South Africa caused an inevitable 
 separation between them and their parents, which lasted 
 through all Wolmer's Oxford years and the latter half 
 of Bobby's School and the earlier half of his University 
 career. 
 
 A very strong family affection bound them all closely 
 together, deepened by their common religious belief and 
 exhilarated by a happy fellowship of interests, tastes, 
 fun, and general youthfulness, very delightful to witness. 
 A lively recollection of the last days before my brother's 
 departure flashes around a wrestling match between him 
 and his three sons in the central hall at Blackmoor. Their 
 contortions were those of a happy Laocoon group. Four 
 blonde heads, four writhing bodies, eight grey trousers 
 shooting out in all directions. " It comes cheaper to 
 buy it in the piece 1 " observed Maud placidly, as we 
 watched the struggling legs. 
 
 Occasional glimpses of their parents somewhat re- 
 lieved Top's and Bobby's home-sickness. Bobby's first 
 vision of South Africa was in the winter of 1905 to 1906, 
 when he spent some months there. During his absence 
 from Winchester he kept up a correspondence with his 
 House-master on questions of House-government and 
 other School matters, gilded with graphic descriptions of 
 his treks, adventures and enjoyment of the glorious 
 country. From one of these letters describing the wonder 
 of the Victoria Falls I quote the final words, as they
 
 26 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 show Bobby's careful observation of the constituents of 
 beauty : 
 
 " It is chiefly the tropical colouring which makes the 
 whole scene so indescribably beautiful. The water, 
 deep yellow at the edge of the Fall, brilliant creamy white 
 when falling, the wet black rocks, the bright green of the 
 profuse vegetation around, the dark green of the distant 
 unending forest dimly seen through the all-pervading mist 
 of spray, the troubled brown waters in the gorge below, 
 the red rocks farther down the river, the huge cloud of 
 white spray, and, above all, the brilliant rainbow always 
 to be seen there all combine to form a picture which could 
 never be painted, but which, once seen, could never be 
 forgotten. Really, I feel that if I stayed here long enough 
 I should turn into a poet or something dreadful." 
 
 This appreciation of the brilliancy of colour was 
 characteristic of Bobby. He delighted in the hues of 
 gems, beautiful textures, and, above all, in the rich glories 
 of the paintings of the Old Masters. He described the 
 influence which Art had over him thus : " The effect of a 
 first-class picture is not so strong at the moment as that 
 of music, but with me lasts much longer and becomes a 
 part of me. The process is very queer and subtle, and I 
 can't explain it." 
 
 His mother has a vivid recollection of a Spanish tour 
 in 1902, on which he accompanied her, when his enormous 
 appetite for breakfast was only rivalled by his insatiable 
 enjoyment of the cathedrals and picture galleries. 
 
 Bobby returned to England from South Africa with 
 his sister and her fiance, Lord Howick, in the spring of 
 1906, to take up the responsibilities of Senior Commoner 
 Prefect and Head of his House at Winchester, with which 
 he had been entrusted before his visit to South Africa. 
 (He had been made House Prefect eighteen months before.)
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 27 
 
 " Bobby grows more old-gentlemanly every day. He 
 can't read without his head being supported and his book 
 at the right angle, etc., etc.," wrote Mabel on board ship. 
 Whether this satirical description were true or not, there 
 was no doubt that South Africa saw his transition from 
 the schoolboy phase into one of older development. 
 
 That Dr. Burge, 1 his Headmaster, fully recognized this 
 change, is shown in his character-sketch of my nephew. 
 
 " On the surface and a good way down," he says, 
 " Bobby was a serious, industrious boy, rather critical 
 and distinctly intellectual, sensitive to what seemed 
 childish, and, like all sensitive natures, apt to get things 
 and people on his nerves. He had an extremely alert 
 and receptive mind ; his heart was full of loyalty and 
 the desire to play his part in the common life ; he was 
 of a nature that won real attachment and affection. 
 The truth is that Bobby's boyhood was very brief. His 
 mind began to mature very rapidly and his intellectual 
 powers kept pace, so he became unusually well balanced. 
 He never passed through the stage which is common to 
 young boys of expanding intellectual powers, of letting 
 himself go, of ' slinging ink,' of being superbly emphatic ; 
 a natural thoughtfulness and reserve helped to restrain 
 him. 
 
 " He was hesitating and rather nervous ' up to 
 Books,' 2 but a most delightful boy to teach, very re- 
 ceptive, very sure of his grasp, and full of appreciation of 
 the right things. An interesting sign of this was the 
 remarkable way in which he developed the taste and 
 abilities of a good classical scholar. His Greek Prose 
 task, which won the Warden and Fellow's Prize, was the 
 first on a list of formidable competitors. 
 
 " As his intellectual powers matured, so too his out- 
 look ; and at a comparatively early age he was ready for 
 
 1 Afterwards Bishop of Sonthwark, now of Oxford. 
 * Notion for In Class.
 
 28 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 the University ; this meant that he had outgrown School 
 life and ways. I think the close quarters and confined 
 competition chafed him ; the uncongenial in surroundings 
 and persons struck him forcibly, and it was always an 
 effort to subordinate the uncongenial to something good 
 and attractive which is generally to be found beneath or 
 with it ; he made the effort, though, loyally enough, and 
 later at the University, with more elbow-room, he seemed 
 to overcome the difficulty with more success. At the 
 same time, it would be a mistake to suppose that he held 
 aloof from his contemporaries at School or ' was out of it ' 
 far from it. He was always included in the reckoning 
 and just as ready himself to take his share in all activities 
 and responsibilities. There was something very lovable 
 about him ; one can't describe it. I always felt that 
 with the sudden spring to manhood he still kept the heart 
 of a child. I think it was because home and home-ties 
 meant ever so much more to him than anything else." 
 
 As was natural in a boy of Bobby's earnestness of 
 mind, he accepted very seriously the responsibilities of 
 leadership. " I know I can only fulfil them by God's 
 grace," he said, " but I am sanguine of success. In my 
 last year, when I shall have had experience, I should like 
 to try the thankless role of reformer and make myself 
 thoroughly unpopular in the process ! " He took un- 
 flagging trouble over all the duties, small and great, 
 attached to his office ; he faced unpleasant situations 
 with quiet courage ; and in his personal relations with 
 difficult rowdy boys he always tried to bear in mind their 
 peculiar code of honour and to deal justly with them. 
 Whatever few affinities existed between him and some of 
 his companions, he made valiant efforts to understand 
 their points of view, as was shown in the cases of boys 
 with no religious beliefs or with immoral tendencies. 
 In speaking of one of the former, he said : " I am awfully 
 sorry for him. It is this gap in a man's character that
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 29 
 
 makes him so difficult to deal with. One can't use 
 arguments which would and must appeal to any Christian. 
 I feel how awful beyond thought his position is, with 
 every opportunity to enjoy life, but that side of life just 
 a blank. It makes me shudder to think of it. ' What 
 profits it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his 
 own soul ? ' " 
 
 Of the latter he wrote to his father : "If you want 
 anyone to keep straight at a public school you must 
 interest him either in his work or his play. Boredom is 
 responsible for half the mischief of every description at a 
 public school. There are only three ways of relieving it, 
 besides games : the first is mere noise, which is the least 
 harmful, but also the least diverting and the most easily 
 interfered with by a quiet-loving master ; the second 
 is to be quarrelsome if a prefect, tyrannical, if an 
 inferior, insubordinate but it is a gloomy form of excite- 
 ment ; and so, the third, self-indulgence, is the favourite. 
 It takes the forms of gluttony and immorality, of which 
 the latter is at once the cheapest and the most reputable. 
 In the boy-mind, defiance compels admiration ; and it is 
 a secondary consideration (such minds are incapable of 
 holding more than one consideration at a time) whether 
 the principle defied was formulated in Heaven or in Dons' 
 Common-Room. The two places are often confused, 
 though no Don would like to be told so." 
 
 His efforts at patient self-control were impervious to all 
 provocations save those of offenders who menaced younger 
 boys with contamination. Then they were swept aside 
 by the stream of his wrath. " I can recall," said his 
 House-master, Mr. Cook, " the very look of his face when- 
 ever any moral questions were discussed between us. In 
 his work as a prefect this love of duty was made effective, 
 not by compromise between right and wrong, but by 
 a most sympathetic understanding of other people's 
 natures. Lacking, as he did, some of the advantages
 
 30 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 which make for influence and popularity among young 
 people, he won the universal respect of the boys in his 
 House, often their gratitude and affection, by unobstrusive 
 real service." 
 
 There is no doubt that Bobby's " atmosphere of 
 earnestness " impressed other boys, and convinced many 
 of them that he was a man who demanded realities of 
 them and who never minded what they believed, so long 
 as they really believed it. But, along with this im- 
 pression, he gave to some of the boys a feeling of aloof- 
 ness as if he was unable sufficiently to sympathize with 
 the point of view of an average person ; and this con- 
 ception certainly detracted from his ascendancy. 
 
 Mr. A. P. Herbert, who was a junior in the same House, 
 recognized this aloofness, but acknowledges that, " In 
 spite of the gap, I know that, with my contemporaries, 
 I thought of Bobby Palmer as a singularly upright and 
 incorruptible person, genuinely respected prefect, and a 
 fine Head of the House. He played his games with the 
 same energy which he put into everything he did foot- 
 ball, I remember especially, with a keen and effective 
 vigour." 
 
 Major Drage, his contemporary, writes to me : " All 
 I can do is to tell you of the qualities in Bobby which 
 struck me most at the time and which have remained in 
 my mind most characteristic of him. 
 
 " (a) Religious devotion. One of the first things I 
 remember about him was his habit, when quite a small 
 boy, of reading the Bible every night in bed after lights 
 were out. His method of doing this was to put the 
 bedclothes over his head and use an electric torch under- 
 neath them. It must have required some considerable 
 nerve to start doing this. You know how potently the 
 forces of School are apt to be mobilized against anything 
 unusual. No Covenanter was more rigid in religious 
 observance than Bobby ; and this, coupled with the next
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 31 
 
 characteristic, was, I think, one indication of the strength 
 of his character. This was (b) love of personal comfort. 
 He had quite a mania for surrounding himself with masses 
 of sofa cushions, as many and as soft as possible. It 
 sounds a trivial thing now, but it sticks in my mind 
 connected with (a), which completely overruled it when 
 necessary. 
 
 " (c) I remember his showing a pretty strong sense 
 of righteous indignation on various occasions ; the one 
 which I remember curiously clearly, being a petty act of 
 selfishness on my part, for which he dealt me a remarkably 
 rapid and shrewd blow in a whirlwind of indignation 
 which surprised me considerably ! 
 
 " (d) He had a remarkable breadth of view and very 
 liberal ideas. I remember disagreeing with him strongly, 
 though amiably, on the question of corporal punishment. 
 He was dead against it and, if my memory serves me 
 correctly, scarcely ever allowed anyone to be ' cut into ' 
 whilst he was Senior Prefect of C House. The fact that 
 he was able to do without corporal punishment showed 
 the strength of his convictions. 
 
 " (e) The quality which I like to think of most was 
 a curious child-likeness, if such a word exists. He could 
 always get anything he liked out of me and, I expect, 
 out of everyone, by adopting a child-like persuasiveness 
 which was most attractive and quite irresistible. I 
 remember watching him do exactly the same thing at 
 Blackmoor, so I expect you know just what I mean better 
 than I can express it. 
 
 " It is out of place for me to tell you what he was to 
 me personally, but I cannot finish this meagre sidelight 
 without saying, quite simply, that the news of his death 
 was a staggering blow to me, in spite of the fact that I 
 can hardly have seen him since he left Winchester in 1907. 
 It at once defined a feeling that I had had for years that 
 one day he would be a great leader in England and that,
 
 32 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 in any case and whatever his call, I would follow him 
 blindly with supreme confidence. . . . He was not to me 
 what I should have called a leader of men. I have known 
 great soldiers who were more magnetic and whose claims 
 on one's allegiance were more insistent without bringing 
 one's reason into play. With Bobby I simply felt that 
 he trusted and believed in God, that God had given him 
 both inspiration and a wonderfully cool and capacious 
 brain, and that he would be a beacon light to many 
 struggling dimly in this difficult and perplexing modern 
 state of ours. I honestly believe that England has 
 sustained in him a loss which only a very few can in any 
 way estimate." 
 
 As Senior Commoner Prefect every moment of Bobby's 
 time, not devoted to work for his Oxford Scholarship 
 and Medal tasks, was occupied by various duties connected 
 with his office : school- work, football, golf, rackets, 
 various committees, fives-court management, the Debating 
 Society, Shakespeare Society all these he enumerates 
 in a letter to his mother in the autumn of 1906, adding : 
 
 "I have promised to read a paper for XIII. Club on 
 South Africa. 1 Next term I shall have to manage steeple- 
 chase and fives competitions, which will be a dreadful 
 nuisance." 
 
 Bobby's convictions with regard to football were 
 frankly heretical : 
 
 " I have been playing football hard this week. I am 
 coming to the conclusion that I actively dislike football, 
 especially our game. Roughness is like anchovy sauce : 
 when once introduced, it pervades the whole of a game 
 and spoils it completely to my taste, but some people 
 like the added zest. No one can play our game well, 
 
 1 The National Review of July 1906 contained an eight-page article 
 entitled " The Labour Problem in South Africa," which was Bobby's 
 maiden publication.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 33 
 
 unless they can command a loss of temper at a moment's 
 notice and then keep in a state of maniacal fury for an hour. 
 I find it difficult to do this over Clemenceau, but quite 
 impossible over football. Why public opinion has care- 
 fully selected two of the least attractive outdoor games 
 that I know, and has labelled them outdoor occupations 
 for winter and summer respectively, and then has pro- 
 ceeded to enforce all mankind (or boykind) to accept and 
 worship these ready-made images is more than I can 
 guess." 
 
 Bobby's independence of thought made him always 
 contemptuous of popular idols. It also led him to the 
 conclusion that his " tastes were certainly very different 
 from those of most boys." In this he was undoubtedly 
 right, for he belonged to that small minority in every 
 school, the goodly company of intellectual boys. 
 
 He rose rapidly from division to division and passed 
 early into Sixth Book, the highest division. He brought 
 home books * and reports monotonously excellent. The 
 testimony of his masters bore witness to the brilliance 
 and steadiness of his gifts : the sharp, keen mind of fine 
 literary quality and large intellectual sympathies, scrupu- 
 lously honest in its independence of thought, yet entirely 
 untainted by intellectual pride and cynicism ; the ex- 
 ceptional power of hard work, unusually thorough ; and 
 the wise humility, simplicity, and sincerity of his white 
 character and high purpose which together made 
 Bobby one of the most attractive and ablest of their 
 pupils. 
 
 It was under these masters and during his time at 
 Winchester that Bobby gained that love for the Classics 
 which grew into a passion at Oxford. 
 
 No description of Bobby in his latter School and 
 early Oxford days would be complete which did not 
 include the recollections of the brother who watched his 
 1 Notion for School-prizes.
 
 34 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 career throughout his life with intimate love and under- 
 standing. Wolmer says : 
 
 " He had an innate love of good and hatred of evil. 
 At school his small circle of friends was always the boys 
 of really high character, and to outsiders he might have 
 appeared exclusive. But there was nothing of pride 
 about him. His modesty was, in fact, an obsession. 
 Sensitive, yet reserved as to his feelings, he could not 
 believe his friends cared for him as much as they did. 
 If it had not been for this perfectly natural humility, 
 combined with his never-failing sense of humour and 
 delight in the ridiculous, he would have been a prig. 
 He had not the gift of tact and would frequently blurt 
 out inconvenient truths. He could never dissemble his 
 opinion, and if he held his tongue, his thoughts were 
 transparent in his face. 
 
 " School -work came easy to him. Though not quick, 
 he had a penetrating mind and learning was no difficulty. 
 His strongest intellectual characteristics were his great 
 mental grasp and deliberate methods. He never let 
 anything go. From boyhood, he had a remarkable 
 power of concentration ; he could turn from one thing to 
 another instantly : three hours' work without a pause, 
 then at once twenty minutes (by the clock) of patience 
 or billiards by himself (right hand against left), then work 
 again, and so on. This showed his mental and nervous 
 strength ; he did not tire easily. These powers enabled 
 him to get twice as much into a day as could most other 
 people. In examinations, in debates at Winchester and 
 at Oxford, he outdistanced other people because he had 
 covered all the ground first. His conscientiousness pre- 
 vented his ever doing things by halves. For these reasons, 
 had he lived, he would have been Lord Chancellor or 
 Archbishop of Canterbury and a very good one too, as 
 excellent judgment was part of his gifts. 
 
 " He loved most games and brought to them all the
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 35 
 
 assiduity that he brought to everything. He never gave 
 the impression of playing a game as a relaxation, but 
 just as if it was a pleasant piece of work on hand. He 
 was a wide reader of every kind of literature : novels, 
 poetry, history, classics. One can generally learn some- 
 thing of a man's nature by glancing at his books. Bobby 
 would emerge from such a test as a man of wide sympathies 
 and very varied interests. His literary horizon extended 
 from Homer to Punch, from Dante to Darwin, from Piers 
 the Plowman to Rupert Brooke, from Genesis to Founda- 
 tions, 1 from Locke to Jerome K. Jerome, from Jane 
 Austen to Conan Doyle. 
 
 " He had a carefully-mapped-out reading programme 
 for every day ; and after he had read the thirty or forty 
 allotted pages of one book, would at once turn to the 
 next. 
 
 " Bobby was intensely human in his love for nature 
 and for his fellow-creatures. He was a zealous bird- 
 lover, as all his friends know. His love for Hampshire, 
 for the beautiful old villages, for Blackmoor, and, above 
 all, for the woods is pathetically recorded in the un- 
 finished novel which he began to write away from home 
 while stationed in India in 1915. It gives a glimpse of 
 the home-hunger from which he suffered. Here is the 
 passage : 
 
 " ' To return from the far flat countries of other 
 continents and find the gorse in bloom on the heathy 
 hills of Hampshire was in itself a draught of pure delight. 
 Every fold of the familiar landscape came forward like 
 a welcoming friend ; every tint of the forest (and where 
 in the world are such delightful harmonies of colour as 
 in the woods of South England in spring ?) was a voice 
 as of music. The birds on domestic cares intent, the 
 ridiculous rabbits that scuttled perfunctorily from the 
 leisurely cross-country train's approach, and the unpre- 
 
 1 Foundations. By seven Oxford men.
 
 36 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 tentious homely butterflies that fluttered past, all touched 
 the thousand chords of childish reminiscences and affec- 
 tion which make this glorious and motherly south country 
 an inexpressibly sweet symphony to those who have 
 dwelt therein.' l 
 
 " But Bobby was no recluse. He loved human 
 society. His social side did not develop much till he 
 was about fifteen, but it became very pronounced as 
 he grew to manhood. He said he was never bored by 
 anyone provided they said what they thought. ' That 
 is the sine qua non of conversation,' he once remarked. 
 He had great conversational gifts, a great power of 
 sympathy in entering into the mind of the person with 
 whom he was talking, and an unlimited capacity for being 
 interested in everything except what was not good, 
 wholesome or clean. His conversation throughout was 
 illumined by flashes of humour, wit, epigram. He 
 always saw the comic side of everything, and his sense 
 of the ridiculous bubbled through all his talk and writings. 
 He had a genius for letter-writing. Word-pictures 
 flowed from his pen as tints from an artist's brush. Yet, 
 with all his social gifts, he could always retire at the exact 
 moment he had planned out to do work or play a game 
 or go to bed, which he always did at a quarter paststen, 
 except on very rare occasions." 
 
 Bobby left Winchester with a sheaf of laurels in his 
 hands : the Duncan Prize for an essay on the Reform 
 Bill, the Greek Prose Prize for a translation of one of 
 W. S. Lander's Dialogues, and the English Verse Prize 
 for a poem on " Letizia Mother of Napoleon." 
 
 In January 1907 he won a University College Scholar- 
 ship at Oxford, heading the list as Senior Scholar out 
 of one hundred and fifty-seven candidates. 
 
 In the intervals of Latin Unseen he composed the 
 
 1 From Wentworth's Reform.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 37 
 
 following masterpiece on the death of the Shah, the 
 notice of which was in that day's (10th January) 
 papers : 
 
 " Said the Czar : ' I wish I were the Shah ! ' 
 Said his Ma : ' Why not stay as you are ? ' 
 
 The Czar said : ' But he's dead 
 
 In his bed, not by lead. 
 How I envy the Shah ! ' said the Czar." 
 
 With Oxford beckoning to him, Bobby became 
 ardently desirous to leave Winchester. Quite mistakenly, 
 he imagined that he had proved a failure as the Head 
 of his House, because the reforms which he had tried 
 to carry out had fallen short of his aims. He could not 
 fail to see that the whole tone of the House was raised 
 and purified, but its defects and shortcomings irritated 
 him to an inordinate degree, while its atmosphere op- 
 pressed him as that of " an overgrown nursery, popu- 
 lated by a barbarously infantile company." The truth 
 was that his home-sickness, sense of isolation, and restraint 
 were merely symptoms of his having outgrown the 
 routine and limitations of school life symptoms clearly 
 visible to his masters. Dr. Burge advised him to leave 
 at the end of Common Time. 1 " It is no good trying 
 to keep a watch going when the spring has been taken 
 out," he told him ; " staying on will not only do you 
 no good, but your morbid disposition might infect others." 
 At the same time Dr. Burge wrote to my brother to 
 say that " Bobby had served his generation at Winchester 
 right well, and that he had the reward of feeling that 
 he had done his best for the place which had done for 
 him what no other place could do." 
 
 Bobby's last letter from Winchester showed that he 
 had begun to realize the truth of the last words. 
 
 1 Notion for January-to-Easler Term.
 
 38 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 To ms FATHER 
 
 "SOUTHGATE HlLL, WINCHESTER, 
 
 April 5, 1907. 
 
 " This is the last letter I shall write you from this 
 address ; and in spite of our present incompatibility of 
 temperament, I feel that I owe a great deal to Winchester, 
 to its blemishes as well as to its excellencies. It is rather 
 a gruff introduction to the world and its ways, but I 
 think it is more instructive to see everything in its 
 crude and naked barbarism. It makes it much easier 
 to tell good and evil apart when one meets them later 
 dressed up. But the process is not pleasant. . . . 
 
 " Self -consciousness I feel to be my curse and my 
 danger. It leads me, especially among unsensitive 
 people (who make no allowances, such as boys), to self- 
 absorption, which is a dangerous form of selfishness, 
 since it comes in a hypocritical cloak of priggishness and 
 is altogether very bad for me. I am very glad to be 
 able to think I am leaving a House so much better than 
 the one I came to five years ago." 
 
 Bobby left Winchester on 5th April 1907, and shortly 
 afterwards he started on his second visit to South Africa.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 OXFORD, 1907-1909 
 
 AFTER a delightful holiday in South Africa, Bobby re- 
 turned to England in the autumn of 1907. At the be- 
 ginning of the Michaelmas Term he went into residence 
 at Oxford as a Scholar of University College, and took 
 possession of his " watch-tower," as his friends called his 
 housetop rooms, the attractive, austere simplicity of 
 which was characteristic of their occupant. The aspect 
 of the keeper of the watch-tower beamed with peace and 
 goodwill. I think what most struck observers was the 
 pure serenity of his face. His complexion was pale and 
 clear ; he had light hair, a broad forehead, straight 
 marked eyebrows, from beneath which deep-set grey 
 eyes, with a delicately curved outward droop of the 
 eyelids, looked forth on the world with calm discerning 
 friendliness. His nose was straight and his mouth smiled 
 in beautiful curves above a firm, rounded chin. His head 
 was well set upon his broad shoulders and his body finely 
 formed ; he was always carelessly clothed, generally in 
 rather untidy loose grey tweeds. 
 
 Such was Bobby's appearance when he was first 
 introduced to the ardent company of Wolmer's Oxford 
 political friends. They had been warned of his approach- 
 ing advent by his elder brother in the cryptic announce- 
 ment : " He is a great person, is Bobby ! " 
 
 The studious Bobby was somewhat alarmed by his first 
 impressions of Oxford. 
 
 " There is no doubt," he wrote, " that Oxford is a
 
 40 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 most attractive place, but it is also extremely distracting, 
 and, for a fresher especially, it is very difficult to work 
 here. It is not politics that takes the time. They only 
 employ two evenings a week, but it is the amount of 
 society one sees. But one must suffer it to be so, as the 
 object of Oxford is almost as much to get to know people 
 as it is to do some work." 
 
 Wolmer reported in October to South Africa that : 
 " Bobby has made maiden speeches at both the Canning 
 and the Union. They were both very good. I am glad 
 to say he likes the Canning, but he is very unsociable in 
 other matters I find that conversation does not interest 
 him at all." 
 
 Possibly, because of incompatibility of hours. Wolmer 
 could only discuss after ten at night, Bobby, only before 
 ten in the morning ! So they both affirmed at that time. 
 
 In the beginning of November, Lady Salisbury and 
 her young daughters, with Lord Hugh and Lady Gwen- 
 dolen Cecil, descended on the boys at Oxford and under- 
 went a strenuous lionizing of its Colleges. Lady Gwen- 
 dolen wrote to Maud, saying : 
 
 *' I need hardly tell you that Bobby, though he has 
 only been three weeks at Oxford, has already settled 
 down to a methodical scheme of work, never misses a 
 lecture, and has his eyes firmly fixed upon his c Honours 
 Mods ' a year and a half hence. He was very serene and, 
 I think, very happy. Rather quieter than when I saw 
 him at Winchester, more observant, fitting himself, I 
 think, to the stupendous change of position between a 
 Senior Prefect's and a Freshman's." 
 
 At the Oxford Canning Club, at the Union, and in his 
 own College, Bobby made friends who quickly learnt to 
 love and appreciate him. One of them, the Rev. E. 
 Priestley Swain, described how " Bobby at once found his 
 place at Oxford. His success was intimate and personal.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 41 
 
 Words cannot describe his charm, and very few could 
 resist it. He was always happier in smaller gatherings 
 than in big ones, and I fancy that usually he preferred to 
 be with one friend than with more than one. His thought- 
 fulness and deep seriousness, combined with his natural- 
 ness and sense of humour, made him a companion of rare 
 distinction." 1 
 
 One of Bobby's most intimate College friends, the 
 Rev. N. Micklem, 2 has sent me a character-sketch of him, 
 which may fitly find its place here : 
 
 " Bobby Palmer and I were very much together in 
 Oxford, and I think we must have discussed most subjects 
 in heaven and earth ; he was almost always saying the 
 most delicious things about persons and problems. I 
 remember the quizzical way in which he would say them, 
 and then how he would laugh ; but his epigrams and 
 sayings were part of our daily bread, and I wish I had 
 treasured them up in my memory. 
 
 " We went on a reading party to a farm near Prince- 
 town on Dartmoor ; it was Easter and very cold, and we 
 enjoyed our peat fires and cream. He and I, at least, had 
 gone with the intention of reading for Greats, but the 
 reading-party tended to develop into a ' theological 
 scrap,' for we were of all denominations and heresies. 
 Bobby was the most silent of the party in these exciting 
 discussions ; he would make pleasant sallies against every 
 position more readily than he would reveal his own. 
 But he did not leave us in much doubt where he stood. 
 I think it is true to say that in technical theology 
 Bobby had no great interest ; again, he was not in 
 any narrow sense an ' ecclesiastically minded layman ' ; 
 you could not label him high or low or broad ; but the 
 whole bent of his mind and temper was Christian, and 
 
 1 From article on " Robert Stafford Arthur Palmer" in The Common- 
 wealth, May 1916. 
 
 * Now Chaplain and Tutor of Mansfield College. 
 6
 
 42 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 religion was in all his actions and is manifest in his 
 photographs. 
 
 " He was very sympathetic towards c Nonconformity,' 
 but the Church of England met his needs and claimed his 
 entire devotion. I was with him once at the Summer 
 Conference of the Students' Christian Union ; I think he 
 felt at home there, but his religion was of a very intimate 
 and personal kind, and he did not speak of it easily even 
 to his friends. 
 
 " I think that the Confessional stood in his eyes as the 
 symbol of that complete surrender which Christianity 
 requires ; I know it had a great appeal for him along that 
 line, though I do not know what was his own practice in 
 regard to it. I remember but once hearing him give a 
 religious address, but I remember it as profoundly religious 
 and delightfully free from the religious jargon familiar on 
 such occasions. 
 
 " Everybody liked him ; but he was shy and reserved, 
 and I think he had not many undergraduate friends. 
 But I think that the few men who did know him loved 
 and honoured him as few are loved and honoured ; he 
 was so simple and unassuming and absolutely without 
 affectation. I think he really kept the heart of a little 
 child ; he was always laughing ; it seems so characteristic 
 of him that I can hear his laugh when I think of him. He 
 was one of the most lovable of men." 
 
 No words could be more emphatic than these ; yet 
 Bobby, obsessed by his sensitiveness, remained sceptical 
 of the possibility of his ever winning the affection of his 
 friends. 
 
 He wrote to his mother in his first term at Oxford : 
 " I know I am blessed or afflicted (and I suppose some 
 other people are, too) with an almost ridiculously sensitive 
 set of feelings, and so, when someone without imagina- 
 tion comes stamping round on them, it hurts too much
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 43 
 
 to allow me really to like them ever. I often resolve not 
 to stand such nonsense and argue with myself that if I 
 could only get over this prejudice I should find So-and-so 
 very nice. But, next time I meet him, down comes the 
 hobnailed boot and I retreat into myself as instinctively 
 as a snail when you pinch it. It may, perhaps, prevent 
 one making what would otherwise be pleasant friendships ; 
 but if there are, as there must be, other people of the 
 same sort, it is only by knowing how easily my own 
 sensitiveness is wounded that I can avoid wounding 
 theirs ; and when I do meet exactly the right friend, 
 our power of friendship and sympathy will be twice as 
 great through our being so tender over-tender if you 
 like. I have not found this friend yet, but I hope to do 
 so here. I should have been a far better prefect at 
 Winchester if I could have been in close sympathy and 
 touch with all the men. I was often tempted to envy 
 them for the easiness with which they were contented 
 in their friendships and their horny souls on which no 
 corns grew, so that they kicked each other all day without 
 feeling it. But I comfort myself with the reflection that, 
 when I am satisfied, it will be something really worth 
 having. I only hope I shan't have to go on 4 yearning 
 for the unattainable ' like the man in Patience. . . . The 
 greatest penalty in being like a sea-anemone is the amount 
 of energy I have to expend in screwing up my courage 
 to meet a possible (often wholly imaginary) rebuff. I 
 am more afraid of meeting with a rebuff from a friend 
 (and I suppose I want to regard too many people as 
 friends) than I should be of fighting in a battle (and I'm 
 sure that would frighten me more than I cared). I tell 
 you all this because it relieves me and because I know 
 that, however silly you think me, you will never laugh 
 at me. But I am so much happier here, I feel as if I 
 should find my friend here and then I ask nothing 
 more."
 
 44 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Two and a half years passed and Bobby was still on 
 the search. " I find it impossible to see enough of my 
 friends to make them real friends. Consequently I pick 
 up a great many acquaintances, but there is nobody 
 that 1 know will be glad to see me at any time. This is, 
 no doubt, mostly my fault, because I can't get on quickly 
 with people I care about." 
 
 The boon of a perfect friendship for which Bobby 
 craved so ardently all his life was, strangely enough, 
 withheld from him until a year before his death. It was 
 the sole trophy won by him on the field of war. 
 
 Bobby's first Oxford vacation was spent at Hatfield 
 One of the Christmas frolics there was a fancy-dress 
 evening, at which Wolmer and Bobby appeared as copies 
 of TenniePs drawing of Tweedledum and Tweedledee in 
 Through the Looking Glass. Their sister acted as dresser ; 
 and with white calico trousers, pillow stuffing, paper 
 collars, cricketing caps, and a very slight making up of 
 their faces, she turned them out exactly alike. The 
 mystification was complete. " How papa would have 
 enjoyed it ! " sighed the triumphant artist towards the 
 antipodes. Other festivities, in the shape of balls, Bobby 
 shirked, because he said that the late hours interfered 
 with his work. When someone asked Wolmer why 
 Bobby was working so hard with no examination in 
 immediate prospect, Wolmer replied with immense scorn : 
 ** For the love of it ! the mere love of it ! " 
 
 It is possible that work was not the sole cause of 
 Bobby's abstinence from dances. At that period of his 
 life he suffered intense depression from the platitudes of 
 ballroom conversations, and complained that : " Those 
 of ordinary partners are degradingly futile, while the 
 brighter people make their conversation a stream of bites 
 at the back of the ninth commandment." This may, 
 however, be an unfair inference on my part, for he was
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 45 
 
 beginning to work for his Moderations Examination, the 
 Hertford Scholarship and the Newdigate, and had 
 therefore sufficient reason for wise husbandry of his time. 
 The sole diversions he allowed himself were his evenings 
 at the Canning l and the Union. 
 
 His deep interest in politics increased with years. 
 ** He was at once singularly mature and perfectly fresh 
 in his outlook on political questions," was Mr. J. A. R. 
 Marriott's judgment concerning his papers and speeches 
 at the Canning. His friends defined his attitude as that 
 of an advanced Social reformer who remained a Con- 
 servative from the conviction that legislation should 
 follow, not precede, public opinion ; and this view agrees 
 with his own vindication of the position of the Tory party. 
 " The Tory party stands for common sense, as opposed 
 to fads ; that is to say, it keeps its ideals in perspective 
 and prefers to compromise on the maximum of the 
 attainable good under present conditions, as opposed to 
 the doctrinaires who will sacrifice possible good to the 
 impossible better." 2 
 
 Bobby spoke frequently at the meetings of the Canning 
 Club. Its older members, who had watched many genera- 
 tions of the most brilliant young men, Conservatives by 
 profession, pass through Oxford, were greatly impressed 
 by his exceptional seriousness of purpose, his strong, well- 
 defined views and the charming modesty with which he 
 expressed them in admirable speeches delivered without 
 any attempt at ornament or rhetoric. 
 
 Mr. A. P. Herbert admired the way in which he always 
 seemed to be " trying to tear out the heart of the future, 
 really getting to the bottom of things. Of all the 
 clever and able men," he said, " who used to speak in the 
 
 1 The Oxford Canning Club was a Conservative Club for the guardian- 
 ship and preservation of the British Constitution as established in Church 
 and State. 
 
 * From his unfinished novel, Wentworth's Reform.
 
 46 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Canning, two men, Bobby Palmer and Gilbert Talbot, 
 impressed me by the statesmanlike quality of their 
 utterances. Bobby was a man of far greater intellectual 
 attainments than Gilbert, but, politically, those two stood 
 almost alone. Bobby had foresight, imagination, con- 
 structiveness. He was also admirably lucid, and the rare 
 flashes of humour rarer than Gilbert's were always a 
 delight. Further he had an abundant forbearance for 
 the more inarticulate and foolish among us, and dealt 
 with our blurted observations with a grave courtesy 
 which they did not always deserve." 
 
 Bobby used to like to deliver his speeches from the 
 rostrum of the hearthrug, generally speaking towards 
 the end of a debate. Churchwarden pipes and mulled 
 claret were part of the prescribed rites, but Bobby was 
 almost the only member who appreciated the first of these 
 dainties. He would puff at his pipe between his sentences, 
 and obviously drew inspiration from it. He used to speak 
 with his eyes fixed on the opposite wall looming dimly 
 through the haze of the tobacco smoke. Now and then 
 he would pause with a slight hesitation in the choice of 
 a word, but with no uncertainty as to the substance of his 
 remarks. Most of the debates in which he took part 
 were concerned with the Home policy of the Government 
 and the political position of the moment. 
 
 Bobby's intense desire that " the maximum of attain- 
 able good " should be acquired by all citizens of the 
 Empire led him to study the different methods, advocated 
 by Tory Democrats and Socialists, for reaching that end. 
 
 To ms FATHER 
 
 " OXFORD, 
 January 23, 1908. 
 
 " I thoroughly agree with what you say about the 
 true function of the Tory party, but I don't think the
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 47 
 
 Young England section go quite as far in a Radical 
 direction as you seem to think. I have never heard any 
 of them propose to interfere with the rights of property 
 in the sphere of practical politics. Many of them are 
 taken with the ideal of Socialism in which nobody should 
 own anything ; but the Radical preliminary of taking 
 away what the rich have doesn't find favour. Really, 
 I don't think that I disagree with them. Socialism is 
 the highest ideal ; but, because I am perfectly certain 
 it could not be realized and that the attempt to realize 
 it would be disastrous, I don't go about saying what a 
 magnificent ideal it is, as they do, because it seems to 
 me (a) a waste of time and (b) an expression of opinion 
 that is liable to be misinterpreted in a dangerous 
 way. I don't think it quite fair to say that this new- 
 born zeal for social reform is a hypocritical attempt to 
 outbid the Radicals. No Unionist principle is sacrificed, 
 and they are really anxious to make life easier for the 
 working classes. I think they sometimes adopt a more 
 pro-Socialist tone than their real opinions represent, out 
 of antagonism to the absolute dogma of Individualism 
 which flourished in the fifties and still survives in Harold 
 Cox. A great many of the Oxford Tories can't keep in 
 mind the difference between Trade Unionism and Socialism. 
 They either condemn Socialism in theory because of 
 Keir-Hardie, or urge alliance with the Labour party 
 because of their theoretical approval of the ideal of 
 Socialism. They all impress me as knowing singularly 
 little about it all, though I can't judge, being as ignorant 
 as anyone myself." 
 
 The Oxford University Settlement in East London 
 provided Bobby with a valuable school for the study of 
 Labour problems. He eagerly enrolled himself as one of 
 its disciples, and spent many days there in the Lent 
 of 1908, being instructed in its work and methods.
 
 48 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Eventually he became one of its most useful members, 
 and rendered valuable service as Poor Man's Lawyer. 
 
 East London was not alone in receiving help from 
 my nephew. In the autumn of 1908 he, with forty-four 
 other undergraduates and five graduates (under the 
 leadership of the Bishop of Bombay), 1 joined in an 
 organized missionary campaign in the environs of South 
 London. Greenwich, Deptford, Woolwich, and Lewisham 
 were the field of action. For ten days the fifty pleaded 
 the cause of Foreign Missions in churches, Sunday schools, 
 mothers' meetings, clubs, bible classes, and anywhere 
 where anyone would give them a hearing. 
 
 " Some of us spoke very well. Others couldn't speak 
 at all ! " Bobby told us afterwards, but he added : 
 44 1 think we stirred up a lot of real interest, which will 
 lead, I trust, to a certain amount of definite action. 
 I think the fact that the forty-five could be collected 
 at all was a tribute to the great powers of prayer." 
 
 He sent his father a detailed account of his personal 
 share in the venture. 
 
 "BLACKHEATH, S.E., 
 
 October 1, 1908. 
 
 " I got here on Saturday evening for the campaign. 
 I am quartered with Foss Prior of University on a church- 
 warden of St. Alphege, the big Greenwich church, a 
 very nice man with a very nice wife. The campaign 
 began that evening with an intercession service at St. 
 Alphege, with an address from Jimmy Bombay, followed 
 by a huge ' business meeting ' at which we were all 
 given marching orders for Sunday. My first job was 
 to address a men's Bible class in St. James Church, 
 Hatcham, a fine large church holding twelve hundred; 
 it had just been painted inside under the vicar's personal 
 superintendence. He had removed the frontal cloth of 
 
 1 His cousin, the Right Rev. Dr. E. J. Palmer.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 49 
 
 the communion table, as he expressed it, because he 
 didn't want his church to look ' like an overdressed 
 female.' I felt tempted to remark that under-dressed 
 females who showed their legs were almost as improper, 
 but happily refrained. In the church were fifteen men, 
 one in each pew for fifteen rows. The church appeared 
 to be about the size of Winchester Cathedral. After 
 two hymns (Moody and Sankey) and some extempore 
 prayers by the churchwarden, I talked to the fifteen 
 men. I'm afraid I wasn't inspiring, but the circumstances 
 weren't. After speaking, I had to offer up extemporary 
 prayers and the class dispersed at 4.15. I was to give 
 an address after Evensong at Forest Hill. I reached the 
 station at 5.40 or so, feeling depressed and alarmed. 
 I walked about a bit, trying to frame a speech, and then 
 set out to find the vicarage. The door was open ; 
 tobacco emanated from a study door and a cheery voice 
 called out : ' Is that you. Palmer ? Come in ; that's 
 capital. Sit down. Have a cigarette,' and I knew I had 
 struck high ground again. What a relief ! A jolly-faced, 
 athletic, middle-aged man smoking, in a cassock (which 
 I hailed as a sign of grace), with another campaigner in 
 an arm-chair, was the comforting sight that met my eyes. 
 The Rev. C. W. Bailey was distinctly ' high,' an Oxford 
 man, and great fun to talk to. His church was big, 
 holding a thousand, and was very full. After a full 
 service, the choir processed out, and those who wished 
 to, left. When we returned I found that fully five 
 hundred had stayed to hear me. I felt queer, but 
 excited rather than nervous. After one hymn I went 
 to the chancel steps and spoke from there. Once started, 
 I found it infinitely easier to speak to five hundred than 
 to fifteen. The effect of the five hundred was to give 
 me an intense, electrical concentration. I had not 
 thought out my speech thoroughly, but every argument 
 I wanted presented itself at the right moment, and the 
 7
 
 5 o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 power to select it and express it as forcibly as I could. 
 How much was the effect of the audience and how much 
 the result of my own and other people's prayers I don't 
 know, but I do think I came through that address far 
 better than I ever should have thought possible. 
 
 ** Since Sunday I have only had evening meetings. 
 On Monday I went to St. Lawrence, Catford, dined 
 with a * moderate high ' parson, and spoke to a missionary 
 meeting, i.e. forty old ladies and half a dozen men 
 in a parish room. Sunday night seems to have cured 
 me of nervousness. I have not felt a trace since ; though 
 I must admit I have tackled nothing very alarming. 
 I got on quite well at Catford, and the vicar started an 
 organization on the spot and induced people to take 
 boxes, etc. At this meeting another campaigner spoke 
 too. On Tuesday I addressed a temperance meeting 
 in the parish of St. Peter's, Greenwich, the incumbent 
 of which was a dear little old man, the kindest, gentlest, 
 most saintly, and charitable person imaginable. He told 
 me he had been there thirty-eight years. His parish 
 is twenty-two acres in extent, and comprises five thousand 
 inhabitants, not one of whom keeps a domestic servant 
 a very poor district, the only part I have yet seen here 
 that at all resembles Bethnal Green. I spoke to some 
 thirty women and children, with a few men. I didn't 
 speak well, but I wasn't hopelessly bad. 
 
 " Last night Prior and I went to St. Hilda's, Crofton 
 Park and spoke to a missionary meeting of forty to fifty 
 in a little room. We both spoke quite to our satisfaction, 
 and the people seemed interested. 
 
 " If my campaigning does nothing else, it will certainly 
 improve my speaking, I think. But I feel it is doing a 
 good deal more than that." 
 
 Bobby was one of the six undergraduates selected as 
 speakers at the final meeting, which he described as
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 51 
 
 "packed. It was in the Blackheath Concert Hall. A 
 thousand people present and some of the speeches 
 astonishingly impressive. Jem's was as perfect as any- 
 thing human could be, and the Bishop of Southwark l was 
 Al, but three of the campaigners were, in a way, more 
 wonderful still." 
 
 In the autumn of 1908 Bobby's mother spent three 
 months in England, to the delight of all her family. She 
 stayed long enough to see the beginning of her youngest 
 son's public-school life at Winchester. After her de- 
 parture, Bobby constituted himself her deputy, and was 
 never too busy to allow of his paying constant visits to 
 Winchester during the inevitably difficult first months of 
 initiation. He seemed to us to combine the understand- 
 ing of a sympathetic woman with the wise counsel of a 
 middle-aged man in his watchful care over Luly, whose 
 deep admiration and love he won unreservedly. 
 
 His unselfish efforts brought Bobby an unexpected 
 reward. Up to this time he had shrunk from visiting 
 Winchester, which appeared to him to be haunted by the 
 shades of his failures. He was convinced that, though as 
 Senior Prefect he had had " an intense desire to do good 
 to his House before he left," he had only achieved disas- 
 trous blunders ; that, " instead of his millennium " he 
 had strengthened the forces of evil and had earned a 
 vehement unpopularity by his mismanaged attempts to 
 reform. All his recollections were poisoned by this 
 miserable belief ; and it was only on the occasion of one 
 of his fatherly visits to Luly that he nerved himself to 
 visit Southgate Hill once more. 
 
 He had forgotten the difference which two years 
 makes in the personality of a school. To his intense 
 surprise, when he entered the prefects' library he was 
 greeted with enthusiasm. The reigning prefects of that 
 
 1 Dr. E. Talbot, afterwards Bishop of Winchester.
 
 52 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 day had been the juniors whose battles he had fought two 
 years before ; they poured out their appreciation of his 
 championship, of his valiant crusade against tyrannies 
 and abuses ; they told him of the change that his efforts 
 had wrought ; and they declared that his period of office 
 had become a great tradition, with him as its hero. He 
 returned from his visit with a face glowing with happiness. 
 A few questions made him relate his experience, with 
 the comment : " And all this time I have been think- 
 ing that what I did was an entire failure perhaps a 
 mistake ! " 
 
 Bobby's saying that " Hills look steep in the distance " 
 described truly the piles of work which he had to surmount 
 in 1909. Nevertheless, he succeeded in reaching the peak, 
 and was placed third in order of merit for his Newdigate 
 poem on " Michael Angelo," sixth in the competition 
 for the Hertford Scholarship, and was Honourably Men- 
 tioned in that for the Ireland. He was among the five 
 University College men who won " Firsts " in the 
 Moderations Examination that year, his work in the 
 Examination having won for him the rare number of 
 twelve alphas out of a possible fourteen. This success 
 justified the quaintly methodical system by which he 
 " divided the term into weeks and the needful work into 
 corresponding blocks, with no theatres or dinners and 
 refusal of all speechifying outside the Union and Canning, 
 and of all meetings except those of the Oxford House." 
 The vacations were also utilized for study. He arrived at 
 Falloden (lent to the Howicks by Sir Edward Grey), 
 according to his sister's description, " with packing-cases 
 of books and reams of foolscap, and he has entrenched 
 himself in the library behind piles of books. I trust," 
 she added, " that the results will one day show them- 
 selves to an astonished world I " While Bobby was there, 
 the only outside inhabitants allowed to intrude upon him
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 53 
 
 were Sir Edward's tame squirrels, who flippantly climbed 
 in and out of the windows. 
 
 Just before his Moderations Examination Bobby 
 made the welcome discovery that " the quicker he worked, 
 the better he did it, which was odd, but which showed 
 that with him it was all a question of concentration." 
 
 His triumph was followed immediately by the Easter 
 Vacation, a welcome interlude of " unalloyed joy " spent 
 by Bobby in Paris and Rome as the guest of his uncle and 
 aunt, the Comte and Comtesse de Franqueville, the latter 
 of whom lionized him to his heart's content. Among 
 other sights described by him in a letter to Wolmer, he 
 mentioned a visit to the Chambre des D&puUs. 
 
 " The rules of procedure in debate are odd : Number 1 
 seems to be that any deputy shall talk incessantly at the 
 top of his voice throughout the sitting, excepting only the 
 President, who (like the Speaker) does not speak, but is 
 provided with a bell, by the continual ringing of which 
 he may prevent himself from feeling out of it. It is, on 
 the whole, less effective than the Opera, though the 
 volume of sound compares not unfavourably." 
 
 The special object for which the De Franquevilles, 
 with multitudes of other devout French pilgrims, visited 
 Rome that Easter was to attend the Services for the 
 Beatification of Jeanne d'Arc. No traveller appreciated 
 more keenly than Bobby the peculiar privileges open to 
 him as a companion of a camtrier of the Pope and of the 
 crowd of pilgrims. No neophyte was more perfectly 
 prepared for initiation into the mysteries of that treasure- 
 house of the world than Bobby, fresh from his tilt with his 
 examiners, still clad in the panoply of classic learning. 
 
 His enthusiastic delight in the sights of Rome filled 
 many pages of his South African letters. They describe 
 his rapture at the " entrancing " Vatican pictures ; his 
 falling in love with the newly discovered statue of Niobe,
 
 54 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 the Psyche of Naples and the Melian Aphrodite ; the long 
 hours spent in the Forum under the splendid guidance of a 
 fellow Wykehamist, Dr. Thomas Ashby, Director of the 
 British Archaeological School in Rome; his inspiring 
 visits to churches, services, ruins, catacombs, gardens ; 
 his impression of an audience with Pope Pius x. on Easter 
 Eve ; and the Service in St. Peter's for the Beatification 
 of Jeanne d'Arc. 
 
 On Maunday Thursday he was taken to the Trappist 
 monastery of Tre Fontane, the site of St. Paul's martyr- 
 dom, where " His head was cut off, and, bounding three 
 times, caused three fountains to spring up. This is an 
 unconvincing miracle and not very useful ; the site shows 
 St. Paul must have been of an elastic build," remarked 
 Bobby. 
 
 He was impressed by the differing qualities of apprecia- 
 tion shown by French and British lionizers. 
 
 " Sight-seeing, with the French," he wrote, " is interest- 
 ing. Their artistic appreciation is so quick and acute ; 
 but they have a superficiality of interest very different 
 from the English and German. They despise catalogues. 
 They admire a statue, but are not in the least curious as 
 to its subject, author or date. They have no desire to 
 know whether it is by Canova or Polycleitus. They 
 admire it and look at it solely for its beauty as one might 
 admire a pebble on the beach. The Briton almost always 
 adds to his admiration (when genuine) a curiosity 
 scientific or historical. This, I say patriotically, is the 
 broader and more truly artistic view, because it regards 
 each work of art as a part of the whole of its art-system, 
 having its place and characteristics in that relation : so 
 regarded, the individual works can be more fully under- 
 stood and interpreted. Thus a more complete apprecia- 
 tion is possible. In practice, I admit, the interest of 
 classification, with English people, is apt to absorb the 
 attention, at the expense of aesthetic responsiveness,
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 55 
 
 which is less instinctive in us than in the French. But a 
 light touch does not often go very deep. 
 
 "In another respect the French are more matter-of- 
 fact than we. Mystery has not the slightest attraction 
 for them. They stop the pursuit of a thing directly 
 they see they can't catch it. Thus they may save time, 
 but they miss a lot of pleasure. Moreover, the occupation 
 often leads to achievements otherwise impossible. It 
 was the favourite employment of the Greeks and, for me, 
 one of their chief charms. All this d propos the famous 
 Cippus, i.e. archaic pillar, discovered in the Forum of 
 the sixth or eighth century B.C., with an inscription on 
 all four sides written in strange semi-Greek, containing 
 strange primitive words and forms which can only be 
 recognized here and there. The main part is undecipher- 
 able, and for that reason the most thrilling of all the 
 inscriptions in Rome to me : even Fia professes enthu- 
 siasm, but to my uncle it is sheer waste of time to look 
 at a thing you can't read." 
 
 The culminating effect on Bobby's mind of the Beatifi- 
 cation Services in St. Peter's was produced by the 
 wonderful and theatrical illuminations, the superb music, 
 and the vast crowd of French pilgrims, whose hymn, 
 
 " Sauve, sauve la France, 
 Ne 1'abandonne pas ! " 
 
 set a thrill of sympathy vibrating in his heart.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 OXFORD, 1909-1911 
 
 ON his return to Oxford, Bobby immediately began to 
 work for his Greats examination. He wrote to his 
 mother : 
 
 " I have finally decided to take Greats after carefully 
 considering the arguments against it. In the first place, 
 I am satisfied that, as schools are arranged here, Greats 
 is the best education ; that is to say, it does more to 
 teach you to think independently. The main disad- 
 vantage seems to be that Greats accentuate the Jubal, at 
 the expense of the Tubal, Cain in one. That is the 
 utilitarian point of view and there is a lot to be said for 
 it, though I shall never be much of a utilitarian. I feel 
 sure Greats reading will be more congenial than history. 
 What weighs most of all with me is the classical side. I 
 am, as you know, just now fast caught in the spell of 
 their fascination ; they are my greatest interest just 
 now; and if I had history, I should have to drop them 
 right in the middle of the fever. No doubt it is a pity 
 that my family are so unclassical and so un-Greatslike ; 
 but you've nobly come to the rescue, and as long as I may 
 let off a little steam occasionally I am happy." 
 
 Bobby attached enormous value to the intellectual 
 sympathy afforded to him by his mother, and appreciated 
 deeply the efforts she made to follow his reading for the 
 Greats school and also her unconventional criticisms on 
 the various systems of philosophy which he was studying. 
 He found her comments " most illuminating, by flashes."
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 57 
 
 Certainly Bobby's letters to his mother written at 
 this time kept her informed of many details of his work 
 and of his views on the Greek drama, the world-debt to 
 Plato, philosophy, metaphysics and kindred subjects. 
 
 On the value of the existing system of the study of 
 the classics, he wrote : 
 
 " It teaches one accuracy of thought. You are taught 
 to read every book as though it were a proof-sheet, and 
 though this makes reading slow, it certainly makes one 
 remember what is in the book ; and not only in books. 
 I find myself dropping into the same frame of mind while 
 listening to a speech or sermon, and instinctively light on 
 the weak and strong points ; this is very useful in debate. 
 Most valuable of all, perhaps, for everyday purposes is 
 its use in teaching one to write English. One can only 
 write good English by thinking pedantic English as one 
 writes." 
 
 Bobby was somewhat perplexed by his mother's lack 
 of appreciation of Plato's political theories. To a fanciful 
 comparison suggested by her between General Botha, as 
 type of the practical unphilosophical statesman, and 
 Plato, as type of the " thinker on a throne," Bobby 
 replied with the following comments : 
 
 " As for Plato and Botha as rulers, Plato would fail 
 because he would be too far in advance of the common 
 man. The political leader must be only just in advance 
 of the ideas of the mass of his countrymen ; he must 
 be near enough to have links by which he can attach 
 them to himself. One might almost say that a teacher 
 is only enabled to lead by his own shortcomings or back- 
 ward parts. Plato was so far ahead of 400 B.C. (and 
 possibly of A.D. 1900) that he would have been far above 
 out of their sight and they would have declined to follow 
 him. It is not want of knowledge of men which would 
 have prevented Plato from descending to the standard 
 of others and governing accordingly, but the almost 
 8
 
 58 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 physical impossibility, for a man who sees the truth, of 
 letting it go, abandoning what he sees to be right, and 
 submitting to the ignorance and prejudices of his mental 
 inferiors. If Plato had been offered a throne, he ought 
 to have refused it, and I think he would. Yet, of course, 
 the world owes far more to Plato than it ever will to 
 Botha. A man like Plato is too far away from his own 
 time to fit into it ; but he made bridges for the next and 
 succeeding generations. He could appeal to thinkers, 
 and in a few generations his disciples mastered his 
 thoughts and so diffused them. If I had to sum up 
 Plato's service to the world in a sentence, I should say 
 he had saved it five hundred years. You say that Plato 
 would have been driven out within ten years : this is 
 the greatest tribute you could pay to his greatness. Our 
 Lord was killed after three years. I don't think the 
 comparison is irrelevant. How many hundred years 
 farther back should we be if it had not been for 
 Christianity ? " 
 
 And : " A pleasant surprise is Aristotle : he has none 
 of Plato's charm, I grant you ; but from an inquirer's 
 point of view is more helpful and he is much more inter- 
 esting than I had expected. Plato so often outlines 
 theories and leaves you to answer the objections : a 
 stimulating education for the leisured and ingenious. 
 Aristotle is honest and meets his own objections briefly. 
 We are reading the Ethics, and, so far, I agree with 
 almost all his analysis, especially his definition of happi- 
 ness as ' a soul-activity on lines of excellence ' (which 
 sounds so odd in English). We can't realize at all ex- 
 actly how much we owe to Plato and Aristotle, but, as far 
 as we can judge, each broke absolutely new ground in 
 his line, and saved the human race centuries of thought." 
 
 On the royal trio of Greek tragedians : 
 
 " -ffischylus is undoubtedly far the greatest poet, 
 Sophocles is the most perfect artist, and Euripides is the
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 59 
 
 deepest thinker. He is too prone to philosophical 
 digressions to be a first-class poet or dramatist when 
 judged by whole works. But incidental passages show 
 he was a wonderful poet, but had not great facility of 
 expression. He stands to ^Eschylus as Browning to 
 Shakespeare, yet Euripides is a much greater thinker 
 than Browning ; and ^Eschylus' mind was far more like 
 Milton's, though he can only be compared to Shake- 
 speare for his terrific power over language. Sophocles 
 is the Tennyson of Greek i.e. first for sheer beauty and 
 grace (that is how Tennyson appeals to me), but hardly 
 sublime." 
 
 Of the great English writers whose names are graven 
 beside those of the ancient world on the walls of Apollo's 
 temple, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Tennyson were 
 most venerated by Bobby, while he delighted in the 
 music of Keats, Shelley, and Swinburne. His apprecia- 
 tion of Tennyson, though written later, may fitly be given 
 here. He said : 
 
 " His mind, to my thinking, was profound but not of 
 very wide range, and strangely abstract. His only pressing 
 intellectual problems are those of immortality and evil, 
 and he reached his point of view on those before he was 
 forty. He never advances or recedes from the position 
 summarized in the preface to In Memoriam, d. 1849. 
 The result is that his later work lacks the inspiration of 
 restlessness and discovery, and he tends to put more and 
 more of his genius into the technique of his verse and 
 less into the meaning. 
 
 " Tennyson saw and stated the whole rebels' position. 
 In Memoriam is largely a debate between the Shelley- 
 Swinburne point of view and the Christian. Only he 
 states it so abstractedly that, to people familiar with 
 Browning's concrete and humanized dialectic, it seems 
 cold and artificial. But it's really his sincerest and 
 deepest thought, and he deliberately rejects the rebel
 
 60 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 position as intellectually and morally untenable, and 
 adopts a position of acquiescent agnosticism on the 
 problem of evil, subject to an unshakable faith in immor- 
 tality and the love of God. This is a red rag to your 
 Swinburnes. I want to get to the bottom of his position. 
 Shelley's I know, and it is, in my opinion, a much more 
 obvious, easier and more superficial one than Tennyson's, 
 besides being based on a distorted view of Christianity. 
 Shelley, in fact, wanted to abolish Christianity as the first 
 step towards teaching men to be Christian." 
 
 And of Swinburne : " Swinburne disappoints me as 
 a mind perverse, fantastic, and involved. Obscure when 
 he means something, he is worse when he means nothing. 
 As an imagination he is wonderful. His poetry is really 
 a series of vivid and crowding pictures only held together 
 by a few general and loose, though big, ideas." 
 
 The two years of strenuous qualification for the 
 Honours School of Litterae Humaniores were regarded by 
 Bobby as spent in laying the foundation of his life's work. 
 " If one is not fitted to influence people socially, as seems 
 to be my case," he explained, " one must try intellectually, 
 that is to say, by politics or literature. The classics are 
 a fine literary training, so time spent on them is not 
 wasted." 
 
 His College tutors still retain vivid recollections of 
 his work and personality. 
 
 Mr. G. H. Stevenson says : " I had a great liking and 
 admiration for Bobby Palmer. He was probably the 
 ablest man whom I have been called upon to instruct, 
 and he possessed a maturity of judgment which one very 
 rarely finds in people of his age. Though he was always 
 willing to argue and question a statement, one always 
 felt that he was really trying to get at the truth of the 
 matter and was mostly applying a well-balanced intellect 
 to the question in hand."
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 61 
 
 Mr. E. F. Carritt also considered Bobby to be among 
 the best pupils in philosophy that he had had in twenty 
 years. 
 
 " I don't know," he says, " that I ever had a pupil 
 who so strongly gave me the impression that you could 
 trust him to deal in a thoroughly competent and scholarly 
 way with anything that was put before him. It was the 
 general solidity and balance of his mind and his deter- 
 mination to grasp a subject thoroughly that struck me. 
 
 " I always remember one remark of his. We were 
 discussing an essay of his on some point of moral philo- 
 sophy, and I suggested that a man might do certain things 
 under compulsion or fear of death. He said, 4 Oh ! I 
 never feel I should be at all afraid of dying.' The natural- 
 ness and spontaneity with which it came out were very 
 striking in a boy of that age. ... I always liked and 
 admired him so much." 
 
 Bobby became the pupil of Mr. A. B. Poynton in 
 1907. He says of him : " I saw a good deal of Bobby's 
 work and found him a delightful pupil. He helped me 
 by his shrewd and sensible questions, and almost always 
 contributed something worthy of consideration. He 
 argued, but without captiousness and perverse ingenuity. 
 He wanted to get everything clear to his mind and exact ; 
 if I did not convince him, he would take up my clues 
 and go back to the evidence. He never shirked a diffi- 
 culty. He had a practice, irritating to some examiners 
 and opposed to Oxford conventions, of appending notes 
 to his translations. So unwilling was he to produce a 
 false impression that I have known him reveal doubt 
 about a rendering which was absolutely right and, in any 
 case, tenable. My objection to this proceeding was 
 disarmed by the obvious sincerity of his mind. He was, 
 perhaps, not quite so quick-sighted as some of his con- 
 temporaries, and he did not trust his instinct sufficiently ; 
 but I always felt that had his lot been to pursue the study
 
 62 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 of the Greek and Latin classics, he would have gone very 
 far in the scholarship perhaps as an interpreter of 
 philosophical texts. 
 
 "His skill in composing Greek and Latin verse was 
 not specially remarkable, but he wrote very good prose. 
 He was most careful to represent the English exactly. 
 
 " Bobby was very highly esteemed in college, and his 
 influence with his fellow-scholars was great. He fully 
 sustained his record [of success in Moderations] both in 
 Greats and in the examination for the Ireland and Craven 
 Scholarships, when he was distinguished by the examiners. 
 Our men were proud of him, and all his teachers felt that 
 he was * golden,' good, wise, learned, and loyal. 
 
 " But his great honour was won in a wider field, as 
 an officer and president of the Union. A man who fills 
 that position must take a prominent place in the Univer- 
 sity and one or more of its political clubs. 
 
 " What would Bobby do in the world ? How often 
 I discussed this with those who knew him ! It seemed to 
 me that he would make a name at the Bar and then, in 
 some time of emergency, civil discord, or labour trouble, 
 he might spring up suddenly as a real force in English 
 life, like others of his kindred." 
 
 In June 1909, Bobby was invited, by the suffrages of 
 his friends, to occupy the presidential chair of the Oxford 
 University Church Union. He filled it with eminent 
 success. During his term of office he compiled a new 
 service-book (with the aid of his uncle, Lord Hugh Cecil) 
 for the weekly intercessions; and by his leadership he 
 helped to raise the life of the whole body to a higher level. 
 Most of its members were undergraduates ; and it needed, 
 as such Church societies often do need, a softening, 
 sweetenizing, humanizing influence. This was Bobby's 
 contribution. This enabled him, with the help of his 
 friend Mr. Micklem (a Congregationalist and President of
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 63 
 
 the Christian Union), to succeed in converting the two 
 Unions into colleagues instead of rivals. The chairman 
 of the Church Union (the Rev. C. Whittuck, vicar of 
 St. Mary's, Oxford) was greatly impressed by Bobby's 
 wisdom as shown in his suggestions for the selection of 
 preachers of the Special Sermons to undergraduates. 
 Bobby never allowed his strong Churchmanship to favour 
 the appointment of preachers on account of their dis- 
 tinctive views, but rather on account of their experience 
 of young men and of their most vital needs. His keen 
 fellow-feeling, his conviction of every man's hourly need 
 of God's upholding guidance, with his acute consciousness 
 of the necessity of linking church-life to the common life 
 of mankind all this spiritual apprehension armed him 
 with powerful insight and influence for his presidential 
 work for the Oxford University Church Union. 
 
 The crowning political glory of attainment to the 
 Presidentship of the Oxford Union gave Bobby deep 
 satisfaction. Mention has already been made of his suc- 
 cesses at the Canning. These he did not recognize as of 
 much value. " I am unable to speak decently in the 
 Canning," he declared, " but I persevere as I think it is 
 useful. At the Union I am all right if there are people 
 there ; it is a matter of concentration." (The Canning 
 inability was apparently caused by sleepiness, which 
 invariably overwhelmed him at ten p.m.) 
 
 The account of Bobby's connection with the Union 
 may fitly here find its place. His success there was assured 
 from the beginning. In the first week of his residence at 
 Oxford he made a maiden speech against the policy of 
 the Government in regard to the House of Lords. Those 
 who heard that speech asserted that his manner and matter 
 " made it clear that a future president was speaking." 
 
 In November 1908 he was appointed Secretary of the 
 Union, on which occasion his surprise at his popularity 
 vented itself in a characteristic letter to South Africa :
 
 64 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " I was elected Secretary of the Union by a much 
 larger majority than I had expected, getting 226 votes, 
 while the other candidates got 77, 73, and 66 respectively. 
 This is, I am told, a record for poll and for majority. This 
 satisfactory result is largely due, of course, to Top's 
 reputation and influence, partly to the weakness of the 
 other candidates, and partly to my South African speech, 
 which went down very well. It is extremely gratifying 
 to think that there are over two hundred men in the 
 'Varsity who cared to vote for me. From the egotistical 
 point of view the most agreeable feature of Oxford is that 
 there are people here who like me, as delightful an ex- 
 perience as it is rare." 
 
 In March 1909 he was elected Junior Librarian, and 
 in November of the same year President, by 278 votes, 
 giving him a majority of 89 above the next candidate, 
 the largest majority that had been secured in three years. 
 University dons, who detested the petty intrigues and 
 log-rolling which too often tarnished Union elections, 
 rejoiced in the knowledge that Bobby had passed through 
 the ordeals quite untainted by such sordid transactions. 
 His personality had carried him victoriously into power 
 and popularity. 
 
 It must certainly have been difficult to withstand the 
 attraction of his obvious sincerity, freedom from prejudice 
 and charm of manner. His mannerisms of delivery 
 resembled those of his brother, although the tones of his 
 voice were much deeper. His presidential bearing was 
 winning in dignity, simplicity and humour. He stood 
 the fire of questions on private business triumphantly, 
 and sent a wave of smiles rippling over the whole assembly 
 as he rose to answer one after the other with an enchanting 
 blend of amusement, good humour, courtesy and serious- 
 ness beaming from his face. 
 
 As an orator, he was respected as one who never tried 
 to make a mere debating point, as one who refused to be
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 65 
 
 drawn into side issues from the broad survey of the matter 
 under discussion, as one whose sole object was to state what 
 in his judgment was the right view of the matter. 
 
 Bobby's last speech at the Union was delivered on 
 26th November 1910, an impressive speech which was 
 enthusiastically applauded from all quarters of the House, 
 pleading for the rejection of the Parliament Bill and for 
 the substitution of a " Settlement on the basis of Consent." 
 
 On taking office, each President of the Union suffers 
 the fate of seeing himself immortalized in an article in 
 The Isis. Here is my nephew's portrait as presented in 
 its pages : 
 
 "ISIS IDOLS. No. CCCCI. (JANUARY 22, 1910.) 
 THE HON. ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER. 
 
 PRESIDENT UNION SOCIETY, 
 PRESIDENT OXFORD UNIVERSITY CHURCHMAN'S UNION. 
 
 The firmness of Burleigh dictating apologies, 
 
 Virtue of Selborne, renowned for hymnologies, 
 
 Salisbury's diplomacy, needless to say : 
 
 Genius of B If r, with no amphibologies, 
 
 Staunchness of H gh, whom our own Hertford Coll. lodges, 
 
 Practical wisdom of J mm B mb y : 
 
 Take of these elements all that is fusible, 
 
 Mix them all up in a pipkin or crucible, 
 
 Set them to simmer and take off the scum, 
 
 And R. S. A. P. is the residuum. 
 
 '* Mr. Palmer was born at the fascinating age of four. 
 Of his childhood (if we may be pardoned the expression) 
 and of his boyhood nothing further can be told, nor indeed 
 is known. He passed through Winchester with a ' soft 
 abstracted air,' and was content to meditate in quietness 
 his muse. When he arrived in Oxford he continued to 
 pick up quickly (for a Wykehamist) a serviceable know- 
 ledge of the English tongue. During his first year, 
 however, he was enabled \ct6tiv |3/<y<raf owing to his 
 9
 
 66 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 identity with his elder brother, and nothing was noticed 
 of him except the more than usual ubiquitousness of Lord 
 Wolmer. Even now he dwells somewhat apart perched 
 on his lonely eyrie far above the High : he has always 
 loved the top. 
 
 " Great is his tact : even the uncouth big game of 
 South Africa seemed not uneasy in his presence ; he has 
 scoured the veldt (pronounced velt) a better rider than 
 Bellerophon ; he has shown his prowess in the wilderness, 
 in the Ireland, on the tennis-court, and on the links ; he 
 has slept before now in a tiger-skin upon the ground. 
 
 " His ability as a speaker no one can doubt. 
 
 " ' Lucan's bold heights matched to staid Vergil's care, 
 Martial's quick salts joined to Musaeus' tongue.' 
 
 Such a man is surely not unfit to fill the presidential 
 chair ! 
 
 " Another family possession issues in his presidency of 
 the Church Union. He is not less a strong Churchman 
 because he has maintained that 
 
 " ' If a man's belief is bad 
 
 It will not be improved by burning.' 
 
 He is going to the Bar. His power of cross-examination, 
 if we may judge by his able handling of Oxford land- 
 ladies, will carry him far ; his geniality of character and 
 dignity of mind will carry him further still. 
 
 " We believe in him now, and shall continue to believe 
 in him when going down from Oxford he * snatches his 
 rudder and shakes out his sail ' upon a wider sea." 
 
 The Rev. N. Micklem (ex-President) says : " Bobby 
 spoke easily and well, but I think his success at the Union 
 was due rather to his ability and sincerity and moral weight 
 than to special brilliance of debate. He held advanced 
 views about Social Reform, and his ideals did not differ 
 from a Radical's ; but that which held him Conservative
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 67 
 
 follow, not lead ; he was very strong upon that. I once 
 sent him a book upon Syndicalism by a Frenchman ; he 
 returned it with the remark that the politicians make an 
 even greater mistake than the theologians when they 
 forget original sin. His heart was in polities ; he had 
 such dignity of mind and delicacy of character, warmth of 
 social enthusiasm as weD as such intellectual strength, is 
 it to be wondered at if his friends looked to him to be a 
 leader of the nation in days to come? 9 * 
 
 Of his twofold Presidency, the Her. Ronald A. Knox, 
 one of his most intimate friends, gives certain recollections 
 in the following character-sketch: 
 
 BOBBY PALMER AT OXFORD 
 
 " Bobby Palmer was not one who could be summed up 
 in a phrase or an epigram. It is difficult to use phrases 
 in the description of him which do not do him injustice 
 by making him seem merely compact of solid virtues; 
 few people had less of ' redeeming vices,' and you have to 
 have the whole person before your mind if yon are to put 
 any life into the portrait. Ton have to know the ready 
 laugh, half hysterical, half scandalized ; the buoyancy of 
 manner which had escaped as if bv a miracle from lining 
 bounce ; something of a family drawl ; the extraordinary 
 aiiMXiiLy , and consequent impressiveness, of his manner 
 even when he only rose for a moment or two for an 
 impromptu speech ; above all, tike freshness and youth- 
 fulness with which, nikil puerile garau m opere, he threw 
 charm into the dullest of IM occupations. 
 
 "For nobody could have a larger share of the con- 
 scientiousness we are accustomed to associate, in most 
 people, with merit rather than attractiveness, plodding 
 rather than brilliancy. He won all the academic laurels 
 appropriate to a scholar, he was an exemplary President 
 of the Union, he was in the forefront of religious Oxford,
 
 68 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 yet he had no * Open Sesame ' to these distinctions ; he 
 trod the common road, yet passed nowhere (could not 
 have passed anywhere) for a mediocrity. If you associate 
 the dead heroes of that time with particular spots in 
 Oxford and particular attitudes, you will think of Bobby 
 half-way up the High, half on and half off his bicycle, 
 pausing to buttonhole you on business on his way to the 
 Grid, the Union, or the Station. It was against the 
 conventions, for a Univ. man (at least of that period) 
 should walk up the High very slowly, with an air of having 
 all the weight of the universe on his shoulders. Altogether, 
 Bobby might have seemed in the wrong place at Univ. 
 To be much outside your own College and the circle it 
 recognized, to indulge in the activities of politics, still more 
 to find in the sacred deposit of religion you brought with 
 you from school matter for exterior comment, let alone 
 propaganda or controversy, was foreign to the spirit of 
 the institute. He did all these things unashamed and 
 unrebuked, and it was part of his personality that Univ. 
 never managed to disapprove. 
 
 44 The Union by which I mean the cursus honorum 
 at the Union is in some ways less a test of brilliancy or 
 rhetoric than of social gifts. The secret of success is a 
 personality that can become a living personality, instead 
 of a mere lifeless reputation, in the critical eyes of a host of 
 undergraduates who know you, if at all, very slightly. A 
 pose will do as well as your own nature, but the public 
 must have something to take hold of. Bobby's success 
 here, then, was not merely the success of the scholar or the 
 rhetorician. Apart from his virtues and his accomplish- 
 ments, you might almost say in spite of them, he was a 
 figure ; and I suppose few people have had an easier 
 career through the roll of offices. As an orator, he had 
 faults ; he gasped rather between his clauses, as if in cold 
 water, and he had a clutching gesture of the arms which 
 spoke of the same nervousness. But the nervousness did
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 69 
 
 not affect the manner or the wording of the speech, with 
 which the rhetorician could not have found fault ; more- 
 over, the rhetorician could neither have criticized nor have 
 taught that gift of contagious conviction the speech 
 carried with it ; no one could have supposed that he was 
 speaking for effect, or maintaining a thesis. Yet those 
 who remember Bobby at the Union will not picture to 
 themselves the orator, but the President. For he held the 
 balance in an unusual way between the sense of dignity 
 and the sense of humour which are equally necessary to the 
 President, especially in the times of 'private business.' 
 You did not doubt the barrister in him, but there was 
 almost surer presage of the judge. 
 
 " He was a godsend to the Oxford University Church 
 Union when he consented to be its President. He was 
 committed to no party, at a time when all the other 
 candidates that seemed possible were avowedly party men. 
 He was not marked out, as most of them were, for the 
 ministry, and there was no professionalism or pietism 
 about his religion. His own tastes definitely set in the 
 Tractarian direction, and he often attended the Cowley 
 Fathers' church, but you could not pin him down or label 
 him. By hereditary temperament, he had no fondness 
 for the mere political manifestations of Nonconformity ; 
 yet some of his best friends belonged to the school which 
 urged rapprochement (not necessarily involving com- 
 municatio in sacris) with the Student Christian Movement 
 and similar bodies, and he would have been a bigot indeed 
 who should have quarrelled with his conduct of the 
 Presidency. About the externals of religion he had a 
 saving sense of humour, not confusing a judicious levity 
 in such matters with flippancy. The splendid thing about 
 his humour was that it never for a moment concealed how 
 frightfully in earnest he was about anything he was doing. 
 No one could doubt that his religion was a real and 
 personal one, not the relics of a public-school education,
 
 7 o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 nor a family prejudice, nor a subordinate department 
 of his political interests, but the real centre of his 
 being. 
 
 " He did not, however, move exclusively in the circles 
 of the 'unco guid.' He mixed freely with men of a 
 different moral tone without any lowering of standard. 
 He recoiled from evil, even in conversation, naturally and 
 without the inurbanity of the prig. In one of his letters 
 from India in 1915, he describes how, on the eve of his 
 sailing with a draft of men for the Persian Gulf, some of 
 his fellow-officers conspired to make him drunk ; he adds 
 that * In the same bet which they hid privily was their 
 foot taken.' It is a singularly easy scene to picture for 
 anyone who knew him : he was just the kind of person 
 they would try to make drunk, blameless enough to make 
 the experiment exciting, yet good-natured enough to 
 bear no malice and to make no scenes, had they 
 succeeded. 
 
 " If there is one disadvantage social rather than 
 moral about the blameless ones and the energetic ones 
 of the world, it is that they are apt to lose the power of 
 unbending, lack humanity and the gift of languor. Of 
 Bobby, such a criticism would have been extraordinarily 
 untrue : with all his sincerity of conviction, he was per- 
 fectly at home in the rather dilettante atmosphere of 
 the Canning, with its mulled claret, its churchwarden 
 pipes, its weakness for epigram. With all his purposeful 
 activity he was an ideal companion for a holiday, whether 
 you were lounging in a punt for a day or bathing, or on 
 some reposeful reading-party on the beaches at Caldey. 
 It is sometimes recorded to a man's credit that ' he liked 
 his joke ' ; how far greater a title it is to admiration, 
 that he should like other people's ! And whoever enjoyed 
 a friend's joke better than Bobby, took it up better and 
 developed it and kept it rolling? With all his other 
 qualities, he was a companion for a desert island.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 71 
 
 " So far as character can be judged from letters, it 
 seems clear that the youthfulness which accompanies 
 innocence, and the gaiety which springs from youthfulness, 
 remained with him as much among the fatigues of the 
 camp as among the sobrieties of the Law. Animce, quales 
 neque candidiores. If the word had not changed its 
 meaning through its adoption into English, candour 
 would be the dominant quality you would seize on in his 
 character something blended of innocence, of straight- 
 forwardness, and of serenity. I have heard people 
 complain of him at Oxford as too immature, and others 
 complained of him as too serious ; they had both failed 
 to grasp the composite. It was a quality that would have 
 graced old age, yet is equally a fitting aureole for his early 
 death." 
 
 The year 1910 was one of fever strain throughout 
 Great Britain, on account of General Elections in January 
 and December, of passionate party strife, and of the 
 death of King Edward in the midst of his desperate 
 attempts to make peace between the two Houses of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Oxford sent strong contingents from her Union and 
 political clubs to take part in the January election. Of 
 these, Wolmer stood as Unionist candidate for Newton- 
 le-Willows, where he suffered defeat at the first election, 
 to experience a triumphal reversal of the judgment by 
 the constituency eleven months later. 
 
 Bobby was unfortunately debarred from canvassing 
 at Newton by fear of the inevitable confusion which his 
 likeness to his brother might occasion. He therefore 
 threw himself into the contest at Bradford, where 
 his brother-in-law stood as the unsuccessful Unionist 
 candidate.
 
 72 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " OXFORD, 
 January 21, 1910. 
 
 "It is too sad about Newton. 1 Charlie's 2 defeat, 
 though not unexpected, was far more severe than anyone 
 on our side, or most on theirs, imagined. I fear the mass 
 voted on Free Trade, and apparently a good many people 
 woke up for the first time to the fact that this was an 
 issue. Bob's 3 heavy defeat at Blackburn is another 
 family and party blow. Of course Tariff Reformers say 
 that it was because he had no alternative to the Budget. 
 I am afraid that Top must be cruelly disappointed ; he 
 was doing so well until the moment for decision came. I 
 came up here to Oxford on Tuesday feeling very tired 
 and don't know how I shall begin to tackle my heavy 
 arrears of work." 
 
 On 19th February he wrote again to her, saying : 
 " If there is another election before Greats, I shall have 
 to retire abroad for it. I have skimmed through a little 
 Kant : he strikes me as by far the most interesting of 
 the metaphysicians I have yet struck, though his phrase- 
 ology is tiresome, and one is tempted to think it leads him 
 to gloss over confusions of thought. I sympathize with 
 him ; for I fear my mind is not sufficiently alert to make 
 sustained metaphysical argument natural, and I suffer 
 from an almost irresistible temptation to leave his meaning 
 (when I read) or my own (when I write) only half thought 
 out. My tutor quite rightly insists on the necessity of 
 being quite sure of one's thoughts : he stoutly maintains 
 that metaphysics teaches one to think clearly, though its 
 aim is necessarily unattainable. I think this may be 
 true, but it will require a lot of hard work to keep one's 
 
 1 Wolmer was defeated by 752 votes out of a total of 13,760 on 2oth 
 January 1910. 
 
 1 Viscount Howick. His uncle, Lord Robert Cecil.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 73 
 
 mind at it ; and for that, Oxford with its perpetual 
 interruptions is extremely unsuited." 
 
 "STANZAS WRITTEN ON SEEING THE SUNRISE AFTER 
 READING KANT ON THE ' COSMOLOGICAL ANTINOMY ' 
 
 THESIS : It's not the East that makes the sunrise 
 
 It's merely in the East, the sun. 
 
 ANTITHESIS : It is the yeast that makes the bun rise 
 
 And yet the yeast is in the bun. 
 
 ANTINOMY stated : Thus here each proposition 
 To each is contradictory. 
 
 PROBLEM : Which then is mere phenomenon 
 
 And which of them the thing per se ? 
 
 METHODOLOGY : The answer is not far to seek 
 
 And quickly will to those appear 
 Who find in Reason's Pure Kritik 
 The Cos mo logical Idea. 
 
 SYNTHESIS : For thus a true existence each 
 
 May dialectically reach : 
 For there is S ence in the Sun 
 And there is B ing in the Bun. 
 
 R. S. A. P." 
 
 It was not only parliamentary elections that interrupted 
 the tranquil course of Bobby's reading. His unselfish 
 nature had a magnetic attraction for other people's 
 troubles, and their anxieties of every kind were piled upon 
 his shoulders. All through his Oxford years he sacrificed 
 much of his precious time to bearing burdens for his 
 friends. " It didn't matter what was on one's mind," 
 said his aunt, Lady Gwendolen Cecil, " if Bobby appeared, 
 one simply had to tell him all about it. He always 
 understood ; he was always delightful in his interest and 
 in the quiet humour with which he listened and led one 
 on, till every * blue ' had vanished from one's mind." 
 
 The Easter vacation of 1910 was spent in the retire- 
 ment of a reading-party. " A holiday spent with Bobby 
 on the northern edge of Dartmoor remains a permanent 
 possession, a luscious medley of mountains and cliffs, 
 books and affairs, moor and sea, fun and frivolity, theology
 
 74 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 and religion. Ah 1 It was one of the big things of life ! " 
 was the description of Mr. E. Priestley Swain, one of the 
 party. The presiding don was the Rev. Neville Talbot, 1 
 who was much impressed by Bobby's regularity and 
 thoroughness of work, and by his horror at the iniquity 
 of skipping in reading a book. " There was none like 
 him among his contemporaries for such massive disciplined 
 ability and character," he said. 
 
 To Bobby, poet and bird-lover, Dartmoor was en- 
 chanted ground. In " the spacious emptiness of its huge 
 rolling downs, grey green with a shimmer of yellow, 
 towering a thousand feet above sea-level perpetually 
 buffetted with wild winds, he saw an unlike reminder of 
 the high veld, the Devonshire tors being curious brothers 
 of the African Kopje tops." He spent " interminable 
 hours " wandering over the springy turf and lonely patches 
 of the moor in friendly pursuit of the birds and their 
 nests, in delightful contemplation of the dippers and 
 yellow wagtails. The exhilarating air, peat fires, Devon- 
 shire cream, and jolly companions were all delicious. 
 He wrote to South Africa of all these delights, explaining 
 what a charming set of companions surrounded him. 
 " All Socialists, except me, and they require the dis- 
 establishment of the Church as the only way of getting 
 rid of musical matins. Talbot is a great addition, though 
 he seriously diminishes the possibilities of work, both 
 because the atmosphere working on his naturally 
 Samsonian heartiness in a cottage of small rooms and 
 rickety furniture produces a state of perpetual earth- 
 quake, only comparable to Olympus when Zeus was at 
 the nodding or laughing biz ; and also because he treats 
 us daily to full Matins and Evensong ! " 
 
 Bobby had the unspeakable relief of posting his last 
 letter to Pretoria at the beginning of Easter term. 
 
 " So it's over and good-bye to South Africa," he wrote 
 1 Now Bishop of Pretoria.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 75 
 
 to his father. " I can't say how glad I am to think of 
 your being home again ; but it was worth it, though five 
 years is such a long time to be away. I feel oh 1 so thankful 
 you've been allowed to do such a thoroughly good piece 
 of work. May it continue to go well when you have left." 
 
 To his mother he wrote : " It has seemed so long, this 
 five years, though four breaks have made a tremendous 
 difference. But now it will soon be all over, thank God, 
 and perhaps you need never go away again, or if you do 
 I may be able to come too." 
 
 In the general overflowing happiness of 4th June, the 
 blessed day when the family were once more reunited in 
 England, no one showed more plainly than Bobby what 
 sufferings of hunger he had endured from the long separa- 
 tion. His face shone with joy as he lay on the grass at 
 his mother's feet like a knight adoring his restored lady. 
 Nothing mattered now : neither the strain of other 
 people's burdens with which, at this time, he was over- 
 laden ; nor " the care of all the Churches," as he termed 
 his University Church Union Presidentship ; nor the 
 anxiety about his reading for Greats. His sympathetic 
 companion and counsellor was once again within reach ; 
 he immediately secured a promise from her to accompany 
 him, as soon as term ended, on a reading-party to Falmouth. 
 They went there in August ; and, from Falmouth, Bobby 
 passed on to the quiet retreat of Caldey Abbey, where he 
 concentrated successfully upon his arrears of work. 
 
 He wrote from the Abbey Guest House, Isle of Caldey, 
 South Wales, on 13th September. "There is no doubt 
 my mind acts like negative electricity and is repelled by 
 what is nearest it, especially by extremes. However, I 
 am prepared to enter into the spirit of the place for the 
 time : ' When you're in Caldey, do as the Romans do,' 
 and so I go to daily Mass and Vespers or Compline which 
 slightly curtails working hours. 
 
 " I don't think one ought to go so far as this without
 
 7 6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 leaving the English Church or trying to convert it. They 
 profess to the latter, but, in fact, they retire here and 
 hope to escape notice by their insular and extra-diocesan 
 position. They are spiritual insurgents, and I don't see 
 how their attitude can be justified. 1 . . . 
 
 " September 16. I am enjoying life here very much : 
 it is like a cross between Church and a Gilbert and Sullivan 
 opera. The meals are extraordinarily comic. There is 
 a rule of silence at breakfast, the fare is exceedingly plain 
 and fasts crop up unexpectedly, and it is very funny to 
 see the hearty undergraduate's face fall when he comes 
 in after bathing, all unwitting that it is the Eve of Holy 
 Cross, and is confronted with two sardines and a biscuit 
 for his lunch. Finally, the telephone is in the dining- 
 room, and it starts ringing violently, but nobody stirs ; 
 then a very secular British man-servant enters and 
 conducts a telephone conversation, which is always comic 
 and gains enormously in effect when there are twelve 
 breakfasters listening in solemn silence. We have played 
 bridge every evening as I had prudently brought some 
 cards. The surroundings give an extra relish to the 
 game ; one feels rather wicked playing cards for love on 
 a week-day. Last night we got a priest to play as a kind 
 of sanction. . . . 
 
 "September 23. Time flies here very quickly. I 
 have enjoyed my stay here muchly. There is a peace- 
 fulness about its island seclusion which resembles a sea 
 voyage and one's fellow-passengers all congenial. And 
 the greater number of one's wants vanish when the means 
 of satisfying are removed : games, sport, newspapers, 
 wine, good cooking, valets, hot water all these things 
 are out of mind when out of sight ; and I can't think why 
 we insist on burdening ourselves with them." 
 
 1 Caldey Abbey was occupied by a Benedictine Community, then in 
 the communion of the Church of England. They seceded to the Church 
 of Rome in 1913.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 77 
 
 Michaelmas Term found Bobby established in rooms 
 in 8 Long Wall, looking on the old city walls. He had for 
 fellow-lodgers a friendly company of raggers and readers. 
 They felt that Bobby and his friend, Mr. Micklem (who 
 was also lodging there), had imported an " embarrassingly 
 high standard for them to live up to," but they liked 
 and honoured them both, laughed at their sparring 
 matches on theological, political and social questions, 
 and reverenced Bobby for his passionate sincerity and 
 singleness of heart, for the power exhibited in him of a 
 strong personal religion, the vision which it had brought 
 to him, and the incentive which it gave him of quiet 
 determination to make that vision a reality. They 
 nicknamed him " the future Prime Minister." Some- 
 times he delivered his soul in an oracular address, some- 
 times he introduced some serious subject for discussion 
 in which the raggers were not interested : " Don't talk 
 like that, Bobby ! " was their encouraging reception of 
 the theme. " Keep that till you are Prime Minister ! " 
 He took the rebuff with smiling serenity. 
 
 It is easy to understand how some of his idiosyncrasies 
 must have amused the ragger-mind. His elaborate 
 labour-tables for each day's work ; his peculiar attitudes 
 for reading with mountains of cushions piled around him ; 
 the clockwork regularity of his sallies forth to the golf 
 course and of his game of chess before going to bed, part 
 of a carefully-planned routine to assist brain-work ; 
 his penchant for a steaming hot bath to promote the 
 circulation of his thoughts (he used to say that he did all 
 his best thinking there) ; his stout championship of the 
 morality of a hot-water bottle to assist sleep ; his belief 
 that, from the moment of leaving his bed till his return 
 to it, nothing rested his brain except music and having 
 his hair cut these and other quaint peculiarities afforded 
 mirth, but the merry-makers found them qualities, 
 winning rather than repellent, in Bobby.
 
 78 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 There is no doubt that, at this date he attracted to 
 himself friends of very different temperament and outlook, 
 and he had begun to show a power (all the greater because 
 it was unobtrusive) of keeping other men straight and of 
 communicating to them a strength which they lacked, 
 the sources of which were hidden in religious devotion. 
 He affected and influenced others, not by being like 
 them in their weaknesses, but by being obviously 
 better. 
 
 Dr. Herbert Fisher l said of him : " Bobby was gold 
 all through, for head and heart one in a million. Of all 
 the undergraduates I have known at Oxford during my 
 twenty years of work there, he struck me as most certain 
 by reason of his breadth and sobriety of judgment, 
 intellectual force and sweetness of disposition, to exercise 
 a commanding influence for good in the public affairs of 
 the country. Everyone admired and liked him, and I 
 know that his influence among his contemporaries was 
 quite exceptional from the first. He always seemed to 
 find it easy to do the right thing in the happiest way, 
 so that everyone instinctively trusted him and would 
 follow him." 
 
 Of his followers, Luly rejoiced in counting himself one 
 of the most devoted, while Bobby gladly availed himself 
 of every opportunity for giving his younger brother help, 
 advice, encouragement. " Let me know the dates of 
 leave-out days and whether you want any Englishes," 
 he wrote in the middle of his strain of reading. And : 
 " How fared your maiden speech ? I always think 
 Debating Society an extremely difficult audience to ad- 
 dress." And : " I am sorry you're having such a thin 
 time of it just now. Don't let these worries interfere 
 with your work if you can help it. I am awfully keen 
 you should ' raise books ' 2 and vindicate the family 
 
 1 Now Minister of Education. 
 * Notion for Get a Class Prize.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 79 
 
 honour, because neither Top nor I ever did : and it would 
 never do for you to lose ground in exaniinas." 
 
 On 9th December Bobby wrote to Luly a paean on 
 Wolmer's triumph at the General Election : " Isn't 
 Newton splendid ? I am frightfully bucked at Top's 
 getting in, and I think it is quite one of the finest wins 
 of the election." 
 
 The prudence of Bobby's abstinence from taking part 
 in the Newton canvassing was speedily justified ; for 
 unfortunately the Tweedledum and Tweedledee mystifica- 
 tion played occasional tricks on sensitive constituents 
 who complained to their embarrassed Member of his 
 having cut them dead in the streets of London. 
 
 In April 1911, Bobby, Luly and their mother were 
 passengers on the Dunottar Castle for a cruise in the 
 Mediterranean to Syracuse, Greece, the JSgean Islands, 
 Rhodes and Crete. The voyage afforded Bobby a delight- 
 ful interlude of classic scenes and ruins in the place of 
 classic books and lecture rooms. Mrs. Earl, the mother 
 of one of his undergraduate friends and a fellow-passenger, 
 in the following word-picture, has sketched him in the 
 radiance of Delos : 
 
 " 1 always remember your nephew's enjoyment of a 
 wonderful morning at Delos : such a glory of colour 
 as I have never seen elsewhere. The white marbles 
 cropped up against the blue sky, above and beyond, 
 from amidst a crowd of flowers : anchusa, a deeper blue 
 than even the sky, and 4 poppies, red to blackness,' 
 crimson, not scarlet, all tangled together by wreaths of 
 purple vetch, while in front and around the shore, the 
 sea girdled all with a darker but more shining blue than 
 that of sky and flowers. He spoke of it afterwards 
 and of how unforgettable it would be all through life. 
 And it has grown to be part of my memory of him a 
 worthy setting for such a beautiful and heroic figure."
 
 8o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 When Bobby returned to Oxford, after the three 
 weeks spent with Luly and his mother in Fairyland, he 
 wrote to her : 
 
 " I find it rather hard to settle down to work again . 
 Everything here has shrunk so. I spent this afternoon 
 in Bagley Wood. In its way it can't be beaten even by 
 Delos and Crete. Parts of it are carpeted with primroses, 
 but more of it with bluebells as thick as the poppies of 
 Delos and stretching for acres and acres. It is a very big 
 wood, bigger than Milwards Park ; 1 and the absence 
 of rhododendrons gives long vistas. Other parts are 
 absolutely white with wood-anemones and occasionally 
 these mix with the bluebells with lovely effect. The 
 absence of red and bright yellow makes it less gorgeous 
 (and the sun was sadly deficient) than Delos and Crete, 
 but the greens are far more delicate and varied, and 
 their presence as a canopy puts a glamour on to the effect 
 which no mere open landscape can have." 
 
 Just before the examination began, two of Bobby's 
 friends and fellow-victims fell seriously ill, and all his 
 thoughts were diverted from anxiety as to the probable 
 issue of the coming ordeal to solicitude for them. He 
 carried off one of the invalids, Mr. Austin Earl, to Black- 
 moor to recuperate, and watched over him with the 
 tenderness of a brother. Thence they returned to enter 
 the Examination Schools, where they both won the 
 highest honours. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " 8 LONG WALL, OXFORD, 
 
 June 14, 1911. 
 
 " Greats is over, and on the whole I am very pleased 
 with the course it has taken. I don't think I have done 
 any bad papers, and one or two I think I did better than 
 
 A wood at Hatfield.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 81 
 
 I could have expected. I kept pretty fresh all through, 
 full of beans, in fact, till yesterday, when the Moral 
 Philosophy paper left me rather tired and I was perhaps 
 a trifle stale this morning ; but I wound up with an 
 unexpectedly successful Greek Prose and feel quite fit 
 now. I think this is due to my much chaffed methodical- 
 ness. Since I came back from Greece, I have hardly 
 ever worked seven hours a day, and I never worked later 
 than 10.30 p.m. Consequently my friends, who left too 
 much to the last minute and sat up till one or two at 
 nights, got much staler, and one can't philosophize when 
 stale." 
 
 
 On 9th August (the eve of the climax of the fight 
 
 over the Veto in the House of Lords) the Class List of the 
 Final Honours School of Litterce Humaniores appeared in 
 the Times, showing Bobby's and Mr. Earl's names among 
 the First Class men. Another stage in life's journey was 
 successfully passed, and Bobby paused for a space before 
 entering on the next. He wished to gain a certain 
 assurance as to his vocation whether it called him to 
 Ordination or to the Bar and a political career. Politics, 
 with their tangled ethics, perplexed him. 
 
 " It afflicts me rather that nearly all the nice people 
 I know at Oxford are Liberals," he said. " The Tories 
 are mostly selfish and insincere jingoes ; the people 
 who really care for ' the poor and needy ' are almost 
 all Liberals. It is hard to resist the conclusion that 
 there is less attraction to good minds in Unionism than 
 in Liberalism. I don't at all want to become a Liberal, 
 and this fact seems to me to make it more important 
 not to ; but the process of preaching my views to the 
 young Tories (if it ever extends beyond the Canning) 
 will, I fear, be thankless." 
 
 His anti-Liberal attitude was strengthened by his 
 conviction that the British Empire had reached its apex
 
 82 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 at the time of the second Jubilee, fourteen years pre- 
 viously ; and " that the descent lies before us. Under 
 these circumstances, I conceive that the one foremost 
 duty of the statesman is to delay the descent, grip the 
 wheels, descend as slowly as we can. A rapid descent 
 would send all to the devil." 
 
 Thus Bobby pondered, thankful that no immediate 
 solution of the problems before him was demanded of 
 him by either the Time-Sphinx or by his conscience. His 
 next duty was to take part in an examination for an 
 All Souls' Fellowship. This he did creditably, as he was 
 classed among six (out of forty) competitors who were 
 judged to be fully up to the required standard ; but he 
 was not the fortunate winner of the prize. 
 
 In consequence, he found himself free to gratify a 
 long-cherished desire to visit India, a visit which was 
 made easy to him by the generosity of his godfather, 
 Lord Northcote, and of his cousin, Mr. Ralph Palmer. 
 He left England in the middle of November and landed 
 at Bombay, with a great crowd of Durbar tourists, on 
 28th November 1911.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 INDIA, 1911-1912 
 
 THE Indian tour occupied five months and covered great 
 distances. It included the splendid spectacle of the 
 Royal Durbar and missionary journeys among obscure 
 villages and outcastes in distant parts of the diocese of 
 Bombay. It led its pilgrim to Rajputana, Goa, and other 
 ruined cities, to the dream-glories of ancient mosques, 
 tombs, and temples, and plunged him into the noisy 
 crowd and bustle of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta. 
 It conducted him through the perils of the Khyber Pass 
 and showed him the enchanting beauties of Darjeeling 
 and Kashmir. All the time the pilgrim was observing 
 with shrewd eyes, keen sympathy and eager interest, and 
 recording his impressions in the diaries and letters which he 
 afterwards published in his book, A Little Tour in India. 1 
 Those who care to read his commentary on what 
 Christianity is doing for India, his evidence on the 
 splendid work of the Indian Civil Service, the problems 
 of administration and Indian self-government, his glowing 
 descriptions of architecture and landscape, and the humour 
 of his narrations of adventures and anecdotes are referred 
 to the book, where, to quote his own words : 
 " Some gleam of India you may find 
 In these rough pages, like the gleam 
 Of moonlight on a mountain stream, 
 The ripples of a restless mind." 
 
 1 A Little Tour in India. Publisher, E. Arnold, 1913. By the kind 
 permission of the proprietor and publisher several quotations from this 
 book are given in this chapter. 
 
 83
 
 84 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 The Durbar at Delhi represented the first landmark of 
 Bobby's journey. The dust, tumult and cost of the 
 preparations aroused sharp aversion in his mind : " They 
 make me think of the famine districts in the same de- 
 pressing way that a London ballroom sometimes makes 
 one think of the slums," he wrote. Eventually his 
 opposition was disarmed by the beauty of the spectacle, 
 " the most extraordinary phantasy of splendour that has 
 ever been seen," and by its potentiality as " a political 
 education in imagination." 
 
 From the flashing splendour of the Present, Bobby 
 passed to the majesty of the Past, shining dimly above 
 mouldering cities and forts, temples and tombs. Certain 
 among these made a deep impression on him. 
 
 Agra he visited several times, drawn there by the 
 magnets of friendship and beauty. He used to stay at 
 St. John's College where he made friends with all the 
 staff, especially with the brilliant Philosophy Professor, 
 Mr. Raju, a high-born Indian Christian, whose influence 
 over the students and whose forcible " slashing at 
 Hinduism to Hindus, in a way which no white man could 
 venture upon, and which brought them in flocks to hear 
 him," impressed Bobby deeply. The Rev. Garfield 
 Williams recollects a visit which he made with Bobby 
 and Mr. Raju to the Taj Mahal shining in its incom- 
 parable beauty in the moonlight, when (in Bobby's 
 words) " the snowy glister of the marble, the stillness and 
 the shadows on the vaulting seemed the very symbols of 
 mystery and peace." 
 
 " We talked of many things. Robert Palmer could 
 be interesting and enlightening on so many subjects. He 
 talked of politics, of personalities then engaged in politics, 
 and of his own hopes for the future of English political 
 life ; and the impression which both of us, who listened, 
 got was that we were talking to one who was himself
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 85 
 
 likely to become a great political leader in the future. 
 He seemed to possess such clearness of vision and such 
 high ideals of political responsibility. Our talk drifted 
 on to the subject of the unity of the Church. He spoke as 
 a convinced Anglo-Catholic. He seemed to us to have a 
 spirit which, if it had been the possession of most of our 
 Church leaders, would have solved the problems of our 
 unhappy divisions long ago. He talked about the future 
 of Indian Christianity, and about the future in particular 
 of Mr. Raju, who was with us. Most men of his gifts are 
 more interested in causes than in personalities. It was 
 not so with Robert Palmer, and I remember how anxious 
 he seemed to be that the Church should make the most 
 of Mr. Raju's brilliant personality." 
 
 Old Goa, shuddering beneath the double menace of 
 destruction by the jungle and by the animosity of the 
 Portuguese Republic, made a tragic impression on Bobby. 
 He wrote : " The situation of old Goa is lovely, on a rise 
 in a palm forest overlooking a silvery creek which winds 
 back towards the distant grey-blue ghats. The place is 
 dead, silent and deserted ; the forest has closed in all 
 around it and the jungle has swallowed everything but 
 the churches. These have remained splendid and rich ; 
 and the pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier is 
 made by Indians of all religions. Now the final blow has 
 fallen : the Republicans have confiscated the churches 
 and all Church property. The decree doing so has for 
 the moment been suspended, so there may be a chance 
 yet. Otherwise, the churches must go to ruin. As a 
 crowning piece of villainy, the whole of the pilgrims' 
 offerings made at the great exposition of St. Francis's 
 body in 1910, and amounting to Rs. 30,000, has been 
 confiscated and pocketed by the new Governor ! 
 
 " These expositions take place at stated intervals of 
 years when the body of St. Francis Xavier is exposed 
 in its glass coffin in the Cathedral of Goa. The body is
 
 86 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 slightly withdrawn from the coffin to allow the pious 
 pilgrims to kiss the departed Saint's toe. One Indian 
 lady, in excessive desire to possess herself of a relic, 
 attempted to bite the toe off, but only succeeded in 
 securing the fleshy part, leaving the bone exposed. How- 
 ever, her action was immediately noticed by the priests, 
 and she was compelled to disgorge the canonized digit. 
 
 " There was no sign of life in Old Goa except the 
 chanting of the Mass in the Cathedral the one church 
 still used. Beyond the canons, there is no population 
 whatever. One of them showed us the Bom Jesus Church 
 and St. Francis's tomb. There are three other huge 
 sixteenth and seventeenth century churches, with 
 magnificently garish reredoses of gold, a most wonderful 
 sight in the setting visible and remembered." 
 
 An incident of Bobby's journey from Goa to the 
 ruins of Vijayanagar was commemorated by him in 
 the following doggerel : 
 
 " I did not take a motor-car 
 To visit Vijayanagar, 
 In fact it simply isn't done 
 Round there besides, I hadn't one. 
 I therefore hired a native-cart 
 A vehicle to which a start 
 Of seven furlongs in a mile 
 (To judge from my contraptious style) 
 Is one which any terrapin 
 Could easily concede and win. 
 A curious feature of these carts 
 Is the omission of those parts 
 Which usually are looked upon 
 As being sine quibus non. 
 They haven't seats, they haven't springs, 
 Or backs or lamps or all the things 
 Which every common cart provides 
 To stick about the horses' sides 
 And back and head, but there, of course, 
 They haven't even got a horse, 
 For local prejudice allows 
 No locomotive power but cows."
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 87 
 
 His description of lively Benares contrasts sharply 
 with that of dead Goa. He says : " This city is quite the 
 most picturesque I have seen. The reason of this lies in 
 the fact that the nearer you die to the banks (only the 
 west bank, if you die the other side you become a donkey) 
 of the Ganges, the better your chance of a ' rise ' in the 
 next life. Consequently the competition for sites near 
 the river is like that for City sites in London ; it has 
 forced the houses up to double their usual height, and has 
 squeezed the streets to half their normal breadth. The 
 result is a city of extremely narrow, irregular streets 
 between fine, tall, purely Oriental houses (a religious 
 centre instinctively avoids foreign adaptations) which 
 almost meet above, as in Old London. 
 
 " The City is about three miles long, built along the top 
 of the high river-bank, and from it, all along, a series of 
 terraces and steps (called ghats) lead down to the river. 
 Along the top of the bank are the temples, and flanking 
 the broad flights of steps are innumerable shrines and 
 other picturesque buildings. The most amusing temple 
 is Durga's, where there are scores of monkeys that will 
 come quite close if you call and feed them. 
 
 " The whole length swarms with humanity like a bee- 
 hive, and it was a fascinating sight as we rowed slowly along, 
 seeing the crowds walking, standing, sitting, bathing, boat- 
 ing, praying, juggling, dancing, buying, selling, eating, drink- 
 ing, burning corpses, all in a cinematographic profusion. 
 
 " Benares seems to me to be the best manifestation of 
 Hinduism I have seen. The pilgrims really meant 
 business ; there was genuine devotion about their ablu- 
 tions and processions and multitudinous observances. 
 It was all a jumble, but a reverent jumble. The very 
 smells had an odour of sanctity that made them fitting 
 and almost desirable." 
 
 It was not only the tame monkeys that delighted
 
 88 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Bobby the naturalist : wherever he went he saw the happy 
 results of the Indian reverence for the sanctity of life. 
 " This country is the paradise for animals," he wrote. 
 " Instead of flying at man's approach, they come towards 
 you in the most friendly way. In the Pushkar lake, fishes 
 crowd and jump for the food that people throw them. 
 The water-birds, bitterns, cormorants, and kingfishers were 
 equally tame, and an old crocodile swam lazily up to me to 
 see if I had any food for him. Everywhere it is the same, 
 especially with the birds, which are perfectly lovely. The 
 Hindu does not kill wantonly, but except for cows, 
 monkeys, peacocks and local sacred beasts, he will kill 
 under provocation. The Buddhist is much stricter, and 
 won't even kill snakes. But with the Jains (a sect of the 
 Hindus) it amounts to fanaticism. Not only won't they kill 
 even a flea (their holy men carry brushes to sweep insects 
 out of their path, lest they should tread on one), but they 
 make great efforts to keep things alive at all costs. They 
 put up beautifully carved feeding-places for birds, and 
 they build homes for diseased cattle, which are to our ideas 
 horribly cruel, for they keep animals there with broken 
 legs and festering sores. At Ahmedabad I met a string of 
 about fifty Jain women carrying canvas bags from which 
 water was trickling. On inquiry I found they were carry- 
 ing all the fish from a pond ten miles away, which had 
 dried up, to another pond where there was water." 
 
 Among the intensest feelings experienced by Bobby 
 from childish days were his delight in the inconceivable 
 beauty of mountains and his susceptibility to their solemn 
 influences. The vision of Kinchin janga (the highest peak 
 but one, Everest, of the Himalayan Range) left him amazed, 
 as an unreal and incredible dream. 
 
 " Suddenly one realizes that there is this vast snowy 
 pile right away above, beginning at three miles high, i.e. 
 about where Mont Blanc leaves off, and rising another two
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 89 
 
 miles into the clear blue air, seemingly afloat high upon 
 the haze. As I reached the summit of Tiger Hill, Dar- 
 jeeling, the top of the mist in the east and west began to 
 take on lovely colours of pink and blue in layers like a 
 rainbow. Above towered the eye-compelling Kinchin- 
 janga, and the tops of the rest of the range just showed 
 in a long, serrated line. Then a brilliant golden light 
 caught the top of Kinchinjanga, as if a kind of liquid fire 
 ran down it till the whole of its snows glowed with a cold, 
 yellow glitter that drove the mist down, so that quite half 
 the mountain showed every line and ridge as clear as 
 possible." 
 
 The romance of the tour culminated in an expedition 
 up the Khyber Pass, where, by exceptional favour of 
 Sir G. Ross-Keppel, Bobby was permitted to penetrate 
 as far as to Landi Kotal Fort. From thence he rode to 
 the neighbouring hill to see the view. 
 
 " When we reached the top, all of a sudden was dis- 
 closed a tremendous view ; the dramatic surprise of it 
 quite took away my breath, and reminded me of the Third 
 Temptation. On the side we came up the hill was about 
 eight hundred feet high, but on the other it went down 
 about two thousand five hundred feet, and from its foot 
 stretched, it seemed, the whole of Afghanistan, line upon 
 line of low rugged hills and broken plains through which 
 the Kabul River wound hills of every size and shape, 
 great snow mountains massed on the right, the reverse 
 slope of the Khyber hills on the left, and in the dimmest 
 dim distance a long line of snow mountains, half-hidden 
 by luminous white clouds. I judged they must be fully 
 fifty miles away. The place I was on is appropriately 
 called Pisgah." 
 
 Bobby spent his last two weeks in India on a house- 
 boat at Srinagar, in Kashmir : a fairy town, built like 
 Venice on a network of streams and canals, its houses all 
 constructed of weather-stained wood, roofed with emerald
 
 90 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 turf, studded with clumps of white and purple iris and 
 crimson tulips. A foam of pink and white fruit blossom, 
 almond, cherry, peach, apricot, floated across the fore- 
 ground ; and round about the town, the snow mountains 
 mounted guard " like a chorus of white angels." 
 
 In this paradisiacal retreat he kept Holy Week in 
 prayer and a searching examination of the problem of 
 existence under the heads of The Moral Argument for 
 God ; The Bond between God and Man ; The Implications 
 of the Incarnation ; and, Dogma. At the beginning of the 
 manuscript book, in which he recorded his arguments, he 
 wrote : " Those who can be content to face life without 
 tackling the above problem have no pressing motive for 
 this inquiry. They run the risk, however, of having their 
 deepest convictions unexpectedly shaken or overthrown 
 later on. Their view of life cannot be fundamental, and 
 therefore it may fall like a house founded on sand." 
 
 None of his excursions awoke keener interest in Bobby's 
 sympathetic mind than those on which he accompanied 
 the Bishop of Bombay on his missionary tours. They 
 provided him with occasions (rarely granted to tourists) 
 of seeing real life under the ordinary conditions in which 
 vast millions of the peoples of India spend their existence. 
 They gave him opportunities of meeting men and women 
 outside the ken of political theorists on Indian problems, 
 but who, nevertheless, are forces as pioneers of Christian 
 civilization. 
 
 Besides graver interests, the missionary tours were 
 rich in mirthful experiences, such as those at Saigao (in 
 the Moghulai, where all the Mangs are Christians), thus 
 described by Bobby : 
 
 " We were received by a motley procession, and 
 marched in state to the church, led by a band of two 
 cornets (played by Mohammedans), a fife, and cymbals, 
 while in front of all was a Hindu, who let off cracker-bombs
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 91 
 
 in our honour all the way. (Who would receive a bishop 
 with Chinese crackers in England ? We have such poor 
 imaginations !) He fastened each cracker on to the end 
 of a long staff and then leaped into the air, using the staff 
 as a jumping-pole ; and as the point hit the ground it 
 exploded the cracker with a tremendous bang. I should 
 have liked to photograph it, but I was in the middle of the 
 procession myself. 
 
 "In the church Jim held a biggish Confirmation 
 thirty-four confirmed. The proceedings were enlivened 
 by a small boy of about five in the front row. The 
 innumerable babies always behave queerly, but this one 
 was distinctly original. He first escaped from his mother, 
 who was handicapped (1) by a smaller infant, (2) by being 
 a Confirmation candidate ; then advanced to the open 
 space in front of Jim's chair, where he proceeded to divest 
 himself of his only garment, a cotton coat. He then lay 
 on his back and slapped his stomach loudly for some 
 minutes, after which he solemnly dressed again, and 
 repeated the performance with variations (one very em- 
 barrassing) all through the service." 
 
 On another occasion during a Deccan trek, Bobby was 
 delighted to come across a familiar Squire-type at Miri : 
 
 " We went to tea yesterday with the son of the leading 
 landowner here. He croaked over the growth of luxury 
 among the kumbis in quite a homely way. In the good 
 old days they only wore a loin-cloth ; now the extravagant 
 young dogs nearly all wear a shirt. Also wages have 
 risen in the last fifteen years from two to three rupees 
 a month to six or eight." 
 
 These and sundry other impressions made on Bobby 
 during his travels are all recorded in his book. For the 
 impression made by him on those whom he met we may 
 look for information to his cousin, who was his constant 
 companion during many parts of his travels. 
 
 "Bobby had," said the Bishop of Bombay, "an
 
 92 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 almost endless interest in things and people, an equally 
 endless power of acquiring knowledge, and an unfailing 
 capacity for disposing it in his mind in an orderly manner 
 and holding it altogether in its true proportions. For 
 one of his age, his mind was remarkably penetrative. 
 More than one elderly man, whose working life had been 
 spent in India, remarked to me that it was extraordinary 
 how quickly and accurately Robert Palmer had * got the 
 hang ' of things. But though he was a born student, 
 he was not merely a student. When he had the fruits 
 of his observation arranged in their proper order and 
 proportion, he had the power of selecting those points 
 which were of essential significance or importance. It is 
 that power which makes the great man of affairs." 
 
 An instance of this sense of values may be quoted 
 here in his judgment on Nationalist demands that every 
 post should be thrown open to Indians. He said : " As 
 for this Nationalist demand, the two sides give flatly 
 contradictory evidence. Every English Civil Servant tells 
 you that whenever an Indian has been given the final 
 responsibility for any department, things have gone 
 hopelessly wrong, and that their Municipal Corporations, 
 etc., are as corrupt and incompetent as they can be. The 
 Indians tell one that they are never given the chance of a 
 free hand, and that English officials have an idie fixe 
 that they will fail, and so never let them try. In the few 
 cases, like the judicial service, where Indians rise to the 
 top, they are as competent as English ; and their corpora- 
 tions are no worse than English ones, and would be 
 better if they weren't official-ridden. My own impression 
 is that in point of fact the Anglo-Indians are right, but 
 that they don't try enough to teach Indians the right way 
 to regard public service. They give them their own 
 example, of course, but then every Indian regards every 
 Englishman as a confirmed madman, so that mere example 
 doesn't have its due effect. Also, the Anglo-Indians,
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 93 
 
 being thoroughly English, think that because Indians 
 are clever, therefore they are not able ; whereas many 
 of them are very able as well as clever ; what they haven't 
 got is moral courage and stamina and ' character ' in 
 that sense. But there are exceptions, and we ought to 
 be keenly on the look-out for them and snap them up 
 into our service. Nine times out of ten, the Anglo- 
 Indian is right, and so when the tenth and exceptional 
 man comes along, he refuses to judge him on his merits." 
 
 Those who know the absorbing interest felt by Bobby 
 in the religious problems of India may be interested to 
 know that the conclusion which he formed as to the 
 supreme need was the provision of a Native Ministry. 
 " Christianity can only be worked into the fibres of 
 Indian life by Indian minds. The fact is recognized, but 
 statesmanship must also face its implications." 
 
 He longed intensely to see the " Christianity of India 
 Catholic in the real sense of the word, i.e. freed from the 
 fetters of the controversies in which it has been entangled 
 in Europe for more than three centuries." " I believe," 
 he said, " that India will grasp the Catholic idea, for 
 India has an overmastering sense of fundamental unity."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 INTERIM, 1912-1914 
 
 IT was a very sunburnt, vigorous young man whom we 
 welcomed home in the middle of May 1912, full of the 
 zest of life, eager to serve, learn and experience. During 
 the two ensuing peaceful years his hours brimmed over 
 with manifold activities, which, like the colours of the 
 prism, were linked together in harmonious sequence. 
 Social service, friendships, professional work, intellectual 
 interests, and spiritual development all these found 
 their place in the orderly rhythm of his life. 
 
 I place social service first, because Bobby's personality 
 expressed itself spontaneously through that medium, 
 which flowed into many channels. India had spurred 
 him to an ardent missionary zeal, that found its vent 
 in very generous help to Bombay Diocese, in smoothing 
 the path for his friend, Professor Raju, to go into residence 
 at Oxford, and in admirable speeches at missionary 
 meetings in many parts of the country. It was not only 
 his intensely earnest words which made a deep impression 
 on his audiences, but also his modern unexpected points 
 of view and his effective answers to critics. 
 
 As an instance, I may mention that his reply to the 
 frequent assertion that Hinduism meets the Indian needs 
 better than Christianity showed in an arresting figure 
 how " Western civilization was crashing into Indian 
 civilization like an iceberg into a water-tight steamer, 
 smashing all its compartments, confusing all its systems 
 of caste in a welter of wreckage, and how the Christian
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 95 
 
 religion alone could save it from the most awful 
 ilftbfe." 
 
 His missionary zeal was as keenly alive to the need of 
 effective Christian influences in England as in heathen 
 lands. The Christian Social Union, the Students' Chris- 
 tian Movement, the Penal Reform Association, Oxford 
 House, Bethnal Green, and Edghill House, Sydenham, 
 were all causes very near his heart for which he was 
 always ready to speak or work. 
 
 For some years Bobby had looked forward to making 
 a prolonged sojourn in East London so soon as his Univer- 
 sity obligations came to an end. Accordingly, he spent 
 the spring of 1913 at Oxford House as a resident worker, 
 devoting himself to the work of the clubs, the Charity 
 Organization Society and the Poor Man's Lawyer Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 He wrote of his first observations there, as follows : 
 " I find the Club work x rather dull, though quite pleasant. 
 I doubt if it is quite in my line. The C.O.S. is thrilling 
 and heart-rending. One works very hard to do a tiny 
 piece of good, and so the result, if any, is very personal 
 and precious. I don't quite approve of all then* methods. 
 For their size they are nearly as red-taped as Government 
 offices. Most of the cases are of people predoomed to 
 failure by drink and slackness, or else cases of illness. 
 The machinery for finding work is hopelessly clumsy. 
 The Labour Exchanges are no earthly use for a man 
 seeking work on recovery from illness. The employers 
 don't use them. The only method, besides advertising, 
 is for the wretched man to go a weary round of shops and 
 works every day. It is the utter want of organization 
 and its consequent waste that makes Socialism attractive." 
 
 Bobby's mind was greatly perplexed in regard to the 
 responsibilities of employers, especially when incurred as 
 shareholders of companies or members of corporations. 
 
 1 The University Club for men.
 
 96 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " Our responsibility has its limits," he said, "for we cannot 
 undertake to find out how our railway stock affairs are 
 managed. But if we possess brewery, distillery or morally 
 questionable shares, if we get rid of them by selling them 
 we shift our responsibility on to other shoulders, and if 
 we burn them we increase the value of the rest." The 
 Communistic solution was regarded by him as equally 
 unsatisfactory. 
 
 He welcomed opportunities for the study of points of 
 view differing from his own, on every kind of subject. 
 On one of these Bethnal Green Sundays he found occasion 
 to make himself better acquainted with the opinions of 
 Congregationalists at the City Temple. He said after- 
 wards : 
 
 " I felt quite at home, but not in church. The whole 
 show was very reverent and Christian, but the difference 
 is that there is no worship and hardly any prayer, plenty 
 of praise and exhortation and moral doctrine. I felt 
 that I came to get certain things, i.e. to hear a sermon 
 and music ; whereas I feel that I go to church primarily 
 to give something, i.e. worship and sacrifice." 
 
 On 19th March, when his younger brother had joined 
 him as a resident at Oxford House, Bobby wrote : 
 
 " This is proving an extra full week, so I am writing 
 this in the intervals of running University Club Office, 
 and am therefore likely to be incoherent. Monday 
 evening I took Luly on my C.O.S. rounds and he was quite 
 keen about it. In the afternoon we visited the London 
 Hospital, and Luly had (I gather) quite a success there. 
 Evening, Clubs. Tuesday I got up at 5.15 a.m. and went 
 to Covent Garden with some residents ; Luly came too ! 
 Then C.O.S. 10 to 11. My Relief Committee at Hackney 
 Wick from 11.30 to 1. Then to lunch with Aunt Alice 
 Northcote 1 at 2, then try on uniform and back for the 
 address. The Head is giving us an address every day 
 
 1 Lady Northcote.
 
 Photo. VanJyk. London 
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Aged Twenty-five, 1913.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 97 
 
 this week at 6 p.m. He has been saying some very good 
 things. Good Friday will be spent in almost continuous 
 services, I foresee, of various sorts : at least 8 to 9 ; 
 12 to 3 ; 4.45 to 5.30 ; 6 to 6.30 ; 8.30 to 10 ; these are 
 already booked, besides an extra or two which I am 
 doubtful of attending I However, it will counterbalance 
 last Good Friday at Srinagar, where the undenominational 
 chaplain reduced the services to about five-eighths of an 
 ordinary Sunday's." 
 
 Bobby won the love of all his fellow-workers. The 
 Rev. F. A. Iremonger, the Head of Oxford House, says 
 that, " it was not so much what he did as what he was 
 that captured their respect and affection. Of all the men 
 I had with me during nearly six years, there was no one 
 who helped me more to raise, and to keep on the highest 
 level, the tone of the House." 
 
 The individual personal help and friendship which 
 Bobby delighted to give to shadowed lives, to a tuber- 
 culous child neglected by a callous father, to an old blind 
 club-member who much appreciated daily visits for 
 regular reading aloud, and to others in necessity and 
 tribulation, culminated in his services as " Poor Man's 
 Lawyer." Whether he was in or out of residence at 
 Oxford House, he appeared unfailingly on stated evenings 
 at Bethnal Green, where he devoted many hours to giving 
 legal advice to needy clients. He was most efficient at 
 this work and grudged no amount of trouble over any 
 case to whom he could be of real help. He gained the 
 trust of his clients ; and those who had consulted him 
 often returned again and again to ask his advice in all 
 their difficulties. Occasionally the impression made on 
 him by some of these harassed souls was that of wondering 
 reverence. 
 
 I remember how, shortly after he and I had had a 
 discussion on the reality of the assumption that twentieth- 
 13
 
 98 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 century Englishmen were a Christian nation, he wrote 
 the following letter : 
 
 To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING 
 
 " OXFORD HOUSE, 
 
 April 2, 1913. 
 
 " Curiously enough, a propos our argument as to 
 whether England was still a Christian country, the very 
 next day at our Poor Man's Lawyer room in Bethnal 
 Green two separate very secular-looking clients incident- 
 ally showed that they really were Christians. One was 
 an old lady whose husband had been run over. We had 
 got and just handed over to her 50 compensation from 
 the omnibus company ; and she immediately said she 
 would like to put a part of it into our poor-box, though she 
 was extremely hard up ; but she explained she had been 
 a member of a Christian Brotherhood for a great many 
 years. The other was a man who sought a separation 
 from his wife, who had gone off with another man. He 
 came because his son had threatened to leave the house 
 if he ever took her back again ; and indeed it seemed 
 little use, because he had already forgiven her and taken 
 her back eleven times. But he was, nevertheless, very 
 reluctant to get a separation ' because the Bible tells us 
 different,' though his vicar had advised him to get one." 
 
 Bethnal Green Club work had enlightened Bobby on the 
 lamentable hindrances which prevent so many poor boys, 
 rich in capacity but destitute of means, from taking at the 
 flood " the tide in their affairs which leads on to fortune." 
 When, therefore, in 1912, he was invited to become an 
 original Governor of the newly founded Edghill House, 
 Sydenham, by the nomination of his old Headmaster, 1 
 
 1 Right Rev. Dr. Burge, Bishop of Southwark, afterwards Bishop 
 of Oxford.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 99 
 
 he gladly accepted the post. He helped Edghill House 
 in many ways, not the least of which was his careful 
 assistance in the legal matters connected with drafting 
 its constitution and trust-deeds ; and the moving appeal 
 sent by him to the Spectator and inserted under the 
 heading of " The Edghill House and the Clever Poor Boy.''' 
 
 The sense of fairness which impelled Bobby to fight 
 unflaggingly in behalf of his clever poor scholars made 
 him an equally keen advocate of voteless women. His 
 parents had always been enthusiastic supporters of their 
 cause, which found in him an ardent champion. While 
 still at Oxford, he had moved a resolution in favour of 
 the extension of the franchise to women at a meeting of 
 the Arnold Society ; and when he left Oxford he freely 
 gave yeoman service by writing and speaking in behalf 
 of Woman's Suffrage all over the country. 
 
 Lady Willoughby de Broke is one of many who re- 
 member " the irresistible personal charm and splendid 
 brain power which added such force to his service to the 
 Woman's Cause." 
 
 A one-page article which he wrote under the title 
 " Why Men should support Women's Suffrage" * gives his 
 arguments with admirable brevity and point under four 
 heads: "(1) Because women's sphere is in the home; 
 (2) because men want women to be their partners and 
 helpers ; (3) because men should be just ; (4) because 
 men should be sensible." 
 
 The best piece of work which he did for the cause 
 was an analysis of sixty-three replies received in answer 
 to an inquiry from leading Englishwomen, addressed to 
 representative and prominent citizens of the American 
 States in the Union, in which Woman's Suffrage has been 
 adopted, with the object of obtaining an impartial account 
 of the results there of the enfranchisement of women. 
 
 1 Published in The Conservative and Unionist Woman's Franchise 
 Review, No. XIII., October 1912.
 
 ioo ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Bobby's paper was first published in the Nineteenth 
 Century 1 and afterwards printed as a short pamphlet. 
 It elicited the following letter to his mother from his 
 barrister uncle, Lord Robert Cecil : 
 
 " Just a line to say how very good I think Bobby's 
 article. It is really one of the best things of its kind I 
 have read for a long time, and curiously legal. If he 
 does not do well at the Bar I'll eat my hat ! which, if 
 you know it, is a serious undertaking." 
 
 There is one of our knight-errant's letters which may 
 find its place here, as it shows the shrewdness with which 
 he realized the difference of outlook between men and 
 women ; and that, consequently, his service was rendered 
 from a sense of justice and obligation, not from senti- 
 mental emotion. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " June 12, 1914. 
 
 " I have had such a busy week that I haven't had 
 a moment to write un-business letters. This is partly 
 because I am single-handed as Poor Man's Lawyer at 
 Oxford House for two weeks till Edward Lascelles 
 joins me. 
 
 " I have also been sent two cases to * inquire and 
 report ' upon under the new rules for poor persons. 
 There are already two thousand applicants under these 
 rules, and I believe nearly half are for divorces, as I 
 anticipated would be the case at first. Both my appli- 
 cants want divorces. One is a man and one a woman, 
 and they illustrate the differences of the sexes ! The 
 man a labourer on twenty-six shillings a week, ex- 
 soldier made his application concisely and almost 
 correctly, quite impersonally. He came to see me and 
 
 1 Woman Suffrage at Work in America. (I.) A Suffragist View. By 
 the Hon. Robert Palmer. The Nineteenth Century and After. February 
 1914.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 101 
 
 discussed the whole thing in a detached way. His wife 
 is now living with another man in South Africa, and he 
 quite appreciated that the difficulty was to get evidence 
 cheaply, since a law court can't act on letters. I shall 
 recommend his case, but he would at once accept my 
 decision as fair if I declined to on grounds of expense. 
 
 " The woman made a long rambling application 
 wholly off the point. She came to see me and talked 
 volubly about quite irrelevant incidents and grievances, 
 regarding the whole matter purely from the personal 
 point of view (a man is much more ready to look at 
 himself detachedly as a unit in a system). Her husband 
 had deserted her and was irregular in his payments. 
 But she not only had no evidence of adultery, but no 
 shred of ground for suspecting it. When I pointed 
 this out, she replied (1) that, * as he wasn't living with 
 her, he must be living with someone else ; (2) that, 
 as he had his freedom, she didn't see why she wasn't 
 to have hers ; (3) that if she was rich I would talk 
 different to her.' She then asserted that she had seen 
 in the paper that 'under the new Act they would take 
 up your case whatever it was.' I gently pointed out 
 that this was a misapprehension, to which she replied 
 with withering scorn that * that was funny, seeing as how 
 she had seen it in black and white.' She finally left, 
 firmly convinced that I was misrepresenting the law in 
 order to keep her out of her rights. 
 
 " The point is that the female attitude is : * I have a 
 grievance : if the law doesn't remedy it, the law is bad, 
 and all who administer it are my personal enemies.' 
 The male attitude is : 4 1 am under a hardship : does 
 the law give me a remedy ? If not, 1 must do without.' 
 
 " What do you say to that ? I was greatly pleased 
 to have specimens so suited to my argument. 
 
 44 On Tuesday papa and I dined in Arlington Street.
 
 102 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 On Wednesday I dined at Liddon House and spoke 
 about India with one Sir A. Hirtzel. Yesterday I 
 played tennis at Chelsea 1 and stopped to dinner; and 
 after dinner Hermione and Jack Talbot sang songs. 
 The other man was Jack Buchanan, who is a particularly 
 nice fellow I am getting to know quite well ; Walter 
 Gibbs, who is cast in the same mould, son of Herbert 
 Gibbs ; and John Gore, whom I also like very much. 
 I had hoped to go down to Fisher's Hill 2 this evening 
 to an out-of-doors dance from five to ten ; but owing to 
 Goddard's press of work I had to stop and finish a set 
 of papers for him and did not get home till seven, and 
 I felt too tired to go off to Woking, so papa and I dined 
 together." 
 
 This letter incidentally bears witness to the fact that 
 Bobby had now passed beyond the undergraduate stage 
 when his revulsion from house-parties and balls made 
 him complain of having to endure their exhausting 
 imbecility and declare that " I would as soon work a 
 lift ! " He now found considerable pleasure in his 
 London season, dances and country-house visits, with 
 their natural results in friendships with his partners 
 and with young men of his own age. His critical faculty 
 was but lightly muzzled and continued its vigilant guard 
 over the citadels of his heart and conscience. An 
 instance of its warning bark is given in the following 
 words written from a delightful country-house : 
 
 " 1 find even this good house-party rather depressing. 
 They look (or pretend to look) on the world as a place 
 to enjoy oneself in ; and this seems to be the most de- 
 pressing of abominations, making play into work, and 
 life a blue without perspective or unity or chiaroscuro ; 
 
 1 At the Governor's House, Royal Hospital, the home of General and 
 Hon. Lady Lyttelton. 
 
 2 The home of Mr. Gerald and Lady Betty Balfour.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 103 
 
 whereas O and K accept the world as a place 
 
 to work in, which gives it a point ; and holiday as an 
 interlude, which gives it a relish. The gents misuse 
 the sauce for the meat and really enjoy themselves less, 
 besides putting all sane ideas out of joint. When I'm 
 old and famous, and have the courage to snap fingers 
 at their conventions, I shall get on better." 
 
 In the autumns of 1912 and 1913 Bobby enjoyed a 
 series of country-house visits to Ardgowan, Whittinghame, 
 Alnwick, Falloden, Lockinge and Eastwell as well as 
 to various members of his family. At Ardgowan, 1 after 
 a luckless set of lawn-tennis games, he appeased his 
 unfortunate partner's annoyance by a Sonnet of Apology : 
 
 " When I engage in tennis tournament, 
 Not points received avail, nor choice of side : 
 The ball or strikes the net or, flying wide, 
 O'ershoots the service-line with force unspent : 
 And if perchance it bounces where I meant, 
 My adversary with a single stride 
 Is there, as though my efforts to deride, 
 And drives it back with murderous intent 
 That through my bosom's insufficient guard 
 Of flannelled white inflicts a nasty one ; 
 Or, filling more refinedly the cup 
 Of my discomfiture, propels it hard 
 Into the farthest corner, where I run, 
 And, bursting, barely fail to get it up. 
 
 R. S. A. P. 
 ARDGOWAN, Sept. 20, 1912." 
 
 From Ardgowan he went to Whittinghame, the home 
 of his cousin, Mr. Arthur Balfour. Bobby felt great 
 affection for his host, whom he admired as a " supreme 
 master of all the amenities of life, society, music, art, 
 science and philosophy everything that is intellectual and 
 cultured and pleasant." He wrote from Whittinghame to 
 his mother : 
 
 " I am enjoying myself here. It is quite a family 
 
 The home of Sir Hugh and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart.
 
 104 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 party. Arthur arrived yesterday morning. I do some 
 writing every morning and then golf or lawn-tennis, and 
 I have fished once, catching three trout. My golf has 
 improved a good deal, though I haven't played so well 
 here as I did at Lossiemouth. Yesterday A. J. B. and I 
 played against Gerald and Nelly 1 in a foursome at 
 Dunbar. 
 
 *' Arthur surprises me more each time I see him. I 
 don't think I know anyone whose person so attracts me, 
 while at the same time his whole point of view is one 
 which I so strongly disagree with." 
 
 Bobby's arrival at Whittinghame in 1912 and 1913 
 had been clouded by the unpleasant experience of the loss 
 of his luggage en route. This double annoyance inspired 
 the following " Collins " to his hostess on the occasion of 
 his second visit. 
 
 To Miss BALFOUR 
 
 " CHEWTON PRIORY, BATH, 
 
 August 31, 1913. 
 
 " It is with no small gratification that I am able to 
 report that British pluck and resource successfully over- 
 came the difficulties of a night march through difficult 
 country. 2 In fact, the whole affair was a triumph of 
 organization and careful strategy. When I mention that 
 eleven articles of the most elusive nature were moved four 
 hundred miles in a single night over five railway systems, 
 and two of them Scottish, with only one trifling casualty, 
 you will forgive a little pardonable pride. Neither trunk 
 nor train was lost from start to finish. 
 
 "The total casualties killed, wounded, and missing 
 only amounted to twelve egg sandwiches, and they were 
 left behind at the start. With many troops a failure of the 
 commissariat means an irreparable loss of morale ; but the 
 
 1 Mr. Gerald Balfour and his daughter. 
 3 Edinburgh to Bristol.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 105 
 
 6th Hampshires are of a stern stuff. 1 A foraging party at 
 Princes Street, after a slight repulse by one barmaid, 
 succeeded in securing provisions. The baggage was then 
 rescued in quick succession from an inebriated porter, who 
 was trying to label it " Preston," and a fat man in a box 
 who tried to pass off six enormous packing-cases on 
 me at commercial rates. It was then weighed, at first 
 with alarming results ; but investigation showed that the 
 inebriated porter was standing on the weighing-machine ; 
 and fortunately the fat man accepted my assurance that 
 he wasn't part of my luggage, and in any case hadn't been 
 labelled. Once the position at Princes Street had been 
 carried, the advance met with little resistance. There 
 was some skirmishing with ticket-collectors on and off all 
 through the night, but even this fire was silenced after the 
 one at Hereford (3.15 a.m.) had tripped over my boots and 
 fallen heavily against the door. 
 
 " Well, it is a great comfort to know it can be done, 
 however much appearances are against it. Please don't 
 trouble to send on the egg sandwiches, but convey my 
 apologies to the cook for having put her to the trouble of 
 making them. 
 
 "I enjoyed the time at Whittinghame quite enor- 
 mously : it is so good of you to have me there. Please 
 give my adieux and best thanks to Cousin Arthur, whom 
 I didn't say good-bye to." 
 
 While to many of his companions Bobby's friendship 
 seemed like rays from the light of a great ideal, friendship 
 appeared at this time chiefly to signify to him oppor- 
 tunities for chivalrous service. If misfortune overtook 
 his friends, he had, as one of them expressed it, " an 
 immediate and heavenly impulse to step right into the 
 middle of their troubles " and to lavish help upon them by 
 
 He had received a Commission in the 6th (Territorial) Battalion, 
 The Hampshire Regiment during the previous month. 
 14
 
 io6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 communication of courage, or by intervention, or by 
 monetary assistance. He was extremely generous and 
 spent what ordinary people might have considered a 
 grossly disproportionate amount of his modest income on 
 help to friends and on forwarding the religious and social 
 causes for which he specially cared. He had all his life 
 been scrupulously prudent with his money, and now he 
 reaped the reward of his self-control and frugal habits by 
 always having money at his command whenever some 
 special call appealed to him. 
 
 His sense of the vast possibilities of friendship (the 
 depths of which he was aware that he had not yet plumbed) 
 made him foresee that some day, probably through that 
 medium, he would meet love and his future wife. His 
 deliberate weighing of the respective values of literary 
 tastes and matrimony was quaintly characteristic. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " CHEWTON PRIORY, BATH, 
 
 November 5, 1912. 
 
 " I want to find time for writing. I shan't be happy 
 till I have written two or three books : they weigh on my 
 mind. Only I don't like to neglect my Bar work, as I 
 might want to marry and I couldn't expect a wife to fall 
 in with my ideas of income. I can't tell a bit whether I'm 
 meant to marry or not." 
 
 And : "I quite agree that the Law is a very good 
 profession : only, if I judge myself right, I don't think 
 I have any special contribution to make to it ; I believe, 
 and can only test it by trying, that I have some things 
 to say that want saying and that I can say. But it 
 wouldn't be fair to a wife to rely on them for support, 
 since they wouldn't be written for money. So if I 
 marry I must pursue the Law seriously, otherwise my 
 400 a year would last me amply and leave me free
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 107 
 
 to pursue literature and politics without having to 
 pot-boil. 
 
 " I feel a little afraid of marrying, because I feel sure 
 I should be wax in Mrs. Bobby's hands, and so I hope I 
 shan't fall in love till I'm sure that the She is better and 
 wiser than me : once I felt that, I should be perfectly 
 happy, but, as you say, one doesn't judge right once the 
 thing has begun." 
 
 Having duly passed his Bar examinations, Bobby 
 began his legal career as the pupil of Mr. Howard Wright 
 at 11 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, in the same chambers 
 that his grandfather, Lord Chancellor Selborne, had 
 occupied for nearly forty years in the previous century. 
 
 It was about this time that Bobby was offered the 
 alternative of an Oxford career. New College was desir- 
 ous of securing him as a Fellow and Dean of Divinity; 
 but as he was now convinced that his destiny lay in the 
 Law Courts, he was unable to avail himself of the Oxford 
 offer. There can be little doubt that his decision was right, 
 for his capacity for concentration, clear thinking and 
 impartial weighing of evidence, his passion for justice 
 and his judicial temperament, were qualities which had 
 marked him out from early childhood as the descendant 
 on whom his grandfather's mantle might duly fall. 
 
 He was called to the Bar in November 1913, and his 
 name was put up at his grandfather's old chambers. 
 Shortly after, he went on his first Assize Circuit (the 
 North-Eastern) as Marshal to Judge Darling, Mr. Justice 
 Scrutton being the second judge. 
 
 From Mr. Howard Wright, Bobby passed under the 
 tuition of Mr. R. Goddard, with whom he studied for 
 two months. He joined the Western Circuit in June 
 1914. The following letter, written during the Assizes at 
 Winchester, shows that he was gaining professional 
 confidence.
 
 io8 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " WINCHESTER, 
 June 19, 1914. 
 
 " We have had another very busy week. I think I 
 am very lucky to have gone into chambers with Goddard. 
 His practice is increasing rapidly and he has only one 
 devil, so with luck I may have a fine chance with him. 
 
 " I nearly had my first chance this week, and in the 
 Court of Appeal too. Goddard had four things on 
 simultaneously and left me to protect him in a Work- 
 man's Compensation Appeal. The case before all but 
 collapsed while he was still away, but the junior in it was 
 put up to make a last kick, and, being once on his legs, 
 stayed there three-quarters of an hour, and Goddard 
 just came in in time. Even so, it was a very interesting 
 case, because all three judges started dead against us. 
 After about half an hour Goddard got Pickford * round, 
 but the others were obstinate, though I'm sure we were 
 right. However, after Goddard had sat down, I, who was 
 watching Swinfen Eady, 2 spotted the scent he was on and 
 told Goddard to try a new line of argument which just 
 occurred to me. Goddard took the point in his reply, and 
 we believe and hope that Swinfen Eady swallowed it. 
 Anyway, they've reserved judgment, and it will be a score 
 if we win. 
 
 " I came down here to-day to be admitted to the 
 Circuit. I have to make a speech at dinner. I'm afraid 
 there is little chance of my getting a brief, because almost 
 all the prisoners have pleaded guilty. However, I observe 
 that a very satisfactory proportion of them come from 
 Bordon and from Alton : so that if Top exerts pressure on 
 the Whitehill J.P.s I may get some prosecutions hereafter." 
 
 1 Sir William Pickford. 
 
 Sir Charles Swinfen Eady.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 109 
 
 This hope was shortly fulfilled, for on 14th July 
 Bobby held his first brief at the Winchester County 
 Quarter Sessions. A fortnight later, his barrister's 
 gown was flung off, never to be resumed, on his putting 
 on the khaki uniform of the 6th (Territorial) Battalion 
 of the Hampshire Regiment in the training camp at 
 Bulford, where he joined his regiment on 25th July. 
 Although his time with Mr. Goddard was thus cut down 
 to less than three months, the latter retains a vivid re- 
 collection of his pupil. He says : 
 
 " Very soon I came to regard Palmer as a man who 
 would rank with the foremost lawyers of his generation. 
 His grasp of legal principles can only be described as 
 intuitive ; all he needed to learn was the everyday 
 practice. He was, however, far from being merely an 
 academic lawyer. He had both the instinct of the ad- 
 vocate and the skill of the draftsman. I well remember 
 how in the first week he tackled a heavy set of 
 papers that would have bewildered most men starting in 
 chambers, and drew a pleading which I signed without 
 alteration. A little later I asked him to help me with an 
 arbitration that I had to leave for a time. At the con- 
 clusion, the arbitrator, Mr. Boydell Houghton, K.C. 
 (and no one could be a better judge), asked me who he 
 was. ' I never heard,' said he, ' a young man ask his 
 questions so well or handle a case better. What a future 
 there is for him ! ' I remember saying that, since I had 
 been pupil to Sir John Simon at Oxford, I had never met 
 anyone who had impressed me so much. WTien his name 
 appeared on the Roll of Honour, Houghton recalled the 
 incident to me, saying he should never forget the way he 
 did the case. I keep his fee-book as a recollection. There 
 are just three entries in it. There was the pity of it: 
 he had not had his chance. The War has robbed the 
 Bar of many to whom reputation had already come, but 
 though his name was as yet unknown in the Courts, it is
 
 no ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 my firm belief that in Palmer's death our profession 
 sustained its most grievous loss. There was no position 
 to which he might not and would not have risen. 
 
 " But what I like best to remember, and what I 
 chiefly miss, is his companionship in chambers. I wish 
 I could think I had taught him a tithe of what he 
 taught me. I was proud to have him as a pupil, 
 but I am infinitely more proud to remember that for 
 three months we were together daily in chambers as 
 friends." 
 
 There is little more left for me to record of Bobby's 
 life as a civilian. In those twenty-six years his character 
 blossomed into such beauty and goodness that it seemed 
 to many of us that his short life (brilliant and so full of 
 splendid promise) was as near to being the perfect one as 
 it is given to men to live, and that " he did not need any 
 more discipline, he was already so good." 1 His last two 
 years in England of deepening experience of the driving 
 force of material life in London, East and West, served 
 but to intensify his desire for the ascendancy of spiritual 
 claims. He foresaw, I think with great anxiety, the 
 fierceness of the coming struggle between these two 
 incompatible hostile powers. " I should like to see 
 monasteries in our Church," he once observed, " if only 
 for the comfort of knowing one could retire to them in 
 one's old age." 
 
 Meanwhile, in the absence of such retreats, Black- 
 moor afforded him a satisfactory substitute. His last 
 irresponsible days there were occupied in taking a census 
 of the birds' nests in the garden. He traced a map of the 
 grounds with careful accuracy, on which every nest was 
 marked and numbered ; the census accounted for two 
 hundred and eighteen nests of twenty-seven different 
 species. His father and he spent hours upon the search, 
 
 1 This was said of him by his cousin, Viscount Grey of Falloden.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER in 
 
 and I recollect their pleasure over their latest discoveries 
 of nests of a jay, a nightjar, and a pied wagtail. 
 
 In my last walk with Bobby at Black moor I remember 
 that, in going across the park, we came upon the scene of a 
 successful plant laid for me, not long before, by my 
 irreverent nephews. It was a rabbit's burrow, where 
 roman tiles and sherds were to be had for the digging. 
 Inveigled into an antiquarian search, I had discovered 
 there some black pottery of entirely different pattern to 
 any found before, and my unsuspicious zeal received a 
 shock on deciphering the inscription " Cur es tarn viridis ? " 
 thoughtfully scratched on one of the pieces by Bobby. 
 
 From the scene of my humiliation we wandered into 
 a little fir wood discussing his Oxford House work and 
 various socialist theories. The afternoon sun shone on 
 the tall stems of the young firs and turned them into 
 slender columns of burning red gold. Bobby delighted in 
 the aisles of resinous pillars, and he told me that he loved 
 this spot above all the beautiful woody delights of his 
 home. 
 
 The 6th Hampshire Regiment assembled for their 
 fifteen days' annual training at Bulf ord Camp on Salisbury 
 Plain during the last week of July 1914, when all Europe 
 was resounding with the baying of the dogs of war. 
 Bobby, who, as a subaltern in the " G " (Petersfield) 
 Company, had joined the regiment in the previous year, 
 was interested in watching an unaccustomed phase of 
 human society. He philosophically set forth the con- 
 clusion of his observations in these words : 
 
 " There is a temptation in camp to cover one's ignor- 
 ance by officiousness, and the main difficulty is to steer a 
 course between that and a slackness prompted by diffi- 
 dence. One is expected, I think, to develop a spirit of 
 petty criticism, and I find myself taking a sudden interest 
 in the position of privates' thumbs or the fastening of 
 their buttons ; but the effectiveness is rather marred
 
 112 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 when I find my own sword is back to front or the haversack 
 where Nature never intended it to be. The anomalous 
 thing is that most of the time the whole aim of existence 
 is to do exactly what everyone else is doing a most 
 corrupting and devertebrating effort and then, suddenly, 
 chunks of responsibility are thrown at one : mostly pseudo 
 in camp, because your responsibility is as much (or more) 
 in the manner of doing a thing as in the doing of it." 
 
 He summarized the reasons for enjoying camp-life 
 under four heads : " (1) That one feels so well with open 
 air and hard marching. (2) That it is gratifying to find 
 that men have been ordered by King George to do what 
 you tell them. The pleasure of ordering people about is 
 greater than the irksomeness of being ordered about. 
 
 (3) There is a kind of primitive charm in dressing up in 
 uniform and moving about elaborately, with the added 
 self-satisfaction of feeling that England depends on you. 
 
 (4) It is a great relief to take a turn at being a cog in the 
 machine, with no worries. 
 
 "Of these, No. 2 must, I think, be the essential one, 
 since it is the only one that distinguishes camp-life from 
 penal servitude." 
 
 This halcyon condition of camp-life was abruptly 
 ended by the mobilization which followed the declaration 
 of war on 4th August. The next day Bobby was sent 
 to take charge of one of the forts which form the defences 
 of Portsmouth. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " BULFORD CAMP, 
 August 12, 1914. 
 
 " We had a very hard week last week. We got the 
 order to move on the Monday morning, but owing to 
 lack of trains we didn't get away till Tuesday morning. 
 Then we had to march into Salisbury twelve miles, and
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 113 
 
 out from Portsmouth to Hilsea three more ; and owing 
 to the transport service being mobilized, the men got 
 no food to speak of after leaving here. Then first thing 
 Wednesday we were drafted out to our various forts 
 (mine was Fort Monckton), where I was in sole charge 
 when you came over. I quite enjoyed that for the few 
 days, though it was uncomfortable and sleepless. The 
 General came round one day and said I was a born soldier, 
 on the strength of which I have decided to grow a mous- 
 tache pro tern. This was General Kelly, who commands 
 the Portsmouth defences. We were relieved on Sunday, 
 and returned to Hilsea (where was the camp of the 
 battalion), hoping for a day or two's rest. Instead of 
 which we got orders to march that same evening. We 
 set out at 7 p.m., and we reached Bulford Camp at 6 a.m. 
 
 " We rested pretty well on Monday, but have now 
 begun a strenuous course of training, which will be 
 extremely unpleasant, but very good for us: drill and 
 physical exercises every day ; strict inspections of kit, 
 rifles, etc., and route marches every few days. The great 
 defect seems to be that ammunition is too precious to 
 let us practise musketry. 
 
 " Several of our officers are volunteering for service in 
 Belgium, and I had to think over whether I ought to do 
 the same. But I don't see that I ought, as I am doing 
 a necessary job here and one which I am less unfit for. 
 I don't want to go abroad, and there are more fellows 
 that do than will be allowed to go. If there is a general 
 call for volunteers later on when I am trained, I may 
 feel obliged to offer to go ; but I should dislike it above 
 all things ! Meanwhile I think I am doing a fair share 
 if I work my hardest here. It is hard to see how long 
 this war will last. The expenses seem to forbid its being 
 long, but the strength of each side's forts seem equally to 
 forbid its being short. Perhaps this points to a collapse 
 before either side has crushed the other." 
 15
 
 H4 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 The week which followed the return to Bulford 
 must have proved a severe test to Bobby's serenity. 
 Starvation rations, overcrowded tents, defective sanitary 
 arrangements, an appalling deficiency of equipment of 
 clothes, boots, rifles ; ** all their blankets pinched from 
 them to supply the wants of Lord Kitchener's new army," 
 no musketry practice obtainable from lack of ammunition, 
 painful consciousness of incompetency and ignorance in 
 officers, non-commissioned officers, and men all these 
 shortcomings reared their hydra heads in paralysing 
 discouragement against the sorely-tried Territorials. 
 Bobby's letters " groused " a little during these days. 
 Then on the 18th of August, he wrote : 
 
 " We are getting some of the men's wants supplied, 
 thanks to a hot report from the General, who came round 
 on Saturday and who reported that this brigade is the 
 worst equipped he has ever seen." 
 
 From that date, conditions continued to amend ; and 
 Bobby, now promoted to be a full Lieutenant, was gladdened 
 by the men's progress in physical fitness and discipline. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " 6th HANTS, 
 
 BULFORD CAMP, SALISBURY PLAIN, 
 August 30, 1914. 
 
 " I was quite right in thinking that K. 1 was determined 
 to get us to volunteer. He has sent round a paper, which 
 I am sending to Papa, explaining the gravity of the 
 situation, and implying that he wants every unmarried 
 man to volunteer for foreign service. Every officer and 
 man is to be asked definitely to-morrow whether he will 
 join the Foreign Service Division or the Home Defence 
 Division. If sixty per cent, volunteer, we shall go as a 
 battalion ; if fewer, then composite battalions will be 
 
 1 Lord Kitchener.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 115 
 
 formed. In any case the volunteers will be separately 
 trained from 1st September onwards. Now that the 
 call is made like this, I think it is clearly up to me to 
 say I'll go ; but I don't intend to try to persuade any of 
 the men unless they see it as a duty, particularly not the 
 married ones. 
 
 "I think in effect a good deal of moral pressure will 
 be applied to secure the sixty per cent., which seems to 
 me unfair, unless K. and the Government are prepared to 
 go in for compulsory levies. To apply pressure to a 
 body merely because it is easily accessible is as unfair 
 as taxing land because it is easily taxed. And it is 
 specially unfair when a set of men have gone with you 
 one mile to compel them to go twain before compelling 
 the shirkers to get a move on at all. 
 
 " Of course, if they are going to make a universal 
 levy, the situation justifies them in making it first on the 
 most easily handled section of the public ; but I'm afraid 
 the Cabinet will cling to the name of a voluntary system 
 until they have dragooned everyone on whom they can 
 turn the screw into volunteering. . . . 
 
 " You give me no news of the family in your letters, 
 but perhaps you haven't heard any. I should greatly like 
 to know which of my relatives have joined regiments, which 
 have gone abroad, etc., and the same of friends such as the 
 Kindergarten, the Hatfield push (Sidney Peel, Charlie Mills, 
 John Gore, etc.), and any other acquaintance." 
 
 In September the battalion moved to Bustard Camp 
 on Salisbury Plain, where it was divided into foreign and 
 home battalions. Bobby was then given command of 
 " F " Company of the Foreign Service Battalion, a 
 company which comprised men from his home neighbour- 
 hood and from the outlying villages and Petersfield. 
 
 On 13th September Luly joined up, to the great pleasure
 
 n6 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 of his brother, who was much attracted by another newly- 
 joined subaltern, Mr. Purefoy Causton, son of the Master of 
 St. Cross at Winchester and a member of Bobby's College 
 at Oxford, where he was reading for Greats. 
 
 When the final orders of the War Office announced 
 that the Wessex Division (including the 6th Hampshire 
 Regiment) was to be dispatched to India, Bobby, Luly 
 and Mr. Purefoy Causton were delighted with the prospect, 
 while their respective families felt much relief in the 
 hope that their destination was to comparatively safe 
 regions. 
 
 On 4th October Bobby wrote home : 
 
 " At last definite news. We march from here (Bustard 
 Camp) Thursday night and embark at Southampton early 
 Friday morning, the 9th. It must take all day Friday to 
 get the whole division on board, and so I have great 
 hopes that Top will be able to get a glimpse of us. 
 
 " Our station in India is to be Dinapur, a suburb of 
 Patna, on the Ganges, a hundred and thirty miles below 
 Benares. I would much have preferred to be north and 
 closer to the great cities ; as it is, Benares and Allahabad 
 will be the only ones within comfortable reach, and 
 Calcutta ten hours away. One consolation is that our 
 hill-station is Darjeeling. I am further cheered by 
 
 X , who has been five years in Dinapur and liked it 
 
 very much. He says it is a good climate and very good 
 duck-shooting to be got. He takes the military point of 
 view, as I heard him say : ' There's nothing to see at 
 Benares ; it's where the Parsis (sic) bury or burn their 
 corpses ; as a matter of fact, I think they give 'em to 
 the vultures to eat.' That's the sort of remark Gokhale 
 & Co. overhear from soldiers who have lived in India five 
 years 1 
 
 " One can imagine Gore's * feelings if an Indian, after 
 living five years in England, declared there was nothing 
 
 1 Dr. Charles Gore, then Bishop of Oxford.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 117 
 
 to see at Canterbury except the mortuary of a Christian 
 Scientist or something. . . . 
 
 " Unlimited numbers of old packs of cards, large and 
 small, will be very acceptable ; also some old Punches, 
 etc., for the men : no room for very many. My kit is 
 complete except for a Kodak. Will you buy me a Brownie 
 No. 2 ? I think Luly wants one too ; they only cost 
 ten shillings. We are extremely busy getting straight. 
 The Brigadier inspects us to-morrow and K. later." 
 
 Four days earlier, the brothers had come over to 
 Blackmoor for their final leave-taking. To my eyes 
 Bobby had never looked so delightful as he did on that 
 day, with his springing step, youthful grace and dignity 
 giving distinction to the ugly khaki uniform, and with 
 his beautiful face illuminated by his serene purity of brow 
 and delicious smile that flashed with fun and affection. 
 The pulse of these two golden autumnal days beat on in 
 poignant endurance ; and at their end both sons and 
 parents parted with cheery courage in full consciousness 
 of their double sacrifice, for, while Bobby and Luly 
 disliked military service and abhorred the interruption 
 it had made to their civil careers, their parents realized 
 only too keenly what their patriotism might entail.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 INDIA, 1914-1915 
 
 THE voyage to India in war-time afforded a sharp contrast 
 to that of Bobby's experience three years previously. 
 The Ulionia was one of eleven transports, escorted by 
 the cruisers Bacchante and Euryalus, steaming with 
 masked lights at the cautious pace of ten to eleven knots 
 an hour. She had less deck-space than a Channel boat, 
 and Bobby's company had to parade on the top of a 
 horse-box. Physical exercises and deck games were 
 impossible. The ship was extremely dirty and her 
 minute cabins sweltered with heat from the kitchen 
 hot steam pipes, which (as the vessel was fitted for the 
 Atlantic passage and not for the Red Sea) ran through 
 every cabin. 
 
 Bobby's recreations during the voyage included the 
 reading of Bernhardi, Gibbon, Meredith's Sandra Belloni, 
 and books on India, hygiene, etc., and the welcoming 
 of occasional visits on deck of various land-birds. " I 
 never remember so many kinds before," he wrote. " Be- 
 tween Gibraltar and Malta these included a thrush, a 
 robin, one, if not two, kinds of finch, a turtle-dove, an 
 owl, a night -jar, also a falcon and a quail." In the Suez 
 Canal he noted " an unfamiliar finch, a greyish wagtail, 
 and a purple kingfisher perched on the boat. I also saw 
 two kinds of swallow, a stork, pied kingfishers, dotterels, 
 carrion crows and a coot." 
 
 The Ultonia reached Bombay on 8th November, where 
 the 6th Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment was entrained 
 
 118
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 119 
 
 for Dinapur and arrived there on 14th November. 
 Bobby's Company " F," (with " G " and " H," under 
 Major Wyatt's command), went from thence to Dum-Dum 
 to relieve a detachment of the Royal Fusiliers ; and on 
 2nd December, Bobby was again moved with part of his 
 company to relieve another detachment of Royal Fusiliers 
 at Barrackpore. 
 
 While there he confessed in a letter to his mother the 
 reasons which made him dislike the military profession : 
 
 "It is the unrelieved dullness of soldiering which 
 makes it to me an astonishing profession for anyone to 
 select. I never before met an occupation in which it was 
 impossible not to be continually looking forward to the 
 moment when one would get off duty. I suppose all 
 factory hands do, which is the root of social unrest. 
 Our fortnight's training was different a kind of picnic. 
 Now we do interminable squad drill, which means endless 
 repetition of wholly uninteresting exercises and the 
 concentration of one's faculties on the detection of trivial 
 mistakes. It requires a great effort of imagination to 
 keep in view the connection between these minutiae and 
 the avenging of Lou vain. 
 
 One gets to know and like the men well enough, and 
 that gives one some human interest ; but, at the same 
 time, it makes drill to me all the more tiresome, because 
 the duty of nagging perpetually comes between you and 
 them, or seems to. But one learns the mystic fact that 
 one can, at times, make a man like you more even by or 
 in punishing him." 
 
 A few days after the date of this letter, Barrackpore 
 was taken over by the 10th Middlesex, and Major Wyatt's 
 whole detachment proceeded to Agra, whither the rest 
 of the 6th Hampshires had moved from Dinapur. 
 
 Agra held two powerful attractions for Bobby : the 
 presence of his friend Professor Raju at St. John's College,
 
 120 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 and the Taj, which he felt to possess a unique " per- 
 sonal ascendancy over him the moment he entered its 
 presence." 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " AGRA, 
 January 13, 1915. 
 
 " I have got over, I think, the depression which this 
 beastly routine used to induce from time to time. I 
 think it was partly the dulness and partly the war, which 
 at times overwhelms one as the annihilation of all that 
 makes it better to be alive than dead : a fit which reason 
 and the memory of Bernhardi can sometimes dispel not 
 always. 
 
 " I find the greatest comfort and refreshment is to 
 switch my mind into another world whenever possible. 
 The birds are the greatest resource in this respect. As 
 long as I'm awake my mind must run on something, 
 like a motor-engine ; and whenever I'm out I can run 
 it on to the birds and forget I'm in uniform. 
 
 " The second great refreshment is the Taj, which is 
 almost the only building, and one of the very few sights, 
 which affects one through the eyes as music does through 
 the ears. About once in ten days I get down there with 
 somebody or alone, and sit in the garden and look at it : 
 and as you look, it grows and fills your whole mind, so 
 that the motor stops and you become quite passive, 
 which is delicious. I have felt the same occasionally 
 inside St. Paul's and Winchester Cathedral ; but apart 
 from them, only big mountains and music have that 
 peculiar charm. 
 
 "... I dined with the colonel of the native regi- 
 ment here on Saturday, but met nobody of interest. 
 I tackled the two women next me on the way they all 
 ignore the native population, and they answered, of course, 
 that having to manage native servants is so aggravating,
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 121 
 
 that the only way to keep sane is to forget whenever 
 possible that there are such beings at all, which was the 
 Louis XV. way of regarding the poor, and is the nega- 
 tion of the 'Commonwealth.' What I saw of the Cal- 
 cutta ladies there quite confirmed my impressions. Not 
 only do they seem unaware of the coloured population's 
 existence, but some of them must live permanently 
 indoors. I asked one of them about Darjeeling, and she 
 described exhaustively the various social functions there ; 
 but from her description of the place it might have been 
 Johannesburg or Port Said or anywhere else." 
 
 The horror of war, which to the end haunted Bobby, 
 shadowed many of his earlier letters from India. 
 
 To THE REV. RONALD KNOX 
 
 " AGRA, 
 January 4, 1915. 
 
 "It is curious that the absence of news (we only get 
 meagre Reuter's summaries three days old), instead of 
 increasing the suspense, puts the whole war into the 
 background in a way which would be inconceivable in 
 England. Still, it is a horrible time, even with all these 
 stimulants to the imagination absent. At times I feel 
 uncannily oppressed, almost stifled. The whole process 
 of self-enslavement in order to become proficient at 
 slaughtering men is so odious. At such times my greatest 
 comfort is Bernhardi. Of course you have read him : 
 the moment I did so I felt quite happy to be fighting 
 his pestilential creed ; and if one has got to be shot, I 
 can conceive no cause I had rather be shot in, because 
 it is a question of everything that I value both in religion 
 and by English instinct." 
 
 16
 
 122 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 To THE VISCOUNTESS HOWICK 
 
 "February II, 1915. 
 
 " It just shows how silly soldiers or most of them are, 
 that they went out to the war expecting it to be fun. 
 Whereas any sane man with a grain of imagination knows 
 that it is so horrible as to make one sick. That is where 
 the middle-class Socialist is much more in touch with life's 
 realities than a public-school boy, bred to an artificial 
 or rather atavistic view of war. Never having had any 
 illusions, I dare say I should find the Front less intolerable 
 than some, who have had a big disappointment." 
 
 To THE VISCOUNT WOLMER 
 
 " AGRA, 
 February 4, 1915. 
 
 " How odd you should be at Fort Monckton ! l I hope 
 you find the bed as comfortable as I did, in the spacious 
 officers' quarters. After the first night I preferred the 
 floor, not having any mattress or bedding, bar one 
 regimental blanket. Also the washing arrangements 
 must be delicious in February. The walk round the 
 ramparts is very refreshing and ozoney, especially the 
 ' twice by night ' part ; and I hope there is a brass 
 plate to mark the spot where General Kelly said I was 
 a born soldier. However, I expect anything is better 
 than the Isle of Wight : you aren't so very far from 
 Blackmoor after all. 
 
 " I expect if you or I go to the Front, we shall find 
 it less intolerable than some do, because we've no illusions 
 about it. Most of the idiots here are itching to get there 
 and imagine they will have a glorious time. I have 
 
 1 Wolmer was a captain in the 3rd Battalion, The Hampshire Regi- 
 ment, at that time in charge of the Forts of Portsmouth.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 123 
 
 always felt quite sure that fighting would be the limit 
 of beastliness, and it will do the reality credit if it sur- 
 passes my expectations. 
 
 " Last night we had a thunderstorm here from 6 to 
 7 p.m. in the course of which it hailed for twenty minutes, 
 the best walnut size. Result is that all roads and fields 
 are flooded on low ground, and the leaves are stripped 
 from the trees and hedges as if a swarm of locusts 
 had passed along. Innumerable birds must have been 
 killed. They picked up 150 crows in the Fort, and lots 
 of other birds, even kites, were killed. I found nine 
 lovely bee-eaters together, all little St. Stephens as Lolly l 
 would say." 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 " AGRA, 
 February 3, 1915. 
 
 " I had a great day on Saturday at Bhurtpur shoot, or 
 rather super-shoot ; because the whole thing was on a truly 
 rajah-like scale. Radwell, Curtis, and I from the 6th Hants 
 and two others, Hammond and Murray, managed to reach 
 the Residency at Bhurtpur at 9.15. There we found a crowd 
 and bustle more like the entraining of a battalion (though 
 far better managed) than a mere shoot. We were given 
 our orders for the campaign, including instructions, & 
 game card, and a map. From these documents it appeared 
 that there were 42 guns and 400 beaters, besides 126 
 pickers-up and 8 elephants ; so no wonder it required 
 some organization. 
 
 "My butt was No. 35, and I had to drive about a 
 mile along a causeway built out of the jhil. The jhil 
 is a large marshy expanse of several square miles, full of 
 reeds and rushes with larger trees thickly sprinkled, so 
 that you never could see more than a small area of the 
 jhil at one time. My butt was on an island about 150 
 
 Lady Laura Ridding.
 
 124 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 yards to the left of the causeway. As we drove along 
 the latter, we got glimpses through the trees of vast 
 flocks of water birds of all descriptions, grey cranes among 
 the reeds trumpeting, white flamingoes, herons fishing, 
 and on the tree-tops plovers and sandpipers on the 
 mud-banks, geese and ducks, egrets and ibises, stilts 
 and cormorants, pelicans and bitterns, a most fascinating 
 profusion, like the sands of the seashore for number, 
 and including, it seemed, almost as many species as the 
 British Isles could show together. Just opposite my 
 butt, the other side of the causeway, was a flock of geese, 
 covering about three acres. 
 
 " To reach the butt I had to embark in a queer little 
 tin tub, which was partly towed and partly shoved through 
 the fen by the three coolies who were attached to the butt 
 as pickers-up. My island was circular in shape and 
 about 8 feet in diameter. On it had been constructed a 
 butt of green boughs, inside of which was a shooting-seat 
 and trestles supporting an open box for cartridges in two 
 divisions ; also a basket with soda-water, fruit, and 
 sandwiches. It was a perfect day, light cloud hiding the 
 sun, and quite cool and calm. 
 
 " At last the bugle to start the shooting sounded, and 
 almost immediately a pintail came across my front at 
 about 25 yards, nicely up. I hit him hard both barrels, 
 but failed to bring him down ; as a matter of fact it 
 proved to be about the easiest shot I had that day. 
 
 My shot raised the geese and a small detachment were 
 coming my way, so I reloaded with No. 3's. By the time 
 they reached me they were high and sheering off on seeing 
 the butt, but one came within shot, and the first barrel 
 caught him full where the neck joins the breast and he 
 fell like a stone. This bucked me up and I had a busy 
 ten minutes. Small lots or single birds were passing 
 pretty continuously, each a little higher and wider than 
 the last, but I was very much on the spot, and got eight
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 125 
 
 down out of the first ten or twelve, each a first-rate shot ; 
 after which I lost count. 
 
 " Taking it all round, I don't think I have ever shot 
 better. Every third or fourth time I managed to pull 
 one down, to my great surprise and jubilation ; and a 
 large portion of these were clean killed. After the first 
 hour things got quieter, the birds being fewer and higher 
 than ever ; and I only shot about one in four or five 
 minutes. The geese had kept 200 feet and more up 
 ever since the first go off, but a single one came exactly 
 over me now, as I thought just out of range. However, 
 I saluted it with 3's, and to my astonishment it came 
 crashing down about 100 yards behind me in a large 
 bed of reeds. 
 
 " When the bugle went for luncheon I examined the 
 bag, and found they had picked up 28, composed 
 of a great variety of birds. The most prominent bird 
 about was the pintail, which is large and very handsome ; 
 the commonest was the teal. There were several I had 
 not shot before, and one bird, the spot-billed duck, quite 
 new to me. 
 
 " I was towed to shore and driven to a kind of Durbar 
 camp, a sumptuous luncheon marquee with the table laid 
 for fifty. The guns included three Rajahs, the Lieutenant- 
 Go vernor of Burma, and various other nobs. Patiala 
 and Dholpur had each bagged over 100, and the crack 
 British gun who lives there, one Cruikshank, had 140. I 
 reckon that he would have got 100 where I was. I fired 
 at about 150 birds, of which he would have got perhaps 
 40 as certainties and about half the remainder. The 
 morning's bag totalled 1490, and included grey-lag 
 goose, a few mallard, pintail, gadwall, spot-bill duck, 
 wigeon, shoveller, red-crested pochard, pochard, white- 
 eye and teal. 
 
 " We got back after a very good luncheon to our butts, 
 and the bugle sounded again at 8.30. Birds were much
 
 126 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 scarcer and higher than ever. I was shooting even better 
 in the afternoon, which I don't often do, and I got some 
 of the most glorious high teal I have ever seen. I had 
 the satisfaction of finishing up with three consecutive 
 beauties a teal, a shoveller and a gadwall, the last being 
 high, crossing at over 50 yards. My total bag was 17 
 for the afternoon, or 45 in all, made up as follows : 
 1 grey-lag goose, 5 pintail, 4 gadwall, 3 spot-bill duck, 
 5 shoveller, 3 red-crested pochard, 4 white-eye, 18 common 
 teal, 1 teal (?), 1 common pochard. I fired 320 cartridges 
 in all, which is equal to seven per bird picked up. Anyway, 
 it works out at bringing down every fourth bird I fired at ; 
 and if you'd seen the birds you would have agreed that 
 that was extremely good for me. 
 
 " Starting at 6.30, we got back to Agra at 8.40. So 
 ended a glorious day." 
 
 His next leave, on 12th February, was spent in a visit 
 to Delhi and Muttra. Of Muttra he wrote : 
 
 " The city is, I think, the most fascinating I have 
 seen the only one to beat it might be Benares. Muttra 
 is very sacred and the scene of many Krishna legends, 
 and a centre of Vishnu worship. Consequently it is 
 thronged with pilgrims and fakirs. The streets are 
 paved, the fronts of the houses rich with stone carving, 
 temples frequent, and the whole teeming like a beehive. 
 Along the Jamna bank are bathing ghats ; a paved street 
 runs along behind them, and presents a kaleidoscope 
 of devotional pictures. This aspect of Hinduism is the 
 only one which attracts me at all ; some people are 
 repelled by it, with its paint-daubs, ashes, matted hair, 
 genuflexions, ablutions and other uncouth circumstances ; 
 but it all seems to me a very genuine and human expression 
 of the instinct of propitiation and purification. 
 
 " The place is full of holy men of all kinds. There 
 has just been an extra big feast there, which occurs only
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 127 
 
 once in twelve years. We wandered about the bazaars 
 till dusk wonderful paved lanes of Oriental shops teeming 
 with life and colour and slow rambling motion. Nobody 
 took much notice of us or pestered us to buy. 
 
 " At about 6.30 we got into a big lazy boat, and 
 punted up the river to watch the ceremony of the Lights, 
 a kind of Hindu Vespers peculiar to Muttra and a most 
 enchanting sight, in a magical setting. The whole river 
 front of the city is embanked in stone, with flights of steps 
 to the water, as at Benares. From these steps or ghats, 
 pilgrims and others were launching little votive lights. 
 These are wishes : they are mere wicks and oil in clay 
 thimble saucers, set on tiny rush rafts, six or eight on a 
 raft, and they drift and twinkle away in the fading light. 
 
 " Soon we joined a semicircle of boats around the 
 ghat where the ceremony was to take place. A large 
 temple court looks on to the river, the steps leading down 
 from it. At the top was a stone canopy or baldachino 
 hung with bells. On the steps was gathering a crowd 
 of the people and pilgrims. These were busy feeding the 
 turtles in the river a wonderful sight in itself. They 
 simply swarmed, from terrapins to monsters, jostling and 
 heaving in a mass like fish in a net. Presently the bells 
 began, slowly at first, like chapel bells at Oxford, then 
 growing to a wild barbaric jangle, and in accompaniment 
 there rose cries and chants and gesticulations from the 
 now dense and emotional throng of people on the steps 
 and in the court. Suddenly the excitement grew tenser 
 and a priest appeared dim under the canopy (character- 
 istically not white-robed to complete the picture, but in 
 a dirty plum-coloured shawl and nondescript clothes). 
 Before him two acolytes stretched a muslin veil, behind 
 which he held a metal candelabra, not branched, but in 
 tiers like a skeleton papal tiara. On this were set many 
 little lamps and wicks, and the priest proceeded to light 
 them one by one, with prayers and ritual, while the cries
 
 128 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 redoubled, the bells beat in loud panting peals, and the 
 whole mass of people about the ghat and courtyard 
 swayed to and fro in a kind of dreamy ecstasy. Then 
 the luminous veil was snatched aside and the priest held 
 up the brilliant cluster of lights sacrificially in oblation 
 a picture never to be forgotten. It was almost completely 
 dark now, and the river and steps could only be dimly seen, 
 while the courtyard faded into darkness behind the 
 glowing circle of the lights. 
 
 " Then the priest drew down his hands, and the people 
 swarmed round and with long, sinuous gestures reached 
 out and passed their fingers through the flames, whether 
 to touch the fire or slowly to beat it out was obscure. 
 Gradually the lights died away, and with them the bells 
 and the voices, till the ceremony ended in dramatic still- 
 ness and darkness, to which the Tencbrae at St. Peter's 
 offers the only parallel I know." 
 
 Holidays, such as those described in the last two letters, 
 formed the fringe, not the texture, of Bobby's days. 
 During the spring of 1915 he was fully occupied with 
 complaints and discontent among his men, occasioned 
 by the faulty food provision. 
 
 " At best, the food is bad," explained Bobby, " and 
 the process of conveying it to the men is like bringing 
 water through a leaky aqueduct. It's an exhausting 
 and thankless job trying to put your finger on the leak." 
 
 He inaugurated his reforms by investing in a mincing- 
 machine, by instituting new cooking orderlies, by revising 
 the expenditure of messing-money, by superintending 
 the giving out of rations and the weighing of the food, 
 and, on one occasion, by testing the tea, of which the men 
 complained, by serving it out to the officers' mess, where 
 it was rejected with convincing vehemence. Presently, 
 to his great relief, he was joined in his campaign by 
 Major Wyatt, who threw himself into the fight directly
 
 CAPTAIN THE HON. R. S. A. PALMER 
 
 6th Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment. (India.) 
 
 Aged Twenty-seven, 1915.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 129 
 
 he took command of the detachment left at Agra. " He 
 is convinced," said Bobby, " that the food here is worse 
 than at other stations, and is making detailed inquiries 
 and embodying the results in repeated complaints, and is 
 suggesting remedies." Among the facts thus elicited 
 were : 
 
 1st. That the total value of the daily ration, meat, 
 bread, and groceries was fourpence halfpenny (as opposed 
 to two shillings in England). 
 
 2nd. That of this, only something under three penny- 
 worth reached each man, the contractor pocketing the 
 balance. 
 
 3rd. That the daily ration of meat for one company 
 was found, on re-weighing after the bone was removed, to 
 have shrunk to half the original weight. 
 
 4th. That the bread was proved to have been 
 systematically damped for weighing. 
 
 5th. That the chief Babu of the Supply and Transport 
 made an incredible show of wealth on his modest stipend 
 of thirty rupees a month. 
 
 Before many weeks had passed, Major Wyatt's and 
 Bobby's concentrated efforts produced a noticeable and 
 increasing improvement in the canteen ; so that, when in 
 May the battalion was reorganized on the double company 
 system, and " F " and " H " became " D " double com- 
 pany, with Bobby as second in command, 1 he was free to 
 turn his attention to the provision of occupation for his 
 men during the coming hot weather. 
 
 " What I am going to propose," he wrote home, ** is 
 the reorganization of games, which have (d la Hampshire) 
 got very slack. Possibly we can start hockey. Various 
 tournaments, quoits, whist, etc. Sports, swimming, 
 (there arc baths in barracks). 
 
 " I had thought of lectures, but it is so difficult to make 
 
 1 He was promoted to the rank of Captain in April 1915, but was not 
 gazetted till the autumn. 
 
 '7
 
 I 3 o ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 them entertaining without lantern-slides. I gave them 
 one on the Taj in the winter. I may be able to work a 
 series on the War, using Land and Water." 
 
 His care for his men permeated every phase of their 
 lives, their pay, food, health, amusements, interests and 
 morals. He had hardly landed in India when he started 
 a savings bank for his company, which rendered useful 
 service for three years. He lectured his company on 
 hygiene, watching over their health with the prudence of a 
 cautious medical man, and being rewarded by a consoling 
 absence of illness. " There has never been so little sick- 
 ness since we mobilized," he reported to his mother in 
 June. " We are nearly three-quarters of the way through 
 the hot weather in its narrower sense. I had been led by 
 Kipling's lurid accounts of the hot weather in barracks to 
 anticipate a lot of trouble, but there is no sign of it. We 
 have kept pretty free of sunstroke owing to the Major's 
 very sensible precautions. The gunners sneer and jeer 
 at these precautions, but the result is that, though their 
 numbers are almost a third of ours, they have had nine or 
 ten bad cases of sunstroke (one fatal) to our two." 
 
 Bobby's relations to his company earned the approval 
 of his men and his fellow-officers from the beginning. 
 After his death, Lieutenant J. H. Stables wrote to Purefoy 
 Causton : " It did not take long to recognize Robert 
 Palmer as one of the great strengths in the battalion. It 
 was noticeable from the very first, from the way he handled 
 his company and went about working for them on 
 the UUonia it struck me." 
 
 Sergeant Alfred Lunt recalls two incidents which he 
 considered to be characteristic of Captain Robert Palmer. 
 The first was a stern reproof addressed by him to his 
 younger brother before the whole company, for being late 
 on parade, which the men regarded as showing " his 
 obvious wish to be absolutely impartial in enforcing
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 131 
 
 discipline." The second was an incident during some 
 company manoeuvres, which Sergeant Lunt was sent to 
 attend as an " unofficial umpire." " After the con- 
 clusion of the mimic battle it fell to my lot to criticize 
 adversely Captain Palmer's action in an emergency. He 
 was kind enough to thank me for the criticism, but he was 
 far less forgiving towards himself. His sense of duty 
 was, I fancy, a very powerful one, and whether he was 
 on orderly duty, company duty, or office work, he was 
 always absolutely punctilious in performance." 
 
 No greater contrast occurs in Bobby's life than that 
 shown in his intolerance of schoolboy Philistinism at 
 Winchester and his understanding of the outlook of the 
 Hampshire Territorial. He had learned, as his former 
 Headmaster expressed it, " to see deeper. Before the 
 end he saw the strength and steadfastness and comrade- 
 ship that lie in the breast of the most unlikely, and his heart 
 went out to meet them with a fulness wonderfully different 
 from the aloofness of schooldays." 
 
 Bobby wrote an unsigned article in the Indiaman of 
 30th April 1915, on " The Territorials in India : Adapta- 
 tion to Environment" It is singularly interesting as 
 showing the ceaseless observation and philosophical 
 deductions made by him in his hourly intercourse with 
 his men. He noted with regret that the final adjustment 
 (which followed the excitement of novelty and the ensuing 
 reaction and home-sickness) involved the sacrifice of many 
 living interests, among which was, too frequently, the loss 
 of all concern in things Indian, due to the creation of an 
 aggressively British atmosphere. 
 
 This was the more distressing to Bobby, because, for 
 him, the attraction of India and her people remained as 
 potent as ever. He greatly appreciated the opportunities 
 of intercourse with his friends at St. John's College which 
 Agra afforded him. He threw himself enthusiastically
 
 i 3 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 into Mr. Raju's project of forming a local " Round Table 
 Group," l and he took part in a preliminary meeting, 
 held to consider the proposal, where, at Mr. Raju's request, 
 he sketched the history of the Round Table inquiry and its 
 group-method. He also attended subsequent meetings 
 of the Group, which was eventually formed. " I am sure 
 that it is Raju's vocation to be a Spark-scatterer 1 " he 
 once remarked to a mutual friend. 
 
 In addition to this effort to stimulate study on sound 
 political lines, Bobby shared in another of his friend 
 Raju's intellectual enterprises, i.e. in a series of lectures 
 delivered at meetings of the professors of St. John's 
 College, when keen discussions were held on the theories 
 of Transmigration and of Karma. Mr. Raju contri- 
 buted two brilliant original addresses delivered from the 
 Christian standpoint ; Bobby wound up the argument 
 with a remarkable paper which partly corrected and 
 partly supplemented the lines laid down by his friend. It 
 was entitled " Inequalities, Criticisms and Suggestions 
 from the Christian Point of View." After my nephew's 
 death, Mr. Raju sent the paper as a " dearly valued and 
 treasured " offering to the mother of " the dearest and 
 truest friend he had ever had, or hoped to have, in life." 
 
 At the same time, Purefoy Causton (another of Bobby's 
 devoted friends) described to her his recollections of 
 discussions with its author of various points in the paper 
 while it was being composed : " The thing interested 
 me enormously. It makes hay very satisfactorily with 
 the Theosophist point of view." 
 
 At the time that these lectures were being delivered, 
 in March of 1915, the friendship between Purefoy Causton 
 
 The Groups conduct inquiries into the relations existing between 
 the several parts of the British Commonwealth, with the object of deter- 
 mining whether they are satisfactory ; and, if not, how far they require 
 to be changed in order to make them so.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 133 
 
 and Bobby had thrown out very deep roots. On 19th 
 March the latter wrote to his mother, saying : " I have 
 become very devoted to Purefoy since we have been here. 
 I have never known a friend before who made me forget 
 all about myself and care only for him. It is the best 
 thing that has come into my life for a long time, and every 
 day I thank God for it. He is a real unpretending saint, 
 but full of go and charm, and I just love him because he's 
 Purefoy. Luly is nearly as devoted to him as I am, and 
 he has made the whole difference to me out here. I know 
 you would understand it at once if you saw a little of 
 him ; and I hope you will, if we all come home safe by 
 God's mercy. I can't illustrate his power over me and 
 Luly, or his good use of it, more convincingly, than by 
 saying that he has persuaded us both to go in for a bare- 
 back riding course on the artillery gun -team horses 
 here ! ! " 
 
 Bobby's last earthly Easter was spent at Rawal Pindi. 
 He wrote in Holy Week, saying : 
 
 " Now I'm off to Rawal Pindi to-morrow, to do a 
 musketry course. (Isn't it like the military to order one 
 to report oneself at a place seven hundred miles off on the 
 afternoon of Easter Day ? However, I've got leave to 
 start on Good Friday, as half the battalion is setting off for 
 the hills then.) I told the Quartermaster that I thought 
 it a bit thick sending us all off on Good Friday instead 
 of waiting till Monday, and he said : ' Yes, it is a bit 
 awkward; but Monday is a Bank Holiday, too, so it 
 makes no difference either way I ' " 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " FLASHMAN'S HOTEL, RAWAL PINDI, 
 
 Easter Day (April 4), 1915. 
 
 " I don't think I have ever spent a more blessed 
 Easter Day, and I must begin my letter to-day just to
 
 134 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 tell you how deeply happy I am. Isn't it strange that, 
 with you far away and the nightmare of the War hanging 
 over us in a dark cloud, I have never felt so happy and 
 peaceful inwardly ? Don't think for a moment that 
 being away from you doesn't hurt me. Of course it does, 
 every day ; and if I let myself think too much about it, 
 I get very home-sick, and at times the horror of the War 
 still almost stifles me ; but, instead of feeling miserable at 
 it all, I now find a happiness and peacefulness that in the 
 end is always the deepest thing i# me, and reasserts 
 itself after every unsettlement. Even the dull old routine 
 of drill has got its little cheery halo. 
 
 " I keep wondering how this has come about, as I 
 can't trace the stages in it clearly, and I can't even be 
 certain it will last. But for the moment I have found 
 this wonderful peace. I have settled some of the long 
 mental battles which divided me against myself and 
 made me afraid and ashamed of myself. I feel at peace 
 with God and more deeply thankful to Him than I can 
 say ; and that by resting on His love I can be less of a 
 coward, less selfish and less isolated. Only, I am frightened 
 I shan't have the faith and goodness to keep in such 
 harmony with life. 
 
 " Among human relations, I owe this great blessing to 
 dear Purefoy more than anyone. He has touched me as 
 no one else of my own age has, and has given me glimpses 
 of a blessedness I've always longed for and always missed, 
 like love to an old maid. But the glorious thing is that 
 I've not only got a glimpse but a taste of the real thing. 
 I'm not an old maid, but a young boy, and I can feel the 
 glow of a friendship that is more precious than life. You 
 must love him too and make him love you. I often talk 
 to him about you to try to make him know you now. 
 
 "I've taken up Wentworth 1 again. He was rather 
 interrupted by company training and our other activities, 
 1 His unfinished novel, Wentworth's Reform.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 135 
 
 but here I try to devote an hour to him every day, and do 
 on most. I find it much harder to write than an article, 
 and am not satisfied with the present form of what I have 
 written. ... It is a very amusing work, and now I feel 
 so contented and peaceful there is nothing to spoil it." 
 
 Of his conversion of mind with regard to active 
 service, he wrote : 
 
 " At first I was devoutly thankful that I had been 
 honourably removed from the firing-line, the prospect of 
 which I funked acutely even when I screwed myself up to 
 volunteer for Foreign Service. But now it seems to me 
 one can't shirk it like that. I feel that, if I got the chance, 
 I ought to go to the firing-line, partly on general grounds 
 that one ought to be at the most dangerous place and any 
 form of staying away from it is in the long run wormish ; 
 and partly on personal grounds that one ought to take 
 the line of most resistance if one is to make a reality of 
 one's pretensions to lead a Christian life. 
 
 " The only qualification to this conclusion which I feel 
 is quite honest, is that I don't want to go anywhere 
 without my men. The company comes from all round 
 
 Blackmoor and includes boys like N and W and 
 
 W , so that I feel a kind of special responsibility for 
 
 them. One would feel it terribly in the firing-line ; but, 
 after pondering it over, I am sure it would be right to 
 take them there if I had the chance, even though I knew 
 that many of them would never come back." 
 
 Three weeks later he wrote to his mother that : 
 " They are calling for volunteers from Territorial 
 Battalions to fill gaps in the Persian Gulf. ... So far 
 they have asked the Devons, Cornwalls, Dorsets, Somer- 
 sets, and East Surreys, but not the Hampshires. So I 
 suppose they arc going to reserve us for feeding the 4th 
 Hants in case they want casualties replaced later on.
 
 136 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Even if they come to us, I don't think they are likely 
 to take me or Luly, because in every case they are taking 
 the senior subaltern. But, of course, I shall volunteer, 
 as there is no adequate reason not to ; so I thought you 
 would like to know, only you mustn't worry, as the chance 
 of my going is exceedingly remote ; but I like to tell you 
 everything." 
 
 " Everything " included at this time a matter that 
 weighed heavily on Bobby's soul. The abominations of 
 the Contagious Diseases Acts seemed to him to survive 
 in the hideous prostitution system in India. He described 
 himself as " up against it ! " and wrote both to his mother 
 and to me about his distress concerning the whole matter. 
 He disbelieved entirely in warnings given to soldiers 
 against unchastity, based only on the danger of catching 
 disease : 
 
 " I tell my men to abstain, 1st : Because it's wrong, 
 and you know it is. It's a wrong (i) to yourself and your 
 self-respect ; (ii) to the girl, because you are contributing 
 to keep her in a rotten life just as truly, if not so obviously, 
 as if you were seducing an innocent girl each time ; 
 (iii) to any future sweetheart or wife you may have here- 
 after. 
 
 " 2nd : Because it's dangerous to your health and 
 military efficiency. 
 
 " There are, in fact, only two tenable attitudes on the 
 question : i.e. my attitude and that of the ' facilities 
 and protection.' The logical Germans have adopted the 
 latter, I'm told. To me, such a policy is inexpressibly 
 horrible, because it implies such an infamously degraded 
 conception of women and their treatment." 
 
 Some criticisms of Sinister Street, 1 relating to this 
 matter, show how passionately Bobby rebelled against 
 the ordinary worldly view of immorality. 
 
 1 Sinister Street, by Compton MacKenzie.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 137 
 
 To his friend, Purefoy Causton, he wrote : 
 
 " It's not the indecency I object to : it's the cruelty. 
 Why won't fellows realize that womanizing is one of 
 those things, like slavery and cruelty to children, that 
 are essentially damnable and barbarous ? 
 
 "I have finished Sinister Street, Book IV. What I 
 think is really great in the last book is that he gives an 
 absolutely realistic picture of the underworld it reads 
 quite as convincingly as the picture of Oxford, though 
 I haven't the same means of testing it without ever 
 once being morbid or nasty about it. And it brings out 
 vividly the two facts which oppress me always i.e. the 
 horrible cruelty of the whole institution of prostitution 
 right down from the top to the bottom Mrs. Gainsborough 
 is nearly on the top rung of a ladder, of which the bottom 
 rung is Mrs. Smith's. (Even she is not by any means the 
 bottom, really, when you remember the white slaves of 
 Buenos Ayres.) They are part of one whole, which stands 
 or falls together. That is the first thing. 
 
 " And the second is the astonishing callousness of 
 men, due to lack of imagination. They only see their 
 own point of view, and they assume that for an unmarried 
 man to go off for a week-end with a girl is, at the worst, 
 an amiable weakness of youth, and think none the worse 
 of him for it. Yet, to me, it is staringly obvious that, 
 say Lonsdale, whenever he goes to Brighton with Lily, 
 is helping to create a Mrs. Smith, just as surely as if he 
 had frequented a brothel or seduced a nursemaid, both 
 of which he would probably have realized to be revolting 
 things to do. 
 
 " Do you follow ? and do you agree ? I do so want 
 you to feel as I do about this, because it is a very important 
 question and is going to loom very large before long. 
 And it is so hard to discuss with other people, that I feel 
 the risk of getting a one-sided or exaggerated view of 
 it. I feel I may have to spend a good part of my life 
 18
 
 138 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 fighting this indifference and acquiescence in two standards, 
 so I want to do so sanely." 
 
 To his mother he wrote on the same subject : 
 " I should like all my young men acquaintances to 
 read Sinister Street, to help them to realize how miserable 
 a prostitute's life really is, and how the scale passes re- 
 morselessly from the Mrs. Gainsboroughs at one end to 
 the Mrs. Smiths at the other. The only thing which 
 seemed to me not quite true to fact was Michael's ap- 
 parent assumption that all his friends were lax in these 
 matters and that it was inevitable it should be so. I 
 believe that is an exaggeration : among the 'Varsity class 
 I should say that only about one man in three (enough, 
 in all conscience !) had wrong relations with women before 
 their marriage ; and that the remainder (more or less 
 mildly) deprecate their doing it." 
 
 The ferment resulting from the action of Western 
 ideas on the ancient and antagonistic ideas and use of 
 India was another subject of grave study by my nephew. 
 He analysed it in several letters, from which some extracts 
 may fitly find their place here. 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 " AGRA, 
 May 4, 1915. 
 
 " I will certainly peg away at the Indian problem 
 and let you know my conclusions. My difficulty at present 
 is to get first-hand statements of the Indian point of view. 
 At present I'm rather depressed by what I understand 
 of it, as it seems we are heading towards a critical dead- 
 lock. With regard to what you say, my impressions are 
 these : 
 
 " 1. The ' catchwords of European democracy ' don't 
 loom so large as you suppose. It is more a question of 
 national or racial incompatibility of ideas. I don't even
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 139 
 
 detect any enthusiasm for Parliamentary Government, 
 except as a means of overthrowing the Anglo-Indian 
 bureaucracy. Such democratic talk as there is, rings to 
 me like mere eyewash of English M.P.s. 
 
 " 2. The ' small proportion ' is and is not true. Of 
 the population of India, of course, only a very small 
 percentage is educated at all. But, as far as I can make 
 out, of the educated classes in the towns, including clerks, 
 petty officials, commercial clerks, shopmen, petty traders, 
 students and lawyers, the overwhelming majority are 
 Nationalist. The only exceptions seem to be those 
 whose job depends on the maintenance of the status quo. 
 The army is a doubtful quantity. It is assiduously fed 
 with Nationalist propaganda, but with what result I 
 don't know. 
 
 " 3. What impresses me most, as compared with what 
 I heard in 1912, is the universal opinion that things have 
 moved very quickly since then, and that a further large 
 advance towards giving Indians a controlling share in 
 the government is inevitable in the near future. In 
 every department, civil service, municipalities, finance, 
 provincial governments, the Indians are pushing steadily 
 forward, like a line of saps, towards fuller control of their 
 own affairs. ... It is all we can do to guide them into 
 the safest channels ; and that's what we're trying to do, 
 always assuring them that we sympathise, and so on. 
 But now when a concrete question comes up for decision, 
 a so-called concession which everyone knows could have 
 been made without the smallest risk or difficulty, the 
 Lords go and reject it. Instantly every saphead becomes 
 irritated and enflamed. They cry out that it is a put-up 
 job, that our professions of sympathy are insincere, that 
 our advice and guidance is only an attempt to stifle their 
 movement. 
 
 " 4. The whole agitation and unrest spring from two 
 roots, as far as I can see :
 
 140 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " (a) Incompatibility of temper, sharpened by a 
 sense of being treated as a conquered 
 race. 
 " (b) Hope of loot. 
 
 "The first is, of course, the formidable root, and it 
 is ineradicable. British methods and attitudes irritate 
 Indians as much as theirs irritate us. Their standards 
 are so hopelessly unrelated to ours that I despair of our 
 convincing them either, 1st, that British methods give 
 better results than Indian methods ; or even, 2nd, that 
 British methods give better results when worked by 
 Englishmen than when worked by Indians. As for the 
 sense of being a conquered race, I should like to see 
 Government work its hardest to remove that sense ; 
 but I confess that the chief points of grievance are ex- 
 tremely difficult to remove. The ones most often cited 
 are: 
 
 " I. The social exclusion of Indians from English 
 clubs and social functions, etc. 
 
 " II. The way in which the youngest English whipper- 
 snapper orders Brahmans and other Indian swells about 
 like servants. 
 
 " III. The Aliens Act. Raju says this rankles more 
 than anything. 
 
 " IV. The exclusion of Indians from highest posts in 
 the Army and Civil Service. 
 
 " V. The treatment of Indian emigrants in South 
 Africa and Canada. 
 
 " These headings seem to me typical. Only the last 
 raises the question of India's place in the Empire. I. 
 and II. breed a desire to eliminate the Anglo-Indian, as 
 far as possible, because he is a galling and unsympathetic 
 personality ; III. and IV. breed a desire to get control of 
 the machine of Government ; whether that machine is 
 democratic or autocratic in form I don't think interests 
 them. Running through all this, and greatly reinforcing
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 141 
 
 it, is the desire to get control of the huge revenue and 
 patronage of Government. And that, of course, is exactly 
 what we can't give them. Hence I see a deadlock, 
 which can only be postponed, not averted, by ' conces- 
 sions ' on unessential matters. 
 
 44 It seems to me more urgently necessary for India 
 than for any other part of the Empire to come under a 
 really Imperial Parliament which could keep abreast of 
 its problems. But I believe it would be disastrous to 
 put India under such a body autocratically, i.e. without 
 reconciling Indians to the change, which will be difficult. 
 They dislike and distrust the Dominions because of their 
 immigration policy, and fear they will be exploited or 
 treated as an inferior people by them. 
 
 " I am convinced that the only way of reconciling 
 them to it will be by giving them direct representation 
 in the Imperial Parliament. And on general grounds I 
 think they are entitled to it. The Indian point of view is 
 distinctive, sincere, and often vitally serious to Indians. 
 It is entitled to be heard, and Indian Civil Service people 
 with the best will can't always voice it ; at any rate 
 Indians never think they can. 
 
 " I don't think numbers will be a difficulty ; the 
 principle is representation and is familiar here ; counting 
 heads isn't. A very small number would suffice. 
 
 " The difficulty is much more likely to be to get the 
 Dominions to agree to allowing Indians a voice in their 
 affairs. But that must be just faced ; there is no way of 
 evading it. 
 
 44 It seems to me that what is wanted here pre- 
 eminently is thinking ahead. The moment the War 
 stops, unprecedented clamours will begin, and only a 
 Government which knows its aim and has thought out 
 its method can deal with them. It seems to me, though
 
 i 4 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 my judgment is fearfully hampered by my inability to 
 get at any comprehensive statement of most of the 
 relevant facts, that the aim may be fairly simply defined, 
 as the training of India to self-government within the 
 Empire, combined with its good administration in trust 
 meanwhile. That gives you a clear criterion India's 
 welfare, not British interests and fixes the limit of the 
 employment of Indians as the maximum consistent with 
 good government. 
 
 " The method is, of course, far more difficult and requires 
 far more knowledge of the facts than I possess. But I 
 should set to work at it on these lines : 
 
 " 1. Certain qualities need to be developed : re- 
 sponsibility, public spirit, self-respect, and so 
 on. This should be aimed at (i) by our own 
 example and teaching, (ii) by a drastic re- 
 form of higher education. 
 
 "2. The barbarisms of the masses must be attacked. 
 This can only be done by a scheme of uni- 
 versal education. 
 
 " 3. The material level of civilization should be 
 raised. This means agricultural and in- 
 dustrial developments in which technical 
 education would play a large part. 
 " Therefore, your method may be summed up in two 
 words sympathy and education. The first is mainly, of 
 course, a personal question. Therefore, preserve at all 
 costs a high standard of personnel for the Indian Civil 
 Service. 
 
 " The second, education, is a question of s. d. 
 The aim should be a far-sighted and comprehensive 
 scheme. Reform of higher education will be very un- 
 popular, but should be firmly and thoroughly carried out ; 
 it ought not to cost much. Elementary education would 
 have to begin by supplying schools where asked for, at a 
 certain rate. From this they would aim at making it
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 143 
 
 gradually universal, then free, then compulsory. But 
 that will be many years hence inevitably." 
 
 On the 18th May, Bobby, Luly, and Purefoy Causton 
 made an expedition from Simla to Narkanda, which in 
 Bobby's estimation was surpassingly rich in the delights 
 of glorious panorama, snow ranges, birds and butterflies 
 of exquisite beauty, picturesque hill-people, and the 
 recollection that Narkanda was the scene of the last 
 episode in Kim. 1 
 
 Of the return journey, Bobby wrote : 
 
 " We started back at 9.30, but after five miles of road 
 we left our rickshaws and climbed by a footpath over the 
 wall of the valley and so down to Matiana. The walk 
 was the loveliest and most delightful I ever remember 
 taking. The air was like champagne. One saw the 
 flowers, birds and butterflies on much more intimate 
 terms than from the road. The trees were magnificent. 
 The butterflies were magical. Of the many flowers, the 
 most exquisite was a blue anemone, almost the colour of 
 a periwinkle, but not quite the colour of anything but 
 itself. The path ran for some way along the ridge, with 
 a view on either side through the forest. Then we came 
 to an open space, where a grass meadow ran up to a 
 tor which crowned the ridge. From this meadow we had 
 a stupendous view of the full semicircle of the snows, now 
 all visible. We could see at least a hundred miles in either 
 direction, from the Chamba Hills round Dalhousie to the 
 great peaks beyond Mussourie, Kedranath and Badrinath 
 towering above everything on the extreme right, and to 
 their left, Gangutri and Jamnutri, the twin mountains 
 from which the Ganges and Jamna rise. A large pro- 
 portion of the surface is too steep for snow to lie, and this 
 adds greatly to the effect, as the white snows are chequered 
 with blue, like the shadows on the moon at dawn. 
 
 1 Kim, by Rudyard Kipling.
 
 144 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " We scrambled quickly down to Matiana through 
 mossy forests of ilex. The journey back to Simla gave 
 us a last idyllic afternoon in the woods between Wild- 
 flower Hall and Mashobra, the same overhanging, dizzily 
 falling, fern-tangled, cedar-shafted mountain-side with its 
 pools of light and silent floating butterflies and scented 
 cool shades. The fragrance of these forests is one of their 
 chief delights. 
 
 " We rejoined our rickshaws at Mashobra, and they 
 took us back to Simla, full six miles, in an hour. We 
 found various exciting and melancholy bits of news since 
 our departure : colossal casualty lists, including poor 
 Ninian Bertie ; Italy almost at war ; and a reconstruction 
 of the Cabinet imminent." 
 
 The sense of isolation deepened as the weeks rolled on. 
 In one of his letters, Bobby explained how his life in India 
 resembled that of a Religious within enclosing walls : 
 
 " From our experience war would appear to be an 
 almost monastic regime, monotonous, secluded, immensely 
 remote from the buzzing world, characterized too by early 
 rising and poor feeding ; but somewhat perfunctory in 
 the liturgical and intercessory department. Our only 
 real emotional link with Europe (apart from the private 
 weekly mail) is the endless series of casualty lists, a 
 pathetic reminder of ties remembered only in their 
 breaking. Every week it seems somebody drops from 
 the outer circle of one's acquaintance ; one lives in an 
 oppressive apprehension as each new list looms forward. 
 Almost everyone I know seems to have been wounded. 
 
 " Otherwise, the tiny, pregnant items of news which 
 reach us three days old, via Renter and the Pioneer 
 4 Italy has declared war on Austria ' ; ' The British 
 Cabinet will be reconstructed on a National basis ' seem 
 trivial and commonplace, and one's mind retains the 
 impression of them for fewer minutes than the result of a
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 145 
 
 by-election interests one at home. It always amazes me 
 when I think of it : this country is a land of the Lotus 
 Eaters. I am very happy in the lotus-eating kind of way, 
 with occasional fits of acute depression when one sees 
 oneself a coward, and twinges of home-sickness which 
 the presence of Luly and Purefoy prevents from taking 
 hold of you." 
 
 The " endless series of casualty lists " at that time 
 included among the dead the names of Bobby's friends 
 George Fletcher, William Gladstone, Ronald Corbett and 
 Ninian Bertie. 
 
 To THE VISCOUNTESS HOWICK 
 
 June 7, 1915. 
 
 " I am very keen on the National Government. 1 Its 
 meetings must be rather comic, but I can imagine nothing 
 better for politicians than to be forced to see each other's 
 point of view. I hope papa will enjoy the Board of 
 Agriculture. Bob 2 at the Foreign Office ought to have 
 full scope for his energies if ever we get to negotiating a 
 peace. 
 
 " I have taken up hockey in order to be hearty with the 
 men during the hot weather. Luckily, hot weather makes 
 me feel hearty and energetic. I run about incredibly 
 fast and often, and positively enjoy it. And at the end 
 I can go right into the bar of the Club (which I used to 
 regard as the most unapproachable spot on earth) and 
 sit on the counter drinking beer and cider by the pint 
 and other beverages equally indigestible, without turn- 
 ing a hair. So far has my education by Purefoy pro- 
 gressed. 
 
 " I was much gratified by the two letters I got from the 
 
 1 Mr. Asquith had just formed his Coalition Cabinet. 
 * Lord Robert Cecil. 
 
 19
 
 146 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 4 Princesses.' * * We have got two new ducks on the moat 
 and two Belgian refugees in the house,' echoes another 
 famous phrase. Also ' Granny has got her portrait in the 
 papers ; Nisset has made holes all over the knees of her 
 stockings,' is Gibbonian in spirit." 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 " AGRA, 
 May 30, 1915. 
 
 " I am very glad Asquith has included you, and that 
 you have accepted inclusion, in his new Cabinet. I expect 
 you will like the Board of Agriculture, though I hoped 
 they would put you back at the Admiralty. However, 
 I am glad A. J. Balfour has gone there, as he is the most 
 outstanding figure in Parliament and is also just the man 
 to prevent friction." 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " AGRA, 
 July 16, 1915. 
 
 " Thanks for Oliver's book which has arrived. I have 
 only had time just to begin it. Luly is still reading 
 Treitschke, so I haven't begun him. I read Aladore. 2 The 
 language is lovely. It is too irresponsible to criticize, 
 but he keeps on straying into allegory and then taking 
 flight on wings of fantasy, which prevents my putting it in 
 the first rank, because I believe he meant it for an alle- 
 gory. Shagpat 3 avoids that weakness until near the end. 
 
 " I am making an effort to learn some Hindustani, 
 partly because I find it very inconvenient when on leave 
 not to be independent of an interpreter, and partly be- 
 cause Purefoy wants me to go in for the Lower Standard 
 exam, with him. At present I am learning to read and 
 
 1 His sister's little daughters. 
 
 2 A ladore : a Prose Phantasy, by Henry Newbolt. 
 The Shaving of Shagpat, by G. Meredith.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 147 
 
 trying to acquire a little vocabulary. Their alphabet is 
 constructed on the most ridiculous principles, or want of 
 them, and reminds me very much of the state of their 
 towns : in fact, it is symbolic of Indian culture generally." 
 
 At the end of July, Bobby and Purefoy were granted a 
 fortnight's leave, which they spent in a visit to Lady 
 Meston at Naini Tal. While there, a telegram arrived 
 from Major Wyatt, asking my nephew if he would com- 
 mand a draft ordered to reinforce the 4th Hampshires 
 in the Persian Gulf. His comments on this offer are 
 given in the two following letters. 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " GOVERNMENT HOUSE, 
 
 NAINI TAL, August 3, 1915. 
 
 " This is the exact fulfilment of the calculation I wrote 
 to you in April, but it came as a surprise at the moment. 
 I was more excited than either pleased or depressed. I 
 don't hanker after fighting, and I would, of course, have 
 preferred to go with the regiment and not as a draft. But 
 now that I'm in for it, the interest of doing something after 
 all these months of hanging about, and in particular the 
 responsibility of looking after the draft on the way, seems 
 likely to absorb all other feelings. What appeals to me 
 most is the purely unmilitary prospect of being able to 
 protect the men to some extent from the, I'm sure, 
 preventible sickness there has been in the Persian Gulf. 
 The only remark that ever made me feel a sudden desire 
 to go to any front was when O'Connor at Lahore told me 
 (quite untruly, as it turned out) that * the Hampshires were 
 dying like flies at Basra.' As for fighting, it doesn't look 
 as if there would be much, whereon Purefoy greatly com- 
 miserates me ; but if that is the only privation I shan't 
 complain !
 
 148 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " I'm afraid your lively imagination will conjure up 
 every kind of horror, and that is the only thing that dis- 
 tresses me about going ; but clearly a tropical climate 
 suits me better than most people, and I will be very careful 
 to avoid all unnecessary risks ! both for your peace of 
 mind and also to keep the men up to the mark, to say 
 nothing of less exalted motives." 
 
 Bobby's last hours in India were saddened by the 
 arrival of a terrible casualty list. He wrote home as 
 follows : 
 
 " Yesterday Purefoy and I went to the Taj at sunset. 
 It was wonderfully peaceful, the river now fully 250 yards 
 broad and flowing like the tide in Tennyson that * moving 
 seems asleep, too full for sound and foam.' The sun set 
 exactly behind the centre of the Fort. The world there 
 seemed to be as God meant it to be. 
 
 " The news of poor Gilbert Talbot being killed has 
 just come through. It affects me very much. I was 
 fond of Gilbert, and it is a pathetic end to all his exuberant 
 schemes and hopes. And I am very sorry for the Des- 
 boroughs losing Billy so soon after Julian. I am anxious 
 to hear how Foss Prior is. I hardly knew the Lascelles 
 boy. It is the most pain-giving list we have yet had." 
 
 " August 4. The whole station turned out to the 
 Anniversary Service to-day. It is dreadful to think that 
 we've all been denying our Christianity for a whole year 
 and are likely to go on doing so for another. How our 
 Lord's heart must bleed for us ! It appals me to think 
 of it." 
 
 On the 14th August 1915 Bobby entered on the final 
 stage of his life's journey. It led him through desert 
 whirlwind and the roar of battle to the supreme act of 
 self-sacrifice in death.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 MESOPOTAMIA, 1915 
 
 THE " cultured leisure " thrust willy-nilly upon Bobby 
 during most of the time spent by him in Mesopotamia 
 left him free for much general observation, shepherding 
 of his men, letter-writing and reading. "I meditate on 
 the felicity of the Tennysonian c infinite torment of flies.' 
 I am driven to study Hindustani and read Gibbon on the 
 heresies to avoid being actually bored, which, in a normal 
 existence, ought to be almost an unthinkable state," he 
 explained. 
 
 In those four months he read Origin of Species, Religio 
 Medici, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, History 
 of India, Wealth of Nations, Life of St. Francis of Assist, 
 Balfour's Theism and Humanism, Bacon's Essays, Borrow's 
 Works, Burke's French Revolution, Creighton's History 
 of the Papacy, Margoliouth's Mahommed, Wakeman's 
 History of the Church of England, Illingworth's Divine 
 Immanence ; the poems of Chaucer, Coleridge, Pope, 
 Swinburne, Tennyson and Wordsworth ; besides detective 
 stories and novels innumerable. 
 
 Bobby's insatiable literary craving was never allowed 
 to interfere with his punctilious performance of his 
 military duties or with his " mothering " of his men. 
 Both officers and privates soon saw his worth through 
 the veil of his shy reserve and learnt to feel the warmest 
 esteem and affection for him. One such instance may be 
 recorded in the words of Captain G. Elton of the l/4th 
 Hampshires, who was sent to Amarah with a large draft
 
 150 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 and five other officers in October 1915, and was there 
 attached as a subaltern to the company of which Bobby 
 was second in command. He says: "It was with a 
 thrill that I discovered that he was the Palmer who had 
 been President of the Oxford Union and got a first in 
 Greats. He had quite a lot of interesting books with 
 him even there. The first book he lent me was Balfour's 
 Theism and Humanism ; and whenever I got a chance 
 I used to talk to him. It wasn't easy ; he lived in a 
 different building and shared his room. But I managed 
 it fairly often, usually by sitting next him in mess. He 
 impressed me very much as a person with an astonishing 
 reserve of strength. Beyond and behind his sympathy 
 and charm there was something else, something one 
 didn't quite reach, obviously wouldn't reach, until one 
 knew him really well. I guessed at the time that that 
 something was spiritual rather than intellectual, but I 
 never knew him long enough or well enough to confirm 
 my guess. Besides in these ways attracting me as a 
 spirit, though wiser and stronger, yet kindred, in an 
 alien place, I used to admire his extreme efficiency as a 
 soldier. I don't suppose he really liked the routine as 
 I always thought some of our companions did. In fact, 
 the first thing he ever said to me was, on my remarking 
 that I wanted to follow my own men into * A ' Company, 
 that, judging from his own experience of the Army, I 
 might be pretty certain that that was the one company 
 I should not be appointed to. But he was clearly a very 
 fine officer, in that, besides being completely competent 
 and level-headed in the details of administration, he had 
 a real hold over the men, who recognized and loved him 
 as a gentleman. It was an additional attraction to me 
 personally that, with the efficiency, he could be sufficiently 
 absent-minded to put his gaiters on the wrong way 
 round. These, you see, are all external impressions. He 
 was too reserved to tell me explicitly what he was thinking,
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 151 
 
 although he at once understood and sympathized with 
 what I was thinking. It was, no doubt, from the sub- 
 conscious impressions, which are usually the truest, that 
 I became persuaded that he profoundly disliked his sur- 
 roundings but would never admit his discomfort and drew 
 all the while upon an inner source of strength, which I 
 took to be a philosophy founded on religion. 
 
 " A mere accident kept him from coming upstream 
 with us into Kut and staying there for siege, subsequent 
 captivity in Asia Minor, and ultimate release. I remember 
 a fellow-officer saying that when Robert saw us off there 
 were tears in his eyes. I don't know if that was so. 
 But at least he was badly missed, and I often thought 
 what a difference he would have made to our captivity." 
 
 " I wish you could know what a tremendous lot people 
 thought of him in the regiment, both officers and men, some 
 of whom had little in common with him," wrote his friend 
 Purefoy Causton to Bobby's mother. Colonel Stilwell, of 
 the 4th Hants, (then Major in command of the battalion at 
 Amarah) was struck from his first arrival with his popularity 
 with the draft which he had brought from India, and before 
 long saw how he had won the love of the whole company. 
 "He always looked after their interests, and the men 
 knew it. He proved a good leader of men." 
 
 Fred Norris, one of his Blackmoor men, with character- 
 istic Hampshire avoidance of gush, bears the following 
 testimony to his company's appreciation of my nephew : 
 
 " Of all men which served under Captain Palmer's 
 command, not one did I hear speak a word against him, 
 which shows how well he was liked, and many times they 
 said if all officers were the same as him the British Army 
 would be perfect. When his draft arrived at Basra he 
 was so disappointed at the conditions that he worried him- 
 self awful over his men, and by his thought for them saved 
 a great number of his draft from the sun by buying things 
 which he could not get issued for them. He would never
 
 152 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 rest until he had seen his men as comfortable as possible. 
 When the mail arrived with any parcels, they were always 
 sure of the greater part of his being distributed among 
 them." 
 
 To THE REV. RONALD KNOX 
 
 " H.M.S. Varsova, 
 OFF FARS ISLAND, 
 August 22, 1915. 
 
 " It is too warm to be facetious, and I have no letter 
 of yours to answer ; so you will have to put up with a 
 bald narrative of our doings since I last wrote. 
 
 " They gave us various binges at Agra before we left. 
 A concerted effort to make me tight failed completely ; 
 in fact, of the plotters it could be said that in the same 
 bet that they made privily were their feet taken. 
 
 " We left on Saturday, 15th : fifty rank and file and 
 myself. One had a heat-stroke almost as soon as the 
 train had started (result of marching to the station at 
 noon in marching order and a temperature of 96), and 
 we had an exciting hour in keeping his temperature 
 below 109 till we met the mail and could get some 
 ice. We succeeded all right and sent him safely to 
 hospital at Jhansi. The rest of the journey was cooler 
 and uneventful. We reached Bombay at 9.15 a.m. on 
 Monday and went straight on board. The ship did not 
 sail till next day, and when it did, they contrived to leave 
 thirty-two men behind, including five of mine. 
 
 "The thirty -two lost sheep turned up at Karachi, 
 having been forwarded by special train from Bombay. 
 No fatted calf was killed for them ; in fact, they all got 
 fourteen days' c confinement to barracks ' and three 
 days' pay forfeited ; though, as Dr. Johnson observed, 
 the sea renders the C.B. part rather otiose. 
 
 " It is getting pronouncedly hotter every hour. It was
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 153 
 
 a quarter to one when I began this letter and is now half- 
 past twelve, which is the kind of thing that is continually 
 happening. Anyway the bugle for lunch has just gone, 
 and it is 96 in my cabin. I have spent the morning 
 in alternate bouts of bridge and Illingworth on Divine 
 Immanence. I won Rs.3 at the former ; but I feel my 
 brain is hardly capable of further coherent composition 
 until nourishment has been taken. So good-bye for the 
 present. It will take ages for this to reach you." 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " P.S.S. Karadeniz, BASRA, 
 
 Friday, August 27, 1915. 
 
 " I wrote to papa from just outside the bar, which is a 
 mud-bank across the head of the Gulf, about seventeen 
 miles outside Fao. We anchored there to await high tide, 
 and crossed on Tuesday morning. 
 
 " Fao is about as unimpressive a place as I've seen. 
 The river is over a mile wide there, but the place is 
 absolutely featureless. In fact, all the way up it is the 
 same. The surrounding country is as flush with the 
 river as if it had been planed down to it. On either side 
 runs a belt of date palms about half a mile wide, but these 
 are seldom worth looking at, being mostly low and shrubby, 
 like an overgrown market garden. Beyond that is howling 
 desert. 
 
 " We reached Basra about 2 p.m. and anchored in 
 midstream, the river being 800 yards or so wide here. 
 The city of Basra is about three miles away, up a creek 
 
 " The scene on the river is most attractive, especially 
 at sunrise and sunset. The banks rise about ten feet 
 from the water ; the date palms are large and columnar, 
 and since there is a whole series of creeks, parallel and 
 intersecting (they are the highways and byways of the 
 place), the whole area is afforested and the wharves and
 
 154 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 bazaars are embowered in date groves. The river front 
 and the main creeks are crowded with picturesque craft, 
 the two main types being a large high-prowed barge, just 
 what I picture to have taken King Arthur at his Passing, 
 but here put to the prosaic uses of heavy transport and 
 called a mahtla ; and a long darting craft which can be 
 paddled or punted and combines the speed of a canoe 
 with the grace of a gondola, and is called, though why 
 I can't conceive, a bhellum. Some of the barges are 
 masted and carry a huge and lovely sail, but the ones in 
 use for the Indian Expeditionary Force * D ' are pro- 
 pelled by little tugs attached to their sides and quite 
 invisible from beyond, so that the speeding barges seem 
 magically self -moving. 
 
 "Ashore one wanders along raised dykes through a 
 seemingly endless forest of pillared date palms, among 
 which pools and creeks add greatly to the beauty, though 
 an eyesore to the hygienist. When one reaches the native 
 city the streets are unmistakably un-Indian, and strongly 
 reminiscent of the bazaar scene in Kismet. This is 
 especially true of the main bazaar, which is a winding 
 arcade half a mile long, roofed and lined with shops, 
 thronged with men. One sees far fewer women than in 
 India, and those mostly veiled and in black, while the 
 men wear long robes and cloaks and scarves on their 
 heads bound with coils of wool worn garland-wise, as one 
 sees in Biblical pictures. They seem friendly, or rather 
 wholly indifferent, to one, and I felt at times I might be 
 invisible and watching an Arabian Nights story for all 
 the notice they took of me. By the way, I want you to 
 send me a portable edition of the Arabian Nights as my 
 next book, please. 
 
 " We have moved across to this ship while awaiting our 
 river-boats. They use ships here as barracks and hotels, 
 very sensibly seeing that there are none fit for habita- 
 tion on land ; while being about 400 yards from either
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 155 
 
 bank we are practically free from mosquitoes. But this 
 particular ship is decidedly less desirable for residential 
 purposes than the Varsova. It was originally a German 
 boat and was sold to the Turks to be used for a pilgrim 
 ship to Mecca ; and I can only conclude either that the 
 Turkish ideas of comfort are very different to ours or that 
 the pilgrimage has a marked element of asceticism. 
 
 " But I am quite ready to put up with the amenities 
 of a Turkish pilgrim ship. What does try me is the 
 murderous folly of military authorities. They wouldn't 
 let us take our spine-pads from Agra, because we should 
 be issued with them here. They have none here, and have 
 no idea when they will get any. Incidentally, no one 
 was expecting our arrival here, least of all the 4th Hants. 
 Everyone says a spine-pad is a necessary precaution 
 here, so I am having fifty made, and shall try and make 
 the Colonel pay for them. 
 
 " To continue the chapter of incredible muddles : the 
 780 who went off on Wednesday were embarked on their 
 river-boat packed like herrings at 9 a.m., and never 
 got started till 4 p.m. A bright performance, but nothing 
 to our little move. This boat is 600 yards from the 
 Varsova, and they had every hour in the twenty-four to 
 choose from for the move. First they selected 2 p.m. 
 Wednesday as an appropriate hour 1 It was 100 in 
 the shade by 1 p.m., so the prospect was not alluring. 
 At 1.30 the order was washed out, and for the rest 
 of the day no further orders could be got for love or 
 money. 
 
 " We were still in suspense yesterday morning, till at 
 8.30 just about the latest time for completing a morning 
 movement two huge barges appeared with orders to 
 embark on them at 10 I Not only that, but although 
 there are scores of straw-roofed barges about, these two 
 were as open as row-boats, and in fact exactly like giant 
 row-boats. To complete the situation, the Supply and
 
 156 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Transport had not been apprised of the postponement, 
 and so there was no food for the men on board. Conse- 
 quently they had to load kits, etc., and embark on empty 
 stomachs. 
 
 " Well, hungry but punctual, we embarked at 10 a.m. 
 It was 102 in my cabin, so you can imagine what the heat 
 and glare of a hundred and fifty men in an open barge 
 was. Having got us into this enviable receptacle, they 
 proceeded to think of all the delaying little trifles which 
 might have been thought of any time that morning. One 
 way and another they managed to waste three-quarters 
 of an hour before we started. The journey took six 
 minutes or so. Getting alongside this ship took another 
 half -hour, the delay mainly due to Arab incompetence this 
 time. Then came disembarking, unloading kits, and all 
 the odd jobs of moving units which all had to be done in a 
 furnace-like heat by men who had had no food for twenty 
 hours. To crown it all, the people on board here had 
 assumed we should breakfast before starting, and not a 
 scrap of food was ready. The poor men finally got some 
 food at 2 p.m. after a twenty-two hours' fast and three 
 hours herded or working in a temperature of about 
 140. Nobody could complain of such an ordeal if 
 we'd been defending Lucknow or attacking Shaiba, but 
 to put such a strain on the men's health newly arrived 
 and with no pads or glasses or shades gratuitously and 
 merely by dint of sheer hard muddling is infuriating to 
 me and criminal in the authorities a series of scatter- 
 brained nincompoops about fit to look after a cocker- 
 spaniel between them. 
 
 "Considering what they went through, I think our 
 draft came off lightly with three cases of heat-stroke. 
 Luckily the object-lesson in the train and my sermons 
 thereon have borne fruit, and the men acted promptly 
 and sensibly as soon as the patients got bad. Two began 
 to feel ill on the barge and the third became delirious
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 157 
 
 quite suddenly a few minutes after we got on board here. 
 When I arrived on the scene they had already got him 
 stripped and soused, though in the stuffy 'tween decks. 
 I got him up on deck (it was stuffy enough there), and we 
 got ice; and, thanks to our promptness, he was only violent 
 for about a quarter of an hour, and by the time my kit 
 was reachable and I could get my thermometer, an 
 hour or so later, he was normal. There was no medical 
 officer on board, except a grotesque fat old Turk physician 
 to the Turkish prisoners, whose diagnosis was in Arabic 
 and whose sole idea of treatment was to continue feeling 
 the patient's pulse (which he did by holding his left foot) 
 till we made him stop. 
 
 " It seems to me another count in the indictment 
 against the brass hats that no instruction has been given 
 to the officers and N.C.O.'s of our drafts as to how to 
 deal with such cases. Nothing would have been easier 
 than to give it on the Varsova" 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 44 AMARAH, 
 September 2, 1915. 
 
 " Our embarkation was much more sensibly managed 
 this time, a Captain Forrest of the Oxfords being O.C. 
 troops, and having some sense, though the brass hats 
 again fixed 10 a.m. as the hour. However, he got all 
 our kits on the barge at 7, and then let the men rest 
 on the big ship till the time came. Moreover, the barge 
 was covered. We embarked on it at 9.30 and were 
 towed along to the river steamer Malamir, to which we 
 transferred our stuff without difficulty as its lower deck 
 was nearly level with the barge. 
 
 44 Starting at noon on Monday, it took us till 5 p.m. 
 Wednesday to do the 180 miles. It is much less for a 
 crow, but the river winds so, that one can quite believe
 
 158 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Herodotus's yarn of the place where you pass the same 
 village on three consecutive days. 
 
 " In the afternoon of the second day we passed Ezra's 
 Tomb, which has a beautiful dome of blue tiles, which 
 in India one would date seventeenth century. Otherwise 
 it looked rather ' kachcha ' and out of repair, but it 
 makes an extremely picturesque group, having two 
 clumps of palms on either side of an otherwise open 
 stretch of river. 
 
 " Soon afterwards we came to a large Bedouin village, 
 or rather camp, running up a little creek and covering 
 quite fifteen acres. They can't have been there long, 
 as the whole area was under water two months ago. 
 Their dwellings are made of reeds, a framework of stiff 
 and pliant reeds and a covering of reed -matting, the 
 whole being like the cover of a van stuck into the ground 
 and one end closed, but smaller. 
 
 " Next morning, Wednesday, a half -gale was blowing 
 against us and progress was slower than ever. The 
 river got wider again, nearly 200 yards in places, and the 
 wind lashed it into waves. We arrived here about 5 p.m. 
 
 " This is a town of about 10,000 inhabitants, on the 
 left bank of the Tigris. On the river front is a quay 
 about a mile long, and an equally long row of continental- 
 looking houses. It almost reminds one of Dieppe at 
 moments. We occupy a block of four houses, which 
 have a common courtyard behind them, a great cloistered 
 yard, which makes an admirable billet for the men. 
 
 " We officers live in two of the houses, the third is 
 orderly room, etc., and the fourth is used by some native 
 regiment officers. There is no furniture whatever, so 
 it is like camping with a house for a tent. We sleep on 
 the roof and live on the verandahs of the little inner 
 courts. It is decidedly cooler than Basra, and last 
 night I wanted a blanket before dawn for the first time 
 since April (excluding the hills, of course)."
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 159 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 September 4, 1915. 
 
 " This battalion when we arrived here was nominally 
 nearly 300 strong, but actually it could hardly have 
 paraded 100. This reduction is nearly all due to sickness. 
 The deaths from all causes only total between forty and 
 fifty, out of the original 800, and of these about twenty- 
 five, I think, were killed in action. But there has been 
 an enormous amount of sickness during the hot weather, 
 four-fifths of which has been heat-stroke and malaria. 
 There have been a few cases of enteric and a certain 
 number of dysentery ; but next to heat and malaria 
 more men have been knocked out by sores and boils 
 than by any disease. It takes ages for the smallest 
 sore to heal. 
 
 " Of the original thirty officers, eight are left here, 
 and Major Stilwell, who is Commanding Officer. 
 
 " In honour of our arrival they have adopted double 
 company system. I am posted to c A ' Double Company, 
 of which the company commander and only other officer 
 is Harris, cet. nineteen. So I am second in command 
 and four platoon commanders at once, besides having 
 temporary charge of the machine-guns (not that I am 
 ever to parade with them). It sounds a lot, but, with 
 next to no men about, the work is lessened. In a day 
 or two we shall be the only English battalion remaining 
 here, so that all the duties which can't be entrusted to 
 Indian troops will fall on us. While sitting on that court 
 martial at Agra (on 13th June) I expressed my view in a 
 sonnet which I append, for you to show to mamma : 
 
 " How long, O Lord, how long, before the flood 
 Of crimson-welling carnage shall abate ? 
 From sodden plains in West and East the blood 
 Of kindly men streams up in mists of hate
 
 160 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Polluting Thy clear air : and nations great 
 
 In reputation of the arts that bind 
 
 The world with hopes of Heaven, sink to the state 
 
 Of brute barbarians, whose ferocious mind 
 
 Gloats o'er the bloody havoc of their kind, 
 
 Not knowing love or mercy. Lord, how long 
 
 Shall Satan in high places lead the blind 
 
 To battle for the passions of the strong ? 
 
 Oh, touch Thy children's hearts, that they may know 
 
 Hate their most hateful, pride their deadliest foe." l 
 
 To LIEUTENANT PUREFOY CAUSTON 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 August 26 and September 25, 1915. 
 
 " I wonder how long H 's * delirious joy ' at going 
 
 to the front will last. Those who have seen a campaign 
 here are all thoroughly converted to my view of fronts. 
 
 I can't imagine a keener soldier than F , and even 
 
 he says he doesn't care if he never sees another Turk, 
 and as to France, you might as well say, ' Hurrah, I'm 
 
 off to Hell ! ' Pat M goes as far as to say that no 
 
 sane fellow ever has been bucked at going to the Front, 
 as distinguished from being anxious to do his duty by 
 going there. But I don't agree with him. Did you see 
 about the case of a Captain in the Sikhs, who deserted 
 from Peshawar, went to England, enlisted as a private 
 under an assumed name, and was killed in Flanders ? 
 The psychology of that man would be very interesting 
 to analyse. It can't have been sense of duty, because 
 he knew he was flagrantly violating his duty. Nor can 
 you explain it by some higher call of duty than his duty 
 as a Sikh officer, like the duty which makes martyrs 
 disobey emperors. It must have been just the primitive 
 passion for a fight. But if it was that, to indulge it was 
 a bad, weak, and vicious thing to do. Yet it clearly 
 wasn't a selfish thing to do : on the contrary, it was 
 
 1 Sonnet published in the Times of isth October 1915.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 161 
 
 heroic. He deliberately sacrificed his rank, pay, and 
 prospects and exposed himself to great danger. Still, 
 as far as I can see, he only did it because his passion for 
 fighting was stronger than every other consideration, 
 and therefore he seems to me to be morally in the same 
 class as the man who runs away with his neighbour's 
 wife, or any other victim of strong (and largely noble) 
 passions. And I believe that the people who say they 
 are longing to be at the Front can be divided into 
 three classes : (1) those who merely say so because it 
 is the right thing to say, and have never thought or 
 wished about it on their own ; (2) those who deliberately 
 desire to drink the bitterest cup that they can in these 
 times of trouble these men are heroes, and are the 
 men who in peace choose a mission to lepers; (3) the 
 savages, who want to indulge their primitive passions. 
 Perhaps one ought to add as the largest class (4) those 
 who don't imagine what it is like, who think it will be 
 exciting, seeing life, and experience and so on, and don't 
 think of its reality or meaning at all." 
 
 " I know you will sympathize deeply with our hard 
 luck in being kept away from a possible scene of bloodshed ; 
 but the less of that nasty side of things that I see, the 
 better I shall like it. Only I do want to find out how I 
 and the men should feel and behave under fire. I believe 
 that if I could choose a day of heavy fighting of any kind 
 I liked for my draft, I should choose to spend a day in 
 trenches under heavy fire without being able to return it. 
 The fine things of war spring from your chance of being 
 killed : the ugly things from your chance of killing. Per- 
 sonally, the chances of being killed which presented 
 themselves vividly to my craven imagination from a dis- 
 tance hardly ever occur to me now ; and when they do, 
 are far less interesting than they used to be. I attribute 
 this partly to being busy and partly to the forward
 
 162 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 tendency of one's mind, which is always far more con- 
 cerned with the week after next than with to-morrow." 
 
 To HIS FATHER 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 September 16 and 21, 1915. 
 
 " The main item of news which reached me from Agra 
 yesterday is, that they have gazetted me a Captain after 
 all. I suppose I ought to have been expecting it, as they 
 had so explicitly assured me it was impossible ; but they 
 go on taking one in every time, as we do Orientals by 
 speaking the truth. 
 
 " The provision for the sick and wounded is on the 
 whole fairly good now. Six months ago it was very 
 inadequate too few doctors and not enough hospital 
 accommodation. My men who were in the Base Hospital 
 at Basra spoke very well of it : the serious cases are 
 invalided to India by the hospital ship Madras. It is 
 said that ten thousand have gone back to India in this 
 way. It is a curious fact that the Indian troops suffered 
 from heat-stroke every bit as much as the British." 
 
 To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING 
 
 " AMARAH. 
 
 " I suppose everyone is struck by the weakness of a 
 democracy in war-time as compared with an autocracy 
 like the German. It is a complaint as old as Demosthenes. 
 But it does not shake my faith in democracy as the best 
 form of government, because mere strength and efficiency 
 is not my ideal. If a magician were to offer to change us 
 to-morrow into a State of the German model, I shouldn't 
 accept the offer, not even for the sake of winning the 
 war."
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 163 
 
 To Miss ELEANOR BALFOUR J 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 September 24, 1915. 
 
 " As for the future, I think it would be a mistake to 
 expect this war to produce a revolution in human nature, 
 and equally wrong to think nothing has been achieved 
 if it doesn't. What I hope is that it will mark a distinct 
 stage towards a more Christian conception of inter- 
 national relations. I'm afraid that for a long time to 
 come there will be those who will want to wage war and 
 will have to be crushed with their own weapons. But I 
 think this insane and devilish cult of war will be a thing 
 of the past. War will only remain as an unpleasant means 
 to an end. The next stage will be, one hopes, the gradual 
 realization that the ends for which one wages war are 
 generally selfish ; and anyway that law is preferable to 
 force as a method of settling disputes. As to whether 
 national ideals can be Christian ideals, in the strict sense 
 they can't very well : because so large a part of the 
 Christian idea lies in self-suppression and self-denial, which 
 of course can only find its worth in individual conduct and 
 its meaning in the belief that this life is but a preparation 
 for a future life ; whereas national life is a thing of this 
 world and therefore the law of its being must be self- 
 development and self-interest. The Prussians interpret 
 this crudely as mere self-assertion and the will to power. 
 The Christianizing of international relations will be 
 brought about by insisting on the contrary interpretation 
 that our highest self-development and interest is to 
 be attained by respecting the interests and encouraging 
 the development of others. The root fallacy to be 
 eradicated, of course, is that one Power's gain is another's 
 loss : a fallacy which has dominated diplomacy and is the 
 
 1 Now the Hon. Mrs. G. E. Cole.
 
 164 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 negation of law. I think we are perceptibly breaking away 
 from it ; the great obstacle to better thinking now is the 
 existence of so many backward peoples incapable (as we 
 think) of seeking their own salvation. Personally, I don't 
 see how we can expect the Christianizing process to make 
 decisive headway until the incapables are partitioned out 
 among the capables. Meanwhile, let us hope that each 
 new war will be more unpopular and less respectable than 
 the last." 
 
 On 29th September he wrote : " We have just had news 
 from the front that a successful action has been fought, 
 the enemy's left flank turned, and several hundred 
 prisoners taken our own casualties under 500. So the 
 show seems to have come off up to time." 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 October 6, 1915. 
 
 " The latest figures of the Kut fight show that the 
 proportion of killed on our side was extraordinarily small. 
 They are : Our Side Killed : officers, 4 or 5 ; rank and 
 file, 80. Wounded : officers, 40 ; rank and file, 1000. 
 Enemy Prisoners : 1300; Killed (?), 400; Wounded (?) ; 
 guns captured, 8 ; do. in river (?) 11. These figures are 
 largely conjectural, as the inhabitants of Kut came out 
 and buried the Turkish dead without waiting for us to 
 count them. 
 
 " Yesterday afternoon Mark Sykes reappeared here on 
 his way down, so I boarded his boat and introduced myself. 
 I had met him when I dined with Bob at the House of 
 Commons. He was very affable and talked to my know- 
 ledge for five hours without a minute's pause. He is a 
 colonel, but has been on political service first to the 
 Balkans, then India, and now here. He had, of course, 
 lots to say about the Balkan crisis. He came and dined
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 165 
 
 with me in mess and talked till 10 p.m. it was much 
 appreciated by us all." 
 
 To LIEUTENANT THE HON. LEWIS PALMER 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 October 11, 1915. 
 
 " I have developed a bubble reputation as a footballer, 
 and played centre-half for the officers and servants yes- 
 terday. We won 1-0. It was a splendid game. The 
 local Arab kids take a tremendous interest in footer. 
 They turn up on the ground by scores and have a 
 great time scrambling for the ball behind the goal during 
 the preliminary kicking about. During the play they 
 mimicked Tommy Atkins' cheers in the most ridiculous 
 way, and added to the effect by cheering loudest whenever 
 the Major took a toss." 
 
 " October 26. 
 
 " To-morrow I shall have to try the case of Private 
 
 R , who is charged with refusing to mount a mule 
 
 when ordered. Having observed the mule in question, 1 
 feel it would be as reasonable to charge him with refusing 
 to hop over Mount Ararat when ordered ; but I suppose 
 discipline will have to be maintained, and no doubt R 
 has calculated that twenty-one days' field punishment 
 No. 2 is the lesser evil." 
 
 To THE REV. RONALD KNOX 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 October 11, 1915. 
 
 " I have just seen in the Times that Charles Lister 
 died of his wounds. It really is heart-breaking. All 
 the men one had so fondly hoped would make the world
 
 166 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 a little better to live in seem to be taken away. And 
 Charles was a spirit which no country can afford to lose. 
 I feel so sorry for you too : he must have been very dear 
 to you personally. How the world will hate war when 
 it can pause to think about it ! 
 
 " No, Luly is not with me : I was the only officer 
 with the draft. As for impressions of our surroundings, 
 they are definite but not always communicable. 
 
 " If this neighbourhood could certainly be identified 
 with Eden, one could supply an entirely new theory of 
 the Fall of Adam. Here at Amarah we are two hundred 
 miles by river from the sea, and twenty -eight feet above 
 sea-level. Within reach of the water anything will grow ; 
 but, as the Turks levied a tax on trees, the date is the 
 only one which has survived. There are little patches of 
 corn and fodder-stuff along the banks, and a few vegetable 
 gardens round the town. Otherwise, the whole place 
 is a desert and as flat as this paper : except that we can 
 see the bare brown Persian mountains about forty miles 
 off to the N.N.E. 
 
 " The desert grows little tufts of prickly scrub here 
 and there; otherwise it is like a brick floor. In the 
 spring it is flooded, and as the flood recedes the mud 
 cakes into a hard crust on which a horse's hoof makes 
 no impression ; but naturally the surface is very rough 
 in detail, like a muddy lane after a frost. So it is vile 
 for either walking or riding. 
 
 " The atmosphere can find no mean between absolute 
 stillness which, till lately, meant stifling heat and 
 violent commotion in the form of N.W. gales which blow 
 periodically, fogging the air with dust and making life 
 almost intolerable while they last. These gales have 
 ceased to be baking hot, and in another month or two 
 they will be piercingly cold. 
 
 " The inhabitants are divided into Bedouins and town- 
 Arabs. The former are nomadic and naked, and live
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 167 
 
 in hut-tents of reed matting. The latter are just like 
 the illustrations in family Bibles. 
 
 " What I should be grateful for in the way of litera- 
 ture is if you could find a portable and readable book 
 on the history of these parts. My Gibbon sketches the 
 doings of the first four Caliphs ; but what I should like 
 most would be the subsequent history the Bagdad 
 Caliphs, Tartar Invasion, Turkish Conquest, etc. Mark 
 Sykes tells me he is about to publish a ' Little AbsuTs 
 History of Islam,' but as he is still diplomatizing out here 
 I doubt if it will be ready for press soon. 
 
 " As for this campaign, you will probably know more 
 about the Kut battle than I do. Anyway the facts were 
 briefly these. The Turks had a very strongly entrenched 
 position at Kut, with 15,000 men and 35 guns. (We 
 had about 10,000 men and 25 or 27 guns, 7 of them on 
 river-boats, I think.) We feinted at their right and then 
 outflanked their left by a night march of twelve miles. 
 Then followed a day's hard fighting, as the outflankers 
 had to storm three redoubts successively before they 
 could properly enfilade the position. Just as they had 
 done it, the whole Turkish reserve turned up on their 
 right and they had to turn on it and defeat it, which 
 they did. 
 
 " (Meanwhile, the Turkish commander announced 
 that he had received a telegram from the Sultan re- 
 quiring the immediate presence of himself and army at 
 Constantinople : so the firing-line took the hint and 
 started for the new alignment by the shortest route. 
 However, as everybody's great idea was to put the river 
 between himself and the enemy he'd been facing, two 
 streams met at the bridge and there were further scenes.) 
 By this time it was dark, the troops were absolutely 
 exhausted and had finished all their water ; the only 
 thing to do was to bivouac and wait for daylight. In 
 the night the Turks got away. If we could have pressed
 
 168 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 on and seized their bridge, we should have almost wiped 
 them out ; but it was really wonderful we did as much 
 as we did under the circumstances. Our casualties 
 were 1243, but only 85 killed. The Turkish losses are 
 not known : we captured about 1400 and 12 of the guns ; 
 we buried over 400, but don't know how many the local 
 Arabs buried. Our pursuit was delayed by the mud- 
 banks on the river, and the enemy was able to get clear 
 and re-form in their next position, about ninety miles 
 farther north. We are now concentrating against them." 
 
 To Miss ELEANOR BALFOUR 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 October 8, 1915. 
 
 " If I said that this War means the denying of 
 Christianity I ought to have explained myself more. 
 That phrase is so often used loosely that people don't 
 stop to think exactly what they mean. If the Germans 
 deliberately brought about the War to aggrandize them- 
 selves, as I believe they did, that was a denial of 
 Christianity, i.e. a deliberate rejection of Christian 
 principles and disobedience to Christ's teaching ; and it 
 makes no difference in that case that it was a national 
 and not an individual act. But once the initiating evil 
 was done, it involved the consequence, as evil always 
 does, of leaving other nations only a choice of evils. 
 In this case the choice for England was between seeing 
 Belgium and France crushed and war. In choosing war 
 I can't admit there was any denial of Christianity ; and 
 I don't think you can point to any text, however literally 
 you press the interpretation, which will bear a contrary 
 construction. Take ' Resist not him that doeth evil ' 
 as literally as you like, in its context. It obviously 
 refers to an individual resisting a wrong committed 
 against himself; and the moral basis of the doctrine
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 169 
 
 seems to me twofold : (1) As regards yourself, self- 
 denial, loving your enemies, etc., is the divine law for 
 the soul ; (2) as regards the wronger, nothing is so likely 
 to better him as your unselfish behaviour. The doctrine 
 plainly does not refer to wrongs committed in your 
 presence against others. Our Lord Himself overthrew 
 the tables of the money-changers. And the moral basis 
 of His resistance to evil here is equally clear if you tolerate 
 evils committed against others : (1) Your own morale 
 and courage is lowered it is shirking ; (2) the wronger 
 is merely encouraged. If I take A's coat and A gives 
 me his cloak also, I may be touched. But B's acquies- 
 cence in the proceeding cannot possibly touch me and only 
 encourages me. Now the Government of a country is 
 nearly always in the position of B ; but I would justify 
 the resistance of Belgium on the same grounds." 
 
 Bobby continued this argument in a letter to his 
 father dated 10th October. 
 
 " You've got to face the fact that the spirit which 
 produces war is still dominant. Fight that spirit by all 
 means ; but while it exists don't suppose your own 
 duty is merely to keep out of wars. That seems to me 
 a very selfish and narrow view. As for our Lord in a 
 bayonet charge, one doesn't easily imagine it ; but that 
 is because it is inconsistent with His mission rather 
 than His character. I can't imagine a Christian enjoying 
 either a bayonet charge, or hanging a criminal, or over- 
 throwing the tables of a money-changer, or any other 
 form of violent retribution. 
 
 " I have been out shooting three times this week 
 with Patmore of I/ 7th Hants. On our way home after 
 the first shoot I saw a falcon catch a swallow on the 
 wing. It flew straight and rather fast past us, just 
 within shot, fairly high. A swallow came sailing at full 
 speed from the opposite direction and would have passed 
 above and to the right of the falcon, and about six feet
 
 170 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 from it. The latter took no notice of it till the crucial 
 moment, when it swerved and darted upwards, exactly 
 as a swallow itself does after flies, and caught the swallow 
 neatly in its talons. It then proceeded on its way so 
 calmly that if you had taken your eye off it for one-fifth 
 of a second you wouldn't have known it had deviated 
 from its course. It then planed down and settled about 
 four hundred yards away on the ground." 
 
 To HIS PARENTS 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 October 13, 1915. 
 
 " The state of Europe after the War is too horrible to 
 contemplate. Even if we win decisively, we shall have 
 piled up a debt which will cost us something like two 
 hundred millions a year in interest. I see no prospect 
 of there being a penny to spare for social reforms for a 
 generation or more, even if we escape a catastrophic 
 crash. What a cheap insurance conscription looks now ! 
 But I can't feel sure that conscription would have pre- 
 vented the War, since Germany expected us to keep out 
 of it. 
 
 "... I have become the battalion's right hand 
 at ' soccer,' which I never should have foretold for 
 myself." 
 
 To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 October 22, 1915. 
 
 " The birds here are very few compared with those in 
 India. On the river there are pied kingfishers. On the 
 flooded land, and especially on the mud-flats round it, 
 there are large numbers of sandpipers, Kentish and ringed 
 plovers, stints and stilts, terns and gulls, ducks and teal, 
 egrets and cranes ; but as there is not a blade of vegeta-
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 171 
 
 tion within a mile of them, there are no facilities for 
 observation, still less for shooting. 
 
 " There are several buzzards and falcons and a few 
 kites, but vultures are conspicuous by then- absence ; 
 and there is a hooded crow, not very abundant, which is 
 peculiar to this country, having white where the European 
 and Eastern Asiatic species have grey a handsome bird. 
 In the river there are a few sharks and a great abundance 
 of carp-like fish which run up to a very large size." 
 
 To THE REV. RONALD KNOX 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 All Saints', 1915. 
 
 " Life here requires a Jane Austen to record it. Our 
 interests are focused on the most ridiculous subjects. 
 Recently they took an ecclesiastical turn, which I think 
 should be reported to you. The station was left * spiritu- 
 ally ' in charge of a Y.M.C.A. deacon for a fortnight, 
 and discussion waxed hot in the mess as to what a deacon 
 was. The prevailing opinion was that he * was in the 
 Church,' but not ' consecrated ' ; so far lay instinct was 
 sound, if a little vague. Then our Scotch Quartermaster 
 laid it down that a deacon was as good as a parson in that 
 he could wear a surplice, but inferior to a parson in that 
 he couldn't marry you. But the crux which had most 
 practical interest for us was whether he could bury us. 
 It was finally decided that he could, but fortunately in 
 actual fact his functions were confined to organizing a 
 football tournament and exhibiting a cinema film. 
 
 " He was succeeded by a priest from the notorious 
 diocese of Bombay, who proceeded to shift the table 
 which does duty for altar to the east side of the Royal 
 Army Temperance Association room and furnish the 
 neighbourhood of it into a faint resemblance to a church. 
 But what has roused most speculation is the * green
 
 i 7 2 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 thing he wears over his surplice for the early service and 
 takes off before parade service.' I suggested that it was 
 a precaution against these chilly mornings. 
 
 " Gibbon has more to say about these parts than I 
 thought ; and I find he alludes to them off and on right 
 down to 1453, so if you haven't been able to find a suit- 
 able book, I can carry on with that philosopher's 
 epitome." 
 
 On 24th November Bobby had an accident in the 
 football field. " I have always felt that my entree into 
 the football world should be pregnant with fate, and so 
 it is proving," he wrote with curious prescience, for his 
 presence at the fatal battle of Umm-Al-Hannah arose 
 from his detention at Amarah. The day after he sprained 
 his leg, half the battalion (including his "A " Company) 
 were ordered to move upstream immediately to an un- 
 known destination. To his great chagrin, they started 
 without him, leaving him in the hands of the Medical 
 Officer. He remained behind in Amarah for over five 
 weeks. 
 
 He enjoyed the enforced- leisure and quiet, employing 
 them in writing an article on " Mesopotamia and the 
 Middle East," and two chapters of " The Conversations of 
 Christopher," l as well as in preparing a lecture on the 
 Balkans to be given to the convalescent soldiers. 
 
 The lectures, carefully prepared by Bobby, were given 
 on 15th and 22nd December in a large newly built room 
 of the Royal Army Temperance Association. He used no 
 notes, but illustrated the lectures with maps and lantern 
 slides which a fellow-officer, Lieutenant J. Bucknill, 
 
 1 " The Conversations of Christopher " were intended to form a sym- 
 posium. He wrote four of them on " Theology," " Ideals and Com- 
 promise," " Public Schools," " Lawyers." The manuscript of the last 
 was found unfinished in his wallet after the battle of Umm-Al-Hannah. 
 All but the first were published hi The National Review, December 1916. 
 and January and February 1917.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 173 
 
 kindly prepared for him. Bobby thus described his 
 effort : 
 
 December 19. " I gave a lecture Friday night on 
 ' The Historical Background of the Balkan Situation.'' It 
 was a great success, though the experiment was rather a 
 bold one, to an audience consisting mainly of convalescent 
 wounded. There must have been over two hundred 
 there. I had some home-made slides with sketch maps 
 to illustrate it. I took them right back to Constantine 
 the Great, through the decline and fall of the Eastern 
 Empire, the rise of Bulgaria in the tenth and thirteenth 
 centuries, the Servian Empire of the fourteenth, the 
 Turkish Conquest and decay, the rise of Russia, the 
 Liberal movements of the nineteenth century, the new 
 orientation given to Austrian policy by Prussia's rise, the 
 Russo-Turkish War, down to the Berlin Treaty of 1878, all 
 in forty minutes without notes. It was rather an effort. 
 Their attention never wandered a moment, which shows 
 what an intelligent man the average Tommy really is. 
 I'm continuing on Wednesday with the rest of the 
 story." 
 
 The second lecture exhibited the terms of the Con- 
 gress of Berlin as a " compromise " which lasted for 
 thirty years. It traced the growth of Germany's power 
 through the weakening of Russia in her war with Japan 
 in 1904, through the weakening of Turkey by revolution 
 in 1906 (the year when the Bagdad railway was begun to 
 be built), through the annexation by Austria of Bosnia 
 and Herzegovina, and through the Italian-Turko War of 
 1911. It ended with the first Balkan War, the rise of 
 Venezelos in 1912, and the events which led to the out- 
 break of war all over Europe in 1914. 
 
 The fame of the previous lecture had spread through- 
 out Amarah, and on the 22nd, Colonel Stilwell remembers 
 that : " The large room was packed with an audience of 
 all ranks, from the General to private soldiers. A more
 
 i 7 4 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 interested audience I have rarely seen. At the end, 
 Palmer was given great applause and was thanked in a 
 short speech which the General Officer in Command 
 made." Other officers and privates have spoken enthusi- 
 astically of the lectures as wonderful in interest and as 
 feats of memory. 
 
 Meanwhile, while the two companies left at Amarah 
 were preparing to enjoy their Christmas festivities in 
 peace, disaster had befallen our forces between Kut and 
 Bagdad. The following letters explain the situation. 
 
 To THE REV. RONALD KNOX 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 December 12, 1915. 
 
 " Let me begin at 24th November, the day we heard of 
 the victory at Ctesiphon or Suliman Pak. That afternoon 
 I crocked my leg at footer and have been a hobbler ever 
 since, with first an elephantine calf and now a watery knee, 
 which, however, like the Tigris, gets less watery daily. 
 
 " The very next day (25th November), half the bat- 
 talion, including my * A ' Company, was ordered up- 
 stream and departed next morning, leaving me fuming 
 at the fancied missing of a promenade into Bagdad. 
 But Providence, as you may point out in your next sermon, 
 is often kinder than it seems. Two days later I could just 
 walk, and tried to embark ; but the Medical Officer 
 stopped me at the last moment. (I have stood him a 
 benedictine for this since.) 
 
 ** Meanwhile, events were happening up-river. The 
 Press Bureau's account, I expect, compresses a great deal 
 into 4 Subsequently our force took up a position lower 
 down the river ' or some such facon de parler. What 
 happened was this. We attacked without reserves, 
 relying on the enemy having none. We have done it 
 several times successfully : indeed our numbers imposed
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 175 
 
 the necessity generally. This time there were reinforce- 
 ments en route, had we waited. But I anticipate. 
 
 " Well, we attacked, and carried their first line and 
 half their second before darkness pulled us up. A 
 successful day, though expensive in casualties. We 
 bivouacked in their first line. Daybreak revealed the 
 unpleasant surprise of strong enemy reinforcements, who 
 are said to have diddled our spies by avoiding Bagdad : 
 5000 of them. As we had started the affair about 12,000 
 strong to their 15,000, this was serious. They attacked, 
 and were driven off. In the afternoon they attacked 
 again, in close formation : our artillery mowed them, but 
 they came on and on, kept it up all night, with ever fresh 
 reinforcements, bringing them to 30,000 strong, all told. 
 By dawn our men were exhausted and the position un- 
 tenable. A retreat was ordered : that meant ninety miles 
 back to Kut over a baked billiard -table. The enemy pressed 
 all the way. Once they surrounded our rear brigade. 
 Two officers broke through their front lines to recall the 
 front lot. Another evening we pitched a camp and left it 
 empty to delay the enemy. Daily rear-guard actions were 
 fought. Five feverish days got us back to Kut, without 
 disorder or great loss of men ; but the loss in material was 
 enormous. All possible supplies had been brought close 
 up to the firing-line to facilitate pursuit. The wounded 
 filled all the carts, so those supplies had to be abandoned. 
 The Tigris is a cork-screwed maze of mud-banks, no river 
 for the hasty withdrawal of congested barges under fire. 
 You can imagine the scene. Accounts differ as to what we 
 lost. Certainly, two gunboats (destroyed), one monitor 
 (disabled and captured), the telegraph barge and supply 
 barge, besides all supplies dumped on the bank. Most 
 accounts add one barge of sick and wounded (400), the 
 aeroplane barge and a varying number of supply barges. 
 In men, from first to last, we lost nearly 5000 : the Turks 
 about 9000 a guess, of course.
 
 176 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " The tale of woe is nearly complete. My 4 A ' Com- 
 pany got as far as Kut and was set to feverish entrenching 
 and wiring. Now the whole force there, some 8000 in all, 
 is cut off there and besieged. They have rations (some say 
 half -rations) for six weeks or two months, and ammunition. 
 They are being bombarded, and have been attacked once, 
 but repelled it easily. We aren't worried about them ; 
 but I, with my leg (like another egoist), can't be sorry to 
 be out of it. I should like to be there to mother my men. 
 Our Major * is wounded, and the other officers are infants. 
 Meanwhile our reinforcements have turned up in great 
 numbers and expect to be able to relieve Kut by the end 
 of the month." 
 
 " December 19, 1915. 
 
 " Our regimental Sergeant-Major has been killed and 
 seven men of 4 A ' Company wounded, including three of 
 the nicest of my draft. I wish I was there to look after 
 them, but of course I should be no use if I couldn't get 
 about." 
 
 To THE LADY LAURA RIDDING 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 December 19, 1915. 
 
 " I think it must always be, in the nature of things, 
 impossible to realize our future state at all. The only 
 thing our minds can ever tentatively define about it is the 
 elimination of all the mediums through which our con- 
 sciousness now works sensation, place, and perhaps even 
 time. Purgatory always seems to me the materialistic 
 interpretation of a process which I believe everyone will 
 go through the process of ' knowing even as I am known,' 
 of realizing the full evil of all one's bad acts and qualities, 
 followed by the withering of all that side, which to some 
 may mean death. 
 
 1 Major Footner.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 177 
 
 ' ; My leg is nearly well. I walked about three-quarters 
 of a mile, and hope to be soon fit to return to duty. I have 
 quite enjoyed the peaceful month of reading and writing ; 
 but I am anxious about my draft getting peppered up the 
 river, without me there to look after them. 
 
 " The sunsets are splendid almost every evening now. 
 One night half the vault of the sky was a blazing mantle of 
 feathered gold, and slowly shrank through every shade of 
 molten metal. At other times long lines of crimson cloud 
 lie over the west like a river of rubies. Last night the 
 clouds were diffused and made a marvellously soft opal- 
 escent gauze, like a screen of mother-of-pearl, to shade the 
 sun. It is the greatest joy of the day to watch them. 
 
 " I never realized before how dependent one's spirits 
 are on beauty : the lack of music and hills and gentle faces 
 leave a kind of hunger in one's soul, which is only satisfied 
 by these sunsets, and now and then a look from one's men. 
 It makes one feel the crime of slums more acutely than 
 ever before." 
 
 To Miss ELEANOR BALFOUR 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 December 20, 1915. 
 
 " I do get the Round Table. I don't think it suggests 
 a World -State as practical politics, but merely as the only 
 ideal with which the mind can be satisfied as an ultimate 
 end. If you believe in a duty to all humanity, logic won't 
 stop short of a political brotherhood of the world, since 
 national loyalty implies in the last resort a denial of your 
 duty to everyone outside your nation. But in fact, of 
 course, men are influenced by sentiment and not logic ; 
 and I agree that, for ages to come at least, a World-State 
 wouldn't inspire loyalty. I don't even think the British 
 Empire would for long, if it relied only on the sentiment 
 of the Mother Country at home. The loyalty of each 
 2 3
 
 178 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Dominion to the Empire in future generations will be 
 largely rooted in its own distinctive nationalism, para- 
 doxical as that sounds : at least, so I believe. 
 
 " I want to be at Kut very much, to look after my 
 company there, poor dears ; but I must say that Tommy 
 Atkins* view that a place like Kut is desirable to be in 
 per se never fails to amaze me, familiar though it now is. 
 I had another instance of it last night. About twelve of 
 my draft were left behind on various duties when the 
 company went up-river in such a hurry. Hearing that 
 my knee was so much better, they sent me a deputy to ask 
 me to make every effort to take them with me if I went up- 
 river. I agreed, of course ; but what, as usual, struck me 
 was that the motives I can understand that one's duty 
 is with the company when there's trouble around, or even 
 that it's nicer to be with one's pals at Kut than lonely at 
 Amarah didn't appear at all. The two things he kept 
 harping on were : (1) ' it's so dull to miss a " scrap," ' and 
 (2) * there may be a special clasp given for Kut, and we 
 don't want to miss it.' They evidently regard the com- 
 pany at Kut as lucky dogs having a treat : the ' treat,' 
 when analysed (which they don't), consisting of 20 Ib. kits 
 in December, half-rations, more or less regular bombard- 
 ment, no proper billets, no shops, no letters, and very hard 
 work I 
 
 " My leg is very decidedly better now. I can walk half 
 a mile without feeling any aches, and soon hope to do a 
 mile." 
 
 Just before Christmas Bobby wrote : 
 
 " Christmas is almost unbearable in war-time : the 
 pathos and the reproach of it. I am thankful that my 
 company is at Kut on half-rations. I don't of course mean 
 that ; but I'm thankful to be spared eating roast beef and 
 plum pudding heartily, as these dear pachyderms are now 
 doing with such relish. I'm glad they do, and I'd do it if
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 179 
 
 my company was here. I'm always thankful for my thin 
 skin, but I'm glad dear God made thick ones the rule in 
 this wintry world." 
 
 And on 26th December : " Christmas passed off 
 quietly and cheerfully. Tommy Atkins is so profoundly 
 insensible of incongruities that he saw nothing to worry 
 him in the legend ' A MERRY CHRISTMAS ' and the latest 
 casualty list on the same wall of the Royal Army Temper- 
 ance Association room ; and he sang 4 Peace on earth and 
 mercy mild ' and * Confound their politics ' with equal 
 gusto. And his temper is infectious while you're with 
 him." 
 
 To HIS MOTHER 
 
 " AMARAH, 
 December 29, 1915. 
 
 " I am looking forward to this trek. Four months is a 
 large enough slice of one's time to spend in Amarah ; and 
 there will probably be more interest and fewer battles on 
 this trek than could be got on any other front. The 
 Censor has properly got the breeze up here, so I probably 
 shan't be able to tell you anything of our movements or 
 to send you any wires : but I will try and let you hear 
 something each week ; and if we are away in the desert, 
 we generally arrange and I will try to for some officer 
 who is within reach of the post to write you a line saying 
 " I am all right (which he hears by wireless) but can't write." 
 That is what we have been doing for the people at Kut. 
 But there are bound to be gaps, and they will tend to get 
 more frequent and longer as we get farther. 
 
 " No casualties from * A ' Company for three days ; so 
 I hope its main troubles are over." 
 
 The fatal expedition for the relief of Kut left Amarah 
 on the last day of the year.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 THE END, 1916 
 
 THE march to the relief of Kut, its ill-management, and 
 the fighting and sufferings involved are best described in 
 extracts from the diary-letters written by Bobby between 
 2nd and 20th January. 
 
 " Sunday, January 2, 1916. Ali Gherbi. 1 On Thursday, 
 30th December, we went for a route march and saw 
 thousands of sand-grouse flying around in parties. In the 
 afternoon I took my gun out and shot nine sand-grouse 
 and two pigeons. As I came home, three enormous 
 waves of sand-grouse passed over Amarah in lines, two 
 lines over a mile long and one half a mile long ; I reckoned 
 there must have been 400,000 birds. 
 
 " We left Amarah at 2 p.m. on Friday, 31st. The men 
 were on barges slung either side of the roomy river-boat, 
 the Medijieh, on which various details, our officers and the 
 General and his staff and we were. 
 
 " I brought my gun and 150 cartridges and was un- 
 expectedly soon rewarded ; for one of the Army Corps 
 Commander's staff came along after lunch and asked for 
 someone to come with him in the motor-boat and shoot 
 partridges. As I was the only one with a gun handy I 
 went. We raced ahead in the motor-boat for half an hour 
 and then landed on the right bank and walked up the 
 river for two and a half hours, not deviating even to follow 
 up coveys. There were a lot of birds, but it was windy 
 
 1 All the place-names were given in cipher in the letters.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 181 
 
 and they were wild and difficult. We persevered till it was 
 dark. Then we had to walk three-quarters of a mile 
 before we could find a place where the boat could get near 
 the bank ; so we had a longer and colder chase to catch 
 up the ship than I had bargained for, especially as I had 
 foolishly forgotten to bring a coat. However, when I 
 got too cold I snuggled up against the engine and so kept 
 parts of me warm. Luckily the ship had to halt at the 
 camp of a marching column, so we caught her up in one 
 and a quarter hours. 
 
 " I pitched my bed on deck up against the boiler, and 
 so was as warm as toast all night. 
 
 " Yesterday morning (1st January) we steamed steadily 
 along through absolutely bare country. The chief feature 
 was the extraordinary abundance of sand-grouse. I told 
 mamma of the astonishing clouds of them which passed 
 over Amarah. Here they were in small parties or in flocks 
 of up to 200 ; but the whole landscape is dotted with 
 them from 8 a.m. till 11 and again from 3 to 4, so that 
 any random spot would give one much the same shooting 
 as we had at the Kimberley dams. 
 
 " We reached here about 2 p.m. This place is only 
 about forty-five miles from Amarah as the crow flies, but 
 by river it takes sixteen hours, and with various halts and 
 delays it took us just twenty-four. 
 
 " This is a most desolate place. Apart from the village 
 with its few palms and gardens there seems not to be a 
 blade of vegetation within sight. To the N.E. the 
 Persian hills are only fifteen miles away. The rainstorm 
 of last week covered their tops (4000 ft.) with snow, 
 reminding me of those exquisite lines of Purefoy's 
 favourite poet which begin : 
 
 " ' The Persian hills are bright with snow, 
 
 The tawny Tigris sleeps : 
 The glories of the sunset glow 
 Like dreams upon his deeps.'
 
 182 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 This place is about half-way between Amarah and Kut : 
 from the latter, we can hear the guns distinctly, but we 
 have had no news for several days. We are about forty- 
 five or fifty miles from Kut. Things have been very quiet 
 
 MAP I ENCLOSED IN LETTER OF JANUARY 2, 1916 
 
 , All Gherbi 
 
 
 the last few days. This place is a large camp round 
 a small village. Here we found * D ' Company, which got 
 stranded here when * A ' Company got stuck in Kut. 
 
 " There is an enemy force of 2000 about ten miles from 
 here. We know nothing of our own movements yet, and I 
 couldn't mention them if we did. We have been put into
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 183 
 
 a different brigade, but the Brigadier has not been 
 appointed yet. The number of the brigade equals that 
 of the ungrateful lepers. We are independent of any 
 division." 
 
 " Monday, January 10. We left AH Gherbi last 
 Thursday morning (6th January), and were told we should 
 march sixteen miles : we marched up the right bank, so our 
 left flank was exposed to the desert, and ' D ' Company 
 did flank guard. My platoon formed the outer screen, and 
 we marched strung out in single file. There were cavalry 
 patrols beyond us again, and anyway no Arab could come 
 within five miles without our seeing him, so our guarding 
 was a sinecure. 
 
 " Our new Brigadier turned up and proved to be a 
 pleasant, sensible kind of man. Having just come from 
 France, he keeps quite cool whatever we encounter. 
 (P.S. We have had a new Brigadier since this one. I 
 haven't yet seen the present one.) 
 
 " The march was slow and rough, as most of the ground 
 was hard-baked plough. The country was as level and 
 bare as a table, bar the ditches, and we hardly saw a 
 human being all day. It took us till after 4 p.m. to do 
 our sixteen miles. About 2 p.m. we began to hear firing and 
 see shrapnel in the distance, and it soon became clear 
 that we were approaching a big battle. Consequently, 
 we had to push on beyond our sixteen miles, and went on till 
 sunset 5 p.m. By this time we were all very footsore 
 and exhausted. The men had had no food since the 
 night before, the ration-cart having stuck in a ditch ; and 
 many of the inexperienced ones had brought nothing with 
 them. My leg held out wonderfully well, and in fact has 
 given me no trouble worth speaking of. 
 
 " By 6 p.m. it was quite dark, and the firing had ceased ; 
 we got orders to retrace our steps to a certain camping- 
 place (marked 1 on Map II). This meant an extra mile,
 
 184 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 and immense trouble and confusion in finding our way 
 over ditches and then sorting kits in the dark. 
 
 " Friday, 7th. We started at 8.30 and marched quietly 
 about five miles. This brought us within view of the 
 large village of Sheike Saad, which is roughly half-way 
 between Ali Gherbi and Kut. Between us and it the 
 battle was in full swing. We halted by a pontoon bridge 
 (2 on sketch) just out of range of the enemy's guns, and 
 
 MAP II ENCLOSED IN LETTER OF JANUARY 10, 1916 
 
 N 
 
 Our (in. of march 5 < tt ' c a fP r 
 
 I . Thursday mjhfs Camp 
 
 2 Pontoon bridge 
 
 3 Place w her* first shelled. 
 
 watched it for several hours. It was hot, and the mirage 
 blurred everything. Our artillery was clearly very 
 superior to theirs, both in quantity and in the possession 
 of high explosive shell, of which the enemy had none ; 
 but we were cruelly handicapped (a) by the fact that 
 their men and guns were entrenched and ours exposed, 
 and (b) by the mirage, which made the location of their 
 trenches and emplacements almost impossible. 
 
 " On Friday a big attack was launched on both banks.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 185 
 
 On the right bank we got round their flank and carried 
 their first line trenches with 500 prisoners, but we hadn't 
 enough men or water to carry the second line. On the 
 left bank three-quarters of our force attacked frontally, 
 and one-quarter had orders to envelop their left flank. 
 For some unexplained reason, this one-quarter changed 
 direction in the middle of the fight and came barging 
 into the right of the frontal force, so that we were involved 
 in a congested frontal attack, which was very expensive, 
 as we got within two hundred yards of their trenches with- 
 out being able to carry them. Our casualties were over 
 3000. It was here that Goschen l was mortally wounded. 
 
 " On the Saturday, 8th, there were intermittent 
 artillery duels. In the following night the Turks retired 
 to the Canal. 
 
 " Our failure to do better was due mainly to three 
 causes : (i) the badness of our reconnaissance ; (ii) the 
 inability of the artillery to locate anything with certainty 
 in the mists and mirage ; and (iii) the difficulty of finding 
 and getting round the enemy's flanks. Either they had 
 a far larger force than we expected, or they were very 
 skilfully spread out for they covered an amazingly wide 
 front, quite eight miles or more. 
 
 " The battle was interesting to watch, but not exciting. 
 The noise of the shells from field-guns is exactly like that 
 of a rocket going up. When the shell is coming towards 
 you, there is a sharper hiss in it, like a whip. It gives you 
 a second or two to get under cover, and then crack-whizz 
 as the shrapnel whizzes out. The heavy shells from the 
 monitors, etc., make a noise like a landslide of pebbles 
 down a beach, only blurred as if echoed. 
 
 " (To revert to Friday, 7th.) The Hampshires had 
 orders about 3.30 to cross to the left bank. When we 
 reached the left bank we marched as if to reinforce our 
 right flank. Presently the Brigadier made us line out 
 
 1 Lieutenant the Hon. G. J. Goschen. 
 24
 
 186 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 into echelon of companies in line in single rank, so that 
 from a distance we looked like a brigade, instead of three 
 companies. About 4, we came up to a howitzer battery, 
 and lay down about two hundred yards from it, thus : 
 
 > t3C3 t= L 
 
 v o oOO : 
 
 'X I 
 
 '. C 
 
 \ 
 
 " We had lain there about ten minutes when a hiss, 
 crack, whizz, and shells began to arrive, invariably in 
 pairs, about where I've put 1 and 2, They were ranging 
 on the battery ; but after a minute or two they spotted 
 our ammunition column, and a pair of shells burst at 3, 
 then a pair, at 4. So the column retreated in a hurry along 
 the dotted arrow, and the shells following them began 
 to catch us in enfilade. So Foster * made us rise and move 
 to the left in file. Just as we were up, a pair burst right 
 over my platoon. I can't conceive why nobody was hit. 
 I noticed six bullets strike the ground in a semicircle 
 between me and the nearest man three paces away, but 
 nobody was touched. I don't suppose the enemy saw us 
 at all ; anyway, the next pair pitched two yards beyond 
 us, and the next got two men of ' B ' all flesh wounds, 
 and not severe. They never touched the ammunition 
 column. 
 
 " We lay down in a convenient ditch, and only one 
 more pair came our way, as the enemy was ranging back 
 to the battery. 
 
 1 Captain Foster, officer in command of " D " Company.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 187 
 
 " Just before 5 we got orders to advance in artillery 
 formation. My platoon led, and we followed a course 
 down by the dotted line. We went through the battery 
 and about three hundred yards beyond, and then had orders 
 to return to camp. On this trip (which was mere window- 
 dressing) no shell came nearer than fifty yards ; in fact, 
 our battery made us jump much more. 
 
 " The whole episode was much more interesting than 
 alarming. Fear is seated in the imagination, I think, 
 and vanishes once the mind can assert itself. One feels 
 very funky in the cold nights when nothing is happening ; 
 but if one has to handle men under fire one is braced up 
 and one's attention is occupied. I expect rifle fire is 
 much more trying ; but the fact that shell-fire is more or 
 less unaimed at one individually, and also the warning 
 swish, gives one a feeling of great security. 
 
 " We got back to camp near the river (4 on Map II) 
 about 6 p.m., and dug a perimeter, hoping to settle down 
 for the night. But at 7.30 orders came to move at 9.30. 
 We were told that an enemy force had worked round our 
 right flank, and that our brigade had to do a night march 
 eastward down the river and attack it at dawn. So at 
 10 p.m. we marched with just a blanket apiece, leaving 
 our kits in the camp. 
 
 " (It is very unsatisfactory that, beyond the regimental 
 stretcher-bearers, there is no ambulance to bring the 
 wounded back ; and how can a dozen stretchers convey 
 300 casualties five miles ? And when they get back to 
 the dressing-station the congestion is very bad, thirty 
 men in a tent, and only three or four doctors to deal with 
 3000 or 4000 wounded.) 
 
 " Well, we started out at 10 p.m., and marched slowly 
 and silently till nearly midnight. Then we bivouacked 
 for four and a half hours (5 on Map II), and a more un- 
 comfortable time I hope never to spend, from cold and 
 damp, lying in a ditch
 
 i88 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 "Saturday, Sth. At last 4.30 a.m. arrived and we 
 started marching again. It was a blessing to get one's 
 feet warm, but the pleasures of the march were strictly 
 comparative. We trekked on eastwards along the river- 
 bank till sunrise. At 7.30 we halted ; we waited till 9, 
 when the cavalry patrols returned and reported no sign 
 of the enemy, so we marched back to the pontoon bridge 
 (7 on Map II). The march back was the most unpleasant 
 we've had. It got hot and the ground was hard and 
 rough and we were all very tired and foot-sore. A sleep- 
 less night takes the stamina out of one. 
 
 " On arrival at the bridge we were only allowed half 
 an hour's rest and then got orders to march out to take 
 up an 4 observation post ' on the right flank. Being 
 general reserve is no sinecure, with bluffing tactics pre- 
 vailing. 
 
 " This last lap was extremely trying. We marched 
 in artillery formation, all very lame and stiff. We passed 
 behind our yesterday's friend, the howitzer battery, but 
 at a more respectful distance from the enemy's battery. 
 This latter showed no sign of life till we were nearly 
 two miles from the river. Then it started its double 
 deliveries and some of them came fairly close to some of 
 our platoons, but not to mine. 
 
 " It took us nearly two hours to drag ourselves three 
 miles, and the men had hardly a kick in them when we 
 reached the place assigned for our post (8 on Map II). 
 We were ordered to entrench in echelon of companies, 
 facing north. I thought it would take till dark to get us 
 dug in (it was 2 p.m.) ; but luckily our men, lined up 
 ready to begin digging, caught the eye of the enemy as 
 a fine enfilade target and they started shelling us from 
 6500 yards (Enemy's Battery, 9 on Map II). The effect 
 on the men was magical. They woke up and dug so 
 well that we had fair cover within half an hour and quite 
 adequate trenches by 3 p.m. This bombardment was
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 189 
 
 quite exciting. The first few pairs were exactly over 
 ' D ' Company's trench, but pitched about 100 yards 
 behind it. The next few were exactly right in range, 
 but about forty yards right, i.e. behind us. Just as we 
 were wondering where the third lot would be, our faithful 
 howitzer battery and some heavy guns behind them, 
 which opened all they knew on the enemy battery as soon 
 as they opened on us, succeeded in attracting its fire to 
 themselves. This happened three or four times and went 
 on until we were too well dug in to be a tempting target, 
 and they devoted themselves to our battery. The curious 
 part of it was that though we could see the flash of their 
 guns every time, the mirage made it impossible to judge 
 their ranges or even for our battery to observe its own 
 fire properly. Our howitzer battery unfortunately was 
 not in the mirage and they had its range to a yard and 
 plastered it with shrapnel. 
 
 "About 4.30 the mirage cleared and our guns had a 
 free go for the first time that day (in the morning, mists 
 last until the mirage begins). I'm told the mirage had 
 put our guns over 1000 yards out in their ranging. Any- 
 way, it is the fact that those guns and trenches which were 
 sited in mirages were practically untouched in a heavy 
 two days' bombardment. 
 
 " In that last hour, however, our heavy guns got into 
 the enemy finely with their high explosives. They blew 
 one of our tormentors bodily into the air at 10,500 yards, 
 and silenced the others, and chased every Turk out of the 
 landscape. 
 
 " All the same, we were rather gloomy that night. 
 Our line had made no progress that we could hear of ; we 
 had had heavy losses, and there seemed no prospect of 
 dislodging the enemy. Their front was so wide we could 
 not get round them, and frontal attacks on trenches are 
 desperate affairs here if your artillery is paralysed by 
 mirages. The troops who have come from France say
 
 igo ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 that in this respect this action has been more trying than 
 either Neuve Chapelle or Ypres, because, as they say, it is 
 like advancing over a billiard-table all the way. 
 
 " To crown our troubles, we were three miles from the 
 river, which meant no water except for necessities the 
 men had no kits, and it was very cold, and we could not 
 show lights. And finally, after midnight, it began to pour 
 with rain ! 
 
 " Sunday, 9th. We've had a very strenuous time and 
 been fiendishly uncomfortable. Not had a wash for three 
 days. Water too precious. On this day I cleaned my 
 teeth from a puddle. 
 
 " At 5.30 a.m. we stood to arms. It rained harder 
 than ever and most of us hadn't a dry stitch. At last it 
 got light, the rain gradually stopped, and a thoroughly 
 depressed battalion breakfasted in a grey mist, expecting 
 to be bombarded the moment it lifted. About 8.30 the 
 mist cleared a little, and we looked in vain for our tor- 
 mentors. Our cavalry reconnoitred and, to our joy, we 
 saw them ride clean over the place where the enemy's line 
 had been the evening before. They had gone in the night. 
 A cold but drying wind sprang up and the sun came 
 out for a short time, and we managed to get our things 
 dry. At 1 o'clock we marched back to the river and 
 found the bridge gone. I enclose a sketch-map II to 
 explain our movements. 1 
 
 " When we reached the river (10 on Map II) it began 
 to rain again and we spent a very chill afternoon on the 
 bank awaiting orders. About dusk ' B ' and * C ' Com- 
 panies were ordered to cross the river to guard the hospital 
 there, and ' D ' stayed to guard the hospital on the left 
 bank. Mercifully our ship was handy, so we got our tents 
 and slept warm, though all our things were wettish. 
 
 " Monday, IQih. A quiet morning, no orders. ' C ' 
 Company returned to left bank, as all wounded were 
 1 See page 184.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 191 
 
 being shipped across. We got orders to march to Sheike 
 Saad by night. We started at 8 p.m. It was seven or 
 eight miles, but we went very slow, and did not get in till 
 1.30 a.m. and our transport not till nearly 3, heavy guns 
 sticking in the ditches. (AM?. Once we got behind the 
 evacuated Turkish line, we found that the ditches had 
 been filled in to allow passage of guns, an expedient 
 which had apparently not occurred to the British Com- 
 mand, for no ditch had been filled in between All Gherbi 
 and this point.) 
 
 "Tuesday, llth. When morning came we found our- 
 selves camped just opposite Sheike Saad (11 on Map II), 
 and we are still there. Two fine days (though it freezes 
 at night) and rest have restored us. 
 
 "Wednesday, 12th (on the Tigris). After posting 
 your letter I went to see Foster, who has had to go sick 
 and lives on our supply ship. About twenty per cent, of 
 our men are sick, mostly diarrhoea and sore feet. 
 
 " In the evening ' D ' Company had to find a firing- 
 party to shoot three Indians, two N.C.O.'s and one sepoy, 
 for cowardice in the face of the enemy. I'm thankful 
 that North and not I was detailed for the job. I think 
 there is nothing more horrible in all war than these 
 executions. Luckily they are rare. The men, however, 
 didn't mind at all. I talked to the corporal about it 
 afterwards a particularly nice and youthful one, one of 
 my draft and remarked that it was a nasty job for 
 him to have to do, to which he replied gaily, 4 Well, sir, 
 I 'ad a bit o' rust in my barrel wanted shootin' out, so 
 it came in handy like.' Tommy Atkins is a wonderful 
 and attractive creature. 
 
 " Thursday, 13th. Moved at 7 a.m., carrying food 
 and water for two days. The enemy had been located on 
 the E. Canal, about eight miles from Sheike Saad, and our 
 people were going to attack them. The idea was to hold 
 them in front with a small force, while a much bigger
 
 192 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 force got round their left flank (the Canal is on the left 
 bank of the river). Our brigade was to support the 
 frontal containing force. 
 
 " We marched about four miles and then halted about 
 9 a.m. About 3.30 p.m. we advanced, and reached an 
 abandoned enemy fort a little before sunset. Here we 
 heard various alarming and depressing reports, the facts 
 underlying which, as far as I can make out at present, 
 were these. The Turks, seeing their left flank being 
 turned, quitted their position and engaged the out- 
 flanking force, leaving only about 500 out of their 9000 
 to hold the Canal. Our outflanking force, finding itself 
 heavily engaged, sent and asked the frontal force to 
 advance, to relieve the pressure. The frontal force 
 advanced too rashly and were surprised and heavily 
 punished by the remnant left along the Canal, losing 
 half their force and being obliged to retire. Meanwhile, 
 our outflankers nearly got round the enemy and cut 
 off his retreat. Unfortunately they just failed and the 
 enemy got safely away. Our casualties were 2000. 
 Here again (a) the artillery was quite ineffective ; (b) 
 we failed to foresee the obvious Turkish counter-move 
 to our outflanking tactics ; (c) the aeroplane wrongly 
 reported on the evacuation of their first line. 
 
 " When our retiring frontal force met us they naturally 
 gave us the impression that there was a large force still 
 holding the Canal, which we should have to tackle in 
 the morning. 
 
 " We dug ourselves in about 2000 yards from the 
 Canal. It was very cold and windy, and we had not 
 even a blanket, though I had luckily brought both my 
 greatcoat and burberry. There was a small mud-hut 
 just behind our trench, littered with Turkish rags. The 
 signallers made a fire inside ; it was not an inviting spot, 
 but it was a choice between dirt and cold, and I had 
 no hesitation in choosing dirt. So, after a chill dinner,
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 193 
 
 I turned into the hut. The other officers (except North) 
 at first disdained it with disgust, but as the night wore on 
 they dropped in one by one, till by midnight we were 
 lying in layers like sardines. The Colonel l was the last 
 to surrender. I have a great admiration for him. He is 
 too old for this kind of game, and feels the cold and 
 fatigue very much ; but he not only never complains, 
 but is always quietly making the best of things for every- 
 one, and taking less than his share of anything good 
 that is going. Nothing would induce him, on this 
 occasion, to lie near the fire. 
 
 " Friday, 14>th. As soon as it was light we got orders 
 to advance and marched in artillery formation to within 
 1200 yards of the Canal, where we found some hastily 
 begun trenches of the day before, and proceeded to 
 deepen them. As there was no sign of the enemy, the 
 conviction grew on us that he must have gone in the 
 night ; and presently the order came to form a line to 
 clear up the battlefield, i.e. the space between us and 
 the Canal. This included burying the dead and picking 
 up the wounded, as the stretcher parties, which had 
 tried to bring the wounded in during the night, had been 
 heavily fired on and unable to get farther than where we 
 were. 
 
 "I had never seen a dead man and rather dreaded 
 the effect on my queasy stomach ; but when it came to 
 finding, searching and burying them one by one, all 
 sense of horror though they were not pleasant to look 
 upon was forgotten in an overmastering feeling of pity, 
 such as one feels at the tragic ending of a moving story, 
 only so oppressive as to make the whole scene like a sad 
 and impersonal dream, on which, and as in a dream, 
 my mind kept recurring to a tableau, which I must have 
 seen over fifteen years ago, in Madame Tussaud's of 
 Edith finding the body of Harold after the battle of 
 Colonel Bowker.
 
 194 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Hastings; and indeed the stiff corpses were more like 
 waxen models than anything that had lived. 
 
 " The wounded were by comparison a cheerful com- 
 pany, though their sufferings during the eighteen hours 
 they had lain there must have been fearful; but the 
 satisfaction of being able to bring them in was our pre- 
 dominant feeling. 
 
 " In the middle of this work we were suddenly recalled 
 and ordered to march to the support of the outflanking 
 force, of whose movements we had heard absolutely 
 nothing. But when we had fallen in, all they did was 
 to march us to the Canal, and thence along it back to 
 the river, where we encamped about 1 p.m., and still are. 
 
 " It was a great comfort to be within reach of water 
 again, though the wind and rain have made the river 
 so muddy that a mug of water from it looks exactly like 
 a mug of tea with milk in it. 
 
 " The wind had continued unabated for two days 
 and now blew almost a gale. The dust was intolerable 
 and made any attempts at washing hopeless. Indeed, 
 one's eyes got so full of it the moment they were opened 
 that we sat blinking like owls or shut them altogether. 
 So it was a cheerless afternoon, with rain threatening. 
 Our supply ship with our tents had not come up, but the 
 Major (Stilwell) had a bivouac tent on the second line 
 transport, which he invited me to share, an offer which 
 I gladly accepted. It came on to rain heavily in the 
 night, so I was lucky to be under shelter. 
 
 "Saturday, 15th. This morning it rained on and off 
 till nearly noon and the wind blew all day, but the rain 
 had laid the dust. 
 
 " I have just seen the padre who has been working 
 in the field-dressing station. In his station there were 
 two doctors, two nursing orderlies and two native 
 sweepers ; and these had to cope with 750 white wounded 
 for five days till they could ship them down the river.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 195 
 
 Altogether our casualties in the two battles have been 
 well over 5000, so the Turk has rather scored. 
 
 " This afternoon news is : (a) that we have got a new 
 Brigadier our brigade manages its commanders on the 
 principle of the Caliph and his wives, and has not yet 
 found a Sheherazade ; (6) that we have got a brigade 
 M.O.O. ambulance. This is a luxury, indeed. We are 
 only just over twenty miles from Kut now, so we hope 
 to get through after one more battle. 
 
 " Sunday, 16th. Still in camp. No sun. More rain. 
 Friday's gale and the rise in the river have scattered our 
 only pontoon bridge, and Heaven knows when another 
 will be ready. All our skilled bridge-builders are in 
 Kut. The people here seem quite incapable of even 
 bridging the Canal, twenty feet wide. Typical, very. 
 
 " We had a celebration on a boat this morning, which 
 I was very glad of, also a voluntary parade service. 
 
 "Monday, 17th. Rained on and off all day. Grey, 
 cold and windy. Ordered to cross river as soon as bridge 
 is ready. We took only what blankets we could carry. 
 When we reached the bridge we found it not finished, 
 and squatted till 8.15. Then the bridge was finished 
 and immediately broke. So we had to come back to 
 camp and bivouac. Rained like hell all night. 
 
 " Tuesday, 18*A. Whole place a sea of mud, ankle 
 deep and slippery as butter. Nearly the whole bridge 
 had been washed away or sunk in the night. We got 
 men's tents from the ship, cleared spaces from mud, and 
 pitched camp again. Rain started again about 1 p.m. 
 and continued till 4. The Canal or * Wadi ' had 
 meanwhile come down in heavy spate and broken that 
 bridge, so we were doubly isolated. I went out to post 
 pickets. It took two hours to walk three miles. Foster 
 being sick, North is officer in command of 4 D ' Company, 
 and I share a 40 Ib. tent with him. Desultory bombard- 
 ment all day.
 
 196 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 " Wednesday, IMh. Sun at last ; first fine day since 
 Thursday last. Orders to cross Wadi as soon as bridge 
 repaired. Crossed at 4 p.m. and camped in a dry place. 
 
 " Thursday, 2Qth. Fair, sun, heavy bombardment all 
 day. Post going." 
 
 These were the last words written by Bobby. He was 
 killed in the battle of Umm-Al-Hannah on the following 
 day. 
 
 The part taken by the Hampshire Regiment in the 
 day's disastrous action can be best understood by the 
 following accounts given by two of its number present in 
 the battle. It is sufficient to mention that the duty of 
 acting as support to the troops engaged in pushing the 
 main attack on 21st January was allotted to the Hamp- 
 shires. 
 
 " The leading brigade entrenched itself during the 
 night within about 500 yards of the position, while our 
 regiment, with one Indian regiment, formed the first line 
 of supports. We were in our trenches about 1000 yards 
 from the enemy's position, ready to make the attack by 
 6 a.m. For some reason the attack was delayed, and our 
 guns did not open fire till 7.45 a.m. instead of 6.30, as 
 originally intended. At 7.55 a.m. (after our guns had 
 bombarded the enemy's trenches for only ten minutes) 
 the infantry were ordered to advance to the attack, our 
 support line advancing at the same time. 
 
 " Our battalion (which consisted of three companies 
 (one company being in Kut-El-Amarah) advanced in three 
 lines : ' B ' Company forming the first line, under Lieu- 
 tenant Needham ; ' C ' Company the second line, under 
 Captain Page Roberts ; and ' D ' Company the third 
 line, under Captain North, with Captain the Hon. Robert 
 Palmer as his second in command. Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Bowker was with the third line.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 197 
 
 " As soon as we left the trenches, we were under a 
 heavy rifle fire ; and as we advanced, this became more 
 and more intense, with machine-gun and shrapnel fire 
 added. The ground was perfectly flat and open, with no 
 form of cover to be obtained, and our casualties soon 
 became very heavy. We continued to advance till we 
 got to within about 150 yards of the enemy's trenches, 
 but by this time our casualties were so heavy that it was 
 impossible to press home the attack without reinforce- 
 ments, though at the extreme left of our line our troops 
 actually got into the first line of trenches but were bombed 
 out of them again by the Turks. No reinforcements 
 reached us, however ; and we afterwards heard that 
 the regiment, which should have come up in support of 
 us, was enfiladed from their right, and was consequently 
 drawn off in that direction. All we could do now was 
 to hold on where we were, making what cover we could 
 with our entrenching tools ; and this we did until darkness 
 came on, when we withdrew. 
 
 " The weather had been terrible all that day and night, 
 there being heavy rain with a bitterly cold wind coming off 
 the snow hills. The ground became a sea of mud, which 
 made it most difficult to remove the wounded ; and many 
 of these had to lie out till the armistice was arranged 
 the following day." And : " The fighting was a pure 
 slaughter. It was too awful. . . . The troops from France 
 say that in all their experience there they never suffered 
 so much from weather conditions." l 
 
 " The three companies of Hampshires were in support, 
 with two native regiments and a battalion of Connaught 
 Rangers. The Hants men were next the river. The two 
 native regiments refused to leave their trenches when they 
 
 1 From letters of Lieutenant-Colonel W. B. Stilwell, D.S.O. As Major, 
 he took command of the Hampshires during the battle, after Colonel 
 Bowker's death.
 
 ig8 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 saw the fierce fire from the machine guns. The Connaughts 
 were fighting farther off. So the Hampshire men were 
 obliged to go on alone. We never made a rush, and just 
 walked slowly through the rain. A slow march to our 
 deaths, I call it." 
 
 The narrator then said they had got mixed up with 
 the Black Watch and got into the first Turkish trench, 
 but had been driven out of it again. He saw Captain 
 Palmer fall about 200 yards from the trench, but did not 
 see whether he got up again or where he was wounded. 1 
 
 Out of the 310 Hampshires who went into the battle, 
 only 51 escaped untouched. Colonel Bowker, the colonel 
 in command, Captains Brandon and North, and Lieutenant 
 Needham were killed ; Captain Bucknill and Bobby were 
 missing, and all their remaining officers wounded or half- 
 dead from shock and exposure. Of the men, 32 were 
 killed, 136 wounded, and 75 missing. On the following 
 day, at the end of the armistice, 75 officers and men were 
 still missing. It was clear that those of them who had 
 fallen wounded close to the Turkish lines must have been 
 removed by the Turks as prisoners, and that Bobby must 
 have been among their number. 
 
 A few scanty facts regarding his last hours have come 
 to our knowledge. 
 
 " He was always cheerful to the end," was the testi- 
 mony of Colonel Stilwell. His men who survived him 
 described with great admiration " his coolness in action, 
 his greater thoughtfulness for them than for himself. 
 He was," they said, " a man upon whom they could fully 
 rely." " When Captain Palmer was leading part of an 
 attack over a long stretch of absolutely flat country that 
 had no cover whatever, the only possible approach was 
 by steadily walking forward. He was so anxious all the 
 
 1 This was the story as told in the Agra Hospital by a wounded private 
 of the Hampshire Regiment shortly after the event.
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 199 
 
 time that his line should be kept in perfect ' extension,' 
 so as to minimize the risk to his men. His sole thought 
 seems to have been for his men." 
 
 Two wounded men from Bobby's platoon reported in 
 their Indian hospital that he had been wounded in the 
 leg. After he was seen to fall, he must have picked 
 himself up and have gone on, according to the account 
 given of him in the following letter from Second-Lieutenant 
 C. H. Vernon of the l/4th Hants, written to Mr. J. T. 
 Bucknill, in which he mentioned his vain search for my 
 nephew's body on 7th April 1916. Afterwards he heard 
 of his death in the Turkish camp. 
 
 " Some stories," he wrote, " have come through from 
 survivors as to how Captain Palmer lost his life. As far 
 as we can gather, he was the only Hants officer actually 
 to penetrate tjie Turkish trenches with a few men. That 
 was on the extreme left, close to the river. Our men, 
 however, had not been supplied by the Indian Govern- 
 ment with bombs. Consequently the Turks, being so 
 provided, bombed them out, and only one or two men 
 escaped capture or death. It was here that Captain 
 Palmer was mortally wounded while trying to rally his 
 men to hold the captured sector." 
 
 The agonizing suspense endured by his parents and by 
 all who loved Bobby came to a tragic end on 14th March, 
 when Monsieur E. Naville, Vice-President of the Inter- 
 national Red Cross Committee, telegraphed from Geneva 
 that he had learnt through the Red Crescent that, " Cap- 
 tain Palmer was captured grievously wounded. Died 
 before reaching hospital." 
 
 Two months later, Captain Aubrey Herbert was able 
 to supplement this information.
 
 200 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 CAPTAIN THE HON. AUBREY HERBERT TO THE EARL 
 OF SELBORNE 
 
 " H.M.S. Mantis, 
 
 May 1916. 
 
 " I am more grieved than I can say to have given you 
 the news which I telegraphed yesterday. I know how 
 cruel the anxiety of doubt is, and telegraphed to you 
 when I had the evidence which I and my friends here 
 consider reliable. 
 
 " About six days ago I went out to the Turks to discuss 
 terms for the surrender of Kut. I spent the night in their 
 camp and have been with them several times since then. I 
 asked them for information about three names. About two 
 of the names I could get little information. On the third 
 day I received a message from Ali Jenab Bey, telling me 
 that your son had died in hospital, and that all that could 
 be done for him had been done, and asking me to tell you 
 how deeply he sympathized with you. The next day Ali 
 Jenab and two other Turks came into our camp. One of 
 them, Mohammed Riza, told me that your son had been 
 brought in after the fight on the 21st, slightly wounded in 
 the shoulder and badly wounded in the chest. He had 
 been well looked after by the doctor, and the colonel of 
 the regiment (I could not find out which regiment) had 
 visited him and, at the doctor's wish, sent him some 
 brandy. He did not suffer ; and the end came after two 
 hours. 
 
 " It is useless to try to tell you how sorry I feel for you 
 and all of yours. In this campaign, which in my mind has 
 been the most heroic of all, many of our men who have 
 given their lives have suffered long and very terribly, 
 and when one hears of a friend who has gone, one is 
 glad in this place to know that he has been spared that 
 sacrifice."
 
 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 201 
 
 Later in the year, when that part of Mesopotamia had 
 fallen into the hands of our army, the chaplain who had 
 administered Bobby's last Communion to him five days 
 before his death, the Rev. R. Irwin, searched in vain all 
 over the site occupied by the Turkish lines and camp on 
 21st January. He could find no trace of the burial- 
 places where the enemy had interred their own men or 
 their prisoners. The body of our beloved Bobby lies in an 
 unknown grave in that ancient land. But the fact is not 
 embittered with any thought of loneliness or unfulfilled 
 destiny in regard to him. Rather we rejoice to believe 
 that the experience described by him in a poem on The 
 Voyage of Life has been his : that his spirit, in company 
 with many other steadfast souls, passed out of the stress 
 of battle up the steep stairway to Paradise, and that to 
 them was granted the vision of 
 
 " One standing on the path with hands outstretched. 
 They follow, and the hard ascent seems smooth, 
 Till, when they reach the upper light serene, 
 They look upon their Leader face to face : 
 Straightway they know Him and themselves are known. 
 Then are they glad, because they are at rest, 
 Brought to the haven at last where they would be. 
 
 R. S. A. P." 
 
 s.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Alexandra, Queen, 11-3. 
 Ashby, Dr. T., 54. 
 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., 17, 145, 
 146. 
 
 Bailey, Rev. C. W., 49. 
 Balfour, Miss Alice, 104 (see 
 Letters). 
 
 Miss Eleanor, 104 (see Letters). 
 
 Rt. Hon. A. J., i. 16, 17. 65, 
 
 I0 3~5. J 4 6 - 
 
 Rt. Hon. Gerald and Lady 
 
 Betty, 102, 104. 
 
 " Balkan Situation, Historical 
 Background of," 173. 
 
 Bar. the, R. S. A. Palmer called to, 
 107. 
 
 Legal studies, 107-9. 
 
 Prospects at, 109, no. 
 
 Bax, Rev. A. N., 8, 9. 
 
 Bertie, Ninian, 144, 145. 
 
 Bewsher, J., 7. 
 
 Blackmoor, 3, 22, 25, 31, 35, 80, 
 no, in, 117, 122, 135. 
 
 Botha, General, 57, 58. 
 
 Bowker, Lieut. -Colonel F. J., 193, 
 196, 198. 
 
 Bradley, Dean, of Westminster, 
 13- 
 
 Brandon, Captain, 198. 
 
 Bucknill, Lieut. J., 198. 
 
 Burge, Dr. H., Bishop, first of 
 Southwark ; second of Ox- 
 ford, 27, 28, 37, 98, 131. 
 
 Caldey Abbey, 70, 75, 76. 
 Canning Club, Oxford, 40, 45, 46, 52, 
 
 63, 70, 81. 
 Carritt, E. F., 61. 
 Carter, F., 16, 18. 
 Causton, Captain Purefoy, 116, 130, 
 
 132-4, 137, 143, 145-8, 
 
 151, 181 (see Letters). 
 Cecil, Lady Gwendolen (Aunt), 40, 
 
 73 (see Letters.) 
 
 Cecil, Rt. Hon. Lord Hugh (Uncle) 
 9, 40, 62, 65. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Lord Robert (Uncle), 
 
 72, loo, 145, 164. 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Austen, 17. 
 
 Rt. Hon. Joseph, 17. 
 
 Charity Organization Society, 95, 
 
 96. 
 " Poor Man's Lawyer " 
 
 Dept., 48, 95, 97, 98, 100. 
 Christian Social Union, 95. 
 Churchill, third Lord, 12. 
 Cole, Hon. Mrs. G. E. (see Balfour, 
 
 Miss Eleanor). 
 " Conversations of Christopher," 
 
 172. 
 Cook, A. B. K., 18. 
 
 A. K., 14, 25, 29, 30 (see 
 
 Letters). 
 
 Corbett, Ronald, 145. 
 Curtis, Captain G. E., 123. 
 
 Darling, Sir C. J., 107. 
 Drage, Major R. L., 30-2. 
 
 Eady, Sir C. S., 108. 
 Earl, Austin, 80, 81. 
 
 Mrs., 79. 
 
 Edghill House, Sydenham, 98, 99. 
 Edward VII., King, n, 12. 
 Elton, Captain G., 149-51. 
 
 Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L., 78. 
 
 Fletcher, George, 145. 
 
 Footner, Lieut.-Col. F. L., 176. 
 
 Forrest, Captain, 157. 
 
 Foster, Captain H. M., 186, 191, 
 
 195- 
 Franqueville, Comte de, 53, 55. 
 
 Gomtesse de (Aunt), 53, 55. 
 
 George V., King, n, 12. 
 Gibbs, W., 102. 
 Gladstone, W. G. C., 145. 
 Goddard, R., 102, 107-10.
 
 INDEX 
 
 203 
 
 Gore, Dr. Charles, Bishop, first of 
 Worcester ; second of 
 Birmingham ; third of 
 Oxford, 116. 
 
 J., 102, 115. 
 Goschen, Hon. G. J., 185. 
 Grenfell, Captain Hon. Julian, 148. 
 
 Hon. William, 148. 
 
 Grey. Countess (see Howick, Vis- 
 countess). 
 
 fifth Earl (see Howick, Viscount). 
 
 of Falloden, Viscount, 22, 52, 1 10. 
 
 Lady Elizabeth (Niece), 146. 
 
 Halsbury, Earl of, 12. 
 Hampshire Regiment, The t 
 
 R. S. A. Palmer's Commission in, 
 
 105, in, 114, 129, 162. 
 on Salisbury Plain, 109, 111-15. 
 at Fort Monckton, 113, 122. 
 " F " Company, 115, 119, 129. 
 ordered to India, 116. 
 on Ullonia, 118, 130. 
 in India, 118-48. 
 at Dum-Dum, 119. 
 at Barrackpore, 119. 
 at Agra, 119-48. 
 " D " Company, 129. 
 ordered to Persian Gulf, 147. 
 in Amarah, 158-79. 
 " A " Company, 159, 172, 174, 
 
 176, 178, 179. 
 Christmas at Amarah, 174, 178, 
 
 179. 
 
 Casualties at Kut, 176, 179. 
 in battle of Sheike Saad, 185-92. 
 
 Umm-Al-Hannah, 196-9- 
 
 Officers of, 116, 119, 123, 128, 
 13. M9-5I. 158, 159, 173. 
 174, 186, 191, 193, 196-8. 
 Work of R. S. A. Palmer in 
 
 Canteen Reform, 128, 
 
 129. 
 
 Care for Men, 114, 130, 
 
 131, 135. 136. 147, 149- 
 52, 157, 176, 177, 198, 
 199. 
 
 Regimental games, 129, 
 
 145, 165, 170. 
 
 Lectures, 129, 130, 172-4. 
 
 Harris, J. H., 159. 
 Hatfield, 3, 44, 80. 
 Herbert, A. P., 30, 45, 46. 
 
 Hon. Aubrey, 199, 200. 
 Hirtzel, Sir A., 102. 
 
 " Historical Background of the 
 Balkan Situation," 173. 
 
 Houghton, Boydell, K.C., 109. 
 Howard, Lady Mary, 12. 
 Howick, Viscount, i, 26, 52, 71, 72. 
 Viscountess (Sister), i, 4, 26, 52 
 (see Letters). 
 
 India : 
 Agra, 84, 119, 123. 129, 131. M 8 - 
 
 159, 162. 
 
 Barrackpore, 119. 
 Benares, 87, 116, 126. 
 Bhurtpur, shoot at, 123-6. 
 Bombay, Diocese of, 83, 90, 94. 
 
 Missionary Tours in, 90-2. 
 
 Christian Church in, 93-5. 
 
 Darjeeling, 89, 116, 121. 
 
 Delhi, 126. 
 
 Dinapur, 116, 119. 
 
 Dum-Dum, 119- 
 
 Durbar, The, 82-4. 
 
 Goa, 85, 86. 
 
 Hampshire Regiment in (see 
 
 Hampshire Regiment). 
 Hinduism, 84, 87, 88, 94, 126-8. 
 Hindustani language, 146, 147, 
 
 149. 
 
 Jains, the, 88. 
 Khyber Pass, 89. 
 Kinchin janga Peak, 88, 89. 
 Mesopotamia, Indian regiments 
 
 in, 162, 191, 196, 197. 
 Muttra, 126-8. 
 Narkanda, 143. 
 Problems of Government of, 92-5. 
 
 138-43 (see also Palmer, 
 
 Roberts. A. III. Views). 
 Rawal Pindi, 133. 
 Srinagar, 89, 90, 97. 
 Taj, the, 84, 120, 148. 
 Territorials in, 131. 
 Tour, 1911, R. S. A. Palmer's, 
 
 83-93- 
 
 India, A Little Tour in, 83, 91. 
 
 " Inequalities : Criticisms and Sug- 
 gestions from the Chris- 
 tian Point of View," 132. 
 
 Iremonger, Rev. F. A., 97. 
 
 Irwin, Rev. R., 201. 
 
 " Isis Idols," 65, 66. 
 
 Jeanned'Arc,Beatificationof.53,55. 
 Johnson, Lionel, 14. 
 
 Kelly, Major-General, 113, 122. 
 Kitchener of Khartoum, Earl, 
 114. "5-
 
 204 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMED 
 
 Knox, Rev. Ronald A., 67-71 (see 
 Letters). 
 
 "Labour Problem in South Africa, 
 
 The," 32. 
 Lascelles, E., 100. 
 Letters: 
 
 Cecil, Lady Gwendolen, to Sel- 
 
 borne, Countess of, 40. 
 Cecil, Lord Robert, to Selborne, 
 
 Countess of, 100. 
 Herbert, Captain, Hon. A., to 
 
 Selborne, Earl of, 200. 
 Wolmer, Viscount, to Selborne, 
 
 Countess of, 40. 
 Letters of R. S. A. Palmer to i 
 Balfour, Miss Alice, 104. 
 
 Miss Eleanor, 163, 164, 168- 
 
 70, 177, 178. 
 
 Causton, Purefoy, 137, 160-2. 
 
 Cook, A. K., 25, 26. 
 
 Howick, Viscountess, 122, 145, 
 146. 
 
 Knox, Rev. Ronald, 121, 152, 
 153, 165-8, 171, 172, 174-6. 
 
 Norfolk, Duke of, n. 
 
 Palmer, Hon. Lewis, 78, 79, 165. 
 
 Ridding, Lady Laura, 22, 23, 98, 
 136, 162, 170, 171, 176, 177. 
 
 Selborne, Countess of, 8, 16-8, 20, 
 21, 42-4, 56-60, 72, 75, 
 76, 80, 81, 96, 97, 100-4, 
 106-8, 112-7, II 9~ 2I > 
 133-6, 138, 146-8, 153-8, 
 164, 165, 170, 179. 
 
 Earl of, 19, 20, 23-5, 29, 38, 
 
 46-50, 74, 75, 123-6, 138- 
 
 43, 146, 159, 160, 162, 169, 
 
 170. 
 
 Wolmer, Viscount, 53, 122, 123. 
 Lister, Hon. Charles, 165, 166. 
 Little Tour in India, A, 83, 91. 
 Lunt, Sergeant A., 130, 131. 
 Lyttelton, General Hon. N. and 
 
 Hon. Lady, 102. 
 Hon. Mrs. Arthur, 16. 
 
 Marriott, J. A. R., 45. 
 Mesopotamia and the Middle East, 
 
 172. 
 Mesopotamia : 
 
 Ali Gherbi, 181-3. 
 
 Amarah, 158, 166, 172, 178-82. 
 
 Arabs, 154, 158, 165, 166-8. 
 
 Bagdad, 173-5. 
 
 Basra, 151, 153, 162. 
 
 Ctesiphon, battle of, 174-6. 
 
 Mesopotamia (continued) 
 
 Hampshire Regiment in, 153-98. 
 Kut, Action at, 164, 167, 168. 
 
 Attempted Relief of, 179-96. 
 
 Retreat to and Siege of, 151, 
 
 !75. !7 6 . X 7 8 . r 79. 200. 
 Sheike Saad, battle of, 184-90. 
 the Tigris, 153, 157, 158, 174, 
 
 175, 190, 191, 195, 197. 
 Turkish forces and movements, 
 164, 167, 168, 182, 184-92, 
 i 97-200. 
 Umm-Al-Hannah, battle of, 
 
 196-9. 
 Unhealthy Conditions of troops 
 
 in, 159, 162, 191. 
 Wadi River, battle of, 191-4. 
 Meston, Lady, 147. 
 Micklem, Rev. Nathaniel, 41, 42, 
 
 62, 66, 67, 77. 
 Mills, Hon. C. T., 115. 
 Missionary Campaign In South 
 London, 48-51. 
 
 Naville, E., 199. 
 Needham, R. L., 196, 198. 
 Norfolk, fifteenth Duke of, n, 12. 
 Norris, Private F., 151, 152. 
 North, Captain H. F., 191, 193, 195, 
 
 196, 198. 
 
 Northcote, Lady, 96. 
 Lord, i, 82. 
 
 Oxford : 
 
 All Souls' Fellowship, 82. 
 
 Arnold Society, 99. 
 
 Bagley Wood, 80. 
 
 Canning Club (see Canning 
 
 Club). 
 
 Final Honours School, 60, 80, 81. 
 Friends of R. S. A. Palmer at, 
 
 39-45, 60-2, 64, 66-70, 
 
 73. 74, 77. 78, 80, 81. 
 Hertford Scholarship, 45, 52. 
 Ireland and Craven Scholarship, 
 
 52, 62. 
 
 Moral Standards at, 138. 
 New College Fellowship, 107. 
 Newdigate Prize, 45, 52. 
 Union Society (see Union 
 
 Society). 
 University Church Union, 62, 63, 
 
 65, 66, 69. 
 University College, 36, 39, 60-2, 
 
 66, 68. 
 
 Oxford House, Bethnal Green, 47, 
 48, 95-8, 100, in.
 
 INDEX 
 
 205 
 
 Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford 
 
 Arthur : 
 
 I. Events of his Life 
 Birth, i. 
 Childhood, 1-13. 
 Colet Court, Hammer- 
 smith, at, 6, 7, 14. 
 Confirmation, 10. 
 Coronation page to Queen, 
 
 Southgate Hill, Win- 
 chester, at, 14-38. 
 
 South Africa, visits to, 25, 
 3?, 39- 
 
 Senior Commoner Prefect, 
 26, 28, 32, 51. 
 
 Scholar, University Col- 
 lege, Oxford, 36, 39-81. 
 
 Oxford House, Bethnal 
 Green, at, 47, 48, 95-8, 
 100. 
 
 South London Missionary 
 Campaign, 48-51. 
 
 Paris, in, 53. 
 
 Rome, in, 53-5. 
 
 First Class in Modera- 
 tions, 52. 
 
 Oxford Canning Club, 40, 
 45. 46. 63, 70, 81. 
 
 President of Oxford Union, 
 62-9, 150. 
 
 President of Oxford Uni- 
 versity Church Union, 
 62, 63, 65, 66, 69. 
 
 Dartmoor, on, 41, 73, 74. 
 
 Caldey Abbey, at, 70, 75, 
 76. 
 
 Dunottar Castle cruise, 79. 
 
 First Class in Litt. Hum., 
 62, 81. 
 
 India, tour in, 83-93. 
 
 London Philanthropic 
 Work, 94-101. 
 
 Social Experiences, 102-6. 
 
 The Bar, 107-10. 
 
 Commission in Hampshire 
 Regiment, 105, in, 114. 
 
 Home Service, 1 1 1-7. 
 
 Volunteered for Foreign 
 Service, 114, 115. 
 
 Ultonia, voyage on, 118. 
 
 India, stationed in, 118- 
 48. 
 
 Promotion to Captain, 129, 
 162. 
 
 Persian Gulf, ordered to, 
 147. 
 
 Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford 
 Arthur (continued) : 
 
 I. Events of his Life (continued) 
 
 H.M.S. Varsova, voyage 
 
 on, 152, 153. 
 
 Mesopotamia, in, 153-201. 
 Football, accident at, 172, 
 
 174. 
 
 Amarah lectures, 172-4. 
 Relief of Kut, march to, 
 
 176-96. 
 Sheike Saad Battle, 184- 
 
 90. 
 
 Wadi River Battle, 191-4. 
 Umm-Al-Hannah Battle, 
 
 196-9. 
 Death, 196, 198-200. 
 
 II. Character and Character- 
 
 istics, 2-4, 10, ii, 27, 28, 
 30-2, 34-6, 41, 60, 61, 
 64, 67-71, 74, 77, 78, 
 
 94, no, 134, 135, 150, 
 
 I 5 I - 
 
 Affections, force of, 25, 
 28, 51, 73, 78, 105, 106. 
 
 Art and beauty, apprecia- 
 tion of, 14, 26, 35, 36, 
 79, 80, 83, 84, 88-90, 
 
 III, I2O, 1268, 143, 
 
 144, 148, 177, x8i. 
 Balance and judgment, 3, 
 4, 54. 60. 61, 69, 92, 93. 
 
 IO2, IO3, 107. 
 
 Conscientiousness, 28, 30, 
 33, 34, 61, 67. 
 
 Duty, sense of, 2, 28, 29, 
 51, 113, 131, 135. 
 
 Friendships and social en- 
 joyment, 36, 404, 52, 
 7<>. 73. 74. 77. 78. 80, 84, 
 97, 102-6, 132-4, 149- 
 
 5 1 - 
 Fun and humour, 7, 34, 
 
 36, 46, 49, 69-71, 73, 
 
 76, 91, 104, 105, in, 
 
 133. 165, 171, 172, 195. 
 Games, love of, 30, 32, 34, 
 
 35, 66, 102, 103, 145, 
 
 165, 170, 172. 
 Indian problems, interest 
 
 in, 83, 85, 90-5, 131, 
 
 132, 138-43. 
 Legal acumen, 4, 5, 9, 
 
 95. 97. 107-10. 
 Literary talent and 
 
 tastes, 19-21, 32, 33, 
 35-7. 56-6o, 72-4, 83,
 
 206 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford 
 Arthur (continued) : 
 
 II. Character and Characteristics 
 
 (continued) 
 
 92, 106, 119, 131, 132, 
 
 134. !35. H 6 , *49. 15. 
 
 153, 167, 172-4. 
 Mental force, 4, 7, 9, 27, 
 
 32, 33. 60. 92, i9- 
 Methodizer, 3, 9, 34, 35, 
 
 4. 52, 77. 81. 
 Military capacity, 113, 
 
 128-31, 135, 149-51. 
 
 172-4, 198, 199. 
 Missionary ardour, 48-51, 
 
 93-5. 132, 137-8- 
 Mother, devotion to his, 
 
 5. 15. 56, 75. 134- 
 Naturalist, 7, 8, 21-5, 35, 
 
 36, 74, 87, 88, no, in, 
 
 118, 120, 123, 143, 144, 
 
 169-71, 181. 
 Oratory, 40, 45, 46, 49, 50, 
 
 64-6, 68, 69, 174. 
 Personal appearance, 3, 
 
 39, 42,68, 79, 117. 
 Philosopher, 5, 29, 57, 
 
 58, 72, 112. 
 Political interests, 16-9, 
 
 45-7. 66-8, 72, 77, 81, 
 
 82, 84, 85, 132, 138-43, 
 
 145, 146, 170. 
 Purity, 10, n, 29, 34, 
 
 36, 71, 136-8. 
 Religion, 10, n, 28-30, 
 
 32, 41, 42, 63, 69, 70, 
 
 78, 90, 96, 97, 134, 148, 
 
 150. 151- 
 Scholarship, 7, 16, 27, 33, 
 
 36, 45, 52, 53, 55-62, 
 
 67, 72. 
 Sensitiveness and reserve, 
 
 2, 22, 27, 30, 37, 38, 42, 
 
 43, 103, i2i, 145, 178. 
 Social Reform interests, 
 
 46, 47, 66, 67, 94-9, 
 
 177. 
 Sport, love of, 22, 66, 
 
 123-6, 180, 181. 
 Theological interests, 10, 
 
 41, 67, 69, 75, 76, 85, 87, 
 TTT i/ 90' 93-5, 96, 98. 
 
 III. Views on 
 
 Conservatism and Radi- 
 calism, 45, 47, 66, 67, 
 81, 82. 
 
 Death, 61, 161, 193. 
 
 Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford 
 Arthur (continued) : 
 
 III. Views on (continued) 
 
 Democracy, 162. 
 
 Ethics of war, 148, 168, 
 
 169. 
 
 Fear, 187. 
 Friendship-making, 42, 43, 
 
 *34- 
 Future of Christianity in 
 
 India, 93. 
 
 Future state, a, 176. 
 Indian unrest, 92-4, 138- 
 
 Military mentality and 
 standards, in, 112, 119, 
 I2i. 122, 144, 155-7, 
 160, 161. 178, 179, 191, 
 195. 
 
 National and Christian 
 ideals, 148, 163, 164, 
 169, 177- 
 
 Prostitution, 136-8. 
 
 Public school mentality, 
 29, 33. 37. 38, 43. 122, 
 3* 
 
 Pursuit of enjoyment, 102, 
 103. 
 
 Responsibility of share- 
 holders, 95, 96. 
 
 Women's Suffrage, 99 (see 
 also Letters). 
 
 IV. Writings : Prose 
 
 A Little Tour in India 
 (Arnold), 83, 91. 
 
 Appeal for Edgehill 
 House in the Spectator, 
 
 " Conversations of Christo- 
 pher," National Review, 
 172. 
 
 " The Historical Back- 
 ground of the Balkan 
 Situation," 173. 
 
 " Inequalities : Criticisms 
 and Suggestions from 
 the Christian Point of 
 View," 132. 
 
 " The Labour Problem in 
 South Africa," National 
 Review, 32. 
 
 " Mesopotamia and the 
 Middle East," 172. 
 
 " The Territorials in 
 India : Adaptation to 
 Environment," the 
 Indiaman, 131.
 
 INDEX 
 
 207 
 
 Palmer, Hon. Robert Stafford 
 
 Arthur (continued) : 
 IV. Writings : Prose (continued) 
 
 Wentworth's Reform, 35, 
 36, 45. 134, 135. 
 
 " Why Men should Sup- 
 port Women's Sufi- 
 rage," Conservative and 
 Unionist Woman's 
 
 Franchise Review, 99. 
 
 " Woman Sufirage at 
 Work in America," 
 Nineteenth Century, 100. 
 IV. Writings : Verse 
 
 " Letizia, Mother of 
 Napoleon," 36. 
 
 Limericks, 21, 37. 
 
 " Michael Angelo," 52. 
 
 " On Seeing the Sunrise 
 after reading Kant on 
 the ' Cosmological Anti- 
 nomy,' " 73. 
 
 Sonnet on a Game of 
 Lawn Tennis, 103. 
 
 Sonnet on the War, the 
 Times, 159, 160. 
 
 "On a Visit to Vijaya- 
 nagar," 86. 
 
 " The Voyage of Life," 
 
 201. 
 
 Palmer, Dr. E. J., Bishop of Bom- 
 bay, 14, 48, 65, 902. 
 
 Hon. William Jocelyn Lewis 
 
 (Brother), I, 25, 51, 78-80, 
 96, 115-7, 130, 133, 136, 
 143, 145, 166 (see 
 Letters). 
 
 Ralph C., 82. 
 Patmore, Gaptain F. J., 169. 
 Peel, Colonel, Hon. S., 115. 
 Penal Reform Association, 95. 
 Pickford, Sir W., 108. 
 
 Pius X., Pope, 54. 
 Ponsonby-Fane, Sir Spencer, 12. 
 Poynton, A. B., 61, 62. 
 Prior, Captain E. Foss, 48, 50. 
 
 Radwell, Major J., 123. 
 
 Raju, Professor J. B., 84, 85, 94, 
 
 119, 132, 140. 
 Reminiscences and Impressions of 
 
 R. S. A. Palmer, by : 
 Bewsher, J., 7. 
 Burge, Dr. H., Bishop of Oxford, 
 
 27, 28, 131. 
 Carritt, E. F.. 61. 
 Carter, F., 16. 
 
 Reminiscences and Impressions by 
 
 (continued) 
 Cook, A. K., 29, 30. 
 Drage, Major R. L., 30-2. 
 Earl, Mrs., 79. 
 Elton, Captain G., 149-51. 
 Fisher, Rt. Hon. H. A. L., 78. 
 Goddard, R., 109, no. 
 Herbert, A. P., 30, 45, 46. 
 Iremonger, Rev. F. A., 97. 
 I sis Idols, 65, 66. 
 Knox, Rev. R., 67-71. 
 Lunt, Sergeant A., 130, 131. 
 Micklem, Rev. N., 41, 42, 66, 
 
 67. 
 
 Norris, Private F., 151, 152. 
 Palmer, Dr. E. J., Bishop of 
 
 Bombay, 15, 91, 92. 
 Poynton, A. B., 61, 62. 
 Stevenson, G. H., 60. 
 Stilwell, Lieut.-Colonel W. B., 
 
 151, 198. 
 Swain, Rev. E. Priestley, 40, 41, 
 
 Talbot, Dr. N., Bishop of Pre- 
 toria, 74. 
 
 Williams, Rev. G., 84, 85. 
 Wolmer, Viscount, 10, n, 33-6. 
 Ridding, Dr. G., Bishop of South- 
 well, 8, 9. 
 
 Lady Laura (Aunt), 8, n, 25, 
 
 in, 123 (see Letters). 
 Robertson, Canon, 12. 
 Rosebery, fifth Earl of, 17. 
 Ross-Keppel, Sir G., 89. 
 
 Salisbury, late Marchioness of 
 (Grandmother), 4. 
 
 Marchioness of, 40. 
 
 third Marquis of (Grandfather), 
 
 I, 8, 9, 23, 65. 
 Scrutton, Sir T., 107. 
 Selborne, Countess of (Mother), I, 
 
 5, 6, io, 15, 25, 26, 43, 51, 
 
 56, 57. 75. 79. 99. 117. 
 
 132, 134, 136, 151, 199 
 
 (see Letters). 
 
 first Earl of (Grandfather), 4, 
 
 65, 107. 
 
 second Earl of (Father), x, 8, 9, 
 
 14, 15, 17, 25, 37, 75, 99, 
 
 117, 145, 146, 199 (see 
 
 Letters). 
 Shaw-Stewart, Sir Hugh and Lady 
 
 Alice, 103. 
 
 Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir J., 109. 
 Sinister Street, 136-8.
 
 208 ROBERT STAFFORD ARTHUR PALMER 
 
 Socialism and Social Reform, 47, 
 66, 67, 76, 95- 8 . I02 , I0 3. 
 no, 122 (see Palmer, 
 Hon. R. S. A. III. 
 Views). 
 " South Africa, Labour Problem 
 
 in," 32. 
 South Africa : 
 
 First visit to, 22, 25, 26. 
 Second visit to, 38, 39. 
 Selborne, Earl of, High Com- 
 missioner of, 25, 74, 75. 
 Sport in, 22, 66. 
 Victoria Falls, 25, 26. 
 Spectator, the, letter to, 99. 
 Stables, J. H., 130. 
 Stevenson, G. H., 60. 
 StilweU, Lieut.-Colonel W. B., 151, 
 
 159, 173. 194. 198. 
 Students' Christian Movement, 42, 
 
 69, 95- 
 
 Swain, Rev. F. Priestley, 40, 41, 74. 
 Sykes, Colonel Sir Mark, 164, 165, 
 
 167. 
 
 Talbot, Dr. E., Bishop, first of 
 Rochester ; second of 
 Southwark ; third of Win- 
 chester, 10, 51. 
 
 Dr. N., Bishop of Pretoria, 74. 
 
 Gilbert, 46, 148. 
 
 John, 102. 
 
 Tariff Reform, 17, 18. 
 
 Temple, Dr. F., Archbishop of 
 
 Canterbury, 7, 12, 20. 
 " Territorials in India : Adaptation 
 
 to Environment," 131. 
 
 Union Society, Oxford, 40, 45, 
 
 62-9, 150. 
 University Church Union, Oxford, 
 
 62, 63, 65, 66, 69, 75. 
 
 Vernon, C. H., 199. 
 Victoria Falls, South Africa, 25, 26. 
 " Visit to Vijayanagar," on, 86. 
 " Voyage of Life," 201. 
 
 War, The : 
 
 Casualties in, 144, 145, 147, 148, 
 159, 162, 164-6, 168, 175, 
 
 War, The (continued) 
 
 176, 179, 185, 187, 189, 
 192-4, 197-200. 
 Ethics of, 148, 1 68, 169. 
 Hampshire Regiment in (see 
 
 Hampshire Regiment). 
 Hatred of, 119-22, 134, 135, 148, 
 151, 159-64, 166, 168, 
 169, 178, 179. 
 
 Indian opinion of, effect on, 141. 
 Kut (see Mesopotamia). 
 Mesopotamia (see Mesopo- 
 tamia). 
 
 Outbreak of, in, 112. 
 Sonnet on, 159, 160. 
 Turkish forces and movements 
 
 in (see Mesopotamia). 
 Wentworth's Reform, 35, 36, 45, 
 
 134. 135- 
 
 Whittuck, Rev. C., 63. 
 " Why Men should Support 
 
 Women's Suffrage," 99. 
 Williams, Rev. G., 84, 85. 
 Willoughby de Broke, Lady, 99. 
 Winchester, n, 14, 65. 
 
 Assizes at, 107-9. 
 
 Bird-study at, 21-5, 35. 
 
 Cathedral, 14, 49, 120. 
 
 Debating Society, 18, 32. 
 
 Games, 29, 30, 32-5. 
 
 House Prefect, 25, 26, 28-31, 
 
 37. 43, 5i, 52. 
 
 Scholarly successes at, 16, 27, 
 
 32, 33. 36, 40, 43- 
 
 Senior Commoner Prefect, 26, 
 
 28, 40, 43, 51, 52. 
 
 Southgate Hill : House C., 14, 
 
 15, 25, 26, 37, 43, 51, 52. 
 Wolmer, Viscount (Brother), i, 3-6, 
 10, ii, 15, 25, 33-6, 39, 
 40, 44, 53, 64, 66, 71, 72, 
 79, 108, 122 (see Letters). 
 
 Viscountess, I. 
 
 " Woman's Suffrage at Work in 
 America," 99, 100. 
 
 Woman's Suffrage, 99, 100. 
 
 Wright, Howard, 107. 
 
 Wyatt, Lieut.-Colonel A., 119, 128- 
 3. 147- 
 
 Xavier, St. Francis, 85, 86. 
 
 PRINTED BV MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED, EDINBURGH
 
 ROBERT PALMER 
 
 By LAI.V ' rami 
 
 . when one 
 
 ' 
 
 better for 
 -em tc 
 ,i truth when they are used , 
 
 i Eon of the 
 
 ihorne. Whom the gods ,| 
 die young: :tnd not only the;| 
 il men and wumen loved him. I 
 -arprise that he did not know I 
 lest, some one says in > 
 excess He lived, it is 
 a life of continual witness to 
 d-.-als. carried out as very few 
 i in carrying them out; but also 
 thoroughly human and natural, 
 . without affectation or insincerity, 
 unselfish, and full of humour and 
 pleasantness. The biography is much 
 more agreeable in the earlier chapters, 
 dealing with Kobert Palmer's childhood 
 and boyhood, than most biographies. The 
 are really illustrative or really 
 amusing, not merely imagined to be so 
 by an indulgent relation. Here is a 
 characteristic story of his thirst for 
 knowledge at an early age: 
 
 " We discovered him seated on the library 
 floor, surrounded by volumes of the new 
 : Encyclopedia Britannica.' ' I cannot find 
 what I want.' he explained; ' I wish to under- 
 stand why women wear hats in church, and 
 I have looked under " Hats," " Church," and 
 ' Women," and cannot find the reason.' W 
 introduced him to Binghani's 'Antiquities,' 
 where his curiosity was satisfied, but without 
 convincing him of the reasonableness of the 
 rule.' 1 
 
 The biographer notes his first public 
 appearance as at the Coronation of 
 Edward VII., when he was a Page to the 
 Queen. To account for her choice of him, 
 the boy of fourteen said, '-We met five 
 yea* "ago." That must have been 
 
 at the Jubilee of 1897, when the two 
 
 :ied the train of their grand- 
 
 lathei, the late Lord Salisbury, as. Chan- 
 
 "f the ("Diversity O f Oxford as ha 
 
 of the ("niversity lt> 
 
 Queen Victoria. That, too, may have 
 
 ': been Robert Palmer's first introdoc- 
 
 ; tion to Oxford, when one of its 
 
 members fed him with cake at 
 
 Windsor. Then lira at Wiis- 
 
 r, much more iruitful than he knew 
 
 i references show that the influence 
 
 !! a-; school, had sunk 
 
 Lady Laura Ridding 
 
 -phere of sorious- 
 
 - we venture to think 
 
 wrongly, as many passages in tlv 
 
 hat, in regard to other 
 
 t minded what they 
 
 illv believed 
 
 wa~ all 
 
 low ideals and held low beliefs. His 
 His, small 
 
 ciivle nf friends was always the b 
 his-'h cb 
 nm.-h ; people heli. 
 
 n no narrow or 
 
 tarian " sense- was very true of him at 
 Oxford. lie was :' loyal son of tho Church 
 of England, a most loyal (though very 
 critical) member, ton, of the Consen. 
 
 Critical, we said ; and 
 but always in a good sense. He was 
 extraordinarily loyal to his own kin lie 
 had for those, among them from whos 
 learnt rnr<-> a thorough admiration: he- 
 would even say (but only to his own 
 family) that a sermon from one of them 
 " was a- [: : Ld be. 
 
 an opinion in which not every one 
 outside the charmed circle would follow 
 him. But after all. the admirati", 
 natural enough in the circumstance- 
 many people have had such a Prime 
 Minister as Lord Salisbury and such a 
 Lord Chancellor as the first Lord Sei- 
 borne as grandfathers. Nor must one 
 always take what he says quite so 
 seriously as his biographer does. Even 
 he had his moments of discontent. He 
 certainly did not mean it seriously when 
 he said: 
 
 i: It afflicts me rather that nearly all the 
 nice people I know at Oxford are Liberals. 
 The Tories are mostly selfish and insiucera 
 jingoes; the people who really caie i'or ' the 
 poor and needy ' are almost all Liberals. !t 
 is hard to resist the conclusion dial there is 
 loss attraction to good minds in L~in 
 than in Liberalism. i (iuii't at all want to 
 become a Liberal, and this fact seems to uie 
 to make it more important not <o; but the 
 
 rn'hiriK my views ;o the 
 
 Tories (it it over extends beyond the Canning ) 
 I will, f fear, be thank !<>>." 
 
 At Oxford, as ai Winchester, he showed 
 great ability ami a rare c<mscieiiti. 
 Th" biography reveals, quite delicately. 
 ' his intimates ai the L'nm-r- 
 ', sity were rather priggish 
 
 persons, but then 1 was never in him th<i 
 ouch of prigu'i-lin- ->s 
 He was a man in character 
 and judgiv ndent 
 
 " lotus, leres. utijtie ruumdus." So when 
 he ciu: -ehoo] and colioge, and 
 
 was called to a life for which he Ir- 
 natural disinclination, he made the 
 fice willingly, eiidured Itardntss, und gnv-? 
 up his life with undaumed eourftge. 'i h 
 , later life consists roughly <,t two parts, 
 j the g- : Lion f/f the material for 
 
 which ha- been in print before -India and 
 amia. The " Little- Tour in 
 India" and the "Lettt>> liom Mesofjo- 
 tamia "Deeply impressed those' who read 
 them. <! the writer's extra- 
 
 ordinary power of observation and analy- 
 sis, as well as the charm of his character.
 
 UK* Of 
 
 his great, friendship with Pmrfcy ( 
 there is indeed not. much to add. A- w> 
 close the hook we crives thanks for it lif* 
 which ended nobly, with a sacrilii-r- that 
 did not blink the ir. Hi* own 
 
 words are ihe inosi, tittintr ending to Una 
 appreciation of a beautiful life 
 ' On* standing on th path with hands oub 
 
 stretched 
 ITiey follow, and the liarcl ascent 
 
 smooth , 
 
 Till, when thej reacli ihe upper liglit 
 They look upon their Leader face to 
 Straightway they know Him aad 
 
 are known. 
 
 Then are they glad. Voaus* they are at rest, 
 Brought to the haven at last whero ther 
 be."- 
 
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