My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyinteresting people very quickly. Even for the nation it has some purpose, because itcan teach good manners. A British mistake is to send either oafs or dull clerks torepresent us in various capacities in European capitals where manners are appreciated,a habit which unfortunately has increased in recent years.Meeting other people always has its uses if it does not consume too much time—askme anything but time, said Bonaparte—but the practical value of this society in recentyears has declined, for a clear reason. The pressure of life has increased, and less andless are the men and women who think and do to be met in society. The function ofsociety—in the sense the word is used in this limited context—is to provide ameeting-ground for an elite where they can know each other better and be amused;interesting and entertaining talk is the bait which draws them together. The interest isreduced when important people are too busy to attend, and entertainment also declineswhen the hostesses of a more leisured and resourceful period are lacking. Society doesnot long exist in a worthwhile form when it is divorced from the life of the nation. Itbelongs not to the cafe but to the private house, where those who do meet those whothink—by no means, unfortunately, always the same people—and no confidence isever betrayed.The conditions of a true society in this sense were present after and even during theFirst World War. In London and to a large extent in Paris its vitality was due to asubtle blend of charm and dynamism in the American hostesses who played a largepart in both these capitals. I was plunged into it even before I left hospital, as I waspermitted to go out on my crutches to luncheon. How and when in exact point of timeI met these various people I cannot remember, but it is easy to recall theirpersonalities and the characteristic background of their houses. The range of thisexperience, of course, extends far beyond the war, right through the twenties and intothe thirties, but it is possibly of some interest to regard together the glitteringconcourse of the notable hostesses of those days. Foremost among them in Englandwas Lady Cunard, a bright little bird of paradise who, I understand, has often beendescribed in recent books. Her contribution to the life of society rested onconsiderable wit and limitless effrontery. She made things go with a vengeance. Iftalk flagged and the taciturn great would not perform, she would wake the companyup with a direct frontal attack. 'Lord Hugh, I cannot believe you are really a Christian,'she would say to the most devoted member of a great political family particularlydedicated to the service of the Church of England. This method usually evokedconversation at its liveliest, but the sheer, reckless force of her impact would onoccasions produce only a shattered silence from which she would recover instantly bydarting off in a totally different direction; the bird of paradise in pursuit of anotherglittering and distracting insect of thought, or rather of imagination.She was American, and lived in a corner of Grosvenor Square, which has since beenalmost entirely occupied and rebuilt by her country of origin. Her life in Englandbegan as the wife of Sir Bache Cunard, a Leicestershire squire, who had disappearedfrom the scene before I knew her. Her serious life in London was entirely given tomusic and to the assistance of Sir Thomas Beecham. Her social life also sometimesserved the same end, for the fun of her house drew money as well as wit andintelligence like a magnet. She herself had considerable erudition which erupted inconversation at the most unexpected points, but on the whole the ladies present wereselected for their beauty rather than their intelligence. She understood that society65 of 424