Finally, A. R. Woresley set about building the Semen's Home in the cellar of the house.
13
By early June, 1919, we were almost ready to go. I say almost because we still had not agreed upon the list of names. Who would be the great men in the world to be honoured by a visit from Yasmin - and lurking in the background, me? The three of us had many meetings in 'Dunroamin' to discuss this knotty problem. The kings were easy. We wanted all the kings. We wrote them down first:
KING ALBERT OF THE BELGIANS present age 45
KING BORIS OF BULGARIA " " 25
KING CHRISTIAN OF DENMARK " " 49
KING ALEXANDER OF GREECE " " 23
KING VITTORIO EMMANUELE OF ITALY " " 50
KING HAAKON OF NORWAY " " 47
KING FERDINAND OF ROMANIA " " 54
KING ALFONSO OF SPAIN " " 33
KING GUSTAV OF SWEDEN " " 61
KING PETER OF YUGOSLAVIA " " 75
The Netherlands was out because it had only a queen. Portugal was out because the monarchy had been overthrown in the Revolution of 1910. And Monaco was not worth fooling with. There remained only our own King George V. After much debate, we decided to leave the old boy alone. It was all just a little bit too much on our own doorstep for comfort and in any event I had plans for using this particular gentleman in quite another way, as you will see in a moment. We decided, though, to put EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES on the list as a possible extra. Yasmin plus Blister Beetle would roll him over any time she wished. What's more, she could hardly wait.
The list of great men and geniuses was more difficult to compile. A few of them, like Puccini and Joseph Conrad and Richard Strauss, were obvious. So were Renoir and Monet, two rather ancient candidates who must clearly be visited pretty soon. But there was more to it than that. We had to decide which of the present-day (1919) great and famous men would still be great and famous ten, twenty and even fifty years hence.
There was also a more difficult group, the younger ones who were at present only moderately famous but who looked as though they might well become great and famous later on. This part of it was a bit of a gamble. It was also a matter of flair and judgement. Would the young James Joyce, for example, who was only thirty-seven years old, come to be regarded as a genius by later generations? I voted yes. So did A. R. Woresley. Yasmin had never heard of him. By a vote of two to one we put him on the list.
In the end, we decided to make two separate lists. The first would be top priority. The second would contain the possibles. We would get round to the possibles only after we had polished off the top-priority boys. We would also pay attention to age. The older ones should, whenever possible, be attended to first in case they expired before we got to them.
We agreed that lists should be updated each year to include any new possibles who might suddenly have shot into prominence.
Our priority list, compiled in June 1919, was as follows, in alphabetical order:
BELL, Alexander Graham present age 72
BONNARD, Pierre " " 52
CHURCHILL, Winston " " 45
CONRAD, Joseph " " 62
DOYLE, Arthur Conan " " 60
EINSTEIN, Albert " " 40
FORD, Henry " " 56
FREUD, Sigmund " " 63
KIPLING, Rudyard " " 54
LAWRENCE, David Herbert " " 34
LAWRENCE, Thomas Edward " " 31