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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16519-0.txt b/16519-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5bc1eab --- /dev/null +++ b/16519-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8944 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Prime Ministers and Some Others, by George W. E. Russell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Prime Ministers and Some Others + A Book of Reminiscences + +Author: George W. E. Russell + +Release Date: August 12, 2005 [eBook #16519] +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2023] + +Language: English + +Produced by: Robert J. Hall + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS *** + + + + +PRIME MINISTERS + +AND SOME OTHERS + + +A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + +GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL + + + + +TO +THE EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON, +K.G., + +I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK, +NOT SHARING HIS OPINIONS BUT +PRIZING HIS FRIENDSHIP + + + + +NOTE + +My cordial thanks for leave to reproduce papers already published +are due to my friend Mr. John Murray, and to the Editors of the +_Cornhill Magazine_, the _Spectator_, the _Daily News_, the _Manchester +Guardian_, the _Church Family Newspaper_, and the _Red Triangle_. + +G. W. E. R. + +_July_, 1918. + + + + +CONTENTS + +I.--PRIME MINISTERS + + I. LORD PALMERSTON + II. LORD RUSSELL + III. LORD DERBY + IV. BENJAMIN DISRAELI + V. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE + VI. LORD SALISBURY + VIII. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR + IX. HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN + +II.--IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP + + I. GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS + II. HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND + III. LORD HALLIFAX + IV. LORD AND LADY RIPON + V. "FREDDY LEVESON" + VI. SAMUEL WHITBREAD + VII. HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER + VIII. BASIL WILBERFORCE + IX. EDITH SICHEL + X. "WILL" GLADSTONE + XI. LORD CHARLES RUSSELL + +III.--RELIGION AND THE CHURCH + + I. A STRANGE EPIPHANY + II. THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION + III. PAN-ANGLICANISM + IV. LIFE AND LIBERTY + V. LOVE AND PUNISHMENT + VI. HATRED AND LOVE + VII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE + VIII. A SOLEMN FARCE + +IV.--POLITICS + + I. MIRAGE + II. MIST + III. "DISSOLVING THROES" + IV. INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER + V. REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS + VI. "THE INCOMPATIBLES" + VII. FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS + +V.--EDUCATION + + I. EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE + II. THE GOLDEN LADDER + III. OASES + IV. LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE + V. THE STATE AND THE BOY + VI. A PLEA FOR INNOCENTS + +VI.--MISCELLANEA + + I. THE "HUMOROUS STAGE" + II. THE JEWISH REGIMENT + III. INDURATION + IV. FLACCIDITY + V. THE PROMISE OF MAY + VI. PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM + +VII.--FACT AND FICTION + + I. A FORGOTTEN PANIC + II. A CRIMEAN EPISODE + + + + +I + +PRIME MINISTERS + + + + +PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS + + +I + +_LORD PALMERSTON_ + +I remember ten Prime Ministers, and I know an eleventh. Some have +passed beyond earshot of our criticism; but some remain, pale and +ineffectual ghosts of former greatness, yet still touched by that +human infirmity which prefers praise to blame. It will behove me +to walk warily when I reach the present day; but, in dealing with +figures which are already historical, one's judgments may be +comparatively untrammelled. + +I trace my paternal ancestry direct to a Russell who entered the +House of Commons at the General Election of 1441, and since 1538 +some of us have always sat in one or other of the two Houses of +Parliament; so I may be fairly said to have the Parliamentary tradition +in my blood. But I cannot profess to have taken any intelligent +interest in political persons or doings before I was six years +old; my retrospect, therefore, shall begin with Lord Palmerston, +whom I can recall in his last Administration, 1859-1865. + +I must confess that I chiefly remember his outward characteristics--his +large, dyed, carefully brushed whiskers; his broad-shouldered figure, +which always seemed struggling to be upright; his huge and rather +distorted feet--"each foot, to describe it mathematically, was a +four-sided irregular figure"--his strong and comfortable seat on +the old white hack which carried him daily to the House of Commons. +Lord Granville described him to a nicety: "I saw him the other +night looking very well, but old, and wearing a green shade, which +he afterwards concealed. He looked like a retired old croupier +from Baden." + +Having frequented the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the more +privileged seats "under the Gallery," from my days of knickerbockers, +I often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather +"bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort of +good-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off an +inconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ardour of +a Radical supporter. + +Of course, a boy's attention was attracted rather by appearance and +manner than by the substance of a speech; so, for a frank estimate +of Palmerston's policy at the period which I am discussing, I turn +to Bishop Wilberforce (whom he had just refused to make Archbishop +of York). + +"That wretched Pam seems to me to get worse and worse. There is +not a particle of veracity or noble feeling that I have ever been +able to trace in him. He manages the House of Commons by debauching +it, making all parties laugh at one another; the Tories at the +Liberals, by his defeating all Liberal measures; the Liberals at +the Tories, by their consciousness of getting everything that is to +be got in Church and State; and all at one another, by substituting +low ribaldry for argument, bad jokes for principle, and an openly +avowed, vainglorious, imbecile vanity as a panoply to guard himself +from the attacks of all thoughtful men." + +But what I remember even more clearly than Palmers ton is appearance +or manner--perhaps because it did not end with his death--is the +estimation in which he was held by that "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood" to which I myself belong. + +In the first place, it was always asserted, with emphasis and even +with acrimony, that he was not a Whig. Gladstone, who did not much +like Whiggery, though he often used Whigs, laid it down that "to be +a Whig a man must be a born Whig," and I believe that the doctrine +is absolutely sound. But Palmerston was born and bred a Tory, and +from 1807 to 1830 held office in Tory Administrations. The remaining +thirty-five years of his life he spent, for the most part, in Whig +Administrations, but a Whig he was not. The one thing in the world +which he loved supremely was power, and, as long as this was secured, +he did not trouble himself much about the political complexion of +his associates. "Palmerston does not care how much dirt he eats, +so long as it is gilded dirt;" and, if gilded dirt be the right +description of office procured by flexible politics, Palmerston +ate, in his long career, an extraordinary amount of it. + +Then, again, I remember that the Whigs thought Palmerston very +vulgar. The newspapers always spoke of him as an aristocrat, but +the Whigs knew better. He had been, in all senses of the word, a +man of fashion; he had won the nickname of "Cupid," and had figured, +far beyond the term of youth, in a raffish kind of smart society +which the Whigs regarded with a mixture of contempt and horror. +His bearing towards the Queen, who abhorred him--not without good +reason--was considered to be lamentably lacking in that ceremonious +respect for the Crown which the Whigs always maintained even when +they were dethroning Kings. Disraeli likened his manner to that +of "a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress," and one +who was in official relations with him wrote: "He left on my +recollection the impression of a strong character, with an intellect +with a coarse vein in it, verging sometimes on brutality, and of a +mind little exercised on subjects of thought beyond the immediate +interests of public and private life, little cultivated, and drawing +its stores, not from reading but from experience, and long and +varied intercourse with men and women." + +Having come rather late in life to the chief place in politics, +Palmerston kept it to the end. He was an indomitable fighter, and +had extraordinary health. At the opening of the Session of 1865 he +gave the customary Full-Dress Dinner, and Mr. Speaker Denison,[*] +who sat beside him, made this curious memorandum of his performance +at table: "He ate two plates of turtle soup; he was then served very +amply to cod and oyster sauce; he then took a _pâté_; afterwards +he was helped to two very greasy-looking entrées; he then despatched +a plate of roast mutton; there then appeared before him the largest, +and to my mind the hardest, slice of ham that ever figured on the +table of a nobleman, yet it disappeared just in time to answer the +enquiry of the butler, 'Snipe or pheasant, my lord?' He instantly +replied, 'Pheasant,' thus completing his ninth dish of meat at +that meal." A few weeks later the Speaker, in conversation with +Palmerston, expressed a hope that he was taking care of his health, +to which the octogenarian Premier replied: "Oh yes--indeed I am. I +very often take a cab at night, and if you have both windows open +it is almost as good as walking home." "Almost as good!" exclaimed +the valetudinarian Speaker. "A through draught and a north-east +wind! And in a hack cab! What a combination for health!" + +[Footnote *: Afterwards Lord Ossington.] + +Palmerston fought and won his last election in July, 1865, being +then in his eighty-first year, and he died on the 15th of October +next ensuing. On the 19th the Queen wrote as follows to the statesman +who, as Lord John Russell, had been her Prime Minister twenty years +before, and who, as Earl Russell, had been for the last six years +Foreign Secretary in Palmerston's Administration: "The Queen can +turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of +hers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister and to carry +on the Government." + +It is sometimes said of my good friend Sir George Trevelyan that his +most responsible task in life has been to "live up to the position +of being his uncle's nephew." He has made a much better job of his +task than I have made of mine; and yet I have never been indifferent +to the fact that I was related by so close a tie to the author of +the first Reform Bill, and the chief promoter--as regards this +country--of Italian unity and freedom. + + +II + +_LORD RUSSELL_ + +Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for the +first time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interested +in the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Pray +tell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising young +man in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied, +"George Byng, ma'am," signifying thereby a youth who eventually +became the third Earl of Strafford. + +In 1865 Lord John, who in the meantime had been created Earl Russell, +became, after many vicissitudes in office and opposition, Prime +Minister for the second time. The Queen, apparently hard put to +it for conversation, asked him whom he now considered the most +promising young man in the Liberal party. He replied, without +hesitation, "George Byng, ma'am," thereby eliciting the very natural +rejoinder, "But that's what you told me twenty years ago!" + +This fragment of anecdotage, whether true or false, is eminently +characteristic of Lord Russell. In principles, beliefs, opinions, +even in tastes and habits, he was singularly unchanging. He lived +to be close on eighty-six; he spent more than half a century in +active politics; and it would be difficult to detect in all those +years a single deviation from the creed which he professed when, +being not yet twenty-one, he was returned as M.P. for his father's +pocket-borough of Tavistock. + +From first to last he was the staunch and unwavering champion of +freedom--civil, intellectual, and religious. At the very outset +of his Parliamentary career he said, "We talk much--and think a +great deal too much--of the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish we +could imitate the courage of our ancestors. They were not ready +to lay their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every vain or +imaginary alarm." At the close of life he referred to England as +"the country whose freedom I have worshipped, and whose liberties +and prosperity I am not ashamed to say we owe to the providence +of Almighty God." + +This faith Lord Russell was prepared to maintain at all times, in +all places, and amid surroundings which have been known to test +the moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundly +attached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian succession, he was no +courtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, and he had a habit +of applying the principles of our English Revolution to the issues +of modern politics. + +Actuated, probably, by some playful desire to probe the heart of +Whiggery by putting an extreme case, Queen Victoria once said: +"Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, +under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign?" "Well, +ma'am, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only +say that I suppose it is!" + +When Italy was struggling towards unity and freedom, the Queen was +extremely anxious that Lord John, then Foreign Secretary, should +not encourage the revolutionary party. He promptly referred Her +Majesty to "the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688," and informed +her that, "according to those doctrines, all power held by Sovereigns +may be forfeited by misconduct, and each nation is the judge of +its own internal government." + +The love of justice was as strongly marked in Lord John Russell as +the love of freedom. He could make no terms with what he thought +one-sided or oppressive. When the starving labourers of Dorset +combined in an association which they did not know to be illegal, +he urged that incendiaries in high places, such as the Duke of +Cumberland and Lord Wynford, were "far more guilty than the labourers, +but the law does not reach them, I fear." + +When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the ground +of expense, he said: + +"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may +as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right +to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is +the first and primary end of all government." + +Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections of +my uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's +Government, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes, +in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge--the +prettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he was very much +what _Punch_ always represented him--very short, with a head and +shoulders which might have belonged to a much larger frame. When +sitting he might have been taken for a man of average height, and +it was only when he rose to his feet that his diminutive stature +became apparent. + +One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which had +what, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to be +called "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic. +Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers" +and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man," and was much "obleeged" +where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged." + +The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his manner +were really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced, +even among people who ought to have known him better, a totally +erroneous impression of his character and temperament. + +In the small social arts, which are so valuable an equipment for +a political leader, he was indeed deficient. He had no memory for +faces, and was painfully apt to ignore his political supporters +when he met them outside the walls of Parliament; and this inability +to remember faces was allied with a curious artlessness which made +it impossible for him to feign a cordiality he did not feel. In +his last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, but +it was not in my heart." The friends needed no such assurance, for +in private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tender +to an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genial +host and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummate +judge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful, +full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told +by the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of his +own personal experience and intercourse with other distinguished +men." + +When Lord Palmerston died, _The Times_ was in its zenith, and its +editor, J. T. Delane, had long been used to "shape the whispers" +of Downing Street. Lord Russell resented journalistic dictation. +"I know," he said, "that Mr. Delane is very angry because I did not +kiss his hand instead of the Queen's" _The Times_ became hostile, +and a competent critic remarked:" + +"There have been Ministers who knew the springs of that public +opinion which is delivered ready digested to the nation every morning, +and who have not scrupled to work them for their own diurnal +glorification, even although the recoil might injure their colleagues. +But Lord Russell has never bowed the knee to the potentates of +the Press; he has offered no sacrifice of invitations to social +editors; and social editors have accordingly failed to discover +the merits of a statesman who so little appreciated them, until +they have almost made the nation forget the services that Lord +Russell has so faithfully and courageously rendered." + +Of Lord Russell's political consistency I have already spoken; and +it was most conspicuously displayed in his lifelong zeal for the +extension of the suffrage. He had begun his political activities +by a successful attack on the rottenest of rotten boroughs; the +enfranchisement of the Middle Class was the triumph of his middle +life. As years advanced his zeal showed no abatement; again and +again he returned to the charge, though amidst the most discouraging +circumstances; and when, in his old age, he became Prime Minister +for the second time, the first task to which he set his hand was +so to extend the suffrage as to include "the best of the working +classes." + +In spite of this generous aspiration, it must be confessed that +the Reform Bill of 1866 was not a very exciting measure. It lowered +the qualification for the county franchise to £14 and that for +the boroughs to £7; and this, together with the enfranchisement +of lodgers, was expected to add 400,000 new voters to the list. + +The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm. +Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought it +revolutionary, and made common cause with the Tories to defeat +it. As it was introduced into the House of Commons, Lord Russell +had no chance of speaking on it; but Gladstone's speeches for it +and Lowe's against it remain to this day among the masterpieces +of political oratory, and eventually it was lost, on an amendment +moved in committee, by a majority of eleven. Lord Russell of course +resigned. The Queen received his decision with regret. It was evident +that Prussia and Austria were on the brink of war, and Her Majesty +considered it a most unfortunate moment for a change in her Government. +She thought that the Ministry had better accept the amendment and +go on with the Bill. But Lord Russell stood his ground, and that +ground was the highest. "He considers that vacillation on such a +question weakens the authority of the Crown, promotes distrust +of public men, and inflames the animosity of parties." + +On the 26th of June, 1866, it was announced in Parliament that +the Ministers had resigned, and that the Queen had sent for Lord +Derby. Lord Russell retained the Liberal leadership till Christmas, +1867, and then definitely retired from public life, though his +interest in political events continued unabated to the end. + +Of course, I am old enough to remember very well the tumults and +commotions which attended the defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866. +They contrasted strangely with the apathy and indifference which +had prevailed while the Bill was in progress; but the fact was that +a new force had appeared. The Liberal party had discovered Gladstone; +and were eagerly awaiting the much more democratic measure which +they thought he was destined to carry in the very near future. +That it was really carried by Disraeli is one of the ironies of +our political history. + +During the years of my uncle's retirement was much more in his +company than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he was +Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to me +a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent +there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with +Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland; +had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and +dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of +Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had +conversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had ridden +with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It was +not without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career, +epitomized it in Dryden couplet: + + "Not heaven itself upon the past has power, + But what has been has been, and I have had my hour." + + + + +III + +_LORD DERBY_ + +My opportunities of observing Lord Derby at close quarters, were +comparatively scanty. When, in June, 1866, he kissed hands as Prime +Minister for the third time, I was a boy of thirteen, and I was only +sixteen when he died. I had known Lord Palmerston in the House of +Commons and Lord Russell in private life; but my infant footsteps +were seldom guided towards the House of Lords, and it was only +there that "the Rupert of debate" could at that time be heard. + +The Whigs, among whom I was reared, detested Derby with the peculiar +detestation which partisans always feel for a renegade. In 1836 +Charles Dickens, in his capacity of Parliamentary reporter, had +conversed with an ancient M.P. who allowed that Lord Stanley--who +became Lord Derby in 1851--might do something one of these days, +but "he's too young, sir--too young." The active politicians of +the sixties did not forget that this too-young Stanley, heir of a +great Whig house, had flung himself with ardour into the popular +cause, and, when the Lords threw out the first Reform Bill, had +jumped on to the table at Brooks's and had proclaimed the great +constitutional truth--reaffirmed over the Parliament Bill in 1911--that +"His Majesty can clap coronets on the heads of a whole company of +his Foot Guards." + +The question of the influences which had changed Stanley from a +Whig to a Tory lies outside the purview of a sketch like this. For +my present purpose it must suffice to say that, as he had absolutely +nothing to gain by the change, we may fairly assume that it was due +to conviction. But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition, +or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remained +Whigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, said +that Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth, +but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledged +help." Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings of +a party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into the +opposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as any +party would have been thankful to claim. + +He was the future head of one of the few English families which +the exacting genealogists of the Continent recognize as noble. To +pedigree he added great possessions, and wealth which the industrial +development of Lancashire was increasing every day. He was a graceful +and tasteful scholar, who won the Chanceller's prize for Latin +verse at Oxford, and translated the Iliad into fluent hexameters. +Good as a scholar, he was, as became the grandson of the founder +of "The Derby," even better as a sportsman; and in private life +he was the best companion in the world, playful and reckless, as +a schoolboy, and never letting prudence or propriety stand between +him and his jest. "Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall have!" was his +characteristic greeting to Lord John Russell, when that ancient +rival entered the House of Lords. + +Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural +gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname +of "Rupert," and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if +he had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a brilliant sketch of his +social aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield's +_Endymion_; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same great +man's account, reported by Matthew Arnold: "Full of nerve, dash, +fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along with +him." + +In the Parliament of 1859-1865 (with which my political recollections +begin) Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord Derby Leader +of the Opposition, with Disraeli as his lieutenant in the House +of Commons. If, as Lord Randolph Churchill said in later years, +the business of an Opposition is to oppose, it must be admitted +that Derby and Disraeli were extremely remiss. It was suspected at +the time, and has since been made known through Lord Malmesbury's +_Memoirs_, that there was something like an "understanding" between +Palmerston and Derby. As long as Palmerston kept his Liberal colleagues +in order, and chaffed his Radical supporters out of all the reforms +on which their hearts were set, Derby was not to turn him out of +office, though the Conservative minority in the House of Commons +was very large, and there were frequent openings for harassing +attack. + +Palmerston's death, of course, dissolved this compact; and, though +the General Election of 1865 had again yielded a Liberal majority, +the change in the Premiership had transformed the aspect of political +affairs. The new Prime Minister was in the House of Lords, seventy-three +years old, and not a strong man for his age. His lieutenant in the +House of Commons was Gladstone, fifty-five years old, and in the +fullest vigour of body and mind. Had any difference of opinion +arisen between the two men, it was obvious that Gladstone was in a +position to make his will prevail; but on the immediate business of +the new Parliament they were absolutely at one, and that business +was exactly what Palmerston had for the last six years successfully +opposed--the extension of the franchise to the working man. When +no one is enthusiastic about a Bill, and its opponents hate it, +there is not much difficulty in defeating it, and Derby and Disraeli +were not the men to let the opportunity slide. With the aid of the +malcontent Whigs they defeated the Reform Bill, and Derby became +Prime Minister, with Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons. It +was a conjuncture fraught with consequences vastly more important +than anyone foresaw. + +In announcing his acceptance of office (which he had obtained by +defeating a Reform Bill), Derby amazed his opponents and agitated +his friends by saying that he "reserved to himself complete liberty +to deal with the question of Parliamentary reform whenever suitable +occasion should arise." In February, 1867, Disraeli, on behalf +of the Tory Government, brought in the first really democratic +Reform Bill which England had ever known. He piloted it through +the House of Commons with a daring and a skill of which I was an +eye-witness, and, when it went up to the Lords, Derby persuaded +his fellow-peers to accept a measure which established household +suffrage in the towns. + +It was "a revolution by due course of law," nothing less; and to +this day people dispute whether Disraeli induced Derby to accept +it, or whether the process was reversed. Derby called it "a leap +in the dark." Disraeli vaulted that he had "educated his party" +up to the point of accepting it. Both alike took comfort in the +fact that they had "dished the Whigs"--which, indeed, they had +done most effectually. The disgusted Clarendon declared that Derby +"had only agreed to the Reform Bill as he would of old have backed +a horse at Newmarket. He hates Disraeli, but believes in him as +he would have done in an unprincipled trainer: _he wins_--that +is all." + +On the 15th of August, 1867, the Tory Reform Bill received the +Royal Assent, and Derby attained the summit of his career. Inspired +by whatever motives, influenced by whatever circumstances, the +Tory chief had accomplished that which the most liberal-minded of +his predecessors had never even dreamed of doing. He had rebuilt +the British Constitution on a democratic foundation. + +At this point some account of Lord Derby's personal appearance +may be introduced. My impression is that he was only of the middle +height, but quite free from the disfigurement of obesity; light in +frame, and brisk in movement. Whereas most statesmen were bald, +he had an immense crop of curly, and rather untidy, hair and the +abundant whiskers of the period. His features were exactly of the +type which novelists used to call aristocratic: an aquiline nose, +a wide but firmly compressed mouth, and a prominent chin. His dress +was, even then, old-fashioned, and his enormous black satin cravat, +arranged in I know not how many folds, seemed to be a survival +from the days of Count D'Orsay. His air and bearing were such as +one expects in a man whose position needs no advertizing; and I +have been told that, even in the breeziest moments of unguarded +merriment, his chaff was always the chaff of a gentleman. + +Lord Beaconsfield, writing to a friend, once said that he had just +emerged from an attack of the gout, "of renovating ferocity," and +this phrase might have been applied to the long succession of gouty +illnesses which were always harassing Lord Derby. Unfortunately, as +we advance in life, the "renovating" effects of gout become less +conspicuous than its "ferocity;" and Lord Derby, who was born in +1799, was older than his years in 1867. In January and February, 1868, +his gout was so severe that it threatened his life. He recovered, +but he saw that his health was no longer equal to the strain of +office, and on the 24th of February he placed his resignation in +the Queen's hands. + +But during the year and a half that remained to him he was by no +means idle. He had originally broken away from the Whigs on a point +which threatened the temporalities of the still-established Church +of Ireland; and in the summer of 1868 Gladstone's avowal of the +principle of Irish Disestablishment roused all his ire, and seemed +to quicken him into fresh life. The General Election was fixed +for November, and the Liberal party, almost without exception, +prepared to follow Gladstone in his Irish policy. On the 29th of +October Bishop Wilberforce noted that Derby was "very keen," and had +asked: "What will the Whigs not swallow? Disraeli is very sanguine +still about the elections." + +The question about the Whigs came comically from the man who had +just made the Tories swallow Household Suffrage; and Disraeli's +sanguineness was ill-founded. The election resulted in a majority +of one hundred for Irish Disestablishment; Disraeli resigned, and +Gladstone became for the first time Prime Minister. + +The Session of 1869 was devoted to the Irish Bill, and Lord Derby, +though on the brink of the grave, opposed the Bill in what some +people thought the greatest of his speeches in the House of Lords. +He was pale, his voice was feeble, he looked, as he was, a broken +man; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had already +become traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to the +Laird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight of +the Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in English +oratory. The speech concluded thus: + +"My Lords, I am now an old man, and, like many of your Lordships, +I have already passed three score years and ten. My official life +is entirely closed; my political life is nearly so; and, in the +course of nature, my natural life cannot now be long. That natural +life commenced with the bloody suppression of a formidable rebellion +in Ireland, which immediately preceded the union between the two +countries. And may God grant that its close may not witness a renewal +of the one and a dissolution of the other." + +This speech was delivered on the 17th of June, 1869, and the speaker +died on the 23rd of the following October. + + + + +IV + +_BENJAMIN DISRAEI_ + +I always count it among the happy accidents of my life that I happened +to be in London during the summer of 1867. I was going to Harrow +in the following September, and for the next five years my chance +of hearing Parliamentary debates was small. In the summer of 1866, +when the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill was thrown out, I was in the +country, and therefore I had missed the excitement caused by the +demolition of the Hyde Park railings, the tears of the terrified +Home Secretary, and the litanies chanted by the Reform League under +Gladstone's window in Carlton House Terrace. But in 1867 I was in +the thick of the fun. My father was the Sergeant-at-Arms attending +the House of Commons, and could always admit me to the privileged +seats "under the Gallery," then more numerous than now. So it came +about that I heard all the most famous debates in Committee on +the Tory Reform Bill, and thereby learned for the first time the +fascination of Disraeli's genius. The Whigs, among whom I was reared, +did not dislike "Dizzy" as they disliked Lord Derby, or as Dizzy +himself was disliked by the older school of Tories. But they absolutely +miscalculated and misconceived him, treating him as merely an amusing +charlatan, whose rococo oratory and fantastic tricks afforded a +welcome relief from the dulness of ordinary politics. + +To a boy of fourteen thus reared, the Disraeli of 1867 was an +astonishment and a revelation--as the modern world would say, an +eye-opener. The House of Commons was full of distinguished men--Lord +Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury; John Bright and Robert Lowe, +Gathorne Hardy, Bernal-Osborne, Goschen, Mill, Kinglake, Renley, +Horsman, Coleridge. The list might be greatly prolonged, but of +course it culminates in Gladstone, then in the full vigour of his +powers. All these people I saw and heard during that memorable +summer; but high above them all towers, in my recollection, the +strange and sinister figure of the great Disraeli. The Whigs had +laughed at him for thirty years; but now, to use a phrase of the +nursery, they laughed on the wrong side of their mouths. There +was nothing ludicrous about him now, nothing to provoke a smile, +except when he wished to provoke it, and gaily unhorsed his opponents +of every type--Gladstone, or Lowe, or Beresford-Hope. He seemed, +for the moment, to dominate the House of Commons, to pervade it +with his presence, and to guide it where he would. At every turn +he displayed his reckless audacity, his swiftness in transition, +his readiness to throw overboard a stupid colleague, his alacrity +to take a hint from an opponent and make it appear his own. The +Bill underwent all sorts of changes in Committee; but still it +seemed to be Disraeli's Bill, and no one else's. And, indeed, he +is entitled to all the credit which he got, for it was his genius +that first saw the possibilities hidden in a Tory democracy. + +To a boy of fourteen, details of rating, registration, and residential +qualification make no strong appeal; but the personality of this +strange magician, un-English, inscrutable, irresistible, was profoundly +interesting. "Gladstone," wrote Lord Houghton to a friend, "seems +quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, +is gradually driving all ideas of political honour out of the House, +and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism." I had been +trained by people who were sensitive about "Political honour," +and I knew nothing of "cynicism"; but the "diabolical cleverness" +made an impression on me which has lasted to this day. + +What was Dizzy in personal appearance? If I had not known the fact, +I do not think that I should have recognized him as one of the +ancient race of Israel. His profile was not the least what we in +England consider Semitic. He might have been a Spaniard or an Italian, +but he certainly was not a Briton. He was rather tall than short, +but slightly bowed, except when he drew himself up for the more +effective delivery of some shrewd blow. His complexion was extremely +pale, and the pallor was made more conspicuous by contrast with his +hair, steeped in Tyrian dye, worn long, and eked out with artificial +additions. + +He was very quietly dressed. The green velvet trousers and rings +worn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his fame +in "the days of the dandies," had long since been discarded. He +dressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coat +worn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, +and a black cravat tied in a loose bow--and those spring-sided +boots of soft material which used to be called "Jemimas." I may +remark, in passing, that these details of costume were reproduced +with startling fidelity in Mr. Dennis Eadie's wonderful play--the +best representation of personal appearance that I have ever seen +on the stage. + +Disraeli's voice was by nature deep, and he had a knack of deepening +it when he wished to be impressive. His articulation was extremely +deliberate, so that every word told; and his habitual manner was +calm, but not stolid. I say "habitual," because it had variations. +When Gladstone, just the other side of the Table, was thundering his +protests, Disraeli became absolutely statuesque, eyed his opponent +stonily through his monocle, and then congratulated himself, in a +kind of stage drawl, that there was a "good broad piece of furniture" +between him and the enraged Leader of the Opposition. But when it +was his turn to simulate the passion which the other felt, he would +shout and wave his arms, recoil from the Table and return to it, +and act his part with a vigour which, on one memorable occasion, +was attributed to champagne; but this was merely play-acting, and +was completely laid aside as he advanced in years. + +What I have written so far is, no doubt, an anachronism, for I +have been describing what I saw and heard in the Session of 1867, +and Disraeli did not become Prime Minister till February, 1868; but +six months made no perceptible change in his appearance, speech, +or manner. What he had been when he was fighting his Reform Bill +through the House, that he was when, as Prime Minister, he governed +the country at the head of a Parliamentary minority. His triumph +was the triumph of audacity. In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, +who enquired his object in life, "I want to be Prime Minister"--and +now that object was attained. At Brooks's they said, "The last +Government was the Derby; this is the Hoax." Gladstone's discomfiture +was thus described by Frederick Greenwood: + +"The scorner who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across +the Table of the House of Commons last Session has now more than +heart could wish; his eyes--speaking in an Oriental manner--stand +out with fatness, he speaketh loftily; and pride compasseth him +about as with a chain. It is all very well to say that the candle +of the wicked is put out in the long run; that they are as stubble +before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away. So we +were told in other times of tribulation. This was the sort of +consolation that used to be offered in the jaunty days of Lord +Palmerston. People used then to soothe the earnest Liberal by the +same kind of argument. 'Only wait,' it was said, 'until he has +retired, and all will be well with us.' But no sooner has the storm +carried away the wicked Whig chaff than the heavens are forthwith +darkened by new clouds of Tory chaff." + +Lord Shaftesbury, as became his character, took a sterner view. +"Disraeli Prime Minister! He is a Hebrew; this is a good thing. +He is a man sprung from an inferior station; another good thing +in these days, as showing the liberality of our institutions. But +he is a leper, without principle, without feeling, without regard +to anything, human or Divine, beyond his own personal ambition." + +The situation in which the new Prime Minister found himself was, from +the constitutional point of view, highly anomalous. The settlement +of the question of Reform, which he had effected in the previous +year, had healed the schism in the Liberal party, and the Liberals +could now defeat the Government whenever they chose to mass their +forces. Disraeli was officially the Leader of a House in which his +opponents had a large majority. In March, 1868, Gladstone began his +attack on the Irish Church, and pursued it with all his vigour, and +with the support of a united party. He moved a series of Resolutions +favouring Irish Disestablishment, and the first was carried by a +majority of sixty-five against the Government. + +This defeat involved explanation. Disraeli, in a speech which Bright +called "a mixture of pompousness and servility," described his +audiences of the Queen, and so handled the Royal name as to convey +the impression that Her Majesty was on his side. Divested of verbiage +and mystification, his statement amounted to this--that, in spite of +adverse votes, he intended to hold on till the autumn, and then to +appeal to the new electorate created by the Reform Act of the previous +year. As the one question to be submitted to the electors was that +of the Irish Church, the campaign naturally assumed a theological +character. On the 20th of August Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "Dizzy is +seeking everywhere for support. He is all things to all men, and +nothing to anyone. He cannot make up his mind to be Evangelical, +Neologian, or Ritualistic; he is waiting for the highest bidder." + +Parliament was dissolved in November, and the General Election +resulted in a majority of one hundred for Gladstone and Irish +Disestablishment. By a commendable innovation on previous practice, +Disraeli resigned the Premiership without waiting for a hostile +vote of the new Parliament. He declined the Earldom to which, as +an ex-Prime Minister, he was by usage entitled; but he asked the +Queen to make his devoted wife Viscountess Beaconsfield. As a youth, +after hearing the great speakers of the House which he had not +yet entered, he had said, "Between ourselves, I could floor them +all"--but now Gladstone had "floored" him, and it took him five +years to recover his breath. + + + + +V + +_WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE_ + +Most people remember Gladstone as an old man. He reached the summit +of his career when he had just struck seventy. After Easter, 1880, +when he dethroned Lord Beaconsfield and formed his second +Administration, the eighteen years of life that remained to him +added nothing to his fame, and even in some respects detracted +from it. Gradually he passed into the stage which was indicated +by Labouchere's nickname of "The Grand Old Man"; and he enjoyed +the homage which rightly attends the closing period of an exemplary +life, wonderfully prolonged, and spent in the service of the nation. +He had become historical before he died. But my recollections of +him go back to the earlier sixties, when he was Chancellor of the +Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and they become vivid +at the point of time when he became Prime Minister--December, 1868. + +In old age his appearance was impressive, through the combination of +physical wear-and-tear with the unconquerable vitality of the spirit +which dwelt within. The pictures of him as a young man represent +him as distinctly handsome, with masses of dark hair thrown back +from a truly noble forehead, and eyes of singular expressiveness. +But in middle life--and in his case middle life was continued till +he was sixty--he was neither as good-looking as he once had been, +nor, as grand-looking as he eventually became. He looked much older +than his age. When he met the new Parliament which had been elected +at the end of 1868, he was only as old as Lord Curzon is now; but +he looked old enough to be Lord Curzon's father. His life had been, +as he was fond of saying, a life of contention; and the contention +had left its mark on his face, with its deep furrows and careworn +expression. Three years before he had felt, to use his own phrase, +"sore with conflicts about the public expenditure" (in which old +Palmerston had always beaten him), and to that soreness had been +added traces of the fierce strife about Parliamentary Reform and +Irish Disestablishment. F. D. Maurice thus described him: "His +face is a very expressive one, hard-worked, as you say, and not +perhaps specially happy; more indicative of struggle than of victory, +though not without promise of that. He has preserved the type which +I can remember that he bore at the University thirty-six years +ago, though it has undergone curious development." + +My own recollection exactly confirms Maurice's estimate. In Gladstone's +face, as I used to see it in those days, there was no look of gladness +or victory. He had, indeed, won a signal triumph at the General +Election of 1868, and had attained the supreme object of a politician's +ambition. But he did not look the least as if he enjoyed his honours, +but rather as if he felt an insupportable burden of responsibility. +He knew that he had an immense amount to do in carrying the reforms +which Palmerston had burked, and, coming to the Premiership on the +eve of sixty, he realized that the time for doing it was necessarily +short. He seemed consumed by a burning and absorbing energy; and, +when he found himself seriously hampered or strenuously opposed, he +was angry with an anger which was all the more formidable because +it never vented itself in an insolent or abusive word. A vulnerable +temper kept resolutely under control had always been to me one of +the most impressive features in human character. + +Gladstone had won the General Election by asking the constituencies +to approve the Disestablishment of the Irish Church; and this was +the first task to which he addressed himself in the Parliament +of 1869. It was often remarked about his speaking that in every +Session he made at least one speech of which everyone said, "That +was the finest thing Gladstone ever did." This was freely said +of it he speech in which he introduced the Disestablishment Bill +on the 1st of March, 1869, and again of that in which he wound up +the debate on the Second Reading. In pure eloquence he had rivals, +and in Parliamentary management superiors; but in the power of +embodying principles in legislative form and preserving unity of +purpose through a multitude of confusing minutiæ he had neither +equal nor second. + +The Disestablishment Bill passed easily through the Commons, but +was threatened with disaster in the Lords, and it was with profound +satisfaction that Mrs. Gladstone, most devoted and most helpful of +wives, announced the result of the division on the Second Reading. +Gladstone had been unwell, and had gone to bed early. Mrs. Gladstone +who had been listening to the debate in the House of Lords, said +to a friend, "I could not help it; I gave William a discreet poke. +'A majority of thirty-three, my dear.' 'Thank you, my dear,' he +said, and turned round, and went to sleep on the other side." After +a stormy passage through Committee, the Bill became law on the +26th of July. + +So Gladstone's first great act of legislation ended, and he was +athirst for more. Such momentous reforms as the Irish Land Act, the +Education Act, the abolition of religious tests in the University, +the abolition of purchase in the Army, and the establishment of the +Ballot, filled Session after Session with excitement; and Gladstone +pursued each in turn with an ardour which left his followers out +of breath. + +He was not very skilful in managing his party, or even his Cabinet. +He kept his friendships and his official relations quite distinct. +He never realized the force of the saying that men who have only +worked together have only half lived together. It was truly said +that he understood MAN, but not men; and meek followers in the +House of Commons, who had sacrificed money, time, toil, health, +and sometimes conscience, to the support of the Government, turned, +like the crushed worm, when they found that Gladstone sternly ignored +their presence in the Lobby, or, if forced to speak to them, called +them by inappropriate names. His strenuousness of reforming purpose +and strength of will were concealed by no lightness of touch, no +give-and-take, no playfulness, no fun. He had little of that saving +grace of humour which smoothes the practical working of life as much +as it adds to its enjoyment. He was fiercely, terribly, incessantly +in earnest; and unbroken earnestness, though admirable, exhausts +and in the long run alienates. + +There was yet another feature of his Parliamentary management which +proved disastrous to his cause, and this was his tendency to what the +vulgar call hair-splitting and the learned casuistry. At Oxford men +are taught to distinguish with scrupulous care between propositions +closely similar, but not identical. In the House of Commons they +are satisfied with the roughest and broadest divisions between +right and wrong; they see no shades of colour between black-and +white. Hence arose two unfortunate incidents, which were nicknamed +"The Ewelme Scandal" and "The Colliery Explosion"--two cases in +which Gladstone, while observing the letter of an Act of Parliament, +violated, or seemed to violate, its spirit in order to qualify +highly deserving gentlemen for posts to which he wished to appoint +them. By law the Rectory of Ewelme (in the gift of the Crown) could +only be held by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Gladstone +conferred it on a Cambridge man, who had to procure an _ad eundem_ +degree at Oxford before he could accept the preferment. By law no +man could be made a paid member of the Judicial Committee of the +Privy Council unless he had served as a judge. Gladstone made his +Attorney-General, Sir John Collier, a Judge for three weeks, and then +passed him on to the Judicial Committee. Both these appointments +were angrily challenged in Parliament. Gladstone defended them with +energy and skill, and logically his defence was unassailable. But +these were cases where the plain man--and the House of Commons +is full of plain men--feels, though he cannot prove, that there +has been a departure from ordinary straightforwardness and fair +dealing. + +Yet again; the United States had a just complaint against us; arising +out of the performances of the _Alabama_, which, built in an English +dockyard and manned by an English crew, but owned by the Slaveowners' +Confederacy, had got out to sea, and, during a two years' cruise of +piracy and devastation, had harassed the Government of the United +States. The quarrel had lasted for years, with ever-increasing +gravity. Gladstone determined to end it; and, with that purpose, +arranged for a Board of Arbitration, which sat at Geneva, and decided +against England. We were heavily amerced by the sentence of this +International Tribunal. We paid, but we did not like it. Gladstone +gloried in the moral triumph of a settlement without bloodshed; but +a large section of the nation, including many of his own party, +felt that national honour had been lowered, and determined to avenge +themselves on the Minister who had lowered it. + +Meanwhile Disraeli, whom Gladstone had deposed in 1868, was watching +the development of these events with sarcastic interest and effective +criticism, till in 1872 he was able to liken the great Liberal, +Government to "a range of exhausted volcanoes," and to say of its +eminent leader that he "alternated between a menace and a sigh." In +1873 Gladstone introduced a wholly unworkable Bill for the reform +of University education in Ireland. It pleased no one, and was +defeated on the Second Reading. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sent +for Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the experiment of +governing the country without a majority in the House of Commons, +and Gladstone was forced to resume office, though, of course, with +immensely diminished authority. His Cabinet was all at sixes and +sevens. There were resignations and rumours of resignation. He +took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and, as some authorities +contended, vacated his seat by doing so. Election after election +went wrong, and the end was visibly at hand. + +At the beginning of 1874 Gladstone, confined to his house by a +cold, executed a _coup d'état_. He announced the Dissolution of +Parliament, and promised, if his lease of power were renewed, to +repeal the income-tax. _The Times_ observed: "The Prime Minister +descends upon Greenwich" (where he had taken refuge after being +expelled from South Lancashire) "amid a shower of gold, and must +needs prove as irresistible as the Father of the Gods." But this +was too sanguine a forecast. Greenwich, which returned two members, +placed Gladstone second on the poll, below a local distiller, while +his followers were blown out of their seats like chaff before the +wind. When the General Election was over, the Tories had a majority +of forty-six. Gladstone, after some hesitation, resigned without +waiting to meet a hostile Parliament. Disraeli became Prime Minister +for the second time; and in addressing the new House of Commons +he paid a generous compliment to his great antagonist. "If," he +said, "I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief so eminent, +even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather +to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the +great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember +his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not +its accidental or even disastrous mistakes." + +The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, and +Gladstone's greatest day was yet to come. + + + + +VI + +_LORD SALISBURY_ + +This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative, +but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense the +events of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he became +Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeeded +it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attempted +to describe. + +From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office, +but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first +Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House +of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, on +every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals. +He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and +friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House of +Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed +by a noisy and unscrupulous Press. + +In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing forms +of the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If only +he had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlin +in July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorship +for life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed with +it. "I am very unwell," he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but I +manage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I look +as fierce as I can." + +Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce," but agitating +fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly +retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided +his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington. +But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into the +thick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselves +practically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, and +Gladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of the +Liberal party. + +It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilful +opposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase, +"counter-worked the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield" from 1876 to +1880--and he attained his object. Lord Beaconsfield, like other +Premiers nearer our own time, imagined that he was indispensable +and invulnerable. Gladstone might harangue, but Beaconsfield would +still govern. He told the Queen that she might safely go abroad +in March, 1880, for, though there was a Dissolution impending, +he knew that the country would support him. So the Queen went off +in perfect ease of mind, and returned in three weeks' time to find +a Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members, +with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resigned +without waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone, +though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartington +to form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his second +Administration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lasted +till the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures, +and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulation +here. + +When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determined +to resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote, +who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill and +dignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better; +and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. To +all frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar, +if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then as +Lord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership he +was a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as short-sighted +people always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion was unusually +dark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty hair were +intensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon became famous +for his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. He joined +Lord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his hostility +to the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both with pen +and tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible that +the two men could ever again speak to one another--let alone work +together. But political grudges are short-lived; or perhaps it +would be nearer the mark to say that, however strong those grudges +may be, the allurements of office are stronger still. Men conscious +of great powers for serving the State will often put up with a +good deal which they dislike sooner than decline an opportunity +of public usefulness. + +Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (who +had succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in +1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duels +with the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a near +kinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that the +days of physical duelling were over. In 1878 he accompanied Lord +Beaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin, being second Plenipotentiary; +and when on their return he drove through the acclaiming streets +of London in the back seat of the Triumphal Car, it was generally +surmised that he had established his claim to the ultimate reversion +of the Premiership. That reversion, as I said just now, he attained +in June, 1885, and enjoyed till February, 1886--a short tenure of +office, put the earnest of better and longer things to come. + +At this period of His career Lord Salisbury was forced to yield to +the democratic spirit so far as to "go on the stump" and address +popular audiences in great towns. It was an uncongenial employment. +His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talk +effectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working men +bellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularly +unlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating, +but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of the +things which interested him; but whether or not they interested +his hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off the +platform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, there +was a general sense of mutual relief. + +But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home. +The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, and +his splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere, +a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, his +audience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and, +through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemed +as profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spoke +without notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric, +no declamation, no display. As one listened, one seemed to hear the +genuine thoughts of a singularly clever and reflective man, who had +strong prejudices of his own in favour of religion, authority, and +property, but was quite unswayed by the prejudices of other people. +The general tone of his thought was sombre. Lord Lytton described, +with curious exactness, the "massive temple," the "large slouching +shoulder," and the "prone head," which "habitually stoops"-- + + "Above a world his contemplative gaze + Peruses, finding little there to praise!" + +But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world which +had departed so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, this +prevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, by +flashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelled +him in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Careless +critics called him "cynical," but it was an abuse of words. Cynicism +is shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury which +was inconsistent with the highest ideals of patriotic statesmanship. + +He was by nature as shy as he was short-sighted. He shrank from new +acquaintances, and did not always detect old friends. His failure +to recognize a young politician who sat in his Cabinet, and a zealous +clergyman whom he had just made a Bishop, supplied his circle with +abundant mirth, which was increased when, at the beginning of the +South African War, he was seen deep in military conversation with +Lord Blyth, under the impression that he was talking to Lord Roberts. + +But, in spite of these impediments to social facility, he was an +admirable host both at Hatfield and in Arlington Street--courteous, +dignified, and only anxious to put everyone at their ease. His +opinions were not mine, and it always seemed to me that he was +liable to be swayed by stronger wills than his own. But he was +exactly what he called Gladstone, "a great Christian statesman." + + + + +VII + +_LORD ROSEBERY_ + +It was in December, 1885, that the present Lord Gladstone; in +conjunction with the late Sir Wemyss Reid, sent up "the Hawarden +Kite." After a lapse of thirty-two years, that strange creature +is still flapping about in a stormy sky; and in the process of +time it has become a familiar, if not an attractive, object. But +the history of its earlier gyrations must be briefly recalled. + +The General Election of 1885 had just ended in a tie, the Liberals +being exactly equal to the combined Tories and Parnellites. Suddenly +the Liberals found themselves committed, as far as Gladstone could +commit them, to the principle of Home Rule, which down to that +time they had been taught to denounce. Most of them followed their +leader, but many rebelled. The Irish transferred their votes in the +House to the statesman whom--as they thought--they had squeezed +into compliance with their policy, and helped him to evict Lord +Salisbury after six months of office. Gladstone formed a Government, +introduced a Home Rule Bill, split his party in twain, was defeated +in the House of Commons, dissolved Parliament, and was soundly +beaten at the General Election which he had precipitated. Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the second time, and ruled, +with great authority and success, till the summer of 1892. + +Meanwhile, Gladstone, by his indefatigable insistence on Home Rule +and by judicious concessions to opponents, had to some extent repaired +the damage done in 1886; but not sufficiently. Parliament was dissolved +in June, 1892, and, when the Election was over, the Liberals, _plus_ +the Irish, made a majority of forty for Home Rule. Gladstone realized +that this majority, even if he could hold it together, had no chance +of coercing the House of Lords into submission; but he considered +himself bound in honour to form a Government and bring in a second +Home Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became his Foreign Secretary, and +Sir William Harcourt his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Home +Rule Bill struggled through the House of Commons, but was thrown +out in the Lords, 41 voting for and 419 against it. Not a single +meeting was held to protest against this decisive action of the +Lords, and it was evident that the country was sick to death of +the Irish Question. + +Gladstone knew that his public work was done, and in the spring of +1894 it began to be rumoured that he was going to resign. On the 1st +of March he delivered his last speech in the House of Commons, and +immediately afterwards it became known that he was really resigning. +The next day he went to dine and sleep at Windsor, taking his formal +letter of resignation with him. He had already arranged with the +Queen that a Council should be held on the 3rd of March. At this +moment he thought it possible that the Queen might consult him +about the choice of his successor, and, as we now know from Lord +Morley's "Life," he had determined to recommend Lord Spencer. + +Lord Harcourt's evidence on this point is interesting. According +to him--and there could not be a better authority--Sir William +Harcourt knew of Gladstone's intention. But he may very well have +believed that the Queen would act (as in the event she did) on +her own unaided judgment, and that her choice would fall on him +as Leader of the House of Commons. The fact that he was summoned +to attend the Council on the 3rd of March would naturally confirm +the belief. But _Dis aliter visum_. After the Council the Queen +sent, through the Lord President (Lord Kimberley), a summons to +Lord Rosebery, who kissed hands as Prime Minister at Buckingham +Palace on the 9th of March. + +Bulwer-Lytton, writing "about political personalities, said with +perfect truth: + + "Ne'er of the living can the living judge, + Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge." + +In this case, therefore, I must attempt not judgment but narrative. +Lord Rosebery was born under what most people would consider lucky +stars. He inherited an honourable name, a competent fortune, and +abilities far above the average. But his father died when he was a +child, and as soon as he struck twenty-one he was "Lord of himself, +that heritage of woe." + +At Eton he had attracted the notice of his gifted tutor, "Billy +Johnson," who described him as "one of those who like the palm +without the dust," and predicted that he would "be an orator, and, +if not a poet, such a man as poets delight in." It was a remarkably +shrewd prophecy. From Eton to Christ Church the transition was +natural. Lord Rosebery left Oxford without a degree, travelled, +went into society, cultivated the Turf, and bestowed some of his +leisure on the House of Lords. He voted for the Disestablishment +of the Irish Church, and generally took the line of what was then +considered advanced Liberalism. + +But it is worthy of note that the first achievement which brought +him public fame was not political. "Billy Rogers," the well-known +Rector of Bishopsgate, once said to me: "The first thing which +made me think that Rosebery had real stuff in him was finding him +hard at work in London in August, when everyone else was in a +country-house or on the Moors. He was getting up his Presidential +Address for the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874." Certainly, +it was an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The Social +Science Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by that +omniscient charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were happily +described by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our dismal +provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benches +full of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an orator +lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without." +One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkably +unlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-looking +even for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style rather +horsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cut +very deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions, +it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and it +abounded in glittering phrases." + +Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and his +definite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, important +in politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Early +in the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man, +and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics. +Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association of +Midlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no need +to enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberal +triumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the second +time. + +When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a place +in it to Lord Rosebery, who, with sound judgment, declined what +might have looked like a reward for services just rendered. In +1881 he consented to take the Under-Secretaryship of the Home +Department, with Sir William Harcourt as his chief; but the combination +did not promise well, and ended rather abruptly in 1883. When the +Liberal Government was in the throes of dissolution, Lord Rosebery +returned to it, entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in 1885. +It was just at this moment that Matthew Arnold, encountering him +in a country-house, thus described him: "Lord Rosebery is very +gay and 'smart,' and I like him very much." + +The schism over Home Rule was now approaching, and, when it came, +Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with Gladstone, becoming Foreign +Secretary in February, 1886, and falling with his chief in the +following summer. In 1889 he was chosen Chairman of the first London +County Council, and there did the best work of his life, shaping that +powerful but amorphous body into order and efficiency. Meanwhile, +he was, by judicious speech and still more judicious silence, +consolidating his political position; and before he joined Gladstone's +last Government in August, 1892, he had been generally recognized as +the exponent of a moderate and reasonable Home Rule and an advocate +of Social Reform. My own belief is that the Liberal party as a +whole, and the Liberal Government in particular, rejoiced in the +decision which, on Gladstone's final retirement, made Rosebery +Prime Minister. + +But it was a difficult and disappointing Premiership. Harcourt, not +best pleased by the Queen's choice, was Chancellor of the Exchequer and +Leader of the House of Commons. Gladstone, expounding our Parliamentary +system to the American nation, once said: "The overweight of the +House of Commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring its +Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime Minister who is +a Peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his chief, +and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare, +when he has served him very ugly tricks." + +The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget, +with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellor +of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished +more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph +of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, +being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, +Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. +They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge +the judgment of the country on the performances of the last three +years. + +Thus ingloriously ended a Premiership of which much had been expected. +It was impossible not to be reminded of Goderich's "transient and +embarrassed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offer +to my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been Prime +Minister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiership +had only lasted for ten. + + + + +VII + +_AUTHUR JAMES BALFOUR_ + +When Lord Rosebery brought his brief Administration to an end, Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physical +energy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest of +all bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden of +office increasingly irksome. He retired in 1902, and was succeeded +by his nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, The Administration formed in +1895 had borne some resemblance to a family party, and had thereby +invited ridicule--even, in some quarters, created disaffection. +But when Lord Salisbury was nearing the close of his career, the +interests of family and of party were found to coincide, and everybody +felt that Mr. Balfour must succeed him. Indeed, the transfer of +power from uncle to nephew was so quietly effected that the new +Prime Minister had kissed hands before the general public quite +realized that the old one had disappeared. + +Mr. Balfour had long been a conspicuous and impressive figure in +public life. With a large estate and a sufficient fortune, with +the Tory leader for his uncle, and a pocket-borough bidden by that +uncle to return him, he had obvious qualifications for political +success. He entered Parliament in his twenty-sixth year, at the +General Election of 1874, and his many friends predicted great +performances. But for a time the fulfilment of those predictions +hung fire. Disraeli was reported to have said, after scrutinizing +his young follower's attitude: "I never expect much from a man +who sits on his shoulders." + +Beyond some rather perplexed dealings with the unpopular subject of +Burial Law, the Member for Hertford took no active part in political +business. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself in Moral Science. +This was an unfortunate distinction. Classical scholarship had been +traditionally associated with great office, and a high wrangler +was always credited with hardheadedness; but "Moral Science" was +a different business, not widely understood, and connected in the +popular mind with metaphysics and general vagueness. The rumour +went abroad that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy with +matters which lay quite remote from politics, and was even following +the path of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance of +our national inclination to talk about books without reading them +that, when Mr. Balfour published _A Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, +everyone rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism. +His friends went about looking very solemn, and those who disliked +him piously hoped that all this "philosophic doubt" might not end +in atheism. It was not till he had consolidated his position as a +political leader that politicians read the book, and then discovered, +to their delight, that, in spite of its alarming name, it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. + +The General Election of 1880 seemed to alter the drift of Mr. Balfour's +thought and life. It was said that he still was very philosophical +behind the scenes, but as we saw him in the House of Commons he was +only an eager and a sedulous partisan. Gladstone's overwhelming +victory at the polls put the Tories on their mettle, and they were +eager to avenge the dethronement of their Dagon. "The Fourth Party" +was a birth of this eventful time, and its history has been written +by the sons of two of its members. With the performances of Lord +Randolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff I +have no concern; but the fourth member of the party was Mr. Balfour, +who now, for the first time, began to take a prominent part in +public business. I must be forgiven if I say that, though he was +an admirable writer, it was evident that Nature had not intended +him for a public speaker. Even at this distance of time I can recall +his broken sentences, his desperate tugs at the lapel of his coat, +his long pauses in search of a word, and his selection of the wrong +word after all. + +But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of the +House, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885, +drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In the +new Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but his +sphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local Government +Board, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, he +might have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt or +unphilosophic cocksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked a +stage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented since +1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to Manchester, +where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances of popular +election. + +The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party, +beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its +leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with +lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found +zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate +all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was +trying to make Parliamentary government impossible. + +At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointment +was the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of the +next four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likened +to a young lady--"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was called +"a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused of +being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronounced +incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously +unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration. + +The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries, +rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for +the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment. +He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit +of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should +be repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English, +that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threats +were rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, and +ruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administration +was marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure to +discriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandeville +is a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did not +stand alone. + +Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr. +Balfour's prowess, thus described it: + +"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and soft +speech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic of +senate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity, +an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, and +roused in his friends a delight hardly surpassed in the politics +of our day." + +It is not my business to attack or defend. I only record the fact +that Mr. Balfour's work in Ireland established his position as +the most important member of the Conservative party. In 1891 he +resigned the Chief Secretaryship, and became Leader of the House; +was an eminently successful Leader of Opposition between 1892 and +1895; and, as I said before, was the obvious and unquestioned heir +to the Premiership which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1902. + +As Prime Minister Mr. Balfour had no opportunity for exercising +his peculiar gift of practical administration, and only too much +opportunity for dialectical ingenuity. His faults as a debater +had always been that he loved to "score," even though the score +might be obtained by a sacrifice of candour, and that he seemed +often to argue merely for arguing's sake. It was said of the great +Lord Holland that he always put his opponent's case better than the +opponent put it for himself. No one ever said this of Mr. Balfour; +and his tendency to sophistication led Mr. Humphrey Paul to predict +that his name "would always be had in honour wherever hairs were +split." His manner and address (except when he was debating) were +always courteous and conciliatory; those who were brought into +close contact with him liked him, and those who worked under him +loved him. Socially, he was by no means as expansive as the leader +of a party should be. He was surrounded by an adoring clique, and +reminded one of the dignitaries satirized by Sydney Smith: "They +live in high places with high people, or with little people who +depend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear only +one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a lady +veils herself from rough breezes." + +But, unfortunately, a Prime Minister, though he may "avoid" reckless +men, cannot always escape them, and may sometimes be forced to +count them among his colleagues. Lord Rosebery's Administration was +sterilized partly by his own unfamiliarity with Liberal sentiment, +and partly by the frowardness of his colleagues. Mr. Balfour knew +all about Conservative sentiment, so far as it is concerned with +order, property, and religion; but he did not realize the economic +heresy which always lurks in the secret heart of Toryism; and it +was his misfortune to have as his most important colleague a "bold, +reckless man" who realized that heresy, and was resolved to work +it for his own ends. From the day when Mr. Chamberlain launched +his scheme, or dream, of Tariff Reform, Mr. Balfour's authority +steadily declined. Endless ingenuity in dialectic, nimble exchanges +of posture, candid disquisition for the benefit of the well-informed, +impressive phrase-making for the bewilderment of the ignorant--these +and a dozen other arts were tried in vain. People began to laugh +at the Tory leader, and likened him to Issachar crouching down +between two burdens, or to that moralist who said that he always +sought "the narrow path which lies between right and wrong." His +colleagues fell away from him, and he was unduly ruffled by their +secession. "It is time," exclaimed the Liberal leader, "to have +done with this fooling"; and though he was blamed by the Balfourites +for his abruptness of speech, the country adopted his opinion. +Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. Balfour that his position was +no longer tenable. He slipped out of office as quietly as he had +slipped into it; and the Liberal party entered on its ten years' +reign. + + + + +IX + +_HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN_ + +"He put his country first, his party next, and himself last." This, +the noblest eulogy which can be pronounced upon a politician, was +strikingly applicable to my old and honoured friend whose name +stands at the head of this page. And yet, when applied to him, +it might require a certain modification, for, in his view, the +interests of his country and the interests of his party were almost +synonymous terms--so profoundly was he convinced that freedom is +the best security for national welfare. When he was entertained at +dinner by the Reform Club on his accession to the Premiership, he +happened to catch my eye while he was speaking, and he interjected +this remark: "I see George Russell there. He is by birth, descent, +and training a Whig; but he is a little more than a Whig." Thus +describing me he described himself. He was a Whig who had marched +with the times from Whiggery to Liberalism; who had never lagged +an inch behind his party, but who did not, as a rule, outstep it. +His place was, so to speak, in the front line of the main body, +and every forward movement found him ready and eager to take his +place in it. His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion to +the Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidance +of sects and schisms. + +He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourished +in Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited additional wealth, which +transformed his name from Campbell to Campbell-Bannerman--the familiar +"C.-B." of more recent times. Having graduated from Trinity College, +Cambridge, he entered Parliament as Member for the Stirling Burghs +in 1868, and was returned by the same delightful constituency till +his death, generally without a contest. He began official life in +Gladstone's first Administration as Financial Secretary to the War +Office, and returned to the same post after the Liberal victory of +1880. One of the reasons for putting him there was that his tact, good +sense, and lightness in hand enabled him to work harmoniously with +the Duke of Cambridge--a fiery chief who was not fond of Liberals, +and abhorred prigs and pedants. In 1884, when Sir George Trevelyan +was promoted to the Cabinet, Campbell-Bannerman was made Chief +Secretary for Ireland, and in that most difficult office acquitted +himself with notable success. Those were not the days of "the Union +of Hearts," and it was not thought necessary for a Liberal Chief +Secretary to slobber over murderers and outrage-mongers. On the other +hand, the iron system of coercion, which Mr. Balfour administered so +unflinchingly, had not been invented; and the Chief Secretary had +to rely chiefly on his own resources of firmness, shrewdness, and +good-humour. With these Campbell-Bannerman was abundantly endowed, +and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted +to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned +a deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, he +replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical +fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was +not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he +invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstated +nor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic +humour which befitted his comfortable aspect, and spoke in his +twinkling eyes even when he restrained his tongue. + +The Liberal Government came to an end in June, 1885. The "Home +Rule split" was now nigh at hand, and not even Campbell-Bannerman's +closest friends could have predicted the side which he would take. +On the one hand, there was his congenital dislike of rant and gush, +of mock-heroics and mock-pathetics; there was his strong sense +for firm government, and there was his recent experience of Irish +disaffection. These things might have tended to make him a Unionist, +and he had none of those personal idolatries which carried men +over because Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Spencer, or Mr. Morley had +made the transition. On the other hand, there was his profound +conviction--which is indeed the very root of Whiggery--that each +nation has the right to choose its own rulers, and that no government +is legitimate unless it rests on the consent of the governed. + +This conviction prevailed over all doubts and difficulties, and +before long it became known that Campbell-Bannerman had, in his own +phrase, "found salvation." There were those who were scandalized +when they heard the language of Revivalism thus applied, but it +exactly hit the truth as regards a great many of the converts to +Home Rule. In a very few cases--_e.g._, in Gladstone's own--there +had peen a gradual approximation to the idea of Irish autonomy, +and the crisis of December, 1885, gave the opportunity of avowing +convictions which had long been forming. But in the great majority +of cases the conversion was instantaneous. Men, perplexed by the +chronic darkness of the Irish situation, suddenly saw, or thought +they saw, a light from heaven, and were converted as suddenly as +St. Paul himself. I remember asking the late Lord Ripon the reason +which had governed his decision. He answered: "I always have been +for the most advanced thing in the Liberal programme, and Home Rule +is the most advanced thing just now, so I'm for it." I should not +wonder if a similar sentiment had some influence in the decision, +arrived at by Campbell-Bannerman, who, when Gladstone formed his +Home Rule Cabinet in 1886, entered it as Secretary of State for +War. He went out with his chief in the following August, and in +the incessant clamour for and against Home Rule which occupied +the next six years he took a very moderate part. + +When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannerman +returned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerning +his Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895. +He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expected +from the habitual composure of his character; but it was no doubt +the more provoking because in the previous spring he had wished +to succeed Lord Peel as Speaker. He told me that the Speakership +was the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed, +and which would best have suited his capacities. But his colleagues +declared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true to +his fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim. + +In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894 +to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership. +Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Some +were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House +of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians +call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and +Campbell-Bannerman--the least self-seeking man in public life--found +himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leadership +was an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain section of +the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should return +on his own terms. There were others who wished for Lord Spencer, +and even in those early days there were some who already saw the +makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from these sectional +preferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper than any two-edged +sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, +and of the joints and marrow." + +The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; the +Irish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the third +time it was rent by the South African Question. Holding that the +South African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, +I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally against +it, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal party +as a whole rather than those of any particular section which he +might personally favour. As the campaign advanced, and the motives +with which it had been engineered became more evident, his lead +became clearer and more decisive. What we read about Concentration +Camps and burnt villages and Chinese labour provoked his emphatic +protest against "methods of barbarism," and those Liberals who +enjoyed the war and called themselves "Imperialists" openly revolted +against his leadership. He bore all attacks and slights and +impertinences with a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, but, +though he said very little, he saw very clearly. He knew exactly +the source and centre of the intrigues against his leadership, +and he knew also that those intrigues were directed to the end of +making Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister. The controversy about +Tariff Reform distracted general attention from these domestic +cabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. Balfour suddenly +resigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman. Then came +a critical moment. + +If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have come +back at the head of a great majority, and could have formed his +Administration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelled +his successor to form his Administration out of existing materials. +So the cabals took a new form. The Liberal Imperialists were eager +to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple +about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had +forsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a +speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; +but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for +employment. The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, +only too ready to forgive and forget. His motto was _Alors comme +alors_, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of past +intrigues. But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him that +they would not join his Government unless he consented to go to +the House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the House +of Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely turned +the tables. + +The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelming +majority; but in one sense it came too late. His health was a good +deal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties which +doubled the burden of office. Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, after +a long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely till +his own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907. He +resigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd. + +His brief Premiership had not been signalized by any legislative +triumphs. He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the first +freshness of 1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless Education +Bill. But during his term of office he had two signal opportunities +of showing the faith that was in him. One was the occasion when, in +defiance of all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, "La Duma est morte! +Vive la Duma!" The other was the day when he gave self-government to +South Africa, and won the tribute thus nobly rendered by General +Smuts: "The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by one +of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of +the British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-builders +I hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought into +being a united South Africa, will never be forgotten." + + + + +II + +IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP + + + + +I + +_GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS_ + +The 19th of May, 1898, was Ascension Day; and, just as the earliest +Eucharists were going up to God, William Ewart Gladstone passed out +of mortal suffering into the peace which passeth understanding. For +people who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, +it is a shock to be told by those who are in immediate contact with +young men that for the rising generation he is only, or scarcely, +a name. For my own part, I say advisedly that he was the finest +specimen of God's handiwork that I have ever seen; and by this +I mean that he combined strength of body, strength of intellect, +and spiritual attainments, in a harmony which I have never known +equalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so lived +and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England." Of him +it was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone died +the world lost its greatest citizen." Mr. Balfour called him "the +greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that the +world has ever seen"; and Lord Salisbury said, "He will be long +remembered as a great example, to which history hardly furnishes +a parallel of a great Christian statesman." + +I have written so often and so copiously of Mr. Gladstone, who was +both my religious and my political leader, that I might have found +it difficult to discover any fresh aspects of his character and work; +but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He has +pointed out certain topics which strikingly connect Gladstone's +personality with the events and emotions of the present hour. I +will take them as indicated, point by point. + +[Footnote *: Of the _Red Triangle_.] + + +1. THE LOVE OF LIBERTY. + +I have never doubted that the master-passion of Gladstone's nature +was his religiousness--his intensely-realized relation with God, +with the Saviour, and with "the powers of the world to come." This +was inborn. His love of liberty was acquired. There was nothing +in his birth or education or early circumstances to incline him +in this direction. He was trained to "regard liberty with jealousy +and fear, as something which could not wholly be dispensed with, +but which was continually to be watched for fear of excesses." +Gradually--very gradually--he came to regard it as the greatest +of temporal blessings, and this new view affected every department +of his public life. In financial matters it led him to adopt the +doctrine of Free Exchanges. In politics, it induced him to extend +the suffrage, first to the artisan and then to the labourer. In +foreign affairs, it made him an unrelenting foe of the Turkish +tyranny. In Ireland, it converted him to Home Rule. In religion, +it brought him nearer and nearer to the ideal of the Free Church +in the Free State. + + +2. BELGIUM AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. + +Gladstone hated war. He held, as most people hold, that there are +causes, such as Life and Home and Freedom, for which the gentlest +and most humane of men must be prepared to draw the sword. But he +was profoundly anxious that it should never be drawn except under +the absolute compulsion of national duty, and during the Crimean +War he made this memorable declaration: + +"If, when you have attained the objects of the war, you continue +it for the sake of mere military glory, I say you tempt the justice +of Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodged +as the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle." + +This being his general view of war, it was inevitable that he should +regard with horror the prospect of intervention in the Franco-German +War, which broke out with startling suddenness, when he was Prime +Minister, in the summer of 1870. He strained every nerve to keep +England out of the struggle, and was profoundly thankful that Providence +enabled him to do so. Yet all through that terrible crisis he saw +quite clearly that either of the belligerent Powers might take +a step which would oblige England to intervene, and he made a +simultaneous agreement with Prussia and France that, if either +violated the neutrality of Belgium, England would co-operate with +the other to defend the little State. Should Belgium, he said, "go +plump down the maw of another country to satisfy dynastic greed," +such a tragedy would "come near to an extinction of public right +in Europe, and I do not think we could look on while the sacrifice +of freedom and independence was in course of consummation." + + +3. WAR-FINANCE AND ECONOMY. + +A colleague once said about Gladstone, "The only two things which +really interest him are Religion and Finance." The saying is much +too unguarded, but it conveys a certain truth. My own opinion is +that Finance was the field of intellectual effort in which his +powers were most conspicuously displayed; and it was always remarked +that, when he came to deal with the most prosaic details of national +income and expenditure, his eloquence rose to an unusual height and +power. At the same time, he was a most vigilant guardian of the +public purse, and he was incessantly on the alert to prevent the +national wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, +from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. This +jealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peace +to make him very chary of spending money on national defences. +When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, his +eagerness in this regard caused his chief to write to the Queen +that "it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk +of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." At the end of his career, his +final retirement was precipitated by his reluctance to sanction +a greatly increased expenditure on the Navy, which the Admiralty +considered necessary. From first to last he sheltered himself under +a dogma of his financial master--Sir Robert Peel--to the effect +that it is possible for a nation, as for an individual, so to +over-insure its property as to sacrifice its income. "My name," +he said at the end, "stands in Europe as a symbol of the policy +of peace, moderation, and non-aggression. What would be said of +my active participation in a policy that will be taken as plunging +England into the whirlpool of Militarism?" + + +4. ARBITRATION AND THE "ALABAMA." + +Gladstone's hatred of war, and his resolve to avoid it at all hazards +unless national duty required it, determined his much criticized +action in regard to the _Alabama_. That famous and ill-omened vessel +was a privateer, built in an English dockyard and manned by an +English crew, which during the American Civil War got out to sea, +captured seventy Northern vessels, and did a vast deal of damage +to the Navy and commerce of the Union. The Government of the United +States had a just quarrel with England in this matter, and the +controversy--not very skilfully handled on either side--dragged on +till the two nations seemed to be on the edge of war. Then Gladstone +agreed to submit the case to arbitration, and the arbitration resulted +in a judgment hostile to England. From that time--1872--Gladstone's +popularity rapidly declined, till it revived, after an interval of +Lord Beaconsfield's rule, at the General Election of 1880. In the +first Session of that Parliament, he vindicated the pacific policy +which had been so severely criticized in the following words: + +"The dispositions which led us to become parties to the arbitration +of the _Alabama_ case are still with us the same as ever; we are not +discouraged, we are not damped in the exercise of these feelings +by the fact that we were amerced, and severely amerced, by the +sentence of the international tribunal; and, although we may think +the sentence was harsh in its extent and unjust in its basis, we +regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance +compared with the moral value of the example set when these two +great nations of England and America, who are among the most fiery +and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything that +touches national honour, went in peace and concord before a judicial +tribunal to dispose of these painful differences, rather than resort +to the arbitrament of the sword." + + +5. NATIONALITY--THE BALKANS AND IRELAND. + +Gladstone was an intense believer in the principle of nationality, and +he had a special sympathy with the struggles of small and materially +feeble States. "Let us recognize," he said, "and recognize with +frankness, the equality of the weak with the strong, the principles +of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. +When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong +to our fellow-subjects, resident abroad, let us do as we would be +done by, and let us pay that respect to a feeble State, and to +the infancy of free institutions, which we would desire and should +exact from others, towards their maturity and their strength." + +He was passionately Phil-Hellene. Greece, he said in 1897, is not +a State "equipped with powerful fleets, large armies, and boundless +treasure supplied by uncounted millions. It is a petty Power, hardly +counting in the list of European States. But it is a Power representing +the race that fought the battles of Thermopylæ and Salamis, and +hurled back the hordes of Asia from European shores." + +Of the Christian populations in Eastern Europe which had the misfortune +to live under "the black hoof of the Turkish invader," he was the +chivalrous and indefatigable champion, from the days of the Bulgarian +atrocities in 1875 to the Armenian massacres of twenty years later. +"If only," he exclaimed, "the spirit of little Montenegro had animated +the body of big Bulgaria," very different would have been the fate +of Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions. The fact that +Ireland is so distinctly a nation--not a mere province of Great +Britain--and the fact that she is economically poor, reinforced +that effort to give her self-government which had originated in +his late-acquired love of political freedom. + + +6. THE IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT. + +Of the "Concert of Europe" as it actually lived and worked (however +plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, +and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for +"the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers." It had conspicuously +failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and +it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. Lord +Morley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelity +to public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which is +the legitimate defence for small communities against the great and +powerful"; and yet again: "He had a vision, high in the heavens, of +the flash of an uplifted sword and the gleaming arm of the Avenging +Angel." + +I have now reached the limits of the task assigned me by the Editor, +and my concluding word must be more personal. + +I do not attempt to anticipate history. We cannot tell how much +of those seventy years of strenuous labour will live, or how far +Gladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, +the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the +world. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly +well what we owe to him. If ever we should be tempted to despond +about the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shall +think of him and take courage. If ever our religious faith should +be perplexed by the + + "Blank misgivings of a creature, + Moving about in worlds not realized," + +the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. And if ever +we are told by the flippancy of scepticism that "Religion is a +disease," then we can point to him who, down to the very verge +of ninety years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly life +beyond all that we had ever known. + + + + +II + +_HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND_[*] + +[Footnote *: Written in 1907.] + +The Hollands spring from Mobberley, in Cheshire, and more recently +from the town of Knutsford, familiar to all lovers of English fiction +as "Cranford." They have made their mark in several fields of +intellectual effort. Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the +Colonies from 1887 to 1892, was a son of Sir Henry Holland, M.D. +(1788-1873), who doctored half the celebrities of Europe; and one of +Sir Henry's first cousins was the incomparable Mrs. Gaskell. Another +first-cousin was George Henry Holland (1818-1891), of Dumbleton Hall, +Evesham, who married in 1844 the Hon. Charlotte Dorothy Gifford, +daughter of the first Lord Gifford. + +George Holland was an enthusiastic fox-hunter, and frequently changed +his abode for the better enjoyment of his favourite sport. In 1847 +he was living at a place called Underdown, near Ledbury; and there, +on the 27th of January in that year, his eldest son was born. + +The first Lord Gifford (1779-1826), who was successively Lord Chief +Justice and Master of the Rolls, had owed much in early life to the +goodwill of Lord Eldon, and, in honour of his patron, he named one of +his sons' Scott. This Scott Gifford was Mrs. George Holland's brother, +and his name was bestowed on her eldest son, who was christened +"Henry Scott," but has always been known by his second name. This +link with George III.'s Tory Chancellor is pleasingly appropriate. + +Let it be remarked in passing that the hyphen so often introduced +into the name is solely a creation of the newspapers, which, always +rejoicing in double-barrelled surnames, gratify a natural impulse +by writing about "Canon Scott-Holland." + +I regret that the most exhaustive research has failed to discover +any recorded traits of "Scotty" Holland in the nursery, but his +career in the schoolroom is less obscure. His governess was a Swiss +lady, who pronounced her young pupil "the most delightful of boys; +not clever or studious, but full of fun and charm." This governess +must have been a remarkable woman, for she is, I believe, the only +human being who ever pronounced Scott Holland "not clever." It +is something to be the sole upholder of an opinion, even a wrong +one, against a unanimous world. By this time George Holland had +established himself at Wellesbourne Hall, near Warwick, and there +his son Scott was brought up in the usual habits of a country home +where hunting and shooting are predominant interests. From the +Swiss lady's control he passed to a private school at Allesley, +near Coventry, and in January, 1860, he went to Eton. There he +boarded at the house of Mrs. Gulliver,[*] and was a pupil of William +Johnson (afterwards Cory), a brilliant and eccentric scholar, whose +power of eliciting and stimulating a boy's intellect has never +been surpassed. + +[Footnote *: Of Mrs. Gulliver and her sister, H. S. H. writes: +"They allowed football in top passage twice a week, which still +seems to be the zenith of all joy."] + +From this point onwards, Scott Holland's history--the formation of +his character, the development of his intellect, the place which +he attained in the regard of his friends--can be easily and exactly +traced; for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries has +not been effaced, or even dimmed, by the lapse of seven-and-forty +years. + +"My recollection of him at Eton," writes one of his friends, "is +that of a boy most popular and high-spirited, strong, and full +of life; but not eminent at games." Another writes: "He was very +popular with a certain set, but not exactly eminent." He was not +a member of "Pop," the famous Debating Society of Eton, but his +genius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished us +all by an excellent performance in some private theatricals in +his house." For the rest, he rowed, steered the _Victory_ twice, +played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and was a +first-rate swimmer. + +With regard to more important matters, it must suffice to say that +then, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no evil +thing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been trained, +by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the Tractarian +school, and he was worthy of his training. Among his intimate friends +were Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry Northcote, now Lord +Northcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; Alberic Bertie; and +Francis Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester. He left Eton in July, +1864, and his tutor, in a letter to a friend, thus commented on +his departure: "There was nothing to comfort me in parting with +Holland; and he was the picture of tenderness. He and others stayed +a good while, talking in the ordinary easy way. M. L. came, and +his shyness did not prevent my saying what I wished to say to him. +But to Holland I could say nothing; and now that I am writing about +it I cannot bear to think that he is lost." + +On leaving Eton, Holland went abroad to learn French, with an ultimate +view to making his career in diplomacy. Truly the Canon of St. +Paul's is an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown." What an Ambassador +he would have made! There is something that warms the heart in the +thought of His Excellency Sir Henry Scott Holland, G.C.B., writing +despatches to Sir Edward Grey in the style of _The Commonwealth_, +and negotiating with the Czar or the Sultan on the lines of the +Christian Social Union. + +Returning from his French pilgrimage, he wept to a private tutor +in Northamptonshire, who reported that "Holland was quite unique +in charm and goodness, but would never be a scholar." In January, +1866, this charming but unscholarly youth went up to Balliol, and +a new and momentous chapter in his life began. + +What was he like at this period of his life? A graphic letter just +received enables me to answer this question. "When I first met +him, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized the +charm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and was +intensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. He +would listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumann +to him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, +by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, and +very fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was also deeply moved by +social questions, East End poor, etc.; always unconventional, and +always passionately interested in whatever he talked of. Burne-Jones +once told me: 'It was perfectly delicious to see Holland come into a +room, laughing before he had even said a word, and always bubbling +over with life and joy.' Canon Mason said to me many years ago that +he had hoped I kept every scrap Scotty ever wrote to me, as he +was quite sure he was the most remarkable man of his generation. +But there was a grave background to all this merriment. I remember +that, as we were coming out of a London party, and looked on the +hungry faces in the crowd outside the door, I rather foolishly +said: 'One couldn't bear to look at them unless one felt that there +was another world for them.' He replied: 'Are we to have both, +then?' I know how his tone and the look in his face haunted me more +than I can say." + +A contemporary at Oxford writes, with reference to the same period: +"When we went up, Liddon was preaching his Bamptons, and we went +to them together, and were much moved by them. There were three +of us who always met for Friday teas in one another's rooms, and +during Lent we used to go to the Special Sermons at St. Mary's. +We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sunday +evening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to go +to the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the iron +church at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting the +Gregorians." + +On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literature +was already marked. "I can remember reading Wordsworth with him, +and Carlyle, and Clough; and, after Sunday breakfasts, Boswell's +_Life of Johnson_." Then, as always, he found a great part of his +pleasure in music. + +No record, however brief, of an undergraduate life can afford to +disregard athletics; so let it be here recorded that Holland played +racquets and fives, and skated, and "jumped high," and steered +the _Torpid_, and three times rowed in his College Eight. He had +innumerable friends, among whom three should be specially recalled: +Stephen Fremantle and R. L. Nettleship, both of Balliol, and W. +H. Ady, of Exeter. In short, he lived the life of the model +undergraduate, tasting all the joys of Oxford, and finding time +to spare for his prescribed studies. His first encounter with the +examiners, in "Classical Moderations," was only partially successful. +"He did not appreciate the niceties of scholarship, and could not +write verses or do Greek or Latin prose at all well;" and he was +accordingly placed in the Third Class. But as soon as the tyranny +of Virgil and Homer and Sophocles was overpast, he betook himself +to more congenial studies. Of the two tutors who then made Balliol +famous, he owed nothing to Jowett and everything to T. H. Green. +That truly great man "simply fell in love" with his brilliant pupil, +and gave him of his best. + +"Philosophy's the chap for me," said an eminent man on a momentous +occasion. "If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, +or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, +are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' +'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able +to explain it.' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was +a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one." + +That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructed +by Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, +and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searching +test to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom at +Balliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I remember +that Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality. +It was known that he had a good chance of a 'First in Greats,' +if only his translations from Greek and Latin books did not pull +him down. He admired the ancient authors, especially Plato, and +his quick grasp of the meaning of what he read, good memory, and +very remarkable powers of expression, all helped him much. He was +good at History and he had a great turn for Philosophy" (_cf_. +Mr. Squeers, _supra_), "Plato, Hegel; etc., and he understood, as +few could, Green's expositions, and counter-attack on John Stuart +Mill and the Positivist School, which was the dominant party at +that time." + +In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examination +at Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from his +paper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his _viva voce_ +was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of the examiners, +T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said he had never heard +anything like it." In fine, a new and vivid light had appeared +in the intellectual sky--a new planet had swum into the ken of +Oxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally that Holland, having +obtained his brilliant First, was immediately elected to a Studentship +at Christ Church, which, of course, is the same as a Fellowship +anywhere else. He went into residence at his new home in January, +1871, and remained there for thirteen years, a "don," indeed, by +office, but so undonnish in character, ways, and words, that he +became the subject of a eulogistic riddle: "When is a don not a +don? When he is Scott Holland." + +Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before the +onrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerations +which determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not sought +to enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Orders +he would have the best chance of using the powers, of which by +this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God and +the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some +measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject +of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's +society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, +must have tended in the same direction. + +[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11th +of March, 1870.] + +Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwards +Bishop of Lincoln, and then Principal of Cuddesdon, in whom the +most persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifully +displayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which all +that was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistibly +attracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, +Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owed +so much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglement +Cuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, +perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend; +and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how enticing, +the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving it all seemed, +as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk in College; +so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of our Oxford +interests. The little rooms, like college rooms just shrinking +into cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old church with +its quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of the evening +chapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with the sound of +Compline Psalms still ringing in our hearts--ah! happy, happy day! +It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering in our souls +took shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon when the time +of preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing passage +have naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself have +been a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as I +know, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted of +a visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task of +studying theology under Dr. Westcott. + +In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, in +Cuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination; +and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was during +his diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. We +often came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religious +meetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons which +he preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutely +original; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the style +was entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movement +and colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, +on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the +28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory.[*] + +[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty with +his aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by +'alf."] + +Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He +lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share +in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded +for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among +the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong +effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's +Proctorship." + +This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitude +towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed +outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian +Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit +of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his +sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., +when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more +than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the +Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) +"But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean +of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and +see me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social life +in the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbot +and Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about among +the people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thought +that this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House." + +All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and +independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for +Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was +widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. +Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, +everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with +a great opportunity. + +From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public +eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent +career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; +a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished +teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor +in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid +and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace +some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of +feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side +under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends +rejoice--and others lament--that he is much less of a partisan +than he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides of +a question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, +if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself so +passionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, he +has stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, +and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworked +his own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, +and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in his +own passionate love of God and man. + +Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate +him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, +contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure +and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One +whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little +changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate--the +same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and +insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives +of all sorts, delight in young people--these never fail. He never +seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depress +his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of some +use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well." + +This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not +presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and +example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, +Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful people +in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, he +is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he +inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain +others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. +He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its +versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave +to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and +nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, +has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; +and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious +and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces +which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their +lives. + + * * * * * + +By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*] +or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light +which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." + +[Footnote *: Written in 1918.] + +Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associated +in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light--its revealing +power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivable +rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. He +saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. He +diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by +his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful +under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear +witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere +force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began +in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a +break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, +and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. +In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation +for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. +He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside +it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a +delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process +of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate +friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed +to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught +his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and +spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks +to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 +came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to +scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed +by a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searching +school of _Literoe Humaniores_. Green had triumphed; he had made a +philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed a +born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer. + +Holland had what Tertullian calls the _anima naturaliter Christiana_, +and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement. +When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic +career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was +ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly +made his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the +parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry +stand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's +gifts--a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, +vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious +voice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke +with an energy of passionate conviction which drove every word +straight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for +God and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted +many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were +accustomed--then as later--to say that here was a Christian who knew +enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth +hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, +Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, +his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange +tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung +adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description +with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with +his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked +to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened +to his preaching as to "a very lovely song." + +Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater +as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in +this--that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper +than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was +writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency +in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he +did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript +and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement. + +I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. +Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as +much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great +deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of +God"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, +and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which +their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; +and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, +essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; +they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they +both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of +Europe. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great +controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with +the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son. + +When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, +the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is +not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt +that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet +of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre +of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel? +Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest +of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which +sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the +precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic +life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood and +social service--in short, the programme of the Christian Social +Union--win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questions +were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whom +they were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-seven +years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, +several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute +agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in +London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius +and a saint. + +In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with +the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or +intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate +a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest +plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the +world." His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak and +act--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, +as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This +habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree +for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain +degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of +those elect and lovely souls + + "Who, through the world's long day of strife, + Still chant their morning song." + + + + +III + +_LORD HALIFAX_ + +There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood +and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have +for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction +which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of +Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter +of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. +Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in +Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest +offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and +Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax +in 1866. + +Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was +Charles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in +1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, +of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together +because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character +made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with +her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. +The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage +in 1885) writes thus about his early days: + +"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time +when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to +her every day when we were away from one another; and for many +years after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, I +don't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, +indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. She +is never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19th +of July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood out +amongst all the days of the year." + +This extract illustrates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual love +and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood +were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would +naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were +judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright +home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship of +a favourite sister, the transition to a private school is always +depressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles +Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What I chiefly remember about +the place is being punished all one day, with several canings, +because I either could not or would not learn the Fifth Declension +of the Greek Nouns." + +So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for one +year, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, Charles +Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the +Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, +afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar +and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning +friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private +pupils. In his book of verses--_Ionica_--he made graceful play +with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasy +of swimming--"Oh, how I wish I could fly!" + + "Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech, + Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye, + Tossing those river-pearled locks about, + Throwing those delicate limbs straight out, + Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach, + Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!' + + "Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply, + Answer disdainfully, flouting my words: + How should the listener at simple sixteen + Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean, + Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'-- + Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds? + + * * * * * + + "Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet; + Walk through some passionless years by my side, + Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk, + Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk. + When the sap stays, and the blossom is set, + Others will take the fruit; I shall have died." + +Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite +pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy +fulfilled. + +The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; +so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by +contemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, at +Eton--Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George +Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2] +With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed," and with Stopford, now +Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuits +I may quote his own words: + +[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.] + +[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.] + +"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take long +walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to +the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two +little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the +part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular +War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in +an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a +boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. In +Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph +Stanley in a French piece called _Femme à Vendre_. In 1857, I and +George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went +with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the +following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in +'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, +and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's Prize for French." + +[Footnote 3: Edward VII.] [Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan.] +[Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby.] + +A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony: + +"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and +the masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a custom +of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books,' +from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by +the parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldon +went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, +he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom +of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown +copy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room. +Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end +of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony +from a small boy to one at the top of the house." + +In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. There +many of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh ones +added: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson, +afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster; +and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, +from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in the +social life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to +"Bullingdon"--institutions of high repute in the Oxford world; +and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chief +joy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, and +made some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861 +he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far as +Suez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom of +the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attended +his royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10th +of March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. At +the same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin, +Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and +retained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administration +in 1866. + +"There was," writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing for +some Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was not +easy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped. +I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatest +devotion to King Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. I can recall now +the services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used to +wear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the floor +as the clock struck twelve." + +This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's +"convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, like +all the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to take +their children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the least +ecclesiastical-looking place of worship in London; and the observances +of the Parish Church at Hickleton--their country home near +Doncaster--were not calculated to inspire a delight in the beauty +of holiness. However, when quite a boy, Charles Wood, who had been +confirmed at Eton by Bishop Wilberforce, found his way to St. Barnabas, +Pimlico, then newly opened, and fell much under the influence of +Mr. Bennett at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and Mr. Richards, at All +Saints', Margaret Street. At Oxford he became acquainted with Dr. +Pusey and the young and inspiring Liddon, and frequented the services +at Merton College Chapel, where Liddon used often to officiate. By +1863 his religious opinions must have been definitely shaped; for +in that year his old tutor, William Johnson, when paying a visit +to Hickleton, writes as follows: + +"He told me of Mr. Liddon, the saintly and learned preacher; of +the devout worshippers at All Saints', whose black nails show they +are artisans; of the society formed to pray daily for the restoration +of Christian unity." + +And again: + +"His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness from +looking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard against +his unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zeal +misdirected.... And all the while his mother's face gets brighter +and kinder because she is looking at him. Happy are the parents +who, when they have reached that time of life in which the world is +getting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickened +by the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and so +renew their youth." + +In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellor +of the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union. + +"At that time," he writes, "I was much concerned with the affairs +of the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. +1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect coming straight back +from Lorne's[*] coming of age to London, where I saw Dr. Pusey, +with the result that I set to work to help Miss Sellon with her +temporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel." + +[Footnote *: Afterwards Duke of Argyll.] + +In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services which +he rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; and +those who know what religious prejudice was in rural districts +forty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded to +an institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentation +by the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding. +There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelical +mother--Lady Charles Russell--to her son, then just ordained to +a curacy at Doncaster. + +"I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax. I knew them pretty +well as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirement +since before he was raised to the peerage. His eldest son was not +only very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I dare +say Dr. Vaughan may have heard. Do you know anything about him?" + +That "very good" and "very good-looking" young man was now approaching +what may be called the decisive event of his life. In April, 1867, +Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English Church +Union, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fill +his place. Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote: "As to his being +President of the E.C.U., he is the sense and moderation of it." He +has administered its affairs and guided its policy through fifty +anxious years. Indeed, the President and the Union have been so +completely identified that the history of the one has been the +history of the other. His action has been governed by a grand and +simple consistency. Alike in storms and in fair weather, at times +of crisis and at times of reaction, he has been the unswerving +and unsleeping champion of the spiritual claims of the English +Church, and the alert, resourceful, and unsparing enemy of all +attempts, from whatever quarter, to subject her doctrine and discipline +to the control of the State and its secular tribunals. The eager +and fiery enthusiasm which pre-eminently marks his nature awakes +a kindred flame in those who are reached by his influence; and, +even when the reason is unconvinced, it is difficult to resist +the leadership of so pure and passionate a temper. + +It would be ridiculous for an outsider, like myself, to discuss the +interior working of the E.C.U., so I avail myself of the testimony +which has reached me from within. + +"Like most men of his temperament, Lord Halifax seems now and again +to be a little before his time. On the other hand, it is remarkable +that Time generally justifies him. There is no question that he +has always enjoyed the enthusiastic and affectionate support of +the Union as a whole." + +It is true that once with reference to the book called _Lux Mundi_, +and once with reference to the "Lambeth Opinions" of 1899, there +was some resistance in the Union to Lord Halifax's guidance; and +that, in his negotiations about the recognition of Anglican Orders, +he would not, if he had been acting officially, have carried the +Union with him. But these exceptions only go to confirm the general +truth that his policy has been as successful as it has been bold +and conscientious. + +It is time to return, for a moment, to the story of Lord Halifax's +private life. In 1869 he married Lady Agnes Courtenay, daughter +of the twelfth Earl of Devon, and in so doing allied himself with +one of the few English families which even the most exacting +genealogists recognize as noble.[1] His old tutor wrote on the 22nd +of April: + +[Footnote 1: "The purple of three Emperors who have reigned at +Constantinople will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin +and singular fortunes of the House of Courtenay" (Gibbon, chapter +xii.).] + +"This has been a remarkable day--the wedding of Charles Wood and +Lady Agnes Courtenay. It was in St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, +which was full, galleries and all, the central passage left empty, +and carpeted with red. It was a solemn, rapt congregation; there +was a flood of music and solemn tender voices. The married man +and woman took the Lord's Supper, with hundreds of witnesses who +did not Communicate.... Perhaps a good many were Church Union folk, +honouring their Chairman." + +Of this marriage I can only say that it has been, in the highest +aspects, ideally happy, and that the sorrows which have chequered +it have added a new significance to the saying of Ecclesiastes +that "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."[2] + +[Footnote 2: Charles Reginald Lindley Wood died 1890; Francis Hugh +Lindley Wood died 1889; Henry Paul Lindley Wood died 1886.] + +In 1877 Mr. Wood resigned his office in the household of the Prince +of Wales. It was the time when the affairs of St. James's, Hatcham, +and the persecution of Mr. Tooth, were first bringing the Church +into sharp collision with the courts of law. The President of the +Church Union was the last man to hold his peace when even the stones +were crying out against this profane intrusion of the State into +the kingdom of God; and up and down the country he preached, in +season and out of season, the spiritual independence of the Church, +and the criminal folly of trying to coerce Christian consciences by +deprivation and imprisonment. The story went that an Illustrious +Personage said to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What's +this I hear? I'm told you go about the country saying that the +Queen is not the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head of +the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, +and the Sultan the Head of _his_ Church.'" But this may only be +a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it +is better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction: + +"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to +disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I +thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised +by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did +not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign +my place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince +was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him +on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, +I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing +what I thought right." + +In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "say +and do what he thinks right," without hesitation or compromise +or regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and the +practice of his life. And here the reader has a right to ask, What +manner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record? + +First and foremost, it must be said--truth demands it, and no +conventional reticence must withhold it--that the predominant feature +of his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher world +than this. His "citizenship is in Heaven." Never can I forget an +address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in Stepney +Meeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness." The audience +consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I imagine, +had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity to +see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Cæsar +and the things of God was just then attracting, general attention, +and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, as the high +theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futility +of all that this world has to offer when compared with the realities +of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, and +the address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause." + + "That strain I heard was of a higher mood." + +As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, +about + +"One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one of +singular moderation as well as wisdom, who can discriminate with +singular sagacity what is essential from is not essential--C. Wood." + +The Doctor went on: + +"I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a public +address which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, +without controversy or saying anything which could have offended +anyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precision +which reminded me of Hooker's wonderful enunciation of the doctrine +of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ." + +After so solemn a tribute from so great a saint, it seems almost +a profanity--certainly a bathos--to add any more secular touches. +Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it must be +remembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, +but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, +the most graceful and attractive figure, in the Vanity Fair of +social life. He is full of ardour, zeal, and emotion, endowed with +a physical activity which corresponds to his mental alertness, and +young with that perpetual youth which is the reward of "a conscience +void of offence toward God and toward man." + +Clarendon, in one of his most famous portraits, depicts a high-souled +Cavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, +of a glowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and +of a primitive simplicity and integrity of life." He was writing +of Lord Falkland: he described Lord Halifax. + + + + +IV + +_LORD AND LADY RIPON_[*] + +[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of +Ripon, K.G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta Ann +Theodosia Vyner.] + +The _Character of the Happy Warrior_ is, by common consent, one +of the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writers +and speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present war +began, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a new +acquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, and +a devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism, +it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed, +the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" as +for the "Happy Warrior." There is nothing specially warlike in the +portraiture of the man + + "Who, with a toward or untoward lot, + Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not, + Plays in the many games of life, that one + Where what he most doth value must be won; + Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, + Not thought of tender happiness betray; + Who, not content that former worth stand fast, + Looks forward, persevering to the last, + From well to better, daily self-surpast." + +These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances brought +me into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship I +enjoyed from my first entrance into public life. + +I know few careers in the political life of modern England more +interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant +with Wordsworth's eulogy: + + "Who, not content that former worth stand fast, + Looks forward, persevering to the last, + From well to better, daily self-surpast." + +The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, entered +public life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled pretty +nearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including, +for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially +under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very +material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences +of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and +great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman +when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust +convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To +men possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heard +the question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Why +are you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for so +the second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father's +title) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it." He +was an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to form +his own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to the +stereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almost +before his arrival at man's estate, he had clearly marked out his +line of political action, and to that line he adhered with undeviating +consistency. + +He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage. +Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of _The Talking Oak_ +from Henrietta, Lady Ripon: + + "Yet, since I first could cast a shade, + Did never creature pass, + So slightly, musically made, + So light upon the grass." + +Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she was +the brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends. +She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause, +and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform. + +From the earliest days of their married life, Lord and Lady Goderich +made their home a centre and a rallying-point for all the scattered +forces which, within the Liberal party or beyond its pale, were +labouring to promote the betterment of human life. There the "Christian +Socialists," recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48, +re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking world +that the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice with +his mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughes +and Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerful +pens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young Radical +M.P., whose zeal for social service had already marked him out +from the ruck of mechanical politicians; and from time to time +Carlyle himself would vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval to +enterprises which, whether wise or foolish, were at least not shams. +In 1852 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers conducted in London +and Lancashire a strike which had begun in some engineering works +at Oldham. The Christian Socialists gave it their support, and +Lord Goderich subscribed £500 to the maintenance of the strikers. +But, although he lived in this highly idealistic society, surrounded +by young men who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, Lord +Goderich was neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under Lord +Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long series +of practical and laborious offices. He became Secretary of State +for India, and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council, +attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed +Chairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871 +saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United +States. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent +mark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward +no Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it +could show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February, +1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establish +Home Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, +explained his position to me with happy candour: "I have always +been in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal Programme. +Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm a Home Ruler." + +In the last year of Lord Ripon's life, when he had just retired +from the Cabinet and the leadership of the House of Lords, he was +entertained at luncheon by the Eighty Club, and the occasion was +marked by some more than usually interesting speeches. It always +is satisfactory to see public honours rendered, not to a monument +or a tomb, but to the living man; and, in Lord Ripon's case, the +honours, though ripe, were not belated. George Eliot has reminded +us that "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a further stage +of development which is less esteemed in the market." The Eighty +Club avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while they +were still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of a +Liberalism "more high and heroical than the present age affecteth." +One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon faced +when he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicals +themselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence to +a Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion, +and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause. +The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressive +than the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who, +in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station and +environment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor, +the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotion +was far more difficult than now. It is probable that not a few +of Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words and waved +their salutations, may have added in the depths of their hearts +some aspiration such as this: "When I come to my eightieth year, may +I be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as unselfish, +and as beneficent." + +Thrice happy is the man, be he Warrior or Statesman, who, in spite +of lessened activity and increasing burdens and the loss of much +that once made life enjoyable, still + + "Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, + And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws + His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." + + + + +V + +"_FREDDY LEVESON_" + +When a man has died in his eighty-ninth year, it seems irreverent +to call him by his nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather in +seeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation, +is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with the +subject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heart +and mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out of +place. + +Edward Frederick Leveson-Gower was the third son of Granville +Leveson-Gower, first Earl Granville, by his marriage with Henrietta +Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire. +The very names breathe Whiggery, and in their combination they +suggest a considerable and an important portion of our social and +political history. + +I have always maintained that Whiggery, rightly understood, is not +a political creed, but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, is +born, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a +Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the +privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated +its spirit. It is true that the Whigs, as a body, have held certain +opinions and pursued certain tactics, which were analysed in chapters +xix. and xxi. of the unexpurgated _Book of Snobs_. But those opinions +and those tactics have been accidents of Whiggery. Its substance +has been relationship. When Lord John Russell formed his first +Administration, his opponents alleged that it was mainly composed +of his cousins, and the lively oracles of Sir Bernard Burke confirmed +the allegation. A. J. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made +excellent fun of what he called the "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood." He showed--what, indeed, the Whigs themselves +knew uncommonly well--that from John, Earl Gower, who died in 1754, +descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, +Harcourts, and Russells, who walk on the face of the earth. Truly +a noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They _are_ our superiors," +said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhaps +it is as unnecessary to say so as to say that I'm not King Pippin +in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts)--I'm +not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!" + +It argues no political bias to maintain that, in the earlier part +of the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its neophytes no +educational opportunities equal to those which a young Whig enjoyed +at Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. Here the +best traditions of the previous century were constantly reinforced +by accessions of fresh intellect. The circle was, indeed, an +aristocratic Family Party, but it paid a genuine homage to ability +and culture. Genius held the key, and there was a _carrière ouverte +aux talents_. + +Into this privileged society Frederick Leveson-Gower was born on +the 3rd of May, 1819, and within its precincts he "kept the noiseless +tenour of his way" for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 the +experiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton, +he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again been +seriously ill." To that extraordinary immunity from physical suffering +was probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognized +as his most characteristic trait, and which remained unruffled to +the end. + +It is recorded of the fastidious Lady Montfort in _Endymion_ that, +visiting Paris in 1841, she could only with difficulty be induced +to call on the British Ambassador and Ambassadress. "I dined," she +said, "with those people once; but I confess that, when I thought +of those dear Granvilles, their _entrées_ stuck in my throat." +The "dear Granvilles" in question were the parents of the second +Lord Granville, whom we all remember as the most urbane of Foreign +Secretaries, and of Frederick Leveson-Gower. The first Lord Granville +was a younger son of the first Marquess of Stafford and brother of +the second Marquess, who was made Duke of Sutherland. He was born +in 1773, entered Parliament at twenty-two, and "found himself a +diplomatist as well as a politician before he was thirty years of +age." In 1804 he was appointed Ambassador to St. Petersburg, where +he remained till 1807. In 1813 he was created Viscount Granville, +and in 1824 became Ambassador to the Court of France. "To the +indignation of the Legitimist party in France, he made a special +journey from Paris to London in order to vote for the Reform Bill +of 1832, and, to their astonishment, returned alive to glory in +having done so." For this and similar acts of virtue he was raised +to an earldom in 1833; he retired from diplomacy in 1841, and died +in 1846. + +Before he became an Ambassador, this Lord Granville had rented +a place called Wherstead, in Suffolk. It was there that Freddy +Leveson passed the first years of his life, but from 1824 onwards +the British Embassy at Paris was his home. Both those places had +made permanent dints in his memory. At Wherstead he remembered +the Duke of Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face and +imperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir Walter +Scott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living at +the Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux, +afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sent +from Paris to a Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was called +the House of Lords, owing to most of the boys being related to +the peerage, many of them future peers, and among them several +dukes." Here, again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate of +Princes. Prince George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridge +were staying with King William IV. at the Pavilion; their companions +were chosen from Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused his +nephews and their friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rather +coarse ones." In his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refined +society at Holland House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation: +"He always sits next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasing +all dinner-time." + +From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to +Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health, +and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one, +he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that +was the complete indifference to social distinctions. + +"There is," he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, the +late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his +name, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis +of Bath.' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount +and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at +any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted +of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!" + +Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor +in Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest in +politics. "Reform," he wrote, "is my principal aim." Albany Fonblanque, +whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the _Examiner_, may still +be read in _England under Seven Administrations_, was his political +instructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especially +in the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemed +heretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth. +In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother +wrote: "As to Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be if +it was to last more than a week longer. His dancing _fait fureur_." + +In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishing +under Dean Gaisford's mismanagement. Here for three years he enjoyed +himself thoroughly. He rode with the drag, was President of the +Archery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal of +hospitality, and made some lifelong friendships. Among his +contemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainly +depressing. "He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, to +seek no friends, and to have none. I never met him in anyone else's +rooms, or at any social gathering. I see him now, looking rather +crazy, taking his solitary walks." + +That Freddy Leveson was "thoroughly idle" was his own confession; +and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is not +surprising. What is surprising, and what he himself recorded with +surprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the least +attention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, although--and +this makes it stranger still--they used to attend Newman's Sermons +at St. Mary's. They duly admired his unequalled style, but the +substance of his teaching seems to have passed by them like the +idle wind. + +After taking a "Nobleman's Degree," Frederick Leveson spent an +instructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father's +position, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers, +Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned to +England with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of reading +for the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, and +the choice was determined by a civil speech of George Canning, who, +staying at the British Embassy at Paris, noticed little Freddy, +and pleasantly said to Lord Granville, "Bring that boy up as a +lawyer, and he will one day become Lord Chancellor." As a first +step towards that elevation, Frederick Leveson entered the chambers +of an eminent conveyancer called Plunkett, where he had for his +fellow-pupils the men who became Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Farrer. +Thence he went to a Special Pleader, and lastly to a leading member +of the Oxford Circuit. As Marshal to Lord Denman and to Baron Parke, +he acquired some knowledge of the art of carving; but with regard +to the total result of his legal training, he remarked, with +characteristic simplicity, "I cannot say I learnt much law." When +living in lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners at +Lincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantage +of having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, +a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like a +son, giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; while +Lady Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him make +a second home of Holland House. + +"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word in +the morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a word +at dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk--to +Macaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith's +exquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasms +and Luttrell's repartees." + +Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the Oxford +Circuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G. +Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stage +in the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granville +died at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this event +produced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described in +his own quaint words: + +"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgent +parent--possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although I +cannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized with +me for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been this +feeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me well +provided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn my +own bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded." + +His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answering +it affirmatively; but the practical test was never applied, for on +succeeding to his inheritance he glided--"plunged" would be an +unsuitable word--into a way of living which was, more like the +[Greek: scholae] of the Athenian citizen than the sordid strife of +professional activity. He was singularly happy in private life, +for the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained some +delightful women as well as some distinguished men. Such was his +sister-in-law Marie, Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland; such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville; +and such, pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, +of whom a competent critic said that, in the female characters of +her novel _Ellen Middleton_, she had drawn "the line which is so +apt to be overstepped, and which Walter Scott never clearly saw, +between _naïveté_ and vulgarity." Myself a devoted adherent of +Sir Walter, I can yet recall some would-be pleasantries of Julia +Mannering, of Isabella Wardour, and even of Die Vernon, which would +have caused a shudder in the "Sacred Circle." Happiest of all was +Freddy Leveson in his marriage with Lady Margaret Compton; but +their married life lasted only five years, and left behind it a +memory too tender to bear translation to the printed page. + +Devonshire House was the centre of Freddy Leveson's social life--at +least until the death of his uncle, the sixth Duke, in 1858. That +unsightly but comfortable mansion was then in its days of glory, and +those who frequented it had no reason to regret the past. "Poodle +Byng," who carried down to 1871 the social conditions of the eighteenth +century, declared that nothing could be duller than Devonshire +House in his youth. "It was a great honour to go there, but I was +bored to death. The Duchess was usually stitching in one corner of +the room, and Charles Fox snoring in another." Under the splendid +but arbitrary rule of the sixth Duke no one stitched or snored. +Everyone who entered his saloons was well-born or beautiful or +clever or famous, and many of the guests combined all four +characteristics. When Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon +III., first came to live in London, his uncle Jerome asked the +Duke of Devonshire to invite his _mauvais sujet_ of a nephew to +Devonshire House, "so that he might for once be seen in decent +society"; and the Prince, repaid the Duke by trying to borrow five +thousand pounds to finance his descent on Boulogne. But the Duke, +though magnificent, was business-like, and the Prince was sent +empty away. + +The society in which Freddy Leveson moved during his long career was +curiously varied. There was his own family in all its ramifications of +cousinship; and beyond its radius there was a circle of acquaintances +and associates which contained Charles Greville the diarist and +his more amiable brother Henry, Carlyle and Macaulay, Brougham +and Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Grote +and Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay," and +Disraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone." + +For womankind there were Lady Morley the wit and Lady Cowper the +humorist, and Lady Ashburton, who tamed Carlyle; Lady Jersey, the +queen of fashion, and the two sister-queens of beauty, Lady Canning +and Lady Waterford; Lady Tankerville, who as a girl had taken refuge +in England from the matrimonial advances of the Comte d'Artois; +the three fascinating Foresters, Mrs. Robert Smith, Mrs. Anson, +and Lady Chesterfield; and Lady Molesworth and Lady Waldegrave, +who had climbed by their cleverness from the lowest rung of the +social ladder to a place not very far from the top. + +Beyond this circle, again, there was a miscellaneous zone, where +dwelt politicians ranging from John Bright to Arthur Balfour; poets +and men of letters, such as Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray and +Motley and Laurance Oliphant; Paxton the gardener-architect and +Hudson the railway-king; stars of the musical world, such as Mario +and Grisi and Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and Madame +Mohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and Lola +Montez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education will +convert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable member +of society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligence +and a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfection +by such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life. +And so it came about that alike as a young man, in middle life +(which was in his case unusually prolonged), and in old age, he +enjoyed a universal and unbroken popularity. + +It is impossible to connect the memory of Freddy Leveson with the +idea of ambition, and it must therefore have been the praiseworthy +desire to render unpaid service to the public which induced him to +embark on the unquiet sea of politics. At a bye-election in the +summer of 1847 he was returned, through the interest of his uncle the +Duke of Devonshire, for Derby. A General Election immediately ensued; +he was returned again, but was unseated, with his colleague, for a +technical irregularity. In 1852 he was returned for Stoke-upon-Trent, +this time by the aid of his cousin the Duke of Sutherland (for the +"Sacred Circle" retained a good deal of what was termed "legitimate +influence"). In 1854, having been chosen to second the Address at +the opening of Parliament, he was directed to call on Lord John +Russell, who would instruct him in his duties. Lord John was the +shyest of human beings, and the interview was brief: "I am glad +you are going to second the Address. You will know what to say. +Good-morning." + +At the General Election of 1857 he lost his seat for Stoke. "Poor +Freddy," writes his brother, Lord Granville, "is dreadfully disappointed +by his failure in the Potteries. He was out-jockeyed by Ricardo." +All who knew "poor Freddy" will easily realize that in a jockeying +contest he stood no chance. In 1859 he was returned for Bodmin, this +time by the good offices, not of relations, but of friends--Lord +Robartes and Lady Molesworth--and he retained the seat by his own +merits till Bodmin ceased to be a borough. Twice during his +Parliamentary career Mr. Gladstone offered him important office, +and he declined it for a most characteristic reason--"I feared it +would be thought a job." The gaps in his Parliamentary life were +occupied by travelling. As a young man he had been a great deal +on the Continent, and he had made what was then the adventurous +tour of Spain. The winter of 1850-1851 he spent in India; and in +1856 he accompanied his brother Lord Granville (to whom he had +been "précis-writer" at the Foreign Office) on his Special Mission +to St. Petersburg for the Coronation of Alexander II. No chapter in +his life was fuller of vivid and entertaining reminiscences, and +his mind was stored with familiar memories of Radziwill, Nesselrode, +and Todleben. "Freddy," wrote his brother, "is supposed to have +distinguished himself greatly by his presence of mind when the +Grande Duchesse Hélène got deep into politics with him." + +A travelling experience, which Freddy Leveson used to relate with +infinite gusto, belongs to a later journey, and had its origin in +the strong resemblance between himself and his brother. Except that +Lord Granville shaved, and that in later years Freddy Leveson grew a +beard, there was little facially to distinguish them. In 1865 Lord +Granville was Lord President of the Council, and therefore, according +to the arrangement then prevailing, head of the Education Office. +In that year Matthew Arnold, then an Inspector of Schools, was +despatched on a mission to enquire into the schools and Universities +of the Continent. Finding his travelling allowances insufficient for +his needs, he wrote home to the Privy Council Office requesting +an increase. Soon after he had despatched this letter, and before +he could receive the official reply, he was dining at a famous +restaurant in Paris, and he chose the most highly priced dinner of +the day. Looking up from his well-earned meal, he saw his official +chief, Lord Granville, who chanced to be eating a cheaper dinner. +Feeling that this gastronomical indulgence might, from the official +point of view, seem inconsistent with his request for increased +allowances, he stepped across to the Lord President, explained +that it was only once in a way that he thus compensated himself for +his habitual abstinence, and was delighted by the facile and kindly +courtesy with which his official chief received the _apologia_. His +delight was abated when he subsequently found that he had been making +his confession, not to Lord Granville, but to Mr. Leveson-Gower. + +Looking back from the close of life upon its beginning, Freddy +Leveson noted that as an infant he used to eat his egg "very slowly, +and with prolonged pleasure." "Did this," he used to ask, "portend +that I should grow up a philosopher or a _gourmand_? I certainly +did not become the former, and I hope not the latter." I am inclined +to think that he was both; for whoso understands the needs of the +body has mastered at least one great department of philosophy, and +he who feeds his fellow-men supremely well is in the most creditable +sense of the word a _gourmand_. Freddy Leveson's dinners were justly +famous, and, though he modestly observed that "hospitality is praised +more than it deserves," no one who enjoyed the labours of Monsieur +Beguinot ever thought that they could be overpraised. The scene of +these delights was a house in South Audley Street, which, though +actually small, was so designed as to seem like a large house in +miniature; and in 1870 the genial host acquired a delicious home +on the Surrey hills, which commands a view right across Sussex to +the South Downs. "Holm-bury" is its name, and "There's no place +like Home-bury" became the grateful watchword of a numerous and +admiring society. + +People distinguished in every line of life, and conspicuous by +every social charm, found at Holm-bury a constant and delightful +hospitality. None appreciated it more thoroughly than Mr. and Mrs. +Gladstone, whose friendship was one of the chief happinesses of +Freddy Leveson's maturer life. His link with them was Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland, who, in spite of all Whiggish prejudices +against the half-converted Tory, was one of Gladstone's most +enthusiastic disciples. In "Cliveden's proud alcove," and in that +sumptuous villa at Chiswick where Fox and Canning died, Mr. and +Mrs. Gladstone were her constant guests; and there they formed +their affectionate intimacy with Freddy Leveson. Every year, and +more than once a year, they stayed with him at Holmbury; and one +at least of those visits was memorable. On the 19th of July, 1873, +Mr. Gladstone wrote in his diary: + +"Off at 4.25 to Holmbury, We were enjoying that beautiful spot +and expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester,[*] when +the groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a bad +fall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad: +'It's all over.' In an instant the thread of that precious life +was snapped, We were all in deep and silent grief." + +[Footnote *: Samuel Wilberforce.] + +And now, for the sake of those who never knew Freddy Leveson, a +word of personal description must be added. He was of middle height, +with a slight stoop, which began, I fancy from the fact that he was +short-sighted and was obliged to peer rather closely at objects +which he wished to see. His growing deafness, which in later years +was a marked infirmity--he had no others--tended to intensify the +stooping habit, as bringing him nearer to his companions voice. His +features were characteristically those of the House of Cavendish, +as may be seen by comparing his portrait with that of his mother. +His expression was placid, benign, but very far from inert; for +his half-closed eyes twinkled with quiet mirth. His voice was soft +and harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of that +peculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued." +His bearing was the very perfection of courteous ease, equally +remote from stiffness and from familiarity. His manners it would be +impertinent to eulogize, and the only dislikes which I ever heard +him express were directed against rudeness, violence, indifference +to other people's feelings, and breaches of social decorum. If +by such offences as these it was easy to displease him, it was +no less easy to obtain his forgiveness, for he was as amiable as +he was refined. In old age he wrote, with reference to the wish +which some people express for sudden death: "It is a feeling I +cannot understand, as I myself shall feel anxious before I die +to take an affectionate leave of those I love." His desire was +granted, and there my story ends. I have never known a kinder heart; +I could not imagine a more perfect gentleman. + + + + +VI + +_SAMUEL WHITBREAD_ + +The family of Whitbread enjoyed for several generations substantial +possessions in North Bedfordshire. They were of the upper middle +class, and were connected by marriage with John Howard the +Prison-Reformer, whose property near Bedford they inherited. As +years went on, their wealth and station increased. Samuel Whitbread, +who died in 1796, founded the brewery in Chiswell Street, E.C., +which still bears his name, was Member for the Borough of Bedford, +and purchased from the fourth Lord Torrington a fine place near +Biggleswade, called Southill, of which the wooded uplands supplied +John Bunyan, dwelling on the flats of Elstow, with his idea of +the Delectable Mountains. + +This Samuel Whitbread was succeeded as M.P. for Bedford by a more +famous Samuel, his eldest son, who was born in 1758, and married +Lady Elizabeth Grey; sister of + + "That Earl who taught his compeers to be just, + And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned." + +Samuel Whitbread became one of the most active and influential +members of the Whig party, a staunch ally of Fox and a coadjutor +of Wilberforce in his attack on the Slave Trade. He was closely +and unfortunately involved in the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre, +and, for that reason, figures frequently in _Rejected Addresses_. +He died before his time in 1815, and his eldest son, William Henry +Whitbread, became M.P. for Bedford. This William Henry died without +issue, and his nephew and heir was the admirable man and distinguished +Parliamentarian who is here commemorated. + +Samuel Whitbread was born in 1830, and educated at Rugby, where +he was a contemporary of Lord Goschen, and at Trinity College, +Cambridge, where one of his closest friends was James Payn, the +novelist. He married Lady Isabella Pelham, daughter of the third +Earl of Chichester. In those days Bedford returned two members, +and at the General Election of 1852, which scotched Lord Derby's +attempt to revive Protection, "Young Sam Whitbread" was returned +as junior Member for the Borough, and at the elections of 1857, +1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1885, 1886, and 1892 he was again +elected, each time after a contest and each time at the top of +the poll. Had he stood again in 1895, and been again successful, +he would have been "Father of the House." + +It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbread +was the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, +he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful and +benignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified; +his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, +was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through his +utterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even of +political opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabled +him to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests of +his brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He was +active in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge of +all that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. +A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in +1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, +made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointment +disclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. +His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, and +sedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to the +normally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was more +than he could stand. "I cannot," he said, "get a living out of +the London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of high +preferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himself +thence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders of +the Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeated +efforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twice +the Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctions +or hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile. + +The knowledge that these things were so gave Whit bread a peculiar +authority in the House of Commons. His independence was absolute +and assured. He was, if any politician ever was, unbuyable; and +though he was a sound Party man, on whom at a pinch his leaders +could rely, he yet seemed to rise superior to the lower air of +partisanship, and to lift debate into the atmosphere of conviction. +The _St. James's Gazette_ once confessed that his peculiar position +in the House of Commons was one of those Parliamentary mysteries +which no outsider could understand. He seemed, even amid the hottest +controversies, to be rather an arbiter than an advocate. Once Mr. +T. W. Russell, in a moment of inspiration, described him as "an +umpire, perfectly impartial--except that he never gives his own +side out." Whereupon Whitbread, with a quaint half-smile, whispered +to the man sitting next to him: "That hit of 'T. W.'s' was _not +very bad_." A singular tribute to Whitbread's influence, and the +weight attaching to his counsel, is found in the fact that, in the +autumn of 1885, before Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversion +to Home Rule, Whitbread was one of the very few people (Goschen was +another) to whom he confided his change of view. Of the estimation +in which Whitbread was held by his neighbours, even after he had +ceased to represent them in Parliament, the present writer once heard +a ludicrous, but illuminating, instance. Among the men sentenced to +death after the Jameson Raid was one connected by ties of family +with Bedford. For a while his kinsfolk could not believe that he +was really in danger; but, when ominous rumours began to thicken, +one of his uncles said, with an air of grave resolve: "This is +becoming serious about my nephew. If it goes on much longer, I shall +have to write to Mr. Whitbread." + +In the general course of politics Whitbread was a Whig, holding +to the great principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace, +Retrenchment, and Reform; but he was a Whig with a difference. He +stuck to the party after it had been permeated by Gladstonianism, +advanced in Liberalism as he advanced in years, and became a convinced +Home Ruler. His political prescience, founded on long experience +and close observation, was remarkable. Soon after Lord Salisbury's +accession to power in the summer of 1895, he said to the present +writer: "I fancy that for two or three years the Government will +go on quietly enough; and then, when they find their popularity +waning, they will pick a quarrel with somebody, and go to war. +It is always difficult for an Opposition to attack a Government +which is conducting a war, and I think Chamberlain is just the +man to take advantage of that difficulty." + +In religion Whitbread was an Evangelical of the more liberal type, +mistrusting extremes, and always on the friendliest terms with +Nonconformists. As regards the affairs of common life, he was a +most hospitable and courteous host; a thorough agriculturist, and +a keen sportsman. His size and weight debarred him from hunting, +but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, +and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in all +things, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, +and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were embodied +in Samuel Whitbread. + + + + +VII + +_HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER_ + +The loved and honoured friend whose name stands at the head of +this section was the fourth son and, youngest child of Dr. George +Butler, Dean of Peterborough, and sometime Head Master of Harrow. +Montagu Butler was himself-educated at Harrow under Dr. Vaughan, +afterwards the well-known Master of the Temple, and proved to be +in many respects the ideal schoolboy. He won all the prizes for +composition, prose and verse, Greek, Latin, and English. He gained +the principal scholarship, and was Head of the School. Beside all +this, he was a member of the Cricket Eleven and made the highest +score for Harrow in the match against Eton at Lord's. + +In July, 1851, Montagu Butler left Harrow, and in the following +October entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Scholar. He won +the Bell University Scholarship, the Battie University Scholarship, +the Browne Medal for a Greek Ode twice, the Camden Medal, Porson +Prize, and First Member's Prize for a Latin Essay, and graduated as +Senior Classic in 1855. Of such an undergraduate career a Fellowship +at Trinity was the natural sequel, but Butler did not long reside +at Cambridge. All through his boyhood and early manhood he had +set his heart on a political career. He had a minute acquaintance +with the political history of modern England, and his memory was +stored with the masterpieces of political eloquence. + +In 1856 he accepted the post of Private Secretary to the Right Hon. +W. F. Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount Temple, and then President of the +Board of Health in Lord Palmerston's Administration. In this office +he served for two years, and then, retiring, he spent eleven months +in foreign travel, visiting in turn the Tyrol, Venice, the Danube, +Greece, Rome, Florence, and the Holy Land. During this period, he +changed his plan of life, and in September, 1859, he was ordained +Deacon by Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield, on Letters Dimissory from +Bishop Turton of Ely. His title was his Fellowship; but it was +settled that the College should present him to the Vicarage of +Great St. Mary's, Cambridge; and till it was vacant he was to have +worked as a classical tutor in Trinity. Then came another change. +"Dr. Vaughan's retirement," he wrote, "from the Head Mastership +of Harrow startled us. We all took quietly for granted that he +would stay on for years." However, this "startling" retirement +took place, and there was a general agreement among friends of +the School that Vaughan's favourite pupil, Montagu Butler, was +the right man to succeed him. Accordingly, Butler was elected in +November, 1859, though only twenty-six years old; and, with a view +to the pastoral oversight of Harrow School, he was ordained priest, +again by Bishop Lonsdale, at Advent, 1859. + +In January, 1860, Montagu Butler entered on his new duties at Harrow, +and there he spent five-and-twenty years of happy, strenuous, and +serviceable life. He found 469 boys in the School; under his rule +the numbers increased till they reached 600. + +Butler's own culture was essentially classical, for he had been +fashioned by Vaughan, who "thought in Greek," and he himself might +almost have been said to think and feel in Latin elegiacs. But his +scholarship was redeemed from pedantry by his wide reading, and +by his genuine enthusiasm for all that is graceful in literature, +modern as well as ancient. Under his rule the "grand, old, fortifying, +classical curriculum," which Matthew Arnold satirized, fought hard +and long for its monopoly; but gradually it had to yield. Butler's +first concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latin +versification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever his +gifts or tastes. At the same time he introduced the regular teaching +of Natural Science, and in 1869 he created a "Modern Side." An even +more important feature of his rule was the official encouragement +given to the study of music, which, from an illicit indulgence practised +in holes and corners, became, under the energetic management of Mr. +John Farmer, a prime element in the life of the School. + +In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School. My father had +introduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen at +once under his charm. He was curiously unlike what one had imagined +a Head Master to be--not old and pompous and austere, but young and +gracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand. His leading +characteristic was gracefulness. He was graceful in appearance, tall and +as yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; graceful in writing, +and pre-eminently graceful in speech. He was young--thirty-four--and +looked younger, although (availing himself of the opportunity afforded +by an illness in the summer of 1867) he had just grown a beard. +He had a keen sense of humour, and was not afraid to display it +before boys, although he was a little pampered by a sense of the +solemn reverence due not only to what was sacred, but to everything +that was established and official. To breakfast with a Head Master +is usually rather an awful experience, but there was no awe about +the pleasant meals in Butler's dining-room (now the head Master's +study), for he was unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, +and tactful in adapting his conversation to the capacities of his +guests. + +It was rather more alarming to face him at the periodical inspection +of one's Form. ("Saying to the Head Master" was the old phrase, then +lapsing out of date.) We used to think that he found a peculiar interest +in testing the acquirements of such boys as he knew personally, and +of those whose parents were his friends; so that on these occasions +it was a doubtful privilege to "know him," as the phrase is, "at +home." Till one reached the Sixth Form these social and official +encounters with Butler were one's only opportunities of meeting +him at close quarters; but every Sunday evening we heard him preach +in the Chapel, and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, at +least in many cases, great. They were always written in beautifully +clear and fluent English, and were often decorated with a fine +quotation in prose or verse. In substance they were extraordinarily +simple, though not childish. For example, he often preached on +such practical topics as Gambling, National Education; and the +Housing of the Poor, as well as on themes more obviously and directly +religious. He was at his best in commemorating a boy who had died +in the School, when his genuine sympathy with sorrow made itself +unmistakably felt. But whatever was the subject, whether public or +domestic, he always treated it in the same simply Christian spirit. +I know from his own lips that he had never passed through those +depths of spiritual experience which go to make a great preacher; +but his sermons revealed in every sentence a pure, chivalrous, and +duty-loving heart. One of his intimate friends once spoke of his +"Arthur-like" character, and the epithet was exactly right. + +His most conspicuous gift was unquestionably his eloquence. His +fluency, beauty of phrase, and happy power of turning "from grave +to gay, from lively to severe," made him extraordinarily effective +on a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of +1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writing +his sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, and +even boys who did not usually care for sermons were fascinated +by his oratory. + +In the region of thought I doubt if he exercised any great influence. +To me he never seemed to have arrived at his conclusions by any +process of serious reasoning. He held strongly and conscientiously +a certain number of conventions--a kind of Palmerstonian Whiggery, +a love of "spirited foreign policy;" an admiration for the military +character, an immense regard for the Crown, for Parliament, and +for all established institutions (he was much shocked when the +present Bishop of Oxford spoke in the Debating Society in favour of +Republicanism); and in every department of life he paid an almost +superstitious reverence to authority. I once ventured to tell him +that even a beadle was a sacred being in his eyes, and he did not +deny the soft impeachment. + +His intellectual influence was not in the region of thought, but in +that of expression. His scholarship was essentially literary. He had +an instinctive and unaffected love of all that was beautiful, whether +in prose or verse, in Greek, Latin, or English. His reading was wide +and thorough. Nobody knew Burke so well, and he had a contagious +enthusiasm for Parliamentary oratory. In composition he had a _curiosa +felicitas_ in the strictest meaning of the phrase; for his felicity +was the product of care. To go through a prize-exercise with him +was a real joy, so generous was his appreciation, so fastidious +his taste, so dexterous his substitution of the telling for the +ineffective word, and so palpably genuine his enjoyment of the +business. + +As a ruler his most noticeable quality was his power of discipline. +He was feared--and a Head Master who is not feared is not fit for +his post; and by bad boys he was hated, and by most good boys he +was loved. By most, but not by all. There were some, even among the +best, who resented his system of minute regulation, his "Chinese +exactness" in trivial detail, his tendency to treat the tiniest +breach of a School rule as if it were an offence against the moral +law. + +I think it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew him +best loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, but +it was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into an +injustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. +He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour and +dishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always and exactly the +same. His memory for anything associated with his pupils careers +was extraordinarily retentive, and he was even passionately loyal +to _Auld Lang Syne_. And there is yet another characteristic which +claims emphatic mention in any attempt to estimate his influence. +He was conspicuously and essentially a gentleman. In appearance, +manner, speech, thought, and act, this gentlemanlike quality of his +nature made itself felt; and it roused in such as were susceptible +of the spell an admiration which the most meritorious teachers have +often, by sheer boorishness forfeited. + +Time out of mind, a Head Mastership has been regarded as a +stepping-stone to a Bishopric--with disastrous results to the +Church--and in Butler's case it seemed only too likely that the +precedent would be followed. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, once +said to a Harrovian colleague, "What sort of Bishop would your +old master, Dr. Butler, make?" "The very worst," was the reply. +"He is quite ignorant of the Church, and would try to discipline +his clergy like school-boys. But there is one place for which he +is peculiarly qualified--the Mastership of Trinity." And the Prime +Minister concurred. In June, 1885, Gladstone was driven from office, +and was succeeded by Lord Salisbury. In October, 1886, the Master of +Trinity (Dr. W. H. Thompson) died, and Salisbury promptly offered +the Mastership to Dr. Butler, who had for a year been Dean of +Gloucester. It is not often that a man is designated for the same +great post by two Prime Ministers of different politics. + +At Trinity, though at first he had to live down certain amount of +jealousy and ill-feeling, Butler's power and influence increased +steadily from year to year, and towards the end he was universally +respected and admired. A resident contemporary writes: "He was +certainly a Reformer, but not a violent one. His most conspicuous +services to the College were, in my opinion, these: (1) Sage guidance +of the turbulent and uncouth democracy of which a College Governing +body consists. (2) A steady aim at the highest in education, being +careful to secure the position of literary education from the +encroachments of science and mathematics. (3) Affectionate stimulus +to all undergraduates who need it, especially Old Harrovians. (4) +The maintenance of the dignity and commanding position of Trinity +and consequently of the University in the world at large." + +To Cambridge generally Butler endeared himself by his eager interest +in all good enterprises, by his stirring oratory and persuasive +preaching, and by his lavish hospitality. As Vice-Chancellor, in +1889 and 1890, he worthily maintained the most dignified traditions +of academical office. Those who knew him both on the religious +and on the social side will appreciate the judgment said to have +been pronounced by Canon Mason, then Master of Pembroke: "Butler +will be saved, like Rahab, by hospitality and faith." + + + + +VIII + +_BASIL WILBERFORCE_[*] + +[Footnote *: A Memorial Address delivered in St. John's Church, +Westminster.] + +In the House of God the praise of man should always be restrained. +I, therefore, do not propose to obey the natural instinct which +would prompt me to deliver a copious eulogy of the friend whom +we commemorate--an analysis of his character or a description of +his gifts. + +But, even in church, there is nothing out of place in an attempt to +recall the particular aspects of truth which presented themselves +with special force to a particular mind. Rather, it is a dutiful +endeavour to acknowledge the gifts, whether in the way of spiritual +illumination or of practical guidance, which God gave us through +His servant; and, it is on some of those aspects as they presented +themselves to the mind of Basil Wilberforce that I propose to +speak--not, indeed, professing to treat them exhaustively, but +bearing in mind that true saying of Jeremy Taylor: "In this world +we believe in part and prophesy in part; and this imperfection +shall never be done away, till we be transplanted to a more glorious +state." + +1. I cannot doubt about the point which should be put most prominently. + +Wilberforce's most conspicuous characteristic was his vivid apprehension +of the Spiritual World. His eyes, like Elisha's, were always open to +see "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire." Incorporeal +presences were to him at least as real as those which are embodied +in flesh and blood. Material phenomena were the veils of spiritual +realities; and "the powers of the world to come" were more actual +and more momentous than those which operate in time and space. +Perhaps the most important gift which God gave to the Church through +his ministry was his lifelong testimony against the darkness of +Materialism. + +2. Second only to his keen sense of the Unseen World was his conviction +of God's love. + +Other aspects of the Divine Nature as it is revealed to +us--Almightiness, Justice, Awfulness (though, of course, he recognized +them all)--did not colour his heart and life as they were coloured +by the sense of the Divine Love. That Love seemed to him to explain +all the mysteries of existence, to lift + + "the heavy and the weary weight + Of all this unintelligible world"; + +to make its dark places light, its rough places plain, its hard +things easy, even its saddest things endurable. His Gospel was +this: God, Who made us in His own Image, loves us like a Father; +and therefore, in life and in death, in time and in eternity, all +is, and must be, well. + +3. "He prayeth best, who lovest best + All things both great and small. + For the dear God Who loveth us, + He made and loveth all." + +Those familiar words of Coleridge perfectly express Wilberforce's +attitude towards his fellow-creatures, and when I say "fellow-creatures," +I am not thinking only of his brothers and sisters in the human family. + +He was filled with a God-like love of all that God has made. Hatred +and wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy." +Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt as +tenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadside +at Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that, +all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in that +loathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforce +to devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to the +reclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, and +which stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms. + +But his love extended far beyond the bounds of the human family; +and (in this again resembling St. Francis) he loved the birds and +beasts which God has provided as our companions in this life, and +perhaps--for aught we know--in the next. In a word, he loved all +God's creatures for God's sake. + +4. No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spirit +in regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; and +yet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belonged +essentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imagine +him happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere else +could he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholic +antiquity and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combined +with that freedom of religious speculation and that elasticity +of devotional forms which were to him as necessary as vital air. +Various elements of his teaching, various aspects of his practice +will occur to different minds; but (just because it is sometimes +overlooked) I feel bound to remind you of his testimony to the +blessings which he had received through Confession, and to the +glory of the Holy Eucharist, as the Sun and Centre of Catholic +worship. His conviction of the reality and nearness of the spiritual +world gave him a singular ease and "access" in intercessory prayer, +and his love of humanity responded to that ideal of public worship +which is set forth in _John Inglesant:_ "The English Church, as +established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all +who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose +sun shines alike on the evil and on the good." + +5. In what theology did Wilberforce, whose adult life had been +one long search for truth, finally repose? Assuredly he never lost +his hold on the central facts of the Christian revelation as they +are stated in the creed of Nicæa and Constantinople. Yet, as years +went on, he came to regard them less and less in their objective +aspect; more and more as they correspond to the work of the Spirit +in the heart and conscience. Towards the end, all theology seemed to +be for him comprehended in the one doctrine of the Divine Immanence, +and to find its natural expression in that significant phrase of +St. Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." + +Spiritually-minded men do not, as a rule, talk much of their spiritual +experiences; but, if one had asked Wilberforce to say what he regarded +as the most decisive moment of his religious life, I can well believe +that he would have replied, "The moment when 'it pleased God to +reveal His Son _in_ me.'" + +The subject expands before us, as is always the case when we meditate +on the character and spirit of those whom we have lost; and I must +hasten to a close. + +I have already quoted from a writer with whom I think Wilberforce +would have felt a close affinity, though, as a matter of fact, I +never heard him mention that writer's name; I mean J. H. Shorthouse; +and I return to the same book--the stimulating story of _John +Inglesant_--for my concluding words, which seem to express, with +accidental fidelity, the principle of Wilberforce's spiritual being: +"We are like children, or men in a tennis-court, and before our +conquest is half-won, the dim twilight comes and stops the game; +nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all hold fast by +the law of life we feel within. This was the method which Christ +followed, and He won the world by placing Himself in harmony with +that law of gradual development which the Divine wisdom has planned. +Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the ideal life; +and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread the free and +spacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above." + + + + +IX + +_EDITH SICHEL_ + +This notice is more suitably headed with a name than with a title. +Edith Sichel was greater than anything she wrote, and the main +interest of the book before us[*] is the character which it reveals. +Among Miss Sichel's many activities was that of reviewing, and Mr. +Bradley tells that "her first object was to let the reader know +what kind of matter he might expect to find in the book, and, if +necessary, from what point of view it is treated there." Following +this excellent example, let us say that in _New and Old_ the reader +will find an appreciative but not quite adequate "Introduction"; +some extracts from letters; some "thoughts" or aphorisms; some +poems; and thirty-two miscellaneous pieces of varying interest-and +merit. This is what we "find in the book," and the "point of view" +is developed as we read. + +[Footnote *: _New and Old_. By Edith Sichel. With an Introduction +by A. C. Bradley. London: Constable and Co.] + +To say that the Introduction is not quite adequate is no aspersion +on Mr. Bradley. He tells us that he only knew Miss Sichel "towards +the close of her life" (she was born in 1862 and died in 1914), and +in her case pre-eminently the child was mother of the woman. Her +blood was purely Jewish, and the Jewish characteristic of precocity +was conspicuous in her from the first. At ten she had the intellectual +alertness of sixteen, and at sixteen she could have held her own +with ordinary people of thirty. To converse with her even casually +always reminded me of Matthew Arnold's exclamation: "What women +these Jewesses are! with a _force_ which seems to triple that of +the women of our Western and Northern races." + +From the days of early womanhood to the end, Edith Sichel led a +double life, though in a sense very different from that in which +this ambiguous phrase is generally employed. "She was known to the +reading public as a writer of books and of papers in magazines.... +Her principal books were warmly praised by judges competent to estimate +their value as contributions to French biography and history;" and +her various writings, belonging to very different orders and ranging +over a wide variety of topics, were always marked by vigour and +originality. Her versatility was marvellous; and, "though she had +not in youth the severe training that makes for perfect accuracy," +she had by nature the instinct which avoids the commonplace, and +which touches even hackneyed themes with light and fire. Her humour +was exuberant, unforced, untrammelled; it played freely round every +object which met her mental gaze--sometimes too freely when she was +dealing with things traditionally held sacred. But her flippancy +was of speech rather than of thought, for her fundamental view of +life was serious. "Life, in her view, brings much that is pure +and unsought joy, more, perhaps, that needs transforming effort, +little or nothing that cannot be made to contribute to an inward +and abiding happiness." + +Some more detailed account of her literary work may be given later +on; at this point I must turn to the other side of her double life. +She was only twenty-two when she began her career of practical +benevolence among the poor girls of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and +Shadwell. She established in the country Homes for the girl-children +of an East End work-house, and maintained them till she died. For +twenty-two years she was treasurer of a Boys' Home. She was a manager +of Elementary Schools in London. She held a class for female prisoners +at Holloway. She was deeply impressed by the importance of starting +young people in suitable employment, and threw all her energies +into the work, "in case of need, supplying the money required for +apprenticeship." In this and in all her other enterprises she was +generous to a fault, always being ready to give away half her +income--and yet not "to a fault," for her strong administrative +and financial instinct restrained her from foolish or mischievous +expenditure. All this work, of body and mind, was done in spite +of fragile health and frequent suffering; yet she never seemed +overburdened, or fussed, or flurried, and those who enjoyed her +graceful hospitality in Onslow Gardens would never have suspected +either that her day had been spent in what she called "the picturesque +mire of Wapping," or that she had been sitting up late at night, +immersed in _Human Documents from the Four Centuries preceding +the Reformation_. + +We have spoken of her humour. Those who would see a sample of it +are referred to her description of the Eisteddfod on p. 22; and +this piece of pungent fun may be profitably read in contrast with +her grim story of _Gladys Leonora Pratt_. In that story some of +the writer's saddest experiences in the East End are told with an +unshrinking fidelity, which yet has nothing mawkish or prurient in +it. Edith Sichel was too good an artist to be needlessly disgusting. +"It might," she said, "be well for the modern realist to remember +that literalness is not the same as truth, nor curiosity as courage." + +She was best known as a writer of books about the French Renaissance, +on which she became an acknowledged authority. She was less well +known, but not less effective, as a reviewer--no one ever dissected +Charlotte Yonge so justly--and she excelled in personal description. +Her accounts of her friends Miss Emily Lawless, Miss Mary Coleridge, +and Joseph Joachim, are masterpieces of characterization. All her +literary work was based on a wide and strong foundation of generous +culture. German was to her a second mother-tongue, and she lectured +delightfully on _Faust_. Though she spoke of herself as talking +"fluent and incomprehensible bad French," she was steeped in French +scholarship. She had read Plato and Sophocles under the stimulating +guidance of William Cory, and her love of Italy had taught her a +great deal of Italian. The authors whom she enjoyed and quoted +were a motley crowd--Dante and Rabelais, Pascal and Montaigne, +George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, Tolstoi and George Borrow, "Mark +Rutherford" and Samuel Butler, Fénelon and Renan and Anatole France. +Her vein of poetic feeling was strong and genuine. In addressing some +young girls she said: "We all think a great deal of the importance +of opening our windows and airing our rooms. I wish we thought +as much of airing our imaginations. To me poetry is quite like +that. It is like opening the window daily, and looking out and +letting in the air and the sunlight into an otherwise stuffy little +room; and if I cannot read some poetry in the day I feel more +uncomfortable than I can tell you." She might have put the case +more strongly; for poetry, and music, and painting, and indeed all +art at its highest level, made a great part of her religion. Her +family had long ago conformed to the Church of England, in which +she was brought up; but she never shook off her essential Judaism. +She had no sympathy with rites or ordinances, creeds or dogmas, +and therefore outward conformity to the faith of her forefathers +would have been impossible to her; but she looked with reverent +pride on the tombs in the Jewish cemetery at Prague. "It gave me +a strange feeling to stand at the tombstone of our tribe--900 A.D. +The oldest scholar's grave is 600 A.D., and Heaven knows how many +great old Rabbis lie there, memorable and forgotten. The wind and +the rain were sobbing all round the place, and all the melancholy +of my race seemed to rise up and answer them." Though she was a +Churchwoman by practice, her own religion was a kind of undefined +Unitarianism. "The Immanence of God and the life of Christ are my +treasures." "I am a heretic, you know, and it seems to me that +all who call Christ Master with adoration of that life are of the +same band." Her favourite theologians were James Martineau, Alfred +Ainger (whose Life she wrote admirably), and Samuel Barnett, whom +she elevated into a mystic and a prophet. The ways of the Church +of England did not please her. She had nothing but scorn for "a +joyless curate prating of Easter joy with limpest lips," or for "the +Athanasian Creed sung in the highest of spirits in a prosperous church" +filled with "sealskin-jacketed mammas and blowsy old gentlemen." But +the conclusion of the whole matter was more comfortable--"All the +clergymen in the world cannot make one disbelieve in God." + + + + +X + +_"WILL" GLADSTONE_ + +"He bequeathed to his children the perilous inheritance of a name +which the Christian world venerates." The words were originally +used by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce with reference to his father, +the emancipator of the negro. I venture to apply them to the great +man who, in days gone by, was my political leader, and I do so the +more confidently because I hold that Gladstone will be remembered +quite apart from politics, and, as Bishop Westcott said, "rather +for what he was than for what he did." He was, in Lord Salisbury's +words, "an example, to which history hardly furnishes a parallel, +of a great Christian, Statesman." It was no light matter for a +boy of thirteen to inherit a name which had been so nobly borne +for close on ninety years, and to acquire, as soon as he came of +age, the possession of a large and difficult property, and all +the local influence which such ownership implies. Yet this was +the burden which was imposed on "Will" Gladstone by his father's +untimely death. After an honourable career at Eton and Oxford, and +some instructive journeyings in the East and in America (where he +was an attaché at the British Embassy), he entered Parliament as +Member for the Kilmarnock Boroughs. His Parliamentary career was +not destined to be long, but it was in many respects remarkable. + +In some ways he was an ideal candidate. He was very tall, with a +fair complexion and a singular nobility of feature and bearing. +To the most casual observer it was palpable that he walked the +world + + "With conscious step of purity and pride." + +People interested in heredity tried to trace in him some resemblance +to his famous grandfather; but, alike in appearance and in character, +the two were utterly dissimilar. In only one respect they resembled +each other, and that was the highest. Both were earnest and practical +Christians, walking by a faith which no doubts ever disturbed, +and serving God in the spirit and by the methods of the English +Church. And here we see alike Will Gladstone's qualifications and +his drawbacks as a candidate for a Scottish constituency. His name +and his political convictions commended him to the electors; his +ecclesiastial opinions they could not share. His uprightness of +character and nobility of aspect commanded respect; his innate +dislike of popularity-hunting and men-pleasing made him seem for so +young a man--he was only twenty-seven--austere and aloof. Everyone +could feel the intensity of his convictions on the points on which +he had made up his mind; some were unreasonably distressed when +he gave expression to that intensity by speech and vote. He was +chosen to second the Address at the opening of the Session of 1912, +and acquitted himself, as always, creditably; but it was in the +debates on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill that he first definitely +made his mark. "He strongly supported the principle, holding that it +had been fully justified by the results of the Irish Disestablishment +Act on the Irish Church. But, as in that case, generosity should +characterize legislation; disendowment should be clearly limited to +tithes. Accordingly, in Committee, he took an independent course. +His chief speech on this subject captivated the House. For a very +young Member to oppose his own party without causing irritation, +and to receive the cheers of the Opposition without being led to +seek in them solace for the silence of his own side, and to win +general admiration by transparent sincerity and clear, balanced +statement of reason, was a rare and notable performance." + +When Will Gladstone struck twenty-nine, there were few young men in +England who occupied a more enviable position. He had a beautiful +home; sufficient, but not overwhelming, wealth; a property which +gave full scope for all the gifts of management and administration +which he might possess; the devoted love of his family, and the +goodwill even of those who did not politically agree with him. +His health, delicate in childhood, had improved with years. "While +he never neglected his public duties, his natural, keen, healthy +love of nature, sport, fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly. +In these matters he was still a boy"--but a boy who, as it seemed, +had already crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such was +Will Gladstone on his last birthday--the 12th of July, 1914. A +month later the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinking +world, and all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness, +yes; but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible, +and an unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part--the +conviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and to +himself--became only more imperious when the call to arms was heard: +_Christus ad arma vocat_. + +Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart. +He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels of +other nations. "His health was still delicate; he possessed neither +the training nor instincts of a soldier; war and fighting were +repugnant to his whole moral and physical fibre." No one, in short, +could have been by nature less disposed for the duty which now +became urgent. "The invasion of Belgium shattered his hopes and +his ideals." He now realized the stern truth that England must +fight, and, if England must fight, he must bear his part in the +fighting. He had been made, when only twenty-six, Lord-Lieutenant +of Flintshire, and as such President of the Territorial Force +Association. It was his official duty to "make personal appeals +for the enlistment of young men. But how could he urge others to +join the Army while he, a young man not disqualified for military +service, remained at home in safety? It was his duty to lead, and +his best discharge of it lay in personal example." His decision +was quickly and quietly made. "He was the only son of his mother, +and what it meant to her he knew full well;" but there was no +hesitation, no repining, no looking back. He took a commission in +the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and on the 15th +of March, 1915, he started with a draft for France. On the 12th +of April he was killed. "It is not"--he had just written to his +mother--"the length of existence, that counts, but what is achieved +during that existence, however short." These words of his form +his worthiest epitaph. + + + + +XI + +_LORD CHARLES RUSSELL_ + +A man can have no better friend than a good father; and this +consideration warrants, I hope, the inclusion of yet one more sketch +drawn "in honour of friendship." + +Charles James Fox Russell (1807-1894) was the sixth son of the sixth +Duke of Bedford. His mother was Lady Georgiana Gordon, daughter +of the fourth Duke of Gordon and of the adventurous "Duchess Jane," +who, besides other achievements even more remarkable, raised the +"Gordon Highlanders" by a method peculiarly her own. Thus he was +great-great-great-grandson of the Whig martyr, William, Lord Russell, +and great-nephew of Lord George Gordon, whose Protestant zeal excited +the riots of 1780. He was one of a numerous family, of whom the best +remembered are John, first Earl Russell, principal author of the +Reform Act of 1832, and Louisa, Duchess of Abercorn, grandmother +of the present Duke. + +Charles James Fox was a close friend, both politically and privately, +of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and he promised them that he +would be godfather to their next child; but he died before the +child was born, whereupon his nephew, Lord Holland, took over the +sponsorship, and named his godson "Charles James Fox." The child +was born in 1807, and his birthplace was Dublin Castle.[*] The +Duke of Bedford was then Viceroy of Ireland, and became involved +in some controversy because he refused to suspend the Habeas Corpus +Act. When Lord Charles Russell reached man's estate, he used, half +in joke but quite half in-earnest, to attribute his lifelong sympathy +with the political demands of the Irish people to the fact that +he was a Dublin man by birth. + +[Footnote *: He was christened from a gold bowl by the Archbishop +of Dublin, Lord Normanton.] + +The Duke of Bedford was one of the first Englishmen who took a +shooting in Scotland (being urged thereto by his Highland Duchess); +and near his shooting-lodge a man who had been "out" with Prince +Charlie in 1745 was still living when Charles Russell first visited +Speyside. Westminster was the Russells' hereditary school, and +Charles Russell was duly subjected to the austere discipline which +there prevailed. From the trials of gerund-grinding and fagging +and flogging a temporary relief was afforded by the Coronation of +George IV., at which he officiated as Page to the acting Lord Great +Chamberlain. It was the last Coronation at which the procession was +formed in Westminster Hall and moved across to the Abbey. Young +Russell, by mischievousness or carelessness, contrived to tear +his master's train from the ermine cape which surmounted it; and +the procession was delayed till a seamstress could be found to +repair the damage. "I contrived to keep that old rascal George +IV. off the throne for half an hour," was Lord Charles-Russell's +boast in maturer age.[*] + +[Footnote *: J, W. Croker, recording the events of the day, says: +"The King had to wait full half an hour for the Great Chamberlain, +Lord Gwydyr, who, it seems, had torn his robes, and was obliged +to wait to have them mended. I daresay the public lays the blame +of the delay on to the King, who was ready long before anyone +else,"--_The Croker Papers_, vol. i., p. 195.] + +From Westminster Lord Charles passed to the University of Edinburgh, +where his brother John had preceded him. He boarded with Professor +Pillans, whom Byron gibbeted as "paltry"[*] in "English Bards and +Scotch Reviewers," and enjoyed the society of the literary circle +which in those days made Edinburgh famous. The authorship of the +Waverley Novels was not yet revealed, and young Russell had the +pleasure of discussing with Sir Walter Scott the dramatic qualities +of _The Bride of Lammermoor_. He was, perhaps, less unfitted for such +high converse than most lads would be, because, as Lord Holland's +godson, he had been from his schooldays a frequenter of Holland +House in its days of glory.[**] + +[Footnote *: Why?] + +[Footnote **: On his first visit Lord Holland told him that he +might order his own dinner. He declared for a roast duck with green +peas, and an apricot tart; whereupon the old Amphitryon said: "Decide +as wisely on every question in life, and you will never go far +wrong."] + +On leaving Edinburgh, Lord Charles Russell joined the Blues, then +commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover; +and he was able to confirm, by personal knowledge, the strange +tales of designs which the Duke entertained for placing himself or +his son upon the throne of England.[*] He subsequently exchanged +into the 52nd Light Infantry, from which he retired, with the rank +of Lieutenant-Colonel, in order to enter Parliament. In December, +1832, he was returned at the head of the poll for Bedfordshire, +and on Christmas Eve a young lady (who in 1834 became his wife) +wrote thus to her sister: + +"Lord Charles Russell is returned for this County. The Chairing, +Dinner, etc., take place to-day. Everybody is interested about +him, as he is very young and it is his first appearance in the +character. His speeches have delighted the whole County, and he +is, of course, very much pleased." This faculty of public speaking +was perhaps his most remarkable endowment. He had an excellent +command of cultivated English, a clear and harmonious voice, a keen +sense of humour, and a happy knack of apt quotation. + +[Footnote *: _Cf. Tales of my Father_, by A. F. Longmans, 1902.] + +On the 23rd of February, 1841, Disraeli wrote, with reference to +an impending division on the Irish Registration Bill: "The Whigs +had last week two hunting accidents; but Lord Charles Russell, +though he put his collar-bone out, and we refused to pair him, +showed last night." He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolution +of that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeed +bound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agricultural +community which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell," wrote Cobden, +"is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaring +at the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out of +cultivation." He returned to Parliament for a brief space in 1847, +and was then appointed Serjeant-at-Arms--not, as he always insisted, +"Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons," but "one of the Queen's +Serjeants-at-Arms, directed by her to attend on the Speaker during +the sitting of Parliament." In 1873 the office and its holder were +thus described by "Jehu Junior" in _Vanity Fair_: + +"For the filling of so portentous an office, it is highly important +that one should be chosen who will, by personal mien and bearing +not less than by character, detract nothing from its dignity. Such +a one is Lord Charles Russell, who is a worthy representative of +the great house of Bedford from which he springs. + +"For a quarter of a century he has borne the mace before successive +Speakers. From his chair he has listened to Peel, to Russell, to +Palmerston, to Disraeli, and to Gladstone, and he still survives +as a depository of their eloquence. He is himself popular beyond +the fair expectations of one who has so important a part to play +in the disciplinary arrangements of a popular assembly; for he +is exceptionally amiable and genial by nature, is an excellent +sportsman, and has cultivated a special taste for letters.[*] It is +rarely that in these times a man can be found so thoroughly fitted +to fill an office which could be easily invested with ridicule, +or so invariably to invest it, as he has, with dignity." + +[Footnote *: He was the best Shakespearean I ever knew, and founded +the "Shakespeare Medal" at Harrow. Lord Chief justice Coleridge +wrote thus: "A munificent and accomplished nobleman, Lord Charles +Russell, has, by the wise liberality which dictated the foundation +of his Shakespeare Medal at Harrow, secured that at least at one +great Public School the boys may be stimulated in youth to an exact +and scholarlike acquaintance with the poet whom age will show them +to be the greatest in the world."] + +Sir George Trevelyan writes: "You can hardly imagine how formidable +and impressive Lord Charles seemed to the mass of Members, and +especially to the young; and how exquisite and attractive was the +moment when he admitted you to his friendly notice, and the absolute +assurance that, once a friend, he would be a friend for ever." + +Lord Charles Russell held the Serjeancy till 1875; and at this point +I had better transcribe the record in _Hansard_: + + * * * * * + +_Monday, April_ 5, 1875: + +Mr. Speaker acquainted the House that he had received from Lord +Charles James Fox Russell the following letter: + + HOUSE OF COMMONS, + _April_ 5_th_, 1875. + +SIR, + +I have the honour to make application to you that you will be pleased +to sanction my retirement from my office, by Patent, of Her Majesty's +Serjeant-at-Arms attending the Speaker of the House of Commons. +I have held this honourable office for twenty-seven years, and +I feel that the time is come when it is desirable that I should +no longer retain it. + + I have the honour to be, Sir, + Your very obedient servant, + CHARLES J. F. RUSSELL, + _Serjeant-at-Arms_. + +THE RIGHT HONBLE. THE SPEAKER. + +_Thursday, April_ 8, 1875: + +Mr. DISRAELI: I beg to move, Sir, that the letter addressed to +you by Lord Charles Russell, the late Serjeant-at-Arms, be read +by the Clerk at the Table. + +Letter [5th April] read. + +Mr. DISRAELI: Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the resignation of +his office by one who has long and ably served this House. The office +of Serjeant-at-Arms is one which requires no ordinary qualities; for +it requires at the same time patience, firmness, and suavity, and +that is a combination of qualities more rare than one could wish +in this world. The noble Lord who filled the office recently, and +whose resignation has just been read at the Table, has obtained our +confidence by the manner in which he has discharged his duties through +an unusually long period of years; and we should remember, I think, +that occasions like the present are almost the only opportunity we +have of expressing our sense of those qualities, entitled so much +to our respect, which are possessed and exercised by those who fill +offices attached to this House, and upon whose able fulfilment of +their duties much of our convenience depends. Therefore, following +the wise example of those who have preceded me in this office, +I have prepared a Resolution which expresses the feeling of the +House on this occasion, and I now place it, Sir, in your hands. + +Mr. Speaker, read the Resolution, as follows: "That Mr. Speaker +be requested to acquaint Lord Charles James Fox Russell that this +House entertains a just sense of the exemplary manner in which he +has uniformly discharged the duties of the Office of Serjeant-at-Arms +during his long attendance on this House." + +The MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of the Members who sit +on this side of the House, I rise to second the Motion of the Right +Hon. Gentleman. He has on more than one occasion gracefully, but +at the same time justly, recognized the services rendered to the +State by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy a +foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud +to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in +the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has +just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, +at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time +when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his +resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of +new Members of this House to add their testimony to that of us +who are better acquainted with him, as to the invariable dignity +and courtesy with which he has discharged his duties. + +The Resolution was adopted by the House, _nemine contradicente._ + + * * * * * + +Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, where +he spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had always +been devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and his +two main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M.C.C. in +1827, and for twenty years before his death I had been its senior +member. Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give _me_ +bowling, _Pilch_ in, _Box_ at the wicket, and your Lordship looking +on."[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle he +was supreme--a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge of +a hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularly +still later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdale +writes: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your father +we went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five years +before his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, and +Lord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old--or was she +only four?--which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! She was +not easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her with the +ease of long proficiency--not long years--and his interest in all +that goes to make up a day's hunting was as full of zest and youth +as I recollect his interest used to be in all that made up a +cricket-match in my Harrow days." + +[Footnote *: See _Lords and the M.C.C._, p. 86.] + +In religion Lord Charles Russell was an Evangelical, and he was +a frequent speaker on religious platforms. In politics he was an +ardent Liberal; always (except in that soon-repented heresy about +Free Trade) rather in advance of his party; a staunch adherent +of Mr. Gladstone, and a convinced advocate of Home Rule, though +he saw from the outset that the first Home Rule Bill, without +Chamberlain's support, was, as he said, "No go." He took an active +part in electioneering, from the distant days when, as a Westminster +boy, he cheered for Sir Francis Burdett, down to September, 1892, when +he addressed his last meeting in support of Mr. Howard Whitbread, +then Liberal candidate for South Bedfordshire. A speech which he +delivered at the General Election of 1886, denouncing the "impiety" +of holding that the Irish were incapable of self-government, won the +enthusiastic applause of Mr. Gladstone. When slow-going Liberals +complained of too-rapid reforms, he used to say: "When I was a +boy, our cry was 'Universal Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and +the Ballot.' That was seventy years ago, and we have only got one +of the three yet." + +In local matters, he was always on the side of the poor and the +oppressed, and a sturdy opponent of all aggressions on their rights. +"Footpaths," he wrote, "are a precious right of the poor, and +consequently much encroached on." + +It is scarcely decent for a son to praise his father, but even a +son may be allowed to quote the tributes which his father's death +evoked. Let some of these tributes end my tale. + + _June_ 29_th_, 1894. + +My DEAR G. RUSSELL, + + I am truly grieved to learn this sad news. +It is the disappearance of an illustrious figure to +us, but of much more, I fear, to you. + + Yours most sincerely, + ROSEBERY. + + _June_ 30_th_, 1894. + +DEAR G. RUSSELL, + +I saw with sorrow the announcement of your father's death. He was +a good and kind friend to me in the days long ago, and I mourn +his loss. In these backsliding days he set a great example of +steadfastness and loyalty to the faith of his youth and his race. + + Yours very truly, + + W. V. HARCOURT. + + _July_ 31_rd_ 1894. + +DEAR RUSSELL, + +I was very grieved to hear of your revered father's death. + +He was a fine specimen of our real aristocracy, and such specimens +are becoming rarer and rarer in these degenerate days. + +There was a true ring of the "Grand Seigneur" about him which always +impressed me. + + Yours sincerely, + REAY. + + _July_ 1_st_, 1894. + +My DEAR RUSSELL, + +I thank you very much for your kindness in writing to me. + +You may, indeed, presume that it is with painful interest and deep +regret that I hear of the death of your father, and that I value +the terms in which you speak of his feelings towards myself. + +Though he died at such an advanced age, it is, I think, remarkable +that his friends spoke of him to the last as if he were still in +the full intercourse of daily life, without the disqualification +or forgetfulness that old age sometimes brings with it. + +For my part I can never forget my association with him in the House +of Commons and elsewhere, nor the uniform kindness which he always +showed me. + + Believe me, most truly yours, + ARTHUR W. PEEL. + + _June_ 29_th_, 1894. + +My DEAR RUSSELL, + +I have seen, with the eyes of others, in newspapers of this afternoon +the account of the death--shall I say?--or of the ingathering of +your father. And of what he was to you as a father I can reasonably, +if remotely, conceive from knowing what he was in the outer circle, +as a firm, true, loyal friend. + +He has done, and will do, no dishonour to the name of Russell. It +is a higher matter to know, at a supreme moment like this, that +he had placed his treasure where moth and dust do not corrupt, and +his dependence where dependence never fails. May he enjoy the rest, +light, and peace of the just until you are permitted to rejoin him. +With growing years you will feel more and more that here everything +is but a rent, and that it is death alone which integrates. + +On Monday I hope to go to Pitlochrie, N. B., and in a little time +to return southward, and resume, if it please God, the great gift +of working vision. + + Always and sincerely yours, + W. E. GLADSTONE. + + + + +III + +RELIGION AND THE CHURCH + + + + +I + +_A STRANGE EPIPHANY_ + +Whenever the State meddles with the Church's business, it contrives +to make a muddle. This familiar truth has been exemplified afresh +by the decree which dedicated last Sunday[*] to devotions connected +with the War. The Feast of the Epiphany has had, at least since +the fourth century, its definite place in the Christian year, its +special function, and its peculiar lesson. The function is to +commemorate the revelation of Christianity to the Gentile world; +and the lesson is the fulfilment of all that the better part of +Heathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion which +emanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance of +this day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motives +and its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph of ineptitude. + +[Footnote *: January 6th, 1918.] + +Tennyson wrote of + + "this northern island, + Sundered once from all the human race"; + +and when Christians first began to observe the Epiphany, or Theophany +(as the feast was indifferently called), our own forefathers were +among the heathen on whom the light of the Holy Manger was before +long to shine. It has shone on us now for a good many centuries; +England has ranked as one of the chiefest of Christian nations, +and has always professed, and often felt, a charitable concern +for the races which are still lying in darkness. Epiphany is very +specially the feast of a missionary Church, and the strongest appeal +which it could address to Heathendom would be to cry, "See what +Christianity has done for the world! Christendom possesses the +one religion. Come in and share its blessings." + +There have been times and places at which that appeal could be +successfully made. Indeed, as Gibbon owned, it was one of the causes +to which the gradual triumph of Christianity was due. But for Europe +at the present moment to address that appeal to Africa or India +or China would be to invite a deadly repartee. In the long ages, +Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "rose +out of chaos," you have improved very little on the manners of +those primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime." Two +thousand years of Christianity have not taught you to beat your +swords into plough-shares. You still make your sons to pass through +the fire to Moloch, and the most remarkable developments of physical +science are those which make possible the destruction of human life +on the largest scale. Certainly, in Zeppelins and submarines and +poisonous gas there is very little to remind the world of Epiphany +and what it stands for. + +Thirty years ago the great Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "The present +is terrible, the future far more so; every day adds to the power +and facility of the means of destruction. Science is hard at work +(science, the great--nay, to some the only--God of these days) +to discover and concentrate the shortest and easiest methods to +annihilate the human race." We see the results of that work in +German methods of warfare. + +Germany has for four centuries asserted for herself a conspicuous +place in European religion. She has been a bully there as in other +fields, and the lazy and the timid have submitted to her theological +pretensions. Now, by the mouth of her official pastors she has +renounced the religion of sacrifice for the lust of conquest, and +has substituted the creed of Odin for the faith of Christ. A country +which, in spite of learning and opportunity, has wilfully elapsed +from civilization into barbarism can scarcely evangelize Confucians +or Buddhists. + +If we turn from the Protestant strongholds of the North to the +citadel of Authority at Rome, the signs of an Epiphany are equally +lacking. The Infallibility which did not save the largest section +of Christendom from such crimes as the Inquisition and the massacre +of St. Bartholomew has proved itself equally impotent in these +latter days. No one could have expected the Pope, who has spiritual +children in all lands, to take sides in an international dispute; +but one would have thought that a divinely-given infallibility +would have denounced, with the trumpet-tone of Sinai, the orgies +of sexual and sacrilegious crime which have devastated Belgium. + +Is the outlook in allied Russia any more hopeful than in hostile +Germany and in neutral Rome? I must confess that I cannot answer. +We were always told that the force which welded together in one the +different races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritual +force; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; and +that even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion. +At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy Orthodox +Church manifest her power and instil into her children the primary +conceptions of Christian citizenship? + +And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the condition +of England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with a +lively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesley +complained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "the +sinners unbaptized out-sin." And everyone who remembers the social +and moral state of England during the ten years immediately preceding +the present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth century +had not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling, +and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, and +were doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was an +open and insolent disregard of religious observance, especially +with respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest being +perverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. There +was a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of society +which are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasing +invasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated in +the agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Other +and darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to make +my meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent of +and to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise, +we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany. + + + + +II + +_THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_ + +"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better +definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated +in the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One--is, +of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has +Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men +and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the +wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the +Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, +the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing +to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carried +with them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilations +inflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own time, +"many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, has gladly +met her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would have made her +in a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant community." +Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the Romance of the +Cloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian desert, and Benedict +in his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis tending the leper +by the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, as in thousands +more, the world was well lost for an idea. + +The world is well lost--and supremely well lost--by the Missionary, +whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier lost it well +when he made his response to the insistent question: "What shall +it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own +soul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse foolishness +as men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant prospects +which a University offers to preach and fail among the heathen, +and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge Patterson +lost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures of Eton and +Oxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, he went out +to spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of the Pacific, +and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen whom he loved +and served. + +These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but others +there are, which, though less "high and heroical," are not less +Teal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though for +a cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who on +"Black Bartholomew," in the year 1662, renounced their benefices +in the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worship +which their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world was +gloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates of +the Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption, +sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromise +the "Headship of Christ over His own house." + +One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in giving +it I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now, +I suppose, entirely forgotten--the name of the Honble. and Revd. +Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years and +ten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry not +of mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none who +listened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliest +youth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ,' +in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquished +even the church which was his living and the pulpit which was his +throne, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance, +and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he cared +not whither." + +After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it may +seem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise to +this chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple, +by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order to +devote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty," has established +a strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I state +on p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To my +thinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment. +The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be an +intolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, while +retaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment, +they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of a +spiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own ideal +is Cavour's--the Free Church in the Free State; and all such schemes +as Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the best of +two incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our fetters +might be made to gall less painfully, but they would be more securely +riveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. Temple stands on +one side and I on the other; but this does not impair my respect +for a man who is ready to "lose the world for an idea"--even though +that idea be erroneous and Impracticable. + +To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion, +but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all the +qualifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune. +He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervour +which in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his father +one of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he was +esteemed a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him +from being an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorous +worker, a powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an important +parish. Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in the +wish to be a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by the +biographies of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee, +and in the actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopal +thrones. But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals, +and has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is afforded +by the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position. + +That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come to +naught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at length +recognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete, +severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidance +in the use of her new-born freedom. + + + + +III + +_PAN-ANGLICANISM_ + +It is an awful word. Our forefathers, from Shakespeare downwards, +ate pan-cakes, and trod the pantiles at Tunbridge Wells; but their +"pan" was purely English, and they linked it with other English +words. The freedom of the "Ecclesia Anglicana" was guaranteed by +the Great Charter, and "Anglicanism" became a theological term. +Then Johnson, making the most of his little Greek, began to talk +about a "pancratical" man, where we talk of an all-round athlete; +and, a little later, "Pantheist" became a favourite missile with +theologians who wished to abuse rival practitioners, but did not +know exactly how to formulate their charge. It was reserved for the +journalists of 1867 to form the terrible compound of two languages, +and, by writing of the "Pan-Anglican Synod," to prepare the way for +"Pan-Protestant" and "Pan-denominational." Just now the "Lively +Libertines" (as their detractors style the promoters of "Life and +Liberty") seem to be testing from their labours, and they might +profitably employ their leisure by reading the history of their +forerunners half a century ago. + +The hideously named "Pan-Anglican Synod," which assembled at Lambeth +in September, 1867, and terminated its proceedings in the following +December, was a real movement in the direction of Life and Liberty +for the Church of England. The impulse came from the Colonies, +which, themselves enjoying the privilege of spiritual independence, +were generously anxious to coalesce at a time of trial with the +fettered Church at home. The immediate occasion of the movement +was the eccentricity of Bishop Colenso--"the arithmetical Bishop +who could not forgive Moses for having written a Book of Numbers." +The faith of some was seriously perturbed when they heard of a +Bishop who, as Matthew Arnold said, "had learnt among the Zulus +that only a certain number of people can stand in a doorway at +once, and that no man can eat eighty-eight pigeons a day; and who +tells us, as a consequence, that the Pentateuch is all fiction, +which, however, the author may very likely have composed without +meaning to do wrong, and as a work of poetry, like Homer's." + +Certainly the tremors of a faith so lightly overset were justly +obnoxious to Arnold's ridicule; but Colenso's negations went deeper +than the doorway and the pigeons; and the faithful of his diocese, +being untrammelled by the State, politely dismissed him from his +charge. In England steady-going Christians had been not less perturbed +by that queer collection of rather musty discourses which was called +_Essays and Reviews_; and the Church of England had made an attempt +to rid itself, by synodical action, of all complicity in the dubious +doctrine. But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had justified +the essayists, and had done its best to uphold Colenso. By so doing, it +had, of course, delighted all Erastians; but Churchmen, whether at home +or abroad, who believed in the English Church as a spiritual society, +with a life of its own apart from all legal establishment, felt that +the time had come when this belief should be publicly proclaimed. In +February, 1866, the Anglican Bishops of Canada addressed a Memorial +to Dr. Longley, then Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting him to +summon a conference of all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion; +and, after some characteristic hesitation, this was done. A Letter of +Invitation was issued in February, 1867. The more dogged Erastians +held aloof; but those who conceived of the Church as a spiritual +society obeyed the summons; the "Conference of Bishops" assembled, +and the priceless word "Pan-Anglicanism" was added to the resources +of the language. + +What did these good men do when they were come together? Not, it +must be admitted, very much. They prayed and they preached, and +debated and divided, and, in the matter of Colenso, quarrelled. +They issued a Pastoral Letter which, as Bishop Tait said, was "the +expression of essential agreement and a repudiation of Infidelity +and Romanism." If this had been the sole result of the Conference, +it would have been meagre enough; but under this official +ineffectiveness there had been a real movement towards "Life and +Liberty." The Conference taught the Established Bishops of England +and Ireland that the Bishops of Free Churches--Scottish, American, +Colonial--were at least as keen about religious work and as jealous +for the spiritual independence of the Christian society as the highly +placed and handsomely paid occupants of Lambeth and Bishopthorpe. +Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury (whom the Catholic-minded section of +the English Church regarded as their special champion) "thought +that we had much to learn from contact with the faith and vigour +of the American Episcopate"; and Bishop Wilberforce thus recorded +his judgment: "The Lambeth gathering was a very great success. Its +strongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of London (Tait), +was quite remarkable. We are now sitting in Committee trying to +complete our work--agree to a voluntary Court of English Doctrinal +Appeal for the free Colonies of America. If we can carry this out, +we shall have erected a barrier of immense moral strength against +Privy Council latitudinarianism. My view is that God gives us the +opportunity, as at home latitudinarianism must spread, of encircling +the Home Church with a band of far more dogmatic truth-holding +communions who will act most strongly in favour of truth here. +I was in great measure the framer of the "Pan-Anglican" for this +purpose, and the result has abundantly satisfied me. The American +Bishops won golden opinions." + +And so this modest effort in the direction of "Life and Liberty," +which had begun amid obloquy and ridicule, gained strength with +each succeeding year. The Conference was repeated, with vastly +increased numbers and general recognition, in 1878, 1888, 1898, and +1908. The war makes the date of the next assemblage, as it makes +all things, doubtful; but already Churchmen, including some who have +hitherto shrunk in horror from the prospect of Disestablishment, +are beginning to look forward to the next Conference of Bishops +as to something which may be a decisive step in the march of the +English Church towards freedom and self-government. Men who have +been reared in a system of ecclesiastical endowments are apt to +cherish the very unapostolic belief that money is a sacred thing; +but even they are coming, though by slow degrees, to realize that the +Faith may be still more sacred. For the rest of us, the issue was +formulated by Gladstone sixty years ago: "You have our decision: +take your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright +of the Bride of Christ." + + + + +IV + +_LIFE AND LIBERTY_ + +The title is glorious; and, so far as I know, the credit of inventing +it belongs to my friend the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, the enterprising +Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Mr. Sheppard has what in newspapers +we call a "magnetic personality," and no one has more thoroughly +laid to heart the sagacious saying that "Sweet are the uses of +advertisement." Whatever cause he adopts, the world must know that +he has adopted it; and it shall obtain a hearing, or he will know +the reason why. The cause to which (outside his pastoral work) he +is just now devoted is that which is summarized in the phrase, +"Life and Liberty for the Church of England." It is a fine ideal, +and Mr. Sheppard and his friends have been expounding it at the +Queen's Hall. + +It was no common achievement to fill that hall on a hot summer +evening in the middle of the war, and with very little' assistance +from the Press. Yet Mr. Sheppard did it, and he filled an "over-flow +meeting" as well. The chair was taken by the Rev. William Temple, +who tempered what might have been the too fervid spirit of the +gathering with the austerity which belongs to a writer on philosophy, +an ex-Head Master, and a prospective Bishop. The hall was densely +crowded with clergy, old and young--old ones who had more or less +missed their mark, and young ones keen to take warning by these +examples. There were plenty of laymen, too, quite proud to realize +that, though they are not in Holy Orders, they too are "in the +Church"; and a brilliant star, if only he had appeared, would have +been a Second-Lieutenant in khaki, who unfortunately was detained +at the front by military duties. A naval and a military chaplain +did the "breezy" business, as befitted their cloth; and, beaming +on the scene with a paternal smile, was the most popular of Canons, +who by a vehement effort kept silence even from good words, though +it must have been pain and grief to him.[*] + +[Footnote *: Alas! we have lost him since.] + +The oratorical honours of the evening were by common consent adjudged +to a lady, who has since been appointed "Pulpit Assistant" to the +City Temple. May an old-fashioned Churchman suggest that, if this +is a sample of Mr. Sheppard's new movement, the "Life" of the Church +of England is likely to be a little too lively, and its "Liberty" +to verge on licence? A ministry of undenominational feminism is +"a thing imagination boggles at." Here it is to be remarked that +the leaders of the movement are male and female after their kind. +Dr. and Mrs. Dingo sit in council side by side, and much regret +is expressed that Archdeacon Buckemup is still a celibate. But +let us be of good cheer. Earnest-minded spinsters, undeterred by +the example of Korah (who, as they truly say, was only a man), +are clamouring for the priesthood as well as the vote; and in the +near future the "Venerable Archdeaconess" will be a common object +of the ecclesiastical sea-shore. Miss Jenkyns, in _Cranford_, would +have made a capital Dean. + +So much for the setting of the scene. The "business" must be now +considered, and we will take the programme of "Life and Liberty" +point by point, as set forth in a pamphlet by Mr. Temple. In the +first place, its leaders are very clear that they wish to keep their +endowments; but it must not be supposed that they dread reform. +Their policy is "Redistribution." Those great episcopal incomes +are again threatened; the Bishops are to be delivered from that +burden of wealth which presses so hardly on them; and the slum +parson is to have a living wage. But the incumbent, though his +income may thus be increased, is by no means to have it all his +own way. His freehold in his benefice is to be abolished; and, even +while he retains his position, he is to have his duties assigned +to him, and his work arranged, by a "Parochial Church Council," in +which the "Pulpit Assistant" at Bethesda or Bethel may have her +place. Life and Liberty indeed! But further boons are in store for +us. We have at present two Archbishops, and, I hope, are thankful +for them. Under the new scheme we are promised eight, or even nine. +"Showers of blessing," as the hymn says! I presume that the six (or +seven) new Archbishops are to be paid out of the "redistributed" +incomes of the existing two. The believers in "Life and Liberty" +humanely propose to compensate the Archbishop of Canterbury for +the diminution of his £15,000 a year by letting him call himself +a "Patriarch," but I can hardly fancy a Scotsman regarding this +as a satisfactory bargain. + +But how are these and similar boons to be attained? The promoters of +Life and Liberty (not, I fancy, without a secret hope of frightening +the Bishops into compliance with their schemes) affirm their readiness +to accept Disestablishment "if no other way to self-government seems +feasible"; but they, themselves, prefer a less heroic method. While +retaining the dignity of Establishment and the opulence of Endowment, +they propose that the Church should have "power to legislate on all +matters affecting the Church, subject to Parliamentary veto.... +This proposal has the immense practical advantage that, whereas it +is now necessary to secure time for the passage of any measure +through Parliament, if this scheme were adopted it would become +necessary for the opponent or obstructor to find time to prevent +its passage. The difference which this would make in practice is +enormous." It is indeed; and the proposal is interesting as a choice +specimen of what the world knows (and dislikes) as Ecclesiastical +Statesmanship. + +"Life and Liberty"--there is music in the very words; and, ever +since I was old enough to have an opinion on serious matters, I +have cherished them as the ideals for the Church to which I belong. +From the oratory of Queen's Hall and the "slim" statesmanship which +proposes to steal a march on the House of Commons I turn to that +great evangelist, Arthur Stanton, who wrote as follows when Welsh +Disestablishment was agitating the clerical mind. + +"Nothing will ever reconcile me to the Establishment of Christ's +Church on earth by Sovereigns or Parliaments. It is established +by God on Faith and the Sacraments, and so endowed, and all other +pretended establishment and endowment to me is profane." And again: + +"Taking away endowments doesn't affect me; but what does try me +is the inheriting them, and denying the faith of the donors--and +then talking of sacrilege. The only endowment of Christ's Church +comes from the Father and the Son, and is the Holy Ghost, Which +no man can give and no man can take away.'" + +Here, if you like, is the authentic voice of Life and Liberty. + + + + +V + +_LOVE AND PUNISHMENT_ + +Lord Hugh Cecil is, I think, one of the most interesting figures +in the public life of the time. Ten years ago I regarded him as the +future leader of the Tory party and a predestined Prime Minister. Of +late years he has seemed to turn away from the strifes and intrigues +of ordinary politics, and to have resigned official ambition to his +elder brother; but his figure has not lost--rather has gained--in +interest by the change. Almost alone among our public men, he seems +to have "his eyes fixed on higher lodestars" than those which guide +Parliamentary majorities. He avows his allegiance to those moral +laws of political action of which John Bright so memorably said +that "though they were not given amid the thunders of Sinai, they +are not less the commandments of God." + +Now, the fearless utterance of this ethical creed does not tend +to popularity. Englishmen will bear a good deal of preaching, so +long as it is delivered from the pulpit; but when it is uttered +by the lips of laymen, and deals with public problems, it arouses +a curious irritation. That jovial old heathen, Palmerston, once +alluded to Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend Member"; Gladstone's +splendid appeals to faith and conscience were pronounced "d----d +copy-book-y"; and Lord Houghton, who knew the world as well as most +men, said, "Does it ever strike you that nothing shocks people so +much as any immediate and practical application of the character +and life of Christ?" + +Lord Hugh Cecil need not mind the slings and arrows of outrageous +partisanship, so long as he shares them with Bright and Gladstone. +Just lately, his pronouncement that we ought to love the Germans, +as our fellow-citizens in the Kingdom of God on earth, has provoked +very acrid criticism from some who generally share his political +beliefs; and in a Tory paper I noticed the singularly inept gibe +that this doctrine was "medieval." For my own part I should scarcely +have thought that an undue tendency to love one's enemies was a +characteristic trait of the Middle Age, or that Englishmen and +Frenchmen, Guelphs and Ghibellines, were inclined to sink their +racial differences in the unity of Christian citizenship. Lord Hugh's +doctrine might be called by some modern and by others primitive; but +medieval it can only be called on the principle that, in invective, +a long word, is better than a short one. + +Having thus repelled what I think a ridiculous criticism, I will +admit that Lord Hugh's doctrine raises some interesting, and even +disputable, points. In the first place, there is the theory of +the Universal Church as the Divine Kingdom on earth, and of the +citizenship in which all its members are united. I grant the theory; +but I ask myself if I am really bound by it to love all these my +fellow-citizens, whatever their conduct and character may be. Love +is an elastic word; and, if I am to love the Germans, I must love +them in some very different sense from that in which I love my country +and my race. It really is, in another form, the old controversy +between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity" +is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of the +human family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment, +impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without, +cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wish +devoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and mind--that +all the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one law of right +and wrong; but when some members of the family, some citizens of +the kingdom, have "given themselves over to a reprobate mind," +our love must be reserved for those who still own the claim of +righteousness. If our own country stood as a solitary champion +of right against a world in unrighteous arms, patriotism would be +a synonym for religion, and cosmopolitanism for sin. + +And then again I ask myself this question: Even assuming that Lord +Hugh is right, and that it is our bounden duty to love the Germans, +is love inconsistent with punishment? We postulate the love of God +towards mankind, and we rightly regard it as the highest manifestation +of what love means; but is it inconsistent with punishment for +unrighteous action? Neither Revelation, nor Nature, nor History, +knows anything of the conception which has been embodied in the +words, "a good-natured God." Of Revelation I will not speak at +length, for this is not the place for theological discussion; I +only remark in passing that the idea of punishment for wrong-doing +is not, as some sciolists imagine, confined to the Old Testament, +though there it is seen in its most startling form; in the New +Testament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul's +Master, as a manifestation of love--not vindictive, but remedial. +The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate the +Divine dealings with insubordinate mankind. About Nature we need +scarcely argue. "In the physical world there is no forgiveness of +sins," and rebellion against the laws of righteous living brings +penal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet again, has +History any more unmistakable lesson than that "for every false +word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust +or vanity, the price has to be paid at last"? Froude was right. +"Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes +at last to them, in French Revolutions and other terrible ways." + +What we believe of the Divine Love, thus dealing with human +transgression, we may well believe of human love, when it is called +by duty to chastise unrighteousness. I do not suppose that John +Stuart Mill was actuated by hatred of Palmer or Pritchard or any +other famous malefactor of his time when he said that there are some +people so bad that they "ought to be blotted out of the catalogue +of living men." It was the dispassionate judgment of philosophy +on crime. When the convicted murderer exclaimed, "Don't condemn +me to death; I am not fit to die!" a great Judge replied, "I know +nothing about that; I only know that you are not fit to live"; but +I do not suppose that he hated the wretch in the dock. Even so, +though it may be our duty to love our enemies as our fellow-citizens +in the kingdom of God, we need not shrink, when the time comes, from +being the ministers of that righteous vengeance which, according +to the immutable order of the world, is prepared for impenitent +wrong-doing. + + + + +VI + +_HATRED AND LOVE_ + +I lately saw the following sentence quoted from Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle: "Hatred steels the mind and sets the resolution as no other +emotion can do." The enlightened conscience of humanity (to say +nothing of Christianity) repudiates this sentiment as ethically +unsound and historically untrue; and yet, erroneous as it is, it +is worth pondering for the sake of a truth which it overstates. + +However little we may like to make the confession in the twentieth +century of the Christian era, hatred is a very real power, and +there is more of it at work in civilized society than we always +recognize. It is, in truth, an abiding element of human nature, and +is one of those instincts which we share with the lower animals. +"The great cur showed his teeth; and the devilish instincts of his +old wolf-ancestry looked out from his eyes, and yawned in his wide +mouth and deep red gullet." Oliver Wendell Holmes was describing +a dog's savagery; but he would have been the first to admit that an +exactly similar spirit may be concealed--and not always concealed--in +a human frame. We have lived so long, if not under the domination, +still in the profession, of the Christian ethic, that people generally +are ashamed to avow a glaringly anti-Christian feeling. Hence the +poignancy of the bitter saying: "I forgive him as a Christian--which +means that I don't forgive him at all." Under a decent, though +hypocritical, veil of religious commonplace, men go on hating one +another very much as they hated in Patriarchal Palestine or Imperial +Rome. + +Hatred generally has a personal root. An injury or an insult received +in youth may colour the feelings and actions of a whole lifetime. +"Revenge is a dish which can be eaten cold"; and there are unhappy +natures which know no enjoyment so keen as the satisfaction of a +long-cherished grudge. There is an even deeper depravity which +hates just in proportion to benefits received; which hates because +it is enraged by a high example; which hates even more virulently +because the object of its hatred is meek or weak or pitiable. "I +have read of a woman who said that she never saw a cripple without +longing to throw a stone at him. Do you comprehend what she meant? +No? Well, I do." It was a woman who wrote the words. + +The less abhorrent sort of hatred (if one can discriminate where +all is abominable) is the hatred which has no personal root, but +is roused by invincible dislike of a principle or a cause. To this +type belong controversial hatreds, political hatreds, international +hatreds. Jael is the supreme instance of this hatred in action, +and it is only fair to assume that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had this +kind of hatred in his mind when he wrote the sentence which I quoted +above. But hatred, which begins impersonally, has a dangerous habit +of becoming personal as it warms to its work; and an emotion which +started by merely wishing to check a wrong deed may develop before +long into a strong desire to torture the wrong-doer. Whatever be the +source from which it springs, hatred is a powerful and an energetic +principle. It is capable, as we all know, of enormous crimes; but +it does not despise the pettiest methods by which it can injure +its victim. "Hatred," said George Eliot, "is like fire--it makes +even light rubbish deadly." + +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perfectly right when he says that hatred +"steels the mind and sets the resolution." If he had stopped there, +I should not have questioned his theory. Again and again one has seen +indolent, flabby, and irresolute natures stimulated to activity and +"steeled" into hardness by the deep, though perhaps unuttered, desire +to repay an insult or avenge an injury. It is in his superlative +that Sir Arthur goes astray. When he affirms that hatred "steels +the mind and sets the resolution as no other emotion can do," his +psychology is curiously at fault. There is another emotion quite as +powerful as hatred to "steel the mind and set the resolution"--and +the name of this other emotion is love. It required some resolution +and a "steeled" mind for Father Damien to give himself in early +manhood to the service of a leper-struck island, living amid, and +dying of, the foul disease which he set out to tend. It was love +that steeled John Coleridge Patteson to encounter death at the +hands of "savage men whom he loved, and for whose sake he gave +up home and country and friends dearer than his life." There was +"steel" in the resolve which drew Henry Martyn from the highest +honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitude +of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decision +when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, +fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to the task of evangelizing +India. + +But it is not only in the missionary field, or in any other form +of ecclesiastical activity, that the steeling effect of love on +the human will is manifested. John Howard devoted the comforts +and advantages which pertain to a position in the opulent Middle +Class to the purely philanthropic work of Prison Reform; and Lord +Shaftesbury used the richer boons of rank and eloquence and political +opportunity for the deliverance of tortured lunatics, and climbing +boys and factory slaves. If ever I knew a man whose resolution +was "steeled," it was this honoured friend of my early manhood, +and the steeling power was simply love. A humbler illustration +of the same spirit may be supplied by the instance of one whom +worldly people ridiculed and who "for fifty years seized every +chance of doing kindness to a man who had tormented him at school"; +and this though a boy's nature is "wax to receive, and marble to +retain." The name of E. C. Hawtrey is little remembered now even +by Eton men, but this tribute to the power of love ought not to +be withheld. + +I am only too painfully aware that we live just now in conditions +in which love must take the aspect of severity; in which the mind +must be "steeled" and the resolution "set" for a solemn work of +international justice. But hatred will not help us; for hatred +is fundamentally at variance with that moral law which we daily +and hourly invoke as the sanction of our enterprise. Hatred is +natural enough, and at least as old as the Fall of Man; but its +doom was pronounced by a Teacher Who said to His disciples: "A +new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." Twelve +men heard and heeded that new commandment, and they changed the +face of the world. Are we to abjure the doctrine which wrought +this change, and give heed to the blind guides who would lure us +straight back to barbarism? + + "What though they come with scroll and pen, + And grave as a shaven clerk, + By this sign shall ye know them, + That they ruin and make dark; + + "By thought a crawling ruin, + By life a leaping mire, + By a broken heart in the breast of the world, + And the end of the world's desire; + + "By God and man dishonoured, + By death and life made vain, + Know ye the old Barbarian, + The Barbarian come again."[*] + +[Footnote *: G. K. Chesterton.] + + + + +VII + +_THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE_ + +"By your endurance ye shall make your souls your own." If the origin +of this saying were unknown, one could fancy much ingenious conjecture +about it; but no one, I think, would attribute it to an English +source. An Englishman's idea of self-realization is action. If +he is to be truly himself he must be doing something; life for +him means energy. To be laid on one side, and to exist only as +a spectator or a sufferer, is the last method of making his soul +his own which would occur to him. _Dolce far niente_ is a phrase +which could never have originated on English soil. The greater the +difficulties by which he is confronted, the more gnawing becomes +the Englishman's, hunger for action. "Something must be done!" is +his instinctive cry when dangers or perplexities arise, and he +is feverishly eager to do it. What exactly "it" should be, and +how it may be most wisely done, are secondary, and even tertiary, +considerations. "Wisdom is profitable to direct"; but the need +for wisdom is not so generally recognized in England as the need +for courage or promptitude or vigour. + +Some of the shallower natures find a substitute for action in speech. +If only they talk loud enough and long enough, they feel that they +are doing something valuable towards the desired end, and they +find others, still weaker than themselves, who take their words +at their own valuation. Who does not recall moments of the present +war when the man-in-the-street has exclaimed, "That was a splendid +speech of Blower's! I feel now that we are on the right line"; or, +"After what Bellowell said last night, there can be no going back +to the discredited policy"? The man-in-the-street did not realize +that Blower's words are only articulated air, or that Bellowell +could speak with equal effect whether his brief were to defend +Belgium or to annex her. But alike the Englishman who acts and +the Englishman who talks look askance on the people who think. Our +national history is a history of action, in religion, in politics, +in war, in discovery. It is only now and then that an Englishman +can allow himself a moment for contemplation, for the endeavour +to "see into the life of things," for contact with those spiritual +realities of which phenomena are only the shadows. Burke did it, +but then he was an Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did it, but then +he was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a Scotsman. May +I add that the present Prime Minister does it, but then he is a +Welshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; it is +to them a religion, and it takes the place of a philosophy. + +At this moment all England is acting, from the King and the War +Cabinet to the children who play at soldiers in the gutter. There +is no distinction of class, or sex, or temperament. All alike feel +that they must be doing something to win the war, and that they +would die or go mad if they were restrained from action. Limitations, +physical or mental, incapacities for effort, restrictions of +opportunity, gall as they never galled before. To compare great +things with small, the whole nation pulsates with the spirit of +the fiercely contested cricket-match: + + "Oh, good lads in the field they were, + Laboured and ran and threw; + But we that sat on the benches there + Had the hardest work to do!" + +Action, then, is the creed and the consolation of the English race, +and God forbid that we should disparage that on which national +salvation depends. The war must be won by action; but in the strain +and stress of these tremendous days we are tempted to forget that +there is something to be won or lost besides the war. It is possible +to conquer on the Western front, and at the same time to be defeated +on the not less important field of moral being. The promise which +heads this paper was uttered in full view of an impending agony +which should crush religion and civilization into powder. We can +realize the consternation with which a patriotic audience heard +those premonitions from the lips of a patriotic Teacher; but in +the midst of all that was harrowing and heart-rending came the +promise of triumph through endurance. "Ye shall make your souls +your own." The gloomy and the cheerful prediction were alike made +good. + + "The East bow'd low before the blast + In patient, deep disdain; + She let the legions thunder past, + And plunged in thought again. + + "So well she mused, a morning broke + Across her spirit grey; + A conquering, new-born joy awoke, + And fill'd her life with day." + +The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before the +newly discovered Cross. Endurance won. + +And so it has been from that time to this. The triumphs of endurance +have no end. The barbarism of the Cæsars, the barbarism of Islam, +the barbarism of Odin and Thor, all in turn did their uttermost +to destroy the new religion. Persecution fell, not on armed men +strong to resist, but on slaves and women and boys and girls. "We +could tell of those who fought with savage beasts, yea, of maidens +who stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into the +ring. We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfully +as we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fire +and the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls." These +were the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, +by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith for +which they gave their lives. It did not take Rome long to discover +that "the blood of Christians is seed." + +The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, on +the other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored. It +was a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years' +war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, +commemorates the supreme example of endurance. As far as action +is concerned, the national will is not in the slightest danger +of collapse. The British nation will plan, and work and fight for +ever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Though +our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may +ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; +to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted +agony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which we +profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. +It is just by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we can +make our souls our own. If we went into the war believing in the +sacredness of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, it +would be a moral collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, +imperialism, and the rule of the strong. "He that endureth to the +end shall be saved." On that "end" we must keep heart and eye +unflinchingly fixed; and strive to add one more to the age-long +triumphs of endurance. + + + + +VIII + +_A SOLEMN FARCE_ + +Sweet to the antiquarian palate are the fragments of Norman French +which still survive in the formularies of the Constitution. In +Norman French the King acknowledges the inconceivable sums which +from time to time his faithful Commons place at his disposal for +the prosecution of the war. In Norman French the Peers of the Realm +are summoned to their seats in Parliament which they adorn. In Norman +French, the Royal Assent has just been given to a Bill which doubles +the electorate and admits over six million women to the franchise. +All these things are dear to the antiquary, the historian, and +(perhaps we should add) the pedant, as witnessing to the unbroken +continuity of our constitutional forms, though the substance of +our polity has been altered beyond all recognition. + +Another instance of Norman French which has lately emerged into +unusual prominence is the "Congé d'élire." We can trace this "Licence +to Elect" from the days of the Great Charter downwards; but it will +suffice for my present purpose to recall the unrepealed legislation +of Henry VIII. "It was then enacted that, at every future avoidance +of a bishopric, the King may send to the Dean and Chapter his usual +licence (called his 'Congé d'Élire') to proceed to election; which +is always, accompanied by a Letter Missive from the King containing +the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the Dean +and Chapter delay their election above twelve days the nomination +shall devolve to the King, who may then by Letters Patent appoint +such person as he pleases.... And, if such Dean and Chapter do not +elect in the manner by their Act appointed they shall incur all +the penalties of a præmunire--that is, the loss of all civil rights, +with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment, +during the Royal pleasure." + +Such are the singular conditions under which the Church of England +now exercises that right of electing her chief pastors which has +been from the beginning the heritage of Christendom. It would be +difficult to imagine a more dexterous use of chicanery, preserving +the semblance but carefully precluding the reality of a free choice. +We all know something of Deans and Chapters--the well-endowed +inhabitants of cathedral closes--and of those "greater Chapters" +which consist of Honorary Canons, longing for more substantial +preferment. It would indeed require a very bold flight of fancy +to imagine those worthy and comfortable men exposing themselves to +the "loss of civil rights, the forfeiture of goods and chattels, +and imprisonment during the King's pleasure," for a scruple of +conscience about the orthodoxy of a divine recommended by the Crown. +Truly in a capitular election, if anywhere, the better part of +valour is discretion, and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford have +realized this saving truth. But my view is wholly independent of +local or personal issues, and is best expressed by these words of +Arthur Stanton, true Catholic and true Liberal: "I am strongly +in favour of Disestablishment, and always have been. The connexion +between Church and State has done harm to both--more, however, +to the Church. Take our plan of electing Bishops. In the early +centuries they were elected by the people--as they ought to be. +Now they are chosen, sometimes by a Tory, sometimes by a Radical +Government. The Dean and Chapter meet and ask the guidance of the +Holy Ghost to enable them to choose, knowing all the while they have +the 'Letter Missive' in their pockets. To me this comes perilously +near blasphemy." + +But let us suppose an extreme case. Let us imagine a Dean and Chapter +so deeply impressed by the unsuitableness of the Crown's nominee +that they refuse to elect him. Here, again, the law dodges us. +Except as a protest their refusal would have not the slightest +effect. The Crown has nothing to do but issue Letters Patent in +favour of its nominee, and he would be as secure of his bishopric as +if the Chapter had chosen him with one consent of heart and voice. +True, he would not yet be a Bishop; for the episcopal character can +only be conferred by consecration, and at this point the Archbishop +becomes responsible. To him the King signifies the fact that Dr. +Proudie has been elected to the See of Barchester, requiring him to +"confirm, invest, and consecrate" that divine. Should the Archbishop +refuse compliance with this command, he exposes himself to exactly +the same penalties as would be inflicted on a recalcitrant Chapter, +only with this aggravation--that he has more to lose. When my good +friend the Bishop of Oxford addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury, +imploring him to withhold consecration from Dr. Henson, he made a +valiant and faithful protest against what he holds to be a flagitious +action on the part of the Crown; but, knowing the respected occupant +of Lambeth as well as he does, I think he must have anticipated +the reply which, as a matter of fact, he received. + +Such being the absurdities and unrealities which surround the Congé +d'Élire, one naturally asks, Why not abolish it? This question was +raised in a pointed form by the late Mr. C. J. Monk, for many years +Liberal M.P. for the City of Gloucester, who, in 1880, introduced a +Bill to abolish the Congé and to place the appointment of Bishops +formally, as it is really, in the hands of the Prime Minister. He +urged the painful sense of unreality which clings to the whole +transaction, and the injury to religion which is involved in thus +paltering in a double sense with sacred forms and words. It is +amusing to those who can recall the two men to remember that Mr. +Monk was opposed by Lord Randolph Churchill, who thought he perceived +in the proposal some dark design hostile to the interests of the +Established Church; but the important speech was made by Gladstone. +That great man, always greatest in debate when his case was weakest, +opposed the abolition of the Congé. He deprecated any legislation +which would interfere with one of the most delicate functions of +the Crown, and he insisted that the true path of reform lay, not +in the abolition of the form of election, but in an attempt to +re-invest it with some elements of reality. This was well enough, +and eminently characteristic of his reverence for ancient forms +of constitutional action; but what was more surprising was that, +speaking from long and intimate experience of its practical working +he maintained that the Congé d'Élire, even under the nullifying +conditions now attached to it, was "a moral check upon the prerogatives +of the Crown," which worked well rather than ill. "I am," he said, +"by no means prepared to say that, from partial information or +error, a Minister might not make an appointment to which this moral +obstacle might be set up with very beneficial effect. It would +tend to secure care in the selections, and its importance cannot +be overstated." + +I must confess, with the greatest respect for my old leader, that +the "importance" of the Congé d'Élire as a restraint upon the actions +of the Prime Minister can be very easily "overstated." Indeed, the +Congé could only be important if the Capitular Body to which the +"Letter Missive" is addressed have the courage of conscientious +disobedience, and were prepared to face, for the sake of imperilled +truth, the anger of the powers that be and the laughter of the +world. Courage of that type is a plant of slow growth in Established +Churches; and as long as my friends hug the yoke of Establishment, +I cannot sympathize with them when they cry out against its galling +pressure. To complainants of that class the final word was addressed +by Gladstone, nearly seventy years ago: "You have our decision: take +your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright +of the Bride of Christ." + + + + +IV + +POLITICS + + + + +I + +_MIRAGE_ + +"Operations had to be temporarily suspended owing to the mirage." +This sentence from one of Sir Stanley Maude's despatches struck me +as parabolic. There are other, and vaster, issues than a strategic +victory on the Diala River which have been "suspended owing to the +mirage." Let us apply the parable. + +The parched caravan sees, half a mile ahead, the gleaming lake +which is to quench its thirst. It toils along over the intervening +distance, only to find that Nature has been playing a trick. The +vision has vanished, and what seemed to be water is really sand. +There can be no more expressive image of disillusionment. + +To follow the "Mirage" of receding triumph through long years of +hope deferred was the lot of Labour generally, and it was especially +the lot of agricultural labour. The artisans gained their political +enfranchisement in 1867, and, though they made remarkably little use +of it, still they had the power, if they had the will, to better +their condition. But the agricultural labourers remained inarticulate, +unnoticed, unrepresented. A Tory orator, said--and many of his class +agreed with him, though they were too prudent to say it--that the +labourer was no fitter for the vote than the beasts he tended. But +there were others who knew the labourers by personal contact, and +by friendly intercourse had been able to penetrate their necessary +reserve; and we (for I was one of these) knew that our friends in +the furrow and the cow-shed were at least as capable of forming +a solid judgment as their brethren in the tailor's shop and the +printing-works. There was nothing of the new Radicalism in this--it +was as old as English history. The toilers on the land had always +been aspiring towards freedom, though social pressure made them +wisely dumb. Cobbett and Cartwright, and all the old reformers +who kept the lamp of Freedom alive in the dark days of Pitt and +Liverpool and Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" of +the agricultural poor, and noted with indignation the successive +invasions of their freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs and +trials for sedition, and all the other implements of tyranny. + + "The Good Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, + And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies + To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies, + Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries." + +To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirage +appeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Bill +could pass into law, the reign of injustice and oppression would +cease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor would +rejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. But no sooner was the +Royal Assent given to the Bill than the Mirage--that deceitful +image of joy and refreshment--receded into the dim distance, and +men woke to the disheartening fact that, though power had been +transferred from the aristocracy to the middle class, the poor were +as badly off as ever. The visible effects of that disillusionment +were Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, and there was a deep +undercurrent of sullen anger which seldom found expression. As +late as the General Election of 1868 an old man in the duke-ridden +borough of Woodstock declined to vote for the Liberal candidate +expressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. Before 1832, he +said, arms had been stored in his father's cottage to be used if +the Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and the arms were +not required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porth +the better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics, +and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age was +added to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger men +hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with its +treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting on +its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, forced the labourer's +wants and claims upon the attention of the land-owners, the farmers, +and the clergy. + +Those who had been brought by early association into touch with +the agricultural population knew only too well how deep and just +was the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning for +better chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourer +seemed to be the first step towards the improvement of his lot. +The General Election of 1880 was, as nearly as our constitutional +forms admit, a plébiscite on foreign policy; but to many a man who +was then beginning public life the emancipation of the labourer was +an object quite as dear as the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield. +It was not for nothing that we had read _Hodge and His Masters_, +and we were resolved that henceforward "Hodge" should be not a +serf or a cipher, but a free man and a self-governing citizen. + +We carried our Bill in 1884, and as the General Election of 1885 +drew on, it was touching to feel the labourer's gratitude to all +who had helped him in the attainment of his rights. By that time +Gladstone had lost a great deal of his popularity in the towns, +where Chamberlain was the hero. But in the rural districts the +people worshipped Gladstone, and neither knew nor cared for any +other politician. His was the name to conjure with. His picture +hung in every cottage. His speeches were studied and thumbed by +hard hands till the paper was frayed into tatters. It was Gladstone +who had won the vote for the labourer, and it was Gladstone who was +to lead them into the Land of Promise. "Three Acres and a Cow," +from being a joke, had passed into a watchword, though Gladstone +had never given it the faintest sanction. And the labourers vaguely +believed that the possession of the vote would bring them some +material benefit. So they voted for Gladstone with solid enthusiasm, +and placed their Mirage in his return to power. But alas! they only +realized a new and a more tragical disappointment. In January, +1886, an amendment to the Address embodying the principle of "Three +Acres and a Cow" was carried against the Tory Government; Gladstone +became Prime Minister, and the disconsolate labourers found that +the Mirage had cheated them once again. It is not easy to depict +the sorrow and mortification which ensued on this discovery. The +vote, after all, was only a Dead Sea apple. The energies which +were to have been bestowed on the creation of better surroundings +for English labourers were suddenly transferred to the creation +of an Irish Parliament, and in wide areas of rural population the +labourers sank back again into hopelessness and inactivity. Once +bit, twice shy. They had braved the wrath of their employers and +all the banded influences of the Hall and the Vicarage in order +to vote Liberal in December, 1885. They had got nothing by their +constancy; and in six months, when they were again incited to the +poll, they shook their heads and abstained. The disillusionment +of the labourers gave the victory of 1886 to the Tories, and kept +the Liberals out of power for twenty years. + + + + +II + +_MIST_ + +"Mistiness is the Mother of Wisdom." If this sarcastic dogma be +true, we are living in a generation pre-eminently wise. A "season +of mists" it unquestionably is; whether it is equally marked by +"mellow fruitfulness" is perhaps more disputable. + +My path in life is metaphorically very much what Wordsworth's was +literally. "I wander, lonely as a cloud that floats on high, o'er +vales and hills." I find hills and vales alike shrouded in mist. +Everyone is befogged, and the guesses as to where exactly we are +and whither we are tending are various and perplexing. While all +are, in truth, equally bewildered, people take their bewilderment +in different ways. Some honestly confess that they cannot see a +yard in front of them; others profess a more penetrating vision, +and affect to be quite sure of what lies ahead. It is a matter +of temperament; but the professors of clear sight are certainly +less numerous than they were three years ago. + +We are like men standing on a mountain when the mist rolls up from +the valley. At first we all are very cheerful, and assure one another +that it will pass away in half an hour, leaving our path quite +clear. Then by degrees we begin to say that it promises to be a +more tedious business than we expected, and we must just wait in +patience till the clouds roll by. At length we frankly confess to +one another that we have completely lost our bearings, and that +we dare not move a foot for fear we should tumble into the abyss. +In this awkward plight our "strength is to sit still"; but, even +while we so sit, we try to keep ourselves warm by remembering that +the most persistent mists do not last for ever. + +In one section of society I hear voices of melancholy vaticination. +"I don't believe," said one lady in my hearing--"I don't believe +that we shall ever again see six-feet footmen with powdered hair," +and a silent gloom settled on the company, only deepened by another +lady, also attached to the old order, who murmured: "Ah! and powdered +footmen are not the only things that we shall never see again." +Within twenty-four hours of this depressing dialogue I encounter +my democratic friend, the Editor of the _Red Flag_. He glories in +the fact that Labour has "come into its own," and is quite sure +that, unless it can get more to eat, it will cease to make munitions, +and so will secure an early, if not a satisfactory, peace. In vain +I suggest to my friend that his vision is obscured by the mist, +and that the apparition which thus strangely exhilarates him is +the creation of his own brain. + +Then I turn to the politicians, and of these it is to be remarked +that, however much befogged they may be, they always are certain +that they see much more clearly than the world at large. This +circumstance would invest their opinions with a peculiar authority, +if only they did not contradict one another flat. We are doubling +the electorate: what result will the General Election produce? +Politicians who belong to the family of Mr. Despondency and his +daughter, Muchafraid, reply that Monarchy will be abolished, Capital +"conscripted" (delightful verb), debt repudiated, and Anarchy enthroned. +Strangely dissimilar results are predicted by the Party-hacks, who, +being by lifelong habit trained to applaud whatever Government +does, announce with smug satisfaction that the British workman +loves property, and will use his new powers to conserve it; adores +the Crown, and feels that the House of Lords is the true protector +of his liberties. + +Again, there are publicists who (like myself) have all their lives +proclaimed their belief in universal suffrage as the one guarantee +of freedom. If we are consistent, we ought to rejoice in the prospect +now unfolding itself before us; but perhaps the mist has got into our +eyes. Our forefathers abolished the tyranny of the Crown. Successive +Reform Acts have abolished the tyranny of class. But what about the +tyranny of capital? Is Democracy safe from it? + +I do not pretend to be clearer-sighted than my neighbours; but in +the mist each of us sees the form of some evil which he specially +dislikes; and to my thinking Bureaucracy is just as grave a menace +to Freedom as Militarism, and in some ways graver, as being more +plausible. We used to call ourselves Collectivists, and we rejoiced +in the prospect of the State doing for us what we ought to do for +ourselves. We voted Political Economy a dismal science (which it +is), and felt sure that, if only the Government would take in hand +the regulation of supply and demand, the inequalities of life would +be adjusted, everyone would be well fed, and everyone would be +happy. As far as we can see through the blinding mist which now +surrounds us, it looks as if the State were about as competent +to control trade as to control the weather. Bureaucracy is having +its fling, and when the mist clears off it will stand revealed +as a well-meant (and well-paid) imposture. + +Closely related to all these problems is the problem of the women's +vote. Here the mist is very thick indeed. Those who have always +favoured it are naturally sanguine of good results. Women will +vote for peace; women will vote for temperance; women will vote +for everything that guards the sanctity of the home. Those who +have opposed the change see very different consequences. Women +will vote for war; women will vote as the clergyman bids them; +women will vote for Socialism. All this is sheer guess-work, and +very misty guess-work too. + +And yet once more. There are (though this may to some seem strange) +people who consider the Church at least as important as the State, +and even more so, inasmuch as its concernments relate to an eternal +instead of a transitory order. What are the prospects of the Church? +Here the mists are thicker than ever. Is the ideal of the Free +Church in the Free State any nearer realization than it was three +years ago? All sorts of discordant voices reach me through the +layers of cloud. Some cry, "Our one hope for national religion +is to rivet tighter than ever the chains which bind the Church +to the chariot-wheels of the State." Others reply, "Break those +chains, and let us go free--even without a roof over our heads or +a pound in our pockets." And there is a third section--the party +which, as Newman said, attempts to steer between the Scylla of +Aye and the Charybdis of No through the channel of no meaning, +and this section cries for some reform which shall abolish the +cynical mockery of the Congé d'Élire, and secure to the Church, +while still established and endowed, the self-governing rights +of a Free Church. In ecclesiastical quarters the mist is always +particularly thick. + +Certainly at this moment, if ever in our national life, we must +be content to "walk by faith and not by sight." This chapter began +with imagery, and with imagery it shall end. "I have often stood +on some mountain peak, some Cumbrian or Alpine hill, over which +the dim mists rolled; and suddenly, through one mighty rent in +that cloudy curtain, I have seen the blue heaven in all its beauty, +and, far below my feet, the rivers and cities and cornfields of +the plain sparkled in the heavenly sunlight." + +That is, in a figure, the vision for which we must hope and pray. + + + + +III + +"_DISSOLVING THROES_" + +I borrow my title from a poet. + + "He grew old in an age he condemned; + He looked on the rushing decay + Of the times which had sheltered his youth; + Felt the dissolving throes + Of a social order he loved." + +It seems odd that Matthew Arnold should have spoken thus about +Wordsworth; for one would have expected that the man who wrote so +gloriously of the French Revolution, "as it appeared to enthusiasts +at its commencement," would have rejoiced in the new order which it +established for all Europe. But the younger poet knew the elder +with an intimacy which defies contradiction; and one must, I suppose, +number Wordsworth among those who, in each succeeding age, have +shed tears of useless regret over the unreturning past. Talleyrand +said that, to know what an enjoyable thing life was capable of +being, one must have been a member of the _ancienne noblesse_ before +the Revolution. It was the cynical and characteristic utterance +of a nature singularly base; but even the divine Burke (though he +had no personal or selfish interests in the matter) was convinced +that the Revolution had not only destroyed political freedom, but +also social welfare, and had "crushed everything respectable and +virtuous in the nation." What, in the view of Burke and Talleyrand, +the Revolution did for France, that, by a curious irony of fate, +our attempt to defeat the Revolution did for England. Burke forced +us into the Revolutionary War, and that war (as Gladstone once said +in a letter to the present writer) "almost unmade the liberties, +the Constitution, even the material interests and prosperity, of our +country." Patriots like William Cobbett and Sydney Smith, though +absolutely convinced that the war was just and necessary, doubted +if England could ever rally from the immense strain which it had +imposed on her resources, or regain the freedom which, in order +to beat France, she had so lightly surrendered. + +At a time when Manchester was unrepresented and Gatton sent two +Members to Parliament, it was steadily maintained by lovers of the +established order that the proposed enlargement of the electorate +was "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the +necessary restraints of social obligation." If it were carried, +religion, morality, and property would perish together, and our +venerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousand +years have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hour +may lay her in the dust." In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, +the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubt +that the Reform Bill is a stepping-stone in England to a republic, +and in Ireland to separation. Both _may_ happen without the Bill, +but with it they are inevitable." Next year the Bill became law. +Lord Bathurst cut off his pigtail, exclaiming: "Ichabod, for the +glory is departed"--an exquisitely significant combination of act +and word--and the Duke of Wellington announced that England had +accomplished "a revolution by due course of law." In some sense the +words were true. Political power had passed from the aristocracy +to the middle class. The English equivalents of Talleyrand--the +men who directly or in their ancestors had ruled England since +1688, had enjoyed power without responsibility, and privilege which +alike Kings and mobs had questioned in vain--were filled with the +wildest alarms. Emotional orators saw visions of the guillotine; +calmer spirits anticipated the ballot-box; and the one implement +of anarchy was scarcely more dreaded than the other. + +Sixteen years passed. Property and freedom seemed pretty secure. Even +privilege, though shaken, had not been overthrown; and a generation +had grown up to which the fears of revolution seemed fantastic. Then +suddenly came the uprising of the nations in '48; and once again +"dissolving throes" were felt, with pain or joy according to the +temperament of those who felt them. "We have seen," said Charles +Greville, "such a stirring-up of all the elements of society as +nobody ever dreamt of; we have seen a general saturnalia--ignorance, +vanity, insolence, poverty, ambition, escaping from every kind +of restraint, ranging over the world, and turning it topsy-turvy +as it pleased. All Europe exhibits the result--a mass of ruin, +terror, and despair." Matthew Arnold, young and ardent, and in +some ways democratic, wrote in a different vein: "The hour of the +hereditary peerage, and eldest sonship, and immense properties, +has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck." Seventy years +ago! And that "hour" has not struck yet! + +The "dissolving throes" were lulled again, and I scarcely made +themselves felt till 1866, when a mild attempt to admit the pick +of the artisans to the electoral privileges of the middle class +woke the panic-stricken vehemence of Robert Lowe. "If," he asked, +"you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of +intimidation; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent +people, where will you go to look for them--to the top or to the +bottom?" Well might Bishop Wilberforce report to a friend, "It was +enough to make the flesh creep to hear Bob Lowe's prognostications +for the future of England." + +Next year the artisans got the vote, though the great Lord Shaftesbury, +who knew more than most of his peers about working-men, plainly +told the House of Lords that "a large proportion of the working +classes have a deep and solemn conviction that property is not +distributed as property ought to be; that some checks ought to +be kept upon the accumulation of property in single hands; and +that to take away by legislation that which is in excess with a +view to bestowing it on those who have less, is not a breach of +any law, human or Divine." + +Yet once more. When in 1885 the agricultural labourers (of whom a +Tory M.P. said that they were no fitter for a vote than the beasts +they tended), were admitted to the franchise, the same terrors +shook the squirearchy. We were warned that the land would soon be +broken up into small holdings; that sport would become impossible; +and that "the stately homes of England" must all be closed, for +lack of money to keep them open. The country, we were told, had +seen its best days, and "Merry England" had vanished for ever. + +I only recall these "dissolving throes," real or imaginary, because +I fancy that just now they are again making themselves felt, and +perhaps with better reason than ever before in our history. People +who venture to look ahead are asking themselves this question: If +this war goes on much longer, what sort of England will emerge? +Some are looking forward with rapture to a new heaven and a new +earth; others dread the impending destruction "of a social order +they loved." Can we not trace something of this dread in Lord +Lansdowne's much-canvassed letter? He is one of the most patriotic +and most experienced men in public life; he "looks on the rushing +decay of the times which sheltered his youth"; and it may well be +that he is striving to avert what seems to him a social catastrophe. + + + + +IV + +_INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER_ + +As a rule, I call a spade a spade. When I mean _The Times_, I say +_The Times_, and I condemn the old-fashioned twaddle of talking +about "a morning contemporary." But to-day I depart from my rule +and content myself with saying that I lately read in an important +newspaper a letter dealing with Mr. Asquith's distinction between +"Prussian Militarism" and "German Democracy." For my own part, +I did not think that distinction very sound. The experience of +the last three years has led me to the conclusion that the German +democracy is to the full as bellicose as the military caste, and +that it has in no way dissociated itself from the abominable crimes +against decency and humanity which the military caste has committed. +I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized; +but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, one +is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitous +a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "double +dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as it +leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; and +when we see it deformed and degraded, we must look for the influence +which has been its bane. In dealing with individuals the enquiry is +comparatively simple, and the answer not far to seek. But when we +deal with nations we cannot, as a rule; point to a single figure, +or even a group of figures, and say, "He, or they, did the mischief." +We are forced to look wider and deeper, and we shall be well advised +if we learn from Burke to realize "the mastery of laws, institutions, +and government over the character and happiness of man." Let me +apply Burke's teaching to the case before us. + +The writer of the letter which I am discussing has a whole-hearted +dislike of the Germans, and especially of the Prussians; charges +them with "cruelty, brutal arrogance, deceit, cunning, manners +and customs below those of savages"; includes in the indictment +professors, commercial men, and women; recites the hideous list +of crimes committed during the present war; and roundly says that, +however you label him, "the Prussian will always remain a beast." + +I dispute none of these propositions. I believe them to be sadly +and bitterly true; but if I am to follow Burke's counsel, I must +enquire into the "laws, institutions, and government" which have +prevailed in Germany, and which have exercised so disastrous a +"mastery over the character and happiness of man." In this enquiry +it would be obvious to touch military ascendency, despotic monarchy, +representative institutions deprived of effective power, administration +made omnipotent, and bureaucratic interference with every detail of +human life. Sydney Smith's words about unreformed England apply +perfectly to modern Germany. "Of all ingenious instruments of despotism +I most commend a popular assembly where the majority are paid and +hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, make +the people believe they are free." + +But for our present purpose I must concentrate attention on another +institution which has had an even more direct and practical bearing +on the character of the German people--and this is the enforcement +of military service. This, like every other institution, must be +judged by its effects on the character of those who are subject +to it. The writer of the letter holds that "the only good thing +about the German nation" is the "national service through which +all men pass, and which makes soldiers of all not physically unfit, +and which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, +discipline, duty." Now, these words, read in connexion with the +description of the German people quoted above, suggest a puzzling +problem. The Germans are cruel, brutally arrogant, deceitful, and +cunning, and "the Prussian will always remain a beast." Yet these +same people have all passed through a discipline "which inculcates +patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty." Doth a +fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Does +the same system make men patriotic and cruel, loyal and arrogant, +obedient and deceitful, courageous and cunning, dutiful and beastly? + +Perhaps it does. I can conceive some of these pairs of qualities +united in a single character. A man might be a zealous patriot, +and yet horribly cruel; loyal to his Sovereign, but arrogant to +his inferiors; obedient to authority, yet deceitful among coequals; +courageous in danger, yet cunning in avoiding it; dutiful according +to his own standard of duty, and yet as "beastly" as the torturers +of Belgium. But a system which produces such a very chequered type +of character is scarcely to be commended. + +Now, the writer might reply, "I only said that the military system +_inculcated_ certain virtues. I did not say that it ensured them." +Then it fails. If it has produced only the "vile German race" which +the writer so justly dislikes, unredeemed by any of the virtues +which it "inculcates," then it has nothing to say for itself. It +stands confessed as an unmixed evil. + +It is right to expose a logical fallacy, but I am not fond of the +attempt to obscure by logic-chopping what is a writer's real meaning. +I will therefore say that, as far as I can make out, what this +particular writer really believes is that the German people, through +some innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turned +the inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their own +moral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, +in spite of a beneficent institution which would have made them +good and even pleasant. + +Here I take leave to differ, and to range myself on the side of +Burke. Great, indeed--nay, incalculable--is "the mastery of laws, +institutions, and government over the character and happiness of +man." The system is known by its fruits. We may think as badly as we +like of the Germans--as badly as they deserve--but we must remember +the "laws, institutions, and government" that have dominated their +national development. And this is not only a matter of just and +rational thinking, but is also a counsel of safety for ourselves. If, +as a result of this war, we allow our personal and social liberties +(rightly suspended for the moment) to be permanently abolished or +restricted; and, above all, if we bend our necks to the yoke of a +military despotism; we shall be inviting a profound degradation of +our national character. It would indeed be a tragical consummation +of our great fight for Freedom if, when it is over, the other nations +could point to us and say: "England has sunk to the moral level +of Germany." + + + + +V + +_REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS_ + +"A revolution by due course of law." This, as we have seen, was +the Duke of Wellington's description of the Reform Act of 1832, +which transferred the government of England from the aristocracy +to the middle class. Though eventually accomplished by law, it +did not pass without bloodshed and conflagration; and timid people +satisfied themselves that not only the downfall of England, but +the end of the world, must be close at hand. + +Twenty years passed, and nothing in particular happened. National +wealth increased, all established institutions seemed secure, and +people began to forget that they had passed through a revolution. +Then arose John Bright, reminding the working-men of the Midlands +that their fathers "had shaken the citadel of Privilege to its +base," and inciting them to give the tottering structure another +push. A second revolution seemed to be drawing near. Dickens put +on record, in chapter xxvi. of _Little Dorrit_, the alarms which +agitated respectable and reactionary circles. The one point, as +Dickens remarked, on which everyone agreed, was that the country +was in very imminent danger, and wanted all the preserving it could +get. Presently, but not till 1867, the second revolution arrived. +Some of the finest oratory ever heard in England was lavished on the +question whether the power, formerly exercised by the aristocracy +and more recently by the middle class, was to be extended to the +artisans. The great Lord Shaftesbury predicted "the destruction +of the Empire," and Bishop Wilberforce "did not see how we were +to escape fundamental changes in Church and State." "History," +exclaimed Lowe, "may record other catastrophes as signal and as +disastrous, but none so wanton and so disgraceful." However, the +artisans made a singularly moderate use of their newly acquired +power; voted Conservative as often as they voted Liberal; and so +again belied the apprehensions of the alarmists. + +When the workman of the town had been enfranchised, it was impossible +to keep his brother who worked on the land permanently in the position +of a serf or a cipher. So we began to agitate for the "County +Franchise"; and once again the cry of "Revolution" was heard--perhaps +in its most typical form from the lips of a Tory M.P., who, as +I said before, affirmed that the labourer was no fitter for the +suffrage than the beasts he tended. Even ten years later, Lord +Goschen, who was by nature distrustful of popular movements, +prognosticated that, if ever the Union with Ireland were lost, it +would be lost through the votes of the agricultural labourers. To +those who, like myself, were brought up in agricultural districts, +the notion that the labourer was a revolutionary seemed strangely +unreal; but it was a haunting obsession in the minds of clubmen +and town-dwellers. + +So, in each succeeding decade, the next extension of constitutional +freedom has been acclaimed by its supporters as an instalment of +the millennium, and denounced by its opponents as the destruction +of social order. So it had been, time out of mind; and so it would +have been to the end had not the European war burst upon us, and +shaken us out of all our habitual concernments. Now "the oracles +are dumb." The voices, of lugubrious prophecy are silent. The Reform +Act which has become law this year is beyond doubt the greatest +revolution which has as yet been effected "by due course of law." +It has doubled the electorate; it has enfranchised the women; it +has practically established universal suffrage; it has placed all +property, as well as all policy, under the control of a class, +if only that class chooses to vote and act together. All these +effects of the Act (except one) are objects which I have desired +to see attained ever since I was a boy at Harrow, supporting the +present Bishop of Oxford and the late Lord Grey in the School Debating +Society; so it is not for me to express even the faintest apprehension +of evil results. But I am deliberately of opinion that the change +now effected in our electoral arrangements is of farther-reaching +significance than the substitution of a republic for a monarchy; +and the amazing part of the business is that no one has protested +at any stage of it. We were told at the beginning of the war that +there was to be no controversial legislation till it was over. +That engagement was broken; no one protested. A vitally important +transaction was removed from the purview of Parliament to a secret +conference; no one protested. If we suggested that the House of +Commons was morally and constitutionally dead, and that it ought +to renew its life by an appeal to the constituencies before it +enforced a revolution, we were told that it was impossible to hold +a General Election with the soldiers all out of the country; but +now it seems that this is to be the next step, and no one protests +against it. + +But these may be dismissed as constitutional pedantries. So be +it. The Whigs, who made the Constitution, may be pardoned if they +have a sneaking regard for their handiwork. Much more astonishing +is the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealth +and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The +men of £100,000 a year--not numerous, according to the Chancellor +of the Exchequer, but influential--have been as meekly acquiescent +as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on +an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the +explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did +they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government +which is conducting a great war? Or did they, less laudably, shrink +from the prospect of appearing as the inveterate enemies of a social +and economic revolution which they saw to be inevitable? Let us +charitably incline to the former hypothesis. + +But there is something about this, our most recent revolution, +which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition and +panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least +attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible +to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world--but +pre-eminently Rations,--seemed more vital and more pressing. "The +Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficult +to get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm +sure James Lowther won't allow them to do anything very silly--but +I really cannot imagine how we are to get on without meat." Or +yet again: A triumphant Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister: +"So we've got the vote at last!" "What vote?" replied the sister. +"Surely we've had a vote for ever so long? I'm sure I have, though +I never used it." + +When the real history of this wonderful war is written, methinks +the historian will reckon among its most amazing features the fact +that it so absorbed the mind of the nation as to make possible a +'silent revolution.' + + + + +VI + +"_THE INCOMPATIBLES_" + +My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have ever +written wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify our +Sister Kingdom have been many and various--Disestablishment Acts, +Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and every other +variety of legislative experiment; but through them all Ireland +remained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons which she +had not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, with the +best intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. This +failure on the part of England may have been due to the fact that +Gladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himself +with Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact. +It is startling to read, in Lord Morley's _Life_ this casual record +of his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his first +and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks, +and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Of +the multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had little +chance of seeing much." + +One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolve +of Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition was +the "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable or +unwilling to supply. Late in life Gladstone discovered that Ireland +was a nation, and ought to be treated as such. As regards his own +share in the matter, the change came too late, and he went to the +grave leaving Ireland (in spite of two Home Rule Bills) still +unpacified; but his influence has lived and wrought, not only in +the Liberal party. The principle of Irish nationality has been +recognized in legislative form, and the most law-abiding citizen +in Great Britain might drink that toast of "Ireland a Nation" which +aforetime was considered seditious, if not treasonable. + +It was certainly a very odd prejudice of English Philistinism which +prevented us, for so many centuries, from recognizing a fact so palpable +as Irish nationality. If ever a race of men had characteristics of +its own, marking it out from its nearest neighbours, that race is +the Irish, and among the best of those characteristics are chastity, +courtesy, hospitality, humour, and fine manners. The intense Catholicism +of Ireland may be difficult for Protestants to applaud; yet most +certainly those who fail to take it into account are hopelessly +handicapped in the attempt to deal with Irish problems. The Irish +are born fighters. One of the most splendid passages which even +Irish oratory ever produced was that in which Sheill protested +against the insolence of stigmatizing the countrymen of Wellington +as "aliens" from England, and no policy could be more suicidal than +that which deflects the soldiership of Ireland from the British +cause. + +Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of having +brought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government, +and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written: +"We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelings +and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have +no sympathy." Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, or +can we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understand +the working of the Irish temperament? + +The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not between +the two nations which Providence has so closely knit together, +but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, and +sensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnold +lamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland, +and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine, +unmitigated Murdstone--the common middle-class Englishman, who +has come forth from Salem House--and Mr. Creakle. He is seen in +full force, of course, in the Protestant North; but throughout +Ireland he is a prominent figure of the English garrison. Him the +Irish see, see him only too much and too often"--and to see him +is to dislike him, and the country which sent him forth. + +Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings +of Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem House +have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have +converted--for the astonishment of after-ages--Mr. Balfour and +Lord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one question +which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to +settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall +be compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not +yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method +by which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduce +conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, +after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament +of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely +is a breach of manners and good sense. + + + + +VII + +_FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS_ + +Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, +but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are +they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, +methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" +is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though +'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that +this generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth. + +Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she could +count one, Authority could count two.[*] Five years ago, how many +Englishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service, +but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause? If you polled +the nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would you +find? At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls, +would rise, at another it would sink. At the best of times, if you +divide the nation into strata, you would find large sections in +which Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends. It had long +been one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty had +almost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language of +social convention, "the upper classes." For generations the despised +and calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in their +peculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had established +the political liberties of England on a strong foundation. But their +day was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendants +had made common cause with their hereditary opponents. + +[Footnote *: I am speaking here of England only--not of Scotland, +Ireland, or Wales.] + +After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upper +strata of society was so rare a character that people encountering +him instinctively asked, "Is he insincere? Or only mad?" Deserted +by the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the great +Middle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun; +and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered for +Freedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became more +audible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as being +the natural guardian of property. If you make the division +geographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the North +stood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were always +unfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy. + +If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regarded +as wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkable +degree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose, +the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered. How +many friends could Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece, +in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How many +Armenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed +the annexation of the South African Republics? At each extension +of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt +to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear +it, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes of +society; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlands +and the South; in the Church, alas!; in the Universities, the +Professions, and the Press. + +And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters there +rises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts very +discordantly with the habitual language of five years ago. To-day +the friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal. +Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and the +energy of her new worshippers. Lapses from grace are not unknown in +the after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume the +conversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere. +And to what are we to attribute it? Various answers are possible. +Perhaps, as long as it was only other people's liberty which was +imperilled, we could look on without concern. Perhaps we never +realized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life, +till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force, +first dawned on our imagination. Perhaps--and this is the happiest +supposition--we have learnt our lesson by contemplating the effects +of a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting the morals and +wrecking the civilization of a powerful and once friendly people. + +But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable, +and, at least on the surface, satisfactory. To-day we all are the +friends and lovers of Liberty--and yet the very multitude of our +new comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground for +perplexity and even for concern. "He who really loves Liberty must +walk alone." In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe that +this stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustrated +afresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect and +regret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney.[*] + +[Footnote *: Leonard, Henry Courtney (Lord Courtney of Penwith), +died May 11, 1918, in his eighty-sixth year.] + + + + +V + +EDUCATION + + + + +I + +_EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE_ + +Not long ago a Judge of the High Court (who was also a Liberal) +made what struck me as an eminently wise observation. While trying +a couple of Elementary School-teachers whose obscenity was too +gross for even an Old Bailey audience, and who themselves were +products of Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makes +one hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing which +we had hoped it was." Of course, all the prigs of the educational +world, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declaration +of common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, +I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark which had been +sedulously misconstrued. + +Long years ago Queen Victoria recording the conversation at her +dinner-table, said: "Lord Melbourne made us laugh very much with +his opinions about Schools and Public Education; the latter he +don't like, and when I asked him if he did he said, 'I daren't +say in these times that I'm against it--but I _am_ against it.'" + +There is a pleasantly human touch in that confession of a Whig +Prime Minister, that he was afraid to avow his mistrust of a great +social policy to which the Liberal party was committing itself. The +arch-charlatan, Lord Brougham, was raging up and down the kingdom +extolling the unmixed blessings of education. The University of +London, which was to make all things new, had just been set up. +"The school-master was abroad." Lord John Russell was making some +tentative steps towards a system of national education. Societies, +Congresses, and Institutes were springing up like mushrooms; and +all enlightened people agreed that extension of knowledge was the +one and all-sufficient remedy for the obvious disorders of the body +politic. The Victorian Age was, in brief, the age of Education; +and the one dogma which no one ventured to question was that the +extension of knowledge was necessarily, and in itself, a blessing. + +When I say "no one" I should perhaps say "hardly anyone"; for the +wisest and wittiest man of the time saw the crack in the foundation +on which his friends were laboriously erecting the temple of their +new divinity. "Reading and writing," said Sydney Smith, "are mere +increase of power. They may be turned, I admit, to a good or a +bad purpose; but for several years of his life the child is in +your hands, and you may give to that power what bias you please. I +believe the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the lessons +of his early life. When I see the village school, and the tattered +scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical +art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching +that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, +insuring property, fencing the Altar, guarding the Throne, giving +space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him +up to his own place in the order of Creation." + +That first sentence contain? the pith of the whole matter. "Reading +and writing are mere increase of power," and they may be turned +to a good or a bad purpose. Here enters the ethical consideration +which the zealots of sheer knowledge so persistently ignored. The +language about fencing the Altar and guarding the Throne might, no +doubt, strike the Judge who tried the school-teachers as unduly +idealistic; but the sentiment is sound, and knowledge is either +a blessing or a curse, according as it is used. + +Sydney Smith was speaking of the Elementary School, and, indeed, +was urging the claims of the working classes to better education. +But his doctrine applies with at least equal force to the higher +and wider ranges of knowledge. During the Victorian Age physical +science came into its own, and a good deal more than its own. Any +discovery in mechanics or chemistry was hailed as a fresh boon, +and the discoverer was ranged, with Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, +among our national heroes. As long ago as 1865 a scientific soldier +perceived the possibilities of aerial navigation. His vision has +been translated into fact; but Count Zeppelin has shown us quite +clearly that the discovery is not an unmixed blessing. Chemistry +is, to some minds, the most interesting of studies, just because +it is, as Lord Salisbury once said of it, the science of things +as they are. Yet aconitine, strychnine, and antimony have played +their part in murders, and chloroform has been used for destruction +as well as for salvation. Dr. Lardner was one of the most conspicuous +figures in that March of Mind which Brougham and his congeners +led; and his researches into chemistry resulted in the production +of an effluvium which was calculated to destroy all human life +within five miles of the spot where it was discharged. This was +an enlargement of knowledge; but if there had been Nihilists in +the reign of William IV. they would have found in Dr. Lardner's +discovery a weapon ready to their hand. Someone must have discovered +alcohol; and my teetotal friends would probably say, invented it, +for they cannot attribute so diabolical an agency to the action of +purely natural causes. But even those who least sympathize with +"the lean and sallow abstinence" would scarcely maintain that alcohol +has been an unmixed blessing to the race. + +To turn from material to mental discoveries, I hold that a great +many additions which have been made to our philosophical knowledge +have diminished alike the happiness and the usefulness of those +who made them. "To live a life of the deepest pessimism tempered +only by the highest mathematics" is a sad result of sheer knowledge. +An historian, toiling terribly in the muniment-rooms of colleges +or country houses, makes definite additions to our knowledge of +Henry VIII. or Charles I.; learns cruelty from the one and perfidy +from the other, and emerges with a theory of government as odious +as Carlyle's or Froude's. A young student of religion diligently +adds to his stock of learning, and plunges into the complicated +errors of Manicheans, and Sabellians, and Pelagians, with the result +that he absorbs the heresies and forgets the Gospel. In each of +these cases knowledge has been increased, but mankind has not been +benefited. We come back to what Sydney Smith said. Increase of +knowledge is merely increase of power. Whether it is to be a boon +or a curse to humanity depends absolutely on the spirit in which +it is applied. Just now we find ourselves engaged in a desperate +conflict between materialism and morality--between consummate knowledge +organized for evil ends, and the sublime ideal of public right. +Education has done for Germany all that Education, divorced from +Morality, can do; and the result has been a defeat of civilization +and a destruction of human happiness such as Europe has not seen +since the Middle Age closed in blood. What shall it profit a nation +if it "gain the whole world" and lose its own soul? + + + + +II + +_THE GOLDEN LADDER_ + +Education is an excellent thing, but the word has a deterrent sound. +It breathes pedantry and dogmatism, and "all that is at enmity with +joy." To people of my age it recalls the dread spirits of Pinnock +and Colenso and Hamblin Smith, and that even more terrible Smith who +edited Dictionaries of everything. So, though this chapter is to be +concerned with the substance, I eschew the word, and choose for my +title a figurative phrase. I might, with perfect justice, have chosen +another figure, and have headed my paper "The Peg and the Hole"; for, +after nearly a century of patient expectation, we have at last got +a Square Peg in the Square Hole of Public Instruction. In simpler +speech, England has at length got a Minister of Education who has +a genuine enthusiasm for knowledge, and will do his appointed work +with a single eye to the intellectual advancement of the country, +neither giving heed to the pribbles and prabbles of theological +disputants, nor modifying his plans to suit the convenience of the +manufacturer or the squire. He is, in my judgment, exactly the +right man for the office which he fills; and is therefore strikingly +differentiated not only from some Ministers of Education whom we +have known, but also from the swarm of Controllers and Directors +and salaried busybodies who have so long been misdirecting us and +contradicting one another. + +When I say that Mr. Fisher will not give heed to theological disputants, +I by no means ignore the grievance under which some of those disputants +have suffered. The ever-memorable majority of 1906 was won, not +wholly by Tariff Reform or Chinese Labour, but to a great extent +by the righteous indignation of Nonconformity at the injury which +had been inflicted on it by the Tory Education Acts. There were +Passive Resisters in those days, as there are Conscientious Objectors +now; and they made their grievance felt when the time for voting +came. The Liberal Government, in spite of its immense victory at +the polls, scored a fourfold failure in its attempts to redress +that grievance, and it remains unredressed to this hour. Not that I +admired the Liberal Education Bills. My own doctrine on the matter +was expressed by my friend Arthur Stanton, who said in 1906: "I +think National and Compulsory Education must be secular, and with +facilities for the denominations to add their particular tenets. My +objection to this Bill" (Mr. Birrell's Bill) "is that it subsidizes +undenominationalism." And again in 1909, when another of our Liberal +practitioners was handling the subject: "I object altogether to +the State teaching religion. I would have it teach secular matters +only, and leave the religious teaching entirely to the clergy, +who should undertake it at their own expense. This is the only +fair plan--fair to all. The State gives, and pays for, religious +teaching which I do not regard as being worth anything at all. It +is worse than useless. Real religious teaching can only be given +by the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He did +not mean mathematics and geography." + +That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politics +we must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicable +reforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr. +Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one +side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally +well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists +and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious +freedom, aspire. + +I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a great +Bill." Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morley +observes, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being the +worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is +commonly used, a formula of social ruin." Enlarging on this theme, +Lord Morley points out that the essential virtue of a small reform--the +quality which makes it not an evil, but a good--is that it should +be made "on the lines and in the direction" of the greater reform +which is desiderated. + +Now, this condition Mr. Fisher's Bill exactly fulfils. I suppose +that the "greater reform" of education which we all wish to see--the +ideal of national instruction--is that the State should provide +for every boy and girl the opportunity of cultivating his or her +natural gifts to the highest perfection which they are capable +of attaining. When I speak of "natural gifts" I refer not only +to the intellect, but also to the other parts of our nature, the +body and the moral sense. This ideal involves a system which, by a +natural and orderly development, should conduct the capable child +from the Elementary School, through all the intermediate stages, +to the highest honours of the Universities. + +The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, because +our mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied. A good +many children may be unable to profit by any instruction higher +than that provided by the Elementary School. A good many more will +be able to profit by intermediate education. Comparatively few--the +best--will make their way to really high attainment, and will become, +at and through the Universities, great philosophers, or scholars, +or scientists, or historians, or mathematicians. + +At that point--and it ought to be reached at a much earlier age +than is now usual--the State's, concern in the matter ends. The +child has become, a man, and henceforth must work out his own +intellectual salvation; but in the earlier stages the State can +and must exercise a potent influence. The earliest stage must be +compulsory--that was secured by the Act of 1870. In the succeeding +stages, the State, while it does not compel, must stimulate and +encourage; and above all must ensure that no supposed exigencies +of money-making, no selfish tyranny of the employing classes, shall +be allowed to interfere with mental or physical development, or to +divert the boy or the girl from any course of instruction by which +he or she is capable of profiting. This ideal Mr. Fisher's Bill, with +its plain enactment that education shall be free; with its precaution +against "half-time"; with its ample provision for Continuation +Schools, goes far to realize. Even if it is a "small" reform--and +I should dispute the epithet--it is certainly "on the lines and +in the direction" of that larger reform which the enthusiasts of +education have symbolized by the title of "The Golden Ladder."[*] + +[Footnote *: Happily for Education, Mr. Fisher's Bill is now an +Act.] + + + + +III + +_OASES_ + +My title is figurative, but figures are sometimes useful. Murray's +Dictionary defines an oasis as "a fertile spot in the midst of a +desert"; and no combination of words could better describe the +ideal which I wish to set before my readers. + +The suggestion of this article came to me from a correspondent +in Northumberland--"an old miner, who went to work down a mine +before he was eight years old, and is working yet at seventy-two." +My friend tells me that he has "spent about forty years of his +spare time in trying to promote popular education among his fellow +working-men." His notice was attracted by a paper which I recently +wrote on "The Golden Ladder" of Education, and that paper led him +to offer some suggestions which I think too valuable to be lost. + +My friend does not despise the Golden Ladder. Quite the contrary. +He sees its usefulness for such as are able to climb it, but he +holds that they are, and must be, the few, while he is concerned for +the many. I agree. When (following Matthew Arnold at a respectful +distance) I have urged the formation of a national system by which +a poor man's son may be enabled to climb from the Elementary School +to a Fellowship or a Professorship at Oxford or Cambridge, I have +always realized that I was planning a course for the exceptionally +gifted boy. That boy has often emerged in real life, and the +Universities have profited by his emergence; but he is, and always +must be, exceptional. What can be done for the mass of intelligent, +but not exceptional, boys, who, to quote my Northumbrian friend, +"must be drilled into a calling of some kind, so as to be able to +provide for themselves when they grow up to manhood"? When once +their schooling, in the narrow sense, is over, must their minds be +left to lie fallow or run wild? Can nothing be done to supplement +their elementary knowledge, to stimulate and discipline their mental +powers? + +The University Extension Movement was an attempt to answer these +questions in a practical fashion, and my friend does full justice +to the spirit which initiated that movement, and to the men--such +as the late Lord Grey--who led it. But I suppose he speaks from +experience when he says: "University Extension, as it is, will +never become established in working-class villages. Forty-five to +fifty pounds is too big a sum to be raised in three months, and +is also considered too much to be paid for a man coming to lecture +once a week for twelve weeks, and then disappear for ever like a +comet." My friend uses an astronomical figure, I a geographical one; +but we mean the same thing. The idea is to establish Oases--"fertile +spots in the midst of deserts"--permanent centres of light and +culture in manufacturing districts. "The Universities teach and +train ministers of religion, and they go and live in their parishes +among their flocks all the year round. Why not send lecturers and +teachers of secular subjects in the same way? A system something +similar to the Wesleyan or Primitive Methodists' ministerial system +would answer the purpose. The country might be divided into circuits +of four or five centres each, and a University man stationed in +each circuit, to organize Students' Associations, give lectures, +hold classes, and superintend scientific experiments, as the case +may be." + +This is a good illustration. The Church professes to place in each +parish an official teacher of religion and morality, and most of +the Nonconformist communities do the same. To place an official +teacher of culture (in its widest sense) in every parish is perhaps +a task beyond our national powers as at present developed; but to +place one in every industrial district is not conceivable only, +but, I believe, practicable. The lecturer who comes from Oxford +or Cambridge, delivers his course, and departs, has no doubt his +uses. He is like the "Hot Gospeller" of an earlier age, or the +"Missioner" of to-day. He delivers an awakening message, and many +are the better for it; but if culture is to get hold of the average +lads and young men of an industrial district, its exponent must be +more like the resident minister, the endowed and established priest. +That he should live among the people whom he is to instruct, know +them personally, understand their ways of thinking and speaking, +is at least as important as that he should be a competent historian +or mathematician or man of letters. If the State, or voluntary +effort, or a combination of the two, could secure the permanent +presence of such a teacher in every district where men work hard, +and yet have leisure enough to cultivate their intellects, a yawning +gap in our educational system would be filled. + +It would not be polite to mention actual names; but take by way +of example such a district as Dickens's "Coketown," or Disraeli's +"Wodgate," or George Eliot's "Milby," or any of those towns which +Cobbett expressively called "Hell-Holes." Let the State establish +in each of those places a qualified and accredited teacher for +adult students. The teacher may, if necessary, be paid in part +by voluntary subscription; but it is, in my view, all-important +that he should have the sanction and authority of the State to give +him a definite place among local administrators, and to the State +he should be responsible for the due discharge of his functions. +In Coketown or Wodgate or Milby his lecture-room would be a real +Oasis--"a fertile spot in the midst of a desert." Even if it has +not been our lot to dwell in those deserts, we all have had, as +travellers, some taste of their quality. We know the hideousness +of all that meets the eye; the necessary absorption in the struggle +for subsistence; the resulting tendency to regard money as the +one subject worth serious consideration; the inadequate means of +intellectual recreation; the almost irresistible atmosphere of +materialism in which life and thought are involved. The "Oasis" +would provide a remedy for all this. It would offer to all who +cared to seek them "the fairy-tale of science," the pregnant lessons +of history, the infinitely various joys of literature, the moral +principles of personal and social action which have been thought +out "by larger minds in calmer ages." + +That there may be practical difficulties in the way of such a scheme +I do not dispute. The object of this chapter is not to elaborate a +plan, but to exhibit an idea. That the amount of definite knowledge +acquired in this way might be small, and what Archbishop Benson +oddly called "unexaminable," is, I think, quite likely. A man cannot +learn in the leisure-hours left over by exhausting work as he would +learn if he had nothing to think of except his studies and his +examination. But Education has a larger function than the mere +communication of knowledge. It opens the windows of the mind; it +shows vistas which before were unsuspected; and so, as Wordsworth +said, "is efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier." + + + + +IV + +_LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE_ + +When an article in a newspaper produces a reply, the modest writer +is gratified; for he knows that he has had at any rate one reader. +If the reply comes to him privately, he is even better pleased, for +then he feels that his reader thinks the matter worthy of personal +discussion and of freely exchanged opinion. I have lately written an +article on "Life and Liberty" as proposed by some earnest clergymen +for the English Church, and an article on Mr. Fisher's Education +Bill, in which I avowed my dislike to all attempts on the part of +the State to teach religion. Both these articles have brought me +a good deal of correspondence, both friendly and hostile. The term +allotted to human life does not allow one to enter into private +controversy with every correspondent, so I take this method of +making a general reply. "Life and Liberty" are glorious ideals, +but, to make the combination, perfect, we must add Justice. Hence +my title. + +The State consists of persons who profess all sorts of religion, +and none. If the State compels its citizens to pay for religious +teaching in which they do not believe, it commits, in my opinion, +a palpable injustice. This is not merely a question between one +sect and another sect. It is, indeed, unjust to make a Quaker pay +for teaching the doctrine of the Sacraments, or a Unitarian for +teaching the Deity of Christ; but it is equally unjust to make +an Atheist pay for teaching the existence of God, or a Churchman +for teaching that curious kind of implied Socinianism which is +called "undenominational religion." + +The only way out of these inequities is what is commonly called +"Secularism." The word has some unfortunate associations. It has +been connected in the past with a blatant form of negation, and +also with a social doctrine which all decent people repudiate. But, +strictly considered, it means no more than "temporal" or "worldly"; +and when I say that I recommend the "Secular" system of education, +I mean that the State should confine itself to the temporal or +worldly work with which alone it is competent to deal, and should +leave religion (which it cannot touch without inflicting injustice +on someone) to those whose proper function is to instil it. + +Who are they? Speaking generally, parents, ministers of religion, +and teachers who are themselves convinced of what they teach; but +I must narrow my ground. To-day I am writing as a Churchman for +those Churchmen whom my previous articles disturbed; and I have +only space to set forth some of the grounds on which we Churchmen +should support the "secular solution." + +A Churchman is bound by his baptismal vows to "believe all the +articles of the Christian Faith." These, according to his catechism, +are summed up in the Apostles' Creed. He cannot, therefore, be +satisfied with any religious instruction which is not based on +that formula; and yet such instruction cannot rightly be enforced +in schools which belong as much to unbelievers as to Christians. +A Churchman's religious faith is not derived primarily from the +Bible, but from the teaching of the Christian Church, who is older +than the oldest of her documents. There was a Church before the +New Testament was written, and that Church transmitted the faith +by oral tradition. "From the very first the rule has been, as a +matter of fact, that the Church should teach the truth, and then +should appeal to Scripture in vindication of its own teaching." +For a Churchman, religious instruction must be the teaching of the +Church, tested by the Bible. The two cannot be separated. Hence it +follows that, while the State is bound to respect the convictions +of those who adhere to all manner of beliefs and disbeliefs, the +Churchman cannot recognize religious teaching imparted under such +conditions as being that which his own conscience demands. + +And, further, supposing that some contrivance could be discovered +whereby the State might authorize the teaching of the Church's +doctrine, the Churchman could not conscientiously be a party to +it; for, according to his theory, there is only one Body divinely +commissioned to decide what is to be taught--and that Body is not +the State, but the Church; and there is only one set of persons +qualified to teach it--viz., those who are duly authorized by the +Church, and are fully persuaded as to the truth of what they teach. + +It is sometimes asked how the Church is to fulfil this obligation +without being subsidized in some way by the State. The principal +requisite is greater faith in its Divine mission. If the Bishops +and clergy had a stronger conviction that what they are divinely +commissioned to undertake they will be divinely assisted to fulfil, +this question need not be suggested. The first teachers of the +Christian religion performed their task without either "Rate-aid" +or "State-aid" and the result of their labour is still to be seen; +whereas now the object of leaders of religion seems to be to get +done for them what they ought to do for themselves. It may be well +to quote an utterance of the Bishop of Oxford at the time when the +Liberal Government was dealing with education. "We are now, more +or less, in the middle of a crisis. We are always in the middle +of a crisis. This crisis is about the religious question in our +day-schools. I would ask you, then, to get at the root of our +difficulty. What is it? The heart of our difficulty is partly that +we have _shifted on to the wrong shoulders_ the central function +of teaching children; secondly, that we have so lost the idea of +what the teaching of the Church is, and _the meaning of religious +education_, that we are considered by the public to be unreasonable +and uncompromising people if we are not disposed to admit that the +County Councils can settle the standard of sufficient religious +knowledge for everybody." + +The difficulty as to means might be overcome if the Church would +mind its own business, and leave to the State what the State can +do so much more effectively. Let me quote the words of a great +Christian and a great Churchman--Mr. Gladstone--written in 1894: +"Foul fall the day when the persons of this world shall, on whatever +pretext, take into their uncommissioned hands the manipulation of +the religion of our Lord and Saviour." + +Surely Churchmen will best serve the religion which they profess by +joining with other "men of goodwill," though of different faiths, +who desire the secular solution. In that way only, as far as I can +see, can the interests of Education be reconciled with the higher +interests of Justice. + + + + +V + +_THE STATE AND THE BOY_ + +When Mr. A. J. Balfour was a very young man he published _A Defence +of Philosophic Doubt_. Nobody read it, but a great many talked +about it; and serious people went about with long faces, murmuring, +"How sad that Lord Salisbury's nephew should be an Agnostic!" When +Mr. Balfour had become a conspicuous figure in politics, the serious +people began to read the book which, so far, they had only denounced, +and then they found, to their surprise and joy, that it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. Thenceforward Mr. Balfour ranked +in their eyes as a "Defender of the Faith" second only to Henry +VIII. + +To compare small things with great, I have had a similar experience. +Not long ago I wrote a paper designed to set forth the pretty obvious +truth that increase in knowledge is not in itself a good. It evoked +much criticism, and the critics once again exemplified our truly +English habit of denouncing what we have not read. If these quaint +people were to be believed, I was an enemy of education in general +and of elementary education in particular. I hope that they will be +as much relieved as were Mr. Balfour's critics when they discover that +I am, and all my life have been, a zealous supporter of education, +and, to some extent, an expert in it. + +If the world could be exhaustively divided into two classes-the +Educated and the Uneducated--I suppose that I should be included in +the former, though I anticipate an inevitable sarcasm by allowing +that I should find myself perilously near the dividing-line. It +is more to the purpose to say that, whatever my own educational +deficiencies, I have always been keenly interested in the education +of other people, and have preached incessantly that the State has a +sacred duty to its boys. If I leave the education of girls on one +side, I do so, not because I consider it unimportant, but because +I know nothing about it. + +Information, as the great Butler said, is the least part of education. +The greatest is the development of the child's natural power to +its utmost extent and capacity; and the duty of so developing it +must be admitted by everyone who ponders our Lord's teaching about +the Buried Talent and the Pound laid up in the Napkin. Unless we +enable and encourage every boy in England to bring whatever mental +gifts he has to the highest point of their possible perfection, +we are shamefully and culpably squandering the treasure which God +has given us to be traded with and accounted for. We shall have +no one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis on our neglect, we +lose our present standing among the educated peoples of the world. +I always get back to the ideal of the "Golden Ladder," reaching +from the Elementary Schools, by Scholarships or "free places," to +the Secondary Schools, and from them again to the Universities. +This ideal is, unlike some ideals, attainable, and has in repeated +instances been attained. Again and again the highest mathematical +honours of Cambridge have been won by Elementary Schoolboys, and +what is true of mathematics might also be true of every branch of +knowledge. I say advisedly that it "might" be true: whether or +not it will be depends on our handling of quite young boys. + +The pedagogic notion under which people of my time were reared was +that every boy must learn exactly the same things as every other +boy, and must go on learning them till his last day at school, +whether that day arrived when he was fourteen or eighteen. "We must +catch up every man, whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke, +begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he is +twenty; making him conjugate and decline for life and death; and +so teaching him to estimate his progress in real wisdom as he can +scan the verses of the Greek tragedians." So said Sydney Smith, and +with perfect truth. "The grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum" +was enforced on the boy whose whole heart was in the engineer's shed, +while his friend, to whom literature was a passion, was constrained +to simulate an interest in the blue lights and bad smells of a +chemical lecture. "Let it be granted" (as the odious Euclid, now +happily dethroned, used to say) that there is a certain amount that +all alike must learn but this amount will prove, when scrutinized, +to be very small. I suppose we must all learn to read and write, +and it is useful to be able to do a sum in simple addition; though +very eminent people have often written very illegible hands, and +Dean Stanley--one of the most accomplished men of his day--could +never be persuaded that eighteen pence was not the equivalent of +1s. 8d. Zealots for various "knowledges" (to use the curious plural +sanctioned by Matthew Arnold) will urge the indispensability of +their respective hobbies. One will say let everybody learn that +the earth is round; another, that James I. was not the son of Queen +Elizabeth. But let us leave, these pribbles and prabbles. Let every +boy be coerced into learning what is absolutely necessary for the +daily work of life; but let him, at a very early age, have his +powers concentrated on the subject which really interests him. + +One of the highest gifts which a teacher can possess is the power +of "discerning the spirits"--of discovering what a boy's mind really +is; what it is made of; what can be made of it. This power is a natural +gift, and can by no means be acquired. Many teachers entirely lack +it; but those who possess it are among the most valuable servants +of the State. This power may be brought to bear on every boy when +he is, say, from fourteen to sixteen years old--perhaps in some +cases even earlier; and, when once the teacher has made the +all-important discovery, then let everything be done to stimulate, +and at the same time to discipline, the boy's natural inclination, +his inborn aptitude. Fifty years ago, every boy at every Public +School, though he might be as unpoetical as Blackstone who wrote +the Commentaries, or Bradshaw who compiled the Railway Guide, was +forced to produce a weekly tale of Latin and Greek verses which would +have made Horace laugh and Sophocles cry. The Rev. Esau Hittall's +"Longs and Shorts about the Calydonian Boar," commemorated in +_Friendship's Garland_, may stand for a sample of the absurdities +which I have in mind; and the supporters of this amazing abuse +assured the world that Greek and Latin versification was an essential +element of a liberal education. It took a good many generations to +deliver England from this absurdity, and there are others like +unto it which still hold their own in the scholastic world. To +sweep these away should be the first object of the educational +reformer; and, when that preliminary step has been taken, the State +will be able to say to every boy who is not mentally deficient: +"This, or this, is the path which Nature intended you to tread. +Follow it with all your heart. We will back you, and help you, +and applaud you, and will not forsake you till the goal is won." + + + + +VI + +_A PLEA FOR THE INNOCENTS_ + +My "spiritual home" is not Berlin, nor even Rome, but Jerusalem. +In heart and mind I am there to-day, and have been there ever since +the eternally memorable day on which our army entered it. What I am +writing will see the light on the Feast of the Holy Innocents;[*] +and my thoughts have been running on a prophetic verse which unites +the place and the festival in a picturesque accord: + +"Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in +the midst of Jerusalem:... and the streets of the city shall be +full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." + +The most brilliant Israelite of our times, Lord Beaconsfield, said +of a brilliant Englishman, Dean Stanley, that his leading feature +was his "picturesque sensibility," and that sensibility was never +more happily expressed than when he instituted the service for +children in Westminster Abbey on Innocents' Day--"Childermas Day," +as our forefathers called it, in the age when holidays were also +holy days, and the Mass was the centre of social as well as of +spiritual life. On this touching feast a vast congregation of boys +and girls assembles in that Abbey Church which has been rightly +called "the most lovable thing in Christendom"; and, as it moves +in "solemn troops and sweet societies" through aisles grey with +the memories of a thousand years, it seems a living prophecy of +a brighter age already at the door. + +[Footnote *: December 28, 1917.] + +It seems--rather, it seemed. Who can pierce the "hues of earthquake +and eclipse" which darken the aspect of the present world? Who +can foresee, or even reasonably conjecture, the fate which is in +store for the children who to-day are singing their carols in the +church of the Confessor? Will it be their lot to be "playing in the +streets" of a spiritual Jerusalem--the Holy City of a regenerated +humanity? or are they destined to grow up in a reign of blood and +iron which spurns the "Vision of Peace" as the most contemptible +of dreams? + +In some form or another these questions must force themselves on +the mind of anyone who contemplates the boys and girls of to-day, +and tries to forecast what may befall them in the next four or +five years. + +It is a gruesome thought that the children of to-day are growing up +in an atmosphere of war. Bloodshed, slaughter, peril and privation, +bereavement and sorrow and anxiety--all the evils from which happy +childhood is most sedulously guarded have become the natural elements +in which they live and move and have their being. For the moment +the cloud rests lightly on them, for not "all that is at enmity +with joy" can depress the Divine merriment of healthy childhood; +but the cloud will become darker and heavier with each succeeding +year of war; and every boy and girl is growing up into a fuller +realization of miseries which four years ago would have been +unimaginable. + +But at Christmastide, if ever, we are bound to take the brightest +view which circumstances allow. Let us then assume the best. Let us +assume that before next Innocents' Day the war will have ended in +a glorious peace. God grant it; but, even in that beatific event, +what will become of the children? They cannot be exactly what they +would have been if their lot had been cast in normal times. Unknown +to themselves, their "subconscious intelligence" must have taken a +colour and a tone from the circumstances in which they have been +reared. As to the colour, our task will be to wipe out the tinge +of blood; as to the tone, to restore the note which is associated +with the Angels' Song. + +This is my "Plea for the Innocents." What will the State offer +them as they emerge from childhood into boyhood, and from boyhood +into adolescence? + +Perhaps it will offer Conscription; and, with no "perhaps" at all, +some strident voices will pronounce that offer the finest boon +ever conferred upon the youth of a nation. Then, if there is any +manliness or fibre left in the adherents of freedom, they will +answer that we adopted Conscription for a definite object, and, +when once that object is attained, we renounce it for ever. + +What will the State offer? Obviously it must offer education--but +what sort of education? The curse of militarism may make itself +felt even in the school-room. It would be deplorable indeed if, +as a result of our present experience, children were to be taught +what J. R. Green called a "drum-and-trumpet history," and were made +to believe that the triumphs of war are the highest achievements +of the human spirit. + +As long as there is an Established Church, the State, in some sense, +offers religion. Is the religion of the next few years to be what +Ruskin commends: a "religion of pure mercy, which we must learn to +defend by fulfilling"; or is it to be the sort of religion which +Professor Cramb taught, and which Prussian Lutheranism has substituted +for the Gospel? + +And, finally, what of home? After all said and done, it is the +home that, in the vast majority of cases, influences the soul and +shapes the life. What will the homes of England be like when the war +is over? Will they be homes in which the moral law reigns supreme; +where social virtue is recognized as the sole foundation of national +prosperity; where the "strange valour of goodwill towards men", +is revered as the highest type of manly resolution? + +It is easy enough to ask these questions: it is impossible to answer +them. The Poet is the Prophet, and this is the Poet's vision: + + "The days are dark with storm;-- + The coming revolutions have to face + Of peace and music, but of blood and fire; + The strife of Races scarce consolidate, + Succeeded by the far more bitter strife + Of Classes--that which nineteen hundred years, + Since Christ spake, have not yet availed to close, + But rather brought to issue only now, + When first the Peoples international + Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs."[*] + +_Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs_--a solemn +line, which at this season we may profitably ponder. + +[Footnote *: "The Disciples," by H. E. Hamilton King.] + + + + +VI + +MISCELLANEA + + + + +I + +_THE "HUMOROUS STAGE"_ + +I am not adventuring on the dangerous paths of dramatic criticism. +When I write of the "humorous stage," I am using the phrase as +Wordsworth used it, to signify a scene where new characters are +suddenly assumed, and the old as suddenly discarded. + +Long ago, Matthew Arnold, poking fun at the clamours of Secularism, +asked in mockery, "Why is not Mr. Bradlaugh a Dean?" To-day I read, +in a perfectly serious manifesto forwarded to me by a friendly +correspondant, this searching question: "Why is not the Archbishop +of Canterbury Censor of Plays?" It really is a great conception; +and, if adopted in practice, might facilitate the solution of some +perplexing problems. If any lover of the ancient ways should demur +on the ground of incongruity, I reply that this objection might +hold good in normal times, but that just now the "humorous stage" +of public life so abounds in incongruities that one more or less +would make no perceptible difference. Everyone is playing a part for +which, three years ago, we should have thought him or her totally +unqualified. Old habits, old prepossessions--even in some cases old +principles--are cast aside with a levity which even Wordsworth's +young actor could not have surpassed. We all are saying and doing +things of which we should have thought ourselves incapable; and +even our surprise at ourselves, great as it is, is less than our +surprise at our friends. + +To begin at the top. I have long held the present Prime Minister in +high admiration. I can never forget--nor allow others to forget--that +he fought for the cause of Justice and Freedom in South Africa +almost single-handed, and at the risk of his life. An orator, a +patriot, a lover of justice, a hater of privilege, I knew him to +be. I did not see in him the makings of a Dictator directing the +destinies of an Empire at war, and in his spare moments appointing +Successors to the Apostles within the precincts of an Established +Church. Certainly of Mr. Lloyd George, if of no one else, it is +true that + + "The little actor cons another part," + +and I heartily wish him success in it. But it is true of everyone, +and true in every corner of the stage. Let me strike into the medley +at random. The anti-feminists, where are they? They have changed +their garb and their "lines" so thoroughly that it is difficult +for even a practised eye to recognize them in their new parts. +Lord Curzon is a member of a Cabinet which established the women's +vote, and such stalwarts as Mr. Asquith and Lord Harcourt welcome +with effusion the enfranchisement of the victorious suffragette. + +And what of the Pacificists? Where are they? Some, I know, are +in prison, but, if it had not been for the rapid change of parts +which the war has brought, they would have had a good many more +fellow-captives than they have. The writer of this article was, +from his first entrance into public affairs, a Pacificist to the +backbone. He believed that war was the greatest of preventible +evils, and that no war which had occurred in his lifetime had been +justified by the laws of right and wrong. To-day that Pacificist is +heart and soul with his countrymen in their struggle; and, having +lived to see England engaged in a righteous war, he has changed +his motto from "Rub lightly" to "Mak sicker." + +Not less remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers +(among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself). +Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detect +the slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodies +to invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly what +we like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into the +willing subjects of a despotism. We tumble over each other in our +haste to throwaway the liberties which we used to consider vital +to our being; and some of us have been not merely the victims, but +the active agents, of an administrative system which we believe +to be necessary for the safety of the State. + +But is there not a remnant? Have all the lovers of Liberty changed +their garb and conned new parts? Not all. A remnant there is, and +it is to be found in the House of Lords. This is perhaps the most +astonishing feature of the "humorous stage"; and if, among superlatives, +a super-superlative is possible, I reserve that epithet for the fact +that the most vigorous champion of personal freedom in the House +of Lords has been an ecclesiastical lawyer. From Lord Stowell to +Lord Parmoor is indeed a far cry. Who could have dreamt that, even +amid the upheaval of a world, a spokesman of liberty and conscience +would emerge from the iron-bound precincts of the Consistory Court +and the Vicar-General's Office? + +Bishops again--not even these most securely placed of all British +officials can escape the tendency to change which pervades the +whole stage of public life. The Bishop of Winchester, whom all +good Progressives used to denounce as a dark conspirator against +the rights of conscience; the Bishop of Oxford, whom we were taught +to regard as a Hildebrand and a Torquemada rolled into one--these +admirable prelates emerge from the safe seclusion of Castle and +Palace to rebuke the persecution of the Conscientious Objector, +even when his objection is "nearly intolerable." + +That the Press should have had its share in this general readjustment +of parts was only natural; but even in what is natural there may be +points of special interest. There is a weekly journal of high repute +which has earned a secure place in the regard of serious-minded +people by its lifelong sobriety, moderation, and respect for the +prunes and prisms. When this staid old print, this steady-going +supporter of all established institutions, bursts out in a furious +attack on the man who has to bear the chief responsibility of the +war, I can only rub my eyes in amazement. If a sheep had suddenly +gone mad, and begun to bark and bite, the transformation could +not have been more astonishing. + +But I reserve my most striking illustration of the "humorous stage" +for the last. Fifteen years ago it was the fashion to point at Lord +Hugh Cecil as a belated upholder of exploded superstitions; as +an "ecclesiastical layman" (the phrase was meant to be sarcastic) +who lived in a realm of speculative theology, out of touch with +all practical life; as a zealot, a bigot, a would-be persecutor; +an interesting survival of the Middle Age; a monk who had strayed +into politics. To-day we salute him as the one Member of Parliament +who has had the courage to affirm the supremacy of the moral law, +and to assert the imperious claim which Christianity makes on the +whole of man's being. + + + + +II + +_THE JEWISH REGIMENT_ + +It was an old and a true allegation against John Bull that he had +no tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not mean +to be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, which +he could not understand. In Ireland he called the Roman Catholic +faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood, +made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftiness +and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he found +the language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equally +comic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the Eisteddfod. Abroad, +"Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing formula. Nasality, +Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized his notion of American civilization; +and he cheerfully echoed the sentiments + + "Of all who under Eastern skies + Call Aryan man a blasted nigger." + +Now, of late years, John has altered his course. Some faint conception +of his previous foolishness has dawned on his mind; and, as he is +a thoroughly good fellow at heart, he has tried to make amends. +The present war has taught him a good deal that he did not know +before, and he renders a homage, all the more enthusiastic because +belated, to the principle of Nationality. His latest exploit in this +direction has been to suggest the creation of a Jewish Regiment. +The intention was excellent and the idea picturesque; but for the +practical business of life we need something more than good intentions +and picturesque ideas. "Wisdom," said Ecclesiastes, "is profitable +to direct;" and Wisdom would have suggested that it was advisable +to consult Jewish opinion before the formation of a Jewish Regiment +was proclaimed to the world. There is probably no race of people +about which John Bull has been so much mistaken as he has been +about the Jews. Lord Beaconsfield's description of Mr. Buggins, +with his comments on the Feast of Tabernacles in Houndsditch, is +scarcely yet anachronistic.[*] But slowly our manners and our +intelligence have improved in this as in other directions; and Lord +Derby (who represents John Bull in his more refined development) +thought that he would be paying his Jewish fellow-citizens a pretty +compliment if he invited them to form a Jewish Regiment. + +[Footnote *: See _Tancred_, Book V., chapter vi.] + +Historically, Lord Derby and those who applauded his scheme had a +great deal to say for themselves. The remote history of Judaism is +a history of war. The Old Testament is full of "the battle of the +warrior" and of "garments rolled in blood." Gideon, and Barak, and +Samson, and Jephthah, and David are names that sound like trumpets; +and the great Maccabean Princes of a later age played an equal +part with Romans and Lacedæmonians. All this is historically true; +but it never occurred to Lord Derby and his friends that the idea +which underlay their scheme is the opposite of that which animates +modern Judaism. Broadly speaking, the idea of modern Judaism is not +Nationality, but Religion. Mr. Lucien Wolf has lately reminded us +that, according to authoritative utterances, "The Jews are neither +a nation within a nation, nor cosmopolitan," but an integral part +of the nations among whom they live, claiming the same rights and +acknowledging the same duties as are claimed and acknowledged by +their fellow-citizens. It is worth noticing that Macaulay accepted +this position as disposing of the last obstacle to the civil and +political enfranchisement of the English Jews, and ridiculed the +notion that they would regard England, "not as their country, but +merely as their place of exile." Mr. Wolf thus formulates his faith: +"In the purely religious communities of Western Jewry we have the +spiritual heirs of the law-givers, prophets, and teachers who, +from the dawn of history, have conceived Israel, not primarily +as a political organism, but as a nation of priests, the chosen +servants of the Eternal." + +Mr. Claude Montefiore, who is second to none as an interpreter +of modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain. +The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinary +functions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen of +the country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said the +other day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racial +grounds: "_I would shoot a Jewish Prussian as readily as a Christian +Prussian, if I found him fighting under the German flag_." Thus, to +enrol a regiment of Jews is about as wise as to enrol a regiment +of Roman Catholics or of Wesleyan Methodists. Jews, Romans, and +Wesleyans alike hold with laudable tenacity the religious faiths +which they respectively profess; but they are well content to fight +side by side with Anglicans, or Presbyterians, or Plymouth Brethren. +They need no special standard, no differentiating motto. They are +soldiers of the country to which they belong. + +Here let me quote the exhilarating verses of a Jewish lady,[*] written +at the time of the Boer War (March, 1900): + + "Long ago and far away, O Mother England, + We were warriors brave and bold, + But a hundred nations rose in arms against us, + And the shades of exile closed o'er those heroic + Days of old. + + "Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother England. + Thou hast let us live again + Free and fearless 'midst thy free and fearless children, + Sparing with them, as one people, grief and gladness, + Joy and pain. + + "Now we Jews, we English Jews, O Mother England, + Ask another boon of thee! + Let us share with them the danger and the glory; + Where thy best and bravest lead, there let us follow + O'er the sea! + + "For the Jew has heart and hand, our Mother England, + And they both are thine to-day-- + Thine for life, and thine for death, yea, thine for ever! + Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly? + England, say!" + +[Footnote *: Mrs. Henry Lucas (reprinted in her _Talmudic Legends, +Hymns and Paraphrases_. Chatto and Windus, 1908).] + +I am well aware that in what I have written, though I have been +careful to reinforce myself with Jewish authority, I may be running +counter to that interesting movement which is called "Zionism." +It is not for a Gentile to take part in the dissensions of the +Jewish community; but I may be permitted to express my sympathy +with a noble idea, and to do so in words written by a brilliant +Israelite, Lord Beaconsfield: "I do not bow to the necessity of a +visible head in a defined locality; but, were I to seek for such, +it would not be at Rome. When Omnipotence deigned to be incarnate, +the ineffable Word did not select a Roman frame. The prophets were +not Romans; the Apostles were not Romans; she, who was blessed +above all women--I never heard that she was a Roman maiden. No; +I should look to a land more distant than Italy, to a city more +sacred even than Rome."[*] + +[Footnote *: _Sybil_, Book II., chapter xii.] + + + + +III + +_INDURATION_ + +Though my heading is as old as Chaucer, it has, I must admit, a +Johnsonian sound. Its sense is conveyed in the title of an excellent +book on suffering called _Lest We Grow Hard_, and this is a very +real peril against which it behoves everyone + + "Who makes his moral being his prime care" + +to be sedulously on his guard. During the last four years we have +been, in a very special way and degree, exposed to it; and we ought +to be thankful that, as a nation, we seem to have escaped. The +constant contemplation, even with the mental eye, of bloodshed and +torture, has a strong tendency to harden the heart; and a peculiar +grace was needed to keep alive in us that sympathy with suffering, that +passion of mercy, which is the characteristic virtue of regenerate +humanity. I speak not only of human suffering. Animals, it has been +said, may have no rights, but they have many wrongs, and among +those wrongs are the tortures which war inflicts. The suffering +of all sentient nature appeals alike to humanitarian sympathy. + +It has always seemed to me a signal instance of Wordsworth's penetrating +thought "on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life," that he assigned to +this virtue a dominant place in the Character of the Happy Warrior-- + + "Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, + And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! + Turns his necessity to glorious gain"; + +and who, "as more exposed" than others "to suffering and distress," +is + + "Hence, also, more alive to tenderness." + +This tribute to the moral nature of the Warrior, whether his warfare +be on land or on sea or in the air, is as true to-day as when Wordsworth +paid it. The brutal and senseless cry for "reprisals" which of late +has risen from some tainted spots of the Body Politic will wake +no response unless it be an exclamation of disgust from soldiers +and sailors and airmen. Of course, everyone knows that there is a +sense in which reprisals are a necessary part of warfare. Generation +after generation our forefathers fought bow to bow and sword to +sword and gun to gun against equally armed and well-matched foes; +this was reprisal, or, if you prefer, retaliation. And when, in more +recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous +gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on +our German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had first +employed. + +But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand. +They contend that because the Germans kill innocent civilians, +and women, and little children in English streets, Englishmen are +to commit the same foul deeds in Germany. "It is hard," says the +_Church Times_, "to say whether futility or immorality is the more +striking characteristic of the present clamour for reprisals in +the matter of air-raids.... Mr. Joynson Hicks would 'lay a German +town in ashes after every raid on London,' and he is not much worse +than others who scream in the same key." Nay, he is better than +many of them. The people who use this language are not the men +of action. They belong to a sedentary and neurotic class, who, +lacking alike courage and mercy, gloat over the notion of torture +inflicted on the innocent and the helpless. + +A German baby is as innocent as an English baby, a German mother +is as helpless as an English mother; and our stay-at-home heroes, +safely ensconced in pulpits or editorial chairs, shrilly proclaim +that they must be bombed by English airmen. What a function to +impose on a band of fighters, peculiarly chivalrous and humane! + +I refer to the pulpit because one gross and disgusting instance +of clerical ferocity has lately been reported. A raving clergyman +has been insolently parodying the Gospel which he has sworn to +preach. Some of the newspapers commended his courage; and we do +not know whether his congregation quitted the church or his Bishop +rebuked him. Both results are possible, and I sincerely hope that +the latter is true. The established and endowed teachers of religion +have not always used their influence on the side of mercy; but on +the question of reprisals I have observed with thankfulness that +the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have spoken +on the right side, and have spoken with energy and decision. They, +at any rate, have escaped the peril of induration, and in that +respect they are at one with the great mass of decent citizens. + +I am no advocate of a mawkish lenity. When our soldiers and sailors +and airmen meet our armed foes on equal terms, my prayers go with +them; and the harder they strike, the better I am pleased. When a +man or woman has committed a cold-blooded murder and has escaped +the just penalty of the crime, I loathe the political intrigue +which sets him or her free. Heavy punishment for savage deeds, +remorseless fighting till victory is ours--these surely should be +guiding principles in peace and war; and to hold them is no proof +that one has suffered the process of induration. + +Here I am not ashamed to make common cause with the stout old Puritan +in _Peveril of the Peak:_ "To forgive our human wrongs is Christian-like +and commendable; but we have no commission to forgive those which +have been done to the cause of religion and of liberty; we have +no right to grant immunity or to shake hands with those who have +poured forth the blood of our brethren." + +But let us keep our vengeance for those who by their own actions +have justly incurred it. The very intensity of our desire to punish +the wrong-doer should be the measure of our unwillingness to inflict +torture on the helpless and the innocent. "Lest we grow hard"--it +should be our daily dread. "A black character, a womanish character, +a stubborn character: bestial, childish, stupid, scurrilous, +tyrannical." A pagan, who had observed such a character in its +working, prayed to be preserved from it. Christians of the twentieth +century must not sink below the moral level of Marcus Aurelius. + + + + +IV + +_FLACCIDITY_ + +My discourse on "Induration" was intended to convey a warning which, +as individuals, we all need. But Governments are beset by an even +greater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and the +simple--"flabbiness." + +The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scriptural +allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announced +that he would "set his face" against a certain policy and then +gave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face,' but he did not 'set it +as a flint'--rather _as a pudding_." + +To set one's face as a pudding is the characteristic action of all +weak Governments. Lord Randolph Churchill once attracted notice +by enouncing the homely truth that "the business of an Opposition +is to oppose." A truth even more primary is that the duty of a +Government is to govern; to set its face, not as a pudding, but as +a flint, against lawlessness and outrage; to protect the innocent +and to punish the wrong-doer. + +This is a duty from which all weak Governments shrink. If a Minister +is not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a united +party, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious about +his own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the next +move of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neither +protects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal and +the rebel. In this particular, there is no distinction of party. +Tories can show no better record than Whigs, nor Liberals than +Conservatives. It is a question of the governing temper, which is +as absolutely requisite to the character of the ruler as courage +to the soldier or incorruptibility to the Judge. + +It used to be held, and perhaps still is held, by what may be styled +the toad-eating school of publicists, that this governing temper +was an hereditary gift transmitted by a long line of ancestors, +who in their successive generations had possessed it, and had used +it on a large scale in the governance of England. "How natural," +they exclaimed, "that Lord Nozoo, whose ancestors have ruled half +Loamshire since the Conquest, should have more notion of governing +men than that wretched Bagman, whose grandfather swept out the +shop, and who has never had to rule anyone except a clerk and a +parlourmaid!" + +This sounded plausible enough, especially in the days when heredity +was everything, and when ancestral habit was held to explain, and if +necessary extenuate, all personal characteristics; but experience +and observation proved it false. Pitt was, I suppose, the greatest +Minister who ever ruled England; but his pedigree would have moved a +genealogist to scorn. Peel was a Minister who governed so effectually +that, according to Gladstone, who served under him, his direct +authority was felt in every department, high or low, of the +Administration over which he presided; and Peel was a very recent +product of cotton. Abraham Lincoln was, perhaps, the greatest ruler +of the modern world, and the quality of his ancestry is a topic fit +only to be handled in a lecture on the Self-Made Men of History. + +When we regard our own time, I should say that Joseph Chamberlain had, +of all English statesmen I have ever known, both the most satisfactory +ideal of government and the greatest faculty for exercising it. But +the Cordwainers' Company was the school in which his forefathers +had learnt the art of rule. Ancestral achievements, hereditary +possessions, have nothing to do with the matter. What makes a man +a ruler of men, and enables him to set his face as a flint against +wrong-doing; is a faculty born in himself--"the soul that riseth +with him, his life's star." + +And it has no more to do with politics than with pedigree. Sydney +Smith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knew +that sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, and +after the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flaccidity +with great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured about +Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, +and thirty imprisoned. You will save lives by it in the end." + +It was a Tory Government which in the London Riots of 1866 made, as +Matthew Arnold said, "an exhibition of mismanagement, imprudence, +and weakness almost incredible." Next year the Fenians blew up +Clerkenwell Prison, and the same acute critic observed: "A Government +which dares not deal with a mob, of any nation or with any design, +simply opens the floodgates to anarchy. Who can wonder at the Irish, +who have cause to hate us, and who do not own their allegiance +to us, making war on a State and society which has shown itself +irresolute and feeble?" + +But the head of that feeble State, the leader of that irresolute +society, was the fourteenth Earl of Derby, whose ancestors had +practised the arts of government for eight hundred years. + +In Ireland the case is the same. Both parties have succeeded in +governing it, and both have failed. Mr. Balfour has been justly +praised for his vigour in protecting property and restoring order; +but it was Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan who, four years +before, had caught and hanged the assassins of the Phoenix Park, and +had abolished agrarian murder. It was, alas! a Liberal Government +that tolerated the Ulster treason, and so prepared the way for the +Dublin rebellion. Highly placed and highly paid flaccidity then +reigned supreme, and produced its inevitable result. But last December +we were assured that flaccidity had made way for firmness, and that +the pudding had been replaced by the flint. But the transactions +of the last few weeks--one transaction in particular[*]--seem worthy +of our flabbiest days. + +[Footnote *: A release for political objects.] + +I turn my eyes homewards again, from Dublin to the House of Commons. +The report of the Mesopotamia Commission has announced to the world +a series of actions which every Briton feels as a national disgrace. +Are the perpetrators of those actions to go unpunished? Are they +to retain their honours and emoluments, the confidence of their +Sovereign, and the approbation of his Ministers? If so, flaccidity +will stand revealed as what in truth it has always been--the one +quality which neutralizes all other gifts, and makes its possessor +incapable of governing. + + + + +V + +_THE PROMISE OF MAY_ + +This is the real season for a holiday, if holidays were still possible. +It is a point of literary honour not to quote the line which shows +that our forefathers, in the days of Chaucer, felt the holiday-making +instinct of the spring, and that instinct has not been affected by +the lapse of the centuries. It stirs us even in London, when the +impetuous lilacs are bursting into bud, and the sooty sparrows +chirrup love-songs, and "a livelier iris changes on the burnished +dove"--or, to be more accurate, pigeon--which swells and straddles +as if Piccadilly were all his own. The very wallflowers and daffodils +which crown the costers' barrows help to weave the spell; and, +though pleasure-jaunts are out of the question, we welcome a call +of duty which takes us, even for twenty-four hours, into "the country +places, which God made and not man." + +For my own part, I am no victim of the "pathetic fallacy" by which +people in all ages have persuaded themselves that Nature sympathized +with their joys and sorrows. Even if that dream had not been dispelled, +in prose by Walter Scott, and in verse by Matthew Arnold, one's +own experience, would have proved it false. + +"Alas! what are we, that the laws of Nature should correspond in +their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings?" _The Heart +of Midlothian_. + + "Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; + Nature and man can never be fast friends."[*] + +[Footnote *: _In Harmony with Nature_.] + +A funeral under the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June loses +nothing of its sadness--perhaps is made more sad--by the unsympathetic +aspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitual +gloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in the +Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall disasters and +disappointments which have overcast the spring, and tidings of +achievement or deliverance which have been happily out of keeping +with the melancholy beauty of autumn. + +In short, Nature cares nothing for the acts and sufferings of human +kind; yet, with a strange sort of affectionate obstinacy, men insist +on trying to sympathize with Nature, who declines to sympathize +with them; and now, when she spreads before our enchanted eyes all +the sweetness and promise of the land in spring, we try to bring +our thoughts into harmony with the things we see, and to forget, +though it be only for a moment, alike regrets and forebodings. + +And surely the effort is salutary. With Tom Hughes, jovial yet +thoughtful patriot, for our guide, we make our way to the summit +of some well-remembered hill, which has perhaps already won a name +in history, and find it "a place to open a man's soul and make +him prophesy, as he looks down on the great vale spread out, as +the Garden of the Lord, before him": wide tracts of woodland, and +fat meadows and winding streams, and snug homesteads embowered in +trees, and miles on miles of what will soon be cornfields. Far away +in the distance, a thin cloud of smoke floats over some laborious +town, and whichever way we look, church after church is dotted over +the whole surface of the country, like knots in network. + +Such, or something like it, is the traditional aspect of our fair +English land; but to-day she wears her beauty with a difference. +The saw is at work in the woodlands; and individual trees, which +were not only the landmarks, but also the friends and companions +of one's childhood, have disappeared for ever. The rich meadows by +the tranquil streams, and the grazing cattle, which used to remind +us only of Cuyp's peaceful landscapes, now suggest the sterner thought +of rations and queues. The corn-fields, not yet "white to harvest," +acquire new dignity from the thought of all that is involved in +"the staff of life." The smoke-cloud over the manufacturing town +is no longer a mere blur on the horizon, but tells of a prodigality +of human effort, directed to the destruction of human life, such +as the world has never known. Even from the towers of the village +churches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-song +of an older patriotism--"In the name of our God we will set up +our banners."[*] + +[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5.] + +Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what this +year is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truth +and fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours of +this sin-worn mould." It is the promise of strong endurance, which +will bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, and never fail +or murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise of a brighter +day, when the skill of invention and of handicraft may be once +more directed, not to the devices which destroy life, but to the +sciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify it. Above +all, it is the promise of a return, through blood and fire, to +the faith which made England great, and the law which yet may wrap +the world in peace. + +"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth +the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God +will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all +the nations" (Isa. lxi. II). + + + + +VI + +_PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM_ + +Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almost +to frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult with +philosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below the +surface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle. +"In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man," he wrote, +"we find employed that investiture of the acts themselves with +an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual. +The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same: +it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expression +of the inward." The word "ritual" is by common usage restricted +to the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it has a far wider +significance. It gives us the august rite of the Convocation, the +ceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, the formal usages +of battleships, the silent but expressive language of heraldry and +symbol; and, in its humbler developments, the paraphernalia of +Masonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty pageantry of Flag-days +and Rose-days. Why should these things be? "Human nature itself, +with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. The marriage of the +outward and the inward pervades the universe." + +The power of the outward reaches the inward chiefly through the eye +and the ear. Colour, as Ruskin taught us, is not only delightful, +but sacred. "Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is +the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.... Consider what +sort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leaves +black, and the sky _brown_." The perfection of form--the grace of +outline, the harmony of flowing curves--appeals, perhaps, less +generally than colour, because to appreciate it the eye requires +some training, whereas to love colour one only needs feeling. Yet +form has its own use and message, and so, again, has the solemnity of +ordered movement; and when all these three elements of charm--colour +and form and motion--are combined in a public ceremony, the effect +is irresistible. + +But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through the +eye. The ear has an even higher function. Perhaps the composer of +great music speaks, in the course of the ages, to a larger number of +human hearts than are touched by any other form of genius. Thousands, +listening enraptured to his strain, hear "the outpourings of eternal +harmony in the medium of created sound." And yet again there are +those, and they are not a few, to whom even music never speaks +so convincingly as when it is wedded to suitable words; for then +two emotions are combined in one appeal, and human speech helps +to interpret the unspoken. + +It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishes +the beauty of our public and communal life. Khaki instead of scarlet, +potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly things +usurping the places aforetime assigned to beauty and splendour--these +are our daily and hourly reminders of the "great tribulation" through +which the nation is passing. Of course, one ought not to wish it +otherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet," but eminently salutary, are these +"uses of adversity," for they prevent us from forgetting, even if +we were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realities +of the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, and in spite of +all this, beauty retains its sway over "the common heart of man." +Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily obscure, the +beauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting for the +opportunity of Peace to reassert itself. + +To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcome +exception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, during +the week now closed, has been enacted at Queen's Hall.[*] There +were critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contended +that such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it all +sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the +public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; +some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime +of fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was performed, at a +great cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of all +this. All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial +were displayed--colour and form and ordered motion; noble music +set to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above their +ordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion. The climax, +wisely ordered, was our tribute of gratitude to the United States, +and never did the "Battle-hymn of the Republic" sound its trumpets +more exultingly. For once, the word "Ritual" might with perfect +propriety be separated from its controversial associations, and +bestowed on this great act of patriotic pageantry. It was, in the +truest sense, a religious service, fitly commemorating the entry +of all the world's best powers into the crowning conflict of light +with darkness. + +[Footnote *: Under the direction of Madame Clara Butt (May, 1918).] + + + + +VII + +FACT AND FICTION + + + + +N. B.--_These two stories are founded on fact; but the personal +allusions are fictitious. As regards public events, they are +historically accurate.--G. W. E. R._ + + +I + +_A FORGOTTEN PANIC_ + +Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrow +holidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to some +friends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I was +alone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task; +but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into the +carriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porter +who breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This is +all," and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settled +himself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage which +I had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of the +carriage--a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an umbrella, +and one or two smaller parcels--all legibly labelled + + G. W. E. RUSSELL, + Woodside, + Harrow-on-the-Hill. + +After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed: +"When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you will +know that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease." Youth, +I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but there +was something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as to +disarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alike +prepossessing. He drew from his pocket the _Daily News_, in those +days a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he composed +himself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his appearance. +He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, of the middle +height, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the train had shown, +as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned that it was difficult +to guess his natural complexion; but his closely cropped hair was +jet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed the roots of a very +dark beard. In those days it was fashionable to wear one's hair +rather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a moustache. Priests +and actors were the only people who shaved clean, and I decided +in my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he laid down his +paper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy which when one +is very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, sir, that my abrupt +entry did not disturb you. I had a rush for it, and nearly lost my +train as it was. And I hope what I said about luggage did not seem +impertinent. I was only thinking that, if I had been obliged to look +after portmanteaus, I should probably still be on the platform at +Carlisle." I hastened to say, with my best air, that I had not been +the least offended, and rather apologized for my own encumbrances +by saying that I was going South for three months, and had to take +all my possessions with me. I am not sure that I was pleased when +my friend said: "Ah, yes; the end of the vacation. You are returning +to college at Harrow, I see." It was humiliating to confess that +Harrow was a school, and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it with +great composure. Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He should +have said "school," not "college." He had a great admiration for +the English Public Schools. It was his misfortune to have been +educated abroad. A French lycée, or a German gymnasium, was not +such a pleasant place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the best +way of starting a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve being +once broken, we chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told him +everything about myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amusements, my +favourite authors, and all the rest of it; but presently it dawned +upon me that, though I had disclosed everything to him, he had +disclosed nothing to me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemed +him so, was not very proud of his profession. His nationality, +too, perplexed me. He spoke English as fluently as I did, but not +quite idiomatically; and there was just a trace of an accent which +was not English. Sometimes it sounded French, but then again there +was a tinge of American. On the whole, I came to the conclusion +that my friend was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad, +or else an American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced, +the American theory gained upon me; for, though my friend told me +nothing about himself, he told me a great deal about every place +which we passed. He knew the industries of the various towns, and +the events connected with them, and the names of the people who +owned the castles and great country-houses. I had been told that +this habit of endless exposition was characteristic of the cultured +American. But, whatever was the nationality of my companion, I +enjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not as a man to +a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy of +asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all the +little arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good terms +with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a very +jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a little +about himself. + +When, late in the afternoon, we passed Bletchley Station, I bethought +me that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Western +train, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order to +disgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goods +and to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to my +great joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. I +shall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much like +to pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions.'" This was +exactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so I +joyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, though +we had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend's +name. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a +backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to me, saying, +"I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I will +write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit." Just then +the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fighting +my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform, +I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the window +of the carriage which I had just quitted. + +The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, +the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult +Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, +to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, +saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon, +the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found him +even pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools to +the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great +part due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as +the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our course +of study? What our system of discipline? What were our amusements? +The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the +end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being +played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the +Spire, he asked me if we had any other amusements. Fives or racquets +he did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics? +(In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Every +boy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was a +national glory. Had we any part in it? + +The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those days +Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the +Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton +Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 +we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the +school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, +I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to +our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy +cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles +(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive +to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced +round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, +if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only. +Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather +wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was +not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly +of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved +name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the +local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was +a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing, +remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the +way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury, +and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it +contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian, +who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept +everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was +just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties +in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke +enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns +and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, +and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard +against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse +proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor. +Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits +were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of +general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker +at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train? +As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend +really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him +than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for, +to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told +me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station +with mutual regrets. + + * * * * * + +The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. The +termination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employment +a great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who had +served for five years in the American armies. Among these were +General Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi, +and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier of +the day." The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolated +outrages, but of an armed rising in Ireland; and, after consultation +with the Fenian leaders in New York, Cluseret came to England with +a view to organizing the insurrection. What then befell can be +read in Lathair, where Cluseret is thinly disguised as "Captain +Bruges," and also in his own narrative, published in _Fraser's +Magazine_ for 1872. He arrived in London in January, 1867, and +startling events began to happen in quick succession. On the 11th +of February an armed party of Fenians attacked Chester Castle, +and were not repulsed without some difficulty. There was an armed +rising at Killarney. The police-barracks at Tallaght were besieged, +and at Glencullen the insurgents captured the police-force and +their weapons. At Kilmallock there was an encounter between the +Fenians and the constabulary, and life was lost on both sides. +There was a design of concentrating all the Fenian forces on Mallow +Junction, but the rapid movement of the Queen's troops frustrated +the design, and the general rising was postponed. Presently two +vagrants were arrested on suspicion at Liverpool, and proved to be +two of the most notorious of the Fenian leaders, "Colonel" Kelly +and "Captain" Deasy. It was when these prisoners, remanded for +further enquiry, were being driven under a strong escort to gaol +that the prison-van was attacked by a rescue-party, and Sergeant +Brett, who was in charge of the prisoners, was shot. The rescuers, +Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were executed on the 2nd of November, +and on the 1st of December Clerkenwell Prison was blown up, in +an ineffectual attempt to liberate the Fenian prisoners confined +in it. On the 20th of December Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother, +"We are in a strange uneasy state in London, and the profound sense +I have long had of the hollowness and insufficiency of our whole +system of administration does not inspire me with much confidence." +The "strange uneasy state" was not confined to London, but prevailed +everywhere. Obviously England was threatened by a mysterious and +desperate enemy, and no one seemed to know that enemy's headquarters +or base of operations. The Secret Societies were actively at work +in England, Ireland, France, and Italy. It was suspected then--it +is known now, and chiefly through Cluseret's revelations--that the +isolated attacks on barracks and police-stations were designed +for the purpose of securing arms and ammunition; and, if only there +had been a competent General to command the rebel forces, Ireland +would have risen in open war. But a competent General was exactly +what the insurgents lacked; for Cluseret, having surveyed the whole +situation with eyes trained by a lifelong experience of war, decided +that the scheme was hopeless, and returned to Paris. + +Such were some--for I have only mentioned a few--of the incidents +which made 1867 a memorable year. On my own memory it is stamped +with a peculiar clearness. + +On Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, 1867, as we were going up +to First School at Harrow, a rumour flew from mouth to mouth that +the drill-shed had been attacked by Fenians. Sure enough it had. The +caretaker (as I said before) lived some way from the building, and +when he went to open it in the morning he found that the door had +been forced and the place swept clean of arms and ammunition. Here +was a real sensation, and we felt for a few hours "the joy of eventful +living"; but later in the day the evening papers, coming down from +London, quenched our excitement with a greater. It appeared that +during the night of the 1st of October, drill-sheds and armouries +belonging to the Volunteer regiments had been simultaneously raided +north, south, east, and west of London, and all munitions of war +spirited away, for a purpose which was not hard to guess. Commenting +on this startling occurrence, the papers said: "We have reason +to believe that one of the ablest of the Fenian agents has been +for some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom. He has +been traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It is +believed at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteer +headquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferred +by a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris." A +friend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist brought +back a _Globe_ with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointed +out the passage which I have just cited. As I read it, my heart +gave a jump--a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friend +Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, +and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into +actual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicions +to anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that this +was a case where silence was golden. Fortunately, none of my +school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the +old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk +and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spoken +gentleman." + +Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far more +exhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closed +the year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May, +1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the history +of Fenianism in England to an end. + +As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round +Harrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not +arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would +not abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him. Perhaps it +really was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many. + + * * * * * + +The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and +I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in +Paris. They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mention +their real name, they would be immediately recognized. They had +social position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, acting +under irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from their +natural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics. +It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committed +himself so deeply if it had not been for his wife's influence; +and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult to +withstand. Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in her +company one felt that "the Cause," as she always called it without +qualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and living +for. As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, and +Jessie White-Mario, and the authoress of _Aspromonte_, a passionate +zeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she married, her +enthusiasm fired her husband. They became sworn allies both of +Garibaldi and of Mazzini, and through them were brought into close, +though mysterious, relations with the revolutionary party in Italy +and also in France. They witnessed the last great act of the Papacy +at the Vatican Council; and then, early in 1870, they established +themselves in Paris. French society was at that moment in a strange +state of tension and unrest. The impending calamity of the Franco-German +War was not foreseen; but everyone knew that the Imperial throne was +rocking; that the soil was primed by Secret Societies; and that +all the elements of revolution were at hand, and needed only some +sudden concussion to stir them into activity. This was a condition +which exactly suited my cousin Evelyn Brentford. She was "at the +height of the circumstances," and she gathered round her, at her +villa on the outskirts of Paris, a society partly political, partly +Bohemian, and wholly Red. "Do come," she wrote, "and stay with +us at Easter. I can't promise you a Revolution; but it's quite +on the cards that you may come in for one. Anyhow, you will see +some fun." I had some difficulty in inducing my parents (sound +Whigs) to give the necessary permission; but they admitted that +at seventeen a son must be trusted, and I went off rejoicing to +join the Brentfords at Paris. Those three weeks, from the 12th +of April to the 4th of May, 1870, gave me, as the boys now say, +"the time of my life." I met a great many people whose names I +already knew, and some more of whom we heard next year in the history +of the Commune. The air was full of the most sensational rumours, +and those who hoped "to see the last King strangled in the bowels +of the last priest" enjoyed themselves thoroughly. + +My cousin Evelyn was always at home to her friends on Sunday and +Wednesday evenings, and her rooms were thronged by a miscellaneous +crowd in which the Parisian accent mingled with the tongues of +America and Italy, and the French of the southern provinces. At +one of these parties I was talking to a delightful lady who lived +only in the hope of seeing "the Devil come for that dog" (indicating +by this term an Imperial malefactor), and who, when exhausted by +regicidal eloquence, demanded coffee. As we approached the buffet, a +man who had just put down his cup turned round and met my companion +and me face to face. Two years and a half had made no difference +in him. He was Mr. Aulif, as active and fresh as ever, and, before +I had time to reflect on my course, I had impulsively seized him +by the hand. "Don't you remember me?" I cried. He only stared. "My +name is George Russell, and you visited me at Harrow." "I fear, +sir, you have made a mistake," said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly to +my companion, and hurried back into the drawing-room. My companion +looked surprised. "The General seems put out--I wonder why. He +and I are the greatest allies. Let me tell you, my friend, that +he is the man that the Revolution will have to rely on when the +time comes for rising. Ask them at Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi. Ask +McClellan. Ask General Grant. He is the greatest General in the +world, and has sacrificed his career for Freedom." "Is his name +Aulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret." + + * * * * * + +Next day at _déjuner_ I was full of my evening's adventure; but my +host and hostess received it with mortifying composure. "Nothing +could be more likely," said my cousin Evelyn. "General Cluseret +was here, though he did not stay long. Perhaps he really did not +remember you. When he saw you before, you were a boy, and now you look +like a young man. Or perhaps he did not wish to be cross-examined. +He is pretty busy here just now, but in 1867 he was constantly +backwards and forwards between Paris and London trying to organize +that Irish insurrection which never came off. England is not the +only country he has visited on business of that kind, and he has +many travelling names. He thinks it safer, for obvious reasons, to +travel without luggage. If you had been able to open that leather +case in the train you would probably have found nothing in it except +some maps, a toothbrush, and a spare revolver. Certainly that Irish +affair was a _fiasco_; but depend upon it you will hear of General +Cluseret again." + +And so indeed I did, and so did the whole civilized world, and +that within twelve months of the time of speaking; but there is +no need to rewrite in this place the history of the Commune. + + + + +II + +_A CRIMEAN EPISODE_ + +It was eight o'clock in the evening of the 5th of April, 1880, and +the Travellers' Club was full to overflowing. Men who were just +sitting down to dinner got up from their tables, and joined the +excited concourse in the hall. The General Election which terminated +Lord Beaconsfield's reign was nearing its close, and the issue +was scarcely in doubt; but at this moment the decisive event of +the campaign was announced. Members, as they eagerly scanned the +tape, saw that Gladstone was returned for Midlothian; and, as they +passed, the news to the expectant crowd behind them, there arose +a tumult of excited voices. + +"I told you how it would be!" "Well, I've lost my money." "I could +not have believed that Scotsmen would be such fools." "I'm awfully +sorry for Dalkeith." "Why couldn't that old windbag have stuck +to Greenwich?" "I blame Rosebery for getting him down." "Well, +I suppose we're in for another Gladstone Premiership." "Oh, no +fear. The Queen won't speak to him." "No, Hartington's the man, +and, as an old Whig, I'm glad of it." "Perhaps Gladstone will take +the Exchequer." "What! serve under Hartington? You don't know the +old gentleman's pride if you expect that;" and so on and so forth, +a chorus of excited and bewildering exclamations. Amid all the +hurly-burly, one figure in the throng seemed quite unmoved, and +its immobility attracted the notice of the throng. "Well, really, +Vaughan, I should have thought that even you would have felt excited +about this. I know you don't care much about politics in a general +way, but this is something out of the common. The Duke of Buccleuch +beaten on his own ground, and Gladstone heading straight for the +Premiership! Isn't that enough to quicken your pulse?" + +But the man whom they saluted as Vaughan still looked undisturbed. +"Well, I don't think I ever was quite as much in love with Dizzy +as you were; and as to the Premiership, we are not quite at the +end yet, and _Alors comme alors_." + +Philip Vaughan was a man just over fifty: tall, pale, +distinguished-looking, with something in his figure and bearing +that reminded one of the statue of Sidney Herbert, which in 1880 +still stood before the War Office in Pall Mall. He looked both +delicate and melancholy. His face was curiously devoid of animation; +but his most marked characteristic was an habitual look of meditative +abstraction from the things which immediately surrounded him. As +he walked down the steps of the club towards a brougham which was +waiting for him, the man who had tried in vain to interest him +in the Midlothian Election turned to his nearest neighbour, and +said: "Vaughan is really the most extraordinary fellow I know. +There is nothing on earth that interests him in the faintest degree. +Politics, books, sport, society, foreign affairs--he I never seems +to care a rap about any of them; and yet he knows something about +them all, and, if only you can get him to talk, he can talk extremely +well. It is particularly curious about politics, for generally, if +a man has once been in political life, he feels the fascination +of it to the end." "But was Vaughan ever in political life?" "Oh +yes I suppose you are too young to remember. He got into Parliament +just after he left Oxford. He was put in by an old uncle for a Family +Borough--Bilton--one of those snug little seats, not exactly 'Pocket +Boroughs,' but very like them, which survived until the Reform Act +of 1867." "How long did he sit?" "Only for one Parliament--from +1852 to 1857. No one ever knew why he gave up. He put it on health, +but I believe it was just freakishness. He always was an odd chap, +and of course he grows odder as he grows older." But just at that +moment another exciting result came, trickling down the tape, and +the hubbub was renewed. + +Philip Vaughan was, as he put it in his languid way, "rather fond +of clubs," so long as they were not political, and he spent a good +deal of his time at the Travellers', the Athenæum, and the United +Universities, and was a member of some more modern institutions. +He had plenty of acquaintances, but no friends--at least of his +own age. The Argus-eyed surveyors of club-life noticed that the +only people to whom he seemed to talk freely and cheerfully were +the youngest members; and he was notoriously good-natured in helping +young fellows who wished to join his clubs, and did his utmost to +stay the hand of the blackballer. + +He had a very numerous cousinship, but did not much cultivate it. +Sometimes, yielding to pressure, he would dine with cousins in +London; or pay a flying visit to them in the country; but in order, +as it was supposed to avoid these family entanglements, he lived +at Wimbledon, where he enjoyed, in a quiet way, his garden and +his library, and spent most of the day in solitary rides among +the Surrey hills. When winter set in he generally vanished towards +the South of Europe, but by Easter he was back again at Wimbledon, +and was to be found pretty often at one or other of his clubs. + +This was Philip Vaughan, as people knew him in 1880. Some liked +him; some pitied him; some rather despised him; but no one took +the trouble to understand him; and indeed, if anyone had thought +it worth while to do so, the attempt would probably have been +unsuccessful; for Vaughan never talked of the past, and to understand +him in 1880 one must have known him as he had been thirty years +before. + +In 1850 two of the best known of the young men in society were +Arthur Grey and Philip Vaughan. They were, and had been ever since +their schooldays at Harrow, inseparable friends. The people to +whom friendship is a sealed and hopeless mystery were puzzled by +the alliance. "What have those two fellows in common?" was the +constant question, "and yet you never see them apart." They shared +lodgings in Mount Street, frequented the same clubs, and went, +night after night, to the same diners and balls. They belonged, +in short, to the same set: "went everywhere," as the phrase is, +and both were extremely popular; but their pursuits and careers +were different. Grey was essentially a sportsman and an athlete. He +was one of those men to whom all bodily exercises come naturally, +and who attain perfection in them with no apparent effort. From +his earliest days he had set his heart on being a soldier, and by +1850 had obtained a commission in the Guards. Vaughan had neither +gifts nor inclinations in the way of sport or games. At Harrow he +lived the life of the intellect and the spirit, and was unpopular +accordingly. He was constantly to be found "mooning," as his +schoolfellows said, in the green lanes and meadow-paths which lie +between Harrow and Uxbridge, or gazing, as Byron had loved to gaze, +at the sunset from the Churchyard Terrace. It was even whispered +that he wrote poetry. + +Arthur Grey, with his good looks, his frank bearing, and his facile +supremacy on the cricket-ground and in the racquet-court, was a +popular hero; and of all his schoolfellows none paid him a more +whole-hearted worship than the totally dissimilar Philip Vaughan. +Their close and intimate affection was a standing puzzle to hard +and dull and superficial natures; but a poet could interpret it. + + "We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart + From churls, who, wondered what our friendship meant; + And in that coy retirement heart to heart + Drew closer, and our natures were content."[*] + +[Footnote *: William Cory.] + +Vaughan and Grey left Harrow, as they had entered it, on the same +day, and in the following October both went up to Christ Church. +Neither contemplated a long stay at Oxford, for each had his career +cut out. Grey was to join the Guards at the earliest opportunity, +and Vaughan was destined for Parliament. Bilton was a borough which +the "Schedule A" of 1832 had spared. It numbered some 900 voters; +and, even as the electors of Liskeard "were commonly of the same +opinion as Mr. Eliot," so the electors of Bilton were commonly +of the same opinion as Lord Liscombe. + +The eighth Lord Liscombe was the last male member of his family. +The peerage must die with him; but his property, including the +"Borough influence," was at his own disposal. His only sister had +married a Mr. Vaughan, and Lord Liscombe, having carefully watched +the character and career of his nephew Philip Vaughan, determined +to make him his heir. This was all very well; no one had a word +to say against it, for no more obvious heir could be suggested. +But when it became known that Lord Liscombe meant to bring Philip +Vaughan into Parliament for Bilton there was great dissatisfaction. +"What a shame," people said, "to disturb old Mr. Cobley, who has +sat so long and voted so steadily! To be sure, he is very tiresome, +and can't make himself heard a yard off, and is very stingy about +subscriptions; and, if there was some rising young man to put into +his seat, as the Duke of Newcastle put Gladstone, it might be all +very well. But, really, Philip Vaughan is such a moody, dreamy +creature, and so wrapped up in books and poetry, that he can never +make a decent Member of Parliament. Politics are quite out of his +line, and I shouldn't wonder if Lord Liscombe contrived to lose +the seat. But he's as obstinate as a mule; and he has persuaded +himself that young Vaughan is a genius. Was there ever such folly?" + +Lord Liscombe had his own way--as he commonly had. Mr. Cobley received +a polite intimation that at the next election he would not be able +to rely on the Liscombe interest, and retired with a very bad grace, +but not without his reward; for before long he received the offer +of a baronetcy (which he accepted, as he said, to please his wife), +and died honourably as Sir Thomas Cobley. Meanwhile Lord Liscombe, +who, when he had framed a plan, never let the grass grow under +his feet, induced Philip Vaughan to quit Oxford without waiting +for a degree, made him address "Market Ordinaries" and political +meetings at Bilton, presented him at the Levee, proposed him at +his favourite clubs, gave him an ample allowance, and launched him, +with a vigorous push, into society. In all this Lord Liscombe did +well, and showed his knowledge of human nature. The air of politics +stirred young Vaughan's pulses as they had never been stirred before. +What casual observers had regarded as idle reveries turned out to +have been serious studies. With the theory of English politics, as +it shaped itself in 1852 when Lord Derby and Disraeli were trying +to restore Protection, Vaughan showed himself thoroughly acquainted; +and, as often happens when a contemplative and romantic nature +is first brought into contact with eager humanity, he developed +a faculty of public speaking which astonished his uncle as much +as it astonished anyone, though that astute nobleman concealed +his surprise. Meanwhile, Grey had got his commission. In those +days officers of the Guards lived in lodgings, so it was obvious +for Grey and Vaughan to live together; and every now and then Grey +would slip down to Bilton, and by making himself pleasant to the +shop-keepers, and talking appropriately to the farmers, would act +as his friend's most effective election-agent. The Dissolution +came in July, 1852, and Philip Vaughan was returned unopposed for +the Free and Independent Borough of Bilton. + +Then followed a halcyon time. The two friends had long known that +they had only one heart between them; and now, living under the +same roof and going into the same society, they lived practically +one life. There was just enough separation to make reunion more +delightful--a dull debate at the House for Vaughan, or a dusty +field-day at Aldershot for Grey; but for both there was the early +gallop in Rotten Row, the breakfast which no third person ever +shared, the evening of social amusement, and the long, deep, intimate +talk over the last cigar, when the doings of the day were reviewed +and the programme for to-morrow was sketched. + +Grey had always been popular and always lighthearted. Vaughan, as +a schoolboy and an undergraduate, had been unpopular and grave. +But now people who knew them both observed that, at any rate as far +as outward characteristics showed, the two natures were becoming +harmonized. Vaughan was a visibly lighter, brighter, and more +companionable fellow; and Grey began to manifest something of that +manly seriousness which was wanted to complete his character. It +is pleasant to contemplate "one entire and perfect chrysolite" of +happiness, and that, during these bright years of opening manhood, +was the rare and fragile possession of Philip Vaughan and Arthur +Grey. + + * * * * * + +John Bright was once walking with one of his sons, then a schoolboy, +past the Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place. The boy asked the +meaning of the single word inscribed on the base, CRIMEA. Bright's +answer was as emphatic as the inscription: "A crime." There is no +need to recapitulate in this place the series of blunders through +which this country, in Lord Clarendon's phrase, "drifted towards +war." Month by month things shaped themselves in a way which left +no reasonable doubt about the issue. The two friends said little. +Deep in the heart of each there lay the conviction that an event +was at hand which would "pierce even to the dividing asunder of +soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." But each held the +conviction with a difference. To Grey it meant the approach of that +to which, from the days of his chivalrous boyhood, he had looked +forward, as the supreme good of life--the chance of a soldier's glory +and a soldier's death. To Vaughan it meant simply the extinction +of all that made life worth living. Each foresaw an agony, but +the one foresaw it with a joy which no affection could subdue; +the other with a despair which even religion seemed powerless to +relieve. Before long silence became impossible. The decision of the +Cabinet was made known. Two strong and ardent natures, which since +boyhood had lived in and on one another, were forced to admit that a +separation, which might be eternal, "was nigh, even at the doors." +But there was this vital difference between the two cases--the +one had to act; the other only to endure. + +On the 22nd of February, 1854, the Guards sailed from Southampton, +and on the 27th of March war between England and Russia was formally +declared. + + * * * * * + +The events of the next two years must be compressed into a few +lines. To the inseparable evils of war--bloodshed and sickness--were +added the horrors of a peculiarly cruel winter. Five-sixths of the +soldiers whom England lost died from preventable diseases, and +the want of proper food, clothing, and shelter. Bullets and cholera +and frost-bite did their deadly work unchecked. The officers had at +least their full share of the hardships and the fatalities. What +the Guards lost can be read on the walls of the Chapel at Wellington +Barracks and in the pedigrees of Burke's Peerage. For all England +it was a time of piercing trial, and of that hope deferred which +maketh the heart sick. No one ever knew what Vaughan endured, for he +as too proud to bare his soul. For two years he never looked at a +gazette, or opened a newspaper, or heard a Ministerial announcement +in the House of Commons, or listened to a conversation at his club, +without the sickening apprehension that the next moment he would +know that Arthur Grey was dead. Letters from Grey reached him from +time to time, but their brave cheerfulness did nothing to soothe +his apprehensions. For they were few and far between; postal +communication was slow and broken, and by the time a letter reached +him the hand which had penned it might be cold in death. Yet, in +spite of an apprehensive dread which had become a second nature +to Philip Vaughan, the fatal news lingered. Weeks lengthened into +months, and months into two years, and yet the blow had not fallen. +It was not in Philip's nature to "cheer up," or "expect the best," +or "hope against hope," or to adopt any of the cheap remedies which +shallow souls enjoy and prescribe. Nothing but certainty could give +him ease, and certainty was in this case impossible. Nervousness, +restlessness, fidgetiness, increased upon him day by day. The gossip +and bustle of the House of Commons became intolerable to him. Society +he had never entered since Grey sailed for the Crimea. As in boyhood, +so again now, he felt that Nature was the only true consoler, and for +weeks at a time he tried to bury himself in the wilds of Scotland +or Cumberland or Cornwall, spending his whole day in solitary walks, +with Wordsworth or the _Imitatio_ for a companion, and sleeping +only from physical exhaustion. + +In the early part of 1856 the newspapers began to talk of peace. +Sebastopol had fallen, and Russia was said to be exhausted. The +Emperor of the French had his own reasons for withdrawing from +the contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of Lord +Palmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of his +prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous +apprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatter +of irresponsible clubmen and M.P.'s was an insupportable affliction; +so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, and +departed on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himself +off as completely as possible from his usual environment, he left +no address at his lodgings, but told his servant that when he wanted +his letters he would telegraph for them from the place, whatever +it might be, where he was halting. He kept steadily to his plan, +wandering over hill and dale, by lake and river, and steeping his +soul in "the cheerful silence of the fells." When he lighted on a +spot which particularly took his fancy, he would halt there for +two or three days, and would send what in those day was called +"a telegraphic despatch" from the nearest town. In response to +the despatch he would receive from his servant in Mount Street +a package containing all the letters which had been accumulating +during the fortnight or three weeks since he last telegraphed. +One day in April, when he opened the customary package, he found +in it a letter from Arthur Grey. + +"The General has just told us that peace is practically settled. +If this proves true, you will not get another letter from me. I +presume we shall be sent home directly, and I shall make straight +for London and Mount Street, where I expect I shall find you. Dear +old chap, I can guess what you have been going through; but it +looks as if we should meet again in this world after all." + +What this letter meant to Philip Vaughan they only know who have +been through a similar experience; and words are powerless to express +it + + * * * * * + +After the first bewilderment of joy had subsided, Philip began +to study the practical bearings of the letter. By a comparison of +the date within and the post-mark outside, the letter appeared to +have been a long time on the way, and another delay had occurred +since it had arrived at Mount Street. It was possible that peace +might have been actually concluded. News in those days took long +to travel through Scottish glens, and Vaughan had never looked at +a paper since he left England. It was conceivable that the Guards +were already on their homeward voyage--nay, it might even be that +they were just arriving, or had arrived, in London. The one clear +point was that Vaughan must get home. Twenty miles on his landlord's +pony brought him to a telegraph-office, whence he telegraphed to +his servant, "Returning immediately," and then, setting his face +southward, he travelled as fast as steamers and express trains +would take him. As he travelled, he picked up the news. Peace had +been concluded on the 30th of March, and some of our troops were +homeward bound; some had actually arrived. The journey seemed +unnaturally long, and it was dark when the train rattled into Euston +Station.... In a bewildered mood of uncertainty and joy, he rang +the bell in Mount Street. His servant opened the door. "You're +just in time, sir. You will find him in the drawing-room." + +The drawing-room of the lodging-house had always been Grey's +sitting-room, and during his absence Vaughan had studiously kept it +in it accustomed order. There were some stags' heads on the walls, +and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, and +engravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honoured +as masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, +the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philip +flung open the door with a passionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! At +last! Thank God----" But the words died on his lips. + +In the middle of the room, just under the central chandelier, there +was a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door. +On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse, +and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey. + + * * * * * + +What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Not +even the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut. + +Next morning the park-keepers found a young man lying on the grass +in Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with the night's heavy rain, +unconscious, and apparently dying. The papers in his pockets proved +that he was Philip Vaughan. A long and desperate illness followed, +and for months both life and reason trembled in the balance. Lord +Liscombe hurried up to London, and Vaughan's servant explained +everything. Arthur Grey had been taken ill on the homeward voyage. +The symptoms would now be recognized as typhoid, but the disease +had not then been diagnosed, and the ship's surgeon pronounced it +"low fever." He landed at Southampton, pushed his way to London, +arrived at his lodgings more dead than alive, and almost immediately +sank into the coma from which he never recovered. It was impossible +to communicate with Vaughan, whose address was unknown; and when +his telegram arrived, announcing his instant return, the servant +and the landlady agreed that he must have heard the news from some +other source, and was hurrying back to see his friend before he +became invisible for ever. "You're just in time" meant just in +time to see the body, for the coffin was to be closed that evening. + + * * * * * + +The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his side +youth and a constitution, not strong indeed, but unweakened by +profligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from the +shock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, in +great part, to his former habits. Only he could not and would not +re-enter the House of Commons, but announced his retirement, on the +score of health, at the next Election. Soon afterwards he inherited Lord +Liscombe's fortune, made over Liscombe Abbey and its responsibilities +to a distant cousin, and insensibly glided into the way of living +which I described at the outset. Two years after the Election of +1880 he died at Rome, where he had been spending the winter. The +attack of fever to which he succumbed was not peculiarly severe, +but the doctor said that he made no effort to live, and was in +fact worn out, though not by years. + +Nobody missed him. Nobody lamented him. Few even said a kind word +about him. His will expressed only one personal wish--that he might +be buried by the side of Arthur Grey. But his executors thought +that this arrangement would cause them a great deal of trouble, +and he rests in the English cemetery at Rome. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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E. Russell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Prime Ministers and Some Others<br /> + A Book of Reminiscences</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George W. E. Russell</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 12, 2005 [eBook #16519]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2023]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Robert J. Hall</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS ***</div> + +<h1> +PRIME MINISTERS<br /> +AND SOME OTHERS +</h1> + +<p class="subtitle"> +A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES BY THE<br /> +RIGHT HONOURABLE +</p> + +<p class="author"> +GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL +</p> + +<p style="margin-top: 2em;"> </p> + +<p class="center"> +<a name="page_5"><span class="page">Page 5</span></a> +TO<br /> +<span style="font-weight: bold;">THE EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON,</span><br +/> +K.G., +</p> + +<p class="center"> +I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK,<br /> +NOT SHARING HIS OPINIONS BUT<br /> +PRIZING HIS FRIENDSHIP +</p> + +<p style="margin-top: 2em;"> </p> + +<p class="subtitle"> +<a name="page_7"><span class="page">Page 7</span></a> +NOTE +</p> + +<p class="note"> +My cordial thanks for leave to reproduce papers already published +are due to my friend Mr. John Murray, and to the Editors of the +<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>, the <i>Spectator</i>, the <i>Daily News</i>, +the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, the <i>Church Family Newspaper</i>, +and the <i>Red Triangle</i>. +</p> + +<p class="note" style="text-align: right;"> +G. W. E. R. +</p> + +<p class="note"> + <i>July</i>, 1918. +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_9"><span class="page">Page 9</span></a> +CONTENTS +</h2> + +<p><b>I.—PRIME MINISTERS</b></p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_15">LORD PALMERSTON</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_20">LORD RUSSELL</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">III.</td> + <td><a href="#page_28">LORD DERBY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#page_35">BENJAMIN DISRAELI</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">V.</td> + <td><a href="#page_42">WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_49">LORD SALISBURY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VIII.</td> + <td><a href="#page_62">ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IX.</td> + <td><a href="#page_69">HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><b>II.—IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP</b></p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_79">GLADSTONE—AFTER TWENTY YEARS</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_87">HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">III.</td> + <td><a href="#page_105">LORD HALLIFAX</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#page_118">LORD AND LADY RIPON</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">V.</td> + <td><a href="#page_123">"FREDDY LEVESON"</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_139">SAMUEL WHITBREAD</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VII.</td> + <td><a href="#page_144">HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VIII.</td> + <td><a href="#page_153">BASIL WILBERFORCE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IX.</td> + <td><a href="#page_158">EDITH SICHEL</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">X.</td> + <td><a href="#page_163">"WILL" GLADSTONE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">XI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_168">LORD CHARLES RUSSELL</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p> +<a name="page_10"><span class="page">Page 10</span></a> +<b>III.—RELIGION AND THE CHURCH</b> +</p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_183">A STRANGE EPIPHANY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_187">THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">III.</td> + <td><a href="#page_191">PAN-ANGLICANISM</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#page_196">LIFE AND LIBERTY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">V.</td> + <td><a href="#page_200">LOVE AND PUNISHMENT</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_205">HATRED AND LOVE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VII.</td> + <td><a href="#page_209">THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VIII.</td> + <td><a href="#page_214">A SOLEMN FARCE</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><b>IV.—POLITICS</b></p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_223">MIRAGE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_227">MIST</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">III.</td> + <td><a href="#page_232">"DISSOLVING THROES"</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#page_237">INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">V.</td> + <td><a href="#page_241">REVOLUTION—AND RATIONS</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_246">"THE INCOMPATIBLES"</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VII.</td> + <td><a href="#page_249">FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><b>V.—EDUCATION</b></p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_257">EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_261">THE GOLDEN LADDER</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">III.</td> + <td><a href="#page_266">OASES</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#page_271">LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">V.</td> + <td><a href="#page_275">THE STATE AND THE BOY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_280">A PLEA FOR INNOCENTS</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p> +<a name="page_11"><span class="page">Page 11</span></a> +<b>VI.—MISCELLANEA</b> +</p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_287">THE "HUMOROUS STAGE"</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_291">THE JEWISH REGIMENT</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">III.</td> + <td><a href="#page_296">INDURATION</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">IV.</td> + <td><a href="#page_300">FLACCIDITY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">V.</td> + <td><a href="#page_305">THE PROMISE OF MAY</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">VI.</td> + <td><a href="#page_308">PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p><b>VII.—FACT AND FICTION</b></p> + +<table border="0"> + <tr> + <td class="right">I.</td> + <td><a href="#page_315">A FORGOTTEN PANIC</a></td> + </tr><tr> + <td class="right">II.</td> + <td><a href="#page_329">A CRIMEAN EPISODE</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<h2> +<a name="page_13"><span class="page">Page 13</span></a> +I +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> +PRIME MINISTERS +</p> + +<p class="part"> +<a name="page_15"><span class="page">Page 15</span></a> +PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LORD PALMERSTON</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +I remember ten Prime Ministers, and I know an eleventh. Some have +passed beyond earshot of our criticism; but some remain, pale and +ineffectual ghosts of former greatness, yet still touched by that +human infirmity which prefers praise to blame. It will behove me +to walk warily when I reach the present day; but, in dealing with +figures which are already historical, one's judgments may be +comparatively untrammelled. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I trace my paternal ancestry direct to a Russell who entered the +House of Commons at the General Election of 1441, and since 1538 +some of us have always sat in one or other of the two Houses of +Parliament; so I may be fairly said to have the Parliamentary tradition +in my blood. But I cannot profess to have taken any intelligent +interest in political persons or doings before I was six years +old; my retrospect, therefore, shall begin with Lord Palmerston, +whom I can recall in his last Administration, 1859-1865. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I must confess that I chiefly remember his outward +characteristics—his large, dyed, carefully +<a name="page_16"><span class="page">Page 16</span></a> +brushed whiskers; his broad-shouldered figure, which always seemed +struggling to be upright; his huge and rather distorted feet—"each +foot, to describe it mathematically, was a four-sided irregular +figure"—his strong and comfortable seat on the old white hack +which carried him daily to the House of Commons. Lord Granville +described him to a nicety: "I saw him the other night looking very +well, but old, and wearing a green shade, which he afterwards concealed. +He looked like a retired old croupier from Baden." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Having frequented the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the more +privileged seats "under the Gallery," from my days of knickerbockers, +I often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather +"bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort of +good-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off an +inconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ardour of +a Radical supporter. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Of course, a boy's attention was attracted rather by appearance and +manner than by the substance of a speech; so, for a frank estimate +of Palmerston's policy at the period which I am discussing, I turn +to Bishop Wilberforce (whom he had just refused to make Archbishop +of York). +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"That wretched Pam seems to me to get worse and worse. There is +not a particle of veracity or noble feeling that I have ever been +able to trace in him. He manages the House of Commons by debauching +it, making all parties laugh at one another; the Tories at the +Liberals, by his defeating +<a name="page_17"><span class="page">Page 17</span></a> +all Liberal measures; the Liberals at the Tories, by their consciousness +of getting everything that is to be got in Church and State; and +all at one another, by substituting low ribaldry for argument, bad +jokes for principle, and an openly avowed, vainglorious, imbecile +vanity as a panoply to guard himself from the attacks of all thoughtful +men." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But what I remember even more clearly than Palmers ton is appearance +or manner—perhaps because it did not end with his death—is +the estimation in which he was held by that "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood" to which I myself belong. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the first place, it was always asserted, with emphasis and even +with acrimony, that he was not a Whig. Gladstone, who did not much +like Whiggery, though he often used Whigs, laid it down that "to be +a Whig a man must be a born Whig," and I believe that the doctrine +is absolutely sound. But Palmerston was born and bred a Tory, and +from 1807 to 1830 held office in Tory Administrations. The remaining +thirty-five years of his life he spent, for the most part, in Whig +Administrations, but a Whig he was not. The one thing in the world +which he loved supremely was power, and, as long as this was secured, +he did not trouble himself much about the political complexion of +his associates. "Palmerston does not care how much dirt he eats, +so long as it is gilded dirt;" and, if gilded dirt be the right +description of office procured by flexible politics, Palmerston +ate, in his long career, an extraordinary amount of it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_18"><span class="page">Page 18</span></a> +Then, again, I remember that the Whigs thought Palmerston very +vulgar. The newspapers always spoke of him as an aristocrat, but +the Whigs knew better. He had been, in all senses of the word, a +man of fashion; he had won the nickname of "Cupid," and had figured, +far beyond the term of youth, in a raffish kind of smart society +which the Whigs regarded with a mixture of contempt and horror. +His bearing towards the Queen, who abhorred him—not without +good reason—was considered to be lamentably lacking in that +ceremonious respect for the Crown which the Whigs always maintained +even when they were dethroning Kings. Disraeli likened his manner +to that of "a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress," +and one who was in official relations with him wrote: "He left +on my recollection the impression of a strong character, with an +intellect with a coarse vein in it, verging sometimes on brutality, +and of a mind little exercised on subjects of thought beyond the +immediate interests of public and private life, little cultivated, +and drawing its stores, not from reading but from experience, and +long and varied intercourse with men and women." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Having come rather late in life to the chief place in politics, +Palmerston kept it to the end. He was an indomitable fighter, and +had extraordinary health. At the opening of the Session of 1865 he +gave the customary Full-Dress Dinner, and Mr. Speaker Denison,[*] +who sat beside him, made this +<a name="page_19"><span class="page">Page 19</span></a> +curious memorandum of his performance at table: "He ate two plates +of turtle soup; he was then served very amply to cod and oyster +sauce; he then took a <i>pacirc;té</i>; afterwards he was +helped to two very greasy-looking entrées; he then despatched +a plate of roast mutton; there then appeared before him the largest, +and to my mind the hardest, slice of ham that ever figured on the +table of a nobleman, yet it disappeared just in time to answer the +enquiry of the butler, 'Snipe or pheasant, my lord?' He instantly +replied, 'Pheasant,' thus completing his ninth dish of meat at +that meal." A few weeks later the Speaker, in conversation with +Palmerston, expressed a hope that he was taking care of his health, +to which the octogenarian Premier replied: "Oh yes—indeed I am. +I very often take a cab at night, and if you have both windows open +it is almost as good as walking home." "Almost as good!" exclaimed +the valetudinarian Speaker. "A through draught and a north-east +wind! And in a hack cab! What a combination for health!" +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Afterwards Lord Ossington.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Palmerston fought and won his last election in July, 1865, being +then in his eighty-first year, and he died on the 15th of October +next ensuing. On the 19th the Queen wrote as follows to the statesman +who, as Lord John Russell, had been her Prime Minister twenty years +before, and who, as Earl Russell, had been for the last six years +Foreign Secretary in Palmerston's Administration: "The Queen can +turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of +hers, to undertake +<a name="page_20"><span class="page">Page 20</span></a> +the arduous duties of Prime Minister and to carry on the Government." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is sometimes said of my good friend Sir George Trevelyan that his +most responsible task in life has been to "live up to the position +of being his uncle's nephew." He has made a much better job of his +task than I have made of mine; and yet I have never been indifferent +to the fact that I was related by so close a tie to the author of +the first Reform Bill, and the chief promoter—as regards +this country—of Italian unity and freedom. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LORD RUSSELL</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for the +first time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interested +in the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Pray +tell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising young +man in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied, +"George Byng, ma'am," signifying thereby a youth who eventually +became the third Earl of Strafford. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In 1865 Lord John, who in the meantime had been created Earl Russell, +became, after many vicissitudes in office and opposition, Prime +Minister for the second time. The Queen, apparently hard put to +it for conversation, asked him whom he now considered the most +promising young man in the +<a name="page_21"><span class="page">Page 21</span></a> +Liberal party. He replied, without hesitation, "George Byng, ma'am," +thereby eliciting the very natural rejoinder, "But that's what +you told me twenty years ago!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This fragment of anecdotage, whether true or false, is eminently +characteristic of Lord Russell. In principles, beliefs, opinions, +even in tastes and habits, he was singularly unchanging. He lived +to be close on eighty-six; he spent more than half a century in +active politics; and it would be difficult to detect in all those +years a single deviation from the creed which he professed when, +being not yet twenty-one, he was returned as M.P. for his father's +pocket-borough of Tavistock. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From first to last he was the staunch and unwavering champion of +freedom—civil, intellectual, and religious. At the very outset +of his Parliamentary career he said, "We talk much—and think +a great deal too much—of the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish +we could imitate the courage of our ancestors. They were not ready +to lay their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every vain or +imaginary alarm." At the close of life he referred to England as +"the country whose freedom I have worshipped, and whose liberties +and prosperity I am not ashamed to say we owe to the providence +of Almighty God." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This faith Lord Russell was prepared to maintain at all times, in +all places, and amid surroundings which have been known to test +the moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundly +attached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian +<a name="page_22"><span class="page">Page 22</span></a> +succession, he was no courtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, +and he had a habit of applying the principles of our English Revolution +to the issues of modern politics. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Actuated, probably, by some playful desire to probe the heart of +Whiggery by putting an extreme case, Queen Victoria once said: +"Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, +under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign?" "Well, +ma'am, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only +say that I suppose it is!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Italy was struggling towards unity and freedom, the Queen was +extremely anxious that Lord John, then Foreign Secretary, should +not encourage the revolutionary party. He promptly referred Her +Majesty to "the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688," and informed +her that, "according to those doctrines, all power held by Sovereigns +may be forfeited by misconduct, and each nation is the judge of +its own internal government." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The love of justice was as strongly marked in Lord John Russell as +the love of freedom. He could make no terms with what he thought +one-sided or oppressive. When the starving labourers of Dorset +combined in an association which they did not know to be illegal, +he urged that incendiaries in high places, such as the Duke of +Cumberland and Lord Wynford, were "far more guilty than the labourers, +but the law does not reach them, I fear." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_23"><span class="page">Page 23</span></a> +When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the ground +of expense, he said: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may +as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right +to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is +the first and primary end of all government." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections of +my uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's +Government, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes, +in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke +Lodge—the prettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he +was very much what <i>Punch</i> always represented him—very +short, with a head and shoulders which might have belonged to a +much larger frame. When sitting he might have been taken for a +man of average height, and it was only when he rose to his feet +that his diminutive stature became apparent. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which had +what, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to be +called "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic. +Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers" +and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man," and was much "obleeged" +where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his manner +were really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced, +even among people who ought to have known him better, +<a name="page_24"><span class="page">Page 24</span></a> +a totally erroneous impression of his character and temperament. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the small social arts, which are so valuable an equipment for +a political leader, he was indeed deficient. He had no memory for +faces, and was painfully apt to ignore his political supporters +when he met them outside the walls of Parliament; and this inability +to remember faces was allied with a curious artlessness which made +it impossible for him to feign a cordiality he did not feel. In +his last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, but +it was not in my heart." The friends needed no such assurance, for +in private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tender +to an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genial +host and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummate +judge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful, +full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told +by the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of his +own personal experience and intercourse with other distinguished +men." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Lord Palmerston died, <i>The Times</i> was in its zenith, +and its editor, J. T. Delane, had long been used to "shape the +whispers" of Downing Street. Lord Russell resented journalistic +dictation. "I know," he said, "that Mr. Delane is very angry because +I did not kiss his hand instead of the Queen's" <i>The Times</i> +became hostile, and a competent critic remarked:" +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"There have been Ministers who knew the springs of that public opinion +which is delivered ready digested to the nation +<a name="page_25"><span class="page">Page 25</span></a> +every morning, and who have not scrupled to work them for their +own diurnal glorification, even although the recoil might injure +their colleagues. But Lord Russell has never bowed the knee to the +potentates of the Press; he has offered no sacrifice of invitations +to social editors; and social editors have accordingly failed to +discover the merits of a statesman who so little appreciated them, +until they have almost made the nation forget the services that +Lord Russell has so faithfully and courageously rendered." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Of Lord Russell's political consistency I have already spoken; and +it was most conspicuously displayed in his lifelong zeal for the +extension of the suffrage. He had begun his political activities +by a successful attack on the rottenest of rotten boroughs; the +enfranchisement of the Middle Class was the triumph of his middle +life. As years advanced his zeal showed no abatement; again and +again he returned to the charge, though amidst the most discouraging +circumstances; and when, in his old age, he became Prime Minister +for the second time, the first task to which he set his hand was +so to extend the suffrage as to include "the best of the working +classes." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In spite of this generous aspiration, it must be confessed that +the Reform Bill of 1866 was not a very exciting measure. It lowered +the qualification for the county franchise to £14 and that for +the boroughs to £7; and this, together with the enfranchisement +of lodgers, was expected to add 400,000 new voters to the list. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm. +Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought it +revolutionary, +<a name="page_26"><span class="page">Page 26</span></a> +and made common cause with the Tories to defeat it. As it was introduced +into the House of Commons, Lord Russell had no chance of speaking on +it; but Gladstone's speeches for it and Lowe's against it remain to +this day among the masterpieces of political oratory, and eventually +it was lost, on an amendment moved in committee, by a majority +of eleven. Lord Russell of course resigned. The Queen received +his decision with regret. It was evident that Prussia and Austria +were on the brink of war, and Her Majesty considered it a most +unfortunate moment for a change in her Government. She thought +that the Ministry had better accept the amendment and go on with +the Bill. But Lord Russell stood his ground, and that ground was +the highest. "He considers that vacillation on such a question +weakens the authority of the Crown, promotes distrust of public +men, and inflames the animosity of parties." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On the 26th of June, 1866, it was announced in Parliament that +the Ministers had resigned, and that the Queen had sent for Lord +Derby. Lord Russell retained the Liberal leadership till Christmas, +1867, and then definitely retired from public life, though his +interest in political events continued unabated to the end. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Of course, I am old enough to remember very well the tumults and +commotions which attended the defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866. +They contrasted strangely with the apathy and indifference which +had prevailed while the Bill was in progress; but the fact was +that a new force had appeared. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_27"><span class="page">Page 27</span></a> +The Liberal party had discovered Gladstone; and were eagerly awaiting +the much more democratic measure which they thought he was destined +to carry in the very near future. That it was really carried by +Disraeli is one of the ironies of our political history. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +During the years of my uncle's retirement was much more in his +company than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he was +Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to me +a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent +there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with +Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland; +had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and +dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of +Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had +conversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had ridden +with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It was +not without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career, +epitomized it in Dryden couplet: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Not heaven itself upon the past has power,<br/> +But what has been has been, and I have had my hour." +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_28"><span class="page">Page 28</span></a> +III +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"> +<i>LORD DERBY</i> +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My opportunities of observing Lord Derby at close quarters, were +comparatively scanty. When, in June, 1866, he kissed hands as Prime +Minister for the third time, I was a boy of thirteen, and I was only +sixteen when he died. I had known Lord Palmerston in the House of +Commons and Lord Russell in private life; but my infant footsteps +were seldom guided towards the House of Lords, and it was only +there that "the Rupert of debate" could at that time be heard. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Whigs, among whom I was reared, detested Derby with the peculiar +detestation which partisans always feel for a renegade. In 1836 Charles +Dickens, in his capacity of Parliamentary reporter, had conversed +with an ancient M.P. who allowed that Lord Stanley—who became +Lord Derby in 1851—might do something one of these days, but +"he's too young, sir—too young." The active politicians of +the sixties did not forget that this too-young Stanley, heir of a +great Whig house, had flung himself with ardour into the popular +cause, and, when the Lords threw out the first Reform Bill, had +jumped on to the table at Brooks's and had proclaimed the great +constitutional truth—reaffirmed over the Parliament Bill +in 1911—that "His Majesty can clap coronets on the heads of +a whole company of his Foot Guards." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_29"><span class="page">Page 29</span></a> +The question of the influences which had changed Stanley from a +Whig to a Tory lies outside the purview of a sketch like this. For +my present purpose it must suffice to say that, as he had absolutely +nothing to gain by the change, we may fairly assume that it was due +to conviction. But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition, +or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remained +Whigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, said +that Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth, +but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledged +help." Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings of +a party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into the +opposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as any +party would have been thankful to claim. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was the future head of one of the few English families which +the exacting genealogists of the Continent recognize as noble. To +pedigree he added great possessions, and wealth which the industrial +development of Lancashire was increasing every day. He was a graceful +and tasteful scholar, who won the Chanceller's prize for Latin +verse at Oxford, and translated the Iliad into fluent hexameters. +Good as a scholar, he was, as became the grandson of the founder +of "The Derby," even better as a sportsman; and in private life +he was the best companion in the world, playful and reckless, as +a schoolboy, and never letting prudence or propriety stand between +him and his jest. "Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall have!" was his +<a name="page_30"><span class="page">Page 30</span></a> +characteristic greeting to Lord John Russell, when that ancient +rival entered the House of Lords. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural +gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname +of "Rupert," and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if +he had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a brilliant sketch of his +social aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield's +<i>Endymion</i>; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same +great man's account, reported by Matthew Arnold: "Full of nerve, +dash, fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along +with him." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the Parliament of 1859-1865 (with which my political recollections +begin) Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord Derby Leader +of the Opposition, with Disraeli as his lieutenant in the House +of Commons. If, as Lord Randolph Churchill said in later years, +the business of an Opposition is to oppose, it must be admitted +that Derby and Disraeli were extremely remiss. It was suspected at +the time, and has since been made known through Lord Malmesbury's +<i>Memoirs</i>, that there was something like an "understanding" +between Palmerston and Derby. As long as Palmerston kept his Liberal +colleagues in order, and chaffed his Radical supporters out of +all the reforms on which their hearts were set, Derby was not to +turn him out of office, though the Conservative minority in the +House of Commons was very large, and there were frequent openings +for harassing attack. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Palmerston's death, of course, dissolved this +<a name="page_31"><span class="page">Page 31</span></a> +compact; and, though the General Election of 1865 had again yielded +a Liberal majority, the change in the Premiership had transformed +the aspect of political affairs. The new Prime Minister was in +the House of Lords, seventy-three years old, and not a strong man +for his age. His lieutenant in the House of Commons was Gladstone, +fifty-five years old, and in the fullest vigour of body and mind. Had +any difference of opinion arisen between the two men, it was obvious +that Gladstone was in a position to make his will prevail; but on +the immediate business of the new Parliament they were absolutely +at one, and that business was exactly what Palmerston had for the +last six years successfully opposed—the extension of the +franchise to the working man. When no one is enthusiastic about +a Bill, and its opponents hate it, there is not much difficulty +in defeating it, and Derby and Disraeli were not the men to let +the opportunity slide. With the aid of the malcontent Whigs they +defeated the Reform Bill, and Derby became Prime Minister, with +Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons. It was a conjuncture +fraught with consequences vastly more important than anyone foresaw. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In announcing his acceptance of office (which he had obtained by +defeating a Reform Bill), Derby amazed his opponents and agitated +his friends by saying that he "reserved to himself complete liberty +to deal with the question of Parliamentary reform whenever suitable +occasion should arise." In February, 1867, Disraeli, on behalf of +the Tory Government, brought in the first really democratic Reform +<a name="page_32"><span class="page">Page 32</span></a> +Bill which England had ever known. He piloted it through the House +of Commons with a daring and a skill of which I was an eye-witness, +and, when it went up to the Lords, Derby persuaded his fellow-peers +to accept a measure which established household suffrage in the +towns. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was "a revolution by due course of law," nothing less; and to +this day people dispute whether Disraeli induced Derby to accept +it, or whether the process was reversed. Derby called it "a leap +in the dark." Disraeli vaulted that he had "educated his party" +up to the point of accepting it. Both alike took comfort in the +fact that they had "dished the Whigs"—which, indeed, they +had done most effectually. The disgusted Clarendon declared that +Derby "had only agreed to the Reform Bill as he would of old have +backed a horse at Newmarket. He hates Disraeli, but believes in +him as he would have done in an unprincipled trainer: <i>he +wins</i>—that is all." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On the 15th of August, 1867, the Tory Reform Bill received the +Royal Assent, and Derby attained the summit of his career. Inspired +by whatever motives, influenced by whatever circumstances, the +Tory chief had accomplished that which the most liberal-minded of +his predecessors had never even dreamed of doing. He had rebuilt +the British Constitution on a democratic foundation. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At this point some account of Lord Derby's personal appearance +may be introduced. My impression is that he was only of the middle +height, but quite free from the disfigurement of obesity; light in +<a name="page_33"><span class="page">Page 33</span></a> +frame, and brisk in movement. Whereas most statesmen were bald, +he had an immense crop of curly, and rather untidy, hair and the +abundant whiskers of the period. His features were exactly of the +type which novelists used to call aristocratic: an aquiline nose, +a wide but firmly compressed mouth, and a prominent chin. His dress +was, even then, old-fashioned, and his enormous black satin cravat, +arranged in I know not how many folds, seemed to be a survival +from the days of Count D'Orsay. His air and bearing were such as +one expects in a man whose position needs no advertizing; and I +have been told that, even in the breeziest moments of unguarded +merriment, his chaff was always the chaff of a gentleman. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Beaconsfield, writing to a friend, once said that he had just +emerged from an attack of the gout, "of renovating ferocity," and +this phrase might have been applied to the long succession of gouty +illnesses which were always harassing Lord Derby. Unfortunately, as +we advance in life, the "renovating" effects of gout become less +conspicuous than its "ferocity;" and Lord Derby, who was born in +1799, was older than his years in 1867. In January and February, 1868, +his gout was so severe that it threatened his life. He recovered, +but he saw that his health was no longer equal to the strain of +office, and on the 24th of February he placed his resignation in +the Queen's hands. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But during the year and a half that remained to him he was by no +means idle. He had originally broken away from the Whigs on a point +<a name="page_34"><span class="page">Page 34</span></a> +which threatened the temporalities of the still-established Church of +Ireland; and in the summer of 1868 Gladstone's avowal of the principle +of Irish Disestablishment roused all his ire, and seemed to quicken him +into fresh life. The General Election was fixed for November, and the +Liberal party, almost without exception, prepared to follow Gladstone +in his Irish policy. On the 29th of October Bishop Wilberforce noted +that Derby was "very keen," and had asked: "What will the Whigs +not swallow? Disraeli is very sanguine still about the elections." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The question about the Whigs came comically from the man who had +just made the Tories swallow Household Suffrage; and Disraeli's +sanguineness was ill-founded. The election resulted in a majority +of one hundred for Irish Disestablishment; Disraeli resigned, and +Gladstone became for the first time Prime Minister. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Session of 1869 was devoted to the Irish Bill, and Lord Derby, +though on the brink of the grave, opposed the Bill in what some +people thought the greatest of his speeches in the House of Lords. +He was pale, his voice was feeble, he looked, as he was, a broken +man; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had already +become traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to the +Laird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight of +the Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in English +oratory. The speech concluded thus: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"My Lords, I am now an old man, and, like many of your Lordships, +I have already passed three score years and ten. +<a name="page_35"><span class="page">Page 35</span></a> +My official life is entirely closed; my political life is nearly +so; and, in the course of nature, my natural life cannot now be +long. That natural life commenced with the bloody suppression of +a formidable rebellion in Ireland, which immediately preceded the +union between the two countries. And may God grant that its close +may not witness a renewal of the one and a dissolution of the other." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This speech was delivered on the 17th of June, 1869, and the speaker +died on the 23rd of the following October. +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>BENJAMIN DISRAEI</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +I always count it among the happy accidents of my life that I happened +to be in London during the summer of 1867. I was going to Harrow +in the following September, and for the next five years my chance +of hearing Parliamentary debates was small. In the summer of 1866, +when the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill was thrown out, I was in the +country, and therefore I had missed the excitement caused by the +demolition of the Hyde Park railings, the tears of the terrified +Home Secretary, and the litanies chanted by the Reform League under +Gladstone's window in Carlton House Terrace. But in 1867 I was in +the thick of the fun. My father was the Sergeant-at-Arms attending +the House of Commons, and could always admit me to the privileged +seats "under the Gallery," then more numerous than now. So it came +about that I heard all the most famous debates in Committee +<a name="page_36"><span class="page">Page 36</span></a> +on the Tory Reform Bill, and thereby learned for the first time +the fascination of Disraeli's genius. The Whigs, among whom I was +reared, did not dislike "Dizzy" as they disliked Lord Derby, or as +Dizzy himself was disliked by the older school of Tories. But they +absolutely miscalculated and misconceived him, treating him as merely +an amusing charlatan, whose rococo oratory and fantastic tricks +afforded a welcome relief from the dulness of ordinary politics. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To a boy of fourteen thus reared, the Disraeli of 1867 was an +astonishment and a revelation—as the modern world would say, +an eye-opener. The House of Commons was full of distinguished +men—Lord Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury; John Bright +and Robert Lowe, Gathorne Hardy, Bernal-Osborne, Goschen, Mill, +Kinglake, Renley, Horsman, Coleridge. The list might be greatly +prolonged, but of course it culminates in Gladstone, then in the +full vigour of his powers. All these people I saw and heard during +that memorable summer; but high above them all towers, in my +recollection, the strange and sinister figure of the great Disraeli. +The Whigs had laughed at him for thirty years; but now, to use a +phrase of the nursery, they laughed on the wrong side of their +mouths. There was nothing ludicrous about him now, nothing to provoke +a smile, except when he wished to provoke it, and gaily unhorsed his +opponents of every type—Gladstone, or Lowe, or Beresford-Hope. +He seemed, for the moment, to dominate the House of Commons, to +pervade it with his +<a name="page_37"><span class="page">Page 37</span></a> +presence, and to guide it where he would. At every turn he displayed +his reckless audacity, his swiftness in transition, his readiness +to throw overboard a stupid colleague, his alacrity to take a hint +from an opponent and make it appear his own. The Bill underwent all +sorts of changes in Committee; but still it seemed to be Disraeli's +Bill, and no one else's. And, indeed, he is entitled to all the +credit which he got, for it was his genius that first saw the +possibilities hidden in a Tory democracy. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To a boy of fourteen, details of rating, registration, and residential +qualification make no strong appeal; but the personality of this +strange magician, un-English, inscrutable, irresistible, was profoundly +interesting. "Gladstone," wrote Lord Houghton to a friend, "seems +quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, +is gradually driving all ideas of political honour out of the House, +and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism." I had been +trained by people who were sensitive about "Political honour," +and I knew nothing of "cynicism"; but the "diabolical cleverness" +made an impression on me which has lasted to this day. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What was Dizzy in personal appearance? If I had not known the fact, +I do not think that I should have recognized him as one of the +ancient race of Israel. His profile was not the least what we in +England consider Semitic. He might have been a Spaniard or an Italian, +but he certainly was not a Briton. He was rather tall than short, +but slightly +<a name="page_38"><span class="page">Page 38</span></a> +bowed, except when he drew himself up for the more effective delivery +of some shrewd blow. His complexion was extremely pale, and the +pallor was made more conspicuous by contrast with his hair, steeped +in Tyrian dye, worn long, and eked out with artificial additions. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was very quietly dressed. The green velvet trousers and rings +worn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his fame +in "the days of the dandies," had long since been discarded. He +dressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coat +worn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, +and a black cravat tied in a loose bow—and those spring-sided +boots of soft material which used to be called "Jemimas." I may +remark, in passing, that these details of costume were reproduced +with startling fidelity in Mr. Dennis Eadie's wonderful play—the +best representation of personal appearance that I have ever seen +on the stage. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Disraeli's voice was by nature deep, and he had a knack of deepening +it when he wished to be impressive. His articulation was extremely +deliberate, so that every word told; and his habitual manner was +calm, but not stolid. I say "habitual," because it had variations. +When Gladstone, just the other side of the Table, was thundering his +protests, Disraeli became absolutely statuesque, eyed his opponent +stonily through his monocle, and then congratulated himself, in a +kind of stage drawl, that there was a "good broad piece of furniture" +between him and the enraged Leader of +<a name="page_39"><span class="page">Page 39</span></a> +the Opposition. But when it was his turn to simulate the passion +which the other felt, he would shout and wave his arms, recoil +from the Table and return to it, and act his part with a vigour +which, on one memorable occasion, was attributed to champagne; +but this was merely play-acting, and was completely laid aside as +he advanced in years. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What I have written so far is, no doubt, an anachronism, for I +have been describing what I saw and heard in the Session of 1867, +and Disraeli did not become Prime Minister till February, 1868; but +six months made no perceptible change in his appearance, speech, +or manner. What he had been when he was fighting his Reform Bill +through the House, that he was when, as Prime Minister, he governed +the country at the head of a Parliamentary minority. His triumph was +the triumph of audacity. In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, who +enquired his object in life, "I want to be Prime Minister"—and +now that object was attained. At Brooks's they said, "The last +Government was the Derby; this is the Hoax." Gladstone's discomfiture +was thus described by Frederick Greenwood: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"The scorner who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across +the Table of the House of Commons last Session has now more than heart +could wish; his eyes—speaking in an Oriental manner—stand +out with fatness, he speaketh loftily; and pride compasseth him +about as with a chain. It is all very well to say that the candle +of the wicked is put out in the long run; that they are as stubble +before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away. So we +were told in other times of tribulation. This was the sort of +consolation that +<a name="page_40"><span class="page">Page 40</span></a> +used to be offered in the jaunty days of Lord Palmerston. People +used then to soothe the earnest Liberal by the same kind of argument. +'Only wait,' it was said, 'until he has retired, and all will be +well with us.' But no sooner has the storm carried away the wicked +Whig chaff than the heavens are forthwith darkened by new clouds +of Tory chaff." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Shaftesbury, as became his character, took a sterner view. +"Disraeli Prime Minister! He is a Hebrew; this is a good thing. +He is a man sprung from an inferior station; another good thing +in these days, as showing the liberality of our institutions. But +he is a leper, without principle, without feeling, without regard +to anything, human or Divine, beyond his own personal ambition." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The situation in which the new Prime Minister found himself was, from +the constitutional point of view, highly anomalous. The settlement +of the question of Reform, which he had effected in the previous +year, had healed the schism in the Liberal party, and the Liberals +could now defeat the Government whenever they chose to mass their +forces. Disraeli was officially the Leader of a House in which his +opponents had a large majority. In March, 1868, Gladstone began his +attack on the Irish Church, and pursued it with all his vigour, and +with the support of a united party. He moved a series of Resolutions +favouring Irish Disestablishment, and the first was carried by a +majority of sixty-five against the Government. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This defeat involved explanation. Disraeli, in a speech which Bright +called "a mixture of pompousness +<a name="page_41"><span class="page">Page 41</span></a> +and servility," described his audiences of the Queen, and so handled +the Royal name as to convey the impression that Her Majesty was on +his side. Divested of verbiage and mystification, his statement +amounted to this—that, in spite of adverse votes, he intended +to hold on till the autumn, and then to appeal to the new electorate +created by the Reform Act of the previous year. As the one question +to be submitted to the electors was that of the Irish Church, the +campaign naturally assumed a theological character. On the 20th of +August Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "Dizzy is seeking everywhere for +support. He is all things to all men, and nothing to anyone. He +cannot make up his mind to be Evangelical, Neologian, or Ritualistic; +he is waiting for the highest bidder." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Parliament was dissolved in November, and the General Election +resulted in a majority of one hundred for Gladstone and Irish +Disestablishment. By a commendable innovation on previous practice, +Disraeli resigned the Premiership without waiting for a hostile +vote of the new Parliament. He declined the Earldom to which, as +an ex-Prime Minister, he was by usage entitled; but he asked the +Queen to make his devoted wife Viscountess Beaconsfield. As a youth, +after hearing the great speakers of the House which he had not +yet entered, he had said, "Between ourselves, I could floor them +all"—but now Gladstone had "floored" him, and it took him +five years to recover his breath. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_42"><span class="page">Page 42</span></a> +V +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"> +<i>WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE</i> +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Most people remember Gladstone as an old man. He reached the summit +of his career when he had just struck seventy. After Easter, 1880, +when he dethroned Lord Beaconsfield and formed his second +Administration, the eighteen years of life that remained to him +added nothing to his fame, and even in some respects detracted +from it. Gradually he passed into the stage which was indicated +by Labouchere's nickname of "The Grand Old Man"; and he enjoyed +the homage which rightly attends the closing period of an exemplary +life, wonderfully prolonged, and spent in the service of the nation. +He had become historical before he died. But my recollections of +him go back to the earlier sixties, when he was Chancellor of the +Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and they become vivid +at the point of time when he became Prime Minister—December, +1868. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In old age his appearance was impressive, through the combination of +physical wear-and-tear with the unconquerable vitality of the spirit +which dwelt within. The pictures of him as a young man represent +him as distinctly handsome, with masses of dark hair thrown back +from a truly noble forehead, and eyes of singular expressiveness. +But in middle life—and in his case middle life was continued +till he was sixty—he was neither as good-looking as he once +had been, nor, as grand-looking as he eventually +<a name="page_43"><span class="page">Page 43</span></a> +became. He looked much older than his age. When he met the new +Parliament which had been elected at the end of 1868, he was only +as old as Lord Curzon is now; but he looked old enough to be Lord +Curzon's father. His life had been, as he was fond of saying, a +life of contention; and the contention had left its mark on his +face, with its deep furrows and careworn expression. Three years +before he had felt, to use his own phrase, "sore with conflicts +about the public expenditure" (in which old Palmerston had always +beaten him), and to that soreness had been added traces of the +fierce strife about Parliamentary Reform and Irish Disestablishment. +F. D. Maurice thus described him: "His face is a very expressive +one, hard-worked, as you say, and not perhaps specially happy; +more indicative of struggle than of victory, though not without +promise of that. He has preserved the type which I can remember +that he bore at the University thirty-six years ago, though it +has undergone curious development." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My own recollection exactly confirms Maurice's estimate. In Gladstone's +face, as I used to see it in those days, there was no look of gladness +or victory. He had, indeed, won a signal triumph at the General +Election of 1868, and had attained the supreme object of a politician's +ambition. But he did not look the least as if he enjoyed his honours, +but rather as if he felt an insupportable burden of responsibility. +He knew that he had an immense amount to do in carrying the reforms +which Palmerston had burked, and, coming to the Premiership on +<a name="page_44"><span class="page">Page 44</span></a> +the eve of sixty, he realized that the time for doing it was necessarily +short. He seemed consumed by a burning and absorbing energy; and, +when he found himself seriously hampered or strenuously opposed, he +was angry with an anger which was all the more formidable because +it never vented itself in an insolent or abusive word. A vulnerable +temper kept resolutely under control had always been to me one of +the most impressive features in human character. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Gladstone had won the General Election by asking the constituencies +to approve the Disestablishment of the Irish Church; and this was +the first task to which he addressed himself in the Parliament +of 1869. It was often remarked about his speaking that in every +Session he made at least one speech of which everyone said, "That +was the finest thing Gladstone ever did." This was freely said +of it he speech in which he introduced the Disestablishment Bill +on the 1st of March, 1869, and again of that in which he wound up +the debate on the Second Reading. In pure eloquence he had rivals, +and in Parliamentary management superiors; but in the power of +embodying principles in legislative form and preserving unity of +purpose through a multitude of confusing minutiæ he had neither +equal nor second. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Disestablishment Bill passed easily through the Commons, but +was threatened with disaster in the Lords, and it was with profound +satisfaction that Mrs. Gladstone, most devoted and most helpful of +wives, announced the result of the division on the Second Reading. +Gladstone had been unwell, +<a name="page_45"><span class="page">Page 45</span></a> +and had gone to bed early. Mrs. Gladstone who had been listening +to the debate in the House of Lords, said to a friend, "I could +not help it; I gave William a discreet poke. 'A majority of +thirty-three, my dear.' 'Thank you, my dear,' he said, and turned +round, and went to sleep on the other side." After a stormy passage +through Committee, the Bill became law on the 26th of July. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +So Gladstone's first great act of legislation ended, and he was +athirst for more. Such momentous reforms as the Irish Land Act, the +Education Act, the abolition of religious tests in the University, +the abolition of purchase in the Army, and the establishment of the +Ballot, filled Session after Session with excitement; and Gladstone +pursued each in turn with an ardour which left his followers out +of breath. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was not very skilful in managing his party, or even his Cabinet. +He kept his friendships and his official relations quite distinct. +He never realized the force of the saying that men who have only +worked together have only half lived together. It was truly said +that he understood MAN, but not men; and meek followers in the +House of Commons, who had sacrificed money, time, toil, health, +and sometimes conscience, to the support of the Government, turned, +like the crushed worm, when they found that Gladstone sternly ignored +their presence in the Lobby, or, if forced to speak to them, called +them by inappropriate names. His strenuousness of reforming purpose +and strength of will were concealed by no lightness of touch, no +<a name="page_46"><span class="page">Page 46</span></a> +give-and-take, no playfulness, no fun. He had little of that saving +grace of humour which smoothes the practical working of life as much +as it adds to its enjoyment. He was fiercely, terribly, incessantly +in earnest; and unbroken earnestness, though admirable, exhausts and +in the long run alienates. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +There was yet another feature of his Parliamentary management which +proved disastrous to his cause, and this was his tendency to what the +vulgar call hair-splitting and the learned casuistry. At Oxford men +are taught to distinguish with scrupulous care between propositions +closely similar, but not identical. In the House of Commons they +are satisfied with the roughest and broadest divisions between +right and wrong; they see no shades of colour between black-and +white. Hence arose two unfortunate incidents, which were nicknamed +"The Ewelme Scandal" and "The Colliery Explosion"—two cases in +which Gladstone, while observing the letter of an Act of Parliament, +violated, or seemed to violate, its spirit in order to qualify +highly deserving gentlemen for posts to which he wished to appoint +them. By law the Rectory of Ewelme (in the gift of the Crown) could +only be held by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Gladstone +conferred it on a Cambridge man, who had to procure an <i>ad eundem</i> +degree at Oxford before he could accept the preferment. By law +no man could be made a paid member of the Judicial Committee of +the Privy Council unless he had served as a judge. Gladstone made +his Attorney-General, Sir John Collier, a Judge for three weeks, +<a name="page_47"><span class="page">Page 47</span></a> +and then passed him on to the Judicial Committee. Both these +appointments were angrily challenged in Parliament. Gladstone +defended them with energy and skill, and logically his defence was +unassailable. But these were cases where the plain man—and +the House of Commons is full of plain men—feels, though he +cannot prove, that there has been a departure from ordinary +straightforwardness and fair dealing. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Yet again; the United States had a just complaint against us; arising +out of the performances of the <i>Alabama</i>, which, built in an +English dockyard and manned by an English crew, but owned by the +Slaveowners' Confederacy, had got out to sea, and, during a two +years' cruise of piracy and devastation, had harassed the Government +of the United States. The quarrel had lasted for years, with +ever-increasing gravity. Gladstone determined to end it; and, with +that purpose, arranged for a Board of Arbitration, which sat at +Geneva, and decided against England. We were heavily amerced by +the sentence of this International Tribunal. We paid, but we did +not like it. Gladstone gloried in the moral triumph of a settlement +without bloodshed; but a large section of the nation, including +many of his own party, felt that national honour had been lowered, +and determined to avenge themselves on the Minister who had lowered +it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Meanwhile Disraeli, whom Gladstone had deposed in 1868, was watching +the development of these events with sarcastic interest and effective +criticism, till in 1872 he was able to liken the great Liberal, +<a name="page_48"><span class="page">Page 48</span></a> +Government to "a range of exhausted volcanoes," and to say of its +eminent leader that he "alternated between a menace and a sigh." In +1873 Gladstone introduced a wholly unworkable Bill for the reform +of University education in Ireland. It pleased no one, and was +defeated on the Second Reading. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sent +for Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the experiment of +governing the country without a majority in the House of Commons, +and Gladstone was forced to resume office, though, of course, with +immensely diminished authority. His Cabinet was all at sixes and +sevens. There were resignations and rumours of resignation. He +took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and, as some authorities +contended, vacated his seat by doing so. Election after election +went wrong, and the end was visibly at hand. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At the beginning of 1874 Gladstone, confined to his house by a cold, +executed a <i>coup d'état</i>. He announced the Dissolution +of Parliament, and promised, if his lease of power were renewed, +to repeal the income-tax. <i>The Times</i> observed: "The Prime +Minister descends upon Greenwich" (where he had taken refuge after +being expelled from South Lancashire) "amid a shower of gold, and +must needs prove as irresistible as the Father of the Gods." But +this was too sanguine a forecast. Greenwich, which returned two +members, placed Gladstone second on the poll, below a local distiller, +while his followers were blown out of their seats like chaff before +the wind. When the General Election was over, the Tories had a +majority of forty-six. Gladstone, +<a name="page_49"><span class="page">Page 49</span></a> +after some hesitation, resigned without waiting to meet a hostile +Parliament. Disraeli became Prime Minister for the second time; and +in addressing the new House of Commons he paid a generous compliment +to his great antagonist. "If," he said, "I had been a follower of +a Parliamentary chief so eminent, even if I thought he had erred, +I should have been disposed rather to exhibit sympathy than to +offer criticism. I should remember the great victories which he +had fought and won; I should remember his illustrious career; its +continuous success and splendour, not its accidental or even disastrous +mistakes." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, and +Gladstone's greatest day was yet to come. +</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"> +<i>LORD SALISBURY</i> +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative, +but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense the +events of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he became +Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeeded +it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attempted +to describe. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office, +but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first +Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House +of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, +<a name="page_50"><span class="page">Page 50</span></a> +on every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals. +He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and +friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House of +Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed +by a noisy and unscrupulous Press. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing forms +of the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If only +he had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlin +in July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorship +for life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed with +it. "I am very unwell," he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but I +manage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I look +as fierce as I can." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce," but agitating +fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly +retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided +his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington. +But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into the +thick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselves +practically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, and +Gladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of the +Liberal party. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilful +opposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase, +"counter-worked the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield" from 1876 to +<a name="page_51"><span class="page">Page 51</span></a> +1880—and he attained his object. Lord Beaconsfield, like other +Premiers nearer our own time, imagined that he was indispensable +and invulnerable. Gladstone might harangue, but Beaconsfield would +still govern. He told the Queen that she might safely go abroad +in March, 1880, for, though there was a Dissolution impending, +he knew that the country would support him. So the Queen went off +in perfect ease of mind, and returned in three weeks' time to find +a Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members, +with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resigned +without waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone, +though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartington +to form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his second +Administration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lasted +till the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures, +and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulation +here. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determined +to resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote, +who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill and +dignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better; +and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. To +all frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar, +if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then as +Lord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership +he was a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as +<a name="page_52"><span class="page">Page 52</span></a> +short-sighted people always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion +was unusually dark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty +hair were intensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon +became famous for his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. +He joined Lord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his +hostility to the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both +with pen and tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible +that the two men could ever again speak to one another—let +alone work together. But political grudges are short-lived; or +perhaps it would be nearer the mark to say that, however strong +those grudges may be, the allurements of office are stronger still. +Men conscious of great powers for serving the State will often +put up with a good deal which they dislike sooner than decline an +opportunity of public usefulness. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (who +had succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in +1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duels +with the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a near +kinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that the +days of physical duelling were over. In 1878 he accompanied Lord +Beaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin, being second Plenipotentiary; +and when on their return he drove through the acclaiming streets +of London in the back seat of the Triumphal Car, it was generally +surmised that he had established +<a name="page_53"><span class="page">Page 53</span></a> +his claim to the ultimate reversion of the Premiership. That reversion, +as I said just now, he attained in June, 1885, and enjoyed till +February, 1886—a short tenure of office, put the earnest +of better and longer things to come. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At this period of His career Lord Salisbury was forced to yield to +the democratic spirit so far as to "go on the stump" and address +popular audiences in great towns. It was an uncongenial employment. +His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talk +effectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working men +bellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularly +unlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating, +but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of the +things which interested him; but whether or not they interested +his hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off the +platform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, there +was a general sense of mutual relief. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home. +The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, and +his splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere, +a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, his +audience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and, +through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemed +as profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spoke +without notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric, +no declamation, no display. As one listened, one +<a name="page_54"><span class="page">Page 54</span></a> +seemed to hear the genuine thoughts of a singularly clever and +reflective man, who had strong prejudices of his own in favour +of religion, authority, and property, but was quite unswayed by +the prejudices of other people. The general tone of his thought +was sombre. Lord Lytton described, with curious exactness, the +"massive temple," the "large slouching shoulder," and the "prone +head," which "habitually stoops"— +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Above a world his contemplative gaze<br/> + Peruses, finding little there to praise!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world which +had departed so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, this +prevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, by +flashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelled +him in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Careless +critics called him "cynical," but it was an abuse of words. Cynicism +is shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury which +was inconsistent with the highest ideals of patriotic statesmanship. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was by nature as shy as he was short-sighted. He shrank from new +acquaintances, and did not always detect old friends. His failure +to recognize a young politician who sat in his Cabinet, and a zealous +clergyman whom he had just made a Bishop, supplied his circle with +abundant mirth, which was increased when, at the beginning of the +South African War, he was seen deep in military conversation +<a name="page_55"><span class="page">Page 55</span></a> +with Lord Blyth, under the impression that he was talking to Lord +Roberts. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But, in spite of these impediments to social facility, he was an +admirable host both at Hatfield and in Arlington Street—courteous, +dignified, and only anxious to put everyone at their ease. His +opinions were not mine, and it always seemed to me that he was +liable to be swayed by stronger wills than his own. But he was +exactly what he called Gladstone, "a great Christian statesman." +</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LORD ROSEBERY</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was in December, 1885, that the present Lord Gladstone; in +conjunction with the late Sir Wemyss Reid, sent up "the Hawarden +Kite." After a lapse of thirty-two years, that strange creature +is still flapping about in a stormy sky; and in the process of +time it has become a familiar, if not an attractive, object. But +the history of its earlier gyrations must be briefly recalled. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The General Election of 1885 had just ended in a tie, the Liberals +being exactly equal to the combined Tories and Parnellites. Suddenly +the Liberals found themselves committed, as far as Gladstone could +commit them, to the principle of Home Rule, which down to that +time they had been taught to denounce. Most of them followed their +leader, but many rebelled. The Irish transferred their votes in +the House to the statesman whom—as they +<a name="page_56"><span class="page">Page 56</span></a> +thought—they had squeezed into compliance with their policy, +and helped him to evict Lord Salisbury after six months of office. +Gladstone formed a Government, introduced a Home Rule Bill, split +his party in twain, was defeated in the House of Commons, dissolved +Parliament, and was soundly beaten at the General Election which +he had precipitated. Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister for the +second time, and ruled, with great authority and success, till +the summer of 1892. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Meanwhile, Gladstone, by his indefatigable insistence on Home Rule +and by judicious concessions to opponents, had to some extent repaired +the damage done in 1886; but not sufficiently. Parliament was dissolved +in June, 1892, and, when the Election was over, the Liberals, +<i>plus</i> the Irish, made a majority of forty for Home Rule. +Gladstone realized that this majority, even if he could hold it +together, had no chance of coercing the House of Lords into submission; +but he considered himself bound in honour to form a Government and +bring in a second Home Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became his Foreign +Secretary, and Sir William Harcourt his Chancellor of the Exchequer. +The Home Rule Bill struggled through the House of Commons, but +was thrown out in the Lords, 41 voting for and 419 against it. +Not a single meeting was held to protest against this decisive +action of the Lords, and it was evident that the country was sick +to death of the Irish Question. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Gladstone knew that his public work was done, and in the spring +of 1894 it began to be rumoured +<a name="page_57"><span class="page">Page 57</span></a> +that he was going to resign. On the 1st of March he delivered his +last speech in the House of Commons, and immediately afterwards it +became known that he was really resigning. The next day he went to +dine and sleep at Windsor, taking his formal letter of resignation +with him. He had already arranged with the Queen that a Council +should be held on the 3rd of March. At this moment he thought it +possible that the Queen might consult him about the choice of his +successor, and, as we now know from Lord Morley's "Life," he had +determined to recommend Lord Spencer. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Harcourt's evidence on this point is interesting. According +to him—and there could not be a better authority—Sir +William Harcourt knew of Gladstone's intention. But he may very +well have believed that the Queen would act (as in the event she +did) on her own unaided judgment, and that her choice would fall +on him as Leader of the House of Commons. The fact that he was +summoned to attend the Council on the 3rd of March would naturally +confirm the belief. But <i>Dis aliter visum</i>. After the Council +the Queen sent, through the Lord President (Lord Kimberley), a +summons to Lord Rosebery, who kissed hands as Prime Minister at +Buckingham Palace on the 9th of March. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Bulwer-Lytton, writing "about political personalities, said with +perfect truth: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Ne'er of the living can the living judge,<br/> + Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In this case, therefore, I must attempt not judgment but narrative. +<a name="page_58"><span class="page">Page 58</span></a> +Lord Rosebery was born under what most people would consider lucky +stars. He inherited an honourable name, a competent fortune, and +abilities far above the average. But his father died when he was a +child, and as soon as he struck twenty-one he was "Lord of himself, +that heritage of woe." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At Eton he had attracted the notice of his gifted tutor, "Billy +Johnson," who described him as "one of those who like the palm +without the dust," and predicted that he would "be an orator, and, +if not a poet, such a man as poets delight in." It was a remarkably +shrewd prophecy. From Eton to Christ Church the transition was +natural. Lord Rosebery left Oxford without a degree, travelled, +went into society, cultivated the Turf, and bestowed some of his +leisure on the House of Lords. He voted for the Disestablishment +of the Irish Church, and generally took the line of what was then +considered advanced Liberalism. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But it is worthy of note that the first achievement which brought +him public fame was not political. "Billy Rogers," the well-known +Rector of Bishopsgate, once said to me: "The first thing which made +me think that Rosebery had real stuff in him was finding him hard at +work in London in August, when everyone else was in a country-house +or on the Moors. He was getting up his Presidential Address for the +Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874." Certainly, it was +an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The Social Science +Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by that omniscient +charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were +<a name="page_59"><span class="page">Page 59</span></a> +happily described by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our +dismal provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benches +full of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an orator +lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without." +One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkably +unlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-looking +even for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style rather +horsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cut +very deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions, +it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and it +abounded in glittering phrases." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and his +definite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, important +in politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Early +in the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man, +and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics. +Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association of +Midlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no need +to enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberal +triumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the second +time. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a place +in it to Lord Rosebery, who, with sound judgment, declined what +might have looked like a reward for services just rendered. In 1881 +<a name="page_60"><span class="page">Page 60</span></a> +he consented to take the Under-Secretaryship of the Home Department, +with Sir William Harcourt as his chief; but the combination did not +promise well, and ended rather abruptly in 1883. When the Liberal +Government was in the throes of dissolution, Lord Rosebery returned +to it, entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in 1885. It was +just at this moment that Matthew Arnold, encountering him in a +country-house, thus described him: "Lord Rosebery is very gay and +'smart,' and I like him very much." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The schism over Home Rule was now approaching, and, when it came, +Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with Gladstone, becoming Foreign +Secretary in February, 1886, and falling with his chief in the +following summer. In 1889 he was chosen Chairman of the first London +County Council, and there did the best work of his life, shaping that +powerful but amorphous body into order and efficiency. Meanwhile, +he was, by judicious speech and still more judicious silence, +consolidating his political position; and before he joined Gladstone's +last Government in August, 1892, he had been generally recognized as +the exponent of a moderate and reasonable Home Rule and an advocate +of Social Reform. My own belief is that the Liberal party as a +whole, and the Liberal Government in particular, rejoiced in the +decision which, on Gladstone's final retirement, made Rosebery +Prime Minister. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But it was a difficult and disappointing Premiership. Harcourt, not +best pleased by the Queen's choice, was Chancellor of the Exchequer and +<a name="page_61"><span class="page">Page 61</span></a> +Leader of the House of Commons. Gladstone, expounding our Parliamentary +system to the American nation, once said: "The overweight of the +House of Commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring its +Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime Minister who is +a Peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his chief, +and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare, +when he has served him very ugly tricks." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget, +with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellor +of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished +more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph +of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, +being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, +Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. +They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge +the judgment of the country on the performances of the last three +years. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Thus ingloriously ended a Premiership of which much had been expected. +It was impossible not to be reminded of Goderich's "transient and +embarrassed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offer +to my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been Prime +Minister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiership +had only lasted for ten. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_62"><span class="page">Page 62</span></a> +VIII +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>AUTHUR JAMES BALFOUR</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Lord Rosebery brought his brief Administration to an end, Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physical +energy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest of all +bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden of office +increasingly irksome. He retired in 1902, and was succeeded by his +nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, The Administration formed in 1895 had +borne some resemblance to a family party, and had thereby invited +ridicule—even, in some quarters, created disaffection. But when +Lord Salisbury was nearing the close of his career, the interests +of family and of party were found to coincide, and everybody felt +that Mr. Balfour must succeed him. Indeed, the transfer of power +from uncle to nephew was so quietly effected that the new Prime +Minister had kissed hands before the general public quite realized +that the old one had disappeared. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Mr. Balfour had long been a conspicuous and impressive figure in +public life. With a large estate and a sufficient fortune, with +the Tory leader for his uncle, and a pocket-borough bidden by that +uncle to return him, he had obvious qualifications for political +success. He entered Parliament in his twenty-sixth year, at the +General Election of 1874, and his many friends predicted great +performances. But for a time the fulfilment of those predictions +<a name="page_63"><span class="page">Page 63</span></a> +hung fire. Disraeli was reported to have said, after scrutinizing +his young follower's attitude: "I never expect much from a man +who sits on his shoulders." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Beyond some rather perplexed dealings with the unpopular subject of +Burial Law, the Member for Hertford took no active part in political +business. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself in Moral Science. +This was an unfortunate distinction. Classical scholarship had been +traditionally associated with great office, and a high wrangler +was always credited with hardheadedness; but "Moral Science" was +a different business, not widely understood, and connected in the +popular mind with metaphysics and general vagueness. The rumour went +abroad that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy with matters +which lay quite remote from politics, and was even following the path +of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance of our national +inclination to talk about books without reading them that, when Mr. +Balfour published <i>A Defence of Philosophic Doubt</i>, everyone +rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism. His +friends went about looking very solemn, and those who disliked +him piously hoped that all this "philosophic doubt" might not end +in atheism. It was not till he had consolidated his position as a +political leader that politicians read the book, and then discovered, +to their delight, that, in spite of its alarming name, it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The General Election of 1880 seemed to alter the +<a name="page_64"><span class="page">Page 64</span></a> +drift of Mr. Balfour's thought and life. It was said that he still +was very philosophical behind the scenes, but as we saw him in the +House of Commons he was only an eager and a sedulous partisan. +Gladstone's overwhelming victory at the polls put the Tories on +their mettle, and they were eager to avenge the dethronement of +their Dagon. "The Fourth Party" was a birth of this eventful time, +and its history has been written by the sons of two of its members. +With the performances of Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, +and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff I have no concern; but the fourth +member of the party was Mr. Balfour, who now, for the first time, +began to take a prominent part in public business. I must be forgiven +if I say that, though he was an admirable writer, it was evident +that Nature had not intended him for a public speaker. Even at this +distance of time I can recall his broken sentences, his desperate +tugs at the lapel of his coat, his long pauses in search of a word, +and his selection of the wrong word after all. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of the +House, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885, +drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In the +new Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but his +sphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local Government +Board, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, he +might have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt +or unphilosophic cocksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked +<a name="page_65"><span class="page">Page 65</span></a> +a stage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented +since 1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to +Manchester, where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances +of popular election. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party, +beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its +leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with +lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found +zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate +all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was +trying to make Parliamentary government impossible. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointment +was the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of the +next four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likened +to a young lady—"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was +called "a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused +of being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronounced +incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously +unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries, +rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for +the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment. +He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit +of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should +<a name="page_66"><span class="page">Page 66</span></a> +be repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English, +that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threats +were rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, and +ruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administration +was marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure to +discriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandeville +is a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did not +stand alone. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr. +Balfour's prowess, thus described it: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and soft +speech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic of +senate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity, +an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, and +roused in his friends a delight hardly surpassed in the politics +of our day." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is not my business to attack or defend. I only record the fact +that Mr. Balfour's work in Ireland established his position as +the most important member of the Conservative party. In 1891 he +resigned the Chief Secretaryship, and became Leader of the House; +was an eminently successful Leader of Opposition between 1892 and +1895; and, as I said before, was the obvious and unquestioned heir +to the Premiership which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1902. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +As Prime Minister Mr. Balfour had no opportunity for exercising +his peculiar gift of practical administration, and only too much +opportunity for dialectical +<a name="page_67"><span class="page">Page 67</span></a> +ingenuity. His faults as a debater had always been that he loved +to "score," even though the score might be obtained by a sacrifice +of candour, and that he seemed often to argue merely for arguing's +sake. It was said of the great Lord Holland that he always put his +opponent's case better than the opponent put it for himself. No one +ever said this of Mr. Balfour; and his tendency to sophistication +led Mr. Humphrey Paul to predict that his name "would always be +had in honour wherever hairs were split." His manner and address +(except when he was debating) were always courteous and conciliatory; +those who were brought into close contact with him liked him, and +those who worked under him loved him. Socially, he was by no means +as expansive as the leader of a party should be. He was surrounded +by an adoring clique, and reminded one of the dignitaries satirized +by Sydney Smith: "They live in high places with high people, or +with little people who depend upon them. They walk delicately, +like Agag. They hear only one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, +reckless men, as a lady veils herself from rough breezes." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But, unfortunately, a Prime Minister, though he may "avoid" reckless +men, cannot always escape them, and may sometimes be forced to +count them among his colleagues. Lord Rosebery's Administration was +sterilized partly by his own unfamiliarity with Liberal sentiment, +and partly by the frowardness of his colleagues. Mr. Balfour knew +all about Conservative sentiment, so far as it is concerned with +order, property, and religion; but he did not +<a name="page_68"><span class="page">Page 68</span></a> +realize the economic heresy which always lurks in the secret heart +of Toryism; and it was his misfortune to have as his most important +colleague a "bold, reckless man" who realized that heresy, and +was resolved to work it for his own ends. From the day when Mr. +Chamberlain launched his scheme, or dream, of Tariff Reform, Mr. +Balfour's authority steadily declined. Endless ingenuity in dialectic, +nimble exchanges of posture, candid disquisition for the benefit of +the well-informed, impressive phrase-making for the bewilderment +of the ignorant—these and a dozen other arts were tried in +vain. People began to laugh at the Tory leader, and likened him to +Issachar crouching down between two burdens, or to that moralist +who said that he always sought "the narrow path which lies between +right and wrong." His colleagues fell away from him, and he was +unduly ruffled by their secession. "It is time," exclaimed the +Liberal leader, "to have done with this fooling"; and though he +was blamed by the Balfourites for his abruptness of speech, the +country adopted his opinion. Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. +Balfour that his position was no longer tenable. He slipped out +of office as quietly as he had slipped into it; and the Liberal +party entered on its ten years' reign. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_69"><span class="page">Page 69</span></a> +IX +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"He put his country first, his party next, and himself last." This, +the noblest eulogy which can be pronounced upon a politician, was +strikingly applicable to my old and honoured friend whose name +stands at the head of this page. And yet, when applied to him, +it might require a certain modification, for, in his view, the +interests of his country and the interests of his party were almost +synonymous terms—so profoundly was he convinced that freedom +is the best security for national welfare. When he was entertained +at dinner by the Reform Club on his accession to the Premiership, he +happened to catch my eye while he was speaking, and he interjected +this remark: "I see George Russell there. He is by birth, descent, +and training a Whig; but he is a little more than a Whig." Thus +describing me he described himself. He was a Whig who had marched +with the times from Whiggery to Liberalism; who had never lagged +an inch behind his party, but who did not, as a rule, outstep it. +His place was, so to speak, in the front line of the main body, +and every forward movement found him ready and eager to take his +place in it. His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion to +the Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidance +of sects and schisms. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourished +in Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited +<a name="page_70"><span class="page">Page 70</span></a> +additional wealth, which transformed his name from Campbell to +Campbell-Bannerman—the familiar "C.-B." of more recent times. +Having graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, he entered Parliament +as Member for the Stirling Burghs in 1868, and was returned by the +same delightful constituency till his death, generally without a +contest. He began official life in Gladstone's first Administration +as Financial Secretary to the War Office, and returned to the same +post after the Liberal victory of 1880. One of the reasons for +putting him there was that his tact, good sense, and lightness +in hand enabled him to work harmoniously with the Duke of +Cambridge—a fiery chief who was not fond of Liberals, and +abhorred prigs and pedants. In 1884, when Sir George Trevelyan +was promoted to the Cabinet, Campbell-Bannerman was made Chief +Secretary for Ireland, and in that most difficult office acquitted +himself with notable success. Those were not the days of "the Union +of Hearts," and it was not thought necessary for a Liberal Chief +Secretary to slobber over murderers and outrage-mongers. On the other +hand, the iron system of coercion, which Mr. Balfour administered so +unflinchingly, had not been invented; and the Chief Secretary had +to rely chiefly on his own resources of firmness, shrewdness, and +good-humour. With these Campbell-Bannerman was abundantly endowed, +and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted +to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned +a deaf ear. When they pelted him +<a name="page_71"><span class="page">Page 71</span></a> +with controversial questions, he replied with brevity. When they +lashed themselves into rhetorical fury, he smiled and "sat tight" +till the storm was over. He was not a good speaker, and he had +no special skill in debate; but he invariably mastered the facts +of his case. He neither overstated nor understated, and he was +blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic humour which befitted his +comfortable aspect, and spoke in his twinkling eyes even when he +restrained his tongue. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Liberal Government came to an end in June, 1885. The "Home +Rule split" was now nigh at hand, and not even Campbell-Bannerman's +closest friends could have predicted the side which he would take. +On the one hand, there was his congenital dislike of rant and gush, +of mock-heroics and mock-pathetics; there was his strong sense +for firm government, and there was his recent experience of Irish +disaffection. These things might have tended to make him a Unionist, +and he had none of those personal idolatries which carried men +over because Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Spencer, or Mr. Morley had +made the transition. On the other hand, there was his profound +conviction—which is indeed the very root of Whiggery—that +each nation has the right to choose its own rulers, and that no +government is legitimate unless it rests on the consent of the +governed. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This conviction prevailed over all doubts and difficulties, and +before long it became known that Campbell-Bannerman had, in his +own phrase, "found salvation." There were those who were +<a name="page_72"><span class="page">Page 72</span></a> +scandalized when they heard the language of Revivalism thus applied, +but it exactly hit the truth as regards a great many of the converts +to Home Rule. In a very few cases—<i>e.g.</i>, in Gladstone's +own—there had peen a gradual approximation to the idea of Irish +autonomy, and the crisis of December, 1885, gave the opportunity +of avowing convictions which had long been forming. But in the +great majority of cases the conversion was instantaneous. Men, +perplexed by the chronic darkness of the Irish situation, suddenly +saw, or thought they saw, a light from heaven, and were converted +as suddenly as St. Paul himself. I remember asking the late Lord +Ripon the reason which had governed his decision. He answered: +"I always have been for the most advanced thing in the Liberal +programme, and Home Rule is the most advanced thing just now, so +I'm for it." I should not wonder if a similar sentiment had some +influence in the decision, arrived at by Campbell-Bannerman, who, +when Gladstone formed his Home Rule Cabinet in 1886, entered it +as Secretary of State for War. He went out with his chief in the +following August, and in the incessant clamour for and against +Home Rule which occupied the next six years he took a very moderate +part. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannerman +returned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerning +his Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895. +He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expected +from the habitual composure +<a name="page_73"><span class="page">Page 73</span></a> +of his character; but it was no doubt the more provoking because in +the previous spring he had wished to succeed Lord Peel as Speaker. +He told me that the Speakership was the one post in public life which +he should have most enjoyed, and which would best have suited his +capacities. But his colleagues declared that he could not be spared +from the Cabinet, and, true to his fine habit of self-effacement, +he ceased to press his claim. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894 +to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership. +Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Some +were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House +of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians +call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and +Campbell-Bannerman—the least self-seeking man in public +life—found himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. +The leadership was an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain +section of the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery +should return on his own terms. There were others who wished for +Lord Spencer, and even in those early days there were some who +already saw the makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from +these sectional preferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper +than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of +soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; the +Irish Question of 1886 had rent it +<a name="page_74"><span class="page">Page 74</span></a> +again; and now for the third time it was rent by the South African +Question. Holding that the South African War was a wanton crime +against freedom and humanity, I wished that my leader could declare +himself unequivocally against it, but he felt bound to consider +the interests of the Liberal party as a whole rather than those +of any particular section which he might personally favour. As the +campaign advanced, and the motives with which it had been engineered +became more evident, his lead became clearer and more decisive. What +we read about Concentration Camps and burnt villages and Chinese +labour provoked his emphatic protest against "methods of barbarism," +and those Liberals who enjoyed the war and called themselves +"Imperialists" openly revolted against his leadership. He bore all +attacks and slights and impertinences with a tranquillity which +nothing could disturb, but, though he said very little, he saw very +clearly. He knew exactly the source and centre of the intrigues +against his leadership, and he knew also that those intrigues were +directed to the end of making Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister. +The controversy about Tariff Reform distracted general attention +from these domestic cabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. +Balfour suddenly resigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman. +Then came a critical moment. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have come +back at the head of a great majority, and could have formed his +Administration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelled +<a name="page_75"><span class="page">Page 75</span></a> +his successor to form his Administration out of existing materials. +So the cabals took a new form. The Liberal Imperialists were eager +to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple +about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had +forsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a +speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; +but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for +employment. The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, +only too ready to forgive and forget. His motto was <i>Alors comme +alors</i>, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of +past intrigues. But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him +that they would not join his Government unless he consented to go +to the House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the +House of Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely +turned the tables. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelming +majority; but in one sense it came too late. His health was a good +deal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties which +doubled the burden of office. Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, after +a long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely till +his own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907. He +resigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +His brief Premiership had not been signalized by any legislative +triumphs. He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the +first freshness of +<a name="page_76"><span class="page">Page 76</span></a> +1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless Education Bill. But during +his term of office he had two signal opportunities of showing the +faith that was in him. One was the occasion when, in defiance of +all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, "La Duma est morte! Vive +la Duma!" The other was the day when he gave self-government to +South Africa, and won the tribute thus nobly rendered by General +Smuts: "The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by one +of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of +the British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-builders +I hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought into +being a united South Africa, will never be forgotten." +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_77"><span class="page">Page 77</span></a> +II +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle"> +IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_79"><span class="page">Page 79</span></a> +I +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>GLADSTONE—AFTER TWENTY YEARS</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +The 19th of May, 1898, was Ascension Day; and, just as the earliest +Eucharists were going up to God, William Ewart Gladstone passed out +of mortal suffering into the peace which passeth understanding. For +people who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, +it is a shock to be told by those who are in immediate contact with +young men that for the rising generation he is only, or scarcely, +a name. For my own part, I say advisedly that he was the finest +specimen of God's handiwork that I have ever seen; and by this +I mean that he combined strength of body, strength of intellect, +and spiritual attainments, in a harmony which I have never known +equalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so lived +and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England." Of him +it was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone died +the world lost its greatest citizen." Mr. Balfour called him "the +greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that the +world has ever seen"; and Lord Salisbury said, "He will be long +remembered as a great example, to which history hardly furnishes +a parallel of a great Christian statesman." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_80"><span class="page">Page 80</span></a> +I have written so often and so copiously of Mr. Gladstone, who was +both my religious and my political leader, that I might have found +it difficult to discover any fresh aspects of his character and work; +but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He has +pointed out certain topics which strikingly connect Gladstone's +personality with the events and emotions of the present hour. I +will take them as indicated, point by point. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Of the <i>Red Triangle</i>.] +</p> + +<p class="center"> +1. THE LOVE OF LIBERTY. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I have never doubted that the master-passion of Gladstone's nature +was his religiousness—his intensely-realized relation with +God, with the Saviour, and with "the powers of the world to come." +This was inborn. His love of liberty was acquired. There was nothing +in his birth or education or early circumstances to incline him in +this direction. He was trained to "regard liberty with jealousy +and fear, as something which could not wholly be dispensed with, +but which was continually to be watched for fear of excesses." +Gradually—very gradually—he came to regard it as the +greatest of temporal blessings, and this new view affected every +department of his public life. In financial matters it led him +to adopt the doctrine of Free Exchanges. In politics, it induced +him to extend the suffrage, first to the artisan and then to the +labourer. In foreign affairs, it made him an unrelenting foe of +the Turkish tyranny. In Ireland, +<a name="page_81"><span class="page">Page 81</span></a> +it converted him to Home Rule. In religion, it brought him nearer +and nearer to the ideal of the Free Church in the Free State. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +2. BELGIUM AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Gladstone hated war. He held, as most people hold, that there are +causes, such as Life and Home and Freedom, for which the gentlest +and most humane of men must be prepared to draw the sword. But he +was profoundly anxious that it should never be drawn except under +the absolute compulsion of national duty, and during the Crimean +War he made this memorable declaration: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"If, when you have attained the objects of the war, you continue +it for the sake of mere military glory, I say you tempt the justice +of Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodged +as the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This being his general view of war, it was inevitable that he should +regard with horror the prospect of intervention in the Franco-German +War, which broke out with startling suddenness, when he was Prime +Minister, in the summer of 1870. He strained every nerve to keep +England out of the struggle, and was profoundly thankful that Providence +enabled him to do so. Yet all through that terrible crisis he saw +quite clearly that either of the belligerent Powers might take +a step which would oblige England to intervene, and he made a +simultaneous agreement with Prussia and France that, if either violated +the neutrality of Belgium, +<a name="page_82"><span class="page">Page 82</span></a> +England would co-operate with the other to defend the little State. +Should Belgium, he said, "go plump down the maw of another country +to satisfy dynastic greed," such a tragedy would "come near to +an extinction of public right in Europe, and I do not think we +could look on while the sacrifice of freedom and independence was +in course of consummation." +</p> + +<p class="center"> +3. WAR-FINANCE AND ECONOMY. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A colleague once said about Gladstone, "The only two things which +really interest him are Religion and Finance." The saying is much +too unguarded, but it conveys a certain truth. My own opinion is +that Finance was the field of intellectual effort in which his +powers were most conspicuously displayed; and it was always remarked +that, when he came to deal with the most prosaic details of national +income and expenditure, his eloquence rose to an unusual height and +power. At the same time, he was a most vigilant guardian of the +public purse, and he was incessantly on the alert to prevent the +national wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, +from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. This +jealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peace +to make him very chary of spending money on national defences. +When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, his +eagerness in this regard caused his chief to write to the Queen +that "it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone +<a name="page_83"><span class="page">Page 83</span></a> +than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." At the +end of his career, his final retirement was precipitated by his +reluctance to sanction a greatly increased expenditure on the Navy, +which the Admiralty considered necessary. From first to last he +sheltered himself under a dogma of his financial master—Sir +Robert Peel—to the effect that it is possible for a nation, +as for an individual, so to over-insure its property as to sacrifice +its income. "My name," he said at the end, "stands in Europe as +a symbol of the policy of peace, moderation, and non-aggression. +What would be said of my active participation in a policy that will +be taken as plunging England into the whirlpool of Militarism?" +</p> + +<p class="center"> +4. ARBITRATION AND THE "ALABAMA." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Gladstone's hatred of war, and his resolve to avoid it at all hazards +unless national duty required it, determined his much criticized +action in regard to the <i>Alabama</i>. That famous and ill-omened +vessel was a privateer, built in an English dockyard and manned +by an English crew, which during the American Civil War got out +to sea, captured seventy Northern vessels, and did a vast deal of +damage to the Navy and commerce of the Union. The Government of +the United States had a just quarrel with England in this matter, +and the controversy—not very skilfully handled on either +side—dragged on till the two nations seemed to be on the edge +of war. Then Gladstone agreed to submit +<a name="page_84"><span class="page">Page 84</span></a> +the case to arbitration, and the arbitration resulted in a judgment +hostile to England. From that time—1872—Gladstone's +popularity rapidly declined, till it revived, after an interval of +Lord Beaconsfield's rule, at the General Election of 1880. In the +first Session of that Parliament, he vindicated the pacific policy +which had been so severely criticized in the following words: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"The dispositions which led us to become parties to the arbitration +of the <i>Alabama</i> case are still with us the same as ever; we +are not discouraged, we are not damped in the exercise of these +feelings by the fact that we were amerced, and severely amerced, +by the sentence of the international tribunal; and, although we +may think the sentence was harsh in its extent and unjust in its +basis, we regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the +balance compared with the moral value of the example set when these +two great nations of England and America, who are among the most +fiery and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything +that touches national honour, went in peace and concord before a +judicial tribunal to dispose of these painful differences, rather +than resort to the arbitrament of the sword." +</p> + +<p class="center"> +5. NATIONALITY—THE BALKANS AND IRELAND. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Gladstone was an intense believer in the principle of nationality, and +he had a special sympathy with the struggles of small and materially +feeble States. "Let us recognize," he said, "and recognize with +frankness, the equality of the weak with the strong, the principles +of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. +When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong +to our fellow-subjects, resident abroad, let us do as we would +be done by, and let us pay that respect +<a name="page_85"><span class="page">Page 85</span></a> +to a feeble State, and to the infancy of free institutions, which +we would desire and should exact from others, towards their maturity +and their strength." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was passionately Phil-Hellene. Greece, he said in 1897, is not +a State "equipped with powerful fleets, large armies, and boundless +treasure supplied by uncounted millions. It is a petty Power, hardly +counting in the list of European States. But it is a Power representing +the race that fought the battles of Thermopylæ and Salamis, +and hurled back the hordes of Asia from European shores." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Of the Christian populations in Eastern Europe which had the misfortune +to live under "the black hoof of the Turkish invader," he was the +chivalrous and indefatigable champion, from the days of the Bulgarian +atrocities in 1875 to the Armenian massacres of twenty years later. +"If only," he exclaimed, "the spirit of little Montenegro had animated +the body of big Bulgaria," very different would have been the fate +of Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions. The fact that +Ireland is so distinctly a nation—not a mere province of Great +Britain—and the fact that she is economically poor, reinforced +that effort to give her self-government which had originated in +his late-acquired love of political freedom. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +6. THE IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Of the "Concert of Europe" as it actually lived and worked (however +plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, +<a name="page_86"><span class="page">Page 86</span></a> +and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for +"the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers." It had conspicuously +failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and +it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. Lord +Morley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelity +to public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which is +the legitimate defence for small communities against the great and +powerful"; and yet again: "He had a vision, high in the heavens, of +the flash of an uplifted sword and the gleaming arm of the Avenging +Angel." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I have now reached the limits of the task assigned me by the Editor, +and my concluding word must be more personal. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I do not attempt to anticipate history. We cannot tell how much +of those seventy years of strenuous labour will live, or how far +Gladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, +the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the +world. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly +well what we owe to him. If ever we should be tempted to despond +about the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shall +think of him and take courage. If ever our religious faith should +be perplexed by the +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> + "Blank misgivings of a creature,<br/> +Moving about in worlds not realized," +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. And if ever +we are told by the flippancy of +<a name="page_87"><span class="page">Page 87</span></a> +scepticism that "Religion is a disease," then we can point to him +who, down to the very verge of ninety years, displayed a fulness +of vigorous and manly life beyond all that we had ever known. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND</i>[*]</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Written in 1907.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Hollands spring from Mobberley, in Cheshire, and more recently +from the town of Knutsford, familiar to all lovers of English fiction +as "Cranford." They have made their mark in several fields of +intellectual effort. Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the +Colonies from 1887 to 1892, was a son of Sir Henry Holland, M.D. +(1788-1873), who doctored half the celebrities of Europe; and one of +Sir Henry's first cousins was the incomparable Mrs. Gaskell. Another +first-cousin was George Henry Holland (1818-1891), of Dumbleton Hall, +Evesham, who married in 1844 the Hon. Charlotte Dorothy Gifford, +daughter of the first Lord Gifford. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +George Holland was an enthusiastic fox-hunter, and frequently changed +his abode for the better enjoyment of his favourite sport. In 1847 +he was living at a place called Underdown, near Ledbury; and there, +on the 27th of January in that year, his eldest son was born. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The first Lord Gifford (1779-1826), who was successively Lord Chief +Justice and Master of the Rolls, +<a name="page_88"><span class="page">Page 88</span></a> +had owed much in early life to the goodwill of Lord Eldon, and, +in honour of his patron, he named one of his sons' Scott. This +Scott Gifford was Mrs. George Holland's brother, and his name was +bestowed on her eldest son, who was christened "Henry Scott," but +has always been known by his second name. This link with George +III.'s Tory Chancellor is pleasingly appropriate. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Let it be remarked in passing that the hyphen so often introduced +into the name is solely a creation of the newspapers, which, always +rejoicing in double-barrelled surnames, gratify a natural impulse +by writing about "Canon Scott-Holland." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I regret that the most exhaustive research has failed to discover +any recorded traits of "Scotty" Holland in the nursery, but his +career in the schoolroom is less obscure. His governess was a Swiss +lady, who pronounced her young pupil "the most delightful of boys; +not clever or studious, but full of fun and charm." This governess +must have been a remarkable woman, for she is, I believe, the only +human being who ever pronounced Scott Holland "not clever." It +is something to be the sole upholder of an opinion, even a wrong +one, against a unanimous world. By this time George Holland had +established himself at Wellesbourne Hall, near Warwick, and there +his son Scott was brought up in the usual habits of a country home +where hunting and shooting are predominant interests. From the +Swiss lady's control he passed to a private school at Allesley, +near Coventry, and in January, 1860, he went to Eton. There he +<a name="page_89"><span class="page">Page 89</span></a> +boarded at the house of Mrs. Gulliver,[*] and was a pupil of William +Johnson (afterwards Cory), a brilliant and eccentric scholar, whose +power of eliciting and stimulating a boy's intellect has never +been surpassed. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Of Mrs. Gulliver and her sister, H. S. H. writes: +"They allowed football in top passage twice a week, which still +seems to be the zenith of all joy."] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From this point onwards, Scott Holland's history—the formation +of his character, the development of his intellect, the place which he +attained in the regard of his friends—can be easily and exactly +traced; for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries has +not been effaced, or even dimmed, by the lapse of seven-and-forty +years. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"My recollection of him at Eton," writes one of his friends, "is +that of a boy most popular and high-spirited, strong, and full +of life; but not eminent at games." Another writes: "He was very +popular with a certain set, but not exactly eminent." He was not +a member of "Pop," the famous Debating Society of Eton, but his +genius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished us +all by an excellent performance in some private theatricals in +his house." For the rest, he rowed, steered the <i>Victory</i> +twice, played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and +was a first-rate swimmer. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +With regard to more important matters, it must suffice to say that +then, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no +evil thing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been +<a name="page_90"><span class="page">Page 90</span></a> +trained, by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the +Tractarian school, and he was worthy of his training. Among his +intimate friends were Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry +Northcote, now Lord Northcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; +Alberic Bertie; and Francis Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester. He +left Eton in July, 1864, and his tutor, in a letter to a friend, +thus commented on his departure: "There was nothing to comfort me +in parting with Holland; and he was the picture of tenderness. +He and others stayed a good while, talking in the ordinary easy +way. M. L. came, and his shyness did not prevent my saying what +I wished to say to him. But to Holland I could say nothing; and +now that I am writing about it I cannot bear to think that he is +lost." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On leaving Eton, Holland went abroad to learn French, with an ultimate +view to making his career in diplomacy. Truly the Canon of St. +Paul's is an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown." What an Ambassador +he would have made! There is something that warms the heart in the +thought of His Excellency Sir Henry Scott Holland, G.C.B., writing +despatches to Sir Edward Grey in the style of <i>The Commonwealth</i>, +and negotiating with the Czar or the Sultan on the lines of the +Christian Social Union. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Returning from his French pilgrimage, he wept to a private tutor +in Northamptonshire, who reported that "Holland was quite unique +in charm and goodness, but would never be a scholar." In +<a name="page_91"><span class="page">Page 91</span></a> +January, 1866, this charming but unscholarly youth went up to Balliol, +and a new and momentous chapter in his life began. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What was he like at this period of his life? A graphic letter just +received enables me to answer this question. "When I first met +him, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized the +charm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and was +intensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. He +would listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumann +to him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, +by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, and +very fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was also deeply moved by +social questions, East End poor, etc.; always unconventional, and +always passionately interested in whatever he talked of. Burne-Jones +once told me: 'It was perfectly delicious to see Holland come into a +room, laughing before he had even said a word, and always bubbling +over with life and joy.' Canon Mason said to me many years ago that +he had hoped I kept every scrap Scotty ever wrote to me, as he +was quite sure he was the most remarkable man of his generation. +But there was a grave background to all this merriment. I remember +that, as we were coming out of a London party, and looked on the +hungry faces in the crowd outside the door, I rather foolishly +said: 'One couldn't bear to look at them unless one felt that there +was another world for them.' He replied: 'Are we to have both, then?' +<a name="page_92"><span class="page">Page 92</span></a> +I know how his tone and the look in his face haunted me more than +I can say." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A contemporary at Oxford writes, with reference to the same period: +"When we went up, Liddon was preaching his Bamptons, and we went +to them together, and were much moved by them. There were three +of us who always met for Friday teas in one another's rooms, and +during Lent we used to go to the Special Sermons at St. Mary's. +We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sunday +evening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to go +to the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the iron +church at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting the +Gregorians." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literature +was already marked. "I can remember reading Wordsworth with him, +and Carlyle, and Clough; and, after Sunday breakfasts, Boswell's +<i>Life of Johnson</i>." Then, as always, he found a great part +of his pleasure in music. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +No record, however brief, of an undergraduate life can afford to +disregard athletics; so let it be here recorded that Holland played +racquets and fives, and skated, and "jumped high," and steered +the <i>Torpid</i>, and three times rowed in his College Eight. +He had innumerable friends, among whom three should be specially +recalled: Stephen Fremantle and R. L. Nettleship, both of Balliol, +and W. H. Ady, of Exeter. In short, he lived the life of the model +undergraduate, tasting all the joys of Oxford, and finding time +to spare for his prescribed +<a name="page_93"><span class="page">Page 93</span></a> +studies. His first encounter with the examiners, in "Classical +Moderations," was only partially successful. "He did not appreciate +the niceties of scholarship, and could not write verses or do Greek +or Latin prose at all well;" and he was accordingly placed in the +Third Class. But as soon as the tyranny of Virgil and Homer and +Sophocles was overpast, he betook himself to more congenial studies. +Of the two tutors who then made Balliol famous, he owed nothing to +Jowett and everything to T. H. Green. That truly great man "simply +fell in love" with his brilliant pupil, and gave him of his best. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Philosophy's the chap for me," said an eminent man on a momentous +occasion. "If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, +or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, +are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' +'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able +to explain it.' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was +a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructed +by Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, +and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searching +test to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom at +Balliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I remember +that Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality. +It was known that he had +<a name="page_94"><span class="page">Page 94</span></a> +a good chance of a 'First in Greats,' if only his translations from +Greek and Latin books did not pull him down. He admired the ancient +authors, especially Plato, and his quick grasp of the meaning of what +he read, good memory, and very remarkable powers of expression, +all helped him much. He was good at History and he had a great turn +for Philosophy" (<i>cf</i>. Mr. Squeers, <i>supra</i>), "Plato, +Hegel; etc., and he understood, as few could, Green's expositions, +and counter-attack on John Stuart Mill and the Positivist School, +which was the dominant party at that time." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examination +at Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from his +paper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his <i>viva +voce</i> was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of +the examiners, T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said +he had never heard anything like it." In fine, a new and vivid +light had appeared in the intellectual sky—a new planet had +swum into the ken of Oxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally +that Holland, having obtained his brilliant First, was immediately +elected to a Studentship at Christ Church, which, of course, is +the same as a Fellowship anywhere else. He went into residence at +his new home in January, 1871, and remained there for thirteen +years, a "don," indeed, by office, but so undonnish in character, +ways, and words, that he became the subject of a eulogistic riddle: +"When is a don not a don? When he is Scott Holland." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_95"><span class="page">Page 95</span></a> +Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before the +onrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerations +which determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not sought +to enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Orders +he would have the best chance of using the powers, of which by +this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God and +the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some +measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject +of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's +society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, +must have tended in the same direction. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11th +of March, 1870.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwards +Bishop of Lincoln, and then Principal of Cuddesdon, in whom the +most persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifully +displayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which all +that was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistibly +attracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, +Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owed +so much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglement +Cuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, +perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend; +and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_96"><span class="page">Page 96</span></a> +enticing, the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving +it all seemed, as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk +in College; so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of +our Oxford interests. The little rooms, like college rooms just +shrinking into cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old +church with its quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of +the evening chapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with +the sound of Compline Psalms still ringing in our hearts—ah! +happy, happy day! It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering +in our souls took shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon +when the time of preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing +passage have naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself +have been a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as +I know, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted +of a visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task +of studying theology under Dr. Westcott. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, in +Cuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination; +and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was during +his diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. We +often came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religious +meetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons which +he preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutely +original; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the style +<a name="page_97"><span class="page">Page 97</span></a> +was entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movement +and colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, +on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the +28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory.[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty with +his aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by +'alf."] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He +lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share +in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded +for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among +the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong +effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's +Proctorship." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitude +towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed +outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian +Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit +of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his +sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., +when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more +than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the +Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) +"But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean +of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, +<a name="page_98"><span class="page">Page 98</span></a> +Hoxton, Holland used to come and see me there, and I found him +greatly attracted to social life in the East End of London. In +1875 he came, with Edward Talbot and Robert Moberly, and lodged in +Hoxton, and went about among the people, and preached in the church. +I have sometimes thought that this may have been the beginning of +the Oxford House." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and +independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for +Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was +widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. +Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, +everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with +a great opportunity. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public +eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent +career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; +a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished +teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor +in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid +and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace +some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of +feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side +under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends +rejoice—and others lament—that he is much less of a +partisan than he was; that he is apt to see two +<a name="page_99"><span class="page">Page 99</span></a> +and even three sides of a question; and that he is sometimes kind +to frauds and humbugs, if only they will utter the shibboleths +in which he himself so passionately believes. But, through all +changes and chances, he has stood as firm as a rock for the social +doctrine of the Cross, and has made the cause of the poor, the +outcast, and the overworked his own. He has shown the glory of +the Faith in its human bearings, and has steeped Dogma and, Creed +and Sacrament and Ritual in his own passionate love of God and +man. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate +him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, +contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure +and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One +whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little +changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate—the +same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and +insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives +of all sorts, delight in young people—these never fail. He +never seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things +depress his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be +of some use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not +presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and +example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, +<a name="page_100"><span class="page">Page 100</span></a> +Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful +people in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, +he is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he +inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain +others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. +He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its +versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave +to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and +nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, +has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; +and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious +and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces +which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their +lives. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*] +or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light +which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Written in 1918.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associated +in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light—its +revealing power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its +inconceivable rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have +ever known. He saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or +a situation. He +<a name="page_101"><span class="page">Page 101</span></a> +diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by +his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful +under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear +witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere +force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began +in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a +break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, +and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. +In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation +for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. +He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside +it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a +delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process +of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate +friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed +to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught +his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and +spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks +to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 +came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to +scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed +by a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searching +school of <i>Literœ Humaniores</i>. Green had triumphed; he +had made a philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church +<a name="page_102"><span class="page">Page 102</span></a> +welcomed a born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and +Lecturer. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Holland had what Tertullian calls the <i>anima naturaliter +Christiana</i>, and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian +Movement. When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic +career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was +ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly made +his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the parish +churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry stand out in +my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's gifts—a +tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, vigorous in +action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious voice, and a +breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke with an energy +of passionate conviction which drove every word straight home. He +seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for God and humanity. His +fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted many hearers who did +not usually go much to church, and they were accustomed—then +as later—to say that here was a Christian who knew enough +about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth hearing. +Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism +or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his +literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange +tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung +adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description +<a name="page_103"><span class="page">Page 103</span></a> +with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with +his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked +to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened +to his preaching as to "a very lovely song." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater +as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in +this—that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better +on paper than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when +he, was writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural +fluency in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; +but he did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript +and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. +Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as +much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great +deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of +God"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, +and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which +their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; +and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, +essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; +they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they +both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of +Europe. Holland had been brought up by +<a name="page_104"><span class="page">Page 104</span></a> +Tories, but in all the great controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed +the Gladstonian flag with the loyalty of a good soldier and the +faith of a loving son. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, +the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is +not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt +that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet +of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre +of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel? +Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest +of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which +sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the +precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic +life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood +and social service—in short, the programme of the Christian +Social Union—win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These +questions were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of +those to whom they were addressed, and they were not settled when, +twenty-seven years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. +Indeed, several answers were possible. On one point only there was +an absolute agreement among those who knew, and this was that the +Church in London had been incalculably enriched by the presence +of a genius and a saint. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness +<a name="page_105"><span class="page">Page 105</span></a> +interfered with the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring +in a moral or intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he +came to estimate a human character. His own life had always been +lived on the highest plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree +"unspotted from the world." His tendency was to think—or +at any rate to speak and act—as if everyone were as simply +good as himself, as transparent, as conscientious, as free from +all taint of self-seeking. This habit, it has been truly said, +"disqualifies a man in some degree for the business of life, which +requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice"; but it +is pre-eminently characteristic of those elect and lovely souls +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Who, through the world's long day of strife,<br/> + Still chant their morning song." +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LORD HALIFAX</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood +and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have +for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction +which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of +Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter +of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. +Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in +Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest +<a name="page_106"><span class="page">Page 106</span></a> +offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and Mr. +Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax in 1866. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was +Charles Lindley Wood—the subject of the present sketch—born +in 1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, +of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together +because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character +made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with +her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. +The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage +in 1885) writes thus about his early days: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time +when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to +her every day when we were away from one another; and for many +years after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, I +don't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, +indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. She +is never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19th +of July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood out +amongst all the days of the year." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This extract illustrates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual love +and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood +were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would +naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were +judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright +home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship +of a favourite sister, the transition +<a name="page_107"><span class="page">Page 107</span></a> +to a private school is always depressing. In April, 1849, Charles +Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. +"What I chiefly remember about the place is being punished all one +day, with several canings, because I either could not or would +not learn the Fifth Declension of the Greek Nouns." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for one +year, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, Charles +Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the +Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, +afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar +and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning +friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private +pupils. In his book of verses—<i>Ionica</i>—he made +graceful play with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall +in the ecstasy of swimming—"Oh, how I wish I could fly!" +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech,<br/> + Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye,<br/> +Tossing those river-pearled locks about,<br/> + Throwing those delicate limbs straight out,<br/> +Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach,<br/> + Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!' +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply,<br/> + Answer disdainfully, flouting my words:<br/> +How should the listener at simple sixteen<br/> +Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean,<br/> +Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'—<br/> + Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds? +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="bquote"> +<a name="page_108"><span class="page">Page 108</span></a> +"Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet;<br/> + Walk through some passionless years by my side,<br/> +Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk,<br/> +Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk.<br/> +When the sap stays, and the blossom is set,<br/> + Others will take the fruit; I shall have died." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite +pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy +fulfilled. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; +so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by +contemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, at +Eton—Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George +Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2] +With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed," and with Stopford, now +Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuits +I may quote his own words: +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.]<br /> +[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.] +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"I steered the <i>Britannia</i> and the <i>Victory</i>. I used to +take long walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to +go up to the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, +in two little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, +taking the part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of +the Peninsular War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen +of Cyprus, in an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the +hero, and a boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the +heroine. In Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted +with Lyulph Stanley in a French piece called <i>Femme à +Vendre</i>. In 1857, I and George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, +<a name="page_109"><span class="page">Page 109</span></a> +and Freddy Stanley[5] went with the present King for a tour in the +English Lakes; and in the following August we went with the King to +Koenigs-winter. I was in 'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the +end of my time at Eton, and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's +Prize for French." +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 3: Edward VII.]<br /> +[Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan.]<br /> +[Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and +the masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a custom +of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books,' +from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by +the parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldon +went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, +he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom +of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown +copy of <i>The Pilgrim's Progress</i>, and sent it to C. Wood's +room. Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at +the end of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique +testimony from a small boy to one at the top of the house." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. There +many of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh ones +added: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson, +afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster; +and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, +from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in the +social life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to +"Bullingdon"—institutions of high repute in the Oxford world; +and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chief +<a name="page_110"><span class="page">Page 110</span></a> +joy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, and +made some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861 +he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far as +Suez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom of +the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attended +his royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10th +of March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. At +the same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin, +Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and +retained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administration +in 1866. +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"There was," writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing for +some Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was not +easy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped. +I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatest +devotion to King Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. I can recall now +the services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used to +wear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the floor +as the clock struck twelve." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's +"convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, like +all the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to take +their children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the least +ecclesiastical-looking place of worship in London; and the observances +of the Parish Church at Hickleton—their country home near +Doncaster—were not calculated to inspire a delight in the +beauty of holiness. However, when quite +<a name="page_111"><span class="page">Page 111</span></a> +a boy, Charles Wood, who had been confirmed at Eton by Bishop +Wilberforce, found his way to St. Barnabas, Pimlico, then newly +opened, and fell much under the influence of Mr. Bennett at St. +Paul's, Knightsbridge, and Mr. Richards, at All Saints', Margaret +Street. At Oxford he became acquainted with Dr. Pusey and the young +and inspiring Liddon, and frequented the services at Merton College +Chapel, where Liddon used often to officiate. By 1863 his religious +opinions must have been definitely shaped; for in that year his old +tutor, William Johnson, when paying a visit to Hickleton, writes +as follows: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"He told me of Mr. Liddon, the saintly and learned preacher; of +the devout worshippers at All Saints', whose black nails show they +are artisans; of the society formed to pray daily for the restoration +of Christian unity." +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +And again: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness from +looking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard against +his unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zeal +misdirected.... And all the while his mother's face gets brighter +and kinder because she is looking at him. Happy are the parents +who, when they have reached that time of life in which the world is +getting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickened +by the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and so +renew their youth." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellor +of the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union. +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"At that time," he writes, "I was much concerned with the affairs +of the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. +1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect +<a name="page_112"><span class="page">Page 112</span></a> +coming straight back from Lorne's[*] coming of age to London, where +I saw Dr. Pusey, with the result that I set to work to help Miss +Sellon with her temporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel." +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Afterwards Duke of Argyll.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services which +he rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; and +those who know what religious prejudice was in rural districts +forty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded to +an institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentation +by the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding. +There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelical +mother—Lady Charles Russell—to her son, then just ordained +to a curacy at Doncaster. +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax. I knew them pretty +well as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirement +since before he was raised to the peerage. His eldest son was not +only very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I dare +say Dr. Vaughan may have heard. Do you know anything about him?" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That "very good" and "very good-looking" young man was now approaching +what may be called the decisive event of his life. In April, 1867, +Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English Church +Union, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fill +his place. Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote: "As to his being +President of the E.C.U., he is the sense and moderation of it." He +has administered its affairs and guided its policy through fifty +<a name="page_113"><span class="page">Page 113</span></a> +anxious years. Indeed, the President and the Union have been so +completely identified that the history of the one has been the history +of the other. His action has been governed by a grand and simple +consistency. Alike in storms and in fair weather, at times of crisis +and at times of reaction, he has been the unswerving and unsleeping +champion of the spiritual claims of the English Church, and the alert, +resourceful, and unsparing enemy of all attempts, from whatever +quarter, to subject her doctrine and discipline to the control of +the State and its secular tribunals. The eager and fiery enthusiasm +which pre-eminently marks his nature awakes a kindred flame in +those who are reached by his influence; and, even when the reason +is unconvinced, it is difficult to resist the leadership of so +pure and passionate a temper. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It would be ridiculous for an outsider, like myself, to discuss the +interior working of the E.C.U., so I avail myself of the testimony +which has reached me from within. +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"Like most men of his temperament, Lord Halifax seems now and again +to be a little before his time. On the other hand, it is remarkable +that Time generally justifies him. There is no question that he +has always enjoyed the enthusiastic and affectionate support of +the Union as a whole." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is true that once with reference to the book called <i>Lux Mundi</i>, +and once with reference to the "Lambeth Opinions" of 1899, there +was some resistance in the Union to Lord Halifax's guidance; and +that, in his negotiations about the recognition of Anglican Orders, +he would not, if he had been acting +<a name="page_114"><span class="page">Page 114</span></a> +officially, have carried the Union with him. But these exceptions +only go to confirm the general truth that his policy has been as +successful as it has been bold and conscientious. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is time to return, for a moment, to the story of Lord Halifax's +private life. In 1869 he married Lady Agnes Courtenay, daughter +of the twelfth Earl of Devon, and in so doing allied himself with +one of the few English families which even the most exacting +genealogists recognize as noble.[1] His old tutor wrote on the 22nd +of April: +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 1: "The purple of three Emperors who have reigned at +Constantinople will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin +and singular fortunes of the House of Courtenay" (Gibbon, chapter +xii.).] +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"This has been a remarkable day—the wedding of Charles Wood +and Lady Agnes Courtenay. It was in St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, +which was full, galleries and all, the central passage left empty, +and carpeted with red. It was a solemn, rapt congregation; there +was a flood of music and solemn tender voices. The married man +and woman took the Lord's Supper, with hundreds of witnesses who +did not Communicate.... Perhaps a good many were Church Union folk, +honouring their Chairman." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Of this marriage I can only say that it has been, in the highest +aspects, ideally happy, and that the sorrows which have chequered +it have added a new significance to the saying of Ecclesiastes +that "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."[2] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote 2: Charles Reginald Lindley Wood died 1890; Francis Hugh +Lindley Wood died 1889; Henry Paul Lindley Wood died 1886.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In 1877 Mr. Wood resigned his office in the household of the Prince +of Wales. It was the time when the affairs of St. James's, Hatcham, +and the persecution +<a name="page_115"><span class="page">Page 115</span></a> +of Mr. Tooth, were first bringing the Church into sharp collision +with the courts of law. The President of the Church Union was the +last man to hold his peace when even the stones were crying out +against this profane intrusion of the State into the kingdom of +God; and up and down the country he preached, in season and out of +season, the spiritual independence of the Church, and the criminal +folly of trying to coerce Christian consciences by deprivation and +imprisonment. The story went that an Illustrious Personage said +to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What's this I hear? +I'm told you go about the country saying that the Queen is not +the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head of the Church, +just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, and the Sultan +the Head of <i>his</i> Church.'" But this may only be a creation +of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it is better +to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to +disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I +thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised +by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did +not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign +my place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince +was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him +on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, +I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing +what I thought right." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "say +and do what he thinks right," +<a name="page_116"><span class="page">Page 116</span></a> +without hesitation or compromise or regard to consequences, has +been alike the principle and the practice of his life. And here the +reader has a right to ask, What manner of man is he whose career +you have been trying to record? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +First and foremost, it must be said—truth demands it, and no +conventional reticence must withhold it—that the predominant +feature of his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher +world than this. His "citizenship is in Heaven." Never can I forget +an address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in +Stepney Meeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness." The +audience consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I +imagine, had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity +to see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of +Cæsar and the things of God was just then attracting, general +attention, and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, +as the high theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the +utter futility of all that this world has to offer when compared +with the realities of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed +into reverence, and the address closed amid a silence more eloquent +than any applause." +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"That strain I heard was of a higher mood." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, +about +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one of +singular moderation as well as wisdom, who can +<a name="page_117"><span class="page">Page 117</span></a> +discriminate with singular sagacity what is essential from is not +essential—C. Wood." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Doctor went on: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a public +address which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, +without controversy or saying anything which could have offended +anyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precision +which reminded me of Hooker's wonderful enunciation of the doctrine +of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +After so solemn a tribute from so great a saint, it seems almost +a profanity—certainly a bathos—to add any more secular +touches. Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it +must be remembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, +but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, +the most graceful and attractive figure, in the Vanity Fair of +social life. He is full of ardour, zeal, and emotion, endowed with +a physical activity which corresponds to his mental alertness, and +young with that perpetual youth which is the reward of "a conscience +void of offence toward God and toward man." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Clarendon, in one of his most famous portraits, depicts a high-souled +Cavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, +of a glowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and +of a primitive simplicity and integrity of life." He was writing +of Lord Falkland: he described Lord Halifax. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_118"><span class="page">Page 118</span></a> +IV +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"> +<i>LORD AND LADY RIPON</i>[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of +Ripon, K.G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta Ann +Theodosia Vyner.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The <i>Character of the Happy Warrior</i> is, by common consent, +one of the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writers +and speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present war +began, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a new +acquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, and +a devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism, +it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed, +the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" as +for the "Happy Warrior." There is nothing specially warlike in the +portraiture of the man +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Who, with a toward or untoward lot,<br/> +Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not,<br/> +Plays in the many games of life, that one<br/> +Where what he most doth value must be won;<br/> +Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,<br/> +Not thought of tender happiness betray;<br/> +Who, not content that former worth stand fast,<br/> +Looks forward, persevering to the last,<br/> +From well to better, daily self-surpast." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances brought +me into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship I +enjoyed from my first entrance into public life. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_119"><span class="page">Page 119</span></a> +I know few careers in the political life of modern England more +interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant +with Wordsworth's eulogy: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Who, not content that former worth stand fast,<br/> +Looks forward, persevering to the last,<br/> +From well to better, daily self-surpast." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, entered +public life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled pretty +nearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including, +for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially +under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very +material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences +of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and +great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman +when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust +convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To +men possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heard +the question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Why +are you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for so +the second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father's +title) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it." He +was an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to form +his own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to the +stereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almost +before his arrival +<a name="page_120"><span class="page">Page 120</span></a> +at man's estate, he had clearly marked out his line of political +action, and to that line he adhered with undeviating consistency. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage. +Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of <i>The Talking Oak</i> +from Henrietta, Lady Ripon: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Yet, since I first could cast a shade,<br/> + Did never creature pass,<br/> +So slightly, musically made,<br/> + So light upon the grass." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she was +the brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends. +She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause, +and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From the earliest days of their married life, Lord and Lady Goderich +made their home a centre and a rallying-point for all the scattered +forces which, within the Liberal party or beyond its pale, were +labouring to promote the betterment of human life. There the "Christian +Socialists," recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48, +re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking world +that the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice with +his mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughes +and Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerful +pens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young Radical +M.P., whose zeal for social service had already marked him out +from the ruck +<a name="page_121"><span class="page">Page 121</span></a> +of mechanical politicians; and from time to time Carlyle himself would +vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval to enterprises which, whether +wise or foolish, were at least not shams. In 1852 the Amalgamated +Society of Engineers conducted in London and Lancashire a strike +which had begun in some engineering works at Oldham. The Christian +Socialists gave it their support, and Lord Goderich subscribed +£500 to the maintenance of the strikers. But, although he +lived in this highly idealistic society, surrounded by young men +who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, Lord Goderich was +neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under Lord Russell, Lord +Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long series of practical +and laborious offices. He became Secretary of State for India, +and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council, attained +perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed Chairman +of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871 saved +us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United States. +Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent mark +on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward no +Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it +could show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February, +1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establish +Home Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, +explained his position to me with happy candour: "I have always +been in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal +<a name="page_122"><span class="page">Page 122</span></a> +Programme. Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm +a Home Ruler." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the last year of Lord Ripon's life, when he had just retired +from the Cabinet and the leadership of the House of Lords, he was +entertained at luncheon by the Eighty Club, and the occasion was +marked by some more than usually interesting speeches. It always +is satisfactory to see public honours rendered, not to a monument +or a tomb, but to the living man; and, in Lord Ripon's case, the +honours, though ripe, were not belated. George Eliot has reminded +us that "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a further stage +of development which is less esteemed in the market." The Eighty +Club avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while they +were still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of a +Liberalism "more high and heroical than the present age affecteth." +One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon faced +when he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicals +themselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence to +a Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion, +and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause. +The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressive +than the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who, +in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station and +environment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor, +the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotion was +far more difficult than now. It is probable that +<a name="page_123"><span class="page">Page 123</span></a> +not a few of Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words +and waved their salutations, may have added in the depths of their +hearts some aspiration such as this: "When I come to my eightieth +year, may I be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as +unselfish, and as beneficent." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Thrice happy is the man, be he Warrior or Statesman, who, in spite +of lessened activity and increasing burdens and the loss of much +that once made life enjoyable, still +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Finds comfort in himself and in his cause,<br/> +And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws<br/> +His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"> +"<i>FREDDY LEVESON</i>" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When a man has died in his eighty-ninth year, it seems irreverent +to call him by his nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather in +seeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation, +is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with the +subject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heart +and mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out of +place. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Edward Frederick Leveson-Gower was the third son of Granville +Leveson-Gower, first Earl Granville, by his marriage with Henrietta +Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire. +The very names breathe Whiggery, and in their combination they +suggest a considerable and an important portion of our social and +political history. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_124"><span class="page">Page 124</span></a> +I have always maintained that Whiggery, rightly understood, is not +a political creed, but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, is +born, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a +Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the +privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated +its spirit. It is true that the Whigs, as a body, have held certain +opinions and pursued certain tactics, which were analysed in chapters +xix. and xxi. of the unexpurgated <i>Book of Snobs</i>. But those +opinions and those tactics have been accidents of Whiggery. Its +substance has been relationship. When Lord John Russell formed +his first Administration, his opponents alleged that it was mainly +composed of his cousins, and the lively oracles of Sir Bernard +Burke confirmed the allegation. A. J. Beresford-Hope, in one of +his novels, made excellent fun of what he called the "Sacred Circle +of the Great-Grandmotherhood." He showed—what, indeed, the +Whigs themselves knew uncommonly well—that from John, Earl +Gower, who died in 1754, descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, +Cavendishes, Grosvenors, Harcourts, and Russells, who walk on the +face of the earth. Truly a noble and a highly favoured progeny. +"They <i>are</i> our superiors," said Thackeray; "and that's the +fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhaps it is as unnecessary to say +so as to say that I'm not King Pippin in a golden coach, or King +Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts)—I'm not a Whig; but oh, how +I should like to be one!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It argues no political bias to maintain that, in +<a name="page_125"><span class="page">Page 125</span></a> +the earlier part of the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its +neophytes no educational opportunities equal to those which a young +Whig enjoyed at Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. +Here the best traditions of the previous century were constantly +reinforced by accessions of fresh intellect. The circle was, indeed, +an aristocratic Family Party, but it paid a genuine homage to ability +and culture. Genius held the key, and there was a <i>carrière +ouverte aux talents</i>. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Into this privileged society Frederick Leveson-Gower was born on +the 3rd of May, 1819, and within its precincts he "kept the noiseless +tenour of his way" for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 the +experiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton, +he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again been +seriously ill." To that extraordinary immunity from physical suffering +was probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognized +as his most characteristic trait, and which remained unruffled to +the end. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is recorded of the fastidious Lady Montfort in <i>Endymion</i> +that, visiting Paris in 1841, she could only with difficulty be +induced to call on the British Ambassador and Ambassadress. "I +dined," she said, "with those people once; but I confess that, when +I thought of those dear Granvilles, their <i>entrées</i> +stuck in my throat." The "dear Granvilles" in question were the +parents of the second Lord Granville, whom we all remember as the +most urbane of Foreign Secretaries, and of Frederick +<a name="page_126"><span class="page">Page 126</span></a> +Leveson-Gower. The first Lord Granville was a younger son of the +first Marquess of Stafford and brother of the second Marquess, who +was made Duke of Sutherland. He was born in 1773, entered Parliament +at twenty-two, and "found himself a diplomatist as well as a politician +before he was thirty years of age." In 1804 he was appointed Ambassador +to St. Petersburg, where he remained till 1807. In 1813 he was +created Viscount Granville, and in 1824 became Ambassador to the +Court of France. "To the indignation of the Legitimist party in +France, he made a special journey from Paris to London in order +to vote for the Reform Bill of 1832, and, to their astonishment, +returned alive to glory in having done so." For this and similar +acts of virtue he was raised to an earldom in 1833; he retired +from diplomacy in 1841, and died in 1846. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Before he became an Ambassador, this Lord Granville had rented +a place called Wherstead, in Suffolk. It was there that Freddy +Leveson passed the first years of his life, but from 1824 onwards +the British Embassy at Paris was his home. Both those places had +made permanent dints in his memory. At Wherstead he remembered +the Duke of Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face and +imperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir Walter +Scott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living at +the Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux, +afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sent +from Paris to a +<a name="page_127"><span class="page">Page 127</span></a> +Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was called the House of +Lords, owing to most of the boys being related to the peerage, +many of them future peers, and among them several dukes." Here, +again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate of Princes. Prince +George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridge were staying with +King William IV. at the Pavilion; their companions were chosen from +Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused his nephews and their +friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rather coarse ones." In +his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refined society at Holland +House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation: "He always sits +next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasing all dinner-time." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to +Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health, +and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one, +he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that +was the complete indifference to social distinctions. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"There is," he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, the +late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his +name, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis +of Bath.' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount +and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at +any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted +of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor +in Nottinghamshire, and there he +<a name="page_128"><span class="page">Page 128</span></a> +first developed his interest in politics. "Reform," he wrote, "is +my principal aim." Albany Fonblanque, whose vivacious articles, +reprinted from the <i>Examiner</i>, may still be read in <i>England +under Seven Administrations</i>, was his political instructor, and +indoctrinated him with certain views, especially in the domain +of Political Economy, which would have been deemed heretical in +the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth. In 1832 he made +his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother wrote: "As to +Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be if it was to last +more than a week longer. His dancing <i>fait fureur</i>." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishing +under Dean Gaisford's mismanagement. Here for three years he enjoyed +himself thoroughly. He rode with the drag, was President of the +Archery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal of +hospitality, and made some lifelong friendships. Among his +<a name="page_129"><span class="page">Page 129</span></a> +contemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainly +depressing. "He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, to seek +no friends, and to have none. I never met him in anyone else's rooms, +or at any social gathering. I see him now, looking rather crazy, taking +his solitary walks." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That Freddy Leveson was "thoroughly idle" was his own confession; +and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is not +surprising. What is surprising, and what he himself recorded with +surprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the least +attention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, +although—and this makes it stranger still—they used +to attend Newman's Sermons at St. Mary's. They duly admired his +unequalled style, but the substance of his teaching seems to have +passed by them like the idle wind. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +After taking a "Nobleman's Degree," Frederick Leveson spent an +instructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father's +position, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers, +Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned to +England with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of reading +for the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, and +the choice was determined by a civil speech of George Canning, who, +staying at the British Embassy at Paris, noticed little Freddy, +and pleasantly said to Lord Granville, "Bring that boy up as a +lawyer, and he will one day become Lord Chancellor." As a first +step towards that elevation, Frederick Leveson entered the chambers +of an eminent conveyancer called Plunkett, where he had for his +fellow-pupils the men who became Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Farrer. +Thence he went to a Special Pleader, and lastly to a leading member +of the Oxford Circuit. As Marshal to Lord Denman and to Baron Parke, +he acquired some knowledge of the art of carving; but with regard +to the total result of his legal training, he remarked, with +characteristic simplicity, "I cannot say I learnt much law." When +living in lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners at +<a name="page_130"><span class="page">Page 130</span></a> +Lincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantage +of having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, +a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like a son, +giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; while Lady +Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him make a second +home of Holland House. +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word in +the morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a word +at dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk—to +Macaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith's +exquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasms +and Luttrell's repartees." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the Oxford +Circuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G. +Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stage +in the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granville +died at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this event +produced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described in +his own quaint words: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgent +parent—possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although +I cannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized with +me for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been this +feeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me well +provided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn my +own bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answering +it affirmatively; but the +<a name="page_131"><span class="page">Page 131</span></a> +practical test was never applied, for on succeeding to his inheritance +he glided—"plunged" would be an unsuitable word—into +a way of living which was, more like the [Greek: scholae] of the +Athenian citizen than the sordid strife of professional activity. +He was singularly happy in private life, for the "Sacred Circle +of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained some delightful women as +well as some distinguished men. Such was his sister-in-law Marie, +Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland; +such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville; and such, +pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, of whom a +competent critic said that, in the female characters of her novel +<i>Ellen Middleton</i>, she had drawn "the line which is so apt to +be overstepped, and which Walter Scott never clearly saw, between +<i>naïveté</i> and vulgarity." Myself a devoted adherent +of Sir Walter, I can yet recall some would-be pleasantries of Julia +Mannering, of Isabella Wardour, and even of Die Vernon, which would +have caused a shudder in the "Sacred Circle." Happiest of all was +Freddy Leveson in his marriage with Lady Margaret Compton; but +their married life lasted only five years, and left behind it a +memory too tender to bear translation to the printed page. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Devonshire House was the centre of Freddy Leveson's social life—at +least until the death of his uncle, the sixth Duke, in 1858. That +unsightly but comfortable mansion was then in its days of glory, and +those who frequented it had no reason to regret the past. "Poodle +Byng," who carried +<a name="page_132"><span class="page">Page 132</span></a> +down to 1871 the social conditions of the eighteenth century, declared +that nothing could be duller than Devonshire House in his youth. +"It was a great honour to go there, but I was bored to death. The +Duchess was usually stitching in one corner of the room, and Charles +Fox snoring in another." Under the splendid but arbitrary rule of +the sixth Duke no one stitched or snored. Everyone who entered +his saloons was well-born or beautiful or clever or famous, and +many of the guests combined all four characteristics. When Prince +Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III., first came to live in +London, his uncle Jerome asked the Duke of Devonshire to invite +his <i>mauvais sujet</i> of a nephew to Devonshire House, "so that +he might for once be seen in decent society"; and the Prince, repaid +the Duke by trying to borrow five thousand pounds to finance his +descent on Boulogne. But the Duke, though magnificent, was +business-like, and the Prince was sent empty away. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The society in which Freddy Leveson moved during his long career was +curiously varied. There was his own family in all its ramifications of +cousinship; and beyond its radius there was a circle of acquaintances +and associates which contained Charles Greville the diarist and +his more amiable brother Henry, Carlyle and Macaulay, Brougham +and Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Grote +and Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay," and +Disraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_133"><span class="page">Page 133</span></a> +For womankind there were Lady Morley the wit and Lady Cowper the +humorist, and Lady Ashburton, who tamed Carlyle; Lady Jersey, the +queen of fashion, and the two sister-queens of beauty, Lady Canning +and Lady Waterford; Lady Tankerville, who as a girl had taken refuge +in England from the matrimonial advances of the Comte d'Artois; +the three fascinating Foresters, Mrs. Robert Smith, Mrs. Anson, +and Lady Chesterfield; and Lady Molesworth and Lady Waldegrave, +who had climbed by their cleverness from the lowest rung of the +social ladder to a place not very far from the top. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Beyond this circle, again, there was a miscellaneous zone, where +dwelt politicians ranging from John Bright to Arthur Balfour; poets +and men of letters, such as Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray and +Motley and Laurance Oliphant; Paxton the gardener-architect and +Hudson the railway-king; stars of the musical world, such as Mario +and Grisi and Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and Madame +Mohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and Lola +Montez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education will +convert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable member +of society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligence +and a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfection +by such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life. +And so it came about that alike as a young man, in middle life +(which was in his case unusually prolonged), and in old +<a name="page_134"><span class="page">Page 134</span></a> +age, he enjoyed a universal and unbroken popularity. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is impossible to connect the memory of Freddy Leveson with the +idea of ambition, and it must therefore have been the praiseworthy +desire to render unpaid service to the public which induced him to +embark on the unquiet sea of politics. At a bye-election in the +summer of 1847 he was returned, through the interest of his uncle the +Duke of Devonshire, for Derby. A General Election immediately ensued; +he was returned again, but was unseated, with his colleague, for a +technical irregularity. In 1852 he was returned for Stoke-upon-Trent, +this time by the aid of his cousin the Duke of Sutherland (for the +"Sacred Circle" retained a good deal of what was termed "legitimate +influence"). In 1854, having been chosen to second the Address at +the opening of Parliament, he was directed to call on Lord John +Russell, who would instruct him in his duties. Lord John was the +shyest of human beings, and the interview was brief: "I am glad +you are going to second the Address. You will know what to say. +Good-morning." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At the General Election of 1857 he lost his seat for Stoke. "Poor +Freddy," writes his brother, Lord Granville, "is dreadfully disappointed +by his failure in the Potteries. He was out-jockeyed by Ricardo." +All who knew "poor Freddy" will easily realize that in a jockeying +contest he stood no chance. In 1859 he was returned for Bodmin, this +time by the good offices, not of relations, but of friends—Lord +Robartes and Lady Molesworth—and +<a name="page_135"><span class="page">Page 135</span></a> +he retained the seat by his own merits till Bodmin ceased to be +a borough. Twice during his Parliamentary career Mr. Gladstone +offered him important office, and he declined it for a most +characteristic reason—"I feared it would be thought a job." +The gaps in his Parliamentary life were occupied by travelling. +As a young man he had been a great deal on the Continent, and he +had made what was then the adventurous tour of Spain. The winter +of 1850-1851 he spent in India; and in 1856 he accompanied his +brother Lord Granville (to whom he had been "précis-writer" +at the Foreign Office) on his Special Mission to St. Petersburg +for the Coronation of Alexander II. No chapter in his life was +fuller of vivid and entertaining reminiscences, and his mind was +stored with familiar memories of Radziwill, Nesselrode, and Todleben. +"Freddy," wrote his brother, "is supposed to have distinguished +himself greatly by his presence of mind when the Grande Duchesse +Hélène got deep into politics with him." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A travelling experience, which Freddy Leveson used to relate with +infinite gusto, belongs to a later journey, and had its origin in +the strong resemblance between himself and his brother. Except +that Lord Granville shaved, and that in later years Freddy Leveson +grew a beard, there was little facially to distinguish them. In 1865 +Lord Granville was Lord President of the Council, and therefore, +according to the arrangement then prevailing, head of the Education +Office. In that year Matthew Arnold, then an Inspector of Schools, was +<a name="page_136"><span class="page">Page 136</span></a> +despatched on a mission to enquire into the schools and Universities +of the Continent. Finding his travelling allowances insufficient +for his needs, he wrote home to the Privy Council Office requesting +an increase. Soon after he had despatched this letter, and before +he could receive the official reply, he was dining at a famous +restaurant in Paris, and he chose the most highly priced dinner of +the day. Looking up from his well-earned meal, he saw his official +chief, Lord Granville, who chanced to be eating a cheaper dinner. +Feeling that this gastronomical indulgence might, from the official +point of view, seem inconsistent with his request for increased +allowances, he stepped across to the Lord President, explained +that it was only once in a way that he thus compensated himself +for his habitual abstinence, and was delighted by the facile and +kindly courtesy with which his official chief received the +<i>apologia</i>. His delight was abated when he subsequently found +that he had been making his confession, not to Lord Granville, +but to Mr. Leveson-Gower. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Looking back from the close of life upon its beginning, Freddy +Leveson noted that as an infant he used to eat his egg "very slowly, +and with prolonged pleasure." "Did this," he used to ask, "portend +that I should grow up a philosopher or a <i>gourmand</i>? I certainly +did not become the former, and I hope not the latter." I am inclined +to think that he was both; for whoso understands the needs of the +body has mastered at least one great department of philosophy, +and he who feeds his fellow-men supremely +<a name="page_137"><span class="page">Page 137</span></a> +well is in the most creditable sense of the word a <i>gourmand</i>. +Freddy Leveson's dinners were justly famous, and, though he modestly +observed that "hospitality is praised more than it deserves," no +one who enjoyed the labours of Monsieur Beguinot ever thought that +they could be overpraised. The scene of these delights was a house +in South Audley Street, which, though actually small, was so designed +as to seem like a large house in miniature; and in 1870 the genial +host acquired a delicious home on the Surrey hills, which commands +a view right across Sussex to the South Downs. "Holm-bury" is its +name, and "There's no place like Home-bury" became the grateful +watchword of a numerous and admiring society. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +People distinguished in every line of life, and conspicuous by +every social charm, found at Holm-bury a constant and delightful +hospitality. None appreciated it more thoroughly than Mr. and Mrs. +Gladstone, whose friendship was one of the chief happinesses of +Freddy Leveson's maturer life. His link with them was Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland, who, in spite of all Whiggish prejudices +against the half-converted Tory, was one of Gladstone's most +enthusiastic disciples. In "Cliveden's proud alcove," and in that +sumptuous villa at Chiswick where Fox and Canning died, Mr. and +Mrs. Gladstone were her constant guests; and there they formed +their affectionate intimacy with Freddy Leveson. Every year, and +more than once a year, they stayed with him at Holmbury; and one +at least of those visits was memorable. On +<a name="page_138"><span class="page">Page 138</span></a> +the 19th of July, 1873, Mr. Gladstone wrote in his diary: +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"Off at 4.25 to Holmbury, We were enjoying that beautiful spot +and expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester,[*] when +the groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a bad +fall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad: +'It's all over.' In an instant the thread of that precious life +was snapped, We were all in deep and silent grief." +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Samuel Wilberforce.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And now, for the sake of those who never knew Freddy Leveson, a +word of personal description must be added. He was of middle height, +with a slight stoop, which began, I fancy from the fact that he was +short-sighted and was obliged to peer rather closely at objects which +he wished to see. His growing deafness, which in later years was +a marked infirmity—he had no others—tended to intensify +the stooping habit, as bringing him nearer to his companions voice. +His features were characteristically those of the House of Cavendish, +as may be seen by comparing his portrait with that of his mother. +His expression was placid, benign, but very far from inert; for +his half-closed eyes twinkled with quiet mirth. His voice was soft +and harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of that +peculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued." +His bearing was the very perfection of courteous ease, equally +remote from stiffness and from familiarity. His manners it would +be impertinent to eulogize, and the only dislikes which I ever +heard him express were directed +<a name="page_139"><span class="page">Page 139</span></a> +against rudeness, violence, indifference to other people's feelings, +and breaches of social decorum. If by such offences as these it +was easy to displease him, it was no less easy to obtain his +forgiveness, for he was as amiable as he was refined. In old age +he wrote, with reference to the wish which some people express for +sudden death: "It is a feeling I cannot understand, as I myself +shall feel anxious before I die to take an affectionate leave of +those I love." His desire was granted, and there my story ends. I +have never known a kinder heart; I could not imagine a more perfect +gentleman. +</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>SAMUEL WHITBREAD</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +The family of Whitbread enjoyed for several generations substantial +possessions in North Bedfordshire. They were of the upper middle +class, and were connected by marriage with John Howard the +Prison-Reformer, whose property near Bedford they inherited. As +years went on, their wealth and station increased. Samuel Whitbread, +who died in 1796, founded the brewery in Chiswell Street, E.C., +which still bears his name, was Member for the Borough of Bedford, +and purchased from the fourth Lord Torrington a fine place near +Biggleswade, called Southill, of which the wooded uplands supplied +John Bunyan, dwelling on the flats of Elstow, with his idea of +the Delectable Mountains. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This Samuel Whitbread was succeeded as M.P. +<a name="page_140"><span class="page">Page 140</span></a> +for Bedford by a more famous Samuel, his eldest son, who was born +in 1758, and married Lady Elizabeth Grey; sister of +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"That Earl who taught his compeers to be just,<br/> +And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Samuel Whitbread became one of the most active and influential +members of the Whig party, a staunch ally of Fox and a coadjutor +of Wilberforce in his attack on the Slave Trade. He was closely and +unfortunately involved in the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre, and, +for that reason, figures frequently in <i>Rejected Addresses</i>. +He died before his time in 1815, and his eldest son, William Henry +Whitbread, became M.P. for Bedford. This William Henry died without +issue, and his nephew and heir was the admirable man and distinguished +Parliamentarian who is here commemorated. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Samuel Whitbread was born in 1830, and educated at Rugby, where +he was a contemporary of Lord Goschen, and at Trinity College, +Cambridge, where one of his closest friends was James Payn, the +novelist. He married Lady Isabella Pelham, daughter of the third +Earl of Chichester. In those days Bedford returned two members, +and at the General Election of 1852, which scotched Lord Derby's +attempt to revive Protection, "Young Sam Whitbread" was returned +as junior Member for the Borough, and at the elections of 1857, +1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1885, 1886, and 1892 he was again +elected, each time after a contest and each time at the top of +the poll. Had he stood again in +<a name="page_141"><span class="page">Page 141</span></a> +1895, and been again successful, he would have been "Father of the +House." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbread +was the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, +he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful and +benignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified; +his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, +was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through his +utterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even of +political opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabled +him to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests of +his brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He was +active in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge of +all that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. +A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in +1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, +made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointment +disclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. +His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, and +sedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to the +normally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was more +than he could stand. "I cannot," he said, "get a living out of +the London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of high +preferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himself +<a name="page_142"><span class="page">Page 142</span></a> +thence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders of +the Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeated +efforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twice +the Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctions or +hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The knowledge that these things were so gave Whit bread a peculiar +authority in the House of Commons. His independence was absolute +and assured. He was, if any politician ever was, unbuyable; and +though he was a sound Party man, on whom at a pinch his leaders +could rely, he yet seemed to rise superior to the lower air of +partisanship, and to lift debate into the atmosphere of conviction. +The <i>St. James's Gazette</i> once confessed that his peculiar +position in the House of Commons was one of those Parliamentary +mysteries which no outsider could understand. He seemed, even amid +the hottest controversies, to be rather an arbiter than an advocate. +Once Mr. T. W. Russell, in a moment of inspiration, described him +as "an umpire, perfectly impartial—except that he never gives +his own side out." Whereupon Whitbread, with a quaint half-smile, +whispered to the man sitting next to him: "That hit of 'T. W.'s' was +<i>not very bad</i>." A singular tribute to Whitbread's influence, +and the weight attaching to his counsel, is found in the fact that, in +the autumn of 1885, before Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversion +to Home Rule, Whitbread was one of the very few people (Goschen was +another) to whom he confided +<a name="page_143"><span class="page">Page 143</span></a> +his change of view. Of the estimation in which Whitbread was held +by his neighbours, even after he had ceased to represent them in +Parliament, the present writer once heard a ludicrous, but illuminating, +instance. Among the men sentenced to death after the Jameson Raid +was one connected by ties of family with Bedford. For a while his +kinsfolk could not believe that he was really in danger; but, when +ominous rumours began to thicken, one of his uncles said, with an +air of grave resolve: "This is becoming serious about my nephew. +If it goes on much longer, I shall have to write to Mr. Whitbread." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the general course of politics Whitbread was a Whig, holding +to the great principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace, +Retrenchment, and Reform; but he was a Whig with a difference. He +stuck to the party after it had been permeated by Gladstonianism, +advanced in Liberalism as he advanced in years, and became a convinced +Home Ruler. His political prescience, founded on long experience +and close observation, was remarkable. Soon after Lord Salisbury's +accession to power in the summer of 1895, he said to the present +writer: "I fancy that for two or three years the Government will +go on quietly enough; and then, when they find their popularity +waning, they will pick a quarrel with somebody, and go to war. +It is always difficult for an Opposition to attack a Government +which is conducting a war, and I think Chamberlain is just the +man to take advantage of that difficulty." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_144"><span class="page">Page 144</span></a> +In religion Whitbread was an Evangelical of the more liberal type, +mistrusting extremes, and always on the friendliest terms with +Nonconformists. As regards the affairs of common life, he was a +most hospitable and courteous host; a thorough agriculturist, and +a keen sportsman. His size and weight debarred him from hunting, +but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, +and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in all +things, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, +and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were embodied +in Samuel Whitbread. +</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +The loved and honoured friend whose name stands at the head of +this section was the fourth son and, youngest child of Dr. George +Butler, Dean of Peterborough, and sometime Head Master of Harrow. +Montagu Butler was himself-educated at Harrow under Dr. Vaughan, +afterwards the well-known Master of the Temple, and proved to be +in many respects the ideal schoolboy. He won all the prizes for +composition, prose and verse, Greek, Latin, and English. He gained +the principal scholarship, and was Head of the School. Beside all +this, he was a member of the Cricket Eleven and made the highest +score for Harrow in the match against Eton at Lord's. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In July, 1851, Montagu Butler left Harrow, and +<a name="page_145"><span class="page">Page 145</span></a> +in the following October entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a +Scholar. He won the Bell University Scholarship, the Battie University +Scholarship, the Browne Medal for a Greek Ode twice, the Camden +Medal, Porson Prize, and First Member's Prize for a Latin Essay, +and graduated as Senior Classic in 1855. Of such an undergraduate +career a Fellowship at Trinity was the natural sequel, but Butler +did not long reside at Cambridge. All through his boyhood and early +manhood he had set his heart on a political career. He had a minute +acquaintance with the political history of modern England, and his +memory was stored with the masterpieces of political eloquence. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In 1856 he accepted the post of Private Secretary to the Right Hon. +W. F. Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount Temple, and then President of the +Board of Health in Lord Palmerston's Administration. In this office +he served for two years, and then, retiring, he spent eleven months +in foreign travel, visiting in turn the Tyrol, Venice, the Danube, +Greece, Rome, Florence, and the Holy Land. During this period, he +changed his plan of life, and in September, 1859, he was ordained +Deacon by Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield, on Letters Dimissory from +Bishop Turton of Ely. His title was his Fellowship; but it was +settled that the College should present him to the Vicarage of +Great St. Mary's, Cambridge; and till it was vacant he was to have +worked as a classical tutor in Trinity. Then came another change. +"Dr. Vaughan's retirement," he wrote, "from the Head Mastership of +<a name="page_146"><span class="page">Page 146</span></a> +Harrow startled us. We all took quietly for granted that he would +stay on for years." However, this "startling" retirement took place, +and there was a general agreement among friends of the School that +Vaughan's favourite pupil, Montagu Butler, was the right man to +succeed him. Accordingly, Butler was elected in November, 1859, +though only twenty-six years old; and, with a view to the pastoral +oversight of Harrow School, he was ordained priest, again by Bishop +Lonsdale, at Advent, 1859. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In January, 1860, Montagu Butler entered on his new duties at Harrow, +and there he spent five-and-twenty years of happy, strenuous, and +serviceable life. He found 469 boys in the School; under his rule +the numbers increased till they reached 600. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Butler's own culture was essentially classical, for he had been +fashioned by Vaughan, who "thought in Greek," and he himself might +almost have been said to think and feel in Latin elegiacs. But his +scholarship was redeemed from pedantry by his wide reading, and +by his genuine enthusiasm for all that is graceful in literature, +modern as well as ancient. Under his rule the "grand, old, fortifying, +classical curriculum," which Matthew Arnold satirized, fought hard +and long for its monopoly; but gradually it had to yield. Butler's +first concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latin +versification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever his +gifts or tastes. At the same time he introduced the regular teaching +of Natural Science, and in 1869 he created a +<a name="page_147"><span class="page">Page 147</span></a> +"Modern Side." An even more important feature of his rule was the +official encouragement given to the study of music, which, from an +illicit indulgence practised in holes and corners, became, under +the energetic management of Mr. John Farmer, a prime element in +the life of the School. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School. My father had +introduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen at +once under his charm. He was curiously unlike what one had imagined +a Head Master to be—not old and pompous and austere, but +young and gracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand. +His leading characteristic was gracefulness. He was graceful in +appearance, tall and as yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; +graceful in writing, and pre-eminently graceful in speech. He was +young—thirty-four—and looked younger, although (availing +himself of the opportunity afforded by an illness in the summer of +1867) he had just grown a beard. He had a keen sense of humour, +and was not afraid to display it before boys, although he was a +little pampered by a sense of the solemn reverence due not only +to what was sacred, but to everything that was established and +official. To breakfast with a Head Master is usually rather an +awful experience, but there was no awe about the pleasant meals +in Butler's dining-room (now the head Master's study), for he was +unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, and tactful in adapting +his conversation to the capacities of his guests. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was rather more alarming to face him at the +<a name="page_148"><span class="page">Page 148</span></a> +periodical inspection of one's Form. ("Saying to the Head Master" +was the old phrase, then lapsing out of date.) We used to think +that he found a peculiar interest in testing the acquirements of +such boys as he knew personally, and of those whose parents were +his friends; so that on these occasions it was a doubtful privilege +to "know him," as the phrase is, "at home." Till one reached the +Sixth Form these social and official encounters with Butler were +one's only opportunities of meeting him at close quarters; but +every Sunday evening we heard him preach in the Chapel, and the +cumulative effect of his sermons was, at least in many cases, great. +They were always written in beautifully clear and fluent English, +and were often decorated with a fine quotation in prose or verse. +In substance they were extraordinarily simple, though not childish. +For example, he often preached on such practical topics as Gambling, +National Education; and the Housing of the Poor, as well as on +themes more obviously and directly religious. He was at his best +in commemorating a boy who had died in the School, when his genuine +sympathy with sorrow made itself unmistakably felt. But whatever +was the subject, whether public or domestic, he always treated it +in the same simply Christian spirit. I know from his own lips that +he had never passed through those depths of spiritual experience +which go to make a great preacher; but his sermons revealed in +every sentence a pure, chivalrous, and duty-loving heart. One of +his intimate friends once spoke of his "Arthur-like" +<a name="page_149"><span class="page">Page 149</span></a> +character, and the epithet was exactly right. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +His most conspicuous gift was unquestionably his eloquence. His +fluency, beauty of phrase, and happy power of turning "from grave +to gay, from lively to severe," made him extraordinarily effective +on a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of +1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writing +his sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, and +even boys who did not usually care for sermons were fascinated +by his oratory. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the region of thought I doubt if he exercised any great influence. +To me he never seemed to have arrived at his conclusions by any +process of serious reasoning. He held strongly and conscientiously a +certain number of conventions—a kind of Palmerstonian Whiggery, +a love of "spirited foreign policy;" an admiration for the military +character, an immense regard for the Crown, for Parliament, and +for all established institutions (he was much shocked when the +present Bishop of Oxford spoke in the Debating Society in favour of +Republicanism); and in every department of life he paid an almost +superstitious reverence to authority. I once ventured to tell him +that even a beadle was a sacred being in his eyes, and he did not +deny the soft impeachment. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +His intellectual influence was not in the region of thought, but +in that of expression. His scholarship was essentially literary. He +had an instinctive and unaffected love of all that was beautiful, +<a name="page_150"><span class="page">Page 150</span></a> +whether in prose or verse, in Greek, Latin, or English. His reading +was wide and thorough. Nobody knew Burke so well, and he had a +contagious enthusiasm for Parliamentary oratory. In composition +he had a <i>curiosa felicitas</i> in the strictest meaning of the +phrase; for his felicity was the product of care. To go through +a prize-exercise with him was a real joy, so generous was his +appreciation, so fastidious his taste, so dexterous his substitution +of the telling for the ineffective word, and so palpably genuine +his enjoyment of the business. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +As a ruler his most noticeable quality was his power of discipline. +He was feared—and a Head Master who is not feared is not +fit for his post; and by bad boys he was hated, and by most good +boys he was loved. By most, but not by all. There were some, even +among the best, who resented his system of minute regulation, his +"Chinese exactness" in trivial detail, his tendency to treat the +tiniest breach of a School rule as if it were an offence against +the moral law. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I think it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew him +best loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, but +it was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into an +injustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. +He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour and +dishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always and exactly the +same. His memory for anything associated with his pupils careers +was extraordinarily +<a name="page_151"><span class="page">Page 151</span></a> +retentive, and he was even passionately loyal to <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>. +And there is yet another characteristic which claims emphatic mention +in any attempt to estimate his influence. He was conspicuously and +essentially a gentleman. In appearance, manner, speech, thought, +and act, this gentlemanlike quality of his nature made itself felt; +and it roused in such as were susceptible of the spell an admiration +which the most meritorious teachers have often, by sheer boorishness +forfeited. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Time out of mind, a Head Mastership has been regarded as a +stepping-stone to a Bishopric—with disastrous results to the +Church—and in Butler's case it seemed only too likely that +the precedent would be followed. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, +once said to a Harrovian colleague, "What sort of Bishop would your +old master, Dr. Butler, make?" "The very worst," was the reply. +"He is quite ignorant of the Church, and would try to discipline +his clergy like school-boys. But there is one place for which he +is peculiarly qualified—the Mastership of Trinity." And the +Prime Minister concurred. In June, 1885, Gladstone was driven from +office, and was succeeded by Lord Salisbury. In October, 1886, the +Master of Trinity (Dr. W. H. Thompson) died, and Salisbury promptly +offered the Mastership to Dr. Butler, who had for a year been Dean +of Gloucester. It is not often that a man is designated for the +same great post by two Prime Ministers of different politics. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At Trinity, though at first he had to live down +<a name="page_152"><span class="page">Page 152</span></a> +certain amount of jealousy and ill-feeling, Butler's power and +influence increased steadily from year to year, and towards the end +he was universally respected and admired. A resident contemporary +writes: "He was certainly a Reformer, but not a violent one. His +most conspicuous services to the College were, in my opinion, these: +(1) Sage guidance of the turbulent and uncouth democracy of which +a College Governing body consists. (2) A steady aim at the highest +in education, being careful to secure the position of literary +education from the encroachments of science and mathematics. (3) +Affectionate stimulus to all undergraduates who need it, especially +Old Harrovians. (4) The maintenance of the dignity and commanding +position of Trinity and consequently of the University in the world +at large." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To Cambridge generally Butler endeared himself by his eager interest +in all good enterprises, by his stirring oratory and persuasive +preaching, and by his lavish hospitality. As Vice-Chancellor, in +1889 and 1890, he worthily maintained the most dignified traditions +of academical office. Those who knew him both on the religious +and on the social side will appreciate the judgment said to have +been pronounced by Canon Mason, then Master of Pembroke: "Butler +will be saved, like Rahab, by hospitality and faith." +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_153"><span class="page">Page 153</span></a> +VIII +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>BASIL WILBERFORCE</i>[*]</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: A Memorial Address delivered in St. John's Church, +Westminster.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the House of God the praise of man should always be restrained. +I, therefore, do not propose to obey the natural instinct which +would prompt me to deliver a copious eulogy of the friend whom we +commemorate—an analysis of his character or a description +of his gifts. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But, even in church, there is nothing out of place in an attempt to +recall the particular aspects of truth which presented themselves +with special force to a particular mind. Rather, it is a dutiful +endeavour to acknowledge the gifts, whether in the way of spiritual +illumination or of practical guidance, which God gave us through +His servant; and, it is on some of those aspects as they presented +themselves to the mind of Basil Wilberforce that I propose to +speak—not, indeed, professing to treat them exhaustively, +but bearing in mind that true saying of Jeremy Taylor: "In this +world we believe in part and prophesy in part; and this imperfection +shall never be done away, till we be transplanted to a more glorious +state." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +1. I cannot doubt about the point which should be put most prominently. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Wilberforce's most conspicuous characteristic was his vivid apprehension +of the Spiritual World. His eyes, like Elisha's, were always open to +<a name="page_154"><span class="page">Page 154</span></a> +see "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire." Incorporeal +presences were to him at least as real as those which are embodied +in flesh and blood. Material phenomena were the veils of spiritual +realities; and "the powers of the world to come" were more actual +and more momentous than those which operate in time and space. +Perhaps the most important gift which God gave to the Church through +his ministry was his lifelong testimony against the darkness of +Materialism. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +2. Second only to his keen sense of the Unseen World was his conviction +of God's love. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Other aspects of the Divine Nature as it is revealed to +us—Almightiness, Justice, Awfulness (though, of course, he +recognized them all)—did not colour his heart and life as +they were coloured by the sense of the Divine Love. That Love seemed +to him to explain all the mysteries of existence, to lift +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> + "the heavy and the weary weight<br/> +Of all this unintelligible world"; +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +to make its dark places light, its rough places plain, its hard +things easy, even its saddest things endurable. His Gospel was +this: God, Who made us in His own Image, loves us like a Father; +and therefore, in life and in death, in time and in eternity, all +is, and must be, well. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +3. "He prayeth best, who lovest best<br/> + All things both great and small.<br/> + For the dear God Who loveth us,<br/> + He made and loveth all." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_155"><span class="page">Page 155</span></a> +Those familiar words of Coleridge perfectly express Wilberforce's +attitude towards his fellow-creatures, and when I say +"fellow-creatures," I am not thinking only of his brothers and sisters +in the human family. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was filled with a God-like love of all that God has made. Hatred +and wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy." +Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt as +tenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadside +at Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that, +all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in that +loathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforce +to devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to the +reclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, and +which stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But his love extended far beyond the bounds of the human family; +and (in this again resembling St. Francis) he loved the birds and +beasts which God has provided as our companions in this life, and +perhaps—for aught we know—in the next. In a word, he +loved all God's creatures for God's sake. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +4. No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spirit +in regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; and +yet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belonged +essentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imagine him +happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere else could +he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholic antiquity +<a name="page_156"><span class="page">Page 156</span></a> +and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combined with that +freedom of religious speculation and that elasticity of devotional +forms which were to him as necessary as vital air. Various elements +of his teaching, various aspects of his practice will occur to +different minds; but (just because it is sometimes overlooked) I +feel bound to remind you of his testimony to the blessings which +he had received through Confession, and to the glory of the Holy +Eucharist, as the Sun and Centre of Catholic worship. His conviction +of the reality and nearness of the spiritual world gave him a singular +ease and "access" in intercessory prayer, and his love of humanity +responded to that ideal of public worship which is set forth in +<i>John Inglesant:</i> "The English Church, as established by the +law of England, offers the Supernatural to all who choose to come. +It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose sun shines alike on +the evil and on the good." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +5. In what theology did Wilberforce, whose adult life had been +one long search for truth, finally repose? Assuredly he never lost +his hold on the central facts of the Christian revelation as they +are stated in the creed of Nicæa and Constantinople. Yet, +as years went on, he came to regard them less and less in their +objective aspect; more and more as they correspond to the work +of the Spirit in the heart and conscience. Towards the end, all +theology seemed to be for him comprehended in the one doctrine +of the Divine Immanence, and to find its natural expression in +that significant phrase of St. Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of +glory." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_157"><span class="page">Page 157</span></a> +Spiritually-minded men do not, as a rule, talk much of their spiritual +experiences; but, if one had asked Wilberforce to say what he regarded +as the most decisive moment of his religious life, I can well believe +that he would have replied, "The moment when 'it pleased God to +reveal His Son <i>in</i> me.'" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The subject expands before us, as is always the case when we meditate +on the character and spirit of those whom we have lost; and I must +hasten to a close. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I have already quoted from a writer with whom I think Wilberforce +would have felt a close affinity, though, as a matter of fact, I +never heard him mention that writer's name; I mean J. H. Shorthouse; +and I return to the same book—the stimulating story of <i>John +Inglesant</i>—for my concluding words, which seem to express, +with accidental fidelity, the principle of Wilberforce's spiritual +being: "We are like children, or men in a tennis-court, and before +our conquest is half-won, the dim twilight comes and stops the +game; nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all hold +fast by the law of life we feel within. This was the method which +Christ followed, and He won the world by placing Himself in harmony +with that law of gradual development which the Divine wisdom has +planned. Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the +ideal life; and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread +the free and spacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above." +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_158"><span class="page">Page 158</span></a> +IX +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>EDITH SICHEL</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +This notice is more suitably headed with a name than with a title. +Edith Sichel was greater than anything she wrote, and the main +interest of the book before us[*] is the character which it reveals. +Among Miss Sichel's many activities was that of reviewing, and Mr. +Bradley tells that "her first object was to let the reader know +what kind of matter he might expect to find in the book, and, if +necessary, from what point of view it is treated there." Following this +excellent example, let us say that in <i>New and Old</i> the reader +will find an appreciative but not quite adequate "Introduction"; some +extracts from letters; some "thoughts" or aphorisms; some poems; +and thirty-two miscellaneous pieces of varying interest-and merit. +This is what we "find in the book," and the "point of view" is +developed as we read. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: <i>New and Old</i>. By Edith Sichel. With an Introduction +by A. C. Bradley. London: Constable and Co.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To say that the Introduction is not quite adequate is no aspersion +on Mr. Bradley. He tells us that he only knew Miss Sichel "towards +the close of her life" (she was born in 1862 and died in 1914), and +in her case pre-eminently the child was mother of the woman. Her +blood was purely Jewish, and the Jewish characteristic of precocity +was conspicuous in her from the first. At ten she had the intellectual +alertness of sixteen, and at sixteen she could have held her own +with ordinary people of +<a name="page_159"><span class="page">Page 159</span></a> +thirty. To converse with her even casually always reminded me of +Matthew Arnold's exclamation: "What women these Jewesses are! with a +<i>force</i> which seems to triple that of the women of our Western +and Northern races." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +From the days of early womanhood to the end, Edith Sichel led a +double life, though in a sense very different from that in which +this ambiguous phrase is generally employed. "She was known to the +reading public as a writer of books and of papers in magazines.... +Her principal books were warmly praised by judges competent to estimate +their value as contributions to French biography and history;" and +her various writings, belonging to very different orders and ranging +over a wide variety of topics, were always marked by vigour and +originality. Her versatility was marvellous; and, "though she had +not in youth the severe training that makes for perfect accuracy," +she had by nature the instinct which avoids the commonplace, and +which touches even hackneyed themes with light and fire. Her humour +was exuberant, unforced, untrammelled; it played freely round every +object which met her mental gaze—sometimes too freely when +she was dealing with things traditionally held sacred. But her +flippancy was of speech rather than of thought, for her fundamental +view of life was serious. "Life, in her view, brings much that +is pure and unsought joy, more, perhaps, that needs transforming +effort, little or nothing that cannot be made to contribute to +an inward and abiding happiness." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_160"><span class="page">Page 160</span></a> +Some more detailed account of her literary work may be given later +on; at this point I must turn to the other side of her double life. +She was only twenty-two when she began her career of practical +benevolence among the poor girls of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and +Shadwell. She established in the country Homes for the girl-children +of an East End work-house, and maintained them till she died. For +twenty-two years she was treasurer of a Boys' Home. She was a manager +of Elementary Schools in London. She held a class for female prisoners +at Holloway. She was deeply impressed by the importance of starting +young people in suitable employment, and threw all her energies +into the work, "in case of need, supplying the money required for +apprenticeship." In this and in all her other enterprises she was +generous to a fault, always being ready to give away half her +income—and yet not "to a fault," for her strong administrative +and financial instinct restrained her from foolish or mischievous +expenditure. All this work, of body and mind, was done in spite +of fragile health and frequent suffering; yet she never seemed +overburdened, or fussed, or flurried, and those who enjoyed her +graceful hospitality in Onslow Gardens would never have suspected +either that her day had been spent in what she called "the picturesque +mire of Wapping," or that she had been sitting up late at night, +immersed in <i>Human Documents from the Four Centuries preceding +the Reformation</i>. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +We have spoken of her humour. Those who would see a sample of it +are referred to her description +<a name="page_161"><span class="page">Page 161</span></a> +of the Eisteddfod on p. 22; and this piece of pungent fun may be +profitably read in contrast with her grim story of <i>Gladys Leonora +Pratt</i>. In that story some of the writer's saddest experiences +in the East End are told with an unshrinking fidelity, which yet +has nothing mawkish or prurient in it. Edith Sichel was too good +an artist to be needlessly disgusting. "It might," she said, "be +well for the modern realist to remember that literalness is not +the same as truth, nor curiosity as courage." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +She was best known as a writer of books about the French Renaissance, +on which she became an acknowledged authority. She was less well +known, but not less effective, as a reviewer—no one ever +dissected Charlotte Yonge so justly—and she excelled in personal +description. Her accounts of her friends Miss Emily Lawless, Miss Mary +Coleridge, and Joseph Joachim, are masterpieces of characterization. +All her literary work was based on a wide and strong foundation of +generous culture. German was to her a second mother-tongue, and +she lectured delightfully on <i>Faust</i>. Though she spoke of +herself as talking "fluent and incomprehensible bad French," she +was steeped in French scholarship. She had read Plato and Sophocles +under the stimulating guidance of William Cory, and her love of +Italy had taught her a great deal of Italian. The authors whom she +enjoyed and quoted were a motley crowd—Dante and Rabelais, +Pascal and Montaigne, George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, Tolstoi and +George Borrow, "Mark Rutherford" +<a name="page_162"><span class="page">Page 162</span></a> +and Samuel Butler, Fénelon and Renan and Anatole France. Her +vein of poetic feeling was strong and genuine. In addressing some +young girls she said: "We all think a great deal of the importance +of opening our windows and airing our rooms. I wish we thought +as much of airing our imaginations. To me poetry is quite like +that. It is like opening the window daily, and looking out and +letting in the air and the sunlight into an otherwise stuffy little +room; and if I cannot read some poetry in the day I feel more +uncomfortable than I can tell you." She might have put the case +more strongly; for poetry, and music, and painting, and indeed all +art at its highest level, made a great part of her religion. Her +family had long ago conformed to the Church of England, in which +she was brought up; but she never shook off her essential Judaism. +She had no sympathy with rites or ordinances, creeds or dogmas, +and therefore outward conformity to the faith of her forefathers +would have been impossible to her; but she looked with reverent +pride on the tombs in the Jewish cemetery at Prague. "It gave me +a strange feeling to stand at the tombstone of our tribe—900 +A.D. The oldest scholar's grave is 600 A.D., and Heaven knows how +many great old Rabbis lie there, memorable and forgotten. The wind +and the rain were sobbing all round the place, and all the melancholy +of my race seemed to rise up and answer them." Though she was a +Churchwoman by practice, her own religion was a kind of undefined +Unitarianism. "The Immanence of God and the life of Christ are my +<a name="page_163"><span class="page">Page 163</span></a> +treasures." "I am a heretic, you know, and it seems to me that +all who call Christ Master with adoration of that life are of the +same band." Her favourite theologians were James Martineau, Alfred +Ainger (whose Life she wrote admirably), and Samuel Barnett, whom +she elevated into a mystic and a prophet. The ways of the Church of +England did not please her. She had nothing but scorn for "a joyless +curate prating of Easter joy with limpest lips," or for "the Athanasian +Creed sung in the highest of spirits in a prosperous church" filled +with "sealskin-jacketed mammas and blowsy old gentlemen." But the +conclusion of the whole matter was more comfortable—"All the +clergymen in the world cannot make one disbelieve in God." +</p> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>"WILL" GLADSTONE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"He bequeathed to his children the perilous inheritance of a name +which the Christian world venerates." The words were originally +used by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce with reference to his father, +the emancipator of the negro. I venture to apply them to the great +man who, in days gone by, was my political leader, and I do so the +more confidently because I hold that Gladstone will be remembered +quite apart from politics, and, as Bishop Westcott said, "rather +for what he was than for what he did." He was, in Lord Salisbury's +words, "an example, to which history +<a name="page_164"><span class="page">Page 164</span></a> +hardly furnishes a parallel, of a great Christian, Statesman." It +was no light matter for a boy of thirteen to inherit a name which +had been so nobly borne for close on ninety years, and to acquire, +as soon as he came of age, the possession of a large and difficult +property, and all the local influence which such ownership implies. +Yet this was the burden which was imposed on "Will" Gladstone by +his father's untimely death. After an honourable career at Eton +and Oxford, and some instructive journeyings in the East and in +America (where he was an attaché at the British Embassy), +he entered Parliament as Member for the Kilmarnock Boroughs. His +Parliamentary career was not destined to be long, but it was in +many respects remarkable. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In some ways he was an ideal candidate. He was very tall, with a +fair complexion and a singular nobility of feature and bearing. +To the most casual observer it was palpable that he walked the +world +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"With conscious step of purity and pride." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +People interested in heredity tried to trace in him some resemblance +to his famous grandfather; but, alike in appearance and in character, +the two were utterly dissimilar. In only one respect they resembled +each other, and that was the highest. Both were earnest and practical +Christians, walking by a faith which no doubts ever disturbed, +and serving God in the spirit and by the methods of the English +Church. And here we see alike Will Gladstone's qualifications and +his drawbacks as a candidate for +<a name="page_165"><span class="page">Page 165</span></a> +a Scottish constituency. His name and his political convictions +commended him to the electors; his ecclesiastial opinions they +could not share. His uprightness of character and nobility of aspect +commanded respect; his innate dislike of popularity-hunting and +men-pleasing made him seem for so young a man—he was only +twenty-seven—austere and aloof. Everyone could feel the intensity +of his convictions on the points on which he had made up his mind; +some were unreasonably distressed when he gave expression to that +intensity by speech and vote. He was chosen to second the Address at +the opening of the Session of 1912, and acquitted himself, as always, +creditably; but it was in the debates on the Welsh Disestablishment +Bill that he first definitely made his mark. "He strongly supported +the principle, holding that it had been fully justified by the +results of the Irish Disestablishment Act on the Irish Church. +But, as in that case, generosity should characterize legislation; +disendowment should be clearly limited to tithes. Accordingly, in +Committee, he took an independent course. His chief speech on this +subject captivated the House. For a very young Member to oppose +his own party without causing irritation, and to receive the cheers +of the Opposition without being led to seek in them solace for +the silence of his own side, and to win general admiration by +transparent sincerity and clear, balanced statement of reason, was +a rare and notable performance." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Will Gladstone struck twenty-nine, there were few young men +in England who occupied +<a name="page_166"><span class="page">Page 166</span></a> +a more enviable position. He had a beautiful home; sufficient, +but not overwhelming, wealth; a property which gave full scope +for all the gifts of management and administration which he might +possess; the devoted love of his family, and the goodwill even of +those who did not politically agree with him. His health, delicate +in childhood, had improved with years. "While he never neglected his +public duties, his natural, keen, healthy love of nature, sport, +fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly. In these matters he +was still a boy"—but a boy who, as it seemed, had already +crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such was Will Gladstone +on his last birthday—the 12th of July, 1914. A month later +the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinking world, and +all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness, yes; +but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible, and an +unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part—the +conviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and to +himself—became only more imperious when the call to arms +was heard: <i>Christus ad arma vocat</i>. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart. +He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels of +other nations. "His health was still delicate; he possessed neither +the training nor instincts of a soldier; war and fighting were +repugnant to his whole moral and physical fibre." No one, in short, +could have been by nature less disposed for the duty which +<a name="page_167"><span class="page">Page 167</span></a> +now became urgent. "The invasion of Belgium shattered his hopes +and his ideals." He now realized the stern truth that England must +fight, and, if England must fight, he must bear his part in the +fighting. He had been made, when only twenty-six, Lord-Lieutenant +of Flintshire, and as such President of the Territorial Force +Association. It was his official duty to "make personal appeals +for the enlistment of young men. But how could he urge others to +join the Army while he, a young man not disqualified for military +service, remained at home in safety? It was his duty to lead, and +his best discharge of it lay in personal example." His decision +was quickly and quietly made. "He was the only son of his mother, +and what it meant to her he knew full well;" but there was no +hesitation, no repining, no looking back. He took a commission in +the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and on the 15th +of March, 1915, he started with a draft for France. On the 12th +of April he was killed. "It is not"—he had just written to +his mother—"the length of existence, that counts, but what +is achieved during that existence, however short." These words +of his form his worthiest epitaph. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_168"><span class="page">Page 168</span></a> +XI +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LORD CHARLES RUSSELL</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +A man can have no better friend than a good father; and this +consideration warrants, I hope, the inclusion of yet one more sketch +drawn "in honour of friendship." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Charles James Fox Russell (1807-1894) was the sixth son of the sixth +Duke of Bedford. His mother was Lady Georgiana Gordon, daughter +of the fourth Duke of Gordon and of the adventurous "Duchess Jane," +who, besides other achievements even more remarkable, raised the +"Gordon Highlanders" by a method peculiarly her own. Thus he was +great-great-great-grandson of the Whig martyr, William, Lord Russell, +and great-nephew of Lord George Gordon, whose Protestant zeal excited +the riots of 1780. He was one of a numerous family, of whom the best +remembered are John, first Earl Russell, principal author of the +Reform Act of 1832, and Louisa, Duchess of Abercorn, grandmother +of the present Duke. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Charles James Fox was a close friend, both politically and privately, +of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and he promised them that he +would be godfather to their next child; but he died before the +child was born, whereupon his nephew, Lord Holland, took over the +sponsorship, and named his godson "Charles James Fox." The child +was born in 1807, and his birthplace was Dublin Castle.[*] +<a name="page_169"><span class="page">Page 169</span></a> +The Duke of Bedford was then Viceroy of Ireland, and became involved +in some controversy because he refused to suspend the Habeas Corpus +Act. When Lord Charles Russell reached man's estate, he used, half +in joke but quite half in-earnest, to attribute his lifelong sympathy +with the political demands of the Irish people to the fact that +he was a Dublin man by birth. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: He was christened from a gold bowl by the Archbishop +of Dublin, Lord Normanton.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Duke of Bedford was one of the first Englishmen who took a +shooting in Scotland (being urged thereto by his Highland Duchess); +and near his shooting-lodge a man who had been "out" with Prince +Charlie in 1745 was still living when Charles Russell first visited +Speyside. Westminster was the Russells' hereditary school, and +Charles Russell was duly subjected to the austere discipline which +there prevailed. From the trials of gerund-grinding and fagging +and flogging a temporary relief was afforded by the Coronation of +George IV., at which he officiated as Page to the acting Lord Great +Chamberlain. It was the last Coronation at which the procession was +formed in Westminster Hall and moved across to the Abbey. Young +Russell, by mischievousness or carelessness, contrived to tear +his master's train from the ermine cape which surmounted it; and +the procession was delayed till a seamstress could be found to +repair the damage. "I contrived to keep that old rascal George +IV. off the throne for half an hour," was Lord Charles-Russell's +boast in maturer age.[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: J, W. Croker, recording the events of the day, says: +"The King had to wait full half an hour for the Great Chamberlain, +Lord Gwydyr, who, it seems, had torn his robes, and was obliged +to wait to have them mended. I daresay the public lays the blame +of the delay on to the King, who was ready long before anyone +else,"—<i>The Croker Papers</i>, vol. i., p. 195.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_170"><span class="page">Page 170</span></a> +From Westminster Lord Charles passed to the University of Edinburgh, +where his brother John had preceded him. He boarded with Professor +Pillans, whom Byron gibbeted as "paltry"[*] in "English Bards and +Scotch Reviewers," and enjoyed the society of the literary circle +which in those days made Edinburgh famous. The authorship of the +Waverley Novels was not yet revealed, and young Russell had the +pleasure of discussing with Sir Walter Scott the dramatic qualities +of <i>The Bride of Lammermoor</i>. He was, perhaps, less unfitted +for such high converse than most lads would be, because, as Lord +Holland's godson, he had been from his schooldays a frequenter +of Holland House in its days of glory.[**] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Why?]<br /> +[Footnote **: On his first visit Lord Holland told him that he +might order his own dinner. He declared for a roast duck with green +peas, and an apricot tart; whereupon the old Amphitryon said: "Decide +as wisely on every question in life, and you will never go far +wrong."] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On leaving Edinburgh, Lord Charles Russell joined the Blues, then +commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover; +and he was able to confirm, by personal knowledge, the strange +tales of designs which the Duke entertained for placing himself or +his son upon the throne of England.[*] He subsequently exchanged +into the 52nd Light Infantry, from which he retired, with +<a name="page_171"><span class="page">Page 171</span></a> +the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, in order to enter Parliament. In +December, 1832, he was returned at the head of the poll for +Bedfordshire, and on Christmas Eve a young lady (who in 1834 became +his wife) wrote thus to her sister: +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Lord Charles Russell is returned for this County. The Chairing, +Dinner, etc., take place to-day. Everybody is interested about +him, as he is very young and it is his first appearance in the +character. His speeches have delighted the whole County, and he +is, of course, very much pleased." This faculty of public speaking +was perhaps his most remarkable endowment. He had an excellent +command of cultivated English, a clear and harmonious voice, a keen +sense of humour, and a happy knack of apt quotation. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: <i>Cf. Tales of my Father</i>, by A. F. Longmans, 1902.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On the 23rd of February, 1841, Disraeli wrote, with reference to +an impending division on the Irish Registration Bill: "The Whigs +had last week two hunting accidents; but Lord Charles Russell, +though he put his collar-bone out, and we refused to pair him, +showed last night." He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolution +of that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeed +bound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agricultural +community which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell," wrote Cobden, +"is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaring +at the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out of +cultivation." He returned to Parliament for a brief space in 1847, and +was then appointed Serjeant-at-Arms—not, as he always insisted, +<a name="page_172"><span class="page">Page 172</span></a> +"Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons," but "one of the Queen's +Serjeants-at-Arms, directed by her to attend on the Speaker during +the sitting of Parliament." In 1873 the office and its holder were +thus described by "Jehu Junior" in <i>Vanity Fair</i>: +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"For the filling of so portentous an office, it is highly important +that one should be chosen who will, by personal mien and bearing +not less than by character, detract nothing from its dignity. Such +a one is Lord Charles Russell, who is a worthy representative of +the great house of Bedford from which he springs. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"For a quarter of a century he has borne the mace before successive +Speakers. From his chair he has listened to Peel, to Russell, to +Palmerston, to Disraeli, and to Gladstone, and he still survives +as a depository of their eloquence. He is himself popular beyond +the fair expectations of one who has so important a part to play +in the disciplinary arrangements of a popular assembly; for he +is exceptionally amiable and genial by nature, is an excellent +sportsman, and has cultivated a special taste for letters.[*] It +is rarely that in these times +<a name="page_173"><span class="page">Page 173</span></a> +a man can be found so thoroughly fitted to fill an office which +could be easily invested with ridicule, or so invariably to invest +it, as he has, with dignity." +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: He was the best Shakespearean I ever knew, and founded +the "Shakespeare Medal" at Harrow. Lord Chief justice Coleridge +wrote thus: "A munificent and accomplished nobleman, Lord Charles +Russell, has, by the wise liberality which dictated the foundation +of his Shakespeare Medal at Harrow, secured that at least at one +great Public School the boys may be stimulated in youth to an exact +and scholarlike acquaintance with the poet whom age will show them +to be the greatest in the world."] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Sir George Trevelyan writes: "You can hardly imagine how formidable +and impressive Lord Charles seemed to the mass of Members, and +especially to the young; and how exquisite and attractive was the +moment when he admitted you to his friendly notice, and the absolute +assurance that, once a friend, he would be a friend for ever." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Charles Russell held the Serjeancy till 1875; and at this point +I had better transcribe the record in <i>Hansard</i>: +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +<i>Monday, April</i> 5, 1875: +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Mr. Speaker acquainted the House that he had received from Lord +Charles James Fox Russell the following letter: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +HOUSE OF COMMONS,<br/> +<i>April</i> 5<i>th</i>, 1875. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +SIR, +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I have the honour to make application to you that you will be pleased +to sanction my retirement from my office, by Patent, of Her Majesty's +Serjeant-at-Arms attending the Speaker of the House of Commons. +I have held this honourable office for twenty-seven years, and +I feel that the time is come when it is desirable that I should +no longer retain it. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +I have the honour to be, Sir,<br/> + Your very obedient servant,<br/> + CHARLES J. F. RUSSELL,<br/> + <i>Serjeant-at-Arms</i>. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +THE RIGHT HONBLE. THE SPEAKER. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_174"><span class="page">Page 174</span></a> +<i>Thursday, April</i> 8, 1875: +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Mr. DISRAELI: I beg to move, Sir, that the letter addressed to +you by Lord Charles Russell, the late Serjeant-at-Arms, be read +by the Clerk at the Table. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Letter [5th April] read. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Mr. DISRAELI: Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the resignation of +his office by one who has long and ably served this House. The office +of Serjeant-at-Arms is one which requires no ordinary qualities; for +it requires at the same time patience, firmness, and suavity, and +that is a combination of qualities more rare than one could wish +in this world. The noble Lord who filled the office recently, and +whose resignation has just been read at the Table, has obtained our +confidence by the manner in which he has discharged his duties through +an unusually long period of years; and we should remember, I think, +that occasions like the present are almost the only opportunity we +have of expressing our sense of those qualities, entitled so much +to our respect, which are possessed and exercised by those who fill +offices attached to this House, and upon whose able fulfilment of +their duties much of our convenience depends. Therefore, following +the wise example of those who have preceded me in this office, +I have prepared a Resolution which expresses the feeling of the +House on this occasion, and I now place it, Sir, in your hands. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Mr. Speaker, read the Resolution, as follows: "That Mr. Speaker +be requested to acquaint Lord Charles James Fox Russell that this +House entertains a just sense of the exemplary manner +<a name="page_175"><span class="page">Page 175</span></a> +in which he has uniformly discharged the duties of the Office of +Serjeant-at-Arms during his long attendance on this House." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of the Members who sit +on this side of the House, I rise to second the Motion of the Right +Hon. Gentleman. He has on more than one occasion gracefully, but +at the same time justly, recognized the services rendered to the +State by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy a +foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud +to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in +the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has +just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, +at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time +when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his +resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of +new Members of this House to add their testimony to that of us +who are better acquainted with him, as to the invariable dignity +and courtesy with which he has discharged his duties. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Resolution was adopted by the House, <i>nemine contradicente.</i> +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, where +he spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had always +been devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and his two +main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M.C.C. in 1827, +<a name="page_176"><span class="page">Page 176</span></a> +and for twenty years before his death I had been its senior member. +Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give <i>me</i> bowling, +<i>Pilch</i> in, <i>Box</i> at the wicket, and your Lordship looking +on."[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle he +was supreme—a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge +of a hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularly +still later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdale +writes: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your father +we went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five years +before his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, and +Lord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old—or was +she only four?—which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! +She was not easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her +with the ease of long proficiency—not long years—and +his interest in all that goes to make up a day's hunting was as +full of zest and youth as I recollect his interest used to be in +all that made up a cricket-match in my Harrow days." +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: See <i>Lords and the M.C.C.</i>, p. 86.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In religion Lord Charles Russell was an Evangelical, and he was +a frequent speaker on religious platforms. In politics he was an +ardent Liberal; always (except in that soon-repented heresy about +Free Trade) rather in advance of his party; a staunch adherent +of Mr. Gladstone, and a convinced advocate of Home Rule, though +he saw from the outset that the first Home Rule Bill, without +Chamberlain's support, was, as he said, "No go." +<a name="page_177"><span class="page">Page 177</span></a> +He took an active part in electioneering, from the distant days +when, as a Westminster boy, he cheered for Sir Francis Burdett, +down to September, 1892, when he addressed his last meeting in +support of Mr. Howard Whitbread, then Liberal candidate for South +Bedfordshire. A speech which he delivered at the General Election +of 1886, denouncing the "impiety" of holding that the Irish were +incapable of self-government, won the enthusiastic applause of +Mr. Gladstone. When slow-going Liberals complained of too-rapid +reforms, he used to say: "When I was a boy, our cry was 'Universal +Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and the Ballot.' That was seventy +years ago, and we have only got one of the three yet." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In local matters, he was always on the side of the poor and the +oppressed, and a sturdy opponent of all aggressions on their rights. +"Footpaths," he wrote, "are a precious right of the poor, and +consequently much encroached on." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is scarcely decent for a son to praise his father, but even a +son may be allowed to quote the tributes which his father's death +evoked. Let some of these tributes end my tale. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<i>June</i> 29<i>th</i>, 1894. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My DEAR G. RUSSELL, +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I am truly grieved to learn this sad news. It is the disappearance +of an illustrious figure to us, but of much more, I fear, to you. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +Yours most sincerely,<br/> + ROSEBERY. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<a name="page_178"><span class="page">Page 178</span></a> +<i>June</i> 30<i>th</i>, 1894. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +DEAR G. RUSSELL, +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I saw with sorrow the announcement of your father's death. He was +a good and kind friend to me in the days long ago, and I mourn +his loss. In these backsliding days he set a great example of +steadfastness and loyalty to the faith of his youth and his race. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +Yours very truly, +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> + W. V. HARCOURT. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<i>July</i> 31<i>rd</i> 1894. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +DEAR RUSSELL, +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I was very grieved to hear of your revered father's death. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He was a fine specimen of our real aristocracy, and such specimens +are becoming rarer and rarer in these degenerate days. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +There was a true ring of the "Grand Seigneur" about him which always +impressed me. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +Yours sincerely,<br/> + REAY. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<i>July</i> 1<i>st</i>, 1894. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My DEAR RUSSELL, +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I thank you very much for your kindness in writing to me. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +You may, indeed, presume that it is with painful interest and deep +regret that I hear of the death of your father, and that I value +the terms in which you speak of his feelings towards myself. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Though he died at such an advanced age, it is, I think, remarkable +that his friends spoke of him to the last as if he were still in +the full intercourse of daily life, without the disqualification +or forgetfulness that old age sometimes brings with it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_179"><span class="page">Page 179</span></a> +For my part I can never forget my association with him in the House +of Commons and elsewhere, nor the uniform kindness which he always +showed me. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +Believe me, most truly yours,<br/> + ARTHUR W. PEEL. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<i>June</i> 29<i>th</i>, 1894. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My DEAR RUSSELL, +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I have seen, with the eyes of others, in newspapers of this afternoon +the account of the death—shall I say?—or of the ingathering +of your father. And of what he was to you as a father I can reasonably, +if remotely, conceive from knowing what he was in the outer circle, +as a firm, true, loyal friend. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He has done, and will do, no dishonour to the name of Russell. It +is a higher matter to know, at a supreme moment like this, that +he had placed his treasure where moth and dust do not corrupt, and +his dependence where dependence never fails. May he enjoy the rest, +light, and peace of the just until you are permitted to rejoin him. +With growing years you will feel more and more that here everything +is but a rent, and that it is death alone which integrates. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On Monday I hope to go to Pitlochrie, N. B., and in a little time +to return southward, and resume, if it please God, the great gift +of working vision. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +Always and sincerely yours,<br/> + W. E. GLADSTONE. +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_181"><span class="page">Page 181</span></a> +III +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">RELIGION AND THE CHURCH</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_183"><span class="page">Page 183</span></a> +I +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>A STRANGE EPIPHANY</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Whenever the State meddles with the Church's business, it contrives +to make a muddle. This familiar truth has been exemplified afresh +by the decree which dedicated last Sunday[*] to devotions connected +with the War. The Feast of the Epiphany has had, at least since +the fourth century, its definite place in the Christian year, its +special function, and its peculiar lesson. The function is to +commemorate the revelation of Christianity to the Gentile world; +and the lesson is the fulfilment of all that the better part of +Heathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion which +emanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance of +this day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motives +and its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph of ineptitude. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: January 6th, 1918.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Tennyson wrote of +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> + "this northern island,<br/> +Sundered once from all the human race"; +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +and when Christians first began to observe the Epiphany, or Theophany +(as the feast was indifferently called), our own forefathers were +<a name="page_184"><span class="page">Page 184</span></a> +among the heathen on whom the light of the Holy Manger was before +long to shine. It has shone on us now for a good many centuries; +England has ranked as one of the chiefest of Christian nations, and +has always professed, and often felt, a charitable concern for the +races which are still lying in darkness. Epiphany is very specially +the feast of a missionary Church, and the strongest appeal which it +could address to Heathendom would be to cry, "See what Christianity +has done for the world! Christendom possesses the one religion. +Come in and share its blessings." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +There have been times and places at which that appeal could be +successfully made. Indeed, as Gibbon owned, it was one of the causes +to which the gradual triumph of Christianity was due. But for Europe +at the present moment to address that appeal to Africa or India +or China would be to invite a deadly repartee. In the long ages, +Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "rose +out of chaos," you have improved very little on the manners of +those primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime." Two +thousand years of Christianity have not taught you to beat your +swords into plough-shares. You still make your sons to pass through +the fire to Moloch, and the most remarkable developments of physical +science are those which make possible the destruction of human life +on the largest scale. Certainly, in Zeppelins and submarines and +poisonous gas there is very little to remind the world of Epiphany +and what it stands for. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_185"><span class="page">Page 185</span></a> +Thirty years ago the great Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "The present +is terrible, the future far more so; every day adds to the power +and facility of the means of destruction. Science is hard at work +(science, the great—nay, to some the only—God of these +days) to discover and concentrate the shortest and easiest methods +to annihilate the human race." We see the results of that work +in German methods of warfare. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Germany has for four centuries asserted for herself a conspicuous +place in European religion. She has been a bully there as in other +fields, and the lazy and the timid have submitted to her theological +pretensions. Now, by the mouth of her official pastors she has +renounced the religion of sacrifice for the lust of conquest, and +has substituted the creed of Odin for the faith of Christ. A country +which, in spite of learning and opportunity, has wilfully elapsed +from civilization into barbarism can scarcely evangelize Confucians +or Buddhists. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +If we turn from the Protestant strongholds of the North to the +citadel of Authority at Rome, the signs of an Epiphany are equally +lacking. The Infallibility which did not save the largest section +of Christendom from such crimes as the Inquisition and the massacre +of St. Bartholomew has proved itself equally impotent in these +latter days. No one could have expected the Pope, who has spiritual +children in all lands, to take sides in an international dispute; +but one would have thought that a divinely-given infallibility +would have denounced, with the trumpet-tone of Sinai, the orgies +<a name="page_186"><span class="page">Page 186</span></a> +of sexual and sacrilegious crime which have devastated Belgium. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Is the outlook in allied Russia any more hopeful than in hostile +Germany and in neutral Rome? I must confess that I cannot answer. +We were always told that the force which welded together in one the +different races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritual +force; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; and +that even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion. +At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy Orthodox +Church manifest her power and instil into her children the primary +conceptions of Christian citizenship? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the condition +of England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with a +lively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesley +complained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "the +sinners unbaptized out-sin." And everyone who remembers the social +and moral state of England during the ten years immediately preceding +the present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth century +had not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling, +and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, and +were doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was an +open and insolent disregard of religious observance, especially +with respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest being +perverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. There +<a name="page_187"><span class="page">Page 187</span></a> +was a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of society +which are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasing +invasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated in +the agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Other +and darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to make +my meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent of +and to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise, +we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany. +</p> + +<h3> +II +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better +definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated in +the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One—is, +of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has +Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men +and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the +wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the +Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, +the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing +to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carried +with them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilations +inflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own +<a name="page_188"><span class="page">Page 188</span></a> +time, "many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, +has gladly met her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would +have made her in a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant +community." Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the +Romance of the Cloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian +desert, and Benedict in his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis +tending the leper by the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, +as in thousands more, the world was well lost for an idea. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The world is well lost—and supremely well lost—by the +Missionary, whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier +lost it well when he made his response to the insistent question: +"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and +lose his own soul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse +foolishness as men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant +prospects which a University offers to preach and fail among the +heathen, and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge +Patterson lost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures +of Eton and Oxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, +he went out to spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of +the Pacific, and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen +whom he loved and served. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but others +there are, which, though less "high and heroical," are not less +Teal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though +<a name="page_189"><span class="page">Page 189</span></a> +for a cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who +on "Black Bartholomew," in the year 1662, renounced their benefices +in the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worship +which their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world was +gloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates of +the Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption, +sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromise +the "Headship of Christ over His own house." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in giving +it I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now, +I suppose, entirely forgotten—the name of the Honble. and +Revd. Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years +and ten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry +not of mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none +who listened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliest +youth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ,' +in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquished +even the church which was his living and the pulpit which was his +throne, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance, +and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he cared +not whither." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it may +seem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise to +this chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple, +<a name="page_190"><span class="page">Page 190</span></a> +by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order to +devote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty," has established +a strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I state +on p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To my +thinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment. +The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be an +intolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, while +retaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment, +they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of a +spiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own ideal +is Cavour's—the Free Church in the Free State; and all such +schemes as Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the +best of two incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our +fetters might be made to gall less painfully, but they would be +more securely riveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. +Temple stands on one side and I on the other; but this does not +impair my respect for a man who is ready to "lose the world for an +idea"—even though that idea be erroneous and Impracticable. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion, +but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all the +qualifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune. +He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervour +which in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his father one +<a name="page_191"><span class="page">Page 191</span></a> +of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he was esteemed +a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him from being +an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorous worker, a +powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an important parish. +Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in the wish to be +a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by the biographies +of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee, and in the +actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopal thrones. +But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals, and +has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is afforded +by the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come to +naught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at length +recognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete, +severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidance +in the use of her new-born freedom. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>PAN-ANGLICANISM</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is an awful word. Our forefathers, from Shakespeare downwards, +ate pan-cakes, and trod the pantiles at Tunbridge Wells; but their +"pan" was purely English, and they linked it with other English +words. The freedom of the "Ecclesia Anglicana" was guaranteed +by the Great Charter, and +<a name="page_192"><span class="page">Page 192</span></a> +"Anglicanism" became a theological term. Then Johnson, making the +most of his little Greek, began to talk about a "pancratical" man, +where we talk of an all-round athlete; and, a little later, "Pantheist" +became a favourite missile with theologians who wished to abuse +rival practitioners, but did not know exactly how to formulate +their charge. It was reserved for the journalists of 1867 to form +the terrible compound of two languages, and, by writing of the +"Pan-Anglican Synod," to prepare the way for "Pan-Protestant" and +"Pan-denominational." Just now the "Lively Libertines" (as their +detractors style the promoters of "Life and Liberty") seem to be +testing from their labours, and they might profitably employ their +leisure by reading the history of their forerunners half a century +ago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The hideously named "Pan-Anglican Synod," which assembled at Lambeth +in September, 1867, and terminated its proceedings in the following +December, was a real movement in the direction of Life and Liberty +for the Church of England. The impulse came from the Colonies, +which, themselves enjoying the privilege of spiritual independence, +were generously anxious to coalesce at a time of trial with the +fettered Church at home. The immediate occasion of the movement +was the eccentricity of Bishop Colenso—"the arithmetical +Bishop who could not forgive Moses for having written a Book of +Numbers." The faith of some was seriously perturbed when they heard +of a Bishop who, as Matthew Arnold said, "had learnt +<a name="page_193"><span class="page">Page 193</span></a> +among the Zulus that only a certain number of people can stand in +a doorway at once, and that no man can eat eighty-eight pigeons +a day; and who tells us, as a consequence, that the Pentateuch +is all fiction, which, however, the author may very likely have +composed without meaning to do wrong, and as a work of poetry, +like Homer's." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Certainly the tremors of a faith so lightly overset were justly +obnoxious to Arnold's ridicule; but Colenso's negations went deeper +than the doorway and the pigeons; and the faithful of his diocese, +being untrammelled by the State, politely dismissed him from his +charge. In England steady-going Christians had been not less perturbed +by that queer collection of rather musty discourses which was called +<i>Essays and Reviews</i>; and the Church of England had made an +attempt to rid itself, by synodical action, of all complicity in the +dubious doctrine. But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had +justified the essayists, and had done its best to uphold Colenso. By +so doing, it had, of course, delighted all Erastians; but Churchmen, +whether at home or abroad, who believed in the English Church as +a spiritual society, with a life of its own apart from all legal +establishment, felt that the time had come when this belief should +be publicly proclaimed. In February, 1866, the Anglican Bishops +of Canada addressed a Memorial to Dr. Longley, then Archbishop +of Canterbury, requesting him to summon a conference of all the +Bishops of the Anglican Communion; and, after some characteristic +hesitation, this was done. A Letter of Invitation was +<a name="page_194"><span class="page">Page 194</span></a> +issued in February, 1867. The more dogged Erastians held aloof; +but those who conceived of the Church as a spiritual society obeyed +the summons; the "Conference of Bishops" assembled, and the priceless +word "Pan-Anglicanism" was added to the resources of the language. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What did these good men do when they were come together? Not, it +must be admitted, very much. They prayed and they preached, and +debated and divided, and, in the matter of Colenso, quarrelled. +They issued a Pastoral Letter which, as Bishop Tait said, was "the +expression of essential agreement and a repudiation of Infidelity +and Romanism." If this had been the sole result of the Conference, it +would have been meagre enough; but under this official ineffectiveness +there had been a real movement towards "Life and Liberty." The +Conference taught the Established Bishops of England and Ireland +that the Bishops of Free Churches—Scottish, American, +Colonial—were at least as keen about religious work and as +jealous for the spiritual independence of the Christian society +as the highly placed and handsomely paid occupants of Lambeth and +Bishopthorpe. Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury (whom the Catholic-minded +section of the English Church regarded as their special champion) +"thought that we had much to learn from contact with the faith and +vigour of the American Episcopate"; and Bishop Wilberforce thus +recorded his judgment: "The Lambeth gathering was a very great +success. Its strongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of +<a name="page_195"><span class="page">Page 195</span></a> +London (Tait), was quite remarkable. We are now sitting in Committee +trying to complete our work—agree to a voluntary Court of +English Doctrinal Appeal for the free Colonies of America. If we can +carry this out, we shall have erected a barrier of immense moral +strength against Privy Council latitudinarianism. My view is that +God gives us the opportunity, as at home latitudinarianism must +spread, of encircling the Home Church with a band of far more dogmatic +truth-holding communions who will act most strongly in favour of +truth here. I was in great measure the framer of the "Pan-Anglican" +for this purpose, and the result has abundantly satisfied me. The +American Bishops won golden opinions." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And so this modest effort in the direction of "Life and Liberty," +which had begun amid obloquy and ridicule, gained strength with +each succeeding year. The Conference was repeated, with vastly +increased numbers and general recognition, in 1878, 1888, 1898, and +1908. The war makes the date of the next assemblage, as it makes +all things, doubtful; but already Churchmen, including some who have +hitherto shrunk in horror from the prospect of Disestablishment, +are beginning to look forward to the next Conference of Bishops +as to something which may be a decisive step in the march of the +English Church towards freedom and self-government. Men who have +been reared in a system of ecclesiastical endowments are apt to +cherish the very unapostolic belief that money is a sacred thing; +but even they are coming, though by +<a name="page_196"><span class="page">Page 196</span></a> +slow degrees, to realize that the Faith may be still more sacred. +For the rest of us, the issue was formulated by Gladstone sixty +years ago: "You have our decision: take your own; choose between +the mess of pottage and the birthright of the Bride of Christ." +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LIFE AND LIBERTY</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +The title is glorious; and, so far as I know, the credit of inventing +it belongs to my friend the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, the enterprising +Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Mr. Sheppard has what in newspapers +we call a "magnetic personality," and no one has more thoroughly +laid to heart the sagacious saying that "Sweet are the uses of +advertisement." Whatever cause he adopts, the world must know that +he has adopted it; and it shall obtain a hearing, or he will know +the reason why. The cause to which (outside his pastoral work) he +is just now devoted is that which is summarized in the phrase, +"Life and Liberty for the Church of England." It is a fine ideal, +and Mr. Sheppard and his friends have been expounding it at the +Queen's Hall. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was no common achievement to fill that hall on a hot summer +evening in the middle of the war, and with very little' assistance +from the Press. Yet Mr. Sheppard did it, and he filled an "over-flow +meeting" as well. The chair was taken by the Rev. William Temple, +who tempered what +<a name="page_197"><span class="page">Page 197</span></a> +might have been the too fervid spirit of the gathering with the +austerity which belongs to a writer on philosophy, an ex-Head Master, +and a prospective Bishop. The hall was densely crowded with clergy, +old and young—old ones who had more or less missed their +mark, and young ones keen to take warning by these examples. There +were plenty of laymen, too, quite proud to realize that, though +they are not in Holy Orders, they too are "in the Church"; and +a brilliant star, if only he had appeared, would have been a +Second-Lieutenant in khaki, who unfortunately was detained at the +front by military duties. A naval and a military chaplain did the +"breezy" business, as befitted their cloth; and, beaming on the +scene with a paternal smile, was the most popular of Canons, who +by a vehement effort kept silence even from good words, though +it must have been pain and grief to him.[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Alas! we have lost him since.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The oratorical honours of the evening were by common consent adjudged +to a lady, who has since been appointed "Pulpit Assistant" to the +City Temple. May an old-fashioned Churchman suggest that, if this +is a sample of Mr. Sheppard's new movement, the "Life" of the Church +of England is likely to be a little too lively, and its "Liberty" +to verge on licence? A ministry of undenominational feminism is +"a thing imagination boggles at." Here it is to be remarked that +the leaders of the movement are male and female after their kind. +Dr. and Mrs. Dingo sit in council side by side, and much regret +is expressed that Archdeacon Buckemup +<a name="page_198"><span class="page">Page 198</span></a> +is still a celibate. But let us be of good cheer. Earnest-minded +spinsters, undeterred by the example of Korah (who, as they truly +say, was only a man), are clamouring for the priesthood as well as +the vote; and in the near future the "Venerable Archdeaconess" will +be a common object of the ecclesiastical sea-shore. Miss Jenkyns, +in <i>Cranford</i>, would have made a capital Dean. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +So much for the setting of the scene. The "business" must be now +considered, and we will take the programme of "Life and Liberty" +point by point, as set forth in a pamphlet by Mr. Temple. In the +first place, its leaders are very clear that they wish to keep their +endowments; but it must not be supposed that they dread reform. +Their policy is "Redistribution." Those great episcopal incomes +are again threatened; the Bishops are to be delivered from that +burden of wealth which presses so hardly on them; and the slum +parson is to have a living wage. But the incumbent, though his +income may thus be increased, is by no means to have it all his +own way. His freehold in his benefice is to be abolished; and, even +while he retains his position, he is to have his duties assigned +to him, and his work arranged, by a "Parochial Church Council," in +which the "Pulpit Assistant" at Bethesda or Bethel may have her +place. Life and Liberty indeed! But further boons are in store for +us. We have at present two Archbishops, and, I hope, are thankful +for them. Under the new scheme we are promised eight, or even nine. +"Showers of blessing," as the hymn says! I +<a name="page_199"><span class="page">Page 199</span></a> +presume that the six (or seven) new Archbishops are to be paid out +of the "redistributed" incomes of the existing two. The believers +in "Life and Liberty" humanely propose to compensate the Archbishop +of Canterbury for the diminution of his £15,000 a year by +letting him call himself a "Patriarch," but I can hardly fancy +a Scotsman regarding this as a satisfactory bargain. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But how are these and similar boons to be attained? The promoters of +Life and Liberty (not, I fancy, without a secret hope of frightening +the Bishops into compliance with their schemes) affirm their readiness +to accept Disestablishment "if no other way to self-government seems +feasible"; but they, themselves, prefer a less heroic method. While +retaining the dignity of Establishment and the opulence of Endowment, +they propose that the Church should have "power to legislate on all +matters affecting the Church, subject to Parliamentary veto.... +This proposal has the immense practical advantage that, whereas it +is now necessary to secure time for the passage of any measure +through Parliament, if this scheme were adopted it would become +necessary for the opponent or obstructor to find time to prevent +its passage. The difference which this would make in practice is +enormous." It is indeed; and the proposal is interesting as a choice +specimen of what the world knows (and dislikes) as Ecclesiastical +Statesmanship. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Life and Liberty"—there is music in the very words; and, +ever since I was old enough to have +<a name="page_200"><span class="page">Page 200</span></a> +an opinion on serious matters, I have cherished them as the ideals +for the Church to which I belong. From the oratory of Queen's Hall +and the "slim" statesmanship which proposes to steal a march on the +House of Commons I turn to that great evangelist, Arthur Stanton, +who wrote as follows when Welsh Disestablishment was agitating the +clerical mind. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Nothing will ever reconcile me to the Establishment of Christ's +Church on earth by Sovereigns or Parliaments. It is established +by God on Faith and the Sacraments, and so endowed, and all other +pretended establishment and endowment to me is profane." And again: +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Taking away endowments doesn't affect me; but what does try me is +the inheriting them, and denying the faith of the donors—and +then talking of sacrilege. The only endowment of Christ's Church +comes from the Father and the Son, and is the Holy Ghost, Which +no man can give and no man can take away.'" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Here, if you like, is the authentic voice of Life and Liberty. +</p> + +<h3> +V +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LOVE AND PUNISHMENT</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Hugh Cecil is, I think, one of the most interesting figures +in the public life of the time. Ten years ago I regarded him as the +future leader of the Tory party and a predestined Prime Minister. +Of late years he has seemed to turn away from +<a name="page_201"><span class="page">Page 201</span></a> +the strifes and intrigues of ordinary politics, and to have resigned +official ambition to his elder brother; but his figure has not +lost—rather has gained—in interest by the change. Almost +alone among our public men, he seems to have "his eyes fixed on +higher lodestars" than those which guide Parliamentary majorities. +He avows his allegiance to those moral laws of political action +of which John Bright so memorably said that "though they were not +given amid the thunders of Sinai, they are not less the commandments +of God." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Now, the fearless utterance of this ethical creed does not tend +to popularity. Englishmen will bear a good deal of preaching, so +long as it is delivered from the pulpit; but when it is uttered by +the lips of laymen, and deals with public problems, it arouses a +curious irritation. That jovial old heathen, Palmerston, once alluded +to Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend Member"; Gladstone's splendid +appeals to faith and conscience were pronounced "d——d +copy-book-y"; and Lord Houghton, who knew the world as well as most +men, said, "Does it ever strike you that nothing shocks people so +much as any immediate and practical application of the character +and life of Christ?" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Hugh Cecil need not mind the slings and arrows of outrageous +partisanship, so long as he shares them with Bright and Gladstone. +Just lately, his pronouncement that we ought to love the Germans, as +our fellow-citizens in the Kingdom of God on earth, has provoked very +acrid criticism from some who generally share his political beliefs; +<a name="page_202"><span class="page">Page 202</span></a> +and in a Tory paper I noticed the singularly inept gibe that this +doctrine was "medieval." For my own part I should scarcely have thought +that an undue tendency to love one's enemies was a characteristic +trait of the Middle Age, or that Englishmen and Frenchmen, Guelphs +and Ghibellines, were inclined to sink their racial differences +in the unity of Christian citizenship. Lord Hugh's doctrine might +be called by some modern and by others primitive; but medieval +it can only be called on the principle that, in invective, a long +word, is better than a short one. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Having thus repelled what I think a ridiculous criticism, I will +admit that Lord Hugh's doctrine raises some interesting, and even +disputable, points. In the first place, there is the theory of +the Universal Church as the Divine Kingdom on earth, and of the +citizenship in which all its members are united. I grant the theory; +but I ask myself if I am really bound by it to love all these my +fellow-citizens, whatever their conduct and character may be. Love +is an elastic word; and, if I am to love the Germans, I must love +them in some very different sense from that in which I love my country +and my race. It really is, in another form, the old controversy +between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity" +is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of the +human family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment, +impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without, +cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wish +<a name="page_203"><span class="page">Page 203</span></a> +devoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and +mind—that all the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one +law of right and wrong; but when some members of the family, some +citizens of the kingdom, have "given themselves over to a reprobate +mind," our love must be reserved for those who still own the claim +of righteousness. If our own country stood as a solitary champion +of right against a world in unrighteous arms, patriotism would +be a synonym for religion, and cosmopolitanism for sin. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And then again I ask myself this question: Even assuming that Lord +Hugh is right, and that it is our bounden duty to love the Germans, +is love inconsistent with punishment? We postulate the love of God +towards mankind, and we rightly regard it as the highest manifestation +of what love means; but is it inconsistent with punishment for +unrighteous action? Neither Revelation, nor Nature, nor History, +knows anything of the conception which has been embodied in the +words, "a good-natured God." Of Revelation I will not speak at +length, for this is not the place for theological discussion; I +only remark in passing that the idea of punishment for wrong-doing +is not, as some sciolists imagine, confined to the Old Testament, +though there it is seen in its most startling form; in the New +Testament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul's +Master, as a manifestation of love—not vindictive, but remedial. +The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate the +Divine dealings with insubordinate mankind. +<a name="page_204"><span class="page">Page 204</span></a> +About Nature we need scarcely argue. "In the physical world there is +no forgiveness of sins," and rebellion against the laws of righteous +living brings penal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet +again, has History any more unmistakable lesson than that "for +every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, +for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last"? Froude was +right. "Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday +comes at last to them, in French Revolutions and other terrible +ways." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What we believe of the Divine Love, thus dealing with human +transgression, we may well believe of human love, when it is called +by duty to chastise unrighteousness. I do not suppose that John +Stuart Mill was actuated by hatred of Palmer or Pritchard or any +other famous malefactor of his time when he said that there are some +people so bad that they "ought to be blotted out of the catalogue +of living men." It was the dispassionate judgment of philosophy +on crime. When the convicted murderer exclaimed, "Don't condemn +me to death; I am not fit to die!" a great Judge replied, "I know +nothing about that; I only know that you are not fit to live"; but +I do not suppose that he hated the wretch in the dock. Even so, +though it may be our duty to love our enemies as our fellow-citizens +in the kingdom of God, we need not shrink, when the time comes, from +being the ministers of that righteous vengeance which, according +to the immutable order of the world, is prepared for impenitent +wrong-doing. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_205"><span class="page">Page 205</span></a> +VI +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>HATRED AND LOVE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +I lately saw the following sentence quoted from Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle: "Hatred steels the mind and sets the resolution as no other +emotion can do." The enlightened conscience of humanity (to say +nothing of Christianity) repudiates this sentiment as ethically +unsound and historically untrue; and yet, erroneous as it is, it +is worth pondering for the sake of a truth which it overstates. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +However little we may like to make the confession in the twentieth +century of the Christian era, hatred is a very real power, and +there is more of it at work in civilized society than we always +recognize. It is, in truth, an abiding element of human nature, and +is one of those instincts which we share with the lower animals. +"The great cur showed his teeth; and the devilish instincts of his +old wolf-ancestry looked out from his eyes, and yawned in his wide +mouth and deep red gullet." Oliver Wendell Holmes was describing +a dog's savagery; but he would have been the first to admit that +an exactly similar spirit may be concealed—and not always +concealed—in a human frame. We have lived so long, if not +under the domination, still in the profession, of the Christian +ethic, that people generally are ashamed to avow a glaringly +anti-Christian feeling. Hence the poignancy of the bitter saying: +"I forgive him as a Christian—which means that I don't forgive +<a name="page_206"><span class="page">Page 206</span></a> +him at all." Under a decent, though hypocritical, veil of religious +commonplace, men go on hating one another very much as they hated +in Patriarchal Palestine or Imperial Rome. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Hatred generally has a personal root. An injury or an insult received +in youth may colour the feelings and actions of a whole lifetime. +"Revenge is a dish which can be eaten cold"; and there are unhappy +natures which know no enjoyment so keen as the satisfaction of a +long-cherished grudge. There is an even deeper depravity which +hates just in proportion to benefits received; which hates because +it is enraged by a high example; which hates even more virulently +because the object of its hatred is meek or weak or pitiable. "I +have read of a woman who said that she never saw a cripple without +longing to throw a stone at him. Do you comprehend what she meant? +No? Well, I do." It was a woman who wrote the words. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The less abhorrent sort of hatred (if one can discriminate where +all is abominable) is the hatred which has no personal root, but +is roused by invincible dislike of a principle or a cause. To this +type belong controversial hatreds, political hatreds, international +hatreds. Jael is the supreme instance of this hatred in action, +and it is only fair to assume that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had this +kind of hatred in his mind when he wrote the sentence which I quoted +above. But hatred, which begins impersonally, has a dangerous habit +of becoming personal as it warms to its work; and an emotion which +started by merely wishing to check a wrong +<a name="page_207"><span class="page">Page 207</span></a> +deed may develop before long into a strong desire to torture the +wrong-doer. Whatever be the source from which it springs, hatred +is a powerful and an energetic principle. It is capable, as we +all know, of enormous crimes; but it does not despise the pettiest +methods by which it can injure its victim. "Hatred," said George +Eliot, "is like fire—it makes even light rubbish deadly." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perfectly right when he says that hatred +"steels the mind and sets the resolution." If he had stopped there, +I should not have questioned his theory. Again and again one has seen +indolent, flabby, and irresolute natures stimulated to activity and +"steeled" into hardness by the deep, though perhaps unuttered, desire +to repay an insult or avenge an injury. It is in his superlative that +Sir Arthur goes astray. When he affirms that hatred "steels the mind +and sets the resolution as no other emotion can do," his psychology +is curiously at fault. There is another emotion quite as powerful +as hatred to "steel the mind and set the resolution"—and the +name of this other emotion is love. It required some resolution +and a "steeled" mind for Father Damien to give himself in early +manhood to the service of a leper-struck island, living amid, and +dying of, the foul disease which he set out to tend. It was love +that steeled John Coleridge Patteson to encounter death at the +hands of "savage men whom he loved, and for whose sake he gave +up home and country and friends dearer than his life." There was +"steel" in the resolve which drew Henry Martyn +<a name="page_208"><span class="page">Page 208</span></a> +from the highest honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the +fever-stricken solitude of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and +even more memorable decision when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, +learning, eloquence, wit, fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, +to the task of evangelizing India. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But it is not only in the missionary field, or in any other form +of ecclesiastical activity, that the steeling effect of love on +the human will is manifested. John Howard devoted the comforts +and advantages which pertain to a position in the opulent Middle +Class to the purely philanthropic work of Prison Reform; and Lord +Shaftesbury used the richer boons of rank and eloquence and political +opportunity for the deliverance of tortured lunatics, and climbing +boys and factory slaves. If ever I knew a man whose resolution +was "steeled," it was this honoured friend of my early manhood, +and the steeling power was simply love. A humbler illustration +of the same spirit may be supplied by the instance of one whom +worldly people ridiculed and who "for fifty years seized every +chance of doing kindness to a man who had tormented him at school"; +and this though a boy's nature is "wax to receive, and marble to +retain." The name of E. C. Hawtrey is little remembered now even +by Eton men, but this tribute to the power of love ought not to +be withheld. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I am only too painfully aware that we live just now in conditions +in which love must take the aspect of severity; in which the mind +must be "steeled" and the resolution "set" for a solemn +<a name="page_209"><span class="page">Page 209</span></a> +work of international justice. But hatred will not help us; for +hatred is fundamentally at variance with that moral law which we +daily and hourly invoke as the sanction of our enterprise. Hatred +is natural enough, and at least as old as the Fall of Man; but +its doom was pronounced by a Teacher Who said to His disciples: +"A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." +Twelve men heard and heeded that new commandment, and they changed +the face of the world. Are we to abjure the doctrine which wrought +this change, and give heed to the blind guides who would lure us +straight back to barbarism? +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"What though they come with scroll and pen,<br/> + And grave as a shaven clerk,<br/> +By this sign shall ye know them,<br/> + That they ruin and make dark; +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"By thought a crawling ruin,<br/> + By life a leaping mire,<br/> + By a broken heart in the breast of the world,<br/> + And the end of the world's desire; +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"By God and man dishonoured,<br/> + By death and life made vain,<br/> + Know ye the old Barbarian,<br/> + The Barbarian come again."[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: G. K. Chesterton.] +</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"By your endurance ye shall make your souls your own." If the origin +of this saying were unknown, one could fancy much ingenious conjecture +<a name="page_210"><span class="page">Page 210</span></a> +about it; but no one, I think, would attribute it to an English +source. An Englishman's idea of self-realization is action. If +he is to be truly himself he must be doing something; life for +him means energy. To be laid on one side, and to exist only as a +spectator or a sufferer, is the last method of making his soul his +own which would occur to him. <i>Dolce far niente</i> is a phrase +which could never have originated on English soil. The greater the +difficulties by which he is confronted, the more gnawing becomes +the Englishman's, hunger for action. "Something must be done!" is +his instinctive cry when dangers or perplexities arise, and he +is feverishly eager to do it. What exactly "it" should be, and +how it may be most wisely done, are secondary, and even tertiary, +considerations. "Wisdom is profitable to direct"; but the need +for wisdom is not so generally recognized in England as the need +for courage or promptitude or vigour. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Some of the shallower natures find a substitute for action in speech. +If only they talk loud enough and long enough, they feel that they +are doing something valuable towards the desired end, and they +find others, still weaker than themselves, who take their words +at their own valuation. Who does not recall moments of the present +war when the man-in-the-street has exclaimed, "That was a splendid +speech of Blower's! I feel now that we are on the right line"; +or, "After what Bellowell said last night, there can be no going +back to the discredited policy"? The man-in-the-street did not +realize that Blower's words are only articulated +<a name="page_211"><span class="page">Page 211</span></a> +air, or that Bellowell could speak with equal effect whether his +brief were to defend Belgium or to annex her. But alike the Englishman +who acts and the Englishman who talks look askance on the people who +think. Our national history is a history of action, in religion, +in politics, in war, in discovery. It is only now and then that +an Englishman can allow himself a moment for contemplation, for +the endeavour to "see into the life of things," for contact with +those spiritual realities of which phenomena are only the shadows. +Burke did it, but then he was an Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did +it, but then he was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a +Scotsman. May I add that the present Prime Minister does it, but +then he is a Welshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; +it is to them a religion, and it takes the place of a philosophy. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At this moment all England is acting, from the King and the War +Cabinet to the children who play at soldiers in the gutter. There +is no distinction of class, or sex, or temperament. All alike feel +that they must be doing something to win the war, and that they +would die or go mad if they were restrained from action. Limitations, +physical or mental, incapacities for effort, restrictions of +opportunity, gall as they never galled before. To compare great +things with small, the whole nation pulsates with the spirit of +the fiercely contested cricket-match: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Oh, good lads in the field they were,<br/> + Laboured and ran and threw;<br/> + But we that sat on the benches there<br/> + Had the hardest work to do!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_212"><span class="page">Page 212</span></a> +Action, then, is the creed and the consolation of the English race, +and God forbid that we should disparage that on which national +salvation depends. The war must be won by action; but in the strain +and stress of these tremendous days we are tempted to forget that +there is something to be won or lost besides the war. It is possible +to conquer on the Western front, and at the same time to be defeated +on the not less important field of moral being. The promise which +heads this paper was uttered in full view of an impending agony +which should crush religion and civilization into powder. We can +realize the consternation with which a patriotic audience heard +those premonitions from the lips of a patriotic Teacher; but in +the midst of all that was harrowing and heart-rending came the +promise of triumph through endurance. "Ye shall make your souls +your own." The gloomy and the cheerful prediction were alike made +good. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"The East bow'd low before the blast<br/> + In patient, deep disdain;<br/> + She let the legions thunder past,<br/> + And plunged in thought again. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"So well she mused, a morning broke<br/> + Across her spirit grey;<br/> + A conquering, new-born joy awoke,<br/> + And fill'd her life with day." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before the +newly discovered Cross. Endurance won. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And so it has been from that time to this. The triumphs of endurance +have no end. The barbarism +<a name="page_213"><span class="page">Page 213</span></a> +of the Cæsars, the barbarism of Islam, the barbarism of Odin +and Thor, all in turn did their uttermost to destroy the new religion. +Persecution fell, not on armed men strong to resist, but on slaves +and women and boys and girls. "We could tell of those who fought +with savage beasts, yea, of maidens who stept to face them as coolly +as a modern bully steps into the ring. We could tell of those who +drank molten lead as cheerfully as we would the juice of the grape, +and played with the red fire and the bickering flames as gaily as +with golden curls." These were the people who by endurance made +their souls their own; and, by carrying endurance even unto death, +propagated the faith for which they gave their lives. It did not +take Rome long to discover that "the blood of Christians is seed." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, on +the other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored. It +was a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years' +war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, +commemorates the supreme example of endurance. As far as action +is concerned, the national will is not in the slightest danger +of collapse. The British nation will plan, and work and fight for +ever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Though our +power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb. +We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; to +repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; +<a name="page_214"><span class="page">Page 214</span></a> +to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to +serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. It is just +by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we can make our souls +our own. If we went into the war believing in the sacredness of +Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, it would be a moral +collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, imperialism, and +the rule of the strong. "He that endureth to the end shall be saved." +On that "end" we must keep heart and eye unflinchingly fixed; and +strive to add one more to the age-long triumphs of endurance. +</p> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>A SOLEMN FARCE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Sweet to the antiquarian palate are the fragments of Norman French +which still survive in the formularies of the Constitution. In +Norman French the King acknowledges the inconceivable sums which +from time to time his faithful Commons place at his disposal for +the prosecution of the war. In Norman French the Peers of the Realm +are summoned to their seats in Parliament which they adorn. In Norman +French, the Royal Assent has just been given to a Bill which doubles +the electorate and admits over six million women to the franchise. +All these things are dear to the antiquary, the historian, and +(perhaps we should add) the pedant, as witnessing to the unbroken +continuity of our constitutional forms, though the substance +<a name="page_215"><span class="page">Page 215</span></a> +of our polity has been altered beyond all recognition. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Another instance of Norman French which has lately emerged into +unusual prominence is the "Congé d'élire." We can +trace this "Licence to Elect" from the days of the Great Charter +downwards; but it will suffice for my present purpose to recall +the unrepealed legislation of Henry VIII. "It was then enacted +that, at every future avoidance of a bishopric, the King may send +to the Dean and Chapter his usual licence (called his 'Congé +d'Élire') to proceed to election; which is always, accompanied +by a Letter Missive from the King containing the name of the person +whom he would have them elect; and if the Dean and Chapter delay +their election above twelve days the nomination shall devolve to +the King, who may then by Letters Patent appoint such person as +he pleases.... And, if such Dean and Chapter do not elect in the +manner by their Act appointed they shall incur all the penalties +of a præmunire—that is, the loss of all civil rights, +with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment, +during the Royal pleasure." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Such are the singular conditions under which the Church of England +now exercises that right of electing her chief pastors which has +been from the beginning the heritage of Christendom. It would be +difficult to imagine a more dexterous use of chicanery, preserving +the semblance but carefully precluding the reality of a free choice. +We all know something of Deans and Chapters—the well-endowed +<a name="page_216"><span class="page">Page 216</span></a> +inhabitants of cathedral closes—and of those "greater Chapters" +which consist of Honorary Canons, longing for more substantial +preferment. It would indeed require a very bold flight of fancy +to imagine those worthy and comfortable men exposing themselves to +the "loss of civil rights, the forfeiture of goods and chattels, +and imprisonment during the King's pleasure," for a scruple of +conscience about the orthodoxy of a divine recommended by the Crown. +Truly in a capitular election, if anywhere, the better part of +valour is discretion, and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford have +realized this saving truth. But my view is wholly independent of +local or personal issues, and is best expressed by these words of +Arthur Stanton, true Catholic and true Liberal: "I am strongly +in favour of Disestablishment, and always have been. The connexion +between Church and State has done harm to both—more, however, +to the Church. Take our plan of electing Bishops. In the early +centuries they were elected by the people—as they ought to +be. Now they are chosen, sometimes by a Tory, sometimes by a Radical +Government. The Dean and Chapter meet and ask the guidance of the +Holy Ghost to enable them to choose, knowing all the while they have +the 'Letter Missive' in their pockets. To me this comes perilously +near blasphemy." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But let us suppose an extreme case. Let us imagine a Dean and Chapter +so deeply impressed by the unsuitableness of the Crown's nominee +that they refuse to elect him. Here, again, the law +<a name="page_217"><span class="page">Page 217</span></a> +dodges us. Except as a protest their refusal would have not the +slightest effect. The Crown has nothing to do but issue Letters +Patent in favour of its nominee, and he would be as secure of his +bishopric as if the Chapter had chosen him with one consent of heart +and voice. True, he would not yet be a Bishop; for the episcopal +character can only be conferred by consecration, and at this point +the Archbishop becomes responsible. To him the King signifies the +fact that Dr. Proudie has been elected to the See of Barchester, +requiring him to "confirm, invest, and consecrate" that divine. +Should the Archbishop refuse compliance with this command, he exposes +himself to exactly the same penalties as would be inflicted on a +recalcitrant Chapter, only with this aggravation—that he has +more to lose. When my good friend the Bishop of Oxford addressed +the Archbishop of Canterbury, imploring him to withhold consecration +from Dr. Henson, he made a valiant and faithful protest against +what he holds to be a flagitious action on the part of the Crown; +but, knowing the respected occupant of Lambeth as well as he does, +I think he must have anticipated the reply which, as a matter of +fact, he received. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Such being the absurdities and unrealities which surround the +Congé d'Élire, one naturally asks, Why not abolish +it? This question was raised in a pointed form by the late Mr. C. +J. Monk, for many years Liberal M.P. for the City of Gloucester, +who, in 1880, introduced a Bill to abolish the Congé and +to place the appointment of Bishops formally, as it +<a name="page_218"><span class="page">Page 218</span></a> +is really, in the hands of the Prime Minister. He urged the painful +sense of unreality which clings to the whole transaction, and the +injury to religion which is involved in thus paltering in a double +sense with sacred forms and words. It is amusing to those who can +recall the two men to remember that Mr. Monk was opposed by Lord +Randolph Churchill, who thought he perceived in the proposal some +dark design hostile to the interests of the Established Church; +but the important speech was made by Gladstone. That great man, +always greatest in debate when his case was weakest, opposed the +abolition of the Congé. He deprecated any legislation which +would interfere with one of the most delicate functions of the +Crown, and he insisted that the true path of reform lay, not in the +abolition of the form of election, but in an attempt to re-invest +it with some elements of reality. This was well enough, and eminently +characteristic of his reverence for ancient forms of constitutional +action; but what was more surprising was that, speaking from long +and intimate experience of its practical working he maintained that +the Congé d'Élire, even under the nullifying conditions +now attached to it, was "a moral check upon the prerogatives of +the Crown," which worked well rather than ill. "I am," he said, +"by no means prepared to say that, from partial information or +error, a Minister might not make an appointment to which this moral +obstacle might be set up with very beneficial effect. It would +tend to secure care in the selections, and its importance cannot +be overstated." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_219"><span class="page">Page 219</span></a> +I must confess, with the greatest respect for my old leader, that +the "importance" of the Congé d'Élire as a restraint +upon the actions of the Prime Minister can be very easily "overstated." +Indeed, the Congé could only be important if the Capitular +Body to which the "Letter Missive" is addressed have the courage +of conscientious disobedience, and were prepared to face, for the +sake of imperilled truth, the anger of the powers that be and the +laughter of the world. Courage of that type is a plant of slow +growth in Established Churches; and as long as my friends hug the +yoke of Establishment, I cannot sympathize with them when they cry +out against its galling pressure. To complainants of that class +the final word was addressed by Gladstone, nearly seventy years +ago: "You have our decision: take your own; choose between the +mess of pottage and the birthright of the Bride of Christ." +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_221"><span class="page">Page 221</span></a> +IV +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">POLITICS</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_223"><span class="page">Page 223</span></a> +I +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>MIRAGE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Operations had to be temporarily suspended owing to the mirage." +This sentence from one of Sir Stanley Maude's despatches struck me +as parabolic. There are other, and vaster, issues than a strategic +victory on the Diala River which have been "suspended owing to the +mirage." Let us apply the parable. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The parched caravan sees, half a mile ahead, the gleaming lake +which is to quench its thirst. It toils along over the intervening +distance, only to find that Nature has been playing a trick. The +vision has vanished, and what seemed to be water is really sand. +There can be no more expressive image of disillusionment. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To follow the "Mirage" of receding triumph through long years of +hope deferred was the lot of Labour generally, and it was especially +the lot of agricultural labour. The artisans gained their political +enfranchisement in 1867, and, though they made remarkably little use +of it, still they had the power, if they had the will, to better +their condition. But the agricultural labourers remained inarticulate, +unnoticed, unrepresented. A Tory orator, said—and many of +his class agreed with him, though +<a name="page_224"><span class="page">Page 224</span></a> +they were too prudent to say it—that the labourer was no fitter +for the vote than the beasts he tended. But there were others who +knew the labourers by personal contact, and by friendly intercourse +had been able to penetrate their necessary reserve; and we (for +I was one of these) knew that our friends in the furrow and the +cow-shed were at least as capable of forming a solid judgment as +their brethren in the tailor's shop and the printing-works. There +was nothing of the new Radicalism in this—it was as old as +English history. The toilers on the land had always been aspiring +towards freedom, though social pressure made them wisely dumb. +Cobbett and Cartwright, and all the old reformers who kept the +lamp of Freedom alive in the dark days of Pitt and Liverpool and +Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" of the agricultural +poor, and noted with indignation the successive invasions of their +freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs and trials for sedition, +and all the other implements of tyranny. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"The Good Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes,<br/> + And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies<br/> + To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies,<br/> + Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirage +appeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Bill +could pass into law, the reign of injustice and oppression would +cease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor would +rejoice in a new heaven and a new +<a name="page_225"><span class="page">Page 225</span></a> +earth. But no sooner was the Royal Assent given to the Bill than the +Mirage—that deceitful image of joy and refreshment—receded +into the dim distance, and men woke to the disheartening fact that, +though power had been transferred from the aristocracy to the middle +class, the poor were as badly off as ever. The visible effects of +that disillusionment were Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, +and there was a deep undercurrent of sullen anger which seldom +found expression. As late as the General Election of 1868 an old +man in the duke-ridden borough of Woodstock declined to vote for +the Liberal candidate expressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. +Before 1832, he said, arms had been stored in his father's cottage +to be used if the Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and +the arms were not required; but no one that he knew of had ever +been a ha'porth the better for it; and he had never since meddled +with politics, and never would again. In this case the despondency +of old age was added to the despondency of disappointment; but +among younger men hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage +beckoned with its treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' +Union, starting on its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, +forced the labourer's wants and claims upon the attention of the +land-owners, the farmers, and the clergy. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Those who had been brought by early association into touch with the +agricultural population knew only too well how deep and just was +the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning for better +<a name="page_226"><span class="page">Page 226</span></a> +chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourer seemed to +be the first step towards the improvement of his lot. The General +Election of 1880 was, as nearly as our constitutional forms admit, +a plébiscite on foreign policy; but to many a man who was +then beginning public life the emancipation of the labourer was an +object quite as dear as the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield. It +was not for nothing that we had read <i>Hodge and His Masters</i>, +and we were resolved that henceforward "Hodge" should be not a +serf or a cipher, but a free man and a self-governing citizen. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +We carried our Bill in 1884, and as the General Election of 1885 +drew on, it was touching to feel the labourer's gratitude to all +who had helped him in the attainment of his rights. By that time +Gladstone had lost a great deal of his popularity in the towns, +where Chamberlain was the hero. But in the rural districts the +people worshipped Gladstone, and neither knew nor cared for any +other politician. His was the name to conjure with. His picture +hung in every cottage. His speeches were studied and thumbed by +hard hands till the paper was frayed into tatters. It was Gladstone +who had won the vote for the labourer, and it was Gladstone who was +to lead them into the Land of Promise. "Three Acres and a Cow," +from being a joke, had passed into a watchword, though Gladstone +had never given it the faintest sanction. And the labourers vaguely +believed that the possession of the vote would bring them some +material benefit. So they voted for Gladstone with solid enthusiasm, +<a name="page_227"><span class="page">Page 227</span></a> +and placed their Mirage in his return to power. But alas! they only +realized a new and a more tragical disappointment. In January, +1886, an amendment to the Address embodying the principle of "Three +Acres and a Cow" was carried against the Tory Government; Gladstone +became Prime Minister, and the disconsolate labourers found that +the Mirage had cheated them once again. It is not easy to depict +the sorrow and mortification which ensued on this discovery. The +vote, after all, was only a Dead Sea apple. The energies which +were to have been bestowed on the creation of better surroundings +for English labourers were suddenly transferred to the creation +of an Irish Parliament, and in wide areas of rural population the +labourers sank back again into hopelessness and inactivity. Once +bit, twice shy. They had braved the wrath of their employers and +all the banded influences of the Hall and the Vicarage in order +to vote Liberal in December, 1885. They had got nothing by their +constancy; and in six months, when they were again incited to the +poll, they shook their heads and abstained. The disillusionment +of the labourers gave the victory of 1886 to the Tories, and kept +the Liberals out of power for twenty years. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>MIST</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Mistiness is the Mother of Wisdom." If this sarcastic dogma be +true, we are living in a generation pre-eminently wise. A "season +<a name="page_228"><span class="page">Page 228</span></a> +of mists" it unquestionably is; whether it is equally marked by +"mellow fruitfulness" is perhaps more disputable. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My path in life is metaphorically very much what Wordsworth's was +literally. "I wander, lonely as a cloud that floats on high, o'er +vales and hills." I find hills and vales alike shrouded in mist. +Everyone is befogged, and the guesses as to where exactly we are +and whither we are tending are various and perplexing. While all +are, in truth, equally bewildered, people take their bewilderment +in different ways. Some honestly confess that they cannot see a +yard in front of them; others profess a more penetrating vision, +and affect to be quite sure of what lies ahead. It is a matter +of temperament; but the professors of clear sight are certainly +less numerous than they were three years ago. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +We are like men standing on a mountain when the mist rolls up from +the valley. At first we all are very cheerful, and assure one another +that it will pass away in half an hour, leaving our path quite +clear. Then by degrees we begin to say that it promises to be a +more tedious business than we expected, and we must just wait in +patience till the clouds roll by. At length we frankly confess to +one another that we have completely lost our bearings, and that +we dare not move a foot for fear we should tumble into the abyss. +In this awkward plight our "strength is to sit still"; but, even +while we so sit, we try to keep ourselves warm by remembering that +the most persistent mists do not last for ever. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In one section of society I hear voices of melancholy vaticination. +"I don't believe," said one +<a name="page_229"><span class="page">Page 229</span></a> +lady in my hearing—"I don't believe that we shall ever again +see six-feet footmen with powdered hair," and a silent gloom settled +on the company, only deepened by another lady, also attached to +the old order, who murmured: "Ah! and powdered footmen are not +the only things that we shall never see again." Within twenty-four +hours of this depressing dialogue I encounter my democratic friend, +the Editor of the <i>Red Flag</i>. He glories in the fact that +Labour has "come into its own," and is quite sure that, unless it +can get more to eat, it will cease to make munitions, and so will +secure an early, if not a satisfactory, peace. In vain I suggest +to my friend that his vision is obscured by the mist, and that the +apparition which thus strangely exhilarates him is the creation +of his own brain. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Then I turn to the politicians, and of these it is to be remarked +that, however much befogged they may be, they always are certain +that they see much more clearly than the world at large. This +circumstance would invest their opinions with a peculiar authority, +if only they did not contradict one another flat. We are doubling +the electorate: what result will the General Election produce? +Politicians who belong to the family of Mr. Despondency and his +daughter, Muchafraid, reply that Monarchy will be abolished, Capital +"conscripted" (delightful verb), debt repudiated, and Anarchy enthroned. +Strangely dissimilar results are predicted by the Party-hacks, who, +being by lifelong habit trained to applaud whatever Government +does, announce with smug satisfaction that the British workman +<a name="page_230"><span class="page">Page 230</span></a> +loves property, and will use his new powers to conserve it; adores +the Crown, and feels that the House of Lords is the true protector +of his liberties. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Again, there are publicists who (like myself) have all their lives +proclaimed their belief in universal suffrage as the one guarantee +of freedom. If we are consistent, we ought to rejoice in the prospect +now unfolding itself before us; but perhaps the mist has got into our +eyes. Our forefathers abolished the tyranny of the Crown. Successive +Reform Acts have abolished the tyranny of class. But what about the +tyranny of capital? Is Democracy safe from it? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I do not pretend to be clearer-sighted than my neighbours; but in +the mist each of us sees the form of some evil which he specially +dislikes; and to my thinking Bureaucracy is just as grave a menace +to Freedom as Militarism, and in some ways graver, as being more +plausible. We used to call ourselves Collectivists, and we rejoiced +in the prospect of the State doing for us what we ought to do for +ourselves. We voted Political Economy a dismal science (which it +is), and felt sure that, if only the Government would take in hand +the regulation of supply and demand, the inequalities of life would +be adjusted, everyone would be well fed, and everyone would be +happy. As far as we can see through the blinding mist which now +surrounds us, it looks as if the State were about as competent +to control trade as to control the weather. Bureaucracy is having +its fling, and when the mist clears off it will stand revealed +as a well-meant (and well-paid) imposture. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_231"><span class="page">Page 231</span></a> +Closely related to all these problems is the problem of the women's +vote. Here the mist is very thick indeed. Those who have always +favoured it are naturally sanguine of good results. Women will +vote for peace; women will vote for temperance; women will vote +for everything that guards the sanctity of the home. Those who +have opposed the change see very different consequences. Women +will vote for war; women will vote as the clergyman bids them; +women will vote for Socialism. All this is sheer guess-work, and +very misty guess-work too. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And yet once more. There are (though this may to some seem strange) +people who consider the Church at least as important as the State, +and even more so, inasmuch as its concernments relate to an eternal +instead of a transitory order. What are the prospects of the Church? +Here the mists are thicker than ever. Is the ideal of the Free +Church in the Free State any nearer realization than it was three +years ago? All sorts of discordant voices reach me through the +layers of cloud. Some cry, "Our one hope for national religion +is to rivet tighter than ever the chains which bind the Church +to the chariot-wheels of the State." Others reply, "Break those +chains, and let us go free—even without a roof over our heads +or a pound in our pockets." And there is a third section—the +party which, as Newman said, attempts to steer between the Scylla +of Aye and the Charybdis of No through the channel of no meaning, +and this section cries for some reform which shall abolish the +cynical mockery of the Congé d'Élire, and secure to +the Church, while +<a name="page_232"><span class="page">Page 232</span></a> +still established and endowed, the self-governing rights of a Free +Church. In ecclesiastical quarters the mist is always particularly +thick. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Certainly at this moment, if ever in our national life, we must +be content to "walk by faith and not by sight." This chapter began +with imagery, and with imagery it shall end. "I have often stood +on some mountain peak, some Cumbrian or Alpine hill, over which +the dim mists rolled; and suddenly, through one mighty rent in +that cloudy curtain, I have seen the blue heaven in all its beauty, +and, far below my feet, the rivers and cities and cornfields of +the plain sparkled in the heavenly sunlight." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That is, in a figure, the vision for which we must hope and pray. +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p class="subtitle">"<i>DISSOLVING THROES</i>"</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I borrow my title from a poet. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"He grew old in an age he condemned;<br/> +He looked on the rushing decay<br/> +Of the times which had sheltered his youth;<br/> +Felt the dissolving throes<br/> +Of a social order he loved." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It seems odd that Matthew Arnold should have spoken thus about +Wordsworth; for one would have expected that the man who wrote so +gloriously of the French Revolution, "as it appeared to enthusiasts +at its commencement," would have rejoiced in the new order which it +established for all Europe. But the younger poet knew the elder with +<a name="page_233"><span class="page">Page 233</span></a> +an intimacy which defies contradiction; and one must, I suppose, +number Wordsworth among those who, in each succeeding age, have +shed tears of useless regret over the unreturning past. Talleyrand +said that, to know what an enjoyable thing life was capable of being, +one must have been a member of the <i>ancienne noblesse</i> before +the Revolution. It was the cynical and characteristic utterance of +a nature singularly base; but even the divine Burke (though he +had no personal or selfish interests in the matter) was convinced +that the Revolution had not only destroyed political freedom, but +also social welfare, and had "crushed everything respectable and +virtuous in the nation." What, in the view of Burke and Talleyrand, +the Revolution did for France, that, by a curious irony of fate, +our attempt to defeat the Revolution did for England. Burke forced +us into the Revolutionary War, and that war (as Gladstone once said +in a letter to the present writer) "almost unmade the liberties, +the Constitution, even the material interests and prosperity, of our +country." Patriots like William Cobbett and Sydney Smith, though +absolutely convinced that the war was just and necessary, doubted +if England could ever rally from the immense strain which it had +imposed on her resources, or regain the freedom which, in order +to beat France, she had so lightly surrendered. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At a time when Manchester was unrepresented and Gatton sent two +Members to Parliament, it was steadily maintained by lovers of the +established order that the proposed enlargement of the electorate +<a name="page_234"><span class="page">Page 234</span></a> +was "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with +the necessary restraints of social obligation." If it were carried, +religion, morality, and property would perish together, and our +venerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousand +years have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hour +may lay her in the dust." In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, +the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubt +that the Reform Bill is a stepping-stone in England to a republic, +and in Ireland to separation. Both <i>may</i> happen without the +Bill, but with it they are inevitable." Next year the Bill became +law. Lord Bathurst cut off his pigtail, exclaiming: "Ichabod, for +the glory is departed"—an exquisitely significant combination +of act and word—and the Duke of Wellington announced that +England had accomplished "a revolution by due course of law." In +some sense the words were true. Political power had passed from +the aristocracy to the middle class. The English equivalents of +Talleyrand—the men who directly or in their ancestors had ruled +England since 1688, had enjoyed power without responsibility, and +privilege which alike Kings and mobs had questioned in vain—were +filled with the wildest alarms. Emotional orators saw visions of +the guillotine; calmer spirits anticipated the ballot-box; and +the one implement of anarchy was scarcely more dreaded than the +other. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Sixteen years passed. Property and freedom seemed pretty secure. Even +privilege, though shaken, had not been overthrown; and a generation +<a name="page_235"><span class="page">Page 235</span></a> +had grown up to which the fears of revolution seemed fantastic. +Then suddenly came the uprising of the nations in '48; and once +again "dissolving throes" were felt, with pain or joy according to +the temperament of those who felt them. "We have seen," said Charles +Greville, "such a stirring-up of all the elements of society as nobody +ever dreamt of; we have seen a general saturnalia—ignorance, +vanity, insolence, poverty, ambition, escaping from every kind of +restraint, ranging over the world, and turning it topsy-turvy as +it pleased. All Europe exhibits the result—a mass of ruin, +terror, and despair." Matthew Arnold, young and ardent, and in +some ways democratic, wrote in a different vein: "The hour of the +hereditary peerage, and eldest sonship, and immense properties, +has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck." Seventy years +ago! And that "hour" has not struck yet! +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The "dissolving throes" were lulled again, and I scarcely made +themselves felt till 1866, when a mild attempt to admit the pick +of the artisans to the electoral privileges of the middle class +woke the panic-stricken vehemence of Robert Lowe. "If," he asked, +"you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of +intimidation; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent +people, where will you go to look for them—to the top or to +the bottom?" Well might Bishop Wilberforce report to a friend, "It +was enough to make the flesh creep to hear Bob Lowe's prognostications +for the future of England." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_236"><span class="page">Page 236</span></a> +Next year the artisans got the vote, though the great Lord Shaftesbury, +who knew more than most of his peers about working-men, plainly +told the House of Lords that "a large proportion of the working +classes have a deep and solemn conviction that property is not +distributed as property ought to be; that some checks ought to +be kept upon the accumulation of property in single hands; and +that to take away by legislation that which is in excess with a +view to bestowing it on those who have less, is not a breach of +any law, human or Divine." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Yet once more. When in 1885 the agricultural labourers (of whom a +Tory M.P. said that they were no fitter for a vote than the beasts +they tended), were admitted to the franchise, the same terrors +shook the squirearchy. We were warned that the land would soon be +broken up into small holdings; that sport would become impossible; +and that "the stately homes of England" must all be closed, for +lack of money to keep them open. The country, we were told, had +seen its best days, and "Merry England" had vanished for ever. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I only recall these "dissolving throes," real or imaginary, because +I fancy that just now they are again making themselves felt, and +perhaps with better reason than ever before in our history. People +who venture to look ahead are asking themselves this question: If +this war goes on much longer, what sort of England will emerge? +Some are looking forward with rapture to a new heaven and a new +earth; others dread the impending destruction "of a social order +they loved." Can we not trace something +<a name="page_237"><span class="page">Page 237</span></a> +of this dread in Lord Lansdowne's much-canvassed letter? He is +one of the most patriotic and most experienced men in public life; +he "looks on the rushing decay of the times which sheltered his +youth"; and it may well be that he is striving to avert what seems +to him a social catastrophe. +</p> + +<h3> +IV +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +As a rule, I call a spade a spade. When I mean <i>The Times</i>, +I say <i>The Times</i>, and I condemn the old-fashioned twaddle +of talking about "a morning contemporary." But to-day I depart +from my rule and content myself with saying that I lately read +in an important newspaper a letter dealing with Mr. Asquith's +distinction between "Prussian Militarism" and "German Democracy." +For my own part, I did not think that distinction very sound. The +experience of the last three years has led me to the conclusion that +the German democracy is to the full as bellicose as the military +caste, and that it has in no way dissociated itself from the abominable +crimes against decency and humanity which the military caste has +committed. I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is +brutalized; but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole +nation, one is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced +so calamitous a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any +race a "double dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. +<a name="page_238"><span class="page">Page 238</span></a> +Human nature as it leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the +same everywhere; and when we see it deformed and degraded, we must +look for the influence which has been its bane. In dealing with +individuals the enquiry is comparatively simple, and the answer +not far to seek. But when we deal with nations we cannot, as a +rule; point to a single figure, or even a group of figures, and +say, "He, or they, did the mischief." We are forced to look wider +and deeper, and we shall be well advised if we learn from Burke to +realize "the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over +the character and happiness of man." Let me apply Burke's teaching +to the case before us. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The writer of the letter which I am discussing has a whole-hearted +dislike of the Germans, and especially of the Prussians; charges +them with "cruelty, brutal arrogance, deceit, cunning, manners +and customs below those of savages"; includes in the indictment +professors, commercial men, and women; recites the hideous list +of crimes committed during the present war; and roundly says that, +however you label him, "the Prussian will always remain a beast." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I dispute none of these propositions. I believe them to be sadly +and bitterly true; but if I am to follow Burke's counsel, I must +enquire into the "laws, institutions, and government" which have +prevailed in Germany, and which have exercised so disastrous a +"mastery over the character and happiness of man." In this enquiry +it would be obvious to touch military ascendency, despotic +<a name="page_239"><span class="page">Page 239</span></a> +monarchy, representative institutions deprived of effective power, +administration made omnipotent, and bureaucratic interference with +every detail of human life. Sydney Smith's words about unreformed +England apply perfectly to modern Germany. "Of all ingenious instruments +of despotism I most commend a popular assembly where the majority +are paid and hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave +speeches, make the people believe they are free." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But for our present purpose I must concentrate attention on another +institution which has had an even more direct and practical bearing on +the character of the German people—and this is the enforcement +of military service. This, like every other institution, must be +judged by its effects on the character of those who are subject +to it. The writer of the letter holds that "the only good thing +about the German nation" is the "national service through which +all men pass, and which makes soldiers of all not physically unfit, +and which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, +discipline, duty." Now, these words, read in connexion with the +description of the German people quoted above, suggest a puzzling +problem. The Germans are cruel, brutally arrogant, deceitful, and +cunning, and "the Prussian will always remain a beast." Yet these +same people have all passed through a discipline "which inculcates +patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty." Doth +a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? +Does the same system make +<a name="page_240"><span class="page">Page 240</span></a> +men patriotic and cruel, loyal and arrogant, obedient and deceitful, +courageous and cunning, dutiful and beastly? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Perhaps it does. I can conceive some of these pairs of qualities +united in a single character. A man might be a zealous patriot, +and yet horribly cruel; loyal to his Sovereign, but arrogant to +his inferiors; obedient to authority, yet deceitful among coequals; +courageous in danger, yet cunning in avoiding it; dutiful according +to his own standard of duty, and yet as "beastly" as the torturers +of Belgium. But a system which produces such a very chequered type +of character is scarcely to be commended. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Now, the writer might reply, "I only said that the military system +<i>inculcated</i> certain virtues. I did not say that it ensured +them." Then it fails. If it has produced only the "vile German +race" which the writer so justly dislikes, unredeemed by any of +the virtues which it "inculcates," then it has nothing to say for +itself. It stands confessed as an unmixed evil. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is right to expose a logical fallacy, but I am not fond of the +attempt to obscure by logic-chopping what is a writer's real meaning. +I will therefore say that, as far as I can make out, what this +particular writer really believes is that the German people, through +some innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turned +the inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their own +moral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, +in spite of a beneficent institution +<a name="page_241"><span class="page">Page 241</span></a> +which would have made them good and even pleasant. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Here I take leave to differ, and to range myself on the side of +Burke. Great, indeed—nay, incalculable—is "the mastery +of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness +of man." The system is known by its fruits. We may think as badly +as we like of the Germans—as badly as they deserve—but +we must remember the "laws, institutions, and government" that +have dominated their national development. And this is not only +a matter of just and rational thinking, but is also a counsel of +safety for ourselves. If, as a result of this war, we allow our +personal and social liberties (rightly suspended for the moment) +to be permanently abolished or restricted; and, above all, if we +bend our necks to the yoke of a military despotism; we shall be +inviting a profound degradation of our national character. It would +indeed be a tragical consummation of our great fight for Freedom +if, when it is over, the other nations could point to us and say: +"England has sunk to the moral level of Germany." +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>REVOLUTION—AND RATIONS</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +"A revolution by due course of law." This, as we have seen, was +the Duke of Wellington's description of the Reform Act of 1832, +which transferred the government of England from the aristocracy +<a name="page_242"><span class="page">Page 242</span></a> +to the middle class. Though eventually accomplished by law, it +did not pass without bloodshed and conflagration; and timid people +satisfied themselves that not only the downfall of England, but +the end of the world, must be close at hand. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Twenty years passed, and nothing in particular happened. National +wealth increased, all established institutions seemed secure, and +people began to forget that they had passed through a revolution. +Then arose John Bright, reminding the working-men of the Midlands +that their fathers "had shaken the citadel of Privilege to its +base," and inciting them to give the tottering structure another +push. A second revolution seemed to be drawing near. Dickens put +on record, in chapter xxvi. of <i>Little Dorrit</i>, the alarms +which agitated respectable and reactionary circles. The one point, +as Dickens remarked, on which everyone agreed, was that the country +was in very imminent danger, and wanted all the preserving it could +get. Presently, but not till 1867, the second revolution arrived. +Some of the finest oratory ever heard in England was lavished on the +question whether the power, formerly exercised by the aristocracy +and more recently by the middle class, was to be extended to the +artisans. The great Lord Shaftesbury predicted "the destruction +of the Empire," and Bishop Wilberforce "did not see how we were +to escape fundamental changes in Church and State." "History," +exclaimed Lowe, "may record other catastrophes as signal and as +disastrous, but none +<a name="page_243"><span class="page">Page 243</span></a> +so wanton and so disgraceful." However, the artisans made a singularly +moderate use of their newly acquired power; voted Conservative as +often as they voted Liberal; and so again belied the apprehensions +of the alarmists. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When the workman of the town had been enfranchised, it was impossible to +keep his brother who worked on the land permanently in the position of +a serf or a cipher. So we began to agitate for the "County Franchise"; +and once again the cry of "Revolution" was heard—perhaps +in its most typical form from the lips of a Tory M.P., who, as +I said before, affirmed that the labourer was no fitter for the +suffrage than the beasts he tended. Even ten years later, Lord +Goschen, who was by nature distrustful of popular movements, +prognosticated that, if ever the Union with Ireland were lost, it +would be lost through the votes of the agricultural labourers. To +those who, like myself, were brought up in agricultural districts, +the notion that the labourer was a revolutionary seemed strangely +unreal; but it was a haunting obsession in the minds of clubmen +and town-dwellers. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +So, in each succeeding decade, the next extension of constitutional +freedom has been acclaimed by its supporters as an instalment of +the millennium, and denounced by its opponents as the destruction +of social order. So it had been, time out of mind; and so it would +have been to the end had not the European war burst upon us, and +shaken us out of all our habitual concernments. Now "the +<a name="page_244"><span class="page">Page 244</span></a> +oracles are dumb." The voices, of lugubrious prophecy are silent. +The Reform Act which has become law this year is beyond doubt the +greatest revolution which has as yet been effected "by due course +of law." It has doubled the electorate; it has enfranchised the +women; it has practically established universal suffrage; it has +placed all property, as well as all policy, under the control of +a class, if only that class chooses to vote and act together. All +these effects of the Act (except one) are objects which I have +desired to see attained ever since I was a boy at Harrow, supporting +the present Bishop of Oxford and the late Lord Grey in the School +Debating Society; so it is not for me to express even the faintest +apprehension of evil results. But I am deliberately of opinion +that the change now effected in our electoral arrangements is of +farther-reaching significance than the substitution of a republic +for a monarchy; and the amazing part of the business is that no one +has protested at any stage of it. We were told at the beginning of +the war that there was to be no controversial legislation till it +was over. That engagement was broken; no one protested. A vitally +important transaction was removed from the purview of Parliament +to a secret conference; no one protested. If we suggested that +the House of Commons was morally and constitutionally dead, and +that it ought to renew its life by an appeal to the constituencies +before it enforced a revolution, we were told that it was impossible +to hold a General Election with the soldiers all out of the country; +<a name="page_245"><span class="page">Page 245</span></a> +but now it seems that this is to be the next step, and no one protests +against it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But these may be dismissed as constitutional pedantries. So be +it. The Whigs, who made the Constitution, may be pardoned if they +have a sneaking regard for their handiwork. Much more astonishing +is the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealth +and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The +men of £100,000 a year—not numerous, according to the +Chancellor of the Exchequer, but influential—have been as +meekly acquiescent as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county +have smiled on an Act which will destroy territorial domination. +What is the explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or +to fear? Did they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing +a Government which is conducting a great war? Or did they, less +laudably, shrink from the prospect of appearing as the inveterate +enemies of a social and economic revolution which they saw to be +inevitable? Let us charitably incline to the former hypothesis. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But there is something about this, our most recent revolution, +which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition and +panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least +attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible +to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world—but +pre-eminently Rations,—seemed more vital and more pressing. +"The Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very +difficult to get sugar?" "The Speaker's +<a name="page_246"><span class="page">Page 246</span></a> +Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm sure James Lowther won't +allow them to do anything very silly—but I really cannot +imagine how we are to get on without meat." Or yet again: A triumphant +Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister: "So we've got the vote at +last!" "What vote?" replied the sister. "Surely we've had a vote +for ever so long? I'm sure I have, though I never used it." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When the real history of this wonderful war is written, methinks +the historian will reckon among its most amazing features the fact +that it so absorbed the mind of the nation as to make possible a +'silent revolution.' +</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p class="subtitle">"<i>THE INCOMPATIBLES</i>"</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have ever +written wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify our +Sister Kingdom have been many and various—Disestablishment +Acts, Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and +every other variety of legislative experiment; but through them +all Ireland remained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons +which she had not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, +with the best intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. +This failure on the part of England may have been due to the fact +that Gladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himself +with Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact. It +<a name="page_247"><span class="page">Page 247</span></a> +is startling to read, in Lord Morley's <i>Life</i> this casual record +of his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his first +and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks, +and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Of +the multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had little +chance of seeing much." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolve +of Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition was +the "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable or +unwilling to supply. Late in life Gladstone discovered that Ireland +was a nation, and ought to be treated as such. As regards his own +share in the matter, the change came too late, and he went to the +grave leaving Ireland (in spite of two Home Rule Bills) still +unpacified; but his influence has lived and wrought, not only in +the Liberal party. The principle of Irish nationality has been +recognized in legislative form, and the most law-abiding citizen +in Great Britain might drink that toast of "Ireland a Nation" which +aforetime was considered seditious, if not treasonable. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was certainly a very odd prejudice of English Philistinism which +prevented us, for so many centuries, from recognizing a fact so palpable +as Irish nationality. If ever a race of men had characteristics of +its own, marking it out from its nearest neighbours, that race is +the Irish, and among the best of those characteristics are chastity, +courtesy, hospitality, humour, and fine manners. The intense Catholicism +of Ireland may be difficult +<a name="page_248"><span class="page">Page 248</span></a> +for Protestants to applaud; yet most certainly those who fail to +take it into account are hopelessly handicapped in the attempt to +deal with Irish problems. The Irish are born fighters. One of the +most splendid passages which even Irish oratory ever produced was +that in which Sheill protested against the insolence of stigmatizing +the countrymen of Wellington as "aliens" from England, and no policy +could be more suicidal than that which deflects the soldiership +of Ireland from the British cause. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of having +brought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government, +and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written: +"We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelings +and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have +no sympathy." Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, or +can we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understand +the working of the Irish temperament? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not between +the two nations which Providence has so closely knit together, +but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, and +sensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnold +lamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland, +and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine, +unmitigated Murdstone—the common middle-class Englishman, +who has come forth from Salem House—and +<a name="page_249"><span class="page">Page 249</span></a> +Mr. Creakle. He is seen in full force, of course, in the Protestant +North; but throughout Ireland he is a prominent figure of the English +garrison. Him the Irish see, see him only too much and too +often"—and to see him is to dislike him, and the country which +sent him forth. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings +of Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem House +have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have +converted—for the astonishment of after-ages—Mr. Balfour +and Lord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one question +which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to +settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall +be compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not +yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method +by which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduce +conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, +after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament +of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely +is a breach of manners and good sense. +</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, +but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are +they who make an +<a name="page_250"><span class="page">Page 250</span></a> +outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, methinks, are her +real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" is a cry which rises +from the most unexpected quarters; and, though 'twere ungracious to +question its sincerity, we must admit that this generous enthusiasm +is of very recent growth. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she could +count one, Authority could count two.[*] Five years ago, how many +Englishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service, +but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause? If you polled +the nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would you +find? At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls, +would rise, at another it would sink. At the best of times, if you +divide the nation into strata, you would find large sections in +which Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends. It had long +been one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty had +almost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language of +social convention, "the upper classes." For generations the despised +and calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in their +peculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had established +the political liberties of England on a strong foundation. But their +day was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendants +had made common cause with their hereditary opponents. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: I am speaking here of England only—not of Scotland, +Ireland, or Wales.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_251"><span class="page">Page 251</span></a> +After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upper +strata of society was so rare a character that people encountering +him instinctively asked, "Is he insincere? Or only mad?" Deserted +by the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the great +Middle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun; +and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered for +Freedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became more +audible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as being +the natural guardian of property. If you make the division +geographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the North +stood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were always +unfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regarded +as wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkable +degree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose, +the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered. How +many friends could Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece, +in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How many +Armenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed +the annexation of the South African Republics? At each extension +of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt +to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear +it, few indeed were the friends of +<a name="page_252"><span class="page">Page 252</span></a> +Freedom in the upper classes of society; in the opulent Middle +Class; in London and the Midlands and the South; in the Church, +alas!; in the Universities, the Professions, and the Press. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters there +rises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts very +discordantly with the habitual language of five years ago. To-day +the friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal. +Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and the +energy of her new worshippers. Lapses from grace are not unknown in +the after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume the +conversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere. +And to what are we to attribute it? Various answers are possible. +Perhaps, as long as it was only other people's liberty which was +imperilled, we could look on without concern. Perhaps we never +realized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life, +till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force, +first dawned on our imagination. Perhaps—and this is the +happiest supposition—we have learnt our lesson by contemplating +the effects of a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting +the morals and wrecking the civilization of a powerful and once +friendly people. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable, +and, at least on the surface, satisfactory. To-day we all are the +friends and lovers of Liberty—and yet the very multitude of +<a name="page_253"><span class="page">Page 253</span></a> +our new comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground +for perplexity and even for concern. "He who really loves Liberty must +walk alone." In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe that +this stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustrated +afresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect and +regret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney.[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Leonard, Henry Courtney (Lord Courtney of Penwith), +died May 11, 1918, in his eighty-sixth year.] +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_255"><span class="page">Page 255</span></a> +V +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">EDUCATION</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_257"><span class="page">Page 257</span></a> +I +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Not long ago a Judge of the High Court (who was also a Liberal) +made what struck me as an eminently wise observation. While trying +a couple of Elementary School-teachers whose obscenity was too +gross for even an Old Bailey audience, and who themselves were +products of Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makes +one hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing which +we had hoped it was." Of course, all the prigs of the educational +world, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declaration +of common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, +I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark which had been +sedulously misconstrued. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Long years ago Queen Victoria recording the conversation at her +dinner-table, said: "Lord Melbourne made us laugh very much with +his opinions about Schools and Public Education; the latter he +don't like, and when I asked him if he did he said, 'I daren't say +in these times that I'm against it—but I <i>am</i> against +it.'" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +There is a pleasantly human touch in that confession of a Whig Prime +Minister, that he was +<a name="page_258"><span class="page">Page 258</span></a> +afraid to avow his mistrust of a great social policy to which the +Liberal party was committing itself. The arch-charlatan, Lord Brougham, +was raging up and down the kingdom extolling the unmixed blessings +of education. The University of London, which was to make all things +new, had just been set up. "The school-master was abroad." Lord +John Russell was making some tentative steps towards a system of +national education. Societies, Congresses, and Institutes were +springing up like mushrooms; and all enlightened people agreed +that extension of knowledge was the one and all-sufficient remedy +for the obvious disorders of the body politic. The Victorian Age +was, in brief, the age of Education; and the one dogma which no +one ventured to question was that the extension of knowledge was +necessarily, and in itself, a blessing. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When I say "no one" I should perhaps say "hardly anyone"; for the +wisest and wittiest man of the time saw the crack in the foundation +on which his friends were laboriously erecting the temple of their +new divinity. "Reading and writing," said Sydney Smith, "are mere +increase of power. They may be turned, I admit, to a good or a +bad purpose; but for several years of his life the child is in +your hands, and you may give to that power what bias you please. I +believe the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the lessons +of his early life. When I see the village school, and the tattered +scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical +<a name="page_259"><span class="page">Page 259</span></a> +art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching that +alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, insuring +property, fencing the Altar, guarding the Throne, giving space and +liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him up to his +own place in the order of Creation." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That first sentence contain? the pith of the whole matter. "Reading +and writing are mere increase of power," and they may be turned +to a good or a bad purpose. Here enters the ethical consideration +which the zealots of sheer knowledge so persistently ignored. The +language about fencing the Altar and guarding the Throne might, no +doubt, strike the Judge who tried the school-teachers as unduly +idealistic; but the sentiment is sound, and knowledge is either +a blessing or a curse, according as it is used. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Sydney Smith was speaking of the Elementary School, and, indeed, +was urging the claims of the working classes to better education. +But his doctrine applies with at least equal force to the higher +and wider ranges of knowledge. During the Victorian Age physical +science came into its own, and a good deal more than its own. Any +discovery in mechanics or chemistry was hailed as a fresh boon, +and the discoverer was ranged, with Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, +among our national heroes. As long ago as 1865 a scientific soldier +perceived the possibilities of aerial navigation. His vision has +been translated into fact; but Count Zeppelin has shown us quite +clearly that the discovery is not an unmixed blessing. Chemistry is, +<a name="page_260"><span class="page">Page 260</span></a> +to some minds, the most interesting of studies, just because it +is, as Lord Salisbury once said of it, the science of things as +they are. Yet aconitine, strychnine, and antimony have played their +part in murders, and chloroform has been used for destruction as +well as for salvation. Dr. Lardner was one of the most conspicuous +figures in that March of Mind which Brougham and his congeners +led; and his researches into chemistry resulted in the production +of an effluvium which was calculated to destroy all human life +within five miles of the spot where it was discharged. This was +an enlargement of knowledge; but if there had been Nihilists in +the reign of William IV. they would have found in Dr. Lardner's +discovery a weapon ready to their hand. Someone must have discovered +alcohol; and my teetotal friends would probably say, invented it, +for they cannot attribute so diabolical an agency to the action of +purely natural causes. But even those who least sympathize with +"the lean and sallow abstinence" would scarcely maintain that alcohol +has been an unmixed blessing to the race. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To turn from material to mental discoveries, I hold that a great +many additions which have been made to our philosophical knowledge +have diminished alike the happiness and the usefulness of those +who made them. "To live a life of the deepest pessimism tempered +only by the highest mathematics" is a sad result of sheer knowledge. +An historian, toiling terribly in the muniment-rooms of colleges +or country houses, makes definite +<a name="page_261"><span class="page">Page 261</span></a> +additions to our knowledge of Henry VIII. or Charles I.; learns +cruelty from the one and perfidy from the other, and emerges with +a theory of government as odious as Carlyle's or Froude's. A young +student of religion diligently adds to his stock of learning, and +plunges into the complicated errors of Manicheans, and Sabellians, and +Pelagians, with the result that he absorbs the heresies and forgets +the Gospel. In each of these cases knowledge has been increased, but +mankind has not been benefited. We come back to what Sydney Smith +said. Increase of knowledge is merely increase of power. Whether it +is to be a boon or a curse to humanity depends absolutely on the +spirit in which it is applied. Just now we find ourselves engaged in +a desperate conflict between materialism and morality—between +consummate knowledge organized for evil ends, and the sublime ideal +of public right. Education has done for Germany all that Education, +divorced from Morality, can do; and the result has been a defeat of +civilization and a destruction of human happiness such as Europe +has not seen since the Middle Age closed in blood. What shall it +profit a nation if it "gain the whole world" and lose its own soul? +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE GOLDEN LADDER</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Education is an excellent thing, but the word has a deterrent sound. It +breathes pedantry and dogmatism, and "all that is at enmity with joy." +<a name="page_262"><span class="page">Page 262</span></a> +To people of my age it recalls the dread spirits of Pinnock and +Colenso and Hamblin Smith, and that even more terrible Smith who +edited Dictionaries of everything. So, though this chapter is to +be concerned with the substance, I eschew the word, and choose +for my title a figurative phrase. I might, with perfect justice, +have chosen another figure, and have headed my paper "The Peg and +the Hole"; for, after nearly a century of patient expectation, +we have at last got a Square Peg in the Square Hole of Public +Instruction. In simpler speech, England has at length got a Minister +of Education who has a genuine enthusiasm for knowledge, and will do +his appointed work with a single eye to the intellectual advancement +of the country, neither giving heed to the pribbles and prabbles +of theological disputants, nor modifying his plans to suit the +convenience of the manufacturer or the squire. He is, in my judgment, +exactly the right man for the office which he fills; and is therefore +strikingly differentiated not only from some Ministers of Education +whom we have known, but also from the swarm of Controllers and +Directors and salaried busybodies who have so long been misdirecting +us and contradicting one another. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When I say that Mr. Fisher will not give heed to theological disputants, +I by no means ignore the grievance under which some of those disputants +have suffered. The ever-memorable majority of 1906 was won, not wholly +by Tariff Reform or Chinese Labour, but to a great extent by the +<a name="page_263"><span class="page">Page 263</span></a> +righteous indignation of Nonconformity at the injury which had +been inflicted on it by the Tory Education Acts. There were Passive +Resisters in those days, as there are Conscientious Objectors now; +and they made their grievance felt when the time for voting came. +The Liberal Government, in spite of its immense victory at the +polls, scored a fourfold failure in its attempts to redress that +grievance, and it remains unredressed to this hour. Not that I +admired the Liberal Education Bills. My own doctrine on the matter +was expressed by my friend Arthur Stanton, who said in 1906: "I +think National and Compulsory Education must be secular, and with +facilities for the denominations to add their particular tenets. My +objection to this Bill" (Mr. Birrell's Bill) "is that it subsidizes +undenominationalism." And again in 1909, when another of our Liberal +practitioners was handling the subject: "I object altogether to +the State teaching religion. I would have it teach secular matters +only, and leave the religious teaching entirely to the clergy, who +should undertake it at their own expense. This is the only fair +plan—fair to all. The State gives, and pays for, religious +teaching which I do not regard as being worth anything at all. It +is worse than useless. Real religious teaching can only be given +by the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He did +not mean mathematics and geography." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politics +we must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicable +<a name="page_264"><span class="page">Page 264</span></a> +reforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr. Fisher, +wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one side, +and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally well +the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists and the +simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious freedom, +aspire. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a great +Bill." Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morley +observes, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being the +worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is commonly +used, a formula of social ruin." Enlarging on this theme, Lord Morley +points out that the essential virtue of a small reform—the +quality which makes it not an evil, but a good—is that it +should be made "on the lines and in the direction" of the greater +reform which is desiderated. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Now, this condition Mr. Fisher's Bill exactly fulfils. I suppose +that the "greater reform" of education which we all wish to +see—the ideal of national instruction—is that the State +should provide for every boy and girl the opportunity of cultivating +his or her natural gifts to the highest perfection which they are +capable of attaining. When I speak of "natural gifts" I refer not +only to the intellect, but also to the other parts of our nature, +the body and the moral sense. This ideal involves a system which, +by a natural and orderly development, should conduct the capable +child from the Elementary School, through all the intermediate +<a name="page_265"><span class="page">Page 265</span></a> +stages, to the highest honours of the Universities. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, because +our mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied. A good many +children may be unable to profit by any instruction higher than that +provided by the Elementary School. A good many more will be able +to profit by intermediate education. Comparatively few—the +best—will make their way to really high attainment, and will +become, at and through the Universities, great philosophers, or +scholars, or scientists, or historians, or mathematicians. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +At that point—and it ought to be reached at a much earlier +age than is now usual—the State's, concern in the matter +ends. The child has become, a man, and henceforth must work out +his own intellectual salvation; but in the earlier stages the State +can and must exercise a potent influence. The earliest stage must +be compulsory—that was secured by the Act of 1870. In the +succeeding stages, the State, while it does not compel, must stimulate +and encourage; and above all must ensure that no supposed exigencies +of money-making, no selfish tyranny of the employing classes, shall +be allowed to interfere with mental or physical development, or +to divert the boy or the girl from any course of instruction by +which he or she is capable of profiting. This ideal Mr. Fisher's +Bill, with its plain enactment that education shall be free; with +its precaution against "half-time"; with its ample provision for +Continuation Schools, goes +<a name="page_266"><span class="page">Page 266</span></a> +far to realize. Even if it is a "small" reform—and I should +dispute the epithet—it is certainly "on the lines and in the +direction" of that larger reform which the enthusiasts of education +have symbolized by the title of "The Golden Ladder."[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Happily for Education, Mr. Fisher's Bill is now an +Act.] +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>OASES</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +My title is figurative, but figures are sometimes useful. Murray's +Dictionary defines an oasis as "a fertile spot in the midst of a +desert"; and no combination of words could better describe the +ideal which I wish to set before my readers. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The suggestion of this article came to me from a correspondent in +Northumberland—"an old miner, who went to work down a mine +before he was eight years old, and is working yet at seventy-two." +My friend tells me that he has "spent about forty years of his +spare time in trying to promote popular education among his fellow +working-men." His notice was attracted by a paper which I recently +wrote on "The Golden Ladder" of Education, and that paper led him +to offer some suggestions which I think too valuable to be lost. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My friend does not despise the Golden Ladder. Quite the contrary. +He sees its usefulness for such as are able to climb it, but he +holds that they are, and must be, the few, while he is concerned +for the many. I agree. When (following Matthew +<a name="page_267"><span class="page">Page 267</span></a> +Arnold at a respectful distance) I have urged the formation of a +national system by which a poor man's son may be enabled to climb +from the Elementary School to a Fellowship or a Professorship at +Oxford or Cambridge, I have always realized that I was planning a +course for the exceptionally gifted boy. That boy has often emerged +in real life, and the Universities have profited by his emergence; +but he is, and always must be, exceptional. What can be done for +the mass of intelligent, but not exceptional, boys, who, to quote +my Northumbrian friend, "must be drilled into a calling of some +kind, so as to be able to provide for themselves when they grow +up to manhood"? When once their schooling, in the narrow sense, +is over, must their minds be left to lie fallow or run wild? Can +nothing be done to supplement their elementary knowledge, to stimulate +and discipline their mental powers? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The University Extension Movement was an attempt to answer these +questions in a practical fashion, and my friend does full justice to +the spirit which initiated that movement, and to the men—such +as the late Lord Grey—who led it. But I suppose he speaks +from experience when he says: "University Extension, as it is, +will never become established in working-class villages. Forty-five +to fifty pounds is too big a sum to be raised in three months, +and is also considered too much to be paid for a man coming to +lecture once a week for twelve weeks, and then disappear for ever +like a comet." My friend uses an astronomical +<a name="page_268"><span class="page">Page 268</span></a> +figure, I a geographical one; but we mean the same thing. The idea +is to establish Oases—"fertile spots in the midst of +deserts"—permanent centres of light and culture in manufacturing +districts. "The Universities teach and train ministers of religion, +and they go and live in their parishes among their flocks all the +year round. Why not send lecturers and teachers of secular subjects +in the same way? A system something similar to the Wesleyan or +Primitive Methodists' ministerial system would answer the purpose. +The country might be divided into circuits of four or five centres +each, and a University man stationed in each circuit, to organize +Students' Associations, give lectures, hold classes, and superintend +scientific experiments, as the case may be." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This is a good illustration. The Church professes to place in each +parish an official teacher of religion and morality, and most of +the Nonconformist communities do the same. To place an official +teacher of culture (in its widest sense) in every parish is perhaps +a task beyond our national powers as at present developed; but to +place one in every industrial district is not conceivable only, +but, I believe, practicable. The lecturer who comes from Oxford +or Cambridge, delivers his course, and departs, has no doubt his +uses. He is like the "Hot Gospeller" of an earlier age, or the +"Missioner" of to-day. He delivers an awakening message, and many +are the better for it; but if culture is to get hold of the average +lads and young men of an industrial district, its exponent +<a name="page_269"><span class="page">Page 269</span></a> +must be more like the resident minister, the endowed and established +priest. That he should live among the people whom he is to instruct, +know them personally, understand their ways of thinking and speaking, +is at least as important as that he should be a competent historian +or mathematician or man of letters. If the State, or voluntary +effort, or a combination of the two, could secure the permanent +presence of such a teacher in every district where men work hard, +and yet have leisure enough to cultivate their intellects, a yawning +gap in our educational system would be filled. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It would not be polite to mention actual names; but take by way +of example such a district as Dickens's "Coketown," or Disraeli's +"Wodgate," or George Eliot's "Milby," or any of those towns which +Cobbett expressively called "Hell-Holes." Let the State establish +in each of those places a qualified and accredited teacher for +adult students. The teacher may, if necessary, be paid in part +by voluntary subscription; but it is, in my view, all-important +that he should have the sanction and authority of the State to give +him a definite place among local administrators, and to the State +he should be responsible for the due discharge of his functions. +In Coketown or Wodgate or Milby his lecture-room would be a real +Oasis—"a fertile spot in the midst of a desert." Even if it +has not been our lot to dwell in those deserts, we all have had, +as travellers, some taste of their quality. We know the hideousness +of all that meets the eye; the necessary absorption in the struggle +<a name="page_270"><span class="page">Page 270</span></a> +for subsistence; the resulting tendency to regard money as the one +subject worth serious consideration; the inadequate means of +intellectual recreation; the almost irresistible atmosphere of +materialism in which life and thought are involved. The "Oasis" +would provide a remedy for all this. It would offer to all who cared +to seek them "the fairy-tale of science," the pregnant lessons of +history, the infinitely various joys of literature, the moral +principles of personal and social action which have been thought out +"by larger minds in calmer ages." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That there may be practical difficulties in the way of such a scheme +I do not dispute. The object of this chapter is not to elaborate a +plan, but to exhibit an idea. That the amount of definite knowledge +acquired in this way might be small, and what Archbishop Benson +oddly called "unexaminable," is, I think, quite likely. A man cannot +learn in the leisure-hours left over by exhausting work as he would +learn if he had nothing to think of except his studies and his +examination. But Education has a larger function than the mere +communication of knowledge. It opens the windows of the mind; it +shows vistas which before were unsuspected; and so, as Wordsworth +said, "is efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier." +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_271"><span class="page">Page 271</span></a> +IV +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +When an article in a newspaper produces a reply, the modest writer +is gratified; for he knows that he has had at any rate one reader. +If the reply comes to him privately, he is even better pleased, for +then he feels that his reader thinks the matter worthy of personal +discussion and of freely exchanged opinion. I have lately written an +article on "Life and Liberty" as proposed by some earnest clergymen +for the English Church, and an article on Mr. Fisher's Education +Bill, in which I avowed my dislike to all attempts on the part of +the State to teach religion. Both these articles have brought me +a good deal of correspondence, both friendly and hostile. The term +allotted to human life does not allow one to enter into private +controversy with every correspondent, so I take this method of +making a general reply. "Life and Liberty" are glorious ideals, +but, to make the combination, perfect, we must add Justice. Hence +my title. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The State consists of persons who profess all sorts of religion, +and none. If the State compels its citizens to pay for religious +teaching in which they do not believe, it commits, in my opinion, +a palpable injustice. This is not merely a question between one +sect and another sect. It is, indeed, unjust to make a Quaker pay +for teaching the doctrine of the Sacraments, or a Unitarian for +<a name="page_272"><span class="page">Page 272</span></a> +teaching the Deity of Christ; but it is equally unjust to make +an Atheist pay for teaching the existence of God, or a Churchman +for teaching that curious kind of implied Socinianism which is +called "undenominational religion." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The only way out of these inequities is what is commonly called +"Secularism." The word has some unfortunate associations. It has +been connected in the past with a blatant form of negation, and +also with a social doctrine which all decent people repudiate. But, +strictly considered, it means no more than "temporal" or "worldly"; +and when I say that I recommend the "Secular" system of education, +I mean that the State should confine itself to the temporal or +worldly work with which alone it is competent to deal, and should +leave religion (which it cannot touch without inflicting injustice +on someone) to those whose proper function is to instil it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Who are they? Speaking generally, parents, ministers of religion, +and teachers who are themselves convinced of what they teach; but +I must narrow my ground. To-day I am writing as a Churchman for +those Churchmen whom my previous articles disturbed; and I have +only space to set forth some of the grounds on which we Churchmen +should support the "secular solution." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A Churchman is bound by his baptismal vows to "believe all the +articles of the Christian Faith." These, according to his catechism, +are summed up in the Apostles' Creed. He cannot, therefore, be +satisfied with any religious instruction which is +<a name="page_273"><span class="page">Page 273</span></a> +not based on that formula; and yet such instruction cannot rightly +be enforced in schools which belong as much to unbelievers as to +Christians. A Churchman's religious faith is not derived primarily +from the Bible, but from the teaching of the Christian Church, +who is older than the oldest of her documents. There was a Church +before the New Testament was written, and that Church transmitted +the faith by oral tradition. "From the very first the rule has been, +as a matter of fact, that the Church should teach the truth, and +then should appeal to Scripture in vindication of its own teaching." +For a Churchman, religious instruction must be the teaching of the +Church, tested by the Bible. The two cannot be separated. Hence it +follows that, while the State is bound to respect the convictions +of those who adhere to all manner of beliefs and disbeliefs, the +Churchman cannot recognize religious teaching imparted under such +conditions as being that which his own conscience demands. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And, further, supposing that some contrivance could be discovered +whereby the State might authorize the teaching of the Church's +doctrine, the Churchman could not conscientiously be a party to +it; for, according to his theory, there is only one Body divinely +commissioned to decide what is to be taught—and that Body is +not the State, but the Church; and there is only one set of persons +qualified to teach it—viz., those who are duly authorized by +the Church, and are fully persuaded as to the truth of what they +teach. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_274"><span class="page">Page 274</span></a> +It is sometimes asked how the Church is to fulfil this obligation +without being subsidized in some way by the State. The principal +requisite is greater faith in its Divine mission. If the Bishops +and clergy had a stronger conviction that what they are divinely +commissioned to undertake they will be divinely assisted to fulfil, +this question need not be suggested. The first teachers of the +Christian religion performed their task without either "Rate-aid" +or "State-aid" and the result of their labour is still to be seen; +whereas now the object of leaders of religion seems to be to get +done for them what they ought to do for themselves. It may be well +to quote an utterance of the Bishop of Oxford at the time when the +Liberal Government was dealing with education. "We are now, more +or less, in the middle of a crisis. We are always in the middle +of a crisis. This crisis is about the religious question in our +day-schools. I would ask you, then, to get at the root of our +difficulty. What is it? The heart of our difficulty is partly that +we have <i>shifted on to the wrong shoulders</i> the central function +of teaching children; secondly, that we have so lost the idea of +what the teaching of the Church is, and <i>the meaning of religious +education</i>, that we are considered by the public to be unreasonable +and uncompromising people if we are not disposed to admit that the +County Councils can settle the standard of sufficient religious +knowledge for everybody." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The difficulty as to means might be overcome if the Church would +mind its own business, and +<a name="page_275"><span class="page">Page 275</span></a> +leave to the State what the State can do so much more effectively. Let +me quote the words of a great Christian and a great Churchman—Mr. +Gladstone—written in 1894: "Foul fall the day when the persons of +this world shall, on whatever pretext, take into their uncommissioned +hands the manipulation of the religion of our Lord and Saviour." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Surely Churchmen will best serve the religion which they profess by +joining with other "men of goodwill," though of different faiths, +who desire the secular solution. In that way only, as far as I can +see, can the interests of Education be reconciled with the higher +interests of Justice. +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE STATE AND THE BOY</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +When Mr. A. J. Balfour was a very young man he published <i>A Defence +of Philosophic Doubt</i>. Nobody read it, but a great many talked +about it; and serious people went about with long faces, murmuring, +"How sad that Lord Salisbury's nephew should be an Agnostic!" When +Mr. Balfour had become a conspicuous figure in politics, the serious +people began to read the book which, so far, they had only denounced, +and then they found, to their surprise and joy, that it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. Thenceforward Mr. Balfour ranked +in their eyes as a "Defender of the Faith" second only to Henry +VIII. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_276"><span class="page">Page 276</span></a> +To compare small things with great, I have had a similar experience. +Not long ago I wrote a paper designed to set forth the pretty obvious +truth that increase in knowledge is not in itself a good. It evoked +much criticism, and the critics once again exemplified our truly +English habit of denouncing what we have not read. If these quaint +people were to be believed, I was an enemy of education in general +and of elementary education in particular. I hope that they will be +as much relieved as were Mr. Balfour's critics when they discover that +I am, and all my life have been, a zealous supporter of education, +and, to some extent, an expert in it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +If the world could be exhaustively divided into two classes-the +Educated and the Uneducated—I suppose that I should be included +in the former, though I anticipate an inevitable sarcasm by allowing +that I should find myself perilously near the dividing-line. It +is more to the purpose to say that, whatever my own educational +deficiencies, I have always been keenly interested in the education +of other people, and have preached incessantly that the State has a +sacred duty to its boys. If I leave the education of girls on one +side, I do so, not because I consider it unimportant, but because +I know nothing about it. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Information, as the great Butler said, is the least part of education. +The greatest is the development of the child's natural power to +its utmost extent and capacity; and the duty of so developing it +must be admitted by everyone who ponders our +<a name="page_277"><span class="page">Page 277</span></a> +Lord's teaching about the Buried Talent and the Pound laid up in +the Napkin. Unless we enable and encourage every boy in England to +bring whatever mental gifts he has to the highest point of their +possible perfection, we are shamefully and culpably squandering the +treasure which God has given us to be traded with and accounted +for. We shall have no one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis +on our neglect, we lose our present standing among the educated +peoples of the world. I always get back to the ideal of the "Golden +Ladder," reaching from the Elementary Schools, by Scholarships or +"free places," to the Secondary Schools, and from them again to +the Universities. This ideal is, unlike some ideals, attainable, +and has in repeated instances been attained. Again and again the +highest mathematical honours of Cambridge have been won by Elementary +Schoolboys, and what is true of mathematics might also be true +of every branch of knowledge. I say advisedly that it "might" be +true: whether or not it will be depends on our handling of quite +young boys. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The pedagogic notion under which people of my time were reared was +that every boy must learn exactly the same things as every other +boy, and must go on learning them till his last day at school, +whether that day arrived when he was fourteen or eighteen. "We must +catch up every man, whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke, +begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he is +twenty; making him conjugate and +<a name="page_278"><span class="page">Page 278</span></a> +decline for life and death; and so teaching him to estimate his +progress in real wisdom as he can scan the verses of the Greek +tragedians." So said Sydney Smith, and with perfect truth. "The +grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum" was enforced on the +boy whose whole heart was in the engineer's shed, while his friend, +to whom literature was a passion, was constrained to simulate an +interest in the blue lights and bad smells of a chemical lecture. +"Let it be granted" (as the odious Euclid, now happily dethroned, +used to say) that there is a certain amount that all alike must learn +but this amount will prove, when scrutinized, to be very small. I +suppose we must all learn to read and write, and it is useful to be +able to do a sum in simple addition; though very eminent people have +often written very illegible hands, and Dean Stanley—one of +the most accomplished men of his day—could never be persuaded +that eighteen pence was not the equivalent of 1s. 8d. Zealots for +various "knowledges" (to use the curious plural sanctioned by Matthew +Arnold) will urge the indispensability of their respective hobbies. +One will say let everybody learn that the earth is round; another, +that James I. was not the son of Queen Elizabeth. But let us leave, +these pribbles and prabbles. Let every boy be coerced into learning +what is absolutely necessary for the daily work of life; but let him, +at a very early age, have his powers concentrated on the subject +which really interests him. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +One of the highest gifts which a teacher can +<a name="page_279"><span class="page">Page 279</span></a> +possess is the power of "discerning the spirits"—of discovering +what a boy's mind really is; what it is made of; what can be made of +it. This power is a natural gift, and can by no means be acquired. +Many teachers entirely lack it; but those who possess it are among +the most valuable servants of the State. This power may be brought +to bear on every boy when he is, say, from fourteen to sixteen years +old—perhaps in some cases even earlier; and, when once the +teacher has made the all-important discovery, then let everything +be done to stimulate, and at the same time to discipline, the boy's +natural inclination, his inborn aptitude. Fifty years ago, every +boy at every Public School, though he might be as unpoetical as +Blackstone who wrote the Commentaries, or Bradshaw who compiled +the Railway Guide, was forced to produce a weekly tale of Latin +and Greek verses which would have made Horace laugh and Sophocles +cry. The Rev. Esau Hittall's "Longs and Shorts about the Calydonian +Boar," commemorated in <i>Friendship's Garland</i>, may stand for a +sample of the absurdities which I have in mind; and the supporters +of this amazing abuse assured the world that Greek and Latin +versification was an essential element of a liberal education. It +took a good many generations to deliver England from this absurdity, +and there are others like unto it which still hold their own in the +scholastic world. To sweep these away should be the first object +of the educational reformer; and, when that preliminary step has +been taken, the State will be able to say +<a name="page_280"><span class="page">Page 280</span></a> +to every boy who is not mentally deficient: "This, or this, is +the path which Nature intended you to tread. Follow it with all +your heart. We will back you, and help you, and applaud you, and +will not forsake you till the goal is won." +</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>A PLEA FOR THE INNOCENTS</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +My "spiritual home" is not Berlin, nor even Rome, but Jerusalem. +In heart and mind I am there to-day, and have been there ever since +the eternally memorable day on which our army entered it. What I am +writing will see the light on the Feast of the Holy Innocents;[*] +and my thoughts have been running on a prophetic verse which unites +the place and the festival in a picturesque accord: +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in +the midst of Jerusalem:... and the streets of the city shall be +full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The most brilliant Israelite of our times, Lord Beaconsfield, said +of a brilliant Englishman, Dean Stanley, that his leading feature +was his "picturesque sensibility," and that sensibility was never +more happily expressed than when he instituted the service for +children in Westminster Abbey on Innocents' Day—"Childermas +Day," as our forefathers called it, in the age when holidays were +also holy days, and the Mass was the centre of social as well as +of spiritual life. On this touching +<a name="page_281"><span class="page">Page 281</span></a> +feast a vast congregation of boys and girls assembles in that Abbey +Church which has been rightly called "the most lovable thing in +Christendom"; and, as it moves in "solemn troops and sweet societies" +through aisles grey with the memories of a thousand years, it seems +a living prophecy of a brighter age already at the door. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: December 28, 1917.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It seems—rather, it seemed. Who can pierce the "hues of earthquake +and eclipse" which darken the aspect of the present world? Who +can foresee, or even reasonably conjecture, the fate which is in +store for the children who to-day are singing their carols in the +church of the Confessor? Will it be their lot to be "playing in +the streets" of a spiritual Jerusalem—the Holy City of a +regenerated humanity? or are they destined to grow up in a reign +of blood and iron which spurns the "Vision of Peace" as the most +contemptible of dreams? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In some form or another these questions must force themselves on +the mind of anyone who contemplates the boys and girls of to-day, +and tries to forecast what may befall them in the next four or +five years. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is a gruesome thought that the children of to-day are growing up +in an atmosphere of war. Bloodshed, slaughter, peril and privation, +bereavement and sorrow and anxiety—all the evils from which +happy childhood is most sedulously guarded have become the natural +elements in which they live and move and have their being. For +the moment the cloud rests lightly on them, for not +<a name="page_282"><span class="page">Page 282</span></a> +"all that is at enmity with joy" can depress the Divine merriment +of healthy childhood; but the cloud will become darker and heavier +with each succeeding year of war; and every boy and girl is growing +up into a fuller realization of miseries which four years ago would +have been unimaginable. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But at Christmastide, if ever, we are bound to take the brightest +view which circumstances allow. Let us then assume the best. Let us +assume that before next Innocents' Day the war will have ended in +a glorious peace. God grant it; but, even in that beatific event, +what will become of the children? They cannot be exactly what they +would have been if their lot had been cast in normal times. Unknown +to themselves, their "subconscious intelligence" must have taken a +colour and a tone from the circumstances in which they have been +reared. As to the colour, our task will be to wipe out the tinge +of blood; as to the tone, to restore the note which is associated +with the Angels' Song. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This is my "Plea for the Innocents." What will the State offer +them as they emerge from childhood into boyhood, and from boyhood +into adolescence? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Perhaps it will offer Conscription; and, with no "perhaps" at all, +some strident voices will pronounce that offer the finest boon +ever conferred upon the youth of a nation. Then, if there is any +manliness or fibre left in the adherents of freedom, they will +answer that we adopted Conscription for +<a name="page_283"><span class="page">Page 283</span></a> +a definite object, and, when once that object is attained, we renounce +it for ever. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What will the State offer? Obviously it must offer education—but +what sort of education? The curse of militarism may make itself +felt even in the school-room. It would be deplorable indeed if, +as a result of our present experience, children were to be taught +what J. R. Green called a "drum-and-trumpet history," and were made +to believe that the triumphs of war are the highest achievements +of the human spirit. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +As long as there is an Established Church, the State, in some sense, +offers religion. Is the religion of the next few years to be what +Ruskin commends: a "religion of pure mercy, which we must learn to +defend by fulfilling"; or is it to be the sort of religion which +Professor Cramb taught, and which Prussian Lutheranism has substituted +for the Gospel? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And, finally, what of home? After all said and done, it is the +home that, in the vast majority of cases, influences the soul and +shapes the life. What will the homes of England be like when the war +is over? Will they be homes in which the moral law reigns supreme; +where social virtue is recognized as the sole foundation of national +prosperity; where the "strange valour of goodwill towards men", +is revered as the highest type of manly resolution? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is easy enough to ask these questions: it is impossible to answer +them. The Poet is the Prophet, and this is the Poet's vision: +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<a name="page_284"><span class="page">Page 284</span></a> + "The days are dark with storm;—<br/> +The coming revolutions have to face<br/> +Of peace and music, but of blood and fire;<br/> +The strife of Races scarce consolidate,<br/> +Succeeded by the far more bitter strife<br/> +Of Classes—that which nineteen hundred years,<br/> +Since Christ spake, have not yet availed to close,<br/> +But rather brought to issue only now,<br/> +When first the Peoples international<br/> +Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs."[*] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<i>Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs</i>—a +solemn line, which at this season we may profitably ponder. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: "The Disciples," by H. E. Hamilton King.] +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_285"><span class="page">Page 285</span></a> +VI +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">MISCELLANEA</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_287"><span class="page">Page 287</span></a> +I +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE "HUMOROUS STAGE"</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +I am not adventuring on the dangerous paths of dramatic criticism. +When I write of the "humorous stage," I am using the phrase as +Wordsworth used it, to signify a scene where new characters are +suddenly assumed, and the old as suddenly discarded. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Long ago, Matthew Arnold, poking fun at the clamours of Secularism, +asked in mockery, "Why is not Mr. Bradlaugh a Dean?" To-day I read, +in a perfectly serious manifesto forwarded to me by a friendly +correspondant, this searching question: "Why is not the Archbishop +of Canterbury Censor of Plays?" It really is a great conception; +and, if adopted in practice, might facilitate the solution of some +perplexing problems. If any lover of the ancient ways should demur +on the ground of incongruity, I reply that this objection might +hold good in normal times, but that just now the "humorous stage" +of public life so abounds in incongruities that one more or less +would make no perceptible difference. Everyone is playing a part for +which, three years ago, we should have thought him or her totally +unqualified. Old habits, old prepossessions—even in some +cases old principles—are +<a name="page_288"><span class="page">Page 288</span></a> +cast aside with a levity which even Wordsworth's young actor could +not have surpassed. We all are saying and doing things of which +we should have thought ourselves incapable; and even our surprise +at ourselves, great as it is, is less than our surprise at our +friends. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To begin at the top. I have long held the present Prime Minister +in high admiration. I can never forget—nor allow others to +forget—that he fought for the cause of Justice and Freedom +in South Africa almost single-handed, and at the risk of his life. +An orator, a patriot, a lover of justice, a hater of privilege, +I knew him to be. I did not see in him the makings of a Dictator +directing the destinies of an Empire at war, and in his spare moments +appointing Successors to the Apostles within the precincts of an +Established Church. Certainly of Mr. Lloyd George, if of no one +else, it is true that +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +The little actor cons another part," +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +and I heartily wish him success in it. But it is true of everyone, +and true in every corner of the stage. Let me strike into the medley +at random. The anti-feminists, where are they? They have changed +their garb and their "lines" so thoroughly that it is difficult +for even a practised eye to recognize them in their new parts. +Lord Curzon is a member of a Cabinet which established the women's +vote, and such stalwarts as Mr. Asquith and Lord Harcourt welcome +with effusion the enfranchisement of the victorious suffragette. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_289"><span class="page">Page 289</span></a> +And what of the Pacificists? Where are they? Some, I know, are +in prison, but, if it had not been for the rapid change of parts +which the war has brought, they would have had a good many more +fellow-captives than they have. The writer of this article was, +from his first entrance into public affairs, a Pacificist to the +backbone. He believed that war was the greatest of preventible +evils, and that no war which had occurred in his lifetime had been +justified by the laws of right and wrong. To-day that Pacificist is +heart and soul with his countrymen in their struggle; and, having +lived to see England engaged in a righteous war, he has changed +his motto from "Rub lightly" to "Mak sicker." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Not less remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers +(among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself). +Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detect +the slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodies +to invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly what +we like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into the +willing subjects of a despotism. We tumble over each other in our +haste to throwaway the liberties which we used to consider vital +to our being; and some of us have been not merely the victims, but +the active agents, of an administrative system which we believe +to be necessary for the safety of the State. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But is there not a remnant? Have all the lovers of Liberty changed +their garb and conned new +<a name="page_290"><span class="page">Page 290</span></a> +parts? Not all. A remnant there is, and it is to be found in the +House of Lords. This is perhaps the most astonishing feature of the +"humorous stage"; and if, among superlatives, a super-superlative +is possible, I reserve that epithet for the fact that the most +vigorous champion of personal freedom in the House of Lords has +been an ecclesiastical lawyer. From Lord Stowell to Lord Parmoor +is indeed a far cry. Who could have dreamt that, even amid the +upheaval of a world, a spokesman of liberty and conscience would +emerge from the iron-bound precincts of the Consistory Court and +the Vicar-General's Office? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Bishops again—not even these most securely placed of all +British officials can escape the tendency to change which pervades +the whole stage of public life. The Bishop of Winchester, whom all +good Progressives used to denounce as a dark conspirator against +the rights of conscience; the Bishop of Oxford, whom we were taught +to regard as a Hildebrand and a Torquemada rolled into one—these +admirable prelates emerge from the safe seclusion of Castle and +Palace to rebuke the persecution of the Conscientious Objector, +even when his objection is "nearly intolerable." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +That the Press should have had its share in this general readjustment +of parts was only natural; but even in what is natural there may be +points of special interest. There is a weekly journal of high repute +which has earned a secure place in the regard of serious-minded +people by its lifelong sobriety, moderation, and respect for the prunes +<a name="page_291"><span class="page">Page 291</span></a> +and prisms. When this staid old print, this steady-going supporter +of all established institutions, bursts out in a furious attack +on the man who has to bear the chief responsibility of the war, +I can only rub my eyes in amazement. If a sheep had suddenly gone +mad, and begun to bark and bite, the transformation could not have +been more astonishing. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But I reserve my most striking illustration of the "humorous stage" +for the last. Fifteen years ago it was the fashion to point at Lord +Hugh Cecil as a belated upholder of exploded superstitions; as +an "ecclesiastical layman" (the phrase was meant to be sarcastic) +who lived in a realm of speculative theology, out of touch with +all practical life; as a zealot, a bigot, a would-be persecutor; +an interesting survival of the Middle Age; a monk who had strayed +into politics. To-day we salute him as the one Member of Parliament +who has had the courage to affirm the supremacy of the moral law, +and to assert the imperious claim which Christianity makes on the +whole of man's being. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE JEWISH REGIMENT</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was an old and a true allegation against John Bull that he had +no tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not mean +to be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, which +he could not understand. In Ireland he +<a name="page_292"><span class="page">Page 292</span></a> +called the Roman Catholic faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; +or, in a lighter mood, made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In +Scotland, thriftiness and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; +in Wales, he found the language, the literature, and the local +nomenclature equally comic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the +Eisteddfod. Abroad, "Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing +formula. Nasality, Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized his notion +of American civilization; and he cheerfully echoed the sentiments +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Of all who under Eastern skies<br/> +Call Aryan man a blasted nigger." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Now, of late years, John has altered his course. Some faint conception +of his previous foolishness has dawned on his mind; and, as he is +a thoroughly good fellow at heart, he has tried to make amends. +The present war has taught him a good deal that he did not know +before, and he renders a homage, all the more enthusiastic because +belated, to the principle of Nationality. His latest exploit in this +direction has been to suggest the creation of a Jewish Regiment. +The intention was excellent and the idea picturesque; but for the +practical business of life we need something more than good intentions +and picturesque ideas. "Wisdom," said Ecclesiastes, "is profitable +to direct;" and Wisdom would have suggested that it was advisable +to consult Jewish opinion before the formation of a Jewish Regiment +was proclaimed to the world. There is probably no race of people +<a name="page_293"><span class="page">Page 293</span></a> +about which John Bull has been so much mistaken as he has been about +the Jews. Lord Beaconsfield's description of Mr. Buggins, with his +comments on the Feast of Tabernacles in Houndsditch, is scarcely yet +anachronistic.[*] But slowly our manners and our intelligence have +improved in this as in other directions; and Lord Derby (who represents +John Bull in his more refined development) thought that he would +be paying his Jewish fellow-citizens a pretty compliment if he +invited them to form a Jewish Regiment. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: See <i>Tancred</i>, Book V., chapter vi.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Historically, Lord Derby and those who applauded his scheme had a +great deal to say for themselves. The remote history of Judaism is +a history of war. The Old Testament is full of "the battle of the +warrior" and of "garments rolled in blood." Gideon, and Barak, and +Samson, and Jephthah, and David are names that sound like trumpets; +and the great Maccabean Princes of a later age played an equal part +with Romans and Lacedæmonians. All this is historically true; +but it never occurred to Lord Derby and his friends that the idea +which underlay their scheme is the opposite of that which animates +modern Judaism. Broadly speaking, the idea of modern Judaism is not +Nationality, but Religion. Mr. Lucien Wolf has lately reminded us +that, according to authoritative utterances, "The Jews are neither +a nation within a nation, nor cosmopolitan," but an integral part +of the nations among whom they live, claiming the same rights and +acknowledging the same duties +<a name="page_294"><span class="page">Page 294</span></a> +as are claimed and acknowledged by their fellow-citizens. It is +worth noticing that Macaulay accepted this position as disposing of +the last obstacle to the civil and political enfranchisement of the +English Jews, and ridiculed the notion that they would regard England, +"not as their country, but merely as their place of exile." Mr. Wolf +thus formulates his faith: "In the purely religious communities +of Western Jewry we have the spiritual heirs of the law-givers, +prophets, and teachers who, from the dawn of history, have conceived +Israel, not primarily as a political organism, but as a nation of +priests, the chosen servants of the Eternal." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Mr. Claude Montefiore, who is second to none as an interpreter +of modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain. +The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinary +functions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen of the +country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said the other +day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racial grounds: "<i>I +would shoot a Jewish Prussian as readily as a Christian Prussian, if +I found him fighting under the German flag</i>." Thus, to enrol a +regiment of Jews is about as wise as to enrol a regiment of Roman +Catholics or of Wesleyan Methodists. Jews, Romans, and Wesleyans +alike hold with laudable tenacity the religious faiths which they +respectively profess; but they are well content to fight side by +side with Anglicans, or Presbyterians, or Plymouth Brethren. They +need no special +<a name="page_295"><span class="page">Page 295</span></a> +standard, no differentiating motto. They are soldiers of the country +to which they belong. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Here let me quote the exhilarating verses of a Jewish lady,[*] written +at the time of the Boer War (March, 1900): +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Long ago and far away, O Mother England,<br/> +We were warriors brave and bold,<br/> +But a hundred nations rose in arms against us,<br/> +And the shades of exile closed o'er those heroic<br/> + Days of old. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother England.<br/> +Thou hast let us live again<br/> +Free and fearless 'midst thy free and fearless children,<br/> +Sparing with them, as one people, grief and gladness,<br/> + Joy and pain. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Now we Jews, we English Jews, O Mother England,<br/> +Ask another boon of thee!<br/> +Let us share with them the danger and the glory;<br/> +Where thy best and bravest lead, there let us follow<br/> + O'er the sea! +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"For the Jew has heart and hand, our Mother England,<br/> +And they both are thine to-day—<br/> +Thine for life, and thine for death, yea, thine for ever!<br/> +Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly?<br/> + England, say!" +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Mrs. Henry Lucas (reprinted in her <i>Talmudic Legends, +Hymns and Paraphrases</i>. Chatto and Windus, 1908).] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I am well aware that in what I have written, though I have been +careful to reinforce myself with Jewish authority, I may be running +counter to that interesting movement which is called "Zionism." +It is not for a Gentile to take part in the dissensions of the +Jewish community; but +<a name="page_296"><span class="page">Page 296</span></a> +I may be permitted to express my sympathy with a noble idea, and to +do so in words written by a brilliant Israelite, Lord Beaconsfield: +"I do not bow to the necessity of a visible head in a defined locality; +but, were I to seek for such, it would not be at Rome. When Omnipotence +deigned to be incarnate, the ineffable Word did not select a Roman +frame. The prophets were not Romans; the Apostles were not Romans; +she, who was blessed above all women—I never heard that she +was a Roman maiden. No; I should look to a land more distant than +Italy, to a city more sacred even than Rome."[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: <i>Sybil</i>, Book II., chapter xii.] +</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>INDURATION</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Though my heading is as old as Chaucer, it has, I must admit, a +Johnsonian sound. Its sense is conveyed in the title of an excellent +book on suffering called <i>Lest We Grow Hard</i>, and this is a +very real peril against which it behoves everyone +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Who makes his moral being his prime care" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +to be sedulously on his guard. During the last four years we have +been, in a very special way and degree, exposed to it; and we ought +to be thankful that, as a nation, we seem to have escaped. The +constant contemplation, even with the mental eye, of bloodshed and +torture, has a strong tendency to harden the heart; and a peculiar +<a name="page_297"><span class="page">Page 297</span></a> +grace was needed to keep alive in us that sympathy with suffering, +that passion of mercy, which is the characteristic virtue of +regenerate humanity. I speak not only of human suffering. Animals, +it has been said, may have no rights, but they have many wrongs, and +among those wrongs are the tortures which war inflicts. The suffering +of all sentient nature appeals alike to humanitarian sympathy. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It has always seemed to me a signal instance of Wordsworth's penetrating +thought "on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life," that he assigned +to this virtue a dominant place in the Character of the Happy +Warrior— +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,<br/> +And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!<br/> +Turns his necessity to glorious gain"; +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +and who, "as more exposed" than others "to suffering and distress," is +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"Hence, also, more alive to tenderness." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This tribute to the moral nature of the Warrior, whether his warfare +be on land or on sea or in the air, is as true to-day as when Wordsworth +paid it. The brutal and senseless cry for "reprisals" which of late +has risen from some tainted spots of the Body Politic will wake +no response unless it be an exclamation of disgust from soldiers +and sailors and airmen. Of course, everyone knows that there is a +sense in which reprisals are a necessary part of warfare. Generation +after generation our forefathers fought bow to bow and sword to +<a name="page_298"><span class="page">Page 298</span></a> +sword and gun to gun against equally armed and well-matched foes; +this was reprisal, or, if you prefer, retaliation. And when, in more +recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous +gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on +our German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had first +employed. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand. +They contend that because the Germans kill innocent civilians, +and women, and little children in English streets, Englishmen are +to commit the same foul deeds in Germany. "It is hard," says the +<i>Church Times</i>, "to say whether futility or immorality is the +more striking characteristic of the present clamour for reprisals +in the matter of air-raids.... Mr. Joynson Hicks would 'lay a German +town in ashes after every raid on London,' and he is not much worse +than others who scream in the same key." Nay, he is better than +many of them. The people who use this language are not the men +of action. They belong to a sedentary and neurotic class, who, +lacking alike courage and mercy, gloat over the notion of torture +inflicted on the innocent and the helpless. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A German baby is as innocent as an English baby, a German mother +is as helpless as an English mother; and our stay-at-home heroes, +safely ensconced in pulpits or editorial chairs, shrilly proclaim +that they must be bombed by English airmen. What a function to +impose on a band of fighters, peculiarly chivalrous and humane! +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_299"><span class="page">Page 299</span></a> +I refer to the pulpit because one gross and disgusting instance +of clerical ferocity has lately been reported. A raving clergyman +has been insolently parodying the Gospel which he has sworn to +preach. Some of the newspapers commended his courage; and we do +not know whether his congregation quitted the church or his Bishop +rebuked him. Both results are possible, and I sincerely hope that +the latter is true. The established and endowed teachers of religion +have not always used their influence on the side of mercy; but on +the question of reprisals I have observed with thankfulness that +the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have spoken +on the right side, and have spoken with energy and decision. They, +at any rate, have escaped the peril of induration, and in that +respect they are at one with the great mass of decent citizens. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I am no advocate of a mawkish lenity. When our soldiers and sailors +and airmen meet our armed foes on equal terms, my prayers go with +them; and the harder they strike, the better I am pleased. When a +man or woman has committed a cold-blooded murder and has escaped +the just penalty of the crime, I loathe the political intrigue +which sets him or her free. Heavy punishment for savage deeds, +remorseless fighting till victory is ours—these surely should +be guiding principles in peace and war; and to hold them is no +proof that one has suffered the process of induration. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Here I am not ashamed to make common cause with the stout old Puritan +in <i>Peveril of the Peak:</i> +<a name="page_300"><span class="page">Page 300</span></a> +"To forgive our human wrongs is Christian-like and commendable; +but we have no commission to forgive those which have been done +to the cause of religion and of liberty; we have no right to grant +immunity or to shake hands with those who have poured forth the +blood of our brethren." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But let us keep our vengeance for those who by their own actions +have justly incurred it. The very intensity of our desire to punish +the wrong-doer should be the measure of our unwillingness to inflict +torture on the helpless and the innocent. "Lest we grow hard"—it +should be our daily dread. "A black character, a womanish character, +a stubborn character: bestial, childish, stupid, scurrilous, +tyrannical." A pagan, who had observed such a character in its +working, prayed to be preserved from it. Christians of the twentieth +century must not sink below the moral level of Marcus Aurelius. +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>FLACCIDITY</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +My discourse on "Induration" was intended to convey a warning which, +as individuals, we all need. But Governments are beset by an even +greater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and the +simple—"flabbiness." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scriptural +allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announced +that he would "set his face" against a certain policy and +<a name="page_301"><span class="page">Page 301</span></a> +then gave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face,' but he did not 'set +it as a flint'—rather <i>as a pudding</i>." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To set one's face as a pudding is the characteristic action of all +weak Governments. Lord Randolph Churchill once attracted notice +by enouncing the homely truth that "the business of an Opposition +is to oppose." A truth even more primary is that the duty of a +Government is to govern; to set its face, not as a pudding, but as +a flint, against lawlessness and outrage; to protect the innocent +and to punish the wrong-doer. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This is a duty from which all weak Governments shrink. If a Minister +is not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a united +party, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious about +his own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the next +move of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neither +protects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal and +the rebel. In this particular, there is no distinction of party. +Tories can show no better record than Whigs, nor Liberals than +Conservatives. It is a question of the governing temper, which is +as absolutely requisite to the character of the ruler as courage +to the soldier or incorruptibility to the Judge. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It used to be held, and perhaps still is held, by what may be styled +the toad-eating school of publicists, that this governing temper +was an hereditary gift transmitted by a long line of ancestors, +who in their successive generations had +<a name="page_302"><span class="page">Page 302</span></a> +possessed it, and had used it on a large scale in the governance +of England. "How natural," they exclaimed, "that Lord Nozoo, whose +ancestors have ruled half Loamshire since the Conquest, should +have more notion of governing men than that wretched Bagman, whose +grandfather swept out the shop, and who has never had to rule anyone +except a clerk and a parlourmaid!" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This sounded plausible enough, especially in the days when heredity +was everything, and when ancestral habit was held to explain, and if +necessary extenuate, all personal characteristics; but experience +and observation proved it false. Pitt was, I suppose, the greatest +Minister who ever ruled England; but his pedigree would have moved a +genealogist to scorn. Peel was a Minister who governed so effectually +that, according to Gladstone, who served under him, his direct +authority was felt in every department, high or low, of the +Administration over which he presided; and Peel was a very recent +product of cotton. Abraham Lincoln was, perhaps, the greatest ruler +of the modern world, and the quality of his ancestry is a topic fit +only to be handled in a lecture on the Self-Made Men of History. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When we regard our own time, I should say that Joseph Chamberlain had, +of all English statesmen I have ever known, both the most satisfactory +ideal of government and the greatest faculty for exercising it. But +the Cordwainers' Company was the school in which his forefathers +had learnt the art of rule. Ancestral achievements, +<a name="page_303"><span class="page">Page 303</span></a> +hereditary possessions, have nothing to do with the matter. What +makes a man a ruler of men, and enables him to set his face as a +flint against wrong-doing; is a faculty born in himself—"the +soul that riseth with him, his life's star." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And it has no more to do with politics than with pedigree. Sydney +Smith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knew +that sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, and +after the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flaccidity +with great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured about +Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, +and thirty imprisoned. You will save lives by it in the end." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was a Tory Government which in the London Riots of 1866 made, as +Matthew Arnold said, "an exhibition of mismanagement, imprudence, +and weakness almost incredible." Next year the Fenians blew up +Clerkenwell Prison, and the same acute critic observed: "A Government +which dares not deal with a mob, of any nation or with any design, +simply opens the floodgates to anarchy. Who can wonder at the Irish, +who have cause to hate us, and who do not own their allegiance +to us, making war on a State and society which has shown itself +irresolute and feeble?" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But the head of that feeble State, the leader of that irresolute +society, was the fourteenth Earl of Derby, whose ancestors had +practised the arts of government for eight hundred years. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_304"><span class="page">Page 304</span></a> +In Ireland the case is the same. Both parties have succeeded in +governing it, and both have failed. Mr. Balfour has been justly +praised for his vigour in protecting property and restoring order; +but it was Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan who, four years +before, had caught and hanged the assassins of the Phœnix +Park, and had abolished agrarian murder. It was, alas! a Liberal +Government that tolerated the Ulster treason, and so prepared the way +for the Dublin rebellion. Highly placed and highly paid flaccidity +then reigned supreme, and produced its inevitable result. But last +December we were assured that flaccidity had made way for firmness, +and that the pudding had been replaced by the flint. But the +transactions of the last few weeks—one transaction in +particular[*]—seem worthy of our flabbiest days. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: A release for political objects.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +I turn my eyes homewards again, from Dublin to the House of Commons. +The report of the Mesopotamia Commission has announced to the world +a series of actions which every Briton feels as a national disgrace. +Are the perpetrators of those actions to go unpunished? Are they +to retain their honours and emoluments, the confidence of their +Sovereign, and the approbation of his Ministers? If so, flaccidity +will stand revealed as what in truth it has always been—the one +quality which neutralizes all other gifts, and makes its possessor +incapable of governing. +</p> + +<h3> +<a name="page_305"><span class="page">Page 305</span></a> +V +</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>THE PROMISE OF MAY</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +This is the real season for a holiday, if holidays were still possible. +It is a point of literary honour not to quote the line which shows +that our forefathers, in the days of Chaucer, felt the holiday-making +instinct of the spring, and that instinct has not been affected by +the lapse of the centuries. It stirs us even in London, when the +impetuous lilacs are bursting into bud, and the sooty sparrows +chirrup love-songs, and "a livelier iris changes on the burnished +dove"—or, to be more accurate, pigeon—which swells and +straddles as if Piccadilly were all his own. The very wallflowers +and daffodils which crown the costers' barrows help to weave the +spell; and, though pleasure-jaunts are out of the question, we +welcome a call of duty which takes us, even for twenty-four hours, +into "the country places, which God made and not man." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +For my own part, I am no victim of the "pathetic fallacy" by which +people in all ages have persuaded themselves that Nature sympathized +with their joys and sorrows. Even if that dream had not been dispelled, +in prose by Walter Scott, and in verse by Matthew Arnold, one's +own experience, would have proved it false. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"Alas! what are we, that the laws of Nature should correspond in +their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings?" <i>The Heart +of Midlothian</i>. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +<a name="page_306"><span class="page">Page 306</span></a> +"Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends;<br/> +Nature and man can never be fast friends."[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: <i>In Harmony with Nature</i>.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +A funeral under the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June loses +nothing of its sadness—perhaps is made more sad—by +the unsympathetic aspect of the visible world. December does not +suspend its habitual gloom because all men of goodwill are trying +to rejoice in the Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall +disasters and disappointments which have overcast the spring, and +tidings of achievement or deliverance which have been happily out +of keeping with the melancholy beauty of autumn. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In short, Nature cares nothing for the acts and sufferings of human +kind; yet, with a strange sort of affectionate obstinacy, men insist +on trying to sympathize with Nature, who declines to sympathize +with them; and now, when she spreads before our enchanted eyes all +the sweetness and promise of the land in spring, we try to bring +our thoughts into harmony with the things we see, and to forget, +though it be only for a moment, alike regrets and forebodings. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And surely the effort is salutary. With Tom Hughes, jovial yet +thoughtful patriot, for our guide, we make our way to the summit +of some well-remembered hill, which has perhaps already won a name +in history, and find it "a place to open a man's soul and make +him prophesy, as he looks down on the great vale spread out, as +the Garden of the Lord, before him": wide tracts of woodland, and +fat meadows and winding streams, +<a name="page_307"><span class="page">Page 307</span></a> +and snug homesteads embowered in trees, and miles on miles of what +will soon be cornfields. Far away in the distance, a thin cloud +of smoke floats over some laborious town, and whichever way we +look, church after church is dotted over the whole surface of the +country, like knots in network. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Such, or something like it, is the traditional aspect of our fair +English land; but to-day she wears her beauty with a difference. +The saw is at work in the woodlands; and individual trees, which +were not only the landmarks, but also the friends and companions +of one's childhood, have disappeared for ever. The rich meadows by +the tranquil streams, and the grazing cattle, which used to remind +us only of Cuyp's peaceful landscapes, now suggest the sterner thought +of rations and queues. The corn-fields, not yet "white to harvest," +acquire new dignity from the thought of all that is involved in +"the staff of life." The smoke-cloud over the manufacturing town +is no longer a mere blur on the horizon, but tells of a prodigality +of human effort, directed to the destruction of human life, such +as the world has never known. Even from the towers of the village +churches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-song +of an older patriotism—"In the name of our God we will set +up our banners."[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what this +year is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truth +and fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours of +this sin-worn mould." It is the promise of strong +<a name="page_308"><span class="page">Page 308</span></a> +endurance, which will bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, +and never fail or murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise +of a brighter day, when the skill of invention and of handicraft +may be once more directed, not to the devices which destroy life, +but to the sciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify +it. Above all, it is the promise of a return, through blood and +fire, to the faith which made England great, and the law which +yet may wrap the world in peace. +</p> + +<p class="smaller"> +"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth +the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God +will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all +the nations" (Isa. lxi. II). +</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almost +to frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult with +philosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below the +surface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle. +"In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man," he wrote, +"we find employed that investiture of the acts themselves with +an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual. +The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same: +it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expression +of the inward." The word "ritual" is by common +<a name="page_309"><span class="page">Page 309</span></a> +usage restricted to the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it +has a far wider significance. It gives us the august rite of the +Convocation, the ceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, +the formal usages of battleships, the silent but expressive language +of heraldry and symbol; and, in its humbler developments, the +paraphernalia of Masonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty +pageantry of Flag-days and Rose-days. Why should these things be? +"Human nature itself, with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. +The marriage of the outward and the inward pervades the universe." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The power of the outward reaches the inward chiefly through the eye +and the ear. Colour, as Ruskin taught us, is not only delightful, +but sacred. "Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is +the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.... Consider what +sort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leaves +black, and the sky <i>brown</i>." The perfection of form—the +grace of outline, the harmony of flowing curves—appeals, +perhaps, less generally than colour, because to appreciate it the +eye requires some training, whereas to love colour one only needs +feeling. Yet form has its own use and message, and so, again, has +the solemnity of ordered movement; and when all these three elements +of charm—colour and form and motion—are combined in +a public ceremony, the effect is irresistible. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through the eye. +The ear has an even higher +<a name="page_310"><span class="page">Page 310</span></a> +function. Perhaps the composer of great music speaks, in the course +of the ages, to a larger number of human hearts than are touched +by any other form of genius. Thousands, listening enraptured to +his strain, hear "the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium +of created sound." And yet again there are those, and they are not +a few, to whom even music never speaks so convincingly as when +it is wedded to suitable words; for then two emotions are combined +in one appeal, and human speech helps to interpret the unspoken. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishes +the beauty of our public and communal life. Khaki instead of scarlet, +potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly things +usurping the places aforetime assigned to beauty and +splendour—these are our daily and hourly reminders of the +"great tribulation" through which the nation is passing. Of course, +one ought not to wish it otherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet," but eminently +salutary, are these "uses of adversity," for they prevent us from +forgetting, even if we were inclined to such base obliviousness, +the grim realities of the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, +and in spite of all this, beauty retains its sway over "the common +heart of man." Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily +obscure, the beauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting +for the opportunity of Peace to reassert itself. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcome +exception has been made +<a name="page_311"><span class="page">Page 311</span></a> +by the patriotic pageantry which, during the week now closed, has +been enacted at Queen's Hall.[*] There were critics, neither malicious +nor ill-informed, who contended that such pageantry was ill-timed. +They advanced against it all sorts of objections which would have +been quite appropriate if the public had been bidden to witness +some colossal farce or burlesque; some raree-show of tasteless +oddities, or some untimely pantomime of fairy-lore. What was really +intended, and was performed, at a great cost of toil and organizing +skill, was the opposite of all this. All the best elements of a +great and glorious ceremonial were displayed—colour and form +and ordered motion; noble music set to stirring words; and human +voices lifted even above their ordinary beauty by the emotion of +a high occasion. The climax, wisely ordered, was our tribute of +gratitude to the United States, and never did the "Battle-hymn +of the Republic" sound its trumpets more exultingly. For once, +the word "Ritual" might with perfect propriety be separated from +its controversial associations, and bestowed on this great act +of patriotic pageantry. It was, in the truest sense, a religious +service, fitly commemorating the entry of all the world's best +powers into the crowning conflict of light with darkness. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: Under the direction of Madame Clara Butt (May, 1918).] +</p> + +<h2> +<a name="page_313"><span class="page">Page 313</span></a> +VII +</h2> + +<p class="subtitle">FACT AND FICTION</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_315"><span class="page">Page 315</span></a> +N. B.—<i>These two stories are founded on fact; but the personal +allusions are fictitious. As regards public events, they are +historically accurate.—G. W. E. R.</i> +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>A FORGOTTEN PANIC</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrow +holidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to some +friends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I was +alone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task; +but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into the +carriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porter +who breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This is +all," and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settled +himself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage which +I had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of the +carriage—a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an +umbrella, and one or two smaller parcels—all legibly labelled +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +G. W. E. RUSSELL,<br/> + Woodside,<br/> + Harrow-on-the-Hill. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed: +"When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you will +know that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease." Youth, +<a name="page_316"><span class="page">Page 316</span></a> +I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but there +was something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as to +disarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alike +prepossessing. He drew from his pocket the <i>Daily News</i>, in +those days a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he +composed himself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his +appearance. He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, +of the middle height, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the +train had shown, as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned +that it was difficult to guess his natural complexion; but his +closely cropped hair was jet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed +the roots of a very dark beard. In those days it was fashionable +to wear one's hair rather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a +moustache. Priests and actors were the only people who shaved clean, +and I decided in my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he +laid down his paper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy +which when one is very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, +sir, that my abrupt entry did not disturb you. I had a rush for +it, and nearly lost my train as it was. And I hope what I said +about luggage did not seem impertinent. I was only thinking that, +if I had been obliged to look after portmanteaus, I should probably +still be on the platform at Carlisle." I hastened to say, with +my best air, that I had not been the least offended, and rather +apologized for my own encumbrances by saying that I was going +<a name="page_317"><span class="page">Page 317</span></a> +South for three months, and had to take all my possessions with +me. I am not sure that I was pleased when my friend said: "Ah, yes; +the end of the vacation. You are returning to college at Harrow, +I see." It was humiliating to confess that Harrow was a school, +and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it with great composure. +Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He should have said "school," +not "college." He had a great admiration for the English Public +Schools. It was his misfortune to have been educated abroad. A +French lycée, or a German gymnasium, was not such a pleasant +place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the best way of starting +a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve being once broken, we +chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told him everything about +myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amusements, my favourite authors, +and all the rest of it; but presently it dawned upon me that, though +I had disclosed everything to him, he had disclosed nothing to +me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemed him so, was not very +proud of his profession. His nationality, too, perplexed me. He +spoke English as fluently as I did, but not quite idiomatically; +and there was just a trace of an accent which was not English. +Sometimes it sounded French, but then again there was a tinge of +American. On the whole, I came to the conclusion that my friend +was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad, or else an +American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced, the American +theory gained upon me; for, though my +<a name="page_318"><span class="page">Page 318</span></a> +friend told me nothing about himself, he told me a great deal about +every place which we passed. He knew the industries of the various +towns, and the events connected with them, and the names of the +people who owned the castles and great country-houses. I had been +told that this habit of endless exposition was characteristic of +the cultured American. But, whatever was the nationality of my +companion, I enjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not +as a man to a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the +courtesy of asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, +by all the little arts of the practised converser, made me feel +on good terms with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my +actor was a very jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would +tell me a little about himself. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +When, late in the afternoon, we passed Bletchley Station, I bethought +me that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Western +train, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order to +disgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goods +and to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to my +great joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. I +shall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much like +to pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions.'" This was +exactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so I +joyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, though +we had been travelling together all day, I did not +<a name="page_319"><span class="page">Page 319</span></a> +know my friend's name. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled +on it, in a backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to +me, saying, "I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. +But I will write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit." +Just then the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I +was fighting my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the +platform, I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at +the window of the carriage which I had just quitted. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, +the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult +Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, +to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, +saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon, +the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found him +even pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools to +the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great +part due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as +the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our course +of study? What our system of discipline? What were our amusements? +The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the +end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being +played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the +Spire, he asked me if we had any other amusements. Fives or racquets +<a name="page_320"><span class="page">Page 320</span></a> +he did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics? +(In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Every +boy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was a +national glory. Had we any part in it? +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those days +Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the +Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton +Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 +we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the +school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, +I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to +our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy +cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles +(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive +to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced +round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, +if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only. +Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather +wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was +not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly +of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved +name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the +local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was +a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing, +<a name="page_321"><span class="page">Page 321</span></a> +remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on +the way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury, +and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it +contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian, +who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept +everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was +just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties +in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke +enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns +and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, +and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard +against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse +proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor. +Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits +were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of +general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker +at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train? +As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend +really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him +than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for, +to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told +me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station +with mutual regrets. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_322"><span class="page">Page 322</span></a> +The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. The +termination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employment +a great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who had +served for five years in the American armies. Among these were +General Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi, +and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier of +the day." The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolated +outrages, but of an armed rising in Ireland; and, after consultation +with the Fenian leaders in New York, Cluseret came to England with +a view to organizing the insurrection. What then befell can be +read in Lathair, where Cluseret is thinly disguised as "Captain +Bruges," and also in his own narrative, published in <i>Fraser's +Magazine</i> for 1872. He arrived in London in January, 1867, and +startling events began to happen in quick succession. On the 11th +of February an armed party of Fenians attacked Chester Castle, +and were not repulsed without some difficulty. There was an armed +rising at Killarney. The police-barracks at Tallaght were besieged, +and at Glencullen the insurgents captured the police-force and +their weapons. At Kilmallock there was an encounter between the +Fenians and the constabulary, and life was lost on both sides. +There was a design of concentrating all the Fenian forces on Mallow +Junction, but the rapid movement of the Queen's troops frustrated +the design, and the general rising was postponed. Presently two +vagrants were arrested on suspicion +<a name="page_323"><span class="page">Page 323</span></a> +at Liverpool, and proved to be two of the most notorious of the +Fenian leaders, "Colonel" Kelly and "Captain" Deasy. It was when +these prisoners, remanded for further enquiry, were being driven +under a strong escort to gaol that the prison-van was attacked +by a rescue-party, and Sergeant Brett, who was in charge of the +prisoners, was shot. The rescuers, Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were +executed on the 2nd of November, and on the 1st of December Clerkenwell +Prison was blown up, in an ineffectual attempt to liberate the +Fenian prisoners confined in it. On the 20th of December Matthew +Arnold wrote to his mother, "We are in a strange uneasy state in +London, and the profound sense I have long had of the hollowness +and insufficiency of our whole system of administration does not +inspire me with much confidence." The "strange uneasy state" was +not confined to London, but prevailed everywhere. Obviously England +was threatened by a mysterious and desperate enemy, and no one +seemed to know that enemy's headquarters or base of operations. +The Secret Societies were actively at work in England, Ireland, +France, and Italy. It was suspected then—it is known now, +and chiefly through Cluseret's revelations—that the isolated +attacks on barracks and police-stations were designed for the purpose +of securing arms and ammunition; and, if only there had been a +competent General to command the rebel forces, Ireland would have +risen in open war. But a competent General was exactly what the +insurgents lacked; for Cluseret, having surveyed +<a name="page_324"><span class="page">Page 324</span></a> +the whole situation with eyes trained by a lifelong experience of +war, decided that the scheme was hopeless, and returned to Paris. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Such were some—for I have only mentioned a few—of the +incidents which made 1867 a memorable year. On my own memory it +is stamped with a peculiar clearness. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, 1867, as we were going up +to First School at Harrow, a rumour flew from mouth to mouth that +the drill-shed had been attacked by Fenians. Sure enough it had. The +caretaker (as I said before) lived some way from the building, and +when he went to open it in the morning he found that the door had +been forced and the place swept clean of arms and ammunition. Here +was a real sensation, and we felt for a few hours "the joy of eventful +living"; but later in the day the evening papers, coming down from +London, quenched our excitement with a greater. It appeared that +during the night of the 1st of October, drill-sheds and armouries +belonging to the Volunteer regiments had been simultaneously raided +north, south, east, and west of London, and all munitions of war +spirited away, for a purpose which was not hard to guess. Commenting +on this startling occurrence, the papers said: "We have reason +to believe that one of the ablest of the Fenian agents has been +for some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom. He has +been traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It is +believed at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteer +<a name="page_325"><span class="page">Page 325</span></a> +headquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferred +by a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris." A +friend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist brought +back a <i>Globe</i> with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointed +out the passage which I have just cited. As I read it, my heart gave +a jump—a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friend +Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, +and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into +actual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicions +to anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that this +was a case where silence was golden. Fortunately, none of my +school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the +old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk +and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spoken +gentleman." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far more +exhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closed +the year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May, +1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the history +of Fenianism in England to an end. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round +Harrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not +arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would +not abuse the confidence of a boy who +<a name="page_326"><span class="page">Page 326</span></a> +had trusted him. Perhaps it really was that the rifles were too +few and the risks too many. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and +I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in +Paris. They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mention +their real name, they would be immediately recognized. They had +social position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, acting +under irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from their +natural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics. +It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committed +himself so deeply if it had not been for his wife's influence; +and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult to +withstand. Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in her +company one felt that "the Cause," as she always called it without +qualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and living +for. As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, +and Jessie White-Mario, and the authoress of <i>Aspromonte</i>, +a passionate zeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she +married, her enthusiasm fired her husband. They became sworn allies +both of Garibaldi and of Mazzini, and through them were brought +into close, though mysterious, relations with the revolutionary +party in Italy and also in France. They witnessed the last great +act of the Papacy at the Vatican Council; and then, early in 1870, +they established themselves in Paris. +<a name="page_327"><span class="page">Page 327</span></a> +French society was at that moment in a strange state of tension +and unrest. The impending calamity of the Franco-German War was not +foreseen; but everyone knew that the Imperial throne was rocking; +that the soil was primed by Secret Societies; and that all the +elements of revolution were at hand, and needed only some sudden +concussion to stir them into activity. This was a condition which +exactly suited my cousin Evelyn Brentford. She was "at the height +of the circumstances," and she gathered round her, at her villa on +the outskirts of Paris, a society partly political, partly Bohemian, +and wholly Red. "Do come," she wrote, "and stay with us at Easter. +I can't promise you a Revolution; but it's quite on the cards that +you may come in for one. Anyhow, you will see some fun." I had +some difficulty in inducing my parents (sound Whigs) to give the +necessary permission; but they admitted that at seventeen a son +must be trusted, and I went off rejoicing to join the Brentfords +at Paris. Those three weeks, from the 12th of April to the 4th of +May, 1870, gave me, as the boys now say, "the time of my life." +I met a great many people whose names I already knew, and some +more of whom we heard next year in the history of the Commune. +The air was full of the most sensational rumours, and those who +hoped "to see the last King strangled in the bowels of the last +priest" enjoyed themselves thoroughly. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +My cousin Evelyn was always at home to her friends on Sunday and +Wednesday evenings, and +<a name="page_328"><span class="page">Page 328</span></a> +her rooms were thronged by a miscellaneous crowd in which the Parisian +accent mingled with the tongues of America and Italy, and the French +of the southern provinces. At one of these parties I was talking +to a delightful lady who lived only in the hope of seeing "the +Devil come for that dog" (indicating by this term an Imperial +malefactor), and who, when exhausted by regicidal eloquence, demanded +coffee. As we approached the buffet, a man who had just put down +his cup turned round and met my companion and me face to face. Two +years and a half had made no difference in him. He was Mr. Aulif, +as active and fresh as ever, and, before I had time to reflect on my +course, I had impulsively seized him by the hand. "Don't you remember +me?" I cried. He only stared. "My name is George Russell, and you +visited me at Harrow." "I fear, sir, you have made a mistake," +said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly to my companion, and hurried back +into the drawing-room. My companion looked surprised. "The General +seems put out—I wonder why. He and I are the greatest allies. +Let me tell you, my friend, that he is the man that the Revolution +will have to rely on when the time comes for rising. Ask them at +Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi. Ask McClellan. Ask General Grant. He is +the greatest General in the world, and has sacrificed his career +for Freedom." "Is his name Aulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret." +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_329"><span class="page">Page 329</span></a> +Next day at <i>déjuner</i> I was full of my evening's adventure; +but my host and hostess received it with mortifying composure. +"Nothing could be more likely," said my cousin Evelyn. "General +Cluseret was here, though he did not stay long. Perhaps he really +did not remember you. When he saw you before, you were a boy, and +now you look like a young man. Or perhaps he did not wish to be +cross-examined. He is pretty busy here just now, but in 1867 he +was constantly backwards and forwards between Paris and London +trying to organize that Irish insurrection which never came off. +England is not the only country he has visited on business of that +kind, and he has many travelling names. He thinks it safer, for +obvious reasons, to travel without luggage. If you had been able +to open that leather case in the train you would probably have +found nothing in it except some maps, a toothbrush, and a spare +revolver. Certainly that Irish affair was a <i>fiasco</i>; but +depend upon it you will hear of General Cluseret again." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +And so indeed I did, and so did the whole civilized world, and +that within twelve months of the time of speaking; but there is +no need to rewrite in this place the history of the Commune. +</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p class="subtitle"><i>A CRIMEAN EPISODE</i></p> + +<p class="indent"> +It was eight o'clock in the evening of the 5th of April, 1880, and the +Travellers' Club was full to overflowing. Men who were just sitting +<a name="page_330"><span class="page">Page 330</span></a> +down to dinner got up from their tables, and joined the excited +concourse in the hall. The General Election which terminated Lord +Beaconsfield's reign was nearing its close, and the issue was scarcely +in doubt; but at this moment the decisive event of the campaign was +announced. Members, as they eagerly scanned the tape, saw that Gladstone +was returned for Midlothian; and, as they passed, the news to the +expectant crowd behind them, there arose a tumult of excited voices. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +"I told you how it would be!" "Well, I've lost my money." "I could +not have believed that Scotsmen would be such fools." "I'm awfully +sorry for Dalkeith." "Why couldn't that old windbag have stuck +to Greenwich?" "I blame Rosebery for getting him down." "Well, +I suppose we're in for another Gladstone Premiership." "Oh, no +fear. The Queen won't speak to him." "No, Hartington's the man, +and, as an old Whig, I'm glad of it." "Perhaps Gladstone will take +the Exchequer." "What! serve under Hartington? You don't know the +old gentleman's pride if you expect that;" and so on and so forth, +a chorus of excited and bewildering exclamations. Amid all the +hurly-burly, one figure in the throng seemed quite unmoved, and +its immobility attracted the notice of the throng. "Well, really, +Vaughan, I should have thought that even you would have felt excited +about this. I know you don't care much about politics in a general +way, but this is something out of the common. The Duke of Buccleuch +beaten on his own ground, and Gladstone heading +<a name="page_331"><span class="page">Page 331</span></a> +straight for the Premiership! Isn't that enough to quicken your +pulse?" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +But the man whom they saluted as Vaughan still looked undisturbed. +"Well, I don't think I ever was quite as much in love with Dizzy +as you were; and as to the Premiership, we are not quite at the +end yet, and <i>Alors comme alors</i>." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Philip Vaughan was a man just over fifty: tall, pale, +distinguished-looking, with something in his figure and bearing +that reminded one of the statue of Sidney Herbert, which in 1880 +still stood before the War Office in Pall Mall. He looked both +delicate and melancholy. His face was curiously devoid of animation; +but his most marked characteristic was an habitual look of meditative +abstraction from the things which immediately surrounded him. As +he walked down the steps of the club towards a brougham which was +waiting for him, the man who had tried in vain to interest him +in the Midlothian Election turned to his nearest neighbour, and +said: "Vaughan is really the most extraordinary fellow I know. +There is nothing on earth that interests him in the faintest degree. +Politics, books, sport, society, foreign affairs—he I never +seems to care a rap about any of them; and yet he knows something +about them all, and, if only you can get him to talk, he can talk +extremely well. It is particularly curious about politics, for +generally, if a man has once been in political life, he feels the +fascination of it to the end." "But was Vaughan ever in political +life?" "Oh yes I suppose you are too young to remember. He +<a name="page_332"><span class="page">Page 332</span></a> +got into Parliament just after he left Oxford. He was put in by +an old uncle for a Family Borough—Bilton—one of those +snug little seats, not exactly 'Pocket Boroughs,' but very like +them, which survived until the Reform Act of 1867." "How long did +he sit?" "Only for one Parliament—from 1852 to 1857. No one +ever knew why he gave up. He put it on health, but I believe it +was just freakishness. He always was an odd chap, and of course +he grows odder as he grows older." But just at that moment another +exciting result came, trickling down the tape, and the hubbub was +renewed. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Philip Vaughan was, as he put it in his languid way, "rather fond +of clubs," so long as they were not political, and he spent a good +deal of his time at the Travellers', the Athenæum, and the +United Universities, and was a member of some more modern institutions. +He had plenty of acquaintances, but no friends—at least of +his own age. The Argus-eyed surveyors of club-life noticed that +the only people to whom he seemed to talk freely and cheerfully +were the youngest members; and he was notoriously good-natured in +helping young fellows who wished to join his clubs, and did his +utmost to stay the hand of the blackballer. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +He had a very numerous cousinship, but did not much cultivate it. +Sometimes, yielding to pressure, he would dine with cousins in +London; or pay a flying visit to them in the country; but in order, +as it was supposed to avoid these family entanglements, he lived +at Wimbledon, where he enjoyed, +<a name="page_333"><span class="page">Page 333</span></a> +in a quiet way, his garden and his library, and spent most of the +day in solitary rides among the Surrey hills. When winter set in +he generally vanished towards the South of Europe, but by Easter +he was back again at Wimbledon, and was to be found pretty often +at one or other of his clubs. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +This was Philip Vaughan, as people knew him in 1880. Some liked +him; some pitied him; some rather despised him; but no one took +the trouble to understand him; and indeed, if anyone had thought +it worth while to do so, the attempt would probably have been +unsuccessful; for Vaughan never talked of the past, and to understand +him in 1880 one must have known him as he had been thirty years +before. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In 1850 two of the best known of the young men in society were +Arthur Grey and Philip Vaughan. They were, and had been ever since +their schooldays at Harrow, inseparable friends. The people to +whom friendship is a sealed and hopeless mystery were puzzled by +the alliance. "What have those two fellows in common?" was the +constant question, "and yet you never see them apart." They shared +lodgings in Mount Street, frequented the same clubs, and went, +night after night, to the same diners and balls. They belonged, +in short, to the same set: "went everywhere," as the phrase is, +and both were extremely popular; but their pursuits and careers +were different. Grey was essentially a sportsman and an athlete. He +was one of those men to whom all bodily exercises come naturally, +and who attain perfection in them +<a name="page_334"><span class="page">Page 334</span></a> +with no apparent effort. From his earliest days he had set his +heart on being a soldier, and by 1850 had obtained a commission +in the Guards. Vaughan had neither gifts nor inclinations in the +way of sport or games. At Harrow he lived the life of the intellect +and the spirit, and was unpopular accordingly. He was constantly +to be found "mooning," as his schoolfellows said, in the green +lanes and meadow-paths which lie between Harrow and Uxbridge, or +gazing, as Byron had loved to gaze, at the sunset from the Churchyard +Terrace. It was even whispered that he wrote poetry. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Arthur Grey, with his good looks, his frank bearing, and his facile +supremacy on the cricket-ground and in the racquet-court, was a +popular hero; and of all his schoolfellows none paid him a more +whole-hearted worship than the totally dissimilar Philip Vaughan. +Their close and intimate affection was a standing puzzle to hard +and dull and superficial natures; but a poet could interpret it. +</p> + +<p class="bquote"> +"We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart<br/> + From churls, who, wondered what our friendship meant;<br/> +And in that coy retirement heart to heart<br/> + Drew closer, and our natures were content."[*] +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +[Footnote *: William Cory.] +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Vaughan and Grey left Harrow, as they had entered it, on the same +day, and in the following October both went up to Christ Church. +Neither contemplated a long stay at Oxford, for each had his career +cut out. Grey was to join the Guards +<a name="page_335"><span class="page">Page 335</span></a> +at the earliest opportunity, and Vaughan was destined for Parliament. +Bilton was a borough which the "Schedule A" of 1832 had spared. It +numbered some 900 voters; and, even as the electors of Liskeard +"were commonly of the same opinion as Mr. Eliot," so the electors +of Bilton were commonly of the same opinion as Lord Liscombe. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The eighth Lord Liscombe was the last male member of his family. +The peerage must die with him; but his property, including the +"Borough influence," was at his own disposal. His only sister had +married a Mr. Vaughan, and Lord Liscombe, having carefully watched +the character and career of his nephew Philip Vaughan, determined +to make him his heir. This was all very well; no one had a word +to say against it, for no more obvious heir could be suggested. +But when it became known that Lord Liscombe meant to bring Philip +Vaughan into Parliament for Bilton there was great dissatisfaction. +"What a shame," people said, "to disturb old Mr. Cobley, who has +sat so long and voted so steadily! To be sure, he is very tiresome, +and can't make himself heard a yard off, and is very stingy about +subscriptions; and, if there was some rising young man to put into +his seat, as the Duke of Newcastle put Gladstone, it might be all +very well. But, really, Philip Vaughan is such a moody, dreamy +creature, and so wrapped up in books and poetry, that he can never +make a decent Member of Parliament. Politics are quite out of his +line, and I shouldn't +<a name="page_336"><span class="page">Page 336</span></a> +wonder if Lord Liscombe contrived to lose the seat. But he's as +obstinate as a mule; and he has persuaded himself that young Vaughan +is a genius. Was there ever such folly?" +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Lord Liscombe had his own way—as he commonly had. Mr. Cobley +received a polite intimation that at the next election he would +not be able to rely on the Liscombe interest, and retired with +a very bad grace, but not without his reward; for before long he +received the offer of a baronetcy (which he accepted, as he said, +to please his wife), and died honourably as Sir Thomas Cobley. +Meanwhile Lord Liscombe, who, when he had framed a plan, never +let the grass grow under his feet, induced Philip Vaughan to quit +Oxford without waiting for a degree, made him address "Market +Ordinaries" and political meetings at Bilton, presented him at +the Levee, proposed him at his favourite clubs, gave him an ample +allowance, and launched him, with a vigorous push, into society. +In all this Lord Liscombe did well, and showed his knowledge of +human nature. The air of politics stirred young Vaughan's pulses +as they had never been stirred before. What casual observers had +regarded as idle reveries turned out to have been serious studies. +With the theory of English politics, as it shaped itself in 1852 +when Lord Derby and Disraeli were trying to restore Protection, +Vaughan showed himself thoroughly acquainted; and, as often happens +when a contemplative and romantic nature is first brought into +contact with eager humanity, he developed a +<a name="page_337"><span class="page">Page 337</span></a> +faculty of public speaking which astonished his uncle as much as +it astonished anyone, though that astute nobleman concealed his +surprise. Meanwhile, Grey had got his commission. In those days +officers of the Guards lived in lodgings, so it was obvious for +Grey and Vaughan to live together; and every now and then Grey +would slip down to Bilton, and by making himself pleasant to the +shop-keepers, and talking appropriately to the farmers, would act +as his friend's most effective election-agent. The Dissolution +came in July, 1852, and Philip Vaughan was returned unopposed for +the Free and Independent Borough of Bilton. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Then followed a halcyon time. The two friends had long known that +they had only one heart between them; and now, living under the +same roof and going into the same society, they lived practically +one life. There was just enough separation to make reunion more +delightful—a dull debate at the House for Vaughan, or a dusty +field-day at Aldershot for Grey; but for both there was the early +gallop in Rotten Row, the breakfast which no third person ever +shared, the evening of social amusement, and the long, deep, intimate +talk over the last cigar, when the doings of the day were reviewed +and the programme for to-morrow was sketched. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Grey had always been popular and always lighthearted. Vaughan, as +a schoolboy and an undergraduate, had been unpopular and grave. +But now people who knew them both observed that, at any rate as +far as outward characteristics +<a name="page_338"><span class="page">Page 338</span></a> +showed, the two natures were becoming harmonized. Vaughan was a +visibly lighter, brighter, and more companionable fellow; and Grey +began to manifest something of that manly seriousness which was +wanted to complete his character. It is pleasant to contemplate +"one entire and perfect chrysolite" of happiness, and that, during +these bright years of opening manhood, was the rare and fragile +possession of Philip Vaughan and Arthur Grey. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +John Bright was once walking with one of his sons, then a schoolboy, +past the Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place. The boy asked the +meaning of the single word inscribed on the base, CRIMEA. Bright's +answer was as emphatic as the inscription: "A crime." There is no +need to recapitulate in this place the series of blunders through +which this country, in Lord Clarendon's phrase, "drifted towards +war." Month by month things shaped themselves in a way which left +no reasonable doubt about the issue. The two friends said little. +Deep in the heart of each there lay the conviction that an event +was at hand which would "pierce even to the dividing asunder of +soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." But each held the +conviction with a difference. To Grey it meant the approach of +that to which, from the days of his chivalrous boyhood, he had +looked forward, as the supreme good of life—the chance of a +soldier's glory and a soldier's death. To Vaughan it meant simply +the extinction of all that made life worth living. Each foresaw +an agony, but the one +<a name="page_339"><span class="page">Page 339</span></a> +foresaw it with a joy which no affection could subdue; the other +with a despair which even religion seemed powerless to relieve. +Before long silence became impossible. The decision of the Cabinet +was made known. Two strong and ardent natures, which since boyhood had +lived in and on one another, were forced to admit that a separation, +which might be eternal, "was nigh, even at the doors." But there +was this vital difference between the two cases—the one had +to act; the other only to endure. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +On the 22nd of February, 1854, the Guards sailed from Southampton, +and on the 27th of March war between England and Russia was formally +declared. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +The events of the next two years must be compressed into a few lines. +To the inseparable evils of war—bloodshed and sickness—were +added the horrors of a peculiarly cruel winter. Five-sixths of the +soldiers whom England lost died from preventable diseases, and +the want of proper food, clothing, and shelter. Bullets and cholera +and frost-bite did their deadly work unchecked. The officers had at +least their full share of the hardships and the fatalities. What +the Guards lost can be read on the walls of the Chapel at Wellington +Barracks and in the pedigrees of Burke's Peerage. For all England +it was a time of piercing trial, and of that hope deferred which +maketh the heart sick. No one ever knew what Vaughan endured, for +he as too proud to bare his soul. For two years he +<a name="page_340"><span class="page">Page 340</span></a> +never looked at a gazette, or opened a newspaper, or heard a Ministerial +announcement in the House of Commons, or listened to a conversation +at his club, without the sickening apprehension that the next moment +he would know that Arthur Grey was dead. Letters from Grey reached +him from time to time, but their brave cheerfulness did nothing +to soothe his apprehensions. For they were few and far between; +postal communication was slow and broken, and by the time a letter +reached him the hand which had penned it might be cold in death. +Yet, in spite of an apprehensive dread which had become a second +nature to Philip Vaughan, the fatal news lingered. Weeks lengthened +into months, and months into two years, and yet the blow had not +fallen. It was not in Philip's nature to "cheer up," or "expect +the best," or "hope against hope," or to adopt any of the cheap +remedies which shallow souls enjoy and prescribe. Nothing but certainty +could give him ease, and certainty was in this case impossible. +Nervousness, restlessness, fidgetiness, increased upon him day by +day. The gossip and bustle of the House of Commons became intolerable +to him. Society he had never entered since Grey sailed for the +Crimea. As in boyhood, so again now, he felt that Nature was the +only true consoler, and for weeks at a time he tried to bury himself +in the wilds of Scotland or Cumberland or Cornwall, spending his +whole day in solitary walks, with Wordsworth or the <i>Imitatio</i> +for a companion, and sleeping only from physical exhaustion. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_341"><span class="page">Page 341</span></a> +In the early part of 1856 the newspapers began to talk of peace. +Sebastopol had fallen, and Russia was said to be exhausted. The +Emperor of the French had his own reasons for withdrawing from +the contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of Lord +Palmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of his +prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous +apprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatter +of irresponsible clubmen and M.P.'s was an insupportable affliction; +so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, and +departed on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himself +off as completely as possible from his usual environment, he left +no address at his lodgings, but told his servant that when he wanted +his letters he would telegraph for them from the place, whatever +it might be, where he was halting. He kept steadily to his plan, +wandering over hill and dale, by lake and river, and steeping his +soul in "the cheerful silence of the fells." When he lighted on a +spot which particularly took his fancy, he would halt there for +two or three days, and would send what in those day was called +"a telegraphic despatch" from the nearest town. In response to +the despatch he would receive from his servant in Mount Street +a package containing all the letters which had been accumulating +during the fortnight or three weeks since he last telegraphed. +One day in April, when he opened the customary package, he found +in it a letter from Arthur Grey. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +<a name="page_342"><span class="page">Page 342</span></a> +"The General has just told us that peace is practically settled. +If this proves true, you will not get another letter from me. I +presume we shall be sent home directly, and I shall make straight +for London and Mount Street, where I expect I shall find you. Dear +old chap, I can guess what you have been going through; but it +looks as if we should meet again in this world after all." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +What this letter meant to Philip Vaughan they only know who have +been through a similar experience; and words are powerless to express +it +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +After the first bewilderment of joy had subsided, Philip began +to study the practical bearings of the letter. By a comparison of +the date within and the post-mark outside, the letter appeared to +have been a long time on the way, and another delay had occurred +since it had arrived at Mount Street. It was possible that peace +might have been actually concluded. News in those days took long +to travel through Scottish glens, and Vaughan had never looked at +a paper since he left England. It was conceivable that the Guards +were already on their homeward voyage—nay, it might even +be that they were just arriving, or had arrived, in London. The +one clear point was that Vaughan must get home. Twenty miles on +his landlord's pony brought him to a telegraph-office, whence he +telegraphed to his servant, "Returning immediately," and then, +setting his face southward, he travelled as fast as steamers and +express trains would take him. As he travelled, he picked up the +news. Peace had been concluded on the 30th +<a name="page_343"><span class="page">Page 343</span></a> +of March, and some of our troops were homeward bound; some had +actually arrived. The journey seemed unnaturally long, and it was +dark when the train rattled into Euston Station.... In a bewildered +mood of uncertainty and joy, he rang the bell in Mount Street. +His servant opened the door. "You're just in time, sir. You will +find him in the drawing-room." +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +The drawing-room of the lodging-house had always been Grey's +sitting-room, and during his absence Vaughan had studiously kept it +in it accustomed order. There were some stags' heads on the walls, +and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, and +engravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honoured +as masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, +the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philip +flung open the door with a passionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! At +last! Thank God——" But the words died on his lips. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +In the middle of the room, just under the central chandelier, there +was a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door. +On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse, +and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Not +even the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Next morning the park-keepers found a young +<a name="page_344"><span class="page">Page 344</span></a> +man lying on the grass in Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with +the night's heavy rain, unconscious, and apparently dying. The +papers in his pockets proved that he was Philip Vaughan. A long +and desperate illness followed, and for months both life and reason +trembled in the balance. Lord Liscombe hurried up to London, and +Vaughan's servant explained everything. Arthur Grey had been taken +ill on the homeward voyage. The symptoms would now be recognized +as typhoid, but the disease had not then been diagnosed, and the +ship's surgeon pronounced it "low fever." He landed at Southampton, +pushed his way to London, arrived at his lodgings more dead than +alive, and almost immediately sank into the coma from which he +never recovered. It was impossible to communicate with Vaughan, +whose address was unknown; and when his telegram arrived, announcing +his instant return, the servant and the landlady agreed that he +must have heard the news from some other source, and was hurrying +back to see his friend before he became invisible for ever. "You're +just in time" meant just in time to see the body, for the coffin +was to be closed that evening. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="indent"> +The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his side +youth and a constitution, not strong indeed, but unweakened by +profligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from the +shock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, in +great part, to his former habits. +<a name="page_345"><span class="page">Page 345</span></a> +Only he could not and would not re-enter the House of Commons, +but announced his retirement, on the score of health, at the next +Election. Soon afterwards he inherited Lord Liscombe's fortune, made +over Liscombe Abbey and its responsibilities to a distant cousin, +and insensibly glided into the way of living which I described +at the outset. Two years after the Election of 1880 he died at +Rome, where he had been spending the winter. The attack of fever +to which he succumbed was not peculiarly severe, but the doctor +said that he made no effort to live, and was in fact worn out, +though not by years. +</p> + +<p class="indent"> +Nobody missed him. Nobody lamented him. Few even said a kind word +about him. His will expressed only one personal wish—that +he might be buried by the side of Arthur Grey. But his executors +thought that this arrangement would cause them a great deal of +trouble, and he rests in the English cemetery at Rome. +</p> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cafd709 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #16519 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16519) diff --git a/old/16519-8.txt b/old/16519-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a3f20d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/16519-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8962 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Prime Ministers and Some Others, by George W. E. Russell + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Prime Ministers and Some Others + A Book of Reminiscences + +Author: George W. E. Russell + +Release Date: August 12, 2005 [EBook #16519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Robert J. Hall + + + + +PRIME MINISTERS + +AND SOME OTHERS + + +A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + +GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL + + + + +TO +THE EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON, +K.G., + +I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK, +NOT SHARING HIS OPINIONS BUT +PRIZING HIS FRIENDSHIP + + + + +NOTE + +My cordial thanks for leave to reproduce papers already published +are due to my friend Mr. John Murray, and to the Editors of the +_Cornhill Magazine_, the _Spectator_, the _Daily News_, the _Manchester +Guardian_, the _Church Family Newspaper_, and the _Red Triangle_. + +G. W. E. R. + +_July_, 1918. + + + + +CONTENTS + +I.--PRIME MINISTERS + + I. LORD PALMERSTON + II. LORD RUSSELL + III. LORD DERBY + IV. BENJAMIN DISRAELI + V. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE + VI. LORD SALISBURY + VIII. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR + IX. HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN + +II.--IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP + + I. GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS + II. HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND + III. LORD HALLIFAX + IV. LORD AND LADY RIPON + V. "FREDDY LEVESON" + VI. SAMUEL WHITBREAD + VII. HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER + VIII. BASIL WILBERFORCE + IX. EDITH SICHEL + X. "WILL" GLADSTONE + XI. LORD CHARLES RUSSELL + +III.--RELIGION AND THE CHURCH + + I. A STRANGE EPIPHANY + II. THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION + III. PAN-ANGLICANISM + IV. LIFE AND LIBERTY + V. LOVE AND PUNISHMENT + VI. HATRED AND LOVE + VII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE + VIII. A SOLEMN FARCE + +IV.--POLITICS + + I. MIRAGE + II. MIST + III. "DISSOLVING THROES" + IV. INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER + V. REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS + VI. "THE INCOMPATIBLES" + VII. FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS + +V.--EDUCATION + + I. EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE + II. THE GOLDEN LADDER + III. OASES + IV. LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE + V. THE STATE AND THE BOY + VI. A PLEA FOR INNOCENTS + +VI.--MISCELLANEA + + I. THE "HUMOROUS STAGE" + II. THE JEWISH REGIMENT + III. INDURATION + IV. FLACCIDITY + V. THE PROMISE OF MAY + VI. PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM + +VII.--FACT AND FICTION + + I. A FORGOTTEN PANIC + II. A CRIMEAN EPISODE + + + + +I + +PRIME MINISTERS + + + + +PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS + + +I + +_LORD PALMERSTON_ + +I remember ten Prime Ministers, and I know an eleventh. Some have +passed beyond earshot of our criticism; but some remain, pale and +ineffectual ghosts of former greatness, yet still touched by that +human infirmity which prefers praise to blame. It will behove me +to walk warily when I reach the present day; but, in dealing with +figures which are already historical, one's judgments may be +comparatively untrammelled. + +I trace my paternal ancestry direct to a Russell who entered the +House of Commons at the General Election of 1441, and since 1538 +some of us have always sat in one or other of the two Houses of +Parliament; so I may be fairly said to have the Parliamentary tradition +in my blood. But I cannot profess to have taken any intelligent +interest in political persons or doings before I was six years +old; my retrospect, therefore, shall begin with Lord Palmerston, +whom I can recall in his last Administration, 1859-1865. + +I must confess that I chiefly remember his outward characteristics--his +large, dyed, carefully brushed whiskers; his broad-shouldered figure, +which always seemed struggling to be upright; his huge and rather +distorted feet--"each foot, to describe it mathematically, was a +four-sided irregular figure"--his strong and comfortable seat on +the old white hack which carried him daily to the House of Commons. +Lord Granville described him to a nicety: "I saw him the other +night looking very well, but old, and wearing a green shade, which +he afterwards concealed. He looked like a retired old croupier +from Baden." + +Having frequented the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the more +privileged seats "under the Gallery," from my days of knickerbockers, +I often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather +"bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort of +good-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off an +inconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ardour of +a Radical supporter. + +Of course, a boy's attention was attracted rather by appearance and +manner than by the substance of a speech; so, for a frank estimate +of Palmerston's policy at the period which I am discussing, I turn +to Bishop Wilberforce (whom he had just refused to make Archbishop +of York). + +"That wretched Pam seems to me to get worse and worse. There is +not a particle of veracity or noble feeling that I have ever been +able to trace in him. He manages the House of Commons by debauching +it, making all parties laugh at one another; the Tories at the +Liberals, by his defeating all Liberal measures; the Liberals at +the Tories, by their consciousness of getting everything that is to +be got in Church and State; and all at one another, by substituting +low ribaldry for argument, bad jokes for principle, and an openly +avowed, vainglorious, imbecile vanity as a panoply to guard himself +from the attacks of all thoughtful men." + +But what I remember even more clearly than Palmers ton is appearance +or manner--perhaps because it did not end with his death--is the +estimation in which he was held by that "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood" to which I myself belong. + +In the first place, it was always asserted, with emphasis and even +with acrimony, that he was not a Whig. Gladstone, who did not much +like Whiggery, though he often used Whigs, laid it down that "to be +a Whig a man must be a born Whig," and I believe that the doctrine +is absolutely sound. But Palmerston was born and bred a Tory, and +from 1807 to 1830 held office in Tory Administrations. The remaining +thirty-five years of his life he spent, for the most part, in Whig +Administrations, but a Whig he was not. The one thing in the world +which he loved supremely was power, and, as long as this was secured, +he did not trouble himself much about the political complexion of +his associates. "Palmerston does not care how much dirt he eats, +so long as it is gilded dirt;" and, if gilded dirt be the right +description of office procured by flexible politics, Palmerston +ate, in his long career, an extraordinary amount of it. + +Then, again, I remember that the Whigs thought Palmerston very +vulgar. The newspapers always spoke of him as an aristocrat, but +the Whigs knew better. He had been, in all senses of the word, a +man of fashion; he had won the nickname of "Cupid," and had figured, +far beyond the term of youth, in a raffish kind of smart society +which the Whigs regarded with a mixture of contempt and horror. +His bearing towards the Queen, who abhorred him--not without good +reason--was considered to be lamentably lacking in that ceremonious +respect for the Crown which the Whigs always maintained even when +they were dethroning Kings. Disraeli likened his manner to that +of "a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress," and one +who was in official relations with him wrote: "He left on my +recollection the impression of a strong character, with an intellect +with a coarse vein in it, verging sometimes on brutality, and of a +mind little exercised on subjects of thought beyond the immediate +interests of public and private life, little cultivated, and drawing +its stores, not from reading but from experience, and long and +varied intercourse with men and women." + +Having come rather late in life to the chief place in politics, +Palmerston kept it to the end. He was an indomitable fighter, and +had extraordinary health. At the opening of the Session of 1865 he +gave the customary Full-Dress Dinner, and Mr. Speaker Denison,[*] +who sat beside him, made this curious memorandum of his performance +at table: "He ate two plates of turtle soup; he was then served very +amply to cod and oyster sauce; he then took a _pt_; afterwards +he was helped to two very greasy-looking entres; he then despatched +a plate of roast mutton; there then appeared before him the largest, +and to my mind the hardest, slice of ham that ever figured on the +table of a nobleman, yet it disappeared just in time to answer the +enquiry of the butler, 'Snipe or pheasant, my lord?' He instantly +replied, 'Pheasant,' thus completing his ninth dish of meat at +that meal." A few weeks later the Speaker, in conversation with +Palmerston, expressed a hope that he was taking care of his health, +to which the octogenarian Premier replied: "Oh yes--indeed I am. I +very often take a cab at night, and if you have both windows open +it is almost as good as walking home." "Almost as good!" exclaimed +the valetudinarian Speaker. "A through draught and a north-east +wind! And in a hack cab! What a combination for health!" + +[Footnote *: Afterwards Lord Ossington.] + +Palmerston fought and won his last election in July, 1865, being +then in his eighty-first year, and he died on the 15th of October +next ensuing. On the 19th the Queen wrote as follows to the statesman +who, as Lord John Russell, had been her Prime Minister twenty years +before, and who, as Earl Russell, had been for the last six years +Foreign Secretary in Palmerston's Administration: "The Queen can +turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of +hers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister and to carry +on the Government." + +It is sometimes said of my good friend Sir George Trevelyan that his +most responsible task in life has been to "live up to the position +of being his uncle's nephew." He has made a much better job of his +task than I have made of mine; and yet I have never been indifferent +to the fact that I was related by so close a tie to the author of +the first Reform Bill, and the chief promoter--as regards this +country--of Italian unity and freedom. + + +II + +_LORD RUSSELL_ + +Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for the +first time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interested +in the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Pray +tell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising young +man in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied, +"George Byng, ma'am," signifying thereby a youth who eventually +became the third Earl of Strafford. + +In 1865 Lord John, who in the meantime had been created Earl Russell, +became, after many vicissitudes in office and opposition, Prime +Minister for the second time. The Queen, apparently hard put to +it for conversation, asked him whom he now considered the most +promising young man in the Liberal party. He replied, without +hesitation, "George Byng, ma'am," thereby eliciting the very natural +rejoinder, "But that's what you told me twenty years ago!" + +This fragment of anecdotage, whether true or false, is eminently +characteristic of Lord Russell. In principles, beliefs, opinions, +even in tastes and habits, he was singularly unchanging. He lived +to be close on eighty-six; he spent more than half a century in +active politics; and it would be difficult to detect in all those +years a single deviation from the creed which he professed when, +being not yet twenty-one, he was returned as M.P. for his father's +pocket-borough of Tavistock. + +From first to last he was the staunch and unwavering champion of +freedom--civil, intellectual, and religious. At the very outset +of his Parliamentary career he said, "We talk much--and think a +great deal too much--of the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish we +could imitate the courage of our ancestors. They were not ready +to lay their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every vain or +imaginary alarm." At the close of life he referred to England as +"the country whose freedom I have worshipped, and whose liberties +and prosperity I am not ashamed to say we owe to the providence +of Almighty God." + +This faith Lord Russell was prepared to maintain at all times, in +all places, and amid surroundings which have been known to test +the moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundly +attached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian succession, he was no +courtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, and he had a habit +of applying the principles of our English Revolution to the issues +of modern politics. + +Actuated, probably, by some playful desire to probe the heart of +Whiggery by putting an extreme case, Queen Victoria once said: +"Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, +under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign?" "Well, +ma'am, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only +say that I suppose it is!" + +When Italy was struggling towards unity and freedom, the Queen was +extremely anxious that Lord John, then Foreign Secretary, should +not encourage the revolutionary party. He promptly referred Her +Majesty to "the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688," and informed +her that, "according to those doctrines, all power held by Sovereigns +may be forfeited by misconduct, and each nation is the judge of +its own internal government." + +The love of justice was as strongly marked in Lord John Russell as +the love of freedom. He could make no terms with what he thought +one-sided or oppressive. When the starving labourers of Dorset +combined in an association which they did not know to be illegal, +he urged that incendiaries in high places, such as the Duke of +Cumberland and Lord Wynford, were "far more guilty than the labourers, +but the law does not reach them, I fear." + +When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the ground +of expense, he said: + +"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may +as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right +to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is +the first and primary end of all government." + +Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections of +my uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's +Government, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes, +in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge--the +prettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he was very much +what _Punch_ always represented him--very short, with a head and +shoulders which might have belonged to a much larger frame. When +sitting he might have been taken for a man of average height, and +it was only when he rose to his feet that his diminutive stature +became apparent. + +One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which had +what, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to be +called "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic. +Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers" +and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man," and was much "obleeged" +where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged." + +The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his manner +were really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced, +even among people who ought to have known him better, a totally +erroneous impression of his character and temperament. + +In the small social arts, which are so valuable an equipment for +a political leader, he was indeed deficient. He had no memory for +faces, and was painfully apt to ignore his political supporters +when he met them outside the walls of Parliament; and this inability +to remember faces was allied with a curious artlessness which made +it impossible for him to feign a cordiality he did not feel. In +his last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, but +it was not in my heart." The friends needed no such assurance, for +in private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tender +to an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genial +host and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummate +judge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful, +full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told +by the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of his +own personal experience and intercourse with other distinguished +men." + +When Lord Palmerston died, _The Times_ was in its zenith, and its +editor, J. T. Delane, had long been used to "shape the whispers" +of Downing Street. Lord Russell resented journalistic dictation. +"I know," he said, "that Mr. Delane is very angry because I did not +kiss his hand instead of the Queen's" _The Times_ became hostile, +and a competent critic remarked:" + +"There have been Ministers who knew the springs of that public +opinion which is delivered ready digested to the nation every morning, +and who have not scrupled to work them for their own diurnal +glorification, even although the recoil might injure their colleagues. +But Lord Russell has never bowed the knee to the potentates of +the Press; he has offered no sacrifice of invitations to social +editors; and social editors have accordingly failed to discover +the merits of a statesman who so little appreciated them, until +they have almost made the nation forget the services that Lord +Russell has so faithfully and courageously rendered." + +Of Lord Russell's political consistency I have already spoken; and +it was most conspicuously displayed in his lifelong zeal for the +extension of the suffrage. He had begun his political activities +by a successful attack on the rottenest of rotten boroughs; the +enfranchisement of the Middle Class was the triumph of his middle +life. As years advanced his zeal showed no abatement; again and +again he returned to the charge, though amidst the most discouraging +circumstances; and when, in his old age, he became Prime Minister +for the second time, the first task to which he set his hand was +so to extend the suffrage as to include "the best of the working +classes." + +In spite of this generous aspiration, it must be confessed that +the Reform Bill of 1866 was not a very exciting measure. It lowered +the qualification for the county franchise to 14 and that for +the boroughs to 7; and this, together with the enfranchisement +of lodgers, was expected to add 400,000 new voters to the list. + +The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm. +Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought it +revolutionary, and made common cause with the Tories to defeat +it. As it was introduced into the House of Commons, Lord Russell +had no chance of speaking on it; but Gladstone's speeches for it +and Lowe's against it remain to this day among the masterpieces +of political oratory, and eventually it was lost, on an amendment +moved in committee, by a majority of eleven. Lord Russell of course +resigned. The Queen received his decision with regret. It was evident +that Prussia and Austria were on the brink of war, and Her Majesty +considered it a most unfortunate moment for a change in her Government. +She thought that the Ministry had better accept the amendment and +go on with the Bill. But Lord Russell stood his ground, and that +ground was the highest. "He considers that vacillation on such a +question weakens the authority of the Crown, promotes distrust +of public men, and inflames the animosity of parties." + +On the 26th of June, 1866, it was announced in Parliament that +the Ministers had resigned, and that the Queen had sent for Lord +Derby. Lord Russell retained the Liberal leadership till Christmas, +1867, and then definitely retired from public life, though his +interest in political events continued unabated to the end. + +Of course, I am old enough to remember very well the tumults and +commotions which attended the defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866. +They contrasted strangely with the apathy and indifference which +had prevailed while the Bill was in progress; but the fact was that +a new force had appeared. The Liberal party had discovered Gladstone; +and were eagerly awaiting the much more democratic measure which +they thought he was destined to carry in the very near future. +That it was really carried by Disraeli is one of the ironies of +our political history. + +During the years of my uncle's retirement was much more in his +company than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he was +Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to me +a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent +there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with +Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland; +had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and +dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of +Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had +conversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had ridden +with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It was +not without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career, +epitomized it in Dryden couplet: + + "Not heaven itself upon the past has power, + But what has been has been, and I have had my hour." + + + + +III + +_LORD DERBY_ + +My opportunities of observing Lord Derby at close quarters, were +comparatively scanty. When, in June, 1866, he kissed hands as Prime +Minister for the third time, I was a boy of thirteen, and I was only +sixteen when he died. I had known Lord Palmerston in the House of +Commons and Lord Russell in private life; but my infant footsteps +were seldom guided towards the House of Lords, and it was only +there that "the Rupert of debate" could at that time be heard. + +The Whigs, among whom I was reared, detested Derby with the peculiar +detestation which partisans always feel for a renegade. In 1836 +Charles Dickens, in his capacity of Parliamentary reporter, had +conversed with an ancient M.P. who allowed that Lord Stanley--who +became Lord Derby in 1851--might do something one of these days, +but "he's too young, sir--too young." The active politicians of +the sixties did not forget that this too-young Stanley, heir of a +great Whig house, had flung himself with ardour into the popular +cause, and, when the Lords threw out the first Reform Bill, had +jumped on to the table at Brooks's and had proclaimed the great +constitutional truth--reaffirmed over the Parliament Bill in 1911--that +"His Majesty can clap coronets on the heads of a whole company of +his Foot Guards." + +The question of the influences which had changed Stanley from a +Whig to a Tory lies outside the purview of a sketch like this. For +my present purpose it must suffice to say that, as he had absolutely +nothing to gain by the change, we may fairly assume that it was due +to conviction. But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition, +or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remained +Whigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, said +that Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth, +but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledged +help." Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings of +a party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into the +opposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as any +party would have been thankful to claim. + +He was the future head of one of the few English families which +the exacting genealogists of the Continent recognize as noble. To +pedigree he added great possessions, and wealth which the industrial +development of Lancashire was increasing every day. He was a graceful +and tasteful scholar, who won the Chanceller's prize for Latin +verse at Oxford, and translated the Iliad into fluent hexameters. +Good as a scholar, he was, as became the grandson of the founder +of "The Derby," even better as a sportsman; and in private life +he was the best companion in the world, playful and reckless, as +a schoolboy, and never letting prudence or propriety stand between +him and his jest. "Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall have!" was his +characteristic greeting to Lord John Russell, when that ancient +rival entered the House of Lords. + +Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural +gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname +of "Rupert," and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if +he had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a brilliant sketch of his +social aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield's +_Endymion_; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same great +man's account, reported by Matthew Arnold: "Full of nerve, dash, +fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along with +him." + +In the Parliament of 1859-1865 (with which my political recollections +begin) Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord Derby Leader +of the Opposition, with Disraeli as his lieutenant in the House +of Commons. If, as Lord Randolph Churchill said in later years, +the business of an Opposition is to oppose, it must be admitted +that Derby and Disraeli were extremely remiss. It was suspected at +the time, and has since been made known through Lord Malmesbury's +_Memoirs_, that there was something like an "understanding" between +Palmerston and Derby. As long as Palmerston kept his Liberal colleagues +in order, and chaffed his Radical supporters out of all the reforms +on which their hearts were set, Derby was not to turn him out of +office, though the Conservative minority in the House of Commons +was very large, and there were frequent openings for harassing +attack. + +Palmerston's death, of course, dissolved this compact; and, though +the General Election of 1865 had again yielded a Liberal majority, +the change in the Premiership had transformed the aspect of political +affairs. The new Prime Minister was in the House of Lords, seventy-three +years old, and not a strong man for his age. His lieutenant in the +House of Commons was Gladstone, fifty-five years old, and in the +fullest vigour of body and mind. Had any difference of opinion +arisen between the two men, it was obvious that Gladstone was in a +position to make his will prevail; but on the immediate business of +the new Parliament they were absolutely at one, and that business +was exactly what Palmerston had for the last six years successfully +opposed--the extension of the franchise to the working man. When +no one is enthusiastic about a Bill, and its opponents hate it, +there is not much difficulty in defeating it, and Derby and Disraeli +were not the men to let the opportunity slide. With the aid of the +malcontent Whigs they defeated the Reform Bill, and Derby became +Prime Minister, with Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons. It +was a conjuncture fraught with consequences vastly more important +than anyone foresaw. + +In announcing his acceptance of office (which he had obtained by +defeating a Reform Bill), Derby amazed his opponents and agitated +his friends by saying that he "reserved to himself complete liberty +to deal with the question of Parliamentary reform whenever suitable +occasion should arise." In February, 1867, Disraeli, on behalf +of the Tory Government, brought in the first really democratic +Reform Bill which England had ever known. He piloted it through +the House of Commons with a daring and a skill of which I was an +eye-witness, and, when it went up to the Lords, Derby persuaded +his fellow-peers to accept a measure which established household +suffrage in the towns. + +It was "a revolution by due course of law," nothing less; and to +this day people dispute whether Disraeli induced Derby to accept +it, or whether the process was reversed. Derby called it "a leap +in the dark." Disraeli vaulted that he had "educated his party" +up to the point of accepting it. Both alike took comfort in the +fact that they had "dished the Whigs"--which, indeed, they had +done most effectually. The disgusted Clarendon declared that Derby +"had only agreed to the Reform Bill as he would of old have backed +a horse at Newmarket. He hates Disraeli, but believes in him as +he would have done in an unprincipled trainer: _he wins_--that +is all." + +On the 15th of August, 1867, the Tory Reform Bill received the +Royal Assent, and Derby attained the summit of his career. Inspired +by whatever motives, influenced by whatever circumstances, the +Tory chief had accomplished that which the most liberal-minded of +his predecessors had never even dreamed of doing. He had rebuilt +the British Constitution on a democratic foundation. + +At this point some account of Lord Derby's personal appearance +may be introduced. My impression is that he was only of the middle +height, but quite free from the disfigurement of obesity; light in +frame, and brisk in movement. Whereas most statesmen were bald, +he had an immense crop of curly, and rather untidy, hair and the +abundant whiskers of the period. His features were exactly of the +type which novelists used to call aristocratic: an aquiline nose, +a wide but firmly compressed mouth, and a prominent chin. His dress +was, even then, old-fashioned, and his enormous black satin cravat, +arranged in I know not how many folds, seemed to be a survival +from the days of Count D'Orsay. His air and bearing were such as +one expects in a man whose position needs no advertizing; and I +have been told that, even in the breeziest moments of unguarded +merriment, his chaff was always the chaff of a gentleman. + +Lord Beaconsfield, writing to a friend, once said that he had just +emerged from an attack of the gout, "of renovating ferocity," and +this phrase might have been applied to the long succession of gouty +illnesses which were always harassing Lord Derby. Unfortunately, as +we advance in life, the "renovating" effects of gout become less +conspicuous than its "ferocity;" and Lord Derby, who was born in +1799, was older than his years in 1867. In January and February, 1868, +his gout was so severe that it threatened his life. He recovered, +but he saw that his health was no longer equal to the strain of +office, and on the 24th of February he placed his resignation in +the Queen's hands. + +But during the year and a half that remained to him he was by no +means idle. He had originally broken away from the Whigs on a point +which threatened the temporalities of the still-established Church +of Ireland; and in the summer of 1868 Gladstone's avowal of the +principle of Irish Disestablishment roused all his ire, and seemed +to quicken him into fresh life. The General Election was fixed +for November, and the Liberal party, almost without exception, +prepared to follow Gladstone in his Irish policy. On the 29th of +October Bishop Wilberforce noted that Derby was "very keen," and had +asked: "What will the Whigs not swallow? Disraeli is very sanguine +still about the elections." + +The question about the Whigs came comically from the man who had +just made the Tories swallow Household Suffrage; and Disraeli's +sanguineness was ill-founded. The election resulted in a majority +of one hundred for Irish Disestablishment; Disraeli resigned, and +Gladstone became for the first time Prime Minister. + +The Session of 1869 was devoted to the Irish Bill, and Lord Derby, +though on the brink of the grave, opposed the Bill in what some +people thought the greatest of his speeches in the House of Lords. +He was pale, his voice was feeble, he looked, as he was, a broken +man; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had already +become traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to the +Laird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight of +the Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in English +oratory. The speech concluded thus: + +"My Lords, I am now an old man, and, like many of your Lordships, +I have already passed three score years and ten. My official life +is entirely closed; my political life is nearly so; and, in the +course of nature, my natural life cannot now be long. That natural +life commenced with the bloody suppression of a formidable rebellion +in Ireland, which immediately preceded the union between the two +countries. And may God grant that its close may not witness a renewal +of the one and a dissolution of the other." + +This speech was delivered on the 17th of June, 1869, and the speaker +died on the 23rd of the following October. + + + + +IV + +_BENJAMIN DISRAEI_ + +I always count it among the happy accidents of my life that I happened +to be in London during the summer of 1867. I was going to Harrow +in the following September, and for the next five years my chance +of hearing Parliamentary debates was small. In the summer of 1866, +when the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill was thrown out, I was in the +country, and therefore I had missed the excitement caused by the +demolition of the Hyde Park railings, the tears of the terrified +Home Secretary, and the litanies chanted by the Reform League under +Gladstone's window in Carlton House Terrace. But in 1867 I was in +the thick of the fun. My father was the Sergeant-at-Arms attending +the House of Commons, and could always admit me to the privileged +seats "under the Gallery," then more numerous than now. So it came +about that I heard all the most famous debates in Committee on +the Tory Reform Bill, and thereby learned for the first time the +fascination of Disraeli's genius. The Whigs, among whom I was reared, +did not dislike "Dizzy" as they disliked Lord Derby, or as Dizzy +himself was disliked by the older school of Tories. But they absolutely +miscalculated and misconceived him, treating him as merely an amusing +charlatan, whose rococo oratory and fantastic tricks afforded a +welcome relief from the dulness of ordinary politics. + +To a boy of fourteen thus reared, the Disraeli of 1867 was an +astonishment and a revelation--as the modern world would say, an +eye-opener. The House of Commons was full of distinguished men--Lord +Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury; John Bright and Robert Lowe, +Gathorne Hardy, Bernal-Osborne, Goschen, Mill, Kinglake, Renley, +Horsman, Coleridge. The list might be greatly prolonged, but of +course it culminates in Gladstone, then in the full vigour of his +powers. All these people I saw and heard during that memorable +summer; but high above them all towers, in my recollection, the +strange and sinister figure of the great Disraeli. The Whigs had +laughed at him for thirty years; but now, to use a phrase of the +nursery, they laughed on the wrong side of their mouths. There +was nothing ludicrous about him now, nothing to provoke a smile, +except when he wished to provoke it, and gaily unhorsed his opponents +of every type--Gladstone, or Lowe, or Beresford-Hope. He seemed, +for the moment, to dominate the House of Commons, to pervade it +with his presence, and to guide it where he would. At every turn +he displayed his reckless audacity, his swiftness in transition, +his readiness to throw overboard a stupid colleague, his alacrity +to take a hint from an opponent and make it appear his own. The +Bill underwent all sorts of changes in Committee; but still it +seemed to be Disraeli's Bill, and no one else's. And, indeed, he +is entitled to all the credit which he got, for it was his genius +that first saw the possibilities hidden in a Tory democracy. + +To a boy of fourteen, details of rating, registration, and residential +qualification make no strong appeal; but the personality of this +strange magician, un-English, inscrutable, irresistible, was profoundly +interesting. "Gladstone," wrote Lord Houghton to a friend, "seems +quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, +is gradually driving all ideas of political honour out of the House, +and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism." I had been +trained by people who were sensitive about "Political honour," +and I knew nothing of "cynicism"; but the "diabolical cleverness" +made an impression on me which has lasted to this day. + +What was Dizzy in personal appearance? If I had not known the fact, +I do not think that I should have recognized him as one of the +ancient race of Israel. His profile was not the least what we in +England consider Semitic. He might have been a Spaniard or an Italian, +but he certainly was not a Briton. He was rather tall than short, +but slightly bowed, except when he drew himself up for the more +effective delivery of some shrewd blow. His complexion was extremely +pale, and the pallor was made more conspicuous by contrast with his +hair, steeped in Tyrian dye, worn long, and eked out with artificial +additions. + +He was very quietly dressed. The green velvet trousers and rings +worn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his fame +in "the days of the dandies," had long since been discarded. He +dressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coat +worn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, +and a black cravat tied in a loose bow--and those spring-sided +boots of soft material which used to be called "Jemimas." I may +remark, in passing, that these details of costume were reproduced +with startling fidelity in Mr. Dennis Eadie's wonderful play--the +best representation of personal appearance that I have ever seen +on the stage. + +Disraeli's voice was by nature deep, and he had a knack of deepening +it when he wished to be impressive. His articulation was extremely +deliberate, so that every word told; and his habitual manner was +calm, but not stolid. I say "habitual," because it had variations. +When Gladstone, just the other side of the Table, was thundering his +protests, Disraeli became absolutely statuesque, eyed his opponent +stonily through his monocle, and then congratulated himself, in a +kind of stage drawl, that there was a "good broad piece of furniture" +between him and the enraged Leader of the Opposition. But when it +was his turn to simulate the passion which the other felt, he would +shout and wave his arms, recoil from the Table and return to it, +and act his part with a vigour which, on one memorable occasion, +was attributed to champagne; but this was merely play-acting, and +was completely laid aside as he advanced in years. + +What I have written so far is, no doubt, an anachronism, for I +have been describing what I saw and heard in the Session of 1867, +and Disraeli did not become Prime Minister till February, 1868; but +six months made no perceptible change in his appearance, speech, +or manner. What he had been when he was fighting his Reform Bill +through the House, that he was when, as Prime Minister, he governed +the country at the head of a Parliamentary minority. His triumph +was the triumph of audacity. In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, +who enquired his object in life, "I want to be Prime Minister"--and +now that object was attained. At Brooks's they said, "The last +Government was the Derby; this is the Hoax." Gladstone's discomfiture +was thus described by Frederick Greenwood: + +"The scorner who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across +the Table of the House of Commons last Session has now more than +heart could wish; his eyes--speaking in an Oriental manner--stand +out with fatness, he speaketh loftily; and pride compasseth him +about as with a chain. It is all very well to say that the candle +of the wicked is put out in the long run; that they are as stubble +before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away. So we +were told in other times of tribulation. This was the sort of +consolation that used to be offered in the jaunty days of Lord +Palmerston. People used then to soothe the earnest Liberal by the +same kind of argument. 'Only wait,' it was said, 'until he has +retired, and all will be well with us.' But no sooner has the storm +carried away the wicked Whig chaff than the heavens are forthwith +darkened by new clouds of Tory chaff." + +Lord Shaftesbury, as became his character, took a sterner view. +"Disraeli Prime Minister! He is a Hebrew; this is a good thing. +He is a man sprung from an inferior station; another good thing +in these days, as showing the liberality of our institutions. But +he is a leper, without principle, without feeling, without regard +to anything, human or Divine, beyond his own personal ambition." + +The situation in which the new Prime Minister found himself was, from +the constitutional point of view, highly anomalous. The settlement +of the question of Reform, which he had effected in the previous +year, had healed the schism in the Liberal party, and the Liberals +could now defeat the Government whenever they chose to mass their +forces. Disraeli was officially the Leader of a House in which his +opponents had a large majority. In March, 1868, Gladstone began his +attack on the Irish Church, and pursued it with all his vigour, and +with the support of a united party. He moved a series of Resolutions +favouring Irish Disestablishment, and the first was carried by a +majority of sixty-five against the Government. + +This defeat involved explanation. Disraeli, in a speech which Bright +called "a mixture of pompousness and servility," described his +audiences of the Queen, and so handled the Royal name as to convey +the impression that Her Majesty was on his side. Divested of verbiage +and mystification, his statement amounted to this--that, in spite of +adverse votes, he intended to hold on till the autumn, and then to +appeal to the new electorate created by the Reform Act of the previous +year. As the one question to be submitted to the electors was that +of the Irish Church, the campaign naturally assumed a theological +character. On the 20th of August Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "Dizzy is +seeking everywhere for support. He is all things to all men, and +nothing to anyone. He cannot make up his mind to be Evangelical, +Neologian, or Ritualistic; he is waiting for the highest bidder." + +Parliament was dissolved in November, and the General Election +resulted in a majority of one hundred for Gladstone and Irish +Disestablishment. By a commendable innovation on previous practice, +Disraeli resigned the Premiership without waiting for a hostile +vote of the new Parliament. He declined the Earldom to which, as +an ex-Prime Minister, he was by usage entitled; but he asked the +Queen to make his devoted wife Viscountess Beaconsfield. As a youth, +after hearing the great speakers of the House which he had not +yet entered, he had said, "Between ourselves, I could floor them +all"--but now Gladstone had "floored" him, and it took him five +years to recover his breath. + + + + +V + +_WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE_ + +Most people remember Gladstone as an old man. He reached the summit +of his career when he had just struck seventy. After Easter, 1880, +when he dethroned Lord Beaconsfield and formed his second +Administration, the eighteen years of life that remained to him +added nothing to his fame, and even in some respects detracted +from it. Gradually he passed into the stage which was indicated +by Labouchere's nickname of "The Grand Old Man"; and he enjoyed +the homage which rightly attends the closing period of an exemplary +life, wonderfully prolonged, and spent in the service of the nation. +He had become historical before he died. But my recollections of +him go back to the earlier sixties, when he was Chancellor of the +Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and they become vivid +at the point of time when he became Prime Minister--December, 1868. + +In old age his appearance was impressive, through the combination of +physical wear-and-tear with the unconquerable vitality of the spirit +which dwelt within. The pictures of him as a young man represent +him as distinctly handsome, with masses of dark hair thrown back +from a truly noble forehead, and eyes of singular expressiveness. +But in middle life--and in his case middle life was continued till +he was sixty--he was neither as good-looking as he once had been, +nor, as grand-looking as he eventually became. He looked much older +than his age. When he met the new Parliament which had been elected +at the end of 1868, he was only as old as Lord Curzon is now; but +he looked old enough to be Lord Curzon's father. His life had been, +as he was fond of saying, a life of contention; and the contention +had left its mark on his face, with its deep furrows and careworn +expression. Three years before he had felt, to use his own phrase, +"sore with conflicts about the public expenditure" (in which old +Palmerston had always beaten him), and to that soreness had been +added traces of the fierce strife about Parliamentary Reform and +Irish Disestablishment. F. D. Maurice thus described him: "His +face is a very expressive one, hard-worked, as you say, and not +perhaps specially happy; more indicative of struggle than of victory, +though not without promise of that. He has preserved the type which +I can remember that he bore at the University thirty-six years +ago, though it has undergone curious development." + +My own recollection exactly confirms Maurice's estimate. In Gladstone's +face, as I used to see it in those days, there was no look of gladness +or victory. He had, indeed, won a signal triumph at the General +Election of 1868, and had attained the supreme object of a politician's +ambition. But he did not look the least as if he enjoyed his honours, +but rather as if he felt an insupportable burden of responsibility. +He knew that he had an immense amount to do in carrying the reforms +which Palmerston had burked, and, coming to the Premiership on the +eve of sixty, he realized that the time for doing it was necessarily +short. He seemed consumed by a burning and absorbing energy; and, +when he found himself seriously hampered or strenuously opposed, he +was angry with an anger which was all the more formidable because +it never vented itself in an insolent or abusive word. A vulnerable +temper kept resolutely under control had always been to me one of +the most impressive features in human character. + +Gladstone had won the General Election by asking the constituencies +to approve the Disestablishment of the Irish Church; and this was +the first task to which he addressed himself in the Parliament +of 1869. It was often remarked about his speaking that in every +Session he made at least one speech of which everyone said, "That +was the finest thing Gladstone ever did." This was freely said +of it he speech in which he introduced the Disestablishment Bill +on the 1st of March, 1869, and again of that in which he wound up +the debate on the Second Reading. In pure eloquence he had rivals, +and in Parliamentary management superiors; but in the power of +embodying principles in legislative form and preserving unity of +purpose through a multitude of confusing minuti he had neither +equal nor second. + +The Disestablishment Bill passed easily through the Commons, but +was threatened with disaster in the Lords, and it was with profound +satisfaction that Mrs. Gladstone, most devoted and most helpful of +wives, announced the result of the division on the Second Reading. +Gladstone had been unwell, and had gone to bed early. Mrs. Gladstone +who had been listening to the debate in the House of Lords, said +to a friend, "I could not help it; I gave William a discreet poke. +'A majority of thirty-three, my dear.' 'Thank you, my dear,' he +said, and turned round, and went to sleep on the other side." After +a stormy passage through Committee, the Bill became law on the +26th of July. + +So Gladstone's first great act of legislation ended, and he was +athirst for more. Such momentous reforms as the Irish Land Act, the +Education Act, the abolition of religious tests in the University, +the abolition of purchase in the Army, and the establishment of the +Ballot, filled Session after Session with excitement; and Gladstone +pursued each in turn with an ardour which left his followers out +of breath. + +He was not very skilful in managing his party, or even his Cabinet. +He kept his friendships and his official relations quite distinct. +He never realized the force of the saying that men who have only +worked together have only half lived together. It was truly said +that he understood MAN, but not men; and meek followers in the +House of Commons, who had sacrificed money, time, toil, health, +and sometimes conscience, to the support of the Government, turned, +like the crushed worm, when they found that Gladstone sternly ignored +their presence in the Lobby, or, if forced to speak to them, called +them by inappropriate names. His strenuousness of reforming purpose +and strength of will were concealed by no lightness of touch, no +give-and-take, no playfulness, no fun. He had little of that saving +grace of humour which smoothes the practical working of life as much +as it adds to its enjoyment. He was fiercely, terribly, incessantly +in earnest; and unbroken earnestness, though admirable, exhausts +and in the long run alienates. + +There was yet another feature of his Parliamentary management which +proved disastrous to his cause, and this was his tendency to what the +vulgar call hair-splitting and the learned casuistry. At Oxford men +are taught to distinguish with scrupulous care between propositions +closely similar, but not identical. In the House of Commons they +are satisfied with the roughest and broadest divisions between +right and wrong; they see no shades of colour between black-and +white. Hence arose two unfortunate incidents, which were nicknamed +"The Ewelme Scandal" and "The Colliery Explosion"--two cases in +which Gladstone, while observing the letter of an Act of Parliament, +violated, or seemed to violate, its spirit in order to qualify +highly deserving gentlemen for posts to which he wished to appoint +them. By law the Rectory of Ewelme (in the gift of the Crown) could +only be held by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Gladstone +conferred it on a Cambridge man, who had to procure an _ad eundem_ +degree at Oxford before he could accept the preferment. By law no +man could be made a paid member of the Judicial Committee of the +Privy Council unless he had served as a judge. Gladstone made his +Attorney-General, Sir John Collier, a Judge for three weeks, and then +passed him on to the Judicial Committee. Both these appointments +were angrily challenged in Parliament. Gladstone defended them with +energy and skill, and logically his defence was unassailable. But +these were cases where the plain man--and the House of Commons +is full of plain men--feels, though he cannot prove, that there +has been a departure from ordinary straightforwardness and fair +dealing. + +Yet again; the United States had a just complaint against us; arising +out of the performances of the _Alabama_, which, built in an English +dockyard and manned by an English crew, but owned by the Slaveowners' +Confederacy, had got out to sea, and, during a two years' cruise of +piracy and devastation, had harassed the Government of the United +States. The quarrel had lasted for years, with ever-increasing +gravity. Gladstone determined to end it; and, with that purpose, +arranged for a Board of Arbitration, which sat at Geneva, and decided +against England. We were heavily amerced by the sentence of this +International Tribunal. We paid, but we did not like it. Gladstone +gloried in the moral triumph of a settlement without bloodshed; but +a large section of the nation, including many of his own party, +felt that national honour had been lowered, and determined to avenge +themselves on the Minister who had lowered it. + +Meanwhile Disraeli, whom Gladstone had deposed in 1868, was watching +the development of these events with sarcastic interest and effective +criticism, till in 1872 he was able to liken the great Liberal, +Government to "a range of exhausted volcanoes," and to say of its +eminent leader that he "alternated between a menace and a sigh." In +1873 Gladstone introduced a wholly unworkable Bill for the reform +of University education in Ireland. It pleased no one, and was +defeated on the Second Reading. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sent +for Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the experiment of +governing the country without a majority in the House of Commons, +and Gladstone was forced to resume office, though, of course, with +immensely diminished authority. His Cabinet was all at sixes and +sevens. There were resignations and rumours of resignation. He +took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and, as some authorities +contended, vacated his seat by doing so. Election after election +went wrong, and the end was visibly at hand. + +At the beginning of 1874 Gladstone, confined to his house by a +cold, executed a _coup d'tat_. He announced the Dissolution of +Parliament, and promised, if his lease of power were renewed, to +repeal the income-tax. _The Times_ observed: "The Prime Minister +descends upon Greenwich" (where he had taken refuge after being +expelled from South Lancashire) "amid a shower of gold, and must +needs prove as irresistible as the Father of the Gods." But this +was too sanguine a forecast. Greenwich, which returned two members, +placed Gladstone second on the poll, below a local distiller, while +his followers were blown out of their seats like chaff before the +wind. When the General Election was over, the Tories had a majority +of forty-six. Gladstone, after some hesitation, resigned without +waiting to meet a hostile Parliament. Disraeli became Prime Minister +for the second time; and in addressing the new House of Commons +he paid a generous compliment to his great antagonist. "If," he +said, "I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief so eminent, +even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather +to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the +great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember +his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not +its accidental or even disastrous mistakes." + +The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, and +Gladstone's greatest day was yet to come. + + + + +VI + +_LORD SALISBURY_ + +This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative, +but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense the +events of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he became +Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeeded +it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attempted +to describe. + +From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office, +but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first +Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House +of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, on +every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals. +He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and +friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House of +Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed +by a noisy and unscrupulous Press. + +In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing forms +of the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If only +he had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlin +in July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorship +for life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed with +it. "I am very unwell," he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but I +manage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I look +as fierce as I can." + +Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce," but agitating +fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly +retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided +his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington. +But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into the +thick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselves +practically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, and +Gladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of the +Liberal party. + +It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilful +opposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase, +"counter-worked the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield" from 1876 to +1880--and he attained his object. Lord Beaconsfield, like other +Premiers nearer our own time, imagined that he was indispensable +and invulnerable. Gladstone might harangue, but Beaconsfield would +still govern. He told the Queen that she might safely go abroad +in March, 1880, for, though there was a Dissolution impending, +he knew that the country would support him. So the Queen went off +in perfect ease of mind, and returned in three weeks' time to find +a Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members, +with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resigned +without waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone, +though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartington +to form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his second +Administration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lasted +till the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures, +and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulation +here. + +When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determined +to resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote, +who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill and +dignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better; +and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. To +all frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar, +if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then as +Lord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership he +was a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as short-sighted +people always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion was unusually +dark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty hair were +intensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon became famous +for his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. He joined +Lord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his hostility +to the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both with pen +and tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible that +the two men could ever again speak to one another--let alone work +together. But political grudges are short-lived; or perhaps it +would be nearer the mark to say that, however strong those grudges +may be, the allurements of office are stronger still. Men conscious +of great powers for serving the State will often put up with a +good deal which they dislike sooner than decline an opportunity +of public usefulness. + +Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (who +had succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in +1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duels +with the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a near +kinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that the +days of physical duelling were over. In 1878 he accompanied Lord +Beaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin, being second Plenipotentiary; +and when on their return he drove through the acclaiming streets +of London in the back seat of the Triumphal Car, it was generally +surmised that he had established his claim to the ultimate reversion +of the Premiership. That reversion, as I said just now, he attained +in June, 1885, and enjoyed till February, 1886--a short tenure of +office, put the earnest of better and longer things to come. + +At this period of His career Lord Salisbury was forced to yield to +the democratic spirit so far as to "go on the stump" and address +popular audiences in great towns. It was an uncongenial employment. +His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talk +effectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working men +bellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularly +unlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating, +but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of the +things which interested him; but whether or not they interested +his hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off the +platform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, there +was a general sense of mutual relief. + +But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home. +The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, and +his splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere, +a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, his +audience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and, +through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemed +as profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spoke +without notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric, +no declamation, no display. As one listened, one seemed to hear the +genuine thoughts of a singularly clever and reflective man, who had +strong prejudices of his own in favour of religion, authority, and +property, but was quite unswayed by the prejudices of other people. +The general tone of his thought was sombre. Lord Lytton described, +with curious exactness, the "massive temple," the "large slouching +shoulder," and the "prone head," which "habitually stoops"-- + + "Above a world his contemplative gaze + Peruses, finding little there to praise!" + +But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world which +had departed so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, this +prevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, by +flashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelled +him in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Careless +critics called him "cynical," but it was an abuse of words. Cynicism +is shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury which +was inconsistent with the highest ideals of patriotic statesmanship. + +He was by nature as shy as he was short-sighted. He shrank from new +acquaintances, and did not always detect old friends. His failure +to recognize a young politician who sat in his Cabinet, and a zealous +clergyman whom he had just made a Bishop, supplied his circle with +abundant mirth, which was increased when, at the beginning of the +South African War, he was seen deep in military conversation with +Lord Blyth, under the impression that he was talking to Lord Roberts. + +But, in spite of these impediments to social facility, he was an +admirable host both at Hatfield and in Arlington Street--courteous, +dignified, and only anxious to put everyone at their ease. His +opinions were not mine, and it always seemed to me that he was +liable to be swayed by stronger wills than his own. But he was +exactly what he called Gladstone, "a great Christian statesman." + + + + +VII + +_LORD ROSEBERY_ + +It was in December, 1885, that the present Lord Gladstone; in +conjunction with the late Sir Wemyss Reid, sent up "the Hawarden +Kite." After a lapse of thirty-two years, that strange creature +is still flapping about in a stormy sky; and in the process of +time it has become a familiar, if not an attractive, object. But +the history of its earlier gyrations must be briefly recalled. + +The General Election of 1885 had just ended in a tie, the Liberals +being exactly equal to the combined Tories and Parnellites. Suddenly +the Liberals found themselves committed, as far as Gladstone could +commit them, to the principle of Home Rule, which down to that +time they had been taught to denounce. Most of them followed their +leader, but many rebelled. The Irish transferred their votes in the +House to the statesman whom--as they thought--they had squeezed +into compliance with their policy, and helped him to evict Lord +Salisbury after six months of office. Gladstone formed a Government, +introduced a Home Rule Bill, split his party in twain, was defeated +in the House of Commons, dissolved Parliament, and was soundly +beaten at the General Election which he had precipitated. Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the second time, and ruled, +with great authority and success, till the summer of 1892. + +Meanwhile, Gladstone, by his indefatigable insistence on Home Rule +and by judicious concessions to opponents, had to some extent repaired +the damage done in 1886; but not sufficiently. Parliament was dissolved +in June, 1892, and, when the Election was over, the Liberals, _plus_ +the Irish, made a majority of forty for Home Rule. Gladstone realized +that this majority, even if he could hold it together, had no chance +of coercing the House of Lords into submission; but he considered +himself bound in honour to form a Government and bring in a second +Home Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became his Foreign Secretary, and +Sir William Harcourt his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Home +Rule Bill struggled through the House of Commons, but was thrown +out in the Lords, 41 voting for and 419 against it. Not a single +meeting was held to protest against this decisive action of the +Lords, and it was evident that the country was sick to death of +the Irish Question. + +Gladstone knew that his public work was done, and in the spring of +1894 it began to be rumoured that he was going to resign. On the 1st +of March he delivered his last speech in the House of Commons, and +immediately afterwards it became known that he was really resigning. +The next day he went to dine and sleep at Windsor, taking his formal +letter of resignation with him. He had already arranged with the +Queen that a Council should be held on the 3rd of March. At this +moment he thought it possible that the Queen might consult him +about the choice of his successor, and, as we now know from Lord +Morley's "Life," he had determined to recommend Lord Spencer. + +Lord Harcourt's evidence on this point is interesting. According +to him--and there could not be a better authority--Sir William +Harcourt knew of Gladstone's intention. But he may very well have +believed that the Queen would act (as in the event she did) on +her own unaided judgment, and that her choice would fall on him +as Leader of the House of Commons. The fact that he was summoned +to attend the Council on the 3rd of March would naturally confirm +the belief. But _Dis aliter visum_. After the Council the Queen +sent, through the Lord President (Lord Kimberley), a summons to +Lord Rosebery, who kissed hands as Prime Minister at Buckingham +Palace on the 9th of March. + +Bulwer-Lytton, writing "about political personalities, said with +perfect truth: + + "Ne'er of the living can the living judge, + Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge." + +In this case, therefore, I must attempt not judgment but narrative. +Lord Rosebery was born under what most people would consider lucky +stars. He inherited an honourable name, a competent fortune, and +abilities far above the average. But his father died when he was a +child, and as soon as he struck twenty-one he was "Lord of himself, +that heritage of woe." + +At Eton he had attracted the notice of his gifted tutor, "Billy +Johnson," who described him as "one of those who like the palm +without the dust," and predicted that he would "be an orator, and, +if not a poet, such a man as poets delight in." It was a remarkably +shrewd prophecy. From Eton to Christ Church the transition was +natural. Lord Rosebery left Oxford without a degree, travelled, +went into society, cultivated the Turf, and bestowed some of his +leisure on the House of Lords. He voted for the Disestablishment +of the Irish Church, and generally took the line of what was then +considered advanced Liberalism. + +But it is worthy of note that the first achievement which brought +him public fame was not political. "Billy Rogers," the well-known +Rector of Bishopsgate, once said to me: "The first thing which +made me think that Rosebery had real stuff in him was finding him +hard at work in London in August, when everyone else was in a +country-house or on the Moors. He was getting up his Presidential +Address for the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874." Certainly, +it was an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The Social +Science Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by that +omniscient charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were happily +described by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our dismal +provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benches +full of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an orator +lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without." +One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkably +unlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-looking +even for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style rather +horsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cut +very deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions, +it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and it +abounded in glittering phrases." + +Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and his +definite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, important +in politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Early +in the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man, +and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics. +Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association of +Midlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no need +to enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberal +triumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the second +time. + +When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a place +in it to Lord Rosebery, who, with sound judgment, declined what +might have looked like a reward for services just rendered. In +1881 he consented to take the Under-Secretaryship of the Home +Department, with Sir William Harcourt as his chief; but the combination +did not promise well, and ended rather abruptly in 1883. When the +Liberal Government was in the throes of dissolution, Lord Rosebery +returned to it, entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in 1885. +It was just at this moment that Matthew Arnold, encountering him +in a country-house, thus described him: "Lord Rosebery is very +gay and 'smart,' and I like him very much." + +The schism over Home Rule was now approaching, and, when it came, +Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with Gladstone, becoming Foreign +Secretary in February, 1886, and falling with his chief in the +following summer. In 1889 he was chosen Chairman of the first London +County Council, and there did the best work of his life, shaping that +powerful but amorphous body into order and efficiency. Meanwhile, +he was, by judicious speech and still more judicious silence, +consolidating his political position; and before he joined Gladstone's +last Government in August, 1892, he had been generally recognized as +the exponent of a moderate and reasonable Home Rule and an advocate +of Social Reform. My own belief is that the Liberal party as a +whole, and the Liberal Government in particular, rejoiced in the +decision which, on Gladstone's final retirement, made Rosebery +Prime Minister. + +But it was a difficult and disappointing Premiership. Harcourt, not +best pleased by the Queen's choice, was Chancellor of the Exchequer and +Leader of the House of Commons. Gladstone, expounding our Parliamentary +system to the American nation, once said: "The overweight of the +House of Commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring its +Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime Minister who is +a Peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his chief, +and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare, +when he has served him very ugly tricks." + +The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget, +with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellor +of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished +more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph +of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, +being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, +Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. +They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge +the judgment of the country on the performances of the last three +years. + +Thus ingloriously ended a Premiership of which much had been expected. +It was impossible not to be reminded of Goderich's "transient and +embarrassed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offer +to my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been Prime +Minister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiership +had only lasted for ten. + + + + +VII + +_AUTHUR JAMES BALFOUR_ + +When Lord Rosebery brought his brief Administration to an end, Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physical +energy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest of +all bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden of +office increasingly irksome. He retired in 1902, and was succeeded +by his nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, The Administration formed in +1895 had borne some resemblance to a family party, and had thereby +invited ridicule--even, in some quarters, created disaffection. +But when Lord Salisbury was nearing the close of his career, the +interests of family and of party were found to coincide, and everybody +felt that Mr. Balfour must succeed him. Indeed, the transfer of +power from uncle to nephew was so quietly effected that the new +Prime Minister had kissed hands before the general public quite +realized that the old one had disappeared. + +Mr. Balfour had long been a conspicuous and impressive figure in +public life. With a large estate and a sufficient fortune, with +the Tory leader for his uncle, and a pocket-borough bidden by that +uncle to return him, he had obvious qualifications for political +success. He entered Parliament in his twenty-sixth year, at the +General Election of 1874, and his many friends predicted great +performances. But for a time the fulfilment of those predictions +hung fire. Disraeli was reported to have said, after scrutinizing +his young follower's attitude: "I never expect much from a man +who sits on his shoulders." + +Beyond some rather perplexed dealings with the unpopular subject of +Burial Law, the Member for Hertford took no active part in political +business. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself in Moral Science. +This was an unfortunate distinction. Classical scholarship had been +traditionally associated with great office, and a high wrangler +was always credited with hardheadedness; but "Moral Science" was +a different business, not widely understood, and connected in the +popular mind with metaphysics and general vagueness. The rumour +went abroad that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy with +matters which lay quite remote from politics, and was even following +the path of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance of +our national inclination to talk about books without reading them +that, when Mr. Balfour published _A Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, +everyone rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism. +His friends went about looking very solemn, and those who disliked +him piously hoped that all this "philosophic doubt" might not end +in atheism. It was not till he had consolidated his position as a +political leader that politicians read the book, and then discovered, +to their delight, that, in spite of its alarming name, it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. + +The General Election of 1880 seemed to alter the drift of Mr. Balfour's +thought and life. It was said that he still was very philosophical +behind the scenes, but as we saw him in the House of Commons he was +only an eager and a sedulous partisan. Gladstone's overwhelming +victory at the polls put the Tories on their mettle, and they were +eager to avenge the dethronement of their Dagon. "The Fourth Party" +was a birth of this eventful time, and its history has been written +by the sons of two of its members. With the performances of Lord +Randolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff I +have no concern; but the fourth member of the party was Mr. Balfour, +who now, for the first time, began to take a prominent part in +public business. I must be forgiven if I say that, though he was +an admirable writer, it was evident that Nature had not intended +him for a public speaker. Even at this distance of time I can recall +his broken sentences, his desperate tugs at the lapel of his coat, +his long pauses in search of a word, and his selection of the wrong +word after all. + +But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of the +House, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885, +drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In the +new Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but his +sphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local Government +Board, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, he +might have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt or +unphilosophic cocksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked a +stage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented since +1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to Manchester, +where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances of popular +election. + +The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party, +beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its +leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with +lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found +zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate +all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was +trying to make Parliamentary government impossible. + +At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointment +was the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of the +next four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likened +to a young lady--"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was called +"a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused of +being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronounced +incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously +unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration. + +The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries, +rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for +the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment. +He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit +of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should +be repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English, +that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threats +were rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, and +ruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administration +was marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure to +discriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandeville +is a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did not +stand alone. + +Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr. +Balfour's prowess, thus described it: + +"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and soft +speech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic of +senate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity, +an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, and +roused in his friends a delight hardly surpassed in the politics +of our day." + +It is not my business to attack or defend. I only record the fact +that Mr. Balfour's work in Ireland established his position as +the most important member of the Conservative party. In 1891 he +resigned the Chief Secretaryship, and became Leader of the House; +was an eminently successful Leader of Opposition between 1892 and +1895; and, as I said before, was the obvious and unquestioned heir +to the Premiership which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1902. + +As Prime Minister Mr. Balfour had no opportunity for exercising +his peculiar gift of practical administration, and only too much +opportunity for dialectical ingenuity. His faults as a debater +had always been that he loved to "score," even though the score +might be obtained by a sacrifice of candour, and that he seemed +often to argue merely for arguing's sake. It was said of the great +Lord Holland that he always put his opponent's case better than the +opponent put it for himself. No one ever said this of Mr. Balfour; +and his tendency to sophistication led Mr. Humphrey Paul to predict +that his name "would always be had in honour wherever hairs were +split." His manner and address (except when he was debating) were +always courteous and conciliatory; those who were brought into +close contact with him liked him, and those who worked under him +loved him. Socially, he was by no means as expansive as the leader +of a party should be. He was surrounded by an adoring clique, and +reminded one of the dignitaries satirized by Sydney Smith: "They +live in high places with high people, or with little people who +depend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear only +one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a lady +veils herself from rough breezes." + +But, unfortunately, a Prime Minister, though he may "avoid" reckless +men, cannot always escape them, and may sometimes be forced to +count them among his colleagues. Lord Rosebery's Administration was +sterilized partly by his own unfamiliarity with Liberal sentiment, +and partly by the frowardness of his colleagues. Mr. Balfour knew +all about Conservative sentiment, so far as it is concerned with +order, property, and religion; but he did not realize the economic +heresy which always lurks in the secret heart of Toryism; and it +was his misfortune to have as his most important colleague a "bold, +reckless man" who realized that heresy, and was resolved to work +it for his own ends. From the day when Mr. Chamberlain launched +his scheme, or dream, of Tariff Reform, Mr. Balfour's authority +steadily declined. Endless ingenuity in dialectic, nimble exchanges +of posture, candid disquisition for the benefit of the well-informed, +impressive phrase-making for the bewilderment of the ignorant--these +and a dozen other arts were tried in vain. People began to laugh +at the Tory leader, and likened him to Issachar crouching down +between two burdens, or to that moralist who said that he always +sought "the narrow path which lies between right and wrong." His +colleagues fell away from him, and he was unduly ruffled by their +secession. "It is time," exclaimed the Liberal leader, "to have +done with this fooling"; and though he was blamed by the Balfourites +for his abruptness of speech, the country adopted his opinion. +Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. Balfour that his position was +no longer tenable. He slipped out of office as quietly as he had +slipped into it; and the Liberal party entered on its ten years' +reign. + + + + +IX + +_HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN_ + +"He put his country first, his party next, and himself last." This, +the noblest eulogy which can be pronounced upon a politician, was +strikingly applicable to my old and honoured friend whose name +stands at the head of this page. And yet, when applied to him, +it might require a certain modification, for, in his view, the +interests of his country and the interests of his party were almost +synonymous terms--so profoundly was he convinced that freedom is +the best security for national welfare. When he was entertained at +dinner by the Reform Club on his accession to the Premiership, he +happened to catch my eye while he was speaking, and he interjected +this remark: "I see George Russell there. He is by birth, descent, +and training a Whig; but he is a little more than a Whig." Thus +describing me he described himself. He was a Whig who had marched +with the times from Whiggery to Liberalism; who had never lagged +an inch behind his party, but who did not, as a rule, outstep it. +His place was, so to speak, in the front line of the main body, +and every forward movement found him ready and eager to take his +place in it. His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion to +the Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidance +of sects and schisms. + +He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourished +in Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited additional wealth, which +transformed his name from Campbell to Campbell-Bannerman--the familiar +"C.-B." of more recent times. Having graduated from Trinity College, +Cambridge, he entered Parliament as Member for the Stirling Burghs +in 1868, and was returned by the same delightful constituency till +his death, generally without a contest. He began official life in +Gladstone's first Administration as Financial Secretary to the War +Office, and returned to the same post after the Liberal victory of +1880. One of the reasons for putting him there was that his tact, good +sense, and lightness in hand enabled him to work harmoniously with +the Duke of Cambridge--a fiery chief who was not fond of Liberals, +and abhorred prigs and pedants. In 1884, when Sir George Trevelyan +was promoted to the Cabinet, Campbell-Bannerman was made Chief +Secretary for Ireland, and in that most difficult office acquitted +himself with notable success. Those were not the days of "the Union +of Hearts," and it was not thought necessary for a Liberal Chief +Secretary to slobber over murderers and outrage-mongers. On the other +hand, the iron system of coercion, which Mr. Balfour administered so +unflinchingly, had not been invented; and the Chief Secretary had +to rely chiefly on his own resources of firmness, shrewdness, and +good-humour. With these Campbell-Bannerman was abundantly endowed, +and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted +to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned +a deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, he +replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical +fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was +not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he +invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstated +nor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic +humour which befitted his comfortable aspect, and spoke in his +twinkling eyes even when he restrained his tongue. + +The Liberal Government came to an end in June, 1885. The "Home +Rule split" was now nigh at hand, and not even Campbell-Bannerman's +closest friends could have predicted the side which he would take. +On the one hand, there was his congenital dislike of rant and gush, +of mock-heroics and mock-pathetics; there was his strong sense +for firm government, and there was his recent experience of Irish +disaffection. These things might have tended to make him a Unionist, +and he had none of those personal idolatries which carried men +over because Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Spencer, or Mr. Morley had +made the transition. On the other hand, there was his profound +conviction--which is indeed the very root of Whiggery--that each +nation has the right to choose its own rulers, and that no government +is legitimate unless it rests on the consent of the governed. + +This conviction prevailed over all doubts and difficulties, and +before long it became known that Campbell-Bannerman had, in his own +phrase, "found salvation." There were those who were scandalized +when they heard the language of Revivalism thus applied, but it +exactly hit the truth as regards a great many of the converts to +Home Rule. In a very few cases--_e.g._, in Gladstone's own--there +had peen a gradual approximation to the idea of Irish autonomy, +and the crisis of December, 1885, gave the opportunity of avowing +convictions which had long been forming. But in the great majority +of cases the conversion was instantaneous. Men, perplexed by the +chronic darkness of the Irish situation, suddenly saw, or thought +they saw, a light from heaven, and were converted as suddenly as +St. Paul himself. I remember asking the late Lord Ripon the reason +which had governed his decision. He answered: "I always have been +for the most advanced thing in the Liberal programme, and Home Rule +is the most advanced thing just now, so I'm for it." I should not +wonder if a similar sentiment had some influence in the decision, +arrived at by Campbell-Bannerman, who, when Gladstone formed his +Home Rule Cabinet in 1886, entered it as Secretary of State for +War. He went out with his chief in the following August, and in +the incessant clamour for and against Home Rule which occupied +the next six years he took a very moderate part. + +When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannerman +returned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerning +his Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895. +He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expected +from the habitual composure of his character; but it was no doubt +the more provoking because in the previous spring he had wished +to succeed Lord Peel as Speaker. He told me that the Speakership +was the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed, +and which would best have suited his capacities. But his colleagues +declared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true to +his fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim. + +In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894 +to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership. +Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Some +were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House +of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians +call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and +Campbell-Bannerman--the least self-seeking man in public life--found +himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leadership +was an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain section of +the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should return +on his own terms. There were others who wished for Lord Spencer, +and even in those early days there were some who already saw the +makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from these sectional +preferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper than any two-edged +sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, +and of the joints and marrow." + +The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; the +Irish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the third +time it was rent by the South African Question. Holding that the +South African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, +I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally against +it, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal party +as a whole rather than those of any particular section which he +might personally favour. As the campaign advanced, and the motives +with which it had been engineered became more evident, his lead +became clearer and more decisive. What we read about Concentration +Camps and burnt villages and Chinese labour provoked his emphatic +protest against "methods of barbarism," and those Liberals who +enjoyed the war and called themselves "Imperialists" openly revolted +against his leadership. He bore all attacks and slights and +impertinences with a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, but, +though he said very little, he saw very clearly. He knew exactly +the source and centre of the intrigues against his leadership, +and he knew also that those intrigues were directed to the end of +making Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister. The controversy about +Tariff Reform distracted general attention from these domestic +cabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. Balfour suddenly +resigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman. Then came +a critical moment. + +If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have come +back at the head of a great majority, and could have formed his +Administration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelled +his successor to form his Administration out of existing materials. +So the cabals took a new form. The Liberal Imperialists were eager +to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple +about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had +forsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a +speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; +but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for +employment. The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, +only too ready to forgive and forget. His motto was _Alors comme +alors_, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of past +intrigues. But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him that +they would not join his Government unless he consented to go to +the House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the House +of Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely turned +the tables. + +The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelming +majority; but in one sense it came too late. His health was a good +deal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties which +doubled the burden of office. Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, after +a long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely till +his own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907. He +resigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd. + +His brief Premiership had not been signalized by any legislative +triumphs. He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the first +freshness of 1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless Education +Bill. But during his term of office he had two signal opportunities +of showing the faith that was in him. One was the occasion when, in +defiance of all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, "La Duma est morte! +Vive la Duma!" The other was the day when he gave self-government to +South Africa, and won the tribute thus nobly rendered by General +Smuts: "The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by one +of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of +the British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-builders +I hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought into +being a united South Africa, will never be forgotten." + + + + +II + +IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP + + + + +I + +_GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS_ + +The 19th of May, 1898, was Ascension Day; and, just as the earliest +Eucharists were going up to God, William Ewart Gladstone passed out +of mortal suffering into the peace which passeth understanding. For +people who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, +it is a shock to be told by those who are in immediate contact with +young men that for the rising generation he is only, or scarcely, +a name. For my own part, I say advisedly that he was the finest +specimen of God's handiwork that I have ever seen; and by this +I mean that he combined strength of body, strength of intellect, +and spiritual attainments, in a harmony which I have never known +equalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so lived +and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England." Of him +it was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone died +the world lost its greatest citizen." Mr. Balfour called him "the +greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that the +world has ever seen"; and Lord Salisbury said, "He will be long +remembered as a great example, to which history hardly furnishes +a parallel of a great Christian statesman." + +I have written so often and so copiously of Mr. Gladstone, who was +both my religious and my political leader, that I might have found +it difficult to discover any fresh aspects of his character and work; +but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He has +pointed out certain topics which strikingly connect Gladstone's +personality with the events and emotions of the present hour. I +will take them as indicated, point by point. + +[Footnote *: Of the _Red Triangle_.] + + +1. THE LOVE OF LIBERTY. + +I have never doubted that the master-passion of Gladstone's nature +was his religiousness--his intensely-realized relation with God, +with the Saviour, and with "the powers of the world to come." This +was inborn. His love of liberty was acquired. There was nothing +in his birth or education or early circumstances to incline him +in this direction. He was trained to "regard liberty with jealousy +and fear, as something which could not wholly be dispensed with, +but which was continually to be watched for fear of excesses." +Gradually--very gradually--he came to regard it as the greatest +of temporal blessings, and this new view affected every department +of his public life. In financial matters it led him to adopt the +doctrine of Free Exchanges. In politics, it induced him to extend +the suffrage, first to the artisan and then to the labourer. In +foreign affairs, it made him an unrelenting foe of the Turkish +tyranny. In Ireland, it converted him to Home Rule. In religion, +it brought him nearer and nearer to the ideal of the Free Church +in the Free State. + + +2. BELGIUM AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. + +Gladstone hated war. He held, as most people hold, that there are +causes, such as Life and Home and Freedom, for which the gentlest +and most humane of men must be prepared to draw the sword. But he +was profoundly anxious that it should never be drawn except under +the absolute compulsion of national duty, and during the Crimean +War he made this memorable declaration: + +"If, when you have attained the objects of the war, you continue +it for the sake of mere military glory, I say you tempt the justice +of Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodged +as the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle." + +This being his general view of war, it was inevitable that he should +regard with horror the prospect of intervention in the Franco-German +War, which broke out with startling suddenness, when he was Prime +Minister, in the summer of 1870. He strained every nerve to keep +England out of the struggle, and was profoundly thankful that Providence +enabled him to do so. Yet all through that terrible crisis he saw +quite clearly that either of the belligerent Powers might take +a step which would oblige England to intervene, and he made a +simultaneous agreement with Prussia and France that, if either +violated the neutrality of Belgium, England would co-operate with +the other to defend the little State. Should Belgium, he said, "go +plump down the maw of another country to satisfy dynastic greed," +such a tragedy would "come near to an extinction of public right +in Europe, and I do not think we could look on while the sacrifice +of freedom and independence was in course of consummation." + + +3. WAR-FINANCE AND ECONOMY. + +A colleague once said about Gladstone, "The only two things which +really interest him are Religion and Finance." The saying is much +too unguarded, but it conveys a certain truth. My own opinion is +that Finance was the field of intellectual effort in which his +powers were most conspicuously displayed; and it was always remarked +that, when he came to deal with the most prosaic details of national +income and expenditure, his eloquence rose to an unusual height and +power. At the same time, he was a most vigilant guardian of the +public purse, and he was incessantly on the alert to prevent the +national wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, +from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. This +jealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peace +to make him very chary of spending money on national defences. +When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, his +eagerness in this regard caused his chief to write to the Queen +that "it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk +of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." At the end of his career, his +final retirement was precipitated by his reluctance to sanction +a greatly increased expenditure on the Navy, which the Admiralty +considered necessary. From first to last he sheltered himself under +a dogma of his financial master--Sir Robert Peel--to the effect +that it is possible for a nation, as for an individual, so to +over-insure its property as to sacrifice its income. "My name," +he said at the end, "stands in Europe as a symbol of the policy +of peace, moderation, and non-aggression. What would be said of +my active participation in a policy that will be taken as plunging +England into the whirlpool of Militarism?" + + +4. ARBITRATION AND THE "ALABAMA." + +Gladstone's hatred of war, and his resolve to avoid it at all hazards +unless national duty required it, determined his much criticized +action in regard to the _Alabama_. That famous and ill-omened vessel +was a privateer, built in an English dockyard and manned by an +English crew, which during the American Civil War got out to sea, +captured seventy Northern vessels, and did a vast deal of damage +to the Navy and commerce of the Union. The Government of the United +States had a just quarrel with England in this matter, and the +controversy--not very skilfully handled on either side--dragged on +till the two nations seemed to be on the edge of war. Then Gladstone +agreed to submit the case to arbitration, and the arbitration resulted +in a judgment hostile to England. From that time--1872--Gladstone's +popularity rapidly declined, till it revived, after an interval of +Lord Beaconsfield's rule, at the General Election of 1880. In the +first Session of that Parliament, he vindicated the pacific policy +which had been so severely criticized in the following words: + +"The dispositions which led us to become parties to the arbitration +of the _Alabama_ case are still with us the same as ever; we are not +discouraged, we are not damped in the exercise of these feelings +by the fact that we were amerced, and severely amerced, by the +sentence of the international tribunal; and, although we may think +the sentence was harsh in its extent and unjust in its basis, we +regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance +compared with the moral value of the example set when these two +great nations of England and America, who are among the most fiery +and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything that +touches national honour, went in peace and concord before a judicial +tribunal to dispose of these painful differences, rather than resort +to the arbitrament of the sword." + + +5. NATIONALITY--THE BALKANS AND IRELAND. + +Gladstone was an intense believer in the principle of nationality, and +he had a special sympathy with the struggles of small and materially +feeble States. "Let us recognize," he said, "and recognize with +frankness, the equality of the weak with the strong, the principles +of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. +When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong +to our fellow-subjects, resident abroad, let us do as we would be +done by, and let us pay that respect to a feeble State, and to +the infancy of free institutions, which we would desire and should +exact from others, towards their maturity and their strength." + +He was passionately Phil-Hellene. Greece, he said in 1897, is not +a State "equipped with powerful fleets, large armies, and boundless +treasure supplied by uncounted millions. It is a petty Power, hardly +counting in the list of European States. But it is a Power representing +the race that fought the battles of Thermopyl and Salamis, and +hurled back the hordes of Asia from European shores." + +Of the Christian populations in Eastern Europe which had the misfortune +to live under "the black hoof of the Turkish invader," he was the +chivalrous and indefatigable champion, from the days of the Bulgarian +atrocities in 1875 to the Armenian massacres of twenty years later. +"If only," he exclaimed, "the spirit of little Montenegro had animated +the body of big Bulgaria," very different would have been the fate +of Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions. The fact that +Ireland is so distinctly a nation--not a mere province of Great +Britain--and the fact that she is economically poor, reinforced +that effort to give her self-government which had originated in +his late-acquired love of political freedom. + + +6. THE IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT. + +Of the "Concert of Europe" as it actually lived and worked (however +plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, +and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for +"the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers." It had conspicuously +failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and +it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. Lord +Morley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelity +to public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which is +the legitimate defence for small communities against the great and +powerful"; and yet again: "He had a vision, high in the heavens, of +the flash of an uplifted sword and the gleaming arm of the Avenging +Angel." + +I have now reached the limits of the task assigned me by the Editor, +and my concluding word must be more personal. + +I do not attempt to anticipate history. We cannot tell how much +of those seventy years of strenuous labour will live, or how far +Gladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, +the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the +world. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly +well what we owe to him. If ever we should be tempted to despond +about the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shall +think of him and take courage. If ever our religious faith should +be perplexed by the + + "Blank misgivings of a creature, + Moving about in worlds not realized," + +the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. And if ever +we are told by the flippancy of scepticism that "Religion is a +disease," then we can point to him who, down to the very verge +of ninety years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly life +beyond all that we had ever known. + + + + +II + +_HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND_[*] + +[Footnote *: Written in 1907.] + +The Hollands spring from Mobberley, in Cheshire, and more recently +from the town of Knutsford, familiar to all lovers of English fiction +as "Cranford." They have made their mark in several fields of +intellectual effort. Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the +Colonies from 1887 to 1892, was a son of Sir Henry Holland, M.D. +(1788-1873), who doctored half the celebrities of Europe; and one of +Sir Henry's first cousins was the incomparable Mrs. Gaskell. Another +first-cousin was George Henry Holland (1818-1891), of Dumbleton Hall, +Evesham, who married in 1844 the Hon. Charlotte Dorothy Gifford, +daughter of the first Lord Gifford. + +George Holland was an enthusiastic fox-hunter, and frequently changed +his abode for the better enjoyment of his favourite sport. In 1847 +he was living at a place called Underdown, near Ledbury; and there, +on the 27th of January in that year, his eldest son was born. + +The first Lord Gifford (1779-1826), who was successively Lord Chief +Justice and Master of the Rolls, had owed much in early life to the +goodwill of Lord Eldon, and, in honour of his patron, he named one of +his sons' Scott. This Scott Gifford was Mrs. George Holland's brother, +and his name was bestowed on her eldest son, who was christened +"Henry Scott," but has always been known by his second name. This +link with George III.'s Tory Chancellor is pleasingly appropriate. + +Let it be remarked in passing that the hyphen so often introduced +into the name is solely a creation of the newspapers, which, always +rejoicing in double-barrelled surnames, gratify a natural impulse +by writing about "Canon Scott-Holland." + +I regret that the most exhaustive research has failed to discover +any recorded traits of "Scotty" Holland in the nursery, but his +career in the schoolroom is less obscure. His governess was a Swiss +lady, who pronounced her young pupil "the most delightful of boys; +not clever or studious, but full of fun and charm." This governess +must have been a remarkable woman, for she is, I believe, the only +human being who ever pronounced Scott Holland "not clever." It +is something to be the sole upholder of an opinion, even a wrong +one, against a unanimous world. By this time George Holland had +established himself at Wellesbourne Hall, near Warwick, and there +his son Scott was brought up in the usual habits of a country home +where hunting and shooting are predominant interests. From the +Swiss lady's control he passed to a private school at Allesley, +near Coventry, and in January, 1860, he went to Eton. There he +boarded at the house of Mrs. Gulliver,[*] and was a pupil of William +Johnson (afterwards Cory), a brilliant and eccentric scholar, whose +power of eliciting and stimulating a boy's intellect has never +been surpassed. + +[Footnote *: Of Mrs. Gulliver and her sister, H. S. H. writes: +"They allowed football in top passage twice a week, which still +seems to be the zenith of all joy."] + +From this point onwards, Scott Holland's history--the formation of +his character, the development of his intellect, the place which +he attained in the regard of his friends--can be easily and exactly +traced; for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries has +not been effaced, or even dimmed, by the lapse of seven-and-forty +years. + +"My recollection of him at Eton," writes one of his friends, "is +that of a boy most popular and high-spirited, strong, and full +of life; but not eminent at games." Another writes: "He was very +popular with a certain set, but not exactly eminent." He was not +a member of "Pop," the famous Debating Society of Eton, but his +genius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished us +all by an excellent performance in some private theatricals in +his house." For the rest, he rowed, steered the _Victory_ twice, +played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and was a +first-rate swimmer. + +With regard to more important matters, it must suffice to say that +then, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no evil +thing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been trained, +by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the Tractarian +school, and he was worthy of his training. Among his intimate friends +were Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry Northcote, now Lord +Northcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; Alberic Bertie; and +Francis Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester. He left Eton in July, +1864, and his tutor, in a letter to a friend, thus commented on +his departure: "There was nothing to comfort me in parting with +Holland; and he was the picture of tenderness. He and others stayed +a good while, talking in the ordinary easy way. M. L. came, and +his shyness did not prevent my saying what I wished to say to him. +But to Holland I could say nothing; and now that I am writing about +it I cannot bear to think that he is lost." + +On leaving Eton, Holland went abroad to learn French, with an ultimate +view to making his career in diplomacy. Truly the Canon of St. +Paul's is an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown." What an Ambassador +he would have made! There is something that warms the heart in the +thought of His Excellency Sir Henry Scott Holland, G.C.B., writing +despatches to Sir Edward Grey in the style of _The Commonwealth_, +and negotiating with the Czar or the Sultan on the lines of the +Christian Social Union. + +Returning from his French pilgrimage, he wept to a private tutor +in Northamptonshire, who reported that "Holland was quite unique +in charm and goodness, but would never be a scholar." In January, +1866, this charming but unscholarly youth went up to Balliol, and +a new and momentous chapter in his life began. + +What was he like at this period of his life? A graphic letter just +received enables me to answer this question. "When I first met +him, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized the +charm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and was +intensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. He +would listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumann +to him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, +by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, and +very fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was also deeply moved by +social questions, East End poor, etc.; always unconventional, and +always passionately interested in whatever he talked of. Burne-Jones +once told me: 'It was perfectly delicious to see Holland come into a +room, laughing before he had even said a word, and always bubbling +over with life and joy.' Canon Mason said to me many years ago that +he had hoped I kept every scrap Scotty ever wrote to me, as he +was quite sure he was the most remarkable man of his generation. +But there was a grave background to all this merriment. I remember +that, as we were coming out of a London party, and looked on the +hungry faces in the crowd outside the door, I rather foolishly +said: 'One couldn't bear to look at them unless one felt that there +was another world for them.' He replied: 'Are we to have both, +then?' I know how his tone and the look in his face haunted me more +than I can say." + +A contemporary at Oxford writes, with reference to the same period: +"When we went up, Liddon was preaching his Bamptons, and we went +to them together, and were much moved by them. There were three +of us who always met for Friday teas in one another's rooms, and +during Lent we used to go to the Special Sermons at St. Mary's. +We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sunday +evening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to go +to the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the iron +church at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting the +Gregorians." + +On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literature +was already marked. "I can remember reading Wordsworth with him, +and Carlyle, and Clough; and, after Sunday breakfasts, Boswell's +_Life of Johnson_." Then, as always, he found a great part of his +pleasure in music. + +No record, however brief, of an undergraduate life can afford to +disregard athletics; so let it be here recorded that Holland played +racquets and fives, and skated, and "jumped high," and steered +the _Torpid_, and three times rowed in his College Eight. He had +innumerable friends, among whom three should be specially recalled: +Stephen Fremantle and R. L. Nettleship, both of Balliol, and W. +H. Ady, of Exeter. In short, he lived the life of the model +undergraduate, tasting all the joys of Oxford, and finding time +to spare for his prescribed studies. His first encounter with the +examiners, in "Classical Moderations," was only partially successful. +"He did not appreciate the niceties of scholarship, and could not +write verses or do Greek or Latin prose at all well;" and he was +accordingly placed in the Third Class. But as soon as the tyranny +of Virgil and Homer and Sophocles was overpast, he betook himself +to more congenial studies. Of the two tutors who then made Balliol +famous, he owed nothing to Jowett and everything to T. H. Green. +That truly great man "simply fell in love" with his brilliant pupil, +and gave him of his best. + +"Philosophy's the chap for me," said an eminent man on a momentous +occasion. "If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, +or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, +are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' +'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able +to explain it.' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was +a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one." + +That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructed +by Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, +and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searching +test to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom at +Balliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I remember +that Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality. +It was known that he had a good chance of a 'First in Greats,' +if only his translations from Greek and Latin books did not pull +him down. He admired the ancient authors, especially Plato, and +his quick grasp of the meaning of what he read, good memory, and +very remarkable powers of expression, all helped him much. He was +good at History and he had a great turn for Philosophy" (_cf_. +Mr. Squeers, _supra_), "Plato, Hegel; etc., and he understood, as +few could, Green's expositions, and counter-attack on John Stuart +Mill and the Positivist School, which was the dominant party at +that time." + +In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examination +at Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from his +paper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his _viva voce_ +was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of the examiners, +T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said he had never heard +anything like it." In fine, a new and vivid light had appeared +in the intellectual sky--a new planet had swum into the ken of +Oxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally that Holland, having +obtained his brilliant First, was immediately elected to a Studentship +at Christ Church, which, of course, is the same as a Fellowship +anywhere else. He went into residence at his new home in January, +1871, and remained there for thirteen years, a "don," indeed, by +office, but so undonnish in character, ways, and words, that he +became the subject of a eulogistic riddle: "When is a don not a +don? When he is Scott Holland." + +Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before the +onrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerations +which determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not sought +to enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Orders +he would have the best chance of using the powers, of which by +this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God and +the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some +measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject +of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's +society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, +must have tended in the same direction. + +[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11th +of March, 1870.] + +Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwards +Bishop of Lincoln, and then Principal of Cuddesdon, in whom the +most persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifully +displayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which all +that was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistibly +attracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, +Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owed +so much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglement +Cuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, +perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend; +and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how enticing, +the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving it all seemed, +as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk in College; +so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of our Oxford +interests. The little rooms, like college rooms just shrinking +into cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old church with +its quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of the evening +chapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with the sound of +Compline Psalms still ringing in our hearts--ah! happy, happy day! +It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering in our souls +took shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon when the time +of preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing passage +have naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself have +been a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as I +know, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted of +a visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task of +studying theology under Dr. Westcott. + +In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, in +Cuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination; +and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was during +his diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. We +often came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religious +meetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons which +he preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutely +original; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the style +was entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movement +and colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, +on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the +28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory.[*] + +[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty with +his aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by +'alf."] + +Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He +lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share +in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded +for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among +the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong +effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's +Proctorship." + +This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitude +towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed +outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian +Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit +of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his +sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., +when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more +than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the +Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) +"But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean +of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and +see me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social life +in the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbot +and Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about among +the people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thought +that this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House." + +All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and +independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for +Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was +widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. +Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, +everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with +a great opportunity. + +From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public +eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent +career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; +a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished +teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor +in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid +and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace +some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of +feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side +under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends +rejoice--and others lament--that he is much less of a partisan +than he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides of +a question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, +if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself so +passionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, he +has stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, +and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworked +his own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, +and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in his +own passionate love of God and man. + +Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate +him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, +contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure +and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One +whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little +changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate--the +same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and +insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives +of all sorts, delight in young people--these never fail. He never +seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depress +his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of some +use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well." + +This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not +presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and +example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, +Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful people +in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, he +is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he +inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain +others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. +He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its +versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave +to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and +nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, +has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; +and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious +and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces +which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their +lives. + + * * * * * + +By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*] +or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light +which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." + +[Footnote *: Written in 1918.] + +Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associated +in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light--its revealing +power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivable +rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. He +saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. He +diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by +his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful +under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear +witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere +force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began +in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a +break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, +and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. +In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation +for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. +He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside +it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a +delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process +of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate +friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed +to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught +his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and +spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks +to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 +came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to +scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed +by a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searching +school of _Literoe Humaniores_. Green had triumphed; he had made a +philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed a +born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer. + +Holland had what Tertullian calls the _anima naturaliter Christiana_, +and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement. +When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic +career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was +ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly +made his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the +parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry +stand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's +gifts--a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, +vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious +voice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke +with an energy of passionate conviction which drove every word +straight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for +God and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted +many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were +accustomed--then as later--to say that here was a Christian who knew +enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth +hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, +Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, +his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange +tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung +adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description +with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with +his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked +to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened +to his preaching as to "a very lovely song." + +Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater +as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in +this--that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper +than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was +writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency +in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he +did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript +and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement. + +I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. +Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as +much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great +deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of +God"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, +and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which +their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; +and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, +essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; +they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they +both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of +Europe. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great +controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with +the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son. + +When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, +the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is +not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt +that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet +of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre +of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel? +Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest +of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which +sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the +precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic +life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood and +social service--in short, the programme of the Christian Social +Union--win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questions +were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whom +they were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-seven +years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, +several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute +agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in +London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius +and a saint. + +In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with +the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or +intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate +a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest +plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the +world." His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak and +act--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, +as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This +habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree +for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain +degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of +those elect and lovely souls + + "Who, through the world's long day of strife, + Still chant their morning song." + + + + +III + +_LORD HALIFAX_ + +There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood +and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have +for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction +which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of +Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter +of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. +Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in +Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest +offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and +Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax +in 1866. + +Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was +Charles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in +1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, +of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together +because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character +made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with +her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. +The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage +in 1885) writes thus about his early days: + +"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time +when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to +her every day when we were away from one another; and for many +years after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, I +don't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, +indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. She +is never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19th +of July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood out +amongst all the days of the year." + +This extract illustrates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual love +and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood +were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would +naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were +judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright +home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship of +a favourite sister, the transition to a private school is always +depressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles +Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What I chiefly remember about +the place is being punished all one day, with several canings, +because I either could not or would not learn the Fifth Declension +of the Greek Nouns." + +So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for one +year, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, Charles +Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the +Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, +afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar +and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning +friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private +pupils. In his book of verses--_Ionica_--he made graceful play +with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasy +of swimming--"Oh, how I wish I could fly!" + + "Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech, + Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye, + Tossing those river-pearled locks about, + Throwing those delicate limbs straight out, + Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach, + Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!' + + "Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply, + Answer disdainfully, flouting my words: + How should the listener at simple sixteen + Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean, + Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'-- + Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds? + + * * * * * + + "Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet; + Walk through some passionless years by my side, + Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk, + Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk. + When the sap stays, and the blossom is set, + Others will take the fruit; I shall have died." + +Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite +pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy +fulfilled. + +The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; +so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by +contemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, at +Eton--Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George +Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2] +With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed," and with Stopford, now +Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuits +I may quote his own words: + +[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.] + +[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.] + +"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take long +walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to +the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two +little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the +part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular +War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in +an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a +boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. In +Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph +Stanley in a French piece called _Femme Vendre_. In 1857, I and +George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went +with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the +following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in +'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, +and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's Prize for French." + +[Footnote 3: Edward VII.] [Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan.] +[Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby.] + +A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony: + +"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and +the masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a custom +of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books,' +from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by +the parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldon +went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, +he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom +of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown +copy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room. +Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end +of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony +from a small boy to one at the top of the house." + +In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. There +many of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh ones +added: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson, +afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster; +and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, +from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in the +social life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to +"Bullingdon"--institutions of high repute in the Oxford world; +and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chief +joy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, and +made some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861 +he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far as +Suez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom of +the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attended +his royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10th +of March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. At +the same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin, +Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and +retained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administration +in 1866. + +"There was," writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing for +some Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was not +easy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped. +I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatest +devotion to King Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. I can recall now +the services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used to +wear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the floor +as the clock struck twelve." + +This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's +"convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, like +all the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to take +their children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the least +ecclesiastical-looking place of worship in London; and the observances +of the Parish Church at Hickleton--their country home near +Doncaster--were not calculated to inspire a delight in the beauty +of holiness. However, when quite a boy, Charles Wood, who had been +confirmed at Eton by Bishop Wilberforce, found his way to St. Barnabas, +Pimlico, then newly opened, and fell much under the influence of +Mr. Bennett at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and Mr. Richards, at All +Saints', Margaret Street. At Oxford he became acquainted with Dr. +Pusey and the young and inspiring Liddon, and frequented the services +at Merton College Chapel, where Liddon used often to officiate. By +1863 his religious opinions must have been definitely shaped; for +in that year his old tutor, William Johnson, when paying a visit +to Hickleton, writes as follows: + +"He told me of Mr. Liddon, the saintly and learned preacher; of +the devout worshippers at All Saints', whose black nails show they +are artisans; of the society formed to pray daily for the restoration +of Christian unity." + +And again: + +"His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness from +looking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard against +his unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zeal +misdirected.... And all the while his mother's face gets brighter +and kinder because she is looking at him. Happy are the parents +who, when they have reached that time of life in which the world is +getting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickened +by the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and so +renew their youth." + +In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellor +of the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union. + +"At that time," he writes, "I was much concerned with the affairs +of the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. +1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect coming straight back +from Lorne's[*] coming of age to London, where I saw Dr. Pusey, +with the result that I set to work to help Miss Sellon with her +temporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel." + +[Footnote *: Afterwards Duke of Argyll.] + +In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services which +he rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; and +those who know what religious prejudice was in rural districts +forty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded to +an institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentation +by the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding. +There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelical +mother--Lady Charles Russell--to her son, then just ordained to +a curacy at Doncaster. + +"I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax. I knew them pretty +well as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirement +since before he was raised to the peerage. His eldest son was not +only very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I dare +say Dr. Vaughan may have heard. Do you know anything about him?" + +That "very good" and "very good-looking" young man was now approaching +what may be called the decisive event of his life. In April, 1867, +Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English Church +Union, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fill +his place. Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote: "As to his being +President of the E.C.U., he is the sense and moderation of it." He +has administered its affairs and guided its policy through fifty +anxious years. Indeed, the President and the Union have been so +completely identified that the history of the one has been the +history of the other. His action has been governed by a grand and +simple consistency. Alike in storms and in fair weather, at times +of crisis and at times of reaction, he has been the unswerving +and unsleeping champion of the spiritual claims of the English +Church, and the alert, resourceful, and unsparing enemy of all +attempts, from whatever quarter, to subject her doctrine and discipline +to the control of the State and its secular tribunals. The eager +and fiery enthusiasm which pre-eminently marks his nature awakes +a kindred flame in those who are reached by his influence; and, +even when the reason is unconvinced, it is difficult to resist +the leadership of so pure and passionate a temper. + +It would be ridiculous for an outsider, like myself, to discuss the +interior working of the E.C.U., so I avail myself of the testimony +which has reached me from within. + +"Like most men of his temperament, Lord Halifax seems now and again +to be a little before his time. On the other hand, it is remarkable +that Time generally justifies him. There is no question that he +has always enjoyed the enthusiastic and affectionate support of +the Union as a whole." + +It is true that once with reference to the book called _Lux Mundi_, +and once with reference to the "Lambeth Opinions" of 1899, there +was some resistance in the Union to Lord Halifax's guidance; and +that, in his negotiations about the recognition of Anglican Orders, +he would not, if he had been acting officially, have carried the +Union with him. But these exceptions only go to confirm the general +truth that his policy has been as successful as it has been bold +and conscientious. + +It is time to return, for a moment, to the story of Lord Halifax's +private life. In 1869 he married Lady Agnes Courtenay, daughter +of the twelfth Earl of Devon, and in so doing allied himself with +one of the few English families which even the most exacting +genealogists recognize as noble.[1] His old tutor wrote on the 22nd +of April: + +[Footnote 1: "The purple of three Emperors who have reigned at +Constantinople will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin +and singular fortunes of the House of Courtenay" (Gibbon, chapter +xii.).] + +"This has been a remarkable day--the wedding of Charles Wood and +Lady Agnes Courtenay. It was in St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, +which was full, galleries and all, the central passage left empty, +and carpeted with red. It was a solemn, rapt congregation; there +was a flood of music and solemn tender voices. The married man +and woman took the Lord's Supper, with hundreds of witnesses who +did not Communicate.... Perhaps a good many were Church Union folk, +honouring their Chairman." + +Of this marriage I can only say that it has been, in the highest +aspects, ideally happy, and that the sorrows which have chequered +it have added a new significance to the saying of Ecclesiastes +that "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."[2] + +[Footnote 2: Charles Reginald Lindley Wood died 1890; Francis Hugh +Lindley Wood died 1889; Henry Paul Lindley Wood died 1886.] + +In 1877 Mr. Wood resigned his office in the household of the Prince +of Wales. It was the time when the affairs of St. James's, Hatcham, +and the persecution of Mr. Tooth, were first bringing the Church +into sharp collision with the courts of law. The President of the +Church Union was the last man to hold his peace when even the stones +were crying out against this profane intrusion of the State into +the kingdom of God; and up and down the country he preached, in +season and out of season, the spiritual independence of the Church, +and the criminal folly of trying to coerce Christian consciences by +deprivation and imprisonment. The story went that an Illustrious +Personage said to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What's +this I hear? I'm told you go about the country saying that the +Queen is not the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head of +the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, +and the Sultan the Head of _his_ Church.'" But this may only be +a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it +is better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction: + +"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to +disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I +thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised +by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did +not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign +my place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince +was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him +on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, +I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing +what I thought right." + +In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "say +and do what he thinks right," without hesitation or compromise +or regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and the +practice of his life. And here the reader has a right to ask, What +manner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record? + +First and foremost, it must be said--truth demands it, and no +conventional reticence must withhold it--that the predominant feature +of his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher world +than this. His "citizenship is in Heaven." Never can I forget an +address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in Stepney +Meeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness." The audience +consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I imagine, +had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity to +see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Csar +and the things of God was just then attracting, general attention, +and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, as the high +theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futility +of all that this world has to offer when compared with the realities +of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, and +the address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause." + + "That strain I heard was of a higher mood." + +As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, +about + +"One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one of +singular moderation as well as wisdom, who can discriminate with +singular sagacity what is essential from is not essential--C. Wood." + +The Doctor went on: + +"I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a public +address which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, +without controversy or saying anything which could have offended +anyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precision +which reminded me of Hooker's wonderful enunciation of the doctrine +of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ." + +After so solemn a tribute from so great a saint, it seems almost +a profanity--certainly a bathos--to add any more secular touches. +Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it must be +remembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, +but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, +the most graceful and attractive figure, in the Vanity Fair of +social life. He is full of ardour, zeal, and emotion, endowed with +a physical activity which corresponds to his mental alertness, and +young with that perpetual youth which is the reward of "a conscience +void of offence toward God and toward man." + +Clarendon, in one of his most famous portraits, depicts a high-souled +Cavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, +of a glowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and +of a primitive simplicity and integrity of life." He was writing +of Lord Falkland: he described Lord Halifax. + + + + +IV + +_LORD AND LADY RIPON_[*] + +[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of +Ripon, K.G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta Ann +Theodosia Vyner.] + +The _Character of the Happy Warrior_ is, by common consent, one +of the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writers +and speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present war +began, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a new +acquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, and +a devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism, +it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed, +the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" as +for the "Happy Warrior." There is nothing specially warlike in the +portraiture of the man + + "Who, with a toward or untoward lot, + Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not, + Plays in the many games of life, that one + Where what he most doth value must be won; + Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, + Not thought of tender happiness betray; + Who, not content that former worth stand fast, + Looks forward, persevering to the last, + From well to better, daily self-surpast." + +These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances brought +me into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship I +enjoyed from my first entrance into public life. + +I know few careers in the political life of modern England more +interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant +with Wordsworth's eulogy: + + "Who, not content that former worth stand fast, + Looks forward, persevering to the last, + From well to better, daily self-surpast." + +The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, entered +public life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled pretty +nearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including, +for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially +under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very +material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences +of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and +great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman +when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust +convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To +men possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heard +the question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Why +are you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for so +the second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father's +title) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it." He +was an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to form +his own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to the +stereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almost +before his arrival at man's estate, he had clearly marked out his +line of political action, and to that line he adhered with undeviating +consistency. + +He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage. +Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of _The Talking Oak_ +from Henrietta, Lady Ripon: + + "Yet, since I first could cast a shade, + Did never creature pass, + So slightly, musically made, + So light upon the grass." + +Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she was +the brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends. +She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause, +and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform. + +From the earliest days of their married life, Lord and Lady Goderich +made their home a centre and a rallying-point for all the scattered +forces which, within the Liberal party or beyond its pale, were +labouring to promote the betterment of human life. There the "Christian +Socialists," recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48, +re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking world +that the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice with +his mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughes +and Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerful +pens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young Radical +M.P., whose zeal for social service had already marked him out +from the ruck of mechanical politicians; and from time to time +Carlyle himself would vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval to +enterprises which, whether wise or foolish, were at least not shams. +In 1852 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers conducted in London +and Lancashire a strike which had begun in some engineering works +at Oldham. The Christian Socialists gave it their support, and +Lord Goderich subscribed 500 to the maintenance of the strikers. +But, although he lived in this highly idealistic society, surrounded +by young men who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, Lord +Goderich was neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under Lord +Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long series +of practical and laborious offices. He became Secretary of State +for India, and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council, +attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed +Chairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871 +saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United +States. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent +mark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward +no Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it +could show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February, +1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establish +Home Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, +explained his position to me with happy candour: "I have always +been in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal Programme. +Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm a Home Ruler." + +In the last year of Lord Ripon's life, when he had just retired +from the Cabinet and the leadership of the House of Lords, he was +entertained at luncheon by the Eighty Club, and the occasion was +marked by some more than usually interesting speeches. It always +is satisfactory to see public honours rendered, not to a monument +or a tomb, but to the living man; and, in Lord Ripon's case, the +honours, though ripe, were not belated. George Eliot has reminded +us that "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a further stage +of development which is less esteemed in the market." The Eighty +Club avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while they +were still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of a +Liberalism "more high and heroical than the present age affecteth." +One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon faced +when he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicals +themselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence to +a Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion, +and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause. +The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressive +than the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who, +in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station and +environment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor, +the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotion +was far more difficult than now. It is probable that not a few +of Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words and waved +their salutations, may have added in the depths of their hearts +some aspiration such as this: "When I come to my eightieth year, may +I be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as unselfish, +and as beneficent." + +Thrice happy is the man, be he Warrior or Statesman, who, in spite +of lessened activity and increasing burdens and the loss of much +that once made life enjoyable, still + + "Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, + And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws + His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." + + + + +V + +"_FREDDY LEVESON_" + +When a man has died in his eighty-ninth year, it seems irreverent +to call him by his nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather in +seeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation, +is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with the +subject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heart +and mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out of +place. + +Edward Frederick Leveson-Gower was the third son of Granville +Leveson-Gower, first Earl Granville, by his marriage with Henrietta +Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire. +The very names breathe Whiggery, and in their combination they +suggest a considerable and an important portion of our social and +political history. + +I have always maintained that Whiggery, rightly understood, is not +a political creed, but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, is +born, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a +Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the +privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated +its spirit. It is true that the Whigs, as a body, have held certain +opinions and pursued certain tactics, which were analysed in chapters +xix. and xxi. of the unexpurgated _Book of Snobs_. But those opinions +and those tactics have been accidents of Whiggery. Its substance +has been relationship. When Lord John Russell formed his first +Administration, his opponents alleged that it was mainly composed +of his cousins, and the lively oracles of Sir Bernard Burke confirmed +the allegation. A. J. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made +excellent fun of what he called the "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood." He showed--what, indeed, the Whigs themselves +knew uncommonly well--that from John, Earl Gower, who died in 1754, +descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, +Harcourts, and Russells, who walk on the face of the earth. Truly +a noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They _are_ our superiors," +said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhaps +it is as unnecessary to say so as to say that I'm not King Pippin +in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts)--I'm +not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!" + +It argues no political bias to maintain that, in the earlier part +of the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its neophytes no +educational opportunities equal to those which a young Whig enjoyed +at Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. Here the +best traditions of the previous century were constantly reinforced +by accessions of fresh intellect. The circle was, indeed, an +aristocratic Family Party, but it paid a genuine homage to ability +and culture. Genius held the key, and there was a _carrire ouverte +aux talents_. + +Into this privileged society Frederick Leveson-Gower was born on +the 3rd of May, 1819, and within its precincts he "kept the noiseless +tenour of his way" for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 the +experiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton, +he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again been +seriously ill." To that extraordinary immunity from physical suffering +was probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognized +as his most characteristic trait, and which remained unruffled to +the end. + +It is recorded of the fastidious Lady Montfort in _Endymion_ that, +visiting Paris in 1841, she could only with difficulty be induced +to call on the British Ambassador and Ambassadress. "I dined," she +said, "with those people once; but I confess that, when I thought +of those dear Granvilles, their _entres_ stuck in my throat." +The "dear Granvilles" in question were the parents of the second +Lord Granville, whom we all remember as the most urbane of Foreign +Secretaries, and of Frederick Leveson-Gower. The first Lord Granville +was a younger son of the first Marquess of Stafford and brother of +the second Marquess, who was made Duke of Sutherland. He was born +in 1773, entered Parliament at twenty-two, and "found himself a +diplomatist as well as a politician before he was thirty years of +age." In 1804 he was appointed Ambassador to St. Petersburg, where +he remained till 1807. In 1813 he was created Viscount Granville, +and in 1824 became Ambassador to the Court of France. "To the +indignation of the Legitimist party in France, he made a special +journey from Paris to London in order to vote for the Reform Bill +of 1832, and, to their astonishment, returned alive to glory in +having done so." For this and similar acts of virtue he was raised +to an earldom in 1833; he retired from diplomacy in 1841, and died +in 1846. + +Before he became an Ambassador, this Lord Granville had rented +a place called Wherstead, in Suffolk. It was there that Freddy +Leveson passed the first years of his life, but from 1824 onwards +the British Embassy at Paris was his home. Both those places had +made permanent dints in his memory. At Wherstead he remembered +the Duke of Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face and +imperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir Walter +Scott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living at +the Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux, +afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sent +from Paris to a Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was called +the House of Lords, owing to most of the boys being related to +the peerage, many of them future peers, and among them several +dukes." Here, again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate of +Princes. Prince George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridge +were staying with King William IV. at the Pavilion; their companions +were chosen from Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused his +nephews and their friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rather +coarse ones." In his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refined +society at Holland House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation: +"He always sits next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasing +all dinner-time." + +From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to +Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health, +and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one, +he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that +was the complete indifference to social distinctions. + +"There is," he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, the +late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his +name, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis +of Bath.' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount +and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at +any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted +of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!" + +Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor +in Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest in +politics. "Reform," he wrote, "is my principal aim." Albany Fonblanque, +whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the _Examiner_, may still +be read in _England under Seven Administrations_, was his political +instructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especially +in the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemed +heretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth. +In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother +wrote: "As to Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be if +it was to last more than a week longer. His dancing _fait fureur_." + +In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishing +under Dean Gaisford's mismanagement. Here for three years he enjoyed +himself thoroughly. He rode with the drag, was President of the +Archery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal of +hospitality, and made some lifelong friendships. Among his +contemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainly +depressing. "He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, to +seek no friends, and to have none. I never met him in anyone else's +rooms, or at any social gathering. I see him now, looking rather +crazy, taking his solitary walks." + +That Freddy Leveson was "thoroughly idle" was his own confession; +and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is not +surprising. What is surprising, and what he himself recorded with +surprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the least +attention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, although--and +this makes it stranger still--they used to attend Newman's Sermons +at St. Mary's. They duly admired his unequalled style, but the +substance of his teaching seems to have passed by them like the +idle wind. + +After taking a "Nobleman's Degree," Frederick Leveson spent an +instructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father's +position, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers, +Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned to +England with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of reading +for the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, and +the choice was determined by a civil speech of George Canning, who, +staying at the British Embassy at Paris, noticed little Freddy, +and pleasantly said to Lord Granville, "Bring that boy up as a +lawyer, and he will one day become Lord Chancellor." As a first +step towards that elevation, Frederick Leveson entered the chambers +of an eminent conveyancer called Plunkett, where he had for his +fellow-pupils the men who became Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Farrer. +Thence he went to a Special Pleader, and lastly to a leading member +of the Oxford Circuit. As Marshal to Lord Denman and to Baron Parke, +he acquired some knowledge of the art of carving; but with regard +to the total result of his legal training, he remarked, with +characteristic simplicity, "I cannot say I learnt much law." When +living in lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners at +Lincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantage +of having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, +a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like a +son, giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; while +Lady Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him make +a second home of Holland House. + +"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word in +the morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a word +at dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk--to +Macaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith's +exquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasms +and Luttrell's repartees." + +Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the Oxford +Circuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G. +Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stage +in the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granville +died at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this event +produced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described in +his own quaint words: + +"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgent +parent--possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although I +cannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized with +me for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been this +feeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me well +provided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn my +own bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded." + +His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answering +it affirmatively; but the practical test was never applied, for on +succeeding to his inheritance he glided--"plunged" would be an +unsuitable word--into a way of living which was, more like the +[Greek: scholae] of the Athenian citizen than the sordid strife of +professional activity. He was singularly happy in private life, +for the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained some +delightful women as well as some distinguished men. Such was his +sister-in-law Marie, Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland; such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville; +and such, pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, +of whom a competent critic said that, in the female characters of +her novel _Ellen Middleton_, she had drawn "the line which is so +apt to be overstepped, and which Walter Scott never clearly saw, +between _navet_ and vulgarity." Myself a devoted adherent of +Sir Walter, I can yet recall some would-be pleasantries of Julia +Mannering, of Isabella Wardour, and even of Die Vernon, which would +have caused a shudder in the "Sacred Circle." Happiest of all was +Freddy Leveson in his marriage with Lady Margaret Compton; but +their married life lasted only five years, and left behind it a +memory too tender to bear translation to the printed page. + +Devonshire House was the centre of Freddy Leveson's social life--at +least until the death of his uncle, the sixth Duke, in 1858. That +unsightly but comfortable mansion was then in its days of glory, and +those who frequented it had no reason to regret the past. "Poodle +Byng," who carried down to 1871 the social conditions of the eighteenth +century, declared that nothing could be duller than Devonshire +House in his youth. "It was a great honour to go there, but I was +bored to death. The Duchess was usually stitching in one corner of +the room, and Charles Fox snoring in another." Under the splendid +but arbitrary rule of the sixth Duke no one stitched or snored. +Everyone who entered his saloons was well-born or beautiful or +clever or famous, and many of the guests combined all four +characteristics. When Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon +III., first came to live in London, his uncle Jerome asked the +Duke of Devonshire to invite his _mauvais sujet_ of a nephew to +Devonshire House, "so that he might for once be seen in decent +society"; and the Prince, repaid the Duke by trying to borrow five +thousand pounds to finance his descent on Boulogne. But the Duke, +though magnificent, was business-like, and the Prince was sent +empty away. + +The society in which Freddy Leveson moved during his long career was +curiously varied. There was his own family in all its ramifications of +cousinship; and beyond its radius there was a circle of acquaintances +and associates which contained Charles Greville the diarist and +his more amiable brother Henry, Carlyle and Macaulay, Brougham +and Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Grote +and Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay," and +Disraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone." + +For womankind there were Lady Morley the wit and Lady Cowper the +humorist, and Lady Ashburton, who tamed Carlyle; Lady Jersey, the +queen of fashion, and the two sister-queens of beauty, Lady Canning +and Lady Waterford; Lady Tankerville, who as a girl had taken refuge +in England from the matrimonial advances of the Comte d'Artois; +the three fascinating Foresters, Mrs. Robert Smith, Mrs. Anson, +and Lady Chesterfield; and Lady Molesworth and Lady Waldegrave, +who had climbed by their cleverness from the lowest rung of the +social ladder to a place not very far from the top. + +Beyond this circle, again, there was a miscellaneous zone, where +dwelt politicians ranging from John Bright to Arthur Balfour; poets +and men of letters, such as Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray and +Motley and Laurance Oliphant; Paxton the gardener-architect and +Hudson the railway-king; stars of the musical world, such as Mario +and Grisi and Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and Madame +Mohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and Lola +Montez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education will +convert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable member +of society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligence +and a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfection +by such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life. +And so it came about that alike as a young man, in middle life +(which was in his case unusually prolonged), and in old age, he +enjoyed a universal and unbroken popularity. + +It is impossible to connect the memory of Freddy Leveson with the +idea of ambition, and it must therefore have been the praiseworthy +desire to render unpaid service to the public which induced him to +embark on the unquiet sea of politics. At a bye-election in the +summer of 1847 he was returned, through the interest of his uncle the +Duke of Devonshire, for Derby. A General Election immediately ensued; +he was returned again, but was unseated, with his colleague, for a +technical irregularity. In 1852 he was returned for Stoke-upon-Trent, +this time by the aid of his cousin the Duke of Sutherland (for the +"Sacred Circle" retained a good deal of what was termed "legitimate +influence"). In 1854, having been chosen to second the Address at +the opening of Parliament, he was directed to call on Lord John +Russell, who would instruct him in his duties. Lord John was the +shyest of human beings, and the interview was brief: "I am glad +you are going to second the Address. You will know what to say. +Good-morning." + +At the General Election of 1857 he lost his seat for Stoke. "Poor +Freddy," writes his brother, Lord Granville, "is dreadfully disappointed +by his failure in the Potteries. He was out-jockeyed by Ricardo." +All who knew "poor Freddy" will easily realize that in a jockeying +contest he stood no chance. In 1859 he was returned for Bodmin, this +time by the good offices, not of relations, but of friends--Lord +Robartes and Lady Molesworth--and he retained the seat by his own +merits till Bodmin ceased to be a borough. Twice during his +Parliamentary career Mr. Gladstone offered him important office, +and he declined it for a most characteristic reason--"I feared it +would be thought a job." The gaps in his Parliamentary life were +occupied by travelling. As a young man he had been a great deal +on the Continent, and he had made what was then the adventurous +tour of Spain. The winter of 1850-1851 he spent in India; and in +1856 he accompanied his brother Lord Granville (to whom he had +been "prcis-writer" at the Foreign Office) on his Special Mission +to St. Petersburg for the Coronation of Alexander II. No chapter in +his life was fuller of vivid and entertaining reminiscences, and +his mind was stored with familiar memories of Radziwill, Nesselrode, +and Todleben. "Freddy," wrote his brother, "is supposed to have +distinguished himself greatly by his presence of mind when the +Grande Duchesse Hlne got deep into politics with him." + +A travelling experience, which Freddy Leveson used to relate with +infinite gusto, belongs to a later journey, and had its origin in +the strong resemblance between himself and his brother. Except that +Lord Granville shaved, and that in later years Freddy Leveson grew a +beard, there was little facially to distinguish them. In 1865 Lord +Granville was Lord President of the Council, and therefore, according +to the arrangement then prevailing, head of the Education Office. +In that year Matthew Arnold, then an Inspector of Schools, was +despatched on a mission to enquire into the schools and Universities +of the Continent. Finding his travelling allowances insufficient for +his needs, he wrote home to the Privy Council Office requesting +an increase. Soon after he had despatched this letter, and before +he could receive the official reply, he was dining at a famous +restaurant in Paris, and he chose the most highly priced dinner of +the day. Looking up from his well-earned meal, he saw his official +chief, Lord Granville, who chanced to be eating a cheaper dinner. +Feeling that this gastronomical indulgence might, from the official +point of view, seem inconsistent with his request for increased +allowances, he stepped across to the Lord President, explained +that it was only once in a way that he thus compensated himself for +his habitual abstinence, and was delighted by the facile and kindly +courtesy with which his official chief received the _apologia_. His +delight was abated when he subsequently found that he had been making +his confession, not to Lord Granville, but to Mr. Leveson-Gower. + +Looking back from the close of life upon its beginning, Freddy +Leveson noted that as an infant he used to eat his egg "very slowly, +and with prolonged pleasure." "Did this," he used to ask, "portend +that I should grow up a philosopher or a _gourmand_? I certainly +did not become the former, and I hope not the latter." I am inclined +to think that he was both; for whoso understands the needs of the +body has mastered at least one great department of philosophy, and +he who feeds his fellow-men supremely well is in the most creditable +sense of the word a _gourmand_. Freddy Leveson's dinners were justly +famous, and, though he modestly observed that "hospitality is praised +more than it deserves," no one who enjoyed the labours of Monsieur +Beguinot ever thought that they could be overpraised. The scene of +these delights was a house in South Audley Street, which, though +actually small, was so designed as to seem like a large house in +miniature; and in 1870 the genial host acquired a delicious home +on the Surrey hills, which commands a view right across Sussex to +the South Downs. "Holm-bury" is its name, and "There's no place +like Home-bury" became the grateful watchword of a numerous and +admiring society. + +People distinguished in every line of life, and conspicuous by +every social charm, found at Holm-bury a constant and delightful +hospitality. None appreciated it more thoroughly than Mr. and Mrs. +Gladstone, whose friendship was one of the chief happinesses of +Freddy Leveson's maturer life. His link with them was Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland, who, in spite of all Whiggish prejudices +against the half-converted Tory, was one of Gladstone's most +enthusiastic disciples. In "Cliveden's proud alcove," and in that +sumptuous villa at Chiswick where Fox and Canning died, Mr. and +Mrs. Gladstone were her constant guests; and there they formed +their affectionate intimacy with Freddy Leveson. Every year, and +more than once a year, they stayed with him at Holmbury; and one +at least of those visits was memorable. On the 19th of July, 1873, +Mr. Gladstone wrote in his diary: + +"Off at 4.25 to Holmbury, We were enjoying that beautiful spot +and expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester,[*] when +the groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a bad +fall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad: +'It's all over.' In an instant the thread of that precious life +was snapped, We were all in deep and silent grief." + +[Footnote *: Samuel Wilberforce.] + +And now, for the sake of those who never knew Freddy Leveson, a +word of personal description must be added. He was of middle height, +with a slight stoop, which began, I fancy from the fact that he was +short-sighted and was obliged to peer rather closely at objects +which he wished to see. His growing deafness, which in later years +was a marked infirmity--he had no others--tended to intensify the +stooping habit, as bringing him nearer to his companions voice. His +features were characteristically those of the House of Cavendish, +as may be seen by comparing his portrait with that of his mother. +His expression was placid, benign, but very far from inert; for +his half-closed eyes twinkled with quiet mirth. His voice was soft +and harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of that +peculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued." +His bearing was the very perfection of courteous ease, equally +remote from stiffness and from familiarity. His manners it would be +impertinent to eulogize, and the only dislikes which I ever heard +him express were directed against rudeness, violence, indifference +to other people's feelings, and breaches of social decorum. If +by such offences as these it was easy to displease him, it was +no less easy to obtain his forgiveness, for he was as amiable as +he was refined. In old age he wrote, with reference to the wish +which some people express for sudden death: "It is a feeling I +cannot understand, as I myself shall feel anxious before I die +to take an affectionate leave of those I love." His desire was +granted, and there my story ends. I have never known a kinder heart; +I could not imagine a more perfect gentleman. + + + + +VI + +_SAMUEL WHITBREAD_ + +The family of Whitbread enjoyed for several generations substantial +possessions in North Bedfordshire. They were of the upper middle +class, and were connected by marriage with John Howard the +Prison-Reformer, whose property near Bedford they inherited. As +years went on, their wealth and station increased. Samuel Whitbread, +who died in 1796, founded the brewery in Chiswell Street, E.C., +which still bears his name, was Member for the Borough of Bedford, +and purchased from the fourth Lord Torrington a fine place near +Biggleswade, called Southill, of which the wooded uplands supplied +John Bunyan, dwelling on the flats of Elstow, with his idea of +the Delectable Mountains. + +This Samuel Whitbread was succeeded as M.P. for Bedford by a more +famous Samuel, his eldest son, who was born in 1758, and married +Lady Elizabeth Grey; sister of + + "That Earl who taught his compeers to be just, + And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned." + +Samuel Whitbread became one of the most active and influential +members of the Whig party, a staunch ally of Fox and a coadjutor +of Wilberforce in his attack on the Slave Trade. He was closely +and unfortunately involved in the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre, +and, for that reason, figures frequently in _Rejected Addresses_. +He died before his time in 1815, and his eldest son, William Henry +Whitbread, became M.P. for Bedford. This William Henry died without +issue, and his nephew and heir was the admirable man and distinguished +Parliamentarian who is here commemorated. + +Samuel Whitbread was born in 1830, and educated at Rugby, where +he was a contemporary of Lord Goschen, and at Trinity College, +Cambridge, where one of his closest friends was James Payn, the +novelist. He married Lady Isabella Pelham, daughter of the third +Earl of Chichester. In those days Bedford returned two members, +and at the General Election of 1852, which scotched Lord Derby's +attempt to revive Protection, "Young Sam Whitbread" was returned +as junior Member for the Borough, and at the elections of 1857, +1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1885, 1886, and 1892 he was again +elected, each time after a contest and each time at the top of +the poll. Had he stood again in 1895, and been again successful, +he would have been "Father of the House." + +It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbread +was the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, +he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful and +benignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified; +his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, +was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through his +utterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even of +political opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabled +him to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests of +his brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He was +active in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge of +all that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. +A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in +1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, +made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointment +disclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. +His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, and +sedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to the +normally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was more +than he could stand. "I cannot," he said, "get a living out of +the London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of high +preferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himself +thence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders of +the Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeated +efforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twice +the Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctions +or hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile. + +The knowledge that these things were so gave Whit bread a peculiar +authority in the House of Commons. His independence was absolute +and assured. He was, if any politician ever was, unbuyable; and +though he was a sound Party man, on whom at a pinch his leaders +could rely, he yet seemed to rise superior to the lower air of +partisanship, and to lift debate into the atmosphere of conviction. +The _St. James's Gazette_ once confessed that his peculiar position +in the House of Commons was one of those Parliamentary mysteries +which no outsider could understand. He seemed, even amid the hottest +controversies, to be rather an arbiter than an advocate. Once Mr. +T. W. Russell, in a moment of inspiration, described him as "an +umpire, perfectly impartial--except that he never gives his own +side out." Whereupon Whitbread, with a quaint half-smile, whispered +to the man sitting next to him: "That hit of 'T. W.'s' was _not +very bad_." A singular tribute to Whitbread's influence, and the +weight attaching to his counsel, is found in the fact that, in the +autumn of 1885, before Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversion +to Home Rule, Whitbread was one of the very few people (Goschen was +another) to whom he confided his change of view. Of the estimation +in which Whitbread was held by his neighbours, even after he had +ceased to represent them in Parliament, the present writer once heard +a ludicrous, but illuminating, instance. Among the men sentenced to +death after the Jameson Raid was one connected by ties of family +with Bedford. For a while his kinsfolk could not believe that he +was really in danger; but, when ominous rumours began to thicken, +one of his uncles said, with an air of grave resolve: "This is +becoming serious about my nephew. If it goes on much longer, I shall +have to write to Mr. Whitbread." + +In the general course of politics Whitbread was a Whig, holding +to the great principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace, +Retrenchment, and Reform; but he was a Whig with a difference. He +stuck to the party after it had been permeated by Gladstonianism, +advanced in Liberalism as he advanced in years, and became a convinced +Home Ruler. His political prescience, founded on long experience +and close observation, was remarkable. Soon after Lord Salisbury's +accession to power in the summer of 1895, he said to the present +writer: "I fancy that for two or three years the Government will +go on quietly enough; and then, when they find their popularity +waning, they will pick a quarrel with somebody, and go to war. +It is always difficult for an Opposition to attack a Government +which is conducting a war, and I think Chamberlain is just the +man to take advantage of that difficulty." + +In religion Whitbread was an Evangelical of the more liberal type, +mistrusting extremes, and always on the friendliest terms with +Nonconformists. As regards the affairs of common life, he was a +most hospitable and courteous host; a thorough agriculturist, and +a keen sportsman. His size and weight debarred him from hunting, +but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, +and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in all +things, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, +and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were embodied +in Samuel Whitbread. + + + + +VII + +_HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER_ + +The loved and honoured friend whose name stands at the head of +this section was the fourth son and, youngest child of Dr. George +Butler, Dean of Peterborough, and sometime Head Master of Harrow. +Montagu Butler was himself-educated at Harrow under Dr. Vaughan, +afterwards the well-known Master of the Temple, and proved to be +in many respects the ideal schoolboy. He won all the prizes for +composition, prose and verse, Greek, Latin, and English. He gained +the principal scholarship, and was Head of the School. Beside all +this, he was a member of the Cricket Eleven and made the highest +score for Harrow in the match against Eton at Lord's. + +In July, 1851, Montagu Butler left Harrow, and in the following +October entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Scholar. He won +the Bell University Scholarship, the Battie University Scholarship, +the Browne Medal for a Greek Ode twice, the Camden Medal, Porson +Prize, and First Member's Prize for a Latin Essay, and graduated as +Senior Classic in 1855. Of such an undergraduate career a Fellowship +at Trinity was the natural sequel, but Butler did not long reside +at Cambridge. All through his boyhood and early manhood he had +set his heart on a political career. He had a minute acquaintance +with the political history of modern England, and his memory was +stored with the masterpieces of political eloquence. + +In 1856 he accepted the post of Private Secretary to the Right Hon. +W. F. Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount Temple, and then President of the +Board of Health in Lord Palmerston's Administration. In this office +he served for two years, and then, retiring, he spent eleven months +in foreign travel, visiting in turn the Tyrol, Venice, the Danube, +Greece, Rome, Florence, and the Holy Land. During this period, he +changed his plan of life, and in September, 1859, he was ordained +Deacon by Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield, on Letters Dimissory from +Bishop Turton of Ely. His title was his Fellowship; but it was +settled that the College should present him to the Vicarage of +Great St. Mary's, Cambridge; and till it was vacant he was to have +worked as a classical tutor in Trinity. Then came another change. +"Dr. Vaughan's retirement," he wrote, "from the Head Mastership +of Harrow startled us. We all took quietly for granted that he +would stay on for years." However, this "startling" retirement +took place, and there was a general agreement among friends of +the School that Vaughan's favourite pupil, Montagu Butler, was +the right man to succeed him. Accordingly, Butler was elected in +November, 1859, though only twenty-six years old; and, with a view +to the pastoral oversight of Harrow School, he was ordained priest, +again by Bishop Lonsdale, at Advent, 1859. + +In January, 1860, Montagu Butler entered on his new duties at Harrow, +and there he spent five-and-twenty years of happy, strenuous, and +serviceable life. He found 469 boys in the School; under his rule +the numbers increased till they reached 600. + +Butler's own culture was essentially classical, for he had been +fashioned by Vaughan, who "thought in Greek," and he himself might +almost have been said to think and feel in Latin elegiacs. But his +scholarship was redeemed from pedantry by his wide reading, and +by his genuine enthusiasm for all that is graceful in literature, +modern as well as ancient. Under his rule the "grand, old, fortifying, +classical curriculum," which Matthew Arnold satirized, fought hard +and long for its monopoly; but gradually it had to yield. Butler's +first concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latin +versification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever his +gifts or tastes. At the same time he introduced the regular teaching +of Natural Science, and in 1869 he created a "Modern Side." An even +more important feature of his rule was the official encouragement +given to the study of music, which, from an illicit indulgence practised +in holes and corners, became, under the energetic management of Mr. +John Farmer, a prime element in the life of the School. + +In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School. My father had +introduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen at +once under his charm. He was curiously unlike what one had imagined +a Head Master to be--not old and pompous and austere, but young and +gracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand. His leading +characteristic was gracefulness. He was graceful in appearance, tall and +as yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; graceful in writing, +and pre-eminently graceful in speech. He was young--thirty-four--and +looked younger, although (availing himself of the opportunity afforded +by an illness in the summer of 1867) he had just grown a beard. +He had a keen sense of humour, and was not afraid to display it +before boys, although he was a little pampered by a sense of the +solemn reverence due not only to what was sacred, but to everything +that was established and official. To breakfast with a Head Master +is usually rather an awful experience, but there was no awe about +the pleasant meals in Butler's dining-room (now the head Master's +study), for he was unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, +and tactful in adapting his conversation to the capacities of his +guests. + +It was rather more alarming to face him at the periodical inspection +of one's Form. ("Saying to the Head Master" was the old phrase, then +lapsing out of date.) We used to think that he found a peculiar interest +in testing the acquirements of such boys as he knew personally, and +of those whose parents were his friends; so that on these occasions +it was a doubtful privilege to "know him," as the phrase is, "at +home." Till one reached the Sixth Form these social and official +encounters with Butler were one's only opportunities of meeting +him at close quarters; but every Sunday evening we heard him preach +in the Chapel, and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, at +least in many cases, great. They were always written in beautifully +clear and fluent English, and were often decorated with a fine +quotation in prose or verse. In substance they were extraordinarily +simple, though not childish. For example, he often preached on +such practical topics as Gambling, National Education; and the +Housing of the Poor, as well as on themes more obviously and directly +religious. He was at his best in commemorating a boy who had died +in the School, when his genuine sympathy with sorrow made itself +unmistakably felt. But whatever was the subject, whether public or +domestic, he always treated it in the same simply Christian spirit. +I know from his own lips that he had never passed through those +depths of spiritual experience which go to make a great preacher; +but his sermons revealed in every sentence a pure, chivalrous, and +duty-loving heart. One of his intimate friends once spoke of his +"Arthur-like" character, and the epithet was exactly right. + +His most conspicuous gift was unquestionably his eloquence. His +fluency, beauty of phrase, and happy power of turning "from grave +to gay, from lively to severe," made him extraordinarily effective +on a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of +1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writing +his sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, and +even boys who did not usually care for sermons were fascinated +by his oratory. + +In the region of thought I doubt if he exercised any great influence. +To me he never seemed to have arrived at his conclusions by any +process of serious reasoning. He held strongly and conscientiously +a certain number of conventions--a kind of Palmerstonian Whiggery, +a love of "spirited foreign policy;" an admiration for the military +character, an immense regard for the Crown, for Parliament, and +for all established institutions (he was much shocked when the +present Bishop of Oxford spoke in the Debating Society in favour of +Republicanism); and in every department of life he paid an almost +superstitious reverence to authority. I once ventured to tell him +that even a beadle was a sacred being in his eyes, and he did not +deny the soft impeachment. + +His intellectual influence was not in the region of thought, but in +that of expression. His scholarship was essentially literary. He had +an instinctive and unaffected love of all that was beautiful, whether +in prose or verse, in Greek, Latin, or English. His reading was wide +and thorough. Nobody knew Burke so well, and he had a contagious +enthusiasm for Parliamentary oratory. In composition he had a _curiosa +felicitas_ in the strictest meaning of the phrase; for his felicity +was the product of care. To go through a prize-exercise with him +was a real joy, so generous was his appreciation, so fastidious +his taste, so dexterous his substitution of the telling for the +ineffective word, and so palpably genuine his enjoyment of the +business. + +As a ruler his most noticeable quality was his power of discipline. +He was feared--and a Head Master who is not feared is not fit for +his post; and by bad boys he was hated, and by most good boys he +was loved. By most, but not by all. There were some, even among the +best, who resented his system of minute regulation, his "Chinese +exactness" in trivial detail, his tendency to treat the tiniest +breach of a School rule as if it were an offence against the moral +law. + +I think it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew him +best loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, but +it was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into an +injustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. +He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour and +dishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always and exactly the +same. His memory for anything associated with his pupils careers +was extraordinarily retentive, and he was even passionately loyal +to _Auld Lang Syne_. And there is yet another characteristic which +claims emphatic mention in any attempt to estimate his influence. +He was conspicuously and essentially a gentleman. In appearance, +manner, speech, thought, and act, this gentlemanlike quality of his +nature made itself felt; and it roused in such as were susceptible +of the spell an admiration which the most meritorious teachers have +often, by sheer boorishness forfeited. + +Time out of mind, a Head Mastership has been regarded as a +stepping-stone to a Bishopric--with disastrous results to the +Church--and in Butler's case it seemed only too likely that the +precedent would be followed. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, once +said to a Harrovian colleague, "What sort of Bishop would your +old master, Dr. Butler, make?" "The very worst," was the reply. +"He is quite ignorant of the Church, and would try to discipline +his clergy like school-boys. But there is one place for which he +is peculiarly qualified--the Mastership of Trinity." And the Prime +Minister concurred. In June, 1885, Gladstone was driven from office, +and was succeeded by Lord Salisbury. In October, 1886, the Master of +Trinity (Dr. W. H. Thompson) died, and Salisbury promptly offered +the Mastership to Dr. Butler, who had for a year been Dean of +Gloucester. It is not often that a man is designated for the same +great post by two Prime Ministers of different politics. + +At Trinity, though at first he had to live down certain amount of +jealousy and ill-feeling, Butler's power and influence increased +steadily from year to year, and towards the end he was universally +respected and admired. A resident contemporary writes: "He was +certainly a Reformer, but not a violent one. His most conspicuous +services to the College were, in my opinion, these: (1) Sage guidance +of the turbulent and uncouth democracy of which a College Governing +body consists. (2) A steady aim at the highest in education, being +careful to secure the position of literary education from the +encroachments of science and mathematics. (3) Affectionate stimulus +to all undergraduates who need it, especially Old Harrovians. (4) +The maintenance of the dignity and commanding position of Trinity +and consequently of the University in the world at large." + +To Cambridge generally Butler endeared himself by his eager interest +in all good enterprises, by his stirring oratory and persuasive +preaching, and by his lavish hospitality. As Vice-Chancellor, in +1889 and 1890, he worthily maintained the most dignified traditions +of academical office. Those who knew him both on the religious +and on the social side will appreciate the judgment said to have +been pronounced by Canon Mason, then Master of Pembroke: "Butler +will be saved, like Rahab, by hospitality and faith." + + + + +VIII + +_BASIL WILBERFORCE_[*] + +[Footnote *: A Memorial Address delivered in St. John's Church, +Westminster.] + +In the House of God the praise of man should always be restrained. +I, therefore, do not propose to obey the natural instinct which +would prompt me to deliver a copious eulogy of the friend whom +we commemorate--an analysis of his character or a description of +his gifts. + +But, even in church, there is nothing out of place in an attempt to +recall the particular aspects of truth which presented themselves +with special force to a particular mind. Rather, it is a dutiful +endeavour to acknowledge the gifts, whether in the way of spiritual +illumination or of practical guidance, which God gave us through +His servant; and, it is on some of those aspects as they presented +themselves to the mind of Basil Wilberforce that I propose to +speak--not, indeed, professing to treat them exhaustively, but +bearing in mind that true saying of Jeremy Taylor: "In this world +we believe in part and prophesy in part; and this imperfection +shall never be done away, till we be transplanted to a more glorious +state." + +1. I cannot doubt about the point which should be put most prominently. + +Wilberforce's most conspicuous characteristic was his vivid apprehension +of the Spiritual World. His eyes, like Elisha's, were always open to +see "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire." Incorporeal +presences were to him at least as real as those which are embodied +in flesh and blood. Material phenomena were the veils of spiritual +realities; and "the powers of the world to come" were more actual +and more momentous than those which operate in time and space. +Perhaps the most important gift which God gave to the Church through +his ministry was his lifelong testimony against the darkness of +Materialism. + +2. Second only to his keen sense of the Unseen World was his conviction +of God's love. + +Other aspects of the Divine Nature as it is revealed to +us--Almightiness, Justice, Awfulness (though, of course, he recognized +them all)--did not colour his heart and life as they were coloured +by the sense of the Divine Love. That Love seemed to him to explain +all the mysteries of existence, to lift + + "the heavy and the weary weight + Of all this unintelligible world"; + +to make its dark places light, its rough places plain, its hard +things easy, even its saddest things endurable. His Gospel was +this: God, Who made us in His own Image, loves us like a Father; +and therefore, in life and in death, in time and in eternity, all +is, and must be, well. + +3. "He prayeth best, who lovest best + All things both great and small. + For the dear God Who loveth us, + He made and loveth all." + +Those familiar words of Coleridge perfectly express Wilberforce's +attitude towards his fellow-creatures, and when I say "fellow-creatures," +I am not thinking only of his brothers and sisters in the human family. + +He was filled with a God-like love of all that God has made. Hatred +and wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy." +Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt as +tenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadside +at Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that, +all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in that +loathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforce +to devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to the +reclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, and +which stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms. + +But his love extended far beyond the bounds of the human family; +and (in this again resembling St. Francis) he loved the birds and +beasts which God has provided as our companions in this life, and +perhaps--for aught we know--in the next. In a word, he loved all +God's creatures for God's sake. + +4. No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spirit +in regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; and +yet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belonged +essentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imagine +him happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere else +could he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholic +antiquity and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combined +with that freedom of religious speculation and that elasticity +of devotional forms which were to him as necessary as vital air. +Various elements of his teaching, various aspects of his practice +will occur to different minds; but (just because it is sometimes +overlooked) I feel bound to remind you of his testimony to the +blessings which he had received through Confession, and to the +glory of the Holy Eucharist, as the Sun and Centre of Catholic +worship. His conviction of the reality and nearness of the spiritual +world gave him a singular ease and "access" in intercessory prayer, +and his love of humanity responded to that ideal of public worship +which is set forth in _John Inglesant:_ "The English Church, as +established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all +who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose +sun shines alike on the evil and on the good." + +5. In what theology did Wilberforce, whose adult life had been +one long search for truth, finally repose? Assuredly he never lost +his hold on the central facts of the Christian revelation as they +are stated in the creed of Nica and Constantinople. Yet, as years +went on, he came to regard them less and less in their objective +aspect; more and more as they correspond to the work of the Spirit +in the heart and conscience. Towards the end, all theology seemed to +be for him comprehended in the one doctrine of the Divine Immanence, +and to find its natural expression in that significant phrase of +St. Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." + +Spiritually-minded men do not, as a rule, talk much of their spiritual +experiences; but, if one had asked Wilberforce to say what he regarded +as the most decisive moment of his religious life, I can well believe +that he would have replied, "The moment when 'it pleased God to +reveal His Son _in_ me.'" + +The subject expands before us, as is always the case when we meditate +on the character and spirit of those whom we have lost; and I must +hasten to a close. + +I have already quoted from a writer with whom I think Wilberforce +would have felt a close affinity, though, as a matter of fact, I +never heard him mention that writer's name; I mean J. H. Shorthouse; +and I return to the same book--the stimulating story of _John +Inglesant_--for my concluding words, which seem to express, with +accidental fidelity, the principle of Wilberforce's spiritual being: +"We are like children, or men in a tennis-court, and before our +conquest is half-won, the dim twilight comes and stops the game; +nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all hold fast by +the law of life we feel within. This was the method which Christ +followed, and He won the world by placing Himself in harmony with +that law of gradual development which the Divine wisdom has planned. +Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the ideal life; +and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread the free and +spacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above." + + + + +IX + +_EDITH SICHEL_ + +This notice is more suitably headed with a name than with a title. +Edith Sichel was greater than anything she wrote, and the main +interest of the book before us[*] is the character which it reveals. +Among Miss Sichel's many activities was that of reviewing, and Mr. +Bradley tells that "her first object was to let the reader know +what kind of matter he might expect to find in the book, and, if +necessary, from what point of view it is treated there." Following +this excellent example, let us say that in _New and Old_ the reader +will find an appreciative but not quite adequate "Introduction"; +some extracts from letters; some "thoughts" or aphorisms; some +poems; and thirty-two miscellaneous pieces of varying interest-and +merit. This is what we "find in the book," and the "point of view" +is developed as we read. + +[Footnote *: _New and Old_. By Edith Sichel. With an Introduction +by A. C. Bradley. London: Constable and Co.] + +To say that the Introduction is not quite adequate is no aspersion +on Mr. Bradley. He tells us that he only knew Miss Sichel "towards +the close of her life" (she was born in 1862 and died in 1914), and +in her case pre-eminently the child was mother of the woman. Her +blood was purely Jewish, and the Jewish characteristic of precocity +was conspicuous in her from the first. At ten she had the intellectual +alertness of sixteen, and at sixteen she could have held her own +with ordinary people of thirty. To converse with her even casually +always reminded me of Matthew Arnold's exclamation: "What women +these Jewesses are! with a _force_ which seems to triple that of +the women of our Western and Northern races." + +From the days of early womanhood to the end, Edith Sichel led a +double life, though in a sense very different from that in which +this ambiguous phrase is generally employed. "She was known to the +reading public as a writer of books and of papers in magazines.... +Her principal books were warmly praised by judges competent to estimate +their value as contributions to French biography and history;" and +her various writings, belonging to very different orders and ranging +over a wide variety of topics, were always marked by vigour and +originality. Her versatility was marvellous; and, "though she had +not in youth the severe training that makes for perfect accuracy," +she had by nature the instinct which avoids the commonplace, and +which touches even hackneyed themes with light and fire. Her humour +was exuberant, unforced, untrammelled; it played freely round every +object which met her mental gaze--sometimes too freely when she was +dealing with things traditionally held sacred. But her flippancy +was of speech rather than of thought, for her fundamental view of +life was serious. "Life, in her view, brings much that is pure +and unsought joy, more, perhaps, that needs transforming effort, +little or nothing that cannot be made to contribute to an inward +and abiding happiness." + +Some more detailed account of her literary work may be given later +on; at this point I must turn to the other side of her double life. +She was only twenty-two when she began her career of practical +benevolence among the poor girls of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and +Shadwell. She established in the country Homes for the girl-children +of an East End work-house, and maintained them till she died. For +twenty-two years she was treasurer of a Boys' Home. She was a manager +of Elementary Schools in London. She held a class for female prisoners +at Holloway. She was deeply impressed by the importance of starting +young people in suitable employment, and threw all her energies +into the work, "in case of need, supplying the money required for +apprenticeship." In this and in all her other enterprises she was +generous to a fault, always being ready to give away half her +income--and yet not "to a fault," for her strong administrative +and financial instinct restrained her from foolish or mischievous +expenditure. All this work, of body and mind, was done in spite +of fragile health and frequent suffering; yet she never seemed +overburdened, or fussed, or flurried, and those who enjoyed her +graceful hospitality in Onslow Gardens would never have suspected +either that her day had been spent in what she called "the picturesque +mire of Wapping," or that she had been sitting up late at night, +immersed in _Human Documents from the Four Centuries preceding +the Reformation_. + +We have spoken of her humour. Those who would see a sample of it +are referred to her description of the Eisteddfod on p. 22; and +this piece of pungent fun may be profitably read in contrast with +her grim story of _Gladys Leonora Pratt_. In that story some of +the writer's saddest experiences in the East End are told with an +unshrinking fidelity, which yet has nothing mawkish or prurient in +it. Edith Sichel was too good an artist to be needlessly disgusting. +"It might," she said, "be well for the modern realist to remember +that literalness is not the same as truth, nor curiosity as courage." + +She was best known as a writer of books about the French Renaissance, +on which she became an acknowledged authority. She was less well +known, but not less effective, as a reviewer--no one ever dissected +Charlotte Yonge so justly--and she excelled in personal description. +Her accounts of her friends Miss Emily Lawless, Miss Mary Coleridge, +and Joseph Joachim, are masterpieces of characterization. All her +literary work was based on a wide and strong foundation of generous +culture. German was to her a second mother-tongue, and she lectured +delightfully on _Faust_. Though she spoke of herself as talking +"fluent and incomprehensible bad French," she was steeped in French +scholarship. She had read Plato and Sophocles under the stimulating +guidance of William Cory, and her love of Italy had taught her a +great deal of Italian. The authors whom she enjoyed and quoted +were a motley crowd--Dante and Rabelais, Pascal and Montaigne, +George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, Tolstoi and George Borrow, "Mark +Rutherford" and Samuel Butler, Fnelon and Renan and Anatole France. +Her vein of poetic feeling was strong and genuine. In addressing some +young girls she said: "We all think a great deal of the importance +of opening our windows and airing our rooms. I wish we thought +as much of airing our imaginations. To me poetry is quite like +that. It is like opening the window daily, and looking out and +letting in the air and the sunlight into an otherwise stuffy little +room; and if I cannot read some poetry in the day I feel more +uncomfortable than I can tell you." She might have put the case +more strongly; for poetry, and music, and painting, and indeed all +art at its highest level, made a great part of her religion. Her +family had long ago conformed to the Church of England, in which +she was brought up; but she never shook off her essential Judaism. +She had no sympathy with rites or ordinances, creeds or dogmas, +and therefore outward conformity to the faith of her forefathers +would have been impossible to her; but she looked with reverent +pride on the tombs in the Jewish cemetery at Prague. "It gave me +a strange feeling to stand at the tombstone of our tribe--900 A.D. +The oldest scholar's grave is 600 A.D., and Heaven knows how many +great old Rabbis lie there, memorable and forgotten. The wind and +the rain were sobbing all round the place, and all the melancholy +of my race seemed to rise up and answer them." Though she was a +Churchwoman by practice, her own religion was a kind of undefined +Unitarianism. "The Immanence of God and the life of Christ are my +treasures." "I am a heretic, you know, and it seems to me that +all who call Christ Master with adoration of that life are of the +same band." Her favourite theologians were James Martineau, Alfred +Ainger (whose Life she wrote admirably), and Samuel Barnett, whom +she elevated into a mystic and a prophet. The ways of the Church +of England did not please her. She had nothing but scorn for "a +joyless curate prating of Easter joy with limpest lips," or for "the +Athanasian Creed sung in the highest of spirits in a prosperous church" +filled with "sealskin-jacketed mammas and blowsy old gentlemen." But +the conclusion of the whole matter was more comfortable--"All the +clergymen in the world cannot make one disbelieve in God." + + + + +X + +_"WILL" GLADSTONE_ + +"He bequeathed to his children the perilous inheritance of a name +which the Christian world venerates." The words were originally +used by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce with reference to his father, +the emancipator of the negro. I venture to apply them to the great +man who, in days gone by, was my political leader, and I do so the +more confidently because I hold that Gladstone will be remembered +quite apart from politics, and, as Bishop Westcott said, "rather +for what he was than for what he did." He was, in Lord Salisbury's +words, "an example, to which history hardly furnishes a parallel, +of a great Christian, Statesman." It was no light matter for a +boy of thirteen to inherit a name which had been so nobly borne +for close on ninety years, and to acquire, as soon as he came of +age, the possession of a large and difficult property, and all +the local influence which such ownership implies. Yet this was +the burden which was imposed on "Will" Gladstone by his father's +untimely death. After an honourable career at Eton and Oxford, and +some instructive journeyings in the East and in America (where he +was an attach at the British Embassy), he entered Parliament as +Member for the Kilmarnock Boroughs. His Parliamentary career was +not destined to be long, but it was in many respects remarkable. + +In some ways he was an ideal candidate. He was very tall, with a +fair complexion and a singular nobility of feature and bearing. +To the most casual observer it was palpable that he walked the +world + + "With conscious step of purity and pride." + +People interested in heredity tried to trace in him some resemblance +to his famous grandfather; but, alike in appearance and in character, +the two were utterly dissimilar. In only one respect they resembled +each other, and that was the highest. Both were earnest and practical +Christians, walking by a faith which no doubts ever disturbed, +and serving God in the spirit and by the methods of the English +Church. And here we see alike Will Gladstone's qualifications and +his drawbacks as a candidate for a Scottish constituency. His name +and his political convictions commended him to the electors; his +ecclesiastial opinions they could not share. His uprightness of +character and nobility of aspect commanded respect; his innate +dislike of popularity-hunting and men-pleasing made him seem for so +young a man--he was only twenty-seven--austere and aloof. Everyone +could feel the intensity of his convictions on the points on which +he had made up his mind; some were unreasonably distressed when +he gave expression to that intensity by speech and vote. He was +chosen to second the Address at the opening of the Session of 1912, +and acquitted himself, as always, creditably; but it was in the +debates on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill that he first definitely +made his mark. "He strongly supported the principle, holding that it +had been fully justified by the results of the Irish Disestablishment +Act on the Irish Church. But, as in that case, generosity should +characterize legislation; disendowment should be clearly limited to +tithes. Accordingly, in Committee, he took an independent course. +His chief speech on this subject captivated the House. For a very +young Member to oppose his own party without causing irritation, +and to receive the cheers of the Opposition without being led to +seek in them solace for the silence of his own side, and to win +general admiration by transparent sincerity and clear, balanced +statement of reason, was a rare and notable performance." + +When Will Gladstone struck twenty-nine, there were few young men in +England who occupied a more enviable position. He had a beautiful +home; sufficient, but not overwhelming, wealth; a property which +gave full scope for all the gifts of management and administration +which he might possess; the devoted love of his family, and the +goodwill even of those who did not politically agree with him. +His health, delicate in childhood, had improved with years. "While +he never neglected his public duties, his natural, keen, healthy +love of nature, sport, fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly. +In these matters he was still a boy"--but a boy who, as it seemed, +had already crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such was +Will Gladstone on his last birthday--the 12th of July, 1914. A +month later the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinking +world, and all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness, +yes; but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible, +and an unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part--the +conviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and to +himself--became only more imperious when the call to arms was heard: +_Christus ad arma vocat_. + +Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart. +He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels of +other nations. "His health was still delicate; he possessed neither +the training nor instincts of a soldier; war and fighting were +repugnant to his whole moral and physical fibre." No one, in short, +could have been by nature less disposed for the duty which now +became urgent. "The invasion of Belgium shattered his hopes and +his ideals." He now realized the stern truth that England must +fight, and, if England must fight, he must bear his part in the +fighting. He had been made, when only twenty-six, Lord-Lieutenant +of Flintshire, and as such President of the Territorial Force +Association. It was his official duty to "make personal appeals +for the enlistment of young men. But how could he urge others to +join the Army while he, a young man not disqualified for military +service, remained at home in safety? It was his duty to lead, and +his best discharge of it lay in personal example." His decision +was quickly and quietly made. "He was the only son of his mother, +and what it meant to her he knew full well;" but there was no +hesitation, no repining, no looking back. He took a commission in +the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and on the 15th +of March, 1915, he started with a draft for France. On the 12th +of April he was killed. "It is not"--he had just written to his +mother--"the length of existence, that counts, but what is achieved +during that existence, however short." These words of his form +his worthiest epitaph. + + + + +XI + +_LORD CHARLES RUSSELL_ + +A man can have no better friend than a good father; and this +consideration warrants, I hope, the inclusion of yet one more sketch +drawn "in honour of friendship." + +Charles James Fox Russell (1807-1894) was the sixth son of the sixth +Duke of Bedford. His mother was Lady Georgiana Gordon, daughter +of the fourth Duke of Gordon and of the adventurous "Duchess Jane," +who, besides other achievements even more remarkable, raised the +"Gordon Highlanders" by a method peculiarly her own. Thus he was +great-great-great-grandson of the Whig martyr, William, Lord Russell, +and great-nephew of Lord George Gordon, whose Protestant zeal excited +the riots of 1780. He was one of a numerous family, of whom the best +remembered are John, first Earl Russell, principal author of the +Reform Act of 1832, and Louisa, Duchess of Abercorn, grandmother +of the present Duke. + +Charles James Fox was a close friend, both politically and privately, +of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and he promised them that he +would be godfather to their next child; but he died before the +child was born, whereupon his nephew, Lord Holland, took over the +sponsorship, and named his godson "Charles James Fox." The child +was born in 1807, and his birthplace was Dublin Castle.[*] The +Duke of Bedford was then Viceroy of Ireland, and became involved +in some controversy because he refused to suspend the Habeas Corpus +Act. When Lord Charles Russell reached man's estate, he used, half +in joke but quite half in-earnest, to attribute his lifelong sympathy +with the political demands of the Irish people to the fact that +he was a Dublin man by birth. + +[Footnote *: He was christened from a gold bowl by the Archbishop +of Dublin, Lord Normanton.] + +The Duke of Bedford was one of the first Englishmen who took a +shooting in Scotland (being urged thereto by his Highland Duchess); +and near his shooting-lodge a man who had been "out" with Prince +Charlie in 1745 was still living when Charles Russell first visited +Speyside. Westminster was the Russells' hereditary school, and +Charles Russell was duly subjected to the austere discipline which +there prevailed. From the trials of gerund-grinding and fagging +and flogging a temporary relief was afforded by the Coronation of +George IV., at which he officiated as Page to the acting Lord Great +Chamberlain. It was the last Coronation at which the procession was +formed in Westminster Hall and moved across to the Abbey. Young +Russell, by mischievousness or carelessness, contrived to tear +his master's train from the ermine cape which surmounted it; and +the procession was delayed till a seamstress could be found to +repair the damage. "I contrived to keep that old rascal George +IV. off the throne for half an hour," was Lord Charles-Russell's +boast in maturer age.[*] + +[Footnote *: J, W. Croker, recording the events of the day, says: +"The King had to wait full half an hour for the Great Chamberlain, +Lord Gwydyr, who, it seems, had torn his robes, and was obliged +to wait to have them mended. I daresay the public lays the blame +of the delay on to the King, who was ready long before anyone +else,"--_The Croker Papers_, vol. i., p. 195.] + +From Westminster Lord Charles passed to the University of Edinburgh, +where his brother John had preceded him. He boarded with Professor +Pillans, whom Byron gibbeted as "paltry"[*] in "English Bards and +Scotch Reviewers," and enjoyed the society of the literary circle +which in those days made Edinburgh famous. The authorship of the +Waverley Novels was not yet revealed, and young Russell had the +pleasure of discussing with Sir Walter Scott the dramatic qualities +of _The Bride of Lammermoor_. He was, perhaps, less unfitted for such +high converse than most lads would be, because, as Lord Holland's +godson, he had been from his schooldays a frequenter of Holland +House in its days of glory.[**] + +[Footnote *: Why?] + +[Footnote **: On his first visit Lord Holland told him that he +might order his own dinner. He declared for a roast duck with green +peas, and an apricot tart; whereupon the old Amphitryon said: "Decide +as wisely on every question in life, and you will never go far +wrong."] + +On leaving Edinburgh, Lord Charles Russell joined the Blues, then +commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover; +and he was able to confirm, by personal knowledge, the strange +tales of designs which the Duke entertained for placing himself or +his son upon the throne of England.[*] He subsequently exchanged +into the 52nd Light Infantry, from which he retired, with the rank +of Lieutenant-Colonel, in order to enter Parliament. In December, +1832, he was returned at the head of the poll for Bedfordshire, +and on Christmas Eve a young lady (who in 1834 became his wife) +wrote thus to her sister: + +"Lord Charles Russell is returned for this County. The Chairing, +Dinner, etc., take place to-day. Everybody is interested about +him, as he is very young and it is his first appearance in the +character. His speeches have delighted the whole County, and he +is, of course, very much pleased." This faculty of public speaking +was perhaps his most remarkable endowment. He had an excellent +command of cultivated English, a clear and harmonious voice, a keen +sense of humour, and a happy knack of apt quotation. + +[Footnote *: _Cf. Tales of my Father_, by A. F. Longmans, 1902.] + +On the 23rd of February, 1841, Disraeli wrote, with reference to +an impending division on the Irish Registration Bill: "The Whigs +had last week two hunting accidents; but Lord Charles Russell, +though he put his collar-bone out, and we refused to pair him, +showed last night." He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolution +of that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeed +bound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agricultural +community which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell," wrote Cobden, +"is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaring +at the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out of +cultivation." He returned to Parliament for a brief space in 1847, +and was then appointed Serjeant-at-Arms--not, as he always insisted, +"Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons," but "one of the Queen's +Serjeants-at-Arms, directed by her to attend on the Speaker during +the sitting of Parliament." In 1873 the office and its holder were +thus described by "Jehu Junior" in _Vanity Fair_: + +"For the filling of so portentous an office, it is highly important +that one should be chosen who will, by personal mien and bearing +not less than by character, detract nothing from its dignity. Such +a one is Lord Charles Russell, who is a worthy representative of +the great house of Bedford from which he springs. + +"For a quarter of a century he has borne the mace before successive +Speakers. From his chair he has listened to Peel, to Russell, to +Palmerston, to Disraeli, and to Gladstone, and he still survives +as a depository of their eloquence. He is himself popular beyond +the fair expectations of one who has so important a part to play +in the disciplinary arrangements of a popular assembly; for he +is exceptionally amiable and genial by nature, is an excellent +sportsman, and has cultivated a special taste for letters.[*] It is +rarely that in these times a man can be found so thoroughly fitted +to fill an office which could be easily invested with ridicule, +or so invariably to invest it, as he has, with dignity." + +[Footnote *: He was the best Shakespearean I ever knew, and founded +the "Shakespeare Medal" at Harrow. Lord Chief justice Coleridge +wrote thus: "A munificent and accomplished nobleman, Lord Charles +Russell, has, by the wise liberality which dictated the foundation +of his Shakespeare Medal at Harrow, secured that at least at one +great Public School the boys may be stimulated in youth to an exact +and scholarlike acquaintance with the poet whom age will show them +to be the greatest in the world."] + +Sir George Trevelyan writes: "You can hardly imagine how formidable +and impressive Lord Charles seemed to the mass of Members, and +especially to the young; and how exquisite and attractive was the +moment when he admitted you to his friendly notice, and the absolute +assurance that, once a friend, he would be a friend for ever." + +Lord Charles Russell held the Serjeancy till 1875; and at this point +I had better transcribe the record in _Hansard_: + + * * * * * + +_Monday, April_ 5, 1875: + +Mr. Speaker acquainted the House that he had received from Lord +Charles James Fox Russell the following letter: + + HOUSE OF COMMONS, + _April_ 5_th_, 1875. + +SIR, + +I have the honour to make application to you that you will be pleased +to sanction my retirement from my office, by Patent, of Her Majesty's +Serjeant-at-Arms attending the Speaker of the House of Commons. +I have held this honourable office for twenty-seven years, and +I feel that the time is come when it is desirable that I should +no longer retain it. + + I have the honour to be, Sir, + Your very obedient servant, + CHARLES J. F. RUSSELL, + _Serjeant-at-Arms_. + +THE RIGHT HONBLE. THE SPEAKER. + +_Thursday, April_ 8, 1875: + +Mr. DISRAELI: I beg to move, Sir, that the letter addressed to +you by Lord Charles Russell, the late Serjeant-at-Arms, be read +by the Clerk at the Table. + +Letter [5th April] read. + +Mr. DISRAELI: Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the resignation of +his office by one who has long and ably served this House. The office +of Serjeant-at-Arms is one which requires no ordinary qualities; for +it requires at the same time patience, firmness, and suavity, and +that is a combination of qualities more rare than one could wish +in this world. The noble Lord who filled the office recently, and +whose resignation has just been read at the Table, has obtained our +confidence by the manner in which he has discharged his duties through +an unusually long period of years; and we should remember, I think, +that occasions like the present are almost the only opportunity we +have of expressing our sense of those qualities, entitled so much +to our respect, which are possessed and exercised by those who fill +offices attached to this House, and upon whose able fulfilment of +their duties much of our convenience depends. Therefore, following +the wise example of those who have preceded me in this office, +I have prepared a Resolution which expresses the feeling of the +House on this occasion, and I now place it, Sir, in your hands. + +Mr. Speaker, read the Resolution, as follows: "That Mr. Speaker +be requested to acquaint Lord Charles James Fox Russell that this +House entertains a just sense of the exemplary manner in which he +has uniformly discharged the duties of the Office of Serjeant-at-Arms +during his long attendance on this House." + +The MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of the Members who sit +on this side of the House, I rise to second the Motion of the Right +Hon. Gentleman. He has on more than one occasion gracefully, but +at the same time justly, recognized the services rendered to the +State by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy a +foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud +to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in +the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has +just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, +at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time +when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his +resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of +new Members of this House to add their testimony to that of us +who are better acquainted with him, as to the invariable dignity +and courtesy with which he has discharged his duties. + +The Resolution was adopted by the House, _nemine contradicente._ + + * * * * * + +Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, where +he spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had always +been devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and his +two main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M.C.C. in +1827, and for twenty years before his death I had been its senior +member. Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give _me_ +bowling, _Pilch_ in, _Box_ at the wicket, and your Lordship looking +on."[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle he +was supreme--a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge of +a hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularly +still later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdale +writes: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your father +we went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five years +before his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, and +Lord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old--or was she +only four?--which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! She was +not easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her with the +ease of long proficiency--not long years--and his interest in all +that goes to make up a day's hunting was as full of zest and youth +as I recollect his interest used to be in all that made up a +cricket-match in my Harrow days." + +[Footnote *: See _Lords and the M.C.C._, p. 86.] + +In religion Lord Charles Russell was an Evangelical, and he was +a frequent speaker on religious platforms. In politics he was an +ardent Liberal; always (except in that soon-repented heresy about +Free Trade) rather in advance of his party; a staunch adherent +of Mr. Gladstone, and a convinced advocate of Home Rule, though +he saw from the outset that the first Home Rule Bill, without +Chamberlain's support, was, as he said, "No go." He took an active +part in electioneering, from the distant days when, as a Westminster +boy, he cheered for Sir Francis Burdett, down to September, 1892, when +he addressed his last meeting in support of Mr. Howard Whitbread, +then Liberal candidate for South Bedfordshire. A speech which he +delivered at the General Election of 1886, denouncing the "impiety" +of holding that the Irish were incapable of self-government, won the +enthusiastic applause of Mr. Gladstone. When slow-going Liberals +complained of too-rapid reforms, he used to say: "When I was a +boy, our cry was 'Universal Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and +the Ballot.' That was seventy years ago, and we have only got one +of the three yet." + +In local matters, he was always on the side of the poor and the +oppressed, and a sturdy opponent of all aggressions on their rights. +"Footpaths," he wrote, "are a precious right of the poor, and +consequently much encroached on." + +It is scarcely decent for a son to praise his father, but even a +son may be allowed to quote the tributes which his father's death +evoked. Let some of these tributes end my tale. + + _June_ 29_th_, 1894. + +My DEAR G. RUSSELL, + + I am truly grieved to learn this sad news. +It is the disappearance of an illustrious figure to +us, but of much more, I fear, to you. + + Yours most sincerely, + ROSEBERY. + + _June_ 30_th_, 1894. + +DEAR G. RUSSELL, + +I saw with sorrow the announcement of your father's death. He was +a good and kind friend to me in the days long ago, and I mourn +his loss. In these backsliding days he set a great example of +steadfastness and loyalty to the faith of his youth and his race. + + Yours very truly, + + W. V. HARCOURT. + + _July_ 31_rd_ 1894. + +DEAR RUSSELL, + +I was very grieved to hear of your revered father's death. + +He was a fine specimen of our real aristocracy, and such specimens +are becoming rarer and rarer in these degenerate days. + +There was a true ring of the "Grand Seigneur" about him which always +impressed me. + + Yours sincerely, + REAY. + + _July_ 1_st_, 1894. + +My DEAR RUSSELL, + +I thank you very much for your kindness in writing to me. + +You may, indeed, presume that it is with painful interest and deep +regret that I hear of the death of your father, and that I value +the terms in which you speak of his feelings towards myself. + +Though he died at such an advanced age, it is, I think, remarkable +that his friends spoke of him to the last as if he were still in +the full intercourse of daily life, without the disqualification +or forgetfulness that old age sometimes brings with it. + +For my part I can never forget my association with him in the House +of Commons and elsewhere, nor the uniform kindness which he always +showed me. + + Believe me, most truly yours, + ARTHUR W. PEEL. + + _June_ 29_th_, 1894. + +My DEAR RUSSELL, + +I have seen, with the eyes of others, in newspapers of this afternoon +the account of the death--shall I say?--or of the ingathering of +your father. And of what he was to you as a father I can reasonably, +if remotely, conceive from knowing what he was in the outer circle, +as a firm, true, loyal friend. + +He has done, and will do, no dishonour to the name of Russell. It +is a higher matter to know, at a supreme moment like this, that +he had placed his treasure where moth and dust do not corrupt, and +his dependence where dependence never fails. May he enjoy the rest, +light, and peace of the just until you are permitted to rejoin him. +With growing years you will feel more and more that here everything +is but a rent, and that it is death alone which integrates. + +On Monday I hope to go to Pitlochrie, N. B., and in a little time +to return southward, and resume, if it please God, the great gift +of working vision. + + Always and sincerely yours, + W. E. GLADSTONE. + + + + +III + +RELIGION AND THE CHURCH + + + + +I + +_A STRANGE EPIPHANY_ + +Whenever the State meddles with the Church's business, it contrives +to make a muddle. This familiar truth has been exemplified afresh +by the decree which dedicated last Sunday[*] to devotions connected +with the War. The Feast of the Epiphany has had, at least since +the fourth century, its definite place in the Christian year, its +special function, and its peculiar lesson. The function is to +commemorate the revelation of Christianity to the Gentile world; +and the lesson is the fulfilment of all that the better part of +Heathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion which +emanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance of +this day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motives +and its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph of ineptitude. + +[Footnote *: January 6th, 1918.] + +Tennyson wrote of + + "this northern island, + Sundered once from all the human race"; + +and when Christians first began to observe the Epiphany, or Theophany +(as the feast was indifferently called), our own forefathers were +among the heathen on whom the light of the Holy Manger was before +long to shine. It has shone on us now for a good many centuries; +England has ranked as one of the chiefest of Christian nations, +and has always professed, and often felt, a charitable concern +for the races which are still lying in darkness. Epiphany is very +specially the feast of a missionary Church, and the strongest appeal +which it could address to Heathendom would be to cry, "See what +Christianity has done for the world! Christendom possesses the +one religion. Come in and share its blessings." + +There have been times and places at which that appeal could be +successfully made. Indeed, as Gibbon owned, it was one of the causes +to which the gradual triumph of Christianity was due. But for Europe +at the present moment to address that appeal to Africa or India +or China would be to invite a deadly repartee. In the long ages, +Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "rose +out of chaos," you have improved very little on the manners of +those primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime." Two +thousand years of Christianity have not taught you to beat your +swords into plough-shares. You still make your sons to pass through +the fire to Moloch, and the most remarkable developments of physical +science are those which make possible the destruction of human life +on the largest scale. Certainly, in Zeppelins and submarines and +poisonous gas there is very little to remind the world of Epiphany +and what it stands for. + +Thirty years ago the great Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "The present +is terrible, the future far more so; every day adds to the power +and facility of the means of destruction. Science is hard at work +(science, the great--nay, to some the only--God of these days) +to discover and concentrate the shortest and easiest methods to +annihilate the human race." We see the results of that work in +German methods of warfare. + +Germany has for four centuries asserted for herself a conspicuous +place in European religion. She has been a bully there as in other +fields, and the lazy and the timid have submitted to her theological +pretensions. Now, by the mouth of her official pastors she has +renounced the religion of sacrifice for the lust of conquest, and +has substituted the creed of Odin for the faith of Christ. A country +which, in spite of learning and opportunity, has wilfully elapsed +from civilization into barbarism can scarcely evangelize Confucians +or Buddhists. + +If we turn from the Protestant strongholds of the North to the +citadel of Authority at Rome, the signs of an Epiphany are equally +lacking. The Infallibility which did not save the largest section +of Christendom from such crimes as the Inquisition and the massacre +of St. Bartholomew has proved itself equally impotent in these +latter days. No one could have expected the Pope, who has spiritual +children in all lands, to take sides in an international dispute; +but one would have thought that a divinely-given infallibility +would have denounced, with the trumpet-tone of Sinai, the orgies +of sexual and sacrilegious crime which have devastated Belgium. + +Is the outlook in allied Russia any more hopeful than in hostile +Germany and in neutral Rome? I must confess that I cannot answer. +We were always told that the force which welded together in one the +different races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritual +force; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; and +that even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion. +At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy Orthodox +Church manifest her power and instil into her children the primary +conceptions of Christian citizenship? + +And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the condition +of England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with a +lively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesley +complained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "the +sinners unbaptized out-sin." And everyone who remembers the social +and moral state of England during the ten years immediately preceding +the present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth century +had not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling, +and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, and +were doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was an +open and insolent disregard of religious observance, especially +with respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest being +perverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. There +was a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of society +which are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasing +invasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated in +the agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Other +and darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to make +my meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent of +and to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise, +we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany. + + + + +II + +_THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_ + +"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better +definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated +in the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One--is, +of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has +Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men +and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the +wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the +Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, +the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing +to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carried +with them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilations +inflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own time, +"many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, has gladly +met her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would have made her +in a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant community." +Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the Romance of the +Cloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian desert, and Benedict +in his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis tending the leper +by the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, as in thousands +more, the world was well lost for an idea. + +The world is well lost--and supremely well lost--by the Missionary, +whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier lost it well +when he made his response to the insistent question: "What shall +it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own +soul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse foolishness +as men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant prospects +which a University offers to preach and fail among the heathen, +and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge Patterson +lost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures of Eton and +Oxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, he went out +to spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of the Pacific, +and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen whom he loved +and served. + +These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but others +there are, which, though less "high and heroical," are not less +Teal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though for +a cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who on +"Black Bartholomew," in the year 1662, renounced their benefices +in the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worship +which their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world was +gloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates of +the Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption, +sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromise +the "Headship of Christ over His own house." + +One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in giving +it I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now, +I suppose, entirely forgotten--the name of the Honble. and Revd. +Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years and +ten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry not +of mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none who +listened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliest +youth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ,' +in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquished +even the church which was his living and the pulpit which was his +throne, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance, +and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he cared +not whither." + +After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it may +seem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise to +this chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple, +by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order to +devote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty," has established +a strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I state +on p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To my +thinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment. +The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be an +intolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, while +retaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment, +they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of a +spiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own ideal +is Cavour's--the Free Church in the Free State; and all such schemes +as Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the best of +two incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our fetters +might be made to gall less painfully, but they would be more securely +riveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. Temple stands on +one side and I on the other; but this does not impair my respect +for a man who is ready to "lose the world for an idea"--even though +that idea be erroneous and Impracticable. + +To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion, +but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all the +qualifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune. +He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervour +which in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his father +one of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he was +esteemed a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him +from being an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorous +worker, a powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an important +parish. Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in the +wish to be a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by the +biographies of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee, +and in the actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopal +thrones. But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals, +and has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is afforded +by the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position. + +That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come to +naught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at length +recognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete, +severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidance +in the use of her new-born freedom. + + + + +III + +_PAN-ANGLICANISM_ + +It is an awful word. Our forefathers, from Shakespeare downwards, +ate pan-cakes, and trod the pantiles at Tunbridge Wells; but their +"pan" was purely English, and they linked it with other English +words. The freedom of the "Ecclesia Anglicana" was guaranteed by +the Great Charter, and "Anglicanism" became a theological term. +Then Johnson, making the most of his little Greek, began to talk +about a "pancratical" man, where we talk of an all-round athlete; +and, a little later, "Pantheist" became a favourite missile with +theologians who wished to abuse rival practitioners, but did not +know exactly how to formulate their charge. It was reserved for the +journalists of 1867 to form the terrible compound of two languages, +and, by writing of the "Pan-Anglican Synod," to prepare the way for +"Pan-Protestant" and "Pan-denominational." Just now the "Lively +Libertines" (as their detractors style the promoters of "Life and +Liberty") seem to be testing from their labours, and they might +profitably employ their leisure by reading the history of their +forerunners half a century ago. + +The hideously named "Pan-Anglican Synod," which assembled at Lambeth +in September, 1867, and terminated its proceedings in the following +December, was a real movement in the direction of Life and Liberty +for the Church of England. The impulse came from the Colonies, +which, themselves enjoying the privilege of spiritual independence, +were generously anxious to coalesce at a time of trial with the +fettered Church at home. The immediate occasion of the movement +was the eccentricity of Bishop Colenso--"the arithmetical Bishop +who could not forgive Moses for having written a Book of Numbers." +The faith of some was seriously perturbed when they heard of a +Bishop who, as Matthew Arnold said, "had learnt among the Zulus +that only a certain number of people can stand in a doorway at +once, and that no man can eat eighty-eight pigeons a day; and who +tells us, as a consequence, that the Pentateuch is all fiction, +which, however, the author may very likely have composed without +meaning to do wrong, and as a work of poetry, like Homer's." + +Certainly the tremors of a faith so lightly overset were justly +obnoxious to Arnold's ridicule; but Colenso's negations went deeper +than the doorway and the pigeons; and the faithful of his diocese, +being untrammelled by the State, politely dismissed him from his +charge. In England steady-going Christians had been not less perturbed +by that queer collection of rather musty discourses which was called +_Essays and Reviews_; and the Church of England had made an attempt +to rid itself, by synodical action, of all complicity in the dubious +doctrine. But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had justified +the essayists, and had done its best to uphold Colenso. By so doing, it +had, of course, delighted all Erastians; but Churchmen, whether at home +or abroad, who believed in the English Church as a spiritual society, +with a life of its own apart from all legal establishment, felt that +the time had come when this belief should be publicly proclaimed. In +February, 1866, the Anglican Bishops of Canada addressed a Memorial +to Dr. Longley, then Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting him to +summon a conference of all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion; +and, after some characteristic hesitation, this was done. A Letter of +Invitation was issued in February, 1867. The more dogged Erastians +held aloof; but those who conceived of the Church as a spiritual +society obeyed the summons; the "Conference of Bishops" assembled, +and the priceless word "Pan-Anglicanism" was added to the resources +of the language. + +What did these good men do when they were come together? Not, it +must be admitted, very much. They prayed and they preached, and +debated and divided, and, in the matter of Colenso, quarrelled. +They issued a Pastoral Letter which, as Bishop Tait said, was "the +expression of essential agreement and a repudiation of Infidelity +and Romanism." If this had been the sole result of the Conference, +it would have been meagre enough; but under this official +ineffectiveness there had been a real movement towards "Life and +Liberty." The Conference taught the Established Bishops of England +and Ireland that the Bishops of Free Churches--Scottish, American, +Colonial--were at least as keen about religious work and as jealous +for the spiritual independence of the Christian society as the highly +placed and handsomely paid occupants of Lambeth and Bishopthorpe. +Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury (whom the Catholic-minded section of +the English Church regarded as their special champion) "thought +that we had much to learn from contact with the faith and vigour +of the American Episcopate"; and Bishop Wilberforce thus recorded +his judgment: "The Lambeth gathering was a very great success. Its +strongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of London (Tait), +was quite remarkable. We are now sitting in Committee trying to +complete our work--agree to a voluntary Court of English Doctrinal +Appeal for the free Colonies of America. If we can carry this out, +we shall have erected a barrier of immense moral strength against +Privy Council latitudinarianism. My view is that God gives us the +opportunity, as at home latitudinarianism must spread, of encircling +the Home Church with a band of far more dogmatic truth-holding +communions who will act most strongly in favour of truth here. +I was in great measure the framer of the "Pan-Anglican" for this +purpose, and the result has abundantly satisfied me. The American +Bishops won golden opinions." + +And so this modest effort in the direction of "Life and Liberty," +which had begun amid obloquy and ridicule, gained strength with +each succeeding year. The Conference was repeated, with vastly +increased numbers and general recognition, in 1878, 1888, 1898, and +1908. The war makes the date of the next assemblage, as it makes +all things, doubtful; but already Churchmen, including some who have +hitherto shrunk in horror from the prospect of Disestablishment, +are beginning to look forward to the next Conference of Bishops +as to something which may be a decisive step in the march of the +English Church towards freedom and self-government. Men who have +been reared in a system of ecclesiastical endowments are apt to +cherish the very unapostolic belief that money is a sacred thing; +but even they are coming, though by slow degrees, to realize that the +Faith may be still more sacred. For the rest of us, the issue was +formulated by Gladstone sixty years ago: "You have our decision: +take your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright +of the Bride of Christ." + + + + +IV + +_LIFE AND LIBERTY_ + +The title is glorious; and, so far as I know, the credit of inventing +it belongs to my friend the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, the enterprising +Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Mr. Sheppard has what in newspapers +we call a "magnetic personality," and no one has more thoroughly +laid to heart the sagacious saying that "Sweet are the uses of +advertisement." Whatever cause he adopts, the world must know that +he has adopted it; and it shall obtain a hearing, or he will know +the reason why. The cause to which (outside his pastoral work) he +is just now devoted is that which is summarized in the phrase, +"Life and Liberty for the Church of England." It is a fine ideal, +and Mr. Sheppard and his friends have been expounding it at the +Queen's Hall. + +It was no common achievement to fill that hall on a hot summer +evening in the middle of the war, and with very little' assistance +from the Press. Yet Mr. Sheppard did it, and he filled an "over-flow +meeting" as well. The chair was taken by the Rev. William Temple, +who tempered what might have been the too fervid spirit of the +gathering with the austerity which belongs to a writer on philosophy, +an ex-Head Master, and a prospective Bishop. The hall was densely +crowded with clergy, old and young--old ones who had more or less +missed their mark, and young ones keen to take warning by these +examples. There were plenty of laymen, too, quite proud to realize +that, though they are not in Holy Orders, they too are "in the +Church"; and a brilliant star, if only he had appeared, would have +been a Second-Lieutenant in khaki, who unfortunately was detained +at the front by military duties. A naval and a military chaplain +did the "breezy" business, as befitted their cloth; and, beaming +on the scene with a paternal smile, was the most popular of Canons, +who by a vehement effort kept silence even from good words, though +it must have been pain and grief to him.[*] + +[Footnote *: Alas! we have lost him since.] + +The oratorical honours of the evening were by common consent adjudged +to a lady, who has since been appointed "Pulpit Assistant" to the +City Temple. May an old-fashioned Churchman suggest that, if this +is a sample of Mr. Sheppard's new movement, the "Life" of the Church +of England is likely to be a little too lively, and its "Liberty" +to verge on licence? A ministry of undenominational feminism is +"a thing imagination boggles at." Here it is to be remarked that +the leaders of the movement are male and female after their kind. +Dr. and Mrs. Dingo sit in council side by side, and much regret +is expressed that Archdeacon Buckemup is still a celibate. But +let us be of good cheer. Earnest-minded spinsters, undeterred by +the example of Korah (who, as they truly say, was only a man), +are clamouring for the priesthood as well as the vote; and in the +near future the "Venerable Archdeaconess" will be a common object +of the ecclesiastical sea-shore. Miss Jenkyns, in _Cranford_, would +have made a capital Dean. + +So much for the setting of the scene. The "business" must be now +considered, and we will take the programme of "Life and Liberty" +point by point, as set forth in a pamphlet by Mr. Temple. In the +first place, its leaders are very clear that they wish to keep their +endowments; but it must not be supposed that they dread reform. +Their policy is "Redistribution." Those great episcopal incomes +are again threatened; the Bishops are to be delivered from that +burden of wealth which presses so hardly on them; and the slum +parson is to have a living wage. But the incumbent, though his +income may thus be increased, is by no means to have it all his +own way. His freehold in his benefice is to be abolished; and, even +while he retains his position, he is to have his duties assigned +to him, and his work arranged, by a "Parochial Church Council," in +which the "Pulpit Assistant" at Bethesda or Bethel may have her +place. Life and Liberty indeed! But further boons are in store for +us. We have at present two Archbishops, and, I hope, are thankful +for them. Under the new scheme we are promised eight, or even nine. +"Showers of blessing," as the hymn says! I presume that the six (or +seven) new Archbishops are to be paid out of the "redistributed" +incomes of the existing two. The believers in "Life and Liberty" +humanely propose to compensate the Archbishop of Canterbury for +the diminution of his 15,000 a year by letting him call himself +a "Patriarch," but I can hardly fancy a Scotsman regarding this +as a satisfactory bargain. + +But how are these and similar boons to be attained? The promoters of +Life and Liberty (not, I fancy, without a secret hope of frightening +the Bishops into compliance with their schemes) affirm their readiness +to accept Disestablishment "if no other way to self-government seems +feasible"; but they, themselves, prefer a less heroic method. While +retaining the dignity of Establishment and the opulence of Endowment, +they propose that the Church should have "power to legislate on all +matters affecting the Church, subject to Parliamentary veto.... +This proposal has the immense practical advantage that, whereas it +is now necessary to secure time for the passage of any measure +through Parliament, if this scheme were adopted it would become +necessary for the opponent or obstructor to find time to prevent +its passage. The difference which this would make in practice is +enormous." It is indeed; and the proposal is interesting as a choice +specimen of what the world knows (and dislikes) as Ecclesiastical +Statesmanship. + +"Life and Liberty"--there is music in the very words; and, ever +since I was old enough to have an opinion on serious matters, I +have cherished them as the ideals for the Church to which I belong. +From the oratory of Queen's Hall and the "slim" statesmanship which +proposes to steal a march on the House of Commons I turn to that +great evangelist, Arthur Stanton, who wrote as follows when Welsh +Disestablishment was agitating the clerical mind. + +"Nothing will ever reconcile me to the Establishment of Christ's +Church on earth by Sovereigns or Parliaments. It is established +by God on Faith and the Sacraments, and so endowed, and all other +pretended establishment and endowment to me is profane." And again: + +"Taking away endowments doesn't affect me; but what does try me +is the inheriting them, and denying the faith of the donors--and +then talking of sacrilege. The only endowment of Christ's Church +comes from the Father and the Son, and is the Holy Ghost, Which +no man can give and no man can take away.'" + +Here, if you like, is the authentic voice of Life and Liberty. + + + + +V + +_LOVE AND PUNISHMENT_ + +Lord Hugh Cecil is, I think, one of the most interesting figures +in the public life of the time. Ten years ago I regarded him as the +future leader of the Tory party and a predestined Prime Minister. Of +late years he has seemed to turn away from the strifes and intrigues +of ordinary politics, and to have resigned official ambition to his +elder brother; but his figure has not lost--rather has gained--in +interest by the change. Almost alone among our public men, he seems +to have "his eyes fixed on higher lodestars" than those which guide +Parliamentary majorities. He avows his allegiance to those moral +laws of political action of which John Bright so memorably said +that "though they were not given amid the thunders of Sinai, they +are not less the commandments of God." + +Now, the fearless utterance of this ethical creed does not tend +to popularity. Englishmen will bear a good deal of preaching, so +long as it is delivered from the pulpit; but when it is uttered +by the lips of laymen, and deals with public problems, it arouses +a curious irritation. That jovial old heathen, Palmerston, once +alluded to Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend Member"; Gladstone's +splendid appeals to faith and conscience were pronounced "d----d +copy-book-y"; and Lord Houghton, who knew the world as well as most +men, said, "Does it ever strike you that nothing shocks people so +much as any immediate and practical application of the character +and life of Christ?" + +Lord Hugh Cecil need not mind the slings and arrows of outrageous +partisanship, so long as he shares them with Bright and Gladstone. +Just lately, his pronouncement that we ought to love the Germans, +as our fellow-citizens in the Kingdom of God on earth, has provoked +very acrid criticism from some who generally share his political +beliefs; and in a Tory paper I noticed the singularly inept gibe +that this doctrine was "medieval." For my own part I should scarcely +have thought that an undue tendency to love one's enemies was a +characteristic trait of the Middle Age, or that Englishmen and +Frenchmen, Guelphs and Ghibellines, were inclined to sink their +racial differences in the unity of Christian citizenship. Lord Hugh's +doctrine might be called by some modern and by others primitive; but +medieval it can only be called on the principle that, in invective, +a long word, is better than a short one. + +Having thus repelled what I think a ridiculous criticism, I will +admit that Lord Hugh's doctrine raises some interesting, and even +disputable, points. In the first place, there is the theory of +the Universal Church as the Divine Kingdom on earth, and of the +citizenship in which all its members are united. I grant the theory; +but I ask myself if I am really bound by it to love all these my +fellow-citizens, whatever their conduct and character may be. Love +is an elastic word; and, if I am to love the Germans, I must love +them in some very different sense from that in which I love my country +and my race. It really is, in another form, the old controversy +between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity" +is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of the +human family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment, +impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without, +cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wish +devoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and mind--that +all the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one law of right +and wrong; but when some members of the family, some citizens of +the kingdom, have "given themselves over to a reprobate mind," +our love must be reserved for those who still own the claim of +righteousness. If our own country stood as a solitary champion +of right against a world in unrighteous arms, patriotism would be +a synonym for religion, and cosmopolitanism for sin. + +And then again I ask myself this question: Even assuming that Lord +Hugh is right, and that it is our bounden duty to love the Germans, +is love inconsistent with punishment? We postulate the love of God +towards mankind, and we rightly regard it as the highest manifestation +of what love means; but is it inconsistent with punishment for +unrighteous action? Neither Revelation, nor Nature, nor History, +knows anything of the conception which has been embodied in the +words, "a good-natured God." Of Revelation I will not speak at +length, for this is not the place for theological discussion; I +only remark in passing that the idea of punishment for wrong-doing +is not, as some sciolists imagine, confined to the Old Testament, +though there it is seen in its most startling form; in the New +Testament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul's +Master, as a manifestation of love--not vindictive, but remedial. +The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate the +Divine dealings with insubordinate mankind. About Nature we need +scarcely argue. "In the physical world there is no forgiveness of +sins," and rebellion against the laws of righteous living brings +penal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet again, has +History any more unmistakable lesson than that "for every false +word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust +or vanity, the price has to be paid at last"? Froude was right. +"Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes +at last to them, in French Revolutions and other terrible ways." + +What we believe of the Divine Love, thus dealing with human +transgression, we may well believe of human love, when it is called +by duty to chastise unrighteousness. I do not suppose that John +Stuart Mill was actuated by hatred of Palmer or Pritchard or any +other famous malefactor of his time when he said that there are some +people so bad that they "ought to be blotted out of the catalogue +of living men." It was the dispassionate judgment of philosophy +on crime. When the convicted murderer exclaimed, "Don't condemn +me to death; I am not fit to die!" a great Judge replied, "I know +nothing about that; I only know that you are not fit to live"; but +I do not suppose that he hated the wretch in the dock. Even so, +though it may be our duty to love our enemies as our fellow-citizens +in the kingdom of God, we need not shrink, when the time comes, from +being the ministers of that righteous vengeance which, according +to the immutable order of the world, is prepared for impenitent +wrong-doing. + + + + +VI + +_HATRED AND LOVE_ + +I lately saw the following sentence quoted from Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle: "Hatred steels the mind and sets the resolution as no other +emotion can do." The enlightened conscience of humanity (to say +nothing of Christianity) repudiates this sentiment as ethically +unsound and historically untrue; and yet, erroneous as it is, it +is worth pondering for the sake of a truth which it overstates. + +However little we may like to make the confession in the twentieth +century of the Christian era, hatred is a very real power, and +there is more of it at work in civilized society than we always +recognize. It is, in truth, an abiding element of human nature, and +is one of those instincts which we share with the lower animals. +"The great cur showed his teeth; and the devilish instincts of his +old wolf-ancestry looked out from his eyes, and yawned in his wide +mouth and deep red gullet." Oliver Wendell Holmes was describing +a dog's savagery; but he would have been the first to admit that an +exactly similar spirit may be concealed--and not always concealed--in +a human frame. We have lived so long, if not under the domination, +still in the profession, of the Christian ethic, that people generally +are ashamed to avow a glaringly anti-Christian feeling. Hence the +poignancy of the bitter saying: "I forgive him as a Christian--which +means that I don't forgive him at all." Under a decent, though +hypocritical, veil of religious commonplace, men go on hating one +another very much as they hated in Patriarchal Palestine or Imperial +Rome. + +Hatred generally has a personal root. An injury or an insult received +in youth may colour the feelings and actions of a whole lifetime. +"Revenge is a dish which can be eaten cold"; and there are unhappy +natures which know no enjoyment so keen as the satisfaction of a +long-cherished grudge. There is an even deeper depravity which +hates just in proportion to benefits received; which hates because +it is enraged by a high example; which hates even more virulently +because the object of its hatred is meek or weak or pitiable. "I +have read of a woman who said that she never saw a cripple without +longing to throw a stone at him. Do you comprehend what she meant? +No? Well, I do." It was a woman who wrote the words. + +The less abhorrent sort of hatred (if one can discriminate where +all is abominable) is the hatred which has no personal root, but +is roused by invincible dislike of a principle or a cause. To this +type belong controversial hatreds, political hatreds, international +hatreds. Jael is the supreme instance of this hatred in action, +and it is only fair to assume that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had this +kind of hatred in his mind when he wrote the sentence which I quoted +above. But hatred, which begins impersonally, has a dangerous habit +of becoming personal as it warms to its work; and an emotion which +started by merely wishing to check a wrong deed may develop before +long into a strong desire to torture the wrong-doer. Whatever be the +source from which it springs, hatred is a powerful and an energetic +principle. It is capable, as we all know, of enormous crimes; but +it does not despise the pettiest methods by which it can injure +its victim. "Hatred," said George Eliot, "is like fire--it makes +even light rubbish deadly." + +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perfectly right when he says that hatred +"steels the mind and sets the resolution." If he had stopped there, +I should not have questioned his theory. Again and again one has seen +indolent, flabby, and irresolute natures stimulated to activity and +"steeled" into hardness by the deep, though perhaps unuttered, desire +to repay an insult or avenge an injury. It is in his superlative +that Sir Arthur goes astray. When he affirms that hatred "steels +the mind and sets the resolution as no other emotion can do," his +psychology is curiously at fault. There is another emotion quite as +powerful as hatred to "steel the mind and set the resolution"--and +the name of this other emotion is love. It required some resolution +and a "steeled" mind for Father Damien to give himself in early +manhood to the service of a leper-struck island, living amid, and +dying of, the foul disease which he set out to tend. It was love +that steeled John Coleridge Patteson to encounter death at the +hands of "savage men whom he loved, and for whose sake he gave +up home and country and friends dearer than his life." There was +"steel" in the resolve which drew Henry Martyn from the highest +honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitude +of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decision +when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, +fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to the task of evangelizing +India. + +But it is not only in the missionary field, or in any other form +of ecclesiastical activity, that the steeling effect of love on +the human will is manifested. John Howard devoted the comforts +and advantages which pertain to a position in the opulent Middle +Class to the purely philanthropic work of Prison Reform; and Lord +Shaftesbury used the richer boons of rank and eloquence and political +opportunity for the deliverance of tortured lunatics, and climbing +boys and factory slaves. If ever I knew a man whose resolution +was "steeled," it was this honoured friend of my early manhood, +and the steeling power was simply love. A humbler illustration +of the same spirit may be supplied by the instance of one whom +worldly people ridiculed and who "for fifty years seized every +chance of doing kindness to a man who had tormented him at school"; +and this though a boy's nature is "wax to receive, and marble to +retain." The name of E. C. Hawtrey is little remembered now even +by Eton men, but this tribute to the power of love ought not to +be withheld. + +I am only too painfully aware that we live just now in conditions +in which love must take the aspect of severity; in which the mind +must be "steeled" and the resolution "set" for a solemn work of +international justice. But hatred will not help us; for hatred +is fundamentally at variance with that moral law which we daily +and hourly invoke as the sanction of our enterprise. Hatred is +natural enough, and at least as old as the Fall of Man; but its +doom was pronounced by a Teacher Who said to His disciples: "A +new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." Twelve +men heard and heeded that new commandment, and they changed the +face of the world. Are we to abjure the doctrine which wrought +this change, and give heed to the blind guides who would lure us +straight back to barbarism? + + "What though they come with scroll and pen, + And grave as a shaven clerk, + By this sign shall ye know them, + That they ruin and make dark; + + "By thought a crawling ruin, + By life a leaping mire, + By a broken heart in the breast of the world, + And the end of the world's desire; + + "By God and man dishonoured, + By death and life made vain, + Know ye the old Barbarian, + The Barbarian come again."[*] + +[Footnote *: G. K. Chesterton.] + + + + +VII + +_THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE_ + +"By your endurance ye shall make your souls your own." If the origin +of this saying were unknown, one could fancy much ingenious conjecture +about it; but no one, I think, would attribute it to an English +source. An Englishman's idea of self-realization is action. If +he is to be truly himself he must be doing something; life for +him means energy. To be laid on one side, and to exist only as +a spectator or a sufferer, is the last method of making his soul +his own which would occur to him. _Dolce far niente_ is a phrase +which could never have originated on English soil. The greater the +difficulties by which he is confronted, the more gnawing becomes +the Englishman's, hunger for action. "Something must be done!" is +his instinctive cry when dangers or perplexities arise, and he +is feverishly eager to do it. What exactly "it" should be, and +how it may be most wisely done, are secondary, and even tertiary, +considerations. "Wisdom is profitable to direct"; but the need +for wisdom is not so generally recognized in England as the need +for courage or promptitude or vigour. + +Some of the shallower natures find a substitute for action in speech. +If only they talk loud enough and long enough, they feel that they +are doing something valuable towards the desired end, and they +find others, still weaker than themselves, who take their words +at their own valuation. Who does not recall moments of the present +war when the man-in-the-street has exclaimed, "That was a splendid +speech of Blower's! I feel now that we are on the right line"; or, +"After what Bellowell said last night, there can be no going back +to the discredited policy"? The man-in-the-street did not realize +that Blower's words are only articulated air, or that Bellowell +could speak with equal effect whether his brief were to defend +Belgium or to annex her. But alike the Englishman who acts and +the Englishman who talks look askance on the people who think. Our +national history is a history of action, in religion, in politics, +in war, in discovery. It is only now and then that an Englishman +can allow himself a moment for contemplation, for the endeavour +to "see into the life of things," for contact with those spiritual +realities of which phenomena are only the shadows. Burke did it, +but then he was an Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did it, but then +he was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a Scotsman. May +I add that the present Prime Minister does it, but then he is a +Welshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; it is +to them a religion, and it takes the place of a philosophy. + +At this moment all England is acting, from the King and the War +Cabinet to the children who play at soldiers in the gutter. There +is no distinction of class, or sex, or temperament. All alike feel +that they must be doing something to win the war, and that they +would die or go mad if they were restrained from action. Limitations, +physical or mental, incapacities for effort, restrictions of +opportunity, gall as they never galled before. To compare great +things with small, the whole nation pulsates with the spirit of +the fiercely contested cricket-match: + + "Oh, good lads in the field they were, + Laboured and ran and threw; + But we that sat on the benches there + Had the hardest work to do!" + +Action, then, is the creed and the consolation of the English race, +and God forbid that we should disparage that on which national +salvation depends. The war must be won by action; but in the strain +and stress of these tremendous days we are tempted to forget that +there is something to be won or lost besides the war. It is possible +to conquer on the Western front, and at the same time to be defeated +on the not less important field of moral being. The promise which +heads this paper was uttered in full view of an impending agony +which should crush religion and civilization into powder. We can +realize the consternation with which a patriotic audience heard +those premonitions from the lips of a patriotic Teacher; but in +the midst of all that was harrowing and heart-rending came the +promise of triumph through endurance. "Ye shall make your souls +your own." The gloomy and the cheerful prediction were alike made +good. + + "The East bow'd low before the blast + In patient, deep disdain; + She let the legions thunder past, + And plunged in thought again. + + "So well she mused, a morning broke + Across her spirit grey; + A conquering, new-born joy awoke, + And fill'd her life with day." + +The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before the +newly discovered Cross. Endurance won. + +And so it has been from that time to this. The triumphs of endurance +have no end. The barbarism of the Csars, the barbarism of Islam, +the barbarism of Odin and Thor, all in turn did their uttermost +to destroy the new religion. Persecution fell, not on armed men +strong to resist, but on slaves and women and boys and girls. "We +could tell of those who fought with savage beasts, yea, of maidens +who stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into the +ring. We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfully +as we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fire +and the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls." These +were the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, +by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith for +which they gave their lives. It did not take Rome long to discover +that "the blood of Christians is seed." + +The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, on +the other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored. It +was a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years' +war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, +commemorates the supreme example of endurance. As far as action +is concerned, the national will is not in the slightest danger +of collapse. The British nation will plan, and work and fight for +ever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Though +our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may +ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; +to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted +agony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which we +profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. +It is just by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we can +make our souls our own. If we went into the war believing in the +sacredness of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, it +would be a moral collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, +imperialism, and the rule of the strong. "He that endureth to the +end shall be saved." On that "end" we must keep heart and eye +unflinchingly fixed; and strive to add one more to the age-long +triumphs of endurance. + + + + +VIII + +_A SOLEMN FARCE_ + +Sweet to the antiquarian palate are the fragments of Norman French +which still survive in the formularies of the Constitution. In +Norman French the King acknowledges the inconceivable sums which +from time to time his faithful Commons place at his disposal for +the prosecution of the war. In Norman French the Peers of the Realm +are summoned to their seats in Parliament which they adorn. In Norman +French, the Royal Assent has just been given to a Bill which doubles +the electorate and admits over six million women to the franchise. +All these things are dear to the antiquary, the historian, and +(perhaps we should add) the pedant, as witnessing to the unbroken +continuity of our constitutional forms, though the substance of +our polity has been altered beyond all recognition. + +Another instance of Norman French which has lately emerged into +unusual prominence is the "Cong d'lire." We can trace this "Licence +to Elect" from the days of the Great Charter downwards; but it will +suffice for my present purpose to recall the unrepealed legislation +of Henry VIII. "It was then enacted that, at every future avoidance +of a bishopric, the King may send to the Dean and Chapter his usual +licence (called his 'Cong d'lire') to proceed to election; which +is always, accompanied by a Letter Missive from the King containing +the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the Dean +and Chapter delay their election above twelve days the nomination +shall devolve to the King, who may then by Letters Patent appoint +such person as he pleases.... And, if such Dean and Chapter do not +elect in the manner by their Act appointed they shall incur all +the penalties of a prmunire--that is, the loss of all civil rights, +with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment, +during the Royal pleasure." + +Such are the singular conditions under which the Church of England +now exercises that right of electing her chief pastors which has +been from the beginning the heritage of Christendom. It would be +difficult to imagine a more dexterous use of chicanery, preserving +the semblance but carefully precluding the reality of a free choice. +We all know something of Deans and Chapters--the well-endowed +inhabitants of cathedral closes--and of those "greater Chapters" +which consist of Honorary Canons, longing for more substantial +preferment. It would indeed require a very bold flight of fancy +to imagine those worthy and comfortable men exposing themselves to +the "loss of civil rights, the forfeiture of goods and chattels, +and imprisonment during the King's pleasure," for a scruple of +conscience about the orthodoxy of a divine recommended by the Crown. +Truly in a capitular election, if anywhere, the better part of +valour is discretion, and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford have +realized this saving truth. But my view is wholly independent of +local or personal issues, and is best expressed by these words of +Arthur Stanton, true Catholic and true Liberal: "I am strongly +in favour of Disestablishment, and always have been. The connexion +between Church and State has done harm to both--more, however, +to the Church. Take our plan of electing Bishops. In the early +centuries they were elected by the people--as they ought to be. +Now they are chosen, sometimes by a Tory, sometimes by a Radical +Government. The Dean and Chapter meet and ask the guidance of the +Holy Ghost to enable them to choose, knowing all the while they have +the 'Letter Missive' in their pockets. To me this comes perilously +near blasphemy." + +But let us suppose an extreme case. Let us imagine a Dean and Chapter +so deeply impressed by the unsuitableness of the Crown's nominee +that they refuse to elect him. Here, again, the law dodges us. +Except as a protest their refusal would have not the slightest +effect. The Crown has nothing to do but issue Letters Patent in +favour of its nominee, and he would be as secure of his bishopric as +if the Chapter had chosen him with one consent of heart and voice. +True, he would not yet be a Bishop; for the episcopal character can +only be conferred by consecration, and at this point the Archbishop +becomes responsible. To him the King signifies the fact that Dr. +Proudie has been elected to the See of Barchester, requiring him to +"confirm, invest, and consecrate" that divine. Should the Archbishop +refuse compliance with this command, he exposes himself to exactly +the same penalties as would be inflicted on a recalcitrant Chapter, +only with this aggravation--that he has more to lose. When my good +friend the Bishop of Oxford addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury, +imploring him to withhold consecration from Dr. Henson, he made a +valiant and faithful protest against what he holds to be a flagitious +action on the part of the Crown; but, knowing the respected occupant +of Lambeth as well as he does, I think he must have anticipated +the reply which, as a matter of fact, he received. + +Such being the absurdities and unrealities which surround the Cong +d'lire, one naturally asks, Why not abolish it? This question was +raised in a pointed form by the late Mr. C. J. Monk, for many years +Liberal M.P. for the City of Gloucester, who, in 1880, introduced a +Bill to abolish the Cong and to place the appointment of Bishops +formally, as it is really, in the hands of the Prime Minister. He +urged the painful sense of unreality which clings to the whole +transaction, and the injury to religion which is involved in thus +paltering in a double sense with sacred forms and words. It is +amusing to those who can recall the two men to remember that Mr. +Monk was opposed by Lord Randolph Churchill, who thought he perceived +in the proposal some dark design hostile to the interests of the +Established Church; but the important speech was made by Gladstone. +That great man, always greatest in debate when his case was weakest, +opposed the abolition of the Cong. He deprecated any legislation +which would interfere with one of the most delicate functions of +the Crown, and he insisted that the true path of reform lay, not +in the abolition of the form of election, but in an attempt to +re-invest it with some elements of reality. This was well enough, +and eminently characteristic of his reverence for ancient forms +of constitutional action; but what was more surprising was that, +speaking from long and intimate experience of its practical working +he maintained that the Cong d'lire, even under the nullifying +conditions now attached to it, was "a moral check upon the prerogatives +of the Crown," which worked well rather than ill. "I am," he said, +"by no means prepared to say that, from partial information or +error, a Minister might not make an appointment to which this moral +obstacle might be set up with very beneficial effect. It would +tend to secure care in the selections, and its importance cannot +be overstated." + +I must confess, with the greatest respect for my old leader, that +the "importance" of the Cong d'lire as a restraint upon the actions +of the Prime Minister can be very easily "overstated." Indeed, the +Cong could only be important if the Capitular Body to which the +"Letter Missive" is addressed have the courage of conscientious +disobedience, and were prepared to face, for the sake of imperilled +truth, the anger of the powers that be and the laughter of the +world. Courage of that type is a plant of slow growth in Established +Churches; and as long as my friends hug the yoke of Establishment, +I cannot sympathize with them when they cry out against its galling +pressure. To complainants of that class the final word was addressed +by Gladstone, nearly seventy years ago: "You have our decision: take +your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright +of the Bride of Christ." + + + + +IV + +POLITICS + + + + +I + +_MIRAGE_ + +"Operations had to be temporarily suspended owing to the mirage." +This sentence from one of Sir Stanley Maude's despatches struck me +as parabolic. There are other, and vaster, issues than a strategic +victory on the Diala River which have been "suspended owing to the +mirage." Let us apply the parable. + +The parched caravan sees, half a mile ahead, the gleaming lake +which is to quench its thirst. It toils along over the intervening +distance, only to find that Nature has been playing a trick. The +vision has vanished, and what seemed to be water is really sand. +There can be no more expressive image of disillusionment. + +To follow the "Mirage" of receding triumph through long years of +hope deferred was the lot of Labour generally, and it was especially +the lot of agricultural labour. The artisans gained their political +enfranchisement in 1867, and, though they made remarkably little use +of it, still they had the power, if they had the will, to better +their condition. But the agricultural labourers remained inarticulate, +unnoticed, unrepresented. A Tory orator, said--and many of his class +agreed with him, though they were too prudent to say it--that the +labourer was no fitter for the vote than the beasts he tended. But +there were others who knew the labourers by personal contact, and +by friendly intercourse had been able to penetrate their necessary +reserve; and we (for I was one of these) knew that our friends in +the furrow and the cow-shed were at least as capable of forming +a solid judgment as their brethren in the tailor's shop and the +printing-works. There was nothing of the new Radicalism in this--it +was as old as English history. The toilers on the land had always +been aspiring towards freedom, though social pressure made them +wisely dumb. Cobbett and Cartwright, and all the old reformers +who kept the lamp of Freedom alive in the dark days of Pitt and +Liverpool and Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" of +the agricultural poor, and noted with indignation the successive +invasions of their freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs and +trials for sedition, and all the other implements of tyranny. + + "The Good Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, + And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies + To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies, + Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries." + +To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirage +appeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Bill +could pass into law, the reign of injustice and oppression would +cease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor would +rejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. But no sooner was the +Royal Assent given to the Bill than the Mirage--that deceitful +image of joy and refreshment--receded into the dim distance, and +men woke to the disheartening fact that, though power had been +transferred from the aristocracy to the middle class, the poor were +as badly off as ever. The visible effects of that disillusionment +were Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, and there was a deep +undercurrent of sullen anger which seldom found expression. As +late as the General Election of 1868 an old man in the duke-ridden +borough of Woodstock declined to vote for the Liberal candidate +expressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. Before 1832, he +said, arms had been stored in his father's cottage to be used if +the Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and the arms were +not required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porth +the better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics, +and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age was +added to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger men +hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with its +treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting on +its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, forced the labourer's +wants and claims upon the attention of the land-owners, the farmers, +and the clergy. + +Those who had been brought by early association into touch with +the agricultural population knew only too well how deep and just +was the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning for +better chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourer +seemed to be the first step towards the improvement of his lot. +The General Election of 1880 was, as nearly as our constitutional +forms admit, a plbiscite on foreign policy; but to many a man who +was then beginning public life the emancipation of the labourer was +an object quite as dear as the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield. +It was not for nothing that we had read _Hodge and His Masters_, +and we were resolved that henceforward "Hodge" should be not a +serf or a cipher, but a free man and a self-governing citizen. + +We carried our Bill in 1884, and as the General Election of 1885 +drew on, it was touching to feel the labourer's gratitude to all +who had helped him in the attainment of his rights. By that time +Gladstone had lost a great deal of his popularity in the towns, +where Chamberlain was the hero. But in the rural districts the +people worshipped Gladstone, and neither knew nor cared for any +other politician. His was the name to conjure with. His picture +hung in every cottage. His speeches were studied and thumbed by +hard hands till the paper was frayed into tatters. It was Gladstone +who had won the vote for the labourer, and it was Gladstone who was +to lead them into the Land of Promise. "Three Acres and a Cow," +from being a joke, had passed into a watchword, though Gladstone +had never given it the faintest sanction. And the labourers vaguely +believed that the possession of the vote would bring them some +material benefit. So they voted for Gladstone with solid enthusiasm, +and placed their Mirage in his return to power. But alas! they only +realized a new and a more tragical disappointment. In January, +1886, an amendment to the Address embodying the principle of "Three +Acres and a Cow" was carried against the Tory Government; Gladstone +became Prime Minister, and the disconsolate labourers found that +the Mirage had cheated them once again. It is not easy to depict +the sorrow and mortification which ensued on this discovery. The +vote, after all, was only a Dead Sea apple. The energies which +were to have been bestowed on the creation of better surroundings +for English labourers were suddenly transferred to the creation +of an Irish Parliament, and in wide areas of rural population the +labourers sank back again into hopelessness and inactivity. Once +bit, twice shy. They had braved the wrath of their employers and +all the banded influences of the Hall and the Vicarage in order +to vote Liberal in December, 1885. They had got nothing by their +constancy; and in six months, when they were again incited to the +poll, they shook their heads and abstained. The disillusionment +of the labourers gave the victory of 1886 to the Tories, and kept +the Liberals out of power for twenty years. + + + + +II + +_MIST_ + +"Mistiness is the Mother of Wisdom." If this sarcastic dogma be +true, we are living in a generation pre-eminently wise. A "season +of mists" it unquestionably is; whether it is equally marked by +"mellow fruitfulness" is perhaps more disputable. + +My path in life is metaphorically very much what Wordsworth's was +literally. "I wander, lonely as a cloud that floats on high, o'er +vales and hills." I find hills and vales alike shrouded in mist. +Everyone is befogged, and the guesses as to where exactly we are +and whither we are tending are various and perplexing. While all +are, in truth, equally bewildered, people take their bewilderment +in different ways. Some honestly confess that they cannot see a +yard in front of them; others profess a more penetrating vision, +and affect to be quite sure of what lies ahead. It is a matter +of temperament; but the professors of clear sight are certainly +less numerous than they were three years ago. + +We are like men standing on a mountain when the mist rolls up from +the valley. At first we all are very cheerful, and assure one another +that it will pass away in half an hour, leaving our path quite +clear. Then by degrees we begin to say that it promises to be a +more tedious business than we expected, and we must just wait in +patience till the clouds roll by. At length we frankly confess to +one another that we have completely lost our bearings, and that +we dare not move a foot for fear we should tumble into the abyss. +In this awkward plight our "strength is to sit still"; but, even +while we so sit, we try to keep ourselves warm by remembering that +the most persistent mists do not last for ever. + +In one section of society I hear voices of melancholy vaticination. +"I don't believe," said one lady in my hearing--"I don't believe +that we shall ever again see six-feet footmen with powdered hair," +and a silent gloom settled on the company, only deepened by another +lady, also attached to the old order, who murmured: "Ah! and powdered +footmen are not the only things that we shall never see again." +Within twenty-four hours of this depressing dialogue I encounter +my democratic friend, the Editor of the _Red Flag_. He glories in +the fact that Labour has "come into its own," and is quite sure +that, unless it can get more to eat, it will cease to make munitions, +and so will secure an early, if not a satisfactory, peace. In vain +I suggest to my friend that his vision is obscured by the mist, +and that the apparition which thus strangely exhilarates him is +the creation of his own brain. + +Then I turn to the politicians, and of these it is to be remarked +that, however much befogged they may be, they always are certain +that they see much more clearly than the world at large. This +circumstance would invest their opinions with a peculiar authority, +if only they did not contradict one another flat. We are doubling +the electorate: what result will the General Election produce? +Politicians who belong to the family of Mr. Despondency and his +daughter, Muchafraid, reply that Monarchy will be abolished, Capital +"conscripted" (delightful verb), debt repudiated, and Anarchy enthroned. +Strangely dissimilar results are predicted by the Party-hacks, who, +being by lifelong habit trained to applaud whatever Government +does, announce with smug satisfaction that the British workman +loves property, and will use his new powers to conserve it; adores +the Crown, and feels that the House of Lords is the true protector +of his liberties. + +Again, there are publicists who (like myself) have all their lives +proclaimed their belief in universal suffrage as the one guarantee +of freedom. If we are consistent, we ought to rejoice in the prospect +now unfolding itself before us; but perhaps the mist has got into our +eyes. Our forefathers abolished the tyranny of the Crown. Successive +Reform Acts have abolished the tyranny of class. But what about the +tyranny of capital? Is Democracy safe from it? + +I do not pretend to be clearer-sighted than my neighbours; but in +the mist each of us sees the form of some evil which he specially +dislikes; and to my thinking Bureaucracy is just as grave a menace +to Freedom as Militarism, and in some ways graver, as being more +plausible. We used to call ourselves Collectivists, and we rejoiced +in the prospect of the State doing for us what we ought to do for +ourselves. We voted Political Economy a dismal science (which it +is), and felt sure that, if only the Government would take in hand +the regulation of supply and demand, the inequalities of life would +be adjusted, everyone would be well fed, and everyone would be +happy. As far as we can see through the blinding mist which now +surrounds us, it looks as if the State were about as competent +to control trade as to control the weather. Bureaucracy is having +its fling, and when the mist clears off it will stand revealed +as a well-meant (and well-paid) imposture. + +Closely related to all these problems is the problem of the women's +vote. Here the mist is very thick indeed. Those who have always +favoured it are naturally sanguine of good results. Women will +vote for peace; women will vote for temperance; women will vote +for everything that guards the sanctity of the home. Those who +have opposed the change see very different consequences. Women +will vote for war; women will vote as the clergyman bids them; +women will vote for Socialism. All this is sheer guess-work, and +very misty guess-work too. + +And yet once more. There are (though this may to some seem strange) +people who consider the Church at least as important as the State, +and even more so, inasmuch as its concernments relate to an eternal +instead of a transitory order. What are the prospects of the Church? +Here the mists are thicker than ever. Is the ideal of the Free +Church in the Free State any nearer realization than it was three +years ago? All sorts of discordant voices reach me through the +layers of cloud. Some cry, "Our one hope for national religion +is to rivet tighter than ever the chains which bind the Church +to the chariot-wheels of the State." Others reply, "Break those +chains, and let us go free--even without a roof over our heads or +a pound in our pockets." And there is a third section--the party +which, as Newman said, attempts to steer between the Scylla of +Aye and the Charybdis of No through the channel of no meaning, +and this section cries for some reform which shall abolish the +cynical mockery of the Cong d'lire, and secure to the Church, +while still established and endowed, the self-governing rights +of a Free Church. In ecclesiastical quarters the mist is always +particularly thick. + +Certainly at this moment, if ever in our national life, we must +be content to "walk by faith and not by sight." This chapter began +with imagery, and with imagery it shall end. "I have often stood +on some mountain peak, some Cumbrian or Alpine hill, over which +the dim mists rolled; and suddenly, through one mighty rent in +that cloudy curtain, I have seen the blue heaven in all its beauty, +and, far below my feet, the rivers and cities and cornfields of +the plain sparkled in the heavenly sunlight." + +That is, in a figure, the vision for which we must hope and pray. + + + + +III + +"_DISSOLVING THROES_" + +I borrow my title from a poet. + + "He grew old in an age he condemned; + He looked on the rushing decay + Of the times which had sheltered his youth; + Felt the dissolving throes + Of a social order he loved." + +It seems odd that Matthew Arnold should have spoken thus about +Wordsworth; for one would have expected that the man who wrote so +gloriously of the French Revolution, "as it appeared to enthusiasts +at its commencement," would have rejoiced in the new order which it +established for all Europe. But the younger poet knew the elder +with an intimacy which defies contradiction; and one must, I suppose, +number Wordsworth among those who, in each succeeding age, have +shed tears of useless regret over the unreturning past. Talleyrand +said that, to know what an enjoyable thing life was capable of +being, one must have been a member of the _ancienne noblesse_ before +the Revolution. It was the cynical and characteristic utterance +of a nature singularly base; but even the divine Burke (though he +had no personal or selfish interests in the matter) was convinced +that the Revolution had not only destroyed political freedom, but +also social welfare, and had "crushed everything respectable and +virtuous in the nation." What, in the view of Burke and Talleyrand, +the Revolution did for France, that, by a curious irony of fate, +our attempt to defeat the Revolution did for England. Burke forced +us into the Revolutionary War, and that war (as Gladstone once said +in a letter to the present writer) "almost unmade the liberties, +the Constitution, even the material interests and prosperity, of our +country." Patriots like William Cobbett and Sydney Smith, though +absolutely convinced that the war was just and necessary, doubted +if England could ever rally from the immense strain which it had +imposed on her resources, or regain the freedom which, in order +to beat France, she had so lightly surrendered. + +At a time when Manchester was unrepresented and Gatton sent two +Members to Parliament, it was steadily maintained by lovers of the +established order that the proposed enlargement of the electorate +was "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the +necessary restraints of social obligation." If it were carried, +religion, morality, and property would perish together, and our +venerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousand +years have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hour +may lay her in the dust." In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, +the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubt +that the Reform Bill is a stepping-stone in England to a republic, +and in Ireland to separation. Both _may_ happen without the Bill, +but with it they are inevitable." Next year the Bill became law. +Lord Bathurst cut off his pigtail, exclaiming: "Ichabod, for the +glory is departed"--an exquisitely significant combination of act +and word--and the Duke of Wellington announced that England had +accomplished "a revolution by due course of law." In some sense the +words were true. Political power had passed from the aristocracy +to the middle class. The English equivalents of Talleyrand--the +men who directly or in their ancestors had ruled England since +1688, had enjoyed power without responsibility, and privilege which +alike Kings and mobs had questioned in vain--were filled with the +wildest alarms. Emotional orators saw visions of the guillotine; +calmer spirits anticipated the ballot-box; and the one implement +of anarchy was scarcely more dreaded than the other. + +Sixteen years passed. Property and freedom seemed pretty secure. Even +privilege, though shaken, had not been overthrown; and a generation +had grown up to which the fears of revolution seemed fantastic. Then +suddenly came the uprising of the nations in '48; and once again +"dissolving throes" were felt, with pain or joy according to the +temperament of those who felt them. "We have seen," said Charles +Greville, "such a stirring-up of all the elements of society as +nobody ever dreamt of; we have seen a general saturnalia--ignorance, +vanity, insolence, poverty, ambition, escaping from every kind +of restraint, ranging over the world, and turning it topsy-turvy +as it pleased. All Europe exhibits the result--a mass of ruin, +terror, and despair." Matthew Arnold, young and ardent, and in +some ways democratic, wrote in a different vein: "The hour of the +hereditary peerage, and eldest sonship, and immense properties, +has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck." Seventy years +ago! And that "hour" has not struck yet! + +The "dissolving throes" were lulled again, and I scarcely made +themselves felt till 1866, when a mild attempt to admit the pick +of the artisans to the electoral privileges of the middle class +woke the panic-stricken vehemence of Robert Lowe. "If," he asked, +"you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of +intimidation; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent +people, where will you go to look for them--to the top or to the +bottom?" Well might Bishop Wilberforce report to a friend, "It was +enough to make the flesh creep to hear Bob Lowe's prognostications +for the future of England." + +Next year the artisans got the vote, though the great Lord Shaftesbury, +who knew more than most of his peers about working-men, plainly +told the House of Lords that "a large proportion of the working +classes have a deep and solemn conviction that property is not +distributed as property ought to be; that some checks ought to +be kept upon the accumulation of property in single hands; and +that to take away by legislation that which is in excess with a +view to bestowing it on those who have less, is not a breach of +any law, human or Divine." + +Yet once more. When in 1885 the agricultural labourers (of whom a +Tory M.P. said that they were no fitter for a vote than the beasts +they tended), were admitted to the franchise, the same terrors +shook the squirearchy. We were warned that the land would soon be +broken up into small holdings; that sport would become impossible; +and that "the stately homes of England" must all be closed, for +lack of money to keep them open. The country, we were told, had +seen its best days, and "Merry England" had vanished for ever. + +I only recall these "dissolving throes," real or imaginary, because +I fancy that just now they are again making themselves felt, and +perhaps with better reason than ever before in our history. People +who venture to look ahead are asking themselves this question: If +this war goes on much longer, what sort of England will emerge? +Some are looking forward with rapture to a new heaven and a new +earth; others dread the impending destruction "of a social order +they loved." Can we not trace something of this dread in Lord +Lansdowne's much-canvassed letter? He is one of the most patriotic +and most experienced men in public life; he "looks on the rushing +decay of the times which sheltered his youth"; and it may well be +that he is striving to avert what seems to him a social catastrophe. + + + + +IV + +_INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER_ + +As a rule, I call a spade a spade. When I mean _The Times_, I say +_The Times_, and I condemn the old-fashioned twaddle of talking +about "a morning contemporary." But to-day I depart from my rule +and content myself with saying that I lately read in an important +newspaper a letter dealing with Mr. Asquith's distinction between +"Prussian Militarism" and "German Democracy." For my own part, +I did not think that distinction very sound. The experience of +the last three years has led me to the conclusion that the German +democracy is to the full as bellicose as the military caste, and +that it has in no way dissociated itself from the abominable crimes +against decency and humanity which the military caste has committed. +I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized; +but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, one +is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitous +a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "double +dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as it +leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; and +when we see it deformed and degraded, we must look for the influence +which has been its bane. In dealing with individuals the enquiry is +comparatively simple, and the answer not far to seek. But when we +deal with nations we cannot, as a rule; point to a single figure, +or even a group of figures, and say, "He, or they, did the mischief." +We are forced to look wider and deeper, and we shall be well advised +if we learn from Burke to realize "the mastery of laws, institutions, +and government over the character and happiness of man." Let me +apply Burke's teaching to the case before us. + +The writer of the letter which I am discussing has a whole-hearted +dislike of the Germans, and especially of the Prussians; charges +them with "cruelty, brutal arrogance, deceit, cunning, manners +and customs below those of savages"; includes in the indictment +professors, commercial men, and women; recites the hideous list +of crimes committed during the present war; and roundly says that, +however you label him, "the Prussian will always remain a beast." + +I dispute none of these propositions. I believe them to be sadly +and bitterly true; but if I am to follow Burke's counsel, I must +enquire into the "laws, institutions, and government" which have +prevailed in Germany, and which have exercised so disastrous a +"mastery over the character and happiness of man." In this enquiry +it would be obvious to touch military ascendency, despotic monarchy, +representative institutions deprived of effective power, administration +made omnipotent, and bureaucratic interference with every detail of +human life. Sydney Smith's words about unreformed England apply +perfectly to modern Germany. "Of all ingenious instruments of despotism +I most commend a popular assembly where the majority are paid and +hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, make +the people believe they are free." + +But for our present purpose I must concentrate attention on another +institution which has had an even more direct and practical bearing +on the character of the German people--and this is the enforcement +of military service. This, like every other institution, must be +judged by its effects on the character of those who are subject +to it. The writer of the letter holds that "the only good thing +about the German nation" is the "national service through which +all men pass, and which makes soldiers of all not physically unfit, +and which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, +discipline, duty." Now, these words, read in connexion with the +description of the German people quoted above, suggest a puzzling +problem. The Germans are cruel, brutally arrogant, deceitful, and +cunning, and "the Prussian will always remain a beast." Yet these +same people have all passed through a discipline "which inculcates +patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty." Doth a +fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Does +the same system make men patriotic and cruel, loyal and arrogant, +obedient and deceitful, courageous and cunning, dutiful and beastly? + +Perhaps it does. I can conceive some of these pairs of qualities +united in a single character. A man might be a zealous patriot, +and yet horribly cruel; loyal to his Sovereign, but arrogant to +his inferiors; obedient to authority, yet deceitful among coequals; +courageous in danger, yet cunning in avoiding it; dutiful according +to his own standard of duty, and yet as "beastly" as the torturers +of Belgium. But a system which produces such a very chequered type +of character is scarcely to be commended. + +Now, the writer might reply, "I only said that the military system +_inculcated_ certain virtues. I did not say that it ensured them." +Then it fails. If it has produced only the "vile German race" which +the writer so justly dislikes, unredeemed by any of the virtues +which it "inculcates," then it has nothing to say for itself. It +stands confessed as an unmixed evil. + +It is right to expose a logical fallacy, but I am not fond of the +attempt to obscure by logic-chopping what is a writer's real meaning. +I will therefore say that, as far as I can make out, what this +particular writer really believes is that the German people, through +some innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turned +the inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their own +moral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, +in spite of a beneficent institution which would have made them +good and even pleasant. + +Here I take leave to differ, and to range myself on the side of +Burke. Great, indeed--nay, incalculable--is "the mastery of laws, +institutions, and government over the character and happiness of +man." The system is known by its fruits. We may think as badly as we +like of the Germans--as badly as they deserve--but we must remember +the "laws, institutions, and government" that have dominated their +national development. And this is not only a matter of just and +rational thinking, but is also a counsel of safety for ourselves. If, +as a result of this war, we allow our personal and social liberties +(rightly suspended for the moment) to be permanently abolished or +restricted; and, above all, if we bend our necks to the yoke of a +military despotism; we shall be inviting a profound degradation of +our national character. It would indeed be a tragical consummation +of our great fight for Freedom if, when it is over, the other nations +could point to us and say: "England has sunk to the moral level +of Germany." + + + + +V + +_REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS_ + +"A revolution by due course of law." This, as we have seen, was +the Duke of Wellington's description of the Reform Act of 1832, +which transferred the government of England from the aristocracy +to the middle class. Though eventually accomplished by law, it +did not pass without bloodshed and conflagration; and timid people +satisfied themselves that not only the downfall of England, but +the end of the world, must be close at hand. + +Twenty years passed, and nothing in particular happened. National +wealth increased, all established institutions seemed secure, and +people began to forget that they had passed through a revolution. +Then arose John Bright, reminding the working-men of the Midlands +that their fathers "had shaken the citadel of Privilege to its +base," and inciting them to give the tottering structure another +push. A second revolution seemed to be drawing near. Dickens put +on record, in chapter xxvi. of _Little Dorrit_, the alarms which +agitated respectable and reactionary circles. The one point, as +Dickens remarked, on which everyone agreed, was that the country +was in very imminent danger, and wanted all the preserving it could +get. Presently, but not till 1867, the second revolution arrived. +Some of the finest oratory ever heard in England was lavished on the +question whether the power, formerly exercised by the aristocracy +and more recently by the middle class, was to be extended to the +artisans. The great Lord Shaftesbury predicted "the destruction +of the Empire," and Bishop Wilberforce "did not see how we were +to escape fundamental changes in Church and State." "History," +exclaimed Lowe, "may record other catastrophes as signal and as +disastrous, but none so wanton and so disgraceful." However, the +artisans made a singularly moderate use of their newly acquired +power; voted Conservative as often as they voted Liberal; and so +again belied the apprehensions of the alarmists. + +When the workman of the town had been enfranchised, it was impossible +to keep his brother who worked on the land permanently in the position +of a serf or a cipher. So we began to agitate for the "County +Franchise"; and once again the cry of "Revolution" was heard--perhaps +in its most typical form from the lips of a Tory M.P., who, as +I said before, affirmed that the labourer was no fitter for the +suffrage than the beasts he tended. Even ten years later, Lord +Goschen, who was by nature distrustful of popular movements, +prognosticated that, if ever the Union with Ireland were lost, it +would be lost through the votes of the agricultural labourers. To +those who, like myself, were brought up in agricultural districts, +the notion that the labourer was a revolutionary seemed strangely +unreal; but it was a haunting obsession in the minds of clubmen +and town-dwellers. + +So, in each succeeding decade, the next extension of constitutional +freedom has been acclaimed by its supporters as an instalment of +the millennium, and denounced by its opponents as the destruction +of social order. So it had been, time out of mind; and so it would +have been to the end had not the European war burst upon us, and +shaken us out of all our habitual concernments. Now "the oracles +are dumb." The voices, of lugubrious prophecy are silent. The Reform +Act which has become law this year is beyond doubt the greatest +revolution which has as yet been effected "by due course of law." +It has doubled the electorate; it has enfranchised the women; it +has practically established universal suffrage; it has placed all +property, as well as all policy, under the control of a class, +if only that class chooses to vote and act together. All these +effects of the Act (except one) are objects which I have desired +to see attained ever since I was a boy at Harrow, supporting the +present Bishop of Oxford and the late Lord Grey in the School Debating +Society; so it is not for me to express even the faintest apprehension +of evil results. But I am deliberately of opinion that the change +now effected in our electoral arrangements is of farther-reaching +significance than the substitution of a republic for a monarchy; +and the amazing part of the business is that no one has protested +at any stage of it. We were told at the beginning of the war that +there was to be no controversial legislation till it was over. +That engagement was broken; no one protested. A vitally important +transaction was removed from the purview of Parliament to a secret +conference; no one protested. If we suggested that the House of +Commons was morally and constitutionally dead, and that it ought +to renew its life by an appeal to the constituencies before it +enforced a revolution, we were told that it was impossible to hold +a General Election with the soldiers all out of the country; but +now it seems that this is to be the next step, and no one protests +against it. + +But these may be dismissed as constitutional pedantries. So be +it. The Whigs, who made the Constitution, may be pardoned if they +have a sneaking regard for their handiwork. Much more astonishing +is the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealth +and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The +men of 100,000 a year--not numerous, according to the Chancellor +of the Exchequer, but influential--have been as meekly acquiescent +as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on +an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the +explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did +they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government +which is conducting a great war? Or did they, less laudably, shrink +from the prospect of appearing as the inveterate enemies of a social +and economic revolution which they saw to be inevitable? Let us +charitably incline to the former hypothesis. + +But there is something about this, our most recent revolution, +which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition and +panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least +attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible +to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world--but +pre-eminently Rations,--seemed more vital and more pressing. "The +Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficult +to get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm +sure James Lowther won't allow them to do anything very silly--but +I really cannot imagine how we are to get on without meat." Or +yet again: A triumphant Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister: +"So we've got the vote at last!" "What vote?" replied the sister. +"Surely we've had a vote for ever so long? I'm sure I have, though +I never used it." + +When the real history of this wonderful war is written, methinks +the historian will reckon among its most amazing features the fact +that it so absorbed the mind of the nation as to make possible a +'silent revolution.' + + + + +VI + +"_THE INCOMPATIBLES_" + +My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have ever +written wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify our +Sister Kingdom have been many and various--Disestablishment Acts, +Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and every other +variety of legislative experiment; but through them all Ireland +remained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons which she +had not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, with the +best intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. This +failure on the part of England may have been due to the fact that +Gladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himself +with Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact. +It is startling to read, in Lord Morley's _Life_ this casual record +of his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his first +and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks, +and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Of +the multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had little +chance of seeing much." + +One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolve +of Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition was +the "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable or +unwilling to supply. Late in life Gladstone discovered that Ireland +was a nation, and ought to be treated as such. As regards his own +share in the matter, the change came too late, and he went to the +grave leaving Ireland (in spite of two Home Rule Bills) still +unpacified; but his influence has lived and wrought, not only in +the Liberal party. The principle of Irish nationality has been +recognized in legislative form, and the most law-abiding citizen +in Great Britain might drink that toast of "Ireland a Nation" which +aforetime was considered seditious, if not treasonable. + +It was certainly a very odd prejudice of English Philistinism which +prevented us, for so many centuries, from recognizing a fact so palpable +as Irish nationality. If ever a race of men had characteristics of +its own, marking it out from its nearest neighbours, that race is +the Irish, and among the best of those characteristics are chastity, +courtesy, hospitality, humour, and fine manners. The intense Catholicism +of Ireland may be difficult for Protestants to applaud; yet most +certainly those who fail to take it into account are hopelessly +handicapped in the attempt to deal with Irish problems. The Irish +are born fighters. One of the most splendid passages which even +Irish oratory ever produced was that in which Sheill protested +against the insolence of stigmatizing the countrymen of Wellington +as "aliens" from England, and no policy could be more suicidal than +that which deflects the soldiership of Ireland from the British +cause. + +Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of having +brought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government, +and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written: +"We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelings +and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have +no sympathy." Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, or +can we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understand +the working of the Irish temperament? + +The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not between +the two nations which Providence has so closely knit together, +but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, and +sensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnold +lamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland, +and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine, +unmitigated Murdstone--the common middle-class Englishman, who +has come forth from Salem House--and Mr. Creakle. He is seen in +full force, of course, in the Protestant North; but throughout +Ireland he is a prominent figure of the English garrison. Him the +Irish see, see him only too much and too often"--and to see him +is to dislike him, and the country which sent him forth. + +Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings +of Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem House +have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have +converted--for the astonishment of after-ages--Mr. Balfour and +Lord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one question +which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to +settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall +be compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not +yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method +by which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduce +conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, +after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament +of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely +is a breach of manners and good sense. + + + + +VII + +_FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS_ + +Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, +but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are +they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, +methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" +is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though +'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that +this generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth. + +Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she could +count one, Authority could count two.[*] Five years ago, how many +Englishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service, +but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause? If you polled +the nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would you +find? At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls, +would rise, at another it would sink. At the best of times, if you +divide the nation into strata, you would find large sections in +which Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends. It had long +been one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty had +almost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language of +social convention, "the upper classes." For generations the despised +and calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in their +peculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had established +the political liberties of England on a strong foundation. But their +day was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendants +had made common cause with their hereditary opponents. + +[Footnote *: I am speaking here of England only--not of Scotland, +Ireland, or Wales.] + +After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upper +strata of society was so rare a character that people encountering +him instinctively asked, "Is he insincere? Or only mad?" Deserted +by the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the great +Middle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun; +and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered for +Freedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became more +audible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as being +the natural guardian of property. If you make the division +geographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the North +stood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were always +unfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy. + +If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regarded +as wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkable +degree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose, +the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered. How +many friends could Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece, +in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How many +Armenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed +the annexation of the South African Republics? At each extension +of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt +to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear +it, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes of +society; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlands +and the South; in the Church, alas!; in the Universities, the +Professions, and the Press. + +And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters there +rises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts very +discordantly with the habitual language of five years ago. To-day +the friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal. +Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and the +energy of her new worshippers. Lapses from grace are not unknown in +the after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume the +conversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere. +And to what are we to attribute it? Various answers are possible. +Perhaps, as long as it was only other people's liberty which was +imperilled, we could look on without concern. Perhaps we never +realized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life, +till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force, +first dawned on our imagination. Perhaps--and this is the happiest +supposition--we have learnt our lesson by contemplating the effects +of a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting the morals and +wrecking the civilization of a powerful and once friendly people. + +But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable, +and, at least on the surface, satisfactory. To-day we all are the +friends and lovers of Liberty--and yet the very multitude of our +new comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground for +perplexity and even for concern. "He who really loves Liberty must +walk alone." In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe that +this stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustrated +afresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect and +regret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney.[*] + +[Footnote *: Leonard, Henry Courtney (Lord Courtney of Penwith), +died May 11, 1918, in his eighty-sixth year.] + + + + +V + +EDUCATION + + + + +I + +_EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE_ + +Not long ago a Judge of the High Court (who was also a Liberal) +made what struck me as an eminently wise observation. While trying +a couple of Elementary School-teachers whose obscenity was too +gross for even an Old Bailey audience, and who themselves were +products of Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makes +one hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing which +we had hoped it was." Of course, all the prigs of the educational +world, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declaration +of common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, +I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark which had been +sedulously misconstrued. + +Long years ago Queen Victoria recording the conversation at her +dinner-table, said: "Lord Melbourne made us laugh very much with +his opinions about Schools and Public Education; the latter he +don't like, and when I asked him if he did he said, 'I daren't +say in these times that I'm against it--but I _am_ against it.'" + +There is a pleasantly human touch in that confession of a Whig +Prime Minister, that he was afraid to avow his mistrust of a great +social policy to which the Liberal party was committing itself. The +arch-charlatan, Lord Brougham, was raging up and down the kingdom +extolling the unmixed blessings of education. The University of +London, which was to make all things new, had just been set up. +"The school-master was abroad." Lord John Russell was making some +tentative steps towards a system of national education. Societies, +Congresses, and Institutes were springing up like mushrooms; and +all enlightened people agreed that extension of knowledge was the +one and all-sufficient remedy for the obvious disorders of the body +politic. The Victorian Age was, in brief, the age of Education; +and the one dogma which no one ventured to question was that the +extension of knowledge was necessarily, and in itself, a blessing. + +When I say "no one" I should perhaps say "hardly anyone"; for the +wisest and wittiest man of the time saw the crack in the foundation +on which his friends were laboriously erecting the temple of their +new divinity. "Reading and writing," said Sydney Smith, "are mere +increase of power. They may be turned, I admit, to a good or a +bad purpose; but for several years of his life the child is in +your hands, and you may give to that power what bias you please. I +believe the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the lessons +of his early life. When I see the village school, and the tattered +scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical +art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching +that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, +insuring property, fencing the Altar, guarding the Throne, giving +space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him +up to his own place in the order of Creation." + +That first sentence contain? the pith of the whole matter. "Reading +and writing are mere increase of power," and they may be turned +to a good or a bad purpose. Here enters the ethical consideration +which the zealots of sheer knowledge so persistently ignored. The +language about fencing the Altar and guarding the Throne might, no +doubt, strike the Judge who tried the school-teachers as unduly +idealistic; but the sentiment is sound, and knowledge is either +a blessing or a curse, according as it is used. + +Sydney Smith was speaking of the Elementary School, and, indeed, +was urging the claims of the working classes to better education. +But his doctrine applies with at least equal force to the higher +and wider ranges of knowledge. During the Victorian Age physical +science came into its own, and a good deal more than its own. Any +discovery in mechanics or chemistry was hailed as a fresh boon, +and the discoverer was ranged, with Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, +among our national heroes. As long ago as 1865 a scientific soldier +perceived the possibilities of aerial navigation. His vision has +been translated into fact; but Count Zeppelin has shown us quite +clearly that the discovery is not an unmixed blessing. Chemistry +is, to some minds, the most interesting of studies, just because +it is, as Lord Salisbury once said of it, the science of things +as they are. Yet aconitine, strychnine, and antimony have played +their part in murders, and chloroform has been used for destruction +as well as for salvation. Dr. Lardner was one of the most conspicuous +figures in that March of Mind which Brougham and his congeners +led; and his researches into chemistry resulted in the production +of an effluvium which was calculated to destroy all human life +within five miles of the spot where it was discharged. This was +an enlargement of knowledge; but if there had been Nihilists in +the reign of William IV. they would have found in Dr. Lardner's +discovery a weapon ready to their hand. Someone must have discovered +alcohol; and my teetotal friends would probably say, invented it, +for they cannot attribute so diabolical an agency to the action of +purely natural causes. But even those who least sympathize with +"the lean and sallow abstinence" would scarcely maintain that alcohol +has been an unmixed blessing to the race. + +To turn from material to mental discoveries, I hold that a great +many additions which have been made to our philosophical knowledge +have diminished alike the happiness and the usefulness of those +who made them. "To live a life of the deepest pessimism tempered +only by the highest mathematics" is a sad result of sheer knowledge. +An historian, toiling terribly in the muniment-rooms of colleges +or country houses, makes definite additions to our knowledge of +Henry VIII. or Charles I.; learns cruelty from the one and perfidy +from the other, and emerges with a theory of government as odious +as Carlyle's or Froude's. A young student of religion diligently +adds to his stock of learning, and plunges into the complicated +errors of Manicheans, and Sabellians, and Pelagians, with the result +that he absorbs the heresies and forgets the Gospel. In each of +these cases knowledge has been increased, but mankind has not been +benefited. We come back to what Sydney Smith said. Increase of +knowledge is merely increase of power. Whether it is to be a boon +or a curse to humanity depends absolutely on the spirit in which +it is applied. Just now we find ourselves engaged in a desperate +conflict between materialism and morality--between consummate knowledge +organized for evil ends, and the sublime ideal of public right. +Education has done for Germany all that Education, divorced from +Morality, can do; and the result has been a defeat of civilization +and a destruction of human happiness such as Europe has not seen +since the Middle Age closed in blood. What shall it profit a nation +if it "gain the whole world" and lose its own soul? + + + + +II + +_THE GOLDEN LADDER_ + +Education is an excellent thing, but the word has a deterrent sound. +It breathes pedantry and dogmatism, and "all that is at enmity with +joy." To people of my age it recalls the dread spirits of Pinnock +and Colenso and Hamblin Smith, and that even more terrible Smith who +edited Dictionaries of everything. So, though this chapter is to be +concerned with the substance, I eschew the word, and choose for my +title a figurative phrase. I might, with perfect justice, have chosen +another figure, and have headed my paper "The Peg and the Hole"; for, +after nearly a century of patient expectation, we have at last got +a Square Peg in the Square Hole of Public Instruction. In simpler +speech, England has at length got a Minister of Education who has +a genuine enthusiasm for knowledge, and will do his appointed work +with a single eye to the intellectual advancement of the country, +neither giving heed to the pribbles and prabbles of theological +disputants, nor modifying his plans to suit the convenience of the +manufacturer or the squire. He is, in my judgment, exactly the +right man for the office which he fills; and is therefore strikingly +differentiated not only from some Ministers of Education whom we +have known, but also from the swarm of Controllers and Directors +and salaried busybodies who have so long been misdirecting us and +contradicting one another. + +When I say that Mr. Fisher will not give heed to theological disputants, +I by no means ignore the grievance under which some of those disputants +have suffered. The ever-memorable majority of 1906 was won, not +wholly by Tariff Reform or Chinese Labour, but to a great extent +by the righteous indignation of Nonconformity at the injury which +had been inflicted on it by the Tory Education Acts. There were +Passive Resisters in those days, as there are Conscientious Objectors +now; and they made their grievance felt when the time for voting +came. The Liberal Government, in spite of its immense victory at +the polls, scored a fourfold failure in its attempts to redress +that grievance, and it remains unredressed to this hour. Not that I +admired the Liberal Education Bills. My own doctrine on the matter +was expressed by my friend Arthur Stanton, who said in 1906: "I +think National and Compulsory Education must be secular, and with +facilities for the denominations to add their particular tenets. My +objection to this Bill" (Mr. Birrell's Bill) "is that it subsidizes +undenominationalism." And again in 1909, when another of our Liberal +practitioners was handling the subject: "I object altogether to +the State teaching religion. I would have it teach secular matters +only, and leave the religious teaching entirely to the clergy, +who should undertake it at their own expense. This is the only +fair plan--fair to all. The State gives, and pays for, religious +teaching which I do not regard as being worth anything at all. It +is worse than useless. Real religious teaching can only be given +by the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He did +not mean mathematics and geography." + +That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politics +we must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicable +reforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr. +Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one +side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally +well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists +and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious +freedom, aspire. + +I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a great +Bill." Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morley +observes, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being the +worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is +commonly used, a formula of social ruin." Enlarging on this theme, +Lord Morley points out that the essential virtue of a small reform--the +quality which makes it not an evil, but a good--is that it should +be made "on the lines and in the direction" of the greater reform +which is desiderated. + +Now, this condition Mr. Fisher's Bill exactly fulfils. I suppose +that the "greater reform" of education which we all wish to see--the +ideal of national instruction--is that the State should provide +for every boy and girl the opportunity of cultivating his or her +natural gifts to the highest perfection which they are capable +of attaining. When I speak of "natural gifts" I refer not only +to the intellect, but also to the other parts of our nature, the +body and the moral sense. This ideal involves a system which, by a +natural and orderly development, should conduct the capable child +from the Elementary School, through all the intermediate stages, +to the highest honours of the Universities. + +The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, because +our mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied. A good +many children may be unable to profit by any instruction higher +than that provided by the Elementary School. A good many more will +be able to profit by intermediate education. Comparatively few--the +best--will make their way to really high attainment, and will become, +at and through the Universities, great philosophers, or scholars, +or scientists, or historians, or mathematicians. + +At that point--and it ought to be reached at a much earlier age +than is now usual--the State's, concern in the matter ends. The +child has become, a man, and henceforth must work out his own +intellectual salvation; but in the earlier stages the State can +and must exercise a potent influence. The earliest stage must be +compulsory--that was secured by the Act of 1870. In the succeeding +stages, the State, while it does not compel, must stimulate and +encourage; and above all must ensure that no supposed exigencies +of money-making, no selfish tyranny of the employing classes, shall +be allowed to interfere with mental or physical development, or to +divert the boy or the girl from any course of instruction by which +he or she is capable of profiting. This ideal Mr. Fisher's Bill, with +its plain enactment that education shall be free; with its precaution +against "half-time"; with its ample provision for Continuation +Schools, goes far to realize. Even if it is a "small" reform--and +I should dispute the epithet--it is certainly "on the lines and +in the direction" of that larger reform which the enthusiasts of +education have symbolized by the title of "The Golden Ladder."[*] + +[Footnote *: Happily for Education, Mr. Fisher's Bill is now an +Act.] + + + + +III + +_OASES_ + +My title is figurative, but figures are sometimes useful. Murray's +Dictionary defines an oasis as "a fertile spot in the midst of a +desert"; and no combination of words could better describe the +ideal which I wish to set before my readers. + +The suggestion of this article came to me from a correspondent +in Northumberland--"an old miner, who went to work down a mine +before he was eight years old, and is working yet at seventy-two." +My friend tells me that he has "spent about forty years of his +spare time in trying to promote popular education among his fellow +working-men." His notice was attracted by a paper which I recently +wrote on "The Golden Ladder" of Education, and that paper led him +to offer some suggestions which I think too valuable to be lost. + +My friend does not despise the Golden Ladder. Quite the contrary. +He sees its usefulness for such as are able to climb it, but he +holds that they are, and must be, the few, while he is concerned for +the many. I agree. When (following Matthew Arnold at a respectful +distance) I have urged the formation of a national system by which +a poor man's son may be enabled to climb from the Elementary School +to a Fellowship or a Professorship at Oxford or Cambridge, I have +always realized that I was planning a course for the exceptionally +gifted boy. That boy has often emerged in real life, and the +Universities have profited by his emergence; but he is, and always +must be, exceptional. What can be done for the mass of intelligent, +but not exceptional, boys, who, to quote my Northumbrian friend, +"must be drilled into a calling of some kind, so as to be able to +provide for themselves when they grow up to manhood"? When once +their schooling, in the narrow sense, is over, must their minds be +left to lie fallow or run wild? Can nothing be done to supplement +their elementary knowledge, to stimulate and discipline their mental +powers? + +The University Extension Movement was an attempt to answer these +questions in a practical fashion, and my friend does full justice +to the spirit which initiated that movement, and to the men--such +as the late Lord Grey--who led it. But I suppose he speaks from +experience when he says: "University Extension, as it is, will +never become established in working-class villages. Forty-five to +fifty pounds is too big a sum to be raised in three months, and +is also considered too much to be paid for a man coming to lecture +once a week for twelve weeks, and then disappear for ever like a +comet." My friend uses an astronomical figure, I a geographical one; +but we mean the same thing. The idea is to establish Oases--"fertile +spots in the midst of deserts"--permanent centres of light and +culture in manufacturing districts. "The Universities teach and +train ministers of religion, and they go and live in their parishes +among their flocks all the year round. Why not send lecturers and +teachers of secular subjects in the same way? A system something +similar to the Wesleyan or Primitive Methodists' ministerial system +would answer the purpose. The country might be divided into circuits +of four or five centres each, and a University man stationed in +each circuit, to organize Students' Associations, give lectures, +hold classes, and superintend scientific experiments, as the case +may be." + +This is a good illustration. The Church professes to place in each +parish an official teacher of religion and morality, and most of +the Nonconformist communities do the same. To place an official +teacher of culture (in its widest sense) in every parish is perhaps +a task beyond our national powers as at present developed; but to +place one in every industrial district is not conceivable only, +but, I believe, practicable. The lecturer who comes from Oxford +or Cambridge, delivers his course, and departs, has no doubt his +uses. He is like the "Hot Gospeller" of an earlier age, or the +"Missioner" of to-day. He delivers an awakening message, and many +are the better for it; but if culture is to get hold of the average +lads and young men of an industrial district, its exponent must be +more like the resident minister, the endowed and established priest. +That he should live among the people whom he is to instruct, know +them personally, understand their ways of thinking and speaking, +is at least as important as that he should be a competent historian +or mathematician or man of letters. If the State, or voluntary +effort, or a combination of the two, could secure the permanent +presence of such a teacher in every district where men work hard, +and yet have leisure enough to cultivate their intellects, a yawning +gap in our educational system would be filled. + +It would not be polite to mention actual names; but take by way +of example such a district as Dickens's "Coketown," or Disraeli's +"Wodgate," or George Eliot's "Milby," or any of those towns which +Cobbett expressively called "Hell-Holes." Let the State establish +in each of those places a qualified and accredited teacher for +adult students. The teacher may, if necessary, be paid in part +by voluntary subscription; but it is, in my view, all-important +that he should have the sanction and authority of the State to give +him a definite place among local administrators, and to the State +he should be responsible for the due discharge of his functions. +In Coketown or Wodgate or Milby his lecture-room would be a real +Oasis--"a fertile spot in the midst of a desert." Even if it has +not been our lot to dwell in those deserts, we all have had, as +travellers, some taste of their quality. We know the hideousness +of all that meets the eye; the necessary absorption in the struggle +for subsistence; the resulting tendency to regard money as the +one subject worth serious consideration; the inadequate means of +intellectual recreation; the almost irresistible atmosphere of +materialism in which life and thought are involved. The "Oasis" +would provide a remedy for all this. It would offer to all who +cared to seek them "the fairy-tale of science," the pregnant lessons +of history, the infinitely various joys of literature, the moral +principles of personal and social action which have been thought +out "by larger minds in calmer ages." + +That there may be practical difficulties in the way of such a scheme +I do not dispute. The object of this chapter is not to elaborate a +plan, but to exhibit an idea. That the amount of definite knowledge +acquired in this way might be small, and what Archbishop Benson +oddly called "unexaminable," is, I think, quite likely. A man cannot +learn in the leisure-hours left over by exhausting work as he would +learn if he had nothing to think of except his studies and his +examination. But Education has a larger function than the mere +communication of knowledge. It opens the windows of the mind; it +shows vistas which before were unsuspected; and so, as Wordsworth +said, "is efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier." + + + + +IV + +_LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE_ + +When an article in a newspaper produces a reply, the modest writer +is gratified; for he knows that he has had at any rate one reader. +If the reply comes to him privately, he is even better pleased, for +then he feels that his reader thinks the matter worthy of personal +discussion and of freely exchanged opinion. I have lately written an +article on "Life and Liberty" as proposed by some earnest clergymen +for the English Church, and an article on Mr. Fisher's Education +Bill, in which I avowed my dislike to all attempts on the part of +the State to teach religion. Both these articles have brought me +a good deal of correspondence, both friendly and hostile. The term +allotted to human life does not allow one to enter into private +controversy with every correspondent, so I take this method of +making a general reply. "Life and Liberty" are glorious ideals, +but, to make the combination, perfect, we must add Justice. Hence +my title. + +The State consists of persons who profess all sorts of religion, +and none. If the State compels its citizens to pay for religious +teaching in which they do not believe, it commits, in my opinion, +a palpable injustice. This is not merely a question between one +sect and another sect. It is, indeed, unjust to make a Quaker pay +for teaching the doctrine of the Sacraments, or a Unitarian for +teaching the Deity of Christ; but it is equally unjust to make +an Atheist pay for teaching the existence of God, or a Churchman +for teaching that curious kind of implied Socinianism which is +called "undenominational religion." + +The only way out of these inequities is what is commonly called +"Secularism." The word has some unfortunate associations. It has +been connected in the past with a blatant form of negation, and +also with a social doctrine which all decent people repudiate. But, +strictly considered, it means no more than "temporal" or "worldly"; +and when I say that I recommend the "Secular" system of education, +I mean that the State should confine itself to the temporal or +worldly work with which alone it is competent to deal, and should +leave religion (which it cannot touch without inflicting injustice +on someone) to those whose proper function is to instil it. + +Who are they? Speaking generally, parents, ministers of religion, +and teachers who are themselves convinced of what they teach; but +I must narrow my ground. To-day I am writing as a Churchman for +those Churchmen whom my previous articles disturbed; and I have +only space to set forth some of the grounds on which we Churchmen +should support the "secular solution." + +A Churchman is bound by his baptismal vows to "believe all the +articles of the Christian Faith." These, according to his catechism, +are summed up in the Apostles' Creed. He cannot, therefore, be +satisfied with any religious instruction which is not based on +that formula; and yet such instruction cannot rightly be enforced +in schools which belong as much to unbelievers as to Christians. +A Churchman's religious faith is not derived primarily from the +Bible, but from the teaching of the Christian Church, who is older +than the oldest of her documents. There was a Church before the +New Testament was written, and that Church transmitted the faith +by oral tradition. "From the very first the rule has been, as a +matter of fact, that the Church should teach the truth, and then +should appeal to Scripture in vindication of its own teaching." +For a Churchman, religious instruction must be the teaching of the +Church, tested by the Bible. The two cannot be separated. Hence it +follows that, while the State is bound to respect the convictions +of those who adhere to all manner of beliefs and disbeliefs, the +Churchman cannot recognize religious teaching imparted under such +conditions as being that which his own conscience demands. + +And, further, supposing that some contrivance could be discovered +whereby the State might authorize the teaching of the Church's +doctrine, the Churchman could not conscientiously be a party to +it; for, according to his theory, there is only one Body divinely +commissioned to decide what is to be taught--and that Body is not +the State, but the Church; and there is only one set of persons +qualified to teach it--viz., those who are duly authorized by the +Church, and are fully persuaded as to the truth of what they teach. + +It is sometimes asked how the Church is to fulfil this obligation +without being subsidized in some way by the State. The principal +requisite is greater faith in its Divine mission. If the Bishops +and clergy had a stronger conviction that what they are divinely +commissioned to undertake they will be divinely assisted to fulfil, +this question need not be suggested. The first teachers of the +Christian religion performed their task without either "Rate-aid" +or "State-aid" and the result of their labour is still to be seen; +whereas now the object of leaders of religion seems to be to get +done for them what they ought to do for themselves. It may be well +to quote an utterance of the Bishop of Oxford at the time when the +Liberal Government was dealing with education. "We are now, more +or less, in the middle of a crisis. We are always in the middle +of a crisis. This crisis is about the religious question in our +day-schools. I would ask you, then, to get at the root of our +difficulty. What is it? The heart of our difficulty is partly that +we have _shifted on to the wrong shoulders_ the central function +of teaching children; secondly, that we have so lost the idea of +what the teaching of the Church is, and _the meaning of religious +education_, that we are considered by the public to be unreasonable +and uncompromising people if we are not disposed to admit that the +County Councils can settle the standard of sufficient religious +knowledge for everybody." + +The difficulty as to means might be overcome if the Church would +mind its own business, and leave to the State what the State can +do so much more effectively. Let me quote the words of a great +Christian and a great Churchman--Mr. Gladstone--written in 1894: +"Foul fall the day when the persons of this world shall, on whatever +pretext, take into their uncommissioned hands the manipulation of +the religion of our Lord and Saviour." + +Surely Churchmen will best serve the religion which they profess by +joining with other "men of goodwill," though of different faiths, +who desire the secular solution. In that way only, as far as I can +see, can the interests of Education be reconciled with the higher +interests of Justice. + + + + +V + +_THE STATE AND THE BOY_ + +When Mr. A. J. Balfour was a very young man he published _A Defence +of Philosophic Doubt_. Nobody read it, but a great many talked +about it; and serious people went about with long faces, murmuring, +"How sad that Lord Salisbury's nephew should be an Agnostic!" When +Mr. Balfour had become a conspicuous figure in politics, the serious +people began to read the book which, so far, they had only denounced, +and then they found, to their surprise and joy, that it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. Thenceforward Mr. Balfour ranked +in their eyes as a "Defender of the Faith" second only to Henry +VIII. + +To compare small things with great, I have had a similar experience. +Not long ago I wrote a paper designed to set forth the pretty obvious +truth that increase in knowledge is not in itself a good. It evoked +much criticism, and the critics once again exemplified our truly +English habit of denouncing what we have not read. If these quaint +people were to be believed, I was an enemy of education in general +and of elementary education in particular. I hope that they will be +as much relieved as were Mr. Balfour's critics when they discover that +I am, and all my life have been, a zealous supporter of education, +and, to some extent, an expert in it. + +If the world could be exhaustively divided into two classes-the +Educated and the Uneducated--I suppose that I should be included in +the former, though I anticipate an inevitable sarcasm by allowing +that I should find myself perilously near the dividing-line. It +is more to the purpose to say that, whatever my own educational +deficiencies, I have always been keenly interested in the education +of other people, and have preached incessantly that the State has a +sacred duty to its boys. If I leave the education of girls on one +side, I do so, not because I consider it unimportant, but because +I know nothing about it. + +Information, as the great Butler said, is the least part of education. +The greatest is the development of the child's natural power to +its utmost extent and capacity; and the duty of so developing it +must be admitted by everyone who ponders our Lord's teaching about +the Buried Talent and the Pound laid up in the Napkin. Unless we +enable and encourage every boy in England to bring whatever mental +gifts he has to the highest point of their possible perfection, +we are shamefully and culpably squandering the treasure which God +has given us to be traded with and accounted for. We shall have +no one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis on our neglect, we +lose our present standing among the educated peoples of the world. +I always get back to the ideal of the "Golden Ladder," reaching +from the Elementary Schools, by Scholarships or "free places," to +the Secondary Schools, and from them again to the Universities. +This ideal is, unlike some ideals, attainable, and has in repeated +instances been attained. Again and again the highest mathematical +honours of Cambridge have been won by Elementary Schoolboys, and +what is true of mathematics might also be true of every branch of +knowledge. I say advisedly that it "might" be true: whether or +not it will be depends on our handling of quite young boys. + +The pedagogic notion under which people of my time were reared was +that every boy must learn exactly the same things as every other +boy, and must go on learning them till his last day at school, +whether that day arrived when he was fourteen or eighteen. "We must +catch up every man, whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke, +begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he is +twenty; making him conjugate and decline for life and death; and +so teaching him to estimate his progress in real wisdom as he can +scan the verses of the Greek tragedians." So said Sydney Smith, and +with perfect truth. "The grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum" +was enforced on the boy whose whole heart was in the engineer's shed, +while his friend, to whom literature was a passion, was constrained +to simulate an interest in the blue lights and bad smells of a +chemical lecture. "Let it be granted" (as the odious Euclid, now +happily dethroned, used to say) that there is a certain amount that +all alike must learn but this amount will prove, when scrutinized, +to be very small. I suppose we must all learn to read and write, +and it is useful to be able to do a sum in simple addition; though +very eminent people have often written very illegible hands, and +Dean Stanley--one of the most accomplished men of his day--could +never be persuaded that eighteen pence was not the equivalent of +1s. 8d. Zealots for various "knowledges" (to use the curious plural +sanctioned by Matthew Arnold) will urge the indispensability of +their respective hobbies. One will say let everybody learn that +the earth is round; another, that James I. was not the son of Queen +Elizabeth. But let us leave, these pribbles and prabbles. Let every +boy be coerced into learning what is absolutely necessary for the +daily work of life; but let him, at a very early age, have his +powers concentrated on the subject which really interests him. + +One of the highest gifts which a teacher can possess is the power +of "discerning the spirits"--of discovering what a boy's mind really +is; what it is made of; what can be made of it. This power is a natural +gift, and can by no means be acquired. Many teachers entirely lack +it; but those who possess it are among the most valuable servants +of the State. This power may be brought to bear on every boy when +he is, say, from fourteen to sixteen years old--perhaps in some +cases even earlier; and, when once the teacher has made the +all-important discovery, then let everything be done to stimulate, +and at the same time to discipline, the boy's natural inclination, +his inborn aptitude. Fifty years ago, every boy at every Public +School, though he might be as unpoetical as Blackstone who wrote +the Commentaries, or Bradshaw who compiled the Railway Guide, was +forced to produce a weekly tale of Latin and Greek verses which would +have made Horace laugh and Sophocles cry. The Rev. Esau Hittall's +"Longs and Shorts about the Calydonian Boar," commemorated in +_Friendship's Garland_, may stand for a sample of the absurdities +which I have in mind; and the supporters of this amazing abuse +assured the world that Greek and Latin versification was an essential +element of a liberal education. It took a good many generations to +deliver England from this absurdity, and there are others like +unto it which still hold their own in the scholastic world. To +sweep these away should be the first object of the educational +reformer; and, when that preliminary step has been taken, the State +will be able to say to every boy who is not mentally deficient: +"This, or this, is the path which Nature intended you to tread. +Follow it with all your heart. We will back you, and help you, +and applaud you, and will not forsake you till the goal is won." + + + + +VI + +_A PLEA FOR THE INNOCENTS_ + +My "spiritual home" is not Berlin, nor even Rome, but Jerusalem. +In heart and mind I am there to-day, and have been there ever since +the eternally memorable day on which our army entered it. What I am +writing will see the light on the Feast of the Holy Innocents;[*] +and my thoughts have been running on a prophetic verse which unites +the place and the festival in a picturesque accord: + +"Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in +the midst of Jerusalem:... and the streets of the city shall be +full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." + +The most brilliant Israelite of our times, Lord Beaconsfield, said +of a brilliant Englishman, Dean Stanley, that his leading feature +was his "picturesque sensibility," and that sensibility was never +more happily expressed than when he instituted the service for +children in Westminster Abbey on Innocents' Day--"Childermas Day," +as our forefathers called it, in the age when holidays were also +holy days, and the Mass was the centre of social as well as of +spiritual life. On this touching feast a vast congregation of boys +and girls assembles in that Abbey Church which has been rightly +called "the most lovable thing in Christendom"; and, as it moves +in "solemn troops and sweet societies" through aisles grey with +the memories of a thousand years, it seems a living prophecy of +a brighter age already at the door. + +[Footnote *: December 28, 1917.] + +It seems--rather, it seemed. Who can pierce the "hues of earthquake +and eclipse" which darken the aspect of the present world? Who +can foresee, or even reasonably conjecture, the fate which is in +store for the children who to-day are singing their carols in the +church of the Confessor? Will it be their lot to be "playing in the +streets" of a spiritual Jerusalem--the Holy City of a regenerated +humanity? or are they destined to grow up in a reign of blood and +iron which spurns the "Vision of Peace" as the most contemptible +of dreams? + +In some form or another these questions must force themselves on +the mind of anyone who contemplates the boys and girls of to-day, +and tries to forecast what may befall them in the next four or +five years. + +It is a gruesome thought that the children of to-day are growing up +in an atmosphere of war. Bloodshed, slaughter, peril and privation, +bereavement and sorrow and anxiety--all the evils from which happy +childhood is most sedulously guarded have become the natural elements +in which they live and move and have their being. For the moment +the cloud rests lightly on them, for not "all that is at enmity +with joy" can depress the Divine merriment of healthy childhood; +but the cloud will become darker and heavier with each succeeding +year of war; and every boy and girl is growing up into a fuller +realization of miseries which four years ago would have been +unimaginable. + +But at Christmastide, if ever, we are bound to take the brightest +view which circumstances allow. Let us then assume the best. Let us +assume that before next Innocents' Day the war will have ended in +a glorious peace. God grant it; but, even in that beatific event, +what will become of the children? They cannot be exactly what they +would have been if their lot had been cast in normal times. Unknown +to themselves, their "subconscious intelligence" must have taken a +colour and a tone from the circumstances in which they have been +reared. As to the colour, our task will be to wipe out the tinge +of blood; as to the tone, to restore the note which is associated +with the Angels' Song. + +This is my "Plea for the Innocents." What will the State offer +them as they emerge from childhood into boyhood, and from boyhood +into adolescence? + +Perhaps it will offer Conscription; and, with no "perhaps" at all, +some strident voices will pronounce that offer the finest boon +ever conferred upon the youth of a nation. Then, if there is any +manliness or fibre left in the adherents of freedom, they will +answer that we adopted Conscription for a definite object, and, +when once that object is attained, we renounce it for ever. + +What will the State offer? Obviously it must offer education--but +what sort of education? The curse of militarism may make itself +felt even in the school-room. It would be deplorable indeed if, +as a result of our present experience, children were to be taught +what J. R. Green called a "drum-and-trumpet history," and were made +to believe that the triumphs of war are the highest achievements +of the human spirit. + +As long as there is an Established Church, the State, in some sense, +offers religion. Is the religion of the next few years to be what +Ruskin commends: a "religion of pure mercy, which we must learn to +defend by fulfilling"; or is it to be the sort of religion which +Professor Cramb taught, and which Prussian Lutheranism has substituted +for the Gospel? + +And, finally, what of home? After all said and done, it is the +home that, in the vast majority of cases, influences the soul and +shapes the life. What will the homes of England be like when the war +is over? Will they be homes in which the moral law reigns supreme; +where social virtue is recognized as the sole foundation of national +prosperity; where the "strange valour of goodwill towards men", +is revered as the highest type of manly resolution? + +It is easy enough to ask these questions: it is impossible to answer +them. The Poet is the Prophet, and this is the Poet's vision: + + "The days are dark with storm;-- + The coming revolutions have to face + Of peace and music, but of blood and fire; + The strife of Races scarce consolidate, + Succeeded by the far more bitter strife + Of Classes--that which nineteen hundred years, + Since Christ spake, have not yet availed to close, + But rather brought to issue only now, + When first the Peoples international + Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs."[*] + +_Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs_--a solemn +line, which at this season we may profitably ponder. + +[Footnote *: "The Disciples," by H. E. Hamilton King.] + + + + +VI + +MISCELLANEA + + + + +I + +_THE "HUMOROUS STAGE"_ + +I am not adventuring on the dangerous paths of dramatic criticism. +When I write of the "humorous stage," I am using the phrase as +Wordsworth used it, to signify a scene where new characters are +suddenly assumed, and the old as suddenly discarded. + +Long ago, Matthew Arnold, poking fun at the clamours of Secularism, +asked in mockery, "Why is not Mr. Bradlaugh a Dean?" To-day I read, +in a perfectly serious manifesto forwarded to me by a friendly +correspondant, this searching question: "Why is not the Archbishop +of Canterbury Censor of Plays?" It really is a great conception; +and, if adopted in practice, might facilitate the solution of some +perplexing problems. If any lover of the ancient ways should demur +on the ground of incongruity, I reply that this objection might +hold good in normal times, but that just now the "humorous stage" +of public life so abounds in incongruities that one more or less +would make no perceptible difference. Everyone is playing a part for +which, three years ago, we should have thought him or her totally +unqualified. Old habits, old prepossessions--even in some cases old +principles--are cast aside with a levity which even Wordsworth's +young actor could not have surpassed. We all are saying and doing +things of which we should have thought ourselves incapable; and +even our surprise at ourselves, great as it is, is less than our +surprise at our friends. + +To begin at the top. I have long held the present Prime Minister in +high admiration. I can never forget--nor allow others to forget--that +he fought for the cause of Justice and Freedom in South Africa +almost single-handed, and at the risk of his life. An orator, a +patriot, a lover of justice, a hater of privilege, I knew him to +be. I did not see in him the makings of a Dictator directing the +destinies of an Empire at war, and in his spare moments appointing +Successors to the Apostles within the precincts of an Established +Church. Certainly of Mr. Lloyd George, if of no one else, it is +true that + + "The little actor cons another part," + +and I heartily wish him success in it. But it is true of everyone, +and true in every corner of the stage. Let me strike into the medley +at random. The anti-feminists, where are they? They have changed +their garb and their "lines" so thoroughly that it is difficult +for even a practised eye to recognize them in their new parts. +Lord Curzon is a member of a Cabinet which established the women's +vote, and such stalwarts as Mr. Asquith and Lord Harcourt welcome +with effusion the enfranchisement of the victorious suffragette. + +And what of the Pacificists? Where are they? Some, I know, are +in prison, but, if it had not been for the rapid change of parts +which the war has brought, they would have had a good many more +fellow-captives than they have. The writer of this article was, +from his first entrance into public affairs, a Pacificist to the +backbone. He believed that war was the greatest of preventible +evils, and that no war which had occurred in his lifetime had been +justified by the laws of right and wrong. To-day that Pacificist is +heart and soul with his countrymen in their struggle; and, having +lived to see England engaged in a righteous war, he has changed +his motto from "Rub lightly" to "Mak sicker." + +Not less remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers +(among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself). +Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detect +the slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodies +to invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly what +we like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into the +willing subjects of a despotism. We tumble over each other in our +haste to throwaway the liberties which we used to consider vital +to our being; and some of us have been not merely the victims, but +the active agents, of an administrative system which we believe +to be necessary for the safety of the State. + +But is there not a remnant? Have all the lovers of Liberty changed +their garb and conned new parts? Not all. A remnant there is, and +it is to be found in the House of Lords. This is perhaps the most +astonishing feature of the "humorous stage"; and if, among superlatives, +a super-superlative is possible, I reserve that epithet for the fact +that the most vigorous champion of personal freedom in the House +of Lords has been an ecclesiastical lawyer. From Lord Stowell to +Lord Parmoor is indeed a far cry. Who could have dreamt that, even +amid the upheaval of a world, a spokesman of liberty and conscience +would emerge from the iron-bound precincts of the Consistory Court +and the Vicar-General's Office? + +Bishops again--not even these most securely placed of all British +officials can escape the tendency to change which pervades the +whole stage of public life. The Bishop of Winchester, whom all +good Progressives used to denounce as a dark conspirator against +the rights of conscience; the Bishop of Oxford, whom we were taught +to regard as a Hildebrand and a Torquemada rolled into one--these +admirable prelates emerge from the safe seclusion of Castle and +Palace to rebuke the persecution of the Conscientious Objector, +even when his objection is "nearly intolerable." + +That the Press should have had its share in this general readjustment +of parts was only natural; but even in what is natural there may be +points of special interest. There is a weekly journal of high repute +which has earned a secure place in the regard of serious-minded +people by its lifelong sobriety, moderation, and respect for the +prunes and prisms. When this staid old print, this steady-going +supporter of all established institutions, bursts out in a furious +attack on the man who has to bear the chief responsibility of the +war, I can only rub my eyes in amazement. If a sheep had suddenly +gone mad, and begun to bark and bite, the transformation could +not have been more astonishing. + +But I reserve my most striking illustration of the "humorous stage" +for the last. Fifteen years ago it was the fashion to point at Lord +Hugh Cecil as a belated upholder of exploded superstitions; as +an "ecclesiastical layman" (the phrase was meant to be sarcastic) +who lived in a realm of speculative theology, out of touch with +all practical life; as a zealot, a bigot, a would-be persecutor; +an interesting survival of the Middle Age; a monk who had strayed +into politics. To-day we salute him as the one Member of Parliament +who has had the courage to affirm the supremacy of the moral law, +and to assert the imperious claim which Christianity makes on the +whole of man's being. + + + + +II + +_THE JEWISH REGIMENT_ + +It was an old and a true allegation against John Bull that he had +no tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not mean +to be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, which +he could not understand. In Ireland he called the Roman Catholic +faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood, +made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftiness +and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he found +the language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equally +comic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the Eisteddfod. Abroad, +"Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing formula. Nasality, +Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized his notion of American civilization; +and he cheerfully echoed the sentiments + + "Of all who under Eastern skies + Call Aryan man a blasted nigger." + +Now, of late years, John has altered his course. Some faint conception +of his previous foolishness has dawned on his mind; and, as he is +a thoroughly good fellow at heart, he has tried to make amends. +The present war has taught him a good deal that he did not know +before, and he renders a homage, all the more enthusiastic because +belated, to the principle of Nationality. His latest exploit in this +direction has been to suggest the creation of a Jewish Regiment. +The intention was excellent and the idea picturesque; but for the +practical business of life we need something more than good intentions +and picturesque ideas. "Wisdom," said Ecclesiastes, "is profitable +to direct;" and Wisdom would have suggested that it was advisable +to consult Jewish opinion before the formation of a Jewish Regiment +was proclaimed to the world. There is probably no race of people +about which John Bull has been so much mistaken as he has been +about the Jews. Lord Beaconsfield's description of Mr. Buggins, +with his comments on the Feast of Tabernacles in Houndsditch, is +scarcely yet anachronistic.[*] But slowly our manners and our +intelligence have improved in this as in other directions; and Lord +Derby (who represents John Bull in his more refined development) +thought that he would be paying his Jewish fellow-citizens a pretty +compliment if he invited them to form a Jewish Regiment. + +[Footnote *: See _Tancred_, Book V., chapter vi.] + +Historically, Lord Derby and those who applauded his scheme had a +great deal to say for themselves. The remote history of Judaism is +a history of war. The Old Testament is full of "the battle of the +warrior" and of "garments rolled in blood." Gideon, and Barak, and +Samson, and Jephthah, and David are names that sound like trumpets; +and the great Maccabean Princes of a later age played an equal +part with Romans and Lacedmonians. All this is historically true; +but it never occurred to Lord Derby and his friends that the idea +which underlay their scheme is the opposite of that which animates +modern Judaism. Broadly speaking, the idea of modern Judaism is not +Nationality, but Religion. Mr. Lucien Wolf has lately reminded us +that, according to authoritative utterances, "The Jews are neither +a nation within a nation, nor cosmopolitan," but an integral part +of the nations among whom they live, claiming the same rights and +acknowledging the same duties as are claimed and acknowledged by +their fellow-citizens. It is worth noticing that Macaulay accepted +this position as disposing of the last obstacle to the civil and +political enfranchisement of the English Jews, and ridiculed the +notion that they would regard England, "not as their country, but +merely as their place of exile." Mr. Wolf thus formulates his faith: +"In the purely religious communities of Western Jewry we have the +spiritual heirs of the law-givers, prophets, and teachers who, +from the dawn of history, have conceived Israel, not primarily +as a political organism, but as a nation of priests, the chosen +servants of the Eternal." + +Mr. Claude Montefiore, who is second to none as an interpreter +of modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain. +The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinary +functions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen of +the country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said the +other day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racial +grounds: "_I would shoot a Jewish Prussian as readily as a Christian +Prussian, if I found him fighting under the German flag_." Thus, to +enrol a regiment of Jews is about as wise as to enrol a regiment +of Roman Catholics or of Wesleyan Methodists. Jews, Romans, and +Wesleyans alike hold with laudable tenacity the religious faiths +which they respectively profess; but they are well content to fight +side by side with Anglicans, or Presbyterians, or Plymouth Brethren. +They need no special standard, no differentiating motto. They are +soldiers of the country to which they belong. + +Here let me quote the exhilarating verses of a Jewish lady,[*] written +at the time of the Boer War (March, 1900): + + "Long ago and far away, O Mother England, + We were warriors brave and bold, + But a hundred nations rose in arms against us, + And the shades of exile closed o'er those heroic + Days of old. + + "Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother England. + Thou hast let us live again + Free and fearless 'midst thy free and fearless children, + Sparing with them, as one people, grief and gladness, + Joy and pain. + + "Now we Jews, we English Jews, O Mother England, + Ask another boon of thee! + Let us share with them the danger and the glory; + Where thy best and bravest lead, there let us follow + O'er the sea! + + "For the Jew has heart and hand, our Mother England, + And they both are thine to-day-- + Thine for life, and thine for death, yea, thine for ever! + Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly? + England, say!" + +[Footnote *: Mrs. Henry Lucas (reprinted in her _Talmudic Legends, +Hymns and Paraphrases_. Chatto and Windus, 1908).] + +I am well aware that in what I have written, though I have been +careful to reinforce myself with Jewish authority, I may be running +counter to that interesting movement which is called "Zionism." +It is not for a Gentile to take part in the dissensions of the +Jewish community; but I may be permitted to express my sympathy +with a noble idea, and to do so in words written by a brilliant +Israelite, Lord Beaconsfield: "I do not bow to the necessity of a +visible head in a defined locality; but, were I to seek for such, +it would not be at Rome. When Omnipotence deigned to be incarnate, +the ineffable Word did not select a Roman frame. The prophets were +not Romans; the Apostles were not Romans; she, who was blessed +above all women--I never heard that she was a Roman maiden. No; +I should look to a land more distant than Italy, to a city more +sacred even than Rome."[*] + +[Footnote *: _Sybil_, Book II., chapter xii.] + + + + +III + +_INDURATION_ + +Though my heading is as old as Chaucer, it has, I must admit, a +Johnsonian sound. Its sense is conveyed in the title of an excellent +book on suffering called _Lest We Grow Hard_, and this is a very +real peril against which it behoves everyone + + "Who makes his moral being his prime care" + +to be sedulously on his guard. During the last four years we have +been, in a very special way and degree, exposed to it; and we ought +to be thankful that, as a nation, we seem to have escaped. The +constant contemplation, even with the mental eye, of bloodshed and +torture, has a strong tendency to harden the heart; and a peculiar +grace was needed to keep alive in us that sympathy with suffering, that +passion of mercy, which is the characteristic virtue of regenerate +humanity. I speak not only of human suffering. Animals, it has been +said, may have no rights, but they have many wrongs, and among +those wrongs are the tortures which war inflicts. The suffering +of all sentient nature appeals alike to humanitarian sympathy. + +It has always seemed to me a signal instance of Wordsworth's penetrating +thought "on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life," that he assigned to +this virtue a dominant place in the Character of the Happy Warrior-- + + "Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, + And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! + Turns his necessity to glorious gain"; + +and who, "as more exposed" than others "to suffering and distress," +is + + "Hence, also, more alive to tenderness." + +This tribute to the moral nature of the Warrior, whether his warfare +be on land or on sea or in the air, is as true to-day as when Wordsworth +paid it. The brutal and senseless cry for "reprisals" which of late +has risen from some tainted spots of the Body Politic will wake +no response unless it be an exclamation of disgust from soldiers +and sailors and airmen. Of course, everyone knows that there is a +sense in which reprisals are a necessary part of warfare. Generation +after generation our forefathers fought bow to bow and sword to +sword and gun to gun against equally armed and well-matched foes; +this was reprisal, or, if you prefer, retaliation. And when, in more +recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous +gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on +our German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had first +employed. + +But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand. +They contend that because the Germans kill innocent civilians, +and women, and little children in English streets, Englishmen are +to commit the same foul deeds in Germany. "It is hard," says the +_Church Times_, "to say whether futility or immorality is the more +striking characteristic of the present clamour for reprisals in +the matter of air-raids.... Mr. Joynson Hicks would 'lay a German +town in ashes after every raid on London,' and he is not much worse +than others who scream in the same key." Nay, he is better than +many of them. The people who use this language are not the men +of action. They belong to a sedentary and neurotic class, who, +lacking alike courage and mercy, gloat over the notion of torture +inflicted on the innocent and the helpless. + +A German baby is as innocent as an English baby, a German mother +is as helpless as an English mother; and our stay-at-home heroes, +safely ensconced in pulpits or editorial chairs, shrilly proclaim +that they must be bombed by English airmen. What a function to +impose on a band of fighters, peculiarly chivalrous and humane! + +I refer to the pulpit because one gross and disgusting instance +of clerical ferocity has lately been reported. A raving clergyman +has been insolently parodying the Gospel which he has sworn to +preach. Some of the newspapers commended his courage; and we do +not know whether his congregation quitted the church or his Bishop +rebuked him. Both results are possible, and I sincerely hope that +the latter is true. The established and endowed teachers of religion +have not always used their influence on the side of mercy; but on +the question of reprisals I have observed with thankfulness that +the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have spoken +on the right side, and have spoken with energy and decision. They, +at any rate, have escaped the peril of induration, and in that +respect they are at one with the great mass of decent citizens. + +I am no advocate of a mawkish lenity. When our soldiers and sailors +and airmen meet our armed foes on equal terms, my prayers go with +them; and the harder they strike, the better I am pleased. When a +man or woman has committed a cold-blooded murder and has escaped +the just penalty of the crime, I loathe the political intrigue +which sets him or her free. Heavy punishment for savage deeds, +remorseless fighting till victory is ours--these surely should be +guiding principles in peace and war; and to hold them is no proof +that one has suffered the process of induration. + +Here I am not ashamed to make common cause with the stout old Puritan +in _Peveril of the Peak:_ "To forgive our human wrongs is Christian-like +and commendable; but we have no commission to forgive those which +have been done to the cause of religion and of liberty; we have +no right to grant immunity or to shake hands with those who have +poured forth the blood of our brethren." + +But let us keep our vengeance for those who by their own actions +have justly incurred it. The very intensity of our desire to punish +the wrong-doer should be the measure of our unwillingness to inflict +torture on the helpless and the innocent. "Lest we grow hard"--it +should be our daily dread. "A black character, a womanish character, +a stubborn character: bestial, childish, stupid, scurrilous, +tyrannical." A pagan, who had observed such a character in its +working, prayed to be preserved from it. Christians of the twentieth +century must not sink below the moral level of Marcus Aurelius. + + + + +IV + +_FLACCIDITY_ + +My discourse on "Induration" was intended to convey a warning which, +as individuals, we all need. But Governments are beset by an even +greater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and the +simple--"flabbiness." + +The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scriptural +allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announced +that he would "set his face" against a certain policy and then +gave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face,' but he did not 'set it +as a flint'--rather _as a pudding_." + +To set one's face as a pudding is the characteristic action of all +weak Governments. Lord Randolph Churchill once attracted notice +by enouncing the homely truth that "the business of an Opposition +is to oppose." A truth even more primary is that the duty of a +Government is to govern; to set its face, not as a pudding, but as +a flint, against lawlessness and outrage; to protect the innocent +and to punish the wrong-doer. + +This is a duty from which all weak Governments shrink. If a Minister +is not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a united +party, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious about +his own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the next +move of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neither +protects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal and +the rebel. In this particular, there is no distinction of party. +Tories can show no better record than Whigs, nor Liberals than +Conservatives. It is a question of the governing temper, which is +as absolutely requisite to the character of the ruler as courage +to the soldier or incorruptibility to the Judge. + +It used to be held, and perhaps still is held, by what may be styled +the toad-eating school of publicists, that this governing temper +was an hereditary gift transmitted by a long line of ancestors, +who in their successive generations had possessed it, and had used +it on a large scale in the governance of England. "How natural," +they exclaimed, "that Lord Nozoo, whose ancestors have ruled half +Loamshire since the Conquest, should have more notion of governing +men than that wretched Bagman, whose grandfather swept out the +shop, and who has never had to rule anyone except a clerk and a +parlourmaid!" + +This sounded plausible enough, especially in the days when heredity +was everything, and when ancestral habit was held to explain, and if +necessary extenuate, all personal characteristics; but experience +and observation proved it false. Pitt was, I suppose, the greatest +Minister who ever ruled England; but his pedigree would have moved a +genealogist to scorn. Peel was a Minister who governed so effectually +that, according to Gladstone, who served under him, his direct +authority was felt in every department, high or low, of the +Administration over which he presided; and Peel was a very recent +product of cotton. Abraham Lincoln was, perhaps, the greatest ruler +of the modern world, and the quality of his ancestry is a topic fit +only to be handled in a lecture on the Self-Made Men of History. + +When we regard our own time, I should say that Joseph Chamberlain had, +of all English statesmen I have ever known, both the most satisfactory +ideal of government and the greatest faculty for exercising it. But +the Cordwainers' Company was the school in which his forefathers +had learnt the art of rule. Ancestral achievements, hereditary +possessions, have nothing to do with the matter. What makes a man +a ruler of men, and enables him to set his face as a flint against +wrong-doing; is a faculty born in himself--"the soul that riseth +with him, his life's star." + +And it has no more to do with politics than with pedigree. Sydney +Smith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knew +that sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, and +after the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flaccidity +with great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured about +Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, +and thirty imprisoned. You will save lives by it in the end." + +It was a Tory Government which in the London Riots of 1866 made, as +Matthew Arnold said, "an exhibition of mismanagement, imprudence, +and weakness almost incredible." Next year the Fenians blew up +Clerkenwell Prison, and the same acute critic observed: "A Government +which dares not deal with a mob, of any nation or with any design, +simply opens the floodgates to anarchy. Who can wonder at the Irish, +who have cause to hate us, and who do not own their allegiance +to us, making war on a State and society which has shown itself +irresolute and feeble?" + +But the head of that feeble State, the leader of that irresolute +society, was the fourteenth Earl of Derby, whose ancestors had +practised the arts of government for eight hundred years. + +In Ireland the case is the same. Both parties have succeeded in +governing it, and both have failed. Mr. Balfour has been justly +praised for his vigour in protecting property and restoring order; +but it was Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan who, four years +before, had caught and hanged the assassins of the Phoenix Park, and +had abolished agrarian murder. It was, alas! a Liberal Government +that tolerated the Ulster treason, and so prepared the way for the +Dublin rebellion. Highly placed and highly paid flaccidity then +reigned supreme, and produced its inevitable result. But last December +we were assured that flaccidity had made way for firmness, and that +the pudding had been replaced by the flint. But the transactions +of the last few weeks--one transaction in particular[*]--seem worthy +of our flabbiest days. + +[Footnote *: A release for political objects.] + +I turn my eyes homewards again, from Dublin to the House of Commons. +The report of the Mesopotamia Commission has announced to the world +a series of actions which every Briton feels as a national disgrace. +Are the perpetrators of those actions to go unpunished? Are they +to retain their honours and emoluments, the confidence of their +Sovereign, and the approbation of his Ministers? If so, flaccidity +will stand revealed as what in truth it has always been--the one +quality which neutralizes all other gifts, and makes its possessor +incapable of governing. + + + + +V + +_THE PROMISE OF MAY_ + +This is the real season for a holiday, if holidays were still possible. +It is a point of literary honour not to quote the line which shows +that our forefathers, in the days of Chaucer, felt the holiday-making +instinct of the spring, and that instinct has not been affected by +the lapse of the centuries. It stirs us even in London, when the +impetuous lilacs are bursting into bud, and the sooty sparrows +chirrup love-songs, and "a livelier iris changes on the burnished +dove"--or, to be more accurate, pigeon--which swells and straddles +as if Piccadilly were all his own. The very wallflowers and daffodils +which crown the costers' barrows help to weave the spell; and, +though pleasure-jaunts are out of the question, we welcome a call +of duty which takes us, even for twenty-four hours, into "the country +places, which God made and not man." + +For my own part, I am no victim of the "pathetic fallacy" by which +people in all ages have persuaded themselves that Nature sympathized +with their joys and sorrows. Even if that dream had not been dispelled, +in prose by Walter Scott, and in verse by Matthew Arnold, one's +own experience, would have proved it false. + +"Alas! what are we, that the laws of Nature should correspond in +their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings?" _The Heart +of Midlothian_. + + "Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; + Nature and man can never be fast friends."[*] + +[Footnote *: _In Harmony with Nature_.] + +A funeral under the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June loses +nothing of its sadness--perhaps is made more sad--by the unsympathetic +aspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitual +gloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in the +Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall disasters and +disappointments which have overcast the spring, and tidings of +achievement or deliverance which have been happily out of keeping +with the melancholy beauty of autumn. + +In short, Nature cares nothing for the acts and sufferings of human +kind; yet, with a strange sort of affectionate obstinacy, men insist +on trying to sympathize with Nature, who declines to sympathize +with them; and now, when she spreads before our enchanted eyes all +the sweetness and promise of the land in spring, we try to bring +our thoughts into harmony with the things we see, and to forget, +though it be only for a moment, alike regrets and forebodings. + +And surely the effort is salutary. With Tom Hughes, jovial yet +thoughtful patriot, for our guide, we make our way to the summit +of some well-remembered hill, which has perhaps already won a name +in history, and find it "a place to open a man's soul and make +him prophesy, as he looks down on the great vale spread out, as +the Garden of the Lord, before him": wide tracts of woodland, and +fat meadows and winding streams, and snug homesteads embowered in +trees, and miles on miles of what will soon be cornfields. Far away +in the distance, a thin cloud of smoke floats over some laborious +town, and whichever way we look, church after church is dotted over +the whole surface of the country, like knots in network. + +Such, or something like it, is the traditional aspect of our fair +English land; but to-day she wears her beauty with a difference. +The saw is at work in the woodlands; and individual trees, which +were not only the landmarks, but also the friends and companions +of one's childhood, have disappeared for ever. The rich meadows by +the tranquil streams, and the grazing cattle, which used to remind +us only of Cuyp's peaceful landscapes, now suggest the sterner thought +of rations and queues. The corn-fields, not yet "white to harvest," +acquire new dignity from the thought of all that is involved in +"the staff of life." The smoke-cloud over the manufacturing town +is no longer a mere blur on the horizon, but tells of a prodigality +of human effort, directed to the destruction of human life, such +as the world has never known. Even from the towers of the village +churches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-song +of an older patriotism--"In the name of our God we will set up +our banners."[*] + +[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5.] + +Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what this +year is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truth +and fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours of +this sin-worn mould." It is the promise of strong endurance, which +will bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, and never fail +or murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise of a brighter +day, when the skill of invention and of handicraft may be once +more directed, not to the devices which destroy life, but to the +sciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify it. Above +all, it is the promise of a return, through blood and fire, to +the faith which made England great, and the law which yet may wrap +the world in peace. + +"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth +the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God +will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all +the nations" (Isa. lxi. II). + + + + +VI + +_PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM_ + +Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almost +to frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult with +philosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below the +surface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle. +"In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man," he wrote, +"we find employed that investiture of the acts themselves with +an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual. +The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same: +it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expression +of the inward." The word "ritual" is by common usage restricted +to the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it has a far wider +significance. It gives us the august rite of the Convocation, the +ceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, the formal usages +of battleships, the silent but expressive language of heraldry and +symbol; and, in its humbler developments, the paraphernalia of +Masonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty pageantry of Flag-days +and Rose-days. Why should these things be? "Human nature itself, +with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. The marriage of the +outward and the inward pervades the universe." + +The power of the outward reaches the inward chiefly through the eye +and the ear. Colour, as Ruskin taught us, is not only delightful, +but sacred. "Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is +the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.... Consider what +sort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leaves +black, and the sky _brown_." The perfection of form--the grace of +outline, the harmony of flowing curves--appeals, perhaps, less +generally than colour, because to appreciate it the eye requires +some training, whereas to love colour one only needs feeling. Yet +form has its own use and message, and so, again, has the solemnity of +ordered movement; and when all these three elements of charm--colour +and form and motion--are combined in a public ceremony, the effect +is irresistible. + +But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through the +eye. The ear has an even higher function. Perhaps the composer of +great music speaks, in the course of the ages, to a larger number of +human hearts than are touched by any other form of genius. Thousands, +listening enraptured to his strain, hear "the outpourings of eternal +harmony in the medium of created sound." And yet again there are +those, and they are not a few, to whom even music never speaks +so convincingly as when it is wedded to suitable words; for then +two emotions are combined in one appeal, and human speech helps +to interpret the unspoken. + +It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishes +the beauty of our public and communal life. Khaki instead of scarlet, +potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly things +usurping the places aforetime assigned to beauty and splendour--these +are our daily and hourly reminders of the "great tribulation" through +which the nation is passing. Of course, one ought not to wish it +otherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet," but eminently salutary, are these +"uses of adversity," for they prevent us from forgetting, even if +we were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realities +of the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, and in spite of +all this, beauty retains its sway over "the common heart of man." +Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily obscure, the +beauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting for the +opportunity of Peace to reassert itself. + +To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcome +exception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, during +the week now closed, has been enacted at Queen's Hall.[*] There +were critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contended +that such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it all +sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the +public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; +some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime +of fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was performed, at a +great cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of all +this. All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial +were displayed--colour and form and ordered motion; noble music +set to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above their +ordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion. The climax, +wisely ordered, was our tribute of gratitude to the United States, +and never did the "Battle-hymn of the Republic" sound its trumpets +more exultingly. For once, the word "Ritual" might with perfect +propriety be separated from its controversial associations, and +bestowed on this great act of patriotic pageantry. It was, in the +truest sense, a religious service, fitly commemorating the entry +of all the world's best powers into the crowning conflict of light +with darkness. + +[Footnote *: Under the direction of Madame Clara Butt (May, 1918).] + + + + +VII + +FACT AND FICTION + + + + +N. B.--_These two stories are founded on fact; but the personal +allusions are fictitious. As regards public events, they are +historically accurate.--G. W. E. R._ + + +I + +_A FORGOTTEN PANIC_ + +Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrow +holidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to some +friends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I was +alone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task; +but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into the +carriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porter +who breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This is +all," and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settled +himself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage which +I had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of the +carriage--a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an umbrella, +and one or two smaller parcels--all legibly labelled + + G. W. E. RUSSELL, + Woodside, + Harrow-on-the-Hill. + +After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed: +"When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you will +know that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease." Youth, +I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but there +was something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as to +disarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alike +prepossessing. He drew from his pocket the _Daily News_, in those +days a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he composed +himself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his appearance. +He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, of the middle +height, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the train had shown, +as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned that it was difficult +to guess his natural complexion; but his closely cropped hair was +jet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed the roots of a very +dark beard. In those days it was fashionable to wear one's hair +rather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a moustache. Priests +and actors were the only people who shaved clean, and I decided +in my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he laid down his +paper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy which when one +is very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, sir, that my abrupt +entry did not disturb you. I had a rush for it, and nearly lost my +train as it was. And I hope what I said about luggage did not seem +impertinent. I was only thinking that, if I had been obliged to look +after portmanteaus, I should probably still be on the platform at +Carlisle." I hastened to say, with my best air, that I had not been +the least offended, and rather apologized for my own encumbrances +by saying that I was going South for three months, and had to take +all my possessions with me. I am not sure that I was pleased when +my friend said: "Ah, yes; the end of the vacation. You are returning +to college at Harrow, I see." It was humiliating to confess that +Harrow was a school, and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it with +great composure. Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He should +have said "school," not "college." He had a great admiration for +the English Public Schools. It was his misfortune to have been +educated abroad. A French lyce, or a German gymnasium, was not +such a pleasant place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the best +way of starting a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve being +once broken, we chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told him +everything about myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amusements, my +favourite authors, and all the rest of it; but presently it dawned +upon me that, though I had disclosed everything to him, he had +disclosed nothing to me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemed +him so, was not very proud of his profession. His nationality, +too, perplexed me. He spoke English as fluently as I did, but not +quite idiomatically; and there was just a trace of an accent which +was not English. Sometimes it sounded French, but then again there +was a tinge of American. On the whole, I came to the conclusion +that my friend was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad, +or else an American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced, +the American theory gained upon me; for, though my friend told me +nothing about himself, he told me a great deal about every place +which we passed. He knew the industries of the various towns, and +the events connected with them, and the names of the people who +owned the castles and great country-houses. I had been told that +this habit of endless exposition was characteristic of the cultured +American. But, whatever was the nationality of my companion, I +enjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not as a man to +a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy of +asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all the +little arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good terms +with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a very +jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a little +about himself. + +When, late in the afternoon, we passed Bletchley Station, I bethought +me that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Western +train, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order to +disgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goods +and to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to my +great joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. I +shall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much like +to pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions.'" This was +exactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so I +joyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, though +we had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend's +name. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a +backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to me, saying, +"I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I will +write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit." Just then +the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fighting +my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform, +I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the window +of the carriage which I had just quitted. + +The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, +the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult +Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, +to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, +saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon, +the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found him +even pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools to +the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great +part due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as +the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our course +of study? What our system of discipline? What were our amusements? +The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the +end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being +played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the +Spire, he asked me if we had any other amusements. Fives or racquets +he did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics? +(In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Every +boy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was a +national glory. Had we any part in it? + +The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those days +Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the +Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton +Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 +we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the +school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, +I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to +our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy +cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles +(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive +to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced +round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, +if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only. +Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather +wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was +not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly +of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved +name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the +local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was +a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing, +remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the +way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury, +and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it +contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian, +who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept +everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was +just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties +in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke +enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns +and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, +and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard +against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse +proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor. +Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits +were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of +general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker +at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train? +As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend +really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him +than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for, +to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told +me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station +with mutual regrets. + + * * * * * + +The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. The +termination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employment +a great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who had +served for five years in the American armies. Among these were +General Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi, +and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier of +the day." The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolated +outrages, but of an armed rising in Ireland; and, after consultation +with the Fenian leaders in New York, Cluseret came to England with +a view to organizing the insurrection. What then befell can be +read in Lathair, where Cluseret is thinly disguised as "Captain +Bruges," and also in his own narrative, published in _Fraser's +Magazine_ for 1872. He arrived in London in January, 1867, and +startling events began to happen in quick succession. On the 11th +of February an armed party of Fenians attacked Chester Castle, +and were not repulsed without some difficulty. There was an armed +rising at Killarney. The police-barracks at Tallaght were besieged, +and at Glencullen the insurgents captured the police-force and +their weapons. At Kilmallock there was an encounter between the +Fenians and the constabulary, and life was lost on both sides. +There was a design of concentrating all the Fenian forces on Mallow +Junction, but the rapid movement of the Queen's troops frustrated +the design, and the general rising was postponed. Presently two +vagrants were arrested on suspicion at Liverpool, and proved to be +two of the most notorious of the Fenian leaders, "Colonel" Kelly +and "Captain" Deasy. It was when these prisoners, remanded for +further enquiry, were being driven under a strong escort to gaol +that the prison-van was attacked by a rescue-party, and Sergeant +Brett, who was in charge of the prisoners, was shot. The rescuers, +Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were executed on the 2nd of November, +and on the 1st of December Clerkenwell Prison was blown up, in +an ineffectual attempt to liberate the Fenian prisoners confined +in it. On the 20th of December Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother, +"We are in a strange uneasy state in London, and the profound sense +I have long had of the hollowness and insufficiency of our whole +system of administration does not inspire me with much confidence." +The "strange uneasy state" was not confined to London, but prevailed +everywhere. Obviously England was threatened by a mysterious and +desperate enemy, and no one seemed to know that enemy's headquarters +or base of operations. The Secret Societies were actively at work +in England, Ireland, France, and Italy. It was suspected then--it +is known now, and chiefly through Cluseret's revelations--that the +isolated attacks on barracks and police-stations were designed +for the purpose of securing arms and ammunition; and, if only there +had been a competent General to command the rebel forces, Ireland +would have risen in open war. But a competent General was exactly +what the insurgents lacked; for Cluseret, having surveyed the whole +situation with eyes trained by a lifelong experience of war, decided +that the scheme was hopeless, and returned to Paris. + +Such were some--for I have only mentioned a few--of the incidents +which made 1867 a memorable year. On my own memory it is stamped +with a peculiar clearness. + +On Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, 1867, as we were going up +to First School at Harrow, a rumour flew from mouth to mouth that +the drill-shed had been attacked by Fenians. Sure enough it had. The +caretaker (as I said before) lived some way from the building, and +when he went to open it in the morning he found that the door had +been forced and the place swept clean of arms and ammunition. Here +was a real sensation, and we felt for a few hours "the joy of eventful +living"; but later in the day the evening papers, coming down from +London, quenched our excitement with a greater. It appeared that +during the night of the 1st of October, drill-sheds and armouries +belonging to the Volunteer regiments had been simultaneously raided +north, south, east, and west of London, and all munitions of war +spirited away, for a purpose which was not hard to guess. Commenting +on this startling occurrence, the papers said: "We have reason +to believe that one of the ablest of the Fenian agents has been +for some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom. He has +been traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It is +believed at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteer +headquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferred +by a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris." A +friend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist brought +back a _Globe_ with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointed +out the passage which I have just cited. As I read it, my heart +gave a jump--a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friend +Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, +and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into +actual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicions +to anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that this +was a case where silence was golden. Fortunately, none of my +school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the +old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk +and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spoken +gentleman." + +Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far more +exhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closed +the year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May, +1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the history +of Fenianism in England to an end. + +As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round +Harrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not +arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would +not abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him. Perhaps it +really was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many. + + * * * * * + +The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and +I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in +Paris. They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mention +their real name, they would be immediately recognized. They had +social position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, acting +under irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from their +natural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics. +It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committed +himself so deeply if it had not been for his wife's influence; +and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult to +withstand. Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in her +company one felt that "the Cause," as she always called it without +qualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and living +for. As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, and +Jessie White-Mario, and the authoress of _Aspromonte_, a passionate +zeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she married, her +enthusiasm fired her husband. They became sworn allies both of +Garibaldi and of Mazzini, and through them were brought into close, +though mysterious, relations with the revolutionary party in Italy +and also in France. They witnessed the last great act of the Papacy +at the Vatican Council; and then, early in 1870, they established +themselves in Paris. French society was at that moment in a strange +state of tension and unrest. The impending calamity of the Franco-German +War was not foreseen; but everyone knew that the Imperial throne was +rocking; that the soil was primed by Secret Societies; and that +all the elements of revolution were at hand, and needed only some +sudden concussion to stir them into activity. This was a condition +which exactly suited my cousin Evelyn Brentford. She was "at the +height of the circumstances," and she gathered round her, at her +villa on the outskirts of Paris, a society partly political, partly +Bohemian, and wholly Red. "Do come," she wrote, "and stay with +us at Easter. I can't promise you a Revolution; but it's quite +on the cards that you may come in for one. Anyhow, you will see +some fun." I had some difficulty in inducing my parents (sound +Whigs) to give the necessary permission; but they admitted that +at seventeen a son must be trusted, and I went off rejoicing to +join the Brentfords at Paris. Those three weeks, from the 12th +of April to the 4th of May, 1870, gave me, as the boys now say, +"the time of my life." I met a great many people whose names I +already knew, and some more of whom we heard next year in the history +of the Commune. The air was full of the most sensational rumours, +and those who hoped "to see the last King strangled in the bowels +of the last priest" enjoyed themselves thoroughly. + +My cousin Evelyn was always at home to her friends on Sunday and +Wednesday evenings, and her rooms were thronged by a miscellaneous +crowd in which the Parisian accent mingled with the tongues of +America and Italy, and the French of the southern provinces. At +one of these parties I was talking to a delightful lady who lived +only in the hope of seeing "the Devil come for that dog" (indicating +by this term an Imperial malefactor), and who, when exhausted by +regicidal eloquence, demanded coffee. As we approached the buffet, a +man who had just put down his cup turned round and met my companion +and me face to face. Two years and a half had made no difference +in him. He was Mr. Aulif, as active and fresh as ever, and, before +I had time to reflect on my course, I had impulsively seized him +by the hand. "Don't you remember me?" I cried. He only stared. "My +name is George Russell, and you visited me at Harrow." "I fear, +sir, you have made a mistake," said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly to +my companion, and hurried back into the drawing-room. My companion +looked surprised. "The General seems put out--I wonder why. He +and I are the greatest allies. Let me tell you, my friend, that +he is the man that the Revolution will have to rely on when the +time comes for rising. Ask them at Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi. Ask +McClellan. Ask General Grant. He is the greatest General in the +world, and has sacrificed his career for Freedom." "Is his name +Aulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret." + + * * * * * + +Next day at _djuner_ I was full of my evening's adventure; but my +host and hostess received it with mortifying composure. "Nothing +could be more likely," said my cousin Evelyn. "General Cluseret +was here, though he did not stay long. Perhaps he really did not +remember you. When he saw you before, you were a boy, and now you look +like a young man. Or perhaps he did not wish to be cross-examined. +He is pretty busy here just now, but in 1867 he was constantly +backwards and forwards between Paris and London trying to organize +that Irish insurrection which never came off. England is not the +only country he has visited on business of that kind, and he has +many travelling names. He thinks it safer, for obvious reasons, to +travel without luggage. If you had been able to open that leather +case in the train you would probably have found nothing in it except +some maps, a toothbrush, and a spare revolver. Certainly that Irish +affair was a _fiasco_; but depend upon it you will hear of General +Cluseret again." + +And so indeed I did, and so did the whole civilized world, and +that within twelve months of the time of speaking; but there is +no need to rewrite in this place the history of the Commune. + + + + +II + +_A CRIMEAN EPISODE_ + +It was eight o'clock in the evening of the 5th of April, 1880, and +the Travellers' Club was full to overflowing. Men who were just +sitting down to dinner got up from their tables, and joined the +excited concourse in the hall. The General Election which terminated +Lord Beaconsfield's reign was nearing its close, and the issue +was scarcely in doubt; but at this moment the decisive event of +the campaign was announced. Members, as they eagerly scanned the +tape, saw that Gladstone was returned for Midlothian; and, as they +passed, the news to the expectant crowd behind them, there arose +a tumult of excited voices. + +"I told you how it would be!" "Well, I've lost my money." "I could +not have believed that Scotsmen would be such fools." "I'm awfully +sorry for Dalkeith." "Why couldn't that old windbag have stuck +to Greenwich?" "I blame Rosebery for getting him down." "Well, +I suppose we're in for another Gladstone Premiership." "Oh, no +fear. The Queen won't speak to him." "No, Hartington's the man, +and, as an old Whig, I'm glad of it." "Perhaps Gladstone will take +the Exchequer." "What! serve under Hartington? You don't know the +old gentleman's pride if you expect that;" and so on and so forth, +a chorus of excited and bewildering exclamations. Amid all the +hurly-burly, one figure in the throng seemed quite unmoved, and +its immobility attracted the notice of the throng. "Well, really, +Vaughan, I should have thought that even you would have felt excited +about this. I know you don't care much about politics in a general +way, but this is something out of the common. The Duke of Buccleuch +beaten on his own ground, and Gladstone heading straight for the +Premiership! Isn't that enough to quicken your pulse?" + +But the man whom they saluted as Vaughan still looked undisturbed. +"Well, I don't think I ever was quite as much in love with Dizzy +as you were; and as to the Premiership, we are not quite at the +end yet, and _Alors comme alors_." + +Philip Vaughan was a man just over fifty: tall, pale, +distinguished-looking, with something in his figure and bearing +that reminded one of the statue of Sidney Herbert, which in 1880 +still stood before the War Office in Pall Mall. He looked both +delicate and melancholy. His face was curiously devoid of animation; +but his most marked characteristic was an habitual look of meditative +abstraction from the things which immediately surrounded him. As +he walked down the steps of the club towards a brougham which was +waiting for him, the man who had tried in vain to interest him +in the Midlothian Election turned to his nearest neighbour, and +said: "Vaughan is really the most extraordinary fellow I know. +There is nothing on earth that interests him in the faintest degree. +Politics, books, sport, society, foreign affairs--he I never seems +to care a rap about any of them; and yet he knows something about +them all, and, if only you can get him to talk, he can talk extremely +well. It is particularly curious about politics, for generally, if +a man has once been in political life, he feels the fascination +of it to the end." "But was Vaughan ever in political life?" "Oh +yes I suppose you are too young to remember. He got into Parliament +just after he left Oxford. He was put in by an old uncle for a Family +Borough--Bilton--one of those snug little seats, not exactly 'Pocket +Boroughs,' but very like them, which survived until the Reform Act +of 1867." "How long did he sit?" "Only for one Parliament--from +1852 to 1857. No one ever knew why he gave up. He put it on health, +but I believe it was just freakishness. He always was an odd chap, +and of course he grows odder as he grows older." But just at that +moment another exciting result came, trickling down the tape, and +the hubbub was renewed. + +Philip Vaughan was, as he put it in his languid way, "rather fond +of clubs," so long as they were not political, and he spent a good +deal of his time at the Travellers', the Athenum, and the United +Universities, and was a member of some more modern institutions. +He had plenty of acquaintances, but no friends--at least of his +own age. The Argus-eyed surveyors of club-life noticed that the +only people to whom he seemed to talk freely and cheerfully were +the youngest members; and he was notoriously good-natured in helping +young fellows who wished to join his clubs, and did his utmost to +stay the hand of the blackballer. + +He had a very numerous cousinship, but did not much cultivate it. +Sometimes, yielding to pressure, he would dine with cousins in +London; or pay a flying visit to them in the country; but in order, +as it was supposed to avoid these family entanglements, he lived +at Wimbledon, where he enjoyed, in a quiet way, his garden and +his library, and spent most of the day in solitary rides among +the Surrey hills. When winter set in he generally vanished towards +the South of Europe, but by Easter he was back again at Wimbledon, +and was to be found pretty often at one or other of his clubs. + +This was Philip Vaughan, as people knew him in 1880. Some liked +him; some pitied him; some rather despised him; but no one took +the trouble to understand him; and indeed, if anyone had thought +it worth while to do so, the attempt would probably have been +unsuccessful; for Vaughan never talked of the past, and to understand +him in 1880 one must have known him as he had been thirty years +before. + +In 1850 two of the best known of the young men in society were +Arthur Grey and Philip Vaughan. They were, and had been ever since +their schooldays at Harrow, inseparable friends. The people to +whom friendship is a sealed and hopeless mystery were puzzled by +the alliance. "What have those two fellows in common?" was the +constant question, "and yet you never see them apart." They shared +lodgings in Mount Street, frequented the same clubs, and went, +night after night, to the same diners and balls. They belonged, +in short, to the same set: "went everywhere," as the phrase is, +and both were extremely popular; but their pursuits and careers +were different. Grey was essentially a sportsman and an athlete. He +was one of those men to whom all bodily exercises come naturally, +and who attain perfection in them with no apparent effort. From +his earliest days he had set his heart on being a soldier, and by +1850 had obtained a commission in the Guards. Vaughan had neither +gifts nor inclinations in the way of sport or games. At Harrow he +lived the life of the intellect and the spirit, and was unpopular +accordingly. He was constantly to be found "mooning," as his +schoolfellows said, in the green lanes and meadow-paths which lie +between Harrow and Uxbridge, or gazing, as Byron had loved to gaze, +at the sunset from the Churchyard Terrace. It was even whispered +that he wrote poetry. + +Arthur Grey, with his good looks, his frank bearing, and his facile +supremacy on the cricket-ground and in the racquet-court, was a +popular hero; and of all his schoolfellows none paid him a more +whole-hearted worship than the totally dissimilar Philip Vaughan. +Their close and intimate affection was a standing puzzle to hard +and dull and superficial natures; but a poet could interpret it. + + "We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart + From churls, who, wondered what our friendship meant; + And in that coy retirement heart to heart + Drew closer, and our natures were content."[*] + +[Footnote *: William Cory.] + +Vaughan and Grey left Harrow, as they had entered it, on the same +day, and in the following October both went up to Christ Church. +Neither contemplated a long stay at Oxford, for each had his career +cut out. Grey was to join the Guards at the earliest opportunity, +and Vaughan was destined for Parliament. Bilton was a borough which +the "Schedule A" of 1832 had spared. It numbered some 900 voters; +and, even as the electors of Liskeard "were commonly of the same +opinion as Mr. Eliot," so the electors of Bilton were commonly +of the same opinion as Lord Liscombe. + +The eighth Lord Liscombe was the last male member of his family. +The peerage must die with him; but his property, including the +"Borough influence," was at his own disposal. His only sister had +married a Mr. Vaughan, and Lord Liscombe, having carefully watched +the character and career of his nephew Philip Vaughan, determined +to make him his heir. This was all very well; no one had a word +to say against it, for no more obvious heir could be suggested. +But when it became known that Lord Liscombe meant to bring Philip +Vaughan into Parliament for Bilton there was great dissatisfaction. +"What a shame," people said, "to disturb old Mr. Cobley, who has +sat so long and voted so steadily! To be sure, he is very tiresome, +and can't make himself heard a yard off, and is very stingy about +subscriptions; and, if there was some rising young man to put into +his seat, as the Duke of Newcastle put Gladstone, it might be all +very well. But, really, Philip Vaughan is such a moody, dreamy +creature, and so wrapped up in books and poetry, that he can never +make a decent Member of Parliament. Politics are quite out of his +line, and I shouldn't wonder if Lord Liscombe contrived to lose +the seat. But he's as obstinate as a mule; and he has persuaded +himself that young Vaughan is a genius. Was there ever such folly?" + +Lord Liscombe had his own way--as he commonly had. Mr. Cobley received +a polite intimation that at the next election he would not be able +to rely on the Liscombe interest, and retired with a very bad grace, +but not without his reward; for before long he received the offer +of a baronetcy (which he accepted, as he said, to please his wife), +and died honourably as Sir Thomas Cobley. Meanwhile Lord Liscombe, +who, when he had framed a plan, never let the grass grow under +his feet, induced Philip Vaughan to quit Oxford without waiting +for a degree, made him address "Market Ordinaries" and political +meetings at Bilton, presented him at the Levee, proposed him at +his favourite clubs, gave him an ample allowance, and launched him, +with a vigorous push, into society. In all this Lord Liscombe did +well, and showed his knowledge of human nature. The air of politics +stirred young Vaughan's pulses as they had never been stirred before. +What casual observers had regarded as idle reveries turned out to +have been serious studies. With the theory of English politics, as +it shaped itself in 1852 when Lord Derby and Disraeli were trying +to restore Protection, Vaughan showed himself thoroughly acquainted; +and, as often happens when a contemplative and romantic nature +is first brought into contact with eager humanity, he developed +a faculty of public speaking which astonished his uncle as much +as it astonished anyone, though that astute nobleman concealed +his surprise. Meanwhile, Grey had got his commission. In those +days officers of the Guards lived in lodgings, so it was obvious +for Grey and Vaughan to live together; and every now and then Grey +would slip down to Bilton, and by making himself pleasant to the +shop-keepers, and talking appropriately to the farmers, would act +as his friend's most effective election-agent. The Dissolution +came in July, 1852, and Philip Vaughan was returned unopposed for +the Free and Independent Borough of Bilton. + +Then followed a halcyon time. The two friends had long known that +they had only one heart between them; and now, living under the +same roof and going into the same society, they lived practically +one life. There was just enough separation to make reunion more +delightful--a dull debate at the House for Vaughan, or a dusty +field-day at Aldershot for Grey; but for both there was the early +gallop in Rotten Row, the breakfast which no third person ever +shared, the evening of social amusement, and the long, deep, intimate +talk over the last cigar, when the doings of the day were reviewed +and the programme for to-morrow was sketched. + +Grey had always been popular and always lighthearted. Vaughan, as +a schoolboy and an undergraduate, had been unpopular and grave. +But now people who knew them both observed that, at any rate as far +as outward characteristics showed, the two natures were becoming +harmonized. Vaughan was a visibly lighter, brighter, and more +companionable fellow; and Grey began to manifest something of that +manly seriousness which was wanted to complete his character. It +is pleasant to contemplate "one entire and perfect chrysolite" of +happiness, and that, during these bright years of opening manhood, +was the rare and fragile possession of Philip Vaughan and Arthur +Grey. + + * * * * * + +John Bright was once walking with one of his sons, then a schoolboy, +past the Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place. The boy asked the +meaning of the single word inscribed on the base, CRIMEA. Bright's +answer was as emphatic as the inscription: "A crime." There is no +need to recapitulate in this place the series of blunders through +which this country, in Lord Clarendon's phrase, "drifted towards +war." Month by month things shaped themselves in a way which left +no reasonable doubt about the issue. The two friends said little. +Deep in the heart of each there lay the conviction that an event +was at hand which would "pierce even to the dividing asunder of +soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." But each held the +conviction with a difference. To Grey it meant the approach of that +to which, from the days of his chivalrous boyhood, he had looked +forward, as the supreme good of life--the chance of a soldier's glory +and a soldier's death. To Vaughan it meant simply the extinction +of all that made life worth living. Each foresaw an agony, but +the one foresaw it with a joy which no affection could subdue; +the other with a despair which even religion seemed powerless to +relieve. Before long silence became impossible. The decision of the +Cabinet was made known. Two strong and ardent natures, which since +boyhood had lived in and on one another, were forced to admit that a +separation, which might be eternal, "was nigh, even at the doors." +But there was this vital difference between the two cases--the +one had to act; the other only to endure. + +On the 22nd of February, 1854, the Guards sailed from Southampton, +and on the 27th of March war between England and Russia was formally +declared. + + * * * * * + +The events of the next two years must be compressed into a few +lines. To the inseparable evils of war--bloodshed and sickness--were +added the horrors of a peculiarly cruel winter. Five-sixths of the +soldiers whom England lost died from preventable diseases, and +the want of proper food, clothing, and shelter. Bullets and cholera +and frost-bite did their deadly work unchecked. The officers had at +least their full share of the hardships and the fatalities. What +the Guards lost can be read on the walls of the Chapel at Wellington +Barracks and in the pedigrees of Burke's Peerage. For all England +it was a time of piercing trial, and of that hope deferred which +maketh the heart sick. No one ever knew what Vaughan endured, for he +as too proud to bare his soul. For two years he never looked at a +gazette, or opened a newspaper, or heard a Ministerial announcement +in the House of Commons, or listened to a conversation at his club, +without the sickening apprehension that the next moment he would +know that Arthur Grey was dead. Letters from Grey reached him from +time to time, but their brave cheerfulness did nothing to soothe +his apprehensions. For they were few and far between; postal +communication was slow and broken, and by the time a letter reached +him the hand which had penned it might be cold in death. Yet, in +spite of an apprehensive dread which had become a second nature +to Philip Vaughan, the fatal news lingered. Weeks lengthened into +months, and months into two years, and yet the blow had not fallen. +It was not in Philip's nature to "cheer up," or "expect the best," +or "hope against hope," or to adopt any of the cheap remedies which +shallow souls enjoy and prescribe. Nothing but certainty could give +him ease, and certainty was in this case impossible. Nervousness, +restlessness, fidgetiness, increased upon him day by day. The gossip +and bustle of the House of Commons became intolerable to him. Society +he had never entered since Grey sailed for the Crimea. As in boyhood, +so again now, he felt that Nature was the only true consoler, and for +weeks at a time he tried to bury himself in the wilds of Scotland +or Cumberland or Cornwall, spending his whole day in solitary walks, +with Wordsworth or the _Imitatio_ for a companion, and sleeping +only from physical exhaustion. + +In the early part of 1856 the newspapers began to talk of peace. +Sebastopol had fallen, and Russia was said to be exhausted. The +Emperor of the French had his own reasons for withdrawing from +the contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of Lord +Palmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of his +prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous +apprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatter +of irresponsible clubmen and M.P.'s was an insupportable affliction; +so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, and +departed on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himself +off as completely as possible from his usual environment, he left +no address at his lodgings, but told his servant that when he wanted +his letters he would telegraph for them from the place, whatever +it might be, where he was halting. He kept steadily to his plan, +wandering over hill and dale, by lake and river, and steeping his +soul in "the cheerful silence of the fells." When he lighted on a +spot which particularly took his fancy, he would halt there for +two or three days, and would send what in those day was called +"a telegraphic despatch" from the nearest town. In response to +the despatch he would receive from his servant in Mount Street +a package containing all the letters which had been accumulating +during the fortnight or three weeks since he last telegraphed. +One day in April, when he opened the customary package, he found +in it a letter from Arthur Grey. + +"The General has just told us that peace is practically settled. +If this proves true, you will not get another letter from me. I +presume we shall be sent home directly, and I shall make straight +for London and Mount Street, where I expect I shall find you. Dear +old chap, I can guess what you have been going through; but it +looks as if we should meet again in this world after all." + +What this letter meant to Philip Vaughan they only know who have +been through a similar experience; and words are powerless to express +it + + * * * * * + +After the first bewilderment of joy had subsided, Philip began +to study the practical bearings of the letter. By a comparison of +the date within and the post-mark outside, the letter appeared to +have been a long time on the way, and another delay had occurred +since it had arrived at Mount Street. It was possible that peace +might have been actually concluded. News in those days took long +to travel through Scottish glens, and Vaughan had never looked at +a paper since he left England. It was conceivable that the Guards +were already on their homeward voyage--nay, it might even be that +they were just arriving, or had arrived, in London. The one clear +point was that Vaughan must get home. Twenty miles on his landlord's +pony brought him to a telegraph-office, whence he telegraphed to +his servant, "Returning immediately," and then, setting his face +southward, he travelled as fast as steamers and express trains +would take him. As he travelled, he picked up the news. Peace had +been concluded on the 30th of March, and some of our troops were +homeward bound; some had actually arrived. The journey seemed +unnaturally long, and it was dark when the train rattled into Euston +Station.... In a bewildered mood of uncertainty and joy, he rang +the bell in Mount Street. His servant opened the door. "You're +just in time, sir. You will find him in the drawing-room." + +The drawing-room of the lodging-house had always been Grey's +sitting-room, and during his absence Vaughan had studiously kept it +in it accustomed order. There were some stags' heads on the walls, +and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, and +engravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honoured +as masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, +the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philip +flung open the door with a passionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! At +last! Thank God----" But the words died on his lips. + +In the middle of the room, just under the central chandelier, there +was a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door. +On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse, +and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey. + + * * * * * + +What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Not +even the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut. + +Next morning the park-keepers found a young man lying on the grass +in Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with the night's heavy rain, +unconscious, and apparently dying. The papers in his pockets proved +that he was Philip Vaughan. A long and desperate illness followed, +and for months both life and reason trembled in the balance. Lord +Liscombe hurried up to London, and Vaughan's servant explained +everything. Arthur Grey had been taken ill on the homeward voyage. +The symptoms would now be recognized as typhoid, but the disease +had not then been diagnosed, and the ship's surgeon pronounced it +"low fever." He landed at Southampton, pushed his way to London, +arrived at his lodgings more dead than alive, and almost immediately +sank into the coma from which he never recovered. It was impossible +to communicate with Vaughan, whose address was unknown; and when +his telegram arrived, announcing his instant return, the servant +and the landlady agreed that he must have heard the news from some +other source, and was hurrying back to see his friend before he +became invisible for ever. "You're just in time" meant just in +time to see the body, for the coffin was to be closed that evening. + + * * * * * + +The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his side +youth and a constitution, not strong indeed, but unweakened by +profligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from the +shock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, in +great part, to his former habits. Only he could not and would not +re-enter the House of Commons, but announced his retirement, on the +score of health, at the next Election. Soon afterwards he inherited Lord +Liscombe's fortune, made over Liscombe Abbey and its responsibilities +to a distant cousin, and insensibly glided into the way of living +which I described at the outset. Two years after the Election of +1880 he died at Rome, where he had been spending the winter. The +attack of fever to which he succumbed was not peculiarly severe, +but the doctor said that he made no effort to live, and was in +fact worn out, though not by years. + +Nobody missed him. Nobody lamented him. Few even said a kind word +about him. His will expressed only one personal wish--that he might +be buried by the side of Arthur Grey. But his executors thought +that this arrangement would cause them a great deal of trouble, +and he rests in the English cemetery at Rome. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Prime Ministers and Some Others +by George W. E. Russell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS *** + +***** This file should be named 16519-8.txt or 16519-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/1/16519/ + +Produced by Robert J. Hall + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Prime Ministers and Some Others + A Book of Reminiscences + +Author: George W. E. Russell + +Release Date: August 12, 2005 [EBook #16519] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS *** + + + + +Produced by Robert J. Hall + + + + +PRIME MINISTERS + +AND SOME OTHERS + + +A BOOK OF REMINISCENCES BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE + +GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL + + + + +TO +THE EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON, +K.G., + +I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK, +NOT SHARING HIS OPINIONS BUT +PRIZING HIS FRIENDSHIP + + + + +NOTE + +My cordial thanks for leave to reproduce papers already published +are due to my friend Mr. John Murray, and to the Editors of the +_Cornhill Magazine_, the _Spectator_, the _Daily News_, the _Manchester +Guardian_, the _Church Family Newspaper_, and the _Red Triangle_. + +G. W. E. R. + +_July_, 1918. + + + + +CONTENTS + +I.--PRIME MINISTERS + + I. LORD PALMERSTON + II. LORD RUSSELL + III. LORD DERBY + IV. BENJAMIN DISRAELI + V. WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE + VI. LORD SALISBURY + VIII. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR + IX. HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN + +II.--IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP + + I. GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS + II. HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND + III. LORD HALLIFAX + IV. LORD AND LADY RIPON + V. "FREDDY LEVESON" + VI. SAMUEL WHITBREAD + VII. HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER + VIII. BASIL WILBERFORCE + IX. EDITH SICHEL + X. "WILL" GLADSTONE + XI. LORD CHARLES RUSSELL + +III.--RELIGION AND THE CHURCH + + I. A STRANGE EPIPHANY + II. THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION + III. PAN-ANGLICANISM + IV. LIFE AND LIBERTY + V. LOVE AND PUNISHMENT + VI. HATRED AND LOVE + VII. THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE + VIII. A SOLEMN FARCE + +IV.--POLITICS + + I. MIRAGE + II. MIST + III. "DISSOLVING THROES" + IV. INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER + V. REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS + VI. "THE INCOMPATIBLES" + VII. FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS + +V.--EDUCATION + + I. EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE + II. THE GOLDEN LADDER + III. OASES + IV. LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE + V. THE STATE AND THE BOY + VI. A PLEA FOR INNOCENTS + +VI.--MISCELLANEA + + I. THE "HUMOROUS STAGE" + II. THE JEWISH REGIMENT + III. INDURATION + IV. FLACCIDITY + V. THE PROMISE OF MAY + VI. PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM + +VII.--FACT AND FICTION + + I. A FORGOTTEN PANIC + II. A CRIMEAN EPISODE + + + + +I + +PRIME MINISTERS + + + + +PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS + + +I + +_LORD PALMERSTON_ + +I remember ten Prime Ministers, and I know an eleventh. Some have +passed beyond earshot of our criticism; but some remain, pale and +ineffectual ghosts of former greatness, yet still touched by that +human infirmity which prefers praise to blame. It will behove me +to walk warily when I reach the present day; but, in dealing with +figures which are already historical, one's judgments may be +comparatively untrammelled. + +I trace my paternal ancestry direct to a Russell who entered the +House of Commons at the General Election of 1441, and since 1538 +some of us have always sat in one or other of the two Houses of +Parliament; so I may be fairly said to have the Parliamentary tradition +in my blood. But I cannot profess to have taken any intelligent +interest in political persons or doings before I was six years +old; my retrospect, therefore, shall begin with Lord Palmerston, +whom I can recall in his last Administration, 1859-1865. + +I must confess that I chiefly remember his outward characteristics--his +large, dyed, carefully brushed whiskers; his broad-shouldered figure, +which always seemed struggling to be upright; his huge and rather +distorted feet--"each foot, to describe it mathematically, was a +four-sided irregular figure"--his strong and comfortable seat on +the old white hack which carried him daily to the House of Commons. +Lord Granville described him to a nicety: "I saw him the other +night looking very well, but old, and wearing a green shade, which +he afterwards concealed. He looked like a retired old croupier +from Baden." + +Having frequented the Gallery of the House of Commons, or the more +privileged seats "under the Gallery," from my days of knickerbockers, +I often heard Palmerston speak. I remember his abrupt, jerky, rather +"bow-wow"-like style, full of "hums" and "hahs"; and the sort of +good-tempered but unyielding banter with which he fobbed off an +inconvenient enquiry, or repressed the simple-minded ardour of +a Radical supporter. + +Of course, a boy's attention was attracted rather by appearance and +manner than by the substance of a speech; so, for a frank estimate +of Palmerston's policy at the period which I am discussing, I turn +to Bishop Wilberforce (whom he had just refused to make Archbishop +of York). + +"That wretched Pam seems to me to get worse and worse. There is +not a particle of veracity or noble feeling that I have ever been +able to trace in him. He manages the House of Commons by debauching +it, making all parties laugh at one another; the Tories at the +Liberals, by his defeating all Liberal measures; the Liberals at +the Tories, by their consciousness of getting everything that is to +be got in Church and State; and all at one another, by substituting +low ribaldry for argument, bad jokes for principle, and an openly +avowed, vainglorious, imbecile vanity as a panoply to guard himself +from the attacks of all thoughtful men." + +But what I remember even more clearly than Palmers ton is appearance +or manner--perhaps because it did not end with his death--is the +estimation in which he was held by that "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood" to which I myself belong. + +In the first place, it was always asserted, with emphasis and even +with acrimony, that he was not a Whig. Gladstone, who did not much +like Whiggery, though he often used Whigs, laid it down that "to be +a Whig a man must be a born Whig," and I believe that the doctrine +is absolutely sound. But Palmerston was born and bred a Tory, and +from 1807 to 1830 held office in Tory Administrations. The remaining +thirty-five years of his life he spent, for the most part, in Whig +Administrations, but a Whig he was not. The one thing in the world +which he loved supremely was power, and, as long as this was secured, +he did not trouble himself much about the political complexion of +his associates. "Palmerston does not care how much dirt he eats, +so long as it is gilded dirt;" and, if gilded dirt be the right +description of office procured by flexible politics, Palmerston +ate, in his long career, an extraordinary amount of it. + +Then, again, I remember that the Whigs thought Palmerston very +vulgar. The newspapers always spoke of him as an aristocrat, but +the Whigs knew better. He had been, in all senses of the word, a +man of fashion; he had won the nickname of "Cupid," and had figured, +far beyond the term of youth, in a raffish kind of smart society +which the Whigs regarded with a mixture of contempt and horror. +His bearing towards the Queen, who abhorred him--not without good +reason--was considered to be lamentably lacking in that ceremonious +respect for the Crown which the Whigs always maintained even when +they were dethroning Kings. Disraeli likened his manner to that +of "a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress," and one +who was in official relations with him wrote: "He left on my +recollection the impression of a strong character, with an intellect +with a coarse vein in it, verging sometimes on brutality, and of a +mind little exercised on subjects of thought beyond the immediate +interests of public and private life, little cultivated, and drawing +its stores, not from reading but from experience, and long and +varied intercourse with men and women." + +Having come rather late in life to the chief place in politics, +Palmerston kept it to the end. He was an indomitable fighter, and +had extraordinary health. At the opening of the Session of 1865 he +gave the customary Full-Dress Dinner, and Mr. Speaker Denison,[*] +who sat beside him, made this curious memorandum of his performance +at table: "He ate two plates of turtle soup; he was then served very +amply to cod and oyster sauce; he then took a _pate_; afterwards +he was helped to two very greasy-looking entrees; he then despatched +a plate of roast mutton; there then appeared before him the largest, +and to my mind the hardest, slice of ham that ever figured on the +table of a nobleman, yet it disappeared just in time to answer the +enquiry of the butler, 'Snipe or pheasant, my lord?' He instantly +replied, 'Pheasant,' thus completing his ninth dish of meat at +that meal." A few weeks later the Speaker, in conversation with +Palmerston, expressed a hope that he was taking care of his health, +to which the octogenarian Premier replied: "Oh yes--indeed I am. I +very often take a cab at night, and if you have both windows open +it is almost as good as walking home." "Almost as good!" exclaimed +the valetudinarian Speaker. "A through draught and a north-east +wind! And in a hack cab! What a combination for health!" + +[Footnote *: Afterwards Lord Ossington.] + +Palmerston fought and won his last election in July, 1865, being +then in his eighty-first year, and he died on the 15th of October +next ensuing. On the 19th the Queen wrote as follows to the statesman +who, as Lord John Russell, had been her Prime Minister twenty years +before, and who, as Earl Russell, had been for the last six years +Foreign Secretary in Palmerston's Administration: "The Queen can +turn to no other than Lord Russell, an old and tried friend of +hers, to undertake the arduous duties of Prime Minister and to carry +on the Government." + +It is sometimes said of my good friend Sir George Trevelyan that his +most responsible task in life has been to "live up to the position +of being his uncle's nephew." He has made a much better job of his +task than I have made of mine; and yet I have never been indifferent +to the fact that I was related by so close a tie to the author of +the first Reform Bill, and the chief promoter--as regards this +country--of Italian unity and freedom. + + +II + +_LORD RUSSELL_ + +Lord John Russell was born in 1792, and became Prime Minister for the +first time in 1846. Soon after, Queen Victoria, naturally interested +in the oncoming generation of statesmen, said to the Premier, "Pray +tell me, Lord John, whom do you consider the most promising young +man in your party?" After due consideration Lord John replied, +"George Byng, ma'am," signifying thereby a youth who eventually +became the third Earl of Strafford. + +In 1865 Lord John, who in the meantime had been created Earl Russell, +became, after many vicissitudes in office and opposition, Prime +Minister for the second time. The Queen, apparently hard put to +it for conversation, asked him whom he now considered the most +promising young man in the Liberal party. He replied, without +hesitation, "George Byng, ma'am," thereby eliciting the very natural +rejoinder, "But that's what you told me twenty years ago!" + +This fragment of anecdotage, whether true or false, is eminently +characteristic of Lord Russell. In principles, beliefs, opinions, +even in tastes and habits, he was singularly unchanging. He lived +to be close on eighty-six; he spent more than half a century in +active politics; and it would be difficult to detect in all those +years a single deviation from the creed which he professed when, +being not yet twenty-one, he was returned as M.P. for his father's +pocket-borough of Tavistock. + +From first to last he was the staunch and unwavering champion of +freedom--civil, intellectual, and religious. At the very outset +of his Parliamentary career he said, "We talk much--and think a +great deal too much--of the wisdom of our ancestors. I wish we +could imitate the courage of our ancestors. They were not ready +to lay their liberties at the foot of the Crown upon every vain or +imaginary alarm." At the close of life he referred to England as +"the country whose freedom I have worshipped, and whose liberties +and prosperity I am not ashamed to say we owe to the providence +of Almighty God." + +This faith Lord Russell was prepared to maintain at all times, in +all places, and amid surroundings which have been known to test +the moral fibre of more boisterous politicians. Though profoundly +attached to the Throne and to the Hanoverian succession, he was no +courtier. The year 1688 was his sacred date, and he had a habit +of applying the principles of our English Revolution to the issues +of modern politics. + +Actuated, probably, by some playful desire to probe the heart of +Whiggery by putting an extreme case, Queen Victoria once said: +"Is it true, Lord John, that you hold that a subject is justified, +under certain circumstances, in disobeying his Sovereign?" "Well, +ma'am, speaking to a Sovereign of the House of Hanover, I can only +say that I suppose it is!" + +When Italy was struggling towards unity and freedom, the Queen was +extremely anxious that Lord John, then Foreign Secretary, should +not encourage the revolutionary party. He promptly referred Her +Majesty to "the doctrines of the Revolution of 1688," and informed +her that, "according to those doctrines, all power held by Sovereigns +may be forfeited by misconduct, and each nation is the judge of +its own internal government." + +The love of justice was as strongly marked in Lord John Russell as +the love of freedom. He could make no terms with what he thought +one-sided or oppressive. When the starving labourers of Dorset +combined in an association which they did not know to be illegal, +he urged that incendiaries in high places, such as the Duke of +Cumberland and Lord Wynford, were "far more guilty than the labourers, +but the law does not reach them, I fear." + +When a necessary reform of the Judicature resisted on the ground +of expense, he said: + +"If you cannot afford to do justice speedily and well, you may +as well shut up the Exchequer and confess that you have no right +to raise taxes for the protection of the subject, for justice is +the first and primary end of all government." + +Those are the echoes of a remote past. My own recollections of +my uncle begin when he was Foreign Secretary in Lord Palmerston's +Government, and I can see him now, walled round with despatch-boxes, +in his pleasant library looking out on the lawn of Pembroke Lodge--the +prettiest villa in Richmond Park. In appearance he was very much +what _Punch_ always represented him--very short, with a head and +shoulders which might have belonged to a much larger frame. When +sitting he might have been taken for a man of average height, and +it was only when he rose to his feet that his diminutive stature +became apparent. + +One of his most characteristic traits was his voice, which had +what, in the satirical writings of the last century, used to be +called "an aristocratic drawl," and his pronunciation was archaic. +Like other high-bred people of his time, he talked of "cowcumbers" +and "laylocks"; called a woman an "oo'man," and was much "obleeged" +where a degenerate race is content to be "obliged." + +The frigidity of his address and the seeming stiffness of his manner +were really due to an innate and incurable shyness, but they produced, +even among people who ought to have known him better, a totally +erroneous impression of his character and temperament. + +In the small social arts, which are so valuable an equipment for +a political leader, he was indeed deficient. He had no memory for +faces, and was painfully apt to ignore his political supporters +when he met them outside the walls of Parliament; and this inability +to remember faces was allied with a curious artlessness which made +it impossible for him to feign a cordiality he did not feel. In +his last illness he said: "I have seemed cold to my friends, but +it was not in my heart." The friends needed no such assurance, for +in private life he was not only gentle, affectionate, and tender +to an unusual degree, but full of fun and playfulness, a genial +host and an admirable talker. The great Lord Dufferin, a consummate +judge of such matters, said: "His conversation was too delightful, +full of anecdote; but then his anecdotes were not like those told +by the ordinary raconteur, and were simply reminiscences of his +own personal experience and intercourse with other distinguished +men." + +When Lord Palmerston died, _The Times_ was in its zenith, and its +editor, J. T. Delane, had long been used to "shape the whispers" +of Downing Street. Lord Russell resented journalistic dictation. +"I know," he said, "that Mr. Delane is very angry because I did not +kiss his hand instead of the Queen's" _The Times_ became hostile, +and a competent critic remarked:" + +"There have been Ministers who knew the springs of that public +opinion which is delivered ready digested to the nation every morning, +and who have not scrupled to work them for their own diurnal +glorification, even although the recoil might injure their colleagues. +But Lord Russell has never bowed the knee to the potentates of +the Press; he has offered no sacrifice of invitations to social +editors; and social editors have accordingly failed to discover +the merits of a statesman who so little appreciated them, until +they have almost made the nation forget the services that Lord +Russell has so faithfully and courageously rendered." + +Of Lord Russell's political consistency I have already spoken; and +it was most conspicuously displayed in his lifelong zeal for the +extension of the suffrage. He had begun his political activities +by a successful attack on the rottenest of rotten boroughs; the +enfranchisement of the Middle Class was the triumph of his middle +life. As years advanced his zeal showed no abatement; again and +again he returned to the charge, though amidst the most discouraging +circumstances; and when, in his old age, he became Prime Minister +for the second time, the first task to which he set his hand was +so to extend the suffrage as to include "the best of the working +classes." + +In spite of this generous aspiration, it must be confessed that +the Reform Bill of 1866 was not a very exciting measure. It lowered +the qualification for the county franchise to L14 and that for +the boroughs to L7; and this, together with the enfranchisement +of lodgers, was expected to add 400,000 new voters to the list. + +The Bill fell flat. It was not sweeping enough to arouse enthusiasm. +Liberals accepted it as an instalment; but Whigs thought it +revolutionary, and made common cause with the Tories to defeat +it. As it was introduced into the House of Commons, Lord Russell +had no chance of speaking on it; but Gladstone's speeches for it +and Lowe's against it remain to this day among the masterpieces +of political oratory, and eventually it was lost, on an amendment +moved in committee, by a majority of eleven. Lord Russell of course +resigned. The Queen received his decision with regret. It was evident +that Prussia and Austria were on the brink of war, and Her Majesty +considered it a most unfortunate moment for a change in her Government. +She thought that the Ministry had better accept the amendment and +go on with the Bill. But Lord Russell stood his ground, and that +ground was the highest. "He considers that vacillation on such a +question weakens the authority of the Crown, promotes distrust +of public men, and inflames the animosity of parties." + +On the 26th of June, 1866, it was announced in Parliament that +the Ministers had resigned, and that the Queen had sent for Lord +Derby. Lord Russell retained the Liberal leadership till Christmas, +1867, and then definitely retired from public life, though his +interest in political events continued unabated to the end. + +Of course, I am old enough to remember very well the tumults and +commotions which attended the defeat of the Reform Bill of 1866. +They contrasted strangely with the apathy and indifference which +had prevailed while the Bill was in progress; but the fact was that +a new force had appeared. The Liberal party had discovered Gladstone; +and were eagerly awaiting the much more democratic measure which +they thought he was destined to carry in the very near future. +That it was really carried by Disraeli is one of the ironies of +our political history. + +During the years of my uncle's retirement was much more in his +company than had been possible when I was a schoolboy and he was +Foreign Secretary or Prime Minister. Pembroke Lodge became to me +a second home; and I have no happier memory than of hours spent +there by the side of one who had played bat, trap and ball with +Charles Fox; had been the travelling companion of Lord Holland; +had corresponded with Tom Moore, debated with Francis Jeffrey, and +dined with Dr. Parr; had visited Melrose Abbey in the company of +Sir Walter Scott, and criticized the acting of Mrs. Siddons; had +conversed with Napoleon in his seclusion at Elba, and had ridden +with the Duke of Wellington along the lines of Torres Vedras. It was +not without reason that Lord Russell, when reviewing his career, +epitomized it in Dryden couplet: + + "Not heaven itself upon the past has power, + But what has been has been, and I have had my hour." + + + + +III + +_LORD DERBY_ + +My opportunities of observing Lord Derby at close quarters, were +comparatively scanty. When, in June, 1866, he kissed hands as Prime +Minister for the third time, I was a boy of thirteen, and I was only +sixteen when he died. I had known Lord Palmerston in the House of +Commons and Lord Russell in private life; but my infant footsteps +were seldom guided towards the House of Lords, and it was only +there that "the Rupert of debate" could at that time be heard. + +The Whigs, among whom I was reared, detested Derby with the peculiar +detestation which partisans always feel for a renegade. In 1836 +Charles Dickens, in his capacity of Parliamentary reporter, had +conversed with an ancient M.P. who allowed that Lord Stanley--who +became Lord Derby in 1851--might do something one of these days, +but "he's too young, sir--too young." The active politicians of +the sixties did not forget that this too-young Stanley, heir of a +great Whig house, had flung himself with ardour into the popular +cause, and, when the Lords threw out the first Reform Bill, had +jumped on to the table at Brooks's and had proclaimed the great +constitutional truth--reaffirmed over the Parliament Bill in 1911--that +"His Majesty can clap coronets on the heads of a whole company of +his Foot Guards." + +The question of the influences which had changed Stanley from a +Whig to a Tory lies outside the purview of a sketch like this. For +my present purpose it must suffice to say that, as he had absolutely +nothing to gain by the change, we may fairly assume that it was due +to conviction. But whether it was due to conviction, or to ambition, +or to temper, or to anything else, it made the Whigs who remained +Whigs, very sore. Lord Clarendon, a typical Whig placeman, said +that Stanley was "a great aristocrat, proud of family and wealth, +but had no generosity for friend or foe, and never acknowledged +help." Some allowance must be made for the ruffled feelings of +a party which sees its most brilliant recruit absorbed into the +opposing ranks, and certainly Stanley was such a recruit as any +party would have been thankful to claim. + +He was the future head of one of the few English families which +the exacting genealogists of the Continent recognize as noble. To +pedigree he added great possessions, and wealth which the industrial +development of Lancashire was increasing every day. He was a graceful +and tasteful scholar, who won the Chanceller's prize for Latin +verse at Oxford, and translated the Iliad into fluent hexameters. +Good as a scholar, he was, as became the grandson of the founder +of "The Derby," even better as a sportsman; and in private life +he was the best companion in the world, playful and reckless, as +a schoolboy, and never letting prudence or propriety stand between +him and his jest. "Oh, Johnny, what fun we shall have!" was his +characteristic greeting to Lord John Russell, when that ancient +rival entered the House of Lords. + +Furthermore, Stanley had, in richest abundance, the great natural +gift of oratory, with an audacity in debate which won him the nickname +of "Rupert," and a voice which would have stirred his hearers if +he had only been reciting Bradshaw. For a brilliant sketch of his +social aspect we may consult Lord Beaumaris in Lord Beaconsfield's +_Endymion_; and of what he was in Parliament we have the same great +man's account, reported by Matthew Arnold: "Full of nerve, dash, +fire, and resource, he carried the House irresistibly along with +him." + +In the Parliament of 1859-1865 (with which my political recollections +begin) Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister and Lord Derby Leader +of the Opposition, with Disraeli as his lieutenant in the House +of Commons. If, as Lord Randolph Churchill said in later years, +the business of an Opposition is to oppose, it must be admitted +that Derby and Disraeli were extremely remiss. It was suspected at +the time, and has since been made known through Lord Malmesbury's +_Memoirs_, that there was something like an "understanding" between +Palmerston and Derby. As long as Palmerston kept his Liberal colleagues +in order, and chaffed his Radical supporters out of all the reforms +on which their hearts were set, Derby was not to turn him out of +office, though the Conservative minority in the House of Commons +was very large, and there were frequent openings for harassing +attack. + +Palmerston's death, of course, dissolved this compact; and, though +the General Election of 1865 had again yielded a Liberal majority, +the change in the Premiership had transformed the aspect of political +affairs. The new Prime Minister was in the House of Lords, seventy-three +years old, and not a strong man for his age. His lieutenant in the +House of Commons was Gladstone, fifty-five years old, and in the +fullest vigour of body and mind. Had any difference of opinion +arisen between the two men, it was obvious that Gladstone was in a +position to make his will prevail; but on the immediate business of +the new Parliament they were absolutely at one, and that business +was exactly what Palmerston had for the last six years successfully +opposed--the extension of the franchise to the working man. When +no one is enthusiastic about a Bill, and its opponents hate it, +there is not much difficulty in defeating it, and Derby and Disraeli +were not the men to let the opportunity slide. With the aid of the +malcontent Whigs they defeated the Reform Bill, and Derby became +Prime Minister, with Disraeli as Leader of the House of Commons. It +was a conjuncture fraught with consequences vastly more important +than anyone foresaw. + +In announcing his acceptance of office (which he had obtained by +defeating a Reform Bill), Derby amazed his opponents and agitated +his friends by saying that he "reserved to himself complete liberty +to deal with the question of Parliamentary reform whenever suitable +occasion should arise." In February, 1867, Disraeli, on behalf +of the Tory Government, brought in the first really democratic +Reform Bill which England had ever known. He piloted it through +the House of Commons with a daring and a skill of which I was an +eye-witness, and, when it went up to the Lords, Derby persuaded +his fellow-peers to accept a measure which established household +suffrage in the towns. + +It was "a revolution by due course of law," nothing less; and to +this day people dispute whether Disraeli induced Derby to accept +it, or whether the process was reversed. Derby called it "a leap +in the dark." Disraeli vaulted that he had "educated his party" +up to the point of accepting it. Both alike took comfort in the +fact that they had "dished the Whigs"--which, indeed, they had +done most effectually. The disgusted Clarendon declared that Derby +"had only agreed to the Reform Bill as he would of old have backed +a horse at Newmarket. He hates Disraeli, but believes in him as +he would have done in an unprincipled trainer: _he wins_--that +is all." + +On the 15th of August, 1867, the Tory Reform Bill received the +Royal Assent, and Derby attained the summit of his career. Inspired +by whatever motives, influenced by whatever circumstances, the +Tory chief had accomplished that which the most liberal-minded of +his predecessors had never even dreamed of doing. He had rebuilt +the British Constitution on a democratic foundation. + +At this point some account of Lord Derby's personal appearance +may be introduced. My impression is that he was only of the middle +height, but quite free from the disfigurement of obesity; light in +frame, and brisk in movement. Whereas most statesmen were bald, +he had an immense crop of curly, and rather untidy, hair and the +abundant whiskers of the period. His features were exactly of the +type which novelists used to call aristocratic: an aquiline nose, +a wide but firmly compressed mouth, and a prominent chin. His dress +was, even then, old-fashioned, and his enormous black satin cravat, +arranged in I know not how many folds, seemed to be a survival +from the days of Count D'Orsay. His air and bearing were such as +one expects in a man whose position needs no advertizing; and I +have been told that, even in the breeziest moments of unguarded +merriment, his chaff was always the chaff of a gentleman. + +Lord Beaconsfield, writing to a friend, once said that he had just +emerged from an attack of the gout, "of renovating ferocity," and +this phrase might have been applied to the long succession of gouty +illnesses which were always harassing Lord Derby. Unfortunately, as +we advance in life, the "renovating" effects of gout become less +conspicuous than its "ferocity;" and Lord Derby, who was born in +1799, was older than his years in 1867. In January and February, 1868, +his gout was so severe that it threatened his life. He recovered, +but he saw that his health was no longer equal to the strain of +office, and on the 24th of February he placed his resignation in +the Queen's hands. + +But during the year and a half that remained to him he was by no +means idle. He had originally broken away from the Whigs on a point +which threatened the temporalities of the still-established Church +of Ireland; and in the summer of 1868 Gladstone's avowal of the +principle of Irish Disestablishment roused all his ire, and seemed +to quicken him into fresh life. The General Election was fixed +for November, and the Liberal party, almost without exception, +prepared to follow Gladstone in his Irish policy. On the 29th of +October Bishop Wilberforce noted that Derby was "very keen," and had +asked: "What will the Whigs not swallow? Disraeli is very sanguine +still about the elections." + +The question about the Whigs came comically from the man who had +just made the Tories swallow Household Suffrage; and Disraeli's +sanguineness was ill-founded. The election resulted in a majority +of one hundred for Irish Disestablishment; Disraeli resigned, and +Gladstone became for the first time Prime Minister. + +The Session of 1869 was devoted to the Irish Bill, and Lord Derby, +though on the brink of the grave, opposed the Bill in what some +people thought the greatest of his speeches in the House of Lords. +He was pale, his voice was feeble, he looked, as he was, a broken +man; but he rose to the very height of an eloquence which had already +become traditional. His quotation of Meg Merrilies' address to the +Laird of Ellangowan, and his application of it to the plight of +the Irish Church, were as apt and as moving as anything in English +oratory. The speech concluded thus: + +"My Lords, I am now an old man, and, like many of your Lordships, +I have already passed three score years and ten. My official life +is entirely closed; my political life is nearly so; and, in the +course of nature, my natural life cannot now be long. That natural +life commenced with the bloody suppression of a formidable rebellion +in Ireland, which immediately preceded the union between the two +countries. And may God grant that its close may not witness a renewal +of the one and a dissolution of the other." + +This speech was delivered on the 17th of June, 1869, and the speaker +died on the 23rd of the following October. + + + + +IV + +_BENJAMIN DISRAEI_ + +I always count it among the happy accidents of my life that I happened +to be in London during the summer of 1867. I was going to Harrow +in the following September, and for the next five years my chance +of hearing Parliamentary debates was small. In the summer of 1866, +when the Russell-Gladstone Reform Bill was thrown out, I was in the +country, and therefore I had missed the excitement caused by the +demolition of the Hyde Park railings, the tears of the terrified +Home Secretary, and the litanies chanted by the Reform League under +Gladstone's window in Carlton House Terrace. But in 1867 I was in +the thick of the fun. My father was the Sergeant-at-Arms attending +the House of Commons, and could always admit me to the privileged +seats "under the Gallery," then more numerous than now. So it came +about that I heard all the most famous debates in Committee on +the Tory Reform Bill, and thereby learned for the first time the +fascination of Disraeli's genius. The Whigs, among whom I was reared, +did not dislike "Dizzy" as they disliked Lord Derby, or as Dizzy +himself was disliked by the older school of Tories. But they absolutely +miscalculated and misconceived him, treating him as merely an amusing +charlatan, whose rococo oratory and fantastic tricks afforded a +welcome relief from the dulness of ordinary politics. + +To a boy of fourteen thus reared, the Disraeli of 1867 was an +astonishment and a revelation--as the modern world would say, an +eye-opener. The House of Commons was full of distinguished men--Lord +Cranborne, afterwards Lord Salisbury; John Bright and Robert Lowe, +Gathorne Hardy, Bernal-Osborne, Goschen, Mill, Kinglake, Renley, +Horsman, Coleridge. The list might be greatly prolonged, but of +course it culminates in Gladstone, then in the full vigour of his +powers. All these people I saw and heard during that memorable +summer; but high above them all towers, in my recollection, the +strange and sinister figure of the great Disraeli. The Whigs had +laughed at him for thirty years; but now, to use a phrase of the +nursery, they laughed on the wrong side of their mouths. There +was nothing ludicrous about him now, nothing to provoke a smile, +except when he wished to provoke it, and gaily unhorsed his opponents +of every type--Gladstone, or Lowe, or Beresford-Hope. He seemed, +for the moment, to dominate the House of Commons, to pervade it +with his presence, and to guide it where he would. At every turn +he displayed his reckless audacity, his swiftness in transition, +his readiness to throw overboard a stupid colleague, his alacrity +to take a hint from an opponent and make it appear his own. The +Bill underwent all sorts of changes in Committee; but still it +seemed to be Disraeli's Bill, and no one else's. And, indeed, he +is entitled to all the credit which he got, for it was his genius +that first saw the possibilities hidden in a Tory democracy. + +To a boy of fourteen, details of rating, registration, and residential +qualification make no strong appeal; but the personality of this +strange magician, un-English, inscrutable, irresistible, was profoundly +interesting. "Gladstone," wrote Lord Houghton to a friend, "seems +quite awed with the diabolical cleverness of Dizzy, who, he says, +is gradually driving all ideas of political honour out of the House, +and accustoming it to the most revolting cynicism." I had been +trained by people who were sensitive about "Political honour," +and I knew nothing of "cynicism"; but the "diabolical cleverness" +made an impression on me which has lasted to this day. + +What was Dizzy in personal appearance? If I had not known the fact, +I do not think that I should have recognized him as one of the +ancient race of Israel. His profile was not the least what we in +England consider Semitic. He might have been a Spaniard or an Italian, +but he certainly was not a Briton. He was rather tall than short, +but slightly bowed, except when he drew himself up for the more +effective delivery of some shrewd blow. His complexion was extremely +pale, and the pallor was made more conspicuous by contrast with his +hair, steeped in Tyrian dye, worn long, and eked out with artificial +additions. + +He was very quietly dressed. The green velvet trousers and rings +worn outside white kid gloves, which had helped to make his fame +in "the days of the dandies," had long since been discarded. He +dressed, like other men of his age and class, in a black frock-coat +worn open, a waistcoat cut rather deep, light-coloured trousers, +and a black cravat tied in a loose bow--and those spring-sided +boots of soft material which used to be called "Jemimas." I may +remark, in passing, that these details of costume were reproduced +with startling fidelity in Mr. Dennis Eadie's wonderful play--the +best representation of personal appearance that I have ever seen +on the stage. + +Disraeli's voice was by nature deep, and he had a knack of deepening +it when he wished to be impressive. His articulation was extremely +deliberate, so that every word told; and his habitual manner was +calm, but not stolid. I say "habitual," because it had variations. +When Gladstone, just the other side of the Table, was thundering his +protests, Disraeli became absolutely statuesque, eyed his opponent +stonily through his monocle, and then congratulated himself, in a +kind of stage drawl, that there was a "good broad piece of furniture" +between him and the enraged Leader of the Opposition. But when it +was his turn to simulate the passion which the other felt, he would +shout and wave his arms, recoil from the Table and return to it, +and act his part with a vigour which, on one memorable occasion, +was attributed to champagne; but this was merely play-acting, and +was completely laid aside as he advanced in years. + +What I have written so far is, no doubt, an anachronism, for I +have been describing what I saw and heard in the Session of 1867, +and Disraeli did not become Prime Minister till February, 1868; but +six months made no perceptible change in his appearance, speech, +or manner. What he had been when he was fighting his Reform Bill +through the House, that he was when, as Prime Minister, he governed +the country at the head of a Parliamentary minority. His triumph +was the triumph of audacity. In 1834 he had said to Lord Melbourne, +who enquired his object in life, "I want to be Prime Minister"--and +now that object was attained. At Brooks's they said, "The last +Government was the Derby; this is the Hoax." Gladstone's discomfiture +was thus described by Frederick Greenwood: + +"The scorner who shot out the lip and shook the head at him across +the Table of the House of Commons last Session has now more than +heart could wish; his eyes--speaking in an Oriental manner--stand +out with fatness, he speaketh loftily; and pride compasseth him +about as with a chain. It is all very well to say that the candle +of the wicked is put out in the long run; that they are as stubble +before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carries away. So we +were told in other times of tribulation. This was the sort of +consolation that used to be offered in the jaunty days of Lord +Palmerston. People used then to soothe the earnest Liberal by the +same kind of argument. 'Only wait,' it was said, 'until he has +retired, and all will be well with us.' But no sooner has the storm +carried away the wicked Whig chaff than the heavens are forthwith +darkened by new clouds of Tory chaff." + +Lord Shaftesbury, as became his character, took a sterner view. +"Disraeli Prime Minister! He is a Hebrew; this is a good thing. +He is a man sprung from an inferior station; another good thing +in these days, as showing the liberality of our institutions. But +he is a leper, without principle, without feeling, without regard +to anything, human or Divine, beyond his own personal ambition." + +The situation in which the new Prime Minister found himself was, from +the constitutional point of view, highly anomalous. The settlement +of the question of Reform, which he had effected in the previous +year, had healed the schism in the Liberal party, and the Liberals +could now defeat the Government whenever they chose to mass their +forces. Disraeli was officially the Leader of a House in which his +opponents had a large majority. In March, 1868, Gladstone began his +attack on the Irish Church, and pursued it with all his vigour, and +with the support of a united party. He moved a series of Resolutions +favouring Irish Disestablishment, and the first was carried by a +majority of sixty-five against the Government. + +This defeat involved explanation. Disraeli, in a speech which Bright +called "a mixture of pompousness and servility," described his +audiences of the Queen, and so handled the Royal name as to convey +the impression that Her Majesty was on his side. Divested of verbiage +and mystification, his statement amounted to this--that, in spite of +adverse votes, he intended to hold on till the autumn, and then to +appeal to the new electorate created by the Reform Act of the previous +year. As the one question to be submitted to the electors was that +of the Irish Church, the campaign naturally assumed a theological +character. On the 20th of August Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "Dizzy is +seeking everywhere for support. He is all things to all men, and +nothing to anyone. He cannot make up his mind to be Evangelical, +Neologian, or Ritualistic; he is waiting for the highest bidder." + +Parliament was dissolved in November, and the General Election +resulted in a majority of one hundred for Gladstone and Irish +Disestablishment. By a commendable innovation on previous practice, +Disraeli resigned the Premiership without waiting for a hostile +vote of the new Parliament. He declined the Earldom to which, as +an ex-Prime Minister, he was by usage entitled; but he asked the +Queen to make his devoted wife Viscountess Beaconsfield. As a youth, +after hearing the great speakers of the House which he had not +yet entered, he had said, "Between ourselves, I could floor them +all"--but now Gladstone had "floored" him, and it took him five +years to recover his breath. + + + + +V + +_WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE_ + +Most people remember Gladstone as an old man. He reached the summit +of his career when he had just struck seventy. After Easter, 1880, +when he dethroned Lord Beaconsfield and formed his second +Administration, the eighteen years of life that remained to him +added nothing to his fame, and even in some respects detracted +from it. Gradually he passed into the stage which was indicated +by Labouchere's nickname of "The Grand Old Man"; and he enjoyed +the homage which rightly attends the closing period of an exemplary +life, wonderfully prolonged, and spent in the service of the nation. +He had become historical before he died. But my recollections of +him go back to the earlier sixties, when he was Chancellor of the +Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and they become vivid +at the point of time when he became Prime Minister--December, 1868. + +In old age his appearance was impressive, through the combination of +physical wear-and-tear with the unconquerable vitality of the spirit +which dwelt within. The pictures of him as a young man represent +him as distinctly handsome, with masses of dark hair thrown back +from a truly noble forehead, and eyes of singular expressiveness. +But in middle life--and in his case middle life was continued till +he was sixty--he was neither as good-looking as he once had been, +nor, as grand-looking as he eventually became. He looked much older +than his age. When he met the new Parliament which had been elected +at the end of 1868, he was only as old as Lord Curzon is now; but +he looked old enough to be Lord Curzon's father. His life had been, +as he was fond of saying, a life of contention; and the contention +had left its mark on his face, with its deep furrows and careworn +expression. Three years before he had felt, to use his own phrase, +"sore with conflicts about the public expenditure" (in which old +Palmerston had always beaten him), and to that soreness had been +added traces of the fierce strife about Parliamentary Reform and +Irish Disestablishment. F. D. Maurice thus described him: "His +face is a very expressive one, hard-worked, as you say, and not +perhaps specially happy; more indicative of struggle than of victory, +though not without promise of that. He has preserved the type which +I can remember that he bore at the University thirty-six years +ago, though it has undergone curious development." + +My own recollection exactly confirms Maurice's estimate. In Gladstone's +face, as I used to see it in those days, there was no look of gladness +or victory. He had, indeed, won a signal triumph at the General +Election of 1868, and had attained the supreme object of a politician's +ambition. But he did not look the least as if he enjoyed his honours, +but rather as if he felt an insupportable burden of responsibility. +He knew that he had an immense amount to do in carrying the reforms +which Palmerston had burked, and, coming to the Premiership on the +eve of sixty, he realized that the time for doing it was necessarily +short. He seemed consumed by a burning and absorbing energy; and, +when he found himself seriously hampered or strenuously opposed, he +was angry with an anger which was all the more formidable because +it never vented itself in an insolent or abusive word. A vulnerable +temper kept resolutely under control had always been to me one of +the most impressive features in human character. + +Gladstone had won the General Election by asking the constituencies +to approve the Disestablishment of the Irish Church; and this was +the first task to which he addressed himself in the Parliament +of 1869. It was often remarked about his speaking that in every +Session he made at least one speech of which everyone said, "That +was the finest thing Gladstone ever did." This was freely said +of it he speech in which he introduced the Disestablishment Bill +on the 1st of March, 1869, and again of that in which he wound up +the debate on the Second Reading. In pure eloquence he had rivals, +and in Parliamentary management superiors; but in the power of +embodying principles in legislative form and preserving unity of +purpose through a multitude of confusing minutiae he had neither +equal nor second. + +The Disestablishment Bill passed easily through the Commons, but +was threatened with disaster in the Lords, and it was with profound +satisfaction that Mrs. Gladstone, most devoted and most helpful of +wives, announced the result of the division on the Second Reading. +Gladstone had been unwell, and had gone to bed early. Mrs. Gladstone +who had been listening to the debate in the House of Lords, said +to a friend, "I could not help it; I gave William a discreet poke. +'A majority of thirty-three, my dear.' 'Thank you, my dear,' he +said, and turned round, and went to sleep on the other side." After +a stormy passage through Committee, the Bill became law on the +26th of July. + +So Gladstone's first great act of legislation ended, and he was +athirst for more. Such momentous reforms as the Irish Land Act, the +Education Act, the abolition of religious tests in the University, +the abolition of purchase in the Army, and the establishment of the +Ballot, filled Session after Session with excitement; and Gladstone +pursued each in turn with an ardour which left his followers out +of breath. + +He was not very skilful in managing his party, or even his Cabinet. +He kept his friendships and his official relations quite distinct. +He never realized the force of the saying that men who have only +worked together have only half lived together. It was truly said +that he understood MAN, but not men; and meek followers in the +House of Commons, who had sacrificed money, time, toil, health, +and sometimes conscience, to the support of the Government, turned, +like the crushed worm, when they found that Gladstone sternly ignored +their presence in the Lobby, or, if forced to speak to them, called +them by inappropriate names. His strenuousness of reforming purpose +and strength of will were concealed by no lightness of touch, no +give-and-take, no playfulness, no fun. He had little of that saving +grace of humour which smoothes the practical working of life as much +as it adds to its enjoyment. He was fiercely, terribly, incessantly +in earnest; and unbroken earnestness, though admirable, exhausts +and in the long run alienates. + +There was yet another feature of his Parliamentary management which +proved disastrous to his cause, and this was his tendency to what the +vulgar call hair-splitting and the learned casuistry. At Oxford men +are taught to distinguish with scrupulous care between propositions +closely similar, but not identical. In the House of Commons they +are satisfied with the roughest and broadest divisions between +right and wrong; they see no shades of colour between black-and +white. Hence arose two unfortunate incidents, which were nicknamed +"The Ewelme Scandal" and "The Colliery Explosion"--two cases in +which Gladstone, while observing the letter of an Act of Parliament, +violated, or seemed to violate, its spirit in order to qualify +highly deserving gentlemen for posts to which he wished to appoint +them. By law the Rectory of Ewelme (in the gift of the Crown) could +only be held by a graduate of the University of Oxford. Gladstone +conferred it on a Cambridge man, who had to procure an _ad eundem_ +degree at Oxford before he could accept the preferment. By law no +man could be made a paid member of the Judicial Committee of the +Privy Council unless he had served as a judge. Gladstone made his +Attorney-General, Sir John Collier, a Judge for three weeks, and then +passed him on to the Judicial Committee. Both these appointments +were angrily challenged in Parliament. Gladstone defended them with +energy and skill, and logically his defence was unassailable. But +these were cases where the plain man--and the House of Commons +is full of plain men--feels, though he cannot prove, that there +has been a departure from ordinary straightforwardness and fair +dealing. + +Yet again; the United States had a just complaint against us; arising +out of the performances of the _Alabama_, which, built in an English +dockyard and manned by an English crew, but owned by the Slaveowners' +Confederacy, had got out to sea, and, during a two years' cruise of +piracy and devastation, had harassed the Government of the United +States. The quarrel had lasted for years, with ever-increasing +gravity. Gladstone determined to end it; and, with that purpose, +arranged for a Board of Arbitration, which sat at Geneva, and decided +against England. We were heavily amerced by the sentence of this +International Tribunal. We paid, but we did not like it. Gladstone +gloried in the moral triumph of a settlement without bloodshed; but +a large section of the nation, including many of his own party, +felt that national honour had been lowered, and determined to avenge +themselves on the Minister who had lowered it. + +Meanwhile Disraeli, whom Gladstone had deposed in 1868, was watching +the development of these events with sarcastic interest and effective +criticism, till in 1872 he was able to liken the great Liberal, +Government to "a range of exhausted volcanoes," and to say of its +eminent leader that he "alternated between a menace and a sigh." In +1873 Gladstone introduced a wholly unworkable Bill for the reform +of University education in Ireland. It pleased no one, and was +defeated on the Second Reading. Gladstone resigned. The Queen sent +for Disraeli; but Disraeli declined to repeat the experiment of +governing the country without a majority in the House of Commons, +and Gladstone was forced to resume office, though, of course, with +immensely diminished authority. His Cabinet was all at sixes and +sevens. There were resignations and rumours of resignation. He +took the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, and, as some authorities +contended, vacated his seat by doing so. Election after election +went wrong, and the end was visibly at hand. + +At the beginning of 1874 Gladstone, confined to his house by a +cold, executed a _coup d'etat_. He announced the Dissolution of +Parliament, and promised, if his lease of power were renewed, to +repeal the income-tax. _The Times_ observed: "The Prime Minister +descends upon Greenwich" (where he had taken refuge after being +expelled from South Lancashire) "amid a shower of gold, and must +needs prove as irresistible as the Father of the Gods." But this +was too sanguine a forecast. Greenwich, which returned two members, +placed Gladstone second on the poll, below a local distiller, while +his followers were blown out of their seats like chaff before the +wind. When the General Election was over, the Tories had a majority +of forty-six. Gladstone, after some hesitation, resigned without +waiting to meet a hostile Parliament. Disraeli became Prime Minister +for the second time; and in addressing the new House of Commons +he paid a generous compliment to his great antagonist. "If," he +said, "I had been a follower of a Parliamentary chief so eminent, +even if I thought he had erred, I should have been disposed rather +to exhibit sympathy than to offer criticism. I should remember the +great victories which he had fought and won; I should remember +his illustrious career; its continuous success and splendour, not +its accidental or even disastrous mistakes." + +The roost loyal Gladstonian cannot improve upon that tribute, and +Gladstone's greatest day was yet to come. + + + + +VI + +_LORD SALISBURY_ + +This set of sketches is not intended for a continuous narrative, +but for a series of impressions. I must therefore condense the +events of Disraeli's second Administration (during which he became +Lord Beaconsfield) and of Gladstone's Administration which succeeded +it, hurrying to meet Lord Salisbury, whom so far I have not attempted +to describe. + +From February, 1874, to May, 1880, Disraeli was not only in office, +but, for the first time, in power; for whereas in his first +Administration he was confronted by a hostile majority in the House +of Commons, he now had a large majority of his own, reinforced, on +every critical division, by renegade Whigs and disaffected Radicals. +He had, as no Minister since Lord Melbourne had, the favour and +friendship, as well as the confidence, of the Queen. The House of +Lords and the London mob alike were at his feet, and he was backed +by a noisy and unscrupulous Press. + +In short, he was as much a dictator as the then existing forms +of the Constitution allowed, and he gloried in his power. If only +he had risked a Dissolution on his triumphal return from Berlin +in July, 1878, he would certainly have retained his dictatorship +for life; but his health had failed, and his nerve failed with +it. "I am very unwell," he said to Lord George Hamilton, "but I +manage to crawl to the Treasury Bench, and when I get there I look +as fierce as I can." + +Meanwhile Gladstone was not only "looking fierce," but agitating +fiercely. After his great disappointment in 1874 he had abruptly +retired from the leadership of the Liberal party, and had divided +his cast-off mantle between Lord Granville and Lord Hartington. +But the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 brought him back into the +thick of the fight. Granville and Hartington found themselves +practically dispossessed of their respective leaderships, and +Gladstonianism dominated the active and fighting section of the +Liberal party. + +It is impossible to conceive a more passionate or a more skilful +opposition than that with which Gladstone, to use his own phrase, +"counter-worked the purpose of Lord Beaconsfield" from 1876 to +1880--and he attained his object. Lord Beaconsfield, like other +Premiers nearer our own time, imagined that he was indispensable +and invulnerable. Gladstone might harangue, but Beaconsfield would +still govern. He told the Queen that she might safely go abroad +in March, 1880, for, though there was a Dissolution impending, +he knew that the country would support him. So the Queen went off +in perfect ease of mind, and returned in three weeks' time to find +a Liberal majority of one hundred, excluding the Irish members, +with Gladstone on the crest of the wave. Lord Beaconsfield resigned +without waiting for the verdict of the new Parliament. Gladstone, +though the Queen had done all she could to persuade Hartington +to form a Government, was found to be inevitable, and his second +Administration was formed on the 28th of April, 1880. It lasted +till the 25th of June, 1885, and, its achievements, its failures, +and its disasters are too well remembered to need recapitulation +here. + +When, after a defeat on the Budget of 1885, Gladstone determined +to resign, it was thought by some that Sir Stafford Northcote, +who had led the Opposition in the House of Commons with skill and +dignity, would be called to succeed him. But the Queen knew better; +and Lord Salisbury now became Prime Minister for the first time. To +all frequenters of the House of Commons he had long been a familiar, +if not a favourite, figure: first as Lord Robert Cecil and then as +Lord Cranborne. In the distant days of Palmerston's Premiership he +was a tall, slender, ungainly young man, stooping as short-sighted +people always stoop, and curiously untidy. His complexion was unusually +dark for an Englishman, and his thick beard and scanty hair were +intensely black. Sitting for a pocket-borough, he soon became famous +for his anti-democratic zeal and his incisive speech. He joined +Lord Derby's Cabinet in 1866, left it on-account of his hostility +to the Reform Bill of 1867, and assailed Disraeli both with pen +and tongue in a fashion which seemed to make it impossible that +the two men could ever again speak to one another--let alone work +together. But political grudges are short-lived; or perhaps it +would be nearer the mark to say that, however strong those grudges +may be, the allurements of office are stronger still. Men conscious +of great powers for serving the State will often put up with a +good deal which they dislike sooner than decline an opportunity +of public usefulness. + +Whatever the explanation, the fact remains that Lord Salisbury (who +had succeeded to the title in 1868) joined Disraeli's Cabinet in +1874, and soon became a leading figure in it. His oratorical duels +with the Duke of Argyll during the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +were remarkably, vigorous performances; and, when he likened a near +kinsman to Titus Oates, there were some who regretted that the +days of physical duelling were over. In 1878 he accompanied Lord +Beaconsfield to the Congress of Berlin, being second Plenipotentiary; +and when on their return he drove through the acclaiming streets +of London in the back seat of the Triumphal Car, it was generally +surmised that he had established his claim to the ultimate reversion +of the Premiership. That reversion, as I said just now, he attained +in June, 1885, and enjoyed till February, 1886--a short tenure of +office, put the earnest of better and longer things to come. + +At this period of His career Lord Salisbury was forced to yield to +the democratic spirit so far as to "go on the stump" and address +popular audiences in great towns. It was an uncongenial employment. +His myopia rendered the audience invisible, and no one can talk +effectively to hearers whom he does not see. The Tory working men +bellowed "For he's a jolly good fellow"; but he looked singularly +unlike that festive character. His voice was clear and penetrating, +but there was no popular fibre in his speech. He talked of the +things which interested him; but whether or not they interested +his hearers he seemed not to care a jot. When he rolled off the +platform and into the carriage which was to carry him away, there +was a general sense of mutual relief. + +But in the House of Lords he was perfectly and strikingly at home. +The massive bulk, which had replaced the slimness of his youth, and +his splendidly developed forehead made him there, as everywhere, +a majestic figure. He neither saw, nor apparently regarded, his +audience. He spoke straight up to the Reporters' Gallery, and, +through it, to the public. To his immediate surroundings he seemed +as profoundly indifferent as to his provincial audiences. He spoke +without notes and apparently without effort. There was no rhetoric, +no declamation, no display. As one listened, one seemed to hear the +genuine thoughts of a singularly clever and reflective man, who had +strong prejudices of his own in favour of religion, authority, and +property, but was quite unswayed by the prejudices of other people. +The general tone of his thought was sombre. Lord Lytton described, +with curious exactness, the "massive temple," the "large slouching +shoulder," and the "prone head," which "habitually stoops"-- + + "Above a world his contemplative gaze + Peruses, finding little there to praise!" + +But though he might find little enough to "praise" in a world which +had departed so widely from the traditions of his youth, still, this +prevailing gloom was lightened, often at very unexpected moments, by +flashes of delicious humour, sarcastic but not savage. No one excelled +him in the art of making an opponent look ridiculous. Careless +critics called him "cynical," but it was an abuse of words. Cynicism +is shamelessness, and not a word ever fell from Lord Salisbury which +was inconsistent with the highest ideals of patriotic statesmanship. + +He was by nature as shy as he was short-sighted. He shrank from new +acquaintances, and did not always detect old friends. His failure +to recognize a young politician who sat in his Cabinet, and a zealous +clergyman whom he had just made a Bishop, supplied his circle with +abundant mirth, which was increased when, at the beginning of the +South African War, he was seen deep in military conversation with +Lord Blyth, under the impression that he was talking to Lord Roberts. + +But, in spite of these impediments to social facility, he was an +admirable host both at Hatfield and in Arlington Street--courteous, +dignified, and only anxious to put everyone at their ease. His +opinions were not mine, and it always seemed to me that he was +liable to be swayed by stronger wills than his own. But he was +exactly what he called Gladstone, "a great Christian statesman." + + + + +VII + +_LORD ROSEBERY_ + +It was in December, 1885, that the present Lord Gladstone; in +conjunction with the late Sir Wemyss Reid, sent up "the Hawarden +Kite." After a lapse of thirty-two years, that strange creature +is still flapping about in a stormy sky; and in the process of +time it has become a familiar, if not an attractive, object. But +the history of its earlier gyrations must be briefly recalled. + +The General Election of 1885 had just ended in a tie, the Liberals +being exactly equal to the combined Tories and Parnellites. Suddenly +the Liberals found themselves committed, as far as Gladstone could +commit them, to the principle of Home Rule, which down to that +time they had been taught to denounce. Most of them followed their +leader, but many rebelled. The Irish transferred their votes in the +House to the statesman whom--as they thought--they had squeezed +into compliance with their policy, and helped him to evict Lord +Salisbury after six months of office. Gladstone formed a Government, +introduced a Home Rule Bill, split his party in twain, was defeated +in the House of Commons, dissolved Parliament, and was soundly +beaten at the General Election which he had precipitated. Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the second time, and ruled, +with great authority and success, till the summer of 1892. + +Meanwhile, Gladstone, by his indefatigable insistence on Home Rule +and by judicious concessions to opponents, had to some extent repaired +the damage done in 1886; but not sufficiently. Parliament was dissolved +in June, 1892, and, when the Election was over, the Liberals, _plus_ +the Irish, made a majority of forty for Home Rule. Gladstone realized +that this majority, even if he could hold it together, had no chance +of coercing the House of Lords into submission; but he considered +himself bound in honour to form a Government and bring in a second +Home Rule Bill. Lord Rosebery became his Foreign Secretary, and +Sir William Harcourt his Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Home +Rule Bill struggled through the House of Commons, but was thrown +out in the Lords, 41 voting for and 419 against it. Not a single +meeting was held to protest against this decisive action of the +Lords, and it was evident that the country was sick to death of +the Irish Question. + +Gladstone knew that his public work was done, and in the spring of +1894 it began to be rumoured that he was going to resign. On the 1st +of March he delivered his last speech in the House of Commons, and +immediately afterwards it became known that he was really resigning. +The next day he went to dine and sleep at Windsor, taking his formal +letter of resignation with him. He had already arranged with the +Queen that a Council should be held on the 3rd of March. At this +moment he thought it possible that the Queen might consult him +about the choice of his successor, and, as we now know from Lord +Morley's "Life," he had determined to recommend Lord Spencer. + +Lord Harcourt's evidence on this point is interesting. According +to him--and there could not be a better authority--Sir William +Harcourt knew of Gladstone's intention. But he may very well have +believed that the Queen would act (as in the event she did) on +her own unaided judgment, and that her choice would fall on him +as Leader of the House of Commons. The fact that he was summoned +to attend the Council on the 3rd of March would naturally confirm +the belief. But _Dis aliter visum_. After the Council the Queen +sent, through the Lord President (Lord Kimberley), a summons to +Lord Rosebery, who kissed hands as Prime Minister at Buckingham +Palace on the 9th of March. + +Bulwer-Lytton, writing "about political personalities, said with +perfect truth: + + "Ne'er of the living can the living judge, + Too blind the affection, or too fresh the grudge." + +In this case, therefore, I must attempt not judgment but narrative. +Lord Rosebery was born under what most people would consider lucky +stars. He inherited an honourable name, a competent fortune, and +abilities far above the average. But his father died when he was a +child, and as soon as he struck twenty-one he was "Lord of himself, +that heritage of woe." + +At Eton he had attracted the notice of his gifted tutor, "Billy +Johnson," who described him as "one of those who like the palm +without the dust," and predicted that he would "be an orator, and, +if not a poet, such a man as poets delight in." It was a remarkably +shrewd prophecy. From Eton to Christ Church the transition was +natural. Lord Rosebery left Oxford without a degree, travelled, +went into society, cultivated the Turf, and bestowed some of his +leisure on the House of Lords. He voted for the Disestablishment +of the Irish Church, and generally took the line of what was then +considered advanced Liberalism. + +But it is worthy of note that the first achievement which brought +him public fame was not political. "Billy Rogers," the well-known +Rector of Bishopsgate, once said to me: "The first thing which +made me think that Rosebery had real stuff in him was finding him +hard at work in London in August, when everyone else was in a +country-house or on the Moors. He was getting up his Presidential +Address for the Social Science Congress at Glasgow in 1874." Certainly, +it was an odd conjuncture of persons and interests. The Social +Science Congress, now happily defunct, had been founded by that +omniscient charlatan, Lord Brougham, and its gatherings were happily +described by Matthew Arnold: "A great room in one of our dismal +provincial towns; dusty air and jaded afternoon light; benches +full of men with bald heads, and women in spectacles; and an orator +lifting up his face from a manuscript written within and without." +One can see the scene. On this occasion the orator was remarkably +unlike his audience, being only twenty-seven, very young-looking +even for that tender age, smartly dressed and in a style rather +horsy than professorial. His address, we are told, "did not cut +very deep, but it showed sympathetic study of social conditions, +it formulated a distinct yet not extravagant programme, and it +abounded in glittering phrases." + +Henceforward Lord Rosebery was regarded as a coming man, and his +definite adhesion to Gladstone on the Eastern Question of 1876-1879 +secured him the goodwill of the Liberal party. The year 1878, important +in politics, was not less important in Lord Rosebery's career. Early +in the year he made a marriage which turned him into a rich man, +and riches, useful everywhere, are specially useful in politics. +Towards the close of it he persuaded the Liberal Association of +Midlothian to adopt Gladstone as their candidate. There is no need +to enlarge on the importance of a decision which secured the Liberal +triumph of 1880, and made Gladstone Prime Minister for the second +time. + +When Gladstone formed his second Government he offered a place +in it to Lord Rosebery, who, with sound judgment, declined what +might have looked like a reward for services just rendered. In +1881 he consented to take the Under-Secretaryship of the Home +Department, with Sir William Harcourt as his chief; but the combination +did not promise well, and ended rather abruptly in 1883. When the +Liberal Government was in the throes of dissolution, Lord Rosebery +returned to it, entering the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal in 1885. +It was just at this moment that Matthew Arnold, encountering him +in a country-house, thus described him: "Lord Rosebery is very +gay and 'smart,' and I like him very much." + +The schism over Home Rule was now approaching, and, when it came, +Lord Rosebery threw in his lot with Gladstone, becoming Foreign +Secretary in February, 1886, and falling with his chief in the +following summer. In 1889 he was chosen Chairman of the first London +County Council, and there did the best work of his life, shaping that +powerful but amorphous body into order and efficiency. Meanwhile, +he was, by judicious speech and still more judicious silence, +consolidating his political position; and before he joined Gladstone's +last Government in August, 1892, he had been generally recognized as +the exponent of a moderate and reasonable Home Rule and an advocate +of Social Reform. My own belief is that the Liberal party as a +whole, and the Liberal Government in particular, rejoiced in the +decision which, on Gladstone's final retirement, made Rosebery +Prime Minister. + +But it was a difficult and disappointing Premiership. Harcourt, not +best pleased by the Queen's choice, was Chancellor of the Exchequer and +Leader of the House of Commons. Gladstone, expounding our Parliamentary +system to the American nation, once said: "The overweight of the +House of Commons is apt, other things being equal, to bring its +Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime Minister who is +a Peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his chief, +and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare, +when he has served him very ugly tricks." + +The Parliamentary achievement of 1894 was Harcourt's masterly Budget, +with which, naturally, Lord Rosebery had little to do; the Chancellor +of the Exchequer loomed larger and larger, and the Premier vanished +more and more completely from the public view. After the triumph +of the Budget, everything went wrong with the Government, till, +being defeated on a snap division about gunpowder in June, 1895, +Lord Rosebery and his colleagues trotted meekly out of office. +They might have dissolved, but apparently were afraid to challenge +the judgment of the country on the performances of the last three +years. + +Thus ingloriously ended a Premiership of which much had been expected. +It was impossible not to be reminded of Goderich's "transient and +embarrassed phantom"; and the best consolation which I could offer +to my dethroned chief was to remind him that he had been Prime +Minister for fifteen months, whereas Disraeli's first Premiership +had only lasted for ten. + + + + +VII + +_AUTHUR JAMES BALFOUR_ + +When Lord Rosebery brought his brief Administration to an end, Lord +Salisbury became Prime Minister for the last time. His physical +energy was no longer what it once had been, and the heaviest of +all bereavements, which befell him in 1899, made the burden of +office increasingly irksome. He retired in 1902, and was succeeded +by his nephew, Mr. A. J. Balfour, The Administration formed in +1895 had borne some resemblance to a family party, and had thereby +invited ridicule--even, in some quarters, created disaffection. +But when Lord Salisbury was nearing the close of his career, the +interests of family and of party were found to coincide, and everybody +felt that Mr. Balfour must succeed him. Indeed, the transfer of +power from uncle to nephew was so quietly effected that the new +Prime Minister had kissed hands before the general public quite +realized that the old one had disappeared. + +Mr. Balfour had long been a conspicuous and impressive figure in +public life. With a large estate and a sufficient fortune, with +the Tory leader for his uncle, and a pocket-borough bidden by that +uncle to return him, he had obvious qualifications for political +success. He entered Parliament in his twenty-sixth year, at the +General Election of 1874, and his many friends predicted great +performances. But for a time the fulfilment of those predictions +hung fire. Disraeli was reported to have said, after scrutinizing +his young follower's attitude: "I never expect much from a man +who sits on his shoulders." + +Beyond some rather perplexed dealings with the unpopular subject of +Burial Law, the Member for Hertford took no active part in political +business. At Cambridge he had distinguished himself in Moral Science. +This was an unfortunate distinction. Classical scholarship had been +traditionally associated with great office, and a high wrangler +was always credited with hardheadedness; but "Moral Science" was +a different business, not widely understood, and connected in the +popular mind with metaphysics and general vagueness. The rumour +went abroad that Lord Salisbury's promising nephew was busy with +matters which lay quite remote from politics, and was even following +the path of perilous speculation. It is a first-rate instance of +our national inclination to talk about books without reading them +that, when Mr. Balfour published _A Defence of Philosophic Doubt_, +everyone rushed to the conclusion that he was championing agnosticism. +His friends went about looking very solemn, and those who disliked +him piously hoped that all this "philosophic doubt" might not end +in atheism. It was not till he had consolidated his position as a +political leader that politicians read the book, and then discovered, +to their delight, that, in spite of its alarming name, it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. + +The General Election of 1880 seemed to alter the drift of Mr. Balfour's +thought and life. It was said that he still was very philosophical +behind the scenes, but as we saw him in the House of Commons he was +only an eager and a sedulous partisan. Gladstone's overwhelming +victory at the polls put the Tories on their mettle, and they were +eager to avenge the dethronement of their Dagon. "The Fourth Party" +was a birth of this eventful time, and its history has been written +by the sons of two of its members. With the performances of Lord +Randolph Churchill, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff I +have no concern; but the fourth member of the party was Mr. Balfour, +who now, for the first time, began to take a prominent part in +public business. I must be forgiven if I say that, though he was +an admirable writer, it was evident that Nature had not intended +him for a public speaker. Even at this distance of time I can recall +his broken sentences, his desperate tugs at the lapel of his coat, +his long pauses in search of a word, and his selection of the wrong +word after all. + +But to the Fourth Party, more than to any other section of the +House, was due that defeat over the Budget which, in June, 1885, +drove Gladstone from power and enthroned Lord Salisbury. In the +new Administration Mr. Balfour was, of course, included, but his +sphere of work was the shady seclusion of the Local Government +Board, and, for anything that the public knew of his doings, he +might have been composing a second treatise on philosophic doubt or +unphilosophic cocksureness. The General Election of 1885 marked a +stage in his career. The pocket-borough which he had represented since +1874 was merged, and he courageously betook himself to Manchester, +where for twenty years he faced the changes and chances of popular +election. + +The great opportunity of his life came in 1887. The Liberal party, +beaten on Home Rule at the Election of 1886, was now following its +leader into new and strange courses. Ireland was seething with +lawlessness, sedition, and outrage. The Liberals, in their new-found +zeal for Home Rule, thought it necessary to condone or extenuate +all Irish crime; and the Irish party in the House of Commons was +trying to make Parliamentary government impossible. + +At this juncture Mr, Balfour became Chief Secretary; and his appointment +was the signal for a volume of criticism, which the events of the +next four years proved to be ludicrously inapposite. He, was likened +to a young lady--"Miss Balfour," "Clara," and "Lucy"; he was called +"a palsied, masher" and "a perfumed popinjay"; he was accused of +being a recluse, a philosopher, and a pedant; he was pronounced +incapable of holding his own in debate, and even more obviously +unfit for the rough-and-tumble of Irish administration. + +The Irish, party, accustomed to triumph over Chief Secretaries, +rejoicingly welcomed a new victim in Mr. Balfour. They found, for +the first time, a master. Never was such a tragic disillusionment. +He armed himself with anew Crimes Act, which had the special merit +of not expiring at a fixed period, but of enduring till it should +be repealed, and he soon taught sedition-mongers, Irish and English, +that he did not bear this sword in vain. Though murderous threats +were rife, he showed an absolute disregard for personal danger, and +ruled Ireland with a strong and dexterous hand. His administration +was marred by want of human sympathy, and by some failure to +discriminate between crime and disorder. The fate of John Mandeville +is a black blot on the record of Irish government; and it did not +stand alone. + +Lord Morley, who had better reasons than most people to dread Mr. +Balfour's prowess, thus described it: + +"He made no experiments in judicious mixture, hard blows and soft +speech, but held steadily to force and tear.... In the dialectic of +senate and platform he displayed a strength of wrist, a rapidity, +an instant readiness for combat, that took his foes by surprise, and +roused in his friends a delight hardly surpassed in the politics +of our day." + +It is not my business to attack or defend. I only record the fact +that Mr. Balfour's work in Ireland established his position as +the most important member of the Conservative party. In 1891 he +resigned the Chief Secretaryship, and became Leader of the House; +was an eminently successful Leader of Opposition between 1892 and +1895; and, as I said before, was the obvious and unquestioned heir +to the Premiership which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1902. + +As Prime Minister Mr. Balfour had no opportunity for exercising +his peculiar gift of practical administration, and only too much +opportunity for dialectical ingenuity. His faults as a debater +had always been that he loved to "score," even though the score +might be obtained by a sacrifice of candour, and that he seemed +often to argue merely for arguing's sake. It was said of the great +Lord Holland that he always put his opponent's case better than the +opponent put it for himself. No one ever said this of Mr. Balfour; +and his tendency to sophistication led Mr. Humphrey Paul to predict +that his name "would always be had in honour wherever hairs were +split." His manner and address (except when he was debating) were +always courteous and conciliatory; those who were brought into +close contact with him liked him, and those who worked under him +loved him. Socially, he was by no means as expansive as the leader +of a party should be. He was surrounded by an adoring clique, and +reminded one of the dignitaries satirized by Sydney Smith: "They +live in high places with high people, or with little people who +depend upon them. They walk delicately, like Agag. They hear only +one sort of conversation, and avoid bold, reckless men, as a lady +veils herself from rough breezes." + +But, unfortunately, a Prime Minister, though he may "avoid" reckless +men, cannot always escape them, and may sometimes be forced to +count them among his colleagues. Lord Rosebery's Administration was +sterilized partly by his own unfamiliarity with Liberal sentiment, +and partly by the frowardness of his colleagues. Mr. Balfour knew +all about Conservative sentiment, so far as it is concerned with +order, property, and religion; but he did not realize the economic +heresy which always lurks in the secret heart of Toryism; and it +was his misfortune to have as his most important colleague a "bold, +reckless man" who realized that heresy, and was resolved to work +it for his own ends. From the day when Mr. Chamberlain launched +his scheme, or dream, of Tariff Reform, Mr. Balfour's authority +steadily declined. Endless ingenuity in dialectic, nimble exchanges +of posture, candid disquisition for the benefit of the well-informed, +impressive phrase-making for the bewilderment of the ignorant--these +and a dozen other arts were tried in vain. People began to laugh +at the Tory leader, and likened him to Issachar crouching down +between two burdens, or to that moralist who said that he always +sought "the narrow path which lies between right and wrong." His +colleagues fell away from him, and he was unduly ruffled by their +secession. "It is time," exclaimed the Liberal leader, "to have +done with this fooling"; and though he was blamed by the Balfourites +for his abruptness of speech, the country adopted his opinion. +Gradually it seemed to dawn on Mr. Balfour that his position was +no longer tenable. He slipped out of office as quietly as he had +slipped into it; and the Liberal party entered on its ten years' +reign. + + + + +IX + +_HENRY CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN_ + +"He put his country first, his party next, and himself last." This, +the noblest eulogy which can be pronounced upon a politician, was +strikingly applicable to my old and honoured friend whose name +stands at the head of this page. And yet, when applied to him, +it might require a certain modification, for, in his view, the +interests of his country and the interests of his party were almost +synonymous terms--so profoundly was he convinced that freedom is +the best security for national welfare. When he was entertained at +dinner by the Reform Club on his accession to the Premiership, he +happened to catch my eye while he was speaking, and he interjected +this remark: "I see George Russell there. He is by birth, descent, +and training a Whig; but he is a little more than a Whig." Thus +describing me he described himself. He was a Whig who had marched +with the times from Whiggery to Liberalism; who had never lagged +an inch behind his party, but who did not, as a rule, outstep it. +His place was, so to speak, in the front line of the main body, +and every forward movement found him ready and eager to take his +place in it. His chosen form of patriotism was a quiet adhesion to +the Liberal party, with a resolute and even contemptuous avoidance +of sects and schisms. + +He was born in 1836, of a mercantile family which had long flourished +in Glasgow, and in 1872 he inherited additional wealth, which +transformed his name from Campbell to Campbell-Bannerman--the familiar +"C.-B." of more recent times. Having graduated from Trinity College, +Cambridge, he entered Parliament as Member for the Stirling Burghs +in 1868, and was returned by the same delightful constituency till +his death, generally without a contest. He began official life in +Gladstone's first Administration as Financial Secretary to the War +Office, and returned to the same post after the Liberal victory of +1880. One of the reasons for putting him there was that his tact, good +sense, and lightness in hand enabled him to work harmoniously with +the Duke of Cambridge--a fiery chief who was not fond of Liberals, +and abhorred prigs and pedants. In 1884, when Sir George Trevelyan +was promoted to the Cabinet, Campbell-Bannerman was made Chief +Secretary for Ireland, and in that most difficult office acquitted +himself with notable success. Those were not the days of "the Union +of Hearts," and it was not thought necessary for a Liberal Chief +Secretary to slobber over murderers and outrage-mongers. On the other +hand, the iron system of coercion, which Mr. Balfour administered so +unflinchingly, had not been invented; and the Chief Secretary had +to rely chiefly on his own resources of firmness, shrewdness, and +good-humour. With these Campbell-Bannerman was abundantly endowed, +and his demeanour in the House of Commons was singularly well adapted +to the situation. When the Irish members insulted him, he turned +a deaf ear. When they pelted him with controversial questions, he +replied with brevity. When they lashed themselves into rhetorical +fury, he smiled and "sat tight" till the storm was over. He was +not a good speaker, and he had no special skill in debate; but he +invariably mastered the facts of his case. He neither overstated +nor understated, and he was blessed with a shrewd and sarcastic +humour which befitted his comfortable aspect, and spoke in his +twinkling eyes even when he restrained his tongue. + +The Liberal Government came to an end in June, 1885. The "Home +Rule split" was now nigh at hand, and not even Campbell-Bannerman's +closest friends could have predicted the side which he would take. +On the one hand, there was his congenital dislike of rant and gush, +of mock-heroics and mock-pathetics; there was his strong sense +for firm government, and there was his recent experience of Irish +disaffection. These things might have tended to make him a Unionist, +and he had none of those personal idolatries which carried men +over because Mr. Gladstone, or Lord Spencer, or Mr. Morley had +made the transition. On the other hand, there was his profound +conviction--which is indeed the very root of Whiggery--that each +nation has the right to choose its own rulers, and that no government +is legitimate unless it rests on the consent of the governed. + +This conviction prevailed over all doubts and difficulties, and +before long it became known that Campbell-Bannerman had, in his own +phrase, "found salvation." There were those who were scandalized +when they heard the language of Revivalism thus applied, but it +exactly hit the truth as regards a great many of the converts to +Home Rule. In a very few cases--_e.g._, in Gladstone's own--there +had peen a gradual approximation to the idea of Irish autonomy, +and the crisis of December, 1885, gave the opportunity of avowing +convictions which had long been forming. But in the great majority +of cases the conversion was instantaneous. Men, perplexed by the +chronic darkness of the Irish situation, suddenly saw, or thought +they saw, a light from heaven, and were converted as suddenly as +St. Paul himself. I remember asking the late Lord Ripon the reason +which had governed his decision. He answered: "I always have been +for the most advanced thing in the Liberal programme, and Home Rule +is the most advanced thing just now, so I'm for it." I should not +wonder if a similar sentiment had some influence in the decision, +arrived at by Campbell-Bannerman, who, when Gladstone formed his +Home Rule Cabinet in 1886, entered it as Secretary of State for +War. He went out with his chief in the following August, and in +the incessant clamour for and against Home Rule which occupied +the next six years he took a very moderate part. + +When Gladstone formed his last Administration, Campbell-Bannerman +returned to the War Office, and it was on a hostile vote concerning +his Department that the Government was defeated in June, 1895. +He resented this defeat more keenly than I should have expected +from the habitual composure of his character; but it was no doubt +the more provoking because in the previous spring he had wished +to succeed Lord Peel as Speaker. He told me that the Speakership +was the one post in public life which he should have most enjoyed, +and which would best have suited his capacities. But his colleagues +declared that he could not be spared from the Cabinet, and, true to +his fine habit of self-effacement, he ceased to press his claim. + +In October, 1896, Lord Rosebery, who had been Premier from 1894 +to 1895, astonished his party by resigning the Liberal leadership. +Who was to succeed him? Some cried one thing and some another. Some +were for Harcourt, some for Morley, some for a leader in the House +of Lords. Presently these disputations died down; what logicians +call "the process of exhaustion" settled the question, and +Campbell-Bannerman--the least self-seeking man in public life--found +himself the accepted leader of the Liberal party. The leadership +was an uncomfortable inheritance. There was a certain section of +the Liberal party which was anxious that Lord Rosebery should return +on his own terms. There were others who wished for Lord Spencer, +and even in those early days there were some who already saw the +makings of a leader in Mr. Asquith. And, apart from these sectional +preferences, there was a crisis at hand, "sharper than any two-edged +sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, +and of the joints and marrow." + +The Eastern Question of 1876 had rent the Liberal party once; the +Irish Question of 1886 had rent it again; and now for the third +time it was rent by the South African Question. Holding that the +South African War was a wanton crime against freedom and humanity, +I wished that my leader could declare himself unequivocally against +it, but he felt bound to consider the interests of the Liberal party +as a whole rather than those of any particular section which he +might personally favour. As the campaign advanced, and the motives +with which it had been engineered became more evident, his lead +became clearer and more decisive. What we read about Concentration +Camps and burnt villages and Chinese labour provoked his emphatic +protest against "methods of barbarism," and those Liberals who +enjoyed the war and called themselves "Imperialists" openly revolted +against his leadership. He bore all attacks and slights and +impertinences with a tranquillity which nothing could disturb, but, +though he said very little, he saw very clearly. He knew exactly +the source and centre of the intrigues against his leadership, +and he knew also that those intrigues were directed to the end of +making Lord Rosebery again Prime Minister. The controversy about +Tariff Reform distracted general attention from these domestic +cabals, but they were in full operation when Mr. Balfour suddenly +resigned, and King Edward sent for Campbell-Bannerman. Then came +a critical moment. + +If Mr. Balfour had dissolved, the Liberal leader would have come +back at the head of a great majority, and could have formed his +Administration as he chose; but, by resigning, Mr. Balfour compelled +his successor to form his Administration out of existing materials. +So the cabals took a new form. The Liberal Imperialists were eager +to have their share in the triumph, and had not the slightest scruple +about serving under a leader whom, when he was unpopular, they had +forsaken and traduced. Lord Rosebery put himself out of court by a +speech which even Campbell-Bannerman could not regard as friendly; +but Mr. Asquith, Mr. Haldane, and Sir Edward Grey were eager for +employment. The new Premier Was the most generous-hearted of men, +only too ready to forgive and forget. His motto was _Alors comme +alors_, and he dismissed from consideration all memories of past +intrigues. But, when some of the intriguers calmly told him that +they would not join his Government unless he consented to go to +the House of Lords and leave them to work their will in the House +of Commons, he acted with a prompt decision which completely turned +the tables. + +The General Election of January, 1906, gave him an overwhelming +majority; but in one sense it came too late. His health was a good +deal impaired, and he was suffering from domestic anxieties which +doubled the burden of office. Lady Campbell-Bannerman died, after +a long illness, in August, 1906, but he struggled on bravely till +his own health rather suddenly collapsed in November, 1907. He +resigned office on the 6th of April, 1908, and died on the 22nd. + +His brief Premiership had not been signalized by any legislative +triumphs. He was unfortunate in some of his colleagues, and the first +freshness of 1906 had been wasted on a quite worthless Education +Bill. But during his term of office he had two signal opportunities +of showing the faith that was in him. One was the occasion when, in +defiance of all reactionary forces, he exclaimed, "La Duma est morte! +Vive la Duma!" The other was the day when he gave self-government to +South Africa, and won the tribute thus nobly rendered by General +Smuts: "The Boer War was supplemented, and compensated for, by one +of the wisest political settlements ever made in the history of +the British Empire, and in reckoning up the list of Empire-builders +I hope the name of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who brought into +being a united South Africa, will never be forgotten." + + + + +II + +IN HONOUR OF FRIENDSHIP + + + + +I + +_GLADSTONE--AFTER TWENTY YEARS_ + +The 19th of May, 1898, was Ascension Day; and, just as the earliest +Eucharists were going up to God, William Ewart Gladstone passed out +of mortal suffering into the peace which passeth understanding. For +people who, like myself, were reared in the Gladstonian tradition, +it is a shock to be told by those who are in immediate contact with +young men that for the rising generation he is only, or scarcely, +a name. For my own part, I say advisedly that he was the finest +specimen of God's handiwork that I have ever seen; and by this +I mean that he combined strength of body, strength of intellect, +and spiritual attainments, in a harmony which I have never known +equalled. To him it was said when he lay dying, "You have so lived +and wrought that you have kept the soul alive in England." Of him +it was said a few weeks later, "On the day that Gladstone died +the world lost its greatest citizen." Mr. Balfour called him "the +greatest member of the greatest deliberative assembly that the +world has ever seen"; and Lord Salisbury said, "He will be long +remembered as a great example, to which history hardly furnishes +a parallel of a great Christian statesman." + +I have written so often and so copiously of Mr. Gladstone, who was +both my religious and my political leader, that I might have found +it difficult to discover any fresh aspects of his character and work; +but the Editor[*] has kindly relieved me of that difficulty. He has +pointed out certain topics which strikingly connect Gladstone's +personality with the events and emotions of the present hour. I +will take them as indicated, point by point. + +[Footnote *: Of the _Red Triangle_.] + + +1. THE LOVE OF LIBERTY. + +I have never doubted that the master-passion of Gladstone's nature +was his religiousness--his intensely-realized relation with God, +with the Saviour, and with "the powers of the world to come." This +was inborn. His love of liberty was acquired. There was nothing +in his birth or education or early circumstances to incline him +in this direction. He was trained to "regard liberty with jealousy +and fear, as something which could not wholly be dispensed with, +but which was continually to be watched for fear of excesses." +Gradually--very gradually--he came to regard it as the greatest +of temporal blessings, and this new view affected every department +of his public life. In financial matters it led him to adopt the +doctrine of Free Exchanges. In politics, it induced him to extend +the suffrage, first to the artisan and then to the labourer. In +foreign affairs, it made him an unrelenting foe of the Turkish +tyranny. In Ireland, it converted him to Home Rule. In religion, +it brought him nearer and nearer to the ideal of the Free Church +in the Free State. + + +2. BELGIUM AND THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. + +Gladstone hated war. He held, as most people hold, that there are +causes, such as Life and Home and Freedom, for which the gentlest +and most humane of men must be prepared to draw the sword. But he +was profoundly anxious that it should never be drawn except under +the absolute compulsion of national duty, and during the Crimean +War he made this memorable declaration: + +"If, when you have attained the objects of the war, you continue +it for the sake of mere military glory, I say you tempt the justice +of Him in whose hands the fates of armies are as absolutely lodged +as the fate of the infant slumbering in its cradle." + +This being his general view of war, it was inevitable that he should +regard with horror the prospect of intervention in the Franco-German +War, which broke out with startling suddenness, when he was Prime +Minister, in the summer of 1870. He strained every nerve to keep +England out of the struggle, and was profoundly thankful that Providence +enabled him to do so. Yet all through that terrible crisis he saw +quite clearly that either of the belligerent Powers might take +a step which would oblige England to intervene, and he made a +simultaneous agreement with Prussia and France that, if either +violated the neutrality of Belgium, England would co-operate with +the other to defend the little State. Should Belgium, he said, "go +plump down the maw of another country to satisfy dynastic greed," +such a tragedy would "come near to an extinction of public right +in Europe, and I do not think we could look on while the sacrifice +of freedom and independence was in course of consummation." + + +3. WAR-FINANCE AND ECONOMY. + +A colleague once said about Gladstone, "The only two things which +really interest him are Religion and Finance." The saying is much +too unguarded, but it conveys a certain truth. My own opinion is +that Finance was the field of intellectual effort in which his +powers were most conspicuously displayed; and it was always remarked +that, when he came to deal with the most prosaic details of national +income and expenditure, his eloquence rose to an unusual height and +power. At the same time, he was a most vigilant guardian of the +public purse, and he was incessantly on the alert to prevent the +national wealth, which his finance had done so much to increase, +from being squandered on unnecessary and unprofitable objects. This +jealousy of foolish expenditure combined with his love of peace +to make him very chary of spending money on national defences. +When he was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord Palmerston, his +eagerness in this regard caused his chief to write to the Queen +that "it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk +of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." At the end of his career, his +final retirement was precipitated by his reluctance to sanction +a greatly increased expenditure on the Navy, which the Admiralty +considered necessary. From first to last he sheltered himself under +a dogma of his financial master--Sir Robert Peel--to the effect +that it is possible for a nation, as for an individual, so to +over-insure its property as to sacrifice its income. "My name," +he said at the end, "stands in Europe as a symbol of the policy +of peace, moderation, and non-aggression. What would be said of +my active participation in a policy that will be taken as plunging +England into the whirlpool of Militarism?" + + +4. ARBITRATION AND THE "ALABAMA." + +Gladstone's hatred of war, and his resolve to avoid it at all hazards +unless national duty required it, determined his much criticized +action in regard to the _Alabama_. That famous and ill-omened vessel +was a privateer, built in an English dockyard and manned by an +English crew, which during the American Civil War got out to sea, +captured seventy Northern vessels, and did a vast deal of damage +to the Navy and commerce of the Union. The Government of the United +States had a just quarrel with England in this matter, and the +controversy--not very skilfully handled on either side--dragged on +till the two nations seemed to be on the edge of war. Then Gladstone +agreed to submit the case to arbitration, and the arbitration resulted +in a judgment hostile to England. From that time--1872--Gladstone's +popularity rapidly declined, till it revived, after an interval of +Lord Beaconsfield's rule, at the General Election of 1880. In the +first Session of that Parliament, he vindicated the pacific policy +which had been so severely criticized in the following words: + +"The dispositions which led us to become parties to the arbitration +of the _Alabama_ case are still with us the same as ever; we are not +discouraged, we are not damped in the exercise of these feelings +by the fact that we were amerced, and severely amerced, by the +sentence of the international tribunal; and, although we may think +the sentence was harsh in its extent and unjust in its basis, we +regard the fine imposed on this country as dust in the balance +compared with the moral value of the example set when these two +great nations of England and America, who are among the most fiery +and the most jealous in the world with regard to anything that +touches national honour, went in peace and concord before a judicial +tribunal to dispose of these painful differences, rather than resort +to the arbitrament of the sword." + + +5. NATIONALITY--THE BALKANS AND IRELAND. + +Gladstone was an intense believer in the principle of nationality, and +he had a special sympathy with the struggles of small and materially +feeble States. "Let us recognize," he said, "and recognize with +frankness, the equality of the weak with the strong, the principles +of brotherhood among nations, and of their sacred independence. +When we are asking for the maintenance of the rights which belong +to our fellow-subjects, resident abroad, let us do as we would be +done by, and let us pay that respect to a feeble State, and to +the infancy of free institutions, which we would desire and should +exact from others, towards their maturity and their strength." + +He was passionately Phil-Hellene. Greece, he said in 1897, is not +a State "equipped with powerful fleets, large armies, and boundless +treasure supplied by uncounted millions. It is a petty Power, hardly +counting in the list of European States. But it is a Power representing +the race that fought the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis, and +hurled back the hordes of Asia from European shores." + +Of the Christian populations in Eastern Europe which had the misfortune +to live under "the black hoof of the Turkish invader," he was the +chivalrous and indefatigable champion, from the days of the Bulgarian +atrocities in 1875 to the Armenian massacres of twenty years later. +"If only," he exclaimed, "the spirit of little Montenegro had animated +the body of big Bulgaria," very different would have been the fate +of Freedom and Humanity in those distracted regions. The fact that +Ireland is so distinctly a nation--not a mere province of Great +Britain--and the fact that she is economically poor, reinforced +that effort to give her self-government which had originated in +his late-acquired love of political freedom. + + +6. THE IDEA OF PUBLIC RIGHT. + +Of the "Concert of Europe" as it actually lived and worked (however +plausible it might sound in theory) Gladstone had the poorest opinion, +and, indeed, he declared that it was only another and a finer name for +"the mutual distrust and hatred of the Powers." It had conspicuously +failed to avert, or stop, or punish the Armenian massacres, and +it had left Greece unaided in her struggle against Turkey. Lord +Morley has finely said of him that "he was for an iron fidelity +to public engagements and a stern regard for public law, which is +the legitimate defence for small communities against the great and +powerful"; and yet again: "He had a vision, high in the heavens, of +the flash of an uplifted sword and the gleaming arm of the Avenging +Angel." + +I have now reached the limits of the task assigned me by the Editor, +and my concluding word must be more personal. + +I do not attempt to anticipate history. We cannot tell how much +of those seventy years of strenuous labour will live, or how far +Gladstone will prove to have read aright the signs of the times, +the tendencies of human thought, and the political forces of the +world. But we, who were his followers and disciples, know perfectly +well what we owe to him. If ever we should be tempted to despond +about the possibilities of human nature and human life, we shall +think of him and take courage. If ever our religious faith should +be perplexed by the + + "Blank misgivings of a creature, + Moving about in worlds not realized," + +the memory of his strong confidence will reassure us. And if ever +we are told by the flippancy of scepticism that "Religion is a +disease," then we can point to him who, down to the very verge +of ninety years, displayed a fulness of vigorous and manly life +beyond all that we had ever known. + + + + +II + +_HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND_[*] + +[Footnote *: Written in 1907.] + +The Hollands spring from Mobberley, in Cheshire, and more recently +from the town of Knutsford, familiar to all lovers of English fiction +as "Cranford." They have made their mark in several fields of +intellectual effort. Lord Knutsford, Secretary of State for the +Colonies from 1887 to 1892, was a son of Sir Henry Holland, M.D. +(1788-1873), who doctored half the celebrities of Europe; and one of +Sir Henry's first cousins was the incomparable Mrs. Gaskell. Another +first-cousin was George Henry Holland (1818-1891), of Dumbleton Hall, +Evesham, who married in 1844 the Hon. Charlotte Dorothy Gifford, +daughter of the first Lord Gifford. + +George Holland was an enthusiastic fox-hunter, and frequently changed +his abode for the better enjoyment of his favourite sport. In 1847 +he was living at a place called Underdown, near Ledbury; and there, +on the 27th of January in that year, his eldest son was born. + +The first Lord Gifford (1779-1826), who was successively Lord Chief +Justice and Master of the Rolls, had owed much in early life to the +goodwill of Lord Eldon, and, in honour of his patron, he named one of +his sons' Scott. This Scott Gifford was Mrs. George Holland's brother, +and his name was bestowed on her eldest son, who was christened +"Henry Scott," but has always been known by his second name. This +link with George III.'s Tory Chancellor is pleasingly appropriate. + +Let it be remarked in passing that the hyphen so often introduced +into the name is solely a creation of the newspapers, which, always +rejoicing in double-barrelled surnames, gratify a natural impulse +by writing about "Canon Scott-Holland." + +I regret that the most exhaustive research has failed to discover +any recorded traits of "Scotty" Holland in the nursery, but his +career in the schoolroom is less obscure. His governess was a Swiss +lady, who pronounced her young pupil "the most delightful of boys; +not clever or studious, but full of fun and charm." This governess +must have been a remarkable woman, for she is, I believe, the only +human being who ever pronounced Scott Holland "not clever." It +is something to be the sole upholder of an opinion, even a wrong +one, against a unanimous world. By this time George Holland had +established himself at Wellesbourne Hall, near Warwick, and there +his son Scott was brought up in the usual habits of a country home +where hunting and shooting are predominant interests. From the +Swiss lady's control he passed to a private school at Allesley, +near Coventry, and in January, 1860, he went to Eton. There he +boarded at the house of Mrs. Gulliver,[*] and was a pupil of William +Johnson (afterwards Cory), a brilliant and eccentric scholar, whose +power of eliciting and stimulating a boy's intellect has never +been surpassed. + +[Footnote *: Of Mrs. Gulliver and her sister, H. S. H. writes: +"They allowed football in top passage twice a week, which still +seems to be the zenith of all joy."] + +From this point onwards, Scott Holland's history--the formation of +his character, the development of his intellect, the place which +he attained in the regard of his friends--can be easily and exactly +traced; for the impression which he made upon his contemporaries has +not been effaced, or even dimmed, by the lapse of seven-and-forty +years. + +"My recollection of him at Eton," writes one of his friends, "is +that of a boy most popular and high-spirited, strong, and full +of life; but not eminent at games." Another writes: "He was very +popular with a certain set, but not exactly eminent." He was not +a member of "Pop," the famous Debating Society of Eton, but his +genius found its outlet in other spheres. "He once astonished us +all by an excellent performance in some private theatricals in +his house." For the rest, he rowed, steered the _Victory_ twice, +played cricket for his House, and fives and football, and was a +first-rate swimmer. + +With regard to more important matters, it must suffice to say that +then, as always, his moral standard was the highest, and that no evil +thing dared manifest itself in his presence. He had been trained, +by an admirable mother, in the best traditions of the Tractarian +school, and he was worthy of his training. Among his intimate friends +were Dalmeny, afterwards Lord Rosebery; Henry Northcote, now Lord +Northcote; Freddy Wood, afterwards Meynell; Alberic Bertie; and +Francis Pelham, afterwards Lord Chichester. He left Eton in July, +1864, and his tutor, in a letter to a friend, thus commented on +his departure: "There was nothing to comfort me in parting with +Holland; and he was the picture of tenderness. He and others stayed +a good while, talking in the ordinary easy way. M. L. came, and +his shyness did not prevent my saying what I wished to say to him. +But to Holland I could say nothing; and now that I am writing about +it I cannot bear to think that he is lost." + +On leaving Eton, Holland went abroad to learn French, with an ultimate +view to making his career in diplomacy. Truly the Canon of St. +Paul's is an "inheritor of unfulfilled renown." What an Ambassador +he would have made! There is something that warms the heart in the +thought of His Excellency Sir Henry Scott Holland, G.C.B., writing +despatches to Sir Edward Grey in the style of _The Commonwealth_, +and negotiating with the Czar or the Sultan on the lines of the +Christian Social Union. + +Returning from his French pilgrimage, he wept to a private tutor +in Northamptonshire, who reported that "Holland was quite unique +in charm and goodness, but would never be a scholar." In January, +1866, this charming but unscholarly youth went up to Balliol, and +a new and momentous chapter in his life began. + +What was he like at this period of his life? A graphic letter just +received enables me to answer this question. "When I first met +him, I looked on him with the deepest interest, and realized the +charm that everyone felt. He had just gone up to Oxford, and was +intensely keen on Ruskin and Browning, and devoted to music. He +would listen with rapt attention when we played Chopin and Schumann +to him. I used to meet him at dinner-parties when I first came out, +by which time he was very enthusiastic on the Catholic side, and +very fond of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, and was also deeply moved by +social questions, East End poor, etc.; always unconventional, and +always passionately interested in whatever he talked of. Burne-Jones +once told me: 'It was perfectly delicious to see Holland come into a +room, laughing before he had even said a word, and always bubbling +over with life and joy.' Canon Mason said to me many years ago that +he had hoped I kept every scrap Scotty ever wrote to me, as he +was quite sure he was the most remarkable man of his generation. +But there was a grave background to all this merriment. I remember +that, as we were coming out of a London party, and looked on the +hungry faces in the crowd outside the door, I rather foolishly +said: 'One couldn't bear to look at them unless one felt that there +was another world for them.' He replied: 'Are we to have both, +then?' I know how his tone and the look in his face haunted me more +than I can say." + +A contemporary at Oxford writes, with reference to the same period: +"When we went up, Liddon was preaching his Bamptons, and we went +to them together, and were much moved by them. There were three +of us who always met for Friday teas in one another's rooms, and +during Lent we used to go to the Special Sermons at St. Mary's. +We always went to Liddon's sermons, and sometimes to his Sunday +evening lectures in the Hall of Queen's College. We used to go +to the Choral Eucharist in Merton Chapel, and, later, to the iron +church at Cowley, and to St. Barnabas, and enjoyed shouting the +Gregorians." + +On the intellectual side, we are told that Holland's love of literature +was already marked. "I can remember reading Wordsworth with him, +and Carlyle, and Clough; and, after Sunday breakfasts, Boswell's +_Life of Johnson_." Then, as always, he found a great part of his +pleasure in music. + +No record, however brief, of an undergraduate life can afford to +disregard athletics; so let it be here recorded that Holland played +racquets and fives, and skated, and "jumped high," and steered +the _Torpid_, and three times rowed in his College Eight. He had +innumerable friends, among whom three should be specially recalled: +Stephen Fremantle and R. L. Nettleship, both of Balliol, and W. +H. Ady, of Exeter. In short, he lived the life of the model +undergraduate, tasting all the joys of Oxford, and finding time +to spare for his prescribed studies. His first encounter with the +examiners, in "Classical Moderations," was only partially successful. +"He did not appreciate the niceties of scholarship, and could not +write verses or do Greek or Latin prose at all well;" and he was +accordingly placed in the Third Class. But as soon as the tyranny +of Virgil and Homer and Sophocles was overpast, he betook himself +to more congenial studies. Of the two tutors who then made Balliol +famous, he owed nothing to Jowett and everything to T. H. Green. +That truly great man "simply fell in love" with his brilliant pupil, +and gave him of his best. + +"Philosophy's the chap for me," said an eminent man on a momentous +occasion. "If a parent asks a question in the classical, commercial, +or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, +are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.' +'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able +to explain it.' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was +a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one." + +That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructed +by Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, +and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searching +test to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom at +Balliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I remember +that Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality. +It was known that he had a good chance of a 'First in Greats,' +if only his translations from Greek and Latin books did not pull +him down. He admired the ancient authors, especially Plato, and +his quick grasp of the meaning of what he read, good memory, and +very remarkable powers of expression, all helped him much. He was +good at History and he had a great turn for Philosophy" (_cf_. +Mr. Squeers, _supra_), "Plato, Hegel; etc., and he understood, as +few could, Green's expositions, and counter-attack on John Stuart +Mill and the Positivist School, which was the dominant party at +that time." + +In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examination +at Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from his +paper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his _viva voce_ +was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of the examiners, +T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said he had never heard +anything like it." In fine, a new and vivid light had appeared +in the intellectual sky--a new planet had swum into the ken of +Oxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally that Holland, having +obtained his brilliant First, was immediately elected to a Studentship +at Christ Church, which, of course, is the same as a Fellowship +anywhere else. He went into residence at his new home in January, +1871, and remained there for thirteen years, a "don," indeed, by +office, but so undonnish in character, ways, and words, that he +became the subject of a eulogistic riddle: "When is a don not a +don? When he is Scott Holland." + +Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before the +onrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerations +which determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not sought +to enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Orders +he would have the best chance of using the powers, of which by +this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of God and +the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some +measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject +of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's +society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, +must have tended in the same direction. + +[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11th +of March, 1870.] + +Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwards +Bishop of Lincoln, and then Principal of Cuddesdon, in whom the +most persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifully +displayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which all +that was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistibly +attracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, +Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owed +so much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglement +Cuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, +perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend; +and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how enticing, +the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving it all seemed, +as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk in College; +so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of our Oxford +interests. The little rooms, like college rooms just shrinking +into cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old church with +its quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of the evening +chapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with the sound of +Compline Psalms still ringing in our hearts--ah! happy, happy day! +It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering in our souls +took shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon when the time +of preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing passage +have naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself have +been a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as I +know, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted of +a visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task of +studying theology under Dr. Westcott. + +In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, in +Cuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination; +and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was during +his diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. We +often came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religious +meetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons which +he preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutely +original; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the style +was entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movement +and colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, +on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the +28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory.[*] + +[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty with +his aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by +'alf."] + +Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He +lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share +in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded +for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among +the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong +effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's +Proctorship." + +This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his attitude +towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed +outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian +Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit +of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his +sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., +when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more +than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the +Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) +"But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean +of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and +see me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social life +in the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbot +and Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about among +the people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thought +that this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House." + +All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and +independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for +Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was +widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr. +Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, +everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with +a great opportunity. + +From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public +eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent +career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; +a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished +teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor +in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid +and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace +some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of +feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side +under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends +rejoice--and others lament--that he is much less of a partisan +than he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides of +a question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, +if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself so +passionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, he +has stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, +and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworked +his own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, +and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in his +own passionate love of God and man. + +Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate +him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, +contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure +and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One +whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little +changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate--the +same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and +insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives +of all sorts, delight in young people--these never fail. He never +seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depress +his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of some +use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well." + +This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not +presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and +example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, +Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful people +in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, he +is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he +inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain +others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed. +He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its +versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave +to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and +nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, +has so many and such devoted friends in every class and station; +and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious +and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces +which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their +lives. + + * * * * * + +By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*] +or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light +which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." + +[Footnote *: Written in 1918.] + +Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably associated +in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light--its revealing +power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivable +rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. He +saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. He +diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by +his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful +under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear +witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere +force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began +in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a +break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, +and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University. +In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation +for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness. +He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside +it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a +delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process +of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate +friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed +to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught +his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and +spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks +to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 +came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to +scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed +by a few, got a First Class of unusual brilliancy in the searching +school of _Literoe Humaniores_. Green had triumphed; he had made a +philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed a +born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer. + +Holland had what Tertullian calls the _anima naturaliter Christiana_, +and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement. +When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic +career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was +ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly +made his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the +parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry +stand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's +gifts--a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, +vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious +voice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke +with an energy of passionate conviction which drove every word +straight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for +God and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted +many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were +accustomed--then as later--to say that here was a Christian who knew +enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth +hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, +Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, +his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange +tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung +adjective to adjective; mingled passages of Ruskinesque description +with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with +his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked +to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened +to his preaching as to "a very lovely song." + +Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater +as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in +this--that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper +than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was +writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency +in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he +did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a manuscript +and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement. + +I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H. +Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as +much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great +deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of +God"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, +and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which +their lot was cast; passionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; +and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, +essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; +they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they +both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of +Europe. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great +controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with +the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son. + +When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, +the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is +not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt +that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet +of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre +of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel? +Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest +of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which +sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the +precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic +life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood and +social service--in short, the programme of the Christian Social +Union--win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questions +were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whom +they were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-seven +years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, +several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute +agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in +London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius +and a saint. + +In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with +the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or +intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate +a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest +plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the +world." His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak and +act--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, +as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This +habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree +for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain +degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of +those elect and lovely souls + + "Who, through the world's long day of strife, + Still chant their morning song." + + + + +III + +_LORD HALIFAX_ + +There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood +and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have +for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction +which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of +Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter +of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill. +Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in +Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest +offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and +Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax +in 1866. + +Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was +Charles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in +1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, +of Hoar Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together +because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character +made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with +her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life. +The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage +in 1885) writes thus about his early days: + +"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time +when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to +her every day when we were away from one another; and for many +years after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, I +don't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, +indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. She +is never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19th +of July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood out +amongst all the days of the year." + +This extract illustrates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual love +and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood +were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would +naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were +judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright +home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship of +a favourite sister, the transition to a private school is always +depressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles +Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What I chiefly remember about +the place is being punished all one day, with several canings, +because I either could not or would not learn the Fifth Declension +of the Greek Nouns." + +So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for one +year, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, Charles +Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the +Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, +afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar +and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning +friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private +pupils. In his book of verses--_Ionica_--he made graceful play +with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasy +of swimming--"Oh, how I wish I could fly!" + + "Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech, + Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye, + Tossing those river-pearled locks about, + Throwing those delicate limbs straight out, + Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach, + Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!' + + "Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply, + Answer disdainfully, flouting my words: + How should the listener at simple sixteen + Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean, + Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'-- + Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds? + + * * * * * + + "Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet; + Walk through some passionless years by my side, + Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk, + Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk. + When the sap stays, and the blossom is set, + Others will take the fruit; I shall have died." + +Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite +pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy +fulfilled. + +The principal charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; +so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by +contemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, at +Eton--Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George +Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2] +With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed," and with Stopford, now +Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuits +I may quote his own words: + +[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.] + +[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.] + +"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take long +walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to +the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two +little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the +part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular +War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in +an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a +boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. In +Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph +Stanley in a French piece called _Femme a Vendre_. In 1857, I and +George Cadogan,[4] and Willy Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went +with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the +following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in +'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, +and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's Prize for French." + +[Footnote 3: Edward VII.] [Footnote 4: Afterwards Lord Cadogan.] +[Footnote 5: The late Lord Derby.] + +A younger contemporary adds this pretty testimony: + +"As you can imagine, he was very popular both among the boys and +the masters. One little instance remains with me. There was a custom +of a boy, when leaving, receiving what one called 'Leaving Books,' +from boys remaining in the school; these books were provided by +the parents, and were bound in calf, etc. The present Lord Eldon +went to Eton with me, and when Charles Wood left, in July, 1858, +he wanted to give him a book; but knowing nothing of the custom +of parents providing books, he went out and bought a half-crown +copy of _The Pilgrim's Progress_, and sent it to C. Wood's room. +Two shillings and sixpence was a good deal to a Lower Boy at the end +of the half; and it was, I should think, an almost unique testimony +from a small boy to one at the top of the house." + +In October, 1858, Charles Wood went up to Christ Church. There +many of his earlier friendships were renewed and some fresh ones +added: Mr. Henry Chaplin coming up from Harrow; Mr. H. L. Thompson, +afterwards Vicar of St. Mary-the-Virgin, Oxford, from Westminster; +and Mr. Henry Villiers, afterwards Vicar of St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, +from a private tutor's. Charles Wood took his full share in the +social life of the place, belonging both to "Loder's" and to +"Bullingdon"--institutions of high repute in the Oxford world; +and being then, as now, an admirable horseman, he found his chief +joy in hunting. In his vacations he visited France and Italy, and +made some tours nearer home with undergraduate friends. In 1861 +he took his degree, and subsequently travelled Eastward as far as +Suez, and spent a winter in Rome. In 1862 he was appointed Groom of +the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and in this capacity attended +his royal master's wedding at St. George's, Windsor, on the 10th +of March, 1863, and spent two summers with him at Abergeldie. At +the same time he became Private Secretary to his mother's cousin, +Sir George Grey, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and +retained that post until the fall of Lord Russell's Administration +in 1866. + +"There was," writes Lord Halifax, "a question of my standing for +some Yorkshire constituency; but with my convictions it was not +easy to come out on the Liberal side, and the project dropped. +I never can remember the time when I did not feel the greatest +devotion to King Charles I. and Archbishop Laud. I can recall now +the services for the Restoration at Eton, when everyone used to +wear an oak-leaf in his button-hole, and throw it down on the floor +as the clock struck twelve." + +This may be a suitable moment for a word about Lord Halifax's +"convictions" in the sphere of religion. His parents were, like +all the Whigs, sound and sturdy Protestants. They used to take +their children to Church at Whitehall Chapel, probably the least +ecclesiastical-looking place of worship in London; and the observances +of the Parish Church at Hickleton--their country home near +Doncaster--were not calculated to inspire a delight in the beauty +of holiness. However, when quite a boy, Charles Wood, who had been +confirmed at Eton by Bishop Wilberforce, found his way to St. Barnabas, +Pimlico, then newly opened, and fell much under the influence of +Mr. Bennett at St. Paul's, Knightsbridge, and Mr. Richards, at All +Saints', Margaret Street. At Oxford he became acquainted with Dr. +Pusey and the young and inspiring Liddon, and frequented the services +at Merton College Chapel, where Liddon used often to officiate. By +1863 his religious opinions must have been definitely shaped; for +in that year his old tutor, William Johnson, when paying a visit +to Hickleton, writes as follows: + +"He told me of Mr. Liddon, the saintly and learned preacher; of +the devout worshippers at All Saints', whose black nails show they +are artisans; of the society formed to pray daily for the restoration +of Christian unity." + +And again: + +"His father and mother seem to gather virtue and sweetness from +looking at him and talking to him, though they fight hard against +his unpractical and exploded Church views, and think his zeal +misdirected.... And all the while his mother's face gets brighter +and kinder because she is looking at him. Happy are the parents +who, when they have reached that time of life in which the world is +getting too strong and virtue is a thing of routine, are quickened +by the bold, restless zeal of their sons and daughters, and so +renew their youth." + +In 1866 he was induced by his friend Mr. Lane-Fox, afterwards Chancellor +of the Primrose League, to join the English Church Union. + +"At that time," he writes, "I was much concerned with the affairs +of the House of Charity in Soho and the Newport Market Refuge. +1866 was the cholera year, and I recollect coming straight back +from Lorne's[*] coming of age to London, where I saw Dr. Pusey, +with the result that I set to work to help Miss Sellon with her +temporary hospital in Commercial Street, Whitechapel." + +[Footnote *: Afterwards Duke of Argyll.] + +In this connexion it is proper to recall the devoted services which +he rendered to the House of Mercy at Horbury, near Wakefield; and +those who know what religious prejudice was in rural districts +forty years ago will realize the value of the support accorded to +an institution struggling against calumny and misrepresentation +by the most popular and promising young man in the West Riding. +There lies before me as I write a letter written by an Evangelical +mother--Lady Charles Russell--to her son, then just ordained to +a curacy at Doncaster. + +"I want to hear more about Lord and Lady Halifax. I knew them pretty +well as Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood, but I have lived in retirement +since before he was raised to the peerage. His eldest son was not +only very good-looking, but inclined to be very good, as I dare +say Dr. Vaughan may have heard. Do you know anything about him?" + +That "very good" and "very good-looking" young man was now approaching +what may be called the decisive event of his life. In April, 1867, +Mr. Colin Lindsay resigned the Presidency of the English Church +Union, and Mr. Charles Lindley Wood was unanimously chosen to fill +his place. Eleven years later Dr. Pusey wrote: "As to his being +President of the E.C.U., he is the sense and moderation of it." He +has administered its affairs and guided its policy through fifty +anxious years. Indeed, the President and the Union have been so +completely identified that the history of the one has been the +history of the other. His action has been governed by a grand and +simple consistency. Alike in storms and in fair weather, at times +of crisis and at times of reaction, he has been the unswerving +and unsleeping champion of the spiritual claims of the English +Church, and the alert, resourceful, and unsparing enemy of all +attempts, from whatever quarter, to subject her doctrine and discipline +to the control of the State and its secular tribunals. The eager +and fiery enthusiasm which pre-eminently marks his nature awakes +a kindred flame in those who are reached by his influence; and, +even when the reason is unconvinced, it is difficult to resist +the leadership of so pure and passionate a temper. + +It would be ridiculous for an outsider, like myself, to discuss the +interior working of the E.C.U., so I avail myself of the testimony +which has reached me from within. + +"Like most men of his temperament, Lord Halifax seems now and again +to be a little before his time. On the other hand, it is remarkable +that Time generally justifies him. There is no question that he +has always enjoyed the enthusiastic and affectionate support of +the Union as a whole." + +It is true that once with reference to the book called _Lux Mundi_, +and once with reference to the "Lambeth Opinions" of 1899, there +was some resistance in the Union to Lord Halifax's guidance; and +that, in his negotiations about the recognition of Anglican Orders, +he would not, if he had been acting officially, have carried the +Union with him. But these exceptions only go to confirm the general +truth that his policy has been as successful as it has been bold +and conscientious. + +It is time to return, for a moment, to the story of Lord Halifax's +private life. In 1869 he married Lady Agnes Courtenay, daughter +of the twelfth Earl of Devon, and in so doing allied himself with +one of the few English families which even the most exacting +genealogists recognize as noble.[1] His old tutor wrote on the 22nd +of April: + +[Footnote 1: "The purple of three Emperors who have reigned at +Constantinople will authorize or excuse a digression on the origin +and singular fortunes of the House of Courtenay" (Gibbon, chapter +xii.).] + +"This has been a remarkable day--the wedding of Charles Wood and +Lady Agnes Courtenay. It was in St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, +which was full, galleries and all, the central passage left empty, +and carpeted with red. It was a solemn, rapt congregation; there +was a flood of music and solemn tender voices. The married man +and woman took the Lord's Supper, with hundreds of witnesses who +did not Communicate.... Perhaps a good many were Church Union folk, +honouring their Chairman." + +Of this marriage I can only say that it has been, in the highest +aspects, ideally happy, and that the sorrows which have chequered +it have added a new significance to the saying of Ecclesiastes +that "A threefold cord is not quickly broken."[2] + +[Footnote 2: Charles Reginald Lindley Wood died 1890; Francis Hugh +Lindley Wood died 1889; Henry Paul Lindley Wood died 1886.] + +In 1877 Mr. Wood resigned his office in the household of the Prince +of Wales. It was the time when the affairs of St. James's, Hatcham, +and the persecution of Mr. Tooth, were first bringing the Church +into sharp collision with the courts of law. The President of the +Church Union was the last man to hold his peace when even the stones +were crying out against this profane intrusion of the State into +the kingdom of God; and up and down the country he preached, in +season and out of season, the spiritual independence of the Church, +and the criminal folly of trying to coerce Christian consciences by +deprivation and imprisonment. The story went that an Illustrious +Personage said to his insurgent Groom of the Bedchamber: "What's +this I hear? I'm told you go about the country saying that the +Queen is not the Head of the Church. Of course, she's the Head of +the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, +and the Sultan the Head of _his_ Church.'" But this may only be +a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it +is better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction: + +"I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to +disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I +thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised +by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did +not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign +my place. Nothing could have been nicer or kinder than the Prince +was about it; and, if I resigned, I thought it much better for him +on the one side, while, as regards myself, as you may suppose, +I was not going to sacrifice my own liberty of saying and doing +what I thought right." + +In those emphatic words speaks the true spirit of the man. To "say +and do what he thinks right," without hesitation or compromise +or regard to consequences, has been alike the principle and the +practice of his life. And here the reader has a right to ask, What +manner of man is he whose career you have been trying to record? + +First and foremost, it must be said--truth demands it, and no +conventional reticence must withhold it--that the predominant feature +of his character is his religiousness. He belongs to a higher world +than this. His "citizenship is in Heaven." Never can I forget an +address which, twenty years ago, he delivered, by request, in Stepney +Meeting-House. His subject was "Other-worldliness." The audience +consisted almost exclusively of Nonconformists. Many, I imagine, +had come with itching ears, or moved by a natural curiosity to +see the man whose bold discrimination between the things of Caesar +and the things of God was just then attracting, general attention, +and, in some quarters, wrathful dismay. But gradually, as the high +theme unfolded itself, and the lecturer showed the utter futility +of all that this world has to offer when compared with the realities +of the Supernatural Kingdom, curiosity was awed into reverence, and +the address closed amid a silence more eloquent than any applause." + + "That strain I heard was of a higher mood." + +As I listened, I recalled some words written by Dr. Pusey in 1879, +about + +"One whom I have known intimately for many years, who is one of +singular moderation as well as wisdom, who can discriminate with +singular sagacity what is essential from is not essential--C. Wood." + +The Doctor went on: + +"I do not think that I was ever more impressed than by a public +address which I heard him deliver now many years ago, in which, +without controversy or saying anything which could have offended +anyone, he expressed his own faith on deep subjects with a precision +which reminded me of Hooker's wonderful enunciation of the doctrine +of the Holy Trinity and of the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ." + +After so solemn a tribute from so great a saint, it seems almost +a profanity--certainly a bathos--to add any more secular touches. +Yet, if the portrait is even to approach completeness, it must be +remembered that we are not describing an ascetic or a recluse, +but the most polished gentleman, the most fascinating companion, +the most graceful and attractive figure, in the Vanity Fair of +social life. He is full of ardour, zeal, and emotion, endowed with +a physical activity which corresponds to his mental alertness, and +young with that perpetual youth which is the reward of "a conscience +void of offence toward God and toward man." + +Clarendon, in one of his most famous portraits, depicts a high-souled +Cavalier, "of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, +of a glowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and +of a primitive simplicity and integrity of life." He was writing +of Lord Falkland: he described Lord Halifax. + + + + +IV + +_LORD AND LADY RIPON_[*] + +[Footnote *: George Frederick Samuel Robinson, first Marquess of +Ripon, K.G. (1827-1909); married in 1851 his cousin Henrietta Ann +Theodosia Vyner.] + +The _Character of the Happy Warrior_ is, by common consent, one +of the noblest poems in the English language. A good many writers +and speakers seem to have discovered it only since the present war +began, and have quoted it with all the exuberant zeal of a new +acquaintance. But, were a profound Wordsworthian in general, and +a devotee of this poem in particular, to venture on a criticism, +it would be that, barring the couplet about Pain and Bloodshed, +the character would serve as well for the "Happy Statesman" as +for the "Happy Warrior." There is nothing specially warlike in the +portraiture of the man + + "Who, with a toward or untoward lot, + Prosperous or adverse, to his mind or not, + Plays in the many games of life, that one + Where what he most doth value must be won; + Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, + Not thought of tender happiness betray; + Who, not content that former worth stand fast, + Looks forward, persevering to the last, + From well to better, daily self-surpast." + +These lines always recurred to my memory when circumstances brought +me into contact with the second Lord Ripon, whose friendship I +enjoyed from my first entrance into public life. + +I know few careers in the political life of modern England more +interesting or more admirable than his, and none more exactly consonant +with Wordsworth's eulogy: + + "Who, not content that former worth stand fast, + Looks forward, persevering to the last, + From well to better, daily self-surpast." + +The first Lord Ripon, who was born in 1782 and died in 1859, entered +public life as soon as he had done with Cambridge, filled pretty +nearly every office of honour and profit under the Crown (including, +for four troubled months, the Premiership), and served impartially +under moderate Whigs and crusted Tories, finding, perhaps, no very +material difference between their respective creeds. The experiences +of the hen that hatches the duckling are proverbially pathetic; and +great must have been the perplexity of this indeterminate statesman +when he discovered that his only son was a young man of the most robust +convictions, and that those convictions were frankly democratic. To +men possessed by birth of rank and wealth, one has sometimes heard +the question addressed, in the sheer simplicity of snobbery, "Why +are you a Liberal?" and to such a question Lord Goderich (for so +the second Lord Ripon was called till he succeeded to his father's +title) would probably have replied, "Because I can't help it." He +was an only child, educated at home, and therefore free to form +his own opinions at an age when most boys are subject to the +stereotyping forces of a Public School and a University. Almost +before his arrival at man's estate, he had clearly marked out his +line of political action, and to that line he adhered with undeviating +consistency. + +He was supremely fortunate in an early and ideally happy marriage. +Tennyson might well have drawn the heroine of _The Talking Oak_ +from Henrietta, Lady Ripon: + + "Yet, since I first could cast a shade, + Did never creature pass, + So slightly, musically made, + So light upon the grass." + +Her mental constitution corresponded to her physical frame; she was +the brightest of companions and the most sympathetic of friends. +She shared to the full her husband's zeal for the popular cause, +and stimulated his efforts for social as well as political reform. + +From the earliest days of their married life, Lord and Lady Goderich +made their home a centre and a rallying-point for all the scattered +forces which, within the Liberal party or beyond its pale, were +labouring to promote the betterment of human life. There the "Christian +Socialists," recovering from the shocks and disasters of '48, +re-gathered their shattered hosts, and reminded a mocking world +that the People's Cause was not yet lost. There was Maurice with +his mystical eloquence, and Kingsley with his fiery zeal, and Hughes +and Vansittart and Ludlow with their economic knowledge and powerful +pens. They were reinforced by William Edward Forster, a young Radical +M.P., whose zeal for social service had already marked him out +from the ruck of mechanical politicians; and from time to time +Carlyle himself would vouchsafe a growl of leonine approval to +enterprises which, whether wise or foolish, were at least not shams. +In 1852 the Amalgamated Society of Engineers conducted in London +and Lancashire a strike which had begun in some engineering works +at Oldham. The Christian Socialists gave it their support, and +Lord Goderich subscribed L500 to the maintenance of the strikers. +But, although he lived in this highly idealistic society, surrounded +by young men who saw visions and old men who dreamed dreams, Lord +Goderich was neither visionary nor dreamer. He passed, under Lord +Russell, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Gladstone, through a long series +of practical and laborious offices. He became Secretary of State +for India, and for War; and, when Lord President of the Council, +attained perhaps the highest honour of his life in being appointed +Chairman of the Joint Commission on American Affairs, which in 1871 +saved us from the unimaginable calamity of war with the United +States. Ten years later, as Viceroy of India, he made his permanent +mark on the history of the British Empire; and from that day forward +no Liberal Government would have been considered complete unless it +could show the sanction of his honoured name. When, in February, +1886, Gladstone formed the Administration which was to establish +Home Rule, Lord Ripon, who became First Lord of the Admiralty, +explained his position to me with happy candour: "I have always +been in favour of the most advanced thing in the Liberal Programme. +Just now the most advanced thing is Home Rule; so I'm a Home Ruler." + +In the last year of Lord Ripon's life, when he had just retired +from the Cabinet and the leadership of the House of Lords, he was +entertained at luncheon by the Eighty Club, and the occasion was +marked by some more than usually interesting speeches. It always +is satisfactory to see public honours rendered, not to a monument +or a tomb, but to the living man; and, in Lord Ripon's case, the +honours, though ripe, were not belated. George Eliot has reminded +us that "to all ripeness under the sun there comes a further stage +of development which is less esteemed in the market." The Eighty +Club avoided that latent peril, and paid its honours, while they +were still fresh and worth having, to the living representative of a +Liberalism "more high and heroical than the present age affecteth." +One could not help feeling that the audience which Lord Ripon faced +when he was addressing the Club was Radical to the backbone. Radicals +themselves, and eager to set the world right, they paid reverence to +a Radical who, sixty years ago, was inspired by the same passion, +and in all that long stretch of time has never failed the cause. +The applause, hearty, genuine, emotional, was even more expressive +than the oratory, for it was evoked by the presence of a man who, +in his earliest youth, had burst the trammels of station and +environment, and had sworn himself to the service of the poor, +the ill-fed, and the unrepresented, in days when such devotion +was far more difficult than now. It is probable that not a few +of Lord Ripon's hearers, while they acclaimed his words and waved +their salutations, may have added in the depths of their hearts +some aspiration such as this: "When I come to my eightieth year, may +I be able to look back upon a career as consistent, as unselfish, +and as beneficent." + +Thrice happy is the man, be he Warrior or Statesman, who, in spite +of lessened activity and increasing burdens and the loss of much +that once made life enjoyable, still + + "Finds comfort in himself and in his cause, + And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws + His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause." + + + + +V + +"_FREDDY LEVESON_" + +When a man has died in his eighty-ninth year, it seems irreverent +to call him by his nickname. And yet the irreverence is rather in +seeming than in reality, for a nickname, a pet-name, an abbreviation, +is often the truest token of popular esteem. It was so with the +subject of this section, whose perennial youthfulness of heart +and mind would have made formal appellation seem stiff and out of +place. + +Edward Frederick Leveson-Gower was the third son of Granville +Leveson-Gower, first Earl Granville, by his marriage with Henrietta +Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the third Duke of Devonshire. +The very names breathe Whiggery, and in their combination they +suggest a considerable and an important portion of our social and +political history. + +I have always maintained that Whiggery, rightly understood, is not +a political creed, but a social caste. The Whig, like the poet, is +born, not made. It is as difficult to become a Whig as to become a +Jew. Macaulay was probably the only man who, being born outside the +privileged enclosure, ever penetrated to its heart and assimilated +its spirit. It is true that the Whigs, as a body, have held certain +opinions and pursued certain tactics, which were analysed in chapters +xix. and xxi. of the unexpurgated _Book of Snobs_. But those opinions +and those tactics have been accidents of Whiggery. Its substance +has been relationship. When Lord John Russell formed his first +Administration, his opponents alleged that it was mainly composed +of his cousins, and the lively oracles of Sir Bernard Burke confirmed +the allegation. A. J. Beresford-Hope, in one of his novels, made +excellent fun of what he called the "Sacred Circle of the +Great-Grandmotherhood." He showed--what, indeed, the Whigs themselves +knew uncommonly well--that from John, Earl Gower, who died in 1754, +descend all the Gowers, Levesons, Howards, Cavendishes, Grosvenors, +Harcourts, and Russells, who walk on the face of the earth. Truly +a noble and a highly favoured progeny. "They _are_ our superiors," +said Thackeray; "and that's the fact. I am not a Whig myself (perhaps +it is as unnecessary to say so as to say that I'm not King Pippin +in a golden coach, or King Hudson, or Miss Burdett-Coutts)--I'm +not a Whig; but oh, how I should like to be one!" + +It argues no political bias to maintain that, in the earlier part +of the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its neophytes no +educational opportunities equal to those which a young Whig enjoyed +at Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. Here the +best traditions of the previous century were constantly reinforced +by accessions of fresh intellect. The circle was, indeed, an +aristocratic Family Party, but it paid a genuine homage to ability +and culture. Genius held the key, and there was a _carriere ouverte +aux talents_. + +Into this privileged society Frederick Leveson-Gower was born on +the 3rd of May, 1819, and within its precincts he "kept the noiseless +tenour of his way" for nearly ninety years. Recalling in 1905 the +experiences of his boyhood, and among them a sharp illness at Eton, +he was able to add, "Never during my long life have I again been +seriously ill." To that extraordinary immunity from physical suffering +was probably due the imperturbable serenity which all men recognized +as his most characteristic trait, and which remained unruffled to +the end. + +It is recorded of the fastidious Lady Montfort in _Endymion_ that, +visiting Paris in 1841, she could only with difficulty be induced +to call on the British Ambassador and Ambassadress. "I dined," she +said, "with those people once; but I confess that, when I thought +of those dear Granvilles, their _entrees_ stuck in my throat." +The "dear Granvilles" in question were the parents of the second +Lord Granville, whom we all remember as the most urbane of Foreign +Secretaries, and of Frederick Leveson-Gower. The first Lord Granville +was a younger son of the first Marquess of Stafford and brother of +the second Marquess, who was made Duke of Sutherland. He was born +in 1773, entered Parliament at twenty-two, and "found himself a +diplomatist as well as a politician before he was thirty years of +age." In 1804 he was appointed Ambassador to St. Petersburg, where +he remained till 1807. In 1813 he was created Viscount Granville, +and in 1824 became Ambassador to the Court of France. "To the +indignation of the Legitimist party in France, he made a special +journey from Paris to London in order to vote for the Reform Bill +of 1832, and, to their astonishment, returned alive to glory in +having done so." For this and similar acts of virtue he was raised +to an earldom in 1833; he retired from diplomacy in 1841, and died +in 1846. + +Before he became an Ambassador, this Lord Granville had rented +a place called Wherstead, in Suffolk. It was there that Freddy +Leveson passed the first years of his life, but from 1824 onwards +the British Embassy at Paris was his home. Both those places had +made permanent dints in his memory. At Wherstead he remembered +the Duke of Wellington shooting Lord Granville in the face and +imperilling his eyesight; at Paris he was presented to Sir Walter +Scott, who had come to dine with the Ambassador. When living at +the Embassy, Freddy Leveson was a playmate of the Duc de Bordeaux, +afterwards Comte de Chambord; and at the age of eight he was sent +from Paris to a Dr. Everard's school at Brighton, "which was called +the House of Lords, owing to most of the boys being related to +the peerage, many of them future peers, and among them several +dukes." Here, again, the youthful Whig found himself a playmate of +Princes. Prince George of Hanover and Prince George of Cambridge +were staying with King William IV. at the Pavilion; their companions +were chosen from Dr. Everard's seminary; and the King amused his +nephews and their friends with sailor's stories, "sometimes rather +coarse ones." In his holidays little Freddy enjoyed more refined +society at Holland House. In 1828 his mother wrote with just elation: +"He always sits next to Lord Holland, and they talk without ceasing +all dinner-time." + +From Brighton, Frederick Leveson was promoted in due course to +Eton, where he played no games and made no friends, had poor health, +and was generally unhappy. One trait of Eton life, and only one, +he was accustomed in old age to recall with approbation, and that +was the complete indifference to social distinctions. + +"There is," he wrote, "a well-known story about my friend, the +late Lord Bath, who, on his first arrival at Eton was asked his +name, and answered, 'I am Viscount Weymouth, and I shall be Marquis +of Bath.' Upon which he-received two kicks, one for the Viscount +and the other for the Marquis. This story may not be true, but at +any rate it illustrates the fact that if at Eton a boy boasted +of his social advantages, he would have cause to repent it!" + +Leaving Eton at sixteen, Frederick Leveson went to a private tutor +in Nottinghamshire, and there he first developed his interest in +politics. "Reform," he wrote, "is my principal aim." Albany Fonblanque, +whose vivacious articles, reprinted from the _Examiner_, may still +be read in _England under Seven Administrations_, was his political +instructor, and indoctrinated him with certain views, especially +in the domain of Political Economy, which would have been deemed +heretical in the Whiggish atmosphere of Trentham or Chatsworth. +In 1832 he made his appearance in society at Paris, and his mother +wrote: "As to Freddy, he turns all heads, and his own would be if +it was to last more than a week longer. His dancing _fait fureur_." + +In October, 1837, he went up to Christ Church, then rather languishing +under Dean Gaisford's mismanagement. Here for three years he enjoyed +himself thoroughly. He rode with the drag, was President of the +Archery Club, played whist, gave and received a great deal of +hospitality, and made some lifelong friendships. Among his +contemporaries was Ruskin, of whom his recollection was certainly +depressing. "He seemed to keep himself aloof from everybody, to +seek no friends, and to have none. I never met him in anyone else's +rooms, or at any social gathering. I see him now, looking rather +crazy, taking his solitary walks." + +That Freddy Leveson was "thoroughly idle" was his own confession; +and perhaps, when we consider all the circumstances, it is not +surprising. What is surprising, and what he himself recorded with +surprise, is that neither he nor his contemporaries paid the least +attention to the Oxford Movement, then just at its height, although--and +this makes it stranger still--they used to attend Newman's Sermons +at St. Mary's. They duly admired his unequalled style, but the +substance of his teaching seems to have passed by them like the +idle wind. + +After taking a "Nobleman's Degree," Frederick Leveson spent an +instructive year in France, admitted, by virtue of his father's +position, to the society of such men as Talleyrand and Thiers, +Guizot and Mole, Berryer and Eugene Sue; and then he returned to +England with the laudable, though uninspiring, intention of reading +for the Bar. His profession was chosen for him by his father, and +the choice was determined by a civil speech of George Canning, who, +staying at the British Embassy at Paris, noticed little Freddy, +and pleasantly said to Lord Granville, "Bring that boy up as a +lawyer, and he will one day become Lord Chancellor." As a first +step towards that elevation, Frederick Leveson entered the chambers +of an eminent conveyancer called Plunkett, where he had for his +fellow-pupils the men who became Lord Iddesleigh and Lord Farrer. +Thence he went to a Special Pleader, and lastly to a leading member +of the Oxford Circuit. As Marshal to Lord Denman and to Baron Parke, +he acquired some knowledge of the art of carving; but with regard +to the total result of his legal training, he remarked, with +characteristic simplicity, "I cannot say I learnt much law." When +living in lodgings in Charles Street, and eating his dinners at +Lincoln's Inn, Frederick Leveson experienced to the full the advantage +of having been born a Whig. His uncle, the sixth Duke of Devonshire, +a benevolent magnifico, if ever there was one, treated him like a +son, giving him the run of Devonshire House and Chiswick; while +Lady Holland, the most imperious of social dames, let him make +a second home of Holland House. + +"I dined with her whenever I liked. I had only to send word in +the morning that I would do so. Of course, I never uttered a word +at dinner, but listened with delight to the brilliant talk--to +Macaulay's eloquence and varied information, to Sydney Smith's +exquisite joke which made me die of laughing, to Roger's sarcasms +and Luttrell's repartees." + +Frederick Leveson was called to the Bar in 1843, and went the Oxford +Circuit in the strangely-assorted company of G. S. Venables, J. G. +Phillimore, and E. V. Kenealy. This proved to be his last stage +in the anticipated progress towards the Woolsack. Lord Granville +died at the beginning of 1846, and the change which this event +produced in Frederick Leveson's position can best be described in +his own quaint words: + +"My father was greatly beloved by us all, and was the most indulgent +parent--possibly too indulgent. Himself a younger son, although I +cannot say that his own case was a hard one, he sympathized with +me for being one of that unfortunate class. It may have been this +feeling, combined with much affection, that made him leave me well +provided for. I much question whether, if I had been left to earn my +own bread by my own exertions as a lawyer, I should have succeeded." + +His friends had no difficulty in answering the question, and answering +it affirmatively; but the practical test was never applied, for on +succeeding to his inheritance he glided--"plunged" would be an +unsuitable word--into a way of living which was, more like the +[Greek: scholae] of the Athenian citizen than the sordid strife of +professional activity. He was singularly happy in private life, +for the "Sacred Circle of the Great-Grandmotherhood" contained some +delightful women as well as some distinguished men. Such was his +sister-in-law Marie, Lady Granville; such was his cousin Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland; such was his mother, the Dowager Lady Granville; +and such, pre-eminently, was his sister, Lady Georgiana Fullerton, +of whom a competent critic said that, in the female characters of +her novel _Ellen Middleton_, she had drawn "the line which is so +apt to be overstepped, and which Walter Scott never clearly saw, +between _naivete_ and vulgarity." Myself a devoted adherent of +Sir Walter, I can yet recall some would-be pleasantries of Julia +Mannering, of Isabella Wardour, and even of Die Vernon, which would +have caused a shudder in the "Sacred Circle." Happiest of all was +Freddy Leveson in his marriage with Lady Margaret Compton; but +their married life lasted only five years, and left behind it a +memory too tender to bear translation to the printed page. + +Devonshire House was the centre of Freddy Leveson's social life--at +least until the death of his uncle, the sixth Duke, in 1858. That +unsightly but comfortable mansion was then in its days of glory, and +those who frequented it had no reason to regret the past. "Poodle +Byng," who carried down to 1871 the social conditions of the eighteenth +century, declared that nothing could be duller than Devonshire +House in his youth. "It was a great honour to go there, but I was +bored to death. The Duchess was usually stitching in one corner of +the room, and Charles Fox snoring in another." Under the splendid +but arbitrary rule of the sixth Duke no one stitched or snored. +Everyone who entered his saloons was well-born or beautiful or +clever or famous, and many of the guests combined all four +characteristics. When Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon +III., first came to live in London, his uncle Jerome asked the +Duke of Devonshire to invite his _mauvais sujet_ of a nephew to +Devonshire House, "so that he might for once be seen in decent +society"; and the Prince, repaid the Duke by trying to borrow five +thousand pounds to finance his descent on Boulogne. But the Duke, +though magnificent, was business-like, and the Prince was sent +empty away. + +The society in which Freddy Leveson moved during his long career was +curiously varied. There was his own family in all its ramifications of +cousinship; and beyond its radius there was a circle of acquaintances +and associates which contained Charles Greville the diarist and +his more amiable brother Henry, Carlyle and Macaulay, Brougham +and Lyndhurst, J. A. Roebuck and Samuel Wilberforce, George Grote +and Henry Reeve, "that good-for-nothing fellow Count D'Orsay," and +Disraeli, "always courteous, but his courtesy sometimes overdone." + +For womankind there were Lady Morley the wit and Lady Cowper the +humorist, and Lady Ashburton, who tamed Carlyle; Lady Jersey, the +queen of fashion, and the two sister-queens of beauty, Lady Canning +and Lady Waterford; Lady Tankerville, who as a girl had taken refuge +in England from the matrimonial advances of the Comte d'Artois; +the three fascinating Foresters, Mrs. Robert Smith, Mrs. Anson, +and Lady Chesterfield; and Lady Molesworth and Lady Waldegrave, +who had climbed by their cleverness from the lowest rung of the +social ladder to a place not very far from the top. + +Beyond this circle, again, there was a miscellaneous zone, where +dwelt politicians ranging from John Bright to Arthur Balfour; poets +and men of letters, such as Tennyson and Browning, Thackeray and +Motley and Laurance Oliphant; Paxton the gardener-architect and +Hudson the railway-king; stars of the musical world, such as Mario +and Grisi and Rachel; blue-stockings like Lady Eastlake and Madame +Mohl; Mademoiselle de Montijo, who captivated an Emperor, and Lola +Montez, who ruled a kingdom. No advantages of social education will +convert a fool or a bore or a prig or a churl into an agreeable member +of society; but, where Nature has bestowed a bright intelligence +and a genial disposition, her gifts are cultivated to perfection +by such surroundings as Frederick Leveson enjoyed in early life. +And so it came about that alike as a young man, in middle life +(which was in his case unusually prolonged), and in old age, he +enjoyed a universal and unbroken popularity. + +It is impossible to connect the memory of Freddy Leveson with the +idea of ambition, and it must therefore have been the praiseworthy +desire to render unpaid service to the public which induced him to +embark on the unquiet sea of politics. At a bye-election in the +summer of 1847 he was returned, through the interest of his uncle the +Duke of Devonshire, for Derby. A General Election immediately ensued; +he was returned again, but was unseated, with his colleague, for a +technical irregularity. In 1852 he was returned for Stoke-upon-Trent, +this time by the aid of his cousin the Duke of Sutherland (for the +"Sacred Circle" retained a good deal of what was termed "legitimate +influence"). In 1854, having been chosen to second the Address at +the opening of Parliament, he was directed to call on Lord John +Russell, who would instruct him in his duties. Lord John was the +shyest of human beings, and the interview was brief: "I am glad +you are going to second the Address. You will know what to say. +Good-morning." + +At the General Election of 1857 he lost his seat for Stoke. "Poor +Freddy," writes his brother, Lord Granville, "is dreadfully disappointed +by his failure in the Potteries. He was out-jockeyed by Ricardo." +All who knew "poor Freddy" will easily realize that in a jockeying +contest he stood no chance. In 1859 he was returned for Bodmin, this +time by the good offices, not of relations, but of friends--Lord +Robartes and Lady Molesworth--and he retained the seat by his own +merits till Bodmin ceased to be a borough. Twice during his +Parliamentary career Mr. Gladstone offered him important office, +and he declined it for a most characteristic reason--"I feared it +would be thought a job." The gaps in his Parliamentary life were +occupied by travelling. As a young man he had been a great deal +on the Continent, and he had made what was then the adventurous +tour of Spain. The winter of 1850-1851 he spent in India; and in +1856 he accompanied his brother Lord Granville (to whom he had +been "precis-writer" at the Foreign Office) on his Special Mission +to St. Petersburg for the Coronation of Alexander II. No chapter in +his life was fuller of vivid and entertaining reminiscences, and +his mind was stored with familiar memories of Radziwill, Nesselrode, +and Todleben. "Freddy," wrote his brother, "is supposed to have +distinguished himself greatly by his presence of mind when the +Grande Duchesse Helene got deep into politics with him." + +A travelling experience, which Freddy Leveson used to relate with +infinite gusto, belongs to a later journey, and had its origin in +the strong resemblance between himself and his brother. Except that +Lord Granville shaved, and that in later years Freddy Leveson grew a +beard, there was little facially to distinguish them. In 1865 Lord +Granville was Lord President of the Council, and therefore, according +to the arrangement then prevailing, head of the Education Office. +In that year Matthew Arnold, then an Inspector of Schools, was +despatched on a mission to enquire into the schools and Universities +of the Continent. Finding his travelling allowances insufficient for +his needs, he wrote home to the Privy Council Office requesting +an increase. Soon after he had despatched this letter, and before +he could receive the official reply, he was dining at a famous +restaurant in Paris, and he chose the most highly priced dinner of +the day. Looking up from his well-earned meal, he saw his official +chief, Lord Granville, who chanced to be eating a cheaper dinner. +Feeling that this gastronomical indulgence might, from the official +point of view, seem inconsistent with his request for increased +allowances, he stepped across to the Lord President, explained +that it was only once in a way that he thus compensated himself for +his habitual abstinence, and was delighted by the facile and kindly +courtesy with which his official chief received the _apologia_. His +delight was abated when he subsequently found that he had been making +his confession, not to Lord Granville, but to Mr. Leveson-Gower. + +Looking back from the close of life upon its beginning, Freddy +Leveson noted that as an infant he used to eat his egg "very slowly, +and with prolonged pleasure." "Did this," he used to ask, "portend +that I should grow up a philosopher or a _gourmand_? I certainly +did not become the former, and I hope not the latter." I am inclined +to think that he was both; for whoso understands the needs of the +body has mastered at least one great department of philosophy, and +he who feeds his fellow-men supremely well is in the most creditable +sense of the word a _gourmand_. Freddy Leveson's dinners were justly +famous, and, though he modestly observed that "hospitality is praised +more than it deserves," no one who enjoyed the labours of Monsieur +Beguinot ever thought that they could be overpraised. The scene of +these delights was a house in South Audley Street, which, though +actually small, was so designed as to seem like a large house in +miniature; and in 1870 the genial host acquired a delicious home +on the Surrey hills, which commands a view right across Sussex to +the South Downs. "Holm-bury" is its name, and "There's no place +like Home-bury" became the grateful watchword of a numerous and +admiring society. + +People distinguished in every line of life, and conspicuous by +every social charm, found at Holm-bury a constant and delightful +hospitality. None appreciated it more thoroughly than Mr. and Mrs. +Gladstone, whose friendship was one of the chief happinesses of +Freddy Leveson's maturer life. His link with them was Harriet, +Duchess of Sutherland, who, in spite of all Whiggish prejudices +against the half-converted Tory, was one of Gladstone's most +enthusiastic disciples. In "Cliveden's proud alcove," and in that +sumptuous villa at Chiswick where Fox and Canning died, Mr. and +Mrs. Gladstone were her constant guests; and there they formed +their affectionate intimacy with Freddy Leveson. Every year, and +more than once a year, they stayed with him at Holmbury; and one +at least of those visits was memorable. On the 19th of July, 1873, +Mr. Gladstone wrote in his diary: + +"Off at 4.25 to Holmbury, We were enjoying that beautiful spot +and expecting Granville with the Bishop of Winchester,[*] when +the groom arrived with the message that the Bishop had had a bad +fall. An hour and a half later Granville entered, pale and sad: +'It's all over.' In an instant the thread of that precious life +was snapped, We were all in deep and silent grief." + +[Footnote *: Samuel Wilberforce.] + +And now, for the sake of those who never knew Freddy Leveson, a +word of personal description must be added. He was of middle height, +with a slight stoop, which began, I fancy from the fact that he was +short-sighted and was obliged to peer rather closely at objects +which he wished to see. His growing deafness, which in later years +was a marked infirmity--he had no others--tended to intensify the +stooping habit, as bringing him nearer to his companions voice. His +features were characteristically those of the House of Cavendish, +as may be seen by comparing his portrait with that of his mother. +His expression was placid, benign, but very far from inert; for +his half-closed eyes twinkled with quiet mirth. His voice was soft +and harmonious, with just a trace of a lisp, or rather of that +peculiar intonation which is commonly described as "short-tongued." +His bearing was the very perfection of courteous ease, equally +remote from stiffness and from familiarity. His manners it would be +impertinent to eulogize, and the only dislikes which I ever heard +him express were directed against rudeness, violence, indifference +to other people's feelings, and breaches of social decorum. If +by such offences as these it was easy to displease him, it was +no less easy to obtain his forgiveness, for he was as amiable as +he was refined. In old age he wrote, with reference to the wish +which some people express for sudden death: "It is a feeling I +cannot understand, as I myself shall feel anxious before I die +to take an affectionate leave of those I love." His desire was +granted, and there my story ends. I have never known a kinder heart; +I could not imagine a more perfect gentleman. + + + + +VI + +_SAMUEL WHITBREAD_ + +The family of Whitbread enjoyed for several generations substantial +possessions in North Bedfordshire. They were of the upper middle +class, and were connected by marriage with John Howard the +Prison-Reformer, whose property near Bedford they inherited. As +years went on, their wealth and station increased. Samuel Whitbread, +who died in 1796, founded the brewery in Chiswell Street, E.C., +which still bears his name, was Member for the Borough of Bedford, +and purchased from the fourth Lord Torrington a fine place near +Biggleswade, called Southill, of which the wooded uplands supplied +John Bunyan, dwelling on the flats of Elstow, with his idea of +the Delectable Mountains. + +This Samuel Whitbread was succeeded as M.P. for Bedford by a more +famous Samuel, his eldest son, who was born in 1758, and married +Lady Elizabeth Grey; sister of + + "That Earl who taught his compeers to be just, + And wrought in brave old age what youth had planned." + +Samuel Whitbread became one of the most active and influential +members of the Whig party, a staunch ally of Fox and a coadjutor +of Wilberforce in his attack on the Slave Trade. He was closely +and unfortunately involved in the affairs of Drury Lane Theatre, +and, for that reason, figures frequently in _Rejected Addresses_. +He died before his time in 1815, and his eldest son, William Henry +Whitbread, became M.P. for Bedford. This William Henry died without +issue, and his nephew and heir was the admirable man and distinguished +Parliamentarian who is here commemorated. + +Samuel Whitbread was born in 1830, and educated at Rugby, where +he was a contemporary of Lord Goschen, and at Trinity College, +Cambridge, where one of his closest friends was James Payn, the +novelist. He married Lady Isabella Pelham, daughter of the third +Earl of Chichester. In those days Bedford returned two members, +and at the General Election of 1852, which scotched Lord Derby's +attempt to revive Protection, "Young Sam Whitbread" was returned +as junior Member for the Borough, and at the elections of 1857, +1859, 1865, 1868, 1874, 1880, 1885, 1886, and 1892 he was again +elected, each time after a contest and each time at the top of +the poll. Had he stood again in 1895, and been again successful, +he would have been "Father of the House." + +It may be said, without doubt or exaggeration, that Samuel Whitbread +was the ideal Member of Parliament. To begin with physical attributes, +he was unusually tall, carried himself nobly, and had a beautiful and +benignant countenance. His speaking was calm, deliberate, dignified; +his reasoning close and strong; and his style, though unadorned, +was perfectly correct. His truly noble nature shone through his +utterance, and his gentle humour conciliated the goodwill even of +political opponents. His ample fortune and large leisure enabled +him to devote himself to Parliamentary work, though the interests of +his brewery and of his landed estate were never neglected. He was +active in all local business, and had a singularly exact knowledge of +all that concerned his constituents, their personalities and desires. +A man thus endowed was clearly predestined for high office, and, in +1859 Lord Palmerston, who believed in political apprenticeship, +made Samuel Whitbread a Lord of the Admiralty. But this appointment +disclosed the one weak joint in the young politician's armour. +His circulation was not strong enough for his vast height, and +sedulous attention to the work of an office, superadded to the +normally unwholesome atmosphere of the House of Commons, was more +than he could stand. "I cannot," he said, "get a living out of +the London air;" and so in 1863, just on the threshold of high +preferment, he bade farewell to official ambition and devoted himself +thence-forward to the work of a private Member. But the leaders of +the Liberal party did not resign such a recruit without repeated +efforts to retain him. Three times he refused the Cabinet and twice +the Speakership; while every suggestion of personal distinctions +or hereditary honours he waved aside with a smile. + +The knowledge that these things were so gave Whit bread a peculiar +authority in the House of Commons. His independence was absolute +and assured. He was, if any politician ever was, unbuyable; and +though he was a sound Party man, on whom at a pinch his leaders +could rely, he yet seemed to rise superior to the lower air of +partisanship, and to lift debate into the atmosphere of conviction. +The _St. James's Gazette_ once confessed that his peculiar position +in the House of Commons was one of those Parliamentary mysteries +which no outsider could understand. He seemed, even amid the hottest +controversies, to be rather an arbiter than an advocate. Once Mr. +T. W. Russell, in a moment of inspiration, described him as "an +umpire, perfectly impartial--except that he never gives his own +side out." Whereupon Whitbread, with a quaint half-smile, whispered +to the man sitting next to him: "That hit of 'T. W.'s' was _not +very bad_." A singular tribute to Whitbread's influence, and the +weight attaching to his counsel, is found in the fact that, in the +autumn of 1885, before Mr. Gladstone had announced his conversion +to Home Rule, Whitbread was one of the very few people (Goschen was +another) to whom he confided his change of view. Of the estimation +in which Whitbread was held by his neighbours, even after he had +ceased to represent them in Parliament, the present writer once heard +a ludicrous, but illuminating, instance. Among the men sentenced to +death after the Jameson Raid was one connected by ties of family +with Bedford. For a while his kinsfolk could not believe that he +was really in danger; but, when ominous rumours began to thicken, +one of his uncles said, with an air of grave resolve: "This is +becoming serious about my nephew. If it goes on much longer, I shall +have to write to Mr. Whitbread." + +In the general course of politics Whitbread was a Whig, holding +to the great principles of Civil and Religious Liberty, Peace, +Retrenchment, and Reform; but he was a Whig with a difference. He +stuck to the party after it had been permeated by Gladstonianism, +advanced in Liberalism as he advanced in years, and became a convinced +Home Ruler. His political prescience, founded on long experience +and close observation, was remarkable. Soon after Lord Salisbury's +accession to power in the summer of 1895, he said to the present +writer: "I fancy that for two or three years the Government will +go on quietly enough; and then, when they find their popularity +waning, they will pick a quarrel with somebody, and go to war. +It is always difficult for an Opposition to attack a Government +which is conducting a war, and I think Chamberlain is just the +man to take advantage of that difficulty." + +In religion Whitbread was an Evangelical of the more liberal type, +mistrusting extremes, and always on the friendliest terms with +Nonconformists. As regards the affairs of common life, he was a +most hospitable and courteous host; a thorough agriculturist, and +a keen sportsman. His size and weight debarred him from hunting, +but he was a first-rate shot, whether on the moor or in the stubble, +and a keen yachtsman. At home and abroad, everywhere and in all +things, he was a gentleman of the highest type, genial, dignified, +and unassuming. Probity, benevolence, and public spirit were embodied +in Samuel Whitbread. + + + + +VII + +_HENRY MONTAGU BUTLER_ + +The loved and honoured friend whose name stands at the head of +this section was the fourth son and, youngest child of Dr. George +Butler, Dean of Peterborough, and sometime Head Master of Harrow. +Montagu Butler was himself-educated at Harrow under Dr. Vaughan, +afterwards the well-known Master of the Temple, and proved to be +in many respects the ideal schoolboy. He won all the prizes for +composition, prose and verse, Greek, Latin, and English. He gained +the principal scholarship, and was Head of the School. Beside all +this, he was a member of the Cricket Eleven and made the highest +score for Harrow in the match against Eton at Lord's. + +In July, 1851, Montagu Butler left Harrow, and in the following +October entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Scholar. He won +the Bell University Scholarship, the Battie University Scholarship, +the Browne Medal for a Greek Ode twice, the Camden Medal, Porson +Prize, and First Member's Prize for a Latin Essay, and graduated as +Senior Classic in 1855. Of such an undergraduate career a Fellowship +at Trinity was the natural sequel, but Butler did not long reside +at Cambridge. All through his boyhood and early manhood he had +set his heart on a political career. He had a minute acquaintance +with the political history of modern England, and his memory was +stored with the masterpieces of political eloquence. + +In 1856 he accepted the post of Private Secretary to the Right Hon. +W. F. Cowper, afterwards Lord Mount Temple, and then President of the +Board of Health in Lord Palmerston's Administration. In this office +he served for two years, and then, retiring, he spent eleven months +in foreign travel, visiting in turn the Tyrol, Venice, the Danube, +Greece, Rome, Florence, and the Holy Land. During this period, he +changed his plan of life, and in September, 1859, he was ordained +Deacon by Bishop Lonsdale of Lichfield, on Letters Dimissory from +Bishop Turton of Ely. His title was his Fellowship; but it was +settled that the College should present him to the Vicarage of +Great St. Mary's, Cambridge; and till it was vacant he was to have +worked as a classical tutor in Trinity. Then came another change. +"Dr. Vaughan's retirement," he wrote, "from the Head Mastership +of Harrow startled us. We all took quietly for granted that he +would stay on for years." However, this "startling" retirement +took place, and there was a general agreement among friends of +the School that Vaughan's favourite pupil, Montagu Butler, was +the right man to succeed him. Accordingly, Butler was elected in +November, 1859, though only twenty-six years old; and, with a view +to the pastoral oversight of Harrow School, he was ordained priest, +again by Bishop Lonsdale, at Advent, 1859. + +In January, 1860, Montagu Butler entered on his new duties at Harrow, +and there he spent five-and-twenty years of happy, strenuous, and +serviceable life. He found 469 boys in the School; under his rule +the numbers increased till they reached 600. + +Butler's own culture was essentially classical, for he had been +fashioned by Vaughan, who "thought in Greek," and he himself might +almost have been said to think and feel in Latin elegiacs. But his +scholarship was redeemed from pedantry by his wide reading, and +by his genuine enthusiasm for all that is graceful in literature, +modern as well as ancient. Under his rule the "grand, old, fortifying, +classical curriculum," which Matthew Arnold satirized, fought hard +and long for its monopoly; but gradually it had to yield. Butler's +first concession was to relax the absurd rule which had made Latin +versification obligatory on every boy in the School, whatever his +gifts or tastes. At the same time he introduced the regular teaching +of Natural Science, and in 1869 he created a "Modern Side." An even +more important feature of his rule was the official encouragement +given to the study of music, which, from an illicit indulgence practised +in holes and corners, became, under the energetic management of Mr. +John Farmer, a prime element in the life of the School. + +In January, 1868, Butler admitted me to Harrow School. My father had +introduced me to him in the previous September, and I had fallen at +once under his charm. He was curiously unlike what one had imagined +a Head Master to be--not old and pompous and austere, but young and +gracious, friendly in manner, and very light in hand. His leading +characteristic was gracefulness. He was graceful in appearance, tall and +as yet slender; graceful in movement and gesture; graceful in writing, +and pre-eminently graceful in speech. He was young--thirty-four--and +looked younger, although (availing himself of the opportunity afforded +by an illness in the summer of 1867) he had just grown a beard. +He had a keen sense of humour, and was not afraid to display it +before boys, although he was a little pampered by a sense of the +solemn reverence due not only to what was sacred, but to everything +that was established and official. To breakfast with a Head Master +is usually rather an awful experience, but there was no awe about +the pleasant meals in Butler's dining-room (now the head Master's +study), for he was unaffectedly kind, overflowing with happiness, +and tactful in adapting his conversation to the capacities of his +guests. + +It was rather more alarming to face him at the periodical inspection +of one's Form. ("Saying to the Head Master" was the old phrase, then +lapsing out of date.) We used to think that he found a peculiar interest +in testing the acquirements of such boys as he knew personally, and +of those whose parents were his friends; so that on these occasions +it was a doubtful privilege to "know him," as the phrase is, "at +home." Till one reached the Sixth Form these social and official +encounters with Butler were one's only opportunities of meeting +him at close quarters; but every Sunday evening we heard him preach +in the Chapel, and the cumulative effect of his sermons was, at +least in many cases, great. They were always written in beautifully +clear and fluent English, and were often decorated with a fine +quotation in prose or verse. In substance they were extraordinarily +simple, though not childish. For example, he often preached on +such practical topics as Gambling, National Education; and the +Housing of the Poor, as well as on themes more obviously and directly +religious. He was at his best in commemorating a boy who had died +in the School, when his genuine sympathy with sorrow made itself +unmistakably felt. But whatever was the subject, whether public or +domestic, he always treated it in the same simply Christian spirit. +I know from his own lips that he had never passed through those +depths of spiritual experience which go to make a great preacher; +but his sermons revealed in every sentence a pure, chivalrous, and +duty-loving heart. One of his intimate friends once spoke of his +"Arthur-like" character, and the epithet was exactly right. + +His most conspicuous gift was unquestionably his eloquence. His +fluency, beauty of phrase, and happy power of turning "from grave +to gay, from lively to severe," made him extraordinarily effective +on a platform or at a social gathering. Once (in the autumn of +1870) he injured his right arm, and so was prevented from writing +his sermons. For three or four Sundays he preached extempore, and +even boys who did not usually care for sermons were fascinated +by his oratory. + +In the region of thought I doubt if he exercised any great influence. +To me he never seemed to have arrived at his conclusions by any +process of serious reasoning. He held strongly and conscientiously +a certain number of conventions--a kind of Palmerstonian Whiggery, +a love of "spirited foreign policy;" an admiration for the military +character, an immense regard for the Crown, for Parliament, and +for all established institutions (he was much shocked when the +present Bishop of Oxford spoke in the Debating Society in favour of +Republicanism); and in every department of life he paid an almost +superstitious reverence to authority. I once ventured to tell him +that even a beadle was a sacred being in his eyes, and he did not +deny the soft impeachment. + +His intellectual influence was not in the region of thought, but in +that of expression. His scholarship was essentially literary. He had +an instinctive and unaffected love of all that was beautiful, whether +in prose or verse, in Greek, Latin, or English. His reading was wide +and thorough. Nobody knew Burke so well, and he had a contagious +enthusiasm for Parliamentary oratory. In composition he had a _curiosa +felicitas_ in the strictest meaning of the phrase; for his felicity +was the product of care. To go through a prize-exercise with him +was a real joy, so generous was his appreciation, so fastidious +his taste, so dexterous his substitution of the telling for the +ineffective word, and so palpably genuine his enjoyment of the +business. + +As a ruler his most noticeable quality was his power of discipline. +He was feared--and a Head Master who is not feared is not fit for +his post; and by bad boys he was hated, and by most good boys he +was loved. By most, but not by all. There were some, even among the +best, who resented his system of minute regulation, his "Chinese +exactness" in trivial detail, his tendency to treat the tiniest +breach of a School rule as if it were an offence against the moral +law. + +I think it may be said, in general terms, that those who knew him +best loved him most. He had by nature a passionate temper, but +it was grandly controlled, and seldom, if ever, led him into an +injustice. His munificence in giving was unequalled in my experience. +He was the warmest and staunchest of friends; through honour and +dishonour, storm and sunshine, weal or woe, always and exactly the +same. His memory for anything associated with his pupils careers +was extraordinarily retentive, and he was even passionately loyal +to _Auld Lang Syne_. And there is yet another characteristic which +claims emphatic mention in any attempt to estimate his influence. +He was conspicuously and essentially a gentleman. In appearance, +manner, speech, thought, and act, this gentlemanlike quality of his +nature made itself felt; and it roused in such as were susceptible +of the spell an admiration which the most meritorious teachers have +often, by sheer boorishness forfeited. + +Time out of mind, a Head Mastership has been regarded as a +stepping-stone to a Bishopric--with disastrous results to the +Church--and in Butler's case it seemed only too likely that the +precedent would be followed. Gladstone, when Prime Minister, once +said to a Harrovian colleague, "What sort of Bishop would your +old master, Dr. Butler, make?" "The very worst," was the reply. +"He is quite ignorant of the Church, and would try to discipline +his clergy like school-boys. But there is one place for which he +is peculiarly qualified--the Mastership of Trinity." And the Prime +Minister concurred. In June, 1885, Gladstone was driven from office, +and was succeeded by Lord Salisbury. In October, 1886, the Master of +Trinity (Dr. W. H. Thompson) died, and Salisbury promptly offered +the Mastership to Dr. Butler, who had for a year been Dean of +Gloucester. It is not often that a man is designated for the same +great post by two Prime Ministers of different politics. + +At Trinity, though at first he had to live down certain amount of +jealousy and ill-feeling, Butler's power and influence increased +steadily from year to year, and towards the end he was universally +respected and admired. A resident contemporary writes: "He was +certainly a Reformer, but not a violent one. His most conspicuous +services to the College were, in my opinion, these: (1) Sage guidance +of the turbulent and uncouth democracy of which a College Governing +body consists. (2) A steady aim at the highest in education, being +careful to secure the position of literary education from the +encroachments of science and mathematics. (3) Affectionate stimulus +to all undergraduates who need it, especially Old Harrovians. (4) +The maintenance of the dignity and commanding position of Trinity +and consequently of the University in the world at large." + +To Cambridge generally Butler endeared himself by his eager interest +in all good enterprises, by his stirring oratory and persuasive +preaching, and by his lavish hospitality. As Vice-Chancellor, in +1889 and 1890, he worthily maintained the most dignified traditions +of academical office. Those who knew him both on the religious +and on the social side will appreciate the judgment said to have +been pronounced by Canon Mason, then Master of Pembroke: "Butler +will be saved, like Rahab, by hospitality and faith." + + + + +VIII + +_BASIL WILBERFORCE_[*] + +[Footnote *: A Memorial Address delivered in St. John's Church, +Westminster.] + +In the House of God the praise of man should always be restrained. +I, therefore, do not propose to obey the natural instinct which +would prompt me to deliver a copious eulogy of the friend whom +we commemorate--an analysis of his character or a description of +his gifts. + +But, even in church, there is nothing out of place in an attempt to +recall the particular aspects of truth which presented themselves +with special force to a particular mind. Rather, it is a dutiful +endeavour to acknowledge the gifts, whether in the way of spiritual +illumination or of practical guidance, which God gave us through +His servant; and, it is on some of those aspects as they presented +themselves to the mind of Basil Wilberforce that I propose to +speak--not, indeed, professing to treat them exhaustively, but +bearing in mind that true saying of Jeremy Taylor: "In this world +we believe in part and prophesy in part; and this imperfection +shall never be done away, till we be transplanted to a more glorious +state." + +1. I cannot doubt about the point which should be put most prominently. + +Wilberforce's most conspicuous characteristic was his vivid apprehension +of the Spiritual World. His eyes, like Elisha's, were always open to +see "the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire." Incorporeal +presences were to him at least as real as those which are embodied +in flesh and blood. Material phenomena were the veils of spiritual +realities; and "the powers of the world to come" were more actual +and more momentous than those which operate in time and space. +Perhaps the most important gift which God gave to the Church through +his ministry was his lifelong testimony against the darkness of +Materialism. + +2. Second only to his keen sense of the Unseen World was his conviction +of God's love. + +Other aspects of the Divine Nature as it is revealed to +us--Almightiness, Justice, Awfulness (though, of course, he recognized +them all)--did not colour his heart and life as they were coloured +by the sense of the Divine Love. That Love seemed to him to explain +all the mysteries of existence, to lift + + "the heavy and the weary weight + Of all this unintelligible world"; + +to make its dark places light, its rough places plain, its hard +things easy, even its saddest things endurable. His Gospel was +this: God, Who made us in His own Image, loves us like a Father; +and therefore, in life and in death, in time and in eternity, all +is, and must be, well. + +3. "He prayeth best, who lovest best + All things both great and small. + For the dear God Who loveth us, + He made and loveth all." + +Those familiar words of Coleridge perfectly express Wilberforce's +attitude towards his fellow-creatures, and when I say "fellow-creatures," +I am not thinking only of his brothers and sisters in the human family. + +He was filled with a God-like love of all that God has made. Hatred +and wrath and severity were not "dreamt of" in his "philosophy." +Towards the most degraded and abandoned of the race he felt as +tenderly as St. Francis felt towards the leper on the roadside +at Assisi, when he kissed the scarred hand, and then found that, +all unwittingly, he had ministered to the Lord, disguised in that +loathsome form. This was the motive which impelled Wilberforce +to devote himself, uncalculatingly and unhesitatingly, to the +reclamation of lives that had been devastated by drunkenness, and +which stimulated his zeal for all social and moral reforms. + +But his love extended far beyond the bounds of the human family; +and (in this again resembling St. Francis) he loved the birds and +beasts which God has provided as our companions in this life, and +perhaps--for aught we know--in the next. In a word, he loved all +God's creatures for God's sake. + +4. No one had a keener sense of the workings of the Holy Spirit +in regions beyond the precincts of all organized religion; and +yet, in his own personal heart and life, Wilberforce belonged +essentially to the Church of England. It is difficult to imagine +him happy and content in any communion except our own. Nowhere else +could he have found that unbroken chain which links us to Catholic +antiquity and guarantees the validity of our sacraments, combined +with that freedom of religious speculation and that elasticity +of devotional forms which were to him as necessary as vital air. +Various elements of his teaching, various aspects of his practice +will occur to different minds; but (just because it is sometimes +overlooked) I feel bound to remind you of his testimony to the +blessings which he had received through Confession, and to the +glory of the Holy Eucharist, as the Sun and Centre of Catholic +worship. His conviction of the reality and nearness of the spiritual +world gave him a singular ease and "access" in intercessory prayer, +and his love of humanity responded to that ideal of public worship +which is set forth in _John Inglesant:_ "The English Church, as +established by the law of England, offers the Supernatural to all +who choose to come. It is like the Divine Being Himself, Whose +sun shines alike on the evil and on the good." + +5. In what theology did Wilberforce, whose adult life had been +one long search for truth, finally repose? Assuredly he never lost +his hold on the central facts of the Christian revelation as they +are stated in the creed of Nicaea and Constantinople. Yet, as years +went on, he came to regard them less and less in their objective +aspect; more and more as they correspond to the work of the Spirit +in the heart and conscience. Towards the end, all theology seemed to +be for him comprehended in the one doctrine of the Divine Immanence, +and to find its natural expression in that significant phrase of +St. Paul: "Christ in you, the hope of glory." + +Spiritually-minded men do not, as a rule, talk much of their spiritual +experiences; but, if one had asked Wilberforce to say what he regarded +as the most decisive moment of his religious life, I can well believe +that he would have replied, "The moment when 'it pleased God to +reveal His Son _in_ me.'" + +The subject expands before us, as is always the case when we meditate +on the character and spirit of those whom we have lost; and I must +hasten to a close. + +I have already quoted from a writer with whom I think Wilberforce +would have felt a close affinity, though, as a matter of fact, I +never heard him mention that writer's name; I mean J. H. Shorthouse; +and I return to the same book--the stimulating story of _John +Inglesant_--for my concluding words, which seem to express, with +accidental fidelity, the principle of Wilberforce's spiritual being: +"We are like children, or men in a tennis-court, and before our +conquest is half-won, the dim twilight comes and stops the game; +nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all hold fast by +the law of life we feel within. This was the method which Christ +followed, and He won the world by placing Himself in harmony with +that law of gradual development which the Divine wisdom has planned. +Let us follow in His steps, and we shall attain to the ideal life; +and, without waiting for our mortal passage, tread the free and +spacious streets of that Jerusalem which is above." + + + + +IX + +_EDITH SICHEL_ + +This notice is more suitably headed with a name than with a title. +Edith Sichel was greater than anything she wrote, and the main +interest of the book before us[*] is the character which it reveals. +Among Miss Sichel's many activities was that of reviewing, and Mr. +Bradley tells that "her first object was to let the reader know +what kind of matter he might expect to find in the book, and, if +necessary, from what point of view it is treated there." Following +this excellent example, let us say that in _New and Old_ the reader +will find an appreciative but not quite adequate "Introduction"; +some extracts from letters; some "thoughts" or aphorisms; some +poems; and thirty-two miscellaneous pieces of varying interest-and +merit. This is what we "find in the book," and the "point of view" +is developed as we read. + +[Footnote *: _New and Old_. By Edith Sichel. With an Introduction +by A. C. Bradley. London: Constable and Co.] + +To say that the Introduction is not quite adequate is no aspersion +on Mr. Bradley. He tells us that he only knew Miss Sichel "towards +the close of her life" (she was born in 1862 and died in 1914), and +in her case pre-eminently the child was mother of the woman. Her +blood was purely Jewish, and the Jewish characteristic of precocity +was conspicuous in her from the first. At ten she had the intellectual +alertness of sixteen, and at sixteen she could have held her own +with ordinary people of thirty. To converse with her even casually +always reminded me of Matthew Arnold's exclamation: "What women +these Jewesses are! with a _force_ which seems to triple that of +the women of our Western and Northern races." + +From the days of early womanhood to the end, Edith Sichel led a +double life, though in a sense very different from that in which +this ambiguous phrase is generally employed. "She was known to the +reading public as a writer of books and of papers in magazines.... +Her principal books were warmly praised by judges competent to estimate +their value as contributions to French biography and history;" and +her various writings, belonging to very different orders and ranging +over a wide variety of topics, were always marked by vigour and +originality. Her versatility was marvellous; and, "though she had +not in youth the severe training that makes for perfect accuracy," +she had by nature the instinct which avoids the commonplace, and +which touches even hackneyed themes with light and fire. Her humour +was exuberant, unforced, untrammelled; it played freely round every +object which met her mental gaze--sometimes too freely when she was +dealing with things traditionally held sacred. But her flippancy +was of speech rather than of thought, for her fundamental view of +life was serious. "Life, in her view, brings much that is pure +and unsought joy, more, perhaps, that needs transforming effort, +little or nothing that cannot be made to contribute to an inward +and abiding happiness." + +Some more detailed account of her literary work may be given later +on; at this point I must turn to the other side of her double life. +She was only twenty-two when she began her career of practical +benevolence among the poor girls of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and +Shadwell. She established in the country Homes for the girl-children +of an East End work-house, and maintained them till she died. For +twenty-two years she was treasurer of a Boys' Home. She was a manager +of Elementary Schools in London. She held a class for female prisoners +at Holloway. She was deeply impressed by the importance of starting +young people in suitable employment, and threw all her energies +into the work, "in case of need, supplying the money required for +apprenticeship." In this and in all her other enterprises she was +generous to a fault, always being ready to give away half her +income--and yet not "to a fault," for her strong administrative +and financial instinct restrained her from foolish or mischievous +expenditure. All this work, of body and mind, was done in spite +of fragile health and frequent suffering; yet she never seemed +overburdened, or fussed, or flurried, and those who enjoyed her +graceful hospitality in Onslow Gardens would never have suspected +either that her day had been spent in what she called "the picturesque +mire of Wapping," or that she had been sitting up late at night, +immersed in _Human Documents from the Four Centuries preceding +the Reformation_. + +We have spoken of her humour. Those who would see a sample of it +are referred to her description of the Eisteddfod on p. 22; and +this piece of pungent fun may be profitably read in contrast with +her grim story of _Gladys Leonora Pratt_. In that story some of +the writer's saddest experiences in the East End are told with an +unshrinking fidelity, which yet has nothing mawkish or prurient in +it. Edith Sichel was too good an artist to be needlessly disgusting. +"It might," she said, "be well for the modern realist to remember +that literalness is not the same as truth, nor curiosity as courage." + +She was best known as a writer of books about the French Renaissance, +on which she became an acknowledged authority. She was less well +known, but not less effective, as a reviewer--no one ever dissected +Charlotte Yonge so justly--and she excelled in personal description. +Her accounts of her friends Miss Emily Lawless, Miss Mary Coleridge, +and Joseph Joachim, are masterpieces of characterization. All her +literary work was based on a wide and strong foundation of generous +culture. German was to her a second mother-tongue, and she lectured +delightfully on _Faust_. Though she spoke of herself as talking +"fluent and incomprehensible bad French," she was steeped in French +scholarship. She had read Plato and Sophocles under the stimulating +guidance of William Cory, and her love of Italy had taught her a +great deal of Italian. The authors whom she enjoyed and quoted +were a motley crowd--Dante and Rabelais, Pascal and Montaigne, +George Sand and Sainte-Beuve, Tolstoi and George Borrow, "Mark +Rutherford" and Samuel Butler, Fenelon and Renan and Anatole France. +Her vein of poetic feeling was strong and genuine. In addressing some +young girls she said: "We all think a great deal of the importance +of opening our windows and airing our rooms. I wish we thought +as much of airing our imaginations. To me poetry is quite like +that. It is like opening the window daily, and looking out and +letting in the air and the sunlight into an otherwise stuffy little +room; and if I cannot read some poetry in the day I feel more +uncomfortable than I can tell you." She might have put the case +more strongly; for poetry, and music, and painting, and indeed all +art at its highest level, made a great part of her religion. Her +family had long ago conformed to the Church of England, in which +she was brought up; but she never shook off her essential Judaism. +She had no sympathy with rites or ordinances, creeds or dogmas, +and therefore outward conformity to the faith of her forefathers +would have been impossible to her; but she looked with reverent +pride on the tombs in the Jewish cemetery at Prague. "It gave me +a strange feeling to stand at the tombstone of our tribe--900 A.D. +The oldest scholar's grave is 600 A.D., and Heaven knows how many +great old Rabbis lie there, memorable and forgotten. The wind and +the rain were sobbing all round the place, and all the melancholy +of my race seemed to rise up and answer them." Though she was a +Churchwoman by practice, her own religion was a kind of undefined +Unitarianism. "The Immanence of God and the life of Christ are my +treasures." "I am a heretic, you know, and it seems to me that +all who call Christ Master with adoration of that life are of the +same band." Her favourite theologians were James Martineau, Alfred +Ainger (whose Life she wrote admirably), and Samuel Barnett, whom +she elevated into a mystic and a prophet. The ways of the Church +of England did not please her. She had nothing but scorn for "a +joyless curate prating of Easter joy with limpest lips," or for "the +Athanasian Creed sung in the highest of spirits in a prosperous church" +filled with "sealskin-jacketed mammas and blowsy old gentlemen." But +the conclusion of the whole matter was more comfortable--"All the +clergymen in the world cannot make one disbelieve in God." + + + + +X + +_"WILL" GLADSTONE_ + +"He bequeathed to his children the perilous inheritance of a name +which the Christian world venerates." The words were originally +used by Bishop Samuel Wilberforce with reference to his father, +the emancipator of the negro. I venture to apply them to the great +man who, in days gone by, was my political leader, and I do so the +more confidently because I hold that Gladstone will be remembered +quite apart from politics, and, as Bishop Westcott said, "rather +for what he was than for what he did." He was, in Lord Salisbury's +words, "an example, to which history hardly furnishes a parallel, +of a great Christian, Statesman." It was no light matter for a +boy of thirteen to inherit a name which had been so nobly borne +for close on ninety years, and to acquire, as soon as he came of +age, the possession of a large and difficult property, and all +the local influence which such ownership implies. Yet this was +the burden which was imposed on "Will" Gladstone by his father's +untimely death. After an honourable career at Eton and Oxford, and +some instructive journeyings in the East and in America (where he +was an attache at the British Embassy), he entered Parliament as +Member for the Kilmarnock Boroughs. His Parliamentary career was +not destined to be long, but it was in many respects remarkable. + +In some ways he was an ideal candidate. He was very tall, with a +fair complexion and a singular nobility of feature and bearing. +To the most casual observer it was palpable that he walked the +world + + "With conscious step of purity and pride." + +People interested in heredity tried to trace in him some resemblance +to his famous grandfather; but, alike in appearance and in character, +the two were utterly dissimilar. In only one respect they resembled +each other, and that was the highest. Both were earnest and practical +Christians, walking by a faith which no doubts ever disturbed, +and serving God in the spirit and by the methods of the English +Church. And here we see alike Will Gladstone's qualifications and +his drawbacks as a candidate for a Scottish constituency. His name +and his political convictions commended him to the electors; his +ecclesiastial opinions they could not share. His uprightness of +character and nobility of aspect commanded respect; his innate +dislike of popularity-hunting and men-pleasing made him seem for so +young a man--he was only twenty-seven--austere and aloof. Everyone +could feel the intensity of his convictions on the points on which +he had made up his mind; some were unreasonably distressed when +he gave expression to that intensity by speech and vote. He was +chosen to second the Address at the opening of the Session of 1912, +and acquitted himself, as always, creditably; but it was in the +debates on the Welsh Disestablishment Bill that he first definitely +made his mark. "He strongly supported the principle, holding that it +had been fully justified by the results of the Irish Disestablishment +Act on the Irish Church. But, as in that case, generosity should +characterize legislation; disendowment should be clearly limited to +tithes. Accordingly, in Committee, he took an independent course. +His chief speech on this subject captivated the House. For a very +young Member to oppose his own party without causing irritation, +and to receive the cheers of the Opposition without being led to +seek in them solace for the silence of his own side, and to win +general admiration by transparent sincerity and clear, balanced +statement of reason, was a rare and notable performance." + +When Will Gladstone struck twenty-nine, there were few young men in +England who occupied a more enviable position. He had a beautiful +home; sufficient, but not overwhelming, wealth; a property which +gave full scope for all the gifts of management and administration +which he might possess; the devoted love of his family, and the +goodwill even of those who did not politically agree with him. +His health, delicate in childhood, had improved with years. "While +he never neglected his public duties, his natural, keen, healthy +love of nature, sport, fun, humour, company, broke out abundantly. +In these matters he was still a boy"--but a boy who, as it seemed, +had already crossed the threshold of a memorable manhood. Such was +Will Gladstone on his last birthday--the 12th of July, 1914. A +month later the "Great Tribulation" had burst upon the unthinking +world, and all dreams of happiness were shattered. Dreams of happiness, +yes; but not dreams of duty. Duty might assume a new, a terrible, +and an unlooked-for form; but its essential and spiritual part--the +conviction of what a man owes to God, to his fellow-men, and to +himself--became only more imperious when the call to arms was heard: +_Christus ad arma vocat_. + +Will Gladstone loved peace, and hated war with his whole heart. +He was by conviction opposed to intervention in the quarrels of +other nations. "His health was still delicate; he possessed neither +the training nor instincts of a soldier; war and fighting were +repugnant to his whole moral and physical fibre." No one, in short, +could have been by nature less disposed for the duty which now +became urgent. "The invasion of Belgium shattered his hopes and +his ideals." He now realized the stern truth that England must +fight, and, if England must fight, he must bear his part in the +fighting. He had been made, when only twenty-six, Lord-Lieutenant +of Flintshire, and as such President of the Territorial Force +Association. It was his official duty to "make personal appeals +for the enlistment of young men. But how could he urge others to +join the Army while he, a young man not disqualified for military +service, remained at home in safety? It was his duty to lead, and +his best discharge of it lay in personal example." His decision +was quickly and quietly made. "He was the only son of his mother, +and what it meant to her he knew full well;" but there was no +hesitation, no repining, no looking back. He took a commission in +the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and on the 15th +of March, 1915, he started with a draft for France. On the 12th +of April he was killed. "It is not"--he had just written to his +mother--"the length of existence, that counts, but what is achieved +during that existence, however short." These words of his form +his worthiest epitaph. + + + + +XI + +_LORD CHARLES RUSSELL_ + +A man can have no better friend than a good father; and this +consideration warrants, I hope, the inclusion of yet one more sketch +drawn "in honour of friendship." + +Charles James Fox Russell (1807-1894) was the sixth son of the sixth +Duke of Bedford. His mother was Lady Georgiana Gordon, daughter +of the fourth Duke of Gordon and of the adventurous "Duchess Jane," +who, besides other achievements even more remarkable, raised the +"Gordon Highlanders" by a method peculiarly her own. Thus he was +great-great-great-grandson of the Whig martyr, William, Lord Russell, +and great-nephew of Lord George Gordon, whose Protestant zeal excited +the riots of 1780. He was one of a numerous family, of whom the best +remembered are John, first Earl Russell, principal author of the +Reform Act of 1832, and Louisa, Duchess of Abercorn, grandmother +of the present Duke. + +Charles James Fox was a close friend, both politically and privately, +of the Duke and Duchess of Bedford, and he promised them that he +would be godfather to their next child; but he died before the +child was born, whereupon his nephew, Lord Holland, took over the +sponsorship, and named his godson "Charles James Fox." The child +was born in 1807, and his birthplace was Dublin Castle.[*] The +Duke of Bedford was then Viceroy of Ireland, and became involved +in some controversy because he refused to suspend the Habeas Corpus +Act. When Lord Charles Russell reached man's estate, he used, half +in joke but quite half in-earnest, to attribute his lifelong sympathy +with the political demands of the Irish people to the fact that +he was a Dublin man by birth. + +[Footnote *: He was christened from a gold bowl by the Archbishop +of Dublin, Lord Normanton.] + +The Duke of Bedford was one of the first Englishmen who took a +shooting in Scotland (being urged thereto by his Highland Duchess); +and near his shooting-lodge a man who had been "out" with Prince +Charlie in 1745 was still living when Charles Russell first visited +Speyside. Westminster was the Russells' hereditary school, and +Charles Russell was duly subjected to the austere discipline which +there prevailed. From the trials of gerund-grinding and fagging +and flogging a temporary relief was afforded by the Coronation of +George IV., at which he officiated as Page to the acting Lord Great +Chamberlain. It was the last Coronation at which the procession was +formed in Westminster Hall and moved across to the Abbey. Young +Russell, by mischievousness or carelessness, contrived to tear +his master's train from the ermine cape which surmounted it; and +the procession was delayed till a seamstress could be found to +repair the damage. "I contrived to keep that old rascal George +IV. off the throne for half an hour," was Lord Charles-Russell's +boast in maturer age.[*] + +[Footnote *: J, W. Croker, recording the events of the day, says: +"The King had to wait full half an hour for the Great Chamberlain, +Lord Gwydyr, who, it seems, had torn his robes, and was obliged +to wait to have them mended. I daresay the public lays the blame +of the delay on to the King, who was ready long before anyone +else,"--_The Croker Papers_, vol. i., p. 195.] + +From Westminster Lord Charles passed to the University of Edinburgh, +where his brother John had preceded him. He boarded with Professor +Pillans, whom Byron gibbeted as "paltry"[*] in "English Bards and +Scotch Reviewers," and enjoyed the society of the literary circle +which in those days made Edinburgh famous. The authorship of the +Waverley Novels was not yet revealed, and young Russell had the +pleasure of discussing with Sir Walter Scott the dramatic qualities +of _The Bride of Lammermoor_. He was, perhaps, less unfitted for such +high converse than most lads would be, because, as Lord Holland's +godson, he had been from his schooldays a frequenter of Holland +House in its days of glory.[**] + +[Footnote *: Why?] + +[Footnote **: On his first visit Lord Holland told him that he +might order his own dinner. He declared for a roast duck with green +peas, and an apricot tart; whereupon the old Amphitryon said: "Decide +as wisely on every question in life, and you will never go far +wrong."] + +On leaving Edinburgh, Lord Charles Russell joined the Blues, then +commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, afterwards King of Hanover; +and he was able to confirm, by personal knowledge, the strange +tales of designs which the Duke entertained for placing himself or +his son upon the throne of England.[*] He subsequently exchanged +into the 52nd Light Infantry, from which he retired, with the rank +of Lieutenant-Colonel, in order to enter Parliament. In December, +1832, he was returned at the head of the poll for Bedfordshire, +and on Christmas Eve a young lady (who in 1834 became his wife) +wrote thus to her sister: + +"Lord Charles Russell is returned for this County. The Chairing, +Dinner, etc., take place to-day. Everybody is interested about +him, as he is very young and it is his first appearance in the +character. His speeches have delighted the whole County, and he +is, of course, very much pleased." This faculty of public speaking +was perhaps his most remarkable endowment. He had an excellent +command of cultivated English, a clear and harmonious voice, a keen +sense of humour, and a happy knack of apt quotation. + +[Footnote *: _Cf. Tales of my Father_, by A. F. Longmans, 1902.] + +On the 23rd of February, 1841, Disraeli wrote, with reference to +an impending division on the Irish Registration Bill: "The Whigs +had last week two hunting accidents; but Lord Charles Russell, +though he put his collar-bone out, and we refused to pair him, +showed last night." He sate for Bedfordshire till the dissolution +of that year, when he retired, feeling that Free Trade was indeed +bound to come, but that it would be disastrous for the agricultural +community which he represented. "Lord Charles Russell," wrote Cobden, +"is the man who opposed even his brother John's fixed duty, declaring +at the time that it was to throw two millions of acres out of +cultivation." He returned to Parliament for a brief space in 1847, +and was then appointed Serjeant-at-Arms--not, as he always insisted, +"Serjeant-at-Arms to the House of Commons," but "one of the Queen's +Serjeants-at-Arms, directed by her to attend on the Speaker during +the sitting of Parliament." In 1873 the office and its holder were +thus described by "Jehu Junior" in _Vanity Fair_: + +"For the filling of so portentous an office, it is highly important +that one should be chosen who will, by personal mien and bearing +not less than by character, detract nothing from its dignity. Such +a one is Lord Charles Russell, who is a worthy representative of +the great house of Bedford from which he springs. + +"For a quarter of a century he has borne the mace before successive +Speakers. From his chair he has listened to Peel, to Russell, to +Palmerston, to Disraeli, and to Gladstone, and he still survives +as a depository of their eloquence. He is himself popular beyond +the fair expectations of one who has so important a part to play +in the disciplinary arrangements of a popular assembly; for he +is exceptionally amiable and genial by nature, is an excellent +sportsman, and has cultivated a special taste for letters.[*] It is +rarely that in these times a man can be found so thoroughly fitted +to fill an office which could be easily invested with ridicule, +or so invariably to invest it, as he has, with dignity." + +[Footnote *: He was the best Shakespearean I ever knew, and founded +the "Shakespeare Medal" at Harrow. Lord Chief justice Coleridge +wrote thus: "A munificent and accomplished nobleman, Lord Charles +Russell, has, by the wise liberality which dictated the foundation +of his Shakespeare Medal at Harrow, secured that at least at one +great Public School the boys may be stimulated in youth to an exact +and scholarlike acquaintance with the poet whom age will show them +to be the greatest in the world."] + +Sir George Trevelyan writes: "You can hardly imagine how formidable +and impressive Lord Charles seemed to the mass of Members, and +especially to the young; and how exquisite and attractive was the +moment when he admitted you to his friendly notice, and the absolute +assurance that, once a friend, he would be a friend for ever." + +Lord Charles Russell held the Serjeancy till 1875; and at this point +I had better transcribe the record in _Hansard_: + + * * * * * + +_Monday, April_ 5, 1875: + +Mr. Speaker acquainted the House that he had received from Lord +Charles James Fox Russell the following letter: + + HOUSE OF COMMONS, + _April_ 5_th_, 1875. + +SIR, + +I have the honour to make application to you that you will be pleased +to sanction my retirement from my office, by Patent, of Her Majesty's +Serjeant-at-Arms attending the Speaker of the House of Commons. +I have held this honourable office for twenty-seven years, and +I feel that the time is come when it is desirable that I should +no longer retain it. + + I have the honour to be, Sir, + Your very obedient servant, + CHARLES J. F. RUSSELL, + _Serjeant-at-Arms_. + +THE RIGHT HONBLE. THE SPEAKER. + +_Thursday, April_ 8, 1875: + +Mr. DISRAELI: I beg to move, Sir, that the letter addressed to +you by Lord Charles Russell, the late Serjeant-at-Arms, be read +by the Clerk at the Table. + +Letter [5th April] read. + +Mr. DISRAELI: Mr. Speaker, we have listened to the resignation of +his office by one who has long and ably served this House. The office +of Serjeant-at-Arms is one which requires no ordinary qualities; for +it requires at the same time patience, firmness, and suavity, and +that is a combination of qualities more rare than one could wish +in this world. The noble Lord who filled the office recently, and +whose resignation has just been read at the Table, has obtained our +confidence by the manner in which he has discharged his duties through +an unusually long period of years; and we should remember, I think, +that occasions like the present are almost the only opportunity we +have of expressing our sense of those qualities, entitled so much +to our respect, which are possessed and exercised by those who fill +offices attached to this House, and upon whose able fulfilment of +their duties much of our convenience depends. Therefore, following +the wise example of those who have preceded me in this office, +I have prepared a Resolution which expresses the feeling of the +House on this occasion, and I now place it, Sir, in your hands. + +Mr. Speaker, read the Resolution, as follows: "That Mr. Speaker +be requested to acquaint Lord Charles James Fox Russell that this +House entertains a just sense of the exemplary manner in which he +has uniformly discharged the duties of the Office of Serjeant-at-Arms +during his long attendance on this House." + +The MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of the Members who sit +on this side of the House, I rise to second the Motion of the Right +Hon. Gentleman. He has on more than one occasion gracefully, but +at the same time justly, recognized the services rendered to the +State by the house of Russell. That house will always occupy a +foremost place in the history of the Party to which I am proud +to belong, and I hope it will occupy no insignificant place in +the history of the country. Of that house the noble Lord who has +just resigned his office is no unworthy member. There are, Sir, +at the present moment but few Members who can recollect the time +when he assumed the duties of his office; but I am glad that his +resignation has been deferred long enough to enable a number of +new Members of this House to add their testimony to that of us +who are better acquainted with him, as to the invariable dignity +and courtesy with which he has discharged his duties. + +The Resolution was adopted by the House, _nemine contradicente._ + + * * * * * + +Lord Charles now retired to his home at Woburn, Bedfordshire, where +he spent the nineteen years of his remaining life. He had always +been devoted to the duties and amusements of the county, and his +two main joys were cricket and hunting. He was elected to M.C.C. in +1827, and for twenty years before his death I had been its senior +member. Lilywhite once said to him: "For true cricket, give _me_ +bowling, _Pilch_ in, _Box_ at the wicket, and your Lordship looking +on."[*] He was a good though uncertain shot, but in the saddle he +was supreme--a consummate horseman, and an unsurpassed judge of +a hound. He hunted regularly till he was eighty-one, irregularly +still later, and rode till his last illness began. Lord Ribblesdale +writes: "The last time I had the good fortune to meet your father +we went hunting together with the Oakley Hounds, four or five years +before his death. We met at a place called Cranfield Court, and +Lord Charles was riding a young mare, five years old--or was she +only four?--which kicked a hound, greatly to his disgust! She was +not easy to ride, nor did she look so, but he rode her with the +ease of long proficiency--not long years--and his interest in all +that goes to make up a day's hunting was as full of zest and youth +as I recollect his interest used to be in all that made up a +cricket-match in my Harrow days." + +[Footnote *: See _Lords and the M.C.C._, p. 86.] + +In religion Lord Charles Russell was an Evangelical, and he was +a frequent speaker on religious platforms. In politics he was an +ardent Liberal; always (except in that soon-repented heresy about +Free Trade) rather in advance of his party; a staunch adherent +of Mr. Gladstone, and a convinced advocate of Home Rule, though +he saw from the outset that the first Home Rule Bill, without +Chamberlain's support, was, as he said, "No go." He took an active +part in electioneering, from the distant days when, as a Westminster +boy, he cheered for Sir Francis Burdett, down to September, 1892, when +he addressed his last meeting in support of Mr. Howard Whitbread, +then Liberal candidate for South Bedfordshire. A speech which he +delivered at the General Election of 1886, denouncing the "impiety" +of holding that the Irish were incapable of self-government, won the +enthusiastic applause of Mr. Gladstone. When slow-going Liberals +complained of too-rapid reforms, he used to say: "When I was a +boy, our cry was 'Universal Suffrage, Triennial Parliaments, and +the Ballot.' That was seventy years ago, and we have only got one +of the three yet." + +In local matters, he was always on the side of the poor and the +oppressed, and a sturdy opponent of all aggressions on their rights. +"Footpaths," he wrote, "are a precious right of the poor, and +consequently much encroached on." + +It is scarcely decent for a son to praise his father, but even a +son may be allowed to quote the tributes which his father's death +evoked. Let some of these tributes end my tale. + + _June_ 29_th_, 1894. + +My DEAR G. RUSSELL, + + I am truly grieved to learn this sad news. +It is the disappearance of an illustrious figure to +us, but of much more, I fear, to you. + + Yours most sincerely, + ROSEBERY. + + _June_ 30_th_, 1894. + +DEAR G. RUSSELL, + +I saw with sorrow the announcement of your father's death. He was +a good and kind friend to me in the days long ago, and I mourn +his loss. In these backsliding days he set a great example of +steadfastness and loyalty to the faith of his youth and his race. + + Yours very truly, + + W. V. HARCOURT. + + _July_ 31_rd_ 1894. + +DEAR RUSSELL, + +I was very grieved to hear of your revered father's death. + +He was a fine specimen of our real aristocracy, and such specimens +are becoming rarer and rarer in these degenerate days. + +There was a true ring of the "Grand Seigneur" about him which always +impressed me. + + Yours sincerely, + REAY. + + _July_ 1_st_, 1894. + +My DEAR RUSSELL, + +I thank you very much for your kindness in writing to me. + +You may, indeed, presume that it is with painful interest and deep +regret that I hear of the death of your father, and that I value +the terms in which you speak of his feelings towards myself. + +Though he died at such an advanced age, it is, I think, remarkable +that his friends spoke of him to the last as if he were still in +the full intercourse of daily life, without the disqualification +or forgetfulness that old age sometimes brings with it. + +For my part I can never forget my association with him in the House +of Commons and elsewhere, nor the uniform kindness which he always +showed me. + + Believe me, most truly yours, + ARTHUR W. PEEL. + + _June_ 29_th_, 1894. + +My DEAR RUSSELL, + +I have seen, with the eyes of others, in newspapers of this afternoon +the account of the death--shall I say?--or of the ingathering of +your father. And of what he was to you as a father I can reasonably, +if remotely, conceive from knowing what he was in the outer circle, +as a firm, true, loyal friend. + +He has done, and will do, no dishonour to the name of Russell. It +is a higher matter to know, at a supreme moment like this, that +he had placed his treasure where moth and dust do not corrupt, and +his dependence where dependence never fails. May he enjoy the rest, +light, and peace of the just until you are permitted to rejoin him. +With growing years you will feel more and more that here everything +is but a rent, and that it is death alone which integrates. + +On Monday I hope to go to Pitlochrie, N. B., and in a little time +to return southward, and resume, if it please God, the great gift +of working vision. + + Always and sincerely yours, + W. E. GLADSTONE. + + + + +III + +RELIGION AND THE CHURCH + + + + +I + +_A STRANGE EPIPHANY_ + +Whenever the State meddles with the Church's business, it contrives +to make a muddle. This familiar truth has been exemplified afresh +by the decree which dedicated last Sunday[*] to devotions connected +with the War. The Feast of the Epiphany has had, at least since +the fourth century, its definite place in the Christian year, its +special function, and its peculiar lesson. The function is to +commemorate the revelation of Christianity to the Gentile world; +and the lesson is the fulfilment of all that the better part of +Heathendom had believed in and sought after, in the religion which +emanates from Bethlehem. To confuse the traditional observance of +this day with the horrors and agonies of war, its mixed motives +and its dubious issues, was indeed a triumph of ineptitude. + +[Footnote *: January 6th, 1918.] + +Tennyson wrote of + + "this northern island, + Sundered once from all the human race"; + +and when Christians first began to observe the Epiphany, or Theophany +(as the feast was indifferently called), our own forefathers were +among the heathen on whom the light of the Holy Manger was before +long to shine. It has shone on us now for a good many centuries; +England has ranked as one of the chiefest of Christian nations, +and has always professed, and often felt, a charitable concern +for the races which are still lying in darkness. Epiphany is very +specially the feast of a missionary Church, and the strongest appeal +which it could address to Heathendom would be to cry, "See what +Christianity has done for the world! Christendom possesses the +one religion. Come in and share its blessings." + +There have been times and places at which that appeal could be +successfully made. Indeed, as Gibbon owned, it was one of the causes +to which the gradual triumph of Christianity was due. But for Europe +at the present moment to address that appeal to Africa or India +or China would be to invite a deadly repartee. In the long ages, +Heathendom might reply, which have elapsed since the world "rose +out of chaos," you have improved very little on the manners of +those primeval monsters which "tare each other in the slime." Two +thousand years of Christianity have not taught you to beat your +swords into plough-shares. You still make your sons to pass through +the fire to Moloch, and the most remarkable developments of physical +science are those which make possible the destruction of human life +on the largest scale. Certainly, in Zeppelins and submarines and +poisonous gas there is very little to remind the world of Epiphany +and what it stands for. + +Thirty years ago the great Lord Shaftesbury wrote: "The present +is terrible, the future far more so; every day adds to the power +and facility of the means of destruction. Science is hard at work +(science, the great--nay, to some the only--God of these days) +to discover and concentrate the shortest and easiest methods to +annihilate the human race." We see the results of that work in +German methods of warfare. + +Germany has for four centuries asserted for herself a conspicuous +place in European religion. She has been a bully there as in other +fields, and the lazy and the timid have submitted to her theological +pretensions. Now, by the mouth of her official pastors she has +renounced the religion of sacrifice for the lust of conquest, and +has substituted the creed of Odin for the faith of Christ. A country +which, in spite of learning and opportunity, has wilfully elapsed +from civilization into barbarism can scarcely evangelize Confucians +or Buddhists. + +If we turn from the Protestant strongholds of the North to the +citadel of Authority at Rome, the signs of an Epiphany are equally +lacking. The Infallibility which did not save the largest section +of Christendom from such crimes as the Inquisition and the massacre +of St. Bartholomew has proved itself equally impotent in these +latter days. No one could have expected the Pope, who has spiritual +children in all lands, to take sides in an international dispute; +but one would have thought that a divinely-given infallibility +would have denounced, with the trumpet-tone of Sinai, the orgies +of sexual and sacrilegious crime which have devastated Belgium. + +Is the outlook in allied Russia any more hopeful than in hostile +Germany and in neutral Rome? I must confess that I cannot answer. +We were always told that the force which welded together in one the +different races and tongues of the Russian Empire was a spiritual +force; that the Russian held his faith dearer than his life; and +that even his devotion to the Czar had its origin in religion. +At this moment of perplexity and peril, will the Holy Orthodox +Church manifest her power and instil into her children the primary +conceptions of Christian citizenship? + +And if we look nearer home, we must acknowledge that the condition +of England has not always been such as to inspire Heathendom with a +lively desire to be like us. A century and a half ago Charles Wesley +complained that his fellow-citizens, who professed Christianity, "the +sinners unbaptized out-sin." And everyone who remembers the social +and moral state of England during the ten years immediately preceding +the present War will be inclined to think that the twentieth century +had not markedly improved on the eighteenth. Betting and gambling, +and the crimes to which they lead, had increased frightfully, and +were doing as much harm as drunkenness used to do. There was an +open and insolent disregard of religious observance, especially +with respect to the use of Sunday, the weekly Day of Rest being +perverted into a day of extra amusement and resulting labour. There +was a general relaxation of moral tone in those classes of society +which are supposed to set a good example. There was an ever-increasing +invasion of the laws which guard sexual morality, illustrated in +the agitation to make divorce even easier than it is now. Other +and darker touches might be added; but I have said enough to make +my meaning clear. Some say that the war is teaching us to repent of +and to forsake those national offences. If so, but not otherwise, +we can reasonably connect it with the lessons of Epiphany. + + + + +II + +_THE ROMANCE OF RENUNCIATION_ + +"What is Romance? The world well lost for an ides." I know no better +definition; and Romance in this sense is perpetually illustrated +in the history of the Church. The highest instance-save One--is, +of course, the instance of the Martyrs. When in human history has +Romance been more splendidly displayed than when the young men +and maidens of Pagan Rome suffered themselves to be flung to the +wild beasts of the arena sooner than abjure the religion of the +Cross? And close on the steps of the Martyrs follow the Confessors, +the "Martyrs-Elect," as Tertullian calls them, who, equally willing +to lay down their lives, yet denied that highest privilege, carried +with them into exile and imprisonment the horrible mutilations +inflicted by Severus and Licinius. In days nearer our own time, +"many a tender maid, at the threshold of her young life, has gladly +met her doom, when the words that accepted Islam would have made her +in a moment a free and honoured member of a dominant community." +Then there is the Romance of the Hermitage and the Romance of the +Cloister, illustrated by Antony in the Egyptian desert, and Benedict +in his cave among the Latin hills, and Francis tending the leper +by the wayside of Assisi. In each of these cases, as in thousands +more, the world was well lost for an idea. + +The world is well lost--and supremely well lost--by the Missionary, +whatever be his time or country or creed. Francis Xavier lost it well +when he made his response to the insistent question: "What shall +it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own +soul?" Henry Martyn lost it well when, with perverse foolishness +as men accounted it, he sacrificed the most brilliant prospects +which a University offers to preach and fail among the heathen, +and to die at thirty, forsaken and alone. John Coleridge Patterson +lost it well when, putting behind him all the treasures of Eton and +Oxford, and powerful connexions and an opulent home, he went out +to spread the light of the Gospel amid the isles of the Pacific, +and to meet his death at the hands of the heathen whom he loved +and served. + +These, indeed, are the supreme Romances of Renunciation, but others +there are, which, though less "high and heroical," are not less +Teal and not less instructive. The world was well lost (though for +a cause which is not mine) by the two thousand ministers who on +"Black Bartholomew," in the year 1662, renounced their benefices +in the Established Church sooner than accept a form of worship +which their conscience disallowed. And yet again the world was +gloriously lost by the four hundred ministers and licentiates of +the Church of Scotland who, in the great year of the Disruption, +sacrificed home and sanctuary land subsistence rather than compromise +the "Headship of Christ over His own house." + +One more instance I must give of these heroic losses, and in giving +it I recall a name, famous and revered in my young days, but now, +I suppose, entirely forgotten--the name of the Honble. and Revd. +Baptist Noel (1798-1873). "His more than three-score years and +ten were dedicated, by the day and by the hour, to a ministry not +of mind but of spirit; his refined yet vigorous eloquence none who +listened to it but for once could forget; and, having in earliest +youth counted birth and fortune, and fashion but loss 'for Christ,' +in later age, at the bidding of the same conscience, he relinquished +even the church which was his living and the pulpit which was his +throne, because he saw danger to Evangelical truth in State alliance, +and would go forth at the call of duty, he knew not and he cared +not whither." + +After these high examples of the Romance of Renunciation, it may +seem rather bathetic to cite the instance which has given rise to +this chapter. Yet I cannot help feeling that Mr. William Temple, +by resigning the Rectory of St. James's, Piccadilly, in order to +devote himself to the movement for "Life and Liberty," has established +a strong claim on the respect of those who differ from him. I state +on p. 198 my reason for dissenting from Mr. Temple's scheme. To my +thinking, it is just one more attempt to stave off Disestablishment. +The subjection of the Church to the State is felt by many to be an +intolerable burden. Mr. Temple and his friends imagine that, while +retaining the secular advantages of Establishment and endowment, +they can obtain from Parliament the self-governing powers of a +spiritual society. I doubt it, and I do not desire it. My own ideal +is Cavour's--the Free Church in the Free State; and all such schemes +as Mr. Temple's seem to me desperate attempts to make the best of +two incompatible worlds. By judicious manipulation our fetters +might be made to gall less painfully, but they would be more securely +riveted than ever. So in this new controversy Mr. Temple stands on +one side and I on the other; but this does not impair my respect +for a man who is ready to "lose the world for an idea"--even though +that idea be erroneous and Impracticable. + +To "lose the world" may seem too strong a phrase for the occasion, +but it is not in substance inappropriate. Mr. Temple has all the +qualifications which in our Established Church lead on to fortune. +He has inherited the penetrating intelligence and the moral fervour +which in all vicissitudes of office and opinion made his father +one of the conspicuous figures of English life. Among dons he was +esteemed a philosopher, but his philosophy did not prevent him +from being an eminently practical Head Master. He is a vigorous +worker, a powerful preacher, and the diligent rector of an important +parish. Of such stuff are Bishops made. There is no shame in the +wish to be a Bishop, or even an Archbishop, as we may see by the +biographies of such prelates as Wilberforce and Tait and Magee, +and in the actual history of some good men now sitting on Episcopal +thrones. But Mr. Temple has proved himself a man capable of ideals, +and has given that irrefragable proof of sincerity which is afforded +by the voluntary surrender of an exceptionally favoured position. + +That the attempt to which he is now devoting himself may come to +naught is my earnest desire; and then, when the Church, at length +recognizing the futility of compromise, acquires her complete, +severance from the secular power, she may turn to him for guidance +in the use of her new-born freedom. + + + + +III + +_PAN-ANGLICANISM_ + +It is an awful word. Our forefathers, from Shakespeare downwards, +ate pan-cakes, and trod the pantiles at Tunbridge Wells; but their +"pan" was purely English, and they linked it with other English +words. The freedom of the "Ecclesia Anglicana" was guaranteed by +the Great Charter, and "Anglicanism" became a theological term. +Then Johnson, making the most of his little Greek, began to talk +about a "pancratical" man, where we talk of an all-round athlete; +and, a little later, "Pantheist" became a favourite missile with +theologians who wished to abuse rival practitioners, but did not +know exactly how to formulate their charge. It was reserved for the +journalists of 1867 to form the terrible compound of two languages, +and, by writing of the "Pan-Anglican Synod," to prepare the way for +"Pan-Protestant" and "Pan-denominational." Just now the "Lively +Libertines" (as their detractors style the promoters of "Life and +Liberty") seem to be testing from their labours, and they might +profitably employ their leisure by reading the history of their +forerunners half a century ago. + +The hideously named "Pan-Anglican Synod," which assembled at Lambeth +in September, 1867, and terminated its proceedings in the following +December, was a real movement in the direction of Life and Liberty +for the Church of England. The impulse came from the Colonies, +which, themselves enjoying the privilege of spiritual independence, +were generously anxious to coalesce at a time of trial with the +fettered Church at home. The immediate occasion of the movement +was the eccentricity of Bishop Colenso--"the arithmetical Bishop +who could not forgive Moses for having written a Book of Numbers." +The faith of some was seriously perturbed when they heard of a +Bishop who, as Matthew Arnold said, "had learnt among the Zulus +that only a certain number of people can stand in a doorway at +once, and that no man can eat eighty-eight pigeons a day; and who +tells us, as a consequence, that the Pentateuch is all fiction, +which, however, the author may very likely have composed without +meaning to do wrong, and as a work of poetry, like Homer's." + +Certainly the tremors of a faith so lightly overset were justly +obnoxious to Arnold's ridicule; but Colenso's negations went deeper +than the doorway and the pigeons; and the faithful of his diocese, +being untrammelled by the State, politely dismissed him from his +charge. In England steady-going Christians had been not less perturbed +by that queer collection of rather musty discourses which was called +_Essays and Reviews_; and the Church of England had made an attempt +to rid itself, by synodical action, of all complicity in the dubious +doctrine. But the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council had justified +the essayists, and had done its best to uphold Colenso. By so doing, it +had, of course, delighted all Erastians; but Churchmen, whether at home +or abroad, who believed in the English Church as a spiritual society, +with a life of its own apart from all legal establishment, felt that +the time had come when this belief should be publicly proclaimed. In +February, 1866, the Anglican Bishops of Canada addressed a Memorial +to Dr. Longley, then Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting him to +summon a conference of all the Bishops of the Anglican Communion; +and, after some characteristic hesitation, this was done. A Letter of +Invitation was issued in February, 1867. The more dogged Erastians +held aloof; but those who conceived of the Church as a spiritual +society obeyed the summons; the "Conference of Bishops" assembled, +and the priceless word "Pan-Anglicanism" was added to the resources +of the language. + +What did these good men do when they were come together? Not, it +must be admitted, very much. They prayed and they preached, and +debated and divided, and, in the matter of Colenso, quarrelled. +They issued a Pastoral Letter which, as Bishop Tait said, was "the +expression of essential agreement and a repudiation of Infidelity +and Romanism." If this had been the sole result of the Conference, +it would have been meagre enough; but under this official +ineffectiveness there had been a real movement towards "Life and +Liberty." The Conference taught the Established Bishops of England +and Ireland that the Bishops of Free Churches--Scottish, American, +Colonial--were at least as keen about religious work and as jealous +for the spiritual independence of the Christian society as the highly +placed and handsomely paid occupants of Lambeth and Bishopthorpe. +Bishop Hamilton of Salisbury (whom the Catholic-minded section of +the English Church regarded as their special champion) "thought +that we had much to learn from contact with the faith and vigour +of the American Episcopate"; and Bishop Wilberforce thus recorded +his judgment: "The Lambeth gathering was a very great success. Its +strongly anti-Erastian tone, rebuking the Bishop of London (Tait), +was quite remarkable. We are now sitting in Committee trying to +complete our work--agree to a voluntary Court of English Doctrinal +Appeal for the free Colonies of America. If we can carry this out, +we shall have erected a barrier of immense moral strength against +Privy Council latitudinarianism. My view is that God gives us the +opportunity, as at home latitudinarianism must spread, of encircling +the Home Church with a band of far more dogmatic truth-holding +communions who will act most strongly in favour of truth here. +I was in great measure the framer of the "Pan-Anglican" for this +purpose, and the result has abundantly satisfied me. The American +Bishops won golden opinions." + +And so this modest effort in the direction of "Life and Liberty," +which had begun amid obloquy and ridicule, gained strength with +each succeeding year. The Conference was repeated, with vastly +increased numbers and general recognition, in 1878, 1888, 1898, and +1908. The war makes the date of the next assemblage, as it makes +all things, doubtful; but already Churchmen, including some who have +hitherto shrunk in horror from the prospect of Disestablishment, +are beginning to look forward to the next Conference of Bishops +as to something which may be a decisive step in the march of the +English Church towards freedom and self-government. Men who have +been reared in a system of ecclesiastical endowments are apt to +cherish the very unapostolic belief that money is a sacred thing; +but even they are coming, though by slow degrees, to realize that the +Faith may be still more sacred. For the rest of us, the issue was +formulated by Gladstone sixty years ago: "You have our decision: +take your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright +of the Bride of Christ." + + + + +IV + +_LIFE AND LIBERTY_ + +The title is glorious; and, so far as I know, the credit of inventing +it belongs to my friend the Rev. H. R. L. Sheppard, the enterprising +Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Mr. Sheppard has what in newspapers +we call a "magnetic personality," and no one has more thoroughly +laid to heart the sagacious saying that "Sweet are the uses of +advertisement." Whatever cause he adopts, the world must know that +he has adopted it; and it shall obtain a hearing, or he will know +the reason why. The cause to which (outside his pastoral work) he +is just now devoted is that which is summarized in the phrase, +"Life and Liberty for the Church of England." It is a fine ideal, +and Mr. Sheppard and his friends have been expounding it at the +Queen's Hall. + +It was no common achievement to fill that hall on a hot summer +evening in the middle of the war, and with very little' assistance +from the Press. Yet Mr. Sheppard did it, and he filled an "over-flow +meeting" as well. The chair was taken by the Rev. William Temple, +who tempered what might have been the too fervid spirit of the +gathering with the austerity which belongs to a writer on philosophy, +an ex-Head Master, and a prospective Bishop. The hall was densely +crowded with clergy, old and young--old ones who had more or less +missed their mark, and young ones keen to take warning by these +examples. There were plenty of laymen, too, quite proud to realize +that, though they are not in Holy Orders, they too are "in the +Church"; and a brilliant star, if only he had appeared, would have +been a Second-Lieutenant in khaki, who unfortunately was detained +at the front by military duties. A naval and a military chaplain +did the "breezy" business, as befitted their cloth; and, beaming +on the scene with a paternal smile, was the most popular of Canons, +who by a vehement effort kept silence even from good words, though +it must have been pain and grief to him.[*] + +[Footnote *: Alas! we have lost him since.] + +The oratorical honours of the evening were by common consent adjudged +to a lady, who has since been appointed "Pulpit Assistant" to the +City Temple. May an old-fashioned Churchman suggest that, if this +is a sample of Mr. Sheppard's new movement, the "Life" of the Church +of England is likely to be a little too lively, and its "Liberty" +to verge on licence? A ministry of undenominational feminism is +"a thing imagination boggles at." Here it is to be remarked that +the leaders of the movement are male and female after their kind. +Dr. and Mrs. Dingo sit in council side by side, and much regret +is expressed that Archdeacon Buckemup is still a celibate. But +let us be of good cheer. Earnest-minded spinsters, undeterred by +the example of Korah (who, as they truly say, was only a man), +are clamouring for the priesthood as well as the vote; and in the +near future the "Venerable Archdeaconess" will be a common object +of the ecclesiastical sea-shore. Miss Jenkyns, in _Cranford_, would +have made a capital Dean. + +So much for the setting of the scene. The "business" must be now +considered, and we will take the programme of "Life and Liberty" +point by point, as set forth in a pamphlet by Mr. Temple. In the +first place, its leaders are very clear that they wish to keep their +endowments; but it must not be supposed that they dread reform. +Their policy is "Redistribution." Those great episcopal incomes +are again threatened; the Bishops are to be delivered from that +burden of wealth which presses so hardly on them; and the slum +parson is to have a living wage. But the incumbent, though his +income may thus be increased, is by no means to have it all his +own way. His freehold in his benefice is to be abolished; and, even +while he retains his position, he is to have his duties assigned +to him, and his work arranged, by a "Parochial Church Council," in +which the "Pulpit Assistant" at Bethesda or Bethel may have her +place. Life and Liberty indeed! But further boons are in store for +us. We have at present two Archbishops, and, I hope, are thankful +for them. Under the new scheme we are promised eight, or even nine. +"Showers of blessing," as the hymn says! I presume that the six (or +seven) new Archbishops are to be paid out of the "redistributed" +incomes of the existing two. The believers in "Life and Liberty" +humanely propose to compensate the Archbishop of Canterbury for +the diminution of his L15,000 a year by letting him call himself +a "Patriarch," but I can hardly fancy a Scotsman regarding this +as a satisfactory bargain. + +But how are these and similar boons to be attained? The promoters of +Life and Liberty (not, I fancy, without a secret hope of frightening +the Bishops into compliance with their schemes) affirm their readiness +to accept Disestablishment "if no other way to self-government seems +feasible"; but they, themselves, prefer a less heroic method. While +retaining the dignity of Establishment and the opulence of Endowment, +they propose that the Church should have "power to legislate on all +matters affecting the Church, subject to Parliamentary veto.... +This proposal has the immense practical advantage that, whereas it +is now necessary to secure time for the passage of any measure +through Parliament, if this scheme were adopted it would become +necessary for the opponent or obstructor to find time to prevent +its passage. The difference which this would make in practice is +enormous." It is indeed; and the proposal is interesting as a choice +specimen of what the world knows (and dislikes) as Ecclesiastical +Statesmanship. + +"Life and Liberty"--there is music in the very words; and, ever +since I was old enough to have an opinion on serious matters, I +have cherished them as the ideals for the Church to which I belong. +From the oratory of Queen's Hall and the "slim" statesmanship which +proposes to steal a march on the House of Commons I turn to that +great evangelist, Arthur Stanton, who wrote as follows when Welsh +Disestablishment was agitating the clerical mind. + +"Nothing will ever reconcile me to the Establishment of Christ's +Church on earth by Sovereigns or Parliaments. It is established +by God on Faith and the Sacraments, and so endowed, and all other +pretended establishment and endowment to me is profane." And again: + +"Taking away endowments doesn't affect me; but what does try me +is the inheriting them, and denying the faith of the donors--and +then talking of sacrilege. The only endowment of Christ's Church +comes from the Father and the Son, and is the Holy Ghost, Which +no man can give and no man can take away.'" + +Here, if you like, is the authentic voice of Life and Liberty. + + + + +V + +_LOVE AND PUNISHMENT_ + +Lord Hugh Cecil is, I think, one of the most interesting figures +in the public life of the time. Ten years ago I regarded him as the +future leader of the Tory party and a predestined Prime Minister. Of +late years he has seemed to turn away from the strifes and intrigues +of ordinary politics, and to have resigned official ambition to his +elder brother; but his figure has not lost--rather has gained--in +interest by the change. Almost alone among our public men, he seems +to have "his eyes fixed on higher lodestars" than those which guide +Parliamentary majorities. He avows his allegiance to those moral +laws of political action of which John Bright so memorably said +that "though they were not given amid the thunders of Sinai, they +are not less the commandments of God." + +Now, the fearless utterance of this ethical creed does not tend +to popularity. Englishmen will bear a good deal of preaching, so +long as it is delivered from the pulpit; but when it is uttered +by the lips of laymen, and deals with public problems, it arouses +a curious irritation. That jovial old heathen, Palmerston, once +alluded to Bright as "the Honourable and Reverend Member"; Gladstone's +splendid appeals to faith and conscience were pronounced "d----d +copy-book-y"; and Lord Houghton, who knew the world as well as most +men, said, "Does it ever strike you that nothing shocks people so +much as any immediate and practical application of the character +and life of Christ?" + +Lord Hugh Cecil need not mind the slings and arrows of outrageous +partisanship, so long as he shares them with Bright and Gladstone. +Just lately, his pronouncement that we ought to love the Germans, +as our fellow-citizens in the Kingdom of God on earth, has provoked +very acrid criticism from some who generally share his political +beliefs; and in a Tory paper I noticed the singularly inept gibe +that this doctrine was "medieval." For my own part I should scarcely +have thought that an undue tendency to love one's enemies was a +characteristic trait of the Middle Age, or that Englishmen and +Frenchmen, Guelphs and Ghibellines, were inclined to sink their +racial differences in the unity of Christian citizenship. Lord Hugh's +doctrine might be called by some modern and by others primitive; but +medieval it can only be called on the principle that, in invective, +a long word, is better than a short one. + +Having thus repelled what I think a ridiculous criticism, I will +admit that Lord Hugh's doctrine raises some interesting, and even +disputable, points. In the first place, there is the theory of +the Universal Church as the Divine Kingdom on earth, and of the +citizenship in which all its members are united. I grant the theory; +but I ask myself if I am really bound by it to love all these my +fellow-citizens, whatever their conduct and character may be. Love +is an elastic word; and, if I am to love the Germans, I must love +them in some very different sense from that in which I love my country +and my race. It really is, in another form, the old controversy +between cosmopolitanism and patriotism. The "Enthusiasm of Humanity" +is a noble sentiment; but the action of our fellow-members of the +human family may be such as to render it, at least for the moment, +impossible of realization. Under the pressure of injury from without, +cosmopolitanism must contract itself into patriotism. We may wish +devoutly that the whole human family were one in heart and mind--that +all the citizens of the kingdom of God obeyed one law of right +and wrong; but when some members of the family, some citizens of +the kingdom, have "given themselves over to a reprobate mind," +our love must be reserved for those who still own the claim of +righteousness. If our own country stood as a solitary champion +of right against a world in unrighteous arms, patriotism would be +a synonym for religion, and cosmopolitanism for sin. + +And then again I ask myself this question: Even assuming that Lord +Hugh is right, and that it is our bounden duty to love the Germans, +is love inconsistent with punishment? We postulate the love of God +towards mankind, and we rightly regard it as the highest manifestation +of what love means; but is it inconsistent with punishment for +unrighteous action? Neither Revelation, nor Nature, nor History, +knows anything of the conception which has been embodied in the +words, "a good-natured God." Of Revelation I will not speak at +length, for this is not the place for theological discussion; I +only remark in passing that the idea of punishment for wrong-doing +is not, as some sciolists imagine, confined to the Old Testament, +though there it is seen in its most startling form; in the New +Testament it is exhibited, alike by St. Paul and by St. Paul's +Master, as a manifestation of love--not vindictive, but remedial. +The disciplining love of a human father is used to illustrate the +Divine dealings with insubordinate mankind. About Nature we need +scarcely argue. "In the physical world there is no forgiveness of +sins," and rebellion against the laws of righteous living brings +penal consequences which no one can mistake. And yet again, has +History any more unmistakable lesson than that "for every false +word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust +or vanity, the price has to be paid at last"? Froude was right. +"Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived, but doomsday comes +at last to them, in French Revolutions and other terrible ways." + +What we believe of the Divine Love, thus dealing with human +transgression, we may well believe of human love, when it is called +by duty to chastise unrighteousness. I do not suppose that John +Stuart Mill was actuated by hatred of Palmer or Pritchard or any +other famous malefactor of his time when he said that there are some +people so bad that they "ought to be blotted out of the catalogue +of living men." It was the dispassionate judgment of philosophy +on crime. When the convicted murderer exclaimed, "Don't condemn +me to death; I am not fit to die!" a great Judge replied, "I know +nothing about that; I only know that you are not fit to live"; but +I do not suppose that he hated the wretch in the dock. Even so, +though it may be our duty to love our enemies as our fellow-citizens +in the kingdom of God, we need not shrink, when the time comes, from +being the ministers of that righteous vengeance which, according +to the immutable order of the world, is prepared for impenitent +wrong-doing. + + + + +VI + +_HATRED AND LOVE_ + +I lately saw the following sentence quoted from Sir Arthur Conan +Doyle: "Hatred steels the mind and sets the resolution as no other +emotion can do." The enlightened conscience of humanity (to say +nothing of Christianity) repudiates this sentiment as ethically +unsound and historically untrue; and yet, erroneous as it is, it +is worth pondering for the sake of a truth which it overstates. + +However little we may like to make the confession in the twentieth +century of the Christian era, hatred is a very real power, and +there is more of it at work in civilized society than we always +recognize. It is, in truth, an abiding element of human nature, and +is one of those instincts which we share with the lower animals. +"The great cur showed his teeth; and the devilish instincts of his +old wolf-ancestry looked out from his eyes, and yawned in his wide +mouth and deep red gullet." Oliver Wendell Holmes was describing +a dog's savagery; but he would have been the first to admit that an +exactly similar spirit may be concealed--and not always concealed--in +a human frame. We have lived so long, if not under the domination, +still in the profession, of the Christian ethic, that people generally +are ashamed to avow a glaringly anti-Christian feeling. Hence the +poignancy of the bitter saying: "I forgive him as a Christian--which +means that I don't forgive him at all." Under a decent, though +hypocritical, veil of religious commonplace, men go on hating one +another very much as they hated in Patriarchal Palestine or Imperial +Rome. + +Hatred generally has a personal root. An injury or an insult received +in youth may colour the feelings and actions of a whole lifetime. +"Revenge is a dish which can be eaten cold"; and there are unhappy +natures which know no enjoyment so keen as the satisfaction of a +long-cherished grudge. There is an even deeper depravity which +hates just in proportion to benefits received; which hates because +it is enraged by a high example; which hates even more virulently +because the object of its hatred is meek or weak or pitiable. "I +have read of a woman who said that she never saw a cripple without +longing to throw a stone at him. Do you comprehend what she meant? +No? Well, I do." It was a woman who wrote the words. + +The less abhorrent sort of hatred (if one can discriminate where +all is abominable) is the hatred which has no personal root, but +is roused by invincible dislike of a principle or a cause. To this +type belong controversial hatreds, political hatreds, international +hatreds. Jael is the supreme instance of this hatred in action, +and it is only fair to assume that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had this +kind of hatred in his mind when he wrote the sentence which I quoted +above. But hatred, which begins impersonally, has a dangerous habit +of becoming personal as it warms to its work; and an emotion which +started by merely wishing to check a wrong deed may develop before +long into a strong desire to torture the wrong-doer. Whatever be the +source from which it springs, hatred is a powerful and an energetic +principle. It is capable, as we all know, of enormous crimes; but +it does not despise the pettiest methods by which it can injure +its victim. "Hatred," said George Eliot, "is like fire--it makes +even light rubbish deadly." + +Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is perfectly right when he says that hatred +"steels the mind and sets the resolution." If he had stopped there, +I should not have questioned his theory. Again and again one has seen +indolent, flabby, and irresolute natures stimulated to activity and +"steeled" into hardness by the deep, though perhaps unuttered, desire +to repay an insult or avenge an injury. It is in his superlative +that Sir Arthur goes astray. When he affirms that hatred "steels +the mind and sets the resolution as no other emotion can do," his +psychology is curiously at fault. There is another emotion quite as +powerful as hatred to "steel the mind and set the resolution"--and +the name of this other emotion is love. It required some resolution +and a "steeled" mind for Father Damien to give himself in early +manhood to the service of a leper-struck island, living amid, and +dying of, the foul disease which he set out to tend. It was love +that steeled John Coleridge Patteson to encounter death at the +hands of "savage men whom he loved, and for whose sake he gave +up home and country and friends dearer than his life." There was +"steel" in the resolve which drew Henry Martyn from the highest +honours of Cambridge to preach and die in the fever-stricken solitude +of Tokat; and "steel" in an earlier and even more memorable decision +when Francis Xavier consecrated rank, learning, eloquence, wit, +fascinating manners, and a mirthful heart, to the task of evangelizing +India. + +But it is not only in the missionary field, or in any other form +of ecclesiastical activity, that the steeling effect of love on +the human will is manifested. John Howard devoted the comforts +and advantages which pertain to a position in the opulent Middle +Class to the purely philanthropic work of Prison Reform; and Lord +Shaftesbury used the richer boons of rank and eloquence and political +opportunity for the deliverance of tortured lunatics, and climbing +boys and factory slaves. If ever I knew a man whose resolution +was "steeled," it was this honoured friend of my early manhood, +and the steeling power was simply love. A humbler illustration +of the same spirit may be supplied by the instance of one whom +worldly people ridiculed and who "for fifty years seized every +chance of doing kindness to a man who had tormented him at school"; +and this though a boy's nature is "wax to receive, and marble to +retain." The name of E. C. Hawtrey is little remembered now even +by Eton men, but this tribute to the power of love ought not to +be withheld. + +I am only too painfully aware that we live just now in conditions +in which love must take the aspect of severity; in which the mind +must be "steeled" and the resolution "set" for a solemn work of +international justice. But hatred will not help us; for hatred +is fundamentally at variance with that moral law which we daily +and hourly invoke as the sanction of our enterprise. Hatred is +natural enough, and at least as old as the Fall of Man; but its +doom was pronounced by a Teacher Who said to His disciples: "A +new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." Twelve +men heard and heeded that new commandment, and they changed the +face of the world. Are we to abjure the doctrine which wrought +this change, and give heed to the blind guides who would lure us +straight back to barbarism? + + "What though they come with scroll and pen, + And grave as a shaven clerk, + By this sign shall ye know them, + That they ruin and make dark; + + "By thought a crawling ruin, + By life a leaping mire, + By a broken heart in the breast of the world, + And the end of the world's desire; + + "By God and man dishonoured, + By death and life made vain, + Know ye the old Barbarian, + The Barbarian come again."[*] + +[Footnote *: G. K. Chesterton.] + + + + +VII + +_THE TRIUMPHS OF ENDURANCE_ + +"By your endurance ye shall make your souls your own." If the origin +of this saying were unknown, one could fancy much ingenious conjecture +about it; but no one, I think, would attribute it to an English +source. An Englishman's idea of self-realization is action. If +he is to be truly himself he must be doing something; life for +him means energy. To be laid on one side, and to exist only as +a spectator or a sufferer, is the last method of making his soul +his own which would occur to him. _Dolce far niente_ is a phrase +which could never have originated on English soil. The greater the +difficulties by which he is confronted, the more gnawing becomes +the Englishman's, hunger for action. "Something must be done!" is +his instinctive cry when dangers or perplexities arise, and he +is feverishly eager to do it. What exactly "it" should be, and +how it may be most wisely done, are secondary, and even tertiary, +considerations. "Wisdom is profitable to direct"; but the need +for wisdom is not so generally recognized in England as the need +for courage or promptitude or vigour. + +Some of the shallower natures find a substitute for action in speech. +If only they talk loud enough and long enough, they feel that they +are doing something valuable towards the desired end, and they +find others, still weaker than themselves, who take their words +at their own valuation. Who does not recall moments of the present +war when the man-in-the-street has exclaimed, "That was a splendid +speech of Blower's! I feel now that we are on the right line"; or, +"After what Bellowell said last night, there can be no going back +to the discredited policy"? The man-in-the-street did not realize +that Blower's words are only articulated air, or that Bellowell +could speak with equal effect whether his brief were to defend +Belgium or to annex her. But alike the Englishman who acts and +the Englishman who talks look askance on the people who think. Our +national history is a history of action, in religion, in politics, +in war, in discovery. It is only now and then that an Englishman +can allow himself a moment for contemplation, for the endeavour +to "see into the life of things," for contact with those spiritual +realities of which phenomena are only the shadows. Burke did it, +but then he was an Irishman. Lord Beaconsfield did it, but then +he was a Jew. Gladstone did it, but then he was a Scotsman. May +I add that the present Prime Minister does it, but then he is a +Welshman? Englishmen, as a rule, are absorbed in action; it is +to them a religion, and it takes the place of a philosophy. + +At this moment all England is acting, from the King and the War +Cabinet to the children who play at soldiers in the gutter. There +is no distinction of class, or sex, or temperament. All alike feel +that they must be doing something to win the war, and that they +would die or go mad if they were restrained from action. Limitations, +physical or mental, incapacities for effort, restrictions of +opportunity, gall as they never galled before. To compare great +things with small, the whole nation pulsates with the spirit of +the fiercely contested cricket-match: + + "Oh, good lads in the field they were, + Laboured and ran and threw; + But we that sat on the benches there + Had the hardest work to do!" + +Action, then, is the creed and the consolation of the English race, +and God forbid that we should disparage that on which national +salvation depends. The war must be won by action; but in the strain +and stress of these tremendous days we are tempted to forget that +there is something to be won or lost besides the war. It is possible +to conquer on the Western front, and at the same time to be defeated +on the not less important field of moral being. The promise which +heads this paper was uttered in full view of an impending agony +which should crush religion and civilization into powder. We can +realize the consternation with which a patriotic audience heard +those premonitions from the lips of a patriotic Teacher; but in +the midst of all that was harrowing and heart-rending came the +promise of triumph through endurance. "Ye shall make your souls +your own." The gloomy and the cheerful prediction were alike made +good. + + "The East bow'd low before the blast + In patient, deep disdain; + She let the legions thunder past, + And plunged in thought again. + + "So well she mused, a morning broke + Across her spirit grey; + A conquering, new-born joy awoke, + And fill'd her life with day." + +The Roman Eagles led a momentary triumph, but they fled before the +newly discovered Cross. Endurance won. + +And so it has been from that time to this. The triumphs of endurance +have no end. The barbarism of the Caesars, the barbarism of Islam, +the barbarism of Odin and Thor, all in turn did their uttermost +to destroy the new religion. Persecution fell, not on armed men +strong to resist, but on slaves and women and boys and girls. "We +could tell of those who fought with savage beasts, yea, of maidens +who stept to face them as coolly as a modern bully steps into the +ring. We could tell of those who drank molten lead as cheerfully +as we would the juice of the grape, and played with the red fire +and the bickering flames as gaily as with golden curls." These +were the people who by endurance made their souls their own; and, +by carrying endurance even unto death, propagated the faith for +which they gave their lives. It did not take Rome long to discover +that "the blood of Christians is seed." + +The victorious power of endurance is not yet exhausted; but, on +the other hand, the peril of moral defeat must never be ignored. It +was a strange coincidence that the most trying phase of a four-years' +war should have occurred in the week which, for Western Christendom, +commemorates the supreme example of endurance. As far as action +is concerned, the national will is not in the slightest danger +of collapse. The British nation will plan, and work and fight for +ever, if need be. Our only danger is in the moral field. Though +our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may +ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; +to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted +agony; to question within ourselves whether the cause which we +profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. +It is just by mastering these rebellious tendencies that we can +make our souls our own. If we went into the war believing in the +sacredness of Freedom, Brotherhood, and Right against Might, it +would be a moral collapse to emerge from it believers in tyranny, +imperialism, and the rule of the strong. "He that endureth to the +end shall be saved." On that "end" we must keep heart and eye +unflinchingly fixed; and strive to add one more to the age-long +triumphs of endurance. + + + + +VIII + +_A SOLEMN FARCE_ + +Sweet to the antiquarian palate are the fragments of Norman French +which still survive in the formularies of the Constitution. In +Norman French the King acknowledges the inconceivable sums which +from time to time his faithful Commons place at his disposal for +the prosecution of the war. In Norman French the Peers of the Realm +are summoned to their seats in Parliament which they adorn. In Norman +French, the Royal Assent has just been given to a Bill which doubles +the electorate and admits over six million women to the franchise. +All these things are dear to the antiquary, the historian, and +(perhaps we should add) the pedant, as witnessing to the unbroken +continuity of our constitutional forms, though the substance of +our polity has been altered beyond all recognition. + +Another instance of Norman French which has lately emerged into +unusual prominence is the "Conge d'elire." We can trace this "Licence +to Elect" from the days of the Great Charter downwards; but it will +suffice for my present purpose to recall the unrepealed legislation +of Henry VIII. "It was then enacted that, at every future avoidance +of a bishopric, the King may send to the Dean and Chapter his usual +licence (called his 'Conge d'Elire') to proceed to election; which +is always, accompanied by a Letter Missive from the King containing +the name of the person whom he would have them elect; and if the Dean +and Chapter delay their election above twelve days the nomination +shall devolve to the King, who may then by Letters Patent appoint +such person as he pleases.... And, if such Dean and Chapter do not +elect in the manner by their Act appointed they shall incur all +the penalties of a praemunire--that is, the loss of all civil rights, +with forfeiture of lands, goods, and chattels, and imprisonment, +during the Royal pleasure." + +Such are the singular conditions under which the Church of England +now exercises that right of electing her chief pastors which has +been from the beginning the heritage of Christendom. It would be +difficult to imagine a more dexterous use of chicanery, preserving +the semblance but carefully precluding the reality of a free choice. +We all know something of Deans and Chapters--the well-endowed +inhabitants of cathedral closes--and of those "greater Chapters" +which consist of Honorary Canons, longing for more substantial +preferment. It would indeed require a very bold flight of fancy +to imagine those worthy and comfortable men exposing themselves to +the "loss of civil rights, the forfeiture of goods and chattels, +and imprisonment during the King's pleasure," for a scruple of +conscience about the orthodoxy of a divine recommended by the Crown. +Truly in a capitular election, if anywhere, the better part of +valour is discretion, and the Dean and Chapter of Hereford have +realized this saving truth. But my view is wholly independent of +local or personal issues, and is best expressed by these words of +Arthur Stanton, true Catholic and true Liberal: "I am strongly +in favour of Disestablishment, and always have been. The connexion +between Church and State has done harm to both--more, however, +to the Church. Take our plan of electing Bishops. In the early +centuries they were elected by the people--as they ought to be. +Now they are chosen, sometimes by a Tory, sometimes by a Radical +Government. The Dean and Chapter meet and ask the guidance of the +Holy Ghost to enable them to choose, knowing all the while they have +the 'Letter Missive' in their pockets. To me this comes perilously +near blasphemy." + +But let us suppose an extreme case. Let us imagine a Dean and Chapter +so deeply impressed by the unsuitableness of the Crown's nominee +that they refuse to elect him. Here, again, the law dodges us. +Except as a protest their refusal would have not the slightest +effect. The Crown has nothing to do but issue Letters Patent in +favour of its nominee, and he would be as secure of his bishopric as +if the Chapter had chosen him with one consent of heart and voice. +True, he would not yet be a Bishop; for the episcopal character can +only be conferred by consecration, and at this point the Archbishop +becomes responsible. To him the King signifies the fact that Dr. +Proudie has been elected to the See of Barchester, requiring him to +"confirm, invest, and consecrate" that divine. Should the Archbishop +refuse compliance with this command, he exposes himself to exactly +the same penalties as would be inflicted on a recalcitrant Chapter, +only with this aggravation--that he has more to lose. When my good +friend the Bishop of Oxford addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury, +imploring him to withhold consecration from Dr. Henson, he made a +valiant and faithful protest against what he holds to be a flagitious +action on the part of the Crown; but, knowing the respected occupant +of Lambeth as well as he does, I think he must have anticipated +the reply which, as a matter of fact, he received. + +Such being the absurdities and unrealities which surround the Conge +d'Elire, one naturally asks, Why not abolish it? This question was +raised in a pointed form by the late Mr. C. J. Monk, for many years +Liberal M.P. for the City of Gloucester, who, in 1880, introduced a +Bill to abolish the Conge and to place the appointment of Bishops +formally, as it is really, in the hands of the Prime Minister. He +urged the painful sense of unreality which clings to the whole +transaction, and the injury to religion which is involved in thus +paltering in a double sense with sacred forms and words. It is +amusing to those who can recall the two men to remember that Mr. +Monk was opposed by Lord Randolph Churchill, who thought he perceived +in the proposal some dark design hostile to the interests of the +Established Church; but the important speech was made by Gladstone. +That great man, always greatest in debate when his case was weakest, +opposed the abolition of the Conge. He deprecated any legislation +which would interfere with one of the most delicate functions of +the Crown, and he insisted that the true path of reform lay, not +in the abolition of the form of election, but in an attempt to +re-invest it with some elements of reality. This was well enough, +and eminently characteristic of his reverence for ancient forms +of constitutional action; but what was more surprising was that, +speaking from long and intimate experience of its practical working +he maintained that the Conge d'Elire, even under the nullifying +conditions now attached to it, was "a moral check upon the prerogatives +of the Crown," which worked well rather than ill. "I am," he said, +"by no means prepared to say that, from partial information or +error, a Minister might not make an appointment to which this moral +obstacle might be set up with very beneficial effect. It would +tend to secure care in the selections, and its importance cannot +be overstated." + +I must confess, with the greatest respect for my old leader, that +the "importance" of the Conge d'Elire as a restraint upon the actions +of the Prime Minister can be very easily "overstated." Indeed, the +Conge could only be important if the Capitular Body to which the +"Letter Missive" is addressed have the courage of conscientious +disobedience, and were prepared to face, for the sake of imperilled +truth, the anger of the powers that be and the laughter of the +world. Courage of that type is a plant of slow growth in Established +Churches; and as long as my friends hug the yoke of Establishment, +I cannot sympathize with them when they cry out against its galling +pressure. To complainants of that class the final word was addressed +by Gladstone, nearly seventy years ago: "You have our decision: take +your own; choose between the mess of pottage and the birthright +of the Bride of Christ." + + + + +IV + +POLITICS + + + + +I + +_MIRAGE_ + +"Operations had to be temporarily suspended owing to the mirage." +This sentence from one of Sir Stanley Maude's despatches struck me +as parabolic. There are other, and vaster, issues than a strategic +victory on the Diala River which have been "suspended owing to the +mirage." Let us apply the parable. + +The parched caravan sees, half a mile ahead, the gleaming lake +which is to quench its thirst. It toils along over the intervening +distance, only to find that Nature has been playing a trick. The +vision has vanished, and what seemed to be water is really sand. +There can be no more expressive image of disillusionment. + +To follow the "Mirage" of receding triumph through long years of +hope deferred was the lot of Labour generally, and it was especially +the lot of agricultural labour. The artisans gained their political +enfranchisement in 1867, and, though they made remarkably little use +of it, still they had the power, if they had the will, to better +their condition. But the agricultural labourers remained inarticulate, +unnoticed, unrepresented. A Tory orator, said--and many of his class +agreed with him, though they were too prudent to say it--that the +labourer was no fitter for the vote than the beasts he tended. But +there were others who knew the labourers by personal contact, and +by friendly intercourse had been able to penetrate their necessary +reserve; and we (for I was one of these) knew that our friends in +the furrow and the cow-shed were at least as capable of forming +a solid judgment as their brethren in the tailor's shop and the +printing-works. There was nothing of the new Radicalism in this--it +was as old as English history. The toilers on the land had always +been aspiring towards freedom, though social pressure made them +wisely dumb. Cobbett and Cartwright, and all the old reformers +who kept the lamp of Freedom alive in the dark days of Pitt and +Liverpool and Wellington, bore witness to the "deep sighing" of +the agricultural poor, and noted with indignation the successive +invasions of their freedom by Enclosure Acts and press-gangs and +trials for sedition, and all the other implements of tyranny. + + "The Good Old Code, like Argus, had a hundred watchful eyes, + And each old English peasant had his Good Old English spies + To tempt his starving discontent with Good Old English lies, + Then call the British Yeomanry to hush his peevish cries." + +To a race of peasants thus enthralled and disciplined the Mirage +appeared in the guise of the first Reform Bill. If only that Bill +could pass into law, the reign of injustice and oppression would +cease, starvation and misery would flee away, and the poor would +rejoice in a new heaven and a new earth. But no sooner was the +Royal Assent given to the Bill than the Mirage--that deceitful +image of joy and refreshment--receded into the dim distance, and +men woke to the disheartening fact that, though power had been +transferred from the aristocracy to the middle class, the poor were +as badly off as ever. The visible effects of that disillusionment +were Chartism, rioting, and agrarian crime, and there was a deep +undercurrent of sullen anger which seldom found expression. As +late as the General Election of 1868 an old man in the duke-ridden +borough of Woodstock declined to vote for the Liberal candidate +expressly on the ground of disappointed hopes. Before 1832, he +said, arms had been stored in his father's cottage to be used if +the Lords threw out the Bill. They had passed it, and the arms were +not required; but no one that he knew of had ever been a ha'porth +the better for it; and he had never since meddled with politics, +and never would again. In this case the despondency of old age was +added to the despondency of disappointment; but among younger men +hope was beginning to dawn again, and the Mirage beckoned with its +treacherous gleam. The Agricultural Labourers' Union, starting on +its pilgrimage from the very heart of England, forced the labourer's +wants and claims upon the attention of the land-owners, the farmers, +and the clergy. + +Those who had been brought by early association into touch with +the agricultural population knew only too well how deep and just +was the discontent of the villages, and how keen the yearning for +better chances. To secure the vote for the agricultural labourer +seemed to be the first step towards the improvement of his lot. +The General Election of 1880 was, as nearly as our constitutional +forms admit, a plebiscite on foreign policy; but to many a man who +was then beginning public life the emancipation of the labourer was +an object quite as dear as the dethronement of Lord Beaconsfield. +It was not for nothing that we had read _Hodge and His Masters_, +and we were resolved that henceforward "Hodge" should be not a +serf or a cipher, but a free man and a self-governing citizen. + +We carried our Bill in 1884, and as the General Election of 1885 +drew on, it was touching to feel the labourer's gratitude to all +who had helped him in the attainment of his rights. By that time +Gladstone had lost a great deal of his popularity in the towns, +where Chamberlain was the hero. But in the rural districts the +people worshipped Gladstone, and neither knew nor cared for any +other politician. His was the name to conjure with. His picture +hung in every cottage. His speeches were studied and thumbed by +hard hands till the paper was frayed into tatters. It was Gladstone +who had won the vote for the labourer, and it was Gladstone who was +to lead them into the Land of Promise. "Three Acres and a Cow," +from being a joke, had passed into a watchword, though Gladstone +had never given it the faintest sanction. And the labourers vaguely +believed that the possession of the vote would bring them some +material benefit. So they voted for Gladstone with solid enthusiasm, +and placed their Mirage in his return to power. But alas! they only +realized a new and a more tragical disappointment. In January, +1886, an amendment to the Address embodying the principle of "Three +Acres and a Cow" was carried against the Tory Government; Gladstone +became Prime Minister, and the disconsolate labourers found that +the Mirage had cheated them once again. It is not easy to depict +the sorrow and mortification which ensued on this discovery. The +vote, after all, was only a Dead Sea apple. The energies which +were to have been bestowed on the creation of better surroundings +for English labourers were suddenly transferred to the creation +of an Irish Parliament, and in wide areas of rural population the +labourers sank back again into hopelessness and inactivity. Once +bit, twice shy. They had braved the wrath of their employers and +all the banded influences of the Hall and the Vicarage in order +to vote Liberal in December, 1885. They had got nothing by their +constancy; and in six months, when they were again incited to the +poll, they shook their heads and abstained. The disillusionment +of the labourers gave the victory of 1886 to the Tories, and kept +the Liberals out of power for twenty years. + + + + +II + +_MIST_ + +"Mistiness is the Mother of Wisdom." If this sarcastic dogma be +true, we are living in a generation pre-eminently wise. A "season +of mists" it unquestionably is; whether it is equally marked by +"mellow fruitfulness" is perhaps more disputable. + +My path in life is metaphorically very much what Wordsworth's was +literally. "I wander, lonely as a cloud that floats on high, o'er +vales and hills." I find hills and vales alike shrouded in mist. +Everyone is befogged, and the guesses as to where exactly we are +and whither we are tending are various and perplexing. While all +are, in truth, equally bewildered, people take their bewilderment +in different ways. Some honestly confess that they cannot see a +yard in front of them; others profess a more penetrating vision, +and affect to be quite sure of what lies ahead. It is a matter +of temperament; but the professors of clear sight are certainly +less numerous than they were three years ago. + +We are like men standing on a mountain when the mist rolls up from +the valley. At first we all are very cheerful, and assure one another +that it will pass away in half an hour, leaving our path quite +clear. Then by degrees we begin to say that it promises to be a +more tedious business than we expected, and we must just wait in +patience till the clouds roll by. At length we frankly confess to +one another that we have completely lost our bearings, and that +we dare not move a foot for fear we should tumble into the abyss. +In this awkward plight our "strength is to sit still"; but, even +while we so sit, we try to keep ourselves warm by remembering that +the most persistent mists do not last for ever. + +In one section of society I hear voices of melancholy vaticination. +"I don't believe," said one lady in my hearing--"I don't believe +that we shall ever again see six-feet footmen with powdered hair," +and a silent gloom settled on the company, only deepened by another +lady, also attached to the old order, who murmured: "Ah! and powdered +footmen are not the only things that we shall never see again." +Within twenty-four hours of this depressing dialogue I encounter +my democratic friend, the Editor of the _Red Flag_. He glories in +the fact that Labour has "come into its own," and is quite sure +that, unless it can get more to eat, it will cease to make munitions, +and so will secure an early, if not a satisfactory, peace. In vain +I suggest to my friend that his vision is obscured by the mist, +and that the apparition which thus strangely exhilarates him is +the creation of his own brain. + +Then I turn to the politicians, and of these it is to be remarked +that, however much befogged they may be, they always are certain +that they see much more clearly than the world at large. This +circumstance would invest their opinions with a peculiar authority, +if only they did not contradict one another flat. We are doubling +the electorate: what result will the General Election produce? +Politicians who belong to the family of Mr. Despondency and his +daughter, Muchafraid, reply that Monarchy will be abolished, Capital +"conscripted" (delightful verb), debt repudiated, and Anarchy enthroned. +Strangely dissimilar results are predicted by the Party-hacks, who, +being by lifelong habit trained to applaud whatever Government +does, announce with smug satisfaction that the British workman +loves property, and will use his new powers to conserve it; adores +the Crown, and feels that the House of Lords is the true protector +of his liberties. + +Again, there are publicists who (like myself) have all their lives +proclaimed their belief in universal suffrage as the one guarantee +of freedom. If we are consistent, we ought to rejoice in the prospect +now unfolding itself before us; but perhaps the mist has got into our +eyes. Our forefathers abolished the tyranny of the Crown. Successive +Reform Acts have abolished the tyranny of class. But what about the +tyranny of capital? Is Democracy safe from it? + +I do not pretend to be clearer-sighted than my neighbours; but in +the mist each of us sees the form of some evil which he specially +dislikes; and to my thinking Bureaucracy is just as grave a menace +to Freedom as Militarism, and in some ways graver, as being more +plausible. We used to call ourselves Collectivists, and we rejoiced +in the prospect of the State doing for us what we ought to do for +ourselves. We voted Political Economy a dismal science (which it +is), and felt sure that, if only the Government would take in hand +the regulation of supply and demand, the inequalities of life would +be adjusted, everyone would be well fed, and everyone would be +happy. As far as we can see through the blinding mist which now +surrounds us, it looks as if the State were about as competent +to control trade as to control the weather. Bureaucracy is having +its fling, and when the mist clears off it will stand revealed +as a well-meant (and well-paid) imposture. + +Closely related to all these problems is the problem of the women's +vote. Here the mist is very thick indeed. Those who have always +favoured it are naturally sanguine of good results. Women will +vote for peace; women will vote for temperance; women will vote +for everything that guards the sanctity of the home. Those who +have opposed the change see very different consequences. Women +will vote for war; women will vote as the clergyman bids them; +women will vote for Socialism. All this is sheer guess-work, and +very misty guess-work too. + +And yet once more. There are (though this may to some seem strange) +people who consider the Church at least as important as the State, +and even more so, inasmuch as its concernments relate to an eternal +instead of a transitory order. What are the prospects of the Church? +Here the mists are thicker than ever. Is the ideal of the Free +Church in the Free State any nearer realization than it was three +years ago? All sorts of discordant voices reach me through the +layers of cloud. Some cry, "Our one hope for national religion +is to rivet tighter than ever the chains which bind the Church +to the chariot-wheels of the State." Others reply, "Break those +chains, and let us go free--even without a roof over our heads or +a pound in our pockets." And there is a third section--the party +which, as Newman said, attempts to steer between the Scylla of +Aye and the Charybdis of No through the channel of no meaning, +and this section cries for some reform which shall abolish the +cynical mockery of the Conge d'Elire, and secure to the Church, +while still established and endowed, the self-governing rights +of a Free Church. In ecclesiastical quarters the mist is always +particularly thick. + +Certainly at this moment, if ever in our national life, we must +be content to "walk by faith and not by sight." This chapter began +with imagery, and with imagery it shall end. "I have often stood +on some mountain peak, some Cumbrian or Alpine hill, over which +the dim mists rolled; and suddenly, through one mighty rent in +that cloudy curtain, I have seen the blue heaven in all its beauty, +and, far below my feet, the rivers and cities and cornfields of +the plain sparkled in the heavenly sunlight." + +That is, in a figure, the vision for which we must hope and pray. + + + + +III + +"_DISSOLVING THROES_" + +I borrow my title from a poet. + + "He grew old in an age he condemned; + He looked on the rushing decay + Of the times which had sheltered his youth; + Felt the dissolving throes + Of a social order he loved." + +It seems odd that Matthew Arnold should have spoken thus about +Wordsworth; for one would have expected that the man who wrote so +gloriously of the French Revolution, "as it appeared to enthusiasts +at its commencement," would have rejoiced in the new order which it +established for all Europe. But the younger poet knew the elder +with an intimacy which defies contradiction; and one must, I suppose, +number Wordsworth among those who, in each succeeding age, have +shed tears of useless regret over the unreturning past. Talleyrand +said that, to know what an enjoyable thing life was capable of +being, one must have been a member of the _ancienne noblesse_ before +the Revolution. It was the cynical and characteristic utterance +of a nature singularly base; but even the divine Burke (though he +had no personal or selfish interests in the matter) was convinced +that the Revolution had not only destroyed political freedom, but +also social welfare, and had "crushed everything respectable and +virtuous in the nation." What, in the view of Burke and Talleyrand, +the Revolution did for France, that, by a curious irony of fate, +our attempt to defeat the Revolution did for England. Burke forced +us into the Revolutionary War, and that war (as Gladstone once said +in a letter to the present writer) "almost unmade the liberties, +the Constitution, even the material interests and prosperity, of our +country." Patriots like William Cobbett and Sydney Smith, though +absolutely convinced that the war was just and necessary, doubted +if England could ever rally from the immense strain which it had +imposed on her resources, or regain the freedom which, in order +to beat France, she had so lightly surrendered. + +At a time when Manchester was unrepresented and Gatton sent two +Members to Parliament, it was steadily maintained by lovers of the +established order that the proposed enlargement of the electorate +was "incompatible with a just equality of civil rights, or with the +necessary restraints of social obligation." If it were carried, +religion, morality, and property would perish together, and our +venerable Constitution would topple down in ruins. "A thousand +years have scarce sufficed to make England what she is: one hour +may lay her in the dust." In 1861 J. W. Croker wrote to his patron, +the great borough-monger Lord Hertford: "There can be no doubt +that the Reform Bill is a stepping-stone in England to a republic, +and in Ireland to separation. Both _may_ happen without the Bill, +but with it they are inevitable." Next year the Bill became law. +Lord Bathurst cut off his pigtail, exclaiming: "Ichabod, for the +glory is departed"--an exquisitely significant combination of act +and word--and the Duke of Wellington announced that England had +accomplished "a revolution by due course of law." In some sense the +words were true. Political power had passed from the aristocracy +to the middle class. The English equivalents of Talleyrand--the +men who directly or in their ancestors had ruled England since +1688, had enjoyed power without responsibility, and privilege which +alike Kings and mobs had questioned in vain--were filled with the +wildest alarms. Emotional orators saw visions of the guillotine; +calmer spirits anticipated the ballot-box; and the one implement +of anarchy was scarcely more dreaded than the other. + +Sixteen years passed. Property and freedom seemed pretty secure. Even +privilege, though shaken, had not been overthrown; and a generation +had grown up to which the fears of revolution seemed fantastic. Then +suddenly came the uprising of the nations in '48; and once again +"dissolving throes" were felt, with pain or joy according to the +temperament of those who felt them. "We have seen," said Charles +Greville, "such a stirring-up of all the elements of society as +nobody ever dreamt of; we have seen a general saturnalia--ignorance, +vanity, insolence, poverty, ambition, escaping from every kind +of restraint, ranging over the world, and turning it topsy-turvy +as it pleased. All Europe exhibits the result--a mass of ruin, +terror, and despair." Matthew Arnold, young and ardent, and in +some ways democratic, wrote in a different vein: "The hour of the +hereditary peerage, and eldest sonship, and immense properties, +has, I am convinced, as Lamartine would say, struck." Seventy years +ago! And that "hour" has not struck yet! + +The "dissolving throes" were lulled again, and I scarcely made +themselves felt till 1866, when a mild attempt to admit the pick +of the artisans to the electoral privileges of the middle class +woke the panic-stricken vehemence of Robert Lowe. "If," he asked, +"you want venality, ignorance, drunkenness, and the means of +intimidation; if you want impulsive, unreflecting, and violent +people, where will you go to look for them--to the top or to the +bottom?" Well might Bishop Wilberforce report to a friend, "It was +enough to make the flesh creep to hear Bob Lowe's prognostications +for the future of England." + +Next year the artisans got the vote, though the great Lord Shaftesbury, +who knew more than most of his peers about working-men, plainly +told the House of Lords that "a large proportion of the working +classes have a deep and solemn conviction that property is not +distributed as property ought to be; that some checks ought to +be kept upon the accumulation of property in single hands; and +that to take away by legislation that which is in excess with a +view to bestowing it on those who have less, is not a breach of +any law, human or Divine." + +Yet once more. When in 1885 the agricultural labourers (of whom a +Tory M.P. said that they were no fitter for a vote than the beasts +they tended), were admitted to the franchise, the same terrors +shook the squirearchy. We were warned that the land would soon be +broken up into small holdings; that sport would become impossible; +and that "the stately homes of England" must all be closed, for +lack of money to keep them open. The country, we were told, had +seen its best days, and "Merry England" had vanished for ever. + +I only recall these "dissolving throes," real or imaginary, because +I fancy that just now they are again making themselves felt, and +perhaps with better reason than ever before in our history. People +who venture to look ahead are asking themselves this question: If +this war goes on much longer, what sort of England will emerge? +Some are looking forward with rapture to a new heaven and a new +earth; others dread the impending destruction "of a social order +they loved." Can we not trace something of this dread in Lord +Lansdowne's much-canvassed letter? He is one of the most patriotic +and most experienced men in public life; he "looks on the rushing +decay of the times which sheltered his youth"; and it may well be +that he is striving to avert what seems to him a social catastrophe. + + + + +IV + +_INSTITUTIONS AND CHARACTER_ + +As a rule, I call a spade a spade. When I mean _The Times_, I say +_The Times_, and I condemn the old-fashioned twaddle of talking +about "a morning contemporary." But to-day I depart from my rule +and content myself with saying that I lately read in an important +newspaper a letter dealing with Mr. Asquith's distinction between +"Prussian Militarism" and "German Democracy." For my own part, +I did not think that distinction very sound. The experience of +the last three years has led me to the conclusion that the German +democracy is to the full as bellicose as the military caste, and +that it has in no way dissociated itself from the abominable crimes +against decency and humanity which the military caste has committed. +I hold that the German people, as we know it to-day, is brutalized; +but when one thus frames an indictment against a whole nation, one +is bound to ask oneself what it is that has produced so calamitous +a result. How can a whole nation go wrong? Has any race a "double +dose of original sin"? I do not believe it. Human nature as it +leaves the Creator's hand is pretty much the same everywhere; and +when we see it deformed and degraded, we must look for the influence +which has been its bane. In dealing with individuals the enquiry is +comparatively simple, and the answer not far to seek. But when we +deal with nations we cannot, as a rule; point to a single figure, +or even a group of figures, and say, "He, or they, did the mischief." +We are forced to look wider and deeper, and we shall be well advised +if we learn from Burke to realize "the mastery of laws, institutions, +and government over the character and happiness of man." Let me +apply Burke's teaching to the case before us. + +The writer of the letter which I am discussing has a whole-hearted +dislike of the Germans, and especially of the Prussians; charges +them with "cruelty, brutal arrogance, deceit, cunning, manners +and customs below those of savages"; includes in the indictment +professors, commercial men, and women; recites the hideous list +of crimes committed during the present war; and roundly says that, +however you label him, "the Prussian will always remain a beast." + +I dispute none of these propositions. I believe them to be sadly +and bitterly true; but if I am to follow Burke's counsel, I must +enquire into the "laws, institutions, and government" which have +prevailed in Germany, and which have exercised so disastrous a +"mastery over the character and happiness of man." In this enquiry +it would be obvious to touch military ascendency, despotic monarchy, +representative institutions deprived of effective power, administration +made omnipotent, and bureaucratic interference with every detail of +human life. Sydney Smith's words about unreformed England apply +perfectly to modern Germany. "Of all ingenious instruments of despotism +I most commend a popular assembly where the majority are paid and +hired, and a few bold and able men, by their brave speeches, make +the people believe they are free." + +But for our present purpose I must concentrate attention on another +institution which has had an even more direct and practical bearing +on the character of the German people--and this is the enforcement +of military service. This, like every other institution, must be +judged by its effects on the character of those who are subject +to it. The writer of the letter holds that "the only good thing +about the German nation" is the "national service through which +all men pass, and which makes soldiers of all not physically unfit, +and which inculcates patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, +discipline, duty." Now, these words, read in connexion with the +description of the German people quoted above, suggest a puzzling +problem. The Germans are cruel, brutally arrogant, deceitful, and +cunning, and "the Prussian will always remain a beast." Yet these +same people have all passed through a discipline "which inculcates +patriotism, loyalty, obedience, courage, discipline, duty." Doth a +fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Does +the same system make men patriotic and cruel, loyal and arrogant, +obedient and deceitful, courageous and cunning, dutiful and beastly? + +Perhaps it does. I can conceive some of these pairs of qualities +united in a single character. A man might be a zealous patriot, +and yet horribly cruel; loyal to his Sovereign, but arrogant to +his inferiors; obedient to authority, yet deceitful among coequals; +courageous in danger, yet cunning in avoiding it; dutiful according +to his own standard of duty, and yet as "beastly" as the torturers +of Belgium. But a system which produces such a very chequered type +of character is scarcely to be commended. + +Now, the writer might reply, "I only said that the military system +_inculcated_ certain virtues. I did not say that it ensured them." +Then it fails. If it has produced only the "vile German race" which +the writer so justly dislikes, unredeemed by any of the virtues +which it "inculcates," then it has nothing to say for itself. It +stands confessed as an unmixed evil. + +It is right to expose a logical fallacy, but I am not fond of the +attempt to obscure by logic-chopping what is a writer's real meaning. +I will therefore say that, as far as I can make out, what this +particular writer really believes is that the German people, through +some innate and incurable frowardness of disposition, have turned +the inestimable blessings of compulsory soldiership to their own +moral undoing, and have made themselves wholly bad and beastly, +in spite of a beneficent institution which would have made them +good and even pleasant. + +Here I take leave to differ, and to range myself on the side of +Burke. Great, indeed--nay, incalculable--is "the mastery of laws, +institutions, and government over the character and happiness of +man." The system is known by its fruits. We may think as badly as we +like of the Germans--as badly as they deserve--but we must remember +the "laws, institutions, and government" that have dominated their +national development. And this is not only a matter of just and +rational thinking, but is also a counsel of safety for ourselves. If, +as a result of this war, we allow our personal and social liberties +(rightly suspended for the moment) to be permanently abolished or +restricted; and, above all, if we bend our necks to the yoke of a +military despotism; we shall be inviting a profound degradation of +our national character. It would indeed be a tragical consummation +of our great fight for Freedom if, when it is over, the other nations +could point to us and say: "England has sunk to the moral level +of Germany." + + + + +V + +_REVOLUTION--AND RATIONS_ + +"A revolution by due course of law." This, as we have seen, was +the Duke of Wellington's description of the Reform Act of 1832, +which transferred the government of England from the aristocracy +to the middle class. Though eventually accomplished by law, it +did not pass without bloodshed and conflagration; and timid people +satisfied themselves that not only the downfall of England, but +the end of the world, must be close at hand. + +Twenty years passed, and nothing in particular happened. National +wealth increased, all established institutions seemed secure, and +people began to forget that they had passed through a revolution. +Then arose John Bright, reminding the working-men of the Midlands +that their fathers "had shaken the citadel of Privilege to its +base," and inciting them to give the tottering structure another +push. A second revolution seemed to be drawing near. Dickens put +on record, in chapter xxvi. of _Little Dorrit_, the alarms which +agitated respectable and reactionary circles. The one point, as +Dickens remarked, on which everyone agreed, was that the country +was in very imminent danger, and wanted all the preserving it could +get. Presently, but not till 1867, the second revolution arrived. +Some of the finest oratory ever heard in England was lavished on the +question whether the power, formerly exercised by the aristocracy +and more recently by the middle class, was to be extended to the +artisans. The great Lord Shaftesbury predicted "the destruction +of the Empire," and Bishop Wilberforce "did not see how we were +to escape fundamental changes in Church and State." "History," +exclaimed Lowe, "may record other catastrophes as signal and as +disastrous, but none so wanton and so disgraceful." However, the +artisans made a singularly moderate use of their newly acquired +power; voted Conservative as often as they voted Liberal; and so +again belied the apprehensions of the alarmists. + +When the workman of the town had been enfranchised, it was impossible +to keep his brother who worked on the land permanently in the position +of a serf or a cipher. So we began to agitate for the "County +Franchise"; and once again the cry of "Revolution" was heard--perhaps +in its most typical form from the lips of a Tory M.P., who, as +I said before, affirmed that the labourer was no fitter for the +suffrage than the beasts he tended. Even ten years later, Lord +Goschen, who was by nature distrustful of popular movements, +prognosticated that, if ever the Union with Ireland were lost, it +would be lost through the votes of the agricultural labourers. To +those who, like myself, were brought up in agricultural districts, +the notion that the labourer was a revolutionary seemed strangely +unreal; but it was a haunting obsession in the minds of clubmen +and town-dwellers. + +So, in each succeeding decade, the next extension of constitutional +freedom has been acclaimed by its supporters as an instalment of +the millennium, and denounced by its opponents as the destruction +of social order. So it had been, time out of mind; and so it would +have been to the end had not the European war burst upon us, and +shaken us out of all our habitual concernments. Now "the oracles +are dumb." The voices, of lugubrious prophecy are silent. The Reform +Act which has become law this year is beyond doubt the greatest +revolution which has as yet been effected "by due course of law." +It has doubled the electorate; it has enfranchised the women; it +has practically established universal suffrage; it has placed all +property, as well as all policy, under the control of a class, +if only that class chooses to vote and act together. All these +effects of the Act (except one) are objects which I have desired +to see attained ever since I was a boy at Harrow, supporting the +present Bishop of Oxford and the late Lord Grey in the School Debating +Society; so it is not for me to express even the faintest apprehension +of evil results. But I am deliberately of opinion that the change +now effected in our electoral arrangements is of farther-reaching +significance than the substitution of a republic for a monarchy; +and the amazing part of the business is that no one has protested +at any stage of it. We were told at the beginning of the war that +there was to be no controversial legislation till it was over. +That engagement was broken; no one protested. A vitally important +transaction was removed from the purview of Parliament to a secret +conference; no one protested. If we suggested that the House of +Commons was morally and constitutionally dead, and that it ought +to renew its life by an appeal to the constituencies before it +enforced a revolution, we were told that it was impossible to hold +a General Election with the soldiers all out of the country; but +now it seems that this is to be the next step, and no one protests +against it. + +But these may be dismissed as constitutional pedantries. So be +it. The Whigs, who made the Constitution, may be pardoned if they +have a sneaking regard for their handiwork. Much more astonishing +is the fact that no resistance was offered on behalf of wealth +and privilege by the classes who have most of both to lose. The +men of L100,000 a year--not numerous, according to the Chancellor +of the Exchequer, but influential--have been as meekly acquiescent +as clerks or curates. Men who own half a county have smiled on +an Act which will destroy territorial domination. What is the +explanation? Was their silence due to patriotism or to fear? Did +they laudably decline the responsibility of opposing a Government +which is conducting a great war? Or did they, less laudably, shrink +from the prospect of appearing as the inveterate enemies of a social +and economic revolution which they saw to be inevitable? Let us +charitably incline to the former hypothesis. + +But there is something about this, our most recent revolution, +which is even more astonishing than the absence of opposition and +panic. It is that no one, whether friend or foe, has paid the least +attention to the subject. In ordinary society it has been impossible +to turn the conversation that way. Any topic in the world--but +pre-eminently Rations,--seemed more vital and more pressing. "The +Reform Bill? What Bill is that? Tell me, do you find it very difficult +to get sugar?" "The Speaker's Conference? Haven't heard about it. I'm +sure James Lowther won't allow them to do anything very silly--but +I really cannot imagine how we are to get on without meat." Or +yet again: A triumphant Suffragist said to a Belgravian sister: +"So we've got the vote at last!" "What vote?" replied the sister. +"Surely we've had a vote for ever so long? I'm sure I have, though +I never used it." + +When the real history of this wonderful war is written, methinks +the historian will reckon among its most amazing features the fact +that it so absorbed the mind of the nation as to make possible a +'silent revolution.' + + + + +VI + +"_THE INCOMPATIBLES_" + +My title is borrowed from one of the few Englishmen who have ever +written wisely about Ireland. Our ways of trying to pacify our +Sister Kingdom have been many and various--Disestablishment Acts, +Land Acts, Arrears Acts, Coercion Acts, Crimes Acts, and every other +variety of legislative experiment; but through them all Ireland +remained unpacified. She showed no gratitude for boons which she +had not asked, and seemed to crave for something which, with the +best intentions in the world, England was unable to supply. This +failure on the part of England may have been due to the fact that +Gladstone, who, of all English statesmen, most concerned himself +with Irish affairs, knew nothing of Ireland by personal contact. +It is startling to read, in Lord Morley's _Life_ this casual record +of his former chief: "In October, 1878, Gladstone paid his first +and only visit to Ireland. It lasted little more than three weeks, +and did not extend beyond a very decidedly English pale.... Of +the multitude of strange things distinctly Irish, he had little +chance of seeing much." + +One of the "strange things" which he did not see was the resolve +of Ireland to be recognized as a nation; and that recognition was +the "something" which, as I said just now, England was unable or +unwilling to supply. Late in life Gladstone discovered that Ireland +was a nation, and ought to be treated as such. As regards his own +share in the matter, the change came too late, and he went to the +grave leaving Ireland (in spite of two Home Rule Bills) still +unpacified; but his influence has lived and wrought, not only in +the Liberal party. The principle of Irish nationality has been +recognized in legislative form, and the most law-abiding citizen +in Great Britain might drink that toast of "Ireland a Nation" which +aforetime was considered seditious, if not treasonable. + +It was certainly a very odd prejudice of English Philistinism which +prevented us, for so many centuries, from recognizing a fact so palpable +as Irish nationality. If ever a race of men had characteristics of +its own, marking it out from its nearest neighbours, that race is +the Irish, and among the best of those characteristics are chastity, +courtesy, hospitality, humour, and fine manners. The intense Catholicism +of Ireland may be difficult for Protestants to applaud; yet most +certainly those who fail to take it into account are hopelessly +handicapped in the attempt to deal with Irish problems. The Irish +are born fighters. One of the most splendid passages which even +Irish oratory ever produced was that in which Sheill protested +against the insolence of stigmatizing the countrymen of Wellington +as "aliens" from England, and no policy could be more suicidal than +that which deflects the soldiership of Ireland from the British +cause. + +Charles James Fox shares with Edmund Burke the praise of having +brought the ideas which we call Liberal to bear on Irish government, +and his words are at least as true to-day as when they were written: +"We ought not to presume to legislate for a nation in whose feelings +and affections, wants and interests, opinions and prejudices, we have +no sympathy." Are "The Incompatibles" to be always incompatible, or +can we now, even at the eleventh hour, make some effort to understand +the working of the Irish temperament? + +The incompatibility, as Matthew Arnold read it, is not between +the two nations which Providence has so closely knit together, +but between insolence, dulness, rigidity, on the one hand, and +sensibility, quickness, flexibility, on the other. What Arnold +lamented was that England has too often been represented in Ireland, +and here also when Irish questions were discussed, by "the genuine, +unmitigated Murdstone--the common middle-class Englishman, who +has come forth from Salem House--and Mr. Creakle. He is seen in +full force, of course, in the Protestant North; but throughout +Ireland he is a prominent figure of the English garrison. Him the +Irish see, see him only too much and too often"--and to see him +is to dislike him, and the country which sent him forth. + +Is there not a touch of Murdstone and Creakle in the present dealings +of Parliament with Ireland? Forces greater than that of Salem House +have decreed that Ireland is to have self-government, and have +converted--for the astonishment of after-ages--Mr. Balfour and +Lord Curzon into Home Rulers. Surely, if there is one question +which, more conspicuously than another, a nation is entitled to +settle for itself it is the question whether military service shall +be compulsory. True, the legislative machinery of Home Rule is not +yet in action; but legislative machinery is not the only method +by which national sentiment can be ascertained. To introduce +conscription into Ireland by an Act of the Imperial Parliament, +after you have conceded to the Irish their claim to have a Parliament +of their own, may not indeed be a breach of faith, but it surely +is a breach of manners and good sense. + + + + +VII + +_FREEDOM'S NEW FRIENDS_ + +Many, said the Greek proverb, are they who bear the mystic reed, +but few are the true bacchanals. Many, in the present day, are +they who make an outward display of devotion to Liberty, but few, +methinks, are her real worshippers. "We are fighting for Freedom" +is a cry which rises from the most unexpected quarters; and, though +'twere ungracious to question its sincerity, we must admit that +this generous enthusiasm is of very recent growth. + +Liberty has always had her friends in England; but where she could +count one, Authority could count two.[*] Five years ago, how many +Englishmen really cared for Liberty, not rendering her mere lip-service, +but honestly devoting themselves to her sacred cause? If you polled +the nation from top to bottom, how many liberty-lovers would you +find? At one election their number, as disclosed by the polls, +would rise, at another it would sink. At the best of times, if you +divide the nation into strata, you would find large sections in +which Liberty had no worshippers and very few friends. It had long +been one of the bad signs of the times that the love of Liberty had +almost ceased to animate what are called, in the odious language of +social convention, "the upper classes." For generations the despised +and calumniated Whigs had maintained the cause of Freedom in their +peculiarly dogged though unemotional fashion, and had established +the political liberties of England on a strong foundation. But their +day was done, their work was accomplished, and their descendants +had made common cause with their hereditary opponents. + +[Footnote *: I am speaking here of England only--not of Scotland, +Ireland, or Wales.] + +After the great split of 1886 a genuine lover of Freedom in the upper +strata of society was so rare a character that people encountering +him instinctively asked, "Is he insincere? Or only mad?" Deserted +by the aristocracy, Liberty turned for her followers to the great +Middle Class; but there also the process of apostasy had begun; +and substantial people, whose fathers had fought and suffered for +Freedom, waxed reactionary as the claims of Labour became more +audible, and betook themselves to the side of Authority as being +the natural guardian of property. If you make the division +geographically, you may say, in the broadest terms, that the North +stood firm for Freedom; but that London and the South were always +unfriendly to it, and, after 1886, the Midlands joined the enemy. + +If we apply a test which, though often illusory, cannot be regarded +as wholly misleading, the Metropolitan Press was, in a remarkable +degree, hostile to Freedom, and reflected, as one must suppose, +the sentiments of the huge constituency for whom it catered. How +many friends could Irish Nationalism count? How many could Greece, +in her struggle with Turkey? How many the Balkan States? How many +Armenia? How many, even in the ranks of professed Liberalism, opposed +the annexation of the South African Republics? At each extension +of the suffrage; at each tussle with the Lords; at each attempt +to place the burden of taxation on the shoulders best able to bear +it, few indeed were the friends of Freedom in the upper classes of +society; in the opulent Middle Class; in London and the Midlands +and the South; in the Church, alas!; in the Universities, the +Professions, and the Press. + +And yet, at the present moment, from these unlikely quarters there +rises a diapason of liberty-loving eloquence which contrasts very +discordantly with the habitual language of five years ago. To-day +the friends of Freedom are strangely numerous and admirably vocal. +Our Lady of Liberty, one thinks, must marvel at the number and the +energy of her new worshippers. Lapses from grace are not unknown in +the after-history of revivals, but we must, in charity, assume the +conversion to be genuine until experience has proved it insincere. +And to what are we to attribute it? Various answers are possible. +Perhaps, as long as it was only other people's liberty which was +imperilled, we could look on without concern. Perhaps we never +realized the value of Freedom, as the chief good of temporal life, +till the prospect of losing it, under a world-wide reign of force, +first dawned on our imagination. Perhaps--and this is the happiest +supposition--we have learnt our lesson by contemplating the effects +of a doglike submission to Authority in corrupting the morals and +wrecking the civilization of a powerful and once friendly people. + +But, theorize as we may about the cause, the effect is unmistakable, +and, at least on the surface, satisfactory. To-day we all are the +friends and lovers of Liberty--and yet the very multitude of our +new comrades gives us, the veterans in the cause, some ground for +perplexity and even for concern. "He who really loves Liberty must +walk alone." In spite of all that has come and gone, I believe that +this stern dogma still holds good; and I seem to see it illustrated +afresh in the career, so lately closed amid universal respect and +regret, of Leonard, Lord Courtney.[*] + +[Footnote *: Leonard, Henry Courtney (Lord Courtney of Penwith), +died May 11, 1918, in his eighty-sixth year.] + + + + +V + +EDUCATION + + + + +I + +_EDUCATION AND THE JUDGE_ + +Not long ago a Judge of the High Court (who was also a Liberal) +made what struck me as an eminently wise observation. While trying +a couple of Elementary School-teachers whose obscenity was too +gross for even an Old Bailey audience, and who themselves were +products of Elementary Schools, the Judge said: "It almost makes +one hesitate to think that elementary education is the blessing which +we had hoped it was." Of course, all the prigs of the educational +world, and they are not few, were aghast at this robust declaration +of common sense; and the Judge thought it well to explain (not, +I am thankful to say, to explain away) a remark which had been +sedulously misconstrued. + +Long years ago Queen Victoria recording the conversation at her +dinner-table, said: "Lord Melbourne made us laugh very much with +his opinions about Schools and Public Education; the latter he +don't like, and when I asked him if he did he said, 'I daren't +say in these times that I'm against it--but I _am_ against it.'" + +There is a pleasantly human touch in that confession of a Whig +Prime Minister, that he was afraid to avow his mistrust of a great +social policy to which the Liberal party was committing itself. The +arch-charlatan, Lord Brougham, was raging up and down the kingdom +extolling the unmixed blessings of education. The University of +London, which was to make all things new, had just been set up. +"The school-master was abroad." Lord John Russell was making some +tentative steps towards a system of national education. Societies, +Congresses, and Institutes were springing up like mushrooms; and +all enlightened people agreed that extension of knowledge was the +one and all-sufficient remedy for the obvious disorders of the body +politic. The Victorian Age was, in brief, the age of Education; +and the one dogma which no one ventured to question was that the +extension of knowledge was necessarily, and in itself, a blessing. + +When I say "no one" I should perhaps say "hardly anyone"; for the +wisest and wittiest man of the time saw the crack in the foundation +on which his friends were laboriously erecting the temple of their +new divinity. "Reading and writing," said Sydney Smith, "are mere +increase of power. They may be turned, I admit, to a good or a +bad purpose; but for several years of his life the child is in +your hands, and you may give to that power what bias you please. I +believe the arm of the assassin may be often stayed by the lessons +of his early life. When I see the village school, and the tattered +scholars, and the aged master or mistress teaching the mechanical +art of reading or writing, and thinking that they are teaching +that alone, I feel that the aged instructor is protecting life, +insuring property, fencing the Altar, guarding the Throne, giving +space and liberty to all the fine powers of man, and lifting him +up to his own place in the order of Creation." + +That first sentence contain? the pith of the whole matter. "Reading +and writing are mere increase of power," and they may be turned +to a good or a bad purpose. Here enters the ethical consideration +which the zealots of sheer knowledge so persistently ignored. The +language about fencing the Altar and guarding the Throne might, no +doubt, strike the Judge who tried the school-teachers as unduly +idealistic; but the sentiment is sound, and knowledge is either +a blessing or a curse, according as it is used. + +Sydney Smith was speaking of the Elementary School, and, indeed, +was urging the claims of the working classes to better education. +But his doctrine applies with at least equal force to the higher +and wider ranges of knowledge. During the Victorian Age physical +science came into its own, and a good deal more than its own. Any +discovery in mechanics or chemistry was hailed as a fresh boon, +and the discoverer was ranged, with Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, +among our national heroes. As long ago as 1865 a scientific soldier +perceived the possibilities of aerial navigation. His vision has +been translated into fact; but Count Zeppelin has shown us quite +clearly that the discovery is not an unmixed blessing. Chemistry +is, to some minds, the most interesting of studies, just because +it is, as Lord Salisbury once said of it, the science of things +as they are. Yet aconitine, strychnine, and antimony have played +their part in murders, and chloroform has been used for destruction +as well as for salvation. Dr. Lardner was one of the most conspicuous +figures in that March of Mind which Brougham and his congeners +led; and his researches into chemistry resulted in the production +of an effluvium which was calculated to destroy all human life +within five miles of the spot where it was discharged. This was +an enlargement of knowledge; but if there had been Nihilists in +the reign of William IV. they would have found in Dr. Lardner's +discovery a weapon ready to their hand. Someone must have discovered +alcohol; and my teetotal friends would probably say, invented it, +for they cannot attribute so diabolical an agency to the action of +purely natural causes. But even those who least sympathize with +"the lean and sallow abstinence" would scarcely maintain that alcohol +has been an unmixed blessing to the race. + +To turn from material to mental discoveries, I hold that a great +many additions which have been made to our philosophical knowledge +have diminished alike the happiness and the usefulness of those +who made them. "To live a life of the deepest pessimism tempered +only by the highest mathematics" is a sad result of sheer knowledge. +An historian, toiling terribly in the muniment-rooms of colleges +or country houses, makes definite additions to our knowledge of +Henry VIII. or Charles I.; learns cruelty from the one and perfidy +from the other, and emerges with a theory of government as odious +as Carlyle's or Froude's. A young student of religion diligently +adds to his stock of learning, and plunges into the complicated +errors of Manicheans, and Sabellians, and Pelagians, with the result +that he absorbs the heresies and forgets the Gospel. In each of +these cases knowledge has been increased, but mankind has not been +benefited. We come back to what Sydney Smith said. Increase of +knowledge is merely increase of power. Whether it is to be a boon +or a curse to humanity depends absolutely on the spirit in which +it is applied. Just now we find ourselves engaged in a desperate +conflict between materialism and morality--between consummate knowledge +organized for evil ends, and the sublime ideal of public right. +Education has done for Germany all that Education, divorced from +Morality, can do; and the result has been a defeat of civilization +and a destruction of human happiness such as Europe has not seen +since the Middle Age closed in blood. What shall it profit a nation +if it "gain the whole world" and lose its own soul? + + + + +II + +_THE GOLDEN LADDER_ + +Education is an excellent thing, but the word has a deterrent sound. +It breathes pedantry and dogmatism, and "all that is at enmity with +joy." To people of my age it recalls the dread spirits of Pinnock +and Colenso and Hamblin Smith, and that even more terrible Smith who +edited Dictionaries of everything. So, though this chapter is to be +concerned with the substance, I eschew the word, and choose for my +title a figurative phrase. I might, with perfect justice, have chosen +another figure, and have headed my paper "The Peg and the Hole"; for, +after nearly a century of patient expectation, we have at last got +a Square Peg in the Square Hole of Public Instruction. In simpler +speech, England has at length got a Minister of Education who has +a genuine enthusiasm for knowledge, and will do his appointed work +with a single eye to the intellectual advancement of the country, +neither giving heed to the pribbles and prabbles of theological +disputants, nor modifying his plans to suit the convenience of the +manufacturer or the squire. He is, in my judgment, exactly the +right man for the office which he fills; and is therefore strikingly +differentiated not only from some Ministers of Education whom we +have known, but also from the swarm of Controllers and Directors +and salaried busybodies who have so long been misdirecting us and +contradicting one another. + +When I say that Mr. Fisher will not give heed to theological disputants, +I by no means ignore the grievance under which some of those disputants +have suffered. The ever-memorable majority of 1906 was won, not +wholly by Tariff Reform or Chinese Labour, but to a great extent +by the righteous indignation of Nonconformity at the injury which +had been inflicted on it by the Tory Education Acts. There were +Passive Resisters in those days, as there are Conscientious Objectors +now; and they made their grievance felt when the time for voting +came. The Liberal Government, in spite of its immense victory at +the polls, scored a fourfold failure in its attempts to redress +that grievance, and it remains unredressed to this hour. Not that I +admired the Liberal Education Bills. My own doctrine on the matter +was expressed by my friend Arthur Stanton, who said in 1906: "I +think National and Compulsory Education must be secular, and with +facilities for the denominations to add their particular tenets. My +objection to this Bill" (Mr. Birrell's Bill) "is that it subsidizes +undenominationalism." And again in 1909, when another of our Liberal +practitioners was handling the subject: "I object altogether to +the State teaching religion. I would have it teach secular matters +only, and leave the religious teaching entirely to the clergy, +who should undertake it at their own expense. This is the only +fair plan--fair to all. The State gives, and pays for, religious +teaching which I do not regard as being worth anything at all. It +is worse than useless. Real religious teaching can only be given +by the Church, and when Christ told us to go and teach, He did +not mean mathematics and geography." + +That was, and is, my doctrine on religious education; but in politics +we must take things as they are, and must not postpone practicable +reforms because we cannot as yet attain an ideal system. So Mr. +Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one +side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally +well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists +and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious +freedom, aspire. + +I see that some of Mr. Fisher's critics say: "This is not a great +Bill." Perhaps not, but it is a good Bill; and, as Lord Morley +observes, "that fatal French saying about small reforms being the +worst enemies of great reforms is, in the sense in which it is +commonly used, a formula of social ruin." Enlarging on this theme, +Lord Morley points out that the essential virtue of a small reform--the +quality which makes it not an evil, but a good--is that it should +be made "on the lines and in the direction" of the greater reform +which is desiderated. + +Now, this condition Mr. Fisher's Bill exactly fulfils. I suppose +that the "greater reform" of education which we all wish to see--the +ideal of national instruction--is that the State should provide +for every boy and girl the opportunity of cultivating his or her +natural gifts to the highest perfection which they are capable +of attaining. When I speak of "natural gifts" I refer not only +to the intellect, but also to the other parts of our nature, the +body and the moral sense. This ideal involves a system which, by a +natural and orderly development, should conduct the capable child +from the Elementary School, through all the intermediate stages, +to the highest honours of the Universities. + +The word "capable" occurs in Mr. Fisher's Bill, and rightly, because +our mental and physical capacities are infinitely varied. A good +many children may be unable to profit by any instruction higher +than that provided by the Elementary School. A good many more will +be able to profit by intermediate education. Comparatively few--the +best--will make their way to really high attainment, and will become, +at and through the Universities, great philosophers, or scholars, +or scientists, or historians, or mathematicians. + +At that point--and it ought to be reached at a much earlier age +than is now usual--the State's, concern in the matter ends. The +child has become, a man, and henceforth must work out his own +intellectual salvation; but in the earlier stages the State can +and must exercise a potent influence. The earliest stage must be +compulsory--that was secured by the Act of 1870. In the succeeding +stages, the State, while it does not compel, must stimulate and +encourage; and above all must ensure that no supposed exigencies +of money-making, no selfish tyranny of the employing classes, shall +be allowed to interfere with mental or physical development, or to +divert the boy or the girl from any course of instruction by which +he or she is capable of profiting. This ideal Mr. Fisher's Bill, with +its plain enactment that education shall be free; with its precaution +against "half-time"; with its ample provision for Continuation +Schools, goes far to realize. Even if it is a "small" reform--and +I should dispute the epithet--it is certainly "on the lines and +in the direction" of that larger reform which the enthusiasts of +education have symbolized by the title of "The Golden Ladder."[*] + +[Footnote *: Happily for Education, Mr. Fisher's Bill is now an +Act.] + + + + +III + +_OASES_ + +My title is figurative, but figures are sometimes useful. Murray's +Dictionary defines an oasis as "a fertile spot in the midst of a +desert"; and no combination of words could better describe the +ideal which I wish to set before my readers. + +The suggestion of this article came to me from a correspondent +in Northumberland--"an old miner, who went to work down a mine +before he was eight years old, and is working yet at seventy-two." +My friend tells me that he has "spent about forty years of his +spare time in trying to promote popular education among his fellow +working-men." His notice was attracted by a paper which I recently +wrote on "The Golden Ladder" of Education, and that paper led him +to offer some suggestions which I think too valuable to be lost. + +My friend does not despise the Golden Ladder. Quite the contrary. +He sees its usefulness for such as are able to climb it, but he +holds that they are, and must be, the few, while he is concerned for +the many. I agree. When (following Matthew Arnold at a respectful +distance) I have urged the formation of a national system by which +a poor man's son may be enabled to climb from the Elementary School +to a Fellowship or a Professorship at Oxford or Cambridge, I have +always realized that I was planning a course for the exceptionally +gifted boy. That boy has often emerged in real life, and the +Universities have profited by his emergence; but he is, and always +must be, exceptional. What can be done for the mass of intelligent, +but not exceptional, boys, who, to quote my Northumbrian friend, +"must be drilled into a calling of some kind, so as to be able to +provide for themselves when they grow up to manhood"? When once +their schooling, in the narrow sense, is over, must their minds be +left to lie fallow or run wild? Can nothing be done to supplement +their elementary knowledge, to stimulate and discipline their mental +powers? + +The University Extension Movement was an attempt to answer these +questions in a practical fashion, and my friend does full justice +to the spirit which initiated that movement, and to the men--such +as the late Lord Grey--who led it. But I suppose he speaks from +experience when he says: "University Extension, as it is, will +never become established in working-class villages. Forty-five to +fifty pounds is too big a sum to be raised in three months, and +is also considered too much to be paid for a man coming to lecture +once a week for twelve weeks, and then disappear for ever like a +comet." My friend uses an astronomical figure, I a geographical one; +but we mean the same thing. The idea is to establish Oases--"fertile +spots in the midst of deserts"--permanent centres of light and +culture in manufacturing districts. "The Universities teach and +train ministers of religion, and they go and live in their parishes +among their flocks all the year round. Why not send lecturers and +teachers of secular subjects in the same way? A system something +similar to the Wesleyan or Primitive Methodists' ministerial system +would answer the purpose. The country might be divided into circuits +of four or five centres each, and a University man stationed in +each circuit, to organize Students' Associations, give lectures, +hold classes, and superintend scientific experiments, as the case +may be." + +This is a good illustration. The Church professes to place in each +parish an official teacher of religion and morality, and most of +the Nonconformist communities do the same. To place an official +teacher of culture (in its widest sense) in every parish is perhaps +a task beyond our national powers as at present developed; but to +place one in every industrial district is not conceivable only, +but, I believe, practicable. The lecturer who comes from Oxford +or Cambridge, delivers his course, and departs, has no doubt his +uses. He is like the "Hot Gospeller" of an earlier age, or the +"Missioner" of to-day. He delivers an awakening message, and many +are the better for it; but if culture is to get hold of the average +lads and young men of an industrial district, its exponent must be +more like the resident minister, the endowed and established priest. +That he should live among the people whom he is to instruct, know +them personally, understand their ways of thinking and speaking, +is at least as important as that he should be a competent historian +or mathematician or man of letters. If the State, or voluntary +effort, or a combination of the two, could secure the permanent +presence of such a teacher in every district where men work hard, +and yet have leisure enough to cultivate their intellects, a yawning +gap in our educational system would be filled. + +It would not be polite to mention actual names; but take by way +of example such a district as Dickens's "Coketown," or Disraeli's +"Wodgate," or George Eliot's "Milby," or any of those towns which +Cobbett expressively called "Hell-Holes." Let the State establish +in each of those places a qualified and accredited teacher for +adult students. The teacher may, if necessary, be paid in part +by voluntary subscription; but it is, in my view, all-important +that he should have the sanction and authority of the State to give +him a definite place among local administrators, and to the State +he should be responsible for the due discharge of his functions. +In Coketown or Wodgate or Milby his lecture-room would be a real +Oasis--"a fertile spot in the midst of a desert." Even if it has +not been our lot to dwell in those deserts, we all have had, as +travellers, some taste of their quality. We know the hideousness +of all that meets the eye; the necessary absorption in the struggle +for subsistence; the resulting tendency to regard money as the +one subject worth serious consideration; the inadequate means of +intellectual recreation; the almost irresistible atmosphere of +materialism in which life and thought are involved. The "Oasis" +would provide a remedy for all this. It would offer to all who +cared to seek them "the fairy-tale of science," the pregnant lessons +of history, the infinitely various joys of literature, the moral +principles of personal and social action which have been thought +out "by larger minds in calmer ages." + +That there may be practical difficulties in the way of such a scheme +I do not dispute. The object of this chapter is not to elaborate a +plan, but to exhibit an idea. That the amount of definite knowledge +acquired in this way might be small, and what Archbishop Benson +oddly called "unexaminable," is, I think, quite likely. A man cannot +learn in the leisure-hours left over by exhausting work as he would +learn if he had nothing to think of except his studies and his +examination. But Education has a larger function than the mere +communication of knowledge. It opens the windows of the mind; it +shows vistas which before were unsuspected; and so, as Wordsworth +said, "is efficacious in making men wiser, better, and happier." + + + + +IV + +_LIFE, LIBERTY, AND JUSTICE_ + +When an article in a newspaper produces a reply, the modest writer +is gratified; for he knows that he has had at any rate one reader. +If the reply comes to him privately, he is even better pleased, for +then he feels that his reader thinks the matter worthy of personal +discussion and of freely exchanged opinion. I have lately written an +article on "Life and Liberty" as proposed by some earnest clergymen +for the English Church, and an article on Mr. Fisher's Education +Bill, in which I avowed my dislike to all attempts on the part of +the State to teach religion. Both these articles have brought me +a good deal of correspondence, both friendly and hostile. The term +allotted to human life does not allow one to enter into private +controversy with every correspondent, so I take this method of +making a general reply. "Life and Liberty" are glorious ideals, +but, to make the combination, perfect, we must add Justice. Hence +my title. + +The State consists of persons who profess all sorts of religion, +and none. If the State compels its citizens to pay for religious +teaching in which they do not believe, it commits, in my opinion, +a palpable injustice. This is not merely a question between one +sect and another sect. It is, indeed, unjust to make a Quaker pay +for teaching the doctrine of the Sacraments, or a Unitarian for +teaching the Deity of Christ; but it is equally unjust to make +an Atheist pay for teaching the existence of God, or a Churchman +for teaching that curious kind of implied Socinianism which is +called "undenominational religion." + +The only way out of these inequities is what is commonly called +"Secularism." The word has some unfortunate associations. It has +been connected in the past with a blatant form of negation, and +also with a social doctrine which all decent people repudiate. But, +strictly considered, it means no more than "temporal" or "worldly"; +and when I say that I recommend the "Secular" system of education, +I mean that the State should confine itself to the temporal or +worldly work with which alone it is competent to deal, and should +leave religion (which it cannot touch without inflicting injustice +on someone) to those whose proper function is to instil it. + +Who are they? Speaking generally, parents, ministers of religion, +and teachers who are themselves convinced of what they teach; but +I must narrow my ground. To-day I am writing as a Churchman for +those Churchmen whom my previous articles disturbed; and I have +only space to set forth some of the grounds on which we Churchmen +should support the "secular solution." + +A Churchman is bound by his baptismal vows to "believe all the +articles of the Christian Faith." These, according to his catechism, +are summed up in the Apostles' Creed. He cannot, therefore, be +satisfied with any religious instruction which is not based on +that formula; and yet such instruction cannot rightly be enforced +in schools which belong as much to unbelievers as to Christians. +A Churchman's religious faith is not derived primarily from the +Bible, but from the teaching of the Christian Church, who is older +than the oldest of her documents. There was a Church before the +New Testament was written, and that Church transmitted the faith +by oral tradition. "From the very first the rule has been, as a +matter of fact, that the Church should teach the truth, and then +should appeal to Scripture in vindication of its own teaching." +For a Churchman, religious instruction must be the teaching of the +Church, tested by the Bible. The two cannot be separated. Hence it +follows that, while the State is bound to respect the convictions +of those who adhere to all manner of beliefs and disbeliefs, the +Churchman cannot recognize religious teaching imparted under such +conditions as being that which his own conscience demands. + +And, further, supposing that some contrivance could be discovered +whereby the State might authorize the teaching of the Church's +doctrine, the Churchman could not conscientiously be a party to +it; for, according to his theory, there is only one Body divinely +commissioned to decide what is to be taught--and that Body is not +the State, but the Church; and there is only one set of persons +qualified to teach it--viz., those who are duly authorized by the +Church, and are fully persuaded as to the truth of what they teach. + +It is sometimes asked how the Church is to fulfil this obligation +without being subsidized in some way by the State. The principal +requisite is greater faith in its Divine mission. If the Bishops +and clergy had a stronger conviction that what they are divinely +commissioned to undertake they will be divinely assisted to fulfil, +this question need not be suggested. The first teachers of the +Christian religion performed their task without either "Rate-aid" +or "State-aid" and the result of their labour is still to be seen; +whereas now the object of leaders of religion seems to be to get +done for them what they ought to do for themselves. It may be well +to quote an utterance of the Bishop of Oxford at the time when the +Liberal Government was dealing with education. "We are now, more +or less, in the middle of a crisis. We are always in the middle +of a crisis. This crisis is about the religious question in our +day-schools. I would ask you, then, to get at the root of our +difficulty. What is it? The heart of our difficulty is partly that +we have _shifted on to the wrong shoulders_ the central function +of teaching children; secondly, that we have so lost the idea of +what the teaching of the Church is, and _the meaning of religious +education_, that we are considered by the public to be unreasonable +and uncompromising people if we are not disposed to admit that the +County Councils can settle the standard of sufficient religious +knowledge for everybody." + +The difficulty as to means might be overcome if the Church would +mind its own business, and leave to the State what the State can +do so much more effectively. Let me quote the words of a great +Christian and a great Churchman--Mr. Gladstone--written in 1894: +"Foul fall the day when the persons of this world shall, on whatever +pretext, take into their uncommissioned hands the manipulation of +the religion of our Lord and Saviour." + +Surely Churchmen will best serve the religion which they profess by +joining with other "men of goodwill," though of different faiths, +who desire the secular solution. In that way only, as far as I can +see, can the interests of Education be reconciled with the higher +interests of Justice. + + + + +V + +_THE STATE AND THE BOY_ + +When Mr. A. J. Balfour was a very young man he published _A Defence +of Philosophic Doubt_. Nobody read it, but a great many talked +about it; and serious people went about with long faces, murmuring, +"How sad that Lord Salisbury's nephew should be an Agnostic!" When +Mr. Balfour had become a conspicuous figure in politics, the serious +people began to read the book which, so far, they had only denounced, +and then they found, to their surprise and joy, that it was an +essay in orthodox apologetic. Thenceforward Mr. Balfour ranked +in their eyes as a "Defender of the Faith" second only to Henry +VIII. + +To compare small things with great, I have had a similar experience. +Not long ago I wrote a paper designed to set forth the pretty obvious +truth that increase in knowledge is not in itself a good. It evoked +much criticism, and the critics once again exemplified our truly +English habit of denouncing what we have not read. If these quaint +people were to be believed, I was an enemy of education in general +and of elementary education in particular. I hope that they will be +as much relieved as were Mr. Balfour's critics when they discover that +I am, and all my life have been, a zealous supporter of education, +and, to some extent, an expert in it. + +If the world could be exhaustively divided into two classes-the +Educated and the Uneducated--I suppose that I should be included in +the former, though I anticipate an inevitable sarcasm by allowing +that I should find myself perilously near the dividing-line. It +is more to the purpose to say that, whatever my own educational +deficiencies, I have always been keenly interested in the education +of other people, and have preached incessantly that the State has a +sacred duty to its boys. If I leave the education of girls on one +side, I do so, not because I consider it unimportant, but because +I know nothing about it. + +Information, as the great Butler said, is the least part of education. +The greatest is the development of the child's natural power to +its utmost extent and capacity; and the duty of so developing it +must be admitted by everyone who ponders our Lord's teaching about +the Buried Talent and the Pound laid up in the Napkin. Unless we +enable and encourage every boy in England to bring whatever mental +gifts he has to the highest point of their possible perfection, +we are shamefully and culpably squandering the treasure which God +has given us to be traded with and accounted for. We shall have +no one but ourselves to blame if, as a Nemesis on our neglect, we +lose our present standing among the educated peoples of the world. +I always get back to the ideal of the "Golden Ladder," reaching +from the Elementary Schools, by Scholarships or "free places," to +the Secondary Schools, and from them again to the Universities. +This ideal is, unlike some ideals, attainable, and has in repeated +instances been attained. Again and again the highest mathematical +honours of Cambridge have been won by Elementary Schoolboys, and +what is true of mathematics might also be true of every branch of +knowledge. I say advisedly that it "might" be true: whether or +not it will be depends on our handling of quite young boys. + +The pedagogic notion under which people of my time were reared was +that every boy must learn exactly the same things as every other +boy, and must go on learning them till his last day at school, +whether that day arrived when he was fourteen or eighteen. "We must +catch up every man, whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke, +begin with him at six years of age, and never quit him till he is +twenty; making him conjugate and decline for life and death; and +so teaching him to estimate his progress in real wisdom as he can +scan the verses of the Greek tragedians." So said Sydney Smith, and +with perfect truth. "The grand, old, fortifying, classical curriculum" +was enforced on the boy whose whole heart was in the engineer's shed, +while his friend, to whom literature was a passion, was constrained +to simulate an interest in the blue lights and bad smells of a +chemical lecture. "Let it be granted" (as the odious Euclid, now +happily dethroned, used to say) that there is a certain amount that +all alike must learn but this amount will prove, when scrutinized, +to be very small. I suppose we must all learn to read and write, +and it is useful to be able to do a sum in simple addition; though +very eminent people have often written very illegible hands, and +Dean Stanley--one of the most accomplished men of his day--could +never be persuaded that eighteen pence was not the equivalent of +1s. 8d. Zealots for various "knowledges" (to use the curious plural +sanctioned by Matthew Arnold) will urge the indispensability of +their respective hobbies. One will say let everybody learn that +the earth is round; another, that James I. was not the son of Queen +Elizabeth. But let us leave, these pribbles and prabbles. Let every +boy be coerced into learning what is absolutely necessary for the +daily work of life; but let him, at a very early age, have his +powers concentrated on the subject which really interests him. + +One of the highest gifts which a teacher can possess is the power +of "discerning the spirits"--of discovering what a boy's mind really +is; what it is made of; what can be made of it. This power is a natural +gift, and can by no means be acquired. Many teachers entirely lack +it; but those who possess it are among the most valuable servants +of the State. This power may be brought to bear on every boy when +he is, say, from fourteen to sixteen years old--perhaps in some +cases even earlier; and, when once the teacher has made the +all-important discovery, then let everything be done to stimulate, +and at the same time to discipline, the boy's natural inclination, +his inborn aptitude. Fifty years ago, every boy at every Public +School, though he might be as unpoetical as Blackstone who wrote +the Commentaries, or Bradshaw who compiled the Railway Guide, was +forced to produce a weekly tale of Latin and Greek verses which would +have made Horace laugh and Sophocles cry. The Rev. Esau Hittall's +"Longs and Shorts about the Calydonian Boar," commemorated in +_Friendship's Garland_, may stand for a sample of the absurdities +which I have in mind; and the supporters of this amazing abuse +assured the world that Greek and Latin versification was an essential +element of a liberal education. It took a good many generations to +deliver England from this absurdity, and there are others like +unto it which still hold their own in the scholastic world. To +sweep these away should be the first object of the educational +reformer; and, when that preliminary step has been taken, the State +will be able to say to every boy who is not mentally deficient: +"This, or this, is the path which Nature intended you to tread. +Follow it with all your heart. We will back you, and help you, +and applaud you, and will not forsake you till the goal is won." + + + + +VI + +_A PLEA FOR THE INNOCENTS_ + +My "spiritual home" is not Berlin, nor even Rome, but Jerusalem. +In heart and mind I am there to-day, and have been there ever since +the eternally memorable day on which our army entered it. What I am +writing will see the light on the Feast of the Holy Innocents;[*] +and my thoughts have been running on a prophetic verse which unites +the place and the festival in a picturesque accord: + +"Thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in +the midst of Jerusalem:... and the streets of the city shall be +full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." + +The most brilliant Israelite of our times, Lord Beaconsfield, said +of a brilliant Englishman, Dean Stanley, that his leading feature +was his "picturesque sensibility," and that sensibility was never +more happily expressed than when he instituted the service for +children in Westminster Abbey on Innocents' Day--"Childermas Day," +as our forefathers called it, in the age when holidays were also +holy days, and the Mass was the centre of social as well as of +spiritual life. On this touching feast a vast congregation of boys +and girls assembles in that Abbey Church which has been rightly +called "the most lovable thing in Christendom"; and, as it moves +in "solemn troops and sweet societies" through aisles grey with +the memories of a thousand years, it seems a living prophecy of +a brighter age already at the door. + +[Footnote *: December 28, 1917.] + +It seems--rather, it seemed. Who can pierce the "hues of earthquake +and eclipse" which darken the aspect of the present world? Who +can foresee, or even reasonably conjecture, the fate which is in +store for the children who to-day are singing their carols in the +church of the Confessor? Will it be their lot to be "playing in the +streets" of a spiritual Jerusalem--the Holy City of a regenerated +humanity? or are they destined to grow up in a reign of blood and +iron which spurns the "Vision of Peace" as the most contemptible +of dreams? + +In some form or another these questions must force themselves on +the mind of anyone who contemplates the boys and girls of to-day, +and tries to forecast what may befall them in the next four or +five years. + +It is a gruesome thought that the children of to-day are growing up +in an atmosphere of war. Bloodshed, slaughter, peril and privation, +bereavement and sorrow and anxiety--all the evils from which happy +childhood is most sedulously guarded have become the natural elements +in which they live and move and have their being. For the moment +the cloud rests lightly on them, for not "all that is at enmity +with joy" can depress the Divine merriment of healthy childhood; +but the cloud will become darker and heavier with each succeeding +year of war; and every boy and girl is growing up into a fuller +realization of miseries which four years ago would have been +unimaginable. + +But at Christmastide, if ever, we are bound to take the brightest +view which circumstances allow. Let us then assume the best. Let us +assume that before next Innocents' Day the war will have ended in +a glorious peace. God grant it; but, even in that beatific event, +what will become of the children? They cannot be exactly what they +would have been if their lot had been cast in normal times. Unknown +to themselves, their "subconscious intelligence" must have taken a +colour and a tone from the circumstances in which they have been +reared. As to the colour, our task will be to wipe out the tinge +of blood; as to the tone, to restore the note which is associated +with the Angels' Song. + +This is my "Plea for the Innocents." What will the State offer +them as they emerge from childhood into boyhood, and from boyhood +into adolescence? + +Perhaps it will offer Conscription; and, with no "perhaps" at all, +some strident voices will pronounce that offer the finest boon +ever conferred upon the youth of a nation. Then, if there is any +manliness or fibre left in the adherents of freedom, they will +answer that we adopted Conscription for a definite object, and, +when once that object is attained, we renounce it for ever. + +What will the State offer? Obviously it must offer education--but +what sort of education? The curse of militarism may make itself +felt even in the school-room. It would be deplorable indeed if, +as a result of our present experience, children were to be taught +what J. R. Green called a "drum-and-trumpet history," and were made +to believe that the triumphs of war are the highest achievements +of the human spirit. + +As long as there is an Established Church, the State, in some sense, +offers religion. Is the religion of the next few years to be what +Ruskin commends: a "religion of pure mercy, which we must learn to +defend by fulfilling"; or is it to be the sort of religion which +Professor Cramb taught, and which Prussian Lutheranism has substituted +for the Gospel? + +And, finally, what of home? After all said and done, it is the +home that, in the vast majority of cases, influences the soul and +shapes the life. What will the homes of England be like when the war +is over? Will they be homes in which the moral law reigns supreme; +where social virtue is recognized as the sole foundation of national +prosperity; where the "strange valour of goodwill towards men", +is revered as the highest type of manly resolution? + +It is easy enough to ask these questions: it is impossible to answer +them. The Poet is the Prophet, and this is the Poet's vision: + + "The days are dark with storm;-- + The coming revolutions have to face + Of peace and music, but of blood and fire; + The strife of Races scarce consolidate, + Succeeded by the far more bitter strife + Of Classes--that which nineteen hundred years, + Since Christ spake, have not yet availed to close, + But rather brought to issue only now, + When first the Peoples international + Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs."[*] + +_Know their own strength, and know the world is theirs_--a solemn +line, which at this season we may profitably ponder. + +[Footnote *: "The Disciples," by H. E. Hamilton King.] + + + + +VI + +MISCELLANEA + + + + +I + +_THE "HUMOROUS STAGE"_ + +I am not adventuring on the dangerous paths of dramatic criticism. +When I write of the "humorous stage," I am using the phrase as +Wordsworth used it, to signify a scene where new characters are +suddenly assumed, and the old as suddenly discarded. + +Long ago, Matthew Arnold, poking fun at the clamours of Secularism, +asked in mockery, "Why is not Mr. Bradlaugh a Dean?" To-day I read, +in a perfectly serious manifesto forwarded to me by a friendly +correspondant, this searching question: "Why is not the Archbishop +of Canterbury Censor of Plays?" It really is a great conception; +and, if adopted in practice, might facilitate the solution of some +perplexing problems. If any lover of the ancient ways should demur +on the ground of incongruity, I reply that this objection might +hold good in normal times, but that just now the "humorous stage" +of public life so abounds in incongruities that one more or less +would make no perceptible difference. Everyone is playing a part for +which, three years ago, we should have thought him or her totally +unqualified. Old habits, old prepossessions--even in some cases old +principles--are cast aside with a levity which even Wordsworth's +young actor could not have surpassed. We all are saying and doing +things of which we should have thought ourselves incapable; and +even our surprise at ourselves, great as it is, is less than our +surprise at our friends. + +To begin at the top. I have long held the present Prime Minister in +high admiration. I can never forget--nor allow others to forget--that +he fought for the cause of Justice and Freedom in South Africa +almost single-handed, and at the risk of his life. An orator, a +patriot, a lover of justice, a hater of privilege, I knew him to +be. I did not see in him the makings of a Dictator directing the +destinies of an Empire at war, and in his spare moments appointing +Successors to the Apostles within the precincts of an Established +Church. Certainly of Mr. Lloyd George, if of no one else, it is +true that + + "The little actor cons another part," + +and I heartily wish him success in it. But it is true of everyone, +and true in every corner of the stage. Let me strike into the medley +at random. The anti-feminists, where are they? They have changed +their garb and their "lines" so thoroughly that it is difficult +for even a practised eye to recognize them in their new parts. +Lord Curzon is a member of a Cabinet which established the women's +vote, and such stalwarts as Mr. Asquith and Lord Harcourt welcome +with effusion the enfranchisement of the victorious suffragette. + +And what of the Pacificists? Where are they? Some, I know, are +in prison, but, if it had not been for the rapid change of parts +which the war has brought, they would have had a good many more +fellow-captives than they have. The writer of this article was, +from his first entrance into public affairs, a Pacificist to the +backbone. He believed that war was the greatest of preventible +evils, and that no war which had occurred in his lifetime had been +justified by the laws of right and wrong. To-day that Pacificist is +heart and soul with his countrymen in their struggle; and, having +lived to see England engaged in a righteous war, he has changed +his motto from "Rub lightly" to "Mak sicker." + +Not less remarkable is the transformation of the liberty-lovers +(among whom also the present writer has always reckoned himself). +Four years ago we were eagerly and rightly on the alert to detect +the slightest attempt by Ministers or bureaucrats or public bodies +to invade our glorious privilege of doing and saying exactly what +we like. To-day the pressure of the war has turned us into the +willing subjects of a despotism. We tumble over each other in our +haste to throwaway the liberties which we used to consider vital +to our being; and some of us have been not merely the victims, but +the active agents, of an administrative system which we believe +to be necessary for the safety of the State. + +But is there not a remnant? Have all the lovers of Liberty changed +their garb and conned new parts? Not all. A remnant there is, and +it is to be found in the House of Lords. This is perhaps the most +astonishing feature of the "humorous stage"; and if, among superlatives, +a super-superlative is possible, I reserve that epithet for the fact +that the most vigorous champion of personal freedom in the House +of Lords has been an ecclesiastical lawyer. From Lord Stowell to +Lord Parmoor is indeed a far cry. Who could have dreamt that, even +amid the upheaval of a world, a spokesman of liberty and conscience +would emerge from the iron-bound precincts of the Consistory Court +and the Vicar-General's Office? + +Bishops again--not even these most securely placed of all British +officials can escape the tendency to change which pervades the +whole stage of public life. The Bishop of Winchester, whom all +good Progressives used to denounce as a dark conspirator against +the rights of conscience; the Bishop of Oxford, whom we were taught +to regard as a Hildebrand and a Torquemada rolled into one--these +admirable prelates emerge from the safe seclusion of Castle and +Palace to rebuke the persecution of the Conscientious Objector, +even when his objection is "nearly intolerable." + +That the Press should have had its share in this general readjustment +of parts was only natural; but even in what is natural there may be +points of special interest. There is a weekly journal of high repute +which has earned a secure place in the regard of serious-minded +people by its lifelong sobriety, moderation, and respect for the +prunes and prisms. When this staid old print, this steady-going +supporter of all established institutions, bursts out in a furious +attack on the man who has to bear the chief responsibility of the +war, I can only rub my eyes in amazement. If a sheep had suddenly +gone mad, and begun to bark and bite, the transformation could +not have been more astonishing. + +But I reserve my most striking illustration of the "humorous stage" +for the last. Fifteen years ago it was the fashion to point at Lord +Hugh Cecil as a belated upholder of exploded superstitions; as +an "ecclesiastical layman" (the phrase was meant to be sarcastic) +who lived in a realm of speculative theology, out of touch with +all practical life; as a zealot, a bigot, a would-be persecutor; +an interesting survival of the Middle Age; a monk who had strayed +into politics. To-day we salute him as the one Member of Parliament +who has had the courage to affirm the supremacy of the moral law, +and to assert the imperious claim which Christianity makes on the +whole of man's being. + + + + +II + +_THE JEWISH REGIMENT_ + +It was an old and a true allegation against John Bull that he had +no tact in dealing with other races than his own. He did not mean +to be unjust or unfair, but he trampled on the sensitiveness, which +he could not understand. In Ireland he called the Roman Catholic +faith "a lie and a heathenish superstition"; or, in a lighter mood, +made imbecile jokes about pigs and potatoes. In Scotland, thriftiness +and oatmeal were the themes of his pleasantry; in Wales, he found +the language, the literature, and the local nomenclature equally +comic, and reserved his loudest guffaw for the Eisteddfod. Abroad, +"Foreigners don't wash" was the all-embracing formula. Nasality, +Bloomerism, and Dollars epitomized his notion of American civilization; +and he cheerfully echoed the sentiments + + "Of all who under Eastern skies + Call Aryan man a blasted nigger." + +Now, of late years, John has altered his course. Some faint conception +of his previous foolishness has dawned on his mind; and, as he is +a thoroughly good fellow at heart, he has tried to make amends. +The present war has taught him a good deal that he did not know +before, and he renders a homage, all the more enthusiastic because +belated, to the principle of Nationality. His latest exploit in this +direction has been to suggest the creation of a Jewish Regiment. +The intention was excellent and the idea picturesque; but for the +practical business of life we need something more than good intentions +and picturesque ideas. "Wisdom," said Ecclesiastes, "is profitable +to direct;" and Wisdom would have suggested that it was advisable +to consult Jewish opinion before the formation of a Jewish Regiment +was proclaimed to the world. There is probably no race of people +about which John Bull has been so much mistaken as he has been +about the Jews. Lord Beaconsfield's description of Mr. Buggins, +with his comments on the Feast of Tabernacles in Houndsditch, is +scarcely yet anachronistic.[*] But slowly our manners and our +intelligence have improved in this as in other directions; and Lord +Derby (who represents John Bull in his more refined development) +thought that he would be paying his Jewish fellow-citizens a pretty +compliment if he invited them to form a Jewish Regiment. + +[Footnote *: See _Tancred_, Book V., chapter vi.] + +Historically, Lord Derby and those who applauded his scheme had a +great deal to say for themselves. The remote history of Judaism is +a history of war. The Old Testament is full of "the battle of the +warrior" and of "garments rolled in blood." Gideon, and Barak, and +Samson, and Jephthah, and David are names that sound like trumpets; +and the great Maccabean Princes of a later age played an equal +part with Romans and Lacedaemonians. All this is historically true; +but it never occurred to Lord Derby and his friends that the idea +which underlay their scheme is the opposite of that which animates +modern Judaism. Broadly speaking, the idea of modern Judaism is not +Nationality, but Religion. Mr. Lucien Wolf has lately reminded us +that, according to authoritative utterances, "The Jews are neither +a nation within a nation, nor cosmopolitan," but an integral part +of the nations among whom they live, claiming the same rights and +acknowledging the same duties as are claimed and acknowledged by +their fellow-citizens. It is worth noticing that Macaulay accepted +this position as disposing of the last obstacle to the civil and +political enfranchisement of the English Jews, and ridiculed the +notion that they would regard England, "not as their country, but +merely as their place of exile." Mr. Wolf thus formulates his faith: +"In the purely religious communities of Western Jewry we have the +spiritual heirs of the law-givers, prophets, and teachers who, +from the dawn of history, have conceived Israel, not primarily +as a political organism, but as a nation of priests, the chosen +servants of the Eternal." + +Mr. Claude Montefiore, who is second to none as an interpreter +of modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain. +The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinary +functions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen of +the country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said the +other day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racial +grounds: "_I would shoot a Jewish Prussian as readily as a Christian +Prussian, if I found him fighting under the German flag_." Thus, to +enrol a regiment of Jews is about as wise as to enrol a regiment +of Roman Catholics or of Wesleyan Methodists. Jews, Romans, and +Wesleyans alike hold with laudable tenacity the religious faiths +which they respectively profess; but they are well content to fight +side by side with Anglicans, or Presbyterians, or Plymouth Brethren. +They need no special standard, no differentiating motto. They are +soldiers of the country to which they belong. + +Here let me quote the exhilarating verses of a Jewish lady,[*] written +at the time of the Boer War (March, 1900): + + "Long ago and far away, O Mother England, + We were warriors brave and bold, + But a hundred nations rose in arms against us, + And the shades of exile closed o'er those heroic + Days of old. + + "Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother England. + Thou hast let us live again + Free and fearless 'midst thy free and fearless children, + Sparing with them, as one people, grief and gladness, + Joy and pain. + + "Now we Jews, we English Jews, O Mother England, + Ask another boon of thee! + Let us share with them the danger and the glory; + Where thy best and bravest lead, there let us follow + O'er the sea! + + "For the Jew has heart and hand, our Mother England, + And they both are thine to-day-- + Thine for life, and thine for death, yea, thine for ever! + Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly? + England, say!" + +[Footnote *: Mrs. Henry Lucas (reprinted in her _Talmudic Legends, +Hymns and Paraphrases_. Chatto and Windus, 1908).] + +I am well aware that in what I have written, though I have been +careful to reinforce myself with Jewish authority, I may be running +counter to that interesting movement which is called "Zionism." +It is not for a Gentile to take part in the dissensions of the +Jewish community; but I may be permitted to express my sympathy +with a noble idea, and to do so in words written by a brilliant +Israelite, Lord Beaconsfield: "I do not bow to the necessity of a +visible head in a defined locality; but, were I to seek for such, +it would not be at Rome. When Omnipotence deigned to be incarnate, +the ineffable Word did not select a Roman frame. The prophets were +not Romans; the Apostles were not Romans; she, who was blessed +above all women--I never heard that she was a Roman maiden. No; +I should look to a land more distant than Italy, to a city more +sacred even than Rome."[*] + +[Footnote *: _Sybil_, Book II., chapter xii.] + + + + +III + +_INDURATION_ + +Though my heading is as old as Chaucer, it has, I must admit, a +Johnsonian sound. Its sense is conveyed in the title of an excellent +book on suffering called _Lest We Grow Hard_, and this is a very +real peril against which it behoves everyone + + "Who makes his moral being his prime care" + +to be sedulously on his guard. During the last four years we have +been, in a very special way and degree, exposed to it; and we ought +to be thankful that, as a nation, we seem to have escaped. The +constant contemplation, even with the mental eye, of bloodshed and +torture, has a strong tendency to harden the heart; and a peculiar +grace was needed to keep alive in us that sympathy with suffering, that +passion of mercy, which is the characteristic virtue of regenerate +humanity. I speak not only of human suffering. Animals, it has been +said, may have no rights, but they have many wrongs, and among +those wrongs are the tortures which war inflicts. The suffering +of all sentient nature appeals alike to humanitarian sympathy. + +It has always seemed to me a signal instance of Wordsworth's penetrating +thought "on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life," that he assigned to +this virtue a dominant place in the Character of the Happy Warrior-- + + "Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, + And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train! + Turns his necessity to glorious gain"; + +and who, "as more exposed" than others "to suffering and distress," +is + + "Hence, also, more alive to tenderness." + +This tribute to the moral nature of the Warrior, whether his warfare +be on land or on sea or in the air, is as true to-day as when Wordsworth +paid it. The brutal and senseless cry for "reprisals" which of late +has risen from some tainted spots of the Body Politic will wake +no response unless it be an exclamation of disgust from soldiers +and sailors and airmen. Of course, everyone knows that there is a +sense in which reprisals are a necessary part of warfare. Generation +after generation our forefathers fought bow to bow and sword to +sword and gun to gun against equally armed and well-matched foes; +this was reprisal, or, if you prefer, retaliation. And when, in more +recent times, the devilish ingenuity of science invented poisonous +gas, there was nothing unmanly or unchivalrous in retorting on +our German enemies with the hideous weapon which they had first +employed. + +But this is not the kind of reprisal which indurated orators demand. +They contend that because the Germans kill innocent civilians, +and women, and little children in English streets, Englishmen are +to commit the same foul deeds in Germany. "It is hard," says the +_Church Times_, "to say whether futility or immorality is the more +striking characteristic of the present clamour for reprisals in +the matter of air-raids.... Mr. Joynson Hicks would 'lay a German +town in ashes after every raid on London,' and he is not much worse +than others who scream in the same key." Nay, he is better than +many of them. The people who use this language are not the men +of action. They belong to a sedentary and neurotic class, who, +lacking alike courage and mercy, gloat over the notion of torture +inflicted on the innocent and the helpless. + +A German baby is as innocent as an English baby, a German mother +is as helpless as an English mother; and our stay-at-home heroes, +safely ensconced in pulpits or editorial chairs, shrilly proclaim +that they must be bombed by English airmen. What a function to +impose on a band of fighters, peculiarly chivalrous and humane! + +I refer to the pulpit because one gross and disgusting instance +of clerical ferocity has lately been reported. A raving clergyman +has been insolently parodying the Gospel which he has sworn to +preach. Some of the newspapers commended his courage; and we do +not know whether his congregation quitted the church or his Bishop +rebuked him. Both results are possible, and I sincerely hope that +the latter is true. The established and endowed teachers of religion +have not always used their influence on the side of mercy; but on +the question of reprisals I have observed with thankfulness that +the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London have spoken +on the right side, and have spoken with energy and decision. They, +at any rate, have escaped the peril of induration, and in that +respect they are at one with the great mass of decent citizens. + +I am no advocate of a mawkish lenity. When our soldiers and sailors +and airmen meet our armed foes on equal terms, my prayers go with +them; and the harder they strike, the better I am pleased. When a +man or woman has committed a cold-blooded murder and has escaped +the just penalty of the crime, I loathe the political intrigue +which sets him or her free. Heavy punishment for savage deeds, +remorseless fighting till victory is ours--these surely should be +guiding principles in peace and war; and to hold them is no proof +that one has suffered the process of induration. + +Here I am not ashamed to make common cause with the stout old Puritan +in _Peveril of the Peak:_ "To forgive our human wrongs is Christian-like +and commendable; but we have no commission to forgive those which +have been done to the cause of religion and of liberty; we have +no right to grant immunity or to shake hands with those who have +poured forth the blood of our brethren." + +But let us keep our vengeance for those who by their own actions +have justly incurred it. The very intensity of our desire to punish +the wrong-doer should be the measure of our unwillingness to inflict +torture on the helpless and the innocent. "Lest we grow hard"--it +should be our daily dread. "A black character, a womanish character, +a stubborn character: bestial, childish, stupid, scurrilous, +tyrannical." A pagan, who had observed such a character in its +working, prayed to be preserved from it. Christians of the twentieth +century must not sink below the moral level of Marcus Aurelius. + + + + +IV + +_FLACCIDITY_ + +My discourse on "Induration" was intended to convey a warning which, +as individuals, we all need. But Governments are beset by an even +greater danger, which the learned might call "flaccidity" and the +simple--"flabbiness." + +The great Liddon, always excellent in the aptness of his scriptural +allusions, once said with regard to a leader who had announced +that he would "set his face" against a certain policy and then +gave way, "Yes, the deer 'set his face,' but he did not 'set it +as a flint'--rather _as a pudding_." + +To set one's face as a pudding is the characteristic action of all +weak Governments. Lord Randolph Churchill once attracted notice +by enouncing the homely truth that "the business of an Opposition +is to oppose." A truth even more primary is that the duty of a +Government is to govern; to set its face, not as a pudding, but as +a flint, against lawlessness and outrage; to protect the innocent +and to punish the wrong-doer. + +This is a duty from which all weak Governments shrink. If a Minister +is not very sure of his position; if he is backed, not by a united +party, but by a haphazard coalition; if he is unduly anxious about +his own official future; if his eye is nervously fixed on the next +move of the jumping cat, he always fails to govern. He neither +protects the law-abiding citizen nor chastises the criminal and +the rebel. In this particular, there is no distinction of party. +Tories can show no better record than Whigs, nor Liberals than +Conservatives. It is a question of the governing temper, which is +as absolutely requisite to the character of the ruler as courage +to the soldier or incorruptibility to the Judge. + +It used to be held, and perhaps still is held, by what may be styled +the toad-eating school of publicists, that this governing temper +was an hereditary gift transmitted by a long line of ancestors, +who in their successive generations had possessed it, and had used +it on a large scale in the governance of England. "How natural," +they exclaimed, "that Lord Nozoo, whose ancestors have ruled half +Loamshire since the Conquest, should have more notion of governing +men than that wretched Bagman, whose grandfather swept out the +shop, and who has never had to rule anyone except a clerk and a +parlourmaid!" + +This sounded plausible enough, especially in the days when heredity +was everything, and when ancestral habit was held to explain, and if +necessary extenuate, all personal characteristics; but experience +and observation proved it false. Pitt was, I suppose, the greatest +Minister who ever ruled England; but his pedigree would have moved a +genealogist to scorn. Peel was a Minister who governed so effectually +that, according to Gladstone, who served under him, his direct +authority was felt in every department, high or low, of the +Administration over which he presided; and Peel was a very recent +product of cotton. Abraham Lincoln was, perhaps, the greatest ruler +of the modern world, and the quality of his ancestry is a topic fit +only to be handled in a lecture on the Self-Made Men of History. + +When we regard our own time, I should say that Joseph Chamberlain had, +of all English statesmen I have ever known, both the most satisfactory +ideal of government and the greatest faculty for exercising it. But +the Cordwainers' Company was the school in which his forefathers +had learnt the art of rule. Ancestral achievements, hereditary +possessions, have nothing to do with the matter. What makes a man +a ruler of men, and enables him to set his face as a flint against +wrong-doing; is a faculty born in himself--"the soul that riseth +with him, his life's star." + +And it has no more to do with politics than with pedigree. Sydney +Smith, though he was as whole-hearted a reformer as ever breathed, knew +that sternness towards crime was an essential part of government, and +after the Bristol Riots of 1831 he warned Lord Grey against flaccidity +with great plainness of speech. "Pray do not be good-natured about +Bristol. I must have ten people hanged, and twenty transported, +and thirty imprisoned. You will save lives by it in the end." + +It was a Tory Government which in the London Riots of 1866 made, as +Matthew Arnold said, "an exhibition of mismanagement, imprudence, +and weakness almost incredible." Next year the Fenians blew up +Clerkenwell Prison, and the same acute critic observed: "A Government +which dares not deal with a mob, of any nation or with any design, +simply opens the floodgates to anarchy. Who can wonder at the Irish, +who have cause to hate us, and who do not own their allegiance +to us, making war on a State and society which has shown itself +irresolute and feeble?" + +But the head of that feeble State, the leader of that irresolute +society, was the fourteenth Earl of Derby, whose ancestors had +practised the arts of government for eight hundred years. + +In Ireland the case is the same. Both parties have succeeded in +governing it, and both have failed. Mr. Balfour has been justly +praised for his vigour in protecting property and restoring order; +but it was Lord Spencer and Sir George Trevelyan who, four years +before, had caught and hanged the assassins of the Phoenix Park, and +had abolished agrarian murder. It was, alas! a Liberal Government +that tolerated the Ulster treason, and so prepared the way for the +Dublin rebellion. Highly placed and highly paid flaccidity then +reigned supreme, and produced its inevitable result. But last December +we were assured that flaccidity had made way for firmness, and that +the pudding had been replaced by the flint. But the transactions +of the last few weeks--one transaction in particular[*]--seem worthy +of our flabbiest days. + +[Footnote *: A release for political objects.] + +I turn my eyes homewards again, from Dublin to the House of Commons. +The report of the Mesopotamia Commission has announced to the world +a series of actions which every Briton feels as a national disgrace. +Are the perpetrators of those actions to go unpunished? Are they +to retain their honours and emoluments, the confidence of their +Sovereign, and the approbation of his Ministers? If so, flaccidity +will stand revealed as what in truth it has always been--the one +quality which neutralizes all other gifts, and makes its possessor +incapable of governing. + + + + +V + +_THE PROMISE OF MAY_ + +This is the real season for a holiday, if holidays were still possible. +It is a point of literary honour not to quote the line which shows +that our forefathers, in the days of Chaucer, felt the holiday-making +instinct of the spring, and that instinct has not been affected by +the lapse of the centuries. It stirs us even in London, when the +impetuous lilacs are bursting into bud, and the sooty sparrows +chirrup love-songs, and "a livelier iris changes on the burnished +dove"--or, to be more accurate, pigeon--which swells and straddles +as if Piccadilly were all his own. The very wallflowers and daffodils +which crown the costers' barrows help to weave the spell; and, +though pleasure-jaunts are out of the question, we welcome a call +of duty which takes us, even for twenty-four hours, into "the country +places, which God made and not man." + +For my own part, I am no victim of the "pathetic fallacy" by which +people in all ages have persuaded themselves that Nature sympathized +with their joys and sorrows. Even if that dream had not been dispelled, +in prose by Walter Scott, and in verse by Matthew Arnold, one's +own experience, would have proved it false. + +"Alas! what are we, that the laws of Nature should correspond in +their march with our ephemeral deeds or sufferings?" _The Heart +of Midlothian_. + + "Man must begin, know this, where Nature ends; + Nature and man can never be fast friends."[*] + +[Footnote *: _In Harmony with Nature_.] + +A funeral under the sapphire sky and blazing sun of June loses +nothing of its sadness--perhaps is made more sad--by the unsympathetic +aspect of the visible world. December does not suspend its habitual +gloom because all men of goodwill are trying to rejoice in the +Birthday of the Prince of Peace. We all can recall disasters and +disappointments which have overcast the spring, and tidings of +achievement or deliverance which have been happily out of keeping +with the melancholy beauty of autumn. + +In short, Nature cares nothing for the acts and sufferings of human +kind; yet, with a strange sort of affectionate obstinacy, men insist +on trying to sympathize with Nature, who declines to sympathize +with them; and now, when she spreads before our enchanted eyes all +the sweetness and promise of the land in spring, we try to bring +our thoughts into harmony with the things we see, and to forget, +though it be only for a moment, alike regrets and forebodings. + +And surely the effort is salutary. With Tom Hughes, jovial yet +thoughtful patriot, for our guide, we make our way to the summit +of some well-remembered hill, which has perhaps already won a name +in history, and find it "a place to open a man's soul and make +him prophesy, as he looks down on the great vale spread out, as +the Garden of the Lord, before him": wide tracts of woodland, and +fat meadows and winding streams, and snug homesteads embowered in +trees, and miles on miles of what will soon be cornfields. Far away +in the distance, a thin cloud of smoke floats over some laborious +town, and whichever way we look, church after church is dotted over +the whole surface of the country, like knots in network. + +Such, or something like it, is the traditional aspect of our fair +English land; but to-day she wears her beauty with a difference. +The saw is at work in the woodlands; and individual trees, which +were not only the landmarks, but also the friends and companions +of one's childhood, have disappeared for ever. The rich meadows by +the tranquil streams, and the grazing cattle, which used to remind +us only of Cuyp's peaceful landscapes, now suggest the sterner thought +of rations and queues. The corn-fields, not yet "white to harvest," +acquire new dignity from the thought of all that is involved in +"the staff of life." The smoke-cloud over the manufacturing town +is no longer a mere blur on the horizon, but tells of a prodigality +of human effort, directed to the destruction of human life, such +as the world has never known. Even from the towers of the village +churches floats the Red Cross of St. George, recalling the war-song +of an older patriotism--"In the name of our God we will set up +our banners."[*] + +[Footnote: Psalm xx. 5.] + +Yes, this fair world of ours wears an altered face, and what this +year is "the promise of May"? It is the promise of good and truth +and fruitfulness forcing their way through "the rank vapours of +this sin-worn mould." It is the promise of strong endurance, which +will bear all and suffer all in a righteous cause, and never fail +or murmur till the crown is won. It is the promise of a brighter +day, when the skill of invention and of handicraft may be once +more directed, not to the devices which destroy life, but to the +sciences which prolong it, and the arts which beautify it. Above +all, it is the promise of a return, through blood and fire, to +the faith which made England great, and the law which yet may wrap +the world in peace. + +"For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth +the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God +will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all +the nations" (Isa. lxi. II). + + + + +VI + +_PAGEANTRY AND PATRIOTISM_ + +Long years ago, when religious people excited themselves almost +to frenzy about Ritualism, Mr. Gladstone surveyed the tumult with +philosophic calm. He recommended his countrymen to look below the +surface of controversy, and to regard the underlying principle. +"In all the more solemn and stated public acts of man," he wrote, +"we find employed that investiture of the acts themselves with +an appropriate exterior, which is the essential idea of Ritual. +The subject-matter is different, but the principle is the same: +it is the use and adaptation of the outward for the expression +of the inward." The word "ritual" is by common usage restricted +to the ecclesiastical sphere, but in reality it has a far wider +significance. It gives us the august rite of the Convocation, the +ceremonial of Courts, the splendour of regiments, the formal usages +of battleships, the silent but expressive language of heraldry and +symbol; and, in its humbler developments, the paraphernalia of +Masonry and Benefit Societies, and the pretty pageantry of Flag-days +and Rose-days. Why should these things be? "Human nature itself, +with a thousand tongues, utters the reply. The marriage of the +outward and the inward pervades the universe." + +The power of the outward reaches the inward chiefly through the eye +and the ear. Colour, as Ruskin taught us, is not only delightful, +but sacred. "Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, colour is +the holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.... Consider what +sort of a world it would be if all flowers were grey, all leaves +black, and the sky _brown_." The perfection of form--the grace of +outline, the harmony of flowing curves--appeals, perhaps, less +generally than colour, because to appreciate it the eye requires +some training, whereas to love colour one only needs feeling. Yet +form has its own use and message, and so, again, has the solemnity of +ordered movement; and when all these three elements of charm--colour +and form and motion--are combined in a public ceremony, the effect +is irresistible. + +But the appeal of the inward reaches us not solely through the +eye. The ear has an even higher function. Perhaps the composer of +great music speaks, in the course of the ages, to a larger number of +human hearts than are touched by any other form of genius. Thousands, +listening enraptured to his strain, hear "the outpourings of eternal +harmony in the medium of created sound." And yet again there are +those, and they are not a few, to whom even music never speaks +so convincingly as when it is wedded to suitable words; for then +two emotions are combined in one appeal, and human speech helps +to interpret the unspoken. + +It is one of the deplorable effects of war that it so cruelly diminishes +the beauty of our public and communal life. Khaki instead of scarlet, +potatoes where geraniums should be, common and cheap and ugly things +usurping the places aforetime assigned to beauty and splendour--these +are our daily and hourly reminders of the "great tribulation" through +which the nation is passing. Of course, one ought not to wish it +otherwise. Not, indeed, "sweet," but eminently salutary, are these +"uses of adversity," for they prevent us from forgetting, even if +we were inclined to such base obliviousness, the grim realities +of the strife in which we are engaged. And yet, and in spite of +all this, beauty retains its sway over "the common heart of man." +Even war cannot destroy, though it may temporarily obscure, the +beauty of Nature; and the beauty of Art is only waiting for the +opportunity of Peace to reassert itself. + +To the prevailing uncomeliness of this war-stricken time a welcome +exception has been made by the patriotic pageantry which, during +the week now closed, has been enacted at Queen's Hall.[*] There +were critics, neither malicious nor ill-informed, who contended +that such pageantry was ill-timed. They advanced against it all +sorts of objections which would have been quite appropriate if the +public had been bidden to witness some colossal farce or burlesque; +some raree-show of tasteless oddities, or some untimely pantomime +of fairy-lore. What was really intended, and was performed, at a +great cost of toil and organizing skill, was the opposite of all +this. All the best elements of a great and glorious ceremonial +were displayed--colour and form and ordered motion; noble music +set to stirring words; and human voices lifted even above their +ordinary beauty by the emotion of a high occasion. The climax, +wisely ordered, was our tribute of gratitude to the United States, +and never did the "Battle-hymn of the Republic" sound its trumpets +more exultingly. For once, the word "Ritual" might with perfect +propriety be separated from its controversial associations, and +bestowed on this great act of patriotic pageantry. It was, in the +truest sense, a religious service, fitly commemorating the entry +of all the world's best powers into the crowning conflict of light +with darkness. + +[Footnote *: Under the direction of Madame Clara Butt (May, 1918).] + + + + +VII + +FACT AND FICTION + + + + +N. B.--_These two stories are founded on fact; but the personal +allusions are fictitious. As regards public events, they are +historically accurate.--G. W. E. R._ + + +I + +_A FORGOTTEN PANIC_ + +Friday, the 13th of September, 1867, was the last day of the Harrow +holidays, and I was returning to the Hill from a visit to some +friends in Scotland. During the first part of the journey I was +alone in the carriage, occupied with an unlearnt holiday task; +but at Carlisle I acquired a fellow-traveller. He jumped into the +carriage just as the train was beginning to move, and to the porter +who breathlessly enquired about his luggage he shouted, "This is +all," and flung a small leathern case on to the seat. As he settled +himself into his plate, his eye fell upon the pile of baggage which +I had bribed the station-master to establish in my corner of the +carriage--a portmanteau, a hat-box, a rug wrapped round an umbrella, +and one or two smaller parcels--all legibly labelled + + G. W. E. RUSSELL, + Woodside, + Harrow-on-the-Hill. + +After a glance at my property, the stranger turned to me and exclaimed: +"When you have travelled as much as I have, young sir, you will +know that, the less the luggage, the greater the ease." Youth, +I think, as a rule resents overtures from strangers, but there +was something in my fellow-traveller's address so pleasant as to +disarm resentment. His voice, his smile, his appearance, were alike +prepossessing. He drew from his pocket the _Daily News_, in those +days a famous organ for foreign intelligence, and, as he composed +himself to read, I had a full opportunity of studying his appearance. +He seemed to be somewhere between thirty and forty, of the middle +height, lean and sinewy, and, as his jump into the train had shown, +as lissom as a cat. His skin was so much tanned that it was difficult +to guess his natural complexion; but his closely cropped hair was +jet-black, and his clean-shaven face showed the roots of a very +dark beard. In those days it was fashionable to wear one's hair +rather long, and to cultivate whiskers and a moustache. Priests +and actors were the only people who shaved clean, and I decided +in my mind that my friend was an actor. Presently he laid down his +paper, and, turning to me with that grave courtesy which when one +is very young one appreciates, he said: "I hope, sir, that my abrupt +entry did not disturb you. I had a rush for it, and nearly lost my +train as it was. And I hope what I said about luggage did not seem +impertinent. I was only thinking that, if I had been obliged to look +after portmanteaus, I should probably still be on the platform at +Carlisle." I hastened to say, with my best air, that I had not been +the least offended, and rather apologized for my own encumbrances +by saying that I was going South for three months, and had to take +all my possessions with me. I am not sure that I was pleased when +my friend said: "Ah, yes; the end of the vacation. You are returning +to college at Harrow, I see." It was humiliating to confess that +Harrow was a school, and I a schoolboy; but my friend took it with +great composure. Perfectly, he said; it was his error. He should +have said "school," not "college." He had a great admiration for +the English Public Schools. It was his misfortune to have been +educated abroad. A French lycee, or a German gymnasium, was not +such a pleasant place as Eton or Harrow. This was exactly the best +way of starting a conversation, and, my schoolboy reserve being +once broken, we chatted away merrily. Very soon I had told him +everything about myself, my home, my kinsfolk, my amusements, my +favourite authors, and all the rest of it; but presently it dawned +upon me that, though I had disclosed everything to him, he had +disclosed nothing to me, and that the actor, if I rightly deemed +him so, was not very proud of his profession. His nationality, +too, perplexed me. He spoke English as fluently as I did, but not +quite idiomatically; and there was just a trace of an accent which +was not English. Sometimes it sounded French, but then again there +was a tinge of American. On the whole, I came to the conclusion +that my friend was an Englishman who had lived a great deal abroad, +or else an American who had lived in Paris. As the day advanced, +the American theory gained upon me; for, though my friend told me +nothing about himself, he told me a great deal about every place +which we passed. He knew the industries of the various towns, and +the events connected with them, and the names of the people who +owned the castles and great country-houses. I had been told that +this habit of endless exposition was characteristic of the cultured +American. But, whatever was the nationality of my companion, I +enjoyed his company very much. He talked to me, not as a man to +a boy, but as an elder to a younger man; paid me the courtesy of +asking my opinion and listening to my answers; and, by all the +little arts of the practised converser, made me feel on good terms +with myself and the world. Yankee or Frenchman, my actor was a very +jolly fellow; and I only wished that he would tell me a little +about himself. + +When, late in the afternoon, we passed Bletchley Station, I bethought +me that we should soon be separated, for the London and North-Western +train, though an express, was to be stopped at Harrow in order to +disgorge its load of returning boys. I began to collect my goods +and to prepare myself for the stop, when my friend said, to my +great joy, "I see you are alighting. I am going on to Euston. I +shall be in London for the next few weeks. I should very much like +to pay a visit to Harrow one day, and see your 'lions.'" This was +exactly what I wished, but had been too modest to suggest; so I +joyfully acceded to his proposal, only venturing to add that, though +we had been travelling together all day, I did not know my friend's +name. He tore a leaf out of a pocket-book, scrawled on it, in a +backward-sloping hand, "H. Aulif," and handed it to me, saying, +"I do not add an address, for I shall be moving about. But I will +write you a line very soon, and fix a day for my visit." Just then +the train stopped at the foot of the Hill, and, as I was fighting +my way through the welter of boys and luggage on the platform, +I caught sight of a smiling face and a waved hand at the window +of the carriage which I had just quitted. + +The beginning of a new school-quarter, the crowd of fresh faces, +the greetings of old friends, and a remove into a much more difficult +Form, rather distracted my mind from the incidents of my journey, +to which it was recalled by the receipt of a note from Mr. Aulif, +saying that he would be at Harrow by 2.30 on Saturday afternoon, +the 21st of September. I met him at the station, and found him +even pleasanter than I expected. He extolled Public Schools to +the skies, and was sure that our English virtues were in great +part due to them. Of Harrow he spoke with peculiar admiration as +the School of Sheridan, of Peel, of Palmerston. What was our course +of study? What our system of discipline? What were our amusements? +The last question I was able to answer by showing him both the +end of cricket and the beginning of football, for both were being +played; and, as we mounted the Hill towards the School and the +Spire, he asked me if we had any other amusements. Fives or racquets +he did not seem to count. Did we run races? Had we any gymnastics? +(In those days we had not.) Did we practise rifle-shooting? Every +boy ought to learn to use a rifle. The Volunteer movement was a +national glory. Had we any part in it? + +The last question touched me on the point of honour. In those days +Harrow was the best School in England for rifle-shooting. In the +Public Schools contest at Wimbledon we carried off the Ashburton +Challenge Shield five times in succession, and in 1865 and 1866 +we added to it Lord Spencer's Cup for the best marksman in the +school-teams. All this, and a good deal more to the same effect, +I told Mr. Aulif with becoming spirit, and proudly led the way to +our "Armoury." This grandly named apartment was in truth a dingy +cellar under the Old Schools, and held only a scanty store of rifles +(for the corps, though keen, was not numerous). Boyhood is sensitive +to sarcasm, and I felt an uncomfortable twinge as Mr. Aulif glanced +round our place of arms and said, "A gallant corps, I am sure, +if not numerically strong. But this is your School corps only. +Doubtless the citizens of the place also have their corps?" Rather +wishing to get my friend away from a scene where he obviously was +not impressed, and fearing that perhaps he might speak lightly +of the Fourth Form Room, even though its panels bear the carved +name of BYRON, I seized the opening afforded by the mention of the +local corps, and proposed a walk towards the drill-shed. This was +a barn, very roughly adapted to military purposes, and standing, +remote from houses, in a field at Roxeth, a hamlet of Harrow on the +way to Northolt. It served both for drill-shed and for armoury, +and, as the local corps (the 18th Middlesex) was a large one, it +contained a good supply of arms and ammunition. The custodian, +who lived in a cottage at Roxeth, was a Crimean veteran, who kept +everything in apple-pie order, and on this Saturday afternoon was +just putting the finishing touches of tidiness to the properties +in his charge. Mr. Aulif made friends with him at once, spoke +enthusiastically of the Crimea, talked of improvements in guns +and gunnery since those days, praised the Anglo-French alliance, +and said how sad it was that England now had to be on her guard +against her former allies across the Channel. As the discourse +proceeded, I began to question my theory that Aulif was an actor. +Perhaps he was a soldier. Could he be a Jesuit in disguise? Jesuits +were clean-shaved and well-informed. Or was it only his faculty of +general agreeableness that enabled him to attract the old caretaker +at the drill-shed as he had attracted the schoolboy in the train? +As we walked back to the station, my desire to know what my friend +really was increased momentarily, but I no more dared to ask him +than I should have dared to shake hands with Queen Victoria; for, +to say the truth, Mr. Aulif, while he fascinated, awed me. He told +me that he was just going abroad, and we parted at the station +with mutual regrets. + + * * * * * + +The year 1867 was conspicuously a year of Fenian activity. The +termination of the Civil War in America had thrown out of employment +a great many seasoned soldiers of various nationalities, who had +served for five years in the American armies. Among these were +General Cluseret, educated at Saint-Cyr, trained by Garibaldi, +and by some good critics esteemed "the most consummate soldier of +the day." The Fenians now began to dream not merely of isolated +outrages, but of an armed rising in Ireland; and, after consultation +with the Fenian leaders in New York, Cluseret came to England with +a view to organizing the insurrection. What then befell can be +read in Lathair, where Cluseret is thinly disguised as "Captain +Bruges," and also in his own narrative, published in _Fraser's +Magazine_ for 1872. He arrived in London in January, 1867, and +startling events began to happen in quick succession. On the 11th +of February an armed party of Fenians attacked Chester Castle, +and were not repulsed without some difficulty. There was an armed +rising at Killarney. The police-barracks at Tallaght were besieged, +and at Glencullen the insurgents captured the police-force and +their weapons. At Kilmallock there was an encounter between the +Fenians and the constabulary, and life was lost on both sides. +There was a design of concentrating all the Fenian forces on Mallow +Junction, but the rapid movement of the Queen's troops frustrated +the design, and the general rising was postponed. Presently two +vagrants were arrested on suspicion at Liverpool, and proved to be +two of the most notorious of the Fenian leaders, "Colonel" Kelly +and "Captain" Deasy. It was when these prisoners, remanded for +further enquiry, were being driven under a strong escort to gaol +that the prison-van was attacked by a rescue-party, and Sergeant +Brett, who was in charge of the prisoners, was shot. The rescuers, +Allen, Larkin, and Gould, were executed on the 2nd of November, +and on the 1st of December Clerkenwell Prison was blown up, in +an ineffectual attempt to liberate the Fenian prisoners confined +in it. On the 20th of December Matthew Arnold wrote to his mother, +"We are in a strange uneasy state in London, and the profound sense +I have long had of the hollowness and insufficiency of our whole +system of administration does not inspire me with much confidence." +The "strange uneasy state" was not confined to London, but prevailed +everywhere. Obviously England was threatened by a mysterious and +desperate enemy, and no one seemed to know that enemy's headquarters +or base of operations. The Secret Societies were actively at work +in England, Ireland, France, and Italy. It was suspected then--it +is known now, and chiefly through Cluseret's revelations--that the +isolated attacks on barracks and police-stations were designed +for the purpose of securing arms and ammunition; and, if only there +had been a competent General to command the rebel forces, Ireland +would have risen in open war. But a competent General was exactly +what the insurgents lacked; for Cluseret, having surveyed the whole +situation with eyes trained by a lifelong experience of war, decided +that the scheme was hopeless, and returned to Paris. + +Such were some--for I have only mentioned a few--of the incidents +which made 1867 a memorable year. On my own memory it is stamped +with a peculiar clearness. + +On Wednesday morning, the 2nd of October, 1867, as we were going up +to First School at Harrow, a rumour flew from mouth to mouth that +the drill-shed had been attacked by Fenians. Sure enough it had. The +caretaker (as I said before) lived some way from the building, and +when he went to open it in the morning he found that the door had +been forced and the place swept clean of arms and ammunition. Here +was a real sensation, and we felt for a few hours "the joy of eventful +living"; but later in the day the evening papers, coming down from +London, quenched our excitement with a greater. It appeared that +during the night of the 1st of October, drill-sheds and armouries +belonging to the Volunteer regiments had been simultaneously raided +north, south, east, and west of London, and all munitions of war +spirited away, for a purpose which was not hard to guess. Commenting +on this startling occurrence, the papers said: "We have reason +to believe that one of the ablest of the Fenian agents has been +for some time operating secretly in the United Kingdom. He has +been traced to Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London. It is +believed at Scotland Yard that he organized these attacks on Volunteer +headquarters, arranged for the arms and ammunition to be transferred +by a sure hand to Ireland, and has himself returned to Paris." A +friend of mine who had gone up to London to see a dentist brought +back a _Globe_ with him, and, as he handed it to me, he pointed +out the passage which I have just cited. As I read it, my heart +gave a jump--a sudden thrill of delicious excitement. My friend +Mr. Aulif must be the Fenian agent who had organized these raids, +and I, who had always dreamed romance, had now been brought into +actual contact with it. The idea of communicating my suspicions +to anyone never crossed my mind. I felt instinctively that this +was a case where silence was golden. Fortunately, none of my +school-fellows had seen Mr. Aulif or heard of his visit; and the +old caretaker of the drill-shed had been too much gratified by talk +and tip to entertain an unworthy thought of "that pleasant-spoken +gentleman." + +Soon the story of these raids had been forgotten in the far more +exhilarating occurrences at Manchester and Clerkenwell which closed +the year; and the execution of Michael Barrett on the 26th of May, +1868 (the last public execution, by the way), brought the history +of Fenianism in England to an end. + +As I looked back on my journey from Scotland, and my walk round +Harrow with Mr. Aulif, I thought that the reason why he did not +arrange for our School-armoury to be attacked was that he would +not abuse the confidence of a boy who had trusted him. Perhaps it +really was that the rifles were too few and the risks too many. + + * * * * * + +The year 1870 found me still a Harrow boy, though a tall one; and +I spent the Easter holidays with my cousins, the Brentfords, in +Paris. They were a remarkable couple, and if I were to mention +their real name, they would be immediately recognized. They had +social position and abundant means and hosts of friends; but, acting +under irresistible impulse, they had severed themselves from their +natural surroundings, and had plunged into democratic politics. +It was commonly believed that Brentford would not have committed +himself so deeply if it had not been for his wife's influence; +and, indeed, she was one of those women whom it is difficult to +withstand. Her enthusiasm was contagious; and when one was in her +company one felt that "the Cause," as she always called it without +qualifying epithet, was the one thing worth thinking of and living +for. As a girl, she had caught from Mrs. Browning, and Swinburne, and +Jessie White-Mario, and the authoress of _Aspromonte_, a passionate +zeal for Italian unity and freedom; and, when she married, her +enthusiasm fired her husband. They became sworn allies both of +Garibaldi and of Mazzini, and through them were brought into close, +though mysterious, relations with the revolutionary party in Italy +and also in France. They witnessed the last great act of the Papacy +at the Vatican Council; and then, early in 1870, they established +themselves in Paris. French society was at that moment in a strange +state of tension and unrest. The impending calamity of the Franco-German +War was not foreseen; but everyone knew that the Imperial throne was +rocking; that the soil was primed by Secret Societies; and that +all the elements of revolution were at hand, and needed only some +sudden concussion to stir them into activity. This was a condition +which exactly suited my cousin Evelyn Brentford. She was "at the +height of the circumstances," and she gathered round her, at her +villa on the outskirts of Paris, a society partly political, partly +Bohemian, and wholly Red. "Do come," she wrote, "and stay with +us at Easter. I can't promise you a Revolution; but it's quite +on the cards that you may come in for one. Anyhow, you will see +some fun." I had some difficulty in inducing my parents (sound +Whigs) to give the necessary permission; but they admitted that +at seventeen a son must be trusted, and I went off rejoicing to +join the Brentfords at Paris. Those three weeks, from the 12th +of April to the 4th of May, 1870, gave me, as the boys now say, +"the time of my life." I met a great many people whose names I +already knew, and some more of whom we heard next year in the history +of the Commune. The air was full of the most sensational rumours, +and those who hoped "to see the last King strangled in the bowels +of the last priest" enjoyed themselves thoroughly. + +My cousin Evelyn was always at home to her friends on Sunday and +Wednesday evenings, and her rooms were thronged by a miscellaneous +crowd in which the Parisian accent mingled with the tongues of +America and Italy, and the French of the southern provinces. At +one of these parties I was talking to a delightful lady who lived +only in the hope of seeing "the Devil come for that dog" (indicating +by this term an Imperial malefactor), and who, when exhausted by +regicidal eloquence, demanded coffee. As we approached the buffet, a +man who had just put down his cup turned round and met my companion +and me face to face. Two years and a half had made no difference +in him. He was Mr. Aulif, as active and fresh as ever, and, before +I had time to reflect on my course, I had impulsively seized him +by the hand. "Don't you remember me?" I cried. He only stared. "My +name is George Russell, and you visited me at Harrow." "I fear, +sir, you have made a mistake," said Aulif, bowed rather stiffly to +my companion, and hurried back into the drawing-room. My companion +looked surprised. "The General seems put out--I wonder why. He +and I are the greatest allies. Let me tell you, my friend, that +he is the man that the Revolution will have to rely on when the +time comes for rising. Ask them at Saint-Cyr. Ask Garibaldi. Ask +McClellan. Ask General Grant. He is the greatest General in the +world, and has sacrificed his career for Freedom." "Is his name +Aulif?" "No; his name is Cluseret." + + * * * * * + +Next day at _dejuner_ I was full of my evening's adventure; but my +host and hostess received it with mortifying composure. "Nothing +could be more likely," said my cousin Evelyn. "General Cluseret +was here, though he did not stay long. Perhaps he really did not +remember you. When he saw you before, you were a boy, and now you look +like a young man. Or perhaps he did not wish to be cross-examined. +He is pretty busy here just now, but in 1867 he was constantly +backwards and forwards between Paris and London trying to organize +that Irish insurrection which never came off. England is not the +only country he has visited on business of that kind, and he has +many travelling names. He thinks it safer, for obvious reasons, to +travel without luggage. If you had been able to open that leather +case in the train you would probably have found nothing in it except +some maps, a toothbrush, and a spare revolver. Certainly that Irish +affair was a _fiasco_; but depend upon it you will hear of General +Cluseret again." + +And so indeed I did, and so did the whole civilized world, and +that within twelve months of the time of speaking; but there is +no need to rewrite in this place the history of the Commune. + + + + +II + +_A CRIMEAN EPISODE_ + +It was eight o'clock in the evening of the 5th of April, 1880, and +the Travellers' Club was full to overflowing. Men who were just +sitting down to dinner got up from their tables, and joined the +excited concourse in the hall. The General Election which terminated +Lord Beaconsfield's reign was nearing its close, and the issue +was scarcely in doubt; but at this moment the decisive event of +the campaign was announced. Members, as they eagerly scanned the +tape, saw that Gladstone was returned for Midlothian; and, as they +passed, the news to the expectant crowd behind them, there arose +a tumult of excited voices. + +"I told you how it would be!" "Well, I've lost my money." "I could +not have believed that Scotsmen would be such fools." "I'm awfully +sorry for Dalkeith." "Why couldn't that old windbag have stuck +to Greenwich?" "I blame Rosebery for getting him down." "Well, +I suppose we're in for another Gladstone Premiership." "Oh, no +fear. The Queen won't speak to him." "No, Hartington's the man, +and, as an old Whig, I'm glad of it." "Perhaps Gladstone will take +the Exchequer." "What! serve under Hartington? You don't know the +old gentleman's pride if you expect that;" and so on and so forth, +a chorus of excited and bewildering exclamations. Amid all the +hurly-burly, one figure in the throng seemed quite unmoved, and +its immobility attracted the notice of the throng. "Well, really, +Vaughan, I should have thought that even you would have felt excited +about this. I know you don't care much about politics in a general +way, but this is something out of the common. The Duke of Buccleuch +beaten on his own ground, and Gladstone heading straight for the +Premiership! Isn't that enough to quicken your pulse?" + +But the man whom they saluted as Vaughan still looked undisturbed. +"Well, I don't think I ever was quite as much in love with Dizzy +as you were; and as to the Premiership, we are not quite at the +end yet, and _Alors comme alors_." + +Philip Vaughan was a man just over fifty: tall, pale, +distinguished-looking, with something in his figure and bearing +that reminded one of the statue of Sidney Herbert, which in 1880 +still stood before the War Office in Pall Mall. He looked both +delicate and melancholy. His face was curiously devoid of animation; +but his most marked characteristic was an habitual look of meditative +abstraction from the things which immediately surrounded him. As +he walked down the steps of the club towards a brougham which was +waiting for him, the man who had tried in vain to interest him +in the Midlothian Election turned to his nearest neighbour, and +said: "Vaughan is really the most extraordinary fellow I know. +There is nothing on earth that interests him in the faintest degree. +Politics, books, sport, society, foreign affairs--he I never seems +to care a rap about any of them; and yet he knows something about +them all, and, if only you can get him to talk, he can talk extremely +well. It is particularly curious about politics, for generally, if +a man has once been in political life, he feels the fascination +of it to the end." "But was Vaughan ever in political life?" "Oh +yes I suppose you are too young to remember. He got into Parliament +just after he left Oxford. He was put in by an old uncle for a Family +Borough--Bilton--one of those snug little seats, not exactly 'Pocket +Boroughs,' but very like them, which survived until the Reform Act +of 1867." "How long did he sit?" "Only for one Parliament--from +1852 to 1857. No one ever knew why he gave up. He put it on health, +but I believe it was just freakishness. He always was an odd chap, +and of course he grows odder as he grows older." But just at that +moment another exciting result came, trickling down the tape, and +the hubbub was renewed. + +Philip Vaughan was, as he put it in his languid way, "rather fond +of clubs," so long as they were not political, and he spent a good +deal of his time at the Travellers', the Athenaeum, and the United +Universities, and was a member of some more modern institutions. +He had plenty of acquaintances, but no friends--at least of his +own age. The Argus-eyed surveyors of club-life noticed that the +only people to whom he seemed to talk freely and cheerfully were +the youngest members; and he was notoriously good-natured in helping +young fellows who wished to join his clubs, and did his utmost to +stay the hand of the blackballer. + +He had a very numerous cousinship, but did not much cultivate it. +Sometimes, yielding to pressure, he would dine with cousins in +London; or pay a flying visit to them in the country; but in order, +as it was supposed to avoid these family entanglements, he lived +at Wimbledon, where he enjoyed, in a quiet way, his garden and +his library, and spent most of the day in solitary rides among +the Surrey hills. When winter set in he generally vanished towards +the South of Europe, but by Easter he was back again at Wimbledon, +and was to be found pretty often at one or other of his clubs. + +This was Philip Vaughan, as people knew him in 1880. Some liked +him; some pitied him; some rather despised him; but no one took +the trouble to understand him; and indeed, if anyone had thought +it worth while to do so, the attempt would probably have been +unsuccessful; for Vaughan never talked of the past, and to understand +him in 1880 one must have known him as he had been thirty years +before. + +In 1850 two of the best known of the young men in society were +Arthur Grey and Philip Vaughan. They were, and had been ever since +their schooldays at Harrow, inseparable friends. The people to +whom friendship is a sealed and hopeless mystery were puzzled by +the alliance. "What have those two fellows in common?" was the +constant question, "and yet you never see them apart." They shared +lodgings in Mount Street, frequented the same clubs, and went, +night after night, to the same diners and balls. They belonged, +in short, to the same set: "went everywhere," as the phrase is, +and both were extremely popular; but their pursuits and careers +were different. Grey was essentially a sportsman and an athlete. He +was one of those men to whom all bodily exercises come naturally, +and who attain perfection in them with no apparent effort. From +his earliest days he had set his heart on being a soldier, and by +1850 had obtained a commission in the Guards. Vaughan had neither +gifts nor inclinations in the way of sport or games. At Harrow he +lived the life of the intellect and the spirit, and was unpopular +accordingly. He was constantly to be found "mooning," as his +schoolfellows said, in the green lanes and meadow-paths which lie +between Harrow and Uxbridge, or gazing, as Byron had loved to gaze, +at the sunset from the Churchyard Terrace. It was even whispered +that he wrote poetry. + +Arthur Grey, with his good looks, his frank bearing, and his facile +supremacy on the cricket-ground and in the racquet-court, was a +popular hero; and of all his schoolfellows none paid him a more +whole-hearted worship than the totally dissimilar Philip Vaughan. +Their close and intimate affection was a standing puzzle to hard +and dull and superficial natures; but a poet could interpret it. + + "We trifled, toiled, and feasted, far apart + From churls, who, wondered what our friendship meant; + And in that coy retirement heart to heart + Drew closer, and our natures were content."[*] + +[Footnote *: William Cory.] + +Vaughan and Grey left Harrow, as they had entered it, on the same +day, and in the following October both went up to Christ Church. +Neither contemplated a long stay at Oxford, for each had his career +cut out. Grey was to join the Guards at the earliest opportunity, +and Vaughan was destined for Parliament. Bilton was a borough which +the "Schedule A" of 1832 had spared. It numbered some 900 voters; +and, even as the electors of Liskeard "were commonly of the same +opinion as Mr. Eliot," so the electors of Bilton were commonly +of the same opinion as Lord Liscombe. + +The eighth Lord Liscombe was the last male member of his family. +The peerage must die with him; but his property, including the +"Borough influence," was at his own disposal. His only sister had +married a Mr. Vaughan, and Lord Liscombe, having carefully watched +the character and career of his nephew Philip Vaughan, determined +to make him his heir. This was all very well; no one had a word +to say against it, for no more obvious heir could be suggested. +But when it became known that Lord Liscombe meant to bring Philip +Vaughan into Parliament for Bilton there was great dissatisfaction. +"What a shame," people said, "to disturb old Mr. Cobley, who has +sat so long and voted so steadily! To be sure, he is very tiresome, +and can't make himself heard a yard off, and is very stingy about +subscriptions; and, if there was some rising young man to put into +his seat, as the Duke of Newcastle put Gladstone, it might be all +very well. But, really, Philip Vaughan is such a moody, dreamy +creature, and so wrapped up in books and poetry, that he can never +make a decent Member of Parliament. Politics are quite out of his +line, and I shouldn't wonder if Lord Liscombe contrived to lose +the seat. But he's as obstinate as a mule; and he has persuaded +himself that young Vaughan is a genius. Was there ever such folly?" + +Lord Liscombe had his own way--as he commonly had. Mr. Cobley received +a polite intimation that at the next election he would not be able +to rely on the Liscombe interest, and retired with a very bad grace, +but not without his reward; for before long he received the offer +of a baronetcy (which he accepted, as he said, to please his wife), +and died honourably as Sir Thomas Cobley. Meanwhile Lord Liscombe, +who, when he had framed a plan, never let the grass grow under +his feet, induced Philip Vaughan to quit Oxford without waiting +for a degree, made him address "Market Ordinaries" and political +meetings at Bilton, presented him at the Levee, proposed him at +his favourite clubs, gave him an ample allowance, and launched him, +with a vigorous push, into society. In all this Lord Liscombe did +well, and showed his knowledge of human nature. The air of politics +stirred young Vaughan's pulses as they had never been stirred before. +What casual observers had regarded as idle reveries turned out to +have been serious studies. With the theory of English politics, as +it shaped itself in 1852 when Lord Derby and Disraeli were trying +to restore Protection, Vaughan showed himself thoroughly acquainted; +and, as often happens when a contemplative and romantic nature +is first brought into contact with eager humanity, he developed +a faculty of public speaking which astonished his uncle as much +as it astonished anyone, though that astute nobleman concealed +his surprise. Meanwhile, Grey had got his commission. In those +days officers of the Guards lived in lodgings, so it was obvious +for Grey and Vaughan to live together; and every now and then Grey +would slip down to Bilton, and by making himself pleasant to the +shop-keepers, and talking appropriately to the farmers, would act +as his friend's most effective election-agent. The Dissolution +came in July, 1852, and Philip Vaughan was returned unopposed for +the Free and Independent Borough of Bilton. + +Then followed a halcyon time. The two friends had long known that +they had only one heart between them; and now, living under the +same roof and going into the same society, they lived practically +one life. There was just enough separation to make reunion more +delightful--a dull debate at the House for Vaughan, or a dusty +field-day at Aldershot for Grey; but for both there was the early +gallop in Rotten Row, the breakfast which no third person ever +shared, the evening of social amusement, and the long, deep, intimate +talk over the last cigar, when the doings of the day were reviewed +and the programme for to-morrow was sketched. + +Grey had always been popular and always lighthearted. Vaughan, as +a schoolboy and an undergraduate, had been unpopular and grave. +But now people who knew them both observed that, at any rate as far +as outward characteristics showed, the two natures were becoming +harmonized. Vaughan was a visibly lighter, brighter, and more +companionable fellow; and Grey began to manifest something of that +manly seriousness which was wanted to complete his character. It +is pleasant to contemplate "one entire and perfect chrysolite" of +happiness, and that, during these bright years of opening manhood, +was the rare and fragile possession of Philip Vaughan and Arthur +Grey. + + * * * * * + +John Bright was once walking with one of his sons, then a schoolboy, +past the Guards' Memorial in Waterloo Place. The boy asked the +meaning of the single word inscribed on the base, CRIMEA. Bright's +answer was as emphatic as the inscription: "A crime." There is no +need to recapitulate in this place the series of blunders through +which this country, in Lord Clarendon's phrase, "drifted towards +war." Month by month things shaped themselves in a way which left +no reasonable doubt about the issue. The two friends said little. +Deep in the heart of each there lay the conviction that an event +was at hand which would "pierce even to the dividing asunder of +soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow." But each held the +conviction with a difference. To Grey it meant the approach of that +to which, from the days of his chivalrous boyhood, he had looked +forward, as the supreme good of life--the chance of a soldier's glory +and a soldier's death. To Vaughan it meant simply the extinction +of all that made life worth living. Each foresaw an agony, but +the one foresaw it with a joy which no affection could subdue; +the other with a despair which even religion seemed powerless to +relieve. Before long silence became impossible. The decision of the +Cabinet was made known. Two strong and ardent natures, which since +boyhood had lived in and on one another, were forced to admit that a +separation, which might be eternal, "was nigh, even at the doors." +But there was this vital difference between the two cases--the +one had to act; the other only to endure. + +On the 22nd of February, 1854, the Guards sailed from Southampton, +and on the 27th of March war between England and Russia was formally +declared. + + * * * * * + +The events of the next two years must be compressed into a few +lines. To the inseparable evils of war--bloodshed and sickness--were +added the horrors of a peculiarly cruel winter. Five-sixths of the +soldiers whom England lost died from preventable diseases, and +the want of proper food, clothing, and shelter. Bullets and cholera +and frost-bite did their deadly work unchecked. The officers had at +least their full share of the hardships and the fatalities. What +the Guards lost can be read on the walls of the Chapel at Wellington +Barracks and in the pedigrees of Burke's Peerage. For all England +it was a time of piercing trial, and of that hope deferred which +maketh the heart sick. No one ever knew what Vaughan endured, for he +as too proud to bare his soul. For two years he never looked at a +gazette, or opened a newspaper, or heard a Ministerial announcement +in the House of Commons, or listened to a conversation at his club, +without the sickening apprehension that the next moment he would +know that Arthur Grey was dead. Letters from Grey reached him from +time to time, but their brave cheerfulness did nothing to soothe +his apprehensions. For they were few and far between; postal +communication was slow and broken, and by the time a letter reached +him the hand which had penned it might be cold in death. Yet, in +spite of an apprehensive dread which had become a second nature +to Philip Vaughan, the fatal news lingered. Weeks lengthened into +months, and months into two years, and yet the blow had not fallen. +It was not in Philip's nature to "cheer up," or "expect the best," +or "hope against hope," or to adopt any of the cheap remedies which +shallow souls enjoy and prescribe. Nothing but certainty could give +him ease, and certainty was in this case impossible. Nervousness, +restlessness, fidgetiness, increased upon him day by day. The gossip +and bustle of the House of Commons became intolerable to him. Society +he had never entered since Grey sailed for the Crimea. As in boyhood, +so again now, he felt that Nature was the only true consoler, and for +weeks at a time he tried to bury himself in the wilds of Scotland +or Cumberland or Cornwall, spending his whole day in solitary walks, +with Wordsworth or the _Imitatio_ for a companion, and sleeping +only from physical exhaustion. + +In the early part of 1856 the newspapers began to talk of peace. +Sebastopol had fallen, and Russia was said to be exhausted. The +Emperor of the French had his own reasons for withdrawing from +the contest, and everything seemed to turn on the decision of Lord +Palmerston. This tantalizing vision of a swift fulfilment of his +prayers seemed to Philip Vaughan even less endurable than his previous +apprehensions. To hear from hour to hour the contradictory chatter +of irresponsible clubmen and M.P.'s was an insupportable affliction; +so, at the beginning of the Session, he "paired" till Easter, and +departed on one of his solitary rambles. Desiring to cut himself +off as completely as possible from his usual environment, he left +no address at his lodgings, but told his servant that when he wanted +his letters he would telegraph for them from the place, whatever +it might be, where he was halting. He kept steadily to his plan, +wandering over hill and dale, by lake and river, and steeping his +soul in "the cheerful silence of the fells." When he lighted on a +spot which particularly took his fancy, he would halt there for +two or three days, and would send what in those day was called +"a telegraphic despatch" from the nearest town. In response to +the despatch he would receive from his servant in Mount Street +a package containing all the letters which had been accumulating +during the fortnight or three weeks since he last telegraphed. +One day in April, when he opened the customary package, he found +in it a letter from Arthur Grey. + +"The General has just told us that peace is practically settled. +If this proves true, you will not get another letter from me. I +presume we shall be sent home directly, and I shall make straight +for London and Mount Street, where I expect I shall find you. Dear +old chap, I can guess what you have been going through; but it +looks as if we should meet again in this world after all." + +What this letter meant to Philip Vaughan they only know who have +been through a similar experience; and words are powerless to express +it + + * * * * * + +After the first bewilderment of joy had subsided, Philip began +to study the practical bearings of the letter. By a comparison of +the date within and the post-mark outside, the letter appeared to +have been a long time on the way, and another delay had occurred +since it had arrived at Mount Street. It was possible that peace +might have been actually concluded. News in those days took long +to travel through Scottish glens, and Vaughan had never looked at +a paper since he left England. It was conceivable that the Guards +were already on their homeward voyage--nay, it might even be that +they were just arriving, or had arrived, in London. The one clear +point was that Vaughan must get home. Twenty miles on his landlord's +pony brought him to a telegraph-office, whence he telegraphed to +his servant, "Returning immediately," and then, setting his face +southward, he travelled as fast as steamers and express trains +would take him. As he travelled, he picked up the news. Peace had +been concluded on the 30th of March, and some of our troops were +homeward bound; some had actually arrived. The journey seemed +unnaturally long, and it was dark when the train rattled into Euston +Station.... In a bewildered mood of uncertainty and joy, he rang +the bell in Mount Street. His servant opened the door. "You're +just in time, sir. You will find him in the drawing-room." + +The drawing-room of the lodging-house had always been Grey's +sitting-room, and during his absence Vaughan had studiously kept it +in it accustomed order. There were some stags' heads on the walls, +and a fox's brush with a label; a coloured print of Harrow, and +engravings of one or two Generals whom Grey had specially honoured +as masters of the art of war; the book-case, the writing-desk, +the rather stiff furniture, were just as he had left them. Philip +flung open the door with a passionate cry of "Arthur! Arthur! At +last! Thank God----" But the words died on his lips. + +In the middle of the room, just under the central chandelier, there +was a coffin supported by trestles, with its foot towards the door. +On the white pillow there lay the still whiter face of a corpse, +and it was the corpse of Arthur Grey. + + * * * * * + +What happened immediately after no one ever precisely knew. Not +even the waiting servant had heard the street-door shut. + +Next morning the park-keepers found a young man lying on the grass +in Hyde Park, drenched to the skin with the night's heavy rain, +unconscious, and apparently dying. The papers in his pockets proved +that he was Philip Vaughan. A long and desperate illness followed, +and for months both life and reason trembled in the balance. Lord +Liscombe hurried up to London, and Vaughan's servant explained +everything. Arthur Grey had been taken ill on the homeward voyage. +The symptoms would now be recognized as typhoid, but the disease +had not then been diagnosed, and the ship's surgeon pronounced it +"low fever." He landed at Southampton, pushed his way to London, +arrived at his lodgings more dead than alive, and almost immediately +sank into the coma from which he never recovered. It was impossible +to communicate with Vaughan, whose address was unknown; and when +his telegram arrived, announcing his instant return, the servant +and the landlady agreed that he must have heard the news from some +other source, and was hurrying back to see his friend before he +became invisible for ever. "You're just in time" meant just in +time to see the body, for the coffin was to be closed that evening. + + * * * * * + +The struggle was long and desperate, but Vaughan had on his side +youth and a constitution, not strong indeed, but unweakened by +profligacy. By slow degrees his nervous system rallied from the +shock, and after a long period of foreign travel he returned, in +great part, to his former habits. Only he could not and would not +re-enter the House of Commons, but announced his retirement, on the +score of health, at the next Election. Soon afterwards he inherited Lord +Liscombe's fortune, made over Liscombe Abbey and its responsibilities +to a distant cousin, and insensibly glided into the way of living +which I described at the outset. Two years after the Election of +1880 he died at Rome, where he had been spending the winter. The +attack of fever to which he succumbed was not peculiarly severe, +but the doctor said that he made no effort to live, and was in +fact worn out, though not by years. + +Nobody missed him. Nobody lamented him. Few even said a kind word +about him. His will expressed only one personal wish--that he might +be buried by the side of Arthur Grey. But his executors thought +that this arrangement would cause them a great deal of trouble, +and he rests in the English cemetery at Rome. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Prime Ministers and Some Others +by George W. E. Russell + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIME MINISTERS AND SOME OTHERS *** + +***** This file should be named 16519.txt or 16519.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/5/1/16519/ + +Produced by Robert J. Hall + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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