James Stourton (b. 1956) was one of the younger friends whom Trevor-Roper met at the Beefsteak Club. Stourton joined Sotheby’s in 1979 and was its UK chairman 2006–12. He is the author of four books on the history of collecting and patronage. For a while he ran his own private press.
The Master’s Lodge, Peterhouse
Dear James
I am glad to hear such a tribute to the Post Office! And I hope you enjoyed Greece and Turkey.
I’m afraid I have a weakness for frauds like the Sobieski Stuarts:1 at least if they are fantaisistes who live their own fantasies, as they did. We need a touch of fantasy to irradiate this dull world of orderly, respectable virtues. My hero (if I can so describe him) Sir Edmund Backhouse, bart., was another such; and did not your hero, Sir Iain Moncrieffe of that ilk, also have such a streak?2 A certain amiable snobisme is, it seems, a necessary ingredient in the character: one escapes from the humdrum world into faery castles, invests oneself with glittering titles, conjures with imaginary wealth. One such person whom I know is convinced that he is a duke.1 ‘Dukes here’, he once said to me contemptuously in Italy, ‘are two a penny’. I always humour him and write to him under his ducal title, which he takes very seriously.
Scott himself, I believe, had something of this character—which indeed is what made his greatness. At Abbotsford he realised, and lived in, a fantasy world, imagining himself an ancient Scottish magnate, romanticising loyalties which, in Scottish history, were imaginary rather than real—to the Duke of Buccleuch, his ‘chief’, to a Hanoverian king tartanised for the occasion—dispensing open-handed hospitality, scattering in the end unreal wealth. And yet, like most of these people, he combined these fantasies with practical, rational behaviour in other areas of life: sensible in historical judgment, honourable in personal relations, efficient in his work as sheriff, punctual in completing his books. It is the contrast, or tension, between his Augustan and his romantic character which makes him so attractive to me.
I believe—I may have said this before: if so, forgive me—that Scott wrote six great novels, all published between 1814 and 1819: Waverley, Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, Old Mortality, Rob Roy, Heart of Midlothian; then came Ivanhoe and a long list of second-rate best-sellers, redeemed only by Redgauntlet. Best of all, in my opinion, is Old Mortality. Then, towards the end of his life, he wrote that marvellous Journal, a most moving work, from which the reality and the charm of his character emerge. Do you know it? They emerge also from Lockhart’s Life which I think a wonderfully good biography, to be read in its entirety, not in the potted version. Perhaps the best bits in it are by Scott himself—‘the Ashesteil fragment’2 of his autobiography and the journals of his Lighthouse Tour.
I thought Paddy Leigh Fermor’s essay on Iain splendid. It brought out the romantic fantasy in his character and conversation, happily abbreviated! I was amused by your experience of authors who objected to being deprived of letters after their names. They must have been Cambridge men. One of the many differences that I notice between our two ancient universities is that Cambridge men (who as a rule take themselves so much more seriously—you don’t, which is one reason why I so like you!) insist on their little doctorates. In Oxford it is regarded as a solecism, even a vulgarity, for anyone except a DD, DLitt, D.Mus., or DCL to call himself ‘Dr Smith’. The D.Phil may, by now, be a professional necessity, but one is quiet about it (although even here, alas, there is a hint of change, brought in by self-important Cambridge immigrants).1 In Cambridge they are all ‘Dr’ and I have to be very careful always to use the title if I want their votes in my college meetings.
I fear that our Scottish life is coming to an end. Xandra, who made me live in her native country, now wants to leave it. I, who would have preferred my native Northumberland, would be happy to stay. We have a charming house, with woods and a stream, which are so necessary to me—like Virgil I can say flumina amem silvasque inglorius2—and if our neighbours are dull, I have books, which are not. But Xandra says that she has now no friends there and it is too cold in winter: ‘it is all very well for you: you will gad up to London at the expense of the House of Lords. I shall be stuck here alone!’ And next June we have to leave our fine Queen Anne house in Cambridge. So a great migration to some London suburb lies before us. It is very distracting; and since there are horrible economic implications, we ask ourselves what we can sell. If we should meet, perhaps at the Beefsteak on Wednesday, when I hope to come to London, or, if not, on a postcard, perhaps you could tell me whom at Sotheby’s I could consult about pictures—I have two 17th century paintings (Roelant de Savery and Valerio Castello3) which, reluctantly, I would flog, but only if they would make a material contribution towards this dreadful change in our way of life.
I have not yet braved the Beefsteak in its temporary lodgings,1 but I am determined to do so; and I hope that I shall find you there one day soon.
yours ever
Hugh