My Life

My Life - Oswald MosleyIt is also unattractive to see a man destroyed through advice being given to the Crownby his best friends without a word of warning being conveyed to him. 'Then dearGeorge will be Prime Minister?'—we understand his intimates enquired of LordBalfour after the giving of crucial advice—'No, dear George will not be PrimeMinister,' was the feline reply. Another old friend who intrigued against him on thatoccasion was St. John Brodrick, later Lord Midleton. Lord Curzon used to recite somelines about this contemporary of his which I think were of Oxford composition: Everydull complacent plodder Was meant by fate to be a Brodder. Then how did St. Johnlearn to brod? Why by the special grace of God.His early connections and friendships did not prevent, indeed, they possibly promotedCurzon's betrayal at the crisis of his career. Loyalty in the party which advertisesloyalty is not always so apparent on these testing occasions as in the simpler homes ofthe mass of the people in their dealings with each other.Lord Curzon did not deserve the trivial malice of some of the attacks made on himsince his death. It is a modern fashion to ignore most of a man's public service and topublish instead any private scandal that can be raked from the ashes, but it does notgive a true or complete picture. From some accounts it might be imagined that moneyand romance played a larger part in Lord Curzon's life than his service to the State. Hecertainly had an affair with Elinor Glyn which was subsequently much publicised; shespent a long period decorating his beautiful Elizabethan house at Montacute, whereCimmie as a young girl was often in her company. As a result, I met Elinor Glynwhen we became engaged, then a most sedate lady without aid of tiger skin and full ofgood advice. She was more intelligent than her books; they clearly excluded marriagewith a Foreign Secretary before tenure of that office became a comic turn.If Elinor Glyn had never written a line she would have been an appropriate wife for anorthodox Foreign Secretary. She was a model of decorum, exceptionally well behaved;slightly prim for the aristocracy, but a good example of what the bourgeois world thenbelieved a lady to be. She was also well educated and capable of discussing subjectswith which few of her athletic heroes or exotic heroines would have been familiar.She knew what would touch the neo-romantic mood of the period and gave it to them,as others do today for a different market. Authors of this type are often not so silly asthe books they write, but have sound money sense. When Curzon married again hisrelationship with Mrs. Glyn ended. Apparently he had omitted to tell her about hisintended marriage; I knew little of the rights and wrongs of the matter, but wouldguess that the news broke sooner than Curzon anticipated. He was probably quitehappily engaged on two fronts and felt no urgent necessity to withdraw from either.The exigencies of Venus in this situation differ from those of Mars. I doubt whetherhe meant to treat Mrs. Glyn unkindly or discourteously, for this was not in hischaracter.There is some reason to believe that the distinguished strategist was engaged at thistime on yet a third front. After so much ill-nature in posthumous accounts of this sideof his life, a more genial story can do Curzon no harm. A drawing-room in GrosvenorSquare was rocked with laughter during successive luncheon parties because a letterhad arrived beginning: 'My beautiful white swan'. Lord Curzon had inadvertentlytransposed two letters in their envelopes; one a formal refusal of an invitation fromLady Cunard and the other intended for Mrs. Astor, afterwards Lady Ribblesdale,100 of 424